Designing a MegaGame: 2 - Teams & Roles
I’ve got a theme, now what?
I’m still fairly new to this but my instinct says that I need to work out what the teams and roles might look like. These elements provide the framework of the entire game. Once we have this, we can start to think about how they might interact with each other. Saying that, these elements aren’t like “Create teams & roles THEN create interactions”. It’s not as cut and dry as that – they both kind of happen independently and together. It’s still very much brainstorming at this point with the end goal being the mechanics we’ll have that a player interacts with to drive their game.
Working Title: Gods of the Ancient World
Or GAW for short :)
The first group of players are naturally the Gods. I’m hesitant to say team because I don’t think the ancient Greek and Roman Gods were ever really a team. All the stories I know indicate they were fairly selfish and a mixture of alignments, shifting depending on their interactions with the mortals and each other. Therefore I imagine this group will be all working independently for their own goals and can collaborate when it suits them. That makes things slightly more complex from a design perspective but there are probably ways around that. In fact, this group of players are going to be closest to LARPers - players that actually take on characters rather than just roles. We’ll have Zeus, Hades, Aphrodite, etc.
Then I’m thinking that I want to split the mortals into two more-or-less-equal factions - the Greeks and the Romans. And these groups will be working against each other to finish with the most prestige. That gives the mortals a general objective but like any good MegaGame, it’ll be more of a guideline with their own objectives trumping whatever I put in front of them.
Within a faction, there will be an emperor who’s job it’ll be to lead their faction and guide them in a general direction. I imagine this role to be less mechanics and more leadership and communication - much like a Head of State in Watch The Skies.
Then I want to add different teams within a faction and regions make sense here. I want a way for players to sign up on a team and can play together all day. This makes it more fun for those who sign-up together and help build community for folks who are signing up alone.
Within a region, I’m thinking I’ll have the following roles:
Governor - The leader of the region and responsible for carrying out the Emperors wishes for the region.
General - The player who goes to the War Room and moves troops around (and who has their own region-specific troops).
Priest - Communicates with the Gods in some way on behalf of their people.
Senator - Any good Ancient Roman game needs a Senate and Senators. So these folks will create laws and such, akin to the United Nations in WTS.
Laborer/craftsmen/trader - My least thought through role but one where they produce stuff for the other roles. I’m thinking, food for their faction, building materials, artworks for prestige, etc.
My favorite part of Watch The Skies is the team and role structure. It’s perfect for friend groups, gives different players with different play-styles choices, allows for (mis)communication between individuals and groups, conflicts, opportunities for cooperation, and with a team that provides the big unknown to the majority of players (the Aliens), and that’s what I’ve tried to emulate with my GAW structure.
I’m excited about this framework. I’ve already got some really good ideas for the Gods/Priests interactions. That’s next.