The Game of Baloney Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of The Game of Baloney is to score 30 points before the other players by tricking players by telling the truth or lying, while also figuring out whether the other players are lying or telling the truth.

Setup

Place the game board in the middle of the table.
Each player chooses a color and places the corresponding colored pawn on the Start/Win space.
Set the Baloney Cards where everyone can reach them. Each player should take one card for themselves.
Each player takes a set of Baloney Betting Cards. Each set has four cards (1 truth, 2 truth, 1 baloney, 2 baloney).
The player that bought the game starts the game as the Teller. If they aren’t playing the game, the player that borrowed the game starts.

How to Play The Game of Baloney

The first Teller looks at their card and chooses one of the two Baloney facts printed on the card. Each fact has three different answers on it. There is a truthful answer, a fib answer, and a whopper answer. You will read out the fact and choose one of the three answers to read off to the rest of the players. You should only read off the answer you chose to use.

Choosing which fact to read — For this turn the Teller reads off “In a year, the human eye blinks…”. They will then choose to finish the sentence with one of the three answers below. The Teller has decided to tell the whopper “20 million times.”

After hearing the fact and the chosen answer, all of the others players decide whether they think the Teller told the truth or they were lying. Each player secretly bids on whether they think the statement is true or false. You will choose one of the four Baloney Betting Cards. The one cards are less risky, but they don’t have as high of potential rewards as the two cards. Once you have chosen which card you want to play, place it face down on the table.

Choose the truth one card — This player thinks the Teller was telling the truth. They decide to choose their truth one card for this turn. They will place the card face down on the table.

Once everyone has chosen their Baloney Betting Card, the Teller reveals whether they were telling the truth, they fibbed, or they used the whopper lie. Players will then score points based on what Baloney Betting Card they played. See the scoring section below for more details.

After scoring is completed, the current round ends. The player to the left of the Teller becomes the Teller for the next round. Each Baloney Card has two facts on it. You should use the fact that you didn’t use the first time you were a Teller for the second time you are Teller. Once you have used both facts, you will draw a new Baloney Card.

Scoring

The Teller earns points for each player they fooled. If the Teller use the truthful response, they will score points for all of the Baloney cards that the other players chose. If they chose the fib or the whopper, they will score points for all of the Truth cards that players chose to play. Each one card is worth one point, while two point cards are worth two points. Whenever the Teller tells the whopper lie, they will score twice as many points as they would normally score.

The rest of the players will score points when they play the correct Baloney Betting Card. For example they chose their truth card and the Teller told the truth. The Baloney card matches both the fib and whopper option. Each player scores points equal to the number on the card they chose.

Whenever a player guesses incorrectly, they lose points equal to the number on the Baloney Betting Card they chose.

Scoring in Game of Baloney — Two of the players thought the Teller was telling the truth, while two thought they were lying. The Teller ended up telling the whopper lie so their points are doubled. They normally would score three points for the two truth cards, but due to using the whopper they will score six points. Meanwhile the player that played the baloney one card earns one point, and the player that played the baloney two card scores two points.

All of the players will move their pawns forward on the gameboard equal to the positive points they scored. If a player lost points, they will move their pawn backwards.

Moving pawns after scoring — The green player moves their pawn forward six spaces after fooling the two players with the whopper lie. The red player called out the lie with the baloney two card so they move their pawn forward two spaces. The blue player gains one space for the baloney one card. The orange and yellow player would normally lose spaces for guessing wrong, but they were already at the start space.

Should you land on the Double Bonus Space, the points you receive or lose on the next turn will be doubled.

Winning the Game

The first player to reach 30 or more points wins the game.

Winning Game of Baloney — The green player has reached the finish space. They have won the game.

The Game of Baloney FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

192 Baloney Cards
24 Betting Cards
6 Pawns
Game Board
Instructions

Year: 2014 | Publisher: TDC Games | Designer: Larry Balsamo, Sandra Bergeson

Genres: Bluffing, Party, Trivia

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-6 | Length of Game: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.