Word Assassins

Ever since the Verb Names game drew responses such as “My brain is fried,” “I’m leaving for a 12-Step Recovery Program for Verb Name addicts,” and “This may only stop with pharmaceutical intervention or a large rubber mallet,” I’ve been searching for another game I can inflict entice folks to play.

Alas, I’m still searching for a game that will work online. But here’s a game to play in real life: Word Assassins.

Players are assigned a word and a target. They kill their targets by getting them to say the assigned word aloud. The kill-words should be slightly unusual (so you have to put in effort to make your kill), but not so far beyond the realm of normal conversation that it’s obvious what word you’re trying to get your target to say.

This works well in schools and other environments where somebody can run the game. That’s what my daughter is currently doing - she has assigned players their targets and kill-words, which include impetuous, broadsword and defenestrate. She’s the M of Word Assassins on campus.

Here are her rules:

• You must get your target to say the word exactly as it appears on your assignment sheet. No variations accepted.
• You must be directly responsible for getting your target to say your word. If the target says the word in the course of conversation, it does not count unless it was directly in response to a question you asked.
• Your target must say the word aloud. No email, IM, or writing. Singing does count as saying the word aloud.
• When you make a kill, you must do two things:
• 1) Report the kill and the time it occurred to the gamerunner via email as soon as possible. This way she can keep track of who’s still in the game.
• 2) Get from your (now deceased) target their target and word. This is your new assignment. for example, if I killed Annie by getting her to say “disestablishmentarianism” and she had been trying to get Max to say “fuzzy”, I would then try to get Max to say “fuzzy”.
• You have 48 hours to make each kill. If the allotted time expires before you kill your target, you will be up for termination. At that point terminators will come after you with a dictionary (no, seriously) and your only hope of staying in the game is to kill your target before the terminators find you. (Remember that a kill is not certified until you have emailed the time that it happened, so you want to make sure you’re on top of that.)
• You want to keep your target and word secret. The game is much better if paranoia reigns.

Thus far, players have killed their targets with guile and surprise. One girl wrote out fake vocabulary flashcards and asked her target to help her pronounce them. Another had a friend set up his target with a YouTube video that had the word “defenestrate” in the title, then walked in and asked what he was watching. A third mock-vandalized a bathroom with red paint, a la The Shining, and waited for his target to rush out yelling that the Word Assassin version of “Redrum” was dripping down the wall.

My daughter is a veteran player of Assassins, where targets are terminated with water pistols. Word Assassins, she insists, is as much fun but with “less violence and screaming.”

And if you’re wondering - yes, as a thriller writer, I’m pleased that she tells players “the game is much better if paranoia reigns.” Real agent provocateur potential, my kid. If you need proof, the photo is the one she keeps on her desk, of her with her father.