Fairview High School Game

Hey all, just figured I'd come in here and give you guys some information about how the game I started is going.

First off, I'm a high school student. I dunno if I mentioned that here but I am and actually the majority of my experience with HvZ comes from being regularly invited to CU's Engineering Center lock-in, to which I was invited primarily because I designed the logo for CU HvZ. So yeah. I've done missions but I actually

Alright, so I've been wanting to get an HvZ game going for a long while now, seeing as I've been posting and lurking on the forums for forever or so, and about a week and a half a conversation with a friend of mine finally prompted me to do it. It went roughly like this:

"Wait, so why haven't you started HvZ here yet?"

"Well the paperwork is gonna be a pain."

"It's like one page to get a club formed."

"Yeah, but we need to get nerf blasters, so it'll be tougher."

"Have you even asked anyone about that though?"

"No..."

Obviously, I was pwnd. So I decided to actually follow through and get a club going. I filled out that massive one sheet of paperwork and hunted down a teacher sponsor. My first thought as far as a sponsor was Mr. Albritton, my science teacher, because he has access to a massive lab for modding and goggles in case administration wanted eye protection. He was reluctant to sign so I found another teacher. My second choice was Mr. Peoples. I chose him for a long list of reasons: he had experience with firearms and gun safety, he was relatively loose as far as the clubs he would sign on, he had experience in LARPing and other forms of gaming, and I assumed he would be one of the most willing teachers to listen and advocate in terms of getting blasters allowed.

He was very willing to sign, but he had a couple questions as to what I was going to do as far as blasters went. I assured him that we would be very safe with them and get the permission of our Principle (Mr. Stensrud) before playing. Here were the things he suggested I stress:
-The difference between blasters and real firearms
-The educational value of HvZ
-The safety measures being put on blasters
-The educational value of blasters
-The game rules, club rules, and communication between every element of the school bureaucracy

Thinking about all these, I wrote up some rough talking points, some notes, and a Rules powerpoint for HvZ. I put all these in my talking points:

Differences between Blasters and Guns
-Color: Yellows and Clears vs Shiny Greys and Blacks
-Shape: Excess Vents, Larger barrels, Sci-Fi esque stylings
-Sound: At most 80dB vs at least 130 dB
-Firing: Slow orange projectile and no kick vs invisible projectile and massive kick

Authority
-Mr. Stensrud, Mr. Peoples, Security, and School Resource Officer all informed
-Mod staff and Student Admin (me) all working towards making sure rules are informed.

What HvZ teaches
-Disaster preparedness
-Disease Mechanics
-Strategy, tactics, & team play.

What Blasters teach
-Engineering: Aerodynamics, Chemistry, Pneumatics, and Mechanics
-Increase the variation of roles, therefore more strategy

Safety measures
-Informing all staff
-Organized meetings
-No painted blasters
-No agressive zombie tactics

Surprisingly, Mr. Stensrud was all for it, his willingness surprised me, but once I presented all the safety measures he was fine with it. He didn't even have any large security measures he wanted to add. I think that this was partially do to my preparedness, and partially because Mr. Stensrud has had a history of being willing to support clubs with educational value, rather than trying to protect the school from liability.

Here's what I'd say is a list of things you need to get nerf blasters in a high school game:
1- A willing teacher who's got your back
2- A student organizer who's willing to work at it
3- An administrator who is not reluctant to permit HvZ
4- A school environment not hostile to the club
5- Clear rules, security measures, and plans
6- No history of trouble with HvZ before the clubs formation

Having all those, I was able to form the club. We don't to running games for now, but we may eventually do those with socks. We do meetings for about an hour and a half on Wednesdays, the first of which was yesterday.

We had about eight people show up the first day, and about twenty people show interest throughout the game in playing next week. The only mission that week was a contest among Humans to get as many stuns as possible (for which the mission reward was first picks on blasters next week). I was supplying bandanas and blasters but I begged people to bring their own next week. Things are looking good.