Unique Answers

A Unique Answers quiz is made up of questions that have multiple right answers and that are easy enough for virtually anyone to get right. The challenge comes not from finding a correct answer, but from thinking of one that no one else has picked. To do well, you need obscure knowledge and an insight into how your opponents might answer.

Questions

When thinking up the questions, it's important to take your group size into consideration to make sure that some (but not all) players will find a unique answer. For fewer players, you need questions with only a few possible answers, and for more players you need questions with lots of possible answers.

Examples

• Films starring a particular actor
• Songs on a particular artist's greatest hits album
• Wars that took place during a given time period
• A number between 1 and X

Scoring

Each time a player gets a correct answer that no one else did, they score one point.

When it comes to identifying the unique answers you can use whatever process works for you, but one approach is to have everyone stand up (or similar), then ask each standing player one by one what their answer was. If anybody else got the same answer, all of those players sit down and none of them score any points. If no one else got the same, the player sits down and is awarded a point.

Since each question will have multiple answers, make sure there will be a way to check the validity of any answers given such as a printed list of all correct answers or a stable internet connection.

Variations

Alternate Scoring System

The standard scoring system is simple, but may not fairly reflect how well some players have performed. In order to measure uniqueness, the scoring system can be reversed. In this scoring system, players compete for the lowest score at the end of the quiz, and are given points equal to the number of people who also got their answer. For example, if four people get the same answer, they each receive three points, while a player with a unique answer would receive no points. A wrong answer is worth points equal to the number of players, making a wrong answer one point worse than a correct answer that everybody said.

Incorrect Answer Penalty

In the standard rules, there is no penalty for guessing an answer that turns out to be incorrect. If you want to deter players from taking wild punts in the hopes of finding a unique answer, you can introduce a one-point deduction for incorrect answers.