Office of Strategic Services
Department of War
United States of America
Office of the Director for Intelligence
Agent Traxata, welcome to the OSS.
Your first assignment is to be deployed to Lisbon to follow up on the assassination of MI6 Agent Mr. Orange. We suspect a rogue operative within the OSS murdered Agent Orange during an information exchange. Your task will be to weed out this rogue operative and eliminate him or her.
Your contact in Lisbon will be Agent Zooggy. He's been in Lisbon for some time and has tracked down this rogue operative. Upon your arrival in Lisbon, Agent Zooggy will give you the identity of the killer. You are to eliminate him as soon as possible and await further instructions by Agent Zooggy. It is suspected, but not yet proven, that this rogue operative is not acting alone, but is, in fact, a member of a small rogue cell. If this is confirmed, you are to keep terminating these rogue agents until the whole cell has been eliminated, at which point, you will be cleared to return.
A final word of warning: we strongly suspect that the rogue cell has access to a mole inside the OSS. Watch your back, out there.
That is all. Good luck.
Brigadier General John Magruder
--//--
Hey, there,
These are the rules of the game (as far as you know them up to this point):
A - Start of the game
The game does not "start". It is ongoing. Your participation in the game starts with your first target assignment. You yourself will be a target for some other player. (For now), you will never be your target's target.
B - Who else is playing
You don't know and I won't tell you. Except that, your target is also playing the game. Up until you kill them, that is.
C - Receiving a target assignment
You will receive a PM from me with the subject line: [SvS] Target Identification. The body of the message will contain the (current) forum ID of your target. (If your target changes forum IDs, as a couple of people have done recently, they will still be your target. I'll do my best to keep you informed of any changes.)
If you eliminate your target (section F), your target gets Burned (section G) or your target goes Missing in Action (section H), you will receive a new target assignment and the game will go on from there.
D - Engaging your target
There are two ways to engage your target: via Planted Device or via Direct Hit. The procedures for each are outlined in section F below. The rules of engagement are as follows:
- You must send me a Planted Device message. It signals your acceptance of the target and the beginning of your hunt.
- You may set up as many Direct Hit posts as you want, including zero.
E - Losing
If you get Killed (section F) or go Missing in Action (section H), you are out of the game. If you get Burned (section G), there is a way to get back into the game, but I won't tell you about it until it happens. In any case, you will receive a PM from me with a properly formated [SvS] subject line and a mesage body with any appropriate links explaining what's happened.
F - Eliminating your target
F.1 - Planted Device
1) Set up: Send me a PM with the subject line: [SvS] Planted Device: <target name>. The body of the message should consist of a list of exactly five words. The following words are invalid:
- and; or; but; if; then; etc
- what; how; when; where, and others of the sort
- not; no; yes
- All pronouns and variations thereof, such as I, their, an, etc...
- All propositions, such as in; onto; over, etc...
- Any word with less than three letters.
- Verbal forms not in the infinitive.
2) Walk in range: Your target walks in range of your device by posting any post to any thread in a publicly accessible section of the forums, which contains at least one of the words on your list, or a variation thereof. Variations include all plurals, verb forms, prefixation or suffixation, and any other gramatically valid variation. Contractions count as the words that form the contraction. The timestamp for your target's post must be later than the timestamp of your PM to me. However, the following threads are off-limits and safe:
- The Happy Birthday thread for your target, if it exists. Any other congratulatory threads are kosher, however.
- Any thread in any section which requires special forum privileges to access.
3) Trigger the device: You must post to the same thread as your target, quoting any part of his post that includes at least one of the words. The quote must be a recognizable vBulletin BBCode quote that links back to your target's post, like any normal post quote does when people click the Quote button. Ideally, it should make sense in the thread, so as to maintain your cover.
4) Verify the kill: Basically, send me a PM with the subject line: [SvS] Target Killed: <target name>. The body of the message should be a link to your post. I will then verify that your link complies to the conditions outlined above. From then on, your target has exactly 24 hours to attempt to dodge the device. If they do, they get a Burn Notice. If not, your target is dead. The timestamp of this PM determines the Time of Death.
F.2 - Direct Hit
1) Set up: Make any post in any forum thread in a publicly accessible section of the forums. This post must conform to the THN forum rules and principles, and ideally, it should make sense in the thread, but other than that, anything is free game, except:
- Any post with a timestamp earlier than your Planted Device PM to me. You cannot set up a Direct Hit before you set up the Planted Device.
- The first post of a thread. You cannot set up a Direct Hit by starting a new thread. Any post from the second onward is kosher, however.
- The Happy Birthday thread for your target, if it exists. Any other congratulatory threads are kosher, however.
- Any thread in any section which requires special forum privileges to access.
2) Line of fire: Your target walks into your line of fire by posting in the same thread, and either:
- Posting immediately after you in chronological order; or
- Quoting any part of your message. The quote must be a recognizable vBulletin BBCode quote that links back to your post, like any normal post quote does when people click the Quote button.
3) Take the shot: Basically, send me a PM with the subject line: [SvS] Direct Hit: <target name>. The body of the message should be a link to your target's post. I will then verify that your link complies to one (or both) of the conditions outlined above. If it does, your target is dead. The timestamp of this PM determines the Time of Death.
G - Burn Notice
There are several ways of getting Burned in the game. Basically, if you post specifically about the game in any thread and I notice it or am made aware of it in any way, you will be given a Burn Notice. From then on, the rules change for you, but you'll get a briefing about that if and when it happens.
One way of getting Burned is attempting to dodge a kill.
G.1 - Planted Device
When you see someone quote a post from you and you suspect they may be triggering a device, you have 24 hours to post to that thread with the single word "Dodge!". No intros and no signoffs. (The automated post signature is ok.)
Be warned that any "Dodge!" post will get you Burned and out of the normal part of the game, making it much, much harder for you to win, even if the post you are dodging is not a Planted Device trigger post. But if it was, hey, at least you're still alive.
G.2 - Direct Hit
When you quote someone using actual "" quotes or an improperly formated vBulletin BBCode quote that doesn't point to the post you quoted, you will be given a Burn Notice. You will, however, become temporarilly immune to killing by the poster of the quoted post.
H - Missing in Action
A player will go Missing in Action if:
- They go more than two weeks without visiting the forums; or
- They go more than a month without posting to the forums.
If your target goes Missing in Action, send me a PM with the subject line: [SvS] Missing in Action: <target name>. The body of the message should contain a link to his forum profile. I will verify the conditions above and issue you a new target.
If you go Missing in Action, I will send you a final PM about it, but regardless, you are out of the game.
I - Quitting
There is no formal way to quit the game. If you no longer wish to play, simply stop playing. Eventually, you'll either get killed or be declared MIA. You'll get a final PM from me telling you what happened, and that'll be the end of it.
J - Fair play
There are several hundred registered users on the forum, of which about one hundred are active enough to have visited us within this past week. Although any forum thread might potentially have an impact on the game, these rules are not intended to discourage you from otherwise participating normally in any discussions you would normally participate in.
Naturally, I won't have any way to know if you abstained from posting something you otherwise wanted to post for fear of losing this.
However, out of the several dozen active posters on the boards, only one of them will be after you. Whatever post you're looking at, chances are that that's not the one.
So, participate normally, like you would, and try to enjoy the ride.
K - Winning
There are two ways to win the game:
- If, at any time after the game starts for you, you are the only agent left alive that isn't Burned, you win immediately.
- There is another way to win, but I won't tell you how that works until it becomes possible.
L - Questions, comments and notifications
PMs to me within the game should always include the prefix [SvS] in the subject line. If they don't, they will have no impact on the game, though I will reply to you and say so. You are then free to re-send the message.
Questions about the game but not necessarily within it should also be made via PM, but in that case, there's no need to worry about the prefix (although it does help me). I will respond to your questions or comments to the best of my ability within the spirit and rules of the experiment.
M - Final note
I say experiment because that's what this game is. I have no idea whether it'll work at all, let alone whether it will be fun. After the experiment has run its course, there will be a public discussion about it. I hope it turns out to be fruitful, but only time will tell.
Good luck. Have fun.
Cheers,
J.
