Jay Bartelt
United States
Grayslake
Illinois
-
We're having our holiday party for work and all of us will be together in a room. There will be 150-200 people there sitting at tables of around 8, so 20-25 teams. I was thinking about grabbing the microphone and running a modified WW game. I'm stealing these rules from the Great Lakes Games version I participated in last weekend. My question is this - do you think this is do'able?
1) I'll make up holiday related questions - how far in kilometers from here to the North Pole? etc
2) People bring up guesses in 30 seconds, the usual.
3) Read off answers, people have a guessing phase.
4) Scoring will be 3 points if it is guessed exactly right, 2 points for closest without going over and 1 point for 2nd best guess.
5) Ties are friendly
Run 5 or so questions and give prizes to the winning team.
You think this will work with a group so large? I'll have some people at the ready to assist with putting the numbers in order, score everything, etc.
Oh, and by the way, rule #6: No smartphones! When I was pitching this idea to the party committee, I used the above example as a question and a person picked up his iPhone and said, "Suri, how far from here to the North Pole?" 10 seconds later - "5376 kilometers!!"
Thanks for any ideas / input!
-
Andy W
United States
Wheatfield
New York
-
I think this sounds like a fun idea, but wonder if 5 questions is going to be a long enough game to get a spread of points for 20-25 teams. On the other hand, having tried games at a company party, anything over 5 questions could easily be too long. If you think the scoring won't be an issue, your proposed idea seems good.
Sadly, I'd question whether you can get people to buy into the "no smartphones" rule (which is needed for this sort of game). At our company picnic there was a no smartphone rule for a trivia sheet, and a sizable number of people didn't care that they weren't supposed to use their phone. In our case, the trivia was for not easily researched questions, but for Wits and Wagers questions, that would be tough.
If you have some sort of company specific questions that can't be looked up, that could help. As an example, one of the best number questions we've had was "how many flags of different countries are there in the cafeteria".
Good luck!
-
Jay Bartelt
United States
Grayslake
Illinois
-
Yeah, the five questions is simply because I think it will be difficult to keep up the interest level beyond that many, but I'll probably have some questions tucked away in case it's going well.
Love the idea for questions that your smartphone can't easily answer. I'll have to chew on that one a bit.
Thanks!
-
Curt Carpenter
United States
Washington
-
You're throwing the whole "wager" portion out the window??? Doesn't sound like much of a game.
I'm actually in a similar boat, but for only maybe 60 people. In a couple weeks. Which is why I looked at this thread.
-
Jay Bartelt
United States
Grayslake
Illinois
-
I get what you're saying, but here's what I imagine: Trying to explain odds to a group of 200 people, trying to give 20-25 teams the proper payouts, and trying to keep track of everyone's money. I need to simplify the game as much as possible so there's little / no downtime between questions.
Given the choice between a bunch of confused people who can't figure out the game and having a not-as-much-fun simple game, I'm going to go with the simple game.
-
Curt Carpenter
United States
Washington
-
Actually, yeah, I realized that with that many people you need to have lots of teams, which means the wagering portion won't work, or at least have to be revamped with that many results.
In my case I'm looking at more like 60 people, and I'm planning to use 7 teams.
-
Dominic Crapuchettes
United States
Bethesda
MD
This overtext is brought to you by the abstract strategy game Battle of LITS and the number 20.
-
Here is something I posted on another thread about the same topic:
There are several ways to do it with 200 people.
First Method:
This method can handle as many or as few teams as you like. 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 (the PowerPoint presentation and a PDF of the answer sheets to hand out to each team).
Second Method:
This method requires several copies of Wits & Wagers. Use the original W&W rules. Play 7 games at the same time on 7 different tables. This would lead to teams of 4 people each (about). 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.
-
Curt Carpenter
United States
Washington
-
domcrap wrote: I can send you everything you need for this version (the PowerPoint presentation and a PDF of the answer sheets to hand out to each team).
Yes please.
-
Dominic Crapuchettes
United States
Bethesda
MD
This overtext is brought to you by the abstract strategy game Battle of LITS and the number 20.
-
curtc wrote: domcrap wrote: I can send you everything you need for this version (the PowerPoint presentation and a PDF of the answer sheets to hand out to each team). Yes please.
Send an email to me at Dominic (at) NorthStarGames dot com. I will send you everything you need.
-
|
|
