Herd Mentality

Players and equipment

Four or more players, each with a phone. The app holds the answers until they all come out together, so nobody can play the numbers.

There is no board and no cards. A question a round, an answer from everyone, and cows for the herd.

The deal

Nothing is dealt. Whoever is asking says the question out loud — best pizza topping? funniest? — and the app counts round the table in seat order, one asker a round. The host can run any round for its asker.

The question is never typed. It is a spoken question, and the only thing on the asker's screen is a prompt to ask one.

Play

Everyone, the asker included, types one answer and saves it. Nobody sees anybody else's until the reveal. Change yours as often as you like until then.

When the last answer is in, the asker reveals them. The app groups the answers that match — spelling and capitals aside, and "a" or "the" in front — and the asker tidies the groups: tap two to merge them when "chicken" and "chicken sandwich" are one answer, tap a merged one to split it again. Then Confirm.

The herd is the biggest group, when there is one. A player whose answer matched nobody's has answered alone.

Nobody types a score into the open round, the host included; the cells are filled by Confirm.

Scoring

A cow

1

Every player in the herd takes one

No herd

0

Two groups tie for biggest, or nobody matched anybody

The Lock

—

Exactly one player answered alone: they take the Lock from whoever had it

Two or more alone

—

The Lock stays where it was

The Lock is a burden, not a score. Whoever holds it keeps collecting cows; they just cannot win until somebody else answers alone and takes it off them.

A round where nobody answered alone leaves the Lock where it is too, with whoever had it or with nobody. It moves only on a round with exactly one solo answer.

A worked run of questions

Six players: Alice, Ben, Cara, Dev, Eve and Finn. Alice asks first.

Best sandwich?

Bacon is the herd

Bacon 3 (Alice, Ben, Cara), cheese 2 (Dev, Eve), egg 1 (Finn)

The Lock

Finn takes it

Finn answered alone

Best day of the week?

Friday is the herd

Friday 4 (Alice, Ben, Cara, Finn), Saturday 2 (Dev, Eve)

The Lock

Stays with Finn

Nobody answered alone

Best pizza topping?

No herd, no cows

Pepperoni 2, mushroom 2, ham 1 (Eve), pineapple 1 (Finn)

The Lock

Stays with Finn

Two players answered alone

Name a colour?

Blue is the herd

Blue 3 (Alice, Dev, Finn), red 2 (Ben, Cara), green 1 (Eve)

The Lock

Eve takes it from Finn

Eve answered alone

After four questions Alice has three cows, Ben, Cara and Finn have two each, Dev has one and Eve has none — and Eve holds the Lock. Finn was locked for three rounds and collected two cows while he was; they count, because the Lock only stops a player winning, never scoring.

The third question shows the two ways a round can score nobody. Pepperoni and mushroom tied for biggest, so there was no herd and no cows; and two players were alone, so the Lock did not move. Had Finn also written ham, ham would have been a group of two — three groups tied, still no herd — and Eve would not have been alone either.

Suppose Alice reaches eight cows on the twelfth question while holding the Lock. She has crossed the line and the match does not end: she keeps playing, still collecting, until somebody else answers alone and takes the Lock off her — and on that round, the moment the Lock moves, she has eight without it and the match banks. If Ben reaches eight unlocked before that happens, Ben wins instead, even though Alice has more cows.

Ending

The first player to reach the target — eight cows unless the host moves it — without holding the Lock wins the match, and the match banks itself on the round that got them there. A locked player at or past the line keeps playing until the Lock moves. The next match starts from nothing; the Leaderboard counts matches won.

Think like the herd

The question is never what you think; it is what most of the table will think. Before you type, ask yourself what the obvious answer is, and if you cannot decide between two, pick the plainer one. Bacon beats brie because more people will write it, whatever you would order. A herd is a majority of matched answers, so a good answer is dull, common and spelled the way everyone spells it.

