Games Like Taboo: 10 Word-Describing Games and Their Rules

Most people search for this game by describing it rather than naming it: "the game where you describe a word without saying it". That happens because it is not one game — it is a family of games built on the same idea.

The shared mechanic: one person knows a word, has to convey it, and the most natural way of doing so is forbidden. What separates the games is where the restriction sits.

The best known one. The word to describe comes with five banned words next to it, and the describer cannot use any of them.

All the box does is decide those forbidden words in advance, which is why it plays fine without one: have the opposing team set the banned words and the game works identically — arguably better, since your opponents are choosing the constraints.

Turns run sixty to ninety seconds. Longer than that and the watching team drifts.

The describer never speaks, only draws. No letters, no numbers, no talking.

Paper and a pen is the whole kit. The word list comes from the table: everyone writes five words, folds them, and they go into a pile in the middle.

It does not require drawing ability — bad drawing usually makes it better. Sixty-second turns.

The describer neither speaks nor draws, only acts. Instead of single words, most tables use films, shows, songs or sayings.

This is the only word-describing game that holds up to sixteen players, because everyone watching guesses simultaneously. Nobody waits.

The standard signals speed it up: number of words on the fingers, which word you are on with the other hand, "sounds like" by touching the ear.

Twenty-five word cards are laid out. The clue-giver says one word and a number — "ocean, 3" — and their team tries to find three cards from it.

The restriction here is the tightest in the family: exactly one word. No sentences, no explanations, no gestures.

Four to eight players. Everyone except the clue-giver argues, so there is no waiting, but a very large table makes the arguing run long.

Everyone gets the same word except one person. Going round, each player says one sentence about the word.

The player without the word listens and improvises. At the end the table votes on who was faking.

This one inverts the family: normally describing the word is the hard part, here the hard part is not looking like you are missing it.

Five to ten players, and it is unusually good at ten because everyone speaks every round.

One person thinks of a word. The table may only ask yes-or-no questions, and the answerer may only say yes or no.

The table wins by getting it within twenty questions; otherwise the answerer wins.

This is the only one needing no materials whatsoever — not even paper. It works in a car or a queue.

Box-free variants of the mechanic above. All are the same idea at different tightness, getting harder down the list.

The practical method is having the other team write them. Each team writes twenty words at the start and folds them up; during play you draw from your opponents' pile.

There is one rule for choosing: the word has to be something everyone knows. Specialist words do not end the round, they just punish whoever is describing.

In a crowd, playing one at a time means waiting: at a table of ten, giving everyone a ninety-second turn takes fifteen minutes, and the spectators drift off.

In teams, half the room is active every round. Because guessing belongs to the team, quieter players stay in the game without having to put themselves forward.

Having one person at the table produce the word list. They cannot play, and after fifteen rounds they are empty — the remaining words end up either trivial or undescribable.

The second mistake is dropping the timer. Untimed, a single round stretches to five minutes and the watching team loses interest. Shorter timers make the game faster, and more mistakes make the table laugh more.

Taboo and its relatives are all guessing games; when a table wants a change of tempo, a question-based round is a good break. Word games produce competition, question games produce conversation, and running them back to back keeps a table going longer.

The Best Liar Wins is built for bluffing rounds, Gossip Cauldron for rounds where a group talks about each other. Dropped between word rounds, either changes the rhythm and nobody gets bored of repeating one mechanic.