Party Games for Large Groups (Nine or More Players)

By Jim Markus · Published September 28, 2026

Here are the best party games I’ve tried for large groups. I’ll explain my favorites, what works, what doesn’t, and what to consider when planning them, too. I’m only mentioning the games I’ve played. There are other options out there, too.

My top three choices for large-group party games are Werewolf, Charades, and Fibbage.

When I’m talking about large groups for party games, I’m usually talking about games that can work with more than eight people. If you have nine or 10 or 12 or 30 or 50, those are large groups for parties.

Jump to the game finder

Werewolf (Mafia)

The best party game for large groups is Werewolf. That’s also called Mafia. You can play Werewolf in as short as 15 minutes. You can play it for hours. I know some groups at Gen Con play it all night. They play it throughout the entire event, which is very cool, and I completely understand why they’re excited about it.

Werewolf is still my go-to choice as a party game for large groups.

Werewolf essentially is a big circle of people, and there are two different phases in the game.

There’s a day phase and a night phase.

During the night phase, the werewolves, the people who are secretly werewolves in the group, choose a victim, basically one victim per night per werewolf, to eliminate. And during the day, the villagers, including the human versions of the werewolves who have kept themselves secret from the others, try to figure out who is secretly a werewolf.

And so it’s a game of social deduction.

It is probably the most well-known social deduction game I’ve ever encountered, and it’s wildly popular. Like Mao, there are variations on this game.

There are other roles in Werewolf.

The game can be played with just werewolves and villagers, but there are many other versions of the game that use other types of roles. That includes other types of investigators within the community of villagers.

And if you want a boxed version, I’ve played One Night Werewolf. That seemed to go just fine. I’ve talked about Werewolf at length in the best social deduction games by group size.

Charades

Charades is probably one of the most well-known party games ever devised. You really just need a minimum of four people, but you can commonly play this with up to 20 people. And like a lot of party games, it just gets more wild and absurd as you add more people to it. Charades is an all-ages game.

Charades works really well for as few as four people because four is the minimum you need for two different teams to exist.

You need at least two people per team and a minimum of two teams. But you can do it with much larger groups too.

To do charades with large groups, just add more people to each team or add more teams with a few people on each.

Charades, like a lot of these games, can be just as fun to watch as it is to participate in. So if you’ve got friends who are a little bit more theatrical or a little bit more of an improv crowd, Charades is a no-brainer. It can be lots of fun whether you’re good at acting out the prompt or not.

Fibbage and Quiplash (Jackbox)

If you’re looking for a party game for a large group of people and you have access to AV equipment, just a television and people having their phones, for example, or a computer and people having access to their phones, Quiplash and Fibbage from Jackbox are top recommendations.

Those are up to eight players of people actively participating in the games, but there is no limit to the number of people watching and engaging with those on their phones, including voting for their favorites and then jumping in to the next round.

Quick games like Inhuman Conditions or Jackbox games are fun party games for big groups, too. When one round ends, it’s easy for new players to jump in.

Mao

Mao is an incredible party game, especially for groups of 5 to 15 people, and it can be played with even more people. It just gets chaotic after you get past, say, 12. It’s also fun because it can be played with a very large group with only a few people playing at the start and still have it be fun to watch.

So what is Mao?

The simple version: It’s a card game where you’re penalized for asking questions.

I played pretty frequently back in college, and the fun thing about Mao, at least for us, was that it’s best learned by playing.

The challenge is you’re not allowed to ask questions about it, and the players aren’t allowed to tell you the rules while they’re playing.

How to play Mao

There are other names and rules for this game as well, but when we played Mao, what it looked like was: Groups usually of at least three people, sometimes 12 or 15 people would be in a room together. Someone would bring out a deck of cards, and a dealer would silently deal everyone around the table seven cards.

No one would touch their cards until everyone had been dealt all their cards.

Then the deck of the undealt cards would be set in the middle of the table. The dealer would turn over the top card, and then play would begin.

Players would then lay down cards on the face-up card from a card in their hand.

The card in their hand had to match either the number or the suit of the face-up card.

That’s the simplest version of what Mao looks like. But the interesting part of the game is the penalties.

So if you ask a question, that’s a penalty, and someone hands you a card. The goal is to get rid of your cards, so it’s not ideal to get more cards added to your hand. And the fun part at a party is watching someone, usually someone with very good intentions, be punished with extra cards every time they ask a simple question.

“What are you playing?” There’s a card. Now you’re in the game because you’ve asked a question. “How do you play?” That’s a question. You’ll get a card.

The rules we played by

The rules beyond that are varied. They are a multitude. There are so many different ways to play this, and your version of the game is going to be different than my version.

I played it at Michigan State in Williams Hall with a bunch of other night receptionists and summer crew people during the summer months, usually in the evenings, also during the school year with groups of people.

In Mao, we used to say “have a nice day” anytime we played a seven. And we said “thank you” anytime someone gave us a penalty card. The latter rule was especially brutal for new players because they’d ask how to play, get a penalty card, then immediately get another card because they didn’t say thank you for the first one.

