A cooperative game of "PANIC! At the Discourse"

Where no one is safe and we’re all gloriously equally foolish

Player Count: 2–6 Concerned Citizens
Time Required: 60 minutes or until someone shouts “BUT THE CHILDREN!”
Ages: 13+ (or the youngest person getting blamed for the collapse of civilization)

OBJECTIVE

In PANIC! At the Discourse, players work together to defuse the hottest, loudest, most X-Tweetable moral panics from the last decade. Your goal is to remember where you left your common sense, which has been missing since at least 2016.

CONTENTS

• 1 Game Board (a spiral of chaos leading to a center labeled “OH RIGHT, WE’RE PRACTICALLY NEANDERTHALS”)

• 87 Hysteria Cards (from “Feudalism was better” to “AI will steal our jobs”)

• 24 Fear Dice (Don’t be surprised if “young people,” “science,” or “an ambiguous cultural shift no one actually understands” appear on more sides than others. It’s not a manufacturing error.)

• 1 Rubber Chicken (used for slapping reality back into the group)

• 6 Hyperventilation Tokens

• 1 Pocket Mirror (for reflecting on your own hypocrisy)

SETUP

1. Each player draws a Hysteria Card. Read it aloud in the voice of a concerned news anchor caught in a windstorm.

2. Place your card in the center of the table, right next to your misplaced sense of proportion, and take turns heaping on layers of well-seasoned panic. You may cite:

   • An election poll that exclusively surveyed grandmas in a bingo hall,

   • Headlines composed by academic zealots who spent 12 years getting a PhD in narcissism

   • A meme that went viral simply because it confirmed everyone's worst suspicions in under six words

3. Once the panic is sufficiently bloated and trembling, use the Fear Dice to determine which group is to be blamed.

HOW TO PLAY

Each round has two phases:

Phase 1:

Draw a Hysteria Card. (For example: “More children identify as nonbinary than not.”)

As a group, brainstorm at least three completely plausible reasons this could be humanity’s final undoing. Bonus points for invoking “The Roman Empire.”

Apply a Hyperventilation Token if someone actually starts panicking. This player must sit in the Reflection Corner with the Pocket Mirror until they say, “Wait…I’m an idiot.”

Phase 2:

Flip the card. Reveal the origin of the hysteria. (Example: “An op-ed penned by a man who has conveniently forgotten the summer he spent strutting around in JNCO jeans stuffed with nunchucks, blissfully unrecorded thanks to the merciful absence of social media in the '90s.”)

Players now race to:

• Identify the scapegoats (Examples: "millennials," "immigrants," or "mental health")

• Trace the moral panic from:

  • Blogs

  • Social Media

  • Local Council Overreaction

  • National Think Tank

  • Podcasts

Finally, everyone must contribute one Statement of Utter Perspective such as, “Isn’t it strange how society can’t tolerate nuance?”

THE END OF THE GAME

The game ends when either:

• All Hysteria Cards are neutralized, and players sit in stunned silence contemplating how civilization survived BLM, Y2K, and the Kennedy assassination.

OR

• A player insists, “No but seriously, this one is actually real!” and the game resets to 2014.

WINNING

You win PANIC! At the Discourse if you can successfully

• Recognize your species made paper straws a touchy subject,

• Identify Reddit as both an oracle and a swamp monster (mostly the latter, tho), and

• Uncover that behind every moral panic was a marketing opportunity

TRY THE EXPANSION PACK (for masochists)

Take fear mongering up a notch with:

• “Israel is committing genocide!”

• “All Palestinians are terrorists!”

• “Canada is turning children into Marxist robots!”

Just remember, if your ancestors survived witch hunts, leeches as medicine, and dial-up internet, you too can survive the terrifying prospect of Gen Z using slang you don’t understand.

DISCLAIMER

Any resemblance to real people, events, or panics is purely intentional, and honestly embarrassing.