So Mirrorshades marked my 50th megagame, and since Jaap did a lovely little post summing up the games he’s done so far, I decided to totally steal the idea and do my own.
2014: 3 Games
#1: Renaissance and Reformation
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 8 March 2014
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Louise of Savoy, Queen Mother of France
I was a late addition to the cast list of my first megagame, and Tim only persuaded me to come along because I was into the Tudors. Highlights include Control doing away with betrothals because I was going a bit OTT and they had other jobs to do.
#2: Watch The Skies
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 17 May 2014
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Head of World News
Yes, that Watch The Skies, where I single-handedly saved megagames from never being done by women ever again (okay, massive exaggeration but still). I also got MVP for producing more newspaper issues than there were turns in the game.
#3: Of Gods and Men
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 11 October 2014
Location: Royal Armouries, Leeds
Role: Aphrodite, Beauty Aspect
I was worshipped and had several temples, statues and even a boat dedicated to me. What’s not to love?
2015: 9 Games
#4: Watch The Skies 2: Global Conspiracy
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 21 March 2015
Location: Camden Centre, London
Role: Editor-in-Chief, GNN
The first 300 player megagame, where I ran the only press team that a) had two players rather than three, and b) produced both written and tweeted news. It’s also notable as where I met a lot of my now-megagame-besties.
#5: D-Day Dodgers
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 18 April 2015
Location: Royal Armouries, Leeds
Role: Control for IT XVI Corps
My first control role – on game five, thankyouverymuch. Honestly it was all a blur because it was a closed map game (famously tough on control). Also my first Op-Mil game.
#6: Mirror State: Episode One
Organiser: Mirror State
Date: 6 June 2015
Location: St Philips Centre, Cambridge
Role: Patriot News Editor
My first non-Megagame Makers game. I’ll always remember the chillingly terrifying moment when I was led away by the FBI and accused of a crime that I’d actually committed!
#7: Don’t Panic!
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 13 June 2015
Location: The Abbey Centre, London
Role: Editor-in-Chief, New York Times
I was getting well into the swing of being press by this point, and this was my first experience of doing so at a Op-Mil game. Writing for the New York Times about a war is a bit different than writing for GNN about aliens!
#8: Watch The Skies 3: Global Conspiracy
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 25 July 2015
Location: Camden Centre, London
Role: Editor-in-Chief, GNN
My all star press team that I will never ever forget. We were a news-producing MACHINE.
#9: City of Shadows
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 12 September 2015
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Daina ‘Coldeye’ Lupekis, Boss of Griezti Vaikinai
I think this was actually the first game where I had an “illicit affair”, with Judge Bernie. We backed his campaign to become Mayor to the hilt until he lost, after which it came out that he had a wife and kids and I had to pretend to be outraged to save face.
#10: A New Age Dawns 2
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 17 October 2015
Location: Royal Armouries, Leeds
Role: Queen Louisa of Spain
My second illicit affair in as many games (although this one was written into the character). Judith was the prime minister and my lover, and we had a challenge on our hands managing the elusive king, who preferred hunting things to doing any politics at all.
#11: Washington Conference 4
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 31 October 2015
Location: Anerley Methodist Church, London
Role: Ida Tarbell, reporter for the Baltimore Sun
My reservations for this game were about as big as the briefing material, but it was an outstanding game. Though on mature reflection I probably shouldn’t have written so favourably about China.
#12: Come To A King
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 14 November 2015
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Ottar the Black Skald of Denmark
Memorable for letting me create so much Viking poetry – I stuck to the kennings and metaphors even while others stooped to crowd-pleasing limericks and rhymes. Pah!
2016: 13 games
#13: A Very British Civil War
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 27 February 2016
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Joan Valentine, PIO for the BUF South Yorkshire
My first Pennine game, which came a month before I moved up North. I married Roderick Spode and became the Face of Female Fascism (which I will not be putting on my CV).
#14: Watch The Skies 4: Global Apocalypse
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 19 March 2016
Location: Camden Centre, London
Role: Editor-in-Chief, GNN
The last massive WTS was the one where I finally made it into space. The moment when America starts nuking itself (well, actually a dolphin submarine but I didn’t know that at the time) is the moment you flee the planet.
