Sat 1/23 @ 9AM-6PM
Forget about global warming. There’s a bigger threat looming in the sea that could potentially destroy mankind: monsters rising from the depths.
Such are the perils facing gamers taking part in medieval fantasy megagame Sundered Sea, which will be played out with dozens of participants Sat 1/23 @ 9am-6pm at the Cleveland Masonic Auditorium.
The mastermind behind the game is Lakewood resident Christopher Hisey who, as head designer and co-producer, created a fictional narrative involving a massive ocean littered with hundreds of small islands habited by families that will not only have to defend themselves from each other but also monsters and so forth. Hmm, if it sounds Game of Thrones-like, you’re not wrong.
The upcoming all-day role-playing and world-building Sundered Sea event is co-produced by the Cleveland Megagame Council and Theater Ninjas. CoolCleveland talked to Hisey about this nerd-alert affair.
First of all, what are megagames?
Megagames are something that came out of London maybe 30 years ago. The idea is just basically very large kind of board games where everyone has a very small responsibility but when you put a bunch of people with small responsibilities together, kind of a big story comes out of it, a larger narrative. So recently there was a push to spread that style of game play to other places. I was the first one in the U.S. to do a game that I had designed. That was in 2014, and the first game we ran was called A Good Understanding. It was a cold war megagame set in 1955.
For those folks who aren’t a part of the Northeast Ohio gamer community, what’s the Sundered Sea narratives compared to?
The aesthetic is a little kind of Game of Thrones-like. Each player is a head of a medieval family attempting to defend their land with like-minded families in their kingdoms against the minions of a dark sea god crawling out from the beaches onto their island. There is a certain similarity there with people having their kind of families and lineage. Each player will also not only control that family but also controls that family across a number of generations.
Sorry if this is a spoiler alert, but have you heard about videogames?
[laughs]. Fair enough, and I like them very much. Actually some of the videogames and computer games I like are the multiplayer games over single-player games. I also like board games a lot for those kinds of reasons where there are multiple people. This is kind of an extension of kind of both of those things: the kind of relationship between people that arises when you’re working in systems like that, whether it is board games or videogames.
How exactly does this megagame work within the confines of the Cleveland Masonic Auditorium?
The way it works physically is the game is separated into different things that each player can do at certain times. So there’s a whole combat section with three separate tables for fighting. Then the sovereign and their council will have a separate section where they can make decisions for the whole kingdom. There’s a whole afterlife section, which will be in one of the balconies. So when a player is either killed or murdered, they take a certain amount of time and play one of the ancestor gods and make decisions about the game in a kind of larger sense. There’s a lot of travel required for this kind of a game.
How did you get started creating megagames?
I’ve been designing games and playing games and being a gamer and role player since I was a child. I think my first sort of creative memories were using the tops of pizza boxes to make really bad board games that I made my family play with me. So I’ve been sort of doing this thing for many years.
Regarding Sundered Sea, is cosplay involved?
It’s absolutely not required and it’s absolutely encouraged. For the Cold War game, the whole team playing the Soviets came dressed in suits with name badges and tiepins. They went all out. It’s a great deal of fun when people get into it.
Finally, just tell us if Jon Snow is dead.
That is a real good question, and oh man, they’ve gone away from the books so I have no idea.
Admission to participate in Sundered Sea is $25 to $30. Go here to register.