suggestions for how to run a trivia night

October 15, 2009 7:10 AM

hi guys...this question is pretty random but hoping to get some good ideas... i'm planning on hosting a trivia night for 15-20 friends, and im trying to think of cool way to format the competition. i'd like to split up teams but i'm not sure if i should do small teams of large ones, tournament style or not, family fued type, or some other game show.... rather than doing same ole ask everyone and wait for answers i'd like to mix it up a bit. i was thinking maybe a seeding round than seperating teams into brackets like march madness. any suggestions? i appreciate it...
posted by matt755811 to sports, hobbies, & recreation (8 comments total)

Groups that are too large (4+) always end up in a situation where 2 people run the table and everyone else feels marginalized. I think 4 is the upper limit. I always like tournament style, but remember that you'll have folks 'sitting out' for a time, so make sure there's something else going on.

Also, with trivia- Try and keep the question and answer 'close' to one another, i.e. Don't ask 20 Q's and then do 20 answers. That's not tension, it's boredom.
posted by GilloD at 7:34 AM on October 15

Well the easiest option is to go with a tv show and build on that format. For example, I've played a version of Jeapordy where there are clearly more than a few contestants, and so it's in relay teams. You divide 15 people into three groups of five and each time one of them represents his team. You could also do this where they think together and the first team to "press the big red button" answers.

You could do this in the style of the board game Cranium where ther are different categories of trivia questions and it's played out like a board game, with teams.

Any version you do, though, you have to make sure you can incorporate a big chunk of people.

Setting all that aside, though, what I would go with is something like Trivial Pursuit, where each group of people is represented by a marker on a board or something. Each time it's a team's turn, they roll a die to see which category of trivia they have to answer, and if they answer correctly they move a step forward on the board. First team to get to the finish line wins!

Have fun.
posted by alona at 7:35 AM on October 15

Are your questions grouped by category, like Trivial Pursuit? Maybe you could have everyone select a category in which they specialize and then group them in such a way that each team has a person who specializes in each category. The whole team could still answer the questions of course, but this would prevent the annoying problem where one team ends up dominating just because they have a wider breadth of knowledge then other teams. This technique could also make the game a bit more interesting socially, because I find that groups of friends tend to know the same types of trivia. By mixing up the knowledge you'd be mixing up the social groups as well.

Another idea to add some strategic depth to the game is to allow teams to bet a certain number of points when they answer the question. For example on a 3 question round, they could have a betting pool of 9 points. Then, before they answer, they can bet any where from 1 to 7 points (the max number would be the size of the betting pool for the round minus the number of questions in the round plus one). If they get it right, they get the points. If they get it wrong, they don't lose points, but they can't bet those points on another question in the same round. For example, the team bets 5 points on the first question. They get it right. They bet 1 points on the next question because they are sure they don't know the answer. They get that question wrong. Then, they must bet the remaining points on the third question, in this case 3 points. They get this question right, and end up with 8 points for the round.
posted by arcolz at 7:39 AM on October 15

Brackets are only a good idea if half of your friends enjoy sitting around doing nothing for most of the night after they got knocked out in the first round. By which I mean: not a good idea. Use some sort of continuous scoring method, and whoever ends up with the most points wins. Or maybe at the very end the top two teams go head-to-head.

Stump Trivia in the Boston area allows teams to wager points on questions. You get 1, 3, 5, and 7 for each round of four questions, and when you hand in your answer you write down how many points you want it to be worth for you. You can only use each value once per round. You're told the categories of all four questions in the round up front, so you know "ooh, question 3 is computers, I'm good at that, let's save the 7".

Small-to-medium-sized teams (3-5ish) work best. You get a mix of interests, but the groups are still small enough that they can discuss answers quietly.
posted by Plutor at 7:53 AM on October 15

When my family and the neighbor family across the street had trivial pursuit contests, we often played men vs. women. Which often got tricky because the men always wanted to talk the women into letting me play for them because I was a twelve-year-old entertainment trivia whiz. :-)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:00 AM on October 15

Groups that are too large (4+) always end up in a situation where 2 people run the table and everyone else feels marginalized.

One way to get around this is to have a few large-ish teams, but format the questions in a way that everyone can participate. Have questions that only certain people would know, and have questions that involve multiple answers. For example, questions where they have to come up with a list of as many valid answers as possible work great, because everyone can think of the obvious ones, random people will come up with the more obscure ones, and one person's brainstorming might help another person come up with another answer.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:34 AM on October 15

You could do it pub quiz style: teams of four, everyone writes their answers down on a sheet, then after each round exchange sheets with a neighbor to mark them while you read the answers. Smallish teams tend to work better here.
posted by PercussivePaul at 8:38 AM on October 15

QuizBowl, according to the ACF [pdf] and the NAQT.

The great part is that there are tons of free questions online. Writing them is probably the hardest part of organizing such a tournament.

Basically, easier tossup questions read to both teams; buzz (or slap the table, or yell "BUZZ!") to answer and potentially win a harder, three-part bonus question to your team only. Usually, ten points for a correct answer, and, on toss-ups only, negative five points for interrupting the question and getting it wrong. Some places have five points extra (for a total of fifteen) for interrupting the toss-up very early and answering correctly: this is called power.
posted by d. z. wang at 2:25 PM on October 15