The Rules…

1- SETUP | Put Out Sand Timer

Take out a sand timer hour glass and place it centrally on the table. Alternatively you could put on a 1 minute timer on your phone.

2-SETUP | Put Cards Face Down

Make sure to put the cards face down just to ensure there is no peeking!

3-SETUP | Divide Players Into Two Teams

The final step of how to play Taboo setup is to just split everyone up into two equal teams. If there is a lot of people you just add more teams!

4-GAMEPLAY | Team A Chooses Clue Giver

Turns go back and forth between the two teams. For their turn, each team selects one of their individuals to be the person to give the clue, everyone else on the team will be trying to guess what it is.

5-GAMEPLAY | Flip Over Sand Timer

The timer lasts one minute once you flip it. Once you are ready to go, flip over the timer and immediately start going, once the 1 minute passes, all sand will reach the bottom and the time will be over.

6- GAMEPLAY | Team A Clue Giver Gives Clue

Once the timer is flipped the clue giver takes out the top clue card. It will have a word in a black box, which is the word you need to get people to say, and it will have a list of “taboo” words that you CAN’T say while trying to give the clue. When a clue is successfully guessed, the giver sets that card aside and takes the next one. This keeps going until time runs out.

7-GAMEPLAY | Team B Buzzes Any “Taboo” Words

Team B does not participate in the guessing and clue giving of Team A’s turn but they do buzz.

They sit beside the clue giver with the buzzer. Every time the giver says a word they were not supposed to, the buzzer hits the buzzer and that clue card is now failed.

If you don’t have a buzzer or anything to make a sound you can just tell them to skip that card.

The buzzing team gets the point for that bizzed card.

8-GAMEPLAY | Take Score

After the timer finishes and the round is over, count up all the successful clue cards gotten (none of the failed cards) and that is how many points you get for the round.

9-GAMEPLAY | Pass to Other Team And Repeat

After a team has taken score, their turn is done for that round. It now passes over to the other team and everything is reversed. They give clues to their team and the other team buzzes. This back and forth continues until the game ends (or the cards finish)

10-GAME END | Every Player Gives A Clue

You play enough rounds so that everyone has a chance to be the clue giver once. That means if you have four player teams, you will be playing four rounds. If the teams have an uneven number of players, someone gives twice.

11-WINNING | High Score

After you have played all the rounds, whoever has accrued the highest score overall their rounds have won. In the case of a tie, each team chooses their best clue giver and there is a final showdown. As you can see, learning how to play Taboo is incredibly easy!