It comes around so soon and is all the better for that. GrogLove is one half of GrogL, the other being GrogLaw. A TTRPG convention organised in London by Jim, Dave and Alex, with Tash throwing in some scrumptious goody bags! It’s moved around but is now back at Brewdog Chancery Lane, which has the benefit of being dead quiet on a weekend, has some decent beers & grub and wonderful staff.

It’s an hour on the tube for me, a quick walk across the park, and, fingers crossed, there are no tube disruptions, I’m getting off at Farringdon and walking through silent city streets to the venue. The venue is a hubbub of folks, all excitedly catching up, searching bags for dice, admiring various new and old TTRPG rule books, maps and minis.

After a brief chat and a coffee, I settled down to my morning game.

Vaesen - All I Ask is a Tall Ship… GM: Mike

I’ve got a lot of Vaesen stuff, including the Mythic Britain and Ireland supplement, where this adventure is set. Mike always comes with “table bling”, and this was no exception: a wonderful old London map of Shadwell and the docks, plus some aged character sheets with real wax seals.

I’d only ever played Vaesen once before, a virtual Grogmeet quite a few years ago, but off the back of it, I’d picked it up and then steadfastly not run or played it. No particular reason, as I enjoyed my first game and the historical, supernatural and investigative elements seemed tailor-made for my likes. I’d also seen a growing number of grogs offering this game, writing for it, so it feels like it is at the crest of a wave, and I was happy to surf it (groan).

We started by introducing our characters, then meeting the newest patron to cross out palm with silver. It seemed that shipments had gone missing from a dockside warehouse and that the circumstances involved ghosts or poltergeists.

It was a great setup, and playing with excellent players such as Stef, Theo and Alex, we kept throwing in questions and formulating theories until we’d exhausted all avenues and ended up with an armful of clues and a few more plaes to visit.

Not to give too much away to the mystery, we travelled across London to atmospheric locations, faced an array of interesting, intimidating and unusual NPCs and were able to show off each of our skills through some very entertaining set pieces.

The best bit about Vaesen for me is the moral quandaries that you often get faced with; it’s not just a simple monster to defeat. The lives of Vaesen and humans intertwine, and sometimes removing a Vaesen can have dire consequences for the human population.

Mike masterfully handled the clues and kept us moving forward to a very satisfying conclusion with ample opportunity to act heroically or foolishly, whichever worked best for our characters.

I like the Year Zero system, and Vaesen is definitely at the simpler end of things, which, for me, works well, as it allows more focus on interpreting clues and figuring out plans in an investigative game. But I wondered where it fits into my other investigative RPG loves, such as Gumshoe - this is probably the main reason I haven’t run it.

I think Mike’s scenario has me keen to try some more Vaesen, just when I was considering clearing it off my shelves.

Lunch was next, time for a chat and a drink, folks rushing by, bemoaning deaths in their games or celebrating death-defying escapes. Then we were on to the afternoon session and some frantic prep of maps, handouts, character sheets and 1001 small tokens.

Car Wars/Troika - Amateur Night at the Big Top GM: me

I’d been putting in a silly amount of work in grokking the Classic Car Wars rules, as well as being perhaps too ambitious in integrating Troika scenes with Car Wars combats. The players had been very enthusiastic about this game, so I was hopeful that enthusiasm, rather than prep, would see us through!

Car Wars is a game of tactical car combat set 50 years in the future. It came out in 1980, and it was a favourite among my brothers. It requires a fair amount of maths to calculate the weight-to-power ratio and various other formulas for controlling the car, firing and collisions. As you would expect from a game that is still going, there are many, many variations, but I had picked my original blister box with the Classic Car Wars rules. Even this had controversial variations, with a 5 rather than 10 phase movement chart. Essentially, as speed increases, you can move in more and more phases; the full complement of phases equals a turn, which is one second. My later version 5 phase movement meant that we’d be moving less and perhaps a slightly slower-paced game!

But first, Troika, I’d decided that the Car Wars combats may be quick (fool!), so I’d fleshed out the three-and-a-half-hour session with some investigation, challenges and roleplay using the Troika system. Troika is based on the Advanced Fighