GROGMEET – Page 2 – 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

Feeling FOMO because of the FPO. JFDI.

“Thank you, you’ve inspired me to go up into the loft and start reading my gaming stuff again, “ is the sign that my plot to awaken the sleeper cell of RPG gamers is working. Making that tentative step of sifting through the tea-chests in the attic is the start of a journey of bringing the past into your future.

Play is the thing. Reading rules and supplements is never enough. I’ll avoid the onanicistic metaphors, but having a well-thumbed book on the night-stand will never substitute the real thing. To have a proper, active, GROGNARD sleeper cell, you need to play. How do you do it? How do you reconnect to the hobby from a standing start?

It’s easier said than done when you’re a time-poor, middle-aged, put-upon denizen of the early 21^st century: the toad ‘work’, the stresses and strains of family life, and lack of a gaming network conspire to frustrate even the most resolute reawakened gamer.

I’ve been there. I’ve studied the finer points of strike-rank with the nagging doubt that I’d ever see them in play. It took a force of will and a determined effort to get where I am today, with a bit too much stuff going on.

To help the GROGSQUAD realise their ambitions, I offer the following tips to kick-start your gaming future:

SMASH A CLIQUE

Conventional wisdom will advise you to use an app, such as ‘Meet Up’, or study forums like the soon to be retired UK Role Players, or RPG Net and seek out an active group in your area.

You’ll know if you are the kind of person who can cope with difficulties of integrating into an established group. If you’ve not played for a while, it’s a little daunting to put yourself in the thick of people who look like they know what they’re doing. I know of some people who have managed to bide their time before staging a coup, but it’s not for everyone.

Most of the tips that follow, assume you’ll be starting from scratch.

FIXTURE LIST

If you learn just one thing from these tips, it must be this: establish a fixed date in the calendar.

I looked upon my friends who were soccer fans attending every home match every other week: They could break away from their commitments in a socially accepted hobby; why can’t the RPG gamer?

When I asked them how they did it, they said, “everyone knows that it’s ‘what I do’”

You need to do the same. Establish a fixture; build it up, because it’s what you do.

BARREL ON

Having a set fixture such as ‘Every First Sunday of the month’ or ‘fortnightly on a Wednesday’ is much better than trying to coordinate diaries on an ad hoc basis.

Set a rule that the meeting will take place as long as there are two people.

It’s a principle that we’ve applied to the Traveller Adventure and Storm King’s Thunder over the past couple of years. Within the narrative, characters can sit out a session “on the ship” or “back at camp” to allow the game to continue, if the player can’t make it in real-life.

It sharpens commitment to the fixture, who wants to miss out? It also establishes a pattern, to keep your eye on maintaining the fixture.

A MEDIOCRE SESSION IS BETTER THAN NOTHING

We all seem to want different things from the hobby, that’s why we tend to use ‘fun’ as a common-ground. Fun has a wide continuum. It’s possible to be slightly dis-satisfied and have tremendous fun too. Especially when you’ve been reading and rereading in preparation.

Back in the day, we had a mantra that said “playing a bad game was better than not playing at all”.

Now that time is precious, we can’t afford that luxury, so there’s a tendency to place too much weight of expectation on each session. It feels like every session should be “wonderful”. It’s unrealistic and unhelpful to have such high expectations.

As a rule, prepare yourself for a mediocre sense of fun. If it turns out better, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised. If you’re going to GM for the first time in 30 years, having high expectations of yourself can be incredibly intimidating. It can also induce procrastination.

Aim for everyone to have a fair to middling time and you are guaranteed to succeed, and start playing again.

THE ‘OTHERS’

Finding likeminded players remains a challenge. ‘Likeminded’ is key here.

The best approach is to try and reacquaint yourself with the people that you knew back in the day. They’re probably sharing your desire to reacquaint themselves with the hobby that they left behind.

If Friends Reunited is not possible, then I encourage you to seek out other members of the GROGSQUAD. Over the past couple of years, I’m aware of at least 5 different groups forming as a result of connecting with others who listen to the GROGPOD.

