Describe the word without using the five words you would actually use. Everyone thinks they will be good at this. Almost nobody is.
The card game your family owns, minus the cards and the arguing about whose turn it is to keep score. Play it around a table or across a video call, from one phone.
Describe this
ELECTRICITY
Say any of the five and your team loses the word.
What a player is looking at, mid-round.
What actually happens
Your colleague has to describe "electricity" without saying power, lightning, current, shock, or volt. They open with "the thing that makes the kettle boil" and immediately know they are in trouble.
Their team is shouting at them. Someone yells "plug socket" and they have ten seconds to react. They pivot to "what is inside the wire" and the room laughs at them. They skip and the next word appears.
By the end of the round you have learned more about how your colleagues think than any workshop was ever going to tell you.
The rules
One player sees a secret word and a list of 'taboo' words they cannot say
They must describe the word to their team without using any of the forbidden words
Teammates shout out their guesses — the first correct answer scores a point
The host watches for any taboo violations and can buzz to skip the word
Move through as many words as possible before time runs out
The team that correctly guesses the most words wins. Speed and creativity are key — if you hesitate, the clock keeps ticking!
While you host
Once Taboo is running, the scoring, the leaderboard, and the ending are handled. You get to be in the room instead of behind a spreadsheet.
Leaderboard
Round 6 of 10
Final podium
Engineering
3,800
Marketing
4,200
Finance
2,900
Final scores after six rounds
A code goes on your screen. People point a camera at it, type a name, and they are in. No app, no accounts, no one asking what the wifi password is.
Answers are marked as they land and the board updates between rounds. You are not holding a clipboard, and nobody is arguing about who said it first.
Top three on the big screen at the end, and every player gets their own result card on their phone that they can save or send to the group chat.
The same session works with everyone around one table, everyone on a video call, or half and half. Nobody has to be in the right place to join in.
Where Taboo shines
Communication workshop
A comms lead running a half-day on clear writing opens with two rounds of Taboo in teams. The lesson is already built into the game: when you cannot reach for the obvious words, you have to find better ones. The room spends the rest of the day thinking about jargon without anyone having to lecture them about it.
Office social
Friday afternoon, two hours before everyone leaves. Neegma on the meeting room TV, three teams of five. The compliance director who never speaks above a whisper is shouting "IT IS THE THING ON THE ROOF" at her teammates. No work is happening and nobody minds.
Birthday party
A birthday in someone's flat, the host screen on the TV, teams forming themselves around the sofa. It gets close enough that people are reading the banned words on tiptoe to check the describer is not cheating. By round three the room is one long argument.
Make it yours
Set the word categories, the turn length, and how strict you want to be about slip-ups. The game bends around the group in front of you.
Split the room into departments and let the rivalry do the work. Twenty minutes is usually enough to change the mood of the whole day.
Tables become teams, one phone per table, the host screen on a TV behind the bar. Loud room, short turns, and a clear winner by the end of the second drink.
Teachers use it as speaking practice that students actually want to do. The banned words force them to reach for vocabulary they usually avoid.
Share your screen, hand the describing turn round the call, and let the chat go feral in the background.
How Taboo plays
You can play it solo, but the magic is a team huddle: half a dozen people shouting guesses at one increasingly frantic describer.
People point their camera at the code on your screen, type a name, and they are playing. Nothing to download, nothing to sign up for, and it works the same whether they are in the room with you or dialled in from three time zones away.
Best for: virtual sessions, hybrid offsites, and any crowd big enough that you want everyone answering at once.
Split the room into colour-coded teams. A team huddles, argues, and sends one answer. You can also let every member answer for their team if you would rather nobody sits out.
Best for: in-person offsites, weddings, and family gatherings, where you want people talking to each other instead of into their phones.
Offline · How to play today
Taboo is built around the describer holding the phone. Their team shouts out loud, you adjudicate, and the next describer takes it. Nobody else has to join from a device. A dedicated offline mode is coming for groups that want teams scored formally against each other.
