There was a thread recently about a large number of very specific/obscure questions about the same game and I think the discussion can be expanded to what we like/don’t like in questions in general.
I’ll start by saying I think most multiple choice questions with numbers as the answers tend to not be very good, as they tend to fall into a lot of the same traps. (note neither of the examples given below are actual questions in the database, at least not to my knowledge)
Better number-related questions tend to have their numbers spaced out more evenly and are about things which aren’t completely obscure.
For example a good number question would be something like “When was Alien (directed by Ridley Scott) released?” with the answer being 1979, and fake answers being 1963, 1970, and 1988. In an answer like this, even if I normally wouldn’t know 1979 as the exact date, I can still make an accurate guess by knowing that Alien was released somewhere in the mid-late 70s, whereas it’d just be a complete guess if the answers were something like 1979, 1978, 1977, 1980.
A terrible number-related question usually ends up being some very obscure statistic that even people who have a lot of experience with the subject matter will likely not even be able to guess, and/or has all the numbers extremely close together which prevents any guessing.
For example, “In Terraria, how much damage does the flamethrower do?” with the answer being 27 and the fake answers being 25, 28, and 29. This one shows both of the above problems. Even someone with over 1000 hours in Terraria won’t be able to get this one, let alone guess it because of how obscure and unimportant it is, nor could they guess it because of how close all the numbers are to each other.
Anyways I’d like to know what you guys like/dislike in trivia questions, hopefully this will provide insight and help trivia question creators improve their questions in the future.
It’s annoying stumbling across terrible trivia questions that are completely impossible to solve for anybody who hasn’t watched a movie or TV show religiously or played a certain series without blindly guessing the answer.
ahem
A good question would be something that anybody could solve. Like if you walked up to a random guy on the street and asked him “How many innings does a baseball game have”
He could probably answer it, but if you asked the same guy “In Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons, what is the common name for a goblin who’s mother is older than 30 but less than 40, and who’s second cousin is female, but not male?” He probably could not answer the question. If I join trivia game I expect to be able to enjoy it without muttering to myself “who the hell writes this stuff?”