February, 2018 - The GROGNARD Files

Virtual GROGMEET 2018

Play is the thing.

There’s a point in all gamers’ lives when the reading, thinking and talking about games needs to end, and the playing begin.

Ever since we put that small ad in White Dwarf back in ’83, one of the missions of The Armchair Adventurers has been to extend our group and play more games with more people.

Thirty five years later, thanks to GROGMEET we have finally managed to realise our goal: games with great people. What can we say? We’re late developers.

We want to extend it further for those who can’t make it to GROGMEET, (or those GROGMEETers who just want to play more games).

Virtual GROGMEET ’18 is here.

It’s a chance to play online games and meet up with fellow members of the GROGSQUAD.

It takes place on 13th April (virtual GROGMEET eve) 20:00 – Midnight and 14th April (Morning) 10:00 – 13.30 and (Afternoon) 14:00 – 17:30 (all times are BST (GMT +1))

This Saturday (3rd March), the games will become available for sign up to Patreons for a couple of weeks, before they are released generally.

Once you have signed up, your email details will be sent to the GM to contact you to make arrangements for your session. The slots are for guidance only.

Here’s the line up so far …

FRIDAY

Title: Shattered Hope (introduction adventure)

Number of Players: 4

System: Dark Heresy (1st ed)

Brief description: Make ready your chainsword, strap on your bolter, and say a prayer to the God-Emperor, for Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy. You as the the closest ‘Inqusitor’ agents are sent to a world to deal with a particular problem. – this quick start is for those wanting to learn the system and explore the dark universe.

Beginner level …. there will be blood shed.

GM: Jon Dawson

Title: Forgive Us

Number of Players: 5

System: Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Brief description:

1625 was a plague year in Norwich. History tells us that it was an outbreak of the Black Death. History is wrong.

Hired to retrieve an item from the Tenebrous Hand, a powerful criminal gang in the city, our players may well find out what really happened. Or die trying…

Beginners welcome.

GM: Neil Benson

Title: “..and the dragonewts are dancing..”

Number of Players: 4

System: Heroquest Glorantha

Brief description: Dancing dragonewts have been spotted not he edge of the Tula and you have been asked to investigate. Buried memories of your initiation resurface and you find your self reliving that very odd experience.

GM: Andrew Jones

Title: Enemies Within

Number of Players: 4

System: Night’s Black Agents

Brief Description: “…the miners are the enemy within” 1984, deniable assets required for active measures: suppressing subversion in Leeds, UK. Industrial relations are about turn nasty. Late Ken Loach meets early Tarantino.

GM: Dirk the Dice

Title: Sabeurs & Savants

System: Cthulhu Hack

Players: 4-6

Brief description: 1800, Napoleon has invaded Egypt intending to become a new Alexander the Great. Accompanied by scientists, he also intends to uncover the secrets of this ancient land. He’s despatched the player characters a mixed bag of scientists and soldiers to uncover an artefact from the desert sands….

https://clarkythecruel.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/sabeurs-savants-set-up-and-player-characters/

GM: Keehar

SATURDAY

MORNING

Title: Better Living Through Chemistry

System: Judge Dredd RPG

Players: 4

Brief description: In the aftermath of the Apocalypse War, life is hard in Mega-City One, even for the Judges in Sector House 170. Widespread desolation, mutie incursions through the Cursed Earth Wall, and a scarcity of resources are making it hard to uphold the Law. But new teams are being put together to ensure the citizens are kept in line, and that law and order are maintained. While fighting crime on the mean streets of the Mega-City, the players will need all their skills and cunning, but can they also find… better living through chemistry?

GM: Alan Gairey

Title: Dr John Dee’s Crows

System: Maelstrom

Players: 4

Brief description: Join the original Men and Women in Black protecting Queen Elizabeth’s England from Threats Corporeal, Magickal and Supernatural.

GM: Ian ‘Doc’ Griffith

AFTERNOON

Title: Who wants to live forever?

System: Numenera

Players: 4

Brief description: The Queen of the red fleet pirates seeks immortality. She hasn’t aged for decades. Some say it’s just an illusion. Others think she found the Drowned City, a place legend says holds ancient secrets that can bestow immortality. Maybe you’ll find out the truth when you meet her to discuss a special and secret task.

GM: Blythy

Title: Mistaken Identity

Number of Players: 5

System: WarHammer Fantasy Role Playing

Brief description: Wanted! Bold Adventurers…

His Excellency the Crown Prince Hergard von Tasseninck of the Grand Principality of Ostland hereby gives notice that he is currently resident in Altdorf and wishes to engage the services of a party of skilled adventurers as soon as possible, for an indefinite period.

Would-be applicants are forewarned that they shall be required to undertake a most perilous mission into unexplored regions of the Grey Mountains. The matter is of the utmost delicacy and absolute discretion is required.

No laggards, cowards, or dwarfs need apply.

Mistaken Identity is the first adventure in the Enemy Within campaign for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition and due to to be revised and re-released by Cubicle 7 for their new edition.

GM: Asako Soh

Daily Dwarf’s Top 5 Issues of White Dwarf

Once in a blue moon there’s a post on the Daily Dwarf blog.

Here are his top 5 Issues of White Dwarf – what are yours?

Top Five Issues of White Dwarf

Episode 18 (Part 2) Judge Dredd RPG (with Marc Gascoigne)

Download Episode

INTRO A new review on iTunes

WHITE DWARF @dailydwarf “2000ad and Me” a personal reflection on the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic

GAMES MASTER’s SCREEN Marc Gascoigne returns to talk about Fighting Fantasy, EarthDawn (!), The Black Library and Angry Robot. Also, the famous ‘lost’ RPG – Dark Future.

