how to host a fun trivia-games party
May 20, 2009 9:55 AM   Subscribe

What do you think makes a really fun trivia/quiz game? If you were hosting an at-home trivia party how would you go about it? I need resources for making this a good time for about twenty people.
posted by pipti to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
The best house party trivia game I ever enjoyed was "strip trivia". That might or might not work, depending on your crowd.

Other than that, I think it's all about the buzzers. You can get some at a party-novelty store, or make your own.

This software creates a nifty Game Show experience with whatever data you feed it.
posted by rokusan at 10:01 AM on May 20, 2009


I don't think you necessarily need buzzers...the last trivia night I went to, each team wrote the answers down and then turned the papers in each round.

I like it when there are different, varied categories.
posted by radioamy at 10:24 AM on May 20, 2009


Oh also, they had a projector with a Powerpoint slideshow showing each question in addition to being read out loud, which I liked.
posted by radioamy at 10:25 AM on May 20, 2009


The trivia I regularly go to is done in 20 question rounds with everyone writing the answers down, with new prizes each round. Music and picture round go over pretty well, like name this song or identify all the obscure movie poster on a hand-out.

Also beer works.
posted by Midnight Rambler at 10:31 AM on May 20, 2009


My friend taught me a game called Fish Bowl back in college. It was a combination of charades and some other games all in one.

Two teams, even number on each side. Everyone get a sheet of paper, rip it into 8 rectangular pieces. Write down a noun on each piece of paper. Get a stopwatch or minute timer.

Flip a coin to start, keep score on another piece of paper.

The first round- Person A on team1 will look at the piece of paper, describe it without using the word while the remaining people on team1 try and guess the word. Go through as many as possible before one minute, tally up the successful guesses, then person A on team2 starts. Then person B on team1 continues, until all pieces of paper are exhausted.

The second round- turn all the pieces of paper over, shuffle them up, and person A on team2 picks up the piece of paper, and uses ONE word to describe the word on the paper while the rest of team2 guesses. After one minute, switch. Continue til out of slips of paper.

The third and final round- same fashion, but now each person will act out the word in some context without saying anything.

It's a riot to play- rewards folks who pay attention and a creative way of thinking/presenting.

With 20 people, perhaps make it a tournament. Four teams of five, single elimination.
posted by liquoredonlife at 10:33 AM on May 20, 2009


My friends and I sometimes play a game called Celebrity.

Here's the wiki entry.
posted by rsol44 at 10:36 AM on May 20, 2009


As for questions, consider mixing it up between different games and styles: Trivial Pursuit, Mindtrap, Name that tune, Identify that movie still, stuff you find online, etc. This will keep people on their toes and help people who might not be good at pure fact recall.
posted by quin at 2:09 PM on May 20, 2009


I've done a LOT of different trivia contests -- pub quizzes, mostly, plus a major college campus bi-annual contest. I've played pub quizzes, and played AND helped create the college one. Based on that:

1. Outlaw using the Internet. If you let people look things up on line, then it's no fun for them, and you will also drive yourself nuts trying to come up with questions that you can't easily Google the answer to in two seconds.

2. A mix of topics is good, as it gives everyone a shot.

3. Oral and written questions are fun. Visual puzzles, "name that tune," "identify the picture," things like that. Have a mix.

4. Do questions in rounds -- a round of 8-10 questions on one topic, break, then the next round.

5. Update the scores frequently.

6. Encourage humorous guesses, and award points for creativity. A pub quiz I went to once had a "guess the picture" round where the theme was "doctors in movies," and one of the pictures they featured was a picture of Dustin Hoffman from his role in the movie "Outbreak." We were supposed to provide the CHARACTER name, but almost no one in the room had actually seen the movie, so no one knew what his character name was. Some teams left it blank -- but other teams made humorous guesses, like "Dr. Rain Man" or "Dr. Tootsie". The quizmaster gave them points for those guesses.

7. Lots of goofy prizes. And these prizes can be ANYTHING -- it is the principle of the thing. One of the pub quizzes I go to now gives out free bonus prizes between rounds -- get the bonus question right and you get a free beer, but you also get a prize from the grab bag of "whatever crap the host found when he was cleaning out his closet this week." Prizes have been everything from shoes to windup toy nuns to broken walkie-talkies. It's utter crap, but goof on it enough and people will get into the spirit of fun and embrace it.

Or just go with free drinks.

8. The big point that the college contest fans refer to is the "tip of the tongue" factor. If you can come up with a question that has everyone smacking their heads and saying "Jesus I KNOW this, what the hell IS the name of that...." you've got a winner.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:44 PM on May 20, 2009 [1 favorite]


It's fun if everyone can contribute and participate and no one feels left-out. Things are constantly moving forward, but not so rigid that someone feels like they're breaking any rules. Organized, fun chaos.

Put it on your living room TV! Get the software rokusan proposed and hook your laptop or computer to your large screen display. If you don't have VGA / DVI inputs on your TV, or you have an SD TV (like me) get a scan converter and go S-Video or composite. PowerPoint is also highly underrated for this sort of thing.

Gag questions are good, or questions where the question gives away part of the answer in terms of a pun (or even a double-entendre--click-click! wink!). They do that a lot on Jeopardy. It's always fun to see someone go, "Groan, I should have seen that one coming. The answer was right there in front of me." Example (from the J! Archive, emphasis mine): A: In 1884 Hiram Maxim made the first really effective fully automatic one of these killing machines. Q: What is a machine gun?

Maybe personalize it - Trivia about specific people that won't hurt their feelings? This person, whom you all know and who is present here tonight, shares a first name with the actor who had the lead role in everyone's favorite movie of all time, Troll 2!.

20 people sounds like teams for sure. Make the colors after the gang in Reservoir Dogs and give the team captains the gangsters' names. Up next is Mr. Pink with the Pink team! What do you have for us, Pink Team? Or let them name themselves.

Guess the punchline to the joke? The more obscure the better.

Creative scoring and giving out points for creative answers is tremendous (ala Whose Line Is It Anyway? or Calvinball). Anything else that's riffcouraging is good.
posted by ostranenie at 8:37 AM on May 22, 2009


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