One player starts the game sa pamamagitan ng asking another player, "Truth or dare?" If the queried player answers, "truth," then the questioning player asks a question, usually embarrassing, of the queried player. If the queried player answers, "dare," then the questioning player asks the queried to do something, also usually embarrassing. After answering the tanong or doing the dare, the queried player asks "truth or dare?" of another player and the game proceeds as before. The game may be expanded upon sa pamamagitan ng adding additional options to choose from, such as making the dare apply to both the questioner and the queried, or incorporating Spin the Bottle to select the susunod person to be asked; this results in many different "variants" of the game, limited only sa pamamagitan ng the players' creativity.
The game's pamagat is sometimes extended to reflect additional options, for example: "truth, dare, double-dare, kiss, torture or promise". When double-dare is chosen, the person chosen is requested to do something but the person making the request is also expected to do the dare as well. When halik is chosen the person must halik a certain person sometimes of the same sex but not often. Torture, the person will be put in a scenario that will often embarrass or cause pain. Promise, you must make a promise and keep it (works similar to dare). The susunod person to make a dare can never copy that dare that was just ibingiay to them.