78 replies to this topic

[d0nk3y k0n9]

If you needed a good way to keep track of kills for a deathmatch/team deathmatch, just have someone sit at a table in the respawn area and ask each person who killed them. Once you answer, you can respawn, and the person at the table writes it down and keeps score. Obviously, this works better with teams, since then you can just say that you were killed by someone on the red team or whatever. With two teams, obviously, the person at the table just has to count the number of people respawning.

[imaseoulman]

While I was with a buddy looking over the field we'll be using for our war on the 22nd, I rememberd a game-type I hadn't played in years, but have had a lot of fun with. It's sort of a "survival", "king of the hill", "single flag capture the flag" mix. We always called it 'Hostile Takeover'. The gist of the game is one team defending a very well fortified base with a flag in the best protected area and another team trying to reach that flag in a given amount of time (say...twenty minutes for big teams and large playing field or ten minutes for smaller teams with a smaller field or for an even faster paced game, move it down to five minutes). We usually play single hit elimination, causing the attacking team to be very strategic. They can't just be "cautious" or they'll run out of time. But if they just rush the well defended base, they're just going to get mowed down.

A few other variations we usually include are that you don't have to start in the bases. The defending team usually gets a larger degree of freedom in starting position (maybe they get two thirds of the field to place team members). Often the defending team opts to attack the attackers' base early in the round (this usually only works with larger teams) to prevent them from coming anywhere near the flag.

If you're in the mood for a fast-paced war, this isn't a bad scenario. We'll definitely be playing it at our war on the 22nd.

[karpenter63]

Swashbuckler's Heaven

Armory
Single Shot Pistol
Foam Sword or Noodle

Rules
General: 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. (Directly Copy and Pasted from VACC's Post regarding Gunslinger's Heaven rules)

Swords: Swords may be used at anytime during the game to kill your opponent, deflect darts etc. However since swords are close range to a nitefinder's long range, relatively speaking of course, it is hard to actually get close enought to actually hit someone with your sword without being shot in the process. So, what you may do is, if you make eye contact with your opponent (eye contact is not necessary, what I mean is your opponent must know you are talking to him/her) you can yell "I challenge thee to a duel", or just "duel" and the pistols suddenly become off limits. While in a duel you are not allowed to shoot at your opponent, if you do you lose a life. Another rule about duels is if you see one under way you may not shoot at the two people engaged in an honorable sword fight. I say two people because a duel cannot consist of more than two people.

[Philote]

This thread is cool , albeit old, but still awesome.
Bunker Defence.

Recommended Players: 4v4+

Rules: One team is deemed "The Defenders." The defenders team's goal is to prevent the Offense from either killing all the defenders or taking control of the bunker by placing a "bomb"(usually a football) inside the bunker and counting to ten. The defenders can win by killing all of the offense, or disarming the "bomb" by killing the person trying to arm it. We play one hit kills shot kills. Gun hits count. The game begins after the Offense counts to 60.

Field: In my backyard there is a fort with a door and two windows. This is used as the bunker. During the 60 seconds before the match begins, the defenders are alloted this time to fortify the bunker with any nearby materials.

Variants: Occasionally, we will change things up a bit, like un-arming the bomb carrier, giving the offense a time limit or taking the defenders primary weapons away.

SideWinder.

Recommended players: Any

Rules: One hit kills, simple Team Deathmatch. First to fifteen. Use two flags on opposite sides of the playing field. The team who begins at one flag, must respawn at the opposite flag by touching the flag and counting to fifteen.

Field: This is recommended for long narrow places with varying terrain on either side. Very Versitile.

Variants: Well, this is pretty straight forward. if you think of any, post 'em!

Storm The House.

Recommended players: BIG TEAMS

Rules: Similar to Bunker def. but on a larger, more realistic scale. One team starts in the backyard( well at my house anyway). These are the Offense. The defense has 100 seconds to ready themselves before the offense makes there move. It is best, for the sake of the game, to leave most doors unlocked. The difference is there are multiple bomb points, multiple bombs, larger teams, and the 3/15 rule. "Dead" players must exit the house, go to the "dead zone" count to fifteen, and then resume. The Offense cannot respawn.

