The "new" player told me about the inconsistent control decisions he had experienced and how this had "broken" the game for him.
And I thought of the discussions I had had with the Parry brothers and others about poor Control consistency. As a veteran of over 50 megagames, mostly as Control, I have learnt to cope and work around or with inconsistent "control decisions." I would rather it didn't happen, but it usually doesn't kill my game as I am invested in keeping the game and the experience going more than I am in adhering to a set of rules. But... when I see the frustration and lack of involvement through the eyes of a noob I start to wonder.
There must be a better way
I'd like to suggest a few things that could help bring consistency to a game.
Training Control
In some games there is a long first turn or a quiet first turn where the players have to plan before the main operational phase starts.
This should be a great time for the Game Control or even the Map Controllers to get together and work through any issues they have with the rules, and even play a few combats or moves out. Issues will be dealt with, Control will have some practice and I don't think this will delay the game start much.
It might even be a good idea to embed Map Control training into all megagames!
Map Controls or Liaison Controls
One of the obvious choices for a designer is how and where you deploy your Control. These days we go for Control-lite games and for the rules to be embedded on the cards or the playing pieces used by the players and have open games where eventually Control can just push the players through the phases and make judgement calls in unseen or ambiguous circumstances.
This usually means the designer goes for "Map Controls". I would argue that this is where some of the inconsistency will occur. You have hard-pressed Map Controls working either as a pair or on their own running a map. Differences in rules interpretation are bound to occur and will not be easily spotted.
In addition most games have one map that gets busier than the rest and Game Control has to step in a reassign a Control to assist. This overwork of Map Controls is a common problem.
My suggestion is that perhaps the designer - especially in games with big teams - should go to the older standard of Liaison Controls. For those not familiar with Liaison Controls, they collect orders from a team or teams, take them to the operational map and with other Liaison Controls process the orders and communicate the results to the player teams.
Of course there are trade-offs here. Liaison Control requires a lot more people. Also it means there is a lull in the game whilst the players wait for the turn to be processed. But as someone who has experience as a Map Control and a Liaison Control, I know that the Liaison Control are more consistent as rules interpretations are discussed and decided upon as they occur, often with the Game Control or Senior Map Control involved.
