78 replies to this topic

[Falcon]

Disclaimer: These are all my personal opinions and may not reflect the views of all members of this forum, both on and off staff. If you don't like them, deal.

*ahem*

In the last few years, most wars have been watered down to two things: Team Elimination, and Capture the Flag.

"Shaking it up" consists of a whopping location change, which then creates the "scenario", such as Civil War Rounds (wide open field with no cover.) No offense to those who do such things, but that's kinda lame.

Last month, I had the most fun war of my life. We didn't shake things up a WHOLE lot in terms of gameplay, but we're getting to that point, and getting to it VERY quickly.

In the last two months alone, my area has spawned at least three new game types by integrating non-nerf items into the game to create different ways of playing. Stroll down the toy aisle. See something cool? A glowing or light-up ball? Foam swords? Buy a few. Come up with a game you could play using it. See how much more fun you have.

Nerf has become a bloodthirsty game. I'm not suggesting we're all looking to kill kill kill when we play. We're looking to tag our opponents. Yes, I know. But it's bloodthirsty in that you're simply looking for ways to shoot them and (if need be) grab a flag. I used to have that mindset when I played, but now we've got new ways to ensure that we're not THINKING about shooting others so often. Now, we're thinking "how the hell am I gonna get past them to get to the glowing orb atop candy mountain so that I can traverse the misty mountains with it to to caves of despair where I must slay enough level three fell beasts to gain enough boosts to my strength modifier to destroy it?"

Okay, got a little carried away there.

Let's try this again...

In Glendora, we've got a new location. It's an open grassy field that goes back into the hills and becomes a fairly narrow gorge. Right at the start of the gorge, where cover has started to become more dense, there is a large and thick rock wall. On the other side of the wall, it gets a LOT more narrow. There is a trail about ten feet wide (and getting smaller...goes down to about eight) that goes back about 30 yards from that until it comes to a dead end at some trees. Tell me, with this one-sided fortified wonderland, what would you play?

Siege games, of course!

It's only natural. That was the first thing in my head too.

But how can you make them DIFFERENT? No, VERY different. I'm talking put a flag of some sort (we use a light-up ball) on a pedestal (we use a traffic cone) on the center of the wall (again, it's about ten feet thick, four feet high, with hills on either side that come to its top) and make one team defend it, the other assault. But instead of having the assaulters CAPTURE it and then tuck tail back to base camp, where it's SAFE, what happens if they have to take it PAST the wall, THROUGH enemy lines, all the way back to the back?

Or how about replacing the flag/ball with a fully loaded disc Shot target launcher, and then place its controller BEHIND the fort? Make a single person on the assaulting team have to go past the fort to the remote, where they're then invulnerable and within the transmitter's range. Now you have to employ TEAMWORK so that your team is ready when you hit the remote so they can shoot at the target from a minimum distance. Now you have to deal with a defending team that's trying to kill you AND shooting at a moving flying target that you can't get closer than X feet to. What a PAIN. Miss the target? Try again. Defending team hits the target first? Try again. Hit one (or more, perhaps?) You win. Miss all the targets? Game over.

You see, it doesn't have to change the gameplay very much to make a game a LOT more interesting and a HELL of a lot more challenging.

Take those store-bought nerfhoops. Could you make a CTF-like game out of those, I wonder? Could you do something with football?

I'm not gonna go off listing a crapload of game types we've come up with, because I want you to come up with your own. But fact is, if you make your games more challenging by modifying them even slightly, or by infusing them with established sports (ie. basketball, whatever...) I don't give a crap what you do, but just TRY to make your games more interesting than just team elimination and CTF, with the stereotypical pistol round at the end of the day when everybody's tired.

Edited by Falcon, 27 February 2008 - 04:02 PM.

[Pineapple]

Great insights, in my humble opinion.


