Game Report – The GROGNARD Files

1D6 GROGMEET 2018

According to Tabletop Gaming Magazine, GROGMEET is the UK’s favourite “Manchurian” RPG games event; who can argue with that?

Tabletop Gaming Magazine, November Issue 24

Back in the eighties, we would dream about having people to play with and it took thirty odd years for us to reach out and find more gamer friends. What started out as an experiment has become a regular feature of our gaming calendar. This year there were more events as we added a couple of ‘fringe’ meetings for those in the GROGSQUAD who arrived early on Friday and could stay a little later on the Sunday.

It’s now a three day event, how did that happen?

Mad Lab may have changed locations – transforming itself into a replica of Eddy’s shed complete with woodworking tools, 3D printers, and blood-splattered walls (eh?) and there were lots of new faces replacing familiar ones – but the atmosphere was the same as always; GROGMEET creates an enthusiastic, sometimes eccentric, energy fuelled by a friendliness that’s hard to ignore.

A meet-up rather than a convention with an emphasis on games – play’s the thing – but there’s also plenty of grog at GROGMEET as the convivial chats in the pub are often the most memorable moments of the weekend.

It’s a testament to the munificence of the GROGSQUAD that there was a stunning display of raffle prizes donated which generated £402 for Mind (the charity supported by the 24 Hour RPG in 2018).

The following table features five highlights and a fumble from my own personal experience of the event. There are other blogs popping up with different perspectives from The Welsh Wizard, Gaz (from the Smart Party), Guy Milner, Pookie and Keehar.

GROGFIGHT – an Old School Brawl & Crawl

The Old Scouser himself, hosted an opening fringe event that was ambitious in scope: four tables, four systems, four GMs, in four hours with twenty players moving around which would include an old school brawl and dungeon crawl. The four tables represented four dimensions where the five adventure archetypes had been dispersed by a Soul-Forge that they had destroyed. Shards of the Soul-Forge had been scattered to different dimensions as had the souls of the adventurers. Simultaneously, the characters had to rediscover the Soul-Forge and bring it together. Are you keeping up?

The Old Scouser advises that the Soul-Forge is throbbing, and it’s time for a player to be carried away to another table.

My table was The Fantasy Trip, the MetaGame skirmish rules from back in 1978, designed by Steve Jackson and a forerunner to GURPS.

The location in my dimension was The Lamia’s Lips brothel in Endlespace, a ruined, decadent place at the end of time. This was my homage to the dungeons I created as a spotty teen. The brothel was the kind of puerile juvenilia that might be found in ‘zines in the 80s. I even used the Harlot Random Encounter table from AD&D’s Dungeon Master’s Guide, really.

There were hilarious scenes where the Wizard, whose magic didn’t work in the presence of halflings, was chucking ‘Saucy Stumpets’ off the balcony to land on the blind-fighting, eunuch hobbits below.

When the Soul-Forge throbbed, new players joined the table and the situation was explained to them: “We’re in a tower with a domed roof, with two circular chambers underneath.”

Soon the innuendo became tiresome and the players a bit ‘judgey’.

I don’t think the Lamia’s Lips will be opening again.

2. The Price of Breakfast

IMG_4386 2.jpeg — John Bender under the Soviets: “Being bad feels pretty good, huh?”

GROGMEET eve (6pm-9.30pm-ish) is the more traditional ‘pre-GROGMEET’ slot for newer games or a more experimental approach to older games. Doc Con ‘Cowie’ pitched an idea for West End Games Price of Freedom (1984), featuring the characters from The Breakfast Club, at UK Games Expo.

I was excited about the prospect as the game was extremely controversial in the pages of White Dwarf when it was reviewed. The concept of America being occupied by the Soviets and the armed struggle against the Red army was seen as problematic in the fevered context of the cold-war. Letters to White Dwarf reflected this moral panic. Throw John Hughes into the mix and there’s a winning formula.

The rules have an unfair reputation for being overly crunchy, as it is a war game after all, so in spite of its endless modifications and precise ‘statement of intent’ turn management, the mechanics worked really well for simulating a cinematic, yet lethal battles.

Doc Cowie has an indefatigable energy and the game cracked on at a pace. He offered us the option of three modes of play: ‘Punisher’ mode which were rules as written; ‘Red Dawn’ which meant that the opponents took damage one step higher than the player characters; and A-Team where the ‘death’ step is removed from the player characters. We went for Red Dawn mode and put the lethality to the test immediately at a check-point.

I was flagging a little and my ability to insert John Hughes references into my responses was failing. My reference to Abe Foreman, Sausage King of Chicago, fell on deaf ears as I’d lost the ability to speak due to lack of sleep the night before.

There were some great moments in the game, as well as epic scenes of conflict, the Doc wove in the ‘dad-issues’ themes from the movie which produced satisfying moments.

