Preparing for Your First Megagame

Your first in-person Megagame is an exciting thing. You’ve been messaging back and forth with your team for a couple weeks, so you know your role (you might be assigned a role in some cases, it just depends on the game) Now, there are so many unknowns and there’s so much anticipation of what will happen on game day. How do we get ready?

Rules

The ship board for the Quellon in Den of Wolves

It’s the week of your first Megagame, you just checked your email and found a message with the rules attached. It might be ridiculous to see written out but read the rules. There’s no better way to feel prepared for an event than to have read the rules, at the very least for your role.

You may have seen things online about how complicated these games can be but, I assure you, they aren’t as rules heavy as they may first appear. Looking at my first ever role guide (Prime Minister in Watch the Skies), it’s only 429 words. That’s not even a single Word doc page (single spaced). It’s something you can easily digest over lunch at work.

Then you might have your Team Briefing, this is the document that guides your day. The Team Briefing will give you an idea of how your team should play or what other teams may be positioned to help you or stand in your way; in about one Word doc page (single spaced). You’ll find team objectives and potentially some background information that may be important. You can go crazy and take a bunch of notes, I know I have, but you don’t have to. Simply getting familiar with what is sent to you is enough.

But ‘Greg, there has to be more to it than that?’ you say. Honestly, unless you are an overachiever, you can go into any game having only read your role guide and your team briefing and have a great time.

Decision Time

You’ve read your role guide, you’ve read your team briefing. Now, you work with your team to decide how the team is going to approach its goals (this can happen when you arrive to play). Will you all play to the letter of your brief? Will you simply use it to guide big decisions? Or will you cast it aside after turn 2 because everything became so frantic?

How will you personally approach your role? Will you be the big dreamer? The one who comes up with the great schemes that take 8 turns to manifest? Or will you be looking to accomplish tiny bite-sized goals, so you can easily see the progress being made?

Have fun with it! Having personal goals (either from your role guide or your imagination) are a great motivation at the start of a Megagame.

I will offer this piece of advice when you’re in the pre-game decision making phase.

This is not a single player game and the people you are playing with are, in fact, real people. If your plan is ‘destroy the Food colony on Turn 3,’ know a decision of that magnitude may ruin the day of the players on the team your target. Your Control team (the game runners) probably won’t let you do that.

This, of course, isn’t to say you can’t do something that may negatively impact another teams. Just be mindful to not cross the line and turn ‘a fun counter play’ into someone else saying ‘I never want to do this again.’

Supplies

This is one I’m passionate about. What do I need on the day of?

I don’t mess around when it comes to gameday snacks and drinks

• Comfortable shoes

  • You’re going to be standing/walking/running around for what feels like 6+ hours straight. Make sure you take care of your feet.

• A Pen and Paper

  • Some groups will provide this but I am a big advocate of bringing your own supplies when possible. I never leave home without my trusty purple notebook and a black pen.

• Food and Something to Drink

  • You’re going to get hungry and you’re going to get thirsty. I am a big advocate of someone on the team bringing a cooler for everyone to share (if the venue allows it, of course). I usually pack water, sports drinks, sandwiches (so I don’t have to worry about going to get lunch) and snacks. The great side effect of bringing extras, you may be able to parlay a handful of Skittles into that all important Trade Agreement. Never under estimate the power of treats.

• A Charged Phone

  • Discord, GroupMe, WhatsApp or whatever group messaging app you use can be a powerful tool on game day. Whether it is blasting your team with updates (Tear up that treaty! They’ve been working with the US behind our backs!) or coordinating with other players in your role, your phone needs to be charged to keep up with those updates.

  • An external battery pack is a nice to have as well.

• Optional: A Costume

  • You do not need to worry about a costume. There are no rules that say you need to have one and I know some people are harshly anti-dressing up for games.

  • I, however, am not one of those people. Dressing the part can help you get into the Megagaming mood and you become identifiable by your fellow players. Which scientist is easier to spot? Some guy in a black t-shirt in a sea of guys in a black t-shirt or the one in the lab coat and safety goggles?

Mindset

What matters more than anything else on this list is the mindset you bring into the game. It’s ok if you forget your briefing the moment you step into the game. It’s ok if your phone is on 2% two hours into a game. I’ll say it again because I think it’s that important:

What matters more than anything else on this list is the mindset you bring into the game.

Much like a Dungeons and Dragons or some other role-playing game, for the duration of your Megagame, you get to be someone else. For those six hours, you are a Lord of the realm. You are the Scientist who is well on their way to discovering Faster than Light Travel. That’s pretty awesome.

As ‘grown-ups,’ we aren’t often afforded the luxury of playing pretend. You might be thinking “But I don’t want anyone to make fun of me and I don’t want to mess anything up.” Friend, I have something crazy to tell you. You’re surrounded by people doing the exact same thing. There is a whole gaggle of people running around the event pretending to be something they are not for the duration of the game and having a great time doing it. Additionally, Megagames foster an environment where it’s ok to mess up. There’s not enough time to do everything you want, so you’re forced to make decisions with only partial information and sometimes it doesn’t turn out right for you. That’s ok! How you react and respond to those moments is part of the magic of Megagames.

There is no better way to ensure you have a terrible time than to walk in thinking “I’m going to be awful, this day is going to suck, why did I bother?” I have, unfortunately, seen this happen at Megagames. Someone walks in, sits at their team table and then never puts in the effort to have a good time. They then wonder why they didn’t enjoy their time.

Megagames, more than most types of entertainment, are something where what you put into it is amplified ten-fold into what you get out of it.

• Saying ‘Yes’ to the silly thing.

• Going to Control and asking if your weird idea is possible.

• Letting yourself fully embrace your role.

These are the things that elevate your day and the days of everyone around you.

If you have any questions about Megagames or how you can be better prepared to play in one, please ask in the Comments below.