# Rules Of Cards Against Humanity PlayPalace team, 2026. ## TL;DR Cards Against Humanity is a party game for 3 to 10 players. Each round, one player is the Card Czar. A black prompt card is read aloud, and every other player submits white answer cards from their hand to fill in the blanks. The Card Czar picks the funniest (or most fitting) submission, and that player scores a point. First to the target score wins. ## Gameplay The game uses two decks: black cards (prompts) and white cards (answers). Black cards contain a sentence or question with one or more blanks. White cards contain words or phrases that players use to fill those blanks. At the start of the game, each player is dealt a hand of white cards (10 by default). A Card Czar is chosen, and a black prompt card is drawn and read to everyone. The round has two phases: **Submission phase.** Every player except the Card Czar looks at the black card prompt and selects white cards from their hand to fill in the blanks. If the prompt has one blank, you pick one card. If it has two blanks, you pick two, and so on. The number of cards required is announced at the start of each round. You toggle cards in and out of your selection using the number keys (1 through 0 for cards 1 through 10). When you are happy with your choice, press Space to submit. You can preview how your answer will read before submitting by pressing V. Once you submit, your cards are locked in and you cannot change them. As players submit, the game announces how many of the total submissions are in. Submissions are anonymous to the Card Czar. **Judging phase.** Once all players have submitted, the Card Czar hears all submissions read aloud with the white cards filled into the black card's blanks. The submissions are presented in a random order so the Card Czar cannot tell who played what. The Card Czar picks the one they like best. The player who submitted that answer scores one point. After the Card Czar picks a winner, the winning answer is announced along with who played it. Then all other submissions are revealed with their authors. Players are dealt new white cards to refill their hands, and a new round begins with a new Card Czar. The game ends when a player reaches the target score. ### Customizable Options The host can adjust these settings before the game starts: * **Winning Score:** The number of points needed to win. Defaults to 7, and can be set from 3 to 20. Lower values make for a quicker game; higher values let the humor build over many rounds. * **Hand Size:** The number of white cards each player holds at a time. Defaults to 10, and can be set from 5 to 15. A larger hand gives you more options each round but can be harder to browse. * **Card Packs:** Which packs of cards to include. The game ships with many packs including the base set, expansions, family edition, holiday packs, and nostalgia packs. You can mix and match freely, but at least one pack must be selected. The default is the base set. More packs means more variety but also more unpredictable content. * **Card Czar Selection:** How the Card Czar is chosen each round. Three modes are available: * Rotating (default): the role passes around the table in order, so everyone gets a turn. * Random: a random player is chosen each round. Someone might judge twice in a row. * Most Recent Winner: the player who won the last round becomes the next Card Czar. This means the winner sits out the next round as a tradeoff for their success. On the first round, it falls back to rotating. * **Number of Judges:** How many players serve as Card Czar simultaneously, from 1 to 3. With multiple judges, any one of them can pick the winner. More judges means fewer players submitting answers each round, so this works best with larger groups. ### Example Round Five players are in the game: Alice, Bob, Carol, Dan, and Eve. The winning score is 7, and Alice is the Card Czar this round. A black card is drawn: "What is Batman's guilty pleasure?" The other four players look at their hands. Bob has ten white cards and picks "Soup that is too hot." He presses 3 to select it (it was his third card), sees it highlighted as selected, then presses Space to submit. Carol, Dan, and Eve do the same with their own picks. Once all four have submitted, Alice enters the judging phase. She hears the submissions in random order: 1. What is Batman's guilty pleasure? Soup that is too hot. 2. What is Batman's guilty pleasure? A balanced breakfast. 3. What is Batman's guilty pleasure? Poorly-timed jazz hands. 4. What is Batman's guilty pleasure? A tiny horse. Alice picks number 3. The game announces: "Eve wins the round! Score: 1." Then it reveals everyone's answers. All players are dealt replacement cards, and the Card Czar rotates to Bob for the next round. ## Keyboard Shortcuts Shortcuts specific to Cards Against Humanity: * 1 through 0: Toggle white cards 1 through 10 in your hand (selecting or deselecting them for submission). * Space: Submit your selected cards. * C: Read the current black card prompt aloud. * V: Preview or view your submission. Before submitting, this reads how your current selection would sound in the prompt. After submitting, this reads your locked-in answer. * S: View current scores. * Shift+S: View detailed scores. * J: Announce who the current Card Czar is. * T: Check whose turn it is, or who has not yet submitted. ## Game Theory / Tips * This is not a strategy game in the traditional sense. The Card Czar's taste is everything. Pay attention to what kind of humor each player tends to reward and tailor your picks accordingly. * Obvious answers are rarely winners. The funniest submissions often come from unexpected or absurd combinations. Do not always go for the answer that "makes sense." * If a prompt has two blanks, the order of your cards matters. The first card you select fills the first blank, and the second fills the second. Think about the rhythm of the sentence. * As I mentioned, you should adapt your responses according to the current card czar's taste. Bear in mind however that the inverse (deliberately avoiding the leading player's submission even if it was funnier) is considered unsportsmanlike in many circles. * Selecting more card packs increases variety but can also lower the coherence of answers. This might be funny, but it could also just make for a boring game.