Game 15: Wit's End

 It's rare for me to get my family to play a trivia game, but I saw this one out in the living room!!  WHAT?!?!  I found out that Jacob and Ocean had been playing this via Skype in the place of online trivia games, so Jacob was definitely up for playing, and even David jumped in with a good attitude.  (Full disclosure: I adore trivia and have been on the TV game show Jeopardy, so most people don't want to play trivia games with me because I can tend to do really well, but there's also the fact that I think David became sick to death of trivia simply due to my long focus on it as I studied intensely before I went on the show.)
Actually I don't think people should worry about being skunked when playing this game by the trivia buff in their group. Wit's End is a pretty good leveler because the questions are quite hard - far more so than Trivial Pursuit - and because there is an element of luck.  Although the questions are hard, some of the categories involve multiple choice, so you've got a chance at it whether you know the topic or not.  One category involves arranging three items in order, and another often involves true/false.  So it seems to me everyone has a pretty decent chance - with the difficulty of the questions not allowing a trivia guru to run away with the game and the chance elements allowing for people who aren't so into trivia to make some lucky guesses.  Along the way we all learn stuff!

ASIDE: Honestly, I'm not so sure that people need to be intimidated by me when playing trivia; I don't think I'm actually THAT good - at least not anymore.  I "pulled the plug" a long time ago and let some knowledge drain away, because preparing for Jeopardy was pretty grueling.  It's been nearly 20 years since I was on the show.  Also there are plenty of categories I'm just not good at, such as sports, politics, and recent pop culture. 

OK - moving on -
 One problem with the game is that some questions haven't aged well.  It came out in the year 2000, so answers to questions like, "Which one of these states does not have a population above 5 million: (a) Massachusetts, (b) Indiana, (c) Missouri, (d) Colorado" may no longer be accurate, so, you just have to cast your mind back 18 years and imaging the situation then.  Most questions have aged just fine, though.
As you can see on the card above, there are 4 categories: Teaser, Odd 1 Out, Sequence, and Wild Card.  Teaser is always a "this is to this as that is to  .  .  ."  Odd 1 Out is always a matter of identifying which of the four items does not belong.  Sequence is always about ordering things, and there is a wide variety here, from when certain popular songs came out, to which Shakespeare plays predate others, to reigns of certain dictators (shortest to longest), to population sizes, to scientific discoveries, to just about anything you can imagine.  Wild Card is quite varied; often it consists of two statements which you have to identify as true or false (getting both right); sometimes it's fill-in-the-blank; sometimes it's spelling (as shown above).  Below are a few more cards  .  .  .  because I just can't resist  .  .  .  and maybe you are in the mood for some trivia right now anyway!




Another good way of "leveling" the game - and making it more fun - is to play it as more of a party game with teams rather than an individual competition.  I'm hoping we pull this one out again; I like to learn :-)

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