You know, I always wonder why everyone trashes their Tech Targets (the Target, not the excellent blaster, first generation only). I never owned one (yet), but I could think of many kinds of CTF-esque games that would make the Target a valuable tool or implement to spice up a game... and I don't mean only shooting at the Target.

I'm sure with the Disk Shot, there's something waiting to be invented. And you mentioning football made me think about a Vortex in lieu of a flag, with passing as an option to get the object back to base.

While there are traditions to be maintained, the spirit of Nerf is only dependent on our ability to be creative without becoming total doofuses (doofi?) in the process. Meaning, hit-point-rank-and-file-claymore-ghillie-camo face-sidewinder over the top mil-sim nonsense.



-Piney-

[CaptainSlug]

Now, we're thinking "how the hell am I gonna get past them to get to the glowing orb atop candy mountain so that I can traverse the misty mountains with it to to caves of despair where I must slay enough level three fell beasts to gain enough boosts to my strength modifier to destroy it?"

Wait wait wait, did you just admit to LARPing Candy Land?

My limited experiences with Siege/Assault, Capture the Flag, and general scenario type gameplay has only resulted in a lot of time spent sneaking around, building forts, or arguing about rules. It's not something that works at a war where new people are showing up and I have yet to see it actually be fun. It MIGHT be fun if you were close friends with everyone (or have it be an invitational war) and you knew everyone was going to be on the same page for the whole war. But that's just not the typical situation for the larger wars.

By all means, experiment with new play styles amongst friends, but it's not a good idea to experiment with play styles at an open-invite war. The problem is in finding new play styles that take advantage of the staples of what makes Nerf NERF. And those are lots of movement/maneuvering, lots of shooting, and as little bunkering as possible.

So far the only NEW play type I've seen that was actually fun was Gunslinger Heaven.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 27 February 2008 - 01:06 AM.

[Falcon]

Thanks, Piney!

CS...yes. Let's just say that SCUN LARPs like no one else can. I present for your laughter Baghead and myself...

[baghead]

By all means, experiment with new play styles amongst friends, but it's not a good idea to experiment with play styles at an open-invite war.

I'd like to counter that arguement with the idea that really, that's the best way to accurately test a new gameplay style, if it's something that everyone can pick up on easily, and enjoy playing, it's a real keeper.

We could use SoCal Sword CTF as an example of this, we kinda made it up on the fly at a YANO, and a fairly big yano, but we only played it once, it really debuted at Geddon 07, and pretty much the only arguments arose from the fact that the flags were too well guarded, but it worked quite nicely in the end, in fact it works better in Large scale games than small.

I'd love to share with you all some of the other Alternative games Falcon and I have bounced off each other and the rest of SCUN, but I'm going to take Falcon's example and simply Suggest people come up with their own games.

In response to Piney's Idea of Passing a football, Falcon and I are working out the rules for something similar using foam frisbees... I'll post something about it in here when it's figured out fully.

and there's another awesome version of CTF we came up with... That I really wish I could share with you... But I want to finish up something that will show y'all how to play it first... so there's some cool stuff comming soon, and I'm sure that everyone could do the same and come up with some fun new ideas using simple things.

Now, we're thinking "how the hell am I gonna get past them to get to the glowing orb atop candy mountain so that I can traverse the misty mountains with it to to caves of despair where I must slay enough level three fell beasts to gain enough boosts to my strength modifier to destroy it?"

Wait wait wait, did you just admit to LARPing Candy Land?

More like Searching for Charlie The unicorn's lost kidneys....kind of larping.

-Bags

Edited by baghead, 27 February 2008 - 01:35 AM.

[Langley]

Protip: Mentioning LARPing on a nerf forum is like comparing someone to Hitler/The Nazis in an internet debate. Whoever does it first, loses.

I always liked single-flag CTF, which is pretty much football/soccer with a flag. Put one flag in the middle, you must bring it to the opposing teams goal. Unfortunately, siege rounds in Jersey usually means time-to-fuck-around-on-a-jungle-gym-with-no-actual-cover rounds.

