Introduction:
This article has been created to give all ASF members an opportunity to understand the full art of creating an airsoft scenario. First off, you have to become inspired, you shouldn't just start writing. I am not going to tell you to take notes and make an outline, however I won't heart to do so; and trust me it does help, I usually do outlines of what I am going to write and you'll never find a person who originally opposed using outlines more than myself. Secondly, if you are creating a scenario for a specific airsoft field or location, you must remember to design your scenario so that it can be achieved and it will be enjoyable for all players at that airsoft field or other location.
Creating a Story:
All great scenarios have a story that goes along with them; and how you create your story for your scenario can greatly effect how the scenario turns out. Sometimes, you may create a scenario based on an already created or written story; for example you may be creating a scenario that replicates a level on Halo, or an action movie you have seen like the Terminator. Creating a scenario after a movie, game or even a book is always fun to do; and these scenarios can be awesome to play in. On the other hand, you may not have a story to base your scenario on, and thus you must create one. First you have to consider, what kind of game do you want it to be? Do you want it to be a game for snipers, in this case you would make the mission of the game a special reconnaissance mission; meaning you have objectives consisting of tasks where snipers are required to observe certain things, and even eliminate specific targets of importance. Do you want your games mission to be for rifleman, with lots of contact and shooting between teams; in this case you would create objectives which would allow for the members of each team to encounter each other, so as they can shoot at each other. Then of course you have CQC games, for a game like this, you would want and objective such as one team being required to rescue a hostage, of whom is located in a building, and under guard. All of these options are fantastic and can be improved to make fabulous scenarios.
After that you must take into consideration how many people you want to be playing, how many teams there will be and how many squads within a team. Generally, most game scenarios consist of two teams, and various squads within each team. In big operations, each team may consist of smaller teams of people weather they be a group of friends, or an established airsoft group. If you are doing a CQC game, you probably only need two teams, not including any hostages or neutral persons. However in more complicated games, there may not be any teams, but instead a number of small squads in a free for all. Either way, your team setup must fit your scenario.
Alright, now you just need to think of a story. There isn't any advise I can give your for doing this, just be sure it is original, and interesting. Perhaps you can start by thinking what the story of each team will be; say perhaps team #1's background story is that they are the heads of a massive corporation, who have sent out agents to kill a group of inventors (team #2) who are jeopardizing this big corporation with a new invention. This is just a random idea, but hey, it's a definite start.
Mission:
Now you need to determine what the exact mission will be; as said before, you need to decide what kind of mission it will be, and who will be the main focus of the mission (I.e. sniper, rifleman, shot gunners). When considering what kind of mission you will have, you must of course be sure it fits into your location of the game. The mission explains what will happen when they game is being played; it will define how the players begin play, and even how they stop. The mission is a basic short story of why the players are doing their specific objectives, and what the other team will be doing in general. All in all it is a summary of all the objectives compressed into one explanation.
Now you will need to determine your mission requirements. Your mission requirements mainly are items you will need to carry out the game. Ranging from random object to act as bombs, or an old calculator and duct tape to act as a control panel on a wall. When determining your mission requirements you must read over your mission and objectives and decide all of what you or the person hosting the game will need to bring with them to make the scenario possible. Be sure when writing your scenario to write up a checklist of the items you will need for the scenario.
Objectives:
The objectives are what each team will be working to do during the game; when deciding on the objectives, you need to determine if they would be possible for the team which is attempting the objective to complete. The objectives describe what needs to be done to complete the mission in total. Objectives are goals such as rescuing a hostage, planting an explosive in the enemy base or even sending sniper to gather information by observing a person reading a book. The possibilities are endless, and an objective can be anything.
Location:
Determining your location is a very important factor, it will determine the layout of your missions and objectives, as well as determine how the players will play. You can create your objectives either before or after your find your location. If you create your objectives before hand, you must find a location in which your objectives will be possible to carry out, and from there you can slightly modify your objectives fit the location. You can also find your location before you even create your objectives; this is somewhat easier in the respect that you will not have to modify your story or objectives to fit your location because you will be creating your objectives according to your locations attributes and the specific terrain found there. When you choose a location you need to be sure it will be comfortable for players to play there; if your location is wet, and swampy, nobody will want to play there especially those with AEG's, this is simply because AEG's and water don't mix, as well as the fact that a wet environment is not a comfortable environment. Nobody enjoys being wet, it makes you colder and it slows you down; and for some people it may even cause you to get ill. If you location has a very hot environment, people may not be able to play in much gear as they will over heat, thus you should probably consider an indoor or night game. If you climate is snowy, most players with AEG's will again not want to play there, and it will be far too cold for those will gas powered replicas. Gas powered replicas do not work in cold environments because the cold airs causes the gas to cool down far too much, and this reduces the power of the gas by a drastic amount. Also, movement in deeper snow is quite difficult; this will also deter most players. If it tends to rain where your scenario will take place, once again, AEG user will not be so happy to play there. All of this leads to the conclusion that choosing your location is a very important factor in creating a scenario.
Team Setup:
You will now need to decide how many people will be required for your scenario to work smoothly. Not all scenarios have a maximum amount of players, and not all, but usually most have a minimum amount of players. Remember that the more players you have, the more difficult a game will be, this is because there will be more contact and thus more "killing" between players. When setting up your teams, you need to remember to use as much organization as possible; this can range from create squads within a team, or requiring the entire team stay in a group or two while in game.
How it will go down:
Once this has been done, you must create a large and detailed description of precisely how the scenario will take place. This will include movements of each team, where certain items or people will be, and how to complete a certain objective. This also includes the starting and ending positions of each team. Be sure to use a large amount of detail when writing how your scenario will go down; also be sure to include how things will happen before the game even starts
Rules:
Once all of this work is complete, you must create rules. Rules are a very important factor in creating a scenario; in fact, rules are the most important thing to remember because they will determine the safety of all players. First, water is an important thing to include in yours rules; I recommend the all players are required to carry water in some form on their person simply because of the fact that drinking water often is the best and easiest form of preventing dehydration. Some other important rules to include are FPS rules. FPS rules define the maximum allowable muzzle velocity (in FPS [feet per second]) for a given player's airsoft replica. This type of rule is important because restricting the maximum velocity of an airsoft replica is a matter of safety; if a player has an AEG that fires at 500 fps, and shoots another player, it will cause serious injury, such as penetrating the skin of the person shot and causing severe pain. This in airsoft is unacceptable. Therefore the most common regulation for maximum FPS for an AEG is approximately 400FPS with .2 or .25 grams BB's. For sniper, the common regulation for their rifles is different from AEG's; this is because snipers usually only shoot a given person once, and commonly for a great distance such as 100+ feet. Thus 500FPS with a maximum of .33 gram BB's is a common regulation for sniper. Then there is minimum firing range; this refers to the least allowable range between to players when they are firing on each other. Most commonly, for AEG's, 10 feet with a 400 FPS or less rules is used. For sniper, as they regularly have rifles which fire 500FPS+, the minimum allowable range is about 100 feet. There are many different types of weapon restrictions used; these include not allowing the use of mini airsoft replicas, and even not allowing hi-capacity magazines.
Then there is the subject of physical contact; mostly, physical contact is not allowed, this is simply to prevent any accusations of sexual harassment or physical harm. On another note, dishonest players, who do not call their hits, are looked down on greatly by most other airsoft players; being honest no matter the circumstance is essential for a good airsoft game.