This game was recommended to us by journalist Jackie Delamatre, who plays it with her family at the dinner table. 

To play “Rankings,” one person is identified as “It.” They close their eyes for a moment, while everyone else at the table uses hand signals to agree on a number between 1 and 10. That’s the Ranking for this round. “1” is the person’s least favorite, “10” is their absolute favorite.

Then the game begins. “It” names a category — for example, “Desserts,” “Movies,” “Books,” or “Animals.” Going around the table, each of the other players takes a turn thinking about what “It” might say about that category, on a scale of 1-10. Then each person names the item from the category that they think would match the group’s chosen Ranking. For example, if “It” hates snakes, is passionate about sloths, and thinks penguins are just fine but nothing special, the members of the group would name snakes and other similar reptiles if they’d chosen the number 1. They might mention penguins and other animals they think “It” is indifferent to if they’d selected 5. For 10, they’d name sloths, and anything else they can think of that “It” definitely adores.

Once the round is complete, “It” can either try to guess the number, or name another category and have everyone go around again. Keep going until they’re able to accurately guess what number Ranking the group has chosen.