On trivai, you pick six topics and the board is researched and written to order — which means choosing topics is the game before the game. A board about the six things your table actually loves beats a trivia night about nothing in particular, every time.
But "pick anything" is a blank-page problem. So here are six ready-to-steal boards — six topics each, 36 in all — plus what makes a topic play well, so you can build your own.
What makes a topic play well
Three rules, learned from watching thousands of boards get built:
- Specific beats broad. "Movies" is a topic about nothing in particular; "90s blockbusters" is a point of view. The narrower the topic, the more the questions feel like they were written for your table — because they were.
- Deep enough for an expert pause. Every topic gets easy, medium, and hard questions, and the hard ones are a promise. A topic needs enough depth that its 500s can make your resident expert sweat. "Breakfast cereals" has it. "That one meme" doesn't.
- Concrete enough to research. Topics built from real people, works, places, and events give the research pipeline something to grab. "Famous heists" plays beautifully; "vibes" does not.
Now, the boards.
The crowd-pleaser
For a mixed table where nobody should feel ambushed.
- 90s blockbusters — everyone's seen them, and the 500s can still hurt.
- World street food — universally beloved, deceptively deep.
- One-hit wonders — the reveal is always a singalong.
- Famous landmarks — geography without the homework energy.
- Board games — a game night topic at game night; someone will overperform.
- Animals that look fake — nature's own trick questions.
The group-chat board
For the table that shares a feed.
- Reality TV villains — strong opinions, verifiable facts.
- Award-show disasters — envelope mix-ups and worse.
- Internet slang through the ages — someone will feel old, and that's the content.
- Viral moments of the 2010s — collective memory, tested.
- Celebrity feuds — surprisingly rich in dates and receipts.
- Soft drinks — the sleeper hit; everyone has a stance, few have the facts.
The nerd-snipe
For when someone says "oh, I know this one" and means it spiritually.
- Discworld novels — the topic trivai was practically built for.
- The Silmarillion — separate the movie fans from the appendix readers.
- Star Trek captains — command decisions, court-martials, catchphrases.
- Dungeons & Dragons monsters — ecology of the owlbear, argued at last.
- Speedrunning — glitches, categories, and world-record drama.
- Anime openings — name the show, the artist, the era.
The reading-circle board
For tables that own more than one bookmark.
- Opening lines of novels — instantly playable, endlessly quotable.
- Banned books — every answer comes with a story.
- Detective fiction — motive, method, and the history of the whodunit.
- Mythology's worst parents — Greek gods behaving badly; educational, technically.
- Poets behaving badly — duels, exiles, and scandals in verse.
- Books that became movies — what the adaptation changed is the 500.
The actually-interesting-science board
For curiosity without the exam flashbacks.
- Animal migrations — distances that sound made up but aren't.
- Kitchen chemistry — why bread rises and eggs betray you.
- Space probes — tiny robots, enormous journeys.
- Diseases that changed history — grim, gripping, gettable.
- Weather extremes — records with weather-channel drama built in.
- The periodic table's weirdos — elements with lore.
The chaos board
For tables that peaked during the "wrong answers only" era.
- Famous hoaxes — the answers are all true; that's the twist.
- Sports mascots — lore runs deeper than you'd hope.
- Unusual sports — wife-carrying and cheese-rolling are both real and both scored.
- Foods named after places that didn't invent them — betrayal, but delicious.
- Great heists — capers with dates, crews, and loot.
- Competitive eating — records, rivalries, regret.
Steal a board, or build your own
Any six of these make a board — or swap in the topics only your table would know. Type them in, and about a minute later the pipeline hands you 36 questions that didn't exist before, calibrated so the 100s welcome everyone in and the 500s start arguments.
The best trivia night is the one about the stuff you actually love. Go pick six.