Lord Steel

So, what kind of travel bug could or would get you off that couch on a rainy day? Do you like mega Travel Bugs and the challenge of moving it? Do you like cute TBs or maybe unusual TBs? Do you like TBs that collects things or maybe one that give a piece of itself? Do you like geocoins? Do you like mini/micro TBs or virtual TBs? Do you like to race your TBs? Do you like it as long as it can be tracked?

I thought virtual TBs are supposed to be dropped into a virtual cache, like the ones in the South Pole or the Himalayas? Just asking. =)

Wind Witch why not make a few GEOCACHE MILESTONE pins? So far, I don't see anyone making either a coin or pins or whatever to celebrate a geocacher's geocache achievements. Something along the line of 100, 200, 300, etc CACHE found, TRAVEL BUG helped, personal GEOCACHE hidden, or BENCHMARK found. I think you would get some orders from groups to present to their members when they make the mark. It would be almost a badge of honor or merit badges for geocahers to diplay in their knapsacks, hats or on their office table. Just a thought!

I just got my TB in the mail. One is for my personal TB, one for my nephew and two for some planned TBs to be released later. I waited for the TB before seeking the caches near my house, so finds are logged properly. I wanted to take my nephews and nieces on on our first hunt. So finally, I can get into the game.

Hello All! Hold on to your wooden nickels. Congo have their own wooden coin. Since everyone is talking about wooden coins, this is the first national coin made of maple wood. =) Unusual Coins

I run into two problems with the travel bug games that I have designed. The two problems I did not realized before were environmental impact and cache owners. Unless the game runs along the line of Travel Bug Football, where the travel bug move like a regular travel bug, it might impact the enivironment around the cache. The extra traffic the game might generate around the cache might damage the environment and that is not a good thing. The second problem was cache owners, they might not want their cache to become part of a TB game. Any feed back would be helpful. =)

I know Geocoins are used for trading, tracking and collections. Did anyone thought of other uses for a Geocoin? One use can be as a Challenge Coin and anyone in the military might know what is a Challenge Coin? In some gatherings someone will start by challenging a person who is known to carry a challenge coin to produce their coin. The challenger would raise it or tap in on the bar and the person challenged have 60 seconds to produce the coin. If the person can not produce a challenge coin within the specified time they pay for the drinks. Drink are not required to be alcohol, but it can be soft drinks (pop, cola) or any reward the two individuals agreed on. If the person was able to produce a challenge coin, the one who started the challenge pays for the round. If a coins was dropped and it hits the floor, the owner is obligated to buy drink to anyone who hears or see the coin hit the floor (if they have their challenge coin).

That is a very sad that people would remove hitchhikers from the geocache and keep them. People put a lot of hard work, time and money on those travel bugs to let a spoiler steal them.

[Q] Is it okay for the bug owner to pick up his own coup stick from a cache, or can it only be picked up by other people? If the owner can retrieve his own, can he do it multple times in a row, or can he only pick his own up after someone else has handled it? [A] I think that the owner should not retrieve his own coup stick, unless he needs to mend and repair his coup stick. Your coup stick's travel and counting coup will fall on the geocacher that found it. Another version of the game that might work the best is to let all coup stick owner keep their stick. You leave your coup stick in a cache for so many days, depending on how brave you are, and let others find the cache and count coups on you. If your coup stick was not found, you count coups on how many days, a 24 hour period, you left it in the cache before retrieving it. Coups made this way are counted as 5 coups per day. Opposing players that find the hidden coup stick counted one coup points only per find. Only one coup points counted allowed per hidden coup stick in a cache in a given period. Of course, a gaming area must be specified and it is up to the playing geocahers to allow a 5/5 cache into the game. Anyone who signed up for the gaming session must drop their coup stick in an approved cache to give others a chance on counting coup on the player at least once a week or specified days. Anyone who failed to drop their coup stick will get a negative coup count and maybe eliminated from the game after several weeks of inactivity. [Q] Is it okay for people to "grab" coup sticks from each other, or can they only be picked up from caches? [A] I would say you can "grab" a coup stick from another only if the "grabber" don't have a coup stick. The idea is the fast paced movement of the coup stick with the geocacher helping it leap out of trouble or finding other coup sticks. [Q] Would there be any rules against placing someone else's coup stick in 5/5 or other very difficult cache? [A] LOL! The idea is to keep the coup stick on the constant move. A popular 5/5 cache might work as long as the coup stick would be picked up by another geocacher. [Q] Would there be an official scoreboard somewhere, or is it just something that people are supposed to keep track of on their own? [A] I really support an offcial scoreboard. The scoreboard can let players know how much support from other geocacher they are receiving. [Q] I think I remember reading somewhere that one aspect of "counting coup" included negative counts for a coup scored against you. So if your stick is in a cache, and someone else's stick is placed in the cache giving them a point, do you also lose a point? [A] Yes, a negative counts sound like a great idea. [Q] If someone who doesn't understand the rules finds a cache that has a coup stick, and he drops a second coup stick in it without removing the first one, is a point still scored for the second coup stick? If a third coup stick is brough to the cache, does it score two points? [A] A Mission Statement Tag must be included with your coup stick explaining about the game to a non-player. [Q] Can coup sticks be placed in event caches? If so, how would points be scored? [A] I think just making it to an event cache should give a coup count to all participating coup sticks. [Q] There are probably lots of other questions that would crop up after the game was underway. You might want to start off with a practice run, with a defined end date, and refine the rules when the trial run is over before starting a larger-scale game. [A] I am working on the games and the questions you brought up. I have to see how it would affect the other geocaching activities and make sure the game mechanics does not interfere with geocaching as a whole. I'll see what I can do with a practice run. I am at the moment thinking on the Travel Bug Hitchhiker games along the line of "Blue & Gray War Games", "Starship", "Trade Ship" and "Empires". I am also thinking about ideas on the line of Inter-Cache Mail Service like "Pony Express, "SnailMail" and "Carrier Pigeon". My most ambitious idea is the Travel Bug Migration Route Study along the line of the monach butterflies, ducks, geese and whooping cranes migration routes. The migration route study would allow participating geocahers, I hope hundreds of people, to release a special tagged travel bug on a specified day to mimic the seasonal migration routes of a specified creature.

I am new to the forum and the geocache experience. I am proposing several possible games that can be played using hicthhikers and travel bugs. Please let me know if any of my ideas have any merit and might be workable under geocache. My first proposal is called "Counting Coup." Requirement: Travel Bug Tag, A hand made coup stick. Mission: To find other player's coup stick and count coups. Comment: The bravest indian warriors showed how brave and daring they are by using a stick to touch the enemy. The warrior would ride to the enemy, touch him with the stick and ride away. The bravest warriors have the most coups. Hitchhiker: You need a 3 to 6 inches stick made from wood. Decorate with beads, paints, strings, shells, names. etc to make it a unique item that show your personality in the coup stick. Game: Your coup stick would move like a regular hitchhiker from cache to cache. You counted 1 coup points if your coup stick was placed on a cache that contains another player's coup stick. The previous cache resident is moved to another cache. Your coup stick waits for another geocacher to move it or found by another geocacher with a coup stick hitchhiker before being moved Alternatives: Since this is new game, a closed playing area might be needed until more players joins from other areas. Proposed playing area: one to several city wide, one state only like Michigan or only one region like Western US. New games with few players might also count cache and other travel bugs for coup points until more players join the game. Cache is 1/4 points and travel bugs are 1/2 points. If cache and travel bugs are allowed then coup stick points are raised to 10 points. Lord Steel