How to play charades
Charades is old enough that almost everyone has played a version of it, and almost every group plays it slightly differently. Here are the rules as most people know them, the hand signals that stop arguments before they start, and the variations worth trying once the standard game gets easy.
What you need
People, something to write on, and a timer. Four players is the practical minimum for teams; two can play informally by taking turns. You do not need a board, a box or an app — although if you would rather skip the writing entirely, upheads deals the words and runs the timer for you.
If you are doing it on paper, everyone writes three or four words on separate slips and folds them into a bowl. Writing your own is half the fun, and it produces better words than any pre-made list because they come from inside the group. If you would rather not spend twenty minutes on setup, take them from our charades word lists.
The basic rules
- Split into two teams. Uneven numbers are fine — the smaller team just repeats a player.
- One player from the acting team takes a slip without showing it to anyone.
- They have 60 seconds to get their own team to say the exact word or phrase.
- They may not speak, mouth words, or make any sound. No pointing at objects in the room that give the answer away either.
- If the team guesses correctly before time runs out, they score a point.
- Play passes to the other team. First team to ten points wins, or play a fixed number of rounds.
That is the whole game. Everything below is detail that comes up once people start arguing.
The hand signals
These exist so the actor can explain the shape of the answer without speaking. They are worth teaching to a new group in the first two minutes; they save far more time than they cost.
- Number of words: hold up that many fingers.
- Which word you are doing: hold up fingers again — three fingers means "I am now acting the third word".
- Number of syllables: lay that many fingers on your forearm.
- Which syllable: same, fingers on the forearm.
- "Sounds like": cup a hand behind your ear. Then act out a rhyming word.
- "The whole thing": draw a big circle in the air with both hands.
- Shorter word: hold your hands close together, palms facing. Longer: pull them apart.
- "You're close": wave a hand towards yourself to say keep going.
- Small connecting words (a, the, of): make a "T" with your hands for "the", or just skip them — most groups let these go.
Categories have their own gestures in some house rules — cranking an old film camera for a film, drawing a rectangle for a book, pretending to sing for a song. Agree on them before you start or skip them entirely.
Scoring
The simplest scoring is one point per correct guess, first to ten. Two alternatives are worth knowing. Timed scoring: instead of one word per turn, the actor gets through as many as they can in sixty seconds and scores a point for each — much faster, and better for large groups. Time-remaining scoring: the team scores the number of seconds left on the clock, which rewards speed and makes the last thirty seconds tense.
The arguments, settled
Can you mouth the word? No. This is the rule people break most often and the one worth enforcing, because once mouthing is allowed the game stops being charades.
Does the guess have to be exact? Traditionally yes, but most groups accept a guess that is obviously the right answer with a wrong article or plural. Decide before you start, not after someone has said "the lion king" instead of "lion king".
Can the actor use props? House rule. Using objects that happen to be in the room is usually allowed; fetching something from another room is usually not.
What if the actor does not know the word? Let them swap once per game. A player mining a film they have never seen is nobody's idea of fun.
Can the acting team ask questions? They can shout guesses freely — that is the point — but the actor cannot answer anything except with the standard signals.
Variations worth trying
Fishbowl (three rounds, one bowl)
Everyone writes slips as usual. Round one: describe the word in full sentences, no limits except saying the word itself. Round two: the same slips, but you may say only one word. Round three: the same slips again, mime only. Because the room has already heard every slip twice, round three becomes a sort of shared shorthand and is reliably the funniest fifteen minutes of an evening.
Reverse charades
The whole team acts and one player guesses. It removes the stage fright that stops shy players joining in, and it is chaos in the best way with six people miming the same thing at once.
Forehead charades
Instead of the actor knowing the word, the guesser holds it to their forehead where everyone else can see it — and the room describes or acts it out against a timer. This is the version most party apps use, including upheads, and it is much easier to run with a big group because everybody on the team is involved at once. Read more about it on our Who Am I? page.
Silent movie
Two or three actors perform a whole scene rather than a single title. Slower, more theatrical, and a good closer for a group that has warmed up.
How to pick words that work
The most common way to ruin a round is a bad word rather than a bad actor. A good charades word is actable (there is something to physically perform), known to most of the room, and quick to reach. Concrete nouns and actions are easiest; abstract ideas are hardest. Names of people work well because you can mime what they are famous for.
Match the difficulty to the group rather than to your own taste. A film released last month will beat a classic if the group is young, and the reverse is true if it is not. Our word lists are organised by category with a note on who each one suits.
Playing with children
Drop the syllable signals — they are more rules than a six-year-old wants — and use a thirty-second timer instead of sixty. Animals, jobs and simple actions all work; films and idioms do not. Put an adult on each team with the younger players, and let children act rather than guess: acting is easier and considerably more fun at that age. There are more ideas on our family game night page.
Running it for a large group
Above about ten people, individual turns leave most of the room waiting. Split into teams of four or five, keep every round to sixty seconds and use timed scoring so each turn covers several words. Our guide to party games for large groups goes into how to keep a crowd moving.
Frequently asked questions
How many people do you need for charades?
Four is the practical minimum for two teams, though two people can play informally by taking turns. It works well up to about twenty if you split into teams of four or five and use a timer.
How long is a charades turn?
Sixty seconds is standard. Some groups use two minutes for harder categories, and thirty seconds works better with young children. Whatever you choose, keep it the same for both teams.
Are you allowed to talk in charades?
No. The actor may not speak, mouth words or make sounds. Their team may shout guesses freely. Mouthing the word is the rule most often broken and the one most worth enforcing.
What are the charades hand signals?
Fingers for the number of words and which word you are on, fingers on the forearm for syllables, a hand cupped behind the ear for 'sounds like', and a circle drawn in the air for 'the whole thing'.
How do you score charades?
One point per correct guess, first to ten, is the simplest. Alternatives are scoring one point per word cleared within a sixty-second turn, or scoring the number of seconds left on the clock.
What is the difference between charades and Heads Up?
In charades the actor knows the word and mimes it silently. In Heads Up-style games the guesser holds the word to their forehead and the rest of the room describes or acts it out, usually against a timer.