What the Frag? - The Laser Tag Rorschach Test

17 hours ago
2 min read

What do you see in this picture?

Sometimes laser tag is like a Rorschach test and you see what you want to see. Last night a few of us played LF’s version of Death Match (specifically DM3) for the first time without really grasping the goals. We’re tagging targets for random items like “nail gun” and “rocket launcher” and at the end I see an unusual symbol next to my name (and my whopping score of 10 points). So I assume I have just earned a pair of leggings…makes as much sense to me as anything else that just happened, lol!

Seriously though, Axman, Mama Bear and I enjoyed trying something new, as we don’t often get to explore special formats during public hours. It is surprising that none of us had experienced this game up until last night!

Lenny compared this format to “Capture the Flag without the flags”, which I suppose adds some clarity to what we experienced. A cursory look at the rules gave us the basic guidelines, but honestly very little of it stuck with me, as it was a lot of new info. You really have to actually play a game before it all sinks in to understand it properly.

What I can tell you is that the symbol was NOT a pair of leggings (though you probably knew that already). It was a strength rune, one of four runes that can be obtained for special advantages during the game. I don’t actually know how I obtained it (I’ll have to re-read the rules again), but I do know that once I had it the rune allowed my weapons to do double damage. Couple that with the ring of invisibility and I was all set…until getting fragged.

Fragged…is that a real word? Autocorrect has “fixed” it three times just as I’m typing this sentence. It is the gamer slang terminology for eliminating a player in a video game. But this is tag, so I have to ask…why “frag” instead of “tag”?

Perhaps it’s because it takes several tags to reduce an opponent’s strength enough to “frag” a player into deactivation. I vaguely remember that in the rules, but I didn’t process it immediately. Instead I wondered what exactly to do with a nail gun (faster shot speed) or a rocket launcher (missiling) or armor or super health? In actuality, once you understand all the terminology the game makes a lot more sense, but when you don’t know why you’ve been given a “nail gun” in a laser tag game, then anything can start to sound logical…even the idea that you could have earned a pair of leggings as an achievement instead of a strength rune! Or maybe that’s just me because I had just bought some new comics-inspired leggings and workout gear earlier this week.