Charades: Encyclopedia II - Charades - Rules of the acted charade

Charades - Rules of the acted charade

The rules of the acted charades used vary widely and informally, but these rules, in some form, are common to most players:

• The players divide into two teams.
• Each player writes a phrase on a slip of paper to create the phrases to be guessed by the other team. In some circles, the phrases can be anything, while in others, the phrases must be a person, movie, or book.
• One team member is selected to be the pantomime, is provided with a randomly selected word or phrase in secret (usually on a slip of paper drawn from a container), and then has a limited period of time in which to convey this to his teammates.
• No sounds or lip movements are allowed. In some circles, even clapping is prohibited, while in others, the player may make any sound other than speaking or whistling a recognisable tune.
• Usually, any gesture is allowed other than blatantly spelling out the word, but some play that indicating anything about the form of the phrase is prohibited, even the number of words, so that only the meaning may be acted out.
• The teams alternate until each team member has had an opportunity to pantomime.

Since so many rules can vary, clarifying all the rules before the game begins can avoid problems later.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rules of the acted charade", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki