The Conversation Game

The Conversation Game is a game for two players, where each player tries to steer the conversation towards a certain topic without being too obvious. I made this game to practice my conversation skills.

Rules

These rules were last updated on 2025-07-11 21:40 UTC.

Selecting a question

Each player selects an icebreaker question (e.g. What's your favorite ice cream flavor?) which they will keep hidden from the other player. You will try to find out the other person’s answer to your chosen question. Both players should then agree on a third, neutral icebreaker question that both players must answer before continuing with the rest of the game.

The chosen questions should be content questions that contain a who, what, when, where, or why.

Yes/no questions are too simplistic, but you can convert a yes/no question into a content question by adding the “why”: (e.g. Do you like ice cream? Why or why not?).

Main gameplay

The game is played by having a conversation. After both players have answered the neutral icebreaker question, you can win by one of three methods:

You obtain the answer to your icebreaker question from the other player
You successfully guess what the other player’s icebreaker question is within three guesses
The other player has incorrectly guessed what your icebreaker question is three times

Any player can guess what the other person’s question is at any time, and the other player must reveal whether it is their winning question. If the guesser is correct, they win immediately. Otherwise, the guesser loses one of their guesses. For clarity, the guess should be accompanied by saying, “this is one of my Conversation Game guesses.”

If a player believes they’ve won because they have the other person’s answer to their question, they should declare what their icebreaker question is and the other person’s answer.

Either player can start talking first.

FAQ

Is lying cheating?

Yes. The point of the game is to have a conversation and get to know the other player, so lying is counterproductive.

Variants

Multi-round variant

If players want to keep going after someone has won, the winner selects a new icebreaker question and the loser’s incorrect guess count resets to 0.

The loser may select a new icebreaker question also, at the cost of resetting the winner’s incorrect guess count to 0 as well.

When the players decide to stop playing the Conversation Game, they may compare the number of times they won, and whoever has the most wins is the overall winner.

More than two players?

If you have suggestions for how to adapt this to more than 2 players, please send them to pilosophos@gmail.com.

Changelog

Most recent change last.

2025-07-11 21:40 UTC

Added the neutral starting question to reduce the advantage for the first person to speak.