Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity is a card game often played in character over at the Pretend You're Xyzzy site.

Starting a game
To start a game of Cards Against Humanity online, and only the game host need do this, you'll need to head on over to the Pretend You're Xyzzy site, click the button at the bottom, and set a nickname -- no spaces. Because there is a display cuttoff in-game, most people tend to just use one identifiable name or their character's first and last name CamelCased as opposed to using underscores or hyphens.

Once you're in, just click the "create game" button at the top of the site and you'll automatically be taken to a new game room, assuming the servers are working correctly [they have a lot of errors, get used to that]. As the host, you'll have several new options! If you don't get what an option is there for, hovering over things will usually offer a decent explanation.

After you've set it all up, just link people to the game by copying the url in the address bar, where players can just set their nicknames and jump in right away. If for any reason you need to navigate to the game from the PYX site itself, then you can type the host's nickname into the keyword box next to the refresh/create game buttons and from there you can join or spectate the game. Then when everyone's ready, just hit 'start game' up in the corner. Make sure to give everyone time to talk amongst themselves and request rule adjustments first.

Typical starting options
Most of the time, CAHniverse games have these settings, but they are of course open to changes depending on the host or players:


 * Score limit of at least 10, higher scores make the games last longer so adjust according to player desires
 * Player limits are usually kept at the default, 10
 * Spectator limits are also usually kept at their default. We never even get spectators 99% of the time. Spectator limits can be removed entirely if watchers outnumbering players ever becomes a problem.
 * We need to start removing the idle timer. Like, that's a thing we can do. It can allow for more roleplay-heavy play if a game ever heads that direction, as we know they have before.
 * Most card sets go unchecked, we use our own custom decks [more on that in a moment]. If a Metal Gear character is playing, please check off the Box Expansion.
 * Other decks that can be included... include the 90s Nostalgia Pack or any of the numbered sets/expansions.
 * Don't forget blank white cards. 10 is a good base number, but make it higher if there are lots of cards/decks present in the game -- blank cards make up a lot of the fun, but too many might not be a good idea either. Balance things out, 10 blanks to start with and idk, maybe include a few more blanks for every deck added after the first? Each host is free to use their own judgement.
 * Most importantly, include a game password. The most commonly-used password is "Justice" with a capital J, and we expect that one, so please use it, but the password doesn't matter too much as long as it doesn't begin with a capital C. This has actually happened, yes.

Creating custom decks
Creating custom decks requires an account on Cardcast, though you don't need to make an account if you're only using other peoples' decks. Once your account is set up and you're logged in, just click "build" at the top of the site to start building decks or look at/edit your existing ones. That page has some useful info, though here are a few notes about it:


 * "Calls" are the equivalent of black cards
 * "Responses" are the equivalent of white cards and tend to outnumber calls
 * The same rules that apply to their "Cardcast" game also apply to Cards Against Humanity

You should also follow their style guide, but that's just common sense.

Once you've entered in the details for your custom deck, you're ready to go, start entering in some cards. There are even upload buttons that don't actually upload, you can just paste lines of text into the box and it creates cards out of them so you won't have to enter them one at a time.

The deck builder autosaves, though I wouldn't recommend using it if your internet connection is being a piece of shit. But if it was, you'd also not want to be playing CAH at the moment. Once you're done, just copy your deck's play code and put it somewhere, like, I dunno, maybe this page because we have more deck codes further down here. It doesn't exactly matter if you lose it, though, because you can just go back and get it by logging into Cardcast, going to "build", and clicking on your deck.



Adding custom decks
You can add anyone's deck as long as you know its play code. You can get play codes from the chatlog by typing /listcardcast. Once you have the play code, adding the custom deck is as easy as inserting the top line of text under 'commands' [after making the appropriate replacements] into the chatbox.

Commands


/addcardcast PLAYCODE

Generates this system message: [5:58:29 PM] Added: Cardcast deck '[title]' (code: [playcode]), with # black cards and # white cards. Clicking on the playcode will take you to the deck's browse page where you can view all the cards present. Only usable by game hosts!

/removecardcast PLAYCODE

The instructions say this is broken, but it works for me when I try it. Only usable by game hosts.

/listcardcast



Typing this generates a similar message where you can get a peek at the numbers behind a deck as well as the browse page on Cardcast's website. This one can be used by players as well as the game host.

/me

Works just like [F-chat commands f-chat].

Actually playing CAH
The game will mostly explain itself. But I playercested with myself to run a demo game for the purposes of this article.

When the game begins, a random person is designated "card czar" -- that person, for this round, does nothing. How do you know if you're the card czar, you ask? The game makes it blatantly obvious.



Everybody else selects cards that the czar will then choose their favourite or whatever they prefer or whatever sounds the funniest or whatever doesn't fit the most... depends on the czar, and it may also depend on how obvious the players make their plays.

Once the czar has chosen, the person that played that card is awarded a point, and the card czar goes down the online list in the next turn, and play continues like this until someone reaches the score cap, whatever it's set to.

Doubling-up
The index page of PYX mentions you can't double up in the same browser. So using Chrome users won't let you double up, and browser extensions like Multi-Fox or SessionBox also don't work. Here is a short list of alternative browsers you can use:


 * Pale Moon: Firefox-based, compatible with many Firefox extensions
 * Iridium: Chrome/webkit-based, compatible with many Chrome extensions
 * Midori: Chrome/webkid-based, I didn't install this one but it looks good
 * GNUzilla IceCat: Firefox-based, really cute logo

Cardcast Deck Codes

 * CAHniverse: NAM4R (card list)
 * Turnabout Humanity: 9KYQ4 (card list)
 * Sodomy Dog's Furry Pack: PQSA2 (card list)
 * Cards Against Fan Culture: XJ7DX (card list)

Extra

 * PYX Dark Userstyle