Obviously it’s all subjective, but for me it hits kind of the opposite of a sweet spot. It’s so arbitrary and impossible to control, but the it kind of feels like you should be able to control it, and that just makes it the more frustrating.
For one thing, I always feel like you can either put in a silly answer or a serious answer. And frequently there are mostly silly answers and one serious answer, in which case the serious answer gets picked, or mostly serious answers and one silly answer, in which case the silly answer gets picked… and of course you don’t know when you’re submitting which it will be. As for playing for the judges, well, that really depends on having the card. One time a friend of mine who is a teacher turned over the adjective “inspiring” and one of the players played “teacher”, and of course won. And then for a while afterwards, while discussing the game, they would mention this as an example of playing to the judge. To which my response is… really? Ya think? Ya think anyone else playing then wouldn’t have played that card if we’d had “teacher” in our hand? And even more frustrating than that is when you put in a truly perfect answer, and it butts up against another truly perfect answer, and everyone agrees they’re perfect, but the other one gets chosen. The adjective was “phoney”, and both “Las Vegas” and “Television” were put in. Both serious answers. Both excellent. No playing the judge or serious-vs-silly mindgames involved. But mine didn’t get picked (although I honestly don’t remember which one was mine at this point).
My point being… I’m just competitive enough to find the basic unpredictability of it frustrating rather than charming. Obviously other people love it. YMMV.
I highly recommend “What Were You Thinking”, which to me has most of the fun aspects, including learning how people in the group think, and leading to interesting conversations, without the randomness. (Although I recommend just making up the questions yourself rather than getting them out of the box.)
Might be an interesting experiment to have everyone defend someone else’s card. Or maybe just a card at random - toss the cards in, have the judge pick them up and mix them and then pass them back out. Maybe you’re defending your card, maybe you’re defending your sibling’s… either way you have to be a good sport about it.
Could be some interesting Lessons there in appreciating someone else’s point of view. Or it could train your children to be lawyers. Proceed at your own risk.
Yeah, when we play we always turn our cards in face down and then mix them up so the judge doesn’t know whose card is whose. I thought that’s how you’re supposed to play.
I was just at a house party last weekend with the very same house rule!
At said house party I also played the Rosa Parks card for something very offensive.
We like to play where you can argue for your card. Very rarely helps at all, but it does make for a lively time. We have two variations if the game just isn’t working properly: Either everyone gets to play 2 red cards, or everyone throws in their red cards and then a new green is drawn to judge the red by. Often the red cards work better with the new green card!
We also have a pachinko-style drinking game called Drinko. We fill the shot glasses with varying amounts of booze and the winner drops in a chip and drinks the shot glass it lands on. Good times.
Maybe that’s the trouble for the people who don’t like it. When we play, it doesn’t matter who wins (as in, who has the most cards) because it’s fun for everyone involved. It’s fun to argue with the judge as to why “fuzz” should beat “the police” for “fuzzy,” and it’s fun to argue as the judge why “pirates” trumps all. I guess it’s the excuse for argument over silly things and the lively discussion that follows that’s the enjoyable part, not the objective measure of winning that matters most. I don’t even pay attention to how many cards I have, as that affects my enjoyment not one whit.
