15 Thanksgiving Games for Large Groups

Games for 6 people do not survive a table of 25. Rounds drag, people at the far end cannot hear and half the room drifts off to the kitchen. The trick is to play in teams, or all at once, so the group size stops being a problem. Here are 15 games built for 10 to 30 people.

Split the group first

Do this before the first game, and use a different method each time so the same people are not always together.

• Count off: number the room 1 to 4 and have the 1s stand together. Fast and fair.
• Birthday months: January to March, April to June, and so on. It also gets people chatting.
• Pie vote: ask people to pick pumpkin, pecan or apple. Teams are named after their pie. Uneven sizes? Move a few over.
• Random draw: paste the guest list into the team generator and show the result on a screen or phone.

Games for the whole room at once

These need no turns, so nobody waits.

1. Human bingo: everyone gets a card with squares like “has cooked a turkey” or “has been to Plymouth”. Mingle and find a different person for each square. First full row shouts “Gobble”. Our bingo cards can be adapted.
2. Thanksgiving silent line-up: without speaking, line up by the number of Thanksgivings you have hosted, or by how far you travelled. Teams race.
3. Whisper down the lane: each team lines up and passes a sentence along by whisper. The last person says it aloud. The mistakes are the entertainment.
4. Stand up, sit down: the host reads a statement (“Stand if you have had stuffing for breakfast”). It costs nothing and the whole room moves together.

Team games with one host

The host reads, teams answer, captains keep score.

5. Team trivia: each team writes its answers on paper and the host reveals the key. The Thanksgiving trivia game shows questions on a phone you can cast to a TV. Need more? Read from the trivia questions list.
6. Family Feud style: two teams at a time play while the others watch and cheer. Rotate teams so each gets a go. The ranked questions are ready to use.
7. Charades relay: each team lines up. The first player acts out a card, the team guesses, then the next player takes a card. First team through eight cards wins. Use the charades generator for cards.
8. Pictionary on two boards: two teams, two sheets of paper on the wall, same word. First to guess scores. Swap in the next pair.
9. Name five: the host gives a category (“five pie toppings”, “five songs about autumn”) and each team has 20 seconds to write five. Unique answers score double.

If you would rather not carry a stack of paper, Duoo Games has 15 games on one phone, with no setup, and some of them handle groups.

Games that handle 20+ people

10. Imposter, in groups: hand each team a secret word on a slip, but one team member gets a blank. They discuss and vote out the person who does not know the word. Rules are on the Imposter game page.
11. Two-minute dish draw: each team picks a dish from a hat and draws it so the other teams can guess. Fast, and artistic skill is irrelevant.
12. Gratitude auction: hand every team fake money. The host reads out items (“first slice of pie”, “choose the playlist”) and teams bid. Winnings are real.
13. Murder at the table: secret roles on slips, one “turkey” who winks to eliminate others. Others try to spot them. Works for large rooms because people play from their seats.
14. Four corners: each corner of the room is a food: turkey, ham, tofu, lasagna. The host calls “close your eyes”, everyone picks, then the host picks a corner and those people are out. Last team standing wins.
15. Trivia tiebreaker walk: at the end, the top two teams send one player each to a mark on the floor. The host asks one question at a time and whoever buzzes first takes it.

One-host cheat sheet

• Read the rules once, in 30 seconds, and skip the exceptions.
• Put the timer where everyone can see it, a phone on the table or on a screen.
• Name a captain per team. Captains keep score and settle arguments, so you do not have to.
• Rotate who plays. If only some people play each round, make sure the watching teams still have a job, like judging.
• Stop while it is fun. Three games of 15 minutes beat a whole afternoon.

For more options, see our 30 Thanksgiving games or the Friendsgiving games.