When someone plays a king, you have to say hail to the chief or hail to the chairman or hail Mao or just hail. If someone wants to talk or needs to do anything like touch the cards when it’s not their time to play, you can call a point of order. During that time, you can talk more freely and be a little bit more verbose, but you’re not allowed to talk otherwise outside of point of order. If you want to ask a question, that would happen during point of order. And to end the point of order, you say end point of order.

One of our rules that I saw every time we played was when you played a four, you had to say one of the names of the Beatles. So you’d play a card and you’d say Ringo or John or whatever. Other rules would be reverses and skips. Some would be calling out specific cards that had specific names. A jack would usually mean you could call out any suit, so then the new suit could be played instead of the one that’s face up.

Different groups in different locations have different rules that they follow, and there are some versions of Mao, sometimes called, I think, Dutch Mao, where there are no set rules. Everyone comes into the game with their own rule in their head, and then we’re trying to figure that out.

At the end of the game, when someone got down to one card, they’d say, “Mao,” and then on their turn, they’d play their card. If they won, they would get to make up a new rule, and then everyone else would have to play by that rule.

The other thing that made it really enjoyable was even after someone won, if they came back in the room and asked a question, they’d get a penalty card, and they’d get back in the game.

So it’s this never-ending thing that can be going on all night, and it’s very engaging.

The Hat Game

Another party game that can happen in the background at a party and can work with very large groups of people is the hat game. I don’t know any other name for this game.

When I talk about “The Hat Game,” I’m talking about a specific observational game, but it’s not one I can find many resources with online. Some people describe it like a puzzle. I guess it is.

For me, it felt more like a social deception game.

The people who know how to play, play, and the people who don’t know how to play guess. And it is at once highly entertaining and incredibly infuriating for some players and some people watching them play.

I’m not going to give the secret away here. But the simple version of the hat game is there are three things, and you say this: if this is a hat, and this is a hat, is this a hat? And the people who know how to play can tell you whether that is indeed a hat or not.

To be clear, you’re not pointing at actual hats. If I’m sitting at my computer, I might point to my monitor, my keyboard, and my mouse, and I say, “If this is a hat, and this is a hat, is this a hat?” And that third thing in that case would not be a hat.

But then I might say, “Listen, if this is a hat,” and I’m pointing at my printer, “and this is a hat,” I’m pointing at my microphone, “is this a hat?” I’m pointing at my headphones.

The answer to that would be yes.

So people in the know are able to answer and confirm your choices to make sure that the other participants know that it’s not random. You’re not the only person who knows the answer.

It’s a very simple word game that can get heated and exciting for large groups of people.

Trivia

Other great party games for large groups of people are any version of trivia. Trivia games are wildly popular for party games because they can be completely customized to the groups that are playing them. I’ve seen Halloween trivia go very well at Halloween parties. It’s very easy to imagine a holiday party where you have specific holiday trivia as well.

You could do movie trivia with specific themes. Personal favorites would be Hallmark movie trivia, where you might talk about the most well-known Hallmark movies, or you might do 1970s bands and just do music from the 1970s if you’re into that kind of thing.

It’s going to depend on the group that you’re hosting for, but there are lots of party versions of trivia.

If you want a pre-made trivia game for a large group of people, and honestly, it will work for any size, there are Jackbox party games, and specifically Jackbox’s Trivia Murder Party, which can work with one to eight players, and that makes it good for small groups.

Board and Card Games for Large Groups

Taboo is another party game that’s been around forever. There’s a boxed version by Hasbro. That’s the one that everyone knows about, but the simplicity of the game means it’s easy to duplicate with or without the actual game.

Essentially, it is a word game and a social deduction game where you are trying to guess the term the person is holding on their card, but the person also has words that they’re not allowed to use when they’re describing it.

So it gives the guesser and the hint giver challenges, so it can be fun. You need at least four people to play, and like charades, you can play with larger groups of people and with multiple teams.

Another wildly common party game, and there was a decade in Chicago where this game was everywhere, is any version of Cards Against Humanity.

Cards Against Humanity can work with large groups of people as well, and there are family versions of Cards Against Humanity that play with a little bit more family-friendly terms and jokes rather than the more adult-oriented Cards Against Humanity cards that came with the original set.

Party Games for Large Groups of Kids

If we’re looking at kids’ party games for large groups, definitely worth consideration is Red Light, Green Light. This I played in my own childhood. I’ve heard this called Statues as well.

Red Light, Green Light has one person standing in front of a large group of people behind them, usually pretty far behind them, and that person says, “Red light,” and gets everyone to stop where they are, and when they say, “Green light,” the people race forward. Then the person at the front calling the shots calls, “Red light,” and everyone needs to stop. They turn around.

If anyone is still moving, that person is out. The first person to reach the person at the front wins and becomes the new caller.

That’s the simple version of Red Light, Green Light, but again, it’s an exceptional party game, especially for kids.

Party Games for Large Groups at the Office

Most of the games that I’ve mentioned for large groups also apply to office parties.

Find a Game for Nine or More

These are some of the best games that I’ve found for larger groups of people.

The finder shows party games that work with large groups of players. I’m omitting Jackbox games, though I absolutely adore them at large parties, because most of them cap out with eight actual players. You can play them with various player counts with non-players engaging with votes and voice, and swap in players regularly.

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Jim Markus

Jim makes games and events that invite people to embrace a shared fiction.