How can I have a social trivia experience on the internet?

December 30, 2020 9:55 AM

I miss the weekly bar trivia that was part of my life pre-pandemic. I would love to get together remotely with a few friends (or strangers) and play trivia once a week. How can I do that on the internet? Details within.

A few qualifications:

• I don't want to host or organize anything myself.
• I want it to be a live event and to feel at least a little social. I mean "live" as in happening at a designated time, not as in physically being in the same place as other people. I'm imagining everyone playing remotely.
• I'd like to play on a team against other teams (so not HQ Trivia or LearnedLeague). I would love to play with two or three friends against teams of other people, although I'd also be open to joining a team of people I haven't met before.
• It doesn't have to be free. Also I don't care if there are prizes or not.
• Besides trivia, I'd also enjoy Jackbox-style social games.

Thanks!

posted by oulipian to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (11 answers total)

Best answer: I've been playing each week since April. There's a company based in the Twin Cities called Trivia Mafia that is hosting multiple trivia sessions each night of the week. They're all free, and there are options on Twitch, Zoom, etc. (I play on Tuesdays with host Ruby, who is awesome). My group all logs into Zoom to see/hear the host, and then we Facetime separately so we can talk to each other about answers, and we submit answers via Google Forms. It's free, and it's graded, but there are no prizes. Usually there are about 30-40 teams playing in ours, but I don't know how other hosts/nights of the week go. You can see all their available days/times (in Central time) here: https://www.triviamafia.com/fromadistance.
posted by JannaK at 10:20 AM on December 30, 2020

Best answer: At the beginning of the pandamnit times, I was doing this a few nights a week, mostly on Twitch. There's a live chat happening on Twitch and you can play with a team if you want (I usually use a separate chat function like Adium or whatever for chatting with my teammate). The two that I enjoyed the most and come back to regularly are SmartyPints (the guy who does most of it is Canadian and they have really solid tech that works) and Broken Buzzer but he hasn't been on in a while. It's sort of hectic since often there are a LOT of teams, but it's fun and goofy and is the closest approximation that I've seen to bar trivia.
posted by jessamyn at 10:25 AM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Sporcle has live Trivia and you can buy team tickets for $5 per device. I've never played it but it might be worth a try.
posted by soelo at 10:39 AM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: We like Trivia Galaxy, which also uses Twitch. It's free to play and games are scored and posted on social media. No prizes for winning, but twitch subscribers can enter a raffle I think.

We use Zoom to talk over our answers while one person shares the Twitch stream and submits the Google Doc answer sheet.
posted by rakaidan at 10:44 AM on December 30, 2020

Best answer: Whaddayaknow has been streaming their trivia nights on the regular via Patreon and seems to have a really good thing going; I know a lot of my trivia friends are very loyal to this company.
posted by juniperesque at 11:05 AM on December 30, 2020

Best answer: My local bar trivia moved online and has been going extremely consistently since April. It's got a social feel with many repeat players, including several who have never been to the bar or aren't local to DC. It's a fairly casual vibe, and the last round is an "identify the artist" music round. The only prize is that the last place team gets to pick the topic of next week's first round.

The next game will be next Tuesday at 7:30 Eastern—MeMail me if you want more details / zoom login info!
posted by Maecenas at 11:51 AM on December 30, 2020

Best answer: Trivia Mafia, a Minneapolis-based pub trivia cartel, broadcasts every Thursday at twitch.tv/triviamafia. It's good trivia! And the twitch chat is pretty friendly too.
posted by dbx at 2:45 PM on December 30, 2020

Best answer: I've done the Sporcle online trivia with a couple friends over Zoom! It was a lot of fun, but please don't make the mistake I did and forget to change my name out of my team name (Quaranteenage Dirtbags) before signing into a job interview (did not get the job).
posted by astapasta24 at 3:13 PM on December 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My regular bar trivia has also gone online, Monday nights at 8pst - IQ 2000. We mostly keep him on mute though so we can talk to each other on zoom more easily.
posted by lookoutbelow at 3:59 PM on December 30, 2020

Response by poster: Thanks so much everyone, these answers are all super helpful. Twitch seems like the place for this kind of thing, and I'm going to try and tune into some trivia there soon. Thanks also for the invites, I might get in touch with folks in the new year. Cheers!
posted by oulipian at 12:55 PM on December 31, 2020

My trivia peeps have been enjoying King Trivia, which streams live trivia events every Sunday and Wednesday and also does occasional themed events.
posted by lumpy at 3:17 PM on January 1, 2021