Mario Party Drinking Game

Every stolen star is a drinking offense.

Also known as: Drunk Mario Party

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Players 2-8

You needMario Party, controllers, drinks

DrinkAnything

Intensity

Time60-120 min

Mario Party was already a friendship-ending machine - The drinking game just makes the betrayal official. The format is perfect for it: a board game full of dice rolls, stolen stars and rigged-feeling luck, punctuated every turn by a minigame that crowns one winner and three thirsty losers. You don't need to invent drama; the game manufactures it. Your job is simply to attach sips to the outrages that were going to happen anyway.

These rules bolt drinking penalties onto the two currencies that matter - Stars and minigames - Plus the coin swings and item shenanigans in between. A ten-turn board with four players paces out naturally to a relaxed session, because turns take time and minigames give your hands a break. Bring people who can laugh at a stolen star, or at least people you're willing to watch cry.

What you need & setup

Pick a board and set the game to 10-15 turns - Longer boards mean pacing your sips accordingly.
Give every player a drink they can nurse across the whole board, plus water within reach.
Agree on your trigger list before turn one: star rules, minigame rules, and one rare finish-your-drink event maximum.
Fill empty seats with computer players on the hardest difficulty - Their wins make everyone drink, so they keep the table honest.

How to play Mario Party Drinking Game

Set the board and the stakes

Choose your board and turn count first, because it defines the night: ten turns is a tidy hour-ish session, twenty is a saga that needs lighter sips. Everyone starts with the same drink, and everyone agrees on the trigger list out loud before the first dice hit. Mid-game rule inventions are how Mario Party nights end in tribunal.

Drink on the star economy

Stars are the game's soul, so they carry the biggest penalties: sip when someone buys a star, drink when yours gets stolen, and salute - Everyone sips - When a hidden block coughs one up for free. Star triggers are rare but seismic, which is exactly what you want: long calm stretches, then one moment of beautiful chaos.

Make minigames the heartbeat

Every minigame ends with the losers taking one sip - That's the metronome of the whole night. In one-versus-three games, the outnumbered side drinks double if they lose but hands out three sips if they win. Duels are winner-gives-two. Keep minigame sips small; there are a lot of minigames, and the math adds up fast.

Punish the dice, not the player

Luck triggers keep the table laughing: sip when you roll a one, sip when an event space warps you somewhere terrible, sip when the game's mid-board twist robs you in a way no one could have prevented. The point is communal outrage - Everyone drinks with you on the truly criminal stuff, because tomorrow it'll be them.

Respect the item shop

Items are premeditated crimes, so price them accordingly: buy anything that targets another player and you sip on purchase - Consider it a sin tax. When the item actually fires, the victim drinks and the whole table gets ten seconds of gloating. Defensive items are tax-free. This one rule makes every shop visit a public moral decision.

Survive the final stretch

Announce last-five-turns like a weather warning and cut all sip values in half - The endgame stacks bonus stars, desperate item plays and maximum theft. When bonus stars are revealed, anyone who gains a place hands out two sips, anyone who loses one takes a sip and their dignity. Then crown the Superstar, hydrate, and choose violence again tomorrow.

The rules

Someone buys a star: everyone else takes a sip.
Your star gets stolen: take a drink, and the thief toasts you.
You steal a star or coins: sip on the way out - Crime has a cover charge.
Lose a minigame: one sip for every loser.
Lose a 1-vs-3 minigame alone: two sips; win it alone and hand out three.
Roll a 1 on the dice: one sip.
Land on a bad event or Bowser-style space: one sip while the table celebrates.
Buy an item that targets another player: one sip sin tax at the register.
A hidden block or lucky space gives someone a free star: everyone sips in disbelief.
Bonus stars shuffle the final standings: climbers give two sips, fallers take one.
Finish the game in last place: finish your drink - The only finish-your-drink moment of the night.

Variations & house rules

Minigame Gauntlet

Skip the board entirely and run a straight minigame playlist - Most Mario Party titles have a dedicated mode for it. Losers sip after every game, the winner banks a point, first to ten points wins the night. It's the faster, fairer version: no dice, no theft, pure mechanical skill, and it works brilliantly when you only have thirty minutes or one very salty friend.

