Paintball by B.T. Robertson

What do authors do when they’re not writing?

I play the most popular extreme sport on planet Earth. It’s called paintball. You may have seen coverage of paintball on ESPN2 and Fox Sport Network (FSN), but until you play paintball, you really can’t fully appreciate the intensity and adrenaline rush that accompanies shooting someone in the goggles with a paintball.

So what exactly is the sport of paintball? I guarantee you that there are few people in the world who will answer incorrectly. In simple terms, the sport is the culmination of two incredibly popular and fun childhood games: tag and hide-and-seek. In tag, you must eliminate your opponent by touching any part of their body with your hand(s); in hide-and-seek, the hiders conceal themselves and the seekers attempt to flush them out. Paintball is no different except the organon – the tool – of tagging your opponent aren’t your hands, it’s a paintball projectile propelled by compressed air or CO2 through a pneumatic paintball gun.

There are many forms of paintball, all of which I have participated in. The style of paintball you may have seen on ESPN2 and FSN is called “speedball”. Speedball consists of teams of players: three, five, seven, or even as many as ten players per team. Inflatable air bunkers are arranged on the field in an obstacle course-like fashion, all different shapes and sizes. There’s the “can” bunker, which, quite literally, is shaped like a large soda pop can; these can be positioned upright or laid on their side. There’s the popular “snake” bunker, which is an arrangement of tubes with square bunkers called “bricks” positioned at junction points along the “body” of the snake. The snake is typically arranged on one of the tapelines – the lengthwise edges of the field – in the mid-part of the field. It’s a key position because if a player can work their way up the snake undetected, it gives the assaulting team a major advantage because of presented angles to the opponents. In traveling tournament circuits, each city has their own field layout per the rules of the league hosting the tournament. This keeps the competition fair and varied, requiring each team to study the layout and form strategies prior to competing. 

Other types of bunkers are the Dorito, Aztec, car wash, the “X”, and pyramid. Each has their own defined shape and provides different types of cover for the player.

In speedball, the typical goal is to capture the flag in the center of the field and hang it in the opposing team’s start station. As you can imagine, this is very difficult to achieve with opponents still on the field and it’s extremely rare – in fact I’ve never seen it happen – where a player captures the flag and takes it successfully to the other side without being marked. The common outcome is a full elimination of an opposing team, at which time the flag can be retrieved and hung to score the point. The team with the most points in a match wins. 

The most common type of paintball – and my personal favorite – is woodsball. As the name implies, woodsball takes place in the woods. No inflatable bunkers exist in woodsball. The natural foliage and terrain of the given acreage provides teams with cover. Some fields have old buildings on the property which are used by the players for gaining position and holding defenses for an objective. Other fields craft their own bunkers out of planks, tires, old cars, buildings, and any other kind of creative means you can imagine. I’ve played at a field in Pennsylvania that had a true-to-scale castle on the grounds that could house hundreds of players inside. The only things missing were a drawbridge and moat.

In woodsball, the objectives are as varied as the terrain. Many woodsball games are based on themes, called “scenarios”. In scenario woodsball, popular themes include world wars, video games, and movies. The scenario woodsball game transcends the athletic, league paintball seen on television. People from all walks of life and of all ages can play woodsball. Fathers and mothers play with their sons and daughters; bosses take their employees to woodsball games for team-building exercises; bachelor and birthday parties bring hordes of people together for a day of fellowship and frivolity in the woods, shooting one another. Players take on the roles of their favorite characters and don costumes in scenario paintball. For example, in 2008, the paintball design company I work for as a creative designer and staff writer, Mission Masters Paintball Games, created and hosted Alien vs. Predator: Total Carnage, a scenario paintball game based on the popular creatures and movies from the science fiction movie genre. I secured a custom-made, one-of-a-kind 1:1 scale replica mask from the first Predator movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Needless to say, everyone loved the authenticity brought to the paintball game.

Regarding the ball of paint itself, modern paintballs aren’t all that much different than the first paintballs to grace the sport in the 1980s. Traditional paintballs were oil-based and filled with vegetable oil; modern paintballs are filled with a latex, biodegradable compound that is quite bitter to the taste, but harmless otherwise. Food coloring is added to create the “fill” of the paintball, the liquid that marks your unfortunate target. The shell is made from gelatin, which is designed to withstand amazing pressure from the force of the paintball gun – called a “marker” – yet breaks apart easily when it hits a target.

Paintball markers come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Some are specifically designed for speedball, others for woodsball. A good woodsball marker will be durable and able to withstand the harsh environmental elements, such as rain, snow, water, and mud. The woodsball player isn’t afraid to get dirty and his marker needs to be reliable in such conditions. On the flip-side, the speedball player needs the latest technology in her marker. Every speedball marker on the market today contains electronic circuit boards that can be programmed to allow different rates of fire (per the rules of the tournament the player is involved in) and other settings unique to paintball markers. Electronic markers are very susceptible to defects in the woods, where water, mud, or snow would destroy the circuit board and solenoid electronics.

The main concern in paintball is safety, which is preached constantly by good fields with a reputable staff. Proper eyewear is the most important piece of equipment that’s required for any player before they step anywhere close to the paintball field. Modern goggles include certified lenses that are able to withstand a constant stream of paintballs shot from point-blank range. Other safety equipment includes elbow and knee pads, paintball pants with built-in groin protection (sorry guys, doesn’t feel good getting hit there wearing jeans or regular pants), padded chest protectors, gloves, and neoprene neck wraps. Many players choose to travel as light as possible because of the heat generated by one so burdened with so much gear, but for the cautious player – or your young son/daughter – protection is desirable.

When I’m not writing novels as B.T. Robertson, I assume the identity of a crazed paintball player others simply refer to as “Crisis”. I play with the same integrity as I bring to my writing persona, but paintball allows me to be someone I can’t be anywhere else: a character in my own video game world of mayhem and paint.

B.T. Robertson

Author of the Chronicles of the Planeswalkers novel series

www.btrobertson.com