Charade Ideas for Adults

Liven up any adult birthday party or social gathering with a game of charades. Charades is a pantomime game in which one player acts out a word or phrase and other players try to guess it. The rules are simple: Write words or phrases on slips of paper and place them in a bowl. Divide your guests into two teams. Each team will have one player come up at a time to draw a word or phrase out of the bowl and try to act it out in a given amount of time. Award a point to each team that guesses the word or phrase correctly, and the first team to score 10 points wins the game. With different category ideas and a few supplies, you have all you need to plan versions of charades guests will enjoy.

Try hosting "movie night" charades. Movie categories to use include horror, comedy and romance movie titles. Guests might act out movies like "The Exorcist," "The Jerk" or "Say Anything." Another movie category, classic movies, might include "The Wizard of Oz" or "Casablanca." For a harder version of movie charades, have the players guess an animal character in a movie, such as Odie from "Garfield" or Alex the lion from "Madagascar," or even the names of famous actors.

With these categories, participants must act out certain phrases like “What goes around comes around” and “You made your bed now lie in it.” For a fast-action animal charades game, use common farm animals like a cow, chicken, duck or horse, and set a timer for 30 seconds. Players only have 30 seconds to act out the farm animal. Action charades can provide guests with a lot of laughter. Write down actions like “milking a cow,” “chasing a chicken,” “skydiving” and “riding a bull” on the slips of paper. A player must act out the action while her team tries to guess it.

Include random items like the Statue of Liberty, a smiley face, recliner, chair, cigarette lighter, laptop, water bottle, pillow, bike and beach ball. Other random categories include superheroes, animals, song titles, famous people, books, states and emotions. Make random categories easier by stating what kind of thing it is. For example, for items like a recliner, lounge, lawn chair, ottoman or love seat, let the team know you will be acting out a piece of furniture. Items like a laptop, MP3 player, record player, radio and cell phone go under "electronics." Ideas for famous people include Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe.

Plan a few charades ideas around the nearest holiday or the holiday that the party or gathering is celebrating. For example, for Christmas, have your guests act out random Christmas songs like “Jingle Bells,” items like a present or people like Santa Claus. For Valentine’s Day, they can act out titles of love songs or romantic movie titles. Try some scary items, people or costumes, such as Michael Myers, a witch or a pumpkin, for Halloween.