Most Likely To
Read it out, count to three, and everyone points at the same time.
Tap to choose which categories to play with
1 of 6 categories on
Most likely to be late to their own wedding.
1 of 10 this round · press space for the next one
How to play
- 1Read the question to the group.
- 2Count down from three. Everyone points at one person at the same time.
- 3Whoever gets the most fingers pointed at them has to accept it. No appeals.
What's in the deck
Questions for every kind of gathering, sorted into 6 categories. Have a look at each one.
Classic
Works with any group
- Most likely to be late to their own wedding.
- Most likely to become famous.
- Most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse.
- Most likely to move abroad and never come back.
…and plenty more in the game above.
Why this one works
Most Likely To is a group superlative game, and the reason it's so sticky is that the answer isn't up to you. It's a vote. Finding out that four people independently think you're the one who'd join a cult is funnier and more revealing than anything you could have said about yourself.
It's the single best game for a group that already knows each other, and one of the worst for a group that doesn't, because every question depends on shared history. If people have just met, play Would You Rather first and come back to this later in the evening.
Keep it moving. The game dies when one person starts seriously defending themselves against a vote. The whole thing runs on everyone accepting the verdict with bad grace and moving straight to the next question.
The trick to playing it well
The mistake: one person wins every card. Every group has somebody who is the obvious answer to half the deck: the one most likely to lose their phone tonight, get lost with a map in their hand and accidentally join a cult. Twenty minutes in, every finger in the room is pointing at them, the vote has turned into a roast, and everybody else is a spectator in their own game. It is funny for three questions, and then it is not, mostly for the person on the receiving end.
The house rule worth adopting: nobody wins two in a row. If the vote lands on whoever took the last card, it goes to the runner-up instead. It takes five seconds to explain, it spreads the cards round the room without anybody having to be tactful, and it makes whoever came second suddenly very interested in the count. Pair it with the habit that suits one phone best: whoever wins a card reads the next one. The person who has just been given the verdict is the one keenest to move on, so the pace stays up, and over an evening the reading gets shared out as fairly as the votes.
Choose the category by how long the room has known each other. Each category assumes a different amount of shared history, and that matters more than the occasion. Classic works on first impressions, so anybody can vote on who is most likely to become famous. Work assumes you have shared an office, Friends assumes years, and Family assumes a lifetime. A hen do that mixes school friends with new in-laws is better starting on Classic than Friends, because a card only half the room can answer splits the party into the people voting and the people watching.
If you know it as something else, it is probably this. Who's Most Likely To is the same game, and so are the superlatives in an American school yearbook, played live with the room as the committee. Its closest cousin is Paranoia, and this page works for that too, because only the person holding the phone can see the card. Pass it to the next person, who reads the card to themselves and says one name out loud. Then flip a coin to decide whether anybody else gets to hear the question. The person named spends the rest of the game wondering what they were named for, which is the entire appeal.
Common questions
- How do you play Most Likely To?
- Read a question aloud, count down from three, and everyone points at one person simultaneously. Whoever gets the most points is the answer, and there are no appeals.
- How many players do you need?
- At least four. With three, the pointing gets predictable fast. Six to twelve is ideal.
- Can you play this over video call?
- Yes, and it works surprisingly well. Instead of pointing, everyone types a name in the chat at the same time on a count of three.
- Is there a version for work?
- Use the Work category. Every question in it is about workplace habits rather than personal life, which keeps it safe for a team event.
- What happens if there's a tie?
- Count again between just the two of them, with everybody pointing on a fresh three. If it ties a second time, they share the card. What to avoid is settling a tie by discussion: it turns a ten-second verdict into a debate, and a debate is never as funny as a vote.
- Can you point at yourself?
- Yes, and it is worth allowing. Somebody pointing straight at their own chest for "most likely to cry at a film nobody else cried at" before anyone else has moved is often the best moment of a round, because it is a confession and a verdict at once. Count it like any other finger.
- How do couples play Most Likely To?
- Sit side by side, read the card, and on three each of you points at whichever of you it is, yourself or your partner. The cards where you both point the same way go by quickly. The ones where you each point at the other are the conversation. The Couples category is written for two: who plans the whole holiday, who apologises first, who falls asleep during the film.
- Can children play Most Likely To?
- Yes, with the Family category, which runs on the history a family actually shares: who is loudest at dinner, who falls asleep in front of the telly, who burns the dinner. Children often enjoy it more than adults expect, because it is a rare game where they get exactly the same vote on the grown-ups as the grown-ups get on them.