Read the table

Six friends answering "best pizza topping" will answer differently from six strangers, and the people who know each other best win most. Think about who is at the table and what they would say — the answer a table of children writes is not the answer a table of their parents writes. If somebody has a known favourite, and the table knows it, that favourite is the herd.

The asker's job

The asker answers too, and then has the only decision in the game: which answers are the same answer. Be generous with spelling and phrasing — "chicken" and "chicken sandwich" are one answer if the table agrees they are — and mean with substance, because a merge that stretches to give somebody a cow will be argued about all evening. Say what you are merging as you do it, so the table hears the ruling before it is confirmed.

Ask questions with an obvious answer

A question with twelve reasonable answers produces no herd and no Lock, and the round is a wasted one. Good questions have two or three answers that most people will reach for, so the game is about which of them the table settles on. "Best sandwich?" works because there are five sandwiches everyone knows; "a word beginning with P" does not.

Playing with the Lock

If you are holding the Lock, you are collecting cows you cannot use yet, so the round that matters is the one that moves it: you want somebody else to answer alone. You cannot make that happen, but you can stop making it worse — do not answer alone again, because a round with two solo answers keeps the Lock where it is. If you are ahead and somebody else is locked, the danger is that you answer alone and take it off them just as you reach the line. Near eight cows, play the safest answer you have.

The boxed game and the pink cow

Herd Mentality is a boxed game, and the app plays it as the box does: questions asked to the table, secret answers, a cow for each member of the herd, first to eight cows wins. In the box the Lock is a pink cow that goes to the player whose answer stood alone; here it is called the Lock and does the same thing.

A lower target

Eight cows is the standard line and the host can move it. Five makes a short game for a big table where cows come slowly; ten makes a long one for four or five players who match often.

A fixed number of questions

Agree the number of questions — two laps of the table is common — and the player with the most cows at the end wins, the Lock's holder excluded. Played by hand, since the match here banks itself at the line; move the target out of reach and read the tally when the questions are done.

Questions about the table

Every question is about the people playing: who at this table is most likely to be late, who would survive longest on a desert island, who has the worst taste in music. The herd is easier to find and the arguments are louder.

Everyone writes a question

Before play, every player writes down a few questions, and the asker draws one rather than inventing one on the spot. It keeps the game moving on a table that stalls at "ask us something".

How do you win Herd Mentality?

Be the first to eight cows without holding the Lock. A cow goes to every player whose answer was in the biggest group of matching answers; the Lock goes to a player whose answer matched nobody's. If you reach eight while locked, you keep playing until somebody else takes the Lock, and anyone who gets to eight unlocked before then wins instead.

What is the pink cow in Herd Mentality?

In the boxed game, the pink cow is handed to the one player whose answer stood alone, and whoever holds it cannot win. It only moves when a different player answers alone. Here it is called the Lock and follows the same rule.

What happens if two groups tie for biggest?

Nobody takes a cow that round. The same applies when every answer is different. The Lock moves only when exactly one player answered alone, so a tie between groups and a pair of solo answers leaves everything where it was.

Does the person asking the question answer too?

Yes. The asker types an answer like everyone else, then reveals the answers when the last one is in, groups them and confirms the round. The asking passes round the table in seat order, one question each.

How many players do you need for Herd Mentality?

Four is the smallest table where a herd means anything, and the app seats four or more. Six to ten is the sweet spot: enough answers that matching takes some thought, and few enough that the reveal is quick. There is no upper limit set by the rules.

Can you play Herd Mentality with two players?

Not in any useful way. With two, every round is either a match — both take a cow — or two solo answers, which moves nothing. The game needs a table big enough for a majority to form, which is why it asks for four.

What kind of questions work best?

Ones with a handful of obvious answers, not a hundred. Best sandwich, a colour, a day of the week, the most annoying sound: questions where the table can guess what most people will say. A question that only has one answer is dull, and one with dozens produces no herd.

Does the Lock holder still score cows?

Yes. Cows collected while locked count and stay counted; the Lock only stops you winning while you hold it. The moment somebody else answers alone and takes it, your total is live again, and if it is already at the target the match banks on that round.