Six rounds on a page, each with a gallows, an answer line and the full alphabet to cross off — so nobody loses track of which letters have already been guessed.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
One player chooses a word and draws a short dash for each letter. The other guesses one letter at a time. Correct guesses are written into every position where that letter appears; wrong ones add a body part to the gallows and get crossed off the letter bank.
Six wrong guesses — head, body, two arms, two legs — and the word wins. Some groups play with ten by adding hands and feet, which is friendlier for younger players.
Almost every argument in hangman comes from someone re-guessing a letter they already tried. Having the alphabet printed on the sheet ends that, and it also makes the game genuinely easier to play well — you can see at a glance what is still available.
Start with vowels: E, A, O, I in roughly that order of frequency. Then the common consonants — T, N, S, R, L, D. Leave J, Q, X and Z until the structure of the word suggests them.
Pay attention to word shape. A three-letter word ending in E is very often "the" or a short verb; doubled letters near the end frequently signal -LL, -SS or -EE.
The best hangman words are not the longest ones — long words contain more common letters and often fall quickly. Short words with uncommon letters and few vowels are far harder: lynx, jazz, gym, fjord. A long word full of E and S is a gift to the guesser.