

Megagames: Giant board games for hundreds of people in the same room - jsnell
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/welcome-to-the-world-of-megagames-300-players-take-part-in-watch-the-skies-board-game-10213384.html

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splawn
This looks like a lot of fun. Here are some entertaining videos from shut up
and sitdown that seem to capture what its all about.

[http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/susd-play-
megagame-...](http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/susd-play-
megagame-2-pt1/)

[http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/watch-
skies-2-pt-2/](http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/watch-skies-2-pt-2/)

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KeytarHero
Also this video from their first time playing it (1 year earlier), which I
found a bit easier to follow (it's also only half as long)

[http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/susd-play-
megagame/](http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/susd-play-megagame/)

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shkkmo
Anyone know of a links page or any good way of find the groups that run these
sorts of things?

All I can find is the main one in the UK: [http://www.megagame-
makers.org.uk/](http://www.megagame-makers.org.uk/)
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/mmakers/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/mmakers/)

One in the US in NY [http://megagamesociety.com/](http://megagamesociety.com/)
[https://twitter.com/MegaGameSociety](https://twitter.com/MegaGameSociety)
[https://www.facebook.com/megagamesociety](https://www.facebook.com/megagamesociety)

And a random twitter account
[https://twitter.com/chicagomegagame](https://twitter.com/chicagomegagame)

I read there is also some activity in Australia, but couldn't find any links

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agrona
We just ran two events in Seattle.

The "MegaGame Society" is sort of the over-arching organizing group (they
licensed Watch the Skies from the UK group, updated it significantly, and are
recruiting more groups to run it locally).

They're definitely the folks to follow for information on games outside of the
UK.

~~~
shkkmo
Any plans to run any more on the west coast this winter? I'd love to
participate.

~~~
agrona
We'd like to! We're thinking of something this winter, but are taking a much-
needed break for a few weeks.

Our first event was a lot of work and these are entirely labors of love--the
ticket cost lets us basically break even.

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dragondave
"And I know there are some big Larps in California, but those still only have
about 100 people at any one time."

Well, we've got at least two LARPs in the UK which have been well over the
thousand mark for a while now: Lorien Trust
([https://www.lorientrust.com/](https://www.lorientrust.com/)) and Empire
(which is run by Profound Decisions -
[http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire](http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire)).
[I'm excluding Curious Pasttimes, since I have no data, but suspect it's also
1000+]. Typically Empire (which I play and have a better idea of numbers) has
around 1500 people: around 1300 players and 200 crew.

Empire is interesting from a Megagame perspective because it places the
players as the movers and shakers of the world and then gives them the levers
of power -- there are senators dealing with the temporal politics of a ten-
nation Empire, the synod wrestling for the protection of man's mortal soul,
the mages who bargain for power from the alien beings from outside Creation or
for those aliens to not deal with the Empire's enemies. And it's on a
timescale of four weekends a year, for years, rather than a one-off game.
(This isn't even the only large LARP they run -- I believe their mythological
era Odyssey game is several hundreds of players)

And as the comments of the article say; Germany has some epic LARPs too -- and
pretty sure other places do too.

That said, I'd love to play in one of these tightly plotted megagames...

[full disclosure: I play Empire, have played Odyssey, and played Lorien Trust
a long time ago and wasn't a massive fan. If you book for either of the first
two games with 570.2375 we'll both get money off.]

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carbide
I never believed a game as complex as Eschaton could exist in the real world.
I'm glad to be wrong.

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braythwayt
I recall teams playing “War in Europe” a couple of decades ago in Toronto’s
original wargaming club “The General Staff:”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Europe_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Europe_\(game\))

It may not have been a megagame, but it certainly was a monster.

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1123581321
These are fun. I played in the June Chicago game and I'll be assisting with
the October Chicago game. Like many people, I learned about the concept from
Shut Up & Sit Down, the board game review site.

In these games, each player on a team has a role that grants them access to a
part of the game unavailable to most of the rest of their team. Communication
is essential. Teams use a mix of methods to deal with this ranging from
tweeting to smartwatch texts to using members of their team as information
couriers (in our game, we had a member of our team with wider on the lookout
for hand signals from the more restricted members.)

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shkkmo
Are there any details on the October Chicago game?

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monksy
Do you have any information on this? Where could I sign up etc?

~~~
1123581321
You can sign up for the Chicago mailing list here:
[http://bit.ly/1CM2nad](http://bit.ly/1CM2nad) (found at the bottom of
[http://www.eventbrite.com/e/watch-the-skies-chicago-
registra...](http://www.eventbrite.com/e/watch-the-skies-chicago-
registration-16166271754)). You can also keep an eye on the Facebook page for
all the games:
[https://www.facebook.com/megagamesociety](https://www.facebook.com/megagamesociety)

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falsedan
This is just a LARP… a 300-person actual boardgame would be weird/interesting,
but this is just "get a bunch of people in a room with assumed roles and
restricted social interaction & see what happens" which is every roleplay
cons' big event since the 90s

