Cards Against Humanity Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Cards Against Humanity is an adult game where many of the cards have adult themes on them. As Geeky Hobbies is a family friendly website, for the pictures below I will try to use cards that are acceptable for all ages. Many of the cards in the game are meant for adults only though.

Setup

Sort the cards by their backs. Shuffle each set of cards separately.
Each player draws ten white cards to start the game.
The player who most recently pooped begins the game as the Card Czar. This role changes throughout the game.

How to Play Cards Against Humanity

To start each round the Card Czar draws one of the black cards. They will read the card out loud. They can then place it on the table so the rest of the players can see it.

All of the players beside the Card Czar then look at the white cards in their hand. They are looking for a card that works well with the black card chosen by the Card Czar. It will either answer the question on the card, or fill in the blanks from the card. The card could either make a lot of sense for the black card, or you could choose a card that is really funny when used in combination with the black card.

Playing a card — This player decided to play the “tap dancing like there’s no tomorrow” for something that always livens up the party.

When you have chosen the card that you want to play, you will place it facedown on the table.

When everyone has chosen a card to play, the Card Czar gathers up all of the cards and shuffles the cards. They will then read out all of the submitted cards. It is recommended that the Card Czar reads off the black card before reading off each submitted card.

Choosing the best submitted card — For this round the other players submitted six cards. The Card Czar now has to decide which of the submitted cards they like the most.

After the Card Czar reads off all of the submitted cards, they will choose which card that they think is the funniest. They can use whatever criteria they want to choose the best submitted card. The player that submitted the card that the Card Czar chose receives one Awesome Point. To keep track of Awesome Points, players should take the black cards from the rounds they win.

Scoring an Awesome Point — The Card Czar chose their best answer for the current round. The player that submitted the card takes the black card and counts it as an Awesome Point.

Each player who played a white card this round draws a new card so they have a total of ten cards in their hand.

The player to the left of the previous Card Czar becomes the next Card Czar.

Pick 2 Cards

Some of the black cards in the deck have “Pick 2” on the bottom. For these cards all of the players will submit two cards for their answer. The judge should consider both cards for each players’ answer. Players should play the card that they want read first on the bottom with their second card on top. At the end of the round, all of the players who played cards will draw two new cards so they have ten cards in their hand.

Gambling

Sometimes you have two cards that you think could win a round, and you don’t know which to pick. If you have an Awesome Point, you can use it in order to play two cards in the current round. The judge picks their favorite answer like they normally would. If the player who played two cards has one of their cards chosen, they take back the point they wagered and score an additional point for winning the round. If another player’s answer is chosen, the player who submitted the winning answer earns one Awesome Point for winning the round and they take the Awesome Point wagered by the other player.

Winning Cards Against Humanity

There is no set end to Cards Against Humanity. The players will keep playing until all of the players agree to end the game. To make the game fair to all players, you may want to play where all of the players have the same number of turns as the Card Czar.

Once the game ends all of the players count up their Awesome Points. The player with the most Awesome Points wins the game.

Winning Cards Against Humanity — At the end of the game the players have these Awesome Points. The top player has the most Awesome Points, so they have won the game.

House Rules

Above are all of the official standard rules for Cards Against Humanity. If players want to mix up the gameplay, they can choose to use some of the house rules listed below. There are a couple other house rules included in the instructions that I don’t have listed below, as they are meant to be jokes instead of actually changing up the gameplay.

Rando Cardrissian

Players can choose to add a random player to the game. If they chose to, a random white card is drawn from the pile each round and added to the submitted answers. This card belongs to a player named Rando Cardrissian. Their answers are treated the same as any other player. Should Rando Cardrissian end up winning the game, all of the players “go home in a state of everlasting shame.”

Happy Ending

When a player wants to end the game, they can play the “Make a haiku” black card. This marks the end of the game.

Never Have I Ever

If a player does not understand one or more of the cards in their hands, they can choose to discard them and draw new cards. They must confess their ignorance to the rest of the group though.

Wheaton’s Law

With this house rule the Card Czar chooses two black cards to start each round. They will read both of the cards, and they will choose which card they would rather use this round. The other card is put on the bottom of the black card deck.

Rebooting the Universe

On any of your turns you can choose to discard white cards that you don’t think you can use. You can choose to discard as many cards as you want. You will then draw the same number of cards, so you still have ten white cards in your hand. To take this action though, you need to discard one of your Awesome Points.

Packing Heat

For this house rule whenever a Pick 2 card is revealed, all of the players draw an extra card before playing any cards. This gives the players an additional card to choose from when picking the two cards to play this round.

Meritocracy

Instead of the role of Card Czar moving clockwise/left, the player who wins the round (has their card chosen) becomes the Card Czar for the next round.

Smooth Operator

With this house rule players can try to slip the word/phrase from one of their cards into the normal conversation of the game. If they can do so without anyone noticing, they can trade in the card for an Awesome Point. If anyone catches them trying to sneak in the word/phrase though, they lose an Awesome Point.

Tie Breaker

If the Card Czar has two cards that they like equally and can’t pick one, they will declare a tie breaker. The player that is more conventionally attractive wins the round and receives the Awesome Point.

Components

460 White Cards (newer versions have 500)
90 Black Cards (newer versions have 100)
Instructions

Year: 2009 | Publisher: Cards Against Humanity | Designer: Josh Dillon, Daniel Dranove, Eli Halpern, Ben Hantoot, David Munk, David Pinsof, Max Temkin, Eliot Weinstein

Genres: Card, Party

Ages: 17+ | Number of Players: 4+ | Length of Game: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.