20 Fall Party Games for Adults and Kids, Indoors and Out

Choose a fall party game by where your guests will be standing when you need one. While people are still arriving, a clue game read aloud lets a latecomer join halfway through. Children with energy to burn need a yard, a pillowcase and a finish line. After dinner, adults who know each other will happily argue over a word game with banned words. If it rains, swap the outdoor hunt for an indoor list and keep the rest of the plan.

Below are 20 fall party games in five groups, by space and crowd. Each one lists how many can play, a rough time, what to set out, how a round works and how it ends. Most have one snag worth knowing before you start, and it’s written into that game.

Pick a fall party game by crowd and space

Start with the room and the guest list, then pick from the matching group. Times are our rough estimates for one round with a family-size group.

Where	Game	Players	Rough time	You need
Seated, any age	Fall food clue game	3+	10 min	One clue page
Seated, any age	Fall trivia	2+	10 min	One sheet each
Seated, any age	Candy corn guessing jar	Any	All evening	A jar, slips of paper
Seated, any age	This or that	4+	10 min	A list of pairs
Adults after dinner	Don’t Say It	2 teams	15 min	12 cut cards, timer
Adults after dinner	30-second list race	3+	5 min	One sheet each, timer
Adults after dinner	Fall alphabet challenge	3+	10 min	One sheet each
Adults after dinner	Longest apple peel	2+	5 min	Apples, peelers
Indoors, on their feet	Fall charades	2 teams	20 min	12 folded cards, a bowl
Indoors, on their feet	No-lift drawing challenge	3+	10 min	Paper, pencils
Kids, outdoors	Pumpkin ring toss	2+	15 min	Small pumpkins, rings
Kids, outdoors	Sack race	3+	10 min	Sacks or pillowcases
Kids, outdoors	Three-legged race	4+ (pairs)	10 min	Soft ties
Kids, outdoors	Pumpkin roll relay	2 teams	10 min	Two small pumpkins
Kids, outdoors	Bobbing for apples	3+	15 min	A tub, water, apples
Kids, outdoors	Donuts on a string	3+	10 min	Donuts, string, a line
Whole group, outdoors	Spotting bingo	Any	A walk	One card each
Whole group, outdoors	Fall scavenger hunt	Any	30 min	One list each, a bag
Whole group, outdoors	Tug of war	6+	10 min	A long rope
Whole group, outdoors	Pumpkin seed spitting	Teens and adults	10 min	Seeds, a tape measure

Pumpkin bowling, a bean bag toss and hot potato, played with a small pumpkin as the potato, also fit a fall yard. Their rules are already in our Thanksgiving games guide, so we haven’t repeated them here.

Seated fall party games while guests arrive

Arrival games have one job: let a guest who walks in late join without hearing the questions that came before. All four below work one question at a time, and nobody needs to stand up.

Fall food clue game

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: one clue page for the reader

The host reads one clue at a time, and the first person to name the food takes the point. On the Guess the Fall Food page in our fall set, the first item reads “Orange and spiced · cinnamon and nutmeg · the slice everyone saves room for.” The answer is pumpkin pie. The round ends when all eight foods are named.

Patient guessers deserve a scoring tweak: three points for an answer after the first clue, two after the second and one after the third. If one fast talker keeps answering everything, switch to the quiet version printed at the top of the page, where everyone writes an answer before you reveal it. For the last food, oats and cinnamon baked over apples, accept apple crisp or apple crumble.

Fall trivia

Players: 2 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: one trivia sheet per player, pencils

Everyone circles one letter for each of the ten questions, then players swap sheets and mark each other out of 10. Swapping keeps the host out of the marking, which matters once a friendly round has split the room into teams. Highest score wins.

Two answers on our fall sheet are in metric. The maple question asks how many liters of sap make one liter of syrup, and the answer of about 40 holds for gallons too. The record pumpkin answer, over 1,200 kg, is more than 2,600 pounds. For a Thanksgiving round with the turkey still resting, our Thanksgiving trivia questions come with answers you can read out.

