Pub Quiz Rules — How to Play and Keep Score

Overview

A quiz night is a scoring problem dressed up as an evening out. Teams answer a fixed number of questions per round, papers are swapped for marking, and the quizmaster reads the totals between rounds. What makes it awkward to track on paper is that not every round is worth the same, jokers double one round of a team's choosing, and a final wager can move a team from fourth place to first in a single question.

Setup

Decide how many rounds you are running and how many questions each contains, then set what a correct answer is worth. Register each team by name; team size is a house matter and does not affect scoring. If jokers are in play, collect each team's nomination before the round they apply to begins.

How to play

The quizmaster reads a round, teams write answers on a sheet, and papers are then passed to another team for marking. The marked score is called out and entered against the team. A running total is normally announced after every round, which is half the entertainment, though some quizzes hold the totals back until the final round to keep the result open.

Scoring

A normal round scores the number of correct answers multiplied by the points per question. With ten questions at one point each, the round maximum is ten. Half points, where enabled, are awarded at the marker's discretion and are added exactly as scored.

Weighted rounds. When custom weighting is on, each round carries its own maximum, so a picture round of twenty images can be worth twenty while a music round of ten clips is worth ten. Nothing is normalised — the raw numbers are simply summed.

Joker. A team may nominate exactly one round in the quiz. That round's score is then doubled, increased by half, or given a flat ten-point bonus depending on the setting. The joker is applied to the round score after any half points, and a joker played on a round scored zero is worth nothing.

Wipeout. A wipeout round pays the full round value only for a perfect sheet. One wrong answer scores zero for that round. If a joker is played on a wipeout round, the multiplier applies to whatever the round finally scored, which is often nothing.

Final wager. Before the last question is read, each team writes down a stake within the allowed range. A correct answer adds the stake to the running total, a wrong answer subtracts it. Teams may stake zero.

Ending the game

Once the last round and any wager are entered, totals are read out from the bottom of the table upwards. The highest total wins. Teams level on points are separated by the chosen tie-break; the nearest-number question is settled on absolute difference, so being twenty over and twenty under are equally close.

Common variations

Many quizzes add a table round handed out at the start, a connections round with a bonus for spotting the link, or a gamble round where teams choose to double or halve before they see the questions.