chapotraphouse

My family has a decently big collection of CAH cards — including many off-brand cards — and we play with our own house rules: we take three white cards instead of ten for single-answer prompts, five cards for double-answer prompts and six for triple-answer prompts; we have entirely abolished the title of Card Czar in favor of consensus democracy, by extent each player reads sy own answer and is allowed to modify the phrasing "within reason" if it makes it funnier. Note that this includes the ability to outright stand up, grab some props, and turn one's answer into a whole acted-out one-person improv routine with song and dance. We've also entirely abandoned using the black cards, in favor of printing out custom themed prompts (generally ones we've come up with ourselves) on a sheet of paper and doing these prompts in order. We use the winning white cards, or one of the winning white cards for multi-answer prompts, to keep track of the score.

We also once played with "Haruhi Suzumiya" — a jack-o-lantern based on that character's head, who would play a random white card each round. So we were basically trying to see if we were funnier than cards literally chosen at random (we were).

CAH is a blast every time, because (at least with our house rules) it forces us to be creative, and we often riff on each other's answers or even combine them in funny ways. It's been a good source of in-jokes. Yet CAH still feels like a bit of a "consumerist" game, doesn't it? Like it doesn't have to be a consumerist thing, it's just that the cards are fairly easy to make yourself, so what exactly are you paying for when you buy the packs? A set of prompts and answers that have already been tested to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and to work decently well with each other? A sheet of "official" rules? A cardboard box? There is a never-ending supply of freely available prompts and answers created by random people on the Internet, and it's not difficult to find the rules online or to make up your own house rules, so if you aren't desperately in need of a new cardboard box, what's the point? Why don't people just make their own cards out of ideas they found online, or come up with their own prompts and answers, instead of getting a bunch of non-recyclable lowest-common-denominator cards where — worst case scenario — you forgo the black cards entirely, or retire a number of white cards that are too gross, or that make references you don't understand? Heck, maybe you even have damaged or defective cards, which CAH will not replace!

Like I guess you can use some white-out to change bad white cards or something, or find other ways to use the otherwise wasted cards, so it's not some big crisis — I'm just saying that it's still always felt like a bit of a ripoff to me, right? Like I'm just saying, when I'm the general secretary, there will be no Cards Against Humanity, Crabs Adjust Humidity, or Clones Attack Hilarity, there will only be nondescript boxes of generic blank playing cards, and you will hear good prompts and answers by word of mouth, and you will go to your local library and have them printed before game night, and that will be that. In a similar vein there will only be Nondescript Generic Toy Brick sold in bulk, not sold in overpriced sets.

This rant has hardly anything to do with the above post. It is currently 3:00 AM.