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Strap yourselves in boys and girls for the quickest ‘How to Play’ guide you have ever read, or possibly ever will read! The end of the two-week fourteen-month lockdown is slowly looming over us, and for many of us, that means one thing: games! I myself can not remember the last time I actually sat down with a bunch of fellow gamers and allowed myself to be immersed in the wonderful world of board gaming. What better way to dust off the old gaming cobwebs than with a few cheeky tipples and a good old game of Cards Against Humanity?
If you do not know how to play this game, then, well, where the heck have you been!? But fear not, I am here to teach you the ways of the Jedi offensive little card game.
Officially the game plays 4 to 20 plus players. It is possible to play with 2 or 3 with some house rules (more on them later), and more than 6 just feels a bit claustrophobic. Find a good middle ground. It is also worth mentioning that this game is very offensive. It is abhorrent with details revolving religion, sexuality and sex in general, toilet humour etc so it is advised not to play with prudes.
Setup
Are you ready for this? Take a deep breath.
Separate the black cards from the white cards and form a draw pile for each. And breath! Phew. You got through it. Well done. You've setup a game of Cards Against Humanity.
Playing Cards Against Humanity
So, to begin, every player draws 10 white cards.
Officially, the player who most recently did a number 2 (that is a poo poo) goes first. There is one exception to this, however. If you are Hugh Jackman, then you go first regardless. He is a big fan of my blogs of course, so I thought it important to mention. You’re welcome, J man.
The starting player draws a black card and reads aloud the statement shown on it for all players to hear. They simply say “blank” wherever the space is on the card. Then all other players choose a white card from their hand to secretly pass to the player with the black card.
The aim of Cards Against Humanity is to make the player laugh the most with your selected word or phrase to fill in the blank. So, knowing each player’s humour style will work in your flavour here.
The player then shuffles all the white cards they have been given together and reads the black card inserting each white card in turn. They then simply choose the one that made them laugh the most as the winner and play continues in whatever direction you want. I tend to give the black card to the winning player to keep track of the score. If anyone is actually playing to win that is.
Some black cards will have a ‘pick 2’ on them. This basically means the card has 2 blanks for people to fill in. Be careful when shuffling on these rounds, as it is easy to mix up people’s submissions, or even get them back to front.
Gambling
If you are playing with people who actually want to keep track of score, then they can employ the gamble. There is always 1 – it is usually me! If they are convinced that they have more than 1 card that will win them the round, they can offer up one of their points in order to place a second white card in the offered cards. This gives them a slight advantage over the other players and allows them to feed that ego balloon of theirs. If someone else wins the round, however, that player will win the standard point for the round. They will also win the offered gambled point too.
Round End
At the end of a round, all players draw back up to 10 white cards, the next player draws the top black card, and the game continues.
And that is all there is to know about the basic format of Cards Against Humanity.
House Rules
There is an EXTENSIVE list of proposed house rules that come with the UK Version 2.0 of Cards Against Humanity. 18 of them in fact. But in true fashion, some of them are simply there to make you laugh and are not actual rules to play by.
Some notable ones that you may wish to consider are these though:
Rando Cardrissian
So, this house rule is the way you can play the game with only 2 or 3 players. It doesn’t stimulate the most fun you can get out of this game, however, but the option is there if you need it.
All you do for this is every turn, you add a pre-determined amount of white cards from the top of the deck into the offered white cards for the round. If one of those win, then the make-believe player earns a point instead.
Happy Ending
With this rule, when the game has come to an end, everyone plays the ‘Make a Haiku’ black card. This simply has everyone create a Haiku (or as close to one as possible) to be read out dramatically for an entertaining conclusion to the game.
Never Have I Ever
This allows players to discard and redraw any card they do not understand. But must announce it to everyone, so everyone can laugh at your ignorance. This may be a house rule you want to implement as the game is written, self admittedly by ‘eight fat yanks’, so some cards depict things that we Brits just do not understand.
Chubby Bunny
Playing this rule sees players crumple their winning cards and keep them in their mouth as points.
They only get more obscure from there. But hey! Cards Against Humanity is a party game, make your own house rules up, enjoy the game in all the chaotic/insulting/offensive/rude ways it presents to you, and have fun being able to game with actual human beings again!