To help you to make these connections, our friend the RPG Kitchen is developing a forum. It’s looking good so far and we are looking to launch before the summer.

Even if you can only find ONE other player, go for it, start small and build from there.

ONLINE

Try to make your first game a physical, around the table, game if possible.

Playing online through Skype, hangouts or mediated through Roll 20 is a great way of stealing time and getting an extra couple of sessions in, but again, it will never replace the real thing.

If you can avoid doing it online, then I urge you to play around the table. There’s a few reasons for this: technology is disappointing, the dynamic is different which takes a while to learn and it’s harder to have a really good laugh at rubbish rolls online.

However, it is good, once you’ve built up confidence, to experiment with online. Seek out a sample game as a player before you start GMing.

When you feel ready, then online can be a great option for those ‘away’ fixtures; “I can’t go to the game, I’m watching it on the telly!”

Online games are a great way of establishing an additional fixture.

MEET-UP

If you are in the UK, there’s loads of meet-ups happening within a train ride, so you could go a whole year having a monthly field-trip.

Going to meet-ups are a different dynamic than entering an established club. Everyone is in a different mode. There’s a greater deal of openness and willingness to try something different and welcome all comers.

If you’re feeling a bit rusty on the rules and how to play, then the meet up is a licence to adopt the role of the faux-naif and no-one will be judgmental.

Track the UK meet-up scene on Phil Master’s list or Simon Burley’s.

OUTER SPACE

Once you have been playing at home or at a friend’s house, there’ll come a time when you’ll realise that you want to build up from your small base and open it up to others.

This is the tricky step as it usually means finding a more public space to play.

In my experience so far, finding a public-space for a regular session has been the most difficult transition to make. Game shops are ideal if you can guarantee that there’s enough space and it isn’t too noisy. Pubs are ok, but they introduce ‘drink’** into RPGs which can cause problems.

The best option is to book a cheap space. Tell the participants that they need to pay a sub to cover drinks and snacks so it doesn’t feel like you are charging them to play with you.

Mastery of this ‘step up’ is my resolution for 2018.

Reminder

If you want to join me and Blythy in playing at a meetup, then here’s a reminder that we are appearing at Spaghetti ConJunction on 10th Feb and at UK Games Expo in June. The Golden Heroes game I’m running at ConVergence has sold out, but there’s lots happening and it’s a friendly experience.

If you want to try out online gaming, then there are more plans for the online GROGCLUB over at Patreon. Watch this space for the forum to connect with other like-minded players.

** I like a drink. Compared to Mother Theresa, I’m like Oliver Reed, compared to Oliver Reed, I’m like Mother Theresa. I’m a classic mid-life, metropolitan-elite, imbiber who functions on a regular dose of woolly ale and the odd whiskey. We decided a long time ago that drink and RPGs don’t mix. Your experience may vary.

GROGMEET 2017 ScrapBook

In April last year, I sent out a speculative tweet, asking if anyone would be interested in meeting up in Manchester to play a game. Last time I did an advert like that, only Eddy and his mates turned up, this time it created GROGMEET.

Last year there were 8 games available, this time there was the opportunity to play 19 games over two days.

Thank you to everyone who attended, especially the Games Masters, without whom it wouldn’t be possible.

We also had a fundraising event to support the 24 Hour Game of RuneQuest that I’m running next week for Alder Hey children’s hospital. There were some very generous prizes provided by people attending and we raised £283.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Until next year …

Adios amigos!

(Check #GROGMEET #GROGMEET17 #GROGMEET2017 for more great pics)

GROGMEET EVE

The new Fan Boy Three is very well lit for a World of Darkness (Jon Dawson, story-telling)

Andrew Cowie was the DM for D&D 5e (if you can’t spot him, he’s the one standing up)

Blythy chasing the players around the 9th World with a Meat-packer monster.

GROGMEETers sinking their teeth into Nights Black Agents, uncovering a sinister conspiracy to control telluric current in the UK (circa 1984)

Counter subversion agent in deep cover within the mining community in Leeds (1984) – The handouts made by the *players (@xNearDark)!* The game featured a high-speed chase in a British Telecom yellow-van.

