Prom is one of the biggest calendar events of senior year. Dozens of players in one location, families present, formal photos, and zero room for water-gun drama. When you're organizing the game, protecting prom from play isn't optional. The same goes for graduation and senior week. The best rulebooks don't try to work around these events. They carve out the dates and let the game resume after.

Why prom needs a safe zone

Prom creates the exact conditions that make senior assassin chaotic. Everyone is dressed up. Families are there. There are cameras, rental cars, and coordinated group photos. The target's target is there, and the target's target's target is there. The whole elimination chain is concentrated in one place at one time.

A water-gun game doesn't work in that environment. It's not about being rude. It's about physics and attention. Someone getting soaked ruins their formal clothes, their hair, and the photos. Their family doesn't understand the game. The student who just got eliminated can't enjoy the event. And the people running prom are now managing a game conflict on top of everything else.

The core rule to write in your rulebook

The simplest version: "Prom day and the day before prom are safe zones. No eliminations can occur during these dates." Add the actual dates to the rules when you publish. Then add: "Graduation day is a safe zone."

When you publish your rules, replace the placeholder dates with your school's calendar. This removes any ambiguity about which Saturday or Friday counts as the safe zone. If your prom moves from year to year, update the dates in the rules every season.

• Prom day (the official date set by your school)
• The day before prom (prep and pre-game time)
• Graduation day
• Optional: Graduation rehearsal (if mandatory and the whole class attends)

What happens to the elimination chain during prom

The game doesn't move, but the chain doesn't break. If you're someone's target on prom day, you're still their target on prom night. If you eliminate them on prom day minus one, they're already out. The safe zone just means no one can make a move during those specific hours.

This is different from saying "prom doesn't count." Everyone is still in the game. Their target hasn't changed. They just can't act on it for one or two days. The chain resumes the morning after graduation.

Senior week and other organized events

Senior week is less formal than prom, but it matters the same way if it's an organized event your school runs. If there's a schedule, if families are invited, if there are official events and photos, treat it like prom. Make it a safe zone.

But be careful here. If senior week just means "the week when seniors skip school and hang out," it's not an official event. You can't pause the game for a week because some people decided not to show up to class. The rule is about official school events where attendance is expected and the whole class is present, not about which days people choose to skip.

Check the school calendar. If the school publishes a senior week schedule with events, add those dates to your safe zone rule. If it's undefined, leave the game running.

After-parties and private events

Someone will throw a prom after-party at their house. This is not covered by the safe zone. The rule protects the school prom. A private party is a private party.

This matters because it prevents confusion. If the after-party is at midnight and someone gets eliminated there, no one can claim it was during the prom safe zone. The protection ends when the official event ends. You can clarify this in your rules if your group tends to run unofficial events back-to-back with school events.

Handling graduation rehearsal and baccalaureate

Some schools have a graduation rehearsal the day before, or a baccalaureate ceremony, or both. Whether these are safe zones depends on whether they're mandatory and whether the whole senior class attends. If half the school is somewhere else, it's not a concentration point that needs protection. But if the entire class is required to be at rehearsal, add it to the safe zone list.

Make the call based on your school's actual calendar. You can include a line in the rulebook: "Graduation rehearsal is a safe zone if attendance is mandatory." But it's easier to just list the actual dates when you publish the rules.

When the safe zone starts and ends

This matters more than it sounds. The typical rule is that the safe zone starts at midnight or the morning of the day you named. If your prom is Saturday night, Saturday starts the safe zone. Friday night, someone can still make an elimination. Saturday at midnight, the zone ends.

If your prom runs late into Sunday, decide whether Sunday morning is still part of the safe zone. Most rulebooks stop at midnight. After-parties can run into Sunday, but the safe zone ended. State this clearly in the rules so no one argues about a 1 a.m. elimination on Sunday.

Communicating the dates

When you publish your rules template and generate the target chain, the live game board will show the current set of safe zones. Post the exact dates there. Tell people when they join: "Check the rules for prom and graduation dates." If the dates change from year to year, update them every season.

You can also mention the safe zones in the first email or message sent to players. Something like, "Prom and graduation are protected. See the rules for exact dates." This prevents someone from calling a bad elimination because they didn't read the rulebook carefully.