The Assassins' Guild: Lent 2007 Rules

What is the Assassins' Game?

Assassins is a game of mock killing. It is fun. If you wish to play, you should read the rules below and then e-mail the Umpire at assassins@srcf.ucam.org, who will be delighted to help. The game is free and for everyone, but we do ask that you live and spend a large proportion of your time within 5 miles of Great St. Mary's Church and in an environment compatible with the game (e.g. not prisons, monasteries etc.) Don't worry if you don't fulfill the conditions above; you will still be entitled to participate, but only as "Police". More of that later.

If you have any questions about these rules, then once you have read them thoroughly, please ask for clarification from the Umpire, who will be only too happy to provide it.

How do you make a "kill"?

1. "Killing" is accomplished by utilising a weapon upon an Assassin (i.e. another person playing the game). You should only do so if they are a licit target.
2. Who is a licit target for me? Tracking down people is part of the fun of playing. You will be given 3 targets whom you should attempt to locate and "kill". They are licit targets for you! There are also a few more situations in which assassins will become licit targets:
   • If they are targeting you. However, you won't know this initially.
   • If they are bearing weapons (see later)
   • If they are either wanted or incompetent (see later)
3. What happens if I kill a non-licit target? Then you have been a very naughty boy (or girl)! However, the weapon you used does not know this, so the assassin in question will be dead regardless. As a punishment, you will be placed on the dreaded wanted list. This means that you become a licit target for not only everyone playing the game, but also the Police Force. More of that later. Players should note that wantedness is not as glamourous as it may sound; please try to play the game by its rules or your benevolent Umpire will get upset. If the Umpire is feeling generous (which he often is) he may give a set of redemption conditions, the fulfillment of which will permit one's removal from the list. These will typically involve killing a specified number of assassins.
4. What's this about incompetence? You may think that those on the wanted list form the bottom tier of assassins' society. You would, however, be wrong. Essentially, to keep the game moving we ask that all those playing do something (i.e. attempt to end the life of another assassin) every now and then. Those who do not will be first warned and then sentenced to the incompetence list. This is basically the same thing as the wanted list but is even less cool.

When and where is the game played?

The game commences at 5:00am on Monday 29th January, and will run until either the end of term or when there is only one assassin left (whichever is sooner). You may be worried about how you'll be able to stand an ongoing game, but never fear. We declare certain places to be out of bounds (OOB), a haven of sanity to which the game's shadow does not reach. Kills effected here will not count.

Lecture halls, supervisions, university laboratories are examples of such. A more exhaustive list is here. Please read these. If you have any queries please contact the Umpire. He will be much more sympathetic to those who check such things before incidents occur.

It is important to note that OOB areas should not be abused for one's advantage in the game. They are there to stop lectures etc. becoming ridiculous affairs, not to allow one an easy escape from a persuing assassin. The Umpire will take a very dim view of those who contravene the spirit of the game in such a way.

What happens if I die?

Sadly, death ends one's involvement as a player. However, should you desire to (and you should!) you may join the Police Force. Please inform the Umpire of your death and the resulting circumstances, preferably providing a verbose lament of your ill-fortune (although this is of course strictly optional!)

Information!

As one would imagine, intelligence is of the essence in such a game. However, there are a few rules governing the information exchange.

• You must inform the Umpire of every game-related incident in which you are involved. The game relies on honest and complete reporting, so please observe this.
• Please send the Umpire a brief description of who did what, where and when. This need not be published.
• If you like, you should also give a longer, more creative description of the event. This is your report and will be published as part of that day's game news. You should not lie outright in it but you are encouraged to mislead your Assassins as much as you like. I look forward to reading your best efforts.
• Each player will be given a pseudonym at the start of the game. The Umpire may award them another at his discretion, usually one for every two kills you make. The purpose of pseudonyms is to keep secret the identity of assassins. For every incident involving you, you may specify whether you wish your real name or any of your pseudonyms to appear on the website. Your real name will be used unless you specify otherwise.
• Dead players must not pass on any intelligence they gained in the course of playing the game.
• Players must not lie about the mortality status of themselves or any other Assassins in the immediate vicinity.

What about those not playing?

Don't shoot them! You will be made Wanted. This sort of crime is particularly frowned on, and repeated violations may result in you being disqualified from the game. Similarly, if you do anything which results in an innocent being killed (e.g. having them open your mail, using a photo of a friend as your facebook picture, switching name tags on doors) you will be made Wanted. Don't.

Non-players may still have a role in the game though. They are perfectly at liberty to warn you of approaching assassins and anything else that may be helpful to you. However, whilst they are doing so, they may be killed (as if they were bearing weapons), in which case they should decease.

The Police Force

The Police Force is a venerable institution of players (mostly dead, although some may choose to start the game as Police) who are no longer part of the game but wish to stay involved and killing. Here are some facts regarding the Police:

• Police cannot win the game
• Police cannot make indirect attempts
• Police exist to kill Wanted and incompetent assasins. They should not attempt to influence the game in other respects, in particular any kills of other players will not stand unless the assassin in question was both bearing and either causing alarm to the general public or engaged in a direct assault on you.
• Any Police officer who aids a live player in any capacity other than affecting the demise of a Wanted/incompetent assassin will be declared corrupt and added to the Wanted list. If you intend to do so, please inform the Umpire who will guide you on what he considers acceptable corruption. If you do not, the Umpire may annul any events that arise as a result of your interference. You have been warned.
• Police who are killed may be reincarnated at the Umpire's discretion.

The Umpire:

Hi, I'm the Umpire. The current incarnation of the Umpire is Charles Curry of Fitzwilliam College, who may be contacted by e-mailing assassins@srcf.ucam.org. The Umpire is situated in Room 25, New Neale House, 138 Huntingdon Road. His room is considered out of bounds.

