A Tribute to 500 Games of Twenty Questions
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2025 7:57 pm
Hello esteemed members of the webdiplomacy community! As you may have figured out by perusing the forums, we have recently completed 500 games of 20 questions. This is a monumental moment, as games have seemingly been happening for years. I have enjoyed playing these games sporadically, although I haven't been super great at guessing. For those who have, however, a round of applause!
Total Games 500
1. Spartaculous 75
2. Hominidae 63
3. DreamTrawler 41
4. Aristocrat 37
5. damo666 35
6. cdngooner 32
7. miminena 29
8. Jamiet99uk 23
9. JECE 14
T10. Hamish 11
T10. han-shahanshah 11
What I would most like to talk about here, however, is a side project I've been working on. As a self-proclaimed geography and history nerd, (although that can't be super unique on a semi-historical geography-based board game site) I have analyzed the country of every 20 questions pick, and figured out what country they're from. Then, I've compiled the data to see what happens!
Some rules are as follows: If the person is real, use the country that pops up on Google or Wikipedia. If this doesn't happen, use their parents' country. If there is a split among them, or their parents don't apply, use the place where they spent most of their time, especially in childhood. If this doesn't apply, use their place of birth, if that doesn't apply, then I pick for them.
If their nationality is a country that no longer exists (eg Byzantine, Roman, Austria-Hungary) then default to place of birth, modern country (eg Rome, Roman Empire --> Italy; Alexandria, Roman Empire --> Egypt)
If this character is not real, but lives on earth, use the country where they live. If they do not live on earth or it is unclear, use the country of their creator. If creator is unknown, then attribute it to the area where this character was introduced, else, default to my pick.
If the character is something slightly absurd, like "the Lizz Truss lettuce" then I pretty much just pick. (In that case, United Kingdom)
Speaking of which, this is based off of country, not nationality. Scottish, Welsh, and English are all "United Kingdom" and Kurdish could be "Turkey" "Iraq" "Iran" "Syria" etc. If there is ever an issue with this, default to place of birth, else my choice.
In the end, only a few needed extreme specifications like this. Now, onto the discoveries I have made!
EXHIBIT A
This is a world map colored by frequency. The darker the red, the more common the country pick! You may notice the United States and United Kingdom are the deepest red, which I suppose makes sense due to the site being a large portion American and British, and mostly English speaking (whether first or second language). South America, Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Oceania are remarkably lacking in picks. If you want to change it up, go from there!
EXHIBIT B
This is a pie chart of percent frequency of each country. If you thought the UK and US were too common, before, look again! Combine, they make up over fifty percent of all of the 20 questions picks. In order of most popular, United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, China, Spain, Greece, India, Hungary, Australia, and then the rest (mostly picked no more than 3 or 4 times) Enjoy seeing just how the proportions turn out!
EXHIBIT C
This is the raw count data of the countries. The last one was percentages. What's remarkable here is just how dwarfed most other countries are by the US and UK. The US over 200 picks, the UK just over 100. Nobody individually comes close. When reading left to right, you see the order in which the first time a country appeared. Way to go Austria! You broke the UK and US curse first! Countries I'm surprised even made the list, but I'm glad they did, include: Trinidad and Tobago, Libya, Zimbabwe, Barbados, Nepal, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cameroon. Another note: you may notice these numbers exceed 500. That is true, the true total of picks is actually 551, factoring in multiball rounds, minus "Slender Man" which I could not for the life of me find the creator's nationality (but probably US or UK)
The longest streak of any country in a row goes to United States (8) (Games 80-87)
The longest streak of any two countries goes to US & UK (16) (Games 180-195)
I hope you enjoy, and further questions let me know! A toast to another 500 rounds of 20 questions, and maybe someone will do this with the second batch after game 1000!
Total Games 500
1. Spartaculous 75
2. Hominidae 63
3. DreamTrawler 41
4. Aristocrat 37
5. damo666 35
6. cdngooner 32
7. miminena 29
8. Jamiet99uk 23
9. JECE 14
T10. Hamish 11
T10. han-shahanshah 11
What I would most like to talk about here, however, is a side project I've been working on. As a self-proclaimed geography and history nerd, (although that can't be super unique on a semi-historical geography-based board game site) I have analyzed the country of every 20 questions pick, and figured out what country they're from. Then, I've compiled the data to see what happens!
Some rules are as follows: If the person is real, use the country that pops up on Google or Wikipedia. If this doesn't happen, use their parents' country. If there is a split among them, or their parents don't apply, use the place where they spent most of their time, especially in childhood. If this doesn't apply, use their place of birth, if that doesn't apply, then I pick for them.
If their nationality is a country that no longer exists (eg Byzantine, Roman, Austria-Hungary) then default to place of birth, modern country (eg Rome, Roman Empire --> Italy; Alexandria, Roman Empire --> Egypt)
If this character is not real, but lives on earth, use the country where they live. If they do not live on earth or it is unclear, use the country of their creator. If creator is unknown, then attribute it to the area where this character was introduced, else, default to my pick.
If the character is something slightly absurd, like "the Lizz Truss lettuce" then I pretty much just pick. (In that case, United Kingdom)
Speaking of which, this is based off of country, not nationality. Scottish, Welsh, and English are all "United Kingdom" and Kurdish could be "Turkey" "Iraq" "Iran" "Syria" etc. If there is ever an issue with this, default to place of birth, else my choice.
In the end, only a few needed extreme specifications like this. Now, onto the discoveries I have made!
EXHIBIT A
This is a world map colored by frequency. The darker the red, the more common the country pick! You may notice the United States and United Kingdom are the deepest red, which I suppose makes sense due to the site being a large portion American and British, and mostly English speaking (whether first or second language). South America, Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Oceania are remarkably lacking in picks. If you want to change it up, go from there!
EXHIBIT B
This is a pie chart of percent frequency of each country. If you thought the UK and US were too common, before, look again! Combine, they make up over fifty percent of all of the 20 questions picks. In order of most popular, United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, China, Spain, Greece, India, Hungary, Australia, and then the rest (mostly picked no more than 3 or 4 times) Enjoy seeing just how the proportions turn out!
EXHIBIT C
This is the raw count data of the countries. The last one was percentages. What's remarkable here is just how dwarfed most other countries are by the US and UK. The US over 200 picks, the UK just over 100. Nobody individually comes close. When reading left to right, you see the order in which the first time a country appeared. Way to go Austria! You broke the UK and US curse first! Countries I'm surprised even made the list, but I'm glad they did, include: Trinidad and Tobago, Libya, Zimbabwe, Barbados, Nepal, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cameroon. Another note: you may notice these numbers exceed 500. That is true, the true total of picks is actually 551, factoring in multiball rounds, minus "Slender Man" which I could not for the life of me find the creator's nationality (but probably US or UK)
The longest streak of any country in a row goes to United States (8) (Games 80-87)
The longest streak of any two countries goes to US & UK (16) (Games 180-195)
I hope you enjoy, and further questions let me know! A toast to another 500 rounds of 20 questions, and maybe someone will do this with the second batch after game 1000!