SchwartzBlog

These past 2 months I have had one game that has ruled my life. The winner of the game was Vincent Groppa. Below is an article I wrote on the matter. Enjoy

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For those of you who haven’t heard of Assassins, ask a Senior. Because Senior year, assuming there is someone willing to run it (my advice, don’t), you will be part of the most complex “cat and mouse” game you have ever seen. Assassins has been the focus of my existence for the past few weeks, so what I have decided to write is the complete guide to how this game was put together. Enjoy.

When I was asked to run Assassins, I realized I could think of it as a challenge. I had heard in previous years that the game had lost some of its competitiveness because in the end, the rules were easy enough to bend and if you wanted to be honorable, your chances of winning would slip. I knew there must be a way to run this game without a hitch. If everyone knew they had a fighting chance, more people would fight. So I started on a journey I would end up regretting more times than I would ever imagine.

The first step was to organize communication. With 220 players, I needed a way for people to report kills without contacting me directly. Each player was given a game card with their name and a passcode. When there was a legal, legitimate kill, the victim would simply hand over their card to their assassin. The assassin would then go online and fill out a form that would automatically check the passcode with the name. This gave me more time to focus on other topics in the game. From that point, I would only need to address disputes.

The initial rules were simple: Nothing at school. Unfortunately that was the only easy rule. So I asked the people who really were into it. I wanted this game to survive, but that didn’t mean I needed to write the rules. In my mind, I just interpreted what others wanted.

When I started planning this game, I thought all I would need to do was plan it. I figured once I started the game, it would run itself. In short, I could not have been more wrong. I found that for quite a few people, it was simply easier to lie about a kill then forfeit. In addition, a lot of players chose to use the smallest water guns possible. The problem is it’s easy to stay dry when you are being shot by a water gun the size of a fist.

The biggest issue I have had to tackle is dealing with everybody. With 220 players and 1 of me, it is easy to say that I was getting quite a few phone calls each day. I will point out that some people did volunteer to help me. However, most of them volunteered at a time when my only task was resolving disputes, which is a task that I cannot delegate to anyone else.

I had three different types of communication with people that could lead to an argument. The first was registration. Since I had to make game cards for everyone in the game, assign and distribute targets, and study for APs at the same time, I needed to get all of it out of the way early. But after I closed registration, I then got a wave of students who still wanted to play. When this happened, I took a very simple approach. Anyone that contacted me, apologized for being late, and asked politely was given a spot in Assassins. After registration, 40 players were admitted to the game, and 1 was denied. The one exception was for people that asked me after targets were given out. At that point I couldn’t take any more teams and still be able to study for my APs.

I knew that once I made one rule, ten people would ask me to create rules that were similar. Furthermore, I didn’t want the Assassins rulebook to be a paperback. I took the same approach in dealing with new rule requests as before. Anybody that asked politely for a rule to be created, I took a long look at. Astonishingly, quite a few of my friends seemed to think that they could just tell me the rules they wanted in the game and I would just go along. I got calls at any hour of the day, and some requests as late as after the game had already started. All in all, my goal was not to impress my friends. It was to create a game that would give everyone a fighting chance.

The last communications I received were after the game had started. Rule clarification, protocol clarification, and dispute resolution. This needed a different approach. In prior scenarios, I had more time on my hands and less people getting in contact with me. Once the game had started, I would receive 50 or more communications per day. When I received a communication from someone who knew the rules and had a question that could only be answered by me, I normally answered it within minutes. What I simply could not deal with were people that would ask me questions that could have been answered by the emails I had already sent them.

Assassins has been a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I have had to start turning off both my phone and computer at 10pm because I am just too tired to keep talking to people. On the other hand, I have changed the way people think about Assassins.

Most people knew I was in contact with the school administrators about this game. Most people don’t know I was also in contact with the New Castle Police Department. When I first started talking to them about Assassins, they told me I was the first organizer to ever bring it to their attention. In addition, I found that this year, the amount of issues the department had to deal with were “reasonable.” In their minds, the game hadn’t become completely safe, but it was on its way.

Assassins is played all around the country. Some games get a lot of scrutiny from adults, and some get none. My goal for this game was to make it in such a way that in the future, it could be played openly. We wouldn’t need to hide it from the administration or the police.
That was my goal for this game. Only time will tell if I succeed or not.

In summary, Assassins was a huge undertaking. But If I had the choice, I would do it again.

Just kidding. I will never do this again.

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