I got to see Molly Ringwald take down a helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, so I can cross that off the bucket-list.

3. The Dying Earth

IMG_4452 2.jpeg

I’m a massive fan of Jack Vance. His Dying Earth novels in particular are a firm favourite, so I was very keen to participate in the RPG based on the novels designed by Robin Laws.

I was Quens a pedantic character who was a master of pettifoggery details who finds himself in The Hotel Grand Perdusz a manse of Urbotast, a magician, who has seemingly trapped the player characters into a contract to be his servants. The morning after the apocalyptic, party the night before, we had to work out what had happened to the previous servants and extract ourselves from eternal slavery.

The hotel had plenty of exotic locations to explore and NPCs to interact with, to piece together evidence: not so much ‘whodunnit’, more of a ‘how did they do it and can we escape in the same way’.

I had great fun trying to extract myself from employment by challenging “a contract predicated on the supposition of negligence” and bamboozling my fellow companions. There were elaborate arguments about haberdashery, petty pugilism over the status of one character over another and moments of hilarity as three different characters were persuaded to dunk themselves, head-first into a septic tank.

The epic escape at the climax hinged on a single dice roll. A real thrill, superbly handled by the GM Steve Ray (@OrlanthR).

If the session was transcribed, it would read like a Jack Vance story and I can’t give it a bigger compliment than that.

4. Gaming for Greg #WeAreAllUs

IMG_4412 3.jpeg — Chopper himself tagged Nelson with the Greg Rune in @dailydwarf ‘s Savage Worlds Judge Dredd session: An American Were-Bear in Brit Cit

The weekend coincided with a memorial celebration of Greg Stafford’s life and work. Gamers all over the world were encouraged to include Greg in their games to connect with his spirit. I never met him, so it was great to hear the stories from people who had done. Over the weekend we played in Glorantha (RuneQuest and HeroQuest) and Pendragon, but he was also apparent in the other games too. His rune was the Soul-Forge, the instructions to closing the damn in Price of Freedom and many other inventive name-checks to the Grand Shaman of Gaming.

At the end of the day, the attendees clapped, cheered and shouted Waha! to thank Greg for his contribution to the hobby. I hope they heard us in Berkley.

5. The Room of Role-Playing Rambling with Ian Cooper

Memories of Greg appeared in the live recording of a future GROGPOD (Jan ’19) about HeroQuest. Ian Cooper is the line editor and he gave a fascinating interview about his formative years in the hobby, a demonstration of the core mechanic of HeroQuest and some tips on oral storytelling.

He chose Tolkien (the world builder) over Moorcock (the pulp, hack) which proves you can’t have everything.

6.Fumble

It was a fantastic event and ran like a dream. I anticipated it being more complicated, shepherding people around Manchester, but it was easy as everyone was so laid back about it all.

The pre-work left me a bit too knackered, so there’s a few changes that I’ll need to make next time, but I’m not complaining because it was great seeing everyone enjoy themselves so much.

There’s enough in my second wind to start planning the next one; the GROGSQUAD have asked for a theme of ‘Anthropomorphic Animals’. Sigh.

Next: GROGMEET Scrapbook

Episode 17 – Review of 2017 in RPGs

Download Episode

Intro: For this GROGPOD, we take a break from the usual format, instead of concentrating on a single subject, we are looking back at some of the experiences that we have had over the year.

Thanks to Phil the Dice Mechanic for his review

Groggies Pt 1: Our annual awards are determined by the random subjects written on the spurious envelopes. In this section we look back on the year in games mastering – some of the highs and lows – we award the Messianic Megalomaniac award for the year.

The Trial of RuneQuest: Earlier in the year, Dirk took the RPG Academy to Apple Lane. This is an edited extract. You can find the full version here and the you tube video here (if you really need to).

Groggies Pt 2: This is the Olive Kinnisberg Memorial Award for players, playing and players and the games that we play. There’s a mention of UK Games Expo, The Heroes Journey and Star Trek Adventures.

Postbag Pt1: Mark Hides has written a memoir of his experiences of RPGs in Sheffield. You can get his book here.

Groggies Pt 3 There have been lows as well as highs

Postbag Pt2 Rog Coe and Wayne Peters are regular correspondents to this site.

Groggies Pt 4 The new game that we have been playing and some of the hopes for the new year.

