So back to Major League planning, aren't we? An honor system doesn't seem as appropriate for leagues, but thats where refs come in. Still, we want a quick method of players determining whether they're hit or not but the quickest methods depend on the honor system. Still, my ruleset remains as posted on
http://hbww.fateback.com/HBrules.html#rules2
There are 3 primary variables to rules:
First being the basic rules like what kind of water you're allowed to use, being unable to disturb neighbors, rules against leaving the battlefield borders (i.e. no action outside the borders will count, or worse, players who leave are eliminated or must respawn, depending on the 3rd variable) For sake of convinience, this should be ignored for the most part, until a standard league set of rules is created here. This set should never change once established (unless there is something wrong with it)
Second is the rules regarding hits. Fist sized solid splotch? 10 droplets? Or soakfest? The soakfest can also be modified a bit; i.e. no charging into streams.
Third is objectives. Elimination, CTF, points, etc. are all objective modes to play.
Elimination or respawn can either be put in the second or third category, but I prefer putting it in the third since the objective has a direct impact on it. The second category stands alone and will probably be standardized later.
So lets say we already decided the league rules. (and that they're set perfectly as we can get them to be) The first and second are standardized and universal and do not change, and the third can change to maybe 3 or 5 configurations. If the league was treated more like a video game, first and second rulesets could also change to adapt to different environments.
That said, I also have standardized first and second rules. The first is pretty typical; be careful w/ blasters, don't piss in the reservoir to fill, etc. The second is the approx. 10 droplet rule, a "significant amount of water." Very loosely defined, I know, but everyone gets the idea pretty easily. Basically, if you're hit beyond mere mist or 1 or 2 droplets, you're out. If a water balloon splatters on a wall right next to you and you're standing against the wall, you're out as well. We also go by the "no charging into streams" rule for soakfests. For respawn, there is no time limit right now, all you have to do is hit the respawn point. We may also consider a 15 second freeze much like in laser tag. (though in laser tag, you can still move whilst eliminated)
I'll make a quick list of different ways to do this, just for reference:
- Low hit / ~10 droplets (honor based)
- Fist sized splotch
- Gridded T-shirt
- Soaker Tags / Paper (i.e. printer, towel, or toilet papers) + clothspin
- Those overpriced electronic sensors you can find online. (that come in sets of 2 and with crappy piston guns)
For the third set, I have 3 soakfest variations: Team soakfest, Soakfest CTF (flag carrier must drop if hit according to hit rule), and the new one I'm trying out soon, zombies. Originally, zombies could only use water bottles, but I changed it to allow the alpha (starting) zombie to use the Oozinator. I may allow other zombies who are eliminated later to use squirt guns and cheap piston guns as well but if I do, I'll definately apply the stricter soakfest rule.
There are also a few 1 hit kill variations we have played, including elimination and CTF respawn. (elimination CTF probably won't work) Eventually, we will also do assault type games such as soak and destroy, and 1-flag CTF, which can either be respawn based or elimination. Either way, a time limit will be needed. We have not played any points games yet due to the difficulty of tracking kills, but its possible that we may have players mark a sheet when spawning in respawn games to track overall team kill scores. (we could play a time or score limit run team soakmatch this way)
Theres another game floating around; conquest. There are several control points on the map which also act as spawn points for the team that captures them. However, this may be too complicated to run without overly simplifying the capture process. Its supposed to take time to take control of a point, but is obviously hard to get players to count. (you need some kind of hand-crank machine or whatever) Perhaps different games can be derived from this, such as trying to grab the point markers and taking them back to base. (kind of like a muiti-flag CTF except no one owns any of the "flags")
So what it comes down to is what I'd consider standardizing for the official rules. Games like zombies are obviously just for fun and I never even got to try it yet. However, games like elimination would have to be standardized, and at least 2-flag CTF should be part of the official ruleset as well. I haven't tried any 1-flag CTF nor soak and destroy, but I may pull those games up at next week's war and will definately tell how they go if I run them. For now, a good small list would have those.
That said, which specific combinations of second and third categories would you have us try? I'll be running new games either way, them being zombies and the assault games, but if you've got some, I'll try them out. I'm not sure if we can get "soakertags" (in quotes because the best I can do is print out soakertags from the computer) going, and I might have to stick to our rules for the second category, but I'll see what I can do.
Edit: I just did some testing on toilet paper targets. They get blasted out quickly by the Max-D 2000 and 3000's from about 5-10 ft away or so, and should make good general purpose targets. However, the targets will also weaken if the user does barrel rolls or whatever other stunts, may be more difficult to place on the back if someone has a backpack, and will be weakened by water from bad refilling technique. (which I'd say isn't unfair but others may disagree) The rule here is that the person is eliminated if nothing is left on the clothspin, meaning that all traces of paper must be blasted away. Unfortunately, this may require a ref in order to work since players cannot directly see their targets. At the least, it requires the honesty of both players who are fighting to call out when their targets are gone. Still, this may be a better system overall than what I use and doesn't discourage CQB as much. (players must get in closer ranges to attack paper targets, rather than merely spewing water droplets at each other from far away)