Having gotten rid of all of my stuff (excepting the crossbow) I'm sort of getting back to basics with nerf this semester, and my friends and I have been having a lot of fun with nite finders that have only had the air restrictors removed. We like to nerf in a couple of different hallways around campus which are reliably empty after 8pm or so when we get started. The guns reload nice and fast, and they don't have quite enough kick for two people to be able to shoot at each other from behind good cover in the places we're nerfing, so there aren't many standoffs. We use stock darts so we don't have to bother with stefan making and we end up only losing about 2-3 darts a week, mostly to dorm room ambushes, so we'll still recover the ammo in May.

We'll probably end up modding the nite finders at some point, and a few of us will make it out to a big NJ war or two, but for right now we can nerf indoors about once or twice a week without having to do anything to prepare. I recommend everyone try it some time. Nite Finders are cheap, there's no reason not to keep two or four around unmodded. Besides, sometimes it's just more fun to use the old suction-cup-tipped micros.

Why haven't we found a way to make suction cup stefans yet, anyway?

[CaptainSlug]

It's not the LARPing itself that bothers me. The gayness of LARP depends entirely upon what you are LARPing as a subject.
Zombie Holocaust LARP = Awesome

Expansive middle ground = undetermined

Anything involving fur suits = Extremely Gay

Why haven't we found a way to make suction cup stefans yet, anyway?

It requires injection-molding and sometimes vulcanizing, neither of which are at-home friendly process. I don't know of any good bulk order suction cup sources.

Edited by CaptainSlug, 27 February 2008 - 01:56 AM.

[Falcon]

So you've been informed of true and proper forum behavior as well! Most excellent.

As for LARping...consider us less of LARPs and more of MAAOOYIPs. Yes, you hear me. MAAOOYIPS. Make An Ass Out Of Yourself In Public.

Have you ever been behind the counter of a fast food chain working the register on a slow night, when you were suddenly approached by a cloaked individual with a jaunty red cap on and wearing a kilt, who proceeded to ask for his drink in a pint?

Have you ever walked through a Wal*Mart and been headed towards the checkout only to find yourself suddenly somewhat in the middle of a group of strangely medieval-dressed characters who are all silently walking in the same direction as yourself? What's more, they suddenly all drop to the floor and take cover in the middle of said croweded Wal*Mart, causing you to crap your pants wondering what's about to hit you that you weren't aware of?

I rest my case.

As for your ACTUAL response, agreed! There are a few guys on my hall who have mavericks in their rooms, and I will routinely put away the crossbow, Splitfire, and all those goodies and bust out a pair of stock Crossfires and go to work. It's great fun. I feel like I'm nerfing back before it ever occurred to me to put a rubber band on my Commlink II. It's all about the laughter, and we keep playing regardless of how many times we've been hit. No hit counts, no STATS...just good old plain American(?) fun.

Edited by Falcon, 27 February 2008 - 01:58 AM.

[Thom]

Now, we're thinking "how the hell am I gonna get past them to get to the glowing orb atop candy mountain so that I can traverse the misty mountains with it to to caves of despair where I must slay enough level three fell beasts to gain enough boosts to my strength modifier to destroy it?"

To sig or not to sig…

Here's my question: what the heck does everyone have against LARPing? Sure, it can be silly, but we're running around playing tag with plastic kids' toys, for crying out loud. Is it the creepy Vampire LARPers who get too "into it" or something?

EDIT: I do seem to recall that LARPing is a potentially volatile topic. I don't mean to troll, just never understood the other POV.

Edited by Thom, 27 February 2008 - 01:56 AM.

[baghead]

Now, we're thinking "how the hell am I gonna get past them to get to the glowing orb atop candy mountain so that I can traverse the misty mountains with it to to caves of despair where I must slay enough level three fell beasts to gain enough boosts to my strength modifier to destroy it?"

