Twyg's Thursday Thought - Micro-tourneys

A lilliputian king, a lilliputian tournament!

What's a Micro-tourney? Simple, sometimes you don't have a lot of time, the right venue or a mix of both. You still want to have a good time with your friends, and in this case co-workers, and you want to game. Enter the Micro-tourney.

A Micro-tourney is a fast, organized game tournament that can be played out in an hour or less with a clear winner, and done right a lot of concentrated fun.



Now how do you go about it? The best start is to pick something simple and fast to play. In our case we chose Zombie Dice from the Steve Jackson Games studio. If you've not had the pleasure of playing it all you need to know is that it's a push your luck type of dice game where rounds are less than ten minutes in duration.

Now find out who's interested in playing and show the players how to play. Picking a simple game is key since you probably only have five to ten minutes to teach everyone. Once everyone is acclimated you'll want to set pairs of people up to play. Having volunteers always helps to cover disputes and even to keep score.

For Zombie Dice we ended up finding that tie games were a potential hazard, so we'd have a roll off instead of a complete re-play of a game again, to keep the time condensed. Be ready to think on your feet to keep things moving smoothly. It goes without saying, but make sure to have on hand a piece of paper to keep things in order. I took a little bit of time and made a nice one, however just a tally is fine, just so long as everyone knows where they stand.

Elimination tournament style is certainly the go-to style for this Micro-tourney and enhance the fun for everyone. You've got such a short time that you're amped up, as a player you may only have one shot! Make it good! Get everyone cheering on the other players, there should be favorites and villains out of the gate, and make sure to keep people excited and rallied up!

As people are eliminated make sure they stick around, you never know when an upset may happen, and a switch hitter is needed. Also, what good is a tournament like this without an audience?

Once you're done make sure that you've got some equally Micro-Prize support. In our case since it was a cost effective move, I got an extra copy of Zombie Dice and gave the winner a copy. You could just as effectively get an extra dice set, a specialty coffee, or a desk tchotchke.  About $10 seems to be just fine, and you'd be surprised how many people will forgo the winner's prize and hand it to a worthy opponent.

Above all else, have a great time. Once practiced you can prep one of these in 30 minutes, and run it in just as much time. Have fun, and let us know what you come up with!