Getting shot by your own teammate can put a real damper on your game. After all, you're watching out for your opponents and not your own team! Normally, incidents of "friendly fire" happen when new players shoot before they look. They see movement ahead and before they check to see what color armband or mask you're wearing, they fire and realize too late they have hit their own team member. Unfortunately, the person who is marked has to leave the game no matter who put the paint on them.

If an incident of friendly fire happens to you, control your temper at the person who marked you and wait until the round is over to ask them what happened. There are a number of issues that could have caused it. He or she could have been over excited to see movement in front of them and simply fired, or had lost track of you and had no idea that a member of their own team was in front of them or it could have been a misfire from their gun. Misfires don't happen often but they do occur.

The middle of a game is no place to resolve your annoyance with another player. Accidents happen, new players make mistakes and you have to remember just like any other sport, paintball takes practice and skill to learn to play well.

Before each game you play make sure all players know to look for colored arm bands or whatever way to distinguish individual teams you have devised. This alone will eliminate a lot of friendly fire incidents.