What's supposed to be fun about Mao?

The first and last time I played or ever will play Mao, I got handed some cards. They did something. It went around. I was completely unable to figure out what they were doing, except that it seemed like a psychotic version of Hearts with unfathomable rules. The basic rules of the game rules then changed with every round.

I keep coming back to this quote and thinking, “Then why doesn’t the game start here?

If this truly were the fun part, there seems to be no point to the whole figure-out-the-rules-yourself-you-dumbass part of gameplay except for perverse cruelty.

That is the whole gameplay. Later you get to make rules that they are to figure out.

But during the period when you’re learning the rules, and the other players already know them, what’s in it for them?

Which is exactly like hazing. Members of a fraternity make the pledges suffer not because it makes any sense but because they had to suffer to get in.

I’m with Fish. Count me out of the “asshole” version of this game.

Am I the only one who thought this thread was about a dead Chinese dictator? I opened it thinking “who the hell says he’s supposed to be fun?”