How to Throw Your Own Traitors Party

This season of Traitors features 23 contestants, made up of reality TV stars, celebrities, and competition winners. For your own game, we’d recommend splitting that number of players in half and inviting over 10-15 friends. 

In a typical season, there are roughly 10 to 12 roundtable sessions, whittling down the players over 8 weeks of TV. When hosting your own party, we suggest scheduling the treachery for a single day or evening. Think about it this way—the more people involved, the longer the game will last. 

Before the game even begins, you will need to select a host or narrator for the evening—they will be the Alan Cumming. Whether the person hosting assumes this role or another person altogether is entirely up to you. 

Just know that whoever is selected will not be participating in the game, but rather guiding the play, moving players from event to event, ultimately making sure everything runs smoothly. It’s the role with the most responsibility, but also the most crucial!

It’ll be up to the host to choose the Faithfuls and Traitors. To summarize, the role of the Faithfuls is to find the Traitors among the group and banish them by the end of the game. While the Traitors are trying to evade banishment and survive the game. Simple enough—but, as we know, it’s how participants play that brings the chaos!

On the day people are scheduled to come over, we’d suggest letting the Traitors know they’ll be playing the game as Traitors. Whether you want to put them all in a group chat or message them individually is totally up to you—but we advise no pregame strategizing. If you simply want to choose Traitors the old-fashioned way at the Round Table, that works too, but this method avoids any confusion. 

Round Tables are easily the most exciting part of the game, where contestants gather to discuss who they think is a Traitor and banish them from the castle. 

For your own game, you’ll need a similar central space—for banishments, murders, and missions. A dining table works perfectly, but sitting around in a circle will also do the trick. 

Even if the Traitors already know they’re Traitors, you’ll still have to gather all the players around the Round Table—so everyone is aware of their role. Ask each of your friends to bring a blindfold or some kind of thick material to cover their eyes. 

The host will then, in silence, walk around the table and squeeze the shoulders of the chosen Traitors. 

Once the host has made their selections, they will advise all players to remove their blindfolds. Let your friends know that if they didn’t feel a squeeze, they will play the game as a Faithful. 

Throughout the game, we recommended having three of each component—missions, murders, and roundtables (not including the finale). The Round Tables, where players deliberate on who they think is a Traitor, will follow the missions, and we’d suggest limiting the conversation to 5-10 minutes. 

As we’ve seen, these discussions can get very heated in the castle, and so the host will need to intervene for time’s sake. 

Once the allotted time runs out, each player must vote and announce their choice and why, one at a time. We recommend buying mini chalkboards or whiteboards, like the ones they use in the game, so players can record and reveal their votes. 

Whoever has the most votes is banished from the game and must head to the Circle of Truth—this is the moment where Alan Cumming says, “Before you leave my castle forever, please reveal to us. Are you a Faithful? Or a Traitor?”

 For drama, the banished player can stand under an archway or a door before storming off, leaving the others to unravel. 

If you don’t have a turret where traitors can gather, no worries, we’ve come up with another method for murders. There are a few ways to conduct the murders, but to keep it simple, we recommend that they directly follow the banishment. 

The host should advise everyone to put on their blindfolds, and once their eyes are covered, the Traitors may take theirs off. 

From there, they must secretly point and mouth at the player whom they collectively want to murder. You can also play music during this moment, to further throw off the Faithfuls. 

Once the Traitors are in agreement, they must put their blindfolds back on before everyone takes them off at the same time. 

The host will then reveal which player has been murdered, however dramatically they prefer. We suggest either printing out headshots as they do in the show, or taking polaroids of your guests as they arrive, for the host to cross out after each murder. 

Murdered and banished players can still be involved, whether you want to allow them to be involved in challenges or even help the Traitors. 

Ultimately, they’ll be in the position we're in, as viewers watching The Traitors, which, as we know, has its own fun and benefits!

In the show, the Missions are times when the Faithfuls and Traitors must come together to win a series of challenges for the chance to add money to the prize fund. Players also have the opportunity to earn immunity by attaining shields. 

During the actual show, the challenges are over-the-top, with many having a physical component, but if you’re hosting the game in your living room, they can be much simpler.

There are so many options for missions, but we’ve put together a few for you to try out. Again, we recommend having three missions throughout the game, with the first taking place after the Traitor's selection. 

In the first challenge of season four, players had to search a lake with 100 coffins, find the 12 that were worth gold, and place them in an empty grave of one of the remaining players. Talk about elaborate! Our version is much simpler, and, well, low-budget. 

Before guests arrive, print out pictures of coffins and write each person’s name on one. Set them out on the central table or meeting point. Then, hide plastic coins throughout your home. 

Players must search for the coins and return with only one or two at a time. Then they must place the coins on a player's coffin and head out to find more. 

After three minutes, any player who ends up with 10 or more coins on their coffin is “up for murder.” Since this is the first challenge, there are no shields up for grabs.

The host will begin by splitting the players into two groups. From there, they’ll post a series of “Who is most likely to…” questions. Think: Who is most likely to lie?  Or even Who is most likely to be a traitor? 

After a brief discussion period, each player must cast their vote. 

The person who receives the most votes in that round is eliminated from the challenge, and the process repeats until only two players remain. Those final two contestants each earn a shield, keeping them safe from murder, while everyone else is vulnerable.

There are so many games inspired by Minute to Win It that work perfectly as missions. In fact, if you want to keep up the pace of the game, making every challenge just one minute long is a great way to go. 

For this challenge, have each player choose a partner. One teammate will attempt to stack marshmallows, while the other stands by as an encourager. No assisting, just moral support.

At the end of one minute, the team with the tallest free-standing marshmallow stack wins. They will win a coveted shield and safety from murder.

Whenever the players on The Traitors aren’t bickering at the Round Table or heavy lifting in missions, they’re usually snacking, snipping, and gossiping. We recommend kicking things off with dinner to keep energy and spirits up through the game, but scheduling snack breaks throughout will also hit the spot. 

Just make sure there’s enough smoked salmon. 

Plan for three breaks total, each about 10 minutes long. Ideally, place them between full rounds of gameplay (a mission, followed by banishment and then murder). Alliances and scheming are encouraged, of course.  

After all, half the game happens when no one is officially playing.

Depending on how many players you have, plan for three to four rounds of gameplay—each consisting of a mission, a banishment, a murder, and snack time, if preferred—until only 3–5 players remain. 

For the final banishment, the remaining players face a crucial choice: end the game immediately or continue voting people out until they’re confident no Traitors remain.

To decide whether to continue banishing players, the host will ask each to secretly write “yes” or “no” on their chalkboard. “Yes” means they want to keep voting, while “no” means they believe there are no Traitors left and want to end the game. If even one player votes “yes,” another banishment must be held until everyone votes “no.” 

The game ends only when every player votes “no” unanimously or when two players remain. If any players are banished, they must not reveal their identity, as is done in the show. 

When the game ends, the remaining players must reveal their true identities. If the group ends the game and a Traitor is still in their midst, the Traitors win. Whereas if all the Traitors are banished, the Faithfuls prevail!

Now you’re all set to have a night of chaos, deceit, and altogether fun. But remember, it’s just a game!

Featured image: Peacock