Turning ‘Shogun’ into a megagame.

Sengoku the megagame of classical Japan.

Japanese history has been a long term interest of mine, and when I first played the board game ‘Shogun’ I was very impressed at the way it captured the flavour of the age of civil wars, the Sengoku-jidai. It looked like this would be an excellent way of introducing the subject via a megagame.

The original board game has a lovely simplified map of provinces, and hundreds of plastic toy soldiers with which to represent armies as well as tiny model castles, swords, game money and so on. The components themselves were inspirational.

Of course, I would be turning a 5 player game into a 40 or 50 player game and so some changes would be necessary. It turned out that a lot of change was necessary – so much so that now nothing of the original game’s structure or mechanisms remains in the current iteration of the Sengoku megagame.

The first thing was to identify the player teams and this was the first major change. I wanted to set the game in a specific time and chose 1551 as a good starting point. It became clear who were the leading clans of this time, and I was able to create teams of players based on the historical diamyo and their families, and create briefings of ‘recent’ historical events based on the real world of the period. In doing this it became clear that the economic values allocated to the provinces in Shogun were not quite right, so I reset that data using actual rice taxation levels from 1551. This made quite a difference and whilst it would have created an unbalanced board game, it was a distinct benefit in a megagame which thrive on unbalanced scenarios and it made this historical feel a good deal better – once the wealth of provinces was taken into account it was pretty clear why certain clans came to the fore (and why some clans were never deafeated).

To further the sense of historical feel, the teams needed much more than just decisions about raising armies and marching them about to conquer areas on the map to properly reflect life int he period.

Drawing on my experience developing role playing games set in the period it was obvious to me that the core of the game would be the dynamic within the clan as much as it would be about rivalry and conflict between clans. Japanese samurai society contains a wealth of inter-related individuals, complex clan and obligation networks and this would form a basis for the team sub-game. I also wanted to introduce a high degree of Japanese culture of the time including the formal nature of relations, the rituals, and something of the mood and attitude of the time.

To achieve this I developed individual briefings for each player in the game explaining their relationship to others and their individual objectives. Watching over each clan team would be a Team Control who would be acting as GM for the team and allocating awards in the form of ‘culture points’ for good role playing and acting in accordance with some basic rules of etiquette selected for the game. This was entirely new and not part of the board game.

The board game had a neat and simple system of die rolling for battles, and in the early versions of the megagame I used something based on this. But it became clear that this took far too long, and by the second iteration I had a much more streamlined system that could be resolved quickly enough that it did not hold up the rest of the game. Of course, fromt he very start the megagame also had moved away from the IGYG game turns of the original and introduced simultaneous actions, based on written instructions where it was important.

It was also important to add in institutions like the main warrior monk temples (major political actors in the period) and the role of the Imperial Court and Nobility as well as the Bakufu (the shogun’s civil service).

By the time all the various teams, structures, streamlined systems and detailed briefings had been added the resulting game bore no resemblance to the board game that inspired it except for having a similar-looking game map of Japan. And there are only so many ways you can draw a province map of Japan so even that changed.

In retrospect the game could probably have been developed from scratch more easily, and  with much the same end result (or even better).   What is important here is that the prototype board game was a template to start the design process going. Even if you end up discarding absolutely everything of the original game (and be prepared to do this) having something to start with really helps, especially with your first megagame designs.

In Conclusion

There have been many cases over the years where a board game or even computer game have provided the baseline on which to develop.

The ultimate example of this would be the influence of the computer game UFO: Enemy Unknown (also know as XCOM and its successors) on the inception of the successful Watch The Skies series – whihc was inspired by the ideas of the much loved original computer game, but has ended up in a very different place.

The important part about converting a game into a megagame is be prepared to throw out anything that doesn’t work in the megagame context.  Much loved mechanisms, structures, map, components – anything – if it doesn’t serve your megagame discard it.  A megagame is a thing on its own, inspired by other games, or fiction or history or life, it still has to work as an experience for the players as well.

