How to Play True American

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

"True American" is a fast-paced drinking and obstacle course game that was developed in an episode of the hit television show New Girl. This lively game combines some of the best childish games—like pretending the floor is lava and aiming to destroy the king's fort—with drinking liquor. Grab some beer cans, a bottle of hard liquor, and a group of friends to begin this unique adventure that is sure to be a blast. And as with all drinking games, just make sure to drink legally and responsibly while playing.^{[1]
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Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Setting Up

1
Have 4 or more people to play the game. If you have a large group of people and want a more competitive atmosphere, divide everyone up into teams. Having teams of at least 2 people each will add tension to the game and help get players more involved.^{[2]
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- To create teams have everybody hold up a number between 1 and 5 on their foreheads. The people who have the same numbers will be on a team together. Continue repeating the process until the teams are balanced and fully sorted.
2
Select a flat piece of furniture to be the castle. The easiest way to do this is by placing a table in the center of the playable area. This is where you will be placing the liquor, and where most of the attention will be focused on during the game. If you do not have a table, you can also lay out mats on a section of the floor and designate that as the castle area.^{[3]
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- You are going to need a large playable area like a living room or recreation room for this game. Make sure the table has enough space around it to later create the needed obstacle course zones.
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3
Place a bottle of liquor in the middle of the table. The liquor is known as the king of the castle. Choose a hard liquor like whiskey, or a liquor that is a favorite amongst you and your friends.^{[4]
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- You can also choose to make this a non-alcoholic game by using juice, milk, or other non-alcoholic beverages.
4
Have 4 lines of 5 beers each that branch off the liquor bottle. Use either bottles or cans of beer that are a brand that you and your friends enjoy. The set of 20 beers will be your pawns that belong to the “Soldiers of the Secret Order.” These 4 lines of pawns represent the barriers between the 4 zones.^{[5]
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- Creating the perfect ratio between beers and players makes for an interesting game. Having 5 pawns per branch will easily support a game of 4 people. You can add more pawns to each of the branches if you have a large group of people playing.
5
Create 4 circular zones that each have 5 household items to stand on. Utilize pillows, blankets, furniture, chairs, or sheets of paper to create the circular zone adjacent to the castle. You will need 20 household items to create the 4 zones. The floor in this game is lava, so choose items that are large enough for 1 or 2 people to stand on, and leave some distance between the spaces. The placement of each zone should be contained within the area outlined by two of the branches.^{[6]
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- The center space in each zone is the only place where you can retrieve a pawn, so these spaces need to be closest to the castle. Then have the beginning and ending spaces of the zones the furthest away from the castle.
- Repeat this process to create the 3 other zones around the table. When you are done, the setup should roughly resemble a flower that has 4 petals.
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Develop additional game rules to personalize the experience. Since this drinking game was haphazardly founded within a television series, there are really no set rules. Within the show New Girl, the game evolved and the base rules became clearer over the seasons. When setting the rules with your friends, get creative and come up with mandatory sayings or points to hit within the game.^{[7]
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- For example, an additional rule can be that when someone finishes a beer, they ask, "All trash belongs?” Then the rest of the players would respond with, “In the junkyard!” to which the player who finished the beer would throw out the can. This will help keep the playable area from becoming littered.^{[8]
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- The player in control can yell at any point, “JFK,” and everyone else will respond by yelling, “FDR.” Then everyone will have to finish a beer in hand. This can quickly eliminate players, and make a slow game move faster.^{[9]
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Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Playing the Game

