By Edwin Brooks Anderson, Jr.

The game of Tron was devised by a couple of friends of mine and has spread most places I have been. Although many similar games have been proposed, I doubt that many have shared the acceptance of Tron. In Tron, each player has a Frisbee of his or her own. The object is to throw your Frisbee at other people, thus putting them out of the game, while not getting hit yourself. The last person left on the field is the winner.

To play you will need a good playing area and one Frisbee for every person. The Frisbees should be different enough that everyone can recognize his or her own. Clear borders for the playing area should be decided upon before play begins.

There a few basic rules and many that are designed to discourage unsportsmanlike behavior.

1. You may not run while holding your Frisbee.
   
   This means the only way to move is to throw the Frisbee to your desired location and run to retrieve it.
   
   
2. You can block an opponent's throw with your Frisbee.
   
   Since a player cannot run while holding his or her Frisbee, this gives the player an added defense.
   
   
3. Every third throw you make must be an attack.
   
   This keeps the player from making thirty short throws to gain position, and long placement throws must be made.
   
   
4. Placement throws are announced when they are made, and cannot kill anyone until the Frisbee stops moving.
   
   This makes it obvious when a throw to move is being made and avoids problems that can occur when the player is forced to make a placement shot, and not an attack, and happens to hit someone.
   
   
5. If you throw out of bounds you may leave the field to retrieve your Frisbee. You must leave within ten feet of the spot where the Frisbee left the field. You are invulnerable while out of bounds. When you reach the edge of the field you call "in" and make a placement shot. You cannot make an attack. If you go out of bounds five times in one game, you are considered dead.
   
   The reason you are declared dead is because if you have left the field five times then you have missed too much of the game for it to be fair for you to win.
   
   
6. You may not make a placement throw within ten feet of an unoccupied disk. If you accidentally do so you are obliged to move away form the unoccupied disk as quickly as possible without harassing the owner.
   
   This rule is to make it impossible to get next to an unoccupied Frisbee and keep the owner from ever retrieving it. This practice is known as "disk sitting" and slows the game and is bad sportsmanship. The exception to this is if there are only two people left in the game and by sitting on the other person's disk the game can be ended and all the folks that are out could get back on the field more quickly by your action.
   
   
7. There are time limits where the game is declared a draw. The limits are usually set at one minute per person on the field and reset each time a person is put out of the game.
   
   The purpose of this rule is to keep the game moving. It keeps the folks who are out from waiting too long until the next game.
   
   

Tron is a game that only works if folks are honest. There will be many times when only the person thrown at can honestly answer if a throw hit them, or only the thrower could see if it glanced off the side of the target's shoe. Just a couple of dishonest people can take a lot of the fun away for the other players.