Candy corn guessing jar

Players: any number · Time: runs all evening · You need: a clear jar of candy corn, slips of paper, a pen

Count the candy corn as you fill the jar, and write the number on a slip taped under the lid. Guests write a name and a guess on arrival and drop it in a bowl. At the end of the night, read out the real count, and the closest guess wins the jar.

A crowd tends to guess better than any one guest. At a 1906 country fair, 800 people guessed the weight of an ox, and statistician Francis Galton found the median guess, 1,207 pounds, within 1% of the true 1,198. Read the middle guess aloud before the winner for a small reveal. Keep the jar away from children under 4, since the American Academy of Pediatrics lists hard, gooey or sticky candy among choking hazards for young children.

This or that

Players: 4 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a list of fall pairs

Read one pair aloud, such as hot chocolate or apple cider, and go around the table so everyone picks a side and says why. Our This or That page has 10 pairs and says the loudest argument wins the round. Nobody can be wrong, which makes it the safest opener for a table of people who’ve only just met.

Fall party games for adults after dinner

Once the plates are cleared, adults can handle games that leave room for disagreement. When half the table are strangers, a round from our icebreaker games for adults gets names sorted before these come out.

Don’t Say It

Players: two teams · Time: about 15 minutes · You need: 12 cut-out cards, a 60-second timer

Cut the 12 cards apart and stack them face down. One player draws a card and has 60 seconds to get their team to say the big word without using any of the three small words printed under it. The PUMPKIN card bans orange, carve and patch. The TURKEY card bans Thanksgiving, bird and dinner, so you’re describing a turkey without the meal it’s famous for.

Settle before the first card what happens when someone says a banned word. Ending that turn and putting the card at the bottom of the stack works well. The team with more cards guessed when the stack runs out wins.

30-second list race

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 5 minutes · You need: one sheet per player, a timer

Someone starts the timer, and everyone fills one box in 30 seconds: things in a pumpkin patch, things that are orange, things that go inside a pie and things you’d pack for a cold walk. Then everyone reads their list aloud and crosses out any answer someone else also wrote. Agree on one scoring rule before the first box. With adults, scoring only the answers nobody else wrote is the most fun, because “pumpkin” under orange earns nothing when four other people wrote it too.

Fall alphabet challenge

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: one alphabet sheet per player

Everyone writes one fall word for each letter from A to Z, and the table has to agree each word belongs to autumn. Read the lists aloud letter by letter, and give a point for each accepted word. Decide before anyone starts which hard letters earn bonus points, and say it out loud. Q, X and Z will cause the arguments, and that’s half the fun.

Longest apple peel

Players: 2 or more · Time: about 5 minutes · You need: one apple and one vegetable peeler per player, a ruler

Everyone peels an apple and tries to keep the peel in one unbroken strip. Lay the strips out straight on the table, and the longest unbroken peel wins. The idea comes from the challenge cards in the bonus pack of our fall set, where the card reads “Peel an apple in one unbroken piece” with “Longest peel wins” printed under it. Hand out vegetable peelers rather than paring knives, and keep this one for adults and older kids.

Indoor fall games that get people moving

After an hour at the table, people want to stand up. Charades gets them on their feet without anyone leaving the room, and the drawing round brings them back to their seats. Both work on a rainy evening when the yard games are off.

Fall charades

Players: two teams · Time: about 20 minutes · You need: 12 folded cards, a bowl, a timer

Cut out the cards, fold them and drop them in a bowl. Each actor gets 90 seconds with no words, no sounds and no pointing at things in the room. Every card in our set has a second line in small print that changes how it’s played. Raking up leaves comes with “then jumping in,” and a squirrel burying a nut comes with “then forgetting.”

Children who can’t read the card can still act it out. Read it quietly into their ear and start the timer when they nod. The team with more correct guesses after everyone has acted wins, and our guide to charades for kids has more on running it with a young group.

