Introducing East Midlands Megagames – and Den of Wolves!
Rob Grayston is a founding member of East Midlands Megagames and is here to let the community know about the newest megagame group in the UK, launching today!
It’s been a while since a new group has emerged into the UK megagame landscape, but all that’s about to change with the newest addition to the community – East Midlands Megagames (or EMM for short)!
We’re running our first game in the historic city of Nottingham, and will be promoting the best of the hobby to new audiences across the Midlands. We want to make it easier for you to get to a megagame if you’re based in areas like Lincoln, Northampton, and Leicester, but we’re hoping that we’ll also be creating more opportunities for you to megagame if you’re in places like Sheffield, Peterborough and Birmingham. Some parts of the country haven’t been well-served for easily accessible games, and we want to help fix that.
Why do this now?
The time is right; the Covid-19 pandemic, whilst not gone, is no longer a cause for lockdowns. The cost of living is making holidays and pricey leisure activities less viable, and a megagame ticket is excellent value for money as a day’s entertainment.
Lastly, we have seen an appetite for megagaming in the region, with an increase in motivated people who want to see games happening closer to home.
The latest, completely accurate megagame map of the UK. Credit: East Midlands Megagames
What’s different about us?
The three of us kickstarting East Midlands Megagames (Alan, Harrison, and myself) had a sit down and a chat over a fry-up about what we thought a megagame group should try to do.
It’s not just that we’re seeking to fill a geographical hole – we want to build a community, encourage designers (it shouldn’t be hard to find some games designers, especially around Nottingham), and make sure people have fun.
We wrote down some commitments that we’d like EMM to try to stick to, which have clarified how we feel games should run and outlined our ideals for the group. This includes things like “all venues need to be accessible for attendees” and “introduce helpful player badges for experienced players who can help newer ones in the chaos of a megagame,” but above all our main commitment is this:
“We want our players to have a good time!”
If we let that principle guide us, then we can’t go far wrong.
Our first game
While we’re on the subject of having fun, we’d like to announce that our first game will be John Mizon’s excellent Den of Wolves, the sci-fi game of desperate space fights, tense political negotiations, and paranoid espionage.
We would love to see you here in Nottingham on 26th November 2022, so save the date and sign up to the mailing list on our website – that way you’ll be the first to know when ticket sales go live.
We want to hear from you about the games you want to play, the game design elements you love (or hate!), and how you’d like to get involved – so support East Midlands Megagames by joining our Facebook group, and we’ll see you there!
Rob Grayston is a game designer and emergency planning officer in Nottinghamshire. He’s a fan of all kinds of gaming, from grinding all-day boardgames, through flippantly delightful card games, to rules-lite indie RPGs. As his partner says, “he’s 50% doomsday-prepper and 50% doomsday-writer.” You can contact Rob on Twitter.