[m0rp]

Top Secret (?)

I play in Utah but I've been enjoying the ASC forums for over a year now . I'm having a small dilemma I wanted to run by you guys for commentary before I bring it up with my home forum just so I can get an idea how people are gonna react to my prose or lack thereof.

Here's the deal...

We use a "country system" where each team is a very general impression of a specific nations armed services. Basically we just wear the cammo for team distinction though sometimes it goes further than that. We have fun with it. No rank or prize tournaments, just 50-100 guys shooting each other twice a month and (hopefully) having a laugh about it during and after. Sometimes bigger games and "overnighters".

So herein lies the problem...As a creator of airsoft wierdness I occasionally find myself in the position of having to see if something is "approved". By that I mean that I need to have some people in positions of "responsibility" on TAC4 (as thats my organisation) look at the thing and tell me if it can be used in a game involving all the countries... or not.

Before the country system this happened in the form of everybody watching the thing get tested and saying how much it sucked or not.

Now that I'm on a specific country team (the German team) I want to make cool stuff to give the German team an edge. Sometimes it would be nice if these things were a surprise and I'm not so sure getting the "approval" of the leaders of other teams is such a good idea as the surprise factor could be lost. On the other hand I'm also a little uncertain about how each country feels about "surprises".

My feeling is that anything that tosses bb's COULD MAYBE be approved by individual country leadership as long as they were sure nobody would be hurt by it and everybody understands that you put on your orange cap (our signal for "I'm out stop shooting") and walk away when bb's smack you.

I'm curious how the people that frequent this site (particularly old hands in the sport) think about this. Should there be general leadership persons that should be consulted as well? Should everybody in the whole organisation be included on ALL the stuff and a sort of "patent" be applied so only the Germans can use the thing?? Or should stuff just be thrown out there and if people refuse to call their hits then, well...it's not working for the game etc. etc. I don't know thats why I'm asking.

I could see an arms race where everybodies hurrying to create the next bb doomsday weapon being a bad thing for your basic airsofter. I could also see it being a good thing for realism and added excitement in the sport.

I can easily think of half a dozen solutions to this from including everybody all the way to me jumping out of a bush and yelling surprise while I smack somebody in the back of the head with a bag of airsoft elites .25's on a rope (you know what I mean)..

Maybe a "secret stuff" group that makes sure everythings kosher and doesn't tell anybody? Of course then you wind up with guys that seem to have a special "sixth sense" about impending danger. I dunno maybe that would be a good thing too.

Anyway, just curious to hear your comment before I start a big fight in my home forum about it. I've noted you guys generally come up with some pretty good comments and I've appreciated your opinions in the past.

later,

m0rp