Join us in the Room of Role-Playing Rambling with Paul Baldowski talking about Dangerous Journeys RPG, Play by Mail and Sanction.
This time we are talking about GROGMEET our annual Role Playing Games meet up in Manchester.
We were joined by game designer, publisher and entrepreneur Paul Baldowski who talks about Dangerous Journeys, PBMs and his game Sanction.
Blythy shares his experiences and how we played Gatsby and The Great Race by Paul Fricker.
If you want to find out more about Dice on the Borderlands you can find it at Warhorn.
Please support what we do at Patreon, thanks.
The come-down after the astonishing weekend of gaming is never easy and it seems even more difficult this week. To be locked away from reality for a short time in an isolation tank of mayhem has a restorative effect on the soul.
GROGMEET was moved from its usual slot of November to January to avoid a clash with a number of different events, including the MTV awards which took over the city centre of Manchester.
The new slot has a lot going for it. Things are a bit quieter in the pubs and hotels cheaper, plus it was something to look forward to in the normally miserable winter month.
THE GREAT RACE
The weekend started with a multi-table extravaganza Gatsby and The Great Race, a scenario written by Paul Fricker, which involves different dimensions in time and space, time-loops and table-hopping seances where everything seems a bit out of joint. I won’t go into the details here in case you get chance to play it (Paul has rewritten it for 7th edition and intends to publish on the Miskatonic Repository).
There were seven tables, two extra dimensions, twelve keepers, forty players and I was coordinating the proceedings from the centre of the room like a … messianic megalomanic. Thanks to the people who made it all possible. Paul did a great job before the event describing what to expect, based on previous experiences.
The whole thing was a once in a life-time gaming experience. Bonkers.
The Friday afternoon event is normally organised by OldScouseRoleplayer, but he was in Tenby with Dave Paterson and crew. It was their annual weekend of gaming, a remote version of GROGMEET, known as GROGTEN where original players in his ‘Friday Night Barbarians of Lemuria’ game gather for a weekend of gaming by the sea. Absent friends were present.
They were there in spirit as they provided the sound effects for the alternate dimension that players travelled through during the fractured time. They diligently recorded a script of nonsense, that only bore a passing resemblance to what was going on in the scenario. The players thought they were clues and brought them back to the table.
During the preparation, Paul Fricker mentioned a version of the game where his friend Matt Sanderson had the players in an out-house looking for a honey-badger. It was a funny red-herring, so it was included in the recording. Sure enough, at least one player was on the hunt for a honey-badger that wasn’t really there.
PLAY IS THE THING
From my point of view, it was one of the most pleasurable GROGMEETs as it ran smoothly during the event, despite some hiccups in the run up to it. I could relax and enjoy running some games.
I gave my Mean Arena, forged in the dark hack, another run out. It does a pretty good job of replicating the comic strip and the players were pretty inventive in their manoeuvres against The Cottonhopilites, resulting in a 3 – 0 away win.
Andy Burnside tried to convince Matt Talon of The Slayers to throw the game. Not this time Andy, not this time.
On Saturday morning, I ran a Liminal game that had been written by Blythy about the haunting of The Old Man and Scythe pub in Bolton. The pub is one of the oldest in the country. It is famous for being the last place where the Earl of Derby stayed prior to his execution for his role in the Bolton massacre during the English Civil War. The investigation moved at a good pace, which culminated in a challenging confrontation which took all of the characters to the brink. Once again I was impressed with Liminal and its deceptive simplicity.
In the afternoon I had the chance to unfurl a new map for Raclash, the game world we created forty years ago for a play-by-mail game. I explained the lore to the players, showing the original artefact: a hand drawn map coloured with pencils with the odd bit of Tippex, on Games Workshop hex-paper. I have redrawn the map for the 21st Century, and with the help of All Rolled Up, had it printed on an A1 piece of velvety satin. Worth the price of entry.
I ran two scenarios in Raclash (the other was on Sunday afternoon for MORPcon) that were continuing stories from the campaign that I have been running with the Wednesday night group. They were a couple of side-quests which will have a lasting impact on the next stage of the campaign. The first scenario involved intervening in the advance of a storm demon laying siege to the capital city and the second scenario sent the players as assassins to take out one of the key warlords who were attempting to lay claim to the Kingdom. They were different, but both scenarios involved the infiltration of a gorgon’s nest to unleash the ultimate weapon of petrification.
On Saturday the players said, “a game like this would have been terrible back in the day as you’d assume that the GM was out to get you.” Sure enough, on Sunday’s game, following a series of unfortunate rolls, one of the players was turned to stone with an hour left to play. Ah well.
