Play M.A.S.H
Do you remember gathering around with your group of friends in elementary school and playing fortune games, like Ouija and messing around with cootie catchers? Here's another old-school fortune game to reminisce upon, or to teach to your kids (if they don't know it already) and impress them with your teen awesomeness!
Contents
Steps
Basic M.A.S.H
- Choose your categories. Basic M.A.S.H. consists of only four categories:
- People you're going to marry: choose two people you love, one person who you think is okay, and another person you would NEVER want to marry.
- Number of kids you're going to have: This goes on the bottom of your paper, you'll want to put down the numbers "1, 2, 3, 4".
- The car you'll have: This will go on the left side of your paper. Choose 4 cars you want or choose 4 cars for the other person.
- M.A.S.H. Write M.A.S.H. at the very top of your sheet. M.A.S.H. represents your home: 'M' meaning you will live in a mansion, 'A' meaning you'll live in an apartment, 'S' meaning you'll live in a shack, and 'H' meaning you'll live in a house.
- Choose your number. You'll need to choose a number so you can go around the paper and cross off different options (this will be explained in the next step).
- There are many ways to choose your number -- you can close your eyes and dot the paper until someone tells you to stop and then count how many dots you have, or you can close your eyes while making a spiral and count how many times you went around. In the example shown, there are eight dots on the paper, so eight will be the number used for this game.
- Start going around your paper. Starting from the 'M' in "M.A.S.H.," start going around your paper. In the example shown, the number chosen was eight so you will want to move eight steps to the right. Starting from 'M' it will go:
- M - Step 1
- A - Step 2
- S - Step 3
- H - Step 4
- Harry - Step 5
- Niall - Step 6
- Zayn - Step 7
- Liam - Step 8
- Cross off the item you land on. Since eight was the number chosen for the number of steps in the example, "Liam" will be crossed off since it was on the eighth step. Depending on your chosen number, something else might be crossed off.
- For example if your number was 3, the 'S' in "M.A.S.H." would be crossed off. If your chosen number was 11, the number 2 at the bottom would be crossed off. If your chosen number was 6, whose ever name you put in the "Niall" slot would be crossed off.
- Keep going around the paper and skip over crossed off slots. Now that "Liam" is crossed off in the example, you'll want to keep going around the paper using the same chosen number. After "Liam" comes the number 4 at the bottom:
- 4 - Step 1
- 3 - Step 2
- 2 - Step 3
- 1 - Step 4
- Garbage Truck - Step 5
- Jeep Wrangler - Step 6
- Honda Civic - Step 7
- Mercedes Benz - Step 8. So now that the second eighth step has been reached in the example, it will be crossed off.
- Keep going around the paper as explained, but in this example the next eighth step is "Liam" and that's already been crossed out! What you do is skip over "Liam" since it's already been crossed out and cross out the next item, which in this case is the number "4."
- Circle your final choices in each category. As you keep going around the paper crossing things off, your list in each category will get smaller and smaller. If you follow the example, you'll notice that the car category is the first to be left with only one choice! The remaining car is circled (to denote that this is the car that you will drive in the future). Then keep counting around the paper, skipping over the cars section.
- Finish off the game! Keep going around and round until you completely finish the game. Once you finish, you can interpret the results! In the example, 'M', 'Harry', '5', and 'Garbage Truck' ended up being circled. If you were using the example that would mean that you would be living in a mansion, married to Harry, with 5 kids and your car would be a Garbage Truck.
- Have a friend do it for you and you do it for a friend. Then present them with their future once you're done!
Advanced M.A.S.H
- Draw a # sign. That's a pound sign or a hashtag, depending on your generation. It should take up most of your paper -- you'll be writing in it for the game. It's really just like a giant tic-tac-toe board.
- Start writing your categories. You'll be using each area of the hashtag except for the middle. That means you'll need 8 categories. They can go in any order, but the standard ideas are (starting with the necessary ones):
- M.A.S.H. (mansion, apartment, shack, house)
- Who they'll marry
- What their job is
- Their means of transportation
- Number of kids they'll have
- Where they'll live
- What their income is
- The pet(s) they'll have
- Choose your options. This can depend on how many friends you're with or how you decide to play the game. There should be 4 options per category. To make it more fun, let the person whose fortune you're telling only pick one for each category.
- Get creative. If you're choosing three means of transportation for your friend, think of things like "goat," "three-wheeled skateboard," or "sneakers." But know that they'll probably get you back when it's their turn!
- Don't upset your friend. If they really don't want you to write Billy Bob on the to-be-married list, choose someone else.
- Start counting. Start writing dots, tallies, or a spiral in the center of your tic-tac-toe/hashtag/pound sign. When your friend says, "Stop!" count how many marks you've made or times you've gone around. This is your number. Remember it.
- If your friend is being cheeky and doesn't say "stop" for a long time and you end up with 52 dots, cut the number in half. You'll lose track if the number is too high!
- Go around your paper, stopping on that number. Start at the top left, with the first category being 1, 2, 3, and 4. If your number is 7, you'd stop on the 3rd option of the 2nd category.
- Cross off each option you land on. Resume again from where you left off, skipping over each already crossed-off option. As you go around and around, your options will start dwindling. When you cross off three in a category, circle the fourth -- you've determined the future!
- Be sure to keep count accurately! Otherwise you'll end up with 101 kids instead of 3. That's a lot of mouths to feed.
- Stop when you have one of each category circled. Then announce to the world, "Hannah is going to marry George, live in China, be a diaper model, make $1 per day, have 17.2 kids, own a pet giraffe, fly an airplane, and live in a mansion!" Just wait for the laughs/glares from your friends!
- Then pass on the paper. Who's the next victim?!
Sample MASH Board
Doc:MASH
Tips
- Add an extra angle to the game by making it Hidden MASH. In this version, the person writing will tell the focus person to choose four items from a very general category, but not tell them what this applies to. For example, they may say, "Choose four colors," but not tell the focus person whether the colors will be for their child's hair color or eye color. This makes the game have a silly side, because your child could end up with blue hair or red eyes. In another example, they may say, "Choose four numbers," but not say whether this represents your annual income or your number of children. Just hope you don't end up with 60,000 children and $2/year!
- Try to keep options a mix of positive and negative.
- Choose some outrageous or funny selections for your list. For example, you can choose some candidates for marriage that you or your friends would never marry, along with someone like Brad Pitt. Or for the list of cars, choose something like a Ferrari Enzo and a "cardboard box with wheels."
- Pick out four girl or boy names to determine what the name of your first born will be.
- People can be modes of transportation too, just for the record!
- The list of categories is only limited by your imagination. Consider the following options, too:
- Where you'll live
- Where you'll be married
- Where you'll honeymoon
- Income -- either a flat number ($70,000) or per day/minute/month ($5 a minute)
- Partner's job & income
- Partner's hair, eye, etc color (if the names under the partner list are just names, and not known people).
- The name, gender, and hair/eye coloring of your first child.
- Partner's occupation
- Vehicle color
- Though MASH is traditionally written at the top of the page, the placement of the other categories is entirely optional.
- In some versions of the game, the person whose future is being determined will pick the first three options in a category, and the person crossing things out chooses the fourth. Alternatively, if you're playing the game with several friends, each friend might pick one option out of each category for the person who's the focus of this round. Experiment with different ways of deciding what makes the list.
- This can be used as an ESL exercise, too!
- Use dice to pick your number, to keep it completely random!
- Keep in mind there can also be other versions to play M.A.S.H.
Warnings
- Some people may get upset. Don't make a person's future too sad or pathetic -- there needs to be a bright spot!
Things You'll Need
- Paper
- Writing utensil