1
Hold a shotgun tip-off to determine who will start the game. Traditional shotgunning involves poking a hole in the bottom of a beer can and popping the top to drink it quickly from the hole. This can make a quick mess of your floors, so an alternative version would be just to chug a beer normally. Whoever finishes first, second, and so on, determines the order in which you and your friends will play the game.^{[10]
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- You can also use quick games of chance to determine who will have the first turn. This can be best accomplished by playing short rounds of rock-paper-scissors or by flipping a coin. Whoever wins will get to go first in the game.
2
Start the game by yelling, “One, two, three, JFK.” The person who won the tip-off gets to do this, and go first. In response, all of the other players yell, “FDR.” Then everyone will take a pawn (beer) from the castle and rush to any space within the 4 zones.^{[11]
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Move around the board in a clockwise rotation. As you earn the chance to move forward, you will walk along each of the 5 spaces clockwise within a given zone. Once you either land on or pass by the center space of that zone, which is the 5th space closest to the table, you will then proceed to the next zone, and continue the clockwise rotation.^{[12]
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Land on a center space within a zone to earn an additional pawn. This is the only way you can earn pawns to stay in the game. There are 4 center spaces in total for you to land on, so the more you move around the board, the greater your chances are that you will land on one.^{[13]
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Have 1 to 3 pawns in your hand at all times to remain in the game. Having no pawns or more than 3 in your hand can result in a loss of the game. Getting caught with an empty pawn will also disqualify you. Carefully strategize the size of drinks you take.^{[14]
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- If you have not had any luck in landing on a center space, take small sips of the beer until you pick up a second one.
- If you find yourself constantly landing on the center spaces, take bigger gulps to make sure you do not collect more than 3 pawns at a time.
6
Open and finish a fresh beer that is not a pawn to re-enter the game. You can drink as fast or slow as you like, but you cannot participate in gameplay until that beer is gone. Once you have finished the beer, an opponent chooses where your new starting position is.^{[15]
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Move clockwise 1 space and drink from your pawn when it is your turn. Being the player in control is the only guaranteed way to move forward. If you happen to land on one of the 4 center spaces, you need to pick up an additional pawn from that zone barrier as well. If there are no pawns left for that zone area, you do not get an additional pawn.^{[16]
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- Remember that in this game, the floor is lava and cannot be touched. If you step on an area outside of a designated space, you are out of the game.^{[17]
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8
Have players earn a chance to move when you are the control player. After you move forward 1 space, you will also be in charge of giving the other people playing the game a chance to move as well. You, being the player in control at the moment, will provide 1 of 3 ways for the other players to compete for movement. Once you do this, your turn will be over, and the process will start over for the next player. ^{[18]
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- For each space a player earns, they will have to take an equivalent amount of drinks from their pawn as well. This will be the part of each turn that players will have to really pace their drinking in order to maintain the needed 1 to 3 pawns.
9
Use the counting method to give the players a chance to move 1 space. As the player in control, you will count upwards by yelling out, “One, two, three.” Then each player will hold up a number between 1 and 5 on their foreheads. The player holding up a number that no one else has wins, and moves forward 1 space.^{[19]
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- If there are multiple players who held up a number that no one else picked, each of the winners gets to move forward 1 space.
10
Say a quote and ask players to complete it for a chance to move 2 spaces. This can be a famous quote from history, pop culture, or literature. Choose one that you think will equally stump each of your friends, or make your friends act quickly to finish an easy quote. The player who is able to correctly recite the quote in tandem with you before you complete the quote gets to move forward 2 spaces.^{[20]
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- If more than one player completes the quote in tandem with you, those successful players each get to move forward 2 spaces.^{[21]
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- A tricky history quote could be one said by Confucius, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”^{[22]
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- A fun pop culture quote could be, “You're gonna need a bigger boat,” which was said in the famous Spielberg movie, Jaws.^{[23]
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Have players guess a similarity between 2 nouns to earn 3 spaces. Think of either 2 people, places, or things that have a key feature or element in common. The first player to correctly identify what those 2 things have in common will get to move forward 3 spaces.^{[24]
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- For example, you could ask what George Washington and a nutcracker soldier have in common, and the answer could be that both have wooden teeth.
12
Take turns until all of the pawns are gone and someone drinks from the king. Once all of the pawns have been removed from the castle, the king is left in a vulnerable state. At that point, if you are the first player who finishes any beers in hand and lands on a center space to take a swig from the king, you will win the game.^{[25]
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Community Q&A

Question

Do we have to have beer though?

Shayna Innocenti

Community Answer

You do not have to use beer for the pawns, or even use alcohol to play the game. Instead of beer, choose a simple drink that you and your friends enjoy. Just make it a beverage that can be consumed safely over the course of the game. For non-alcoholic ideas, you can use juice or milk.
Question

When a person re-enters the game, is the beer that they drink to get back in the game one of the pawns?

Shayna Innocenti

Community Answer

No, this is not typically one of the pawns, but if you and your friends want to play that way to speed the game up, then that is perfectly fine!
Question

If there is one last beer, and they take it. Can they chug it and take a drink from the king? What if they don't know an answer to a quote or similarity, what if there are more than one answer?

Shayna Innocenti

Community Answer

If there is one beer left and someone lands on a center space and takes it, then that person can choose to drink the entire beer on that turn. If that was the only pawn that player had left in their hands, they would have to wait until the next time they land on a center space to drink from the king. If a player does not know the answer to a quote, then that player cannot move forward on that turn. If there is more than one answer, then the player control at that time would decide whether or not to allow the alternate answer.

Warnings

Use caution when setting up the area for your game. Make sure to balance how many obstacles there are and how much alcohol will be used in the game. Alcohol and obstacles can make for a dangerous combination.^{[27]
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Consuming large amounts of alcohol is dangerous. Make sure to know your limits, and never get behind the wheel of a vehicle after drinking.^{[28]
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