New Girl may have stopped airing new episodes in 2018, but its legacy lives on in the form of its ridiculous(ly fun?) drinking game: True American.
True American is a fictitious drinking game in the sense that it was completely made up by the scriptwriters of New Girl. On the other hand, it is a very real drinking game in the sense that people actually play it and get drunk!
If you, too, would like to bring the New Girl fun into your own (hopefully quite spacious) house, here are the rules. And yes, there are really rules.
1. Choose your teammates
There are teams of 2 in this game, so you’ll need a minimum of 4 players to make it work. To choose the teams, everyone holds up a number from 1 to 5 with their fingers on their forehead. People with the same numbers are on the same team. You may need to repeat the process a couple times until people end up with the same number.
Photo Credit: Fox
2. Create your “castle”
The game revolves around a castle in the center of the room. The castle can be any flat piece of furniture, like a table.
Place a bottle of liquor in the middle of the table. This is the “king.” Then line cans of beers around it in the shape of an X. These are the “pawns.” You can choose the number of pawns based on the number of players participating.
3. Set up your game “board”
Now you need to set up the rest of the game board. The floor is lava, so you’ll need to use elevated spaces to move around the castle. There should be at least 5-8 spaces on each side of the castle. Think chairs, tables, couches, and so on.
Only 4 of these spaces touch the castle. If you land on those spaces, you get to take a pawn beer.
Photo Credit: True American Rules
4. Start with a shotgun
Now that your game is set up, get started with a shotgun tipoff. Everyone grabs a beer, and whoever finishes first wins the shotgun and screams “1, 2, 3 JFK!” Everyone else responds with “FDR!”
Then every player grabs a pawn beer and retreats to a space of their choice, except for the 4 around the castle.
The shotgun winner goes first. They move one space closer to the castle, moving clockwise.
5. Play minigames every turn
Every turn, the player who’s up must decide on which minigame they want to play. There are three options.
First, the player can scream “1, 2, 3” and everyone puts a number on their forehead again. Whoever picks a unique number can move forward one space.
Second, the player begins reciting a well-known quote from American history. Whoever finishes the quote correctly moves forward two spaces.
Third, the player names three famous American people, places, or things. Whoever can name what all three have in common moves forward three spaces.
6. How players lose
All players must have a beer in their hand at all times. If you’re spotted without a beer, you’re disqualified.
Additionally, the floor is lava, so if you fall off of your space, you’re also disqualified.
You can get back into the game by shotgunning a beer.
7. How players win
The game is over when all of the pawn beers are finished and a player reaches the castle to sip from the “king’s cup,” or the bottle of liquor. Whoever takes a sip from the king’s cup wins the game!