Question 1

How are the teams balanced?

Accepted Answer

The list is shuffled once, fairly, and then dealt round robin. That makes every arrangement of people into balanced teams equally likely, and the sizes come out right by construction rather than by retrying until they look even.

Question 2

What happens when the numbers do not divide?

Accepted Answer

Sizes differ by at most one and the larger teams come first. Seven people into three teams gives three, two and two — never four, two and one.

Question 3

Can I put someone on a particular team?

Accepted Answer

Not directly, and deliberately: a deal that honoured requests would not be a random deal. Take that person out of the list, deal the rest, and add them where you meant to.

Question 4

Can I use the wheel instead of dealing?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Spin in elimination mode and read the order out — the first few names are the first team, the next few the second. The session log keeps the order so nobody has to remember it.

Question 5

Can I show the wheel to a room without the list beside it?

Accepted Answer

Add ?embed=1 to the link and the page becomes the wheel and the result alone; fullscreen does the same thing without leaving the page. For a stream, point an OBS browser source at the embed address and add &bg=transparent so your scene shows behind it.

Team randomiser

About the team randomiser