April 2023 Newsletter
The goings on of the Dukes of Highland.
The Past
If you missed it last month, we have now officially started selling tickets for Gods of the Ancient World. Here’s the boilerplate for it to wet your whistle:
What if the Kingdom of Macedonia (Ancient Greek Empire) did not fall apart and what if the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire 100 years earlier. These changes could have been arranged by the machinations of the Gods. Let's imagine what that world might have been like, under constant threat of war, the dawn of democracy and the Gods reining supreme high from their thrones on Mt. Olympus, playing the mortals against each other in a narcissistic cosmic game.
Click here to buy your tickets now!
The Present
Maybe you’ve seen promos like this dotted around the interwebs. I’m actively promoting Gods as much as I can and honestly, I HATE IT. I hate the constant push to get people to sign up for the game. In many ways, I was incredibly fortunate that Den of Wolves sold out in March with almost zero advertising needed as it allowed me to concentrate on the stuff I enjoy - designing, prepping, writing, organizing the event, etc. I’m hitting at least a dozen Facebook groups and several Reddit threads at least weekly, not to mention the Megagame community outlets.
In fact, I’m not so high-and-mighty as to not ask for help. Firstly, if you are in any games groups, please feel free to pass on the message about the event and mega games in general. Megagames are a little niche right now and word of mouth is truly the best form of advertising. As I’m sure you’re aware, putting on a MG is a huge amount of work and the hobby really would go extinct without groups like ours putting them on.
Secondly, if you have any good contacts or have cool skills that you think would be useful, I’d be glad to have you help us. I’m thinking of marketing professionals, graphic designers, web content creators, accountants, etc. Perhaps you own your own print shop, or you’re closely tied to a country club with an amazing venue we can use, or maybe you know of some places that’d be perfect for posters to go up. Anything you can think of would help us. I’m essentially making this stuff up as I go and I know I’m making mistakes and can always improve.
If you want any advertising material (posters, fliers, online content like the graphic above), please contact me and I’d be glad to supply what I have.
The Future
I’m going to keep advertising and will continue to do so until I sell all 62 tickets. I really only need 32 players to make this game happen so that’s when I’ll at least have some level of comfort!
I also have some interesting things planned in the next couple of weeks: I’m going to meet with a lady who specializes in small business advertising to see what that might look like, and I also have a coffee date with someone from Louisville public media this week to see where that relationship takes me. Watch this space is all I can say to that.
We also have another playtest scheduled for the weekend where we’ll be testing the senate game. I don’t expect any big surprises but it’ll be good to see it in action and will get my control team excited too.
Gencon 2023 - 7 megagames planned
Gencon is also approaching fast and furious and I’m working with the Megagame Coalition to put on some amazing megagames at Gencon this year. Other than running two games of my own (Gods and DoW), I’m also in charge of recruiting volunteers to help run all 7 of the slated games. The event list will be coming out in the next few weeks which is where the games will be confirmed.
Playing in megagames IS awesome, but so is helping run them. According to many previous control members, they have MORE fun controlling the chaos and helping craft the stories as opposed to simply playing. We are still finalizing the volunteer perks but they'll be at least as good as last year where we have increasing perks for the more games you help run (including but not limited to free drinks, appetizers, free Gencon badge (or reimbursement if you've already paid), dibs on hotel rooms, reimbursement on your own accommodation, etc.). Not only that, you get to hang with US - the main megagame organizers/designers in North America! We value making relationships with you as much as anything and we can't wait to have you partner with us. You might be thinking "This seems cool but I'm just not sure, I've never done it before, I don't know how to play X game, let alone run it" etc. We promise to walk you through every step of the way. So if you're interested, please fill out this 3 minute form so we can start to build a list of applicants (spoiler alert, we don't turn anyone away who wants to help!): Link to the Google form here. Thanks for reading this far and go sign up.