Taboo Rules: The Complete Guide

The goal of Taboo is to score more points than the other team by guessing words from your teammate's clues. The fun comes from the limits on the person giving clues. The most obvious words are banned, so they have to find another way in.

Every turn is a race against a timer. The describing team wants as many correct guesses as it can get before time runs out, while the other team listens for slips.

Taboo Party keeps that goal. The team with the most points when the last round ends wins the game. Equal top scores are shown as a tie, and there is no tiebreak round.

Classic Taboo is played by two teams, and four players is the practical minimum. Each team needs one person to describe and at least one person to guess. With a big group, adding a third team gives everyone more turns at the front.

Here is how teams work on Taboo Party:

• A room can have one, two or three teams. New rooms start with two teams.
• Two teams need at least four players, and three teams need at least six. Every team needs at least one player before the host can start.
• One team is a co-operative mode for two or more players, where you play for a high score instead of against anyone.
• The host can press Randomize to deal players evenly into teams, or Draft to let captains pick their teams. In a draft, a coin flip decides which captain picks first.
• Teams start as Team 1, Team 2 and Team 3. The host or a team's captain can rename a team with the pencil button on its card.

Each turn, one player on the active team is the describer. They see the secret word and talk, while their teammates call out guesses. The describer role rotates every time the team plays, so everyone gets a go.

In the boxed game, a player from the other team sits beside the describer and watches the card. Their job is to catch any banned word and stop the clue on the spot.

On Taboo Party, the describer sees a board of ten words at once rather than a single card, and can describe them in any order. Guessers see blank tiles that show only each word's difficulty and points. They type their guesses into the guess box under the board.

Describing happens out loud. Taboo Party has no built-in voice chat, so play in the same room or on a voice or video call. The describer cannot type in chat during their own turn, which stops anyone spelling out the answer.

Players on the other team see the real words on their screens. That lets them follow along and catch slips, like the player holding the buzzer in the card game.

Classic Taboo uses a small sand timer for each turn. Turns pass back and forth between the teams, and a round is complete once every team has had one turn.

• On Taboo Party, turn time can be 30, 60 or 90 seconds. New rooms start at 60 seconds.
• A game lasts 3, 6, 9 or 12 rounds, and 12 is the default. In each round every team plays once, in team order.
• The describer presses Start turn when they are ready, so nobody loses seconds while the call settles.
• Guesses that arrive in a short grace period after the timer ends still count.
• Within each team, the describer role passes to the next player after every turn.

In the card game, every card shows a guess word with a short list of taboo words printed under it. The describer may not say the guess word or any of the taboo words. Most groups also ban parts of those words, so saying "ball" while describing "football" counts as a slip.

Classic rules also rule out shortcuts that skip the describing. That usually means no gestures, no sound effects, no "sounds like" or "rhymes with" clues, and no initials or spelled-out letters.

Taboo Party has no printed list of taboo words. What you cannot say is any word on your board, including words you have not reached yet, because saying one hands the answer straight to your team.

Anything beyond that is up to your group, and the game gives you tools to enforce what you agree:

• Taboo reporting lets the other team tap a word tile to report a slip. A word is confirmed when a majority of the watching players report it.
• Taboo voting sends reported words to a 30-second vote after the turn. Every player on a team can vote, and a word is confirmed with at least 60% of the votes cast.
• Describer voice check is an optional setting that listens through the describer's browser and flags a board word said aloud. It listens for English only.
• Reporting and voting are off by default in casual rooms, so switch them on in the lobby if you want them. Ranked games always use both.

In the boxed game, each correct guess earns your team one point. A card lost to a slip usually gives a point to the other team instead.

Taboo Party scores by difficulty rather than one point per word. Each word on the board shows its points, so the describer can choose between quick easy words and slower big ones.

• Easy words are worth 4 to 12 points, medium words 14 to 24, hard words 26 to 50 and insane words 52 to 80. Longer and more abstract words sit higher in their range.
• A guess that is almost right, such as a long word with one letter wrong, earns half points. A later exact guess swaps the half points for full points.
• A confirmed taboo removes that word's points from your team. A reported word that nobody guessed simply drops off at the end of the turn.
• Wrong guesses cost nothing, so guessers should keep trying.
• Six correct guesses in one turn add three bonus words to the board. More bonus words arrive at 10, 14 and 18 correct guesses.

The card game lets the describer pass on a card they cannot face. Most rule sets make that cost something, usually a point to the other team, and some groups also cap how many passes a turn may use.

Taboo Party has no skip button for single words, and no skip penalty. You simply leave a word and move to another one on the board. Words you never reach cost nothing.

The describer can also press Skip my turn on the turn card before the turn starts. That hands the turn to the next teammate with no points lost, which helps if someone has stepped away. It is not available in ranked games, or when a team has only one player.

Classic games end when every player has described an agreed number of times, or when a team reaches a target score. Agree which one before you start.

On Taboo Party the game ends after the last round, once every team has played it. There is no target score. The results screen names the winning team or shows a tie, and it picks out awards such as best describer and best guesser.

Press Play again to send everyone back to the lobby of the same room. The host can also end a casual game early from the admin panel, and the results screen then notes that the game was ended early.

Most arguments in Taboo come from rules nobody agreed before the first turn. Settle these in a minute, then let the vote handle the edge cases.

• Parts of words: does "sun" count as saying "sunflower"? We suggest yes, because it gives most of the word away.
• Other languages: does translating a board word count as saying it? Decide this before any mixed-language game.
• Rhymes and "sounds like" clues: allow them for younger players and beginners, and ban them for experienced groups.
• Gestures: on a video call, decide whether acting is allowed or whether hands stay off camera.
• Letters and spelling: ban clues like "it starts with B", or the game turns into a spelling contest.
• Slips mid-word: decide whether a describer who stops halfway through a board word has said it.

Write your choices in the room chat before the first turn. When a disputed clue comes up, everyone can point back to what you agreed.