No-lift drawing challenge

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: paper, pencils, a 60-second timer

Read one prompt aloud, and everyone draws it at the same time, in 60 seconds, without lifting the pencil off the paper. Then the table votes. Our six prompts are written for laughs, from a pumpkin with a face you wouldn’t want to meet to the ugliest autumn sweater ever knitted. Since the pencil can’t leave the page, a careful adult has no real edge over a fast 7-year-old. Settle the vote before the first drawing: can players vote for their own, and does a tie go to the youngest artist?

Outdoor fall party games for kids

Yard games are where most of a fall party’s noise comes from, and most need only a few household items. Mark a start line and a finish line about 30 feet apart before the children arrive, and every race below can use the same course.

Pumpkin ring toss

Players: 2 or more · Time: about 15 minutes · You need: three to five small pumpkins with stems, rings such as rope loops or plastic rings

Ring toss is the amusement-park game of throwing a ring over a peg, and a pumpkin stem makes the peg. Line the pumpkins up a few steps from a throwing line. Each child gets three rings a turn and scores one point for every ring that settles over a stem. Move the line closer for preschoolers, since the point is a ring landing, not a long throw. Highest score after three turns wins.

Sack race

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: one burlap sack or pillowcase per racer

Each racer steps into a sack, holds the top at the waist and hops from the start line to the finish. The first one across wins. A pillowcase works fine for small children, though an adult-size racer needs a real sack. Running inside an extra-large sack instead of hopping can be treated as cheating, so say “hop only” at the start. Grass is kinder than pavement when racers fall over.

Three-legged race

Players: 4 or more, in pairs · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a soft tie for each pair, such as a scarf or a bandana

Partners stand side by side, and you tie the left leg of one to the right leg of the other at the ankle. Pairs race from the start line to the finish line, and the first pair across wins. Pair children of similar height, since a tall partner and a short one spend the race tripping each other. A practice walk to the middle and back before the real race saves a lot of tears.

Pumpkin roll relay

Players: two teams · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: two small, roundish pumpkins

A relay race has teammates take turns covering parts of a course, and here the baton is a pumpkin rolled along the ground. The first player on each team rolls the pumpkin by hand to the finish line and back, then hands it to the next player. The first team with every player back at the start wins. Pick the roundest pumpkins you can find, because a lopsided one veers off the course and somebody will cry foul.

Bobbing for apples

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 15 minutes · You need: a large tub of water, apples, towels

Fill a tub with water and float the apples, since apples are less dense than water. Players kneel with their hands behind their backs and try to catch an apple with their teeth. Whoever lifts an apple out first wins the round. Keep an adult next to the tub the whole time.

Clean the apples before they go in. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration advises rinsing them under cool running water and using a produce brush to remove surface dirt. Every mouth still goes into the same water, so give each small group fresh water. For kids, the FDA also passes on a no-water version from FightBAC.org: paper apples with an activity written on each, a paperclip on every apple and a magnet on a string to fish one out. If you serve cider alongside, the FDA says to serve pasteurized products only.

Donuts on a string

Players: 3 or more · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: one ring donut per player, string, a clothesline or a low branch

Apple on a string, sometimes called snap apple, is the dry cousin of apple bobbing: the fruit hangs from a cord and players try to bite it. Soft ring donuts tied at about mouth height make it easier for children. Hands stay behind backs, and the first player to finish a whole donut wins. Have players stand still to eat, because the American Academy of Pediatrics says children should never run, walk or play with food in their mouths. Skip apple bobbing for children under 4: the AAP says to keep high-risk foods, including raw fruit chunks such as apple pieces, from children until age 4 or older. Save the donut game for the same ages.

Outdoor fall games for the whole group

These four mix ages well, because a sharp-eyed 5-year-old or a teenager with good lungs can beat the adults. Bingo and the hunt also work on a walk to the park, so the party doesn’t need a big yard.

