Cards against Humanity - First Play!

12th February

It's a Sunday afternoon and we're at The Dice Tower in Basingstoke For Ares' birthday party.

So finally... Cards Against Humanity: the blog post.

Cards Against Humanity has garnered a reputation for being wry, almost satirical humour and capacity to be outrageous.  So is this game offensive and by offensive, I mean does it offend my sensibilities regarding well balanced and sharply honed gameplay... well read on.

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What's in a game?

• Cards: As you'd imagine, there's are lots of cards in a game called Card Against Humanity and basically, there are 2 types.
  • Black cards: These are black cards with white text. Each black card contains a incomplete proposition or question which displays a 'blank space' that needs to be 'filled in'.
    Some black cards will have 2 or even more blank spaces.
  • White cards: Cards Against Humanity has a lot of white (And needs to!). You won't be surprised to learn that the white cards contain black text. The text will usually be a single word or short phrase.

Examples of Cards Against Humanity cards.

The cards are average thickness but seem plastic or vinyl coated and feel reasonably sturdy - they need to be for a party game.

There's no art in Cards Against Humanity. Unless you count white text on a black background and vice versa.

Again, there's no iconography in Cards Against Humanity as the game is entirely drive by text.
Wow, so far this blog has written itself!

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How's it play?

• Black cards: Shuffle the black cards into a face-down deck.
• White cards: Shuffle the white cards into several face-down decks.
  Deal 10 white cards to each player.
• First player: Determine a starting player

​On to play
The objective in Cards Against Humanity is to earn 'Awesome Points' which are just victory points (VPs). This is done by answering the questions on the black cards in the most entertaining way, which can be funny, outrageous, offensive and probably even worse!
Each player's turn consists of 4 phases.

• Black card: The active player draws a black and reads it out to all the other players.
• White cards: All players who are not the active player, i.e., all the other players now choose a white card to 'fill-in-the-blank on the black card.
  Players can choose any white card they desire but generally, they'll want to choose something entertaining.
  Once players have chosen a card, they should hand it over to the active player face-down.
• Choose: Once the active player has collected all the white cards, they should read the text on the black card while using the text on each white card to fill in the blank(s) on the black card. This needs to be done for each white card (Or sets of white cards in the case of multiple blanks.). Thus with 4 other players, it will need to be done 4 times. The active player should probably also do this aloud for maximum effect.
  Once the active player has read all the white cards, they pick one that they like the most according to whatever criteria they choose, it could be funny or offense or a mix of the two and so on.
  Once the active player has declared their favourite card, whoever played it should make themselves known and they earn a VP. Usually this is tracked by giving them the black card.
  All played white cards are discard out of play.
• End of turn: All players draw back up to 10 white cards and play progresses to the player on the left who becomes the new active player and begins their turn by drawing a new black card.

Endgame
I always thought that Cards Against Humanity concluded after the 10th black card was won but after skimming the rules, this doesn't seem to be the case and there are several different ways the game could end.
Regardless of this, whenever the game reaches whatever its game ending criteria is, the game ends and Awesome Points are calculated 

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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What are the odds of this combo coming up? (Narrator: It happens every game!)

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Overall
First of all I'll say; it's sort of pointless to blog about Cards Against Humanity and discuss mechanics or strategies or theme in the way I would normally and that's because it's the epitome of a party game, albeit a very much adult themed one.
That means it's loud and raucously humorous, easy to learn and easy to play. No one really cares about VPs or who wins and yes, it's also potentially offensive. Suffice to say that if you're thin-skinned or easily offended, Cards Against Humanity is probably not for you.

The real question is: Is it fun?
I'm going to say, yes and sometimes very much so. Obviously, much of the game's pleasure derives from the kind of people playing it​. I imagine it's a game that gets a lot of play by drunk participants - there's a good reason why the cards are fairly sturdy. If you're concerned about anything other than basically cracking jokes, probably best to look elsewhere.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of trying to craft the most outrageous answers and listening to other players' answers. I also think most people playing it understand it's just humour doing what humour does very well, which is bringing up stuff that would never be broached in conversation otherwise.

There is a caveat here though: Which is Cards Against Humanity can definitely outstay its welcome.
Initially, we played several times with the 10 black card limit and when that was reached, someone would invariably say: 'Why don't we play through all the black cards.'
The first time was: 'Yeah, cool'.
The second time: 'Oh Okay.'
The third time: I had to stifle an inward groan.

So if you want a shockingly funny and outrageous party game, Cards Against Humanity would be a good choice.
Just play it short intense bursts.