Victory: The Offense wins by planting two bombs at two of the 4 indoor bomb points. The defense wins by either killing all the offense, or planting their own bomb at the outdoor bomb point, usually far from the respawn area. If an offensemen is killed with a bomb, he cannot give the bomb to any ally and must bring the bomb back to the respawn area and place it inside the zone.

Any comments, variants or flames??? Please! I want feedback!

EDIT: Mintee: OK, i get it, although I like multiple objectives, I should try playing it without them. And when I said 100 seconds, I meant the Offense counts to 100. Sorry if it sounded like something else!
EDITEDIT: Zombie outbreak looks really fun, we play something like that that we call Infection(from Halo). Were all zombies use melee weapons.

Edited by Philote, 30 July 2008 - 07:38 AM.

[mintee]

Whew, it took a while to go through this thread.

I must say that a lot of the games recently posted on here forget the simplest rule of them all: KISS (Keep it simple, stupid)!

If it's impossible to absolutely force the players to conform to the rules (the way a computer game would), then you have to limit how many rules the players have to abide by. We humans are fallible beings, after all. Since Nerf wars rely heavily on the honor system, I say:

Forget multiple hit-point systems. Multiple lives/respawns is ok, but for the sake of simplicity, at least limit multiple hits to 'special' players, those who have a special purpose in the game (such as the Alpha zombie in Zombie Outbreak, to be explained below).

Forget time-based objectives unless you have actual timers. This should speak for itself.

Forget overly complicated multiple objectives. Giving multiple objectives to both teams is just asking for trouble.

If it takes over a hundred fifty (150) words to explain it then you should scale it down.

____________________


This one game I've written up worked flawlessly indoors even with humans grouping together, because of the many hiding places for the Alpha Zombie. Outdoors, it's too difficult for a single Alpha Zombie so a few rules need to be changed (I tried changing them on the fly and wound up adding objectives and became a clusterfuck of a LARP/HvZ/Nerf that was too unbalanced). I'm trying to balance it for both indoor and outdoor.

I present to you, for criticism and suggestions, Zombie Outbreak.

Zombie Outbreak
- 1 player starts out as the Alpha Zombie.
- The Alpha Zombie must wear a dart tag vest (or some other mark). He gets 30 seconds to hide before the game starts.
- Humans can use all weapons and reasonably sized shields.
- Humans start the game after the Alpha has hidden.
- Any human who is tagged on their body by a zombie becomes a zombie, and respawns as one.
- After every death (or when you turn into a zombie), you must sit where you were tagged and count to 20. Zombies have infinite lives.
- Tagging a zombie while he is out does not reset his time to zero.
- All players are 1-hit kills, with the exception of the Alpha Zombie, who takes 2 hits to kill.
- Only the Alpha Zombie can use melee weapons. Other 'normal' zombies may only use their hands.
- The last human alive starts the next ZO round as the Alpha Zombie.

Indoor
- Only one player starts out as the Alpha Zombie, with no additional zombies.

Outdoor
- The Alpha Zombie starts off alongside a team of normal zombies (the total number of zombies being the total number of players combined divided by 5 rounded to the nearest digit).

____________________


A simpler, equally fun game we play at NUVO is Freeze Tag. I don't know how to change it otherwise. It works.

Freeze Tag
- Played with two or more teams.
- Unlimited lives.
- To win, each team must eliminate the opposing team(s) by freezing all members of the opposition at once.
- Once you are hit, you are frozen. This means you are stuck in place and cannot walk around. You MUST sit down or crouch.
- To respawn, a teammate must 'tag' a crouching/sitting frozen player with his/her hand. You have respawned the moment a teammate's hand makes contact with you.
- Puppy-guarding frozen players is forbidden. Camping is OK. No meat-shielding, no physical contact with any frozen players of the opposite team.


Please give me any feedback regarding the two, especially Zombie Outbreak. If you've got a different Zombie game, please post the rule set - I'd like to compare and adjust.

[Ambience 327]

Wow - I think this may be a first. A necro-fest that actually adds quite a bit to the conversation.

