Office Christmas party trivia that isn't cringe: how to run a game everyone plays

Trivia works at a work party when it's loud, fast and played in teams. Everyone can see the board, nobody has to know sports, and the team that wins one round doesn't always win the next.

Put it after people have eaten and before the party splits into small groups. Around 30 to 40 minutes is right: one board of 25 clues, a short break, then a survey round to finish. Stop while people still want another round.

The best thing trivia does at a work party is put people together who don't usually talk, so don't let teams form by department. Count off by table or by birthday month, and accounting ends up next to engineering.

Four to six people per team works best. Smaller and the quiet people never get a turn. Bigger and only two people talk.

There are two ways to buzz. One phone per team keeps it simple: whoever holds it joins with the team's name, so the name shows on the scoreboard. Pass the phone around each round. Or everyone joins on their own phone and the host picks 2, 3 or 4 teams; the game splits players evenly and pools the points. Our trivia team names list helps teams that get stuck.

At every office party, two teams shout at the same time and someone has to decide who was first. Here, players join by scanning the code on the TV, and each phone becomes a buzzer. The game shows who buzzed first, and on a close call the TV shows the margin to a hundredth of a second, so the host can just point.

The host reads the clue, the first buzz answers, and the host scores it with one tap. You decide what counts as right. If a team says "the Grinch" and the answer is How the Grinch Stole Christmas, that's your call.

Nobody installs an app or signs up to play. The buzzers run in the phone's browser.

If half the team is on a video call, share your screen with the board and post the join code in the chat. Remote players join from their phone or from a browser tab on their laptop and click the buzzer, the same as everyone in the room. Mixed teams work too: with teams on, a remote player scores for the same team as the people in the office.

More on this in our guide to virtual trivia.

1. 1Open the Christmas trivia page on the laptop connected to the TV or projector and press Play it live with phone buzzers.
2. 2Teams scan the code on the screen. Remote players use the code posted in the call chat.
3. 3Pick a clue, read it out, open the buzzers, and score each answer with one tap.
4. 4Finish with a survey round and hand out the prizes.