Insane Drinking Games You Should Never Play

Probably about five minutes after mankind drank its first bit of alcohol, it also invented the first drinking game. That's because for the most part, the more you drink, the more fun is had (not necessarily by the drinker). Drinking games are like a form of formalized peer pressure, but mostly just excuses to get totally messed up. Some, however, get you more messed up than should be allowed, such as the following games you'd have to be crazy to try.

If you watch people run a marathon and think to yourself "I need a drink," then you're probably only a few insane steps away from playing kastenlauf. This is a German drinking game that takes the worst aspects of both exercise and drinking, and combines them into some sort of drunken Hell march ... in the name of "fun."

The rules require teams of two people to drink their way through a crate of beer—to make it more interesting, they have to do it while running an eight-mile race. To win the "game," your team not only has to get to the finish line first, but needs to have drunk all the beer before you get there. So you have a choice of drinking it first, then trying to stumble-walk eight miles completely wasted; drag a full crate of beer to the finish line as fast as you can, then chug like you've never chugged before; or, just amble along as fast as you can while simultaneously drinking the beer, trying your hardest to not cramp up forever. What the winner gets (other than an incredible hangover) isn't clear, but nevertheless, this game is so popular that actual organised events have been "running" in Munich since 1982. It's probably safe to assume the finish line is nowhere near the city center.

The Yachtsman Stuntman Slam is inherently dangerous to play, though the danger is completely integral to the game. Allegedly originating with the British Royal Marines, the first and most important ingredient is a yacht, preferably a small and stationary one. You will also need tequila, salt, lemon slices, and something to make fire with—and if those ingredients don't make you cringe, then you're probably Royal Marine material.

The whole thing starts as if you are about to do a standard tequila slammer, but then takes a giant step to the left. You snort a line of salt, squeeze the lemon in your eye, then knock back the shot—but don't swallow it! With the tequila in your mouth, you dive overboard, swim under the yacht (this is where you're glad you couldn't afford a bigger yacht), then climb out and spit the tequila back into the glass ... and set it ablaze. Drink the tequila while it's burning, then press the hot glass against your chest so that, as the air inside cools, the glass gets sucked onto your skin and stays there. Presumably the prize for successfully completing that challenge is survival.

Bear Paw—hailing from Russia—exists for but one purpose: unconsciousness, or the closest equivalent. This "game" requires a large beer glass, cheap beer, and cheap vodka. Fill the glass with beer and stand in a circle. The glass gets passed around the circle and each person takes a drink as it comes to them—before they pass it on to the next person, they top up the glass with vodka. As the glass goes around the circle, the beer is slowly replaced by vodka until the glass's contents are completely clear, at which point the sequence reverses and the glass now gets topped off with beer as the vodka gets consumed.

There are only two reasons this game is better than just downing a bottle of vodka until you pass out: you're doing it with friends, and you don't have to wash many glasses the next day. However, since you'll undoubtedly be cleaning tons vomit off your floors and tables, the lack of dishwashing may not be much compensation.

Apart from the shared use of metal money, there's little similarity between Irish Quarters and the American game of the same name. The Irish game has fewer rules, for one, and a lot more drinking. To play this game (which you really shouldn't do) you sit around a table, spin a coin, and chug like your life depends on it (it really doesn't). If you can empty and refill your glass, then catch the coin before it stops spinning, you get to ... brag, basically. Then, you pass the coin to the next player—if they don't make it, they have to finish their drink anyway, and try again. Everyone's a winner (nobody really wins).

If you've ever watched Edward Scissorhands, and wondered what happened when he went to the bathroom, this might be the game for you. Everyone starts with two forty-ounce bottles of whatever they want—usually malt liquor—which are then duct-taped to the player's hands. In order to regain the use of their hands for such things as going to the bathroom, answering the phone, or opening the door to escape a fire, they must first completely empty both bottles. This inevitably leaves the player with the choice of either pacing (and possibly wetting) themselves, or chugging the booze as fast as possible and definitely wetting themselves, because they now lack the necessary motor control to do anything else.

Possibly the best drinking game ever (for spectators, anyway), Gelande Quaffing also looks like a lot of fun to play, as long as you're not paying for all the spilled beer and broken glassware. There's also the risk of having so much fun, you decide to enter the world championships in Wyoming—yes, that is actually a thing.

The rules are as follows: get a friend to slide a beer down a ten-foot-long bar top, wait for it to fly off the edge, catch the glass before it hits the ground, pound the contents, repeat. Team members take turns catching and drinking the beer, and extra points are awarded for more elaborate catches. Add a second bar top, a team of challengers, and a time limit, and you have the beginnings of a long messy night of drunken debauchery—just don't do it in your own home.