Mega Games

Ever play in a Mega Game? That's an event at a convention where a game is played on a bigger scale than normally possible, often with multiple judges or moderators keep things going. It can be a big LARP, like that Call of Cthulhu one at GenCon years ago that had a bunch of players wandering around in an unsavory wharfside area of Shanghai. It can be a CCG, like one of the various storyline tournaments for Legend of the Five Rings. And then there is this huge game of Watch the Skies that they played ion Australia:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/...d-game-10213384.html

I played in a game of Watch the Skies earlier this year, in what we believe to be the first Mega Game of that type played in Canada. (At least in the Internet age, I guess.) It was a tonne of fun, but the rules are awful and damn near incomprehensible. It was very much a "just go with the flow" event.

I was the UN representative for China. Every time I had to make a decision, I cracked open a fortune cookie and based my decision on that. Attached is a picture of one of the alien groups, as well as a picture of me reading out one of my fortunes (the fan was for aggressive flapping when displeased... also, it was hot as fuck in the pub where we held it.)

There was news coverage of the event. I'll try and find the link.

I've played one and will play another in a month or so. The only game i've played so far was a double blind war game on the Invasion of Italy by the same designer as Watch the Skies. I suspect the operational war games have slightly tighter rules than the political games. It was great fun, i do recommend playing in one if you can.

I desperately want to play in one. They ran Watch the Skies at PAX East this year. I didn't get to play because I don't PAX. Then I found out that they're going to do it again in Boston sans-PAX, but tickets had recently gone on sale, but they were already sold out. I suspect that living in an area with a high geek concentration means that actually getting into one of these is going to be heinously hard.

Have played a giant sized game of Circus Maximus at a couple cons.

A part of me would love to try something crazy like a big LARP or the machinations of EVE Online, but deep down I know the closer I'll get is a D&D Campaign and, hopefully, the full version of 1825.

A lot of the GDW folks used to put on some big games over in Champaign-Urbana. Red Storm Rising (I was part of the French command and all we did was try to drive to the fight), Operation Market Garden ( 82nd Airborne, had fun plotting our landing zones. We did a little bit better than the historical results but the overall action was pretty much historical), and an East Front game that I can't remember the details of.

I've LARP'd a lot. During my twenties mostly and it was a ton of fun. It started in my teen years when me and a few friends would make weapons at home.. first it was old Croquet mallets wrapped with towels up top then we graduated to the hardwood store. We'd buy dowling and make various weapons... swords, naginata's, nunchaku's, bo staffs etc... and we'd fight with these in the back yard. There were some simple rules for safety sake (that we grew into as minor accidents happened) and it got more advanced as time went on. By the time I was 18 we'd have maybe 12-15 of us at once, roaming the woods in costume with these bizarre homemade weapons. Sometimes BB guns or sling shots (OUCH!!) would be used but mostly it was melee stuff and only rarely did we use purely imagination (so spell casters were rare or we'd improvise some physical aspect to make it work). We had teams and storylines and it was all very involved and detailed. The locals thought we were wacko. You ever walk into a convenience store with full on fantasy garb, weapons, and blood pouring from the side of your head. Ordering a slurppy makes you seem like a maniac. This is in the late 80's before cosplay and con's were a big thing and trust me in Porcupine Ontario it was completely out of the ordinary.

I wish I had photo's of me in my stupid green cowl drinking slurpies on the side of the road.

Then in my twenties, while tree planting, a whole big group of us, like up to 20 people or so would play these kinds of games on our day off (four on one off rotation) in the woods. Most of us would get high first but not everyone. We'd create objectives and have maps with secret scrolls on them and what not... it was pretty awesome.

I look back in embarrassment sometimes but I think that's mostly due to public perception and me giving into that crap on occasion. It was honestly fun and there is nothing to be any more ashamed of then any other gamey type activity I may take part in to this day.

No mega boardgames though, as much as I'd like to. They have a super TI:3 tournament in Calgary I've always wanted to go to where up to twelve people play at once and they have these giant maps that sprawl across several tables with many custom made tiles. It looks awesome and if I had the time I'd do it.

Worst: The last time that I ever played Car Wars was a failed homebrew megagame. A friend created and set up a complex 3D map (included ramps, jumps and cliffs) on his pool table and invited everybody over for a big team battle. We randomly divided up into six teams of 2 players each, and spent an hour creating Class 20 cars. The one guy there who had never played Car Wars before (but had some experience with Star Fleet Battles) was made the referee, and then the race was on. It was a pretty fun event for the next four hours, except for some questionable and even biased calls by the referee. Unfortunately, some competitive players were disappointed at the outcome, in part because the host won the event and the referee was his best friend. This led to an increasingly negative post-game discussion that eventually led to some really petty and personal attacks.

Okay: While doing research for my only published game, I joined a large local Vampire LARP. There were four storytellers and maybe 75 players. They played once a month, often at a rented venue, plus there was weekly scheming and socializing at a local coffee shop each Wednesday night. There are maybe 10 great players who were highly proactive schemers and some acting ability. The rest of us were more like a combination of chess pawns and movie extras, but we enjoyed watching the good players and sometimes got involved in scenes.

Great: In 2001, I played in a huge Strategic L5R event at GenCon. There were 13 clans (including ninjas and the Shadowlands horde), with six players on each team. The daimyo player made strategic and diplomatic decisions while hanging out with the other daimyo around a big map of Rokugan. Each of the four warlord players on a team played an L5R CCG deck that represented an army on the map of Rokugan. They sat at various tables which each represented a geographical region in Rokugan. Many of these regions had built-in special abilities that would affect battles there. The sixth player was the Karo (aka General), who effectively served as a messenger between the daimyo and the warlords on his team.

Unfortunately, L5R was hugely popular at the time, but AEG was inexperienced at running card tournaments. So our six-hour event was delayed 2.5 hours, until 11:30 PM. Even so, the event was extremely fun. One Karo even usurped control of his clan by making up new orders for the warlords each turn. My Scorpion clan was in the running for the win, but ended up third in overall points when one of our guys got disqualified from a battle due to falling asleep at the table. As I walked back to the hotel, the sun was rising over Lake Michigan. Still, I've been to GenCon ten times over the years, and this Strategic L5R event remains one of my favorite experiences at GenCon.

If I ever make it back to GenCon again, I want to play in the National Security Decision-Making Game. It's like a non-sci-fi version of that Dark Skies game described upthread, and based closely on current events. My college roommate plays in it every year, and based on our shared experience with Model United Nations in high school, he is certain that I would have fun.