Imagine dozens, maybe hundreds, of people in a room trying to solve a crisis - this is a Megagame. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, imagine model UN meets DnD. People typically arrive early in the day, go over the rules, and then break out into groups in a large gymnasium or theater. Over the next few hours, participants may deal with alien invasions, zombie outbreaks, or even pirates searching the seas for treasure. Whatever the theme or setting, the only real requirement for a Megagame is that you need a large number of players. If you get the chance, you should see if your local city has a club that organizes these events. After watching a few videos following and discussing Megagames, I believe that they serve as an interesting microcosm for many of real life’s problems. Mainly, how communication is often the most important factor for decision making. Megagames have fascinated me, and I believe they will captivate you as well.
A Typical Game
Megagames typically last most of the day. Although the games may have dozens of players, those players are divided up into smaller teams or factions. For example, in one video documenting the run of Urban Nightmare: Redux, we follow the fictional Romero city’s emergency services dealing with a zombie outbreak. While some players might control the police department or national guard, quelling riots and fighting the zombie hordes, the players in the EMS department are mostly limited to sending out fire engines and ambulances to the townsfolk in need. This leads to interesting challenges that one might not traditionally consider in the setting of a zombie apocalypse. For example, at many points in the game, different areas of the city would become infected. This lead to the fire department quickly losing the ability to respond to fires. As fire spread uncontrollably, it threatened the citizenry and efforts to contain the zombie plague. Despite the apocalypse looming, we still need these essential city services functioning.
Whenever a player needs to make a risky decision, they call upon an adudicator. These game organizers and volunteers, running from table to table, will make sure that everyone is following the rules and will notify players of events they need to be aware of. Whenever a player wants to make a decision, for example they may want to drive their ambulance through a zombie infected part of town, the adjudicator will assign a difficulty level for a dice roll. If the player rolls better than that number, the outcome will be positive. On the other hand, if you fail the roll, there will be dire consequences. This is very reflective of a skillcheck in a game like DnD. With these simple mechanics, the game rules are flexible enough to allow exploration and creativity.
Often, players will need to work together to accomplish their goals. EMS will need funding from the mayor, and to coordinate with the police department to be able to reach fires safely. Other factions may not exactly be in alignment though. For example, in the watch the skies series of games, the alien invaders are controlled by players. Using their alien technology, and typically limited in some manner, these players are more than often outright adversarial; working against the majority of players. No matter what the theme or goals of the players are, one faction that always seems to appear is that of the press. In a game with zombies or aliens, you will find players whose only job it is to report on the comings and goings of players. The will even print out physical newspapers that they pass out to all the teams. One game that I watched had 3 separate teams of journalists.
Why Journalism is Important
At first, I figured that these journalists are mere window dressing. They appeared to be a narrative device that was only meant to enrich the experience. These journalists would go from group to group, interviewing players and then writing up press releases every 30 minutes or so. Surprisingly, this is actually a crucial function that players must rely on in order to understand what is going on. In one of the alien invasion themed-games, a player noted “I actually get all my information from the newspapers … I have to read these just so I know what’s going on.” With so many players across dozens of countries and corporations, it becomes impossible to follow events without these press releases going out frequently.
Whenever players needed to get their message out quickly, they could rely on the press to publish them. At one point, to appease the aliens, the Japanese Prime Minister coordinates a joint press release with world leaders to announce their peaceful intentions. While this may seem bureaucratic for a game, it leads to positive diplomatic outcomes and the Japanese players are able to make friendly relations with the Aliens.
Application to Reality
Just like in a Megagame, real life is full of countless individual actors trying to accomplish their own goals. For each of us, accurate knowledge of the world around us is extremely important. If we did not have access to information, we couldn’t drive to work, vote for politicians, or make plans for the evening. The press, an important aspect of this information dispensation, acts as a source for this information. When decisions need to be made quickly and with confidence, having the background for what is the state of the world is can be extremely important.
Before I watched Megagames, I did not understand why countries might publish press releases. I did not truly understand the purpose of the United Nations general assembly. After all, why can’t countries simply give each other a call whenever they have a question or concern? However, after watching these Megagames in practice, having a document you can read which contains current events and announcements is very useful. Having the UN assembly, a place where ambassadors can sit and talk, can be very useful.
Though Megagames may seem like fun, over-the-top simulations of apocalyptic scenarios, they teach us an important real-world lesson: communication is the key to navigating complex problems. Whether in a game or in real life, the ability to share accurate information, trust others, and work together can make or break a decision. Despite it appearing at first glance to be a boring, almost clerical role, the press core is an important and perhaps overlooked aspect of Megagames.