Cards Against Humanity: Designed for Offense

A recent Jezebel post caught my eye as it was about my favorite party game Cards Against Humanity. The writer, Katie JM Baker, seems to want to draw attention to the potential to offend some participants and that the offended will stay silent, scared of being told to lighten up or worse. But maybe they should lighten up, or at least rethink what they are doing playing that game.

You have to keep in mind that Cards Against Humanity is a game designed to offend, and it is subtitled to remind you of that: "A party game for horrible people". The card combinations can be fearsomely offensive. But combinations like the one here (and way worse) are the point of the game. If people began saying various things offended them, people's play might be edited, or even worse, remain unedited. If that happens often enough, your might as well be playing Apples to Apples, not CAH.

Cards Against Humanity is an offensive game for horrible people, and there is no room to think better of it. If  you try it, find that the game crosses your lines and you become truly offended, then I think you should grin and bare it till the end or leave before the end, like you would a distasteful movie. Then chalk the experience up to learning that you need to get Apples to Apples ASAP, so in future, you can demand to play it when ever CAH is suggested.

- Andrew
Guest DoM writer and Avid Board Gamer

PS  I really don't like Apples to Apples, which is mostly because it is not CAH... and also because I'm a horrible person.

PPS  Get Dixit instead. Seriously, Dixit is just a better inoffensive party game.

First plays: Riff Raff....

Late yesterday night we unboxed and played Riff Raff, a clever dexterity game of balance on a ship amidst the stormy sea.  To say the game is a riot might be a bit of an understatement.  And through some simple but clever use of cards to bid for turn order and location, this game feels different enough from every other balancing act out there.


Here is the setting up:

And here is yours truly losing horribly (keep in mind in this game, if you catch the pieces they don't count against you):

Board games that SHOULD be movies....

Here's a great little article saying that despite the disaster that was Battleship last year, there are some games that would make great movies.  My favourite of their choices is Arkham Horror:

Imagine the aesthetics and attention to period detail seen in something like HBO's Boardwalk Empire. Now add portals to other dimensions, gangsters firing tommy guns at giant spiders and monsters that can drive characters insane in seconds. Every game of Arkham Horror oozes menace and atmosphere and since players are forced to band together against a game that's doing its damnedest to wipe them out, every round becomes a tale of heroes fighting against overwhelming odds. Lovecraft has proven difficult to adapt in the past, but perhaps the key to bringing his world to the screen is this game, which takes the author's concepts and filters them into an action-horror story. This could be the next great horror franchise.

But boy would it have an unhappy ending.... 

(Thanks for the tip, Kelly!)