Two Truths and a Lie Ideas
Ready-made truths and believable lies for the moment your mind goes blank.
- Time
- 10–30 min
- Players
- Three or more players
- Best for
- Icebreakers, family gatherings and new teams
- Deck
- 150 ideas in 6 categories
How to use these two truths and a lie ideas
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Draw cards until you find two that are true for you and one that is not. Or take a card as a model and change the details to fit your own life.
- Say all three in any order, in the same voice. Everyone else guesses which one is the lie.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next idea”, for another. Tap the heart to save an idea on this device, or tap “Make a 10-idea list” for a list you can copy.
When to play two truths and a lie
Two truths and a lie works best with people who do not know each other’s every story yet. The cards fill the blank moment when it is your turn, so the game keeps moving and nobody sits thinking for minutes.
The first day at a new job or club
School and work and Skills and talents give everyone two real facts to share, and the lie keeps the room listening.
Family gatherings
Growing up is perfect when cousins and grandparents are in one room: the older players often have truths that sound like the best lie at the table.
Around a campfire or on a cabin weekend
Travel and Funny mishaps bring out the stories people save for slow evenings, from corn mazes to runaway balloons.
Ways to play two truths and a lie
Fingers up on three
The teller says three statements and numbers them out loud. On a count of three, everyone else holds up one, two or three fingers for the one they think is the lie, so nobody can copy a neighbor. Then the teller reveals it and the phone moves to the next person.
True for me? With two players
Take turns reading a single card aloud as if it were about you. The other player says “true” or “lie” straight away, then you tell them which it was. It works in a car or across a table, and a round of ten cards takes a few minutes.
Slips of paper for a team or club
Everyone writes their three on a slip, using the cards for ideas, and folds it. The leader reads one slip at a time, the group first guesses who wrote it, then which line is the lie. Nobody has to speak in front of the room unless they want to.
Tips for a good round
- Take all three statements from the same category, so none of them stands out as the odd one.
- Move the lie around. If it was last on your turn, put it first or in the middle next time.
- After the reveal, tell the short story behind each truth. A wrong guess just means the group learned something new.
All 150 two truths and a lie ideas by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
Travel
Ferries, road stops, odd beaches and places to sleep, near home or far away.
- I once fell asleep on a ferry and rode it all the way back to where I started.
- I have walked on a beach where the sand was completely black.
- I’ve stood behind a waterfall and come out the other side soaked.
- My suitcase once came off the plane with one of its wheels missing.
- I have ridden a bike across a bridge more than a mile long.
- On one vacation, I booked a hotel room for the wrong month by accident.
- I have visited a town where fewer than a hundred people live.
- I once rode a train in the wrong direction for an hour before I noticed.
Show all 25 in TravelShow fewer
- I’ve slept in a tent pitched right on the sand of a beach.
- In one city, I rode a boat along the canals instead of taking a bus.
- On a road trip, we once waited twenty minutes for a herd of cows to cross.
- I have walked across a frozen lake in the middle of winter.
- I once waited out a thunderstorm in a gas station for three hours.
- I have climbed every single stair to the top of a lighthouse.
- I have flown in a plane so small it had only six seats.
- I once spent a whole vacation day in a laundromat because it would not stop raining.
- Once, I floated in water so salty that I could not sink.
- I have ridden on the top deck of a double-decker bus, right at the front.
- I once got lost in a corn maze for more than an hour.
- I’ve been on a ferry carrying cars, trucks and a horse trailer.
- Every trip I have taken since I was twelve has its own page in my travel journal.
- I have watched a geyser shoot water high into the air.
- On one long drive, we stopped for a photo at every giant roadside statue we passed.
- I’ve been to a seaside town where every house was painted a different bright color.
- I once missed a whole parade because I was waiting in line for a snack.
Food
Odd snacks, kitchen wins and small food habits that might sound made up.
- I eat pickles dipped in peanut butter, and I love it.
