The Geekdom Challenge

No geek worthy of the title can NOT know what a
role-playing game is. It could be anything from Dungeons
and Dragons to Babylon 5 (or whatever the newest game
coming out happens to be). For the truly geeky, there are
Live-Action Role-Playing Games--LARPS, where you create a
character and act out the events.

Fewer geeks would claim to know much about paintball.
Unfortunately, the game has come to be characterized by
paintball tournaments, in which the volume of paint sprayed
downfield is often more of a factor than any degree of
accuracy...players dodge and slide from one inflatable
bunker to the next until they either get smacked by a shot,
charge headlong into the wrong bunker (and then get smacked
by a shot), or blindside their opponent (smacking him with
a shot--which is often followed closely by getting smacked
by a shot yourself by the guy covering the person you just
shot).

I started playing paintball back in its early days...not
quite in its infancy--I came along late enough that the
Splatmaster pistols were regarded as archaic (ironically,
paintball sidearms have been enjoying a resurgence, but
that's for another time). When I started playing, the
SL-68II (a pump-action paintball marker) was THE gun to own
for your average player, the VM-68 was the state of the art
in semi-auto markers, and the venerable Autococker was just
hitting the market. I have been playing long enough that
my preferred marker--a Tippman Pro-Am--is one that I got
for free, nearly ten years ago, because it was old enough
that when my roommate moved out unexpectedly (shortly
before his $400 phone bill arrived, ironically enough), he
left it behind because it was old enough to not really be
worth much as a pawn item (he did take his Amiga
computer...but once again, that's a post for a different
time).

But back to the topic at hand...in those days, the majority
of the games were played recreationally...a bunch of guys
and their friends grabbed some paintball guns (either their
own, or a few from the few paintball rental places that
were available at the time), some paint, their camoflage
clothing or just some grungy clothes they didn't worry too
much about, and headed up into the hills to find a couple
of acres of woodland to play on.

These days, that is called 'woodsball', and it's enjoying a
resurgence. Once again, THAT is a post for another time.

Recreational paintball players have, for years and years
and years, enjoyed 'scenario' games...games which have some
kind of a storyline to them. My first one was loosely
based on the Twilight 2000 RPG (I was playing a Czech
private who wanted to defect to the West). There are games
that hearken back to D-Day, to Operation Desert Storm, that
pit teams of terrorists against counter-terrorist squads,
that renew the infamous feud of the Hatfields and the
McCoys (complete with government revenue officers trying to
break up the moonshine trade of both families), and even
just as simple a premise as "You're Team A...They're Team
B. Each of you needs to try and capture, then hold this
hill. We start in ten minutes..."

I have, for the last four years, participated in one
paintball event regularly each summer...a scenario game
called Aliens in the Rockies. Originally inspired by the
storyline of the film Aliens, it's grown a little in scope,
and transformed...combined elements of other popular sci-fi
flims...added and lost characters...but it continues to try
and draw out the recreational-level paintball player for
just a good time spraying some paint at the guys on the
other team.

To be more specific, there are two teams involved in the
game. One team is the Weyland-Yutani Corporate Security
force, generally called the Mercenaries. The other team is
the Colonial Marines (yes, THOSE Marines, although not THAT
unit--they all died, after all). The game is set on planet
LV-529 (or some other, similarly named world), where word
has been received of another Alien infestation. The
Marines are dispatched to investigate and save
survivors...the Mercs are sent to reclaim samples for the
Corporation.

There are a series of missions to be accomplished...ground
to be captured and held at specific times in the game, fuel
dumps to attack or protect, Alien tissue samples to
retrieve, etc. There is also just the general focus of
trying to out-do the other team. Players, when hit, return
to 'dead zones' at their end of the field...and every 20
minutes or so, dead players re-insert into the game, so
everybody gets a chance to play a lot. Game play typically
starts around 4:30-5 pm on a Friday, runs until 11 pm or so
Friday night (with a dinner break--we have to stop at 11
because the neighbors like to complain that we're making
too much noise after that...so we stop BEFORE the sheriff
comes out to tell us to call it a night.) Play resumes
Saturday morning around 9:30 or so, with a lunch break
around 12:30, and runs until 5 or 6 pm. There are no real
prizes for the winning team...just bragging rights. This
is recreational, after all.

There is a third group that operates on the field, of which
I've been a part each year. We exist strictly to add extra
nuances to the game, and to let the guy running the game
finesse the situation on the field so that one team doesn't
end up totally dominating the entire game and making life
miserable for the other team. The third squad is made up
of Aliens, Predators, and the Black Ops Brigade (formerly
the Arms Merchant and Terminators, but those characters
were eliminated this year).

The Aliens have some pseudo-body-armor to indicate that
they are, in fact, Aliens. If you see them on the field,
your best bet is to just walk away. This year's rules
stated only that Aliens were 'hard to kill' (read, the only
way you kill an Alien is to shoot him so many times he
decides it's not longer worth it. Since Aliens tend to run
in packs of at least five, your odds of putting that much
paint on target, past body-armor, before being shot out
yourself are somewhere just past non-existant...some of the
guys playing Aliens would stand there and take the hits
just to claim they shot out fifteen guys on one team...)
Aliens are not commonly in play, as they have a tendency to
totally dominate the action whenever they appear.

I'll skip over Predators for now, and write them up last,
because I played one, and I loved it. The Black Ops
Brigade is a mercenary force that can hire out squads to
provide extra firepower to either team. The Black Ops guys
tend to have some of the newest, biggest toys (like the A-5
'Double-Trouble'...twin paintball guns rigged side-by-side
with a hand-crank on the trigger--fires about 30
paintballs/second into a general vicinity, which is all but
guaranteed to make anyone in the target zone crawl away
whimpering, provided they haven't got so much paint on
their goggles that they can't see where they're going).
These guys also double as Aliens from time to time...tend
to be more experienced players, with proven
level-headedness so they don't get out of control if
someone gets a little overzealous shooting at them, and
also usually with a little better grasp of small-unit
tactics than the average guy on the field (an eight-man
unit, coordinating their efforts, can mow down a vicious
swath of joe-average paintballers pretty easily.) They are
hired out for a limited amount of time, to either side...so
they may start a battle on one team, and be fighting for
the other side by the end of the same battle (it doesn't
happen often, but it IS possible.)

My part in the game was being a Predator. And it was
actually the introduction of Predators into the game that
got me excited enough to shell out $40 to play (not to
mention taking time away from work at what is a busy time
of year for me...) We don't really answer to anybody,
we're just there to introduce an element of random hazard
into the game. The Predator players are pretty much
hand-picked for their ability to be patient and sneaky.
Most of us wear ghillie suits (my older brother, who is the
Head Predator, actually NEVER uses a ghillie suit, and
routinely makes kills that just leave people scratching
their heads and going, "How did he do that?") Our job is
to go out on the field and pick off targets of
opportunity...to trophy-hunt, in other words.

Because we're 'trophy hunting', if one team is dominating
the field of play, we generally end up shooting at that
team a lot. If the other team sways the balance in the
other direction, we start thinning their ranks instead.
But anybody is fair game for us (although we generally
don't shoot Aliens or Black Ops...we're there for the same
reason, ultimately--to make the game more fun and exciting
for the group as a whole.)

The Predators have options on how to make kills, too...the
first, and most natural, is to shoot people. This comes in
handy at times...but it's too easy at times, and at others
it's just not safe. Paintballs hurt like hell when they
hit you from five feet away, and people routinely end up
that close to Predators over the course of the game.

The second, instituted after the first year of play was
done and stories were told of all the people who walked
away from Predator encounters clean because they were too
close to shoot, is to call them out. This was inspired by
the movies...in every scene where the Predator makes a
close-up kill, it says something or makes a noise to alert
its prey that the end is nigh ("Over here", "Danny-Boy",
"Want Some Candy"). Our version is the less-artistic,
more-to-the-point, "I'm a Predator, you're dead." Someone
in our line of fire, at a distance to close to shoot
safely, will hear those words...often, they don't believe
them at first, and sometimes they don't even realize where
the words are coming from. And, occasionally, we have to
prove we're right (they'll instinctively try and shoot once
they realize where we are...at which point, courtesy goes
out the window and we light 'em up.)

The third option is one I haven't tried yet, and it is the
pinnacle of daring and skill. It has been accomplished on
the field a few times...and the victims re-tell the stories
as often as the Predators do (it's kind of heady, being the
stuff of Paintball legends...) That is to actually
physically tag someone out, with either your hand or gun
barrel. This comes in handy when you're the Predator and
someone actually steps on you while you're hiding (this HAS
happened, but not to me) or they hide in the same bush as
you (which has also happened, even to me, although it was a
big bush and I couldn't reach them with a hand...so I just
called them out.)

I realize I've spent WAY too much of this post talking
about a single aspect of this game...but it's the only one
with which I'm experienced. If you want a break from the
first-person shooter video games...along with a better
insight into just how unreal they truly are...try
Paintball. And if you need a little something to add some
spice to your paintball, try scenario games. And if you
want to try your luck against some of the sneakiest
paintballers in the game, try the Aliens game...it's an
annual event, held the weekend closest to the first full
moon after Labor Day (sounds kind of like Easter, huh?
It's so there's enough light to play at night...)

I hope to see you on the field. You better hope you don't
see me, though...


Curtis Kidd
"Remember, the light at the end of the tunnel could be you!"