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From: davidl@teklds.UUCP (David Levine)
Newsgroups: net.games.trivia
Subject: Re: Recommendations for trivia games wanted
Message-ID: <1427@teklds.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Dec-85 20:18:30 EST
Article-I.D.: teklds.1427
Posted: Thu Dec 19 20:18:30 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Dec-85 05:30:57 EST
References: <1360@teklds.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidl@teklds.UUCP (David Levine)
Distribution: net
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 72
Summary: 
Fcc: triviabox.tmp

In article <1360@teklds.UUCP>, I wrote:
>My usual trivia partners and I have played Trivial Pursuit's Genus I to 
>death and know all the questions.... So, for this Christmas, I'm looking 
>for trivia games other than Trivial Pursuit....  Do you know of any trivia 
>games, or trivia card sets usable with Trivial Pursuit, that are any good?  

The reponse was not at all what I'd expected.  Andrew Klossner 
(tekecs!lemming.TEK!andrew) mentioned the Oregon Trivia cards currently popular
in this area, but unfortunately some of the people I usually play trivia games
with are native Oregonians and some aren't, so the contests would generally be
uneven.  Steven List (luke!itkin) said that there was a "new set of cards that
claim to be for use with TP", but I need more to go on than that.

The real surprise was that three of the five respondents recommended an old
game (circa 1967) called Facts In Five, which isn't what I was thinking of at
all.  Originally published by 3M (remember those "bookshelf games"?), now 
published by Avalon Hill, this is a trivia-type game in which the answers
require a lot more thought. In the words of W. Keith Brummett (cbsck!wkb):

                                           ... the game consists of
        a pad of playing/scoring sheets, decks of "category" and "letter"
        cards, and a five-minute hour glass.  Each playing sheet has a
        five-by-five matrix of boxes printed on it.  Players take turns
        picking a category card from a shuffled and spread (face down)
        deck.  The cards usually have a major category and a list of
        subcategories to choose from. An example would be "famous
        americans" as a category, with "presidents" being chosen as the
        sub-category.  The selector of the card gets to choose from
        whatever choices the card presents, and there are some wild
        cards that let you choose any category and/or sub-category you
        want.  When the selector has made his choices, that category
        (and sub-cat., if any) is entered at the top of a column on
        each players' playing sheet.  This proceeds until all five
        columns have category headings.  Then letter cards are selected
        in a similar manner and are used to label the five rows.  There
        are also wild cards for letters.  Once the matrix has been
        fully labeled, the hour glass is turned over, and the players
        have five minutes to fill in the boxes.  The object is to find
        members of each category that start with each of the selected
        letters.  For example, if column 1 was "presidents", as above,
        and row 3 was the letter "A", then you would enter "J.Q. Adams"
        in box 1,3.  Of course, if one of the letters was "Z", you'd
        be out of luck with "presidents".  When the time is up, players
        score their cards as follows.  Going down each column, score
        one point for each filled box in that column.  Square that
        number and enter it below each column.  When you have done that
        for all five columns, do the same for each row.  The sum of all
        the column scores plus all the row scores is your total score
        for the game.  Note that this makes it important to try to
        completely fill in entire rows or columns.

Well, it sounds fascinating, and so I bought it for my SO.  If anyone wants my
opinion, send me mail and I'll give you a review some time in the New Year.

Thanks to the other people who recommended Facts In Five: Barry Kort 
(hounx!kort) and "Jeff Brown the Scumbag" (utastro!jeff), who suggested that 
you could avoid running out of score pads by covering a few score sheets with 
plastic and using wax pencils, and commented that

	It has a rather higher emphasis on history and literature
	than Triv Per, and rather less on the "trivia" topics of
	popular games: Hollywood, TV, and sports.  I like it for
	this reason, since I could care less about TV, radio, and
	movies.  

Although Facts In Five wasn't at all what I set out to find, it sounds exactly
like what I was looking for!  Thanks to all who responded, and Happy Holiday Of
Your Choice to everyone!

David D. Levine (...{decvax,ihnp4,hplabs}!tektronix!teklds!davidl) [UUCP]
                (davidl%teklds%tektronix@csnet-relay.arpa)         [ARPA]
		"My hovercraft is full of eels."                   [MPFC]