To sig or not to sig…

Here's my question: what the heck does everyone have against LARPing? Sure, it can be silly, but we're running around playing tag with plastic kids' toys, for crying out loud. Is it the creepy Vampire LARPers who get too "into it" or something?

I don't know... but it's better to define our kind of larping as Makeing An Ass Out Of Yourself In Public... but MAAOOYIP doesn't roll off the tongue like LARP... I use plushies as summons and speak in a heavy Scottish accent when we play..."Now, do you want your soul devoured laddie? OF COURSE YOU DON'T IT'S TERRIBLY PAINFUL!" and yes, I'm shouting this at my comrades while we're in a wall*mart.

And that's what that's all about.


now, back to discussing nerf. Go Forth and come up with something different and Fun!

EDIT: Damn you falcon!!! Your edit renders my post Moot! jerk.

Edited by baghead, 27 February 2008 - 02:09 AM.

[One Man Clan]

It's not the LARPing itself that bothers me. The gayness of LARP depends entirely upon what you are LARPing as a subject.

No Slug, no it does not. ALL LARP is gay. End of discussion. Bags/Falcon, I truly don't know what to say.

[VACC]

It's not the LARPing itself that bothers me. The gayness of LARP depends entirely upon what you are LARPing as a subject.

No Slug, no it does not. ALL LARP is gay. End of discussion. Bags/Falcon, I truly don't know what to say.

Yeah, I was reading all the long winded pontification until larping came up. Tabletop I can handle, larping... not so much.

Anyway, famine and I invent at least two new war types for every deal war we have, and so far the only one to catch on is the one we've been shoving down people's throats from the begining ( gunslinger heaven took 4 years to catch on). The rest generally don't work and we wouldn't even try them if it wasn't invitational. Ctf is extremely iffy unless the field is perfectly suited for it, which, more often than not, it isn't. Another note that you should seriously take to heart as we have learned it over years of painful experience: the more rules, with any war type, the worse.

The idea is more or less sound. But it is the least of my worries to be honest. With the majority of the " nerfers" online having never attended a war, I'm far more concerned with getting them out than with mixing it up.

[Jedijoe9]

I foresee some variation of Humans vs. Zombies becoming a pretty popular gametype in the future, if not already (I've read about it happening at least a couple times at wars). We've done some smaller rounds of it and it really forces you to mix things up. That crossbow may be great at accurately hitting someone from 70 or 80 feet, but what about when three or more people are recklessly rushing you with no regards to their own safety? It becomes much more prudent to carry a Maverick or even a RF20. That sort of game also really lends itself to letting new players get the feel for Nerf and hopefully in turn getting them more interested in Nerfing. That what happened for me.

Also, I just ordered a documentary on LARPing for a analysis of documentaries class that I am taking. It looks like a hoot...these guys are extremely dedicated (and possibly crazy). Hopefully it will be an interesting watch. It's called Darkon

[VACC]

I foresee some variation of Humans vs. Zombies becoming a pretty popular gametype in the future, if not already (I've read about it happening at least a couple times at wars). We've done some smaller rounds of it and it really forces you to mix things up. That crossbow may be great at accurately hitting someone from 70 or 80 feet, but what about when three or more people are recklessly rushing you with no regards to their own safety? It becomes much more prudent to carry a Maverick or even a RF20. That sort of game also really lends itself to letting new players get the feel for Nerf and hopefully in turn getting them more interested in Nerfing. That what happened for me.

Also, I just ordered a documentary on LARPing for a analysis of documentaries class that I am taking. It looks like a hoot...these guys are extremely dedicated (and possibly crazy). Hopefully it will be an interesting watch. It's called Darkon

At the UMD war I rocked out with my crossbow, and then I was the last human standing in the HVZ (check out my title, collective bitches). Mavericks and rf20's are rather useless to tell you the truth. Which is why it's not really a NERF scenario. HvZ is fun if you have the right environment but it takes a ton of time to set up and pull off. For that reason I don't think it's wise to play it in the context of a normal nerf war. It's not really something you can just jump into.

[Carbon]

I like this discussion, it's amusing in many ways.

I've spent some time thinking about possible games (particularly involving the Tech Target) but never came up with anything really workable. This whole discussion got me thinking....how about one person wears the target? Rig up some straps, and one person (deemed "it") keeps it on their back in a small area. Play "Stop the Noise", and "It" scores a point if they're able to not get hit before the continuous beeping. Or, Countdown...set a timer, and everyone tries to peg "it" before a certain amount of time.

And I have to chime in...I never got to fantasy LARP. However, I dress for Ren Faires. People always ask me where the bathrooms are...they think I work there. True confessions...I Vampire LARPed. However, I always played the crazies, so it skewed a lot closer to MAAOOYIP than creepy Goth stuff.

[moleman]

ok if he is larping like i larp than he should be cool becouse i do it like a arena no story no quests just ctf or slayer but whean you Integrate it into nerf i think that everybody that cant afford good guns will make a boffer sord and start slashing each other up and as soon as you know it its larp again

[LiterSize]

Did someone say LARPing?

I myself haven't tried, but far be it from me to judge.

As far as game types go, my group usually did CTF. One game type I never got to try though was one I heard about years ago. It involved using the tech target as the defend/plant scenarios one would often see in Counterstrike. That one always sounded interesting because at least one guy on the defending team needed to keep a screwdriver handy. With the vulcan coming out, this sounds even more interesting!

[imaseoulman]

True story: Last October I was outside with a couple making some steffans for a war we were going to have that evening (none of our wives wanted us hotgluing in their living rooms). I had a bunch of my guns just lying out for testing purposes when this LARPer (aka big doofer) walks by and inquires as to what we are doing. Now, at this point I didn't know he LARPed but I used the word "LARPer" to refer to major goobers, anyway, I briefly explained that we were modifying NERF guns for a NERF war...He LAUGHED. I got laughed at by a LARPer. I couldn't believe it. The LARPer thought I was ridiculous (he since has become quite attached to watching me test my guns in the parking lot from his apartment window).

As far as new game scenarios, a couple years back, when I was still just engaged to my wife, my wife was taking a "Young Adult Fiction" class (literature majors, meh) and they read "Ender's Shadow." I became a big fan of anything related to "Ender's Game" when I was in high school and he had a lot of long philosophical talks about the moral dilemas presented in the novels. Anyway, she and a small group had to do a presentation (about 30 min. long) on Ender's Shadow. She asked me if I could bring my NERF guns (I have a large unmodified collection of Mavs, DTB's, MS's, and NF's for indoor wars) and come up with something to represent the Battle Room in "Ender's Game."

So I packed up a large suitcase full of NERF blasters and brought them to her class. After her group did all of their other stuff, I was announced as Colonel Graff (a character from the books in charge of training young children to become brilliant combat commanders) and I took the stage. I improvised some sort of motivational, "You're probably not good enough to go to battle school, but it's my job to prove it to you" monologue and then told them the game scenario and gave them all a rundown of how to operate the weaponry. Did I mention there was only one guy in the class and he was mildly retarded (wears the same pants and jacket every day and doesn't quite get how to handle social situations)?

Anyway, I divided the group of gigglers (not even college can take the giggle out of the girl) into two groups and one person in each group was essentially a human flag. They had to wear a Dart Tag Vest and if they were shot with a normal dart (we used stock darts only) they had to go back to their starting point of the long narrow hall way. Each team was given a plethora of suction-tipped darts and only a small set number of tagger darts. It was one hit elimination (with the exception of the "human flag" who was only dead if a tagger dart stuck to his vest) and the game ended when one team got their "human flag" to the opposite end of the hallway.

