Questions to Ask a Crystal Ball
Twenty questions for a crystal ball, whether it is a glass sphere on a velvet cloth, a fairground booth, a party game, or a quiet ten minutes on your own. Includes what makes a question land, what makes one fizzle, and how to run a session for other people without it turning awkward.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
Am I on the right road?
A good opener because it is broad enough that nobody has to expose anything, and because watching which part of their life someone pictures while they ask it tells you where their attention already was.
- 2
What is coming that I have not noticed yet?
The classic shape for a crystal ball, and it works because it invites a description rather than a verdict. Follow it by asking what the asker hopes it is, which is usually the more interesting answer.
- 3
Show me a year from Tuesday.
Small, specific horizons produce stranger and better answers than grand ones. Distant futures invite clichés about success and travel, while a near date makes people describe an actual kitchen, an actual commute, an actual person.
- 4
Who is thinking about me right now?
The question everyone secretly wants asked. Its value is not the answer but the first name that surfaces before the answer arrives, which is rarely the one the asker would have said out loud.
- 5
Will it work out?
Almost nobody says what it is, and that is the point. Ask which it they meant. People arrive at a crystal ball with one specific unresolved thing, and this question makes them name it.
- 6
Is there money coming?
Traditional, slightly greedy, and unfailingly popular. Worth following with what the asker would actually do with it, since that answer says considerably more about them than any prophecy would.
- 7
What does my dog think of me?
The comic relief question, and it earns its place because a session that is entirely earnest gets heavy fast. Substitute cat, sibling or barista as needed. Nobody has ever answered this one briefly.
- 8
What am I about to be wrong about?
Sharper than asking for advice, because it presumes the error rather than debating whether there is one. People usually have a candidate ready and have simply not said it aloud to anyone.
- 9
What should I stop waiting for?
Most stalled situations are stalled on a specific condition: a message, a promotion, someone changing their mind. Naming the condition is often the whole benefit of asking, and the ball can take the credit.
- 10
Which of my friends will I still know in twenty years?
Sounds light, lands heavy. Ask it in a group only if the group is close, because the honest version involves saying whose name did not come to mind. In private it is one of the more clarifying questions here.
- 11
What is the boring answer?
A useful correction after a run of dramatic ones. Fortunes drift toward the cinematic, and asking for the mundane version usually produces the answer that is actually true: sleep more, call her back, finish the first draft.
- 12
What did I get right that I never gave myself credit for?
Crystal balls are assumed to face forward, so pointing one backward is a small surprise. People find this one much harder to answer than the predictions, which is itself worth noticing.
- 13
Who needs to hear from me?
Of everything on this list, this is the question most likely to result in an actual phone call. If you are running the session, this is a fine place to slow down and let the silence do the work.
- 14
What am I pretending not to know?
The heaviest question on the list and the one to place late. Expect a long pause. If the asker laughs it off, let them, and do not press, because this one only works when it is volunteered.
- 15
How does this chapter end?
Framing a situation as a chapter rather than a life implies it ends and something follows, which is often the reassurance people came for. It also produces better answers than asking about the future in general.
- 16
What will next year's version of me be grateful I did?
Turns a prophecy into a decision without sounding like advice. The answers are usually small and dull and correct, which is exactly why the crystal ball framing helps them land.
- 17
Is there anyone I should be less patient with?
An unusual angle, since most fortune-telling questions ask for more patience rather than less. It gives people permission to say something they have been carefully not saying, and they generally take it.
- 18
What is the thing I keep circling back to?
Everyone has one. Asking the ball rather than the person removes the defensiveness, because the answer is being attributed to the glass rather than confessed to the room.
- 19
What are you not telling me?
The dramatic close, and the traditional one. It gives the reader or the asker room for one last thought that did not fit anywhere else, which is usually the one they most wanted to say.
- 20
Now ask me something.
Ends the session by reversing it. Whoever is holding the ball asks the asker one question back, and by this point in a session that question is nearly always better than any of the ones on this list.
Running a crystal ball session
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Setting it up
Setting it up
- 1Pick a spot with one light source. A ball on a dark cloth with a single lamp behind the viewer is the whole effect, and it costs nothing.
- 2Agree the rules first: one question each, or three, and whether anyone can pass. Sessions go sideways when the rules are invented mid-game.
- 3Decide who is reading. It works better with one person as the reader for a whole round rather than passing it after every question.
- 4Give people a moment to think of their question before starting. The first question is always the worst one if it is improvised.
- 5Have a clear end. Say in advance that the last question is the last one, so nobody has to be the person who stops it.
Questions that work and questions that fizzle
Questions that work and questions that fizzle
- Open shapes beat yes and no. What and who and show me produce descriptions; will I produces a coin flip.
- Near futures beat distant ones. Next month is vivid, in ten years is a horoscope.
- One subject per question. Compound questions about love and money and work at once get answered as none of them.
- Questions the asker already half knows the answer to are the ones that land. That is not cheating, it is the whole mechanism.
- Avoid asking about other people's health, deaths or diagnoses. It sours a room instantly and there is nothing good on the other side of it.
If you are the one holding the ball
If you are the one holding the ball
- Describe rather than pronounce. A room, a season, a color, a sound. Specific images invite the asker to finish the picture themselves.
- Say less than you want to. The silence after a short answer is where the asker does the interesting part.
- Watch their face and follow what moved. That is the actual skill, and it has nothing to do with the glass.
- Never deliver bad news as certainty, even in a game. A joke about a breakup lands differently on someone who is three days from one.
- If someone gets emotional, drop the voice and the theatrics immediately and just talk to them.