Cards Against Formality / Rules

How to play Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Formality is an independent fan project. Not affiliated with Cards Against Humanity LLC.

Cards Against Humanity takes five minutes to learn. Here are the rules the way most groups play them, plus the house rules you can switch on, and how to play with just two people.

What you need

Three or more players is the classic setup. With the physical game you need the black cards (questions and fill-in-the-blank prompts) and the white cards (answers). Online, the game shuffles, deals and keeps score for you, so all you need is a phone, tablet or laptop each.

Setup

Everyone draws a hand of ten white cards. Pick someone to be the first Card Czar. Traditionally that is whoever most recently pooped, but any method works.

How a round works

1. The Card Czar draws a black card and reads it out loud.
2. Everyone else picks the white card from their hand that makes the funniest (or worst) answer, and passes it to the Czar face down.
3. The Czar shuffles the answers, reads each one out with the black card, and picks a favorite.
4. Whoever played the winning card gets the black card as a point.
5. Everyone draws back up to ten white cards, and the role of Card Czar passes to the next player.

Pick 2 cards

Some black cards say Pick 2 (or have two blanks). Play two white cards, in the order they should be read. Some groups let everyone draw an extra card first on these rounds, which is the Packing Heat house rule below.

How to win

The first player to an agreed number of points wins. Many groups play to 5 or 10, or just keep going until people need to leave. Online, whoever creates the game sets the target score.

House rules

These popular house rules can be switched on when you create a game on Cards Against Formality:

• Rando Cardrissian: a bot plays a random card every round. If Rando wins, everyone has to live with it.
• Packing Heat: draw an extra white card whenever the black card asks for two or more answers.
• Rebooting the Universe: trade in your whole hand for a fresh one. It costs one point.

How to play with 2 people

The standard game needs at least three players, because with two the Czar would only ever see one answer. Two people can still play online: start a game and switch on Rando Cardrissian, so the Czar always picks between your card and a random one. Playing alone? Solo mode fills the table with bot players and you judge.

How to play online with friends

On Cards Against Formality you create a room, share the link or room code, and friends join with just a nickname, no account or download needed. Creating a game needs a free sign-in. Games take 3 to 10 players, it works next to any video call, and the cards are available in 20 languages besides English (beta), with each player seeing their own language.

Home Card packs

Rules in other languages: Deutsch Español Português Français Polski Italiano