When I was a teenager, my friend Jon Clark (we called him Schroom for reasons completely inexplicable) bought a book at the skate shop in the mall (it was the only store in the mall that sold RPG and bookshelf games like Avalon Hill). It was called
Killer and was released by Steve Jackson games.
Killer was proto-LARP (published, I believe, in 1985). The idea was that all the players were assassins. Last one standing wins. You used squirtguns, nerf darts, or anything else that you registered with the referee as a weapon (variant: assign cash values and give the assassins an allowance). The problem was you were only allowed to kill your assigned target, after which you inherited their assignment. If you killed someone else, or an innocent bystander, you died too. The other rule is you couldn't be witnessed -- with one exception. If you wore a mask you could kill *anyone* you wanted, but in turn anyone was allowed to target you.
We played a massive game in high school, many of us getting detention for doing things like running into AP History classes wearing a ski mask and using a squirt gun on a target, then running out. My crowning achievement was taking out Raymond Soper. We were year book "computer editors" together, which meant we spent most of fifth period in the other room playing Bard's Tale (ah, Bard's Tale, how I loved thee! -- but that's another story). I renamed the Bard's Tale executable, and wrote a BASIC program that made the screen flash and present the words "BOOM! This computer has just blown up. You are now dead." Begin fifth period, I call John (the other "computer editor") into the main room to "ask him something." Wait 120 seconds. Hear scream of frustration from the other room. Grin with unnatural glee.
All this is a long way of preparing you for how awesome this link is. The problem with Killer is our current political environment. "Killing" people in public can not only get you detention, depending on how paranoid the local citizenry are, you could wind up in jail. At the very least you freak the crap out of everyone.
Enter
Cruel 2 B Kind. The principles are the same as Killer, though there are some complexities and point systems that I find very interesting. The main difference is that you "kill" by an act of kindness, three official "weapons" being determined by the referee and given power in a rock-scissors-paper scheme, so you can mediate ties. Thus, at worst, the local people will live in fear of packs of gamer nerds performing random acts of kindness.
By the way, Dan, I really admire those shoes.