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Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people. Unlike most of the party games you’ve played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.

The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest white card.

Development

Cards Against Humanity was created by a group of eight Highland Park High School alumni, including Ben Hantoot and Max Temkin, as a party game for a New Year’s Eve celebration. Heavily influenced by the popular Apples to Apples card game, it was initially named Cardenfreude and involved a group of players writing out the most abstract and, often, humorous response to the topic question. The name was later changed to Cards Against Humanity, with the answers pre-written on the white cards known today. Co-creator Ben Hantoot cited experiences with various games such as Magic: The Gathering, Balderdash, and Charades as inspiration, also noting that Mad Libs was “the most direct influence” for the game.

Gameplay

A black “question” card and a white “answer” card
To start the game, each player draws ten white cards.

According to the rule book provided with the game, the person who most recently “pooped” (a form of primitive randomization) begins as the “Card Czar” (or “Card Tsar”) and plays a black card, face up. The Card Czar then reads the question or fill-in-the-blanks phrase on the black card out loud.

The other players answer the question or fill in the blanks by each passing one white card (or however many required by the black card), face down, to the Card Czar.

The Card Czar shuffles all of the answers and shares each card combination with the group. For full effect, the Card Czar should usually re-read the black card before presenting each answer. The Card Czar then picks the funniest play, and whoever submitted it gets one “Awesome Point”.

After the round, a new player becomes the Card Czar, and everyone draws back up to 10 white cards.[10]

The part of speech of a white card is a noun or gerund, including both single words and phrase constructions. Black cards are either fill-in-the-blank statements or questions. Both white and black cards break these rules on rare occasions.

The rules do not state how to win the game—the object being simply to have fun.

The rules in Cards Against Humanity are flexible and can be altered with the many house rules (which are listed in the rules) that players can incorporate (e.g. winning cards are chosen democratically, ability to trade points for cards, points given by ranks, etc.). The official rules include additional provisions for gambling previously won “Awesome Points” for the right to play additional white cards during a round.

Simply put, the game is rude, crude, unsuitable for children, best played with a drink or two and pant wetting hilarious. Don’t play it with your Grandparents (or maybe you should). You have been warned!

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