Banned Words Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Writing the Banned Words
  • Rules for Writing Banned Words
• Guessing the Target Words
  • Rules for Giving Clues
• Scoring

Contents

• 1 Instructions/Divider Screen
• 4 Dry-Erase Markers
• 32 Tiles
• 168 Target Words Cards
• 1 Score Card
• 1 Sand Timer

Ages 12+. 4 or More Players. 30 Minutes.

Writing the Banned Words

1. The Red team starts the timer. The Blue team flips over their Target Words Card and places it so their entire team can see it, but the Red team cannot see it.
2. The Blue team writes up to 16 words on their tiles that they think the Red team is likely to say when cluing or guessing. The Blue team does this silently so the Red team doesn't overhear the Target Words or Banned Words.
3. When the timer runs out, the Blue team stops writing. Blank tiles are set aside.
4. The Blue team then gets the timer, and the Red team takes their turn filling out their tiles, following the same rules in steps 1-3.
5. Once both teams have finished writing their Banned Words, each team picks a clue-giver. The clue-givers exchange the Target Words Cards.

Example: For the Target Word "Darth Vader," you might write "star" on one tile and "cape" on another.

Rules for Writing Banned Words

• DO NOT use a Target Word or any other form of it.
• DO NOT use pronouns, conjunctions, or arbitrary words such as "the," "on," "and," "okay," etc.
• DO NOT write more than one word on a single tile.

Guessing the Target Words

1. The Blue team flips over the timer.
2. (This line is one of the card's running "banned word" sight gags: it is blacked out with the same marker-redaction graphic used elsewhere on the box and card, and no legible copy of it survives in any available photo. Nothing is missed mechanically — the clue-givers already exchanged their Target Words Cards in step 5 of Writing the Banned Words above, so play simply continues into step 3.)
3. The clue-giver from the Red team starts giving clues to their teammates about the Target Words they just received. The clue-giver may skip around and come back to any of the words they want.
4. The clue-giver's teammates shout out guesses. If a teammate correctly guesses a Target Word, the clue-giver keeps giving clues to another Target Word until either all five Target Words have been guessed or the timer runs out.
5. As the Red team is cluing or guessing, both teams pay attention to what words are said. If anyone on the guessing team, including the clue-giver, says one of the Banned Words or any form of it, the Blue team calls out the word and puts that tile aside.
6. Once the timer runs out, the teams tally their scores on the Score Card (see Scoring below), and then the Blue team gets the timer and guesses according to the same rules in steps 1-5.

Rules for Giving Clues

• DO NOT say any of the Target Word or any other form of it.
• DO NOT say a direct translation of the Target Word.
• DO NOT give clues that rely on the pronunciation of the Target Word, such as "starts with" or "rhymes with."
• DO NOT charade the Target Word.

Scoring

Red team scores a point for each Target Word correctly guessed. But each time anyone on the guessing team, including the guesser, says one of the Banned Words or any form of it, the other team calls out the word and scores a point instead. The team with the most points after three rounds wins.