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.

Core Rules of Combat:

  • 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)

When You are Tagged Out...
  • 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.

"Light" Projectiles

All projectiles smaller-than a NERF Mega-Dart, are "Light".​​
Light Projectiles are blocked by any weapons or shields which you hold in your hands. 
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,