Cards Against Humanity taught me how important the audience is when it comes to communication. It made me think a lot about how my communication style changes base don who I’m talking to. Playing the game makes me think a lot about established social norms, where you are expected to communicate a certain way depending on who you’re interacting with. For example, you wouldn’t want to make the same dirty jokes that you see in Cards Against Humanity in front of your boss during your weekly stand-up meeting. I approach group meetings as someone who is more quiet but attentive, as I usually pay close attention to people’s reactions and boundaries before I speak. I think this tendency becomes especially obvious in this game because success depends on making a joke that a specific judge, your audience, will reward if they like it best. Because of this audience-consciousness I found myself constantly predicting what other people would find funniest out of my cards and adjusting my choices to match their taste rather than my own. This was most clear when I was submitting cards, because at first, the cards are anonymous but if you are chosen as the winner, you will have to reveal yourself. That anticipation makes me think about how I’ll be perceived, and so I try to be more strategic about my choices. I look for responses that precisely matched the prompt and the judge rather than picking the craziest card in my deck. I also realized how relational decision-making is because in Cards Against Humanity, you are evaluating your own options but also trying to model another person’s sense of humor. I like this kind of social inference because I think of myself as socially-intelligent and that’s an element that I think is important to the game. But when I became the judge, I felt the dynamic shift pretty immediately having temporary authority as a mechanic. It made me feel more conscious about how I will evaluate the choices and made me realize that while I’m comfortable making decisions, I feel a sense of responsibility for the atmosphere created by those decisions. I also realized that I often function as a tone manager within a group. During the game, I found myself paying attention to what is funny for this precise moment. I’m very conscious about how others may feel, so if a card felt like it would get a reaction at the expense of someone else, I wouldn’t pick it. Going back to my point about how this is very related to social proof, the structure of the game exposed how communication is about who you’re talking to and power structures and dynamics in place because ultimately, players seek approval and adapt themselves to authority. Ultimately, Cards Against Humanity revealed to me that I make decisions by reading people and understanding social contexts and that in groups, I still try to take an empathetic approach, even while I’m strategizing how to win. Cards Against Humanity is also one of my favorite games of all time 🙂
When it comes to responsibility, I think it’s shared but not equally, and it doesn’t land on just one person. I think game designers hold responsibility because they’re the ones who establish a structure that allows for repeated public evaluation. Obviously, designers can’t control every single social outcome there could possibly be, but they still have an important role in how the conditions are shaped (e.g. reduce all-or-nothing reward structures, content filters). But responsibility also of course lands on the players. It’s up to the players to establish their own boundaries on how to engage with one another in a respectful manner. When it comes to building a game with a judging theme, it’s still important to ensure that the play environment is one of respect.