 

In this part I look at a real example of converting board games mechanisms to a megagame.

Pirates of Yendor

Turning ‘Trireme’ into a megagame.

There is a much loved tactical wargame written by Ed Smith called ‘Trireme’¹ (originally published in the UK as ‘Greek Naval Warfare’). This is a tactical wargame where each player takes control of a small number of ancient Greek warships and aims to outmanoeuvre her opponent and ram and sink the enemy fleet. The game is built around a set of wargame rule that take account of differing sizes of Greek warship, the presence or marines and archers and the effects of ramming from different directions hitting more vulnerable parts of enemy vessels.

Movement and action is simultaneous, each side writing orders for their ships using a simple letter code (P = port, S = starboard and so on). Interception was handled by an ingenious ‘phased movement’ system which allowed ships to do a series of partial moves depending on speed until the point a collision or ram occurrs.

It is an elegant system and fairly easy to learn and play.

The origins of the megagame Pirates of Yendor came about because I wanted to do a naval themed game based in my long-standing fantasy universe built around the City of Yendor. The political structures, back story and environment already existed, so the main requirement was some sort of sea-based action. Having loved Trireme for many years I started to look at how this might be adapted to the megagame.

The basic story of the megagame was that the City of Yendor, being a major port, was vulnerable to attack by sea raiders and corsairs. The megagame was to be about a campaign of a series of seaborne attacks aimed at controlling the sea approaches to the city. In every Yendor-based game there is an element of internal rivalry and posturing within and between various factions within the city, each of which would be buying, equipping, and dispatching ships to fight the Corsairs.

It would have been possible to play a straightforward wargame on this theme, on a game board and with many ships. However that would not have had the command and control and political, elements that made this a megagame.

So the main changes that were implemented were:

• Moving from one player handling several ships, to several players handling one ship. This meant having some role differentiation within the ship-team. Since there would be many ship crew teams in a hall, the ship models needed to be large and colourful so as to be easily identified from a distance.

  

• Instead of written orders the player used large flash cards each turn displayed for the Control team to see. Control then moved ships in accordance with the orders displayed.

• The ships’ status was shown on the ship models rather than recorded on a separate sheet held by the player. This meant that the ship models had to be large and their status clear. Crew on the ships were represented by actual toy soldiers and things like oars (which could be damaged) shown by removable cards.

Crews

There are, broadly speaking, two sides to the game – the Yendorians and the Corsairs.

However, within each side there were factions each with their own agendas, so the way the sea battles played turned out to be more than a straightforward tactical battle.

In a two player ship the roles were:

• Captain – Responsible for decision making and signalling.

• Ship’s Master – responsible for issuing the ships’ movement orders, rolling dice etc.

The larger ships, with 3 or more crew had their own separate briefing on how they operated – some had additional weapons to contend with.

The players could not come onto the playing area or move the ship models and the game controllers moved the ships in accordance with the players’ wishes.

There was the all-important time factor.

Players did not have unlimited time in which to carefully work out the optimal manoeuvre for their vessel. We started off by giving everyone a few minutes to prepare their orders, but as the day went on, and the players got more used to the system, we shortened the time available to prepare orders for each game period.

As is normal in megagames, the game did not wait until all the players were ready – once Game Control announced that it was time to display orders anyone who was not ready lost the opportunity to issue orders. Ships with no orders continued on their last heading at their last speed.

In addition, communications were limited. Nobody in this world had a radio. Communication between ships was by shouting or by flags. A ship had to be within 2 squares for shouting to be effective.To make this a bigger challenge, ship teams from each side were interspersed, alternating round the room as Yendorian and Corsair

Flags could be seen at any distance and we gave players coloured paper flags and signal books to help this. Systems of flag signals were specific to each side and there was scope for additional signals to be developed by players.  Other than flags and close-range shouting, players were not allowed to discuss their forthcoming orders with other ship’s crews. To discourage conferring we alternated the seating arrangements so that crews on the same side were not necessarily sitting next to each other.

