There are differences in the game of Balderdash that I learned to play - perhaps because the game is called "Absolute" Balderdash, perhaps because it's an Australian edition, who knows. But anyway, here are the small, but significant, differences.
Instead of just trying to find definitions for obscure words, there are four additional bluffing topics: Dates (something famous happened on this date in history; what was it?), People (what was this person famous, infamous, or just well-known for?), Initials (what do these initials stand for?) and Movies (what was the plot of this movie?). I still remember one time when Deejah wrote that one Person (can't remember the name) is famous for "inventing jeans for your penis".
When my family play the game we never worry about scoring, so we never use the game board. We are all winners when we come out of it because we've all had a good laugh, we've all made people laugh, and generally just had a great time. Apparently, this is a very widely-known variation. Everything else is pretty much the same: scoring system, the concept of "dasher", the ability of the game to turn a social evening into uproarious chaos...