JUDGE BLYTHY RULES an examination of the system and setting of Judge Dredd RPG

OUTRO Details of the GROGSQUAD patreon campaign and an interesting project to document the early years of Games Workshop.

1D6 Spaghetti ConJunction

“What fools we are,” I said to my wrinkled reflection as it stared at me disapprovingly at five thirty AM yesterday. I was off to Spaghetti ConJunction 2a, the twice yearly convention hosted by Pookie, Simon Burley and James Mullen, at the Geek Retreat cafe/ game store in city centre Birmingham.

The early start was brought on by the interminable rail-replacement between Adlington and Manchester. Don’t get me started. Despite getting on the bus at quarter to seven, I still had to run, that’s right, run to get on the train to meet Blythy at eight thirty. A journey that normally takes 40 minutes had taken the best part of 2 hours. Mutter. Mutter. Grumble. Grumble.

There were plenty of games available: Hot War, HeroQuest, Prime Time, Manifold, RuneQuest Mythic Britain, Blades in the Dark, Tales from the Loop and more.

Here’s my report in the usual format: 5 highlights and a fumble.

1 Geek Retreat.

Geek Retreat is in a good central location with amiable hosts who bring your food & drink orders to the table. Despite its lurid signal-yellow and purple colour scheme, it turned out to be a good, simple space for playing. The prices for food and drink reflect its central location, but the quality is good and worth it to support their provision of gaming space.

2 Morning Dredd

I was running Better Living Through Chemistry for Judge Dredd RPG: the adventure that appears in the 2018 ‘zine, written by Daily Dwarf. It’s an intriguing, witty adventure packed with layers of pop culture references, subtle jokes and Easter eggs that went over the heads of some of the younger people playing.

I was surprised that the only awareness of Dredd for three of the six players was the Karl Urban film. This was the first time that I have run the game for 35 years – we’ll go into detail about the actual game in the next part of the podcast – but it went surprisingly smoothly.

The Judges’ methods were questionable, but we’ll leave that to the SJS who are reviewing the case. A spell on Titan is on the cards.

3 Numenera

Over in the corner, Blythy ran a game of Numenera, this is what he said:

“So you’ve never played Numenera before?

“I’ve never played an rpg before actually.”

Gulp. The hobby’s reputation rests on my shoulders… I handed him my dice and he went on to roll two ‘1’s (automatic failure) at once. Great start.

4 Afternoon

A rerun of the Judge Dredd game, this time the group was a little more experienced, with only a couple of players with no knowledge of the comic version of Mega City One. There were some exciting chases, including the Rookie Judge keeping up with an escaping perp, but no resources or skill to stop him in his tracks: bike cannons, rubber ricochet and loud, persuasive shouting all failed.

There were some additional scenes to this version. These players were more tuned into the nostalgia, so I propelled things along to get them to points of interest, rail-roady maybe, but I think there was enough opportunity for them to interact with the scenes and engage with the entertaining set up. The limitations of the mechanics were exposed with this group of more mature players, I could sense the nostalgia wearing off, the rules were found wanting.

Gaz, from the Smart Party, described the GM style as ‘Cabaret’. Not sure if it was a compliment, but it’s the last time I wear a basque and bowler hat to a convention.

5 Raffle

I never win anything, so it was a great delight to win, not once, but twice. There were generous donations for the charity auction from a number of different publishers. I picked up Sixty Stone Press’ ‘Cathulhu – Velvet Paws on Cthulhu’s Trail’ with rules for playing a cat investigator in Call of Cthulhu, and The Midderlands, from Monkey Blood Design which is an OSR bestiary and setting (recommended by Pookie).

6 Paraphernalia

I’m normally a ‘theatre of the mind’ GM, but this adventure came with floor-plans, figures, counters, skull tokens, hand-outs, flash cards and all sorts of props. I was in a muddle. Within 10 minutes, I flipped a cup of tea over everything and remained in a state of flustered disarray for the rest of the day. A genuine fumble.

In the words of Travis Bickle, one of these days I’m going to get myself “organized”.

The rail replacement meant that I was home just after mid-night, but it was worth it, a throughly enjoyable day. Thanks to the three organisers, Geek Retreat and all the players for making it such fun.

Next part of the podcast out soon.

Next month, we’ll be at ConVergence in Stockport.

Great Universal Role-Playing Survey

Since returning to the hobby, I have always been GURPS curious. Recently, my curiosity has been piqued further by its coverage by the Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice podcast. The hosts, Roger and Mike, are fans of the versatility of the system. They will often refrain, “I’d have to have a good reason not to do this in GURPS” when faced with a new RPG concept or setting.

From an outsider, faced with the overwhelming number of publications supporting the system, I just can’t find a way in … even if it is a ‘forced entry’.

How do you get started with the game? How do you navigate through the editions and different source books? Why does it have a reputation for lethal, simulationist crunch? If it is such a generic system, how does it change to accommodate different settings? People said that is dead, can it be brought back to life? What is Bane Storm any way?

Whatever you do, don’t head for ‘GURPS for Dummies’, head for Mike and Roger answering these questions. Apparently, I am from an Empire from the North. I was glad to send an emissary to Buckinghamshire to discover the unknown pleasures of GURPS.

Find out more at Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice.