RULES OF CONDUCT
14th August 2002(The dates have been changed.)
Assassins > Rules of Conduct
At the beginning of the game, each person is issued with a contract on one of the other players. The objective of the game is to `kill' the person described in the contract. After a successful kill, the surviving assassin takes the contract his victim carried. This contract becomes his next target. The game continues in this manner until there is only one person remaining or the time runs out.
Once you have been killed, you are out of the game. You may go about your life without the constant paranoia that comes from wondering if someone is going to jump out of a bush to slap you with a fish coated in contact poison.
You are NOT allowed to kill any person who is not your designated target.
This is a game of lone wolves and solo killers. Players are not allowed to form alliances against other players. Nor are players allowed to enlist the aid of people not playing in the game. Using strangers as unwitting patsies is quite acceptable (``Excuse me, could you please take this parcel to my friend sitting over there?''), but getting your friends to invite the target over so you can lie in wait is not.
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First contracts will be issued on Thursday 8th August, and the hunt will commence at 9am on Thursday 15th August. All contracts must be completed within 10 weeks (i.e., on or before 9am Thursday 24th October). [These dates are different to the ones given at the Guild's 31 July general meeting. My apologies. These are the correct dates. ---Ken Finlayson] At that time, the game will have ended and a winner will be declared. If there is only a single player left, they have won. If more than one player has survived, the player with the most kills is the winner.
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There will be a prize of $25 for the winner. There will also be a prize of $25 for the most creative killing, as judged by the moderator of the game. If, in the judge's opinion, no killing was deserving of the title `most creative', then no such prize will be awarded.
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All kills are symbolic and make-believe and no one should attempt in any way to inflict actual bodily harm on anyone. BREAK THIS RULE AND YOU ARE OUT. All players must obey the law while playing this game. Do not carry or use real weapons or realistic replicas of weapons. Toy guns should not be able to fire anything that has any risk of injuring someone: no pellet guns, no potato guns, no toy rocket-firing guns, etc.
All players must show proper respect to the health and property of their fellow players. Drenching a person with water on a cold, windy day; or standing in the doorway of their house shooting water all over the carpet are just two examples of not showing the proper respect. Do not attempt to break into a person's house!
Tactics that disrupt, interfere with, or in any way endanger another player's day-to-day life are not acceptable. Players are therefore granted immunity to attacks when at work, or attending lectures, tutorials, lab classes or similar. Within reason, all players may specify other situations in which they cannot be attacked.
Above all, act within the confines of the law and act with respect to your fellow players. This goes double for innocent bystanders.
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The key to Assassins is creativity. While knives and guns are the traditional tools of the killer, you are allowed to expand your repertoire of killing techniques, limited only by your imagination.
There must be some effort made to simulate the weapon or method you use to kill someone. Pointing a finger at someone, saying ``Bang! You're dead!'' is not good enough. Pointing a banana and saying ``Eat peel, you lousy peel eater!'' is much more acceptable. Your methods of killing might include: poking someone with a nine-volt battery to represent an overcharged cattle prod; writing ``Poison'' on a piece of paper and slipping it into the target's sandwich or drink; or writing ``Bomb'' on a piece of fruit and throwing it to your target. (Writing ``Bomb'' on a cardboard box and leaving it near your target is a Good Way to cause a security scare and hence a Good Way to get banned from the game.) Again, you are forbidden from doing anything that risks harming a person or damaging their property.
All attacks are lethal, except when made in self-defence.
Killing is a personal pastime, like knitting or bowling or golf. A kill must target only the person named in a contract. Weapons of mass destruction are strictly forbidden. You cannot claim to have nuked Wollongong from a safe distance, thus killing your target. Less drastic methods, such as high explosive or clouds of lethal gas, are also out.
With few exceptions (detailed in the next paragraph), the act of killing must be done at close range. The killer and the target must be within 5 feet (1.5 metres).
The game does support a tradition of assassinating from a distance, e.g., sniper rifles or poisons. If you employ a method of killing that works at a distance, then you must present evidence of the kill to your target within 24 hours, or the kill will be invalid. Should the assassin who committed the long range kill be eliminated before they could present the evidence, that kill is negated and the target lives for a little while longer. What sort of evidence is acceptable? Walking up to someone while they are eating lunch, showing them a toy gun, and claiming you shot them from across the duck pond is not good enough. For sniper shots, we suggest taking a photo of your target using a camera with a zoom lens. Such photos must have a date and time stamp (or otherwise contain information which can prove exactly when the photo was taken), and must be accepted as authentic by the target before the kill is reported. In the event of a dispute, the photo must be presented as evidence to the game's moderator. If that sounds like too much trouble, you might prefer to use poison. A note marked "Posioned by [your name]" not only kills, it also provides proof that you have killed.
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If a player spots a would-be assassin closing in on them, they may attempt a preemptive strike. This is the only time a player can attack someone they do not have a contract on. All other rules regarding attacks must still be obeyed. The would-be assassin is not killed, but wounded. For 48 hours the assassin is too weak to make any kills, giving their target a grace period to kill without fear of being hunted. During the 48 hour period, the failed assassin is still eligible for termination.
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A witness is any member of the general public who saw a successful assassination take place. This includes any player other than the target of the kill and the assassin who did the killing. If there are witnesses to a kill, then the assassin must lie low for 7 days. During this period, they may not make any kills, but are still eligible for termination by the player hunting them.
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Once a target has been killed, both the target and the assassin must contact the moderator (details next page). Both must give the time and place of the kill, the weapon used, and whether there were any witnesses.
After a kill it is up to the killer and his victim to arrange the transfer of contracts so the game may progress.
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Failure to comply with any of these rules will result in the removal of the offending player from the game. Should a player breach the rules in such a way that injury or property damage results, the offender must cover any and all costs arising from their actions.
Players are expected to act responsibly and with good grace. If you are killed, do not start a ``Shot you---No you didn't---Did too'' argument. Such behaviour will be penalised by the moderator. You may even be removed from the game.
Have fun, and remember: there's always next time.
If you have any questions or comments regarding the game or its rules, please contact the monitor. But first, please read the list of rules queries that have already been answered, in case your question is there.
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The moderator is Ken Finlayson, who may be contacted via e-mail.
This document is copyright © 2001, 2002 Cameron Malcher. Converted to HTML by Ken Finlayson.
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Assassins > Rules of Conduct