On the day the megagame was divided into three linked scenarios – each scenario taking about one and a half to two hours, with a break in between. The outcome of each scenario determining the start set up for the next.  

As a megagame this worked pretty well, though it helped that the player interaction part was separated from the tactical element – and the tactical game was fast-moving enough that players did not experience down-time while adjudication took place.  This was helped by simplifying the actual combat rules themselves, and giving the control team several practic session so that they were able to resolve combats with ease and confidence without needing to spend time looking up rules or checking too many rule tables. However the physical representation was important – there needed to be a lot of room to lay out the game so that everyone had a clear and uninterrupted view and that individual crew’s ship’s position on the playing area was clearly visible to the crew at all times.  The physical preparation for a game like this is non-trivial!

In the last part I discussed some of the pros and cons of designing a megagame based on an existing game type, be it board game, wargame, role playing game or LARP.

In this part I introduce a worked example… so I give you …

MEGACHESS : The Chess Megagame!

An outrageous example of applying megagame structures to a board game.

In this section I want to look at the conversion process a little – how one might look at a well known two player board game and turn it into a megagame.

To really highlight the process I have deliberately chosen one of the simplest two player board games, chess. The basic structure of a game of chess is used and my megagame map is the familiar 8 by 8 grid, the pieces move in the way they move in chess. But in order to adapt the game to a megagame-like format there are important changes made to the rules and procedures of chess.

In this megagame there are two sides, Black Kingdom and White Kingdom. Or the ‘Kingdom of the Black Forest’ and the ‘Kingdom of the White Mountains’ if you want to add spurious ‘fluff’.

Each Kingdom has an army which is organised in a hierarchy, with the King at the top.

There are 16 player roles per side (including the King), one for each chess piece.

Game Layout

MegaChess is a double-blind closed game. The King and his council does not see the main map – but has a smaller map to update the situation based on reports from the front line players who are positioned at the main map.

The main maps do not show all the positions of all the enemy pieces, only pieces adjacent to a friendly piece are shown. The Control team observe both maps and keep them updated, but do not update the King’s council maps.

Megachess Game Layout

Game Play

Each game turn takes 10 minutes.

Action is SIMULTANEOUS. Only one piece can be moved each turn.

The game is a double blind game – with a limited visibility range allocated to each piece.  perhaps Rooks can ‘see’ further’ than pawns?

Interactions between pieces are ruled on by Control. So it is possible for a piece to be attacked and for it to move out of the way. Players issue ‘orders’ for their piece based on instructions from the King’s Council as players receive written orders from their King each ‘Move’.

These cannot be in the form of ‘Pawn to B4’ but must be ‘Pawn No.6 Advance’ or ‘Pawn No.6 capture enemy Knight’. So there is some room for error in interpretation.

The front line players in control of pieces issue instructions to move their piece as ordered on the ‘map’ (game board). This might be actually moved by control based on a written instruction or a flash card. The players then and report back to the King. Some will be reporting newly ‘sighted’ enemy pieces, some will report on their actions.

Turn lengths are rigidly timed to 10 minutes, so it is possible for the King one side not to have given orders for a move in a given turn if they take too long to decide what to do. However, front line players might still issue instructions to their piece to move in the absence of King’s orders thus representing the degree of local initiative or disobedience.

Internal Politics Element. All orders must be agreed upon by the Privy Council composed of the King, Queen, Knights and Bishops, who attend the meeting. There is a status ranking system in the Court, with victory points or status gained if your suggestions are adopted. The attendees are also front line players, so have to rush back to the main map room if they want to move their piece.

Religious Conflict Element. The two Bishops represent different and opposed sects (the White Diagonalist Sect and the Black Diagonalist Sect), and have secret objectives (and a secret communication route with their co-religionists on the other side). They will be seeking to influence strategy and diminish the influence of the rival sect.

