Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is a board game where progress is determined by a player's ability to answer general knowledge or popular culture questions. The game was conceived in 1979 by Scott Abbott, a sports editor for the Canadian Press and Chris Haney, photo editor for the Montreal Gazette, after finding pieces of their Scrabble game missing^*. With the help of John Haney and Ed Werner, they completed development of the game, and it was released in 1982.

In North America, the game's popularity peaked in 1984, the year over 20 million games were sold. The rights to the game were licensed to Parker Brothers (now part of Hasbro) in 1988, after initially being turned down by Richard Branson's Virgin Group. As of 2004, nearly 88 million games had been sold, in 26 countries and 17 languages.

Dozens of question sets have been released for the game. The question cards are organized into themes - for instance, in the standard "Genus" question set, questions in green are about "science and nature". Some question sets have been designed for younger players, others on a specific time period or as promotional tie-ins for pop culture (such as Star Wars, Saturday Night Live, and The Lord of the Rings movies). Most recently these tie-ins have also taken advantage of DVD technology to create Trivial Pursuit DVD TV Games.

Rules of the game

The object of the game is to move along the circular track and the spokes by correctly answering questions, and try to collect colored wedges (also known informally as a "cheese" or "pie" due to their shape) for correctly answering questions in each of the six category "headquarters" located at the base of each spoke. To win, a player (or team) returns to the hexagonal hub and correctly answer the game-winning question in a category chosen by the other players.

Before the game begins, each player selects one token and six colored scoring wedges, one of each of the six category colors. Each player rolls the die to see who will go first. All players start at the hexagonal hub at the center of the board and move down one of the spokes and out onto the circular track. Play moves in either direction along the track, clockwise or counterclockwise.

On a player's first turn, the player rolls the die and selects which color/category they want to land on and which of the six spokes they'll move down. If a 6 is rolled, they will immediately land on a category headquarters and try for a scoring wedge of that color.

Whichever color is landed on, another player will ask a question in that category: The first card is drawn from either one of the card boxes and the question is read next to the appropriate colored dot. Answers are on the opposite side of each card. When done with the question, the card is placed in the back of its box, behind the other cards.

If the player answers his or her first question correctly, their turn continues by rolling the die again and moving that number of spaces.

On each roll of the die, the player may select which direction they want to move along the track as they attempt to move towards category headquarters to try for scoring wedges in each of the six colors. A player may not move both forward and backward along the track or on a spoke in the same move. The player must always move the number of spaces shown on the die. If the player answers a question incorrectly, the play passes to the player on their left.

On subsequent turns, when the player answers a category headquarters question correctly, he or she puts that colored wedge into their token. But if they answer incorrectly, on their next turn they must move out of that category headquarters for a turn before reentering and trying again for that color piece. The player does not have to try that same category immediately; they may move elsewhere on the board and return to it later.

There are 12 "Roll again" spaces on the track. If the player lands on one, they continue their turn by rolling the die and moving again.

Any number of tokens may occupy the same space at the same time.

A player may cut across the board by moving their token up the spokes to the center hub and out again, moving either straight across the hub, or by "turning" and going down another spoke. If they land in the hub by exact count, but can't try to win the game because they do not have color wedges in all six colors, it is considered a "Wild Card" and the player may choose any category they want for their question.

Once a player has collected one scoring wedge in each color, they make their way toward the hexagonal hub and try to answer the game-winning question. They must land in the hub by exact count. If they overshoot the hub, they pick the spoke they want to move down and answer the question in the category they land on; then, on their next move, they attempt to hit the hub by exact count.

Once a player does hit the hub, the other players select the category of the game-winning question from the next card in the appropriate box.

If the player answers correctly, the game is won. Otherwise, they must wait for their next turn, stay in the hub and answer the next question. A player will continue to do this until they answer correctly and win the game.

Since a player continues their turn until they miss a question, it IS possible for one player to collect all six scoring wedges, then move into the hub and win the game all in one turn. If this happens, any player who has not yet had a turn is permitted a chance to duplicate the feat and create a tie.

For a shorter game, players determine how many wedges they must collect before moving into the hub for the game-winning question. Four or five is the norm.

The players will collectively decide how long a player has to answer a question, and how specific the answer must be. (Example: last names only, or the person's full first and last name.) The player is not required to give the explanatory information that appears in parentheses after some answers.

Younger players should remember that making a guess is always better than not answering at all, because players often surprise themselves with what they know.

The game lends itself well to team play. Team captains should disperse those strong in various categories among their teammates. They also decide how a question should be answered. To avoid confusion, the team captain should give each answer.

