This weekend, GROGMEETish (6th – 8th November) will be open for business, you’ll be able to sign up and play .
GROGMEETish is our online warm-up to the main event: a chance to get some gaming in before GROGMEET itself rolls around. It’s particularly useful for those of you who can’t make it along to the in-person event and, for those who can make it but feel that they haven’t quite squeezed enough gaming into their lives.
GROGMEETish is also a good excuse to look back at some of the artwork that has promoted GROGMEET over the years, along with some of the other slightly odd and wonderful GROGMEET fringe events that have sprung up around it.
But before we get to all that, a quick update from the last installment.
You may remember that I mentioned the incredible artist Liz Danforth, who provided the artwork for GROGMEET 2017. The original piece was actually commissioned for the GROGZINE, but Liz kindly let us use it to promote the meet-up.
And then, quite some years later, something rather remarkable happened.
Like Liz’s artwork, GROGMEET itself has moved in some strange and unexpected directions over the years.
Virtual GROGMEET, the online version that has been running in April since 2017.
What started as a way of giving people another chance to get a game in became an event in its own right. Then came the various GROGFRINGE events, which started appearing around GROGMEET weekend.
Before long, what had once been a one-day meet-up had somehow expanded into several days of gaming, chatting, drinking, plotting, reminiscing and generally finding new and inventive ways of avoiding whatever it was we were supposed to be doing.
Keep feeding the GROGMEET beast!
You can find more about Liz’s story over at her Patreon. I love how it features a Hob Nob and a brew. Liz has a really active Patreon with a really engaged community. If you have ever loved her art, I urge you to take a part and support her work.
One of my favourite GROGMEET images was never really a GROGMEET image, it was created by Simon Perrins for the GROGZINE, but it has proved a fan favourite.
GROGMEET is known for its occasional ‘multi-table’ events that are normally on the Friday afternoon of the event. There has been bar room brawls, Mothership Mayhem, and in the year of covid, a Mausritter extravaganza.
I love how Simon Perrins reinterpreted the characters from the original GROGMEETish design into rodent characters.
There were a couple of years of uncertainty when a face-to-face event was complimented by an online GROGMEETish event. It was extended beyond the great unpleasantless to make sure that there was a chance for everyone to take part, even if they couldn’t make the trip to the face-to-face event. Simon Perrins provided some illustrations to support the events.
Trying to come up with different interpretations of ‘screens’ for virtual events is a bit of a challenge. I like this one from Paul ‘Spookshow’ – if you want to see the development of his incredible art, then follow his instagram.
GROGMOOR was a classic Barbarians of Lemuria ‘multi-table’event that ended in an hilarious catastrophe as a room full of 40 characters were exterminated by demons. The largest TPK in history? Presented by Old Scouse RolePlayer.
2000ad and Judge Dredd inspired one of the most exhausting multi-table events because it reenacted the Block War across a number of tables that were filled with energetic situations. We all needed to have a lie down afterwards.
Recently, the posters have been more homemade, the most recent one is a spin on the original GROGHEAD, taken to its unfortunate limits.
You can find out more about GROGMEETish and other events by following us on Patreon, or following the GROGMEET page.