consequences

18 Dec 2013

The Parlour Game “Consequences”

The parlour game of Consequences was invented in the early Victorian era when our modern form of Christmas was developing. It was a popular pastime because it had lots of fun with just a pen and paper. It also helps that Victorian families tended to be large so you had an large number of players.

This version asks you to write:

  1. an adjective to describe a man
  2. a man’s name
  3. an adjective to describe a woman
  4. a woman’s name
  5. where the man and woman met
  6. what he wore
  7. what she wore
  8. what he said to her
  9. what she said to him
  10. what the consequence was
  11. what the world said about it

After each part you fold your paper down – so what no-one can see your answer and hand it to the person next to you (in our case to the right)1. The result is that the story on each paper and then the fun is reading out the scrambled occasionally baffling and ocassionally funny stories generated.

Here is a sample:

Strong John met beautiful Karin in the VHS.
He wore only his socks and she wore a ballgown.
He said to her, “I like eggs” and she said to him, “You need to work out more”.
The consequence was that they went their separate ways and the world said it was a match made in Heaven.

It can be played in any language and is great fun with a large number of people.


footnote

1 There are traditions of how to pass things – we passed to the right last night but Port wine should by tradition be passed to the left amongst other traditions.