Taboo

Taboo is the drinking game that runs in the background of a party. A handful of everyday words, phrases, and habits are banned before the first guest arrives; anyone caught saying “seriously” or crossing their arms gets a shout of “Taboo” and takes a drink. It is not the Hasbro board game with the buzzer, though that gets a drinking version in the variations. It is the drinking game without cards you play while playing everything else.

What you need

• Index cards or slips of paper, one per guest
• A pen
• A drink per player, the one they are already holding
• 2 or more players. It is dull with 2 and excellent with 12, because it scales with how much talking is going on.

Setup

1. Before guests arrive, write one trigger on each card. A word (seriously, literally, party, job), a phrase (“you’ve got to be kidding”, “I didn’t know that”), or an action (touching your hair, yawning, crossing your arms). Pick things that will come up a few times an hour, not every sentence. “The” is not a game.
2. Hand every guest one card as they arrive. The card is what they are watching for. They keep it to themselves.
3. Announce the rules once, out loud. Triggers exist, they are on cards, and hearing “Taboo” means you drink. Nobody is told which triggers are live. That is the game.
4. Decide the drink. A sip per catch is standard. Shots are for people who want a short night, because this game does not stop when another one starts.

How to play Taboo

1. Go about the party. There are no turns. Taboo runs underneath whatever else is happening, including other games.
2. When you see or hear your trigger, shout “Taboo” and point. Name the person and the trigger: “Taboo, Sam, you said seriously”.
3. The person caught drinks. One sip, or whatever was agreed at the door. No appeals if two people heard it.
4. Only the holder of the card can call it. If you hear someone say “literally” and that is not your card, nothing happens. Card holders who miss a trigger may be mocked but not penalised.
5. Triggers stay banned all night. Once a word has been called, everyone knows it, and it still counts. Knowing a word is banned makes people say it more, not less.
6. The game ends when the party does. Or when the host collects the cards and reads out the triggers that never got called, which is its own reveal.

Variations and house rules

• One word for the whole room. The simplest version and the most common one online: the group agrees on a single banned word (drink, beer, what, someone’s name) and everyone polices everyone. Add a second word an hour in. No cards needed.
• Open cards. Every trigger is announced at the start. Easier to play, harder to avoid, because knowing you cannot say “literally” is exactly how you end up saying it.
• Drunk Taboo with the board game. Use the Hasbro set. The describer drinks for every buzz, the guessing team drinks for every card they fail to get, and the team that loses the round finishes their drinks. When people say “drunk Taboo”, this is usually what they mean.
• Name ban. Nobody can use first names. Every “hey, you” is a reminder, and the first person to shout a name across the room drinks. It stacks neatly on a game with a rules card, like Kings Cup.
• Bounty. Catch someone and you swap cards with them. Your trigger becomes theirs to enforce, and you get a fresh one. Keeps late arrivals in the game.
• Actions only. No words on the cards, just habits: checking a phone, touching your face, saying cheers before drinking. Harder to catch and harder to stop doing.
• Wrong call. Shout “Taboo” at something that did not happen, or at a word that is not on your card, and you drink instead. It stops people firing off accusations on a hunch and makes every call worth a second of thought.
• Trigger of the hour. On the hour, the host announces one new trigger for the whole room on top of the cards. By midnight there are four, and the conversation has gone strange.
• Tally night. Keep a mark on each card for every catch. The player with the most catches at the end hands out a drink to anyone they like; the most-caught player finishes theirs.

Tips

• Three or four triggers per party is enough. With twelve, every sentence is an incident and the game eats the night rather than seasoning it.
• Pick triggers you have actually heard the guest list say. A word nobody uses is a card that never gets called.
• Make the penalty a sip, not a shot. Taboo runs for hours on top of whatever else people are drinking, and a shot-per-catch version with a loud group adds up to more alcohol than any single game on this site.
• Keep a couple of spare cards for late arrivals, and give the host the trigger most likely to catch the host.