Moopsball and its Children

March 24, 2008 11:27 PM

Lasting 3 days and involving up to three hundred and twenty four participants, the game of Moopsball debuted in Damon Knight's Orbit 18. Once part of the geek canon (not to mention the favored game of Illuminati University), Moopsball is slowly being forgotten. Still, there are those who are following in its footsteps.

I do apologise for the mystery meat at the end of the post; each of those words links to a different live-action game or organisation.

posted by Pope Guilty (12 comments total)

You hear that? More than ten times bigger than your football field, ass holes.
posted by Corduroy at 1:28 AM on March 25, 2008

Coincendentally, here at Penn State we've just kicked off our 5 week Humans vs Zombies game campus wide.
posted by trim17 at 5:36 AM on March 25, 2008

My favorite college sport.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:16 AM on March 25, 2008

Moopsball looks absolutely bizarre. I love it! I'm surprised I've never heard of it before. Has it been played yet? Or is it just "notional"?
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 7:18 AM on March 25, 2008

infinitewindow - That's exactly what I thought! (Then I saw the reference at the bottom of the page.)
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 7:19 AM on March 25, 2008

What a cool game, it must kinda like putting on a play.
posted by MNDZ at 7:20 AM on March 25, 2008

15x bigger, by my calculation.

the wizard is allowed three nubile assistants of any sex

This is pretty awesome.
posted by DU at 7:32 AM on March 25, 2008

I tried to get a Squamish game going when I was in college in the early 90's. Gave up after organizing everything became too much.

So disappointing. I grew up reading MAD and always counted on playing a game of Squamish in college. Apparently I was the only one with those aspirations.
posted by unixrat at 8:00 AM on March 25, 2008

GEORGE: All right BB. Let's just play... Who invaded Spain in the 8th century?
DONALD: THAT'S A JOKE. THE MOORS.
GEORGE: Oh, Noooo, I'm so sorry. It's the MOOPS. The correct answer is, The MOOPS.
DONALD: MOOPS? LET ME SEE THAT. THAT'S NOT MOOPS YOU JERK, IT'S MOORS. IT'S A MISPRINT.
GEORGE: I'm sorry the card says MOOPS.
DONALD: IT DOESN'T MATTER. I'S THE MOORS. THERE'S NO MOOPS.
GEORGE: It's MOOPS.
DONALD: MOORS.
GEORGE: MOOPS,
DONALD: MOORS!
posted by blue_beetle at 8:03 AM on March 25, 2008 [2 favorites]

Ah! Calvinball!
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 8:15 AM on March 25, 2008

I think a cyberpunk themed moopsball game would make an amazing LARP. But I pity LARP organizers...herding gamers is like bossing around really opinionated cats who have cars.
posted by Tesseractive at 8:31 AM on March 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Also, after some digging, it turns out Moopsball was Justin Morrill College's official sport (JMC was an old program at Michigan State) because Gary Cohn was an undergrad there when he wrote the rules. Fun fact: he's also co-creator of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. Go State.
posted by Tesseractive at 8:59 AM on March 25, 2008