What to know about Senior Assassin game that sparked police response

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Police in Collingwood, Ont., and elsewhere are warning about a realistic-looking game called Senior Assassin that is being played by teens and young adults. They say players could be mistaken for armed criminals, and that players should be aware of this and make sure they not behaving in a way that could result in a call to police.

According to the website Muskoka411, the Collingwood and Blue Mountains Detachment of the OPP received two calls in the past 10 days regarding young people in vehicles with what appeared to be firearms. In both cases the weapons were determined to be water guns, but not before multiple officers had responded, detaining the players or taking them into custody.

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What is Senior Assassin?

Senior Assassin is a live-action game in which players aim to eliminate others by tagging them with water guns, Nerf guns or other pretend weapons.

What are the rules?

There are many variations, but Muskoka411 shared an image that listed the main rules: Teams consists of two males and two females; rounds last three weeks, during which your team must assassinate another team or face elimination; “floaties” (water wings) may be worn as protection, except on designated “purge days.”

What’s the social media connection?

Some news outlets are referring to the game as a “TikTok trend.” However, there’s nothing that connects it directly to that platform, except the rule that says “hits” have to be recorded for verification. That and the modern tendency to upload everything to social media.

When did Senior Assassin begin?

The roots of the game are older than social media and even the public Internet. It was already being played in 1982, when game designer Steve Jackson published Killer: The Game of Assassination, which laid out the rules for what would also become known as Assassin or Senior Assassin.

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“Killer is the exciting live roleplaying game for intelligent, creative and slightly uncivilized people – people who want to knock off their friends … without hurting them,” reads a promo for the book. “Squirt guns replace pistols; water balloons become bombs … whatever your fiendish mind can devise. As the assassins take out their targets, the number of players dwindles. The last one alive is the winner.”

Is it dangerous?

It can be. In 1981, California State University student Mike Reagan was carrying a life-sized M-16 replica when he was fatally shot by a campus police officer. The vice-president of student services released two statements criticizing the game called “Assassins” or “Killer” and asking students to “find recreational outlets other than with guns, playguns or anything that can be considered a weapon or mistaken for a weapon.” Some universities have rules prohibiting the game being played on campus.

There have been numerous other incidents in Canada and the U.S. In 2016, Halton police shut down a street in Oakville after calls of a gun-wielding person standing up in the sunroof of an SUV. That turned out to be several teens playing what media referred to as “The Assassin Game.”

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What can be done?

Police have long cautioned people not to play with fake weapons that can be confused with the real thing. After the latest incidents, Collingwood and Blue Mountains OPP offered the following advice: use water guns that are brightly coloured, not black; don’t linger around other people’s homes or trespass on their property; and don’t wear face masks that cover the face.

“It is important for young people to understand how their actions could look/be interpreted by a member of the public, who is unfamiliar with the game that they are playing,” a police spokesperson is quoted as saying.

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