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Pictionary Rules

Learn the rules of the Pictionary board game: teams, the drawing timer, what you can't do while sketching, board categories, All Play rounds and how to win.

Published 4 min read
On this page
  1. What Pictionary Is
  2. What You Need
  3. Setup
  4. How a Turn Works
  5. What You Can’t Do While Drawing
  6. Board Categories
  7. All Play Rounds
  8. Winning the Game
  9. How Long Does a Game Last?
  10. Tips for Artists and Guessers
  11. Other Party and Family Games to Try Next

What Pictionary Is

Pictionary is a team drawing-and-guessing game. One player on a team sketches a word from a card while teammates call out guesses, all against a short sand timer. Teams that guess correctly move forward on the board, and the first team to reach the end wins.

The rules below describe the standard board game. Editions differ in small ways, such as board layout, colours, category names and timer length, so treat your own box’s rulebook as the final word if it disagrees with anything here. Hasbro and other publishers have posted rules PDFs for several editions on their sites.

What You Need

A typical set includes:

  • A game board with a path from Start to Finish
  • A deck of word cards, usually in a card holder
  • A sand timer, commonly one minute
  • A die
  • Pencils and drawing pads
  • A playing piece for each team

Setup

  1. Split players into teams. The standard game is built for two or more teams, and most rulebooks suggest two to four, with players divided as evenly as possible.
  2. Give each team a playing piece and place all pieces on the Start square.
  3. Put the pads, pencils, die, timer and word cards where everyone can reach them.
  4. Decide who goes first. A common method is for each team to roll the die, with the highest roll starting.

How a Turn Works

  1. Choose an artist. One member of the team is the artist (some rulebooks call this role the “picturist”). Teams normally rotate the artist so that everyone draws.
  2. Read the card. The artist looks at the word for the category shown on the square the team is standing on, keeping it hidden from teammates. Opposing teams usually check the word too, so the card is read fairly.
  3. Start the timer. Once the timer is flipped, the artist draws and teammates guess out loud. There is no limit on the number of guesses.
  4. Guess before time runs out. If the team names the word in time, they roll the die and move that many spaces forward, then take another turn with a new artist.
  5. Time runs out. If no one guesses the word, play passes to the next team.

What You Can’t Do While Drawing

This is the part people ask about most. Under the standard rules, the artist may not:

  • Draw letters or numbers
  • Speak, make sounds or mouth words
  • Use gestures, pointing or acting to give clues
  • Use dashes or lines to show how many letters are in the word

Drawing symbols that are not letters or numbers, such as a dollar sign in some groups’ house rules, is a common point of dispute. The official rulebooks are a better guide than memory, and it helps to agree on borderline cases before the game starts. If an artist breaks a rule, the usual penalty is that the team’s turn ends.

Board Categories

The squares on the board are colour-coded, and each colour matches a category on the word card. The exact colours and names depend on the edition, but the categories in the classic game generally include:

  • Person, place or animal
  • Object
  • Action
  • Difficult (harder words and concepts)
  • All Play

Check the key printed on your board or the back of your cards to see which colour matches which category in your set.

All Play Rounds

On an All Play square, every team draws the same word at the same time. Artists from all teams sketch simultaneously and teams race to guess. The first team to shout the correct answer wins the round and typically moves forward. In some editions the team that lands on the square also gets a turn afterward. Because everyone draws at once, All Play rounds tend to be the loudest part of the game.

Winning the Game

A team wins by reaching the Finish square and then correctly guessing the final word. In many editions the final word is an All Play round, so other teams still get a chance to beat the leader. Read the Finish square instructions in your rulebook to confirm how your edition handles it.

How Long Does a Game Last?

Game length depends on how many teams are playing and how good everyone is at drawing and guessing. Many groups finish in somewhere around half an hour to an hour, though a close finish with several teams can run longer. Shortening the board or agreeing a point where the game ends is a simple fix when time is limited.

Tips for Artists and Guessers

  • Start with the simplest element of the word, such as a recognisable shape, rather than the whole scene.
  • For “Action” words, show the person doing the action, not just the objects involved.
  • Guessers should keep shouting; wrong guesses cost nothing.
  • If your team is stuck, an artist can start a new drawing, which is allowed as long as the drawing rules are followed.

Other Party and Family Games to Try Next

If your group enjoys Pictionary, a few other games on this site suit a similar mood:

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