"What is True American?" you might ask.... I'll let the cast of New Girl explain it first!
"So, it's 50% drinking game, 50% life-size Candyland." - Jess
"Well, it's more like 75 drinking, 20 Candy Land, and by the way the floor is molten lava." - Schmidt
"It's actually 90% drinking and then it's got a loose Candyland-like structure to it." - Winston
Simply put, True American is a non-nonsensical drinking game created by "New Girl". There are no rules, and at the same time, there are tons of rules. So, here I've laid out all of the instructions on how to participate in a game of True American, in order for you, too, to have an incredible night with friends.
Picking Teams:
Depending on the amount of people you're playing with, you will hold a number of fingers on your forehead, and the person matching that number is your partner. If there are six people playing, you will pick between numbers one through three (two people on each team). Everyone closes their eyes, counts to three, and when the countdown ends they hold a random number of fingers up to their head. When you open your eyes, if one other person is matching that number, the two of you are teammates. If more than one person matches your number, or no one matches, everyone without a partner will play again. This continues until teams are finalized.
The Game:
Begin with a shotgun "tip off" to determine which team goes first.
Winner yells, "1, 2, 3, JFK!" and grabs a beer and runs to their spot. If you're the winner, run towards the start of a zone so you don't have to chug your drink right away. After the winner is in their spot and has said "JFK!", everyone else yells "FDR" and runs to their own spot (random).
The person who is "it" gets to pick the game that round. It could be "The Count", "Complete a Quote", or "Find the Similarities".
Pro Tip: You don't want very many teams to win, so try and make the "complete a quote" and "similarities" kind of tricky.
When at least one other team wins, you both move ahead one space (even if another team is already there, you just have to share). #Bonding!
The goal is to move around the course faster than the other teams; you've completed one "round" when you're back at the first space you started on (so if you start on the blue couch, once you finish a round you're back on that couch again)
You keep playing until a team takes the last beer, finishes the whole thing, and takes a swig from the vodka. All of the beer must be gone before that team picks up the vodka.
When a team takes the last beer, if you want to stop them from winning, you could run down and grab the "king" (aka the vodka) and take a swig before they finish the last beer and get a chance to drink from the vodka. However, if you don't get the vodka before the winning team, or another team grabs it before you, then you'll have to take a shot of vodka and move back to your spot.
That is the gist of the game. Of course, throughout the series, Jess, Nick, Winston and Schmidt add lots of miscellaneous rules, which I've included below. (Use to your discretion!)
1. Players can call "Seneca Falls Convention" at anytime, and all women must drink
2. Clinton rules: strip True American (if you don't win a round after 3 mini-games, then take an article of clothing off)
3. Duel: in case of disagreement, shotgun race
4. Whenever you finish a beer, shout "all trash goes to the....JUNK YARD"
5. Losing rules: if you are caught without a beer or with only an empty beer, you lose. If you step in molten lava, you lose. To enter back into the game, drink one full beer and start on a space that the other players decide.
6. When you lose you go to "Alcatraz."
7. Ellis island: first person to get back to their starting base is the immigration officer and makes every other person finish their drink and gives them a beer to enter. Immigration officer chooses someone to have the plague and they have to die and go to Alcatraz.
8. If two teams end up on the same space, then they are Lewis and Clark. They choose a Sacagawea (boy or girl because they are gender friendly), and once Sacagawea is chosen one of the three have to kiss.
9. Someone can yell "Last man standing at the Alamo" and everyone stands on one foot and finishes their drink, last one up wins
10. When someone spills a drink, someone else yells "Boston tea party" and then everyone yells "to the revolution."
11. When someone takes a tequila shot, yell "gold rush."
12. If you don't want to play or say you're not having fun, everyone yells "sacrifice" and we get to throw tennis balls at you.
Reference Season One, "Normal", Season Two, "Cooler" and Season Three, "Mars Landing"