Revolutionary Element: Some of the Pawns are Republicans are are trying to convince the other Pawns to overthrow the oppressive Monarchists, depose the King and end this pointless war. They have private line of communication with Revolutionary Red Pawns on the other side. They can also try to convince higher value pieces to join the revolution. They might choose to change sides or disobey orders.

Imagine converting Black and White Pawns into Red Pawns on the board when the revolution starts!

Captured or ‘Dead’? – captured pieces’ players are physically moved to the enemy kingdom’s dungeon room (or area in the hall). They have their own Control who gets them to play a ‘escape from prison’ sub-game loosely based on the ‘Escape From Colditz’ board game so that they might escape and return to the main game They can also be ransomed or a prisoner swap negotiated between White and Black. And of course pawns reaching the other side of the board can perform rescues. Rescued or escaped prisoners are restarted in their traditional start position on the board.

Question – is this a megagame at all?

It has some features or a megagame – size (32 players), hierarchies, time pressure. The rules are very simple. It has some politics and role playing.  It meets many people’s definition of a megagame – in theory.

But.

Most of the players have little to do. They are likely to be spending much of their time waiting for orders from above. You can see how the game design has had to create some opportunities for the 10 or so players who are likely to be inactive on each side to do something meaningful that contributes to the gameplay. This is, of course limited:

• The pawn conspiracy might generate some discussion, but until they rebel they are just talking.

• The Privy council sub-game will be entertaining for the six members of each council, but will it dominate to the extent that the chess battle is ignored or marginalised?

• Is turning up to a megagame, getting captured on turn 2 and spending the day playing ‘Escape from Chessdiz‘ with 2 or 3 other people really an inspiring megagame experience?

Is there enough player interaction apart from the privy council, the revolutionaries and the religious rivalries? To take an example – imagine you are one of the rook players? What would you be doing all day? This is a key question in megagame design – always ask “what will this player actually do?”

The base rules of chess have been altered to allow simultaneous action. Will this break the basic structure and make the chess-like game not work at all? Are there other modifications to the chess structure that might help add depth to the megagame? For example allowing more than one piece to move each turn. Or adding a random element where one rolls dice to determine whether a piece is captured. Or make the capture process a direct stone-paper-scissors type combat between the players on each side.

What this example seeks to illustrate is how, superficially, a board game might look like if it is translated into a megagame, but also how this process of conversion throws up some design issues that must be addressed to ensure that it is a genuine megagame experience.And how the megagame-ising of a baord game can change its character altogether.  This is important if you wanted to replicate the experience of your favourite board game as a megagame.  Will those changes destroy the bits you loved?

No matter what your favourite board game, or wargame or role playing game might be, translating them to the megagame format is never a trivial process. In fact often it can often be both quicker and easier to construct an original game around the theme than to modify or adjust an existing game that was never intended to be a megagame.

In Part 3: Another examples of a board game conversion – how the Pirates of Yendor came into being….

 

Many megagame designers have used existing board game or computer games as an inspiration or framework or basis for a megagame idea. This can be an extremely good way of getting into designing your own games.

There are some advantages and also some pitfalls for the the unwary new megagame designers.  It is important to remember that a megagame is superficially like many types of games but its characteristics mean that its design is not like designing a role-playing game, a board game, a LARP or a wargame.

At this stage lets look at the similarities and differences in game types.

Board games :

• are designed to be played in a few hours and their mechanisms are optimised for that. Some very complex board games such as Europa Universalis and their ilk require very long playing times closer to 10 hours, but these are generally an exception.

• They can have simple or complex rules and processes. In general board games that aim to simulate something (in the same way megagames contain a simulation) have reasonably complex rules and procedures which might take some time to learn and a while to work through.

• The vast majority or board games operate on an ‘I Go, You Go’ (IGYG) principle. This is a major distinction with megagames which simply cannot operate in that way because of the constraints of time, space and numbers of participants means that action has to be simultaneous. It would be unacceptable for 40 players to be waiting around while one team of players have their ‘go’.

