Why does a wheel make truth or dare fairer?
Because it separates the prompt from the person. The complaint about truth or dare is almost never that the group ran out of ideas — it is that whoever held the list started aiming, and within ten minutes everyone knows who their favourite target is. A prompt that arrives from a wheel cannot have been aimed, and the room watched it not being aimed.
It also changes what an awkward prompt means. When a person picked it, the question is why they picked it; when the wheel picked it, the only thing left to settle is whether you answer. That is a smaller argument, and it is the one the game was supposed to be about. The wheel randomises the prompt rather than the target, though — whose turn it is stays with the group, and a second wheel with the players’ names on it is how you hand that over too.
How do you keep a dare from going too far?
Write the list together, before anyone spins. The wheel enforces nothing: it reads out whatever you typed, to whoever is sitting there, with no idea who is fifteen and who has to work in the morning. Every safeguard in this game is a social one, and the only moment it costs nothing is while the list is still being written.
Two rules do most of the work. Anyone may pass, once, without explaining — and a game where passing is free is a game where nobody has to prove anything. And nothing goes on the list that involves another person’s body, their money, or a photograph that outlives the evening. This page does not supply extreme prompts, because strangers writing prompts for a room they cannot see is the thing the wheel is there to prevent.
Should truths and dares come up equally often?
Not usually, and this wheel starts at two truths for every dare. Dares cost more — somebody has to stand up, leave the room, or ring a person who is asleep — so an evening at one to one runs out of energy long before it runs out of prompts. At two to one the dare stays rare enough to still be an event when it lands.
The ratio is on the rim, so nobody has to take it on trust: a dare segment is half the width of a truth segment, and the percentage beside each entry is the number it actually draws at. If your group wants it the other way round, raise the dares instead — the picture follows the numbers the moment you change them.
What else is this wheel good for?
It is the plain picker wheel with prompts on it, so weights and elimination behave exactly as they do there. When a dare comes down to one straight question — do it or not — the yes or no wheel is two segments and one press.
Swap the prompts for two-option dilemmas and the same evening becomes would you rather. Put the penalty for losing on the wheel instead and it is a forfeit wheel.