Fun with Character: Baloney
This is a common card game, also known as Cheat, I Doubt It or B.S. Have the group break up into smaller groups containing an odd number of students and give each group a deck of cards. The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards. The entire deck is dealt to the group, and whoever has the Ace of Spades begins play. The first student can lay down any number of Aces facedown in a discard pile in the center of the group. They announce how many ‘Aces’ they are discarding. The player to their left goes next with twos, and the next person has threes, and so on, continuing around the circle until the Aces come around again. Since a player will not always have the cards that are assigned to their turn, they are allowed to lie about all or some of the cards they are discarding. They are not allowed to pass if they don’t have the correct cards. Once the cards are down, any player can challenge the claim by calling “Baloney”. The cards that were discarded are turned over, and if they are caught lying, they have to pick up the entire discard pile into their hand. If they are telling the truth, the challenger gets the cards in the discard pile. A time limit can be set, or the game can be played until a student wins by running out of cards in their hand.
When finished, process the reading with these or similar questions:
Was this a fun game to play?
Who had the best ‘poker face’?
Who was really bad at lying?
How easy was it to lie the first time? The last time?
How did it feel to get caught?
What will you do the next time you are tempted to lie?