---
name: community_game_nights
description: Host party-game nights in online communities end to end: pick games that fit the crowd and the platform, brief rules in under two minutes, run tested 60 and 90 minute session formats, score fairly, run a season league, and handle cheating, trolls, and dropouts without killing the mood. Triggers when someone plans a game night, trivia night, Jackbox night, Discord Activities night, or a recurring community games league.
metadata: { "includeInPrompt": true }
---

# Community Game Nights

## Purpose
Run a game night people finish and come back to. The job is hosting, not listing games: match the game to the crowd that actually showed up, get everyone playing inside five minutes, keep rounds moving, score in the open, and close with a reason to return next week.

This skill is the host playbook for a single night and for a season league. General community events such as AMAs, workshops, and meetups belong to community_events. One-off polls and quizzes as posts belong to polls_and_quizzes_social.

## Workflow

### 1. Read the crowd before picking a game
Write down four numbers before you choose anything: expected headcount, how many are first-timers, how many are on phones only, and how much voice chat the group will tolerate.

Then pick by constraint, not by favourite:
- Nobody should have to buy or install anything to join the first night. One host copy plus a browser or phone join is the default. Jackbox works this way: one person owns and launches the game, everyone else joins at Jackbox.tv with a room code on a phone, tablet, or browser.
- Check the real player cap for the specific game and plan, and check it live that week. Caps vary a lot by game, pack, and plan. Everyone past the cap needs a real role: audience voting, scorekeeping, or a rotating seat next round. Spectator with nothing to do is a dropout waiting to happen.
- Low skill floor, high laugh ceiling for mixed crowds: drawing and guessing, bluffing, and word games where a funny answer scores even when it is wrong.
- Trivia only as the headline if the crowd shares a knowledge base. If they do not, run trivia as one short round inside a mixed night, with questions tilted to the community's own topics.
- One competitive game max per night for a casual crowd. Stack the rest cooperative or silly, or the bottom half of the table stops having fun by round two.

Use `references/game-selection.md` for the selection table by headcount, device, and voice tolerance.

### 2. Tech check, 24 hours and 30 minutes out
- Host on a wired connection if you can. Test screen share or stream delay with one helper playing from a phone on mobile data, not on your own wifi.
- On a public stream, use low latency settings, hide the lobby screen, and send the room code privately to your confirmed players first so they take the seats before strangers do. Only then reveal the screen.
- Turn on the protections before anyone joins: family-friendly filter if the space needs it, profanity filter at moderate or strict for public rooms, passworded room or required login where the game offers it, room code hiding where available.
- Set extended timers for remote play. Stream delay eats answer time, and the player on the slowest connection should not lose every round to lag.
- Have the backup game open in a second tab. A browser drawing game with a shareable link is a good backup because it needs no install. If the main game dies twice, switch once, cleanly, and do not apologise for ten minutes.

### 3. Brief the rules in under two minutes
Say it out loud, post the same text in chat, and pin it. Five lines, no more:
1. How to join, in one sentence, with the link or code.
2. How a round works, in one sentence.
3. How scoring works, in one sentence.
4. The one behaviour rule that matters tonight, for example: no looking up trivia answers, no drawing prompts spelled out in letters.
5. What happens if you drop: how to rejoin, and whether your score survives.

Then run a throwaway practice round. Ninety seconds of practice saves ten minutes of mid-game teaching. Start the real game while energy is up, even if two people are still joining. Late joiners slot into the next round or the audience role.

A fill-in briefing script is in `assets/host-briefing.md`.

### 4. Run the session on a clock
Two tested formats are in `references/session-formats.md`. The short version:
- 60 minute night: lobby and practice (5), game one in two short rounds (20), scoreboard and break (5), game two (20), final scores, awards, next night pitch (10).
- 90 minute night: add a third game or a best-of final, plus a mid-night team shuffle so people meet someone new.

