Beginners Guide: Winning a Megagame
Whether one of your friends has been pushing you to play a Megagame or you stumbled into the hobby off a lucky Google Search, one question eventually floats into your brain ‘Yeah, but how do you win?’
The (Stories) We Made Along the Way
In the case of most Megagames, it's doubtful there will be a person or team everyone will point to and confidently state ‘they're the winners.’ (Editor’s Note: There are Megagames with a point system, so there will be a concrete winner. In my experience, these are not the most common type of game) You might find individual players or teams who managed to accomplish their objectives but the real winners are those who created the most memorable moments.
Initially, this can be jarring to many board and video gamers. Not having a solid goal to strive for but rather a fluid state of ‘how was my experience’ can be a difficult change.
Player/Team Objectives
If you're motivated by striving towards a tangible 'win', one of the best things you can do is work towards your personal and/or team objective(s). This could be as simple as completing the most research papers or as complex as taking over the entire Atrai Cluster. Ensuring your actions are moving towards your objective(s) will give you that feeling of accomplishment once time is called.
Player and team objectives are those things that will take the entire game to see if you are successful in your endeavors. If your enjoyment of a game hangs on something that could just fall short at the end of the game, these objects might sour your experience at the very last second due to forces outside your control.
It’s important to remember you’re playing a Megagame with 30+ other people and each person is chasing after personal and team goals of their own. They could be building up to something that finishes the game moments before your grand plan takes shape. It’s important to have other measures of success.
What We Can Do
The best thing you can do to ensure you personally win is to set a series of small, achievable, goals while doing your best to take part in the experience as a whole.
Small goals can be something as simple as establishing a contact on another team, ensuring you take care of your role’s deliverable before the end of the turn or making sure you get your voice heard during a heated exchange in the council. Then, every turn after the first, you build on what you accomplished to find the next small goal. This way you keep up the momentum throughout the entire experience.
The last piece of advice is to make sure you do what you can to be a part of the experience, rather than sitting and waiting for the experience to happen to you. The only way to accomplish your goals, whether written in a brief or thought up in your head, is by going out and being an active participant.
By being an active participant, you’ll create the real ‘winning moments’ in a Megagame. You’ll create those memories that you’ll talk about for years after the game.
In the end, Megagames are about the journey. They’re about all the little steps you took before the end of the game and the interactions you shared with other players along the way.
