Twenty ways to keep score at a quiz, each with the exact arithmetic, the default settings and what it feels like to play. It covers the North American quiz bowl standard, the Wipeout round from British pub quizzes, a 25-panel grid for game show style boards, and the Japanese buzzer quiz formats that most of the world has never seen written down in English. Every format here can be opened in the free online scoreboard with one click.
Contents
The N-right M-wrong family: the formats Japanese competitive quiz has been built on for decades, and the simplest way to give a quiz a knockout structure.
Answer N questions right to advance; M wrong answers put you out.
The core format of Japanese buzzer quiz. The first player to reach N correct answers advances and leaves the game, while a player who gives M wrong answers is eliminated. The default 7-right 3-wrong setting (written 7○3✕) is the most widely used ruleset in Japanese competitive quiz, and it turns every buzz into a bet on whether you really know the answer.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Correct answers to advance | 7 | 1 – 100 |
| Wrong answers before elimination | 3 | 1 – 100 |
Answering two questions in a row is worth 2 points instead of 1.
A correct answer normally scores 1 point, but if the player who took the previous question takes the next one too, that answer scores 2. Japanese players call this a rento, a consecutive answer. With the three-in-a-row advantage switched on every further consecutive answer keeps scoring 2; switched off, the third one drops back to 1. A hot streak can end the game very quickly.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points to advance | 7 | 1 – 1000 |
| Wrong answers before elimination | 3 | 1 – 100 |
| Three-in-a-row advantage | 1 | 0 – 1 |
Plus one for a correct answer, minus one for a wrong one, and nobody is eliminated.
A correct answer adds a point and a wrong answer takes one away, and the first player to N points advances. Because there is no elimination, everyone stays in the game to the end, which makes it a forgiving format for a mixed-ability trivia night. Even a player deep in the negatives can still climb back.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points to advance | 10 | 1 – 1000 |
A wrong answer benches you for M questions instead of eliminating you.
N correct answers advance you, and a wrong answer costs you the right to buzz for the next M questions. Nobody is ever eliminated, so a bad run only slows you down, and the rhythm of the game shifts every time a benched player comes back. The remaining rest count ticks down by one with each question.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Correct answers to advance | 7 | 1 – 100 |
| Questions spent sitting out | 3 | 1 – 20 |
Formats where the arithmetic is the game: multipliers, division, resets to zero and penalties that grow heavier the better you are doing.
Score = correct answers × (N − wrong answers). N² points wins.
Your score is the number of questions you have answered right multiplied by N minus the number you have got wrong, so a single mistake devalues every correct answer you already hold. In the default 5-by-5 setting 25 points advances you, and a fifth wrong answer drives the multiplier to zero and eliminates you. Knowing when to stop pressing the buzzer is the whole game.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| N | 5 | 1 – 20 |
A wrong answer knocks your score straight back to zero.
You climb one point at a time, but a single wrong answer resets you to zero. The higher you climb the more a mistake costs, so the tension peaks when a player is one question away from advancing. Reaching N points advances you, and M wrong answers eliminate you altogether.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points to advance | 5 | 1 – 100 |
| Wrong answers before elimination | 2 | 1 – 100 |
A wrong answer divides your score by the number of wrong answers you have given.
Correct answers add points; a wrong answer divides your current score by your running total of wrong answers, rounded down. The first mistake divides by one and costs nothing, but the second halves you and the third cuts you to a third. There is no elimination — players simply leave as they reach the target score.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points to advance | 100 | 1 – 10000 |
| Points for a correct answer | 10 | 1 – 1000 |
| Starting score | 10 | 0 – 1000 |
The more questions you have answered right, the more a wrong answer costs you.
The penalty for a wrong answer scales with how well you are doing: with no correct answers yet it costs 1, with one or two it costs 2, with three to five it costs 3, and from six onwards it costs 4. The closer you get to the target the more dangerous a buzz becomes. Ten correct answers advance you, and accumulating the penalty limit eliminates you.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Correct answers to advance | 10 | 1 – 100 |
| Penalty points before elimination | 10 | 1 – 100 |
A correct answer is always +1; your nth wrong answer costs n points.
Correct answers are worth a flat point each, but wrong answers get heavier: the first costs 1, the second 2, the third 3, and so on. Reaching the target advances you and dropping to the elimination score puts you out. Because early mistakes are cheap, aggressive buzzing pays off at the start of the game and becomes reckless later.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points to advance | 10 | 1 – 1000 |
| Score at which you are eliminated | -10 | -1000 – 0 |
Score = correct answers on odd-numbered questions × correct answers on even-numbered ones.
Your score is the number of odd-numbered questions you have taken multiplied by the number of even-numbered ones. Winning six questions in a row is worthless if they all fall on the same side of the count, so players end up watching the question number as closely as the question. There is no elimination; reaching X points (16 by default) advances you.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| X (score needed to advance) | 16 | 1 – 400 |
Each player sets their own stake N: +N for a correct answer, −2N for a wrong one.
Before the game each player chooses a stake N. A correct answer is worth +N and a wrong one costs twice that, so a high stake is a high-risk, high-reward choice and two players sitting at the same table can be playing very different games. There is no elimination; reaching the target score (30 by default) advances you.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Default stake N | 1 | 1 – 1000 |
| Points to advance | 30 | 3 – 1000 |
Shared point pools, stage ladders, rest penalties and a panel grid to fight over — formats that change what a wrong answer actually costs you.
