Cards against humanity - angry friend

[CareBear50]

Last night we had a bit of a get together with v close friends and family. There were about 5 or 6 of us. I had been given Cards Against Humanity for Christmas and decided to play a game of it.

I explained the premise of the game to everyone and explained how it worked. I said some might find it offensive (and gave some harsh examples) but just wanted to make sure everyone was ok about it before we played as I knew some people might not like it. I explained if they were uncomfortable it was perfectly fine to say no. No one objected.

Everyone played the game.

Anyway - I called in to my friends house earlier to say hi and he had a go at me four times, complaining that the game was not ok. On four separate occasions I told him that I had given him the opportunity to opt out, along with everyone else, and if he didn't want to play that was fine. In the end I told him you have no right to complain after the fact, if you say nothing when we were playing it or before we started, as I am not a mind-reader and in such a small group you could easily have aired your concerns.

This person is normally quite vocal and no shrinking violet.

Was I being unreasonable?

I don't think you're asking for examples in good faith...

@theflushedzebra I did have a giggle. Good picks.

I do agree that it’s in incredibly bad taste to include victims’ names in the card game, but I really don’t think we should police what people play or say, in the privacy of their own home. That’s very close to being the thought police and in my opinion that’s much more offensive that inappropriate jokes, no matter how offensive.

flushed those are funny!

Do you have some kind of badge that lets you decide what is offensive and what isn’t?

I don't know, do you have some kind of badge that gives you the right to decide what other people are allowed to find funny? You are certainly being very hypocritical.

We play it with black humour or surrealism.

@AutumnRose1

flushed those are funny!

See, it's not about offensive cards. It's how you choose to play it, most people will try to be funny in creative ways and not just go straight for the shock cards.

It's how you choose to play it, most people will try to be funny in creative ways and not just go straight for the shock cards

So why the need for the shock cards?

What does it say about the creators that they felt the need to have the shock cards in?

@theflushedzebra I can see the humour in those

I would play the game if it was just like the examples theflushed has given. It's the shock ones and the crude ones I don't like. But it wouldn't be called Cards Against Humanity the card game for horrible people if it was just based on those examples

chomalungma This is the problem I have. There are a few games out there that have a similar goal of creating absurd or surreal combinations, and which don't have cards in there just for the shock-value.

Greyt those combos are funny.

But I still think the game is grim based on some of the examples on their own website.

NB I have not called anyone a name, I’ve only said the game looks grim and called myself a snowflake.

@gingersausage - no faux naïveté or living under a rock - just haven’t heard of the game

It’s really hard to be the one who says “actually no, I’m not ok with this”

In effect, you are in the position of passing judgement of the fact that others are finding it funny, while you are vetoing that laughter on grounds of taste.

It’s impossible to do that without being “prudish” no matter how polite you are about it.

.

This

flushed agree those are funny. That's the thing that baffles me though... If the designers of this game had left out the racist (etc) jokes, they could still have come up with a great game that remained 'edgy' enough to satisfy all but the most vicious wankers. I

It's like... if you saw a joke book that included jokes about black people, rape and the Holocaust, but also some genuinely funny jokes that weren't offensive, would you buy it? I wouldn't, because a) I wouldn't want to put money in the pocket of someone who would write a thing like that and b) I wouldn't want anyone to stumble across it and think that I bought it for the racist jokes.

But hey. Everyone's different, as the CAH apologists on the thread keep telling us.

The ones that zebra posted are quite funny. But they are nothing like the youtube link someone posted upthread of people playing the game. The cards there were disgusting and not remotely funny and, tbh, a McCann card was mild compared.

I'd never heard of this game until this thread either.

I've been thinking about the best alternative game for someone who likes the lighter side of CAH, and I submit Metagame. Best of all, when I checked online for a quick review, I found this comment from Shutupandsitdown (board game review site, which doesn't laud CAH).

