The University of Megagames - part 1
Credit: Taliesin Oldridge
Taliesin Oldridge attended the University of Bath and this is their story of introducing megagames to the students
University societies pose a unique challenge to megagaming groups. Student committees’ inexperience, the insulated communities, low budgets, and constant leadership changeover make it a difficult group to reach from external groups. In this article, I’m going to tell you (very self-indulgently) about how we made it work from the inside. The University of Bath has now successfully run 11 megagames over the past five years, fostered a community that easily fills seventy people games, and has started spilling over into other universities across the South West.
In 2021, I was halfway through my first year of university, and as this was lockdown, the society was tiny. I was the guaranteed favourite to win election to RPG Officer for the next year committee, and I ran on a single platform: I was going to run the Tabletop Gaming Society’s first ever megagame. I lost to someone I’d never met before, and she said that she thought a megagame was a great idea, and said she’d support me in running it. I immediately wanted to design my own megagame (having never run, played, or seen one before) and she recommended we find an existing game instead. Which was in hindsight, absolutely correct. This woman became one of my best friends, and she also negotiated a student discount on our license for Den of Wolves. It was still a hefty expense for a student society with no money, but we managed to make most of it back by selling £7 entry tickets.
Getting people interested in the game was difficult. Most people had never heard of a megagame before, and it took a lot of one-on-one conversations to convince people to sign up. In the end we only got about 17 players to sign up, along with 4 control. Not a good start, and I think it’s a long dip below the recommended minimum for the game. But we decided to plow ahead, running the game without even an Aegis team. The game was a smashing success. The council was given the task of deciding what to do with the uncrewed Aegis, which they assigned one person from each team the secondary task of also running the Aegis. The Endeavour ended up cannibalising people before they were even activated as wolf agents, the Icebreaker made a suicide hyperspace jump through Wolf 359 itself, effectively ending the war. I felt jubilant. Now there were people who would spread the word, and the next game would have a much bigger uptake.
Credit: Taliesin Oldridge
No such luck, as the next one we ran that year only had 20 players and three control. So up by two in total. It was my first time designing as a game designer, and I’d made a dark fantasy megagame which was mechanically similar to Den of Wolves. Without knowing it, I’d created Touched by Darkness. The costumes were better, and it was exciting to be able to stand up on a table and scream “The dark lord is free!”
It wasn’t until our third game, a re-run of Den of Wolves where things changed for the better. We doubled our membership with about 34 players and full control team. I ran around having a fantastic time as a player for the first time as Vice-President, then outcast, then President-Puppet to the dictatorial Admiral, who was then in turn deposed. What changed? Partially, by that point I think word had spread, but also we had a new influx of first year players who wanted to try something new instead of settled final years who didn’t want to partake. We also had a committee who was composed of people who’d played in the megagame, which meant it got the full attention of the organising body, and through that the internal marketing it needed to succeed.
By the fourth game I went a bit wild and created something completely new. Let’s Crash Together brought in some people talented in graphics design, and GM’s that I still design megagames with today. We’d hit the threshold where I’d say we got a community (in a game all about building communities after crash-landing on an island).
“I think back on the first megagame I played in, Let's Crash, very fondly. I distinctly remember being in awe at the scale of the game as well as the variety of narratives at play. Since then, all the megagames I've helped Tal run have been the highlights of my time at Bath – there’s the sheer number of people involved sharing in a common hobby, the clashes between them in-game and the insane ideas they come up with. I hope these megagames live on even after I leave, cos they’re always a blast.” – Ridwan Khan, Tabletop Secretary & Regular Control
But this was still a community that relied precariously on just a handful of volunteers, many of whom were graduating soon. We ran two more games next year: our third run of Den of Wolves and my final megagame as a student: NUTMEG. My leaving speech at the end of that game was very personally emotional. I was (and still am) really proud of the legacy I have in bringing megagames to tabletop. My only worry was would it last after I was gone?
Like any good cliffhanger, tune in for part 2, coming soon. In the meantime if you’d like to see your megagame related words on this blog, get in touch!