Noobs take note - THIS is when it is ok to bring old, crusty threads kicking and screaming back into the light!



To keep on topic, here's one that I've been brainstorming for a while, which can work well with any group of about 6 or more players, though more players would make it better:



TROPHY HUNTERS

This is a free-for-all. Each player starts with a token (clothespin, poker chip, etc) that is easy to carry & hand over. When a player is eliminated, they have to quickly hand over their token to the player that eliminated them, then vacate the field. (Any tokens they have already collected from others stay with them.) When time is called (or you are reduced to one player standing), each player counts the number of tokens they are carrying. Whoever has the most tokens (including their own if they have not been eliminated) is the winner.

[laxtk88]

A new game type that has arisen in my area is an HvZ variation. We call it team HvZ. It is the same as regular HvZ except that everyone (or about five OZs depending on the size of the war) is a zombie. If a player converts another player then that player is on their team. Simple right? I know what you’re thinking now: But what if player 2 gets hit? Then that player is on the attacker's team. If a sublevel zombie (converted zombie) shoots someone then that player is on the same team as the SL zombie. If the team leader zombie gets hit then all of the SL zombies and him are on the shooter's team. It's a lot simpler than it sounds. Ex: Bob shoots bill. Bill is on Bob's team. Bill shoots Joe. Joe is on Bob's team. Jeff shoots Bob. Bill, Bob and Joe are on Jeff's team. Simple as that.

[Ambience 327]

Do you have any easy visual way of knowing which team a person currently belongs to? If not, how do you know who you should be shooting at if you don't see someone get tagged?

Edited by Ambience 327, 30 July 2008 - 11:05 AM.

[Mr Tubb]

Do you have any easy visual way of knowing which team a person currently belongs to? If not, how do you know who you should be shooting at if you don't see someone get tagged?

You could get team jerseys/hats/arm bands that have strong color contrasts, such as blue and red. I think that the arm bands (or headbands) would be easiest, just bring some cut up fabric squares and use a stapler (stapling the fabric into itself around the arm/head, not into the skin.) You could then just pull the staples out after the war is over. Anyway, the freeze tag game sounds fun and very simple.

Edited by Mr. Tubb, 30 July 2008 - 04:36 PM.

[AssassinNF]

Me and my friends usually just do team deathmatches (one hit kills), but we almost always end up with uneven teams (that's fine when you have 20 people, but 2 v 3 or 3 v 4 is a little unfair.

So we introduced a new rule: The losing team gets the first person who got shot on the winning team (if anyone on the winning team got shot) It makes team matches very interesting, and it turns the best players into the biggest targets.

Me and my friend usually end up fighting every one else, then we lose and get whoever we shot first, and then it goes again. It keeps the teams very balanced and switches things up alot. It's hilarious when one person ends up alone against every one else when a two person team wins.

[mintee]

Do you have any easy visual way of knowing which team a person currently belongs to? If not, how do you know who you should be shooting at if you don't see someone get tagged?

http://www.reminderband.com/index.php

Found this in another thread, I'll try ordering some but they should work fine.

[jwasko]

The Nerf "pros" use fluorescent pink, orange, and/or green (non-adhesive) flagging tape, which a person can tie around his/her wrist, upper arm, head, etc.

I'm not sure where you can buy it in-store...I got a roll at a gun show recently, though, so it would probably good to check sporting good stores. Or, paintball/airsoft shops (since I believe they sometimes use similar stuff).

Or, you could use strips of colored felt, which is what SCN has used for a while.

Karpenter, if you're reading this: remind me to bring the flagging tape.

Edited by jwasko, 31 July 2008 - 08:47 AM.

[Kuhlschrank]

I'm not sure where you can buy it in-store...

Flagging tape is mainly used to mark construction sites. It is available at Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace, etc...

[Ambience 327]

My question about knowing who's on what team was more for the game type being described where people would be switching teams regularly. I think it might be a bit difficult for everyone to carry around multiple colored jerseys or armbands or things like that.

What would be an easy, visual way to keep track of 3+ teams, where each player might be on any given team at any given moment? You wouldn't want the switch to take very long (unless you had a mandatory "out" time where they had to sit down and couldn't be shot again until they stood back up - then they would have time to switch bands/bandanas/etc).

