Debian Assassins

Get ready for the first Debian Assassins showdown in Oaxtapec. The game is quite simple and very fun. And it's no real time commitment; you do as much as you want.

While you can leave the game at any time, you cannot join once it started.

Rules

Here are the rules by which I (madduck) would like to play. Please add comments below.

Everyone gets a target person assigned (see below), randomly and secretly, forming one big circle, where you only ever know who the next person is. Your task is to "assassinate" this next person according to a set of rules. No violence involved other than in the name of the game.

If you "killed" your target, s/he has to disclose his/her target, which then becomes your next goal. I'd like to assume we're all fair game: when someone gets killed s/he doesn't act up but reveals the next target. If there are problems, I suppose you turn to the referee (Robert). Your "kill" is also published to the wiki (with all the juicy details).

In the end, the one with the largest number of "kills" wins.

The process of "assassination" is governed by a few rules:

Comments

Comments? Add them here!

AigarsMahinovs: If there are people areound at the time of the assasination, but nobody actually saw the act being carried out (like a stealthy stab in the back while walking by), does that still count? :D

madduck: It depends. I think either the target should be allowed to confront the potential witness(es) in the presence of the "killer", if those witnesses are honest about it (should only participants be potential witnesses?). Otherwise it might be easier to require the witness to step in immediately and say "I saw that"; if that does not happen, tough luck. I think I prefer the latter.


madduck: It's probably better not to publish the kills and juicy details until after the game is over. The less people know, the more paranoid they get.

StefanoZacchiroli: objection, having feedback that someone is happing is more likely to keep the game lively. Please keep track of assassinations on the wiki.


?FrankLichtenheld: A question that came up in discussion this evening: So what does actually happen if you get killed? Do you quit the game completly or can you still continue trying to kill people? This wasn't really clear from the rules I think.

madduck: When you're killed, you tell your target to your killer and quit the game. In the end, there can be only one.


MichaelDorrington: If I kill someone as long as no-one sees me touching them with the socks I am okay right? Its not that if they then made dying sounds or collapsed then would anyone notice, right? I've been killing people in the talk rooms you see. Be afraid! :D

madduck: If you make a kill and noone objects, the target can scream all they want. And Michael, don't let your guard down. Har har har!


ErichSchubert: A pity I'm not at Debconf... an interesting extension of the rules: dead people don't count as witnesses. When asked, all players must tell whether they are alive or not. Depending on how many players are involved, non-players may or may not count. It may also be fun to "punish" dead players by having them mark their nametags with a skull, or have alive players have a heart on their nametag, and cross it when they died.

madduck: I agree with the first. The more witnesses the more interesting the game, IMHO. However, I think the next game should see more secrecy: no participants list on the wiki, and I don't really see a point in the "punishment" you suggest.


StefanoZacchiroli: proposal for the next edition. No matter how the secrecy will be handled, what about collecting pictures of participants and make them available to killers? This year many people (info from private communication) have been stack because they did not know their targets and maybe because those were not wearing badges or similar ... On one hand this diminish the fun of discovering your victim, on the other it is more fair to all participants. It is also more in the spirit of assassins (at least as we saw them on movies :-)): you have a target, you have its picture!

bli: Identifying the target is part of the game. Use Google! Ask the other people! (It took me two days to identify my first victim. He fooled me with an old photo on his website.)

adn: I agree. That you have to find out who your victim is before you are found is the fun of the game.


Dates

The game will start on Sunday, 14 May 2006 at 00:00:00 Oaxtapec time. It will last until Saturday, 20 May 2006, 23:59:59 Oaxtapec time.

The deadline to sign up as a participant has been extended to 12 May 2006, 23:59:59 UTC.

Forming the circle

Robert Lemmen has agreed to coordinate the secret parts of the game. He will email each participant with the target Saturday morning.

Participants

Add yourself to the tail end of this list if you wish to take part in the game.

The deadline to sign up as a participant has been extended to 12 May 2006, 23:59:59 UTC.