Spotting bingo

Players: any number · Time: as long as the walk · You need: one bingo card per player

Our fall bingo card is a 5-by-5 grid of illustrations, including a pumpkin, an acorn, rain boots and an owl, around a free square. You play it on a walk, at the table or on a long drive. The card says to cross off each thing as somebody spots it, and five in a row across, down or corner to corner is a bingo.

Every player has the same card, which needs a ruling before you set off. If everyone crosses off every sighting, everyone reaches five in a row at the same moment. In the race version, you only mark what you spotted and pointed out yourself. In the shared version, the whole group works through one card together and nobody loses. Our printable bingo rules cover called bingo, with a different card for each player and someone drawing from a bag.

Fall scavenger hunt, with an indoor list for rain

Players: any number · Time: about 30 minutes · You need: one hunt sheet per player or team, a bag, pencils

The outdoor hunt in our set is a sheet of 16 finds, from a red leaf and an acorn with its cap still on to somebody holding a hot drink. Sixteen out of sixteen wins. Check the list against the calendar and your neighborhood before the party. “The first frost on a window” won’t turn up in a warm September, and “an apple still on the tree” needs an orchard nearby, so cross out anything nobody can find and lower the target to match.

One line on the sheet reads “a mushroom (look, do not pick),” and it’s worth repeating out loud. When it rains, swap in the indoor list from the bonus pack: 16 things inside the house, from something knitted to something older than you are, with “no running” printed at the bottom. More house lists are in our indoor scavenger hunt page, and a park walk suits the nature scavenger hunt ideas.

Tug of war

Players: 6 or more, in two teams · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: a long, thick rope, a ribbon, chalk or a stick to mark the ground

Tie a ribbon at the middle of the rope and mark a center line on the ground under it. Tie two more ribbons the same distance from the middle, one on each side. Each team pulls from its own end, and the team that drags the other side’s ribbon across the center line wins. Make the teams even by total size, not by head count, or the grown-ups’ side wins every pull.

Ropes have snapped in big competitions, and injuries to fingers and hands are a known hazard, so keep everyone’s hands on the rope in front of them. Never let anyone loop the rope around a wrist or waist. Grass gives a softer landing when the losing team sits down hard.

Pumpkin seed spitting

Players: teens and adults · Time: about 10 minutes · You need: rinsed pumpkin seeds, a line on the ground, a tape measure

Run it like a cherry-pit spitting contest. Each player stands with their feet against a line, gets three tries and has the longest spit measured. Everyone spits from that same line toward open ground, never toward people. Mark each landing spot with a golf tee or a pebble so nobody argues about it later. Seeds left from carving the pumpkin cost nothing, but rinse off the pulp first. Keep this one for older players, since the AAP lists nuts and seeds among choking hazards for young children.

How to run a fall game night: order, scoring and printing

With 20 games to choose from, the night needs a running order more than more games. Start with the clue game and the guessing jar as people arrive, then trivia once everyone’s seated. Send the children outside for races before dinner while there’s still light. Save Don’t Say It and the list race for the adults after dinner, then charades and drawing when people get restless.

Keep one score across the whole night rather than game by game. The scoreboard in our bonus pack has room for eight rounds and six players, with a podium to fill in at the end and a winner’s certificate to hand over. Settle each game’s scoring rule out loud before the first turn, and most of the night’s arguments never start.

Print only the pages you’ll play, on US Letter at 100% with scaling turned off. Card games like Don’t Say It and charades get handled on every turn, so they hold up better on white or cream cardstock, and our printable paper guide explains the choices. For a classroom or a big family, the ink-saver edition puts two games on each sheet, with outlines instead of color blocks, which halves the paper.

If the table goes quiet between games, put one of the bonus pack’s 12 conversation cards at every place setting. Everybody answers, including whoever is carving. Keep the answer key with whoever reads the clues, since it doubles as the referee.

Send one page home when the party’s over. The family fall challenge lists 16 things to do across the season, from carving a pumpkin to getting lost in a corn maze, and the first family to reach 100 points picks the next movie. Between parties, our fall activities for kids cover leaf walks and pumpkin patch trips, and from late October the Halloween party games take over.