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Assassins was pushed to the back of my mind until a fortnight or so ago, when I was invited to a Facebook group informing me of a guild to be set up at York. The group noted that the guild was still in the process of being ratified by YUSU, but I was optimistic, and began dreaming of getting some assassinations in before I graduate next summer.
I met Keith Boniface and Charlie Clapham, President and Secretary respectively, on Monday to discuss their guild. Initially I expected to hear of a few short steps separating them from ratification, and to write a light-hearted piece looking over the fun history of assassins. I quickly found that for this society, ratification was no easy process.
I had been a little naive in my love of assassins, and I’d never really considered the health and safety factor of the game. YUSU Student Activities Officer Rhianna Kinchin, and Health and Safety Officer Peter Kidd, had given this a lot more thought. Keith and Charlie told me that they’d met Peter Kidd several times, and a number of issues had come up.
One of the first concerns that had been raised was the use of projectile weapons. Although during the day a water pistol or NERF gun might be obvious as a toy, it was suggested to Keith and Charlie that after dark, this might be less clear. Understandably, the last thing the university wants is for someone to get the wrong idea and an armed response team to be called out. Keith and Charlie responded to this by agreeing to ban the use of projectile weapons after dark.
Another concern that was put to Keith and Charlie was the idea of players gaining access to rooms and blocks on campus; they accepted that students should only go into rooms and blocks if they were invited in. They also expressed a willingness to work around exams in the summer, by having weekend or one day mini-games, such as gangster teams or capture the flag challenges, in order to minimise disruption to students revising.
However, when I spoke to Rhianna Kinchin, she told me she thought the society was still a long way from being ratified. She added: “I think it’s a fun idea but we would have welfare concerns, particularly with following people around campus.” This response disappointed Keith and Charlie, both of whom seemed more than happy to compromise their rules in order to abate the university’s concerns. Charlie told me: “As long as we get a clear answer from the university about what they’re willing to accept, we’re willing to work around that. We need a working model, but the university aren’t giving us a straight answer”.
The issues raised by YUSU cannot be discounted, but surely they can be worked around? The Universities of Cambridge, Durham and Leeds have all managed it. I asked the President of the Durham University Assassins’ Society, David Greenwood, about health and safety concerns and he explained: “We have a good relationship with our campus security, which I think goes a long way to help. That said, all our rules and procedures are written with safety and security in mind”. A quick look at the Durham guild’s rules confirmed what David said; rule 1.1 states that the society will never encourage or condone any violations of the law, any actions which put people in harm’s way or any actions that put property at risk.
David mentioned that the society had gone into local police station with a box of toy guns to find out which ones could be considered safe to use without the risk of confusion with a real firearm. He also noted that the society had filled out a risk assessment for the Durham Students’ Union, and were told they were a lower risk than some of the sports societies.
Clearly, if enough consideration is given to welfare and health and safety, great fun can be had playing this game with little or no risk involved. Keith and Charlie both seemed passionate about the guild, but reasonable, so I’m cautiously optimistic that their guild will become ratified... preferably by the end of this academic year!
For more information about the York University Assassins' Guild, click here.
I had never heard of this game! It sounds really great though!!!
Would you play it? Winston would.
Not to point out the obvious or anything but I played in a full game of Assassins in my first year and the only difference between an unratified society organising it and a ratified society organising it is that the SU would have more health and safety control over a ratified society.
If it's not ratified, the students can do whatever they want. Indeed, some versions of Assassins don't use water but rather use "code words" or the like - and you could use squeezy water bottles as effectively as water pistols (though my SuperSoaker AquaShock Arctic Blast could unload either a powerful jet over 10 metres or offload its entire tank in one go, so I'd recommend it 
) if it had to happen so it seems silly that there is anything to stop it, even if their initial plans have to be tweaked slightly!
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