Rulebook for ‘Boar on the Floor’ [Succession]

In the infamous Boar on the Floor scene in Succession. Greg gets frustrated because he gets told to sit on the floor after he thought he gave the right answer. “But those are the rules!” he claimed. To which Logan replied, “There are no rules.” But what if there were rules. As best as can be discerned, what follows is the Rulebook for ‘Boar on the Floor.”

Objective:

The object of the game is to find the Boar. The player declared as the Boar is the loser. Everyone else is declared not the loser.

Preparation:

Gather all of your closest colleagues and family that you suspect of secretly striving for ends contrary to your own. Provide them with a lot of liquor to slow their thought and lower their defenses. At the same time, prepare two sausages (or more) and keep them warmed and off to the side. Then lock the doors and refuse to let anyone leave. Have all players take a seat at the table while you stand over them menacingly.

How to Play

The Questioning:

Gameplay begins with a round of questioning. Choose a question that gets to the heart of the player’s supposed fealty to your cause (i.e. ‘Do you agree with ________?’ or ‘What do you think about ________?’). Once you have selected a question, choose any player at random and ask them the question. Ask as many people as it takes to come up with your desired number of Boars on the Floor (must be one more than the number of sausages prepared).

The Selecting:

After each player answers the question, the question-asker must decide if the answer was satisfactory or not. The criteria for judging the answers can be predetermined or made up on the fly. It is also encouraged that the criteria take into account how the question-asker feels about the player who answers in that given moment.

If the question-asker determines the answer is satisfactory, they let the player be and ask the question to a new player. If they deem the answer unsatisfactory, they declare, “Boar on the Floor,” and the player must sit on the floor off to the side. This process continues until the desired number of piggies are on the floor.

Boars on the Floor:

Once the desired number of piggies are on the floor, gameplay moves to the floor area. The players not on the floor must begin a chant of ‘Boor on the Floor,’ once they do so, the piggies must walk around on all fours, oinking like a pig. Once they have done so for a satisfactory amount of time, the question-asker grabs the sausages (there should always be one less than the number of boars)

The question asker tosses the sausages onto the floor and makes the piggies fight for their sausages. It is up to the Boars to fight for one of the sausages by any means necessary, scratching, stealing, and pushing are all acceptable means of acquiring a sausage. The one piggie who does not grab a sausage is declared the Boar and the Floor and is subjected to humiliation and ridicule by all the other players present.

Strategy

Question-asker:

The question-asker should focus on being as volatile and unpredictable as possible. Be judicious about who you ask your questions to and take your time before selecting. Survey the room with as much hatred as you can muster. But most of all, never let the people know what type of answer you are looking for. In fact, switching up your criteria from player to player may be a good idea. Put a piggie on the floor even though they had a good answer. It’s all good, because it all creates fear and dissention in those you work with and love.

Players:

Answer the question with as much honesty as possible, but also take into account how the question-asker feels about you. An honest answer isn’t always the best answer, sometimes you need to just get in line and tell the question-asker what they want to hear. If the question-asker chooses you to answer a question, be sure to show an appropriate amount of deference, but not too much fear. Fear is a sure-fire way to end up on the floor.

If you are selected to be a piggie, there is no good way to commence. It’s probably better to not end up the Boar, but at the point where you are crawling on your hands and knees, oinking and wrestling for sausages, does it really even matter? It’s probably better to just wake up the next morning and pretend you were too drunk to remember any of it.

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