IMG_3664 2.jpg — GROGMEET grog. Expensive grog.

RuneQuest Classic – apparently, no left legs were harmed in this adventure – with Kat Simmons-Smith

Neil Benson was sending his players around the bend.

That’s right – down the plughole with vertical minis and a piece of string …

@Asako_Soh provided a wholesome game of WarHammer Fantasy Role-Playing, concluding with someone getting a dagger through the eye

Blakes 7 Traveller settles down once the thorny issue of “who’s playing Avon?” is resolved

Richard August said that ‘There will be blood …” in his Cthulhu Hack adventure … by all accounts, he delivered.

Andrew Jones’ RuneQuest: Role Playing in Glorantha game: Let the Ducks see the Hob Nobs!

@dailydwarf delivers Better Living Through Chemistry in Mega City One

How many fatties can you get on a floor plan?

The scenario developed a Prog on the wall

Cris Watkins from bonhomiegames.uk provided atmosphere, sound FX and lots, and lots of D6s in ShadowRun

Mike Mason appeared to bring added insanity!

IMG_3729 2.jpg — Andy Hemming’s spectacular models provided the backdrop for the Idiot God’s Festival

DragonQuest with Paul Baldowski – dice and oven timers!

Dr RPG (Ian Griffiths) is your friend … Paranoia, everyone is out to get you.

George Formby was being rescued in Kehaar’s very British Civil War using *Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes.*

Chaosium’s Ian Cooper put players on the JonsTown watch in HeroQuest

The Boys with a D4 in their sides … Dirk the Dice, @dailydwarf and Blythy

1D6 Judge Dredd RPG

… down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it.

He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

Raymond Chandler

Last week, we played Judge Dredd the RPG, published by Games Workshop back in 1985, co written by former Dragon Lords editor Marc Gascoigne with Citadel supremo Rich Priestley. When I trailed this on twitter it generated a great deal of interest – more than any other tweet I’ve ever written in fact – so this is a follow-up play report for all those people who were interested in finding out what happened.

@dailydwarf came out of GM retirement, after a 35 year freeze, to deliver his own scenario Better Living Through Chemistry, as a online, dry-run ahead of its appearance at GROGMEET. It was a chance to stretch some of those muscles that have been dormant and to familiarise everyone with the rules. The scenario will also be appearing in the GROGZINE, so I’m going to avoid any spoilers here and concentrate on some of the experiences of playing rather than the details of the story.

Despite the usual setbacks that inhibit the gathering of grognards – including holidays, family commitments, the under-funding of public services creating staffing shortages, and dodgy online-gaming platforms – we managed to straddle our LawMasters to dispense justice on the streets of Mega City One.

“You’re not very good with your d6s are you?” complained @dailydwarf as I fell short on yet another zinger. Roll one on this table, five highlights from the sessions and one fumble.

“Be careful out there …”

Screen Shot 2017-08-08 at 16.23.13.png

In many ways, Judge Dredd is the perfect RPG set up: you are given missions to resolve, your motivations are straight forward, the setting is rich yet flexible and there’s plenty of opportunity for mystery and investigation. Every session begins with the report sheet of perp activity in the sector, packed with warnings, leads and specific tasks for your patrol as it hits the streets.

There were reports of an air-ship seen in the sector featuring costumed individuals, shouting about treasure … hang on, isn’t that our cast of characters from Storm King’s Thunder?

Mega-City One

Screen Shot 2017-08-08 at 16.20.31.png

Very quickly, we felt like Judges, and adopted our roles very diligently, as we headed out into the wasted areas of sector 170. The scenario was set in the period after the Apocalypse War when the city was coming to terms with the devastation. Our judges were clearing through the wreckage of partially destroyed blocks. It felt like coming home, as this was the classic period of Dredd stories which generated nostalgia for both the game and the comics of the early 80s.

Unlike many licensed settings, the backdrop didn’t feel constraining. The city has been generating stories for 40 years and is richly populated with characters, perps, and imagery that provided instant immersion. @dailydwarf also used a slide-show of specially adapted elements from the strip to illustrate scenes and NPCs we encountered, which made it feel like we were part of a Prog.

