WSG, IRL

May 26, 2008 11:12 PM

I need advice on how to organize an urban, neighbourhood-wide Capture the Flag game.

We're anticipating about 12-15 players per team, but neither of us have played capture the flag since small times.

Right now we've drawn up an area of about 9 square residential city blocks to play in. Tagging will involve removing an accessible handkerchief/banada from the pack pocket, but we haven't thought too much about the jail/jailbreak provisions or need for officiating.

We'd love to hear about experiences that people have had with similar events.

posted by wolfsleepy to sports, hobbies, & recreation (8 comments total)

Email Newmindspace. I did not attend any of their events but I hear good things about them. I'm sure Kevin and/or Lori will be happy to chat.
posted by GuyZero at 11:50 PM on May 26, 2008

Several years ago, we ran a game over a total area eight square blocks in our small downtown area. At the peak of the event, we had teams of 15-20 on each side.

I believe what we did was draw a dividing line at some major street bisecting the area. If you were on your home side, you were safe and couldn't be tagged out. If you were in enemy territory, then you could be tagged out and you had to head back to your own side before you were allowed to do anything else. That way, nobody had to be stuck playing the jailor, and the game was pretty much self-officiated. There wasn't really much to enforce it other than the honor system, but there were so many people playing that it was hard to cheat the system without somebody seeing you (Also, there was some other rule about the immediate area near the enemy's flag being a safe zone to prevent cheap defenders, but I forget the specifics).

If you needed to crack down on the rules a bit harder, you could make it so that when you are tagged, the victim has to surrender their headband/team identification thing, and the only way to get a new one is to head back to your own base and pull one out of a box. If a player doesn't have a visible identifier, then they're pretty much forfeit until they get a new one.
posted by Zaximus at 12:12 AM on May 27, 2008

I hate being the one to say this, but once you have a game plan, notify your local police. In today's "if you see something, say something" society, a fun game could turn into a major story on the 11 o'clock news about how a gang of "suspected terrorists assaulting the neighborhood" were hauled away or somesuch.
posted by phredgreen at 4:15 AM on May 27, 2008

I suggest a different "game", which I used to play with my friends in Chicago when I was in grade school:

One person starts out as "It" everyone they tag becomes "It" with them, until it's everyone looking for one person.

Pros:
Scales well (and rapidly). New people can join ad hoc, and the game isn't disrupted, or become unbalanced. It's easy to add new people, you simply tag them, and tell them anyone they tag is "It" as well.

Easy to restart without forcing a re-group: just declare yourself "It" and the game starts again for you and anyone in your immediate vicinity.

Induces a general level of paranoia, because you have no idea who is "It" and who isn't, except the people you're with, who clearly aren't "It" until, well, one of them becomes "It" and then it gets really exciting.

Cons:
No clear defined winner, ever.
Turns into complete chaos in about an hour or two.
Generally not a game so much as running around the city like a lunatic.

It really is the ideal urban game if you're under the age of 15, or like to pretend that you are.
posted by Freen at 5:47 AM on May 27, 2008

can i play?
posted by xz at 7:52 AM on May 27, 2008

We used to play at my summer camp, in the woods.

Dividing line between territory: absolutely necessary. We used to use flour because it washed away. You could use sport paint/turf paint which also washes away. it would be good to use something nontoxic.

Safe zone around flag: yes, recommended. Our rule was that defenders had to stay at least 10 feet from the flag itself. This helped prevent insane defense/tackle actions. Even if the flag was nabbed by a marauder, then brought to another location and lost again, it "carried" its 10-foot safe zone with it and the zone remained in effect whenever it hit the ground again.

Jail: Our jail was a small area near the dividing line between the two territories. Jail term was 2 minutes. Somebody did have to play jailor, but we usually gave that job to whoever had a broken ankle that week or was just feeling lazy. Surely you know someone who wants to be part of the action but isn't that into running around. Give them a stopwatch and a ref shirt.

Flag hiding: Before the start of the game, each team had an equal amount of time to hide the flag. Our flags were much larger than bandannas - made of painted bedsheets and the like, the size of a small actual flag. The rules allowed for balling the flag up, knotting it, and otherwise disguising it, but we stipulated that it had to be hidden between three and six feet off the ground. This prevented extreme hiding places. You could change the parameters, but I recommend having parameters, especially in a city, or someone will have it on the roof of a building in no time.

Tagging: We used a "tail,"a bandanna or sock threaded loosely through a belt loop or tucked into the waist band. The "tail" had to extend at least six inches from the body. Teams were told apart using a knot system: a knot in the "tail" vs. no knot, or "knotsies" vs "no-knots." It wasn't legal to tie the tail to your clothing in any way - it had to be pullable. Tagging consisted of pulling the tail of another person. The puller handed the tail back to the pull-ee and the pull-ee went to jail. In times where we had rampant cheating, rules called for the puller to escort the pull-ee to jail, where the tail was handed to the jailer, and only returned after the jail time was up.

Passing: it was legal to hand off or toss the flag from one runner to another on the same team.

Body contact: between shoulders and knees only, anything else warranted jail term (no toe-stomping, eye-poking, hair-pulling).

Winning: flag had to cross the territory line. End of game was signalled with a bell that could be heard across camp. I'm not sure how you'd signal in a city, but do choose something that won't alarm the police - like, not a whistle. Maybe cell phones?


Have fun, sounds awesome.
posted by Miko at 10:01 AM on May 27, 2008

The rules allowed for balling the flag up, knotting it, and otherwise disguising it

I should be very clear; the flag had to be "in plain view" - you couldn't cover it up with something else. By "disguising it" I meant finding places to camoflauge it, like a clothesline. But it had to be visible, in plain sight.
posted by Miko at 10:02 AM on May 27, 2008

I see you are in vancouver.
you should talk to these folks:
http://www.manhunt-vancouver.com/
posted by Acari at 3:28 PM on May 27, 2008