How To Play

The game, in brief:

• Before the game starts, send an email to the Umpire as described above informing him that you wish to take part in the game.
• When the game starts, you will be sent an email with the names of your three targets. Try to kill them.
• Whenever you make an attempt on another player's life, whether or not you succeed, email the Umpire with a report. If someone tries to kill you, report that to the Umpire as well.
• When one of your targets dies, whether it was you or someone else who killed them, the Umpire will send you a new target to replace them. In this way every live player will always have three targets at any given time.
• If you die, send a report of this to the Umpire. The game is now over for you, although you may rejoin it as a police officer (see later).
• If you do not die, congratulations! You have won the game.

The weapons rules on the website describe the various weaponry you may use to eliminate other assassins. Please read them carefully before using any weapon. If a weapon is not covered by these rules, you will need permission from the umpire before using it.

Legal Targets

You may legally try to kill any of the following types of player:

• The three targets you have been assigned by the Umpire.
• The three assassins who have been assigned you as a target; you will not be told who these are, but should you find out you may attempt to pre-emptively defend yourself by killing them first.
• Anyone who is clearly holding a weapon or planting a bomb. (You cannot legally attack someone who was holding a weapon a few seconds ago but has now hidden it again.)
• Anyone who is in the process of trying to kill you. (So, if two assassins come to your door, you may kill both of them, even if only one had you as a target. Of course, if they weren't really assassins, you're in trouble. Also, this only applies to people trying to kill you - assassins trying to kill other people are not legal targets unless they are bearing weapons.)
• Anyone on the Wanted List
• Anyone on the Incompetent List

Note that it is, of course, possible to attack people who do not fall into any of the categories above. Should you do so, you will be made wanted for killing or attempting to kill innocent victims.

There are a number of ex-players around whom people find it amusing to shoot. If not playing, they are entirely innocent and should not be attacked. These people will have some say in the fate of those who do attack them.

Rules Of Engagement

You may use all manner of ruses to ensnare your target. However, there are some things you are not allowed to do:

1. You are not allowed to impersonate authority figures such as bedders, porters or the (real) police. This is so that players can take part in the game without aggravating their bedders by refusing to let them into their room. You should also not take advantage of bedders unlocking the door to your target's room to break in and kill them or leave a trap. Note that it is fine to impersonate the JCR committee, RAG reps and other student positions.
2. You are not allowed to impersonate the Umpire, for the same reason. If someone knocks on your door claiming to be the Umpire (or, for that matter, a bedder or porter), you may safely let them in. You are also not allowed to impersonate the Umpire indirectly by, for example, forging email messages.
3. You may enter a target's room through an unlocked door or an open window only. If the door is locked you may not make any kind of attack including firing shots or pushing bombs through keyholes, letterboxes or any other gap in, under or over the door (exception: you may post special letters under the door or through the letterbox, since this does not distract the occupant).
4. You are perfectly at liberty to deny that you are an assassin. However, you are not allowed to claim that you are a dead assassin and hence harmless. You may also not lie about the vital status of other assassins who are immediately present.

Out Of Bounds Areas And Situations

There are some places and circumstances which, for reasons of sanity, are considered out-of-bounds. No-one may kill anyone or be killed when they are out of bounds, which includes the following:

• Lecture theatres are out of bounds, whether or not a lecture is in progress.
• Practicals and laboratories are always out of bounds.
• Hospitals, libraries and sports halls are out of bounds.
• Churches, chapels, synagogues, mosques, temples, stupas or any other official place of worship. The Umpire will not allow any player's room to be considered an official place of worship, no matter how inventive their excuse.
• Formal college dining halls and any other college dining arrangement in which food is served to the table. Anywhere you get food yourself from a servery is in bounds.
• Official university society meetings or regularly scheduled meetings of an unofficial society which takes place in college grounds, including in players' rooms. Pubmeets are not out of bounds.
• Any Ball, Event, garden party or similar. Regular college ents are in bounds.
• Seminars, supervisions, tutor or DoS meetings and the like.
• Rowers are out of bounds while rowing and also while carrying their boat, to avoid upsetting the rest of the crew when someone has to run away from an assassin while they were supposed to be carrying the boat. The same applies to other ``serious" boat-related activities such as canoeing. Punts are not out of bounds.
• Anyone working in a real proper office job is out of bounds while at work. (This is unlikely to apply to anyone who is a student.) Anyone working at a college bar or ent is also out of bounds.
• The CUR radio station in Churchill College is out of bounds.
• Anyone working in a theatre, whether as cast, crew or front of house staff is out of bounds during productions, rehearsals, get-ins and get-outs.

Computer rooms such as the Phoenix User Area, Cockroft 4 and other departmental and college computer rooms are in bounds subject to the following restrictions:

• Entirely out of bounds between 9am and 5.30pm.
• Use only weapons which cannot possibly damage equipment. This probably does not include any form of gun except to make ``bang" kills.
• Avoid annoying other users. Do not use noisy weapons such as cap guns. If you ignore either of these rules the kill may be disallowed at the Umpire's discretion.

A computer room is, in general, defined as a place where the public (or any clearly-defined group, e.g. members of a college) are permitted to use computers. Players' private rooms do not count. Computer rooms which occupy a completely separate room inside a library count as computer rooms and so are in bounds outside office hours. Rooms which function as both computer rooms and libraries such as the one in the CMS count as libraries.

Players should not abuse out of bounds areas. You may not take a suspicious letter into an out of bounds area and open it in safety, nor should you walk into an out of bounds area to detonate a bomb. It is of course perfectly acceptable, if cowardly, to hide in a library until your assassin gets bored.

If you are not sure whether a given time or place is out of bounds or not, please contact the Umpire. Similarly, if there is something not mentioned on this list you think should be out of bounds, ask the Umpire to consider it.

Accomplices And Non-Players

Non-players may, if you wish, act as accomplices on your kill attempts. However, accomplices cannot attack or kill anyone (but they can still be attacked). You are responsible for the safety of your accomplices, and should they be killed you will be held responsible, which means that you will probably become wanted. You should not allow your accomplices to be seen bearing weapons at any time; particularly, you should not use armed accomplices as decoys, and should you do so the kill may be disallowed.

Players are discouraged from acting as accomplices to other players, although this is not against the rules. Please note that accomplicing players are not allowed to actually make kills which they would not normally be allowed to, although it is perfectly permissible to kill your assassin's accomplices while they are in the process of making an attempt on your life. Also, accomplicing an illegal attempt will almost certainly result in your being made wanted.

You should not use non-players to avoid exposing yourself to danger, for example, by getting them to open your mail or door for you, or defuse or detonate a bomb which has been left for you. Should you do so and they be killed as a result, you will be made wanted in connection with their death.

In general, if you kill a non-player you will be made wanted. However, it is possible for innocents to be killed through unforseeable mischances, in which case you will be let off if you are believed to have acted responsibly. A poison letter clearly addressed to your target will not make you wanted if it is opened by someone else. However, it is assumed that people other than a room's occupant could reasonably try to open its door; therefore, should you put contact poison on someone's outside doorhandle, you will be made wanted for endangering innocents.