All Master Games may be played with cards from other master games and from replacement and enhancement card sets, or special packs. The colored dots on the question-and-answer cards are always arranged in the same order to facilitate interchangeable play.

Categories of questions

Colour	Genus Edition category	Young Players Edition category	Baby Boomer edition	All-Star Sports edition	Silver Screen edition	RPM edition	TV edition	1980s Edition	The Vintage Years Edition	All-American Edition
Blue	Geography (G)	People & Places (PP)	Television (TV)	Nicknames (NNM)	Settings (SET)	Cover Notes (CN)	Classics (CLC)	Personalities (PER)	Products & Progress (PP)	People (PPL)
Pink	Entertainment (E)	Good Times (GT)	Stage & Screen (SS)	Football (FTB)	Titles (TIT)	Your Mother Should Know (MOM)	Sitcoms (SIT)	Entertainment (ENT)	Sports & Leisure (SL)	Entertainment (ENT)
Yellow	History (H)	Science & Technology (ST)	Nightly News (NN)	Catch All (ALL)	Off Screen (OFF)	Fifties (FIF)	Drama (DRM)	In The News (ITN)	History (HIS)	History (HIS)
Brown	Art & Literature (AL)	Art & Culture (AC)	Publishing (PUB)	Basketball (BKB), others Hockey (HKY)	On Screen (ON)	Sixties (SIX)	Kids & Games (K&G)	That's Life (TL)	Personalities (PER)	Places (PLC)
Green	Science & Nature (SN)	Natural World (NW)	Lives & Times (LT)	Baseball (BBL)	Production (PRO)	After The Beatles (ATB)	Stars (STR)	Sports & Leisure (SL)	Entertainment (ENT)	Sports & Leisure (SL)
Orange	Sports & Leisure (SL)	Games & Hobbies (GH)	R.P.M. (RPM)	Numbers (NBR)	Portrayals (POR)	Anything Goes (AG)	Wild Card (WC)	Wild Card (WC)	Wild Card (WC)	Wild Card (WC)

Note: In later editions of the game, the colour brown was replaced by purple.

Columbo Controversy

Lt. Columbo's first name is never explicitly revealed in the Columbo TV series. When pressed, he would insist that it was "Lieutenant". Several sources cite the name "Philip Columbo", variously claiming that the name was either in the original script for Prescription: Murder or that it was visible on his police badge. Peugeot even ran an advertising campaign that mentioned "Lt. Philip Columbo" as the most famous driver of the Peugeot convertible.

The name "Philip Columbo" was, in fact, invented by Fred L. Worth, author of The Trivia Encyclopedia, who planted the information in his book (and its sequels) in an attempt to catch out anyone who might try to violate his copyright. Fred's ploy was, however, only partially successful.

In 1984 he filed a $300 million lawsuit against the distributors of the board game Trivial Pursuit, claiming that they had sourced their questions from his books; even to the point of reproducing mis-prints and typographical errors. The ace up his sleeve was "Philip Columbo", which appeared in a game question, despite the name being an invention of Fred's.

Trivial Pursuit did not deny they sourced material from Fred's books (amongst others) and submitted that copying from a single source is plagiarism, but compiling information from several sources is called research. The judge agreed, ruling in favour of Trivial Pursuit and the case was thrown out of court.

The matter of Columbo's name was finally laid to rest by the release of the first series on DVD. In the episode Dead Weight where Columbo introduces himself to General Hollister, the audience is shown a close-up of his badge, complete with the signature of "Frank Columbo".

History

2006: "Totally 80s" (Out in September 2006)
2005: Pop Culture 2, DVD Edition
2004: 90's Edition.
2003: Genus VI, Know-It-All, Pop Culture.
2002: 20th Anniversary Edition.
2000: Genus V
1998: Millennium Edition
1996: Genus IV
1994: Genus III
1992: All-American
1989: 80's Edition, TV Edition, The Vintage Years
1988: Australian Bicentennial
1986: Genus II
1984: Silver Screen, RPM
1983: Young Players', Baby Boomer, All-Star Sports
1981: Original game (Genus I)

Television

BBC Television produced a Trivial Pursuit quiz show based on the game. It was hosted by Rory McGrath.

External links

Trivial Pursuit official website
Trivial Pursuit rules
Inventors and history
2000 article written by a journalist who had written 50,000 questions for the game at that time
2002 article about the game (requires registration)
Columbo's First Name and The Supreme Court - The "Philip Columbo" Story
USA Today article On TP's "Totally 80s" TV promo, directed by Cyndi Lauper