Our Gameplay Rules are designed with cross-gaming in mind. Our system allows many diverse styles of foam weaponry to be employed, such as modded blasters, medieval boffer weapons, and high-end 3d-printed stuff, all while remaining balanced, fun, and family-friendly.
Version 4.1 (May 2023) (Changelog)

The Non-negotiables 

  • Rule #1: Don’t be a jerk

Eye-protection must be worn. No exceptions!

All blasters must have orange tips. No exceptions!
No realistic paint jobs. No Firearm Replicas. Blasters which are mostly-black or which closely resemble a real firearm are not allowed.

No Lasers. (Holographic reflex sights are still allowed.)

All Equipment Must Be Available For Inspection. Boffers must be inspected at every game.
​
​We are not childcare. All children under-18 must be accompanied by parent or legal guardian.

Clean-up Participation Required. Everyone must help cleanup darts at the end of the day.
  • One Hit And You're Out! A single hit from a projectile or boffer tags you out.
    • ​​​You are hit if you or something you are wearing/carrying stops a dart from moving through the air, or alters its course.
  • Weapon Hits...
    • Weapons & Shields you hold in your hands block hits from boffer weapons and from any projectile smaller than a NERF Mega-dart.
    • Hits from "Medium Projectiles" and "Throwables" do count (see "Medium" and "Throwables", below). ​
  • Bazooka projectiles destroy any shield they hit. 
    • Shields destroyed by Bazooka projectiles cannot be used for the rest of the current round.
      • (the shield stays destroyed even after shield's owner respawns)

Core Rules of Combat:

  • You should hold your hand or weapon above your head to show others you are out-of-game.​
  • Return to your team's respawn point promptly.

When You are Tagged Out...
Light Projectiles are blocked by any weapons or shields which you hold in your hands. 

"Light" Projectiles

All projectiles smaller-than a NERF Mega-Dart, are "Light".​​
Examples of Light projectiles:
Half darts
most Nerf and Buzzbee darts
Vortex discs
Rival balls
BoomCo Darts
NERF Ultra-darts
BANNED Darts:
  • All Nerf Hyper balls are banned, due to their small size. (see image)
  • Any dart whose tip does not squish or seems hard. Includes full vinyl jacket (FVJ) and homemade tips composed of non-compressible materials.

"Medium" Projectiles

All projectiles equal-or-larger-than a NERF Mega-Dart, are "Medium".
Hits from Medium Projectiles will tag you out, even when they only hit your shield or weapon.
  • All throwable weapons are "Medium".
  • All NERF Arrows are "Medium".​
​Examples of Medium projectiles:
NERF Mega-darts
NERF Arrows
Oldskool NERF Arrows
Foam large-ball launchers
Koosh-Ball launchers
Mega-XL darts
All "throwables" are Medium Projectiles
​ (see next section)

Throwable Weapons
Throwable weapons are foam weapons which score hits when thrown or tossed at an opponent. 
  • Throwable weapons count as Medium Projectiles (because they are larger than a NERF Mega-dart)
  • Anyone may use any number of Throwable weapons.​
  • Throwable weapons must be thrown in order to score a hit on an opponent. 
    • (it must leave your hand and travel through the air)
  • When thrown: Throwable Weapons score a hit from any portion of the weapon.
    • Bounces count.
​
Construction Requirements
  • Throwable weapons cannot contain a core of any kind.
  • Must be made entirely out of foam.
  • May be  skinned with cloth, or plastidip, or a single layer of duct tape, or left bare. 
 
 Koosh Balls
  • Koosh balls are throwable weapons.
 
Toy Foam Balls
  • Any toy ball made entirely out of low or medium-density foam such as Koosh, Nerf, etc., may be used as a throwable weapon.  
Cross-Gaming:​ "Sock Grenades" from Goucher-style HvZ games are allowed.
​
Cross-Gaming:​ Amtgard throwables such as ''Light-Thrown'', ''Heavy-Thrown'', ''spell balls'' and ''foam Rocks'' are allowed. 
Amtgard "javelins" and "arrows" are not allowed because they contain solid cores.
No Throwing Darts
  • Nerf darts, Bazooka Missiles, etc., are not throwable weapons, and must be launched from a blaster!
Throwable weapon examples:
a homemade foam projectile with no core
a koosh ball
a commercially-made toy foam ball,​ made of medium-density foam
commercially-made toy foam balls​ made of low-density foam
foam stress-balls

Bazooka Projectiles

​Hits from Bazookas Destroy any shield they hit -AND- tags you out, even when they only hit your shield or weapon.
To be added to this whitelist: Bazooka projectiles must have fins; be very large; be inaccurate and short range; with very slow rates of fire; and long/complicated reloads.
  • Only the following five(5) projectiles listed on this whitelist are considered Bazooka Projectiles:
    1. NERF Titan Missile
    2. NERF Elite Missile
    3. BuzzBee BigBlast Missile
    4. BuzzBee Blastzooka Missile
    5. BuzzBee Glo-Missile ​​​​
Do you have something new? Read the standards PaNNC uses to judge whether a new blaster qualifies as a "Bazooka".
1. NERF Titan Missile
2. NERF Elite Missile 
​(colors may vary)
3. BuzzBee BigBlast Missile
4. BuzzBee BlastZooka Missile
​​(colors may vary)
5. BuzzBee Glow-Missile
​Examples of Bazookas:

