Charade Topics

One never tires of playing charades, but it is easy to run out of topics right about when you need them. Whether you need ice breaker games for small groups, or just a fun party idea, charades comes up trumps every time.

Perhaps it's because it gets everyone involved, or maybe it's the fact that practically everyone's played it sometime or the other, so it saves the bother of explaining the rules over and over.

While the mainstay of charades remains the same, there are many variations in the way it's played, and it's even spawned new games like the fabulous Taboo, or even the ever popular Pictionary, both of which are basically a spin off on the charades theme.

For the uninitiated, charades is a popular party game which involves two opposing teams. In turns, one member of each team picks a card on which is written a word―this could be a book, a movie, a thing, an action, a phrase, well, the ideas for charades are endless! The objective is to act out what's written on the card, without sounds, lip syncing, objects, or props.

Though the basic premise remains the same, some rules differ from group to group. For instance, you could impose a time limit for the team to guess, penalty points if the opposing team is able to guess the word faster, or even special signs for word groups like conjunctions or articles.

Sometimes, especially when playing with children, you could allow signs for rhyming words, to get there faster.

Typically, movie titles and book names make up the words to be acted; the first rule is generally to convey this by set signs, for instance, open palms held together, to symbolize a book. Next, you mime the number of words, and which word of the title you're acting, so that your teammates know in what order to string the words together.

If the word is difficult to act out in a go, you could also 'break' it up into its component parts, for example if the word is 'Seabiscuit', it's much easier to act out 'sea' and 'biscuit' separately and then 'join' them together. As for the rest, you can manipulate the rules as you go along, or make up your own set.

While phrases, actions, and celebrity names do come up as charade topics, movies and books pretty much rule the roost, and with good reason. Here are some movie and book titles that won't ideally be great for children because they may keep people guessing for a bit longer than usual!

• Eclipse
• The Last House on the Left
• The Cider House Rules
• Calendar Girls
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

• Arsenic and Old Lace
• A Sunday in New York
• Inception
• Avatar
• LA Confidential
• The Man with One Red Shoe

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Whole Nine Yards
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
• My Cousin Vinny
• Under the Tuscan Sun
• Bridget Jones' Diary

• The Da Vinci Code
• A Suitable Boy
• Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
• The Secret
• Rubbish Boyfriends
• To Kill a Mocking Bird
• The Inheritance of Loss
• The Interpreter of Maladies
• God of Small Things

• Life of Pi
• Love in the time of Cholera
• Great Expectations
• The Great Gatsby
• Phantom of the Opera
• The Fourth Protocol
• A Twist in the Tale
• Sense and Sensibility
• Cat Among the Pigeons
• 4.50 from Paddington
• Honor Among Thieves

As fun indoor party games go, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a more popular or fun option than this one. Once your charade topics are ready, the only problem you'll face is getting players to stop!