Cards Against Inanity™Version 1.0 © 2017 Viral Virtue, Inc. CardsAgainstInanity.com

The one game you can never win but have to play anyway.

in·ane /iˈnān/ adjective: silly; stupid.

Cards Against Inanity™ consists of two decks of playing cards.

The white cards contain Sane Questions.

The black cars contain Inane Questions.

There are many games you can play with these cards. The download comes withinstructions for two of them called Who in the World is Mycroft Holmes and InaneEights.

Cards Against Inanity™ is Copyrighted by 2017 by Viral Virtue, Inc. You may use Cards Against Inanity for free underCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This means that youcan use, remix, and share this work in the same way as we do as long as you give us credit, do not make money on, andyou further license it under the same terms we license it to you.

See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Cards Against Inanity was created by Brooke Allen (http://BrookeAllen.com) inspired by The Art of Game Design byJesse Schell, founder of Schell Games.

How to Make Your Own

Cards Against Inanity™

Card Decks

1. Download this PDF and take it to your local Staples andhave it printed. (You could take it to any print shop but we’replugging Staples hoping they will give us some money formentioning them.)

2. Tell them you want it printed on 80 pound card stockor heavier. The people at Staples will try to sell you 80pounds of paper but don’t fall for it. (Hey, Staples, ifyou start sending some dough our way, we’ll take outthat last bit.)

3. Some playing cards use color so ask for color printing.

You might want to make sure you only print pages 3 through 10because you do not need the instructions printed on heavy cardstock. Because there are only 8 cards you might want to print 5or 10 decks for your friends while you are there anyway.

4. Cut the cards using a large kitchen knife. You could use scissorsor a paper cutter but we couldn’t find the right clip art so you mustuse a knife. The more precisely you trim the cards, the moreyou’ll wish you could just order a deck from us.

5. We recommend that you put your cards in a bag and store themin a freezer to preserve freshness. If someone finds your cards inthe freezer they might say, “What an inane place to store cards!”If this happens, we recommend you just stare at them until theyget the joke.

Cards Against Inanity™ is in no way related to Cards Against Humanity®. There are many differences between us,not the least of which is that CAH is inane whereas CAI is against inanity.

Who in the World is Mycroft HolmesPlayers: 3-7, Age: 10+

Background: Everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes is the world’s greatest consultingdetective and master of disguise, but few know that his smarter older brother, MycroftHolmes, is a master of impersonation. Mycroft has an uncanny ability to research afamous person who you and I might know and answer virtually any question as if hewere that person.

Objective: You and your friends take turns playing Mycroft by impersonating a famousperson or character, living or dead, real or fictional.

When you ply Mycroft you will answer questions from the Sane Deck in a way thatslowly reveals the identity of the person you are impersonating. Your goal is to get one(and only one) of the other players to guess your identity.

Rules:

The oldest player goes first as Mycroft. Play continues clockwise.

Think of someone to impersonate. When it is your turn to be Mycroft imagine a real orfictional, living or dead person whom you know well and think all the other playershave at least heard of. If you have time to prepare you might read up on a famousperson so that you can give accurate answers rather than guesses.

Setup. Use only the Sane Deck. Begin by removing the Ace of Hearts and all of theWildcards. Keep the Ace for yourself and give one Wildcard to each of the otherplayers.

Deal. Deal each player 5 cards from the remaining 53 cards. Place the extra cards in thecenter to be used as a draw pile.

Asking Questions. The other players each choose one card from their hand and pass itto you for an answer.

Answering Questions. Read all of the questions out loud and then decide which onesyou want to answer and in what order.

Respond to the questions as you think your character would. If you think your characterwould lie, then tell a lie. If you think your character would get angry at the question,

then fake anger. However, if you don’t know enough about your character to answerthen say, “I don’t know enough about my character to answer that.”

Clarifying questions later. After each card is answered, it is left face up on the table infront of you so that everyone can remember what questions have been asked. At anypoint any player can ask you to clarify a previously answered question although youhave no obligation to do so. You may also add to an answer even if not asked.

Guessing Your Identity. If one of the other players is very sure that they know who youare impersonating then they say “Got it.” Then every player (not just the player whosaid “Got It”) writes their best guess on a piece of paper and passes them face down, toyou. You read these guesses without revealing them to anyone else.

If one or more people guess your identity then the round is over. Score the round asdescribed below.