Get me back to TEK

Each of our Judges had a role in the team: the grizzled Veteran, the giddy rookie, the hotshot, and I went for the Judge who had been reluctantly redeployed to the streets from TEK division. He was keen to impress upon his fellow judges the capabilities of their kit. In the first encounter he gave an impressive display of ‘high-ex’ bullets from his LawGiver to bring the ceiling down on perps. This was followed by a less impressive display as a close-ranged ricochet bullet hit one of his team members. Whoops, sorry ‘Holy Cremola!’

I’d forgotten about the levels of back up available to Judges and how they can get you out of trouble. There’s always Pat Wagons available to pick up perps, Clean-up squads, Meat Wagons, Med-squads and forensic support for those tricky investigations.

We traded one-liners as the incidents piled on us, we had some great fun with Chemical Brothers lyrics too: “Hey, isn’t that another one of those block bustin’ beats?”

Judge Crunch

@dailydwarf provided his “Dredd-Hack” cut down version of the core mechanics. Most situations are resolved through attribute based percentile checks. Depending on your Judge’s speciality, you may have some Special Abilities that allow for some additional investigative or combat edge over the perps. The combat is crunchy, and goes something like this: roll to hit, roll location (d100), roll for armour coverage if appropriate before rolling for damage. Perps are at a disadvantage as they’re not as souped up as the Judges, but they have the opportunity to strike first with their wild-fire. Judges have to be more measured in the their approach as they need to be able to pass sentence rather than shooting indiscriminately.

There’s a reference list in the Dredd Hack, providing advice on general sentences. I thought 20 years for illegal Boinging (R) was always too steep.

Why does it have to end?

Normally, when it comes to fumbles, I always complain about the interference of the online glitches (1-D-6 passim). I’m not going to this time. Sure, it was a right-royal pain in the arse for some of the time, but most of the time, it worked fine and the confusion, over-talking etc added to the experience as it felt more immersive.

The only fumble about this experience is when it came to an end. It felt like it should be the beginning of an epic campaign. Mega City One is a great setting, the rules are serviceable, the players were switched on, so it was one of those great RPG moments when you wanted to carry on with the characters and have more adventures.

“Hey, Grim, let forever be.”

As for @dailydwarf, his inert GM skills are now awakened, we’re all in for a treat. He’s a natural.

GROGMEET 17 – The Fellowship is complete

Tickets have sold out for this year’s GROGMEET in Manchester on 11th November. There’s still chance to join the waiting list (worthwhile, as there were a few last minute cancellations last time). If you haven’t got a ticket, then you’re still welcome to come along to GROGMEET EVE, the details are explained below.

If you are lucky enough to have a ticket, then doors open at 9.00 for registration and sign-up. There’s no pre-booking this time, it will be a case of scrambling at the start. Let’s begin the day with a fight.

These are the games that are scheduled. More details will follow soon:

RuneQuest, Adventures in Glorantha – The Howling Tower

RuneQuest 2nd ed, – Balastor’s Barracks

ShadowRun – Food Fight

Judge Dredd – Better Living Through Chemistry

Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing

Paranoia – Get Back to Where You Where You Once Were Habitually Familiar

Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes – The Liver Bird has Landed

Cthulhu Hack – Prairie Dogs

Traveller – Blake’s 7

An exclusive miniatures spectacular – God Emperor’s Trial of Champions

Round the Bend (the classic IMAGINE scenario)

Mike Mason with an unplayed Call of Cthulhu scenario

Attendees will be sent the details in the next couple of weeks, so they can sharpen their elbows in preparation.

GROGMEET EVE

The all-new FANBOY 3.5 will be hosting the Nu-Skool spectacular the night before the main event. Tickets will be made available on 15th July. They’re free, but we’re asking people to sign up so we can get an idea of numbers. We hope you can make a weekend of it. Games start at 18:30 and will finish around 21:30 ish.

World of Darkness

Night’s Black Agents

Numenera

If there’s sufficient demand, we’ll make more games available. Manchester is a great city, so we hope that you make a weekend of it and enjoy the huge-Christmas Markets.

