Megagame

Megagames have their roots in war games and have been played since the 1970s, primarily in the United Kingdom. The megagame format originated with wargame designers Paddy Griffith and Jim Wallman, who designed wargames which involved small teams with unique objectives. Wallman has since designed more than 80 megagames. In 2014, board game website Shut Up & Sit Down published a video documenting their experiences of playing a megagame, which has been credited for prompting renewed interest in designing and playing megagames. After the video went viral, Wallman says his group of regular players grew from hundreds to thousands of people. The first group outside the UK to run a Megagame after the video were the New York MegaGame Society. == Gameplay ==

The typical gameplay structure of a megagame is one in which dozens of players compete or cooperate within a set of tabletop and role-playing games. Individual players are typically members of small teams, and must interact with both the game's systems as well as other participating players. Megagames can encompass a wide range of different settings, scenarios, and rules, including military, historical intrigue, and alien invasions. Jim Wallman, designer of Watch the Skies, describes the rules of megagames as a "framework", from which the game's designers and referees (known as "control members") can make rulings on the fly, like a Dungeon Master. During the course of the game, referees might announce rule clarifications or new events, and often have to create new rules to respond to player desires. == See also ==