Paintball Variations - Basic Variations

Basic Variations

• Elimination or Slayer - Teams or individual player must simply eliminate all of their opponents. Most games with a primary goal, such as capture the flag, use this as a secondary winning condition.
• Capture the Flag - When paintball was first started in 1981, the very first game played was a round of capture the flag with twelve people divided into two teams. Each team must take the flag from the opponents' flag station and return it to their own station to win. Alternatively, in a variation called centerflag, a single flag may be placed in the center of the field for both teams to compete over.
• King of the Hill - Players attempt to capture and hold one or more bases. These bases may be arranged in a path, and to capture one the team must control all previous bases along the path, or the bases may be distributed with any one of them up for grabs. "Reinforcements" are common in these games as it is otherwise unlikely any one team will capture all bases without completely eliminating the other side.
• Attack/Defend A variation of "King of the Hill", one team is given an advantageous defensive position, such as a cluster of bunkers, advantageous terrain such as a hilltop, or a pre-built fortification, within which they must defend some critical goal point. The other team is given unlimited reinforcements, and must reach the goal point in as short a time as possible. Teams then switch sides and the now-attacking team must beat the previous team's time to reach the goal. Related attack-and-defend games can be played with uneven teams as military scenarios.
• Reinforcements/resurrections - Not a game format by itself, but common in recreational and scenario games, this rule variant allows one or more eliminated players of one or more teams to re-enter the game after being eliminated. The simplest form is when a group has an odd number of players; instead of having a player sit out, the team with one fewer player gets one "resurrection"; the first player eliminated may simply go back to his team's starting point, touch it, and re-enter the game as the team's "missing man". "Reinforcements" are commonly used in more structured variants like scenario play, and allow groups of eliminated players from both teams to re-enter the game at specified time intervals.
  • "Jail tag" is a full game variant based on the similar kid's game, in which players who are eliminated go to a "jail" area, and players still in the game can "rescue" a player from jail by touching them with their hand, and bring them back into the game.
• Vampire, Predator, Terminator, Zombie - A common family of variations derived from simple "elimination" games, players split into two uneven teams. Depending on the variant, one team (usually the team with fewer players) is given some advantage. "Vampires", for instance, may turn players from the other team into Vampire players by shooting them. "Terminators" or "Predators" may require a hit in a certain area, such as the facemask, to be eliminated. "Zombies" may have both advantages and disadvantages; they may require multiple hits and be able to convert players from the other team, but may also have a disadvantage such as being required to walk, or to "convert" players by tapping them with the barrel instead of marking them with a paintball.
• Scenarios - Players split into teams according to the specific scenario, usually modeled on some real-world police, military or security situation. A common scenario game is "VIP"; one player of one team represents the VIP, and the goal of the rest of that player's team is to get the VIP across the field without being eliminated, while the goal of the entire opposing team is to eliminate the VIP. The team protecting the VIP may have some advantage such as "body armor" (multiple hits may be required, or members of that team may simply not be able to be eliminated, allowing a player to use themselves to "shield" the VIP). Other scenarios generally fall into the "attack & defend" category, where even or uneven teams compete to invade and oppositely defend a specific fortification on a field. Paintball equipment can be used in police scenario simulation like hostage standoffs, bank robberies, etc., and many paintball parks offer fields that can be used for this purpose; however, most real training along these lines is done with different equipment such as Airsoft, laser-based equipment or modified real-world weapons such as those that use Simunition. The use of paintball fields and equipment for scenario play has been the cause of suspicion by law enforcement; see Paintball - Accused terrorist usage.