Quiz Night at the Farmhouse: Rounds and Questions

A quiz night at a farmhouse fills the gap between dinner and sleep better than anything else, because it seats everyone in a circle, needs no equipment beyond paper and a phone, and gives the people who did not play cricket a chance to win something. This is a complete format: six rounds, how to write questions when you have an hour on the drive out, scoring that stays close, and a round of ready-made questions on Hyderabad and Moinabad to get you started.

Plan for ninety minutes, teams of three or four, and one quizmaster who does not play.

The six-round format

Round	Type	Questions	Why it is there
1	General knowledge, easy	10	Warm-up; everyone scores
2	Hyderabad and Moinabad	10	Local pride, hard to google without being caught
3	Music: name that song	8	Played from a phone; Telugu, Hindi and English mixed
4	Picture round	8	Printed sheet of logos, landmarks or film stills, done during the break
5	This farmhouse, this group	8	Questions about people in the room; the one people remember
6	Wipeout	10	Answer as many as you like, but one wrong wipes the round

Take a ten-minute break after round 3 for the picture sheet, chai and the pool lights. Announce scores after rounds 2, 4 and 6 only; announcing after every round makes the leaders smug and the rest give up.

Writing the questions

You need about fifty-four. That sounds like a lot and is not, if each round has a theme and you write them on your phone over a week of commutes. A few guidelines:

• Every round should have three easy questions, four medium and the rest hard. An all-hard round is a bad evening.
• Write the answer next to each question as you go, and check anything you are not certain of before the night. A disputed answer with no source turns a quiz into an argument.
• Avoid questions that depend on one person's job or degree. "Name the capital of Telangana" is fine; "what is the boiling point of toluene" is not, however much the chemist on team two wants it.
• Round 5 is written on the day, after you have spent an afternoon together. "Who arrived last and blamed the ORR toll queue" is a question.

Sample round: Hyderabad and Moinabad

Use these as they are or as a template. All of them are answerable from a weekend in the area, which is the right standard.

1. Chilkur Balaji temple has a nickname that refers to a document. What is it? Visa Balaji.
2. How many pradakshinas do devotees traditionally walk at Chilkur to make a wish, and how many once it is granted? 11 and 108.
3. Name the two reservoirs west of the city built in the early twentieth century for flood protection and drinking water. Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar.
4. Osman Sagar is better known by the name of the place it sits at. What is it? Gandipet.
5. Which road runs through Moinabad from the ORR out towards Chevella and Vikarabad? The Chevella road.
6. Moinabad is a mandal in which district? Ranga Reddy.
7. Name three villages in Moinabad mandal with farmhouses. Any three of Aziz Nagar, Yethbarpally, Tolkatta, Surangal, Kanakamamidi, Amdapur, Bakaram, Venkatapur and others.
8. Which small national park near Chilkur is known for spotted deer? Mrugavani National Park.
9. The hills beyond Vikarabad that Hyderabadis drive to in the monsoon are called? Ananthagiri.
10. Which fruit is Moinabad's orchards best known for, in season from about April to June? Mango.

Round ideas for the rest

• Food round: name the dish from three ingredients; which Hyderabadi dish is traditionally eaten at breakfast; which state a sweet comes from.
• Film round: play five seconds of a title track; name the film from a one-line plot told badly; which actor links two films.
• Cricket round: for the box cricket crowd, with a women's cricket question or two so the usual experts do not run away with it.
• Kids' round: if children are playing, give them one round written at their level that adults must sit out, and watch them become the most invested team in the room.

Scoring and prizes

One point per question, two for the hard ones you mark in advance, and the wipeout round scored as it is named. Teams swap sheets to mark each other's answers, which keeps the quizmaster free and the marking honest. A joker, played before any one round to double that round's points, lets a trailing team gamble on its strongest subject.

Prizes should be small and slightly silly: a box of sweets, a packet of the farmhouse's mangoes if it is the season and the host sells them, or the right to choose tomorrow's breakfast. A wooden spoon for last place is traditional.

Setting up the space

Outdoors on the lawn if the weather is pleasant, with teams at separate tables or mats a few metres apart so they cannot overhear. One lamp or a string of lights per table; a lawn is darker than you expect once the garden lights are behind you. If the farmhouse's outdoor music timings have passed, move the music round indoors or play it quietly; rules vary by farmhouse and are on the listing. The verandah is the fallback if it rains, or in summer when the AC hall is kinder.

Pack chart paper or answer sheets, pens for every team, a printed picture round and the quizmaster's questions on paper rather than a phone, since signal can be patchy a few kilometres off the Chevella road. Shops near the farmhouses are small, so stationery comes from the city.

A quiz pairs well with the formats in a dumb charades night in Moinabad and a card and board game night, if the group wants a second evening of indoor play.

Choosing the farmhouse

You want a lawn or a verandah that seats the whole group with a little separation between tables, and an overnight stay so the quiz can run late. Browse farmhouses for a night stay in Moinabad, and for a mixed group of friends, farmhouses for large groups shows the ones with a hall as well as a lawn. The booking guide explains checking live dates and what a booking request does. Pick a weeknight if you can; the lawn is quieter and the price usually lower.