Fishbowl

Players and equipment

Four or more, in two or more teams — uneven teams are fine. On paper it takes a hat, a pen each and a handful of scraps; here every player writes their own words on their own phone, nobody sees anybody else's, and the same words come back for all three rounds without anyone rewriting them.

Turns run on the turn timer. A minute is the usual allowance; the host can change it from the Host tab.

The deal

Everyone writes the same number of words or short phrases — four each by default. Names, things, films, sayings: anything the table will know. The hat closes the moment the first turn starts, so get them in before then.

A word goes in the hat once. If two players write the same word, the later copy is dropped when the hat closes and the first stays, so the hat is a little smaller than the count of what was written. Your own list will not take a repeat.

Play

One player describes, their own team guesses, and the clock runs. Each word the team gets leaves the hat for the round. A word you cannot get is skipped and goes back in — it can come round again in the same turn. When the bell goes, the word on screen goes back in the hat and the next team takes over.

A skipped word goes to the bottom of the pile, so every other word comes round before it does. The word on screen at the bell is treated the same way, which means the next describer is not handed the word the other team just failed on.

The turn passes from team to team in order, and within a team it goes to whoever has described least, so everybody gets the same number of goes across the match.

The same words come back three times, and each round has a rule about how you may describe them.

Round 1 — Describe it

Say anything except the word itself, or part of it. Talk freely.

Round 2 — One word

One word only, then silence. The same words as round 1, so your team is guessing from memory as much as from the clue.

Round 3 — Act it out

No words at all. Charades: mime it.

A round ends the moment the hat is empty, mid-turn or not. The next round starts with the hat refilled and reshuffled and the turn passing to the next team.

Scoring

A word guessed

1

One point for the describing team

A word skipped

0

Back in the hat, no penalty

The Play tab keeps the tally as it happens: a column per team, a row per round, and the match total.

Every word is guessed before a round ends, so the points in a round always add up to the number of words in the hat. What the score measures is which team got through more of them in its own turns.

A worked round

Four players in two pairs: Alice and Cara are Dog, Ben and Dev are Fox. Four words each makes sixteen in the hat, and the turns are a minute.

Alice, Dog

5

Five guessed; one skipped and back in the hat

Ben, Fox

4

Four guessed; the word on screen at the bell goes back in

Cara, Dog

4

Four guessed, including the two the others skipped

Dev, Fox

3

The last three, and the hat is empty with twenty seconds left

Round 1

16

Dog 9, Fox 7

Round 1 ended in the middle of Dev's turn, so round 2 starts with the hat refilled, the turn passing to Dog, and Cara describing, because Alice has already had a go. With one word a clue and everyone remembering the sixteen, round 2 goes faster: Dog 7, Fox 9. Round 3 is mime, and Dog's pair takes it 9 to 7.

Over the three rounds Dog has 9, 7 and 9 for 25, and Fox has 7, 9 and 7 for 23. Dog wins the match by two words.

Ending

The match ends when round 3's hat is empty. Most words guessed across the three rounds wins; a tie is shared.

Choosing your words

Write words the whole table will know, because your own team has to guess them as much as the other side does — a word nobody has heard of is a skip in round 1 and a lost minute in round 3. Mix the easy with the odd: a few plain nouns that a good describer gets in five seconds, and a few phrases or names that only make sense once you know the trick. Think ahead to round 3 while you write. A word that can be mimed in one movement is a gift to your side later; an abstract idea is a gift to nobody.

Describing under the clock

Start talking before you have finished thinking. The first thing that comes to you is usually the thing that will come to your team too, and a pause costs more than a wrong clue. Give the category first — a film, a person, a food — then the detail. If the guess is close, say so and steer: warmer, the other one, plural. Listen to the guesses, because a team shouting the wrong answer is telling you what they are thinking, and the shortest clue is the one that moves them from there.

When to skip

A skip costs nothing on the score, but it costs time, because the word comes back to your side or the other before the round is over and somebody still has to get it. Skip when you are stuck and the clock is running, not because the word is hard. A word skipped by both teams comes round again with the whole hat gone, and then it has to be got on its own with no other word to hide behind.

Remembering the hat

Round 2 and round 3 use the same words as round 1, so the most useful thing a guesser can do in round 1 is remember what came out. Sixteen words is about the size of a shopping list; a table that keeps count of what has gone and what is left guesses the last few by elimination, and a good one-word clue in round 2 is often just the first word of the description from round 1.

The third round

Mime the whole word, not its letters. Point at yourself for a name, draw a box in the air for a film, count fingers for how many words the phrase has, and then act the one that is easiest. If your team gets stuck, do the same action again rather than a new one; a repeated mime is a clue that says you were close.

Celebrity

The words are names only — people the table will know, real or fictional — and the game is otherwise the same three rounds. It is the older name for the game, and the reason a lot of tables still call any hat game Celebrity.

A fourth round

Some tables add a fourth round after the mime, with the hat refilled once more and a fresh restriction: sounds only, with no words and no gestures, is the usual choice. The match here ends when round 3's hat is empty, so a fourth round is played for the fun of it after the score is settled.

A fixed number of words

Four each is the default, and the number of words each player writes is the host's setting. Three each keeps a big table's rounds short; six each gives a small table something to remember. The hat should be big enough that no team can clear it in one turn.

No skipping

The describer must get every word that comes up, however long it takes. It makes the writing stage matter more, because an impossible word now costs a whole turn rather than a few seconds.

Shorter turns

A minute is the standard allowance and the host can change it. Forty-five seconds suits a table that knows each other well; ninety suits one that does not, or a hat full of obscure words.

Three or more teams

Six or more can play in three teams, and the teams do not have to be the same size. The turn still passes from team to team in order; a team of two describes more often each than a team of three, which is fair, because the score is the team's.

How many words do you put in the hat in Fishbowl?

Four each is the usual number, and it is the default here. At a table of eight that is thirty-two words, which takes three or four turns a round to clear. Bigger tables can drop to three each so a round does not drag.

How long is a turn in Fishbowl?

A minute, by most tables' custom. The host can shorten or lengthen it on the Host tab, and the same allowance applies to every turn in the match.

Can you skip a word in Fishbowl?

Yes. A skipped word goes back in the hat with no penalty and comes round again before the round ends — in the same turn if the rest of the hat runs out. Some tables play without skipping, which makes a hard word much more expensive.

What are you not allowed to say in round one?

The word itself or any part of it. Everything else is allowed: descriptions, rhymes, sounds-like, what it is not. Round 2 cuts you to one word, and round 3 to nothing at all.

Is Fishbowl the same as Celebrity, Salad Bowl and Monikers?

They are the same game under different names. Celebrity uses names of people only; Salad Bowl and Fishbowl take any word or phrase; Monikers is a boxed version with the words already printed on cards. The three rounds — describe, one word, act — are common to all of them.

How many people do you need for Fishbowl?

Four, in two pairs, is the smallest table that works, and twelve is a comfortable most. It is at its best around six to eight, with a hat big enough that nobody remembers all of it.

What happens if the teams are uneven?

Nothing that needs a rule. The turn goes round the teams in order, and inside a team it goes to whoever has described least, so a smaller team's players simply describe more often. The score belongs to the team, not the player.

Do you need a real hat to play?

No. Here every player types their own words on their own phone and nobody sees anybody else's; the app holds the hat, reshuffles it for each round and runs the clock. On paper you need scraps, a pen each and something to put them in.