Host craft that holds across both:
- Announce scores after every round, out loud and in chat. People chase a visible gap and relax when they see the bottom is close.
- Narrate transitions, never leave dead air while you fiddle with settings. A helper acting as co-host or scorekeeper covers you here. Never host, scorekeep, and moderate alone with more than about twelve players.
- Give the last-place player or team a live path back: a double-points final round, a wager round, or a best-joke award that anyone can win. Announce that path at the start, not as a rescue at the end.
- End on time, while it is still fun. Cut the last planned round before you cut the closing awards.

### 5. Score fairly, in the open
- Keep the score in one shared place the players can see: a pinned message edited by the scorekeeper, a shared sheet, or the game's own board plus a running total across games.
- One point per correct or winning answer is the default trivia score. Add weight only where it creates a decision: a final wager, a doubled bonus category, or speed as a tiebreak only.
- Publish the tiebreak rule before the night starts. Closest-answer question is a clean default for trivia. The host ruling is final, disputes go in a short window after the round with a source link, and play does not stop for a dispute.
- Silly awards count as scoring for retention: best wrong answer, best drawing, best comeback. Name three to five, keep them kind, and never give a mocking award to a first-timer.

Full scoring systems, season points, and a simplified rating option are in `references/scoring-and-leagues.md`. The helper in `bin/league_table.py` turns a results CSV into a standings table.

### 6. Handle cheating, trolls, and dropouts
Decide the responses before the night, write them in the pinned rules, and apply them the same way every time.
- Looking up answers: first time, void that answer and remind the room once, without naming anyone if you can avoid it. Second time by the same player, void their round. Removing a player is for repeat, open cheating.
- Bad inputs in drawing or writing games: use the game's censor or kick tools if it has them, skip the content fast, and keep moving. Do not read it out, do not laugh at it, do not build a segment around it.
- Room raiders: password, hidden code, and private-first code sharing prevent most of it. If a raid still lands, pause, start a fresh room, and send the new code only through the community's own channel.
- Dropouts: a player who drops mid-round keeps points already earned, their seat opens at the next round break, and a waitlisted player or audience member takes it. In team games, play on short-handed for one round, then rebalance teams at the break. Never restart a whole game for one dropout.
- Host drops: if the platform supports host reconnect, say so in the briefing and give it a few minutes before anyone leaves. Name a co-host who posts updates in chat while the host is gone.

### 7. Close and set up the next night
- Final standings, the silly awards, and one highlight: read out or replay the single funniest moment of the night.
- Screenshot or clip consent first if you plan to post highlights outside the room. Follow the community's normal consent rules.
- Announce the next date and the next game before people leave, and post the standings and the date in the community channel the same night.
- Log the night in ten lines: headcount, games played, where the energy dipped, any incidents and how you handled them, what to change. That log is the planning doc for the next night.

## Output Contract
When this skill runs, it produces one or more of:
- `game-night-plan.md`: headcount and crowd notes, chosen games with player caps checked and dated, backup game, platform and join method, roles (host, co-host, scorekeeper).
- `host-briefing.md`: the filled five-line briefing from `assets/host-briefing.md`, posted and pinned before play.
- `run-sheet.md`: the chosen 60 or 90 minute format with times, rounds, breaks, and the closing block.
- `standings.md`: per-night scores and, for a league, season standings produced or checked with `bin/league_table.py`.
- `night-log.md`: the ten-line debrief, incidents, and the next night's date and game.

## Operating Rules
1. Every platform fact in a plan (player cap, audience size, filter, timer, join method, plan limit) gets checked in the live game or the maker's official help before the night is announced. Caps and catalogs change. Never promise a headcount a plan cannot hold.
2. No one pays or installs to join a first night. If a game needs that, it is a later-night game for a committed group, and the plan says so.
3. Rules, scoring, tiebreak, and drop and cheat responses are written and pinned before play starts. No new rule gets invented mid-game to settle a score.
4. The host ruling on a disputed answer is final for that night. Corrections with a source can change the season standings afterwards, not the night's flow.
5. Apply behaviour rules evenly and quietly. Public shaming is never the enforcement tool.
6. End on time. A night that ends early and happy beats a longer night that fades.
7. Highlights leave the room only with consent. What was funny in a closed room is not automatically public content.