First playtest of… The UN

Sometimes I feel like a broken record but… it was really fun. Really I think most activities are fun with your pals so we might be biased.

Because myself and my UN controller were the ones who created all the events, I decided it wasn’t fair for me to help make any decisions, therefore I was the note taker. I drafted all the resolutions whilst my four players (taking 2 countries each) made all the decisions. Once they were drafted, we gave control a few minutes to come up with the outcome and he’d let the players know.

My biggest takeaway from this was that I need to spend more time communicating my vision to the other control team. Specifically it means helping the control team understand that we’re building a narrative throughout the day rather than checking boxes and following game mechanics to the letter. For the UN control, it means using the event outcomes to tell the story first, which in turn dictates the game mechanic ramifications.
For the play test, all the players were control for the other areas so it was good to show some examples of what I might’ve done in those scenarios. For example, during one event, the UN agreed to let Russia handle take care of it. Once the UN was over and the event was resolved by Russia, I told the Russian player that they can tell the world whatever they wanted about the outcome! I saw a devious grin spread across his face at the implications of this. These situations are obvious to people that have played in a MegaGame before but not necessarily board game players. It’ll be a challenge to get this across to the players but a good starting point is getting the control team on board.