As the school year winds down, the stakes in “Paranoia,” New Trier High School’s annual senior assassin game, are heating up. The game, which started with dozens of teams in late March, is now down to only two. The prize? $6,500 for the winning team. 

For players, the name Paranoia is fitting: Success requires being constantly careful and aware of one’s surroundings. Teams, traditionally five players and no fewer than four or more than six, face each other in weekly head-to-head matchups, in which the team with the most lives remaining come Sunday is victorious.

High-speed chases, late-night ambushes, secret hideouts, escape plans, and furtive backchannels of information are all common occurrences as teams attempt to survive.

“They monitor [Snapchat] pretty constantly,” senior and Paranoia participant Ben Wu said of his week eight opponents. “If anyone leaves the house with [Snapchat] on, they will almost always try to go to that person’s house. When they see you leave your house, they’ll just go camp there.”

Athletes and members of other school-sponsored activities whose schedules are published online often face a disadvantage, Wu, who plays water polo, said.

For him, the game has yielded diminishing returns.

“I was hoping we would get out in the second or third round,” he said. “It was fun, but now it’s just kind of boring.”

Participants reported elaborate shared intelligence documents featuring notes on opposing team members’ schedules, addresses, and car models. Some even detailed license plates and the location of security cameras on opponents’ homes.

The game is traditionally coordinated through an Instagram account, which registers teams, disseminates rules, and adjudicates on disputed conduct. This year, three students are running the game, all of whom wish to remain anonymous.

“My parents didn’t want me to play because they heard a lot of pretty bad situations that occurred from Paranoia over the past few years,” one of the organizers said. “And so, I was like, well, I still want to participate in Paranoia.”

After speaking to graduates, the organizers were unable to determine who administered last spring’s installment of Paranoia. Instead, they made clarifications on past rulings not codified in the previous year’s rule book and framed this year’s competition around those guidelines. Unsurprisingly, conflicts soon arose prompting further on-the-fly refinements and additions to the rule book.

“It started out as a pretty big time commitment when we had a lot of teams,” the organizers said. “Pretty much every day when we got home from school or home from practice, we would be on our phones, DM’ing people on Instagram.”

This year, there have been some new challenges related to the game. For instance, in one case, a member of a team tagged an opposing player with an Apple AirTag to track them. The team was suspended and left to face other consequences, and the rules were changed.

“After that situation surfaced, we had to quickly deal with that and add it in the rules,” the organizers said. “Thankfully, nothing’s happened since then.”

Other points of friction have included requirements for Snapchat location settings, unsafe driving, driveway blocking, and whether or not participants can be eliminated in school hours during free periods.

“We tried to keep school a place of academics, while also allowing for the game to be played to the fullest extent,” the organizers said.

According to the rule book, players can be eliminated just about anywhere except school grounds (including senior parking lots), places of work or worship, public transportation vehicles, and during school events. There are also specified grace periods during which players cannot be shot.

As “kills” can sometimes be disputed, players are encouraged to record activities related to the game as evidence. The Instagram account also compiles clips of players being “eliminated.”

One rule specifies that players can’t shoot or be shot if they are fully naked, whether in public or at home. This rule has, at times, caused controversy. Last year, a group of students recorded a female student who was naked to dodge being shot, despite doing so being forbidden by the rules. 

This year, as the stakes ramp up with fewer teams still in the mix, stripping becomes more common as a way to avoid being shot. One participant described waiting outside an opponent’s house in a ghillie suit, for that opponent to then show up naked. 

Other incidents include a player backing into a parked vehicle while trying to escape a “shoot-out.” In the ultimate matchup this week, players have allegedly flown drones over their opponents’ houses. And in a unique episode of betrayal, one participant’s neighbor granted an opponent access to their backyard in order to facilitate an easy ambush on the participant from behind the fence.

Additionally, some participants have expressed grievances about the cut of the prize money the organizers plan to take. The organizers emphasized that this year’s Paranoia game has more teams than last year and an increased pot of reward money. They declined to disclose the number of original teams, each of which paid $100 to buy into the game.

“We leave most of the money towards the actual winning team,” they said. “The majority definitely goes to the winner.”