- I can flip a pancake in the pan without using a spatula.
- I have never tasted coconut water straight from the coconut.
- I put salt on my watermelon before I eat it.
- I once made ice cream at home by shaking a bag of cream inside a bag of ice.
- Soup is my favorite breakfast, even in the middle of summer.
- I have never had a single cup of coffee in my life.
- I can name every spice in our kitchen just by smelling it.
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- I have baked my own birthday cake every year since I was twelve.
- Once, I tasted honey straight from a beehive.
- I’ve eaten at a restaurant where the food arrived on a little toy train.
- I can peel a hard-boiled egg in under ten seconds.
- I have never eaten a hot dog, not even one bite.
- I once folded more than a hundred dumplings in a single afternoon.
- I’ve tasted maple sap dripping straight from a tree.
- I drink my orange juice with ice cubes in it.
- I once came in second place at a chili cook-off.
- I have made butter by shaking a jar of cream until my arms got tired.
- I once made a gingerbread house that caved in before anyone saw it.
- Chocolate is not my thing, and it never has been.
- I have cooked a whole meal over a campfire, dessert included.
- I pour the milk into the bowl before the cereal.
- The biggest slice of pizza I ever ate was longer than my arm.
- At an outdoor market, I once tried a fruit I had never even heard of.
- I once won a pie-eating contest at a county fair.
Skills and talents
Party tricks, hobbies and small talents, easy to claim and hard to prove.
- I can whistle with two fingers loud enough to be heard across a park.
- I can write my name backward as fast as I write it forward.
- I can say the alphabet backward in under ten seconds.
- I can play a tune by tapping a row of water glasses.
- Ask me to name every country in South America and I can do it from memory.
- I can hold a handstand for thirty seconds.
- I know the sign language alphabet and can finger-spell my whole name.
- I can fold a paper crane in less than a minute.
Show all 25 in Skills and talentsShow fewer
- I can hum and whistle at the same time.
- Give me a pencil and I can draw a near-perfect circle freehand.
- Without a clock, I can usually guess the time within five minutes.
- I know how to braid hair into a fishtail braid.
- I can do an ollie on a skateboard.
- I can make a yo-yo “walk the dog” across the floor.
- My paper airplane once won a contest for the longest flight.
- I can play a whole song on the harmonica.
- I can copy a bird call so well that real birds answer me.
- I can keep a hula hoop spinning for ten minutes straight.
- I once built a working robot from a kit, and it still rolls.
- I can tie five different sailing knots with my eyes closed.
- I can shuffle cards the fancy way, with the bridge at the end.
- I learned to roller skate backward in a single summer.
- I know enough Morse code to tap out my own name.
- Balancing a spoon on my nose for a whole minute is my party trick.
- I can read sheet music I have never seen before and play it straight away.
Growing up
Pets, houses, family and the small facts of a childhood nobody can check.
- When I was six, I tried to dig a hole all the way to the other side of the world.
- I had a pet turtle named after a vegetable.
- I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was eleven.
- As a kid, I wore a cape to the grocery store every week for a whole year.
- I ran a lemonade stand every summer for five years.
- I rode on a parade float when I was eight.
- There was a tire swing in the backyard of the house I grew up in.
- My grandparents lived three houses down the street from us.
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- I named every stuffed animal I owned after a kind of cheese.
- I was born in the middle of a big snowstorm.
- I helped build a treehouse that is still standing today.
- I learned to swim in a lake, not a pool.
- I went to the same summer camp seven summers in a row.
- Our hamster once escaped and lived behind the fridge for a week.
- When I was five, I won a coloring contest at the library.
- My first word was the name of our cat.
- I grew up in a house without a TV.
- I moved all the way across the country when I was seven.
- I could read before I started kindergarten.
- As a kid, I went to bed in my shoes so I’d be ready for school faster.
- We had a pet chicken that followed me around the yard.
- My grandma taught me to play cards when I was four.
- Every Thursday as a kid, I ate dinner at my neighbor’s house.
