Cards Against Humanity’s offensive content challenged by anti-racist, LGBTQ+ party game

An upcoming card game looks to challenge the offensive content featured in Cards Against Humanity with an anti-racist, LGBTQ+ inclusive party game.

Radical Queer Witches is a card game that uses a similar gameplay system to the one used in Cards Against Humanity, but replaces the tabletop title’s often offensive prompt and answer cards with ones that play with subjects such as queerness, decolonisation, sexuality, capitalism and accountability. Whereas Cards Against Humanity focuses on nasty humour that punches down – whether against certain individuals or minorities – Radical Queer Witches is designed to provide a “non-oppressive and light-hearted alternative” for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ players.

A party game for four or more players, Radical Queer Witches begins with each player choosing 10 cards from the answer deck, before one player decides to be the judge. As the judge, the player will be providing a prompt card that the others must answer with their hand of cards. Whilst some prompt cards will only require one answer card from each player, others might need more to be completed. Once all players have secretly selected and offered their answer cards to the judge, they are shuffled and then read out with the prompt card.

The judge then chooses which of the answer cards they liked the most or found the funniest, with the player who provided those answer cards getting the associated prompt card. Another player then becomes the judge for the new round and the process continues until the players want to stop. Whichever player has the most prompt cards by the end of the game is named the winner.

Radical Queer Witches began as a PDF version that players could acquire from the creator’s website, with backers still able to donate and print off the digital version of the game. Yas Awsem is the designer behind Radical Queer Witches, having created the game after getting frustrated by the offensive content found in other party card games, such as Cards Against Humanity.

Besides receiving criticism for including offensive content in its games, Cards Against Humanity - also the name of the studio behind the series – had allegations made against it for creating a “toxic work environment” for former employees. The allegations were reported by Dicebreaker in 2020, with former employees accusing the studio of racism and sexism. Cards Against Humanity responded to the allegations with a statement that an internal investigation would take place, with co-founder Max Temkin stepping down from his role at the company. The company also claimed that it would be “hiring a specialist firm” to review its HR and management practices, and would be “committed to rebuilding” the workplace.

The Kickstarter for Radical Queer Witches is live until May 5th, with a pledge of $40 (£31) getting backers a physical copy of the card game in July. Alternatively, backers can pledge $10 (£8) to get the PDF version of the game.