Player's Manual
Welcome to Inquisitor trivia! This guide covers everything you need to know to play, check your scores, and understand how the game works.
Getting Started
Inquisitor is a multi-network IRC trivia bot built as a plugin for Limnoria. It supports three question types (Standard, KAOS, and Unscramble), tracks your score across four time periods, and maintains streaks for consecutive correct answers.
You don't need to do anything special to start playing. When someone with the START permission runs @trivia in a channel, the game starts and questions appear automatically. Just type your answer in the channel — no commands required.
Identification
Inquisitor identifies players by their IRC cloak (hostmask), not their nick. If you change your nick during a game, your score is preserved as long as your cloak stays the same. On the Inquisitor IRC network, registering your nick with NickServ automatically assigns you a cloak.
Playing the Game
Answering Questions
When a question appears, type your answer directly in the channel. You do not need any command prefix — just type the answer.
<Inquisitor> #1234 Geography - What is the capital of France? [37 pts]
<Inquisitor> HINT: P****
<player> paris
<Inquisitor> player got it! The answer was: Paris. +37 pts in 2.14s (1st place) (37 today | 37 week | 37 month)
Answer Matching
Inquisitor uses fuzzy matching so minor typos are accepted:
- Levenshtein distance 2: Up to 2 character differences are accepted for answers longer than 3 characters. For example, "colour" matches "color".
- Short answers (3 characters or fewer) require an exact match to prevent false positives.
- Articles stripped: "the", "a", and "an" at the start of an answer are ignored. "The Beatles" matches "beatles".
- Ampersands normalized: "&" is treated as "and". "Rock & Roll" matches "rock and roll".
- Case-insensitive: "Paris", "PARIS", and "paris" are all accepted.
When your answer isn't accepted
If you think your answer is correct but it wasn't accepted, try: spelling it differently, leaving out "The" or "A" at the start, or spelling out "and" instead of "&". If you're stuck, wait for the hint.
Hints
When a question is delivered, the first hint (fully obfuscated) is shown immediately. If nobody answers after a configurable delay (default 15 seconds), additional hints appear revealing more letters. Each subsequent hint also shows the current point value and remaining time.
<Inquisitor> #1234 Geography - What is the capital of France? [37 pts]
<Inquisitor> HINT: P****
<Inquisitor> HINT: Pa**s | 18 pts | 45s
<Inquisitor> HINT: Par*s | 9 pts | 30s
<Inquisitor> Time's up! The answer was: Paris
Point Decay
Points decrease with each hint shown:
| Stage | Points earned |
|---|---|
| Before any timed hint | Full base points |
| After 1st timed hint | Half base points |
| After 2nd timed hint | Quarter base points (minimum 1) |
| After 3rd timed hint | Question times out — no points |
For example, if the question is worth 40 points: 40 → 20 → 10 → timeout.
Timeouts
If no one answers after all hints have been shown, the question times out and the answer is revealed. Nobody earns points for a timed-out question.
Runner-Up Recognition
If you answer correctly within 2 seconds of the first correct answer, you receive runner-up recognition. Runner-up is acknowledgement only — no points are awarded.
<player1> paris
<Inquisitor> player1 got it! The answer was: Paris. +37 pts in 2.14s (1st place) (37 today | 37 week | 37 month)
<player2> paris
<Inquisitor> Runner-up: player2 (3.56s)
Question Types
Standard Questions
Standard questions have a single correct answer (with optional alternative phrasings accepted).
<Inquisitor> #1234 Geography - What is the capital of France? [37 pts]
<Inquisitor> HINT: P****
<player> paris
<Inquisitor> player got it! The answer was: Paris. +37 pts in 2.14s (1st place) (37 today | 37 week | 37 month)
- Question ID is shown with a
#prefix:#1234 - Category is shown in bold (no brackets):
Geography - Point value is shown at the end in brackets:
[37 pts] - First hint (fully obfuscated) appears immediately with the question
- Progressive hints reveal letters over time, showing remaining points and time
- Streaks track consecutive correct answers
KAOS Questions
KAOS questions have multiple valid answers. The goal is for the channel to collectively find all of them.
<Inquisitor> #5678 KAOS - Name the four Beatles members (4 answers) [35 pts]
<Inquisitor> 1st Hint: Four Possible Answers | Each Answer: 35 Points
<player1> john lennon
<Inquisitor> player1 gets 35 points for: john lennon
<player2> paul mccartney
<Inquisitor> player2 gets 35 points for: paul mccartney
<Inquisitor> 2nd Hint: [john lennon] | [paul mccartney] | [g**** h******n] | [r**** s****] | 17 pts each | 45s
<player1> george harrison
<Inquisitor> player1 gets 17 points for: george harrison
<player3> ringo starr
<Inquisitor> player3 gets 17 points for: ringo starr
<Inquisitor> All answers found! +21 bonus to all participants
<Inquisitor> Total Awarded: 125 Points to 3 Players
Key differences from standard questions:
- First hint shows answer count — the 1st hint displays the number of possible answers and point value per answer.
- Each answer earns its own points — the full base decayed by hints shown so far.