Everyone starts with the same pool of points and drains each other. Hit zero and you are out.
Every player starts on the same total, 15 by default. Your own wrong answers cost you points, and so does every correct answer anyone else gives. A player who reaches zero is eliminated, and the last one standing wins. Sitting quietly is not a strategy here — staying silent still drains you, so everyone has to gamble eventually.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Starting points | 15 | 1 – 1000 |
| Your own correct answer | 0 | -100 – 100 |
| Your own wrong answer | -2 | -100 – 100 |
| Another player's correct answer | -1 | -100 – 100 |
| Another player's wrong answer | 0 | -100 – 100 |
A five-stage ladder. Stage N takes N correct answers to clear.
Everyone starts on stage 1, and clearing stage N takes N correct answers. When any player clears a stage, every player's correct and wrong counts reset and any rest penalties are lifted. Reaching stage 5 wins the game. On stage 1 a wrong answer costs you one question of rest; from stage 2 onwards, one fewer wrong answers than the stage number eliminates you.
No settings — the rules are fixed.
Your nth wrong answer freezes you out for n questions.
N correct answers advance you. A wrong answer freezes you for as many questions as the number of wrong answers you have given so far: one question the first time, two the second, three the third. Nobody is ever eliminated, so a frozen player always has a way back, but a run of mistakes can leave them watching most of the game.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Correct answers to advance | 7 | 1 – 100 |
The same question stays live until someone answers it or the host passes.
The question number does not advance until a player answers correctly or the host passes, so several players can buzz in and get the same question wrong one after another. N correct answers advance you and M wrong answers eliminate you. Switch the rest option on and nobody is eliminated — each wrong answer benches that player for M questions instead.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Correct answers to advance | 7 | 1 – 100 |
| Wrong answers before elimination | 3 | 1 – 100 |
| Sit out instead of being eliminated | 0 | 0 – 1 |
Two teams of five. The team score is the product of the five players' values; 200 wins.
Every player starts on 1 and gains a point for each correct answer, and the team score is the five values multiplied together. A player who answers wrongly is blocked and counts as zero, which drops the whole team score to zero until someone on the other team makes a mistake and lifts the block. The first team to reach 200 wins the match.
Players: always 10
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Score needed to win | 200 | 2 – 100000 |
Four players fight over a 5×5 grid of 25 panels, flipping every opponent panel they surround.
A correct answer lets that player claim one empty panel on the grid, and any opponent panels caught between two of their own flip over, in all eight directions, as in Othello. With Attack Chance switched on, the first correct answer after a mistake also steals one panel outright. When all 25 panels are taken the player holding the most panels wins. This is the classic game show grid board, so it also fits a quiz night run as a board of categories.
Players: always 4
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Attack Chance | 1 | 0 – 1 |
The two standards used outside Japan: North American quiz bowl scoring, and the Wipeout round from British pub quizzes.
The North American standard: tossup +10, power +15, neg −5, bonus 0–30.
Standard NAQT and ACF scoring for team quiz bowl. A tossup answered correctly is worth 10 points, and answering before the power mark early in the question is worth 15. Buzzing in and answering wrongly while the question is still being read is a neg and costs 5. The team that takes the tossup then hears a three-part bonus worth 0, 10, 20 or 30 points, which you enter from the bonus bar above the cards.
Team game (2–8 teams)
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Tossup | 10 | 1 – 100 |
| Power | 15 | 1 – 100 |
| Neg (interrupt penalty) | -5 | -100 – 0 |
| Apply the neg penalty | 1 | 0 – 1 |
Bank correct answers through a round; one wrong answer wipes the whole round out.
A pub quiz staple. Correct answers during a round go into a bank rather than straight onto the scoreboard, and a single wrong answer wipes that team's bank for the round back to nothing. When the host locks in the round, whatever survives in the bank is added to the running total and the next round begins. Teams have to decide how many answers they dare guess at.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points for a correct answer | 1 | 1 – 100 |
Plain addition and subtraction with no winning condition — a score counter for a quiz night, a board game or anything else.
Plain plus and minus scoring with no winning or losing condition.
The simplest format: a correct answer adds points and a wrong answer subtracts them, and nothing else happens. Both amounts are yours to set, so this works as a general score counter for a trivia night, a pub quiz round, a board game or a classroom team game. Nobody advances and nobody is eliminated, so you decide when the game ends.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Points for a correct answer | 1 | -1000 – 1000 |
| Points for a wrong answer | -1 | -1000 – 1000 |
A lot of quiz nights are run from a board of categories and point values rather than a plain list of questions. QUIZDON does not copy any particular television programme, so if you arrived looking for a jeopardy scoreboard, a family feud scoreboard or any other game show scoreboard, one of two things here will do what you want. If the board itself is part of the game — squares that players claim and can lose again — use Attack 25, which puts four players on a 5×5 grid of 25 panels and flips every opponent panel they surround. If you have already drawn the board on a whiteboard or a slide deck and only need the running totals in front of the room, use Score Counter: set your own point values, put the scoreboard full screen on the projector, and edit any total by hand when a wager or a steal changes it. Either way the audience can follow the leaderboard on their own phones through the share link.
Scoreboard