1000WhiteCards

April 23, 2005 4:12 AM

1000 white cards The game is fairly simple. You take a lot of index cards, cut them in half, draw your own cards and play them on each other.
posted by srboisvert (25 comments total)

yay!
posted by adrien at 4:34 AM on April 23, 2005

See also.
posted by misteraitch at 4:53 AM on April 23, 2005

I missed it the first round - thanks.
posted by yoga at 5:36 AM on April 23, 2005

Once, I was playing this with a bunch of friends, and my wife played a card that said "Take an orange out of Plutor's pants using only your mouth."

Another time, a friend played "Earthquake: Play your next three turns from a doorway" on me.
posted by Plutor at 6:14 AM on April 23, 2005

Double post, as was pointed out, but a very good one to remind people of.

We've played this many times before, and a friend has built up an impressive library of past-used cards. Among my favorites are "Ear Rapery of Hime," "Feraliminal Lycantropizer," "Give Colin the Kashi™ Bar," and the ever popular "Baby Gravy."

Such a brilliant game.
posted by kaseijin at 6:41 AM on April 23, 2005

I've always wanted tp play this but when I try to explain it to my friends, their eyes glaze over.
[exchange friends for new ones. +1000!]
posted by krix at 8:07 AM on April 23, 2005

Sounds like Calvinball.
posted by kenko at 8:23 AM on April 23, 2005

Back in 2002 or 2000 when this website was brought up before on MeFi, I thought it was a really great idea. I went out and bought some index cards and colored markers and a box to put everything in, and made a game of this from scratch. I played it with some friends a few times. Even took it to a MeFi gathering in Dallas once. The idea fell like a bag of rocks thrown out a ten story building. The box of doodled index cards is still sitting in my back room gathering dust. Maybe I could sell it on Ebay...
posted by ZachsMind at 8:25 AM on April 23, 2005

I need to try this. It's like Pictionary but without the tame staleness.
I think it'd probably help to find some clever, slightly drunk people to play it with.
posted by Jon-o at 8:30 AM on April 23, 2005

I played this at a recent con. It was fun, but it was a little too... competitive? bitter? hostile? It basically turned into truth-or-dare, which can be to personal to play with strangers. It would've been better had we known each other better.

For this kind of game, I far prefer Eat Poop, You Cat. It's funnier, less prone to sniping and less competitive, and it works fine with a group of strangers.
posted by jiawen at 8:34 AM on April 23, 2005

This kinda reminds me of Paper Telephone. Anybody here ever play Paper Telephone?

It's this great game where everybody starts out with a blank sheet of paper. Each person writes a sentence. They then pass their paper to the person on their left. That person draws a picture to represent the sentence. Then, they fold over the top of the paper where the original sentence is, thus hiding the original sentence. They then pass the paper to the person on their left. That person writes a sentence to describe the picture that they see. They then fold over the top of the paper where the picture is, thus hiding the picture. They pass the paper to their left, wash, rinse repeat until everybody has the paper that they started out with. People then take turns reading each other's papers, with hilarious results.

I would have posted some sort of link with this, but strangely enough, Google wasn't helpful in this situation.
posted by afroblanca at 9:00 AM on April 23, 2005

afroblanca: you should have Googled Eat Poop, You Cat.
posted by LeLiLo at 9:14 AM on April 23, 2005

frumpf!
posted by bobloblaw at 9:17 AM on April 23, 2005

This is a good game, but it's vitally important that everyone playing have a high Pointless Quotient. Like Krix said, if you don't have friends that are Pointless enough their eyes might just glaze over. I've played 1000 Blank White Cards with my friends to reasonable success in the past, but now seeing this Eat Poop, You Cat lark I think perhaps I shall try it with my friends.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:44 AM on April 23, 2005

> afroblanca: you should have Googled Eat Poop, You Cat.

You know, something like 85% of my problems in life stem not doing just that.
posted by afroblanca at 12:05 PM on April 23, 2005

posted by dhartung at 1:00 PM on April 23, 2005

The game was brought to Harvard by Aaron Mandel,

Holy shit, I remember that guy from grade school. I grew up a few streets over from him. He had a massive head and he was freakin' brilliant.
posted by brheavy at 1:18 PM on April 23, 2005

brheavy writes "The game was brought to Harvard by Aaron Mandel,

"Holy shit, I remember that guy from grade school. I grew up a few streets over from him. He had a massive head and he was freakin' brilliant."