It worked out pretty well. The narrow hallway eliminated any hope of just rushing your human flag through the hall until most of the team was eliminated. I wonder how well this scenario would work in an outdoor situation? If a tagger dart (maybe one/two per player) can end the game by killing the human flag, how might that affect the weaponry used? It wouldn't do any good to have a L.O.S.E.R. gun that couldn't shoot taggers well. I think it might encourage some creative maneuvering to protect your flag long enough to get him to the opposite team's base. Maybe I'll try it my next war. I'll post another scenario, but this post has already gottwn WAY too long.

[Jedijoe9]

imaseoulman, Just the fact that you made an Ender's Game scenario is amazing. Truthfully, it sounds pretty fun too. Anything that encourages teamwork and strategy like that is bound to be exciting. Or maybe I'm just biased because it was Ender's game.

[VACC]

Well, I guess I will give a quick rundown of what exactly Gunslinger Heaven entails since I've got all of jack and shit to do at work at the moment (fucking satellites).

Name: Gunslinger Heaven

Weapons: Every player in a gunslinger heaven round is allowed one, single shot, springer pistol. The playing field should be more or less level in terms of weaponry. (ie anyone with a nightfinder-rifle is to be kicked swiftly in the testicles).

Teams: We generally break people into two man teams, though we have done everyman for himself in the past (unfortunately every man for himself encourages more standoffs and generally takes too long).

Rules: Every player starts out with 2 hitpoints. Once a player loses his first hitpoint he must remove flagging tape (any bright, visible marker will do) from his pocket and place it somewhere prominant on his body. It's generally encouraged to be worn around the head or neck. When donning the marker that nerfer is in "purgatory". If a nerfer in purgatory loses his final hitpoint he dies goes to hell. If, on the other hand, a player in purgatory sends another player to hell (by shooting another nerfer who is in purgatory), he may remove the marker, and regain his second hitpoint. If that nerfer is hit again, he returns to purgatory and the same rules apply. A nerfer may NOT leave purgatory (remove the headband and regain the second hitpoint) by sending another nerfer to purgatory. A nerfer with both hitpoints may not gain a third hitpoint under any circumstances. The battle ends when only one nerfer or team is left standing.

Double Kills: If both nerfers are in purgatory, they remain in purgatory after the double kill. If both nerfers had all their hitpoints, they both go to purgatory afterwards. If one nerfer is in purgatory, and the other is not, the nerfer in purgatory dies and the nerfer who previously had 2 hitpoints is now in purgatory.

What makes this more interesting is that after one member of a team is killed the remaining solo nerfers generally form temporary alliances (this is not part of the rules, or even encouraged. It just kinda happens). Now, if two members of a team that was formed before the round survive, both win. However, if a team formed as an alliance mid round is left standing, the team members are gonna have to sort it out gunslinger style.

Sounds complicated, but once you actually play it you'll see that it's not. We started running this at a tiny invitational war in 2004, and have been running it at every deal ever since. It has more recently become popular at nerf wars up and down the east coast.

[Cannonball]

I like the sound of that. It's good to sometimes get "up close and personal" in the way only a springer pistol can provide. Not to mention it's fun.

[Cmdrmack]

We should enter these variations at the Nerf Wiki. There are already entries for Assault/Siege, VIP, CTF and Elimination/deathmatch.

[sam]

We tried playing "Gunslinger Heaven" at the last MN war we had. It didn't work out quite so well, since I had to base it off of discussion in the Deal thread, and we didn't have enough people to split up into teams of two. But I think we're going to give it a try again this 15th. Hopefully it will go better.

[Falcon]

Alright, NOW we're getting somewhere.

Keep the game types coming! I'm off to go rename the thread appropriately.

As for the commenting on LARP...drop it. It was a random cross-reference between tabletop and maaooyip'ed retardation, and therefore doesn't require any further discussion. Game types, comments on game types, and suggestions/modifications thereof, please.

[One Man Clan]

As for the commenting on LARP...drop it.

Fine, but that doesn't make it any less gay.