[Kuhlschrank]

Just use flagging tape. Everyone has a different colored set for each possible team, many times worn like a sash for easy removal. We use this for Gunslinger Heaven. (Look at the Apoc thread for details on the game type) It is very easy to take one off and put another on, flagging tape isn't THAT easy to rip apart, at least not accidentally.

[laxtk88]

What Kuhlschrank said. And yes, there is an "out" time of 15 seconds. Sorry for not including that.

[imaseoulman]

So, this topic is a bit old, but it's a useful topic and hopefully this is a useful post. I quickly reread through the thread to make sure this wasn't in it, and didn't find it, but it may be burried somewhere in the five pages.

So on Saturday at the NERF war I hosted a bunch of people had to leave early and about five of us wanted to get some more NERFing in so we wanted to make it fun. We decided to play a viral version of NERF and it was the most fun I had all day, and close to the most fun I've ever had NERFing.

The rules are pretty simple (probably why it works so well). You divide into two teams and then if you get shot you go on to the other team. When one team has all the players, the game is over.

PROS:

• You don't need to start with even team, because the game is designed to be constantly shifting.
• Because teams are going to be flexible, you have WAY less down time between rounds. Nobody really cares about teams that much because it's going to change fast. In my opinion, that is probably the best pro for any scenario ever. NERF more stand around less. Can't beat that!
• Fast paced fun.
• Everybody is playing the whole time.
• Many opportunities for heroics (one player by himself trying to turn the tide of the battle and gain allies).

CONS:

• I'm not sure this would work extremely well with large numbers. Maybe it would, but I haven't tried it.

[Ambience 327]

Are you immediately a part of the other team, or do you have to go and pull a "respawn", i.e. head to a designated "spawn point", count to a specific number, then return. I could see this as being the norm, but a few rounds of "insta-switch" could be interesting, and would discourage groups from clumping together too much - you never know when your allies will instantly become your enemies.

As noted for one of the above scenarios, you would also have to use flagging tape or some other easy way to identify which team you are currently on, to avoid confusion and make the game more fun for all involved.

[VACC]

The problem with this game type in larger wars is that once the majority of the combatants are on one team, it just becomes a route.

[Ambience 327]

I can see where some people would find that to be a problem. To me, that sounds like a fun situation. Yes, you are fighting a losing battle, but how long can you survive?

Also, this could be helped a bit more by having more than two teams to start with - and each player would have to switch armbands or whatever at the "spawn point" when they switch teams. It would take some planning and preperation (to have 3 or more sets of colored armbands/bandanas/etc) but I could see it being a fun round or two, and might think about giving it a try at one of our youth group's games sometime soon.

[VACC]

I can see where some people would find that to be a problem. To me, that sounds like a fun situation. Yes, you are fighting a losing battle, but how long can you survive?

The longer you survive the more tedious it is for the other team. There is no sense of danger or excitment for them. Generally half of them just loose interest and a small contingent who are actualy willing to run you down finish the job, or they all call for the game to end.

I'm not projecting here, I'm speaking from experience as I've run a few similar rounds. I just think it works much better in smaller wars. If you REALLY want a "me against the world" scenario, run a small hvz game in an indoor facility.

[Aimless]

I see this game type being extremely fun, but as soon as someone unleashes a few mortars, the rain of foam would be game breaking.

[Ambience 327]

I'm not projecting here, I'm speaking from experience as I've run a few similar rounds. I just think it works much better in smaller wars. If you REALLY want a "me against the world" scenario, run a small hvz game in an indoor facility.

Should work fine for us then - we generally play with between 10 and 30 people, usually towards the lower end of that scale.

[Split]

Maybe for larger wars you could have multiple teams. It would make the rounds long as hell, but the problems that Vacc defined would be less likely to happen.

[aetherguy881]

All of this LARPing talk just makes me think that a LARPed game of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would be interesting. However it would have to cover several days, require lots of usable land, lots of goodies (spawns) and lots of planning. That's why LARPing can be tough.

OMC, LARPing isn't gay, just that some of it could be done without.