Mainstream wargame rules

• Wargames often aspire to be a simulation of real historical military operations and as such are designed to contain complex simulations requiring rules for different circumstances, weapons, abilities and so on.

• Complex rules and procedures mean that wargames can often take many hours to play just a few game turns.

• Like the board game, many of the current generation of mainstream wargames operate on the IGYG principle, creating a lot of player inactivity. Older wargames, utilising order-writing and simultaneous movement and action are closer to the needs of megagames.

Role Playing Games

• Often characterised by in-depth character development and statistics for each individual player. In megagames there might be elements of character development, but there are generally simpler because of the need to apply time pressure. In some cases character development is not relevant, for example where someone is role playing as real historical role (King of France, or some such).

• They need careful adjudication by a skilled Game Master (GM) who manages the narrative and injects situational updates to challenge or assist the players. This has a lot in common with the way the Control Team operate in megagames – though in a megagame there is a need for the emerging narrative to work within an overarching theme and structure, and for it to maximise player interaction.

• The RPG often has a wealth of tactical detail about individual player actions. This often requires a considerable expenditure of time and attention.

LARP

• LARP place a heavy emphasis on role immersion and role playing on a personal level. In the most developed form it requires what is, in effect, improvisational acting skills. In fact it is these improvisation skills which form the core of the experience. Megagames contain elements of this, but more often players are role playing a role rather than a character – they are themselves being a Prime Minister, not role playing an actual prime minister.

• There is usually an absolute requirement for dressing up in role. Whilst in megagames there is some fun to be had with a bit of dressing up, it has never been a requirement, as megagames attract gamers from a wider field of interests, not all of whom are comfortable with dressing up and it is not necessary because megagames are not LARPS.

• In some games there are physical interaction rules – rules for hitting one another with rubber swords etc. The physical and environmental aspects for a LARP are important even if there is no combat.

• Many LARP games often have a highly structured narrative which has a clear denouement, which many be scripted or at least ‘nudged’ to create an exciting end-game. This is very distinct from a megagame which is fundamentally open-ended – the principle of following the emerging game-play makes it impossible (and undesirable) to have a constructed dramatic ending.

What becomes clear that merely ‘porting’ an existing game from an existing genre, adding more players and calling it a megagame does not easily work very well. And this has been my experience.

However, that does not mean that concepts and some of the mechanisms from other game genres might not be usefully used in the megagame context, obviously with some important adjustments. This is an especially attractive route, particularly where the designer is new to megagame design and maybe does not have to confidence or experience to develop all the systems and mechanisms needed for a game from scratch.

That said, even the most experienced designers will draw on their own personal ‘toolbox’ of systems, structures and procedures that they have developed in earlier games or borrowed from other designer’s games.

Many of our most successful games started with inspiration from another game.  BUT when drawing on another game design remember to allow for the unique dynamics of the megagame.

Here are my golden rules for designing megagame rules and processes:

• Game processes must be FAST. Minutes not hours. Every minute spent adjudicating rules is dead time so far as the player experience goes, and megagames are fundamentally about player experience. This is especially important when taken together with the standard requirement for there to be time pressure on the players within the megagame. A megagame design that involves people sitting around doing nothing for any length of time is highly undesirable.

• There must be a meaningful purpose to player interactions. Including roles in a team, or even including whole teams just because it seems cool, but without a real game role or function is not just bad design, it is irresponsible. (for a contra-example see Part 2). Every role in your game must pass the ‘So What Test’. I will say more about this later.

• No Kitchen Sinks. In designing a megagame it is easy to get carried away with great ideas for cool things you can get the players to do. Stop. Concentrate on the aspects of the game that they must have to do first and foremost. If you want to add gloss wait until you have a solid, working system. Too many moving parts will either slow the game down or they will be ignored or mishandled in the chaos and rush of actualy game play. This has the attendant risk of in-game unfortunate consequences that the game designer is not able to foresee, playtest for or control during the day.

 

In Part 2 : an Outrageous example of applying megagame structures to a very famous board game….