-
The occasion - My parents recently celebrated a special wedding anniversary milestone, and to mark the occasion had an evening of celebration with about 50 invited guests. Dutiful and loving children naturally feel obliged and privileged to organize some appropriate entertainment for such an event. So we came up with the idea of having a giant Wits & Wagers game using the Family edition rules, and themed around my parents marriage. While it's nice to feature trivia at weddings and anniversaries about the couple themselves, it's always a challenge to present this in a way that doesn't put all the guests to sleep - after all, how many slideshows haven't you seen at such occasions that bored you to death? Fortunately, we had Wits & Wagers come to the rescue, to help us give a completely fresh approach to this old challenge.
The teams - We knew in advance that the seating arrangement would consist of about half a dozen groups of about 8-10 people at each table. Perfect, we had ready-made teams!
The meeples - As a themed substitute to the game's meeples, I'd made up special tokens for each team in their team colour, one with a photo of my dad's face (worth 2 points), and the other with a photo of my mom's face (worth 1 point). We didn't introduce the meeple wagering immediately, but first introduced the concept of "who can be closest without going over" by running a couple of starting questions with points going only to the winning team. Then we added in the wager concept by introducing the 1 point "mom" token for a number of questions, and rounded off the game by adding in the 2 point "dad" token for the final series questions. This also gave teams a chance to catch up in the closing stages, and increased the stakes and the tension in the closing stages.
The questions - For the questions, I made up questions relating to my parents and their marriage, e.g. "Which year did they meet?" "How many days did their courtship last?" "How many days did it take to their first kiss?" "How long was their honeymoon?" "What time of the day was their wedding?" etc.
The answers - Naturally my parents couldn't participate as contestants, so I went one better by bringing them up to the front to serve as judges. After everyone had submitted their answers and placed their bets, my parents were given the microphone to tell the correct answer, and share a brief story about the event featured in the question. I had shared the questions with them in advance of the evening (without telling them why I needed them to know), so they had some prep time to ensure they knew the answers themselves - even I didn't know exactly what all the answers would be!
The response - We introduced it as a family gameshow (it even had a theme song sung by some of the grand-kids), and it went over absolutely terrific. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the evening, and everyone really enjoyed it! The simpler rules offered by the family wagering was ideal for this setting, and also avoided the `gambling' feel of the original game which some of those present might have found objectionable. Everyone got into the spirit of the game, and the competition was friendly yet fierce. And perhaps most important of all, it made my parents feel special, because they had the opportunity to share some personal anecdotes about their special day, and were genuinely guests of honour - which indeed they deserved to be, given that it was the occasion of their wedding anniversary that was bringing us together! It was a way of making them shine and the life of the party, and doing so in a way that entertained everyone present. We heard many positive comments afterwards about how much fun the game was, and how it was an excellent way of presenting material that can sometimes prove drab and boring. Thank you Wits & Wagers!
-
Chris Halaska
United States
Eugene
Oregon
-
Fantastic idea! We've got a few of those kinds of milestones coming up in the next several years, so I'll have to see if I can pull together something similar.
-
Todd
United States
Phoenix
Arizona
Fez.
-
Outstanding and thoughtful and fun. Perfect. Plus you cleverly lured non-gamers into our world without them knowing. Well done.
-
|
|
