A debate party game · Launching soon on

Beg to Differ?
You'll fit right in

Nothing wrong with…
being right

Divided by arguments…
united by debates

A game of perspective, wit and persuasion.

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First access when the Kickstarter opens · Early signups get ‘special’ privileges. No spam, a few emails that matter

Beg to Differ ~ Party Edition box
The floor is yours

Go on ~ deal yourself a debate.

A Baseline meets a Kicker, and suddenly there's a hill somebody has to die on.

Baseline

Pigeons are …

+
Kicker

… sinister

36 Baselines × 36 Kickers and 18 Twist cards ~ over 1,200 motions before you even touch the Twist deck.

See it in play

A small game with a lot to say.

A box full of beautiful arguments

How it plays

The whole game, in three moves.

No board, no trivia, no reading the manual aloud. Just cards, a clock, and nerve.

Move one

Make the motion

Flip a Baseline and Kicker card. Together they make the debate: “Small talk is… an art form.” Roles of FOR, AGAINST & MODERATOR are then randomly drawn, not chosen.

Move two

Make your case

Flip a Twist to throw the curveball, then get ready to play ~ FOR opens, then thirty seconds a turn until the clock has run 30–30–30–30.

Move three

Face the room

The moderator calls it. Lose the debate, and you lose one of your three lives. The last two standing contest the final ~ and nothing feels like winning it.

A Baseline and Kicker pair making the motion: fancy dress is… better with friends
The Invent twist card being slapped onto the table mid-game
Friends around a garden table playing Beg to Differ, mid-argument and laughing At the table ~ somebody's about to lose gloriously
Why this game, why now

Three opening arguments.

Because the argument is an endangered art.

We used to argue for the pleasure of it ~ Greeks in the agora, monks in monastery courtyards, families around long tables. Somewhere between the comment section and the algorithm, disagreement stopped being play and became war. This box is a small, beautiful correction.

Because your mind deserves the exercise.

In an age happy to do your thinking for you, forming a position and holding it ~ out loud, under a clock, against a friend on good form ~ may be the most human skill left. This game trains it without ever once feeling like training.

Because it lights up your blind spots.

You'll be handed positions you would never choose, and discover ~ a little unnervingly ~ that you can make them sing. It breeds a rare kind of humility. Anyone who has argued brilliantly on behalf of beige understands that opinions are made, not given.

A spread of Twist cards: Understudy, Sidekick, Impersonate, Detective Mode and Whisper Understudy, Whisper, Detective Mode ~ the Twists at large
The supporting arguments

Still not persuaded?

Fine ~ we'll keep arguing. It's rather the point.

Think for yourself, out loud

We've never had more machines willing to think for us ~ and never needed our own wit more. Beg to Differ is a workout for the one intelligence you can't outsource: forming a view, on your feet, in front of people you like.

The antidote to shouting

The dominant sport of our era is asserting one truth over everyone else's. This game plays the opposite way: you're handed a side, you argue it with everything you've got, and you discover most positions are more defensible ~ and funnier ~ than they look.

Disagreement, the social glue

Headphones off, screens down, chairs pulled in ~ a licence to come back into the room. Eyeball to eyeball, argued out loud, with someone close enough to laugh at you. Turns out difference doesn't divide a table ~ it's what keeps everyone interested in each other. It's the oldest social technology we have.

An ancient sport, revived

The Greeks debated in the agora for the joy of it. Tibetan monks still clap their arguments home in monastery courtyards. Debate was play, philosophy and theatre long before it became televised warfare. We're returning it to the living room.

Beautiful enough to leave out

Most party games are designed to be shoved in a cupboard. This one is designed like an object you'd actually choose: a cloth-textured book-box, foil-stamped gradients, a proper sand timer, an embossed marker bag. If it never left your coffee table, we'd understand. But it will.

The gym your wits have been skipping

Recall, framing, rebuttal, timing ~ every round is a full workout for the thinking muscles, finished before the sand runs out. Play often and notice yourself getting quicker everywhere else: meetings, dinners, difficult relatives.

Building back after truth

A post-truth world is one where asserting has replaced reasoning. But truth was never meant to sit still ~ it gets tested, contested, argued into better shape. That's how it earns its keep, and how we build something closer to the world we actually want.

Quit arguing with the shower head

You already debate daily ~ in the car, in the shower, at 2am against opponents who aren't there and never concede. Bring it to the table instead. Alone, it's called muttering. Together, it's called sport ~ and you can finally, officially, win.

The range

One game. Three moods.

Same rules, very different evenings. Pick your room.

The three Beg to Differ editions standing side by side: Family, Party and Genius

Family

Ages 8+

Silly and safe for all ages. Ten-year-olds beat their parents regularly. Nobody minds.

Party

Ages 15+ · The flagship

Playful, random and gloriously loud ~ the edition most evenings call for.

Genius

Ages 15+

Weird, abstract and genuinely challenging ~ for big brains and bigger claims.

In the wild

A closer look.

The Limited Edition Beg to Differ box in afternoon light
The open box: fitted tray with Baseline, Kicker and Twist decks, sand timer and marker bag
A motion in hand: time machines are… a terrible birthday present
Baseline, Kicker and Twist card backs on cloth
A colourful spread of cards across all three editions
Family Edition cards in play beside the sand timer
The thirty-second sand timer, mid-round
Three generations mid-debate ~ someone is being very theatrical
A hand reaching for the Twist deck as the table reacts
The Genius Edition set laid out: decks, sand timer and marker bag
An evening game ~ the table applauds a winning argument
From the playtable

Early voices

“We started with ‘cereal is a soup’ and somehow ended in genuine philosophy. I want it to happen again.”

PriyaPlaytest No. 4, London

“The quietest person at the table gave a sixty-second defence of queuing that got a standing ovation. This game finds people.”

MarcusPlaytest No. 7, Sydney

“It looks like something from a design store and plays like beautiful chaos. Losing was the funniest part of my week.”

The practical bit

Questions, answered.

36 Baseline cards, 36 Kicker cards and 18 Twist cards, a thirty-second sand timer, a marker bag with markers, and the rules ~ all inside a book-box with a magnetic clasp.

The open Beg to Differ box showing the fitted tray

Flip a Baseline, flip a Kicker ~ together they make the motion (“Pigeons are… sinister”). FOR, AGAINST and MODERATOR are then drawn at random, not chosen. Flip a Twist for the curveball, take thirty seconds to prepare, then FOR opens and the clock runs 30–30–30–30. The moderator calls it. Everyone starts with three lives ~ lose the debate, and you lose one. The last two standing contest the final.

Eighteen ways to bend the format: banned words, required words, mid-debate player swaps, make-your-own-rules, and upside-down rounds where you have to lose the debate to win it. Advanced tables add the raising dice ~ double the stakes, backgammon-style.

Best from three players (two debaters and a moderator) up to about ten. Two players works as head-to-head training. A game runs fifteen minutes to a very loud hour.

We're launching with three. Party is the flagship ~ playful, random and loud. Family is silly and safe for all ages. Genius is weird, abstract and genuinely challenging. All three arrive on Kickstarter together.

Soon ~ and the list hears first. Early-bird pricing is limited and goes to subscribers before anyone else, which is precisely why the email box exists.

Several things: first notice the moment we go live, including special early-in deals and offers. A handful of emails, each worth opening.

Last word

Care to differ?

Join the launch list ~ first through the door when the Kickstarter opens.

You're on the list.If we land in spam, drag us out ~ we'll write when it matters.

First access · early-bird price · no spam, ever