iOS? You can run an adblocker in Android and maybe in iOS’ Chrome.
Actually, I’d argue that the worst consequence is that you turn people off of gaming in general.
CAH was played extensively in very public spaces at GenCon last year and it led to quite a few posts about how it made certain guests at the con feel uncomfortable.
Many board gamers pride themselves on being an open and diverse community. Perhaps some of those people didn’t realize that people stumbling by and overhearing a game of this being played could be hurtful. If they read this article and don’t ignore it, perhaps they know a bit better now.
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Yeah, I guess I didn’t think about the fact that other people actually play board games in public, instead of just among their group of friends the way that I do. So, to amend my previous statement:
“The worst consequences you’re going to suffer from playing (and even enjoying!) CAH in private is that somebody on the internet might post an “I don’t like CAH” story that you might come across.”
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++
Totes (non snarky)
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Or that it make you and your friends looks like insensitive, unsympathetic assholes; especially when it comes to those who have a harsh background struggling to survive in this world ruled by corporations.
And yes, people played this in public, which they shouldn’t; especially around the children.
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That’s the creepiest fucking gif I have seen in my life. And that includes human centipede and tusk.
(…can I have more?)
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Like those old cartoons that plays on stereotypes (clown/ape face negros).
Personally, I prefer that they preserve those as an example of what NOT to do when making jokes and other such things that comments on races, culture, sex, etc…
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After rereading this thread, I’ll just leave this here.
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They are only $500.
ZOINKS!
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Most of the times I’ve played epic awkwardness didn’t result either. But this one time, in a group that was not made up exclusively of close friends it was a big problem. Similar things (though less horrible, extreme and memorable) have resulted the few other times I’ve played it with strangers (its just about the worst game to play at a bar), friends of friends, acquaintances, or any group of people where a significant portion of the people involved are not too familiar with each other. And I know plenty of people who have had similar experiences. In fact it sounds like a lot of the critics here and in the linked article had similar ones.
So its not that my friends are doing it wrong. Its that people I sort of know (or don’t) but am generally fond of for some reason are either doing it wrong. Or deprived of needed context and familiarity they are defaulting to the games “easy mode”. Which can be pretty heinous and tends to derail its better elements quickly. Which is a pretty big knock against the game, even just from a mechanical standpoint. Disregarding the particular way in which it can be offensive or uncomfortable. Its a party game, and ice breaker etc. But if I can’t play it with people I don’t know incredibly, incredibly well with out it being boring, or uncomfortable, or ruining someone’s night; then the game doesn’t work. Its not doing its job.
The designers seem to have (quietly and opaquely) acknowledged this to a certain extent. Aside from removing specific cards, they’ve also released a metric shit ton of additional cards with a bit more variety. Which tends to mitigate some of these problems. It pushes down the proportion of easy, problem cards. They could stand to do a lot more. As I mentioned, aside from being just bad and uncomfortable its actually pretty big deficiency in terms of play mechanics.
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I own and have pretty much soured on CAH, and while the article certainly didn’t change my mind on it, the responses to it did, and have convinced me that I probably don’t want to play anything with people who do play CAH again.
Be it outright trolling while screaming “TROLL”, going on rants about how women and minorities don’t matter and acting like they do is “propaganda”, or even talking about how websites where organized groups of neo-nazis try to push marginalized teenagers to suicide are “too progressive” for their tastes, these are the sorts of behaviors I’d like to avoid from people I game with.
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Ok I suppose I should say significantly less likely - especially as an insignificant number of iOS users use Chrome (at least from the stats I’ve been privy to). I just meant to highlight that the number of people actually blocking ads is probably very low.
(Although this being a slightly tech orientated site probably does mean it’s a little higher than average!)
Nice strawman you’ve made there. Be a shame if something happened to it.
Are you in the categories in the second paragraph since you own the game and have, presumably, played?
Accurately describing how people have acted in this discussion is not “strawmanning”.
And no, I’m not in the second category because I haven’t DONE those things, but if you told me that somebody didn’t want to play with me because of my unaltered CAH set from a few years back, what more could I say beyond “Yeah, that’s fair”. If someone finds laughing at murdered women, child abuse, or whatever distasteful, I’m certainly not going to try to force them to change their mind.
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But you’re saying that you don’t want to play CAH anymore because of behavior of people in this thread? So, even though you own it and might enjoy playing it, somehow the public behavior of some defenders of it here has soured you on playing it on your own?
Me? I’m going to keep playing with my close circle of friends in my gaming group, just as I have since it came out. I really don’t care about the “public face” of the game. We play amongst ourselves and enjoy it just fine.
Ah. I see. Let me clarify - I had pretty much soured on CAH before the article. It did feel a bit lazy, with little replay value, relying too heavily on shock material, and I’ve grown enough as a person that “murdered prostitutes!” isn’t really funny (nor, of course, was it ever subversive). I haven’t played it in at least two years, and made a point of avoiding games of it at the last con I went to. I could maybe see times I COULD play it, but reading this thread has convinced me I’m probably better off just getting it out of my library and replacing it with something else - because the type of people who scream about “feminist propaganda”, or how much they hate people who aren’t white cis straight guys (and defend it by saying “tumblr”) are people I certainly want to avoid, especially face to face. And if they’re so passionately defensive about a game I am completely lukewarm on, maybe that game just isn’t right for me. CAH wouldn’t be the first game I’ve done this with.
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Ok. Makes sense.
I’d never play this game with complete strangers and certainly never in public. Too much risk of… well…all kinds of crazy shit that I certainly don’t want to deal with. I’ve only played with friends and no more often than once or twice a year.
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That alone won’t stop you from encountering them; this is nerd culture after all.
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The problem CAH has is the same problem that all media of this type has — it only works best when the people playing are already smart and meta enough to grasp the winking it does. If not, then it is only enabling, reinforcing material for people’s already horrible opinions.
Basically, think of it in regards to the criticism about the Wolf of Wall Street: many people were frustrated by that movie because the main character is literally a horrible person, but the movie does not frame them to be a horrible person, it embraces the ambiguity of the situation because the system allowed him to be horrible and we as the audience were meant to absorb that all and still recognize him as horrible.
But someone who IS horrible can watch it and have it affirm all the horrible behavior they had in their head, simply because he gets away with it. Because the movie itself delivers no morals of its own.
And CAH has no jokes of its own. Only horrible thoughts.
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Goodfellas delivered morals of its own?
