DJ Set rules: how to play and how to score

DJ Set quick rules

The goal

DJ Set is a team music quiz where the smartest player wins. You’re not looking for the title or the artist: you’re looking for the answer linked to the set’s theme. The first team to win two sets wins the game.

The teams

Form teams of two to four people; with three players, everyone plays alone. The DJ holds the phone that plays the songs: the first DJ is the last player to have been to a concert.

The set’s theme

The DJ picks one of the five themes on the table and announces it. With the Animals theme, every answer is an animal; with Cities, a city. The answer hides in the lyrics, the title, the band’s name or the song’s world. The DJ scans the card’s QR code to start the music.

Finding the answer

As soon as the music starts, everyone can answer. The first to find it wins the Scoring card with the song’s number. A player who throws out too many random answers can be banned from answering for five seconds by the DJ.

The next DJ

The player who found the answer becomes the DJ for the next song: they start the music and can’t answer it. If nobody finds it before the clip ends, nobody wins the card, and the DJ chooses the next DJ.

Winning a set

A set has seven songs. The team that won the most Scoring cards wins the set and keeps the theme card. On a tie, the highest numbered Scoring card decides. The losing team picks the next theme from the cards left.

Beginner traps

Looking for the title or the artist instead of the answer linked to the theme. Answering when you’re the DJ. Shouting random answers. And handing back your Scoring cards before the set ends: in a tie, their numbers decide.

How to score DJ Set

Scoring cards

Each right answer earns that song’s Scoring card, one point for the team in this set.

Winning a set

The most Scoring cards over the seven songs; on a tie, the team with the highest numbered card.

Winning the game

The first team to win 2 sets. The Ludingo sheet records the sets each team has won.

Worked example

On the Colors theme, Emma’s team wins cards 1, 4 and 6, Jake’s team cards 2, 3 and 7; nobody finds song 5. It’s a 3 to 3 tie: Jake has card 7, the highest, so his team wins the set. They lead 1 set to 0.

Common mistakes

• Counting the Scoring card numbers as points: each card is worth one point, the number only breaks ties.
• Carrying a set’s points over to the next: each set starts from zero, only sets won count.
• Forgetting who picks the next theme: the team that just lost the set.

How to set up DJ Set

Setup takes a minute. You need a phone with internet access.