Pecking Order

Age: 7 to adult
Players: Groups of three
Time: 10-20 minutes
Skills: Improvisation

Can you work out where you stand in the pecking order?

In groups of three, decide on a situation and three characters, e.g. a surgery, with a doctor, nurse and patient. One person leaves the room and the others decide on their own pecking order or status – 1, 2 or 3. They also decide what status the other person is (without telling them). The person re-enters and the improvisation begins. After a while, the improvisation is stopped and the third person has to guess their own status and that of the other two.

You can make the game more challenging by having two people with the same status. It is most fun if you steer away from the obvious pecking order, e.g. the patient can be 1, the nurse 2 and the doctor 3.

Example characters:

• Detective and two suspects
• Boss, secretary and interviewee
• Television director, scriptwriter and actor.

Play Online:

• Send participants into breakout rooms and give them a time limit to devise an improvisation with a set pecking order. They can choose their own situation and characters or you can tell them in advance. They can perform this to the rest of the group, who should try to guess the order
• Alternatively, play the game with no rehearsal. Secretly tell three or more people their pecking order by using the chat. Give them a situation and characters and off they go!