- Slots are shown in hints — starting with the 2nd hint, claimed answers are displayed, unclaimed ones are hinted progressively, along with current per-answer points and remaining time.
- Completion bonus — when all answers are found, a bonus (approximately 60% of the base) is distributed to all participants. The bonus is only awarded if more than one player participated.
- KAOS does not affect streaks — getting a KAOS answer right does not extend your streak, and getting it wrong (or missing it) does not break your streak.
- Auto-recall — after several answers are claimed without activity, the bot recalls the question showing the current hint state.
Duplicate answers
If you type an answer that has already been claimed, it is silently ignored. No points are awarded and no message is shown.
Unscramble Questions
Unscramble (also called Scramble) questions show a clue and then present the scrambled answer as the first hint. You must type the correct unscrambled answer.
<Inquisitor> #9012 Unscramble: A seven letter word [Word Puzzle] [25 pts]
<Inquisitor> HINT: AESRHTL
<player> slather
<Inquisitor> player got it! The answer was: slather. +25 pts in 4.82s (1st place) (25 today | 25 week | 25 month)
Exact match required
Unscramble questions do not use fuzzy matching. You must type the exact correct answer, including correct spelling. Typos that would be accepted for a standard question are not accepted here.
- The question text is the clue; the scrambled answer appears as the first hint
- Subsequent hints progressively reveal letters, along with current points and remaining time
- Uses standard streak and point mechanics
Scoring System
Point Ranges
Point values are randomly sampled from a range configured by the channel operator. The default range is 10–50 points. Each question gets a fresh random value within that range at the moment it is delivered.
Four Scoring Periods
Your score is tracked across four independent time periods:
| Period | Resets |
|---|---|
| Daily | Midnight (channel's configured timezone) |
| Weekly | Monday midnight |
| Monthly | First of the month midnight |
| All-time | Never |
After each correct answer, your current period totals are displayed inline with the correct answer announcement:
<Inquisitor> player got it! The answer was: Paris. +37 pts in 2.14s (1st place) (150 today | 820 week | 3,200 month)
Streaks
A streak counts how many standard or unscramble questions you have answered correctly in a row.
- Streaks are displayed when greater than 1:
| Streak: 5 - Streaks reset when someone else answers a question
- KAOS answers do not count toward streaks — only standard and unscramble question answers do
Statistics Commands
All statistics commands require the PLAY permission (granted to everyone by default).
Leaderboards
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
@topday |
Daily leaderboard, top 10 |
@topweek |
Weekly leaderboard, top 10 |
@topmonth |
Monthly leaderboard, top 10 |
@topever |
All-time leaderboard, top 10 |
@topall |
All-time leaderboard (alias for @topever) |
To see the next page, add a multiple of 10 as a suffix:
<player> @topday20
<Inquisitor> 11. player1 - 1,240 pts | 12. player2 - 1,100 pts | ...
@topday20 = ranks 11–20, @topday30 = ranks 21–30, and so on.
Personal Stats
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
@mystats |
Your own stats (shortcut) |
@stats |
Your own stats |
@stats <nick> |
Stats for any player by nick |
Stats display includes: all-time points, today, this week, this month, current streak, best streak, and total correct answers.
<player> @mystats
<Inquisitor> player: 12,450 pts all-time | 320 today | 1,840 this week | 4,200 this month | streak: 3 (best: 12) | 842 correct
Other Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
@recall |
Repeat the current question and hint state |
@poolstatus |
Show how many questions have been asked from each pool |
@mypermissions |
Check what permissions you have |
Permissions for Players
Inquisitor uses an internal permission system with five levels: PLAY, START, MODERATE, MANAGE, and ADMIN. As a player, only PLAY is relevant to you.
PLAY permission allows you to:
- Answer questions and earn points
- Use all statistics commands (
@topday,@stats,@mystats, etc.) - Use
@recall,@poolstatus, and read-only question commands - Check your own permissions with
@mypermissions
By default, PLAY is granted to everyone on the network. Your channel operator can change this if they choose to restrict gameplay.
Use @mypermissions to see your current permissions and where they come from:
<player> @mypermissions
<Inquisitor> Your permissions: PLAY (default: PLAY)
Troubleshooting
My answer wasn't accepted
- Check spelling: Minor typos (up to 2 character differences) are usually accepted for longer answers. Short answers (3 characters or fewer) require an exact match.
- Try without "The" or "A": Articles at the start are stripped, but make sure the rest of the answer is correct.
- Try spelling out "&": "Rock & Roll" → "Rock and Roll"
- Check your PLAY permission: Run
@mypermissions— if PLAY is not listed, you do not have permission to answer questions in this channel.
I can't see my score
Run @mystats to check your current period totals. If your stats show nothing or zero, you may not have answered any questions yet on this network.
Questions stopped appearing
The game may have been stopped by someone with the START permission. If @recall returns nothing, the game is not running.
Alternatively, all questions in the pool may have been asked — the bot reshuffles silently and continues, so gameplay should resume automatically.
I keep getting runner-up instead of first place
Runner-up recognition is given if you answer within 2 seconds of the first correct answer. If you are consistently a close second, you are answering quickly but another player is slightly faster. Note that runner-up is recognition only — only the first correct answer earns points.