This is a variant of Musical Chairs, to setup have a number of chairs one less than the number of players and arrange them in a circle. To no music the entire group rotates around the chairs one by one.
When any player says “BOO!” outloud, then each of the Ghosts (the players) must sit down into a piece of furniture in the ring, Ghosts that don’t sit down will evaporate and will no longer be playing the game. There are two situations that will occur at this point, that two people will fight over a chair, or that one person won’t have a chair to sit in at all.
If two ghosts are competing to sit in a chair, rather than push and fight to sit down they must make stone cold faces at each other and start a Contest.
A Contest has two players making ghostly faces at each other, they take turns making ghost noises at each other. Whichever player’s face or expression breaks into a smile or breaks character loses the contest. The winning player gets to sit in the chair.
If a player can’t find a chair to sit in then they can start a Contest with one sitting player. They cannot start a second contest if they lose this one, and the losing player of this Contest cannot start one to gain a new seat.
Once any Contests are complete, the losing player leaves the game and is now a spectator. The winning players remove one chair so that there is only a number of chairs one less than the number of players still in the game.
Players who are ejected from the game while players are rotating around the chairs make spooky ghost moaning noises until one of the circling players says Boo!
That is all there is to this very long-named variant of Musical Chairs.
Costumes
As a fun note here are some ways to spice up this game of musical chairs.
- Play during halloween.
- All players wear ghost costumes.
- When making contests players make ghost noises and serious faces but can also wiggle their arms, legs, in order to add to their spooky vibe.
- Cover the chairs in fake cobwebs.
- Add mood and spooky lighting.