Rules of Adventure: Kokopelli

Event Rules
Overview on The Game of Kokopelli

Game begins the Friday night before Memorial Day & ends the morning of Memorial Day. Players will be given a complete schedule on Friday night. All participants must sign the consent form prior to arriving at camp.

Kokopelli is a team and individual singe elimination game. Teams and players play games of skill, endurance, and chance to win immunity that protects players from elimination. The Game of Kokopelli uses voting (secret ballot) as the elimination method. At the end, the voted out players play a crucial role in determining the winner of the game.

Please note:
 * Bring all your own food & water. There is no drinkable water on site.  You will be invited to join a food cooperative with the other campers.
 * This is rustic camping.  Bring what you need for shelter and emenities.  Pack for both warm and cold weather.  You must clean up after yourself (including hauling trash out of the site.)
 * We request you wear footwear during all of the challenges.
 * The game will be momentarily postponed in case of injury or emergency.  The Head Ref will make the call as to how and when to proceed with the game (i.e. restarting a challenge vs. starting where it left off).
 * At our site, the rules of the National Forest Park System apply. All other local, state, and federal laws apply.
 * If you are an active player (not eliminated), the game goes on regardless if you are present or not.  This could result in your team forfeiting immunity, or you could be automatically eliminated from the game.
 * Each player has the right to remove themselves from the game at any moment.
 * Each player will be expected to sign off on a liability/media release/trade secrets form.
 * Spectators (non-players) are not allowed to influence the game.  They may not assist teams in challenges, search for hidden totems, decifer clues for players, or affect the social millieu in anyway.  Likewise, players may not conspire with the spectators.
 * Spectators must sign off on a trade secrets/ non-disclosure document.
 * The Host/Showrunners act as Referee during the challenges.   Ref's rulings may be called upon by players, in the case of an even number of Refs, the Head Ref will make the Final Ruling.

Game Structure Breakdown
The Game of Kokopelli is divided between 5 distinct phases: PreGame, Team Phase, Sacrifice Phase, Individual Phase, and EndGame.

PREGAME:  In this phase, the players will be divided in some way into teams. Historically, this has been a random selection of a rock. There are occasionally challenges or rewards that go along with this phase, but are not guaranteed to be a part of it.

TEAM PHASE: This begins the reward and or elimination component of the game. Teams will compete in challenges to win an immunity totem. The team(s) that does not win an immunity totem will attend the Altar where they will sacrifice a player by voting off at least one member of their team. The player who receives the most votes will be "sacrificed." After the elimination, teams will begin the next challenge for another shot at winning the immunity totem. There may be predetermined twists where teams are rearranged.

ELIMINATION PHASE: This is the phase that marks the end of a round. After a team or individual wins immunity, players attend the metaphoric "Altar of Kokopelli," where one or more players will be eliminated from the game. Adventure: Kokopelli uses pluralist voting as the sole elimination method and players will vote using secret ballot. If a player has individual immunity, their name may not be written down. Prior to the vote, a player may give away his individual immunity necklace or choose not to wear it, but individual immunity is only good at the next sacrifice that player would attend. In other words, they may not "save their necklace for later." A player may not give the necklace to a player on another tribe. If the votes tie, secret rules will be released into the game about how the tiebreaker will be settled. See Tie Votes.

INDIVIDUAL PHASE:  At a predetermined time, players will form one tribe and compete individually against the other players. At this juncture, players will be playing for the Individual Immunity Totem. Once a player wins immunity, all players will attend the "Altar of Kokopelli" and sacrifice at least one player from the game.

ENDGAME:  Everyone is involved in the endgame phase. In all but the original season and 2010, the players who were eliminated formed a jury of "ghosts," but the jury has functioned in different ways over the years. At a predetermined time, typically around the Final 4 or Final 3, the players enter into the EndGame. EndGame rules are not to be triggered until the round of the final immunity challenge or later. Most often, EndGame has triggered the Past Challenge "Finale" Race, which has occured in all but 2007 and 2009. During this final phase, one player will outmaneuver the other finalists and become the Great Warrior of Kokopelli.

Voting Rules

 * You must vote for a player other than yourself that does not have immunity.
 * You may not choose NOT to vote unless the rules of the games state you may (For example, Kokopelli's Temptations are sometimes triggered this way.)
 * Endgame:  Players who violate any rule, cheat, or are in any other way disqualified, will not have any vote at the EndGame.
 * Endgame: Players in the Ghost Jury will be given instructions on how they are to vote at the Final Tribal Sacrifice.
 * 2011 Ruling--Concerning Players Who Quit:  Players who have legitamate reasons to leave early, and have done so amicably, may be requested to leave a "Bootlist" by the facilitators.  The player leaving lists the names of each player in the game from Most Desired to Win to Least Desired to Win .  This "Bootlist" may be used in the Endgame vote at the discretion of the facilitators.  In 2009, players were allowed to proxy votes in via text message.  This rule was disbanded in 2011.  (This is primarily because in 2010 Mike and Tricia had to leave early for a family emergency, and they had no resulting votes cast at EndGame.  Eventhough this would not have changed the result of that particular Tribal Sacrifice, planners and players alike agreed that the "Bootlist" was the fairest way to deal with these unique circumstances.)

"Twists"
Twists from prior seasons:
 * 2011-12 "Surprise Tribal Sacrifice":  Without an immunity challenge, players must go directly to the elimination phase at the Altar of Kokopelli.
 * 2007 "Multiple Individual Immunity Totems during Single Individual Immunity Challenge"
 * 2009 "Late Merge" Not merging into one tribe until late in the game.
 * 2010 "Advantages" Gave an individual or team some kind of advantage to the immunity/reward challenge.
 * 2010, 2012 "Indivdual Immunity Totems as Reward"  To be used the next time that player would go to any tribal sacrifice.
 * 2010 "Fake Merge" Players dropping their buffs and playing an individual immunity challenge, only to then be broken back into teams.
 * 2010 "The Temptations of Kokopelli"  These are certain triggered abilities that occur if a player gives up their right to vote or does some other "sacrifice", such as stepping out of an immunity challenge.
 * 2010, 2012 "The Shrine of Kokopelli"  Kokopelli's reward.  It is sometimes hidden, sometimes, given, but it is always supplies the player who finds it with information that the other players do not have about the game.
 * 2009-2010, 2012 "eXile"  A place where players would be forced to go to seclude them from the game.  Sometimes there has been secret information or hidden prizes in eXile depending on the season.
 * 2012 "Revenant 'Ghost' Challenges" - Challenges where voted out players return to try and steal immunity from the players currently in the game.  A Ghost that successfully wins immunity (called stealing immunity), returns to the game with Individual Immunity.
 * 2012 "Coyote's Challenge and Stealing Immunity Totems" - After the first night's Coyote's Challenge, Jim and Pete possessed Individual Immunity.  In the following three challenges, players were given additional options in the challenge if they wanted to steal the immunity from the player on their team that currently possessed it:  Finding a hidden rope on the ropes course led to the totems in the first challenge, though it would take your team longer to win the challenge.  In the second, they had to shoot out two difficult tiles with a slingshot, but the goal to win was to shoot your opponent's named tiles.  Lastly, they could attempt to retrieve it with a grappling hook, instead of their own bags that had the puzzle pieces they needed to solve.  Interestingly, no player attempted to steal immunity.