Residents of South, Hodgdon, Carmichael and Lewis Halls will be looking over their shoulders as they walk to class for these next few weeks. Starting last Saturday at 5 p.m., the dorms began a new round of Assassins - a dorm-wide, role-playing game where the only weapon is a clean pair of socks.
Over the past few years, resident assistant (RA) duty teams in the larger dorms on campus have been charged with the task of organizing the game. Each student who chooses to enter is assigned a random other resident of the dorm to "assassinate" by hitting them dodgeball-style with a rolled-up pair of socks. After a successful assassination, the assassin adopts his or her victim's target. The object? To be the last student standing.
According to South Hall RA Matt Isison, who is running the program in South Hall as the dorm's "Assassins Master," the game is about community building.
"The point of the program is to get to meet people you wouldn't ordinarily meet," Isison said. "Also, it's intended as a way to relieve stress. It's a pretty stressful world out there."
Isison said the game gets students out of their rooms and encourages them to interact with people outside of their group of friends. Last year, he said, students were seen carrying around umbrellas and tennis rackets to act as shields for incoming socks.
Sophomore Mike Sherry said that while the game is just about entertainment for sophomores and upperclassmen, he thinks it helps younger students get to know new people.
"I don't think it gets [upperclassmen] to talk to people they ordinarily wouldn't talk to, but it's probably better for freshmen who are still trying to make friends in their dorm," he said.
The game does not remain in the confines of the residence halls, either. The only safe spaces on campus are bathrooms, the target's room, Tufts official team practices, classrooms and dining halls. Students can protect themselves by striking their assassins first, granting the target immunity until a later time.
According to Isison, the game can become intense, playing on students' friendly but competitive natures.
"Some creepy people just stand outside rooms for hours," Isison said.
Sophomore Renee Birenbaum agreed, recounting how two of her friends tried to help her escape from her room with her "assassin" waiting outside.
"Last year, it was so intense," Birenbaum said. "I was carried from [my] room in a duffle bag by two guys."
Isison said strategy is the key to victory in the game.
"One [student in Miller Hall] had 'killed' about 90 percent of people in his hall, and the guy who had him was just letting him do all the work, waiting around until the end when he just got him," Isison said.
Assassins has also become popular outside of Tufts. Though its origins are unclear, the Web site Streetwars.net adopted the game into a real-world tournament in New York in 2004.
The site takes a new angle on the game, transforming it into an elimination tournament with a monetary reward. It has expanded since its inception to include tournaments in Vienna, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London.
At Tufts, RAs have kept the community focus while still enhancing the game with modern technology. A Computer Engineering major, Isison revolutionized this year's tournaments by designing a completely automatic computer program, which randomly assigns targets, allows players to login to the system to see their new targets, and frees the Assassins Master from the trouble of keeping track of and e-mailing hundreds of participants.
According to Isison, he hopes the program will help spread the game to other parts of campus.
"I created [the program] and modified it over winter break so that every dorm on campus could play," Isison said. "I wanted to learn a new programming language. We don't get to do enough programming in class. I wanted to learn something on my own."
Last year's South Hall Assassins Master, then senior Daniel Grayson, who now works in the admissions office, had a more involved task on his hands.
"I had all the names in Excel, and I randomized the order," he said. "Everyone had the person after them." Unlike Isison, Grayson had to keep track of all assassinations himself and had to e-mail each participant the name of their next target. Now, participants can just sign into the system and the game can run itself.
Since Assassins doesn't end until everyone but the winner has been eliminated, this semester's tournament could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
According to Grayson, last year's spring tournament ended with between three and five people still alive in the South Hall game. "As far as I'm concerned," Grayson said, "the game isn't over."