Outro: Thanks to Patreons and you’ll find details about the Spaghetti Conjunction here

RPG Academy – RuneQuest on Trial

From midnight to around 4am last night I was holed up in the Den under the stairs as I was a visiting Fellow of The RPG Academy. Their ENNIE nominated podcast includes a ‘Trial’ series, where they reach out, beyond their usual fayre of D&D and Pathfinder, to discover new systems. They invite ‘an expert’ of a game that interests them to GM for them. No expert was available, so I agreed to GM RuneQuest.
Thanks to a twitter poll, Gringle’s Pawn Shop was to be the scenario and I decided to use the Pre-Gens that had been road-tested for The Sea Caves (and GROGMEET… just call it my contribution to recycling). Playing Ducks would allow them to see at first hand some of the uniqueness of the Glorantha setting and think differently about their characters.
I adapted the scenario by taking elements of the original and blended in story elements from the Sartar Companion to make it more interesting and twisty.
Michael surprised me but saying that the actual play was to be streamed as well as recorded for their audio podcast. You can watch the results now at their You Tube channel. Later, they will discuss and dissect their experience and their thoughts on the rules.

I’ll probably share more of my thoughts on actual play once it has been broadcast. I enjoyed the experience. It was fun. In retrospect, there are a couple of aspects that I’d do differently. I missed not having virtual table top to scribble on so the characters could locate themselves. Also, it would have been good to have had a session zero to orientate the players within Glorantha, to give them an overview of the setting and telling them why ‘Jeffery’ is a rubbish name. A session zero would have given an opportunity to trot through the character sheet to point out different elements. The players had to rely on my quick-start notes. Maybe explaining the combat rules in an overview would have made them a little more cautious… “you’re running into a hail of arrows …. Again?”
Overall, as a knock-about, fun, one-shot adventure, it was entertaining to play.

Your Quack John will vary – mine certainly did.

Let me know what you think.

The Return to Apple Lane

Grindle’s Pawnshop was the first ever scenario that I ran, it came bundled in the box with RUNEQUEST. When it comes to RUNEQUEST, setting is everything, and the slim booklet of APPLE LANE was probably the most accessible way in to the world of Glorantha. It featured a hamlet set within the foothills of Sartar populated by interesting NPCs hiding secrets and lies. The siege at Grindle’s Pawnshop was the feature scenario. In the original, Grindle had purchased some exotic items from adventurers who had taken a crystal of Toothsharp from a gang of Baboons. Through the power of divination, Grindle knew that there was an attack on his shop planned, so he employs the player characters to protect his home, and more importantly, the artefact.

The Gamesmaster had to leave the room while the players decide where they are going to hide the crystal, which I always found a nice touch, an element that I preserved in this ‘remake’ or ‘revival’ of the classic scenario. The version that we recently played using the RQ6 rules was based on the scenario in THE SARTAR COMPANION that was published by Moon Design (for HeroQuest). There are elements of the old version (by way of a homage) but the story has developed to fit within the rich, dense history of the region provided by the supplement and SARTAR KINGDOM OF HEROES.

Below, there’s a run through of our game, it’s really there for our benefit (as a recap) but if you like that kind of thing, then please read on. Otherwise, you can leave now and do something more interesting instead. This was the third session using the Runequest 6 rules. Prior to this there was a character generation session and a couple of gentle encounters to get us into the rules. In addition to the character creation in the rules, I also walked them through some of the story elements provided in the HeroQuest supplements, so they could understand their role within the clan.

They are Olmarthings, a rebellious clan within the Colymar tribe, who are still reeling from the crushing of the Starbrow Rebellion by the Lunars five years previous to the beginning of the adventure. King Kangarl has been installed in the as a puppet and is rumoured to be consorting with a witch. He has declared Grindle Goodsell as an outlaw. A gang of thugs and mercenaries are being recruited to pay a ‘visit’ to Grindle. The Chieftain of the Olmarth, Gordanger, who’s father was the former king and an associate of Grindle. His father made an oath to Grindle as a loyal thane of The House of Sartar, to protect him. He has sent the player characters North to warn Grindle of the impending attack.

ASBORN’S STEAD

After a turbulent night on the edge of the Colymar Wilds, LEIKA and ORLAKOR took time to rest and dried their clothes in the relative comfort of Asborn’s stead. Their host introduced them to Garth, a member of the Blackspears, from the wilds. The Blackspears, also known as the Anmangarn, breed black bulls and are the custodians of the fabled blackspear – a powerful symbol of the Colymar tribe – they are fierce warriors who are both feared and respected by the other clans, despite being in an open feud with King Kangarl. Olgarth was very respectful towards Leika, he explained the young girl that they ‘rescued’ was almost certainly a thrall of the Lunar merchant. The language she speaks is Pelorian, a part of the Empire far to the north, beyond Dorastor. Asborn is concerned that the young girl refuses to bathe and that the women of the tribe have been unsuccessful in their attempts to reach out to her. The girl has made a small horse by banding twigs together. When Orlakor looked closer, it was a unicorn, with its horn removed, she handed the ‘horn’ to him.

