First rule of Assassins: no violence allowed. Second rule of Assassins: there is no "killing" in the "safe zones." Third rule of Assassins: be sly, stealthy, and ruthless.
Most students spent the last few weeks cramming for midterms, but residents of South and Houston Halls have been focused on a more exciting endeavor: "killing" their hallmates (by pegging them with socks) in games that reward the last student standing with a handsome prize.
Sophomore roommates and first-time assassins Bobby Dutton and Joe Jezak took drastic steps to elude their would-be "murderers" in Houston. They started leaving the building through a different door every day. They left early for their classes and waited in the Houston study room until they thought it was safe to leave the building.
"We did do some drills to practice evading socks. We actually broke a Brita water filter in the process," Jezak said.
On the first night of the game, Jezak and Dutton switched their names with girls on their floor, also making up decoy notes on their white board like, "Can I borrow your red nail polish?" and "Are we still on for shopping tomorrow?" They even took their phone numbers off the Tufts online directory and used a webcam to monitor anyone approaching their door.
Jezak and Dutton used pictures from the freshman face books to identify their potential victims. "We pretty much had [the facebooks] with us at all times," Jezak said. "They're pretty accurate. It was cool."
Was the game as exciting as an episode of "Survivor?"
"I did manage to get a couple of chase scenes, which I was hoping for," Dutton said.
There are always designated safe zones where "kills" are off-limits: the target's own bedroom, the bathroom, any class or classroom setting, or when a target is on the way to or coming back from a shower (this includes anyone wearing a towel at any time of the day).
Other rules vary from dorm to dorm. South Hall residents must affix a post-it note to the body of the victim. In Houston, a kill is made by making contact with the victim using a sock and saying the phrase "Houston Hall."
Resident assistants gave "Dear Assassin" letters to interested students encouraging assassins to use unique strategies to accomplish their hits. Dutton, who is an engineering student, took the advice to heart.
"We found that the rolled up socks had the best aerodynamic properties," he said.
Assassins is an RA-designed game "to build more of a community, so [residents] get to know people outside of their hallway," Houston-organizer and RA Divya Muthappa said.
"[Assassins] was a really big success. [Participants] got to know people from every different floor," Muthappa said. Although she did say that enthusiasm was greatest in the first two weeks.
"102 people started playing the game," she said. "In the first week, 54 people were killed. In the second, only ten more were killed. When the game was down to 24, it became very slow."
After four weeks, Muthappa called the game because of waning interest from participants. She decided to declare as the winners, assassins who were still alive and had killed the most targets.
Rebecca Stone, the organizing RA in South, gave similar statistics. "We started with 103 assassins on Feb. 11 and we are down to 15 as of today," she said.
An assassin in South who wishes to remain nameless because of the continuing game says that this year he was not as into Assassins as he was last year. "I was just lucky [this year]," he said. Some residents did not even get a chance to participate because their RA failed to approach them about playing the game.
"I really missed not playing this year," one resident said. "Last year assassins was a great way to get to know people in your dorm by name and face."
Assassins, though a cutthroat game, does encourage the formation of new acquaintances within the dorm. To find a target, you have to go to his or her floor and look for the person, and talk to people who might know where you could find the victim.
"My assassins called my room repeatedly to try to locate me," sophomore South resident Michael Mariani said. "He called on his cell phone and he was meandering the halls looking for a phone ringing." Mariani added that compared to Tilton, where he lived last year, finding targets in South was harder and required talking to more people, because the dorm is much larger.
Dutton said that he did meet new people through the game, and explained that making your first kill is more complicated than it may seem.
"We had done a little digital reconnaissance of the sign up sheets," he said. "As more people signed up, we had the name and room number. For [the first] kill I went upstairs; I sent a bunch of my buddies up to do scouting. Eventually, I saw a guy in the room next to him I kind of knew."
Dutton recalls that he talked to the contact about sports and such.
"When I made the actual kill, it was because of this guy," he said. "My new contact told me a new name whose room my target was watching a movie in." Dutton said he still says hi to the people he "killed" and the contacts he made through the game.
Winners are awarded 50 dollars in points. Each dorm decides how many winners there will be in their game. A resident wins by being the only one alive at the end of the game, or by killing the most victims.