#15: Urban Nightmare Redux
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 16 April 2016
Location: HEART Centre, Leeds
Role: Veronica Corningstone, Editor-in-Chief of Stoat News
Tim’s first time running a game and my first experience of Urban Nightmare. This was my last press role for 18 months, as I felt I’d done enough by that point. I also remember John Moley sneakily upping his zombie makeup throughout the day, and Tim thinking he was just getting ill!
#16: Aftermath
Organiser: Diversionary Games
Date: 14 May 2016
Location: The Undercroft, Southampton
Role: Head of Gold Command
Headed all the way down to Southampton for this post-apocalyptic experience. A fun game but challenging as we tried to pretend that people siding with us wouldn’t mean us taking their resources away and giving them to people who needed them more. Also my first megagame After Action Report on this blog.
#17: 1866 & All That
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 21 May 2016
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Italy Map Control
My second Control role was way tougher than my first one. I ended up shouting at a player and having a little cry. It went a LOT better after that.
#18: Guelphs and Ghibellines
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 4 June 2016
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Milan Team Control
I was pretty hesitant about this game after my recent bad Control experience, but this one went tons better, and I enjoyed seeing the city I was controlling prosper under Matt Bambridge’s leadership.
#19: The Jena Campaign
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 25 June 2016
Location: APNA Centre, Huddersfield
Role: Leopold Berthier, Chief of Staff for French 1st Corp
The first Op-Mil game I actually played in. Honestly I don’t remember much about this game except I think Napoleon won?
#20: The Spanish Road
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 16 July 2016
Location: The Bedford, London
Role: Queen Elizabeth of England
An amazing game that I went full costume for. A particular highlight was when Spain, France AND Portugal all declared war on England in the same turn. Also being potentially betrothed to about six different men, cuz that’s how Old Liz rolls.
#21: Dungeons of Yendor
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 20 August 2016
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Connie White, Merchant of Yendor
A game that fills me with shame whenever it’s mentioned – together with the other merchants we bankrupted the entire King’s Army in turn one! Oops!
#22: Not Over By Christmas
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 10 September 2016
Location: The Bedford, London
Role: SACEUR of NATO
Someone gave me all the powers of NATO and let me loose on the Cold War! Memorable for when I fired a *awkward giggle* warning shot nuke. I still deny that we lost, but the denial is sounding less and less convincing, even to me.
#23: The Chosin Few
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 15 October 2016
Location: Swarthmore Education Centre, Leeds
Role: Control for Americans
Another Op-Mil game that I decided to Control rather than play. Fairly laid back control role where I cameo-ed as a reporter part way through the game.
#24: Everybody Dies
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 12 November 2016
Location: Student Central, London
Role: Game Control
This was the one! My first megagame, written from scratch (with a lot of help, of course). It passed in a massive blur but I think my personal highlight was when red priest Dave Boundy was given two wound stickers to wear (normally the second means you die). People thought that meant he was immortal, when in actual fact a minor wound would have made him go down.
#25: Popes, Poison and Perfidy
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 26 November 2016
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Queen Isabella of Spain
Reminiscent of my first ever megagame, I spent a lot of the day marrying people off. I really shouldn’t have let myself fall into letting my daughter Catherine of Aragon marry Arthur of England though, not with his younger brother Henry betrothed to a Borgia!
2017: 15 Games
#26: A Very British Civil War 2: The Midlands Strike Back
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 11 February 2017
Location: Endcliffe Hall, Sheffield
Role: Joan Valentine, PIO of BUF South Yorkshire
It took Spode’s death for me to remember that I had married him, and it basically went downhill from there. The Fascists did NOT do well this run.
#27: Foxes and Devils
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 8 April 2017
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Eleanor Hapsburg, Archduchess of Austria
A re-run of my first ever megagame, and this time I was on the Hapsburg team. I took a massive stand against Henry VIII putting my aunt Catherine aside, even when it seemed everyone else was in favour of the idea, even the Pope. Outrageous behaviour tbh, and it was no surprise when Henry married a Lutheran.
