How to Run a How Well Do You Know Me Quiz

The version that fails is the one where the host writes forty questions alone the night before. It takes hours, and it removes the host from their own party, because they already know every answer.

The version that works collects three questions from every player. Five people writing three questions each is a fifteen question show, and nobody did more than five minutes of work.

Crucially, the host should be seeing most of the questions for the first time, on screen, in front of everybody. That reaction is half the entertainment.

Questions have to be submitted privately. The moment two players compare notes, the surprise is gone and so is the game.

A group chat is the wrong place. Use a direct message to one person who is not playing, a folded piece of paper in a bowl, or an app that collects them in secret.

Almost every good question about a group is one of these:

1. Most likely to. Who is most likely to fight a seagull over chips. Who is most likely to text back four days later. These are the backbone.
2. Who once. Who once fell off a horse in Brazil. A real event only some of the room knows about.
3. The story goes. Someone got a nickname on a nudist beach. Who was it. You tell the story, the room guesses the subject.
4. Free form. Anything the writer wants, for the questions that fit none of the above.

If somebody is stuck, give them the first shape and one example. Nearly everybody can fill in the blank once they see it done.

The single biggest upgrade to this format is showing who the question is about. A name on a card is read and forgotten. A picture of the person gets a reaction before anyone has answered anything.

That applies whether you are holding up a printed photo or using an app that generates a scene around whoever the question is about. The mechanism matters less than the fact that the room is looking at the person while they squirm.

Fifteen questions in a row is still a test. Put something else between them every few questions:

• A hot seat, where one player answers alone and the rest can steal it.
• A dare, drawn at random, for whoever is losing.
• A quickfire round where the answers are sorted into two piles rather than picked from four.
• A ridiculous news bulletin about the person in last place.

The change of shape is what holds a room, not the quality of any individual question.

The fastest way to lose half the room is to let the scores settle early. Two fixes:

• Make later questions worth double.
• Add a final round with different scoring, so the gap can close.

If the group has a wide range of ages or confidence, put people in pairs. A twelve year old against three adults is not a competition, and everybody can feel that by round two.

If there is a toddler or a baby in the room, give them a round. Ask them something absurd, like summarising War and Peace or their view on interest rates, and award the whole table ten points for whatever noise comes back.

It takes ninety seconds, it is always the funniest part of the night, and it means the smallest person present is in the game rather than being handed a phone in the corner.

Do not finish by mumbling the totals off a notepad. Announce third, second and first, in that order, with as much drama as you can sustain.

People photograph podiums. They do not photograph a piece of paper with numbers on it.

If you would rather not assemble any of this by hand, Quizriella does the collecting, the ordering, the segments and the scoring for you. Everyone writes their questions in secret from their own phone, and you get a running order that already alternates the formats and ends on a podium.

Either way, the rule that matters is the same one: the quiz should be about the people in the room.