Adios amigos,

Dirk

The GROGZINE – Virtually delivered!

600dpi LIBRARY.jpg

It was officially launched at GROGMEET 2016… and now it is virtually yours!

The 100 hard copies of the first annual GROGZINE have been released into the wild. They are appearing in the nooks and crannies of the globe. They’re popping up on podcasts and appearing on timelines.

You can get a PDF of the ‘zine by supporting the podcast at Patreon. A new ‘zine is planned for next year and new goals for the campaign will be updated in early 2017.

The podcast will always be free, but the tips cover the overheads, help us seek out new material and allow us to develop other related projects.

The ‘zine includes:

Great artwork from Russ Nicolson and Mark Laming
A special Open Box featuring the GROGMEET games masters remembering Star Wars (WEG), Shadowrun, Boot Hill and GangBusters
Judge Blythy with the first instalment of The Armchair Adventurer’s Memoir
Ed in the Shed scrap-booking Call of Cthulhu
@dailydwarf poking in the corners of White Dwarf’s small ads
An exclusive RuneQuest short story by Justin Hill (his novel Viking Fire was a Times Book
of The Year 2016)
A FATE accelerated scenario set in the world of Jerry Cornelius
Dirk the Dice talking bobbins about a PBM he played back in the day

PLUS – a special appearance of someone very special.

All this AND the collected works of @dailydwarf

It has been a real labour of love for The Armchair Adventurers and we are grateful to our contributors for making it happen.

Now, let’s start planning the next one!

Dirk

Get yer ‘zine on!

Here at Dirk Towers, we’re currently beavering away over the first annual ‘zine that’s due to be launched at GROGMEET later in the year.

The hard-copy of the ‘zine will be available to PATREON supporters pledging $3.50 plus and to attendees of GROGMEET.

The print run will be strictly limited. We’ll probably print an additional 20 for our own private pleasure, but other than that, it will be PDF only.

If you want a hard-copy, please ensure that you have signed up before the end of September as we’ll be taking the print numbers from 1st October.

Also, make sure that you complete the shipping details on your PATREON profile, so we can get the ‘zine to you (Worldwide shipping).

The PDF will be available to all PATREONS ($1 plus) from December.

The content for the ‘zine continues to take shape, this is what you can expect:

The Armchair Adventurers’ Memoir – an excerpt from the memoir that we started writing in 2014 and ended up being a podcast instead
The Gladiators Gazette – the story of Dirk’s dabbling with the world of postal games back in the day.
Safe Word – A FATE accelerated Scenario set in the world of Jerry Cornelius
A Cut out and keep shrine to the actress Caroline Munro by design supremo Superlogo Boy
The Collected @dailydwarf – the first volume of essays selecting the best of the best from the hey day of White Dwarf

There’s contributions from Ed from his shed and the illustrious Games Masters of GROGMEET and much more.

Right, no more time to waste, my nose must return to the grindstone. Dirk

GROGMEET Update! – July

GrogMeet 2016 (corrected)

THE FELLOWSHIP IS COMPLETE

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS 5e *New*

Rumour has turned to action in the city streets now, as your guild finds itself under attack. There can only be one Thieves Guild in the city, so the time has come to put an end to this insult. As the Grandmasters ‘troubleshooters’ you have been tasked by him personally, with finding these upstarts and putting them down, permenantly. Lets hope your combined talents are up to it.

GM: Tim Brittain

ACHTUNG CTHULHU!

Operation Twitcher: 1938, American Explorer Richard Byrd is quizzed by the Nazis about the South Pole, he informs the British and American governments of the Nazis interest but no action is taken at this time.

1942, reports are received of strange phenomena in the far South Atlantic. Richard Byrd now an Admiral in the US Navy is called in by the admiralty to brief a select team of marines and scientists on dealing with with the Antarctic conditions.

GM: Katherine Simmons-Smith

BOOT HILL

Boot Hill 3rd edition Wild West Role-Playing Game, one of TSR Inc’s forgotten gems. Boot Hill is a game of grand adventure in the American Frontier; a world of cowpokes, gamblers, sheriffs and gunslingers. This is an original adventure based in the official setting Promise City entitled “Matthew 12:43”

GM: Ian Griffiths

ALSO…

Judge Blythy from the GROGNARD files will be running a STORMBRINGER adventure to feed Arioch with souls.

