Battlefield Live: Mike's Combat Games, LLC - Game Notes: Capture the Flag - Lasertag on steroids for pain-free teambuilding and fun! No pain, painless paintball and airsoft alternative. More exciting than traditional lasertag, laser tag and lazertag.

Home - Field Owners - Game Notes - Capture the Flag (Observations & Suggestions)

Game Notes: Capture the Flag

As a rule I don't CTF games when it comes to combat sports, regardless of whether it's traditional lasertag, Battlefield Live, paintball or airsoft. CTF is great as a field game where no one has guns. It's also great on the computer where everything is constantly metered and monitored. Put a gun in everyone's hands, though, and it seems to me that you're basically playing a team deathmatch that ends quickly. I'd love to hear some suggestions from the community on your recommendations for a smoother game.

Observations

Players don't tend to notice when they're dead. They also therefore don't know where they died. Make sure that you assign several referees to watching the location of the flag and where it was when the flag carrier died.
More than in most other games players are going to do better with some helpful advice on flag/carrier location from nearby referees. Also, I rarely get after dead players for filling in their teammates on information in this game. It's really important for both teams to know where the flags are at all times as much as is possible if you want the game to have anywhere near a balanced (or even fun) outcome.
2-Flag games where each team has a flag seem much better than 1-Flag games where there's a neutral flag in the center. 1-Flag games where one team is attacking and one is defending are pretty good, too.
Having radios for both teams makes this an entirely different game. The constant communication (provided it's used judiciously) completely changes the feel and pace of this game and opens up an incredible depth of play.

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Administration Suggestions

Have lots of refs for this game. Make sure that they keep in mind, though, that ultimately no one on the field expects things to be flawless. Flags will occasionally get picked up by teammates of a dead carrier closer to the return point than they should be. People will die and toss the flag. Rules will be bent and broken. In general, if the violation isn't egregious and no one from the other team complains on the spot then let things slide.
In most video games the flag "hops" away from the flag carrier when they die. Players often recreate this in-game by tossing the flag. Don't allow this or you'll end up with hurt feelings. Tell players that when they die that the flag goes either from their hand to the ground or from their hand to the referee. I recommend making sure that they don't even hand the flag to a teammate standing next to them.
In general if you make players stop to remind them of the rules that they just broke then you'll have cost them at least as much time as it would have taken for them to play the rule correctly. Don't correct and then penalize them by making them run 10 feet in the other direction before they can run off again. Try not to get players killed by correcting them, either.
Don't be afraid to give extra cover or advice to teams that are being slaughtered in a multi-point CTF game. CTF is the worst game to be getting mauled in because it can be increasingly hard to catch back up.

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How do you run your team deathmatches? E-mail mike@mikescombatgames.com and let us know.