#28: Everybody Dies Harder
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 22 April 2017
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Game Control
The second run of my megagame came under six months after the first. This run saw Prince Rhaegar defeat Robert Baratheon (played by my dad) in a furious rock-paper-scissors to the death, and then name his daughter heir. The shock twist came when Jaime Lannister married the High Septa to get the support of the Faith Militant for his bid for the throne…
#29: City of Shadows 2
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 13 May 2017
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Captain Freedom, Vigilante
Another rerun, this time of the gangs vs police vs vigilantes vs scientists game. Where last time I was a gang boss, this time I was masked vigilante called Captain Freedom, who became mayor and then had to flee the city in her mayoroplane because most of the citizens wanted her dead. Someone also tried to go back in time to capture me – luckily they didn’t as I definitely had no plan to escape that!
#30: French Invasion of Ireland 1796
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 20 May 2017
Location: Woodhouse Community Centre, Leeds
Role: Morale and Unit Control
A very low pressure control role where my job was to make sure the numbers matched across the entire game. Also another example of me avoiding Op-Mil games with a control role.
#31: Barricades and Borders
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 3 June 2017
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Foreign Minister of Ruritania
“Rudolph of Glorious Ruritania had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glowed.” Coming up with the Ruritania National Anthem remains one of the proudest things I’ve ever done at a megagame.
#32: Urban Nightmare: State of Chaos
Organiser: Megagame Makers and others
Date: 1 July 2017
Location: Swan Wharf, London (and others)
Role: International Press Control
“Resource limit reached.” It still haunts my dreams. I built the press website while in hospital, and no amount of testing could have prepared me for the stress that 600+ players from 10 different sites would put on it.
#33: The Pirate Republic
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 20 August 2017
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Martha Farley, Pirate Quartermaster
The pirate megagame where I quickly ran off to captain my own ship, a floating brothal-meets-distillery-meets-restaurant: RumBumYum. I got rich off my rum trade while providing entertainment to the discerning seafarer.
#34: Crisis in Elysium
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 2 September 2017
Location: Swan Wharf, London
Role: Governor of Mars, Martian Colonial Authority
My first ever megagame death! I had no idea who saw me as a threat after I had been removed from my post heading up the Council of Mars, but I didn’t care – I was ecstatic to have been murdered!
#35: Dire Straits
Organiser: Connections UK
Date: 5 September 2017
Location: King’s Building, London
Role: Editor-in-Chief, CGN
I was invited to Connections UK, a professional wargaming conference, to head up their media team in a near-future Far East crisis. The highlight has to be when an analyst told me Russia was watching our feed – yes, real life Russia. We also got retweeted a lot by genuine Trump supports who missed the “simulation” tag in our tweets.
#36: Still Not Over By Christmas
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 23 September 2017
Location: Endcliffe Hall, Sheffield
Role: New Player Control / Videographer
I got to be more of an observer at this megagame, and took a ton of footage for making a promo video (which is still definitely going to be made as soon as I have the time, promise!). There were nukes fired on both sides this time.
#37: A World Divided
Organiser: SW Megagames
Date: 7 October 2017
Location: Moredon Community Centre, Swindon
Role: Chancellor of Macmahon
In this American-revolution-in-Space game we rocked the boat by a) letting the First Settlers settle in our cities and b) revealing the location of the Rosal Assembly (currently convening in one of our cities) become known to the FAS. Then my FAS contact was arrested and I had no idea why, so I spent the rest of the game expecting to be killed as a traitor.
#38: Red Dawn?
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 21 October 2017
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Felix Dzerzhinsky, Head of the Cheka for the Bolsheviks
It’s not every day you get to be a brutal torturing machine. I went deep with this one, threatening a traitor that his beautiful wife “wasn’t so beautiful anymore”, and cutting off the fingers of a few people. All in a day’s work, right?
#39: Undeniable Victory
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 18 November 2017
Location: Anerley Town Hall, London
Role: Sadoun Shakir, Interior Minister for Iraq
From torturing Russians to working for Saddam Hussein. During this game we chem weaponed ourselves so we could blame it on the Iranians and chem weapon them “in revenge”. And I’ll never forget the look on the Iranians’ faces when they found out we were allying with the USA (mostly because I caught it on camera).
