Happy Hunger Games: Instructions, reaping and the beginning

This is my second post on How to host your own hunger games, for the first post, please click here. 

From this point, most of the text will be the script that was written to read at the game, I will interject from time to time. I will use a different color font so you can keep things straight if you are crazy enough to try to plan one of these. I will also include pictures of our game around the same time so you can see a little bit of how things looked too. Plus, what's a blog without pictures. 

Welcome, Rules and Consents (10 mins or less)

Sometimes people are late

Welcome to the First Annual Hunger Games. We do have a significant amount of information to give you so that you all understand how everything will work. Please hang in there and we will get this out of the way as soon as possible. Before we begin the games, we would like to take care of some house keeping and general rules to make sure that everyone is on the same page before we begin playing.

First off, no one will be permitted inside the buildings for any reason other than to use the bathrooms or go into the kitchen. The food that you brought will be available for you to have at your leisure once you are no longer a tribute. If you are still competing as a tribute, you will not be allowed to eat.

Please also respect the boundaries of the arena that we will explain to you later, there are businesses open today and there are homes nearby. The owners of the property were generous enough to let us use it, so please respect their wishes by staying in the areas that we are allowed to use.

And now for the rules:

1. If a game maker tells you something you are expected to follow their directions without complaint, arguing, or disrespect. Failure to do so may result in a penalty or disqualification from a round or the game.

Very late

2. In this game the rules will constantly be changing, you must listen to all directions. If you do not understand something, please ask, we will be happy to explain. If you are caught cheating by a game maker or another player, you will be penalized or disqualified from a round or the game. 

3. At no time during the game are you allowed to use physical force or intentionally injure or hurt another player. Chances are that as the game progresses, things are going to start feeling very real to you… Be careful!

4. You must have your water bottle with you in the arena or at home base, please fill it up in between rounds. If you start to feel sick or dehydrated, find a game maker and let us know immediately.

5. You must keep your flag on your hip at all times while you are a tribute. The entire emblem must be visible. You may not touch your flag or try to hold it on if someone is grabbing for it.

6. At the end of a round, all items used in the round (from the cornucopia, etc.) must be brought back to home base. You may not hide or leave any items in the arena. 

7. Cell phones are not allowed to be in your possession while playing. Once you become a sponsor, you may use your cell phone in between your sponsor challenges if you wish.

We have a consent that you must sign and give back to us in order to play, so before we have our public reaping, please take a moment to fill one of these out. Thank you for your attention, you can hand us back the signed consents when you are called for the reaping.

Reaping– (10 to 15 minutes or less)

Because a district list was not given as public knowledge, and you were only given information about your district partner, we will have a public reaping. When your name is called please come up and get your district flag and drop off your consent form. Remember from now until you are eliminated, your flag must be worn on your hip with at least the entire emblem visible. 

[Announce districts 1-12 and have the tributes step forward and get their flag. Take their signed consents. Take a picture of each district at this time.]

  Career Districts: Luxury, Masonry, Technology

When we picked the districts, everyone except the careers only got to know who their partner was, which was why we had a reaping. The careers were given a list of all the other tributes and their partners, a map of the arena (shown in the previous entry) and were encouraged to talk among themselves to make alliances and to plan.  

Fishing, Power, Transportation 

 Lumber, Textiles, Grain

 Livestock, Agriculture, and Mining. 

Prepare yourself and the district 12 tributes for the probability that for the entire game they will most likely be called Katniss and Peeta. It doesn't matter how easy their names are to remember, ours were Julia and David, no one will call them by their real names.  

Give out Sponsors (10-15 minutes or less)

As well as tributes, each of you will be sponsors in the game. You have been assigned one other tribute that you will sponsor for the entire game.

How does this work?

Each of you will start the game as tributes, as you are eliminated you will become sponsors and participate in sponsor challenges that have the ability to influence the game for the remaining tributes greatly. If you are killed and the person you are sponsoring is still one of the Tributes, do your best to help them, because if they win, you will also win.

At the end of the games, the winning tribute will win $150 and their sponsor will win $50.