Senior assassin games are popular across the country, including in the Chicagoland area, where some incidents have led to public safety concerns.

Last April, for example, a group of students in Gurnee, Illinois, entered a restaurant with ski masks and black-colored water guns. An adult who was conceal carrying perceived them as a threat, and the situation nearly escalated.

In the New Trier district, police departments share some concerns about the game and take on an added level of awareness when spring rolls around, said Alex Mercado, special operations commander at the Wilmette Police Department.

“This goes back several years that it’s been on our radar,” Mercado said. “It is just cyclical.”

Mercado referenced an instance from 2022 when a student and Paranoia participant wearing camouflage was seen sneaking up to the Northfield police chief’s home, seemingly carrying a weapon. These examples, he said, illustrate the dilemma posed to law enforcement as departments are forced to discern legitimate threats from a game and measure responses accordingly.

“How often is someone going to low crawl to the chief of police’s house to try to kill him?” Mercado said. “Pretty infrequent. But is that possibility there?”

Even with increased knowledge about the timing and organization of Paranoia and other senior assassin games, departments can’t assume threats are illegitimate, Mercado noted. Herein lies an issue, as police need to balance an obligation to community safety with awareness of the game while trying to minimize opportunity for escalation. 

“Even when somebody says, ‘I’m pretty sure it was fake,’ we have to respond with the knowledge of, ‘what if it’s not?’” Mercado said. “So when we go out there, some officer will probably deploy a rifle from one of our cars. So now that just upped it a little bit.”

Lieutenant Ryan McEnerney of the Glencoe Police Department has observed increased communication and awareness surrounding the game. While there used to be a disconnect between school and department, he now receives briefs from the police chief, who is briefed by the school.

On April 4, Winnetka Campus Principal and Assistant Superintendent Denise Dubravec released a statement saying that the school “does not sponsor or condone games involving toy weapons and is concerned about the real danger and potentially tragic consequences of participating even off school grounds.”

Officer Brian Brown has been a police officer for 19 years and currently works for the Northfield Police Department, in addition to serving as the school resource officer (SRO) at the Northfield Campus. While he doesn’t deal with Paranoia-related issues in his role as an SRO at the freshman campus, he has responded to complaints while working the street.

“A lot of times it’s trespassing because they end up on private property, running and trying to get away from people or trying to chase people,” he said. “Typically, it involves some sort of Nerf guns or some sort of weapons.”

It’s the second part that Brown finds most concerning. The increased sophistication of gun manufacturing, including the sale of multi-color firearms that resemble toy guns, has made it difficult for law enforcement tasked with responding to Paranoia-related incidents.

“Even if we’re 99% sure it’s a plastic one, we have to treat it as [real], until they set it down and we can talk to them, or see all the Nerf pellets,” Mercado explained. “There are companies that specifically sell their guns marketed that way.”

Considering safety, Wu has a minimal view of Paranoia’s threat.

“I don’t know if there are real safety concerns,” he said. “They’re Nerf guns and they’re all bright blue and orange. No one’s going to think it’s a real gun.”

With the degree of uncertainty involved, police must determine how to respond. This determination includes what level of deployment and engagement is needed. Brown said cases can range from a well-being check to a suspicious person report, depending on what the caller describes.

“You go open-minded, expecting that maybe this could be kids, and they could have toy guns,” Brown described, “but you still have to have an open mind as it could be more than that. You just can’t assume.”

Sometimes a response can create more chaos, which departments seek to avoid.

“Any time we have to flip lights and sirens to get somewhere close, there’s that risk of anything traffic-related,” Mercado said. 

Reacting to Paranoia-related calls can also distract from other, potentially more pressing responsibilities. 

“Anything that draws a whole bunch of us there, we’re now not responding to other calls,” Mercado said.

Mercado emphasized the message he relays to students: be careful and be smart.

“Just be cognizant of what’s going on around you and what somebody might see and misinterpret,” Mercado said.

While law enforcement does not encourage participation in Paranoia, they also understand students play to have fun.

“This is a tradition passed on by the student body. It’s kids having fun,” McEnerney said. “As long as they’re not painting their guns or engaging in reckless driving or sneaking up on people at night, it’s just a game.”