Settle who starts, then play
Two players and one question is a coin: player one or two, home or away, or a straight heads or tails. Where going first is a real advantage, use best-of-three or best-of-five so the start is not decided by one throw and nobody can say it was rushed. More than two players, or an order rather than a winner, is a job for a wheel with the names in it. Sorting this in ten seconds is what stops a group losing the first half hour of the evening to it.
