Last weekend it was virtual GROGMEET and by all accounts, a good time was had by all who attended. Thank you for the GMs who hosted the games and to the players who took part.
Here are some of the stories from the GMs:
My virtual Grogmeet
Sam Vail:
The planning for my games began in January at our gaming weekend on Tenby, hosted by Dave Paters. I ran Strontium Dog for the first time in 20 + years and I remembered how much I enjoyed it and how much fun we had playing. So I decided to create a new adventure for virtual Grogmeet.
However, my first game of the weekend was scheduled for Friday evening where I was to run my Pendragon homebrew. Set in 1963, the Agents (knights) were investigating a mysterious death of a young Jewish University student from the London School of Economics. The trail led them to the dreaming spires of Cambridge University, where more information and a package drop led swiftly on to London via Cambridge train station and then on to Salisbury. Visiting a packed Italian restaurant, the Agents were able to follow the package to Porton Down where a shoot-out occurred in the rocket testing facility and the sleeper cell of Nazi scientists were apprehended. The players, Andrew, Howard, Mike and Clarky were great and after a slow start, picked up the pace and the action to finally defeat the Nazi’s and defuse the bomb. “It’s either the red wire or the blue wire.”
My second game was on the Saturday evening and was my Strontium Dog scenario called, ‘Jelly Manelly’s done a runner!”. My players, Mark, Andrew, Alister and Rob got into their mutations and the system pretty quickly and although I had already run that scenario a couple of times already, it seemed to take a different direction from the start. From the Anglian Everglades, to ZinZan Station and then to the planet Zamboo, we saw our Mutant heroes locate and capture their prize.
My final game was as a player in Carl Clare’s game of Ghost in the shell using the FATE system. Carl had captured the Mango feel brilliantly and as usual he had meticulously prepared for any direction we wanted to go. My fellow players, Jon, Tom and Ty were all deeply invested and having Tom, an experienced FATE player, really helped the game run smoothly. We went through the investigation and captured Herr Doktor in the final encounter. Awesome fun.
This was my second Virtual Grogmeet and an incredible time was had. Meeting new people was great and playing with some old familiar faces was a lot of fun. Thanks to all my players and GM for throwing themselves into the games with such gusto.
Sam
Great session of Ghostbusters on the first night of Virtual Grogmeet with players Kaum @rolistedpod , playing Dr Sylvia Townsend, historian, Alister @awdscrawl playing David Bellamy, College gardener, Jon @jonac943 as Derek Trotter, College Porter, Chris @theschwerpunkt as Colin Eliot, Physics DPhil student, Graham @graham_r_smith as Professor Adair, leader of the Ghostbusters and parapsychologist
The adventure was set in the Oxford of 1985, with the players starting a new franchise of Ghostbusters based out of Balliol College. The scenario began with the characters celebrating St Scholastica’s Eve and starting their first meeting of the franchise, but was interrupted by the sight of a young Boris Johnson falling from his room and crashing into the stones of the quad. The brave Ghostbusters unravelled a mystery of jealousy and revenge, mourned over a murdered Nigella Lawson, concussed a dark sorceress with a tin of custard creams, and fled from the inn of the returned ghost of a medieval landlord, John of Barford, who was determined to wreak revenge on the scholars of Oxford. The adventure ended with the bells of the churches peeling out, weakening the spirit as the Ghostbusters firedup their proton packs forcing Barford him into a containment field.
A good days work ending with a pint of real ale with Inspector Morse.
@Asako_Soh
Same again next year?
Marvellous stuff.
Had a great couple of games on the Saturday, a DCC funnel with Neil B, and a weird but exciting 5 Torches Deep. Both games were a very high standard and really well executed using Roll20/Hangouts. Would have signed up for more games but I was supposed to be on vacation in Devon, which subsequently got corona-cancelled.
Despite initial trepidation due to lack of experience with the platforms and systems in play, I had a fantastic first virtual GROGMEET.
The games I joined were run on Roll 20 with Hangouts. I joined Knight Takes Queen with GM Gaz playing Pendragon, and Keeper David P. for On Darker Trails’ The Medicine Show.
The Pendragon game was a great mix of courtly intrigue compounded by fey goings on in the woods. This was followed by a hunt for rumoured ruffians, leading to the showdown. The highlights included an actress getting knocked out of a tree with a warhammer, and three out of five knights fumbling and losing their main weapons. The Knights of the Flying Sword is a memorable way to begin gaming in Pendragon. Cheers to all for that.
In The Medicine Show as El Borbah the gambler, I was joined by Doctor Eli McNulty, Hank Jackson the Mountain Man, and Rusty Spurs the Greenhorn. We were deputized to help keep an eye on the miracle cure peddling Medicine Show about to set up in the town. Things took a turn for the weird after the locals grew libidinous from drinking this mysterious medicine. At dusk certain locals started getting murdered in their homes. After a detour out into them hills to take on the Medicine show folk and chase down an abducted child, an indescribable horror was fought to the death in the dusty streets of San Rafael causing major sanity issues and further bloodshed. Thanks to all for a really fun session.
It was fortunate that a place opened up in the first day’s sessions as Friday and Saturday evening were the only possible slots which I could join due to the 8 hour time difference. It would be good to get to a real live Grogmeet to play one day, but this event was a great way to meet many armchair adventurers around the virtual tabletop.
I was disappointed no-one (well 1) wanted to play my Friday night D&D but FATE Ghost in the Shell with Carl C and the others on Sunday night was a joy.
My first ever Virtual GROGMEET. Because I’m so technologically cack handed I only managed to get one game. However that was a Runequest Glorantha adventure Darkness at Runegate GM’ed by Mr The Dice himself. I confess to getting all shy and fan boy at this point but loved every minute. The game was awesome and though I was playing with complete strangers that didn’t seem to matter as we tracked the disease spreading quarry down.