Rules of the Game

Edit Date: 5/16, 2010

-= Summary =-

Duel Assassin is a game within the games. Participants (to be known as Agents) will have Health Points (HP) and Assassination Points (AP). Each Agent will be assigned a Mark; that is, another Agent in the game who they need to get into a duel with and defeat. Agents earn AP by defeating their Marks or other Agents in the duels, or by completing Mission Tasks (MT). Agents accrue Damage by being defeated. If an Agent's Damage total meets or exceeds their HP total (ie: their Net HP drops to zero or less) then s/he will be out of the game at the end of that week. The winner will be either the last Agent standing or the Agent with the most AP at the end of the game.

Interested? Keep reading to get the full details.

-= Game Start =-

To start the game all Agents will be anonymous (refered to as "masked"), they will have 5 Health Points, 0 Assassination Points and 0 Damage. Agents will be randomly assigned a Mark and list of Missions Tasks.

-= Health Points and the Mask =-

Net HP is the value of HP minus Damage taken. This is effectively the measure that keeps an an Agent in the game. An agent's Mask is measured strictly against their Damage total, rather than Net HP. Each Agent begins with 5 HP and will have opportunities to increase this value (see Mission Tasks). If an agent's Damage total reaches 4 or more, however, s/he will become unmasked, meaning all other participants will know the Agent's real identity.

Agents will accrue Damage and/or HP in the following ways:
Defeated in a duel by another Agent +1 Damage
Defeated by an Agent who has you as their Mark +3 Damage
Your Contractor (see below) is defeted by your Mark +1 Damage
Dueling 0 times in a given week +3 Damage
Dueling only 1 time in a given week +1 Damage
Complete 3 Mission Tasks in a given week+1 HP
Duel 3+ times in a given week+1 HP

Earning HP doesn't so much heal Damage, but rather it increases the total amount of Damage an Agent can suffer before their Net HP drops to zero and knocks them out of the game.

Note that no Agent will be unmasked in the first weekly interval, unless said Agent is also eliminated from the game.

-= Assassination Points =-

APs are awarded for defeating other Agents, defeating your Mark and completing Mission Tasks.
Defeat any Agent +1 AP
Defeat your Mark +3 AP
Defeat your Mark via Contract (see below) +2 AP
Fullfill a Contract (see below) +2 AP
Contribute to the knockout of an Agent in week knocked out +1 AP
For each MT completed +1 AP (max +2 per week)
For each week survived +1 AP
APs will determine the winner in the event there is more than 1 Agent left in the game at the end of the pre-determined game length.

In the event of any additional runs of the game, APs will also be used to determine rankings where higher ranks will begin with certain advantages over lower ranks. eg: a highly ranked Agent may begin with an unmask value of 5 rather than 4 and things of that nature.

-= Weekly Intervals =-

The game will run on weekly intervals from Thursday through Wednesday. No HP, AP or Damage values will be applied until the end of an interval. All Agents should check the website on Thursday evenings before dueling begins to see their new Marks, MTs and point values.

-= Agent KnockOut =-

An agent is knocked out of the game once their Net HP becomes zero or less. This cannot happen until the calculation of points at the end of the Weekly Interval, however. What this means is that you are in the game up until Mission Control tells you otherwise. You may know on Friday that your HP total is exhausted, but that will not prevent you from playing the spoiler until Thursday when points are released. Any damage you inflict on other Agents will still count until you are officially out of the game. As well, any points earned will also be applied to your total.

All Agents to win duels against an Agent who is knocked out, in the week they are knocked out, will receive 1 AP.

-= Mission Tasks =-

MTs are small tasks that Agents can complete during the Weekly Interval to earn extra points. Mission Control holds a large inventory of these tasks and will randomly assign 3 tasks to each Agent at the beginning of the Weekly Interval. Tasks will have varying difficulties, but will mostly be things an Agent can accomplish during regular dueling. Examples of MTs include such things as:

  * Execute a bookend parry during a swords duel.
  * Duel a Baron / Opal / Keeper in the sport they are titled in.
  * Score with a hook in a fists duel.

Completing MT's will earn the Agent 1 AP for the first 2 and the 3rd will earn a bonus of 1 HP. In some, rare, cases an MT may award aditional benefits. (I don't have any right now that do, but I'm leaving myself creative room here).

-= Mark Assignments =-

Mark assignments will be done randomly. Each Agent will be assigned a Mark and each Agent will be the Mark of some other Agent. There is no guarantee that you and your Mark duel in the same sport. At the beginning of each Weekly Interval you may, or may not, receive a new Mark assignment. This will largely depend on whether or not any Agents have been knocked out of the game and how many.

No Agent will be the Mark of more than one other Agent, unless you've somehow angered Mission Control.

There is no trading of Marks, though you may hire a contractor (see below).

You can only get the credit for defeating your mark once per week. If you fight this person a second time during the weekly interval, however, you can still claim an agent defeat worth +1 AP.

-= Contract Killings =-

There will be times when an Agent feels they need help. Perhaps the Mark never duels in your sport of choice or maybe you've been unmasked and know you can no longer get close to them. When this happens Agents are given the option to contract their assigment.

A contract is an agreement between the Agent and some other duelist, it does not need to be another Agent. You may hire only 1 contractor per Weekly Interval and once hired the contractor cannot be fired and may not resign during said Weekly Interval. Once hired, you are bound to each other for the Interval.

The effect of the Contract relationship is that you now share in each other's success or failure where the Mark is concerned (and *only* where the Mark is concerned). If either of you defeat the Mark then you will each earn 2 APs from the success (rather than the 3 AP normally gained from defeating the Mark). You will, however, both suffer 1 Damage if either of you loses to the Mark. Of course, if the contractor isn't an Agent, then this is meaningless to them.

To hire a Contractor you must send email to Mission Control, copying the contractor, so that we are aware. The Contractor must also respond to this email with their acceptance. Both emails must be timestamped at least 1 hour previous any duel between either party and the Mark in order to be valid.

-= Agent Reporting: IMPORTANT =-

All Agents will be repsonsible for reporting their successes themselves, WITHIN 24 HOURS (or less if accomplished on a Wednesday night). Mission Control has attempted to make this reporting as painless as possible and each Agent will see the reporting form in their dossier (ie: agent section of the website).

Failure to report on an accomplishment will likely result in said accomplishment not being counted towards your score. No amount of pleading or complaining will change this, and attempts to do so could make your carreer as an Agent more difficult. Once reported, Mission Control will invesitage the legitimacy of the claim and certify the accomplishment before it is scored.

False filings are an excellent way to anger Mission Control. Agents doing so may find themselves burned (booted from the game) or as the Mark for multiple other Agents, depending on how egregious the transgression.