It was all fast and furious fun using my version of BRP (Stormbringer with a dash of homebrew). It had all the swings of fortune that you might expect when the stakes are high, the monsters fearsome and the 80s swords and sorcery movie tropes flow.
SANCTION
On Sunday morning, Paul Baldowski joined me and the GROGSQUAD in FanBoy 3’s basement of role-playing rambling to talk about his experience of running Gary Gygax’s Dangerous Journeys at GROGMEET. How many other conventions are running that? He also delved into his postal gaming past and talked about The Dee Sanction’s influence on his design projects. You’ll be able to hear his contribution in a GROGPOD coming soon.
That was that. Another GROGMEET complete. Emerging from the weekend, blinking in the light, I turn on the news, oh no! Prepare the isolation tank.
I want to go back. Get ready for virtual GROGMEET in April.
Dirk
Thanks to Foundation Coffee House and FanBoy3 for looking after us over the weekend. You can read other accounts of the weekend from people who were there:
Join us in the Room of Role-Playing Rambling as we investigate the highs and lows of role-playing in 2024.
Thanks for supporting us. Why not consider tipping a couple of coins in the beret over at Patreon.
This GROGPOD features a special recording of an interview with writer Ben Aaronovitch, the creator of The Rivers of London series of books. An RPG has been developed by the team at Chaosium. Ben talks about the project, his formative years in gaming and gives insight into his creative process.
The interview was recorded live as part of GROGMEETish which took place in November. It features additional questions from the GROGSQUAD.
Dirk the Dice gives a quick review of the game based on his experience of playing the game over recent months.
Music is by Static Music Club.
Please support what we do at Patreon
Following Part 1, we are now ready to open the spurious envelopes on our 1984 experiences.
We also issue a challenge to listeners to help us discover new enthusiasms.
At Daily Dwarf returns with an overview of what was happening in the pages of White Dwarf.
Please pass on The GROGNARD files to your RPG friends and consider supporting us at Patreon.
Welcome to the zoom of role-playing rambling where we are looking backwards to look forwards. This time we are transporting you back to the heady days of 1984.
We are joined by the fabulous Bob Fischer who shares the highlights from his 1984 diaries.
Judge Blythy, our resident rules lawyer, joins Dirk to determine the RPG Highlights of 1984, but get distracted (see part 2)
Make sure you check out the wonderful projects from the Haunted Generation.
You can support the podcast at Patreon.
All for one and one for all! We are swashbuckling into this episode with a flurry of our blades and a jaunty feather in our hat.
En garde! Yes, this time we are investigating the worlds of 17th Century Europe and asking, “is this the true mode of all fantasy role-playing high-adventure?”
We are joined by Graham Kinniburgh, who tells us about his Oscar night triumph with An Irish Goodbye and what it was like being at The Battle of the Bastards.
He is adding The Three Musketeers to Appendix G.
In the Zoom of Role-Playing rambling we talk about Flashing Blades. You can read more from the author, Mark Pettigrew, in this interview.
We also cover En Garde!, 17th Century Minimalist, Seventh Sea, and Barbarians of Lumuria.
The final part of the epic Monster episode features Free League’s Tomas Harenstam.
Welcome to the third and final part of our Monsters in Role Playing Games (RPGs) episode. This time we are joined in the Room of Role Playing rambling by Tomas Harenstam from Free League. He talks about his formative years in Swedish role playing and how to create a great Bestiary.
Dirk and Blythy answer listener Monster questions before having a chat about When we were Wizards.
Support the Patreon for access to exclusive content.
We are still looking at the role of monsters and how we can learn from screen monsters in our TTRPGs
We continue to explore the worlds of monsters in role-playing games (RPGs). In this episode, we are joined by James Holloway, from the Monster Man podcast. He adds a new entry into the ever expanding Appendix G.
Judge Blythy and Dirk talk about the famous monsters of Hollywood and beyond and consider what we can learn from them.
The end music is Concrete by Omari, from Phunk Media
Please support us on Patreon and update your podcatcher feed with the Patreon audio – RSS feed to get some additional content.
The first part of an Episode all about Monsters. Which Bestiary should stay? Which should we play? And which could go away?
This time we are looking at bestiaries from our book shelves. We talk about:
This was at the request of GROGSQUADer China Miéville who Dirk talked to at an RPG Symposium earlier this year.
Next time, James Holloway, Monster Man joins us, because monsters are great.
Support the podcast on Patreon.
