1000 Blank White Cards

So What is this game, anyway?

Put simply, 1000 Blank White Cards is a card game in which you create the cards you play with. The original version of the game was created by Nathan McQuillan of Madison, Wisconsin, and the new version (The Discordian Intelligence Agency Edition) was created in late 2001 by Nathan "Riff" Conner. We learned the rules from Riff's version, and you can read his page on the game.

What you need:

• 3-6 players
• A pen each (Preferably black, not felt-tip)
• Some blank white cards, somewhere around 40 to 90, depending on how many players you have. (You can use just about anything from index cards to our cheap and cheerful solution of A7 paper (Cut-up bits of A4)
• Cards from your previous games (if you've got some)

Setting up

Like any good card game, you'll need a deck of cards. We suggest you play a game with 60 cards if there are three or four of you playing, and 90 if there are five or six players (You can add as many players as you like, but too many makes gameplay slow and tedious, just add more cards as appropriate.

If you've never played before, you'll be starting with a deck of entirely blank cards, which is no fun, so we recommend you dish out about half of them to your players and start creating some cards, that way when you start playing, you'll have a mix of drawn and blank cards. (We'll explain card creation a little later on.) If you've played before, you can add some cards from previous games, we suggest an equal split (1/3 old cards; 1/3 new cards; 1/3 blank cards)

Next stage is to shuffle the deck (Good luck with this, we'd recommend just spreading them over the table and shunt them round a bit.) Then, you need to deal. Somewhere between five and seven cards seems a good number to start with.

Playing the game.

Play begins with the person to the left of the dealer and goes clockwise (This is entirely arbitrary, but ties in with most games.) On your turn, you draw a card from the deck, into your hand (If there are any,) then play a card from your hand. You can play a card on yourself, another player, or everyone. In the case of a player, the card goes face-up in front of them, in the case of everyone, the card goes face-up in the centre of the table. (Certain cards will affect other cards, and as such may need to go into a discard pile)

If you have a blank card in your hand, you can draw a new card mid-game (Have patience, all will be revealed.) It's worth doing this during other players' turns, so as not to disrupt play.

If you can't play, because none of your cards are playable, or you've ran out and there are none left, then play passes to the next player. (Or you can draw another card, or end the game when someone can't play, this is entirely up to you)

Winning!

Winning the game is simply a case of having the highest score, you add up the point values of the cards in front of you (some may be negative) and compare against the other players.

Of course if you've got a blank, you could create an uber card to win with, so what's the point? Well, to be honest, the points are pretty irrelevant, the real way to win is to make the most people laugh. If you're really the winner, you'll have the most cards in the "good" pile at the end of the game.

The Cards

So that's the gameplay sorted, next question is how do you draw a card then? Well, take a look at some of the cards linked in the sidebar at the left of this page. A card usually has a title, a picture and an effect. The basic cards are some joke with a point value attached, but other cards that affect gameplay are common, so miss-a-turn cards or reverse-order-of-play cards aren't unheard of.