Components
- 180 Trivia Question Cards
- 12 IDIOT! Cards
- 48 Brainiac Cards
- Playing Board
- Rules Sheet
- 6 Pencils and Pads
- 6 Player Pawns
- 6 Accusing Pawns
- 6 What's-My-Color?
- 1 Whose-turn-is-it? Black Pawn
Setup
Each player decides on a color, places both his ACCUSING pawn and his What's-My-Color? pawn in front of him and then places his PLAYER pawn on the space marked START on the board.
The What's-My-Color? pawn is used only to show which color is his during the game. Shuffle the IDIOT! and Brainiac cards together and place them face down beside the board. This is now the WHOAMI? deck.
Deal each player one Trivia card (If you don't like the card you get, trade it for another). Each Trivia card has 4 questions arbitrarily ranked from Easy (top) to Hard (bottom).
Choose a Start player by whichever method you like. Give them the Black pawn to signify they are the first Genius.
Game Play
The game is played in rounds, 2 rounds per player. (NOTE: If there are only 3 players, play 3 rounds per player).
The following 7 steps occur in a round:
-
Deal each player a card face down from the WHOAMI? deck. This card is kept SECRET and will determine which players are Brainiacs or IDIOTS!
If a player is a Brainiac, he should try to answer the question correctly. If a player is an IDIOT!, he MUST answer the question INCORRECTLY.
The Start player picks a question from their trivia card. He is now the Genius of the round. He will read his question to the group.
-
All players, except for the Genius, must now write down their answer.
-
Starting with the player to the left of the Genius, each player reads their answer. Correct answers immediately earn 2 points (advance the player's token on the board 2 spaces) and that player reveals their identity card.
Incorrect answers earn nothing. (If someone reveals an Idiot card at this point).
-
Starting with the Genius, and going clockwise around the table, accusations may now be made about who may be an IDIOT!. (Naturally, you can only accuse players who got the answer wrong of being an IDIOT!).
Each player may, but does not have to, accuse one player of being an IDIOT!. It is possible that multiple players may be IDIOTS!, or that no players are IDIOTS!.
To make an accusation, the accusing player places his ACCUSING pawn into the board space that matches the color of the player whom they are accusing.
So if Joe (Green) thinks that Betty (White) is an Idiot!, he places his Green ACCUSING pawn onto the White space on the board.
Scoring
After all accusations have been made, the remaining identity cards are turned face up and revealed.
If NO ONE accused an IDIOT! of being an IDIOT!, the IDIOT! receives 3 points and advances his pawn three spaces.
If any player(s) correctly accuses someone of being an IDIOT!, the accusing player(s) earn 2 points and advance their pawns two spaces.
If any player(s) incorrectly accuse someone of being an IDIOT!, the accusing player(s) loses 1 point and the accused player earns 1 point per accusation.
So if three players each incorrectly accuse Betty, each moves back one space on the board and Betty advances her pawn 3 spaces.If an IDIOT! "accidentally" answers a question correctly he will neither earn nor lose points this round.
Next Round
After a round is completed, the cards are discarded and a new round begins with the next player (clockwise) becoming the new Genius. Give them the Black Pawn to signify their new Genius status.
Note: At the end of a round, if the last (twelfth) IDIOT! card has been revealed, the entire deck is shuffled and re-used.
End of the Game
The game will end when each player has asked two questions from their Trivia card.
The player with the most points wins. In the event of a tie, continue playing one question at a time until only one player has the most points.
Continue Reading
