Fae’s Anatomy: a megagame

I’ve played a megagame! They’re great fun!

The first Saturday of May saw me at Leeds Armouries with 31 others, playing Fae’s Anatomy, a megagame written by Patrick Rose, John Keyworth and Holly Wall.

The game was organised by Pennine Megagames, who run megagames in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. It ran from 9:30 to 4 pm, and cost about £30.

Fae’s Anatomy

Here’s the pitch

"There's an epidemic of Green Fingers, the hospital porters are demanding more mana, and the head nurse keeps turning into a cat. Just another day in the world's premier magical hospital."

Research ancient magical secrets, embark on quests for rare herbs, or balance the departmental budget - then head home to your magical commune to plan the next community celebration. Fae's Anatomy is a relatively co-operative megagame with strong elements of resource management, creativity, and communication.

I joined the mailing list a couple of years ago, but this is the first megagame I’ve been able to play. (About a third of the players were new to megagames.)

I wasn’t that bothered about the setting. I just knew I wanted to play a megagame, and having one on the doorstep was too good an opportunity to pass up.

And what is a megagame?

According to Pennine Megagames, a megagame is “an activity for upwards of around 20 people, usually in teams and featuring both cooperation and competition amidst a historical or fictitious scenario.”

It’s similar to a freeform larp, but there’s more focus on rules and mechanics (resembling interlinked board games) than the pure character and roleplaying of a larp. (There is a lot of overlap. Chatting to some of the people I met, many had larped and some even wrote all-day murder mystery larps for their friends. One of the GMs [known as “Control” in megagames] recognised me from the Retford freeform weekends.)

One difference between a larp and a megagame is that in the latter, you are given a role rather than a character. So I was part of the Swanshire Maker commune (crazy steampunk engineers) and I worked in the Outer Souls Facility (basically a university doing research).

How Fae’s Anatomy works

Fae’s Anatomy was played over nine 35-minute rounds. Each round consisted of:

Commune phase (10 minutes). During this phase, we ran our commune board, which meant extracting mana and building things. This was also the time to swap information and resources with the rest of the commune. We also had to manage our morale and food, which we happily balanced.

Our commune board

Medicine phase (10 minutes). In this phase, we separated and played a different set of minigames. In my case, I went to the Outer Souls Facility and used researched artefacts and spells that my team could use in their games.

I could “upgrade” some of our workers by putting them through college.

This was fun – it meant meeting people from other teams and cooperating to complete research projects. (This was a very cooperative game.)

The Outer Souls Facility

Negotiation phase (10 minutes) – this was an opportunity to wander around the room and try to deal with some of the other problems, or enter into a commune festival.

Our problems included dealing with a goblin that was stealing names, an outbreak of sneezing that appeared to cause earthquakes (we implemented strict masking protocols), and dealing with a dragon that we ended up swearing fealty to.

Each commune had a festival and invited others to participate in silly games and activities. We had a paper plane competition, and asked others for blueprints for household appliances. Other communes’ festivals involved modelling fish out of clay, singing songs and dancing. (The festivals were optional, but lots of people joined in.)

Press phase (5 minutes). During the press phase, we returned to our communes, and the two reporters told us what was happening.

Compared to a freeform larp, this made the reporters really useful – they got their moments in the spotlight and were useful in sharing the news. And the fact that we had to sit at our communes and listen really helped – nobody was allowed to continue negotiating during this phase. (I’m sure there’s something here that freeforms can learn from.)

And there were no breaks. You could nip to the loo, but the game continued without you. We were encouraged to bring a packed lunch, and I ate mine during the commune and press phases.

But what was it like?

Busy. Hectic. Confusing. Loud. Friendly.

Other players said they found it stressful. Perhaps because it was my first megagame, I didn’t find it too stressful. (Maybe being cooperative made it less stressful as well – I don’t know.)

I came away quite tired, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Things I liked

Lovely people. Lots of lovely people, all playing a completely daft game. Many in costume, some (like me), having only made a token effort. Everyone was friendly, and I didn’t see or hear any arguments despite the stress.

Production design. The production design was good – the game rules and background information issued ahead of the game looked professional, and the many decks of cards had been properly designed and printed (they felt like cards from a regular board game). Some of the boards (such as the commune board and the faculty boards) were less polished, but none of it felt cheap.

The location. I liked the Royal Armouries as a location. We had a medium-sized room – we pretty much filled it, but even with 40 or so gamers in it, it never got too hot or stuffy.  And the Armouries has good public transport links and a large car park (which I used) nearby. Had there been a nearby tea and coffee vendor, it would have been perfect, but bringing a packed lunch wasn’t the end of the world.

Things that felt like they needed a bit more attention

There were, however, a couple of things that could have been clearer.

Did we win? In a purely competitive sense, I have no idea whether we won or lost. The overall winning or losing conditions weren’t particularly clear – I never really knew if we were winning or losing. I know the Outer Souls Faculty got nearly 200 prestige, but I don’t know if that was enough to be the best.  (I think it was, but anyway.)

It didn’t seem to matter very much, as everyone was having fun, but it was possibly an oversight. Or maybe I just missed an important announcement during the confusion.

Upgrading boards. It seemed really hard to upgrade both our commune board and my faculty board.  Commune upgrades were both expensive and underwhelming, so we didn’t upgrade anything. And I struggled to upgrade anything on my faculty board, either. (I did play some of that wrong – it was easy to miss stuff, not that it mattered much.)

The lack of upgrades was a surprise. From reading the rules, I could see that the boards could be upgraded, and because in regular board games, upgrading your board is normally key to winning, I had expected Fae’s Anatomy to be similar. But it seemed not. I know I got some rules wrong, but from what I could see, nobody had much success at upgrading.

After the game. The pub we convened in for a post-game natter was a little small, and we were mostly outside, which was a little chilly. I hung around briefly, but I got cold and didn’t stay long.

And overall?

I thoroughly enjoyed Fae’s Anatomy and would happily play another megagame. I’m not sure how far I’d travel for one, but I’d definitely play another in Leeds or York.