18 - War of the Roses, the Original Game
Story index at the bottom
By PH
Sat Jul 03 01:20:08 Västra Europa, sommartid 1999
In my first ever posted story, I described a game called "War of the Roses", that was played by me and some of my friends when we were in our early twenties. The original WotR game was actually invented by the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, Mother of Pippi Longstocking, in one of her books from the fifties. I have chatted with some people who used to play similar games as kids, and also read quite many stories on this board that describe games of the same kind, although with different names to them. This is a story of how we used to play "War of the Roses":
One day when I came over to Joe's, Sarah's and Jenny's place, I found the girls sprawled on the grass in front of the house, reading some of their horrible girls-magazines. They were dressed as usual, jeans and T-shirts, no shoes and hair done in pony-tails. I asked for Joe, and they told me he was in the woods by the tree-house, constructing some new strange invention of his. I went over to the place in the woods where we had our tree-house. Joe was working frantically, nailing and tying two-inch/five cm wooden poles to some of the trees. He was putting them between trees at an Apr. height of about half a yard/metre. I asked him what he was doing and he answered:
- I'm constructing a set of torture-racks!
- Hm, I thought. What nasty ideas have now come into my friend's mind?
Joe was the born inventor. He always thought up new interesting gags and ways to tie a prisoner.
-We're playing "War of the Roses" later today, and I thought I would construct something to tie the prisoners to so we can tickle them easier, he said with a big grin.
-You haven't thought of the fact that it might be YOU tied to that thing, I asked.
-Oh yes, he said. But I always win the game so I bet the first to try this out will be you!
-So do we, came two unison voices from behind me. Sarah and Jenny stood right behind me.
-All right, you know the drill, take off your shoes, said Jenny.
I did as they ordered, and they started tying me to one of Joe's torture-racks. I was placed sitting on the ground with my back to one of the horizontal poles. They tied my hands behind me so my arms went on the other side of the pole. They fastened ropes around my upper arms and the pole, and then tied my feet together and placed my ankles on another horizontal pole, one a bit lower than the first. They tied my legs firmly in place so I was sitting jack-knifed with my feet at the level of my chest.
-Congratulations on being the first ever to try my new invention, laughed Joe and they started tickling my feet.
They didn't go on for long and I was soon released. We decided to play WotR after lunch, but first Joe proudly showed all his inventions.
After lunch we met at the tree-house again, this time equipped with water-pistols. The teams were drawn and I would go with Jenny this time. Sarah and Joe got Peter as their junior side-kick. War of the Roses was played with two teams. each team-member having a treasure to hide somewhere. We would stalk each other in the woods and shoot with our water-pistols. A person that got hit was to be taken prisoner and to be brought to the base-camp, a.k.a. the tree-house. There the prisoner was tied well and good and left there until all the team-mates were captured. If two enemies were taken prisoners they would be exchanged and both released. It was also allowed to free a team-mate if one could do so.
When all members of a team were captured, the captors started interrogating the prisoners, of course by tickling them, to force them to tell where their treasures were hidden. If one team found all treasures they had won. We started the game and ran out in the woods in different directions. After five minutes all treasures were hidden, and we started sneaking around, trying to find an enemy to shoot at. Joe usually went right on through bushes and shrubberies and tried to scare his enemies to reveal themselves. He relied on the fact that he then would use his fine aiming to get his enemy first. Sarah and Jenny played the game more cleverly. They would hid up in a tree or behind a rock and ambush their victims.
This day started well for Jenny and me. Jenny got Sarah with a spray of water from behind and soon Sarah was lying on the ground, hands tied behind her and gagged. Jenny removed her sneakers and threw them behind some bushes. Sarah was marched to the camp and securely tied to a tree. We went to look for Joe and Peter. We searched for about half an hour, and then went back to check on Sarah. She was still sitting with her back to the tree, bound and gagged. Jenny went up to her, and then suddenly Joe appeared behind a rock and shot Jenny in the face with a big splash of water. I turned to run, but was soaked with water from Peter who had sneaked up behind me. He was ecstatic with joy for getting me.
We resigned to our fate and gave up. Joe tied our hands behind us and then took our sneakers off. Sarah was untied and helped securing us to the torture-racks. This time we were tied on our backs on the ground, feet in the air, tied to the horizontal poles. Sarah tickled me and Joe tickled Jenny. Peter just watched. I was determined not to tell anything and desperately bit my lower lip to keep quiet. Of course it didn't help. When I couldn't stand Sarah's expert-tickling anymore I had to give up. Soon after Jenny burst into laughing spasms and begged Joe to stop and she told too.
We were left there, guarded by Peter, as Sarah and Joe went to find the treasures. Then we were released and we started on another round of the game. If we were captured the next time around again, they would leave us tied up for an hour. The War of the Roses is one of the games from my childhood I still have the fondest memories from.
I hope you enjoyed this little story, and I'll see you all in August. Take care!
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PH's stories
- 01 - The First Tie-up Games (m/mf)
- 02 - The Revenge (mf/mf)
- 03 - Revenge II, Tied Up at the Beach (mf/mf)
- 04 - Kidnapped (m/m, ff/m)
- 05 - The kidnapping of Sarah and Jenny (mm/ff)
- 06 - Sarah gets hers (mm/f)
- 07 - Sarah and Jenny take their revenge (ff/mm)
- 08 - Alexandra is introduced to our tie-up games (mm/fff)
- 09 - Playing Cowboys and Indians - Involuntary (m/mff, ff/m, m+f+/mmff)
- 10 - The Last Weekend of Summer (ffm/fm, fm/ffm)
- 11 - The Summer Camp (Mm+/F, Fm+/F)
- 12 - The Summer Camp : The Hijacking (f+m+/f+m+)
- 13 - The Summer Camp : The Great Abduction (mmff/ff)
- 14 - The Summer Camp : The Treasure Hunt (ffmm/fm, mmff/f, mm/ff)
- 15 - The Green Rope (mm/m)
- 16 - The Double Dare (mm/ff)
- 17 - Tie-Up Olympics at the Beach (mm/ff, ff/mm, fm/fm)
- 18 - War of the Roses, the Original Game (mff/m, mmf/mf)
- 19 - Sarah's Birthday Abduction (fmm/f)
- 20 - The Escape Bet (fm/fm)
- 21 - Jenny's School of Revenge (fm/fm)
- 22 - Jenny Goes Jogging (fm/fm)
- 23 - Playing Cowboys and Indians (mm/ff, ff/mm)
- 24 - Playing Strip Poker (MM/FF)
- 25 - Just Another Day in the Woods (mf/mf)
- 26 - Crashing the Sleep-over Party (mm/fff, fff/mm)
- 27 - The Lost Kidnap Victim (mmm/fmm)
- 28 - An Inventive Kidnapping (f/m, fm/ffm)
- 29 - A Late Night Kidnapping, The Revenge (ffm/fm)
- 30 - Early Tie-up Game (m/m)
- 31 - The War of the Roses (M+/F+)
- 32 - Tickling Sarah (f/f)
- 33 - Tickling Jenny (fmm/f)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section