Pardon the Turkey
Four rounds of Thanksgiving chaos: plead your way out of a feast-day crime, act or draw the dish, guess whose answer is whose, and outlast the wishbone.
2–16 players10-20 minNo app or download
About Pardon the Turkey
Pardon the Turkey is four rounds of Thanksgiving nonsense on one shared screen. The Pardon Plea accuses every player of a feast-day crime — caught drinking gravy straight from the boat, caught fake-snoring in the recliner to dodge the dishes — and hands you one sentence to plead for a pardon before the table votes for the plea that earns it.
In Pass the Dish, one player is handed a dish moment and chooses to act it out in silence or draw it on their phone for every screen to see, while everyone else picks which of five near-identical dishes it was. Family Recipe puts an anonymous answer on the board and asks who at this table wrote it — with The Turkey quietly slipping in answers of its own. The Wishbone ends the night in sudden death: two Thanksgiving options every few seconds, one side snaps, and the last player standing takes the pardon.
Every round opens with a card explaining how it is played and waits until every phone has tapped ready, so nobody has to have played before and nobody explains rules over a full table. Two to sixteen players, ten to twenty minutes, and every crime, dish and question lives inside Thanksgiving day itself — the turkey, the gravy, the kids’ table, the parade, the nap and the leftovers.
How a room starts
- Pick a game from the catalog — every occasion has its own room.
- Put the game's board screen where everyone can see it: a TV, a laptop, or a shared screen on a video call.
- Players scan the QR code (or type the room code) in their phone's browser. No app, no account.
- Play — everyone answers, votes, and scores from their own phone.
How to play Pardon the Turkey
A short narrated walkthrough of the whole game, from joining on your phone to the final scores: watch the how-to video. It is one tap from inside the room too, so a first-time group never needs the rules explained.
Where Pardon the Turkey fits
You will find it in the Thanksgiving room, alongside the other games picked for that occasion.
Common questions
- How many people can play, and how long does it take?
- Two to sixteen players, and ten to twenty minutes depending on how many rounds the host runs and the pace they set.
- Do we need phones or an app?
- One shared screen for the table plus a phone per player, all in the browser — no app. Phones are for writing pleas, drawing dishes, voting and grabbing wishbone sides.
- Is it family-friendly?
- Yes. The crimes are things like eating the crispy skin off the turkey before it reached the table, and grandparents and kids can play the same game.
- Can someone join from far away?
- Yes. Pass the Dish has a draw option, so a remote player on a video call can sketch their dish on their phone instead of acting it, and every other round is typing and tapping.
- What do we actually have to write?
- One-sentence pardon plea in the first round and short answers to table questions in Family Recipe. Everything else is acting, drawing, guessing and voting.