HeroQuest – The GROGNARD Files

Show your stuff – Scrapbook

At the end of February we closed our HeroQuest competition. We asked the GROGSQUAD to “show off your stuff ” the home-made enhancements that made you proud.

Our friends at bonhomiegames.uk have been reviewing the submissions and you can see the runners up and their work below. Scroll to the bottom to see the winner.

Jo: “Thank you to The Grognard Files for allowing us to sponsor your HeroQuest RPG competition, and thank you to all the entrants for your many and various ingenious table top inventions. Yes, even the cocktail umbrellas.”

“@Roll_a_one – for the most edible looking table top creation”

Andrew Cousins – “for the gaming-and-beer shed that I would most likely lose Cris in for a week”

Dimble Nackle the Gnome’s character portrait: “@oilpainting71 – whose funky Bowie Gnome created a literal squeal of delight and laugh-out-loud that I had to explain to my poor confused children when I first saw it.”

@Andy Hemming – turning the cover of a D&D book into a game setting

But – the winner is – (drum roll please) @wayne_peters – for the steampunk airship. As well as being an engineering marvel, this one really spoke to my own love of things steampunk, and is clearly the tabletop setting most like to have both the players AND the characters enjoying tea and digestives at the table and in the story. And yes, I’d even allow for an in-game Hob Nob or two.

Episode 26 – HeroQuest RPG (with Ian Cooper) from GROGMEET 18

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INTRO: This is an unusual GROGPOD as it was recorded live at GROGMEET 18. Ian Cooper talks about HeroQuest and there’s a chance for you to win a copy of the game thanks to our friends at bonhomiegames.uk

Show us your favourite handout, character sheet, floor plan, prop, mini or any other physical item you’ve produced for your gaming before the end of Feb to be in with a chance of winning.

INTERVIEW: Ian Cooper talks about his formative years in gaming, oral story telling, Greg Stafford, HeroQuest and his Coming Storm campaign.

GAMESMASTER’S SCREEN: Blythy joins me in the Room of Role-Playing Rambling to talk about generic systems. Want to know more about Judge Dredd in the world of GUMSHOE? Then check out Steve Ray’s play reports.

OUTRO: Patreon thanks, the latest news about the GROGZINE and the plans for the next episode.

1D6 UK GAMES EXPO ’18 exposed

I think I’m just about coming back into the real world. Entering the UK Games Expo is like entering a liminal space where everyone is at ease with themselves and their place in the Universe.

Why can’t every day be like Expo?

Last year, it was about playing story games and understanding what had happened since we left the hobby back in the early 90s.

This time it was about running games.

After several anxious days preparing (I’m convinced that RPGs are part of a conspiracy to sell more printer ink), plus significant pre-match nerves the GM muscle eventually kicked in …

Judge Dredd

I ran Better Living through Chemistry, the scenario developed by @dailydwarf for the GROGZINE ’18 (soon to be available on DriveThru RPG). It’s an entertaining ‘Judges on patrol’ adventure littered with witty asides and incident to provide an amusing three hours in Mega City One, capturing the golden age of 2000ad perfectly. This was the third time I’d run the game. Similar to the other occasions, I felt that the system creaked a little. It was a less deadly this time, but no less frustrating for the players who found themselves missing rolls when they needed them the most.

There was some clever play from the Judges along the way, chaotic scenes and an hilarious interrogation involving a pedicure, astrology and surgical tape.

At one moment, words failed me, I wanted to describe a “golden fountain” but ended up saying “shower” despite myself. I don’t think anyone noticed.

HeroQuest

Chaosium’s Ian Cooper is a terrific Games Master. If you get chance to play HeroQuest at a convention with him, then take it, you won’t be disappointed. He works hard to create an imaginative, immersive experience to compel you to engage with the story.

The adventure was a whodunit set in Forint, in the southern continent of Pamaltela. The wonderfully drawn pre-gens were members of masarin Jamader’s household in Garduna, a city of ragtag islands joined by bridges of different design. Blythy was a haughty Agimori sorceress and the rest of us were house slaves in her thrall. The relationship between the characters made for intriguing moments of interplay as we explored the city following a trail of clues.

