Cloak & Dagger The Assassins' Guild: Eliminate! 2005 Rules


Changes which have been made to these rules since they were originally published will be flagged in green.

1.0 Introduction:

Eliminate! is a game of mock assassination for a moderate number of keen players. Each person has to try to survive the attempts of others to kill them whilst eliminating their own targets. The winner is the person who survives to the end of the game while eliminating the greatest number of their own targets.

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

1.1 Signing up for the game:

The game shall be open to people who live and spend a large proportion of their time within the city of Cambridge. Students at the University are almost certainly eligible to play; those who are unsure whether they live and work close enough to participate are invited to contact the Umpire.

Those wishing to play should first read the rules. It is also vital that you read the Eliminate! Players' Agreement, which covers safety and general good conduct. Breaching the Players' Agreement is at least as serious as breaching the rules.

Everyone who wishes to play should fill in the signup form, which asks for the following details:

Anyone found to have supplied false or misleading details to the Umpire will be disqualified, as will anyone lying to the Umpire about anything else.

Conduct

In signing up to play, you agree to the terms of the Eliminate! Players' Agreement. All players should have read and understood this.

Photographs of targets are supplied to players on the understanding that they are for use in this game only. Stockpiling them for use in future Assassins Guild games is strongly frowned upon. Photographs will be marked with the word "Eliminate!" in order to make their origin clear.

2.0 How to play:

The game, in brief:

2.1 Killing people:

The weapons rules describe the various weaponry you may use to eliminate other assassins.

2.1.1 Legal targets

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

2.1.2 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:

2.1.3 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:

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

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 who are regularly required to transport heavy, valuable or awkward equipment for the purposes of a society or similar concern may, if they wish, ask the Umpire to be out of bounds while doing this, in which case the Umpire will pass on all relevant details about this to the player's assassin. In all cases, players should be sensible about attacking targets who are carrying large or delicate items.

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.

2.1.4 Accomplices and non-players

There are no accomplices (either players or non-players) in this game; you are expected to try to kill your targets by yourself. If you kill someone with the assistance of another player or a non-player or bring someone else with you on an attempt, the kill is likely to be annulled.

2.2 Reporting:

Whenever you are involved in any assassins-related incident, such as successfully or unsuccessfully trying to kill another player or innocent, being attacked or killed or witnessing a killing, you should inform the Umpire as soon as possible.

When anyone in the game dies, a report of the event will be published on the game website, including the pseudonym of the killer and the pseudonym (but not the real name) of the deceased. Both players involved may submit reports, which are encouraged to be dramatic and creative and may also be intentionally misleading (although outright lying is frowned upon). However, if your report is sufficiently outlandish to make it unclear what actually happened, please explain the raw facts separately to the Umpire in your email, as he likes to know what is going on. All reports may be censored by the Umpire in order to avoid giving away any information about the identity of any of the players involved.

If you cannot be sure what happened in an attack, you may call a "discussion phase" afterwards with the other assassins involved in order to clarify who was hit, who is dead, etc. Players cannot kill one another while doing this, and should move to a safe place to avoid exposing themselves to any entirely different assassins who might happen to be passing. Note that it is unsporting to call for a discussion phase quickly in order to curtail an encounter which is still happening.

In general, all players involved should submit a report of every incident; this way the Umpire can correlate the reports and so ensure that the news is updated as quickly as possible.

2.3 Dead players

Dead players should not do anything to influence the outcome of the game. This includes pointing assassins out or passing on any information they have to other players. Most importantly, dead players should not reveal anything about the identity of their killer or the circumstances of their death.

If you have been killed, you should not announce this to anyone until you are sure that the information could not be used to track down your killer; preferably, you should wait until the report of your death is on the website. This particularly applies to those using the #assassins IRC channel.

3.0 Timing

3.1 The attempt deadline

Since this is supposed to be a game for keen players, there is a time limit for making attempts on your targets, called the "attempt deadline". The initial attempt deadline will be four days after the start of the game. Every time you make an attempt, your attempt deadline will be moved back to four days after that attempt. If your attempt deadline passes, the Umpire will strike you down with a thunderbolt and you will be removed from the game.

Attempts have to be of a certain standard to extend your attempt deadline. In general, any plan which has a resonable chance of killing your target will count, but the Umpire will not allow you to repeatedly extend your deadline by making low-effort attempts. If a target is resisting your simple attempts to eliminate them, you will be expected to show more dedication or creativity.

3.2 The end of the game

The game will last for three weeks, or until all but one player is dead, whichever occurs first. If only one player is left alive, that player will be the winner; if several players survive for three weeks, whichever of them has killed the greatest number of their targets will win. If two or more players are tied, the Umpire will come to some arrangement with the leading players for determining the winner; the most likely option will be that the game continues for those few players only until one of them eliminates another target.

4.0 The Umpire:

The Umpire is Adam Biltcliffe of Clare College and may be contacted by emailing assassins-eliminate@srcf.ucam.org. Players wishing to contact the Umpire should do so via email; if you need to speak to the Umpire in person then he will be happy to arrange a visit. Any queries you have should be put to the Umpire before they become a matter of life or death (yours or anyone else's).

The Umpire and his works are sancrosanct; attempting to take items from the Umpire's pigeonhole or break into his computer account is strictly forbidden. Impersonating the Umpire is also forbidden; see Rules of engagement.

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

The Umpire is immortal. Players should not attempt to test this proposition.

5.0 Administrivia:

The game website is at http://www.srcf.ucam.org/assassins/elim; you are probably reading these rules there now. During the game, news of deaths will be published on the website along with any updates to the rules or other important notices.

To avoid waste of bandwidth, game news will not be distributed by email.

Players may also be interested in exploring the ucam.rec.games.assassin newsgroup and the #assassins IRC channel; those who wish to do so are invited to consult the Assassins FAQ for more information.


History

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


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