When we were in school, my friends and I played Trivial Pursuit in the snack bar. There was only the one edition, year after year, so we eventually came to know all the answers. Rather than moving on to another game, however, we just morphed that one into its own beast. We would rope in more and more people into something that became an amalgamation of Charades, Twenty Questions, and Truth or Dare. We called it Crackdified Trivial Pursuit.
The rules of Crackdified Trivial Pursuit, as far as there are any, are as follows: you keep to the normal game directions until it comes time to give the answer. If the person whose turn it is to answer the question is unable to think of the answer right away, those who know the answer because they’ve played that edition about a hundred times will start giving clues. For instance:
Questioner: What is the capital of Peru?
Peanut Gallery: “Blank” beans! “Blank” beans! Oh, what do you mean you can’t get the answer from that? All right, all right: the flavor of Sprite is lemon-a, “blank”!
If the person still couldn’t get it, the rest of the players would start acting out the answer a la Charades. “OK. 1 word, 4 letters. Rhymes with…Wonder Woman? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Oh, Xena! The Warrior Princess??”
The person trying to answer the question could also ask questions to try to narrow down what the answer might be. This was especially helpful in categories like Science and Nature, but less so in History; it doesn’t help to ask “Alive or dead?” if you’re trying to figure out the answer to “Who won the battle of Waterloo?” At least, not unless your educational system has completely failed you.
Image via Wikipedia
We usually had a pretty good crowd going, so we could almost always get it by this point, but if that didn’t work and the person gave up, they had to take the questioner’s pick of Truth or Dare. If the crowd was feeling restless and we agreed that it was the questioner’s fault, then the questioner had to take his victim’s choice of Truth or Dare. Being starving students, we would also allow the person to avoid this by getting appetizers for the table. Loaded nachos were favored, but resulted in some truly disgusting cards by the time graduation rolled around.
What strikes me most about this, though, is that there weren’t any teams and yet we were all trying to help each other win. We just wanted to have a good time. I’m not sure we ever even finished a game. I miss that attitude. I miss those nachos. Also, I racked up some seriously inane knowledge this way. Nobody needs to know what a thin layer of chromatography is.
P.S. For those of you who are of age, this makes an awesome drinking game. Play Crackdified Trivial Pursuit responsibly! Can you believe my spellcheck doesn’t like the word “crackdified”?
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