Celebrity Masquerade Game Proposal
Ideas for a costume party game revolving around guessing identities, with an asymmetrical twist.
Proposal for a costume party game which involves social deduction of a well-
known guest. Several players start off masked, and the rest must attempt to guess which is actually the guest; each time they guess, right or wrong, they become a masked player too. Players compete to correctly guess who is the well-
known guest, and then to fool as many of the remaining non- masked players as well. When all players are masked, the game ends, and the well-
known guest is revealed. Prizes are awarded for the best players at both sides of the game.
A game for n players; 1 Celebrity, 1 Host, and n − 2 Guests; probably best for 10–50 players.
The Celebrity Masquerade Game is a social deduction costume-party game in the spirit of a masquerade ball involving guessing the identity of a special1 masked guest (‘Celebrity’) over the course of a party where the Guests slowly turns into that special masked guest, trying to fool the remaining Guests into thinking they are the real special masked guest.
It is not announced beforehand, and part of the fun is the Guests realizing that there is a game happening at all, piggybacking on the normal party dynamics of trying to figure out who is the special guest, and noticing that there are ‘too many’ masked guests. The mechanism & rules are kept as simple & intuitive as possible to avoid the need for any explicit announcements or instruction which would break the illusion of an ordinary party with nothing strange happening.
Requirements
n black costume cloaks suitable for a masquerade.
n masks (eg. V for Vendetta-style Guy Fawkes masks, customized with a logo); they should all be either identical or unique, and should be able to fit over pre-existing costumes.
n × ≥3 tokens: a token is unique to a (cloak, mask, token) set.
A token contains the text “KEEP THIS. GO NOW TO [Location of costume swap, eg. ‘CLOSET’, ‘KITCHEN’, ‘YAR’] ALONE. YOU ARE CELEBRITY TOO.” The text should not be visible until the token is given by a Celebrity to a Guest, to avoid spoilers.
Tokens should be visibly unique to a set, so the true Celebrity’s tokens can be easily distinguished at the end of the game from false Celebrities; and there should be several tokens per Celebrity to avoid running out and permit false Celebrities to compete over how many Guests they can fool, but not too many tokens, so everyone gets a chance.2
One possible implementation would be cut-out strips of colored construction paper, written on one side, folded in half to cover up the writing-side, and then (weakly) taped to the heart area of the black cloak. Then everyone can see the color from a distance to distinguish between all the Celebrities, a token can be instantly ripped off and handed to a non-Celebrity, and they are cheap & easy to make.
a Location nearby but not directly visible from the main party rooms, ideally an adjacent room.
This Location can be small but needs to hold the previous items, and at least 2 people; it may be helpful to post a sign like “INVITE ONLY” or otherwise discourage Guests from poking in. The Location can also have a sign with instructions, in which case the token text can be simplified to make them less labor-intensive.
Preparation
Before the party, the requirements are set aside in the Location. For example, the masks are in a pile on a table, and the cloaks are piled folded next to them with a sign ‘TAKE A PAIR’.
At the start of the party, the Celebrity goes to the Location. The Host welcomes Guests and mingles as normal, and at some point returns to the Location.
The Celebrity & Host put on the first two costumes, and the Host goes back to the party.
Playing
When the Host stealthily returns to the party as the first false Celebrity, they remain anonymous and coyly refuse to confirm their identity (“I don’t know, do you think I’m Celebrity?”), challenging Guests to—somehow—figure out if they are Celebrity or not, but otherwise pretend to be Celebrity to the best of their abilities, and mingle normally with Guests.
Beginning
When the first Guest verbally guesses to the Host “you are Celebrity” (or some other assertion or statement to that effect), then the Host hands the Guest 1 token. The first Guest reads the token and follows the instructions to the Location.
At the Location, they receive a costume to become the second false Celebrity.3 They then realize they will imitate the first Celebrity: pretend to be Celebrity, wait for someone to guess, and hand them a token, creating a new Celebrity. If necessary, further instructions are given and parts of their original costume left behind.
They then return to the party as unobtrusively as possible, and also pretend to be an anonymous Celebrity. Eventually a third Guest will guess they are Celebrity, and be handed a token; and so on.
Middle
Once the flow of new false Celebrities is stable, and is not too slow nor too fast, the real Celebrity can join the party. (They will want to join early enough to not miss too much of the party, but not so early that it might be obvious they are the real Celebrity rather than yet another false one; depending on the total number, somewhere around #3–10 should work.)
As time passes and Guests are replaced by Celebrities, all the remaining Guests will realize that some masquerade game is happening, and that the goal (for Guests) is to guess the real Celebrity from the false Celebrity, and after turning into a false Celebrity, the goal (for false Celebrities) is to fool the remaining Guests into wasting their one guess on them.
At this point the remaining Guests can either make a serious effort to mingle & listen to conversations & guess; or they can choose to opt out of the first half of the game as a Guest by simply immediately making a random guess to receive their token & costume; and they then can opt out of the second half of the game by not making any serious effort to fool the remaining Guests. (This opt-out helps end the game quickly if people are not having fun, and skip to the party-favors.)
End
The game can run indefinitely, but should probably end after an hour or two. Once there are no remaining Guests, or the party runs out of time, or the Host simply senses the fun has worn off, the Host ends the game by getting everyone’s attention and asking everyone who is not the real Celebrity to take off their masks—if they are wearing one. (Any remaining Guests do nothing.)
This reveals the true Celebrity, and the type of his tokens; those who guessed him and have his token type are the winners. (Optionally: the winners include the false Celebrities with the fewest or perhaps no remaining tokens—because they fooled the most Guests.4)
Prizes
The winners may receive party favors like expensive fruit or noise-makers. Because the game is best played as a one-off novelty, the masks & cloaks also make good souvenir collectibles for everyone to take home if they wish.
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This special masked guest can be a famous person, someone who is being honored or having a special day, or could be some sort of unique background or status not easily imitated.
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The more players, the more tokens are necessary to avoid either running out or having too many false-Celebrity winners.
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Because Guests turn into a false Celebrity after the first guess, they can only guess once. Adding a process for Celebrity → Guest would overly complicate the game, ruining the elegance.
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It is an interesting empirical question whether it is easier or harder for the true Celebrity to convince Guests than the false Celebrities, as it is something like a Keynesian beauty contest and the imitators may be more authentic than the original; regardless, it would be gauche to award him a prize.