- I was the youngest kid on my soccer team by two years.
- I had a friend I only ever saw at the beach each summer.
School and work
Classrooms, odd jobs and school prizes, from line leader to the hairnet shift.
- I once had a teacher who brought a pet snake to class every Friday.
- I won an award for the neatest handwriting in my class.
- I gave a speech at my school graduation.
- I once got a perfect score on a test I studied for on the bus that morning.
- I once had a job handing out free cheese samples in a supermarket.
- I have worn a full mascot costume at a school game.
- I went to three different schools in one year.
- I have taught a class of adults something I learned that same week.
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- I once washed more than five hundred dishes in a single shift.
- I was on my school’s quiz team, and we made it to the state finals.
- For a whole year, I tutored someone in reading every week.
- In second grade, I was line leader for a whole month.
- At a pet store job, I was in charge of all the fish tanks.
- For one workday, my whole job was counting cars for a traffic survey.
- I delivered newspapers on my bike before school.
- I was in the school play every year from third grade to eighth grade.
- I have written an article for my school newspaper.
- I can still recite the poem I memorized in fourth grade.
- The biggest crowd I have ever spoken in front of was over two hundred people.
- In one summer, I read every mystery book in my school library.
- I grew the tallest sunflower in my class and won a ribbon for it.
- I have had a job where I wore a hairnet all day.
- My elementary school had a garden where we grew vegetables for lunch.
- I once got locked in the school gym after everyone else went home.
- I still use the second language I learned in school every week.
Funny mishaps
Small, harmless goofs: lost shoes, locked keys and runaway balloons.
- I once locked my keys in the car while the engine was still running.
- I once sat on a freshly painted bench and walked around with stripes all day.
- A birthday card I mailed without a stamp came right back to my own mailbox.
- I once let go of a whole bunch of party balloons I was supposed to deliver.
- I once fell into a swimming pool fully dressed at a birthday party.
- I spent ten minutes looking for my sunglasses while they were on my head.
- A goose once chased me all the way across a park.
- My hair once turned green from swimming pool water.
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- I once knocked on the wrong apartment door and got invited in for cookies.
- A seagull once snatched a sandwich right out of my hand.
- I got stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel for half an hour.
- I once searched the whole house for my phone and found it in the fridge.
- While fixing a broken mug, I glued two of my fingers together.
- I once dropped my phone into a bowl of soup.
- I fell asleep on the beach and woke up with the tide around my towel.
- I was once stuck in an elevator for forty minutes.
- I sneezed so loudly in a library that the whole room said “bless you” at once.
- As a kid, I followed the wrong grown-up out of a store because she had my mom’s coat.
- I once waited an hour for a cake to bake before noticing the oven was off.
- I walked a whole block in my slippers before I noticed.
- A bird once flew into my classroom and stayed for a whole lesson.
- I once lost a shoe in deep mud and walked home in one sock.
- I kicked a ball onto the school roof, and it rolled back down a year later.
- I once dropped a whole birthday cake on the way to the table.
- I once put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge.
Frequently asked questions
How many two truths and a lie ideas are there?
There are 150 ideas, 25 in each of six categories: travel, food, skills and talents, growing up, school and work, and funny mishaps. Every card is clean and about everyday life, so the set works for a new team, a club or a family table. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
How do you make a lie believable?
Pick something that could easily have happened to you, then give it one small, specific detail, like a time, a color or a number, the way real memories have. Say it at the same pace and length as your truths. If a truth of yours sounds unlikely, that helps too, because the group will suspect it first.
Is there a two truths and a lie game for couples?
Yes. Two truths and a lie for couples is a game for two: it deals a topic, starts a 30-second thinking clock, and passes the turn back and forth. This page gives a bigger group ready-made statements instead.
What should we play after two truths and a lie?
Try get to know you questions. Once the lies are out, open questions about favorites, habits and plans let everyone hear the longer stories behind the truths.