Balderdash Board Game: Bluff to Win!
If you’re looking for the Balderdash board game, then you’re in the right place. Boardgame Beast has rounded up all the editions, and this one-stop guide will link you to places to get hold of this often rare bluffing game.
The Classic Bluffing Game
The Balderdash board game is a classic game of bluff and counter-bluff. All kinds of versions have appeared, disappeared and sometimes then re-appeared over the years, so we felt it was time to round them all up and give this great game the Boardgame Beast treatment.
One player is the Dasher. They read from a card either a word (original Balderdash game) or a choice of word, movie title, person’s name, date and acronym (Beyond Balderdash).
Now each player writes a definition of that word, phrase, or acronym and hands their definitions to the Dasher. The Dasher, meanwhile, writes the correct definition on another piece of paper, then mixes all the definitions together and reads them one by one.
Each player must vote which definition is correct. Scoring works like this. If a player’s definition is chosen by somebody else, then they score one point. Any player who makes a correct guess from the available definitions scores two points.
The Dasher gets three points if nobody gets the definition correct. Anybody who writes the correct definition on their paper scores two points, but the duplicate is not read aloud during the reading phase to maintain suspense.
Beyond Balderdash adds some extra funny rules. Each player must invent a synopsis of the movie title (this one always brings up some really funny potential movies, some of which we’d LOVE to see made!), “what happened on the date” for the date, and “what this person achieved” for the person’s name.
We think Beyond Balderdash is the best version of the game, just because it has so much variety.
IMPORTANT: the Dasher must ensure they can read everybody’s handwriting. Flubbing a definition will ruin that person’s chance of being chosen.
We’ll post full-length reviews as soon as we can play each version, but don’t be shy! Click the Comment links at the end of each review to leave your personal opinions of these fun Balderdash variants. We’ve added shopping links too.
Got an opinion? Love Balderdash, or think it’s the stupidest concept in board game history? Either way, please send us board game reviews of these great games if you’ve played them!
