Hard words for Alias — abstract ideas

Abstractions with nothing physical to lean on. For groups bored of easy rounds.

A set for players who stopped finding easy words a challenge. Almost no objects here — feelings, qualities and ideas you cannot point at or describe by their looks.

Why these are hard

A concrete word yields to appearance or action: "round, it rolls" and the team has already said ball. Abstractions refuse that. You have to build the situation the idea lives in and hope the team recognises it from two sentences. That is why these rounds are either disasters or the best moments of the evening.

Who this set is for

A group that has already played a few rounds and started to find easy words dull. What it takes here is not knowledge but the knack of building a situation — which is why the set puts a linguist and an engineer on equal footing, while ruthlessly separating first-time players from regulars. Do not open the evening with it: abstraction does not work on a cold room.

Envy

Works: “when something good happens to a friend and somehow it stings.” The room recognises the feeling before the word. Does not work: “a negative feeling about someone else's success” — a dictionary line that fits anger, resentment and irritation equally well.

Patience

Works through an action: “the thing that runs out in the queue at the post office.” A concrete scene reaches the word faster than any description of a quality. Does not work: “the ability to wait calmly” — half the room says calm, and the round goes in circles.

Compromise

Works: “when both sides gave something up and both are slightly unhappy.” That second half is what rules out agreement and deal. Does not work: “a solution that suits everyone” — that is consensus, and consensus is what you will hear.

Where groups go wrong

Abstraction invites definitions, and definitions are where these rounds die. A definition describes a class rather than the word, so the team works through the whole class. The second trap is clinging to a word that will not land: in this set one stubborn word eats half a round and costs exactly what a skip costs. The third is forgetting that abstraction needs two sentences rather than two words — whoever saves time on the opening spends twice as much on guesses.

The fastest route into an abstraction is its opposite: "when you are not scared at all" beats listing the traits of courage.
Describe a situation, not a definition: "what you feel after breaking someone's mug and saying nothing".
Skip without guilt: on a hard set one point beats half a round of silence.

Easy

Familiar words that land on the first clue. For warming up, for kids and for mixed groups.

joy, sadness, fear, anger, love, friendship, lie, truth, laziness, shame, envy, pride, calm, tiredness, hunger, cold, warmth, strength, weakness, mind, memory, attention, sleep, dream, wish, choice, habit, mistake, advice, promise, gift, holiday, work, rest, road, meeting, parting, waiting, hurry, silence, noise, darkness, light, beginning, end, middle, past, future, present, youth, age, childhood, health, illness, wealth, poverty, happiness, misfortune, luck, failure, victory, defeat, contest, rule, order, mess, cleanliness, dirt, beauty, ugliness, taste, smell, touch, hearing, sight, voice, speech, word, thought, idea, plan, goal, attempt, success, risk, insurance, trust, betrayal, apology, thanks, respect, contempt, care, indifference, tenderness, cruelty, patience, rage, delight, longing

Medium

Takes a few sentences and some imagination. The default setting for an ordinary evening.

melancholy, nostalgia, compromise, stereotype, authority, ambition, gratitude, endurance, dignity, dilemma, enthusiasm, intuition, irony, remorse, hypocrisy, logic, metaphor, courage, inspiration, duty, delusion, premonition, pessimism, optimism, progress, proportion, reputation, loneliness, consciousness, temptation, justice, resilience, doubt, tolerance, tradition, anxiety, prejudice, charisma, generosity, conscience, mercy, loyalty, vocation, hint, distrust, caution, candour, insolence, modesty, vanity, harmony, argument, concession, agreement, deceit, evasion, warning, persistence, stubbornness, resolve, hesitation, indecision, selfrespect, selfcriticism, selfdeception, compassion, cooperation, rivalry, dependence, freedom, restriction, permission, prohibition, punishment, reward, recognition, fame, oblivion, legacy, recollection, custom, ritual, superstition, omen, legend, invention, reality, illusion, fantasy, imagination, guess, assumption, conclusion, proof, refutation, conviction, clarity, vagueness, depth, restraint

Hard

Rare or abstract words. More failed rounds, and more laughing at them.

paradox, symmetry, hypothesis, evolution, experiment, subconscious, scepticism, cynicism, altruism, egoism, fatalism, determinism, relativism, absurdity, asceticism, hedonism, dilettantism, dogma, eccentricity, empathy, entropy, epoch, aesthetics, ethics, ephemerality, idealism, identity, hierarchy, improvisation, inertia, introvert, catharsis, category, competence, consensus, conformism, conception, criterion, brevity, liberality, manipulation, mentality, metamorphosis, methodology, mystification, motivation, nihilism, nominal, objectivity, subjectivity, opposition, optimum, paradigm, pedantry, perfectionism, reverence, polemic, populism, pragmatism, presumption, principle, priority, projection, prototype, rationality, regulation, resonance, reflection, rigidity, individuation, sarcasm, synergy, systematisation, snobbery, solidarity, spontaneity, stagnation, sovereignty, compatibility, scholasticism, creativity, tendency, toleration, transformation, generalisation, universality, utilitarianism, utopia, ambivalence, fragmentation, chronicle, integrity, value, sensitivity, formulaic, sincerity, jurisdiction, clairvoyance, existentialism, existence