The Metagame is a stunning box that got a quick recommendation at the end of ourCards Against Humanity article. As of this week it’s available internationallyhere, and our American readers can still grab it from Amazonhere. Two bits of trivia: One, an early version of The Metagame was actually a source ofinspirationfor Cards Against Humanity. The commercial release just took years to get here. And two, The Metagame was co-designed by Eric Zimmerman, who’s no less than the sparkling mind behind lovely space-dice wargameQuantum.

www.shutupandsitdown.com/presenting-quinns-corner-awards-2015/

This thread has troubled me all day. I can't stop thinking Jade Goody/Madeline McCann/the Holocaust - how in God's name can any of them be associated with anything but sadness.

They have the more offensive cards in it to appeal to a wider range of humours. As much as it may offend some, a lot of people have a dark sense of humour. Why is it such a problem that others may enjoy it in the privacy of their home? If you don't, then just don't play.

Some of the cards I find offensive, but the times I've joined in a game I didn't get the impression the aim was to be as offensive as possible because the aim was to get your answer picked as the winner for each turn and that relies on reading the group and the other players.

perfect.

@theflushedzebra - loved those, that's the kind of thing that often wins with our family too. Trawling through my photos to try to find some of ours.

It’s really hard to be the one who says “actually no, I’m not ok with this”. In effect, you are in the position of passing judgement of the fact that others are finding it funny, while you are vetoing that laughter on grounds of taste.

But the friend didn’t find it hard to criticise FOUR TIMES in the aftermath?

Why is it such a problem that others may enjoy it in the privacy of their home? If you don't, then just don't play

If people want to play this, then let them. I belong to a social group and someone suggested a game afternoon playing this - but the people don't really know others very well. I am surprised they suggested this.

I assume you can see that some people could be very upset (not offended - but upset) by some of the possible statements that could come out of this game.

This is what I struggle with - why would someone try to come up with something that could easily upset someone else because it's a game. No one knows anyone's true history. What they really think or has gone on in their life. I really struggle to understand why someone would want to come up with something that they think is funny (even if it is dark humour) but that could really upset someone.

Honestly chomalungma I think you are digging way too deep with this now. Nobody plays the game with the intention of upsetting people, at least not in my circles anyways and that's not the point of the game. Its just dark humour, that's it. Whenever I've played it everyone has been made away of how offensive it can be and nobody was upset, if anything we joked about the laughs we had the next day. You have made it clear that you don't like it and nothing is wrong with that but you judging others for their sense of humour is wrong.

On a separate note: www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/29/dark-humour-high-intelligence-study

They have them there because its USP is in its tagline: A party game for horrible people. It's been very successful marketing, so from a financial point of view, they made the right decision.

I don't think it's got much to do with dark humour. Dark humour is finding a funny side in stuff you actually experience, in order to get through it. Doctors, police officers (funnily enough, a police officer, who'd come to my house to notify me that a relative had been found dead, congratulated me on my dark sense of humour- because I joked about my own bereavement) and other professions are famous for it, and these cards aren't for them. Making jokes about Auschwitz etc is only 'dark' if you were personally affected by the events. Otherwise, it's just puerile, empathy-free mockery, punching-down at other people's suffering. Seventy-five years after the end of the second world war, it's not holocaust survivors or the men who freed Bergen Belsen who have made this game a bestseller, is it?

I also spotted Ethnic Cleansing, Stalin, Kamikaze Pilots and the Bombing of Nagasaki in there. I don't think people personally affected by those events are driving sales, either.

I think you are digging way too deep with this now. Nobody plays the game with the intention of upsetting people, at least not in my circles anyways and that's not the point of the game. Its just dark humour, that's it

I am sure no one intends to upset people. But you have to admit that there is a massive potential in the game to unintentionally upset people. And there are people who may not admit to being upset when the game has been played.

You have made it clear that you don't like it and nothing is wrong with that but you judging others for their sense of humour is wrong

It's not so much their sense of humour - more like why would someone want to say something that could really upset someone else - even by accident. I don't get that.