Sean Raffuse
United States
San Rafael
California
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Hi,
My company is having it's 30th anniversary celebration in a few months. I occasionally host trivia events that tend to go over pretty well, but I thought it would be even more fun to do a big game of Wits and Wagers. I think we will be in a banquet setting and there will be about 50 of us. I will ask questions related to company history and any other offbeat things I can think of. So here are my questions:
1. Am I crazy?
2. Does anyone have prior experience with this that can provide some advice or good war stories?
3. What are the biggest logistical challenges?
4. Any good question ideas? We are a scientific and technical firm that deals with air pollution research. Here are a couple I've got off the top of my head:
- How many journal articles have we published?
- What is the median height of the company?
- What is the furthest distance (in miles) from an employee's birthplace to our office?
- How many acronyms did we coin last year?
- etc.
Any practical advice would be welcome. I'm pretty excited to do this, but I'd love to hear your wisdom.
Thanks!
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
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Somewhat related, we used Wits & Wagers as a table game at our wedding. However, we just used questions from the game - one or two at each table.
The undertaking was making it for so many guests. I am not sure your plans - if you intend to just entertain or to let each table (if it is indeed a dinner setting as opposed to a conference) compete.
What you could do is read the questions that you create and let each person (or couple if spouses come along) at the table compete with others at only that table.
What we did was make large 11x17 copies of the board and laminated them, along with the score cards as well. Bought a ton of 2nd hand cheap poker chips. Also brought a ton of colored dice for betting cubes. I already had theses so it was cheaper to use them but other bits of colored bits could be used. Also bought tons of cheap marker board markers.
So you could pl;ay through a game with 7 or 14 questions, or any number if you want to alter the rounds.
Questions should fall on the near impossible side. What you have sounds good. Maybe add questions about how many employees over the years, total gross sales, percent increase of the stock, combined salary of all the employees. if you are going to have spouse, maybe through in some non-work related questions to include them as well.
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Dominic Crapuchettes
United States
Bethesda
MD
This overtext is brought to you by the abstract strategy game Battle of LITS and the number 20.
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There are several ways to do it.
First Method:
Use the W&W Family format (which is the simplest version), and use a large screen monitor connected to a Power Point presentation. It is the most amount of work upfront, but it makes for the best game show experience. You will need to poll 5 prominent people in the office before hand to get their answers. Getting the CEO and the heads of different departments makes for the best experience, but you can use anyone in the company who is well-known. These answers are entered into a PowerPoint presentation. Answer sheets are handed out to each team which already have the answers on them. Players circle a small meeple and a large meeple on the answers they choose. At the end of the round, the teams exchange their answer sheets with another team, and the presentation reveals the answers. You collect the sheets and announce the scores of each of the teams, giving prizes to the top scorers (and usually a booby prize for the last place team). You don't need any copies of the game for this version, though I would recommend giving away copies as prizes, since everyone will already know how to play. I can send you everything you need for this version.
Second Method:
Use the original W&W version. Create 14 teams of 3-4 people each. Play 2 games at the same time on 2 different tables. Use a microphone to explain the game and read the questions. Explain the game by using a sample question and walking everyone through the process. It is best to have 1 volunteer at each table who will organize the answers, and pay out the bets.
Sometimes it is difficult to find good volunteers. In this case, I would not use the felt mat with the payout odds, because it is confusing to figure out how to order the answers when there are an even number of unique responses. Instead, I would have make all of the odds be 1:1, and just order the answers from smallest to largest on the table (like with W&W Family). You will need to make a permanent answer card of "1" for each table so people can bet on "lower than the lowest answer". If you want to spice it up a little, make this card and the highest answer pay out double. That is a concept that is not confusing to people. Then give a prize to the winning team at each table. We can sell you several cases of W&W at wholesale if you wan to give them as prizes.
Also, I would mix in some of the questions from the game to your mix of company related questions. We have hosted quite a few company events, and we found that people did not like too many company/industry related questions. There were always audible comments of exasperation. I think a lot of people want the event to take their mind off of work. So I would advise having 1 in 3 or 4 questions be company/industry related. Make sure those questions are ones where the teams will want to talk with each other to try and figure out a good estimate. The more you get people talking, the better. Email me if you'd like a list of questions that work well with teams.
I hope this helps.
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Sean Raffuse
United States
San Rafael
California
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Thanks to you both for your great suggestions! Dominic, your reputation for awesome community engagement is well-deserved. Brian, I read your wedding post with great interest, and it was partly what inspired me. One goal of the event is to get everyone interacting, so I would like there to be a single game.
The gamer in me wants desperately to use the full W&W version (i.e., with scaled payouts) but I could be talked down from that. What do you all think of this Third (or Fourth?) version:
- Seven (+/- 1) largish circular banquet tables with each making a team of 5-7 each.
- Host controls a powerpoint up front that reveals questions.
- Teams put their answer on index cards which are collected by host + helpers.
- Answers are ordered on a big board showing the odds, displayed on the overhead.
- Teams then place bets - again collected by helpers or perhaps sent up by a delegate.
- Correct answers revealed and payouts delivered.
- Witty banter throughout.
One possible area of small simplification would be to only allow one bet, but do you think that would impact the game too much?
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Luke Warren
United States
Dist of Columbia
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Actually, that is normally what we do at our big game shows at conventions, but usually minus all the A/V equipment. But hey, if you can pull it off, go for it! Good helpers are key here.
Good luck!
Luke
North Star Games
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Dominic Crapuchettes
United States
Bethesda
MD
This overtext is brought to you by the abstract strategy game Battle of LITS and the number 20.
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Raffscallion wrote: Thanks to you both for your great suggestions! Dominic, your reputation for awesome community engagement is well-deserved. Brian, I read your wedding post with great interest, and it was partly what inspired me. One goal of the event is to get everyone interacting, so I would like there to be a single game.
The gamer in me wants desperately to use the full W&W version (i.e., with scaled payouts) but I could be talked down from that. What do you all think of this Third (or Fourth?) version:
- Seven (+/- 1) largish circular banquet tables with each making a team of 5-7 each.
- Host controls a powerpoint up front that reveals questions.
- Teams put their answer on index cards which are collected by host + helpers.
- Answers are ordered on a big board showing the odds, displayed on the overhead.
- Teams then place bets - again collected by helpers or perhaps sent up by a delegate.
- Correct answers revealed and payouts delivered.
- Witty banter throughout.
One possible area of small simplification would be to only allow one bet, but do you think that would impact the game too much?
I think that version would work fine. I find that 5 - 7 people on a team is a little large, which is why I suggested 2 simultaneous games, but it's still a lot of fun. Just remember to give more time to answer and to bet. I usually give around 2 minutes for teams of this size.
Instead of index cards, you could use the dry erase boards.
You could use the Excel spreadsheet that someone created for this purpose. I'm pretty sure it is posted on the W&W page, but you can email me if you can't find it. It's pretty slick, and definitely worth looking into.
Good luck with it! I'm sure you'll have a great time.
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Curt Carpenter
United States
Washington
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domcrap wrote: You could use the Excel spreadsheet that someone created for this purpose. I'm pretty sure it is posted on the W&W page, but you can email me if you can't find it. It's pretty slick, and definitely worth looking into.
The Excel spreadsheet doesn't support making wagers. Otherwise it woul dbe exactly what I'm looking for. If anyone can update it to support that, that would be great!
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