Thinking about running games at Gen Con?
Most people don’t realize but there are actually 3 ways to experience Megagames at Gen Con:
Play a game
Help control (volunteer) a game
Run a game
1.Play a game
This is how the majority of people interact with a megagame - by playing. At Gen Con, this involves buying a Gen Con badge ($70-$135), building a wish list of games you want to play, being lucky enough to grab a ticket when they become available, and finally, by paying the ticket price (>$40). As game runners, we LOVE these people. They’re so dedicated and curious and we wouldn’t even have this hobby without them. But in the words of the Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you want”. Tickets sell out, you may not be able to afford tickets, etc. I’ve definitely been in this position and it’s super frustrating. Your friend just told you how great megagames are and you can’t even play!
But if you try sometimes, you just might find…
2. Help control
There are lots of reasons that people help with control. Perhaps you wanted to see what’s behind the curtain, or you just want to get to know the cool people who run the game and be part of the community that puts megagames on. Gen Con is expensive, so perhaps you wanted a little help paying your way. What’s that? You didn’t realize there are incentives for helping? Oh yeah! If you help at all, we’ll help you find a place to stay. If you help with at least 2 games, you get a 4-day GM badge for free! If you help with 3 or more, we’ll help you pay for said accommodation. Final incentives usually get confirmed a little closer to the con, but these 3 are pretty standard for the Megagame Coalition (MGC) volunteers.
Whilst these are all valid reasons for helping, I can confidently say that the number 1 reason people help run games with us is that it’s AWESOME! You’ll have a great time. In fact, many people I speak to say they have a better time helping run the games than they do playing in them. If you think about what makes megagames fun, it’s a mixture of things: including playing with your friends and telling great stories amongst others. Being a control member is no different. You’ll form bonds with your teammates and players and you get to influence the story in different ways. Even something like map control, that is traditionally thought of as a purely mechanical and teach-heavy role allows for control to interpret the outside-the-box ideas of players.
The MGC provides all volunteers full support - from learning the game rules and the role of the control team to all the help you need with accommodation.
So if you’ve never thought about volunteering before, perhaps 2024 is your year? But maybe you are just a little bit more curious…
3. Run a game!
And now we get to the reason I brought you all here today:
You too can run games at Gen Con! Megagames aren’t reserved for the wealthy elite like me (LOL). Anyone with half a brain and a little dedication can run a game. There are a handful of us in the MGC that have run dozens of games between us and we want YOU to join our ranks. In 2023 there were 4 of us who put on 7 games. In 2024 we want to put on double that number but we need fresh blood to help us.
I won’t lie, putting on a megagame is hard work. But lucky for you, there are at least 4 of us that want you to be successful. We will provide you with full support in picking out the game and teaching you the ropes about what it takes to put a great event on. We help you with the control team, advertising, equipment, the event space, preamble, survey, communication, etc. You’d be responsible for getting the components together, printing materials, buying tokens, teaching your control team and running the event.
So why do it? To start with, it’s incredibly rewarding. I won’t lie, after I ran my first game, my adrenaline was so high I got a little emotional. And if you need any more incentive than that, you’ll get many of the same perks as the “help control” level listed above.
And to add a delicious cherry to that, you get most of the “profits” of the ticket price. Gen Con takes a cut of each ticket price and the MGC has some expenses that we need to take care of (hotels, equipment, etc.), but after that, the rest of it is all yours. You might get enough to pay off your hotel room, travel expenses, etc.
So if you’re considering it, or just want to learn more, here are some bed-time reading resources for you:
Our fiends over at the Megagame Assembly (MGA) collect all the “ready-to-run” games over here: https://www.megagameassembly.com/ready-made-megagames. I put that in quotes because it’s not that simple but it is a good starting point. If there’s something on here that catches your eye, we can talk through what we know about the game.
Or if you want to design your own game and run it, we’ll gladly help you with that. We have a mentor program where we pair you up with experienced designers and work with you towards your goals. Learn more here: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/mentor
Speaking of the MGA, there’s a blog series that starts here https://www.megagameassembly.com/blog/how-to-run-a-megagame-part-1 called how to run a megagame. Not all of it will be applicable to running at Gen Con but it’ll give you an idea of things.
As I write this, Gen Con seems like a long way away, but we’re already talking to our Gen Con representative to see if we can get double the event space we were allocated in 2023. And we’ll need to fill those time slots with games. Events get submitted to Gen Con by January/February timeframe, but there’s lots to do between now and then to give us a level of comfort that the event will be awesome.
So if you have any interest at all, there are lots of ways to let us know. You can contact me via email or contact any of the MGC council on our discord channel (myself - paniman, emmebgg, elder0ak, seriously9346, xelath). Or if you’re feeling very brave and/or are a little closer to knowing what game you want to run, here’s our official game submission form. It’s very lengthy because Gen Con requires a lot from us, but just do the best you can, we can fill in the gaps later.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.