Making a trip up the East Lancs, will be Kehaar, co-host of the brilliant DISSECTING WORLDS podcast, he’s Games Mastering a rip-roaring heist for TSR’s GANGBUSTERS.

We’re delighted to have GM @Asako_Soh on the team, who is fresh from running games at UK Games Expo and the D&D Tweetup, to run a classic adventure for West End Games Star Wars RPG

Dirk the Dice will be taking players to Glorantha in a Classic RUNEQUEST scenario: Assault on Lunar Outpost XIII.

CONVIVIAL BEGINNINGS

The event will begin with demonstrations and ‘pick up and play’ board games hosted by bonhomiegames.uk – the home of convivial gaming. Cris Watkins will help us get in the gaming mood with mass participation games and a pop-up library of sample games to play.

BOOK YOUR TICKET

The event is being held on 12th November at Manchester’s Mad Lab, in the heart of the city’s Northern Quarter. Doors open at 10.00 for board games and chat, RPG sessions begin at noon and will finish at 4.30 – 4.45.

There’ll be a short presentation at the end of the event to launch theGROGNARDfiles ‘zine – doors close at 5.00pm.

Use the eventbrite page link here – let me know if you have any issues.

‘ZINE-TASTIC

The GROGNARD files ‘zine will be launched at the end of the event and every attendee will get a copy to take home.

The Armchair Adventurers are currently burning the mid-night oil to create content for the ‘zine. Thanks to the support of Patreons we’ll also be including the collected works of @dailydwarf.

To get a copy, you’ll need to be registered as a Patreon before the end of September. The Patreon campaign supports the podcast and helps to develop other projects. There’s the chance to play in online games (using Roll20) as well as additional material.

Thanks – Dirk

GROGMEET 2016

You are invited …

On the 12th November 2016 there will be the first ever GROGMEET in Manchester. It’s a day of Old School gaming which will end in the official launch of the first ever annual the GROGNARD files ‘zine.

A PACKED PROGRAMME

The event will begin with demonstrations and ‘pick up and play’ board games hosted by bonhomiegames.uk – the home of convivial gaming.

Judge Blythy from the GROGNARD files will be running a STORMBRINGER adventure to feed Arioch with souls.

Making a trip up the East Lancs, will be Kehaar, co-host of the brilliant DISSECTING WORLDS podcast, he’s Games Mastering a rip-roaring heist for TSR’s GANGBUSTERS.

We’re delighted to have GM @Asako_Soh on the team, who will be fresh from running games at UK Games Expo and the D&D Tweetup, to run a classic adventure for West End Games Star Wars RPG

Dirk the Dice will be taking players to Glorantha in a Classic RUNEQUEST scenario: Assault on Lunar Outpost XIII.

More Games will be coming on board, so tip some coins in the Patreon beret to keep up to date with the developments. Please note that, at this stage, the proposed games my be subject to tweaks and adjustments.

The event will run from 10.15 – 17.00 with the RPG sessions running from noon.

The fun will be located at Mad Labs in the heart of Manchester, we’re happy to support this wonderful community resource. There’s plenty of places to eat nearby in the swanky (with a silent ‘s’) Northern Quarter; you don’t NEED a hipster beard, but it will help. The famous Manchester European Markets will probably have started too, so why not make a weekend of it?

Tea and coffee is provided throughout the day to keep old-timers refreshed.

AMA’ZINE TIMES

The GROGNARD Files fanzine will be officially launched at the event and all attendees will get a souvenir copy.

This project has been made possible thanks to the generous support of our Patreon backers.

BOOK EARLY

The space is strictly limited, and there’s no tickets available at the door, so if you want to come, please book your place early. Tickets are £10 to contribute towards the hire of the space. It’s free if you’re a Patreon $5 backer.

Sign-up for the RPG sessions will be available nearer to the event and will be released to Patreon backers first.

Tickets are now available from this link.