Cause and effect?

I've always wanted to try this game, too, but my crowd aren't much for game-playing. I'm still trying to find someone to play Risk with other than my 11-year-old niece, who is WAY too good at it.
posted by BoringPostcards at 1:57 PM on April 23, 2005

As a camp consoler I introduced this game to a bunch of boys used to Yugioh and magic, results were priceless.
posted by CaptMcalister at 8:42 PM on April 23, 2005

The interest of 1000 Blank White Cards (and Eat Poop, You Cat) is directly proportional to the improvisation skills of the participants. The game is merely a tool to get sufficently creative people to have fun bouncing off each other, which, if you have enough sufficently creative people together, will happen on its own anyway with time. It's good for providing them with an excuse to cut loose, though.
posted by JHarris at 9:03 PM on April 23, 2005

Heh, I just played my first 10KBWC game this weekend, after trying to get people to play it for about a year. It was pretty awesome. Obviously I can't include the genius pictures, but here are a few of my favorite cards from the evening:

BLINKING NUMBERS AND PART OF YOUR HEAD IS PART OF A LEG: -3 points; take out the cartridge and blow on it

YOUR PANTS ARE TOO TIGHT. JESUS. lose a turn

PLANES CAN POOP?? recent discoveries show that no, they can't. but WTF is that all about anyway?? wear your shirt backwards for 8 turns

WHY ARE YOU WATCHING "AMERICAN IDOL?" -150 points, I guess

SOCK HANDS!! OMG your hands are socks! it's not that bad. +100 points

PILGRIM! lick the nearest Kevin

LOOKING AT GOD +1,000,005 points

THE FAMOUS POOT!! you can fart so hard that you can fly. it's really cool. you're popular for some reason. +1,000 points

KEVIN SUCKS. put something in your nose and discard your highest scoring card

MAKE IT SPILL! DON'T MAKE IT SPILL! no debt! give your negative cards to someone else!

AN EXTRA McNUGGET! Fucking YES! +6,000 points
posted by kevspace at 11:59 PM on April 23, 2005

OK, I think I get it. I have a high Pointless quotient and my friends do too, but I have a question. Play of cards seems completely arbitrary... is that true? One of the rules says that game ends when no one has any applicable cards left, but I have a hard time seeing how any cards are ever applicable. Help me out here... I want to play it this weekend!
posted by arcticwoman at 10:26 AM on April 24, 2005

arcticwoman: the way we play it, you draw cards out of a central deck. when there are no more cards from the deck to draw, and you have no blank cards in your hand to turn into playable cards, that's the end. So, you could end up with only one card that says "play this card on somebody with no nose," and since everyone has a nose, that card is not applicable, so the game still ends. Got it?

Play of cards is not completely arbitrary... for one thing, it is in turns and clockwise; and for another thing, cards are drawn up all the time in response to other cards. For instance, my LOOKING AT GOD +1,000,005 point card was nullified by another card (THE WORLD IS TOPSY-TURVY, invert your score).

If you're looking for a more structured game of 10KBWC than the one linked, try this page: RULES! STRUCTURE! ORDER!
posted by kevspace at 6:59 PM on April 24, 2005

The best cards are the ones you make targetting good friends you know well and their weaknesses.

Or locking people in the bathroom, and taking all their cards. That's always fun.
posted by jb at 10:28 PM on April 24, 2005

The interest of 1000 Blank White Cards (and Eat Poop, You Cat) is directly proportional to the improvisation skills of the participants. The game is merely a tool to get sufficently creative people to have fun bouncing off each other, which, if you have enough sufficently creative people together, will happen on its own anyway with time. It's good for providing them with an excuse to cut loose, though.

Very, exactly, totally correct. It can be fun riffing on weirdness with creative people, but it helps to have some structure to get that weirdness flowing.
posted by jiawen at 9:16 PM on April 25, 2005