Dart Wars

Dart Wars is a sport played primarily by high school teenagers wherein players shoot each other with Nerf guns in order to eliminate opponents. Once you are hit with a foam Nerf dart you are eliminated. Typically, Dart Wars are played in teams of 4 or 5 working together. The last team standing wins. At some schools, upwards of 60 teams have been known to participate. Perhaps the most exciting element of Dart Wars is that once the game has begun, one can be shot anywhere, anytime and games can last weeks, even months.

Organization
Dart Wars is organized by an individual or group of individuals who begin by advertising a game is starting. Prospective players group into teams then put their names on a 3"x5" notecard. Sometimes a fee is collected as a "pay-to-play" program. To encourage full participation all funds collected are put into one pot for the winning team to collect. Pots have been known to reach over $2,000 and a typical fee could be around $8/person or $40/team. The organizer sets a start date for the game and organizes all the notecards into a circle, where everyone is being hunted by one team, and every team is hunting one team. Each team gets the notecard of the team they are hunting, with the names of their prey on it. No one is given any information on who is hunting them, however. Once the team you are hunting is eliminated you get their card and proceed to hunt them. The game continues until one team remains. Another version is a straight head to head game in which team names are put into a hat and drawn out in pairs. One will then play the other in the following week. Whoever has the most players standing at the end of the week wins. Weekly drawings are held until the final two teams are left. These two teams then battle for the title.

Because the game is played based on the "honor-system" on hits, usually the organizer arranges a system for dealing with disputes. A common method for dealing with disputes, is to have a forum or panel discuss the situation and decide who is probably right and the best course of action. A way to make this easier is to bring that forum online, and let each player involved speak their argument and a decision is made within 24 hours of the incident. Also, all "kills" are reported via email to the game organizer who keeps track of who is dead and who is alive. When a team is eliminated, the team that was their prey is revived in whole. This way each team must kill all players on their notecard before they move on.

Rules
Many rules have been added, or basic game layout has been changed for different variations. Here are a few:

*Shots cannot bounce.
*No physical contact of any kind.
*No manipulation of darts (weighting, shaving, etc.) all darts must remain as they did when you purchased them from the store. Nerf Ball-type guns are allowed in some versions.
*No shooting on campus.
*No shooting from or into cars. Some game types allow this.
*No using cars to block a player's movement.
*To enter a house for the purpose of this game, one must be invited in by a member of the family. No breaking and entering. This applies to all indoor areas including the garage but excluding the porch.
*No shooting anyone on the clock for work at their job, no one on the clock for their job may shoot anyone else.
*Naked rule - if you are naked you are invincible and cannot be stunned or eliminated. Naked is defined as no clothing aside from shoes and socks. A thong rule has also been applied to replace the naked rule in some instances.
*Foam noodles or toy light-sabers are allowed as melee weapons in some versions of the game.
*Shootouts can be used to settle disputes.
*Unless someone breaks the law do not call police on them simply to get them out of your hair (stakeout situation.) You chose to enter the game, lose or escape.
*Breaking of any rules will result in elimination.
*Safety and concern for the community must be considered, anyone doing something stupid or unsafe is eliminated.
*No shooting of people while they are in a school sponsored activity

Offense
Simply hit any player on the opposing team, and they are out. Some variations of the rules allow for foam noodles to be used as melee weapons, but as of 2007 no team or organization has this rule in place.

Defense
Don't get shot.

Controversy
Since Dart Wars is played by high school students primarily, it brings up an interesting twist to the "no tolerance" policy schools have for guns of any kind. To avoid problems with such rules, many games played by high schoolers have rules in place where no one may be shot, nor shoot on school grounds. Similar rules to prohibit the effect of Dart Wars on the responsibilities of the players include a "no shooting anyone who is clocked in at work" rule.

Dart Wars can become very intense, especially when played for money and there have been car accidents because teens were either driving and shooting Nerf guns at the same time or using cars to block someone's escape. A rule in place to eliminate this problem is a "no shooting from or into cars" rule.

Organizers should have every player sign a waiver to remove themselves, any schools, and any other organization from liability due to playing the game. The waiver should include an agreement to submit to all decisions based on the published rules.

Police in Blue Ash, Ohio, near one of the largest organized games of Dart Wars at Sycamore High School have taken one of the most extreme no tolerance policies against Dart Wars. In 2004, Blue Ash police officers pulled guns on several Dart Wars players and also attempted to pin criminal charges on five teens; Laura Belles, Chelsea Nixon, Andrew Shaver, Cory Mangus, and Jeff Ellingham. The charges were dropped when the police, with no evidence to speak of, were caught fabricating a story in order to "make an example of" the three boys. Since the incident, there has been relative peace between players and police.

High School Dart Wars Founders
In 1995, Mark Elder and Patrick Fisher, who were also members of the band Troll, organized the first official high school Dart Wars tournament. Although the tournament was not affiliated with the high school, all thirty of the five-member teams were students at Sycamore High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Being that it was the first season, there was controversy regarding some of the rules. Elder and Fischer's dart war team ended their win streak in the tournament with a controversial "tie" in the semi finals. The "tie" was so controversial that the semi-final winner was never determined. That caused the finalist team on the other side of the bracket to win the championship by default. The first annual High School Dart Wars championship team consisted of Tad Woolfe, Kevin Hagedorn, Kevin Mecum, Jeff Weisbrot, and Craig Misrach. The Dart peaked with the 1999 Contest, ran by Joe Jahnigen, with 46 five man teams. The contest was eventually shut down by the Police and the school Administration due to its bad timing with the shooting at Columbine High School and a tornado that hit Sycamore High School. Now Dart Wars is being played by many different high schools, most notably Kings High School who started playing in 2006.

Evolution of Offense, Defense
1995 - Offense consisted of any toy gun with a trigger that shot a bullet consisting of foam and/or plastic. That included foam darts without suction, darts with suction, and plastic bee bees Defense consisted primarily of hiding in bushes, under mulch, and in disguise.

1996 - Due to too many controversial kills, guns that shot tiny plastic bee bees were restricted from the game. However, a new and improved gun was introduced. A team led by Chad Dewald and Joel Dumas invented the plastic dart blow gun. This gun was made from plastic tubing purchased at a local hardware store. Most plastic darts fit in the gun and flew through the air with incredible speed and accuracy. By the time Dewald and Dumas’ team made it to the championship, another team had learned how to create a blow gun. Although Dewald and Dumas were the pioneers of the breakthrough blow gun, their team fell in the finals to at team led by Dan Blomberg. Defense this year stayed the same.

1999 - Ever since the introduction to the blow gun, more advanced dart guns were necessary to be competitive. Rapid firing machine guns that held 15 bullets were commonplace. Hand guns were typically only used in sneak-and-attack kills. Defense this year got creative. The rule, created by the '99 Dart War organizer Joe Jahnigen, was that if you were completely naked you were invincible. The “naked” rule was controversial -- not within the tournament, but to the community. Mid-season, the rule of having to be naked to be invincible was replaced by having to wear a sleeveless pink t-shirt with the bottom cut off at the belly button. This was the first and last year that the ability to be invincible rule was implemented.

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