Player-Umpire communications may be made public at the end of the game for everyone's enlightenment and amusement. If players do not wish a certain communication to be made public, please tell the Umpire.

The Umpire is immortal, omnipotent and omnipresent. Players attempting to test these propositions may be placed on the Wanted List.

"Silly buggers"

We have neither the resources nor the inclination to make the rules completely watertight. Hence, although the precision of the wording is often of import, your attention is drawn more to the spirit of the rules than their content. The Umpire will not be bound by the rules if he feels that someone is attempting to exploit a loophole. If in doubt, e-mail the Umpire with your question. Damn you, Montesquieu.

Conduct:

This is a section the Umpire wishes didn't have to exist. Seriously, be sensible at all times. Remember not everyone is tolerant of stupidity. I trust it's not necessary to go further, but regardless, here are some important rules:

• Players are entirely responsible for their own actions. The guild is not an excuse to do anything stupid.
• The Guild does not condone any course of action that leads to confrontation with people in authority. Specifically, do not cause college authorities to eject those attempting to kill you. By signing up you are agreeing to permit assassins to come after you using methods in accordance with the rules.
• Assassins is not a game of force. Do not push people around. Most specifically, if someone is holding a door open or shut, you should not attempt to move that door, and you should never do anything likely to cause anyone (including yourself) injury.
• It is not permitted for players to impersonate authority figures for assassins purposes. This includes bedders, the (real) Police, porters, college authorities (not including student union representatives) and our own esteemed Umpire.
• Similarly, do not manufacture fire alarms, medical emergencies or similar. It's just not clever.
• Players should be safe when they are locked in their rooms. Do not attempt to gain entry by any means other than an unlocked door or an open window. Also, attacks made by, for example, firing under a locked door, will not count. This is mostly relevant for toilet cubicles and letterboxes.
• Important: inevitably, there will be disagreements between players involved in an incident. Assassins are strongly encouraged to reach a decision about the facts of an incident at the scene. However, do not be afraid to disagree over the outcome of the incident or the way in which the rules have been applied to events. If there is a strong element of uncertainty as to what the outcome should be, you should make a report to the Umpire as soon as possible and should avoid directly involving yourself in Assassins proceedings until you have received clarification. The Umpire will try to be understanding as far as Competence is concerned.
1. If players are unsure about what happened during an attack, they may call a "discussion phase" to clarify who has been hit and who, if anybody, is dead
2. Once a Player has made a bona fide call for a discussion phase to sort out the facts of the incident, so long as it is not a direct interruption of the event, no Players involved in the discussion phase may kill each other during or immediately after the discussion phase is over - there should be enough time for each Player to get a reasonable distance away.
3. Players taking part in a discussion phase should take care not to expose themselves to other passing Players
4. Calling a discussion phase in order to gain an advantage in the game (e.g. to expedite your retreat) may result in sanctions being edicted.

History

The history of this set of rules is thought to be:

• Initial author unknown.
• Typed in by Paul Roberts (PER10).
• Later history unknown.
• Used by CUSFS for a while.
• Martin Hardcastle (MJH22) made some modifications.
• Julian Birch (JMB29), some modifications and clarifications.
• Richard Fairhurst (RJF1001), further modifications and clarifications.
• Ben Jameson (BFJ1000), yet more modifications.
• Jim Cameron (JC10007) and Elizabeth Pringle (EMPP1), more, mistyped, modifications.
• David Allsopp (DNA1000), surprisingly, made some modifications.
• Paul Menage (PBM1001) was Easter 1995 Umpire, and initiated 3 targets per player.
• Nigel Harris (NJH27) made modifications.
• Ben Harris (BJH21) changed even more things, notably the bomb blast radius formula to be based on a cube root.
• Chuan-Tze Teo (CTT20) modified still more rules.
• Martin Read (mpr22) corrected the text of the bomb rules, and set a (semi-)codified timing rule (after a few shoutings, getting the wording right).
• Lynnette Dray (lmd21) modified a few more things, surprisingly.
• Charlie Baylis (cgb23) took this ruleset in 1999 in order to back out the strange necromancy rules, and made a couple of other patches.
• Matt Laycock, Ed Nokes and Björn Holzhauer improved and HTMLised the ruleset, with the help of J Doe, Matthew Wakeling, Dave Hammond and others.
• Ralph Owen (rho21), Ed Nokes and Björn Holzhauer altered the rules for Michaelmas 2001, with suggestions from Ed Wallace.
• Modifications made by Tom Garnett (tmg27)
• Clarifications and a few alterations made by Rosemary Warner (rjw76), with suggestions from Ralph Owen.
• Matt Johnson (mjj29) and Michael Cripps (mac57) updated the rules for Lent 2003.
• Matt Johnson (mjj29) tidied up the HTML, Ric Brackenbury (rab71) added a few pedantic changes, and rewrote the bomb rules with Adam Biltcliffe.
• Adam Biltcliffe (amgb2) rewrote and restructured large parts of the rules in an attempt to make them vaguely comprehensible to new players.
• Martin O'Leary (mewo2) poked at things a bit in Michaelmas 2004.
• David Birch (dtb26) made some minor alterations, and changed dead players a little. The bomb rules were completely removed during Lent 2005.
• Martin Lester (mml27) modified the rules for Michaelmas 2005.
• Richard Gibson (rsig2) restructured some things and obfuscated other things for Lent 2006.
• Philip Bielby (pmb45) and Nick Plummer (nrp28) instituted automagic Policification, tightened up the conduct rules, and added general silliness for Michaelmas 2006.
• Charles Curry (chac3) deinstituted automagic Policifaction, removed the "limb hit" rules and made a valiant but doomed attempt to de-obfuscate things

[Back to assassins index]

Home / E-mail