Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What does K.A.O.S. stand for?
A: Killing As Organised Sport
Q: Where are you?
A: There are clubs in a number of New Zealand Universities and a KAOS-at-large club for people who're no longer at University, or their kids. There is also a club in the U.S, that evolved independently of us, but who do similar things.
Q: Are you the hunting club?
A: No, we only hunt people.
Q: Do you really kill people?
A: No. Well only a little bit. We hunt each other with water-guns, nerf-guns, rubber chickens, remote doorbells (i.e. bombs) salt (i.e. poison), and the list goes on.
Q: Is it dangerous?
A: No, not really. We aim to kill people, not to hurt them. It's a lot less dangerous than most contact sports.
Q: What are the rules?
A: You can find the rules here. There will be variations on this for different branches, and rounds (games), so you should check-up on the house-rules and specific round-rules beforehand.
Q: What other things do you do?
A: We're also a social club, so we throw parties, and sometimes go to the movies or laserstrike or paintball together. Sometimes we'll make up sides and have a battle with ourselves or some other group like these guys. Sometimes, because we're largely University-based, there are stunts.
Q: So, how do the battles work?
A: There are rules for those too. Basically, don't hurt anybody or play rough, and remember that winning isn't important, but devising suicidal, absurd tactics is.
Q: That's a lot of rules. What are the really important things to remember?
A: There are the Meta Rules:
- Do nothing that will cause harm to another person.
- Do nothing that will get KAOS banned from anywhere.
- Have fun.
You could probably boil down the rules for rounds, battles (and parties) into the following:
- Don't make a mess (that you're not prepared to clean up), or break things (that you can't replace).
- Don't kill people you're not supposed to (people who're not in the round or are not combatants in a battle), or kill people in the wrong or unsafe places (e.g. Libraries, the middle of the road).
- Don't use guns indoors, don't spike drinks in bars (e.g. with salt).
- Don't use any weapons realistic-looking enough to get the police called (by a sane observer).
Q: OK, so how do I join KAOS?
A: Track down a member of the Politburo (Organising Committee) for the branch you want to join and badger them to sign you up. This usually involves a badge, and may optionally involve membership forms and a manifesto. You can sometimes spot Politburo members by their black badges (although former Politburo members often have them too), and you should be able to find a contact email address on the branch webpages.
Q: How do I find out what's going on?
A: We have a number of communications channels, but basically you probably want to join the mailing list for your branch, and the partylist.
Q: Isn't this all just a bit of a boys' club?
A: Not at all. KAOS was founded by a woman and numbers many woman in it's ranks. There have been similar numbers of male and female Dictators (branch presidents). Some branches have more women than men.
Q: Isn't this a bit right/left wing though? I don't know if I could join a club like that.
A: KAOS has members/supporters of every mainstream New Zealand political party, except maybe some of the smaller ones - National, Labour, the Greens, ACT. We don't discriminate by sex, colour, sexual orientation, religion or political background, although badgering people about politics may make you unpopular, just like anywhere else.
Q: Why do you use all have these silly names?
A: We think it's funny to play at cartoon-villainy.
Q: Are you goths?
A: No, not really. Well, some of us are, but not all of us.
Q: Why do you wear so much black then?
A: It goes with everything.
Q: So then, why aren't you all wearing black?
A: It's not a requirement.
Q: Do you think this is appropriate in the post-911 world?
A: Why do you hate our freedoms?
Q: This is all a bit stupid and childish though, isn't it?
A: We're having more fun than you.