If the second place tribute, or the runner up, happens to be sponsoring the winning tribute then the winning tribute will receive $200 because their sponsor never actually participated in any sponsor challenges to help them. (Give examples using Gabby and Matt if needed)

The sponsors that we have assigned you will not be announced to the entire group. Whether you decide to tell the person whom you are sponsoring, or any other players will be totally up to you. Please consider your strategy carefully before making any decisions. While alliances are useful, there are some among you that would kill for much less than a guaranteed helper for the rest of the game. You can also choose to sponsor other tributes during the game besides the tribute you are assigned. However, the only way you can win money as a sponsor, is if your assigned tribute wins the game.

(Call up districts one at a time and give them the name and district number of the person that they are sponsoring. Matt can give info to the boy in the district, Gabby can give info to the girl in the district. This will move things along faster than doing it one at a time.)

Boundaries and Cornucopia (5 mins)

            Quickly explain physical boundaries of the arena.

There are items placed in the cornucopia that will be useful to you during the game. Some items may only be used for one round, others can be used until you run out of them, or decide that it’s no longer worth it to carry them around.

If anything is left at the cornucopia, it can be picked up and used during other rounds. The items do not have to all be used during the first round, you will just need to carry them until you want to use them.

Remember that if you pick up an item it’s your job to make sure that it ends up back here at the end of the round. Please do not leave anything in the arena that Matt and Gabby need to pick up or find at the end of the game.  

Round One

TRIBUTES:

The tribute-rounds will be played in capture the flag style. In a moment we will have you pick five tokens out of the bag. On each token, you will see a name and a district number. You may pick repeats of the same name, and you may pick your own name. Do not show these to any other players until we finish explaining their purpose.  (Have everyone pick tokens and hand them their paper bag with their name and district number on it.)

Unfortunately for you, this game will not be a giant free for all or a game of tag; it’s going to require some strategy on your part. The names on these tokens represent the only people that you are allowed to kill in this round. There will be no switching, or trading of tokens.

Please commit these names to memory at this time, and place them in the paper bag with your name on it that we just gave you. At the end of the round, when you make a kill, we will check to make sure that the tribute matches one of the tokens in your bag.

To kill someone, you must grab their flag. Once you have their flag, that person is dead. You can leave the "dead tribute" and return to the home base where Matt or Gabby will be waiting. Tributes who have made a kill can still be killed until they reach home base. We will determine the number of people to die each round. The first people to return with another tribute's flag in hand will count toward the death toll. Anyone who is killed after the death toll for the round is reached will not count.

This is important: if you happen to find a white flag, this counts as an extra tribute flag. You must put it on immediately and keep it on. It must show as much as your tribute flag. In order to be killed, another tribute must removed both flags from you. You may not steal a white flag from another player.

This round will end when 3 tributes are killed. At that time, we will blow the air horn again and unless you are one of the tributes who's flag was brought back to home base, you will advance to the next round.

When you hear the air horn, please come back as soon as possible so we can continue.

We will escort you to your starting places around the cornucopia, as soon as the air horn sounds, the games have begun.

(Get everyone into position) (select #1-#24 out of a bag to determine cornucopia positions)

May the odds be ever in your favor. 

Do not be afraid to give this a little time here. Chances are that this will be an incredibly intense moment for each of the tributes. In the book, there was countdown before anyone could start. I spoke to a few people and they said that at this moment everything feels very real for them. Your body is coursing with adrenaline, you're trying to keep a clear head and make a plan, and you're worried about who's coming to kill you. Don't rush it. 

(Blow air horn & play.)

The beginning of the game is very fun to watch as a game maker. It's kind of like watching a nature documentary. Interestingly enough, our game was much like the book. There were a lot of deaths pretty much immediately at the cornucopia and then the careers ended up having their pick of a lot of the things that were there after that.

This first round went way faster than we anticipated. It took less than five minutes for the first three tributes to die. 

(Blow air horn, stop. Once everyone is assembled, announce the kills for the first round.)

The first victims of the First Annual Hunger Games are…

1. Susan, district 11 (killed by David, district 12)
2. Nikki, district 5 (killed by Julia, district 12)
3. Laurie, district 6 (killed by Steven, district 4)

Take five minutes and we will begin round two.

(Gather all tokens back into the bag; remove tokens of first three dead players. 105 tokens left)

Giving them a couple minutes in between rounds is not only helpful for you to get things set up, it also allows for some nice planning time for the tributes.

For part 3 click here