Beginners Guide: Goal Setting in Megagames

When playing in your first Megagame, some players may find it important to set goals for either the game as a whole or for individual turns. How can you approach these goals? What is the best way to find a goal to pursue? Let’s talk about that.

The First Goal

Almost everyone’s first goal in a Megagame is the same. ‘Just have a good time.’ It’s why we attend Megagames in the first place. We’re looking for 4-8 hours of entertainment. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this goal is to stay involved in the game.

Be the player who seeks out action and not one that waits for action to happen to them. You have to actively play the game if you want to make the most of your Megagame experience.

Short Term Goals

Short Term Goals usually take between one or two turns and fall into one of two camps: merchanics-based goals and free-form goals.

Mechanics-based goals are ones established by your role. They could be something like ‘successfully establish a treaty’ or 'attack a territory.’ These types of goals are easy to figure out because it's likely other people playing your role are doing the same thing. These types of goals usually have some kind of concrete game outcome; ie having the resources you need or increasing your team's power.

Free-form goals are a little more difficult to define because it really depends on the game you're playing. In Watch the Skies, a free-form goal might be ‘make contact with Japan so you can find out what's happening on that side of the map’ or ‘figure out what the Brazilian scientist is working on.’ In Den of Wolves, it might be ‘talk with the First Officer of the Quellon to see if they've found anything suspicious' or ‘find Engineers to get the Endeavor's FTL drive fixed.’

These goals may not have any tangible game results. They do, however, give you and your team a better idea of the overall game state, change how your team is viewed by other teams and/or help push forward your Long Term Goals.

Long Term Goals

Teams usually start a Megagame with a few Long Term Goals, also known as Team Objectives. These are usually the ambiguous tasks a team will work towards throughout the course of a Megagame and are defined in the team briefing.

The other type of Long Term Goal are those invented by a player. These goals may be dreamt up in the weeks leading up to a game or take shape while you're playing. This is where creative players can really let their imagination run wild. These goals can live a little outside the written rules.

In a recent run of Den of Wolves by Dallas Megagames, someone on the Shepard decided they wanted to start a Cult and the DoW Cult of the Lamb was started. This wasn’t something outlined in the rules. It was just something a player did and got massive buy-in with the other players. Apparently, half the fleet joined the cult and the other half was adamantly opposed to the cult. It made for an incredible dynamic that couldn't have happened without one player dreaming big.

Finding Inspiration

But, how do you find inspiration for an ‘outside the box’ goal? You might be asking.

Inspiration can come from anywhere; books, movies, video games, you name it. In Watch the Skies, for example, you might watch the movie ‘Independence Day’ and decide you want to try to recreate the computer virus from the film to try and disable the alien fleet. Early on in the game, you'll want to talk to Control to see how such a task can be accomplished (or if it can even be accomplished). They might have to change the goal a bit to make it fit the game and that's ok. When pitching these unique goals, it's important to be understanding of what Control says and to listen closely to any details they give. Your inspiration is just a jumping off point for the creation of a great story.

There are so many different ways to approach your goals during a Megagame and they'll probably change a few times over the course of the day. Thinking on your feet and adapting your goals to the ever changing landscape of the game will mean you've set yourself up for success, no matter the outcomes of the goals you set.