Forint is to be developed as a future book for HeroQuest, which will allow players who are worried about imposing upon the canon of Glorantha publications: a chance to develop adventures within an exotic swords and sorcery setting. In the theatre of my mind it was Meereen twinned with Camorr written through the lens of Gene Wolfe

A great session. Don’t take my word for it, here’s Neil Benson’s view.

Nights Black Agents

1984, Leeds, England. The miners strike is intensifying, the British Government have recruited deniable assets to pull off a black bag operation: wiring the room where a branch secretary of the National Union of Mine workers is planning a rendezvous with his counterpart from Transylvania, who has promised cash in exchange for … something … something mysterious.

This is the third time that I’ve run Operation: GroundWorm and it’s one of those that has matured the more it has been played. There were some cracking scenes: a chase through the streets of Leeds, ending on the roof of Dolcis, punching the lights out of each other; a great bit of disguise fast-talk, squeezing information from a reluctant community; and finally Harry Reeves, the leader of the crew, finishing off the enemy, while smoking a Benson.

This was one of my high-points of the weekend and provided some food for thought for the forthcoming Episode 21.

RuneQuest

I played The Broken Tower, the QuickStart adventure that was released for Free RPG Day last year. The new RuneQuest Glorantha PDF dropped on the Friday, so I felt a real burden of responsibility to inspire these players to get into the new game. There was a mixture of experience around the table, complete newbies, others who last played the game in the 80s and others who had loyally followed the various iterations.

This was the first time that I had used the shaman. I was a little concerned that the complexity of the character (with its llama mount, baboon fetch and spirit combat rules) would distort the party, but it actually added a great deal to the weirdness and intensifying horror.

I wanted to at least inspire one person to run their own game of RuneQuest: Achievement Unlocked!

Losing a D8

I lose a dice at every convention. This time it was a D8.

We had a list of stuff we while we were there: buying stuff, demoing some board-games and having a proper meal somewhere. The bucket list ended up being a ‘feck it’ list because when were weren’t playing RPGs we were having a really good chat with people we met on the way to doing things.

It was a great weekend, great people and over much too soon.

Next: Expo ScrapBook

virtual GROGMEET 2018 ScrapBook

Last year, we reached a tipping point where we realised that most of our Armchair Adventuring was taking place online. Our never-ending quest to get more people to play games with continues. To support our endeavours we created virtual GROGMEET to complement the annual event in November.

Some of the GROGSQUAD wanted to discover online play for the first time and have the opportunity to play with the GMGMs that make GROGMEET in Manchester such a distinctive experience.

Squadron members from all over the UK plus others from British Columbia, Australia and North America were joined games of Numenera and Maelstrom and others listed below.

Of course the curse of online play bedevilled it with glitches and interventions from real life, but it was an enjoyable event by all accounts.

Hopefully, new gaming connections were made during the event and this is the beginning of more groups forming, because “play’s the thing”. Dirk

There’s more play reports from Neil and Kehaar, and on google plus from Andrew Jones and Andy Cousins.

**WarHammer Fantasy Role-Playing:** A rousing version of Summer Holiday, a bar-room brawl, death and destruction in the opening scenario of The Enemy Within. *Asako_Soh*

**Lamentations of the Flame Princess:** Having climbed into the Butchers through the roof the party encounter a mutated dog in an attached room. Engaging their OSR drive by trying to avoid unnecessary conflicts, they came up with a clever plan which became known as the Norwich Gambit. Their scheme in place they opened doors while keeping out of the beasts reach and felt some degree of cleverness as their ploy worked and the external door was closed behind the dog as it wandered outside. They were later to discover the consequences of that cleverness. *Neil Benson*

**Judge Dredd RPG (GW):** Andy, Mark and Brett – were soon in the middle of a firefight. All three really committed to the game, and inhabited the characters of their Judges really well. (The phrase “Eat Judge boot, creep!” was deployed to much satisfaction.) They were very inventive both in their use of the tech, and in their theories of what the clues they uncovered could mean … (continues)

Screen Shot 2018-04-17 at 00.28.03.png — **Judge Dredd RPG:** Their detection methods were also top-notch, leading me to short-circuit one part of the adventure as I thought their ideas deserved to be rewarded. The big finale played out well (sound effects on roll20 at least worked out very well), although at times I felt I was losing “flow” somewhat – I think that might have been down to the system showing its age, coupled with my inexpert hacking of the rules.
Overall, good fun for me to run again – I had an excellent set of players who threw themselves into the setting with gusto, and Mega-City One remains a great playground for roleplaying. Next time though, I think I might try a different rules system, more geared to pulp action.
Savage Worlds anyone? *Alan Gairey*

