How to play Imposter

What you need

Nothing but people and one device. Imposter runs entirely in the browser. There are two ways to play:

• Pass-and-play — everyone is in the same room and you share a single phone or tablet, passing it around so each player can privately see their role. No account needed. Start a pass-and-play game.
• Online rooms — each player is on their own device. One person creates a room, shares the four-letter code, and everyone joins from wherever they are. Find or create a room.

You need at least three players for a game to work, and the table caps at ten. Four to seven is the sweet spot — enough people to hide in, few enough that every clue matters.

The goal

There are two teams, and you don't know which one you're on until the round starts:

• The crew(everyone except the impostor) knows the secret word. Their job is to prove to each other that they know it — without saying it out loud — and to figure out who doesn't.
• The impostoronly knows the topic pack (for example “Ocean Animals” or “Fast Food”). Their job is to blend in, work out the real word from other people's clues, and avoid the vote.

A round, step by step

1. Deal the roles

Pick your player count and a topic pack (or leave it on Random). The game secretly picks one player to be the impostor and one secret word from the pack. Each player looks at their screen in private:

• Crew members see the pack name and the secret word — say, Movies → Titanic.
• The impostor sees the pack name and a note that they are the impostor, plus a faint theme hint like “romance”. That hint is deliberately loose — it points in a direction without giving the word away.

For bigger tables (roughly six or more) you can run two impostors. They don't know each other's identity, which makes the discussion phase much harder to read.

2. The clue round

Going around the table in order, each player gives one clue about the secret word. A clue is a single word or a very short phrase. The rules for a legal clue:

• Don't say the secret word or an obvious nickname for it.
• Don't spell it, rhyme it, or gesture it.
• It should be something that onlymakes sense if you know the word. “Iceberg” is a great clue for Titanic. “Film” is a terrible one — it's true of the whole pack.

The impostor gives a clue on their turn like everybody else. Going later in the order is an advantage for them: they've heard other clues and can echo the theme. Going first is dangerous.

Imposter has three clue styles you can set before the game: Classic (a word or short phrase), Short (tight, two or three words max), and One word (exactly one word — no hiding in a sentence).

3. Discussion

Once every clue is in, the table talks. Usually there's a timer — 60 seconds by default, adjustable from 30 to 300. This is the heart of the game. Good questions to ask out loud:

• Whose clue was so vague it would fit any word in the pack?
• Whose clue was suspiciously safe — technically correct, but cautious?
• Did someone's clue only make sense afterthey'd heard two other clues?

The crew is trying to surface the impostor. The impostor is trying to sound like a confident crew member — and, if they've worked out the word, to quietly steer suspicion onto someone else.

4. The vote

Everyone votes at the same time for the player they believe is the impostor (there's a voting timer too, 30 seconds by default). Then the roles are revealed.

Scoring and who wins

• The crew wins if the most-voted player is the impostor — with a clear majority, no tie.
• The impostor wins if the crew votes out an innocent player, or if the top vote is a tie, or if nobody gets enough votes.

In online play, results feed the leaderboard — total wins, wins as the impostor, wins as crew, and games played are all tracked per account. In pass-and-play the game keeps a running score for the current session and then resets.

How many players should you have?

• 3 players: playable but tense — the impostor has a one-in-three baseline and very little cover. Good for a quick round.
• 4–5 players: the classic experience. One impostor, fast rounds, every clue readable.
• 6–8 players: the best group size. Consider two impostors here. Discussion gets genuinely chaotic.
• 9–10 players: run two impostors, use the Short or One wordclue style, and keep the discussion timer tight so the round doesn't drag.

House rules worth trying

• Sudden-death clue: if the vote ties, give each suspected player one more clue and re-vote.
• Impostor steal: if the impostor is caught but can correctly name the secret word on the spot, they still win.
• No repeats:a clue that's already been said is illegal — it forces late players to actually commit.
• Category roulette: nobody picks the pack; the game rolls it. Crew and impostor are both slightly off balance.

Next steps

Once you know the rules, the game is all about clue craft. Read the Imposter strategy guide for how to bluff as the impostor and how to catch one as the crew, or browse the topic packs to see the word lists and pack-specific tips.