Believe It or Not
Believe It or Not is a storytelling game in which one player tells a story that is either true or entirely invented, and the audience or fellow players must determine which. The storyteller delivers the narrative with equal conviction regardless of its veracity, making the game a test of performance commitment and audience perception. The game rewards detailed, specific delivery and the ability to sell a narrative through confidence, body language, and emotional authenticity. For audiences and fellow players, the game sharpens critical listening and observation. Believe It or Not functions as both a performance game and a training exercise, building skills in storytelling, character conviction, and the relationship between truth and believability in performance.
Structure
One player stands before the group or audience. The player decides privately whether they will tell a true personal story or invent a fictional one. In some versions, the facilitator or a card determines whether the story must be true or false.
The storyteller delivers a two-to-four-minute narrative, committing fully to the story's reality regardless of whether it actually happened. True stories should be told without the hedging or self-deprecation that often accompanies personal anecdotes. Invented stories should include the specific sensory details, emotional reactions, and unexpected turns that characterize genuine experience.
After the story concludes, the audience or group votes on whether the story was true or invented. The storyteller then reveals the answer. In some performance versions, the host tallies correct guesses and a running score is maintained.
The game can be played with multiple storytellers in rotation, with each player telling one story per round. Some versions feature a panel format where three players each tell a story about the same topic, with only one story being true and the audience guessing which storyteller is being honest.
The game concludes after each player has told a story or after a set number of rounds.
How to Teach It
How to Explain It
"One player tells a story. It is either completely true or completely invented. Everyone else listens. At the end, you decide: true or not? The storyteller commits to the story whether it happened or not."
Believe It or Not is an effective exercise for developing several performance skills simultaneously: storytelling structure, physical conviction, and the performer's relationship to truth.
Coach storytellers to find stories (both true and invented) that contain at least one surprising or counterintuitive element. A completely ordinary story is difficult for the audience to evaluate and makes for unengaging viewing. A story with one unusual turn gives the audience something to analyze.
For invented stories, coach performers to build from a foundation of truth. Starting with a real setting, real people, or a real emotional situation and then diverging into fiction produces more convincing invented stories than building entirely from imagination.
For true stories, coach performers to resist the urge to undersell. Many performers unconsciously signal "this is true" through apologetic delivery or excessive qualifiers. The exercise teaches that truth told with confidence is more engaging than truth told with hedging.
A common failure mode occurs when the audience focuses on catching the performer in logical inconsistencies rather than enjoying the stories. Remind the audience that the game is about the quality of the telling, not about becoming human lie detectors.
The exercise is particularly useful for performers preparing for monologue-based formats like the Armando, where the ability to tell engaging true stories under performance pressure is essential.
How to Perform It
The game works with any number of performers, though the panel format with three storytellers is the strongest performance version because it gives the audience multiple narratives to compare.
The key performance skill is commitment to specificity. Both true and invented stories succeed or fail based on the density of concrete detail. A storyteller who says "the group went to a restaurant" is less convincing than one who says "the group went to this Italian place on Elm Street with the red checkered tablecloths." Specificity signals truthfulness to an audience, so the invented stories must match the detail level of the true ones.
Body language and vocal delivery are as important as the story's content. Audiences unconsciously read physical comfort, eye contact patterns, and pacing for signs of deception. Performers telling invented stories must maintain the same physical ease as when telling true ones.
The game produces its best comedy in the reveal. When an audience confidently votes that a wild story is invented and the storyteller reveals it was true, or when a mundane story turns out to be fabricated, the surprise generates strong reactions. Storytellers who understand this dynamic choose stories that play against expectations.
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Tell the Truth
Tell the Truth is a game in which a small group of performers privately construct a mix of true personal stories and invented ones, then present them all as true while observers attempt to identify which account is genuine. The game teaches that specificity and conviction make any story believable, and that the most implausible-sounding detail is often the true one. It develops honest performance and the actor's capacity to fully inhabit invented material.
Rumors
Rumors is a scene game in which a piece of information passes through a chain of performers, each of whom retells it to the next in a brief two-person scene. The message transforms with each retelling as performers misunderstand, embellish, or omit details, until the final version bears little resemblance to the original. The game dramatizes the mechanics of gossip and gives performers a visceral understanding of how information distorts through social transmission.
Before or After
Before or After is a short-form game in which performers present a scene, then the audience calls out whether they want to see what happened "before" or "after" the events just depicted. The performers create a new scene that logically connects to the original, revealing backstory or consequences that recontextualize what the audience already witnessed. The game can cycle through multiple rounds, with the audience driving the story forward or backward in time. Before or After trains narrative construction, temporal awareness, and the ability to expand a story in either direction while maintaining internal consistency. The game rewards performers who plant details in early scenes that pay off when the timeline shifts.
Expert
Expert is a short-form game in which a performer plays a world-renowned authority on a topic suggested by the audience, fielding questions with total confidence regardless of actual knowledge. The comedy emerges from the contrast between the character's unwavering certainty and the absurdity of the claims. Scene partners or audience members ask questions, and the expert responds with authoritative detail, treating every answer as established fact. The game rewards commitment, verbal fluency, and the willingness to build elaborate fictions without hesitation.
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How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Believe It or Not. Retrieved October 14, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/believe-it-or-not
The Improv Archive. "Believe It or Not." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/believe-it-or-not.
The Improv Archive. "Believe It or Not." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/believe-it-or-not. Accessed October 14, 2026.
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