**Night’s Black Agents:** 1984, Harry Reeves pulled together a crew; a wheel wizard, box man and wire rat to black bag Frank Holton: a miner with connections in the USSR: “BagPuss is in the building”. *Dirk.*

Screen Shot 2018-04-17 at 00.00.50.png — **Cthulhu Hack**: Good time was had by all. The use of my artwork murals and a trap based portion of the game generated a real ‘adventure game’ feel to play. Cthulhu hack worked well especially sanity erosion to build the players sense of dread and I’ve at least 3 different threads out of the game. All in all a result. *Keehar.*

**HeroQuest:** I had 4 players, with limited experience of Heroquest, so it was good to take them through the character generation system & how contests work. Heroquest is one of those systems that truly opens up through play, rather than reading the corebook- which reveals it’s pearls of wisdom after play.
Highlights included grabbing the heart of Orlanth from a Lunar Demon and then just about defeating that demon mid air in the Otherworld- the first time running the scenario we had had major conflict. All because of a “over-confident” character trait from one PC. *Andrew Jones.*

1-D-6 UK Games Expo 2017

Flat-cap? – CHECK

RPG Tees? – CHECK

Polished Docs? – CHECK

Freshly stocked All Rolled Up? – CHECK

All I need is a travel pack of Hob Nobs and I’m on the road, heading to the land of Slade and motorways to experience the biggest event in the UK gaming calendar: UK Games Expo 2017.

Running over 3 days, it’s truly epic in scale and vision, and much bigger than anything else I’ve experienced. If my bulging email spambox is anything to go by, there’s a ravaging hoard of traders about to decend upon on the National Exhibition Centre hungry to devour my money in exchange for their latest offering.

Half way through the year and I still need to make progress with my resolution to learn more about story-games and the innovations that occurred in the 90s and 00s during my RPG deep freeze. I’m using this as an educational field trip to help fill in the blanks. Here’s 5 highlights from my itinary… and a potential fumble:

Kong Island Rangers Simon Burley, of GOLDEN HEROES fame, is hosting a game featuring his lightweight rules for Anime/Manga based adventures. THE CODE OF SHOJO AND SHONEN was the subject of a kickstart that didn’t make its goal earlier in the year. It’s a shame because what I’ve seen, it’s narrative character creation and simple 2d6 resolution mechanic, deals with the quirks of the genre perfectly. Who can resist travelling to a mysterious island in the middle of the ocean with the promise of encountering a magnificent Kaiju?

HeroQuest Glorantha “If you ever get chance, play HeroQuest with Ian Cooper, he unlocked it for me,” suggested Big Jack Brass when I complained that my grognardy old brain couldn’t get round HeroQuest; it looks like there’s fun in it, but I’m not sure how to get it out. I have chance to find out the secret code for the combination lock as I’ll be joining Ian to play Cold Hard Iron: dwarves, Iron and Telmori, what can go wrong?

World of Darkness Apart from a guest appearance in an online game, I’ve never played WoD despite it’s overwhelming popularity. I really enjoyed the experience of playing a Spectoral NPC, so I’m looking forward to this scenario from the other side of the equation as I’ll play a sophomore heading to a cabin on the lake. Sounds harmless enough.

RuneQuest: Glorantha It’s not all about eating my RPG vegetables, there’s some old school goodness to feast on too (albeit a partially reheated new recipe). I’m very excited to get a sneak-peak play-test of the new RuneQuest by playing a rare Greg Stafford scenario facing undead in the Upland Marsh.

Tweet-up! I want to meet, shake hands and chat with as many people as I can while I’m there. When I’m not gaming, I’m going to mingle and tingle.

Time out. My only concern is running out of time. My carriage awaits early Saturday evening. My old man homing beacon will switch on at noon. After that, my concentration will fix on catching the train. I need to get a hard copy of The Two Headed Serpent. I need to mootch around the trade hall …. at some point …

If only to justify getting all that spam.