#40: The Last Romans
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 25 November 2017
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Prefecture Control for the East
A super fun Control day where I was finally feeling like I had gotten into the swing of this control-malarky. Unfortunately the lowlight of this game was a pretty upsetting interaction with a player, but the highlight was seeing the team I was controlling do a great job and get better roles (except the one who died and the one who fled of course).
2018: 10 games so far…
#41: Watch The Skies Lite
Organiser: Stone Paper Scissors
Date: 21 January 2018
Location: Friends Meeting House, London
Role: Editor-in-Chief, GNN
Tim and I were invited to run the press for a Family and Friends game of Watch The Skies. It was amazing to see non-megagamers get so into the world, and we were there to remind them that even if they got all the player teams to disarm their nukes, chances are North Korea wouldn’t join them. Also the only game I couldn’t find a single photo of.
#42: Cockroaches, Copper and Cows
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 17 February 2018
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Press Control
At this game I ended up playing not one, not two, but THREE different journalists for three differently aligned papers. It was a lot of fun to write the same news in three different ways…
#43: The Shot Heard Round The Universe
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 28 April 2018
Location: Gateway Church, Leeds
Role: Constitution and Krill Control
Tim’s first written-from-scratch game, where I ran the Constitution Game. It was really interesting to see the players debate and argue over matters of state (and see which areas they mutually decided not to discuss at all). I was also Krill control which was a massive laugh because they had no idea Judith was pulling their strings.
#44: A Very British Civil War
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 19 May 2018
Location: Leytonstone School, London
Role: Lead Political Control
Having played this game twice I volunteered to Control it down in London, and was given my first Lead Control role (I should hope so, having played the Political Game twice). It was a really enjoyable control experience and quite rewarding actually to be put in charge of such a key area.
#45: Arrival
Organiser: Crisis Games
Date: 26 May 2018
Location: St Philips Centre, Cambridge
Role: Russian President
This cool twist on Watch The Skies featured a language translation game that I got massively into (slightly at the expense of the diplomancing I was supposed to be doing). It also again featured the USA nuking itself. No idea why that’s such a recurring theme.
#46: Blood & Thunder
Organiser: Megagame Makers
Date: 16 June 2018
Location: China Exchange, London
Role: Captain Ariadne Haddock of Rackham’s Ghost
At this pirate game I started as a captain, and ended up at the bottom of the ocean. My second megagame death also included the deaths of many many others who supported me until the end. I have to say that this was one of my favourite megagame teams because they were so damn loyal to me <3
#47: Megamunda
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 28 July 2018
Location: St Thomas Centre, Manchester
Role: Deputy Chief Judge
One of very few games where I basically spent the entire day kicking ass rather than talking about it and pretending I had… not that it wasn’t without its conniving elements, as I did manage to depose Darren as Chief Judge by the end of the day.
#48: A Very British Coup
Organiser: Stone Paper Scissors
Date: 4 August 2018
Location: St Philips Centre, Cambridge
Role: Sir George Fison, Press Baron at Fison Corporation
Where I played a horrendous man who thought that “Women Hired For Jobs They Just Can’t Do” was an acceptable newspaper headline.
#49: Everybody Dies 3: Playing With Fire
Organiser: Pennine Megagames
Date: 1 September 2018
Location: Gateway Church, Leeds
Role: Game Control
The last run (for now at least) of my megagame. This one was shifted back in GoT history to the Dance of the Dragons, and featured Chris Brown losing his dragon on about turn 2. It’s Game of Thrones, innit.
#50: Mirrorshades
Organiser: Horizon Megagames
Date: 6 October 2018
Location: Deptford Lounge, London
Role: Chaos Theory, Cyberpunk Face
And to cap it all off, my most recent megagame was one where I only cared about looking good, where I gathered eight lovers from all different walks of life, bought a bar and avoided rolling any dice until most of the way through the game.
To the next fifty…
So that’s my megagaming career so far. I have another three games on the calendar for this year, so the 2018 total will (probably) be thirteen. This means the number of games I did in a year peaked at 15 in 2017.
I’ve also had fourteen control roles (28%), fourteen press roles (12 player, 2 control), two in-character deaths, eighteen team leader or sub-team leader roles, six runs of Watch The Skies and spin-offs, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Here’s to the next fifty megagames, whatever they may be.