Shields

  • Anyone may use any number of Shields.
  • No hitting other players with your shield.
  • There are two types of shield: Large and Small (see below).
Large Shields
​What Counts: All home-made shields are Large. 
  • ​Maximum shield size: 1,152 square inches (8 square feet).
  • Shield-edges must have at least 3/8'' of foam padding.​
  • Constructed Shields must not contain sharp points or edges.
  • Weapon Limitation – If you use a Large Shield: your choices for offensive weapons are limited to Boffer Melee Weapons and Shield-legal Blasters* (see below).
    • Gunblades & Bayonets may be used as long as the blaster portion of the weapon is a Pistol.​
    • Bazookas count as pistols.
Small Shields
​What Counts: Any Hasbro product with the word “Shield” in its official product name is a Small.​ (NERF is a Hasbro product-line)
  • No Limitation: Doesn't limit your weapon choices.
Cross-Gaming:​ Any shield built to the specifications for Amtgard; Belegarth; or Evergreen, will pass inspection at PaNNC games. ​

*Definition of a Shield-legal Blaster:

​In order to be used with a homemade shield, a blaster must meet all three of these requirements:
  • Ammo Capacity: 12 rounds or less;
  • Non-electric;
  • No removable magazines or ammo feed system.

Boffer Weapons

Boffer weapons are hand-held items such as foam-swords and axes.
  • Anyone may use any number of Boffer weapons
  • No Throwing: any weapon containing rigid core cannot be thrown at other players.
  • No hits to the head or neck​ with any weapon containing a rigid core.
  • There are two types of Boffer Weapon: Homemade and Commercially Made (see below).
Homemade Boffers
Minimum Padding Requirements
  • Striking-surfaces must have at least 3/4'' of foam over the weapon core.
  • Non-striking-surfaces must have at least 3/8'' of foam padding. 
  • Two Inch Stab Tips: Foam must extend at least two inches past the end of the core on at least one end of the weapon.
    • Weapons may have up to one "pommel", which must have a minimum of 1-inch of foam extending past the tip of the core. Pommels cannot be used to strike or stab opponents.
  • Un-padded hand-space: Weapons may have a reasonable section of unpadded handspace. Please keep it to a minimum. 
Weapon Cores:
  • The best materials to use are kite spar, fiberglass, fire-hardened-bamboo, bandshoppe-pole, or carbon/graphite rods (such as from non-metallic golf clubs).
  • PVC and CPVC piping may also be used as weapon cores.
  • Metal and wooden cores are not acceptable and will never be allowed. 
Covering/Skinning
  • Homemade boffers may be skinned with duct tape, plastidip, or cloth. They may also be left uncovered (bare foam).
Commercially-made Boffers
''​Commercially-made boffers'' are foam boffer weapons made by a commercial toy company, or by a professionally licensed LARP equipment company such as Hasbro/NERF, Calimacil, etc. 

No Stabbing: ​All commercially-produced weapons are slash-only and cannot be used to stab with, 
Examples of game-legal commercially-made boffer weapons:
assorted NERF foam weapons. 
Example LARP sword from Calimacil, demonstrating soft foam tip
NERF ''Marauder'' sword
Cross-Gaming:​ Any boffer weapon built to Amtgard, Belegarth, or Evergreen specifications will pass inspection at PaNNC games. 

Bayonets

Important Note: Bayonets MUST be inspected and approved before use.
​Bayonets will only be approved on a case-by-case basis. 
A Bayonet is a detachable boffer weapon which can attach to a blaster via the standard NERF barrel attachment-point.​
  • Items which attach by any other means (such as rails) are not allowed. 
  • Bayonets must conform to all PaNNC rules for homemade boffers:
    • (All striking surfaces must be padded with at least 3/4'' of foam.)
    • (Any non-striking-surfaces must have a minimum of 3/8'' foam padding.) 
    • (Weapon tip must have a minimum of 2" of foam extending past the end of the weapon's rigid core.) 
  • No "unpadded hand-space": the entire thing must be foam-padded.
    • The only area which can be un-padded, is the actual barrel-attachment mechanism (which is only visible when the bayonet is not attached to a blaster).
Bayonet examples:
Bayonet on a Recon
Bayonet on a Rayven, as seen on Youtube...
Bayonet on a Stryfe

Combo-Weapons

Important Note: Combo-weapons MUST be inspected and approved before use.
​These items will only be approved on a case-by-case basis. 
Combo-Weapons consist of two different kinds of weapon permanently combined into a single item.
​
There are two styles of Combo-weapon: 
  1. Gunblade (blaster + homemade boffer weapon)
  2. Shieldgun (blaster + homemade shield)​
  • When hit by a bazooka, an entire Shieldgun is destroyed, regardless of where the bazooka struck. 
  • The blaster portion of Gunblades and Shieldguns must be foam-padded as much as possible without obstructing the blaster's ability to prime & reload. A good rule of thumb: at least 95% of the entire surface area of a Gunblade or Shieldgun should be foam-covered. ​​
  • Combo-Weapons must follow all PaNNC rules for both types of weapon:
(The blaster component of Gunblades and Shieldguns still needs an orange tip)
(All Shieldguns still count as Large shields, because all homemade shields are "Large")
(If using a Shieldgun: your other weapons are still limited to Pistol or Boffer)
(The blaster portion of a Shieldgun can only be a pistol)​​
(Striking-surfaces of Gunblades must have a minimum 3/4" of foam padding)
(Non-striking surfaces of Gunblades must have a minimum 3/8" of foam padding)​
(The maximun size of  Shieldguns is still limited to 1,152 square inches i.e. 8 square feet)
Gunblade examples:
Gunbladed Buzzbee Ultimate Rapidblast
Gunbladed Maverick, as seen on YouTube...
Another gunbladed Maverick,