Additional Rounds. If nobody guesses who you are then play continues withoutrevealing what false guesses were made.

After each question is answered, all of the other players draw a replacement card andyou repeat for another round. Once the draw pile has been exhausted then people playcards from their own hand.

Using Wildcards. After two rounds have been played using the standard questions,players can use a Wildcard instead of one of the standard questions. In the third andfourth rounds it costs a point to play a Wildcard. From the fifth round onward it costsnothing to use a Wildcard.

The person playing a wildcard writes their own question on a piece of paper and passesit to Mycroft. Questions should be worded as the character would ask themselves. Forexample, don’t write, “Are you living or dead?” but rather, “Am I living or dead?”

Giving Up. If everyone gives up then nobody scores any points and the player to the leftbecomes Mycroft for the next round.

Scoring. If at least one player figures out who you are then then everyone gets onepoint, including you.

In addition to that one point everyone receives, each person who identified youcorrectly gets another point.

You (Mycroft) get an additional point for each person who guesses incorrectly. In thisway your score is maximized if one, and only one, player identifies you.

The person who said, “Got it” also receives an additional point for each other playerwho guesses incorrectly.

An example

The players are Mycroft (you), Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. In the 3rd round Carol uses aWildcard to ask a question. In the 5th round Ted says, “Got It.” Ted and Alice are theonly ones who guess correctly.

Bob gets only the one point that everyone gets.

Carol gets zero points (the one point everyone gets minus the point for using aWildcard).

Ted gets four points (the one point everyone gets, one point for guessing correctly, andanother two points because Bob and Carol guess wrong).

Alice gets two points (the one everyone gets plus one for getting it right).

Mycroft (you) get three points (the one everyone gets plus two more because Bob andCarol guess wrong).

If Ted had guessed incorrectly then he would have received zero points (the oneeveryone gets minus the one point penalty for saying “Got it” and yet getting it wrong).

If Ted had used a Wildcard, said “Got It” and guessed wrong then his score would benegative one point (the one point everyone gets minus one each for using a Wildcardand guessing wrong).

Strategy. Mycroft maximizes his score if only one person guesses his identity correctlyand therefore should reveal his identity slowly and not give clues that it obvious whohe is impersonating. The other players maximize their score by being the first to say“got it” and actually getting it. Because there is a penalty for being that person youshould be fairly confident that you know the person’s identity, otherwise it might bebetter to let someone else say “got it.”

Insane EightsPlayers: 3-7, Age: 10+

Setup: Remove the Jokers and shuffle both the white Sane and black Inane decks together.

Deal: Eight cards are dealt to each player. The remaining cards of the deck are placed facedown at the center of the table. The top card is then turned face up to start a discard pile.

Players discard by matching the rank or suit of the top card of the discard pile, starting withthe player to the left of the dealer. The 8 is special in that you can always play an 8 no matterwhat card is on top of the pile.

If a player is unable to match the rank or suit of the top card of the discard pile and does nothave an 8, then he or she draws up to three cards from the stockpile until playable card isdrawn. It three cards are drawn without a playable card then the player passes. When aplayer plays an 8, they must declare the suit that the next player is to play; that player mustthen follow the named suit or play another 8.

As an example: Once 6♣ is played the next player:

1. can play any of the other 6s2. can play any of the clubs3. can play any 8 (then must declare a different suit)4. can draw from the stockpile until willing and able to play one of the above

The game ends as soon as one player discards their last card.All the players who still have cards calculate points in their hands as follows:Ace through 10 count 1 through 10 points respectively.Jack, Queen, and King all count 10 points.An 8 counts 50 points.The first person to go out collects points from both the white and black cards from all the otherplayers. The other players also get points for the white cards in their individual hand but notfrom the black cards. For example, if Bob goes out and Carol has 22 white and 9 black pointswhile Ted has 12 white and no black points then Bob gets 43 points, Carol gets 22, and Tedgets 12 points. That is why it is important to get rid of your black cards before your white ones.For two players the game ends when someone reaches 150 points, or 200 for 3 player, 300for 4 players, 350 for 5 players, 450 for 6 players and 500 for 7 or 8 players.This game is a mod of Crazy Eights. Make up your own rules and have fun.See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eights.

In addition to this game, you can make up your own modifications of standard card gameswhether you use the questions on the cards or not.