Star Bounty

Before the game, everyone antes into a communal pot - The bounty. Whoever holds the most stars at each five-turn checkpoint assigns five sips, split however they like. Come from behind to win the board and you get to distribute a full drink's worth of sips across the table. Bounty rules concentrate the drama into checkpoints, keeping the between-turns drinking light.

Bowser's House Rules

One player is designated Bowser for the whole session. Whenever the game itself does something cruel - An event space, a coin wipe, a last-minute twist - Bowser also invents a ten-second challenge for the victim: rhyme, trivia, or an impression. Fail and sip; succeed and Bowser sips. Rotate the role each game so the tyranny stays evenly distributed.

Coin Purse Mode

Ignore stars and drink on the coin economy instead: sip per twenty coins lost in a single turn, hand out a sip per fifty banked. Coins swing constantly, so halve all sip sizes first. This variation suits the older boards where coin chaos outshines star drama, and it keeps players who've mathematically lost the star race fully invested in the drinking game.

Pro tips

A twenty-turn board is a two-hour commitment. Pick your turn count like you're picking your total drink count, because you are.

Sip small on minigames - They fire every single turn and they're where the volume sneaks in.

Put the trigger list on a phone in the middle of the table. Memory-based rules die by turn six.

Hard-difficulty computer players are chaos agents who steal stars without mercy. One per game keeps human grudges survivable.

Use star-purchase pauses as built-in water breaks - The game literally stops the action for you every few turns.

Agree before turn one that bonus stars count. Deciding after they flip a winner is how tables get flipped too.

Where Mario Party Drinking Game fits on the shelf

Mario Party Drinking Game sits near the top of the intensity table - 2th heaviest of our 6 video games, rated 3 out of 5.
It is one of the few games here that genuinely works with just 2 players, and it stays fun up to 8.
Budget real time for it (60-120 min) - this is a main event, not a filler game.
Browse the full video game drinking games shelf to compare all 6 games side by side.

A little history

Drinking rules for Mario Party seem to have emerged wherever the game did - Living rooms, dorms and student flats from the late 1990s onward - With no traceable inventor. Early internet forums traded house rules for the N64 originals, usually built around minigame losses. The star-theft penalty became the signature trigger later, as the series leaned harder into luck-driven swings that practically begged for a drinking consequence.

Drink responsibly: A full board is a marathon, so sip small and keep the finish-your-drink moment to one per game. The mercy rule always applies - Anyone falling behind downgrades any penalty to a single sip, no questions - And controller-rotation breaks between games are for water, food and fresh air. See our safety guide for pacing tips and alcohol-free versions.

Mario Party Drinking Game FAQ

Is this an official Nintendo drinking mode?

No - These are fan-made house rules with no affiliation to or endorsement from Nintendo. Mario Party ships as a family party game; the drinking layer is something adult players invented and pass around on their own. We reference the title purely to describe which game the rules are for, and nothing here comes from or represents the game's publisher.

Which Mario Party is best for a drinking game?

Superstars and the Jamboree-era entries are the easiest recommendation: modern pacing, huge minigame libraries, and boards built around exactly the kind of theft the drinking rules feed on. The N64 classics are nastier and slower but deliciously mean if your group has the patience. Avoid anything motion-control-heavy once drinks are flowing - Flailing arms and coffee tables are natural enemies.

How much do you actually drink over a full board?

With the standard triggers and honest sips, a ten-turn board works out to roughly one to two drinks per player across an hour-plus - Minigame losses are your steady drip and star events are occasional spikes. Twenty-turn boards double the exposure, which is why the rules halve sip sizes late-game. Track it honestly, and remember the mercy rule exists for a reason.

What's the single best rule if we only keep one?

Star theft. Drink when your star gets stolen, thief toasts the victim. It's rare enough to stay special, dramatic enough that the whole room reacts, and perfectly aligned with what makes Mario Party memorable - The betrayal. If your group is new to drinking games, start with just that plus minigame-loser-sips, then grow the list as the night finds its rhythm.

Can people drop in and out mid-board?

Yes, and it's one of the format's quiet strengths. Mario Party lets a human hand a seat to a computer player between turns, so anyone can tap out for food, water, or a full retirement without ending the game. New arrivals inherit the seat and its drink triggers fresh - Never any catch-up drinking. The board waits; the night flexes.

Mario Party Drinking Game

What you need & setup