Questions (game)
Questions often starts the moment one player serves the line, "Would you like to play questions?", and the other fires back with a question of their own, like "How do you play that?" From that opening exchange, every single reply has to keep the same shape: one question chasing the next, with no pause long enough to answer in plain speech.
What actually counts as breaking that rule once the questions start flying? And how has a game built on one narrow restriction ended up performed on a real stage and broadcast on television?
Seven separate mistakes can end a player's turn in Questions: statement, hesitation, repetition, rhetoric, non sequitur, synonym, and grunts. A statement foul is called the moment a reply comes out as an answer instead of a question. Hesitation covers stalling, a false start, or a grunt that buys time before real words arrive. Repetition means asking a question that already came up earlier in that same game, exact wording or not. A synonym foul punishes a question that only rephrases something asked before, without repeating it outright. Rhetoric fouls catch rhetorical questions, and a non sequitur foul lands when a reply has nothing to do with the question it answers. Grunts get flagged when a player makes a question shaped noise that the opponent has no way to answer with a question.
Every foul hands the opponent a single point, and three points close out one game outright. A full match runs best of three games, so a player needs two game wins to take the whole match.
Two players make up the standard lineup, though a referee can be brought in just to track fouls. The pair fixes a subject before the first question gets served. One multiplayer version lines up two teams facing off, with the players at the front of each line taking their turn against each other. A player who fouls heads to the back of their own line, or switches over to the other one. This version leaves the scoring entirely up to whoever is playing.
That same run of fouls turns up almost word for word in a two-hander written for the stage by the playwright Tom Stoppard.
In Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the title characters turn Questions into a running gag with an entire scripted exchange. The exchange runs: "R: Could we play at questions? G: What good would that do? R: Practice! G: Statement! One-love. R: Cheating! G: How? R: I hadn't started yet. G: Statement. Two-love. R: Are you counting that? G: What? R: Are you counting that? G: Foul! No repetitions. Three-love. First game to..."
A 1990 film adaptation of the play stages an abridged version of the same routine.
The neo-Vaudevillian troupe The Flying Karamazov Brothers folded Stoppard's version into at least two shows, "Juggling and Cheap Theatrics" and "Club!". Brothers "Ivan" and "Dmitri", played by Howard Jay Patterson and Paul David Magid, ran the dialogue while juggling three beanbags at the same time. The jugglers tell the audience the routine is "copyrighted and used by permission!"
That circus version stays close to Stoppard's script, but the game changes shape again once it lands on a television improv stage.
On the improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, a specific setting gets established before the host turns the players loose on nothing but questions.
Here the strict list of fouls loosens up, since the whole point is entertaining the audience rather than crowning the better player.
The host acts as sole judge, "buzzing out" whichever player states something, hesitates, or cracks up laughing. Only rarely does a non sequitur earn the same buzz.
The show never fixes a length for the round, so it simply runs until the host decides to stop. At that point the host names an arbitrary "winner" and hands out a random number of meaningless points.
Those points settle nothing among the players, and the show moves straight into its next game without anyone checking the count.
Common questions
What is the game called Questions?
Questions is a language game in which two players volley questions back and forth without ever making a declarative statement. Players lose points for fouls such as statements, hesitations, or non sequiturs, and the first to three points wins a game.
What counts as a foul in the game Questions?
A foul in Questions is called for a statement, hesitation, repetition, rhetoric, non sequitur, synonym, or grunt. Each foul awards the opponent one point.
How many points does it take to win a match of Questions?
A single game of Questions is won by the first player to reach three points. A full match is decided best of three games, so a player must win two games to take the match.
Which play features the game Questions prominently?
Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead prominently features the game of Questions, including a scripted exchange between the two title characters. A 1990 film adaptation of the play includes an abridged version of the same scene.
Who performed the game Questions while juggling?
The neo-Vaudevillian troupe The Flying Karamazov Brothers performed a version of the Questions dialogue from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead while juggling three beanbags. Brothers "Ivan" and "Dmitri", played by Howard Jay Patterson and Paul David Magid, performed the routine in the shows "Juggling and Cheap Theatrics" and "Club!".
How is Questions played on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
On Whose Line Is It Anyway, the game of Questions is played within a set scene, and the host buzzes out any player who makes a statement, hesitates, or breaks into laughter. The rules are looser than the standard game since the goal is to entertain the audience, and the host awards an arbitrary winner a meaningless number of points.
All sources
1 references cited across the entry
- 1BookThe Games Treasury: More Than 300 Indoor and Outdoor Favorites With Strategies, Rules and TraditionsMerilyn Simonds Mohr, Roberta Cooke (Illustrator) — Chapters Pub Ltd — 1993