How to play Bad Cards

At a glance

The goal

Setup

1. Shuffle the black cards (prompts) and the white cards (answers) into two piles.
2. Everyone draws ten white cards.
3. Choose the first Card Czar. The box game’s rules say it’s whoever pooped most recently.

How a round works

1. The Card Czar plays a black card and reads it out.
2. Everyone else picks one white card that answers the question or fills the blank, and passes it face down to the Czar.
3. If the black card says Pick 2, play two white cards in the order they should be read.
4. The Czar shuffles the answers and reads each one out with the black card.
5. The Czar picks the funniest, and whoever played it gets one Awesome Point.
6. Everyone draws back up to ten, and a new player becomes the Card Czar.

Scoring and winning

• Each round you win is one Awesome Point.
• The box game’s rules don’t set an end, so agree a target before you start, or play until you want to stop.
• The Card Czar doesn’t play a white card in the round they judge.

The box game’s house rules

Playing Bad Cards on Table Party

1. A prompt goes up with a blank in it. One player judges; everybody else plays from a hand of seven.
2. The plays are shuffled and read out with nobody’s name attached.
3. The judge picks the one that landed, and only then does the room learn who wrote it.
4. That card takes the point, and the judge’s chair moves one seat along.
5. First to three takes the game. Three decks: Family, Party and After Dark (18+).

What’s different here

• Bad Cards is Table Party’s own game with its own cards; it isn’t the box game.
• Plays are shuffled and shown with no names attached, and the room learns who wrote the winner only after the pick.
• Hands are seven cards, and the first to five points wins, so a game takes 15–25 minutes.
• Choose from three decks, from Family to After Dark.

The fiddly bits on Table Party

The official rules

Questions about Bad Cards

Play Bad Cards online