Charades Rules

How Charades works

Charades is a guessing game where one player acts out a word, phrase or title without speaking, while the rest of their team tries to work out the answer.

There is no single official ruleset for Charades, so groups often change the time limit, scoring system and types of phrases used. The basic rule, however, stays the same: the actor cannot talk and must communicate through gestures, movements and facial expressions.

What you need

Charades requires very little equipment. You can make the game as simple or organised as you like.

• Slips of paper: For writing words or phrases.
• Pens: One or more for preparing the clues.
• Two containers: Useful if each team prepares clues for the other.
• Timer: A phone or stopwatch works perfectly.
• Score sheet: Optional if you want to keep track of points.

You can also play without any equipment by having someone choose the words or phrases as you go.

Setting up Charades

Divide everyone into two teams, preferably with roughly the same number of players.

Each team writes a selection of words, titles or phrases on separate pieces of paper. The opposing team will later have to act these out.

Good Charades clues might include:

• films
• books
• TV shows
• songs
• famous phrases
• activities
• objects
• people

Try to choose clues that the other players have a reasonable chance of recognising. Extremely obscure answers tend to make the game frustrating rather than difficult.

Fold the slips so the answers cannot be seen and place each team's clues in a separate container.

How to play Charades

Teams take turns sending one player forward to act.

1. Choose the first actor
   One player from the starting team becomes the actor.

2. Draw a clue
   The actor secretly takes a word or phrase prepared by the opposing team.

3. Start the timer
   Give the actor a few seconds to read the clue before starting the clock.

4. Act out the answer
   The actor uses movements, gestures and facial expressions to communicate the clue without speaking.

5. The team guesses
   Teammates can call out as many guesses as they want while time remains.

6. Stop when the answer is guessed
   If somebody says the complete correct answer, the round ends successfully.

7. Move to the other team
   The opposing team now chooses an actor and plays its round.

Continue until everyone has acted, all clues have been used or you reach the agreed number of rounds.

What are you allowed to do in Charades?

The main challenge is communicating without simply telling your team the answer.

The actor may normally:

• use body movements and facial expressions
• mime actions
• point to parts of their own body
• indicate how many words are in the answer
• show which word they are currently acting
• indicate syllables
• signal that a guess sounds similar to the answer
• react when somebody is getting close

The actor should not speak, whisper or mouth the actual words.

You should also avoid directly spelling the answer unless your group has specifically agreed that letter clues are allowed.

Common Charades hand signals

Traditional Charades uses a number of gestures that make longer phrases much easier to communicate.

You do not have to use every traditional signal. As long as everyone understands the gestures before the game begins, you can create your own.

How long is a Charades round?

There is no universal time limit.

A common choice is one to three minutes per clue. Shorter rounds make the game faster and more competitive, while longer rounds work well when playing with younger players or difficult phrases.

Agree on the time limit before starting so that both teams play under the same conditions.

How do you score Charades?

There are several simple ways to score.

The easiest method is to award 1 point for every clue guessed correctly within the time limit. After an agreed number of rounds, the team with the most points wins.

Another traditional format measures how quickly each team solves its clues. The time taken for every round is added together, and the team with the lowest total time wins.

For casual games, you can skip scoring entirely and simply keep playing until everyone has had a turn.

Choosing good Charades clues

A good clue should be recognisable but still require some creativity to act out.

Avoid making every answer a single easy action such as "running" or "sleeping". Mixing different types of clues makes the game much more interesting.

For example:

• Easy: Spider-Man
• Medium: The Lion King
• Harder: Back to the Future
• Phrase: A piece of cake
• Action: Walking the dog

If children and adults are playing together, adjust the clues so everyone has a realistic chance of recognising them.

Charades rules – quick summary