How to play charades

Charades is the classic no-equipment party game: one player acts out a word or phrase in total silence while their team races the clock to guess it. Here is everything you need to run a great game — the rules, the classic hand signals, the most popular variations, and a few tips to keep the whole room laughing.

What you need

• Four or more players, split into two teams (it scales happily to a big group).
• A list of words to act out — grab some from our charades words list, or let an app deal them so nobody sees the answers in advance.
• A timer — one minute per turn is the classic setting.
• Something to keep score — a scrap of paper or your phone.

The basic rules, step by step

1. Split into two teams. Each team takes turns sending one player up to act.
2. The actor draws a word in secret — the opposing team, an app, or a bowl of folded slips picks it so their own team cannot see it.
3. Start the timer and act it out in silence. No talking, no mouthing words, no pointing at objects in the room.
4. The actor's team shouts guesses until they get it or the minute runs out.
5. Score a point for every word guessed in time, then pass play to the other team.
6. Keep rotating actors so everyone gets a turn. Most points after an agreed number of rounds wins.

Classic charades hand signals

Before acting, players use a shared set of silent signals to frame the clue. These are worth agreeing on up front:

• Number of words — hold up fingers for how many words are in the phrase.
• Which word — hold up fingers again to show which word you are about to act (word one, word two…).
• Number of syllables — tap that many fingers on your forearm.
• "Sounds like" — cup a hand behind your ear.
• "Whole thing" — sweep your arms in a big circle to signal you are acting the entire phrase at once.
• "Close!" — wave a hand to pull guessers toward a nearly-right answer.

Popular charades variations

Half the fun is bending the rules. These are the variations groups reach for most — each one is also a built-in mode in Shout Party:

• Describe it (no gestures): instead of acting, describe the word out loud without saying the word itself or any part of it — the forbidden-word twist.
• Speed round: a short per-word timer with an auto-skip, so teams blitz through as many words as they can.
• Draw it: sketch the word instead of acting — no talking, no letters or numbers on the page.
• One sentence only: you may say a single sentence to get your team there — choose it carefully.
• Streak bonus: reward momentum by adding bonus time every few correct answers in a row.
• Bet on it: before the round, a team wagers points on how many words they think they can nail — make the bid and win big, miss it and lose the stake.

Tips for a better game

• Mix easy and hard words so every turn has a fighting chance — see our sorted word lists.
• Deal words blind. The actor should not pick their own word; surprise is where the comedy lives.
• Agree on the signals first so nobody wastes their minute explaining the rules mid-turn.
• Keep teams even. Balanced team sizes keep the score meaningful.
• Set a round limit up front so the game has a clear finish and a clear winner.

Skip the prep

Writing slips, watching the clock and tracking score by hand is the tedious part. Shout Party handles all of it: it deals words nobody has seen, runs the round timer, tallies the score, and ships the variations above as ready-to-play modes — in 29 languages, fully offline.