Why Don't We Play Something Different? Online Trivia | Hobbies

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The issue on our first game night involves a co-worker joining the group. As he arrives, he mentions he is severely colorblind and you realize he would probably not enjoy some of your favorite strategy games where distinguishing pieces/signs by color is an important element of play. All but which of the following are thus off the table tonight?

Answer: Scrabble

Uno card sets have either written cues or pictograms for the specialty cards such as Reverse and Skip but color distinction is essential also. Color identification of both the reply pegs and particularly the code pegs in Mastermind could get a bit tricky. Qwirkle is a game where adjacent pieces must be matched by shape or color.

Scrabble is the best bet here. Although the bonus squares are color coded by type, they also have a written description of the bonus offered.

Many newer games or revisions of existing games with a color distinction element have started including icons on pieces/cards etc, which are paired with colors to aid identification for anyone with trouble distinguishing them chromatically..

2. As hard as it may be for a Fun Trivia player to believe, there are those who do not relish trivia based play. Which of these games can remain on the table if you ever need to entertain such a misguided guest?

Answer: Jenga

Cranium is a diverse game which advertised under the tagline that it uses the whole brain. However even though it has various other activities, there is no escaping the trivia element completely if you want to win. Trivial Pursuit and Wits and Wagers are pretty clearly out so how about a nice game of Jenga where you must only consider the physics of keeping the tower standing.

3. " ____! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! (Say it again!)" The missing word from the this song lyric identifies the common element among the games Risk, Stratego, and Battleship which might be best avoided for some gentler guests?

Answer: War

These classic strategy games of light (Battleship, Stratego) to medium (Risk) complexity all involve simulating military combat of some sort. For your resolute pacifist guest, maybe consider Settlers of Catan. It has a similar feel to these strategy games but focuses on the internal economics of empire building rather than armed combat.

4. You are entertaining the regular game night crew plus a visitor, Georgia, who reveals at the last moment that she really doesn't care for games which use dice. This is a crushing blow to your planned game night as all of your top choices this night involve rolling the bones. Luckily it is a soft stance on her part and when the others insist that these games are extremely fun even with her disliked dice, she softens a bit and agrees to play so long as the game does not have any dice with more than six sides. In that case it would have to be which of these?

Answer: Farkle

Classic Dungeons and Dragons uses various dice with different numbers of faces, most more than six. The basic game of Killer Bunnies uses a series of 12 sided dice and in some of the expansion sets, a 20 sided die is added. Scattergories also uses a 20 sided die to choose which letter will be the focus of each round of play (Q, U,V, X, Y and Z are the excluded letters if you were curious)

Farkle uses six dice, all with six sides. You are still worried it might be rubbing it in her face a bit since the entire game play consists of nothing but rolling and re-rolling the dice, but you explain this and she seems ok with it so, game on!

5. You invite over the new neighbors John and Camille for dinner and a game. While chatting with Camille you learn both of them are accountants so you are thinking of pulling out PayDay for game night as it seems right up their alley "Oh No!" she cries, "John hates games like that! He says it is too much like bringing work home." she further explains that in his free time John writes poetry and likes word play games and that it might be best if the game involved no math at all (aside from keeping score). With this information any of the following games should be fun for John except which one?

Answer: Rack-O

Rack-O is a card game where you must sort your hand of cards in numeric order while trying to guess/predict your future cards will be to fit them into your scheme. Sounds like a bit of a nightmare for John.

Balderdash involves distinguishing between real and made up definitions for words on randomly drawn cards. Boggle involves forming words out of a random cast of letters. Huggermugger is a game based highly on trivia and word play though some of the questions are dated in this late 80's era game it should still work ok for John.

6. Your sister invited her new boyfriend Fred over this weekend and you are taking them out to a comedy show. Due to extreme traffic congestion in town from a sporting event you receive text notification that the start of the show is to be delayed an hour and everyone agrees to your idea of playing a quick game to pass the time. Because time is short you start to pull out some simple old childhood favorites. Your sister gets a wide eyed expression and discretely makes an annoyed motion toward one of the games in your hand which involves little glass balls. You mentally wince as you recall Fred has just one teensy little quirk that could put a wrench into your planned menu of games. It seems he would figuratively lose his marbles unless you literally lose yours; any games with marbles in them that is. Because you are trying to be a gracious host, and you really like Fred, you quickly pull all but which of the following out of the list of the stack of choices?

