How to play
Best played with 3-5 of your sauciest, sweariest mates.
Make the rudest, most childish, tongue-in-cheek phrase you can from the words in your hand and the one from the deck. It's that easy. Laugh. Blush. Regret nothing. Give it a go.
Make the rudest phrase you can from these four words: hobbit, birthday, orgy, secret.
How to play
The Classic Rules (3-5 players)
Alright, you beautiful, filthy-minded bastards, welcome to Not Safe Four Words! A game best enjoyed with 3-5 of your sauciest, sweariest, most easily corrupted mates (and absolutely not with your nan, unless she's into that sort of thing). This is the game where maturity is the enemy and utterly unrepentant filth is the goal.
Your mission
Take the words in your hand and on the table and forge them into the rudest, most childish, eyebrow-raising phrase you can. If it makes someone snort-laugh, blush, nod with a knowing smile, or gasp in horror, you’re doing it right.
1. Shuffle the deck like your life depends on it. This game has witnessed things. You want those cards properly mixed.
2. Deal four cards to each player.
3. Flip one card face up next to the deck. This is the communal filth pile. Treat it with respect. Or don’t.
4. The player to the dealer’s left goes first and clockwise, because anarchy is exhausting.
5. On your turn:
Use the words in your hand and the face-up card to form a deliciously dirty phrase of up to four words. It should be a phrase that would horrify, or entice, a vicar.
For example: if "hole" is on the table and you have "cake" and "juicy" and “Persian,” you could proudly declare "juicy Persian cake hole" with a straight face.
If it gets so much as a titter, a blush, a knowing smile, a giggle, a full on belly laugh, or even a groan (of pleasure or delight), it counts.
This is the point in the game where you might notice some of your mates questioning their life choices or asking—for a friend—what a juicy Persian cake hole is and how one might go about interacting with it.
If some grammar nerd starts whining about sentence structure or punctuation... excommunicate them immediately—Pope’s orders. This is not an English exam.
6. If you win those cards—hoard them like the dirty little trophies they are. Keep them next to you.
7. Refill your hand back up to four cards and flip a fresh card onto the table for the next player.
8. If you’re too pure of heart (or just unlucky) and can’t form a filthy phrase, take back any cards you played and pass your turn in shame. Take some time to reflect and think about what you’ve done.
9. When the last card from the communal pile of filth is flipped over, this triggers the Final Round of Filth™—everyone takes turns to play whatever they can. Play stops when no one can make any more filthy magic happen.
10. Scoring (for the competitive types among you who care about winning):
Count up the cards in your pile of filth.
Subtract any cards left in your hand.
Whoever has the most wins absolutely nothing except our respect. Congratulations. Seek help.
If there’s a tie, the tied players must make a four-word filth masterpiece from any of the cards they have won. The rest of the players vote for the best one by laughing.
If there’s still a tie… just accept you both have a boob or ball sack of elite gutter-brain energy. Move on. There is actual to sex to be having as well as playing this game.
Other ways to play
Naughty But Nine aka “Quickie Mode” - for 2 or more players
If you love a quickie, play like this instead:
1. Lay nine cards out in a 3x3 grid.
2. Everyone has 30 seconds to write down as many filthy phrases as they can.
3. The player with the most phrases wins those cards.
4. Tied? Split the cards. One leftover card? Shuffle it back in.
5. Repeat until all the cards are gone. Biggest filthy card hoard wins.
Threesome Rules – for 2 or more players (car keys and glass bowl not included)
Everyone picks three cards from their hand to describe someone else and lays them on the table for the world to witness. Maybe someone at the table, or a celebrity, or someone else you love/hate/admire, perhaps a certain Puritanical President, Wannabe Dicktator or Sleazebag Shyster squeezing every last penny from us while hiding in his Beverley Hills hole.
A few (very necessary) warnings
Do not play this game with your elderly, purest church-going relatives unless you’ve already been cut out of the will. If you do, have an ambulance and priest on standby.
Avoid playing this in public places unless you enjoy horrified (but curious) side-eyes from respectable citizens.
Under no circumstances play this game in or near a Waitrose. It’s not the done thing. Doing so may cause the store to collapse in on itself in a super spectacular ball of fiery suppressed British humour longing for release. The Northern Lights can fuck off.