{"id":122,"date":"2014-11-24T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/?p=122"},"modified":"2014-10-24T14:43:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T20:43:00","slug":"run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/","title":{"rendered":"Run A Better Game: Team Deathmatch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(This article is focused on issues that are of most interest to other laser tag operators, but anyone is welcome to read it.)<!--more--><\/em><\/p>\n<p>We always run at least one Team Deathmatch every single time we&#8217;re out with a group and at the start of every open event. (Usually it&#8217;s actually two, swapping sides between them.) Deathmatches are the simplest, most straightforward game you can play on a field. They&#8217;re perfect for giving players a chance to push all the buttons on their gun and to figure out how to shoot opponents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Observations<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It doesn&#8217;t matter to players whether you announce the scores as deaths or kills as long as you&#8217;re consistent throughout the day. I recommend announcing how many times a team dies because some games require you to calculate progress based on how many times a team has died and it makes the mental work easier for you.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t run more than two deathmatches at the start of a session. First, people get too twitch-happy. They get into this zone where all they want to do is to push harder, faster and they lose team cohesion. They start to get mowed down by anyone working well together and get depressed, like a sugar low. That&#8217;s when their game tanks, they get into a funk and the session energy starts to slide. Second, if you don&#8217;t change up the games quick enough people will start to think of any game you run as just another deathmatch with some sort of crazy rules. That won&#8217;t help them win a <a title=\"Game Summaries for Players: VIP Escort\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2009\/01\/game-summaries-for-players-vip-escort\/\" target=\"_blank\">VIP escort<\/a>, <a title=\"Game Summaries for Players: Sniper\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2009\/01\/game-summaries-for-players-sniper\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sniper<\/a> or <a title=\"Game Summaries for Players: Bomb the Base\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2009\/01\/game-summaries-for-players-bomb-the-base\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bomb the Base<\/a> game. Ultimately that just leads to a much harder time for you to convince them to try different games and victory styles and can help them feel bored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Administrative Suggestions<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Make deathmatches short. This encourages players to be faster and work harder but also helps to differentiate more complicated games. When you give them more time they&#8217;ll automatically start thinking in terms of having more to do that <em>can&#8217;t<\/em> be done in the time of a deathmatch.<\/li>\n<li>10 minutes of deathmatching is a lengthy game. 15 minutes is a marathon. One tournament I ran had 2-game matches with each game 6 minutes long. Players <em>hated<\/em> it when they had to pull a double match because they were totally dead afterwards. For open events I recommend 2 games of ten minutes each, back-to-back, switching sides between games, then a break for water. Come back to something else, like <a title=\"Game Summaries for Players: Domination \/ Zone Control\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2009\/01\/game-summaries-for-players-domination-zone-control\/\" target=\"_blank\">Domination<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Deathmatches and <a title=\"Game Summaries for Players: 2-Man Free For All\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2009\/01\/game-summaries-for-players-2-man-free-for-all\/\" target=\"_blank\">2-man FFA<\/a>s are great ways to end the day because the twitchy adrenaline they give players leave everyone on an epinepherine high. I recommend the 2-man FFA over the deathmatch if you&#8217;re on a remote, though, because you can pack the guns up as players return, instead of all at once.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(This article is focused on issues that are of most interest to other laser tag operators, but anyone is welcome to read it.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[21,41,7,10],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-summaries-for-fos","tag-fo-info","tag-game-summaries-for-fos","tag-laser-tag-games","tag-short-laser-tag-games"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Run A Better Game: Team Deathmatch - Mike&#039;s Combat Games Laser Tag Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Run A Better Game: Team Deathmatch - Mike&#039;s Combat Games Laser Tag Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(This article is focused on issues that are of most interest to other laser tag operators, but anyone is welcome to read it.)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mike&#039;s Combat Games Laser Tag Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-24T13:00:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-10-24T20:43:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/\",\"name\":\"Run A Better Game: Team Deathmatch - Mike&#039;s Combat Games Laser Tag Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-24T13:00:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-10-24T20:43:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ef163a8e8da000a31f76d8d7613b7ac6\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/2014\/11\/run-a-better-game-team-deathmatch\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Run A Better Game: Team Deathmatch\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mikescombatgames.com\/laser-tag-blog\/\",\"name\":\"Mike&#039;s Combat Games Laser Tag Blog\",\"description\":\"&quot;Tactical Laser Tag on Steroids&quot; meets tactics, strategy, birthday parties, and more! 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