How many players does it need?

Four at minimum — two teams of two — and it works well up to about twelve. Above that, split into more teams rather than making the teams larger, because a team of six means most people never describe.

Can the describer use gestures?

That is your rule to make, and it changes the game considerably. Banning them keeps it verbal, which is the usual version and is much harder. Allowing them makes it accessible to a wider group. Decide before the first round.

A point for each word the team guesses in their minute, and typically a point deducted for a banned word used. Play to a target score or a fixed number of rounds.

Is this a specific commercial game?

No. Describing a word under a restriction is an old and generic mechanic that predates any boxed version of it. Nothing here reproduces any published game's word lists, rules text or components, and this site is not affiliated with any of them.

Describe Without Saying Generator

Describing a word is easy. Describing it without the four words you would obviously use is the game. This draws a target word and the words you are banned from saying while describing it — which is the mechanic that turns a trivial task into one where people run out of language entirely.

Difficulty

Players (optional)

One per line. Adding names rotates turns in order so nobody is skipped.

Rounds

Up to 40.

Seed (optional)

Reproduces the same game, so two groups can play an identical set.

Your describing cards will appear here.

What this generator does

Draws a target word together with the words that may not be used to describe it. The banned list is the whole design: without it, describing 'coffee' takes two seconds, and with 'drink', 'bean', 'caffeine' and 'morning' removed it becomes genuinely difficult. Cards are dealt without replacement so the same word does not recur in a session, and the tool keeps the card hidden from everybody but the describer.

How to use this tool

Split into two teams and pick a describer for the first round.
Generate a card — the describer sees the target word and the banned words.
They describe it to their team without saying any banned word, or the target itself.
A minute per round. Somebody from the other team watches for banned words.

Understanding the controls

Difficulty: Easy cards ban two words and use concrete nouns. Hard cards ban five and include abstractions, where the obvious route is blocked and the describer has to construct a definition from scratch.
Round length: Sixty seconds is standard. Ninety is gentler for a mixed-age group; thirty is brutal and works well for a quick warm-up rather than a full game.
Cards per round: How many words the describer works through in their minute. Between three and six — more than that and the round is about reading speed rather than describing.
Custom words: Add your own targets and their banned words, one card per line. A set written around a group's shared references is by far the funniest version of this game.

Worked examples

Easy: Target: umbrella. Banned: rain, wet.
Standard: Target: library. Banned: book, read, borrow, quiet.
Hard: Target: nostalgia. Banned: memory, past, remember, feeling, miss.
Why the root rule matters: For 'bakery', 'baker' and 'baking' are banned too — otherwise the describer just says the word with a different ending.

Common use cases

A team party game that needs nothing but a phone and two teams
Language teaching, where working around a missing word is the whole skill
Christmas and family gatherings, where it spans a wide age range
Warm-ups for public speaking or improvisation groups
Long journeys, since it works entirely out loud

How this generator works

Each card is a target plus its banned words, drawn from a bag that empties before refilling so a session does not repeat a word. The banned words for each target are the ones that make describing it trivial — the category it belongs to, its most common collocations, and any word sharing its root. That last rule matters: without it, 'baker' is a legal description of 'bakery', which defeats the card entirely.

Randomness and fairness

Cards are dealt from a shuffled bag rather than drawn independently, so a session works through the list before repeating anything. The shuffle uses the browser's cryptographic random number generator. A seed reproduces a set of cards using a deterministic generator that is not cryptographically secure, which is how two teams can be given the identical set to make a fair contest.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Assumptions this tool makes

Two teams, with a describer facing their own team and one opponent watching for banned words.
Saying the target word itself is always banned, whether or not it appears on the list.

Limitations and good to know

It cannot hear you, so nothing enforces the banned words. Somebody from the opposing team has to watch, which is the traditional arrangement and works fine.
The word lists are English and assume British and general Western cultural reference points. They will not all translate.
Gestures are not covered by the banned list. Decide whether they are allowed before you start, because that argument arrives in round two otherwise.
No scoring is kept. Points per correct guess is the usual method and needs somebody with a pen.
This is a generic implementation of a very old mechanic. It reproduces no published game's card set, rules text or components, and nothing here is affiliated with any commercial version.

Common mistakes

Banning too few words: Two banned words on an abstract noun leaves the obvious route open. Five is where it becomes genuinely hard, which is where the game gets good.
Forgetting to ban words sharing a root: If the target is 'bakery' and 'baking' is legal, the describer just changes the ending. Any word sharing a root with the target should be banned by default.
Nobody watching for banned words: Appoint an opponent to watch every round. Without one, banned words get used constantly and nobody notices until it stops mattering.
Letting a round run over: Stop on the timer mid-sentence. The pressure is most of the game, and a round that drifts to a natural end has none.

Practical tips

Have the describer stand up. It sounds trivial and noticeably raises the energy of the whole room.
Write ten cards about the group — the shared holiday, the running joke, the colleague. They land far better than any generic set.
Let a describer skip one card per round at a cost of a point. It removes the round-killing moment where somebody is stuck on a word they simply cannot do.

Troubleshooting

The words are too easy: Move to hard, which bans five words and includes abstract nouns. Concrete objects are always easier to describe than concepts, whatever is banned.
Arguments about whether a word was banned: The watcher's decision is final and should be made instantly. Deciding that before the game starts prevents nearly all of these.

Privacy and your data

Any custom cards you write stay in this browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing goes into the page address, and analytics records only that the tool was used along with the difficulty — never a word.

Frequently asked questions

How many players does it need?: Four at minimum — two teams of two — and it works well up to about twelve. Above that, split into more teams rather than making the teams larger, because a team of six means most people never describe.
Can the describer use gestures?: That is your rule to make, and it changes the game considerably. Banning them keeps it verbal, which is the usual version and is much harder. Allowing them makes it accessible to a wider group. Decide before the first round.
How do we score it?: A point for each word the team guesses in their minute, and typically a point deducted for a banned word used. Play to a target score or a fixed number of rounds.
Is this a specific commercial game?: No. Describing a word under a restriction is an old and generic mechanic that predates any boxed version of it. Nothing here reproduces any published game's word lists, rules text or components, and this site is not affiliated with any of them.