They started heading to Apple Lane so they could arrive before dusk. On the way, they saw the Lunar ‘slaver’ being attacked by trollkin riding giant wasps. They remained at a distance, watching the melee, leaving the merchant to his fate. They were too conspicuous, when the trollkin had ransacked the prone body of the merchant, they turned their attention to Leika and Orlakor who fought them off, thanks to a little luck.

THE TIN INN

Apple Lane is a sleepy hamlet located in disputed territory between the Colymar and Malani Tribes. It marks a crossroads between Jonstown, Runegate and Clearwine and it is surrounded by orchards tended by the Hiording clan. As they entered, they introduced themselves to a curious smithy who introduced himself as PIKU from the wandering metal-work tribe known as Third Eye Blue, so-called because of a blue circle tattooed on their forehead. He introduced his family – his wife Valeeda and daughter Yaku.

There was no one home at the Pawnshop so they headed to the Tin Inn, so called because of its tin roof, the sound of the rain hammering is deafening, but inside it was warm, full of a throng of bodies enjoying a hog-roast and their famous cider. There were farmers nursing their pots of ale, a several adventurers in black (probably from Pavis plotting suspiciously in a corner booth), travellers and the local thane.

Pramble a scholar and poet befriended Leika and Orlakor and embellished their story of Trollkin bashing as a tale of Giant slaying (drawing some unwanted attention from the others in the tavern). He also had stories about:

Hofstaring Treeleaper, the greatest king the Culbrea ever had. Over 100 years old when he fought Starbrow’s Rebellion, he was famous for his leaping ability and his incredible magic spear Chest-Breaker that fought on its own. He was almost killed when the Empire sacked Boldhome but escaped with his leap. Beloved by the Storm God, King Hofstaring summoned the great flood that destroyed the Lunar Army before the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. It is a source of great shame for the Culbrea that Hofstaring’s soul suffers in a Lunar Hell rather than serving as a thane of the gods as he deserves.

He also talked of rumours of the kin of the Chieftain of the Grey Dog Clan going missing in mysterious circumstances. After a while, he introduced them to Squinch Greybeard, a scholar, and Quackjohn, a duck who are both associates of Grindle.

PROTECTING GRINDLE

Like everyone in the region, Grindle has had to sign a fealty to the Lunars and acts as the local tax collector. In his home, there is evidence that he is no longer the rich trader that once used his wealth to support the freedom of Boldhome.

He’s old and unmoved by the news that he is now an outlaw. Polite and gentle, he dismissed the idea that the Lunars and the Colymar king are after his wealth. He showed Leika and Orlakor his greatest remaining treasures:

THE EYE OF THE HALFBIRD – a gemstone that he got from one of the masters of luck and death over a decade ago. He said that it was the mortal eye of the immortal Halfbird – a strange creature born before the Emperor. Half of it proved mortal and is little more than a skeleton, the other half seeks to restore the dead half alive.

THE LEAD GRIMOIRE – a book that was recovered from a treacherous wizard some years back. He was outfitting an expedition to Cliffhome to speak to the Cragspider. He tried to recover the Grimoire (saying that it was important for a future meeting), but never pay back the loan.

THE IRON CARDINAL’S EGG – Originating from Wenelia from the ruins of the Slants. If properly warmed and tended, it will hatch a chick, but he was uncertain of the market value of a live Iron Cardinal!

Before long, a crowd of Tharlings, armed with an assortment of clubs and spears, began to gather around the shop. They were lead by Darsten, who began issuing threats through a ‘spy-hatch’ in the heavy-door. Leika and Orlakor laid traps and hid the artefacts to protect Grindle’s shop (and temple) being attacked.

“Grindle Goodsell you have been declared an outlaw by King Kangarl…” Darsten, thane of the Tharlings, parleyed for a short while, asking for Grindle to give himself over to the posse. The discussions were broken when a woman with her face painted half blue and half red rode into town flanked by Lunar cavalry. She hissed commands in a foreign tongue. She was looking for ‘the eye’ and insisted that it was handed over. Leika and Orlakor considered handing it over, but were persuaded by Grindle that it would not be good for the region if they conceded to the demands of the witch.

Dronlan Swordsharp, the thane of Apple Lane, steps forward and declares that Grindle is under his protection and they should leave the area. There was a tense standoff until Erianda the witch, exasperated, dismounted, drew two iron scimitars and dismembered Dronlon. She then barked an instruction: “kill them all and burn down the place.”

She left with the Lunar soldiers. Seeing the opportunity to strike, Leika pierced Darsten’s throat with her spear, through the door. Orlakor picked off the Pavian mercenaries with his bow. Grindle stubbornly remained in his temple, invoking spirits of warding to protect his inner sanctum.

After a steadfast battle, The Tharlings were routed and the mercenaries killed. As they retreated they looked at Leika, framed in the doorway, and shouted, “Blackspears!”

Now, they need to escape, before the Lunars return and raze the Pawnshop to the ground.