ROUGH DRAFT (Spring 2001)
Ideas taped while driving home from Area51 - expect revision soon. Note: text enclosed in square brackets [] was appended during transcription and does not represent the original dictation.
- Let's see, how about games about military misadventures - I wonder if anyone's done a Bay of Pigs wargame? [Probably...] Hmm, a game with spies might be tricky - uh, picture cards of old spies and spymasters and spy agency offices - nah... get to the FBI site, look for the 10 MOST WANTED list, get all the historical photos and files of 10 Most Wanteds - if I can't get that directly from the FBI or if it's not convenient, I might be able to get it thru APB... look thru UN image and document archives...
- I think Eclipse already did [cards] of Anarchists, but maybe a picture collection - how do I make a game of it? - of Anarchists, Revolutionaries, Terrorists, and Assassins... An assassination game - or rather, a couple such games - one, a collector set [card deck] of pictures of assassins, assassination victims, uh maps of where assassinations took place, newspaper headlines announcing the assassinations...
- And then a board game, ASSASSINOPOLY! [Termination With Extreme Prejudice]
Where different players have pieces showing them to be govt operatives [spies], Mafia operatives [Scariosi], independent and/or state-supported terrorists, [corporate agents] - where all the locales on the board, the streets, are sites of assassinations; the [old Monopoly] railroads are airlines [or other media of transport and/or communications], the utilities are weapons suppliers, the Chance cards are named Risk, the Community Chest cards are called Hit...
At each assassination site you can put up safe houses; from the weapons suppliers ya get the weapons ya need for your hit - from the airlines [commo-routes] ya get the transport you need to and from the assassination - the Hit and Risk cards contain directives from your controllers, miscues, weapons gained or lost, [munitions] gained or expended - ya get money when you pass GO [cross the Border] so that you can buy the safe-houses, the weapons, the transport.
- Jail we'll call Detention - of course, there's the Escape From Detention card.
Instead of having the assassination sites grouped, each site is separate, ya just buy safe houses for each individual site - or rather, at each site ya need two safehouses, two airline tickets - no, make that one safehouse, two tickets, and a weapon... when you've accumulated all those for any one site, then you can perform the hit.
 OK, SIMPLIFY THAT EVEN A LITTLE MORE -
one ticket. So the toys ya have to put up on each site are [die-cut tokens with pictures of] a little house, and a [ticket], and a [weapon / bullet], and to mark a successful hit, I dunno, a [larger] tombstone [with big black RIP, or a red bullseye]? [deletia]
- Ah, could have a 4th piece required before you can do a hit, and that's to have an ASSASSIN. That square that's opposite GO, uh should be... the Assassin's Hiring Hall. And the token for the assassin is the black hand. [Hit/Risk cards could also supply/remove assassins.] Each assassination site has to be purchased - in fact, what you're buying is the contract for the assassination at that site.
- So, ya pass GO [The Border], ya get money; you go around the board, ya land on a site; if you choose to, you buy the contract for that site, if nobody else has it already.
Then as you land on [travel sites: Aeroflot, Priceline.Com, EuRail, Butterfield Stage], ya buy tickets; if you land on [weapons suppliers: Wilkenson Sword, Colt Arms, Nobel SA, Krupps] you buy munitions, weaponry; when you get to the Hiring Hall, you [retain] an assassin; each time you do any of those you put a token down on your hit site; the Hit and Risk cards throw bonuses and impediments your way, and could provide an Escape From Detention card. When you land on the Detention square, instead of Just Visiting, you are Just Surveilling. And the winner is whoever gets the most hits done. Pretty straightforward. [Or the highest-value hits? Maybe have different competitions, quality vs. quantity.]
- So each site [on the board], instead of having a deed, it has a contract, which specifies who's being hit [and where], actually gives a few historical details of the actual hit - 'cause all these sites are actual assassinations, or alleged assassinations. Refer to the Assassinations CD-ROM for details on this.
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ASSASSINOPOLY: Termination With Extreme Prejudice.
[But how do we judge the value of each contract? Whose hits are worth more or less? Might be best to arrange and value them in historical sequence...]
Gentle Readers, if you have any suggestions for potential hits, or of other rules, all your contributions will be welcomed and credited. To email me, click on my address at the bottom of the page. --Ric
ADDENDUM (Winter 2003)
Since the above was recorded in Spring 2001, much has happened in the world. (Y'know, the 9-11 crap and related developments.) Assassination is now an official US policy, not just a dirty secret. While governmental assassination has become more mechanized and routinized, the scope for personal assassinations has never been greater. Technology has advanced dramatically. As long as you stay away from surveillance cameras and infiltrators, you can probably assassinate just about anybody, with little fear of being caught.
Thus there's a need for a game or kit: Do-It-Yourself Assassination!  The GAME can help you role-play your way through the planning and execution; the KIT can provide you with the tools for an effective assassination. Expect to see these available from LOOMPANICS any time now, eh?
NOTE: I am not calling for the assassination of any political leaders. I don't think that trying to assassinate political leaders is a good idea, for these reasons:
- You might miss.
- Whether you miss or not, surviving politicians will just have an excuse to ratchet-up the repression.
- If you don't miss, assassination is too quick -- the bastards don't suffer long enough for their crimes.
- The bastard you hit may just be a front, not the true author of crimes worthy of assassination.
- Your mind-controllers may aim you at the wrong target.
Assassination is thus really an avocation for those already in power, not a game for small players. When you attempt an assassination you are in direct competition with the CIA, who are mean motor-skooters and bad go-getters. They hate competition. Beware.
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