Bob F.'s post in
this thread and my subsequent response got me wondering: How did you play cops 'n robbers, cowboys 'n indians, war, etc. when you where little?
For me, my brothers and I would play outside in the yard (we had a pretty big yard). My parents wouldn't buy use toy guns (which we would probably break almost immediately, when we would get a super soaker once in a while it never lasted for more than a summer) so we got really good at improvising.
I would make pistols by rolling up a sheet of typing paper, and putting a twist about one third of the way down the tube. I then would fold that down, leaving me with a rolled up tube of paper in the shape of a barrel and a grip. I would also use plastic coat hangers as EBRs. Flip it upside down and you've got yourself a pistol grip!
Other things we would use would be the plastic kiddie sized hockey sticks as rifles, and an assortment of pistol-shaped garden hose attachments as handguns. We also had a whole bunch of plastic bowling pins in varying sizes that we would use for grenades when we played war. In fact, I don't think those bowling pins ever got used for bowling.
As for the actual play we would pretty much just chase each other around the yard pretending to shoot at each other, but as we got older we would start hiding around corners. In fact, I would work my way around corners by stepping away from them, and slicing the pie around that corner. I, of course, didn't know then what it was that I was doing.
I remember we would have a lot of arguments about who and when one was shot and who and when one really wasn't.
Ah, good times, good times.