Martin Krafft

madduck

madduck (at) debian.org

2 kills

Amaya Rodrigo

amaya

amaya (at) debian.org

0 kills

Eric Dorland

?eric

eric (at) debian.org

1 kill

Ben Hutchings

ben (at) decadentplace.org.uk

1 kills

Mohammed Adnène Trojette

adn+deb (at) diwi.org

7 kills

Luciano Bello

luciano

luciano (at) linux.org.ar

0 kills

Joey Hess

joeyh

joeyh@debian.org

1 kills

Gunnar Wolf

gwolf

gwolf (at) gwolf.org

0 kills

Aigars Mahinovs

aigarius

aigarius (at) debian.org

0 kills

Christian Perrier

bubulle

bubulle@debian.org

0 kills

Rodrigo Gallardo

RodrigoGallardo

rodrigo (at) nul-unu.com

0 kills

Safir Secerovic

sapphire (at) linux.org.ba

0 kills

Ana Guerrero

ana

ana (at) ekaia.org

3 kills

Marcela Tiznado

?MarcelaTiznado

mtiznado (at) linux.org.ar

1 kills

Andrew ?McMillan

karora

awm (at) debian.org

0 kills

Alberto Gonzalez Iniesta

agi (at) debian.org

10 kills

Josselin Mouette

joss@debian.org

2 kills

Rene Mayorga

churro

churro (at) debian.org.sv

0 kills

Martín Ferrari

Tincho

martin.ferrari (at) gmail.com

1 kills

Hanna Ollila

hanna.m.ollila (at) helsinki.fi

0 kills

José Parrella

bureado

joseparrella (at) cantv.net

4 kills

Tuukka Hastrup

Tuukka@iki.fi

0 kills

Matt Zagrabelny

mzagrabe@d.umn.edu

0 kills

Aurelien Jarno

aurel32@debian.org

0 kills

Luca Capello

gismo

luca@pca.it

0 kills

Stefano Zacchiroli

zack

zack@debian.org

0 kills

Orlando Fiol

fiolorlando (at) gmail.com

1 kills

Ernesto Crespo

seraph1

ecrespo (at) gmail.com

0 kills

Michael Dorrington

Michael

mike (at) zen.co.uk

6 kills

Philip Hands

PhilHands

phil@hands.com

0 kills

Riku Voipio

nchip

riku dot voipio at iki fi

1 kills

Sean Finney

SeanFinney

seanius@debian.org

0 kills

Thomas Bliesener

nospam@melix.com.mx

2 kills

Patricio Paez

pp@pp.com.mx

1 kills

Mark Shuttleworth

mark at ubuntu com

0 kills

Petr Rockai

me at mornfall.net

0 kills

Enrico Zini

enrico (at) debian.org

0 kills

Simon Law

?sfllaw

sfllaw@debian.org

0 kills

Raphael Hertzog

buxy

hertzog@debian.org

1 kills

Filippo Giunchedi

FilippoGiunchedi

filippo at debian dot org

0 kills

Cesar Barrera

abarrera at gmail dot com

0 kills

Santiago Ruano Rincón

SantiagoRuanoRincón

santiago (at) debian.org

0 kills

Leonel Duran

lduran (AT) elementia dot org

0 kills

Alejandro Ríos Peña

AlejandroRios

alejandro.rios (at) avatar.com.co

0 kills

Gerfried Fuchs

alfie

<alf NOSPAM TO ME ie AT ist DOT org>

3 kills

Frank Lichtenheld

?FrankLichtenheld

djpig (at) debian.org

0 kills

Nicolas Francois

nicolas.francois@centraliens.net

0 kills

David Alexander Contreras Castillo

dacoc

dacoc@dacoc.org

0 kills

Erick Ivaan Lopez Carreon

Erick Lopez

erick at fsl.org.mx

0 kills

Annabelle Tully

belle@tully.no

0 kills

Patty Langasek

harmoney (at) dodds.net

0 kills

Raul Odria

A_Senna

rodria1 (at) gmail.com

0 kills

Stories

I believe I managed the first kill in the game. I was lucky and was assigned someone I know, Patty Langasek. Although at first I thought separating her from Steve for the kill might be hard. The morning the game started she and Steve were over at the tower for the first time, having arrived the night before.

I had scoped out the tower the day before, and spent some time walked around taking in the excellent view and wishing I had a digital camera. So I suspected they might do the same. I was in the tower between talks and I noticed Patty went out. Followed her out and she was very conveniently behind a big square stone pillar, taking photos of the view. So it was easy to go over and ask her to please email me copies as this was making me wish I had a camera of my own. And then kill her. :-) Right as I did that some attendees were coming up the stairs nearby, but the pillar blocked them from seeing the dreadful deed.

--JoeyHess

a)

b)

--?MohammedAdnèneTrojette

I killed two people in the Hacklabs 1 and 2. The first one was about 45 minutes after the game started. It was Frank Lichtenheld, beloved Webmaster.

The second guy I killed in the Hacklab was Alejandro Ríos Peña, from Debian Colombia. A coordinated, mafia-like kill made Colombians swear revenge over their dead friend body. Expect horrible kills by colombians in next Debconf.

I killed Stefano Zachirolli after calling him by the IRC to present inmediately on the Inforoom. He was indeed aware of the danger, and I killed him in the aisle between the Hacklabs. Some dead people saw the kill, I really was lucky this time.

Simon Law was the (I think) only televised kill of the DebConf. I didn't see him around the first days and in COMAS it said that he was arriving on May 21st, which meant I had to wait one week to kill him. Hopefully COMAS was wrong and he appeared (I already knew him because of the Planet) and I managed to follow him from HL2 to the bathrooms of HL1. After he went out, I found a convenient room list and a pen near the coffee in HL1, which I waved to him and told him to check himself in the list. He was not there and he wrote down his name. After he did, I killed him. A non-playing guy was going to the bathrooms and filmed the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM-pSSR8sMA

I spent a whole day looking around for Martin Krafft. I actually spent 15 minutes waiting in some bushes in the aisles between Hacklabs and Hotels, and only scared Enrico by speaking spooky. I moved from the place after he "discovered" me and waited 30 minutes on a tree, with my T-Shirt in the floor as a decoy. However, the duck went mad and took another way to his hotel. Next day, while exiting a talk in the Parliamentary Tower, I was killed. Some playing and non-playing guys saw it, but the killer refused to accept their testimonial. Anyway, he was looking for me a long time ago and at that time, claiming for the referee would have been a real spoil for the game. I spent the rest of the day scaring Michael Dorrington and harvesting some paranoia in everyone else left playing.

Results

The unofficial results are available here.