Answer: Tiddlywinks

Tiddlywinks is pretty easy to learn in case he has not played it before and the game pieces are flat round disks so you stay away from the marble trouble. Hungry Hungry Hippos features lever operated hippos which attempt to "eat" marbles in the trough like playing field. KerPlunk has marbles suspended in a tube atop numerous cross pieces piercing through the tube. Players alternate removing a single peg on their turn with the goal being to have as few marbles as possible fall to the bottom on your turns. Aggravation is a derivative of Pachisi, in which the each player tries to advance their four playing pieces (marbles) around the board and into the home slots.

7. This time the obstacle is not a person but a number of persons. For this game night you have a party of five. Many of your favorite games only allow a specific range/number of players. Which of these can accommodate five so no one has to sit this one out?

Answer: Ticket To Ride (U.S.A. version)

Mille Bornes and Chinese Checkers both have a fair bit of flexibility with variations allowing for 2, 3, 4 or 6 players. Scrabble can take 2-4 Players

For Ticket To Ride, the U.S.A version allows 2-5 players. Many variants have since been added to what has become a well rounded series. The different versions are not simply the same game with a changed map, but rather offer slight rule variations from one another and really are like different games with a similar theme and mode of play. Most versions have similar flexibility in the number of allowable players but some could not accommodate five.

8. Martin is coming over and has two peeves which really test your patience. He doesn't like to leave games unfinished and you don't want to force this into a multi-night affair. However he is also a purist and will only play by the basic rules of the game even if the official game instructions offer up a shortened alternate mode of play. Well that's just great! Many of your favorite games tend to run long and you favor those special variations of play to use when time is limited. Which of the following, using the original rules only, would almost surely lead to a completed game in a 2 hour session?

Answer: Yahtzee

More in depth games can be fun for serious gamers but for casual play, simpler is generally better. Although gaming websites say that Risk and Monopoly games MAY finish within your allotted window, a new player can add to the length of the game and you are not sure if Martin has played these before and you don't want to take chances. Twilight Imperium is merging into the realm of super long games where even seasoned players can be expected to take well over 4 hours to play a game.

Yahtzee by contrast offers quick closure and still a decent amount of strategy for a fairly simple game. BoardGameGeek.com estimates a typical game takes 30 minutes so even if you played Triple Yahtzee where you play 3 rounds over top of one another, you should be done in plenty of time.

9. Maria is an electrician and is off of work recovering from a bad shock. She is supposed to stay off of her feet as much as possible so you suggest a game night and she agrees. You are probably being overly cautious but you decide electronic games may not sit well with her right now after getting zapped. Which of the following games do not use electricity?

Answer: Blokus

Catch Phrase is somewhat of a cross between hot potato and charades (with talking). You have to get the other players to guess a word and pass the timer on before the time runs out on the powered buzzer. Operation is the one most likely to disturb Maria as has you performing "surgery" on a patient with a metal tool and if you contact the metal frame while trying o extract a body part a circuit is completed and a buzzer sounds. Dark Tower is an early 80's era electronic strategy game. It became a bit dated quickly after release as computer games came to the fore but at its release it was fairly groundbreaking and it can still be seen in the collection of a few avid gamers.

Blokus is safe as it is a spatial strategy game where you lay plastic tiles, reminiscent of Tetris pieces, down in opposition to opponents, placing as many as you can before free space runs out.

10. Our last guest Cecil has a morbid fear of wasps, termites, silverfish and many other bugs which eat paper and wood and so he is skittish about any games involving those materials which could potentially draw these pests. Think carefully here as this one may be a bit tricky. Many games have these materials even if not centrally featured in play. There can be no paper such as cards or a cardboard playing board, and no wooden pieces will do either. (You can hide the rulebook and box - Cecil knows his games.) Just when you are about to throw your hands up and settle for a computer game, you think of a board game which will satisfy the needs of this very tough customer. Which of these is it?

Answer: Upwords

Your first instinct was Twister, with its well known plastic mat that forms the playing surface, but alas that won't work since the spinner board is cardboard. The action game Crossfire also seemed promising at first with it's plastic shooter which launches metal balls. However the "arena" which forms the main playing surface is cardboard. Jenga of course is strictly off limits this night as the tower of wooden blocks would look like a holiday feast to an army of termites.

Upwords, the popular scrabble-like game with the added element of letter stacking to overwrite existing play and make new words, has the game board and letter tiles all constructed out of plastic.

Source: Author namrewsna

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor WesleyCrusher before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Why Don't We Play Something Different? Quiz

Hosting a game night with regular friends is easy but what if you have guests with odd quirks and aversions you have to work around? Test your general gaming knowledge to see if you can prevent fights and hurt feelings.

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