How to Play Charades

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Charades is a team guessing game in which players take turns miming a word or phrase, using only gesture and movement, while their teammates shout out guesses. It requires no equipment beyond slips of paper and a timer, which is a large part of why it has endured as a staple of parties, family gatherings and classroom breaks for generations.

People love it because the skill ceiling is surprisingly high, the embarrassment threshold is blessedly low, and it scales instantly from six players to twenty. It works equally well in a living room after dinner or as an icebreaker at a work event, and it costs nothing to run.

A little history

Charades as a spoken riddle game was documented in France during the eighteenth century and was popular in British drawing rooms by the early nineteenth century, appearing in print in periodicals and parlour game collections of that era. The silent, acted version that most people play today became widespread in Britain during the twentieth century, though the precise point at which miming replaced spoken clues is not clearly recorded. Its origins as a fully silent game are unclear; the transition appears to have been gradual and regional rather than the result of any single codified rule change.

Setting up

1. Divide players into two teams of roughly equal size. Odd players out join the smaller team.
2. Each player writes two or three words or phrases on separate slips of paper, folds them, and drops them into a shared bowl. Agree beforehand on a category or leave it open.
3. Agree on a time limit per turn, typically 60 or 90 seconds, and decide how many rounds you will play or set a target score.
4. Decide which team goes first, by coin toss or by whoever most recently watched a film.

How to play

1. A player from the acting team draws a slip from the bowl without showing it to anyone.
2. The actor has up to 15 seconds to read and think before starting. Once they begin, the timer starts.
3. The actor conveys the word or phrase using only silent gesture and mime. No speaking, mouthing words, making letter shapes in the air as letters, or using props.
4. Before miming the content, the actor uses the standard opening signals to indicate the category: film (pretend to crank an old camera), book (open palms like a book), TV show (draw a rectangle in the air), song (mime singing), play (theatrical bow), person or celebrity (hands on hips, striking a pose).
5. To indicate the number of words, hold up that many fingers. To indicate which word you are miming, hold up the word number on your fingers.
6. To signal the number of syllables in a word, place that many fingers on your forearm. To indicate which syllable you are acting, again use fingers on your forearm.
7. To show that a teammate's guess is the right word but the wrong tense or form, rock your hand in a 'so-so' gesture, then keep going.
8. To indicate 'sounds like', cup one hand behind your ear.
9. To signal a short word such as 'a', 'the' or 'of', hold your index finger and thumb close together.
10. Teammates call out guesses continuously and freely throughout the turn. The actor points or gives a thumbs up the instant the correct answer is called.
11. If the phrase is guessed correctly within the time limit, the acting team scores one point and another player from that team takes their turn.
12. If time runs out without a correct guess, the slip goes back in the bowl and no point is scored. Play passes to the other team.
13. Teams alternate turns. Each player on a team should act before any player acts a second time.

Winning and scoring

The team with the most points when all slips have been used wins. If you prefer a target-score format, the first team to reach an agreed number of points, typically 10 or 15, wins instead. There is no universally fixed score; agree the target before play begins. In the event of a tie, each team draws one final slip and the fastest correct guess wins.

The fine points

The most common dispute is over mouthing words. The standard ruling is clear: if a guesser can lip-read the answer, the turn is void and the slip returns to the bowl. Similarly, the actor must not respond to wrong guesses with any facial expression that gives the answer away, such as shaking their head or pulling a face at near-misses. The actor can only signal 'getting warmer' by speeding up their gesture or pointing more urgently, not by nodding at guesses.

A second regular argument concerns whether the correct answer must be called out exactly. The standard position is that the answer must be close enough that a reasonable person would agree it matches, particularly for titles with common short words omitted. If a team guesses the substance of the title correctly, most referees award the point. Where a specific format, such as films only, has been agreed, an answer in the wrong category does not score even if it is otherwise correct.

How to win more often

• Establish the category signal immediately and clearly before anything else. Teams that skip this waste precious seconds guessing the wrong type of thing entirely.
• Break long phrases into individual words and tackle the easiest word first. One correct anchor word unlocks the rest of the phrase far faster than miming the whole thing abstractly.
• Use sounds-like for obscure words rather than struggling to mime an abstract concept directly. 'Sounds like' plus a concrete similar-sounding word is almost always quicker.
• As a guesser, keep calling out variations rather than going silent while you think. The actor can redirect you in real time, so rapid verbal output is more useful than careful deliberation.
• When writing slips, include a mix of difficulty. Very easy slips keep the game moving; very hard ones create the memorable moments. A bowl full of near-impossible phrases turns fun into frustration.

Variations

One-Word Charades

All slips contain a single word rather than a phrase or title. This levels the playing field for younger or less confident players and makes turns shorter and faster. It works especially well in mixed-age groups where long film titles would disadvantage children.

No-Signals Charades

The standard opening signals and syllable conventions are banned. The actor must convey everything through pure mime with no meta-communication. This is a harder version suited to experienced players who find standard Charades too easy, and it tends to produce the funniest moments.

Themed Charades

All slips must fit a single agreed category, such as animals, song titles from a specific decade, or fictional characters. This works well as a party format because it gives every player a shared frame of reference and removes the frustration of obscure personal choices.

Solo Charades

There are no fixed teams. One player acts for the whole group simultaneously and the first person to call the correct answer wins that slip and keeps it as a point. The player with the most slips at the end wins. This format suits smaller groups or informal gatherings where strict team divisions feel too structured.

Charades: frequently asked questions