People can't believe you're bad a trivia games?

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With the way I seem to randomly state random facts, people tend to tell me I must be good at trivia games, and yet I'm not really very good at them.

Seems likely that this is because the "random" facts that I state are usually about one of my areas of interests, and trivia games rarely focus on these areas.

Do other people find the same thing?

I am excellent at trivia games (trivia pursuits etc) providing I know the answer to the question. Otherwise I am rubbish at trivia games.......

Am good at Trivial Pursuits.

Trivial Pursuits is as much logic as knowing facts.

For example "Who was the one US President sworn into office aboard an airplane?"

No player is gonna "know" that answer, but everyone over a certain age can easily deduce it.

Obviously (a) its someone in the Twentieth Century, or after. And (b) its someone who took office during a national emergency (like he had been the vice president but had to take over when something happened to the guy who had been the president) because that's not the normal setting for an inauguration.

Only one president fits that description: the guy who succeeded JFK when JFK was assassinated. Any Boomer would know that was Lynden Johnson. Folks a lot younger than a boomer or Gen X could be forgiven for not knowing that "the guy who succeeded JFK was Johnson", but they should at least be able to deduce that it was "the guy who came after JFK whoever he was".

I agree----and, I knew the answer to that question, by doing, exactly that (deducing).

Lots of times, while playing "Trivial Pursuit", people have asked me: "Wow, how'd you know that?", and I'd say: "Easy..."----and then, I'd rattle-off my thoughts, that led to my deduction.

One time, I answered "manacles", and the answer was "handcuffs", but I didn't make a fuss----and, certainly, nobody was gonna gimme credit!! LOL

you're the opposite of a guy I worked with. We had an office party at someone's house. We ended up playing Trivial Pursuits. We all sat in a circle. I got asked "what was the fabled city of treasure that explorers vainly sought in the jungles of South America?" or some phrasing like that. Was stumped. But I remembered a book report about Cortez in in junior high school I did, and remembered the Aztec name for what we now call "Mexico City"- so I said "Tenochtitlan". That was the wrong answer.

The other guy was the asked the same question. He answered "City of the Sun". Actually that's not a bad guess if you had no clue. But was also told it was the wrong answer.

Then the girl read us all the right answer. It was "El Dorado" . I smacked myself on the forehead because I shoulda known that. Unlike Tenochtitlan/Mexico city El Dorado was never proven to be real, was a total fable, but guys got lost in the jungle looking for the legendary city of gold. And later it became a meme, and metaphor for any stroke of impossibly good fortune (finding your el dorado), and was even the name of a car model.

But the other guy picked a fight about it and said "El Dorado...City of the Sun....same thing". The crowd rightly jumped on him for thinking his answer and the right answer were "the same thing". Years later I still get the urge to throttle that guy! Lol!

/\ LOL I bet you do!!

Before scrolling-down, to see what the answer was, I answered "City of Gold".

At least MY answer (manacles), was closer than HIS!! LOL

I'm really good at trivia that is more academic in nature, but horrible at popular culture trivia....which unfortunately is what most places that do trivia nights focus on.

Anyone familiar with Funtrivia.com?

I used to hang out on this site all the time

I am usually good at trivia games, but sometimes I'll have epic, cringeworthy brain freezes on easy questions. It embarrasses me.

I agree about the pop culture thing. Even Jeopardy, which I used to like, has become a vapid pop culture fest.

Has Jeopardy really changed that much? Maybe. They still ask a lot of geography questions (my strongest suit), and other academic things as well -though they do do a lot of TV trivia lately.

I am also strongest with highbrow academic stuff. I at my worst with sports.

Other pop culture I am hit or miss.

Play me a piece of classical symphonic music and I can tell you what century it came from (even if I don't know the composer). Likewise I can peg a rocknroll record to which half-decade it came from (even if I don't know the artist) with similar ease. So I am good with both highbrow, and lowbrow music. Though I am not real strong with modern rap.

Suck at sports trivia. Movies, and TV, is in between the extremes of my best and worst suits.

i haven't played many trivia games but i doubt i'd be good at them. people do comment on my randomfactualencyclopedic knowlege but i don't have a wide, shallow knowledge. more like small but deep knowledges. and the only reason people comment on my trivial knowledge is because i blurt out facts like it's conversation material

My husband is miserable at most trivia games.

ANY question that has a cultural reference he bombs.

My husband would know FDR was the governor of New York. He would not know what was FDR's most famous pet (Fala, the Scottish Terrier). My husband would know Ronald Reagan acted in the movies. He would not know Nancy Reagan was into Astrology. It's the soft news/celebrity stuff that goes right over him. Even though Fala and Nancy Reagan were written about in main stream news, those aren't major historical facts.

This question would throw him.

What woman won an Olympic Gold medal in the decathalon?

(Caitlyn Jenner)

You'd need to know sports, and soft news to answer that. There was no one that was a bigger deal in 1976 than Bruce Jenner. Jenner/Kardashians have been in the news 24/7 for the past ten years. So the combined stories would be considered fairly common knowledge.

He does really well on hard facts questions. What Civil War general lost at (X) battle?
Molecular weight of ______ atom.

I did notice Jeopardy has started putting in more soft news/soft facts into the game. It used to be all hard fact stuff. This ancient Greek author, that long dead composer. 20 years ago, I could never beat my husband at Jeopardy. Now I have more than a good shot at doing it. If the board is loaded with soft news/obscure cultural references, he hasn't a shot.

But...since it seems my husband is loaded with information, he should smoke trivia games. He has very narrow and deep interests. Can tell you the amount of pressure needed to create diamonds, but no clue who Kendal Jenner is.

I hope that question wasn't on Jeopardy, cuz that's not a "proper" question, IMO----at least, not without mention of the year----cuz Caitlyn didn't win it, as a woman.

Yeah.I would think that THAT would be dirty pool in either trivial pursuits or on Jeopardy because he wasn't a "woman" at the time he won it.

In fact IMHO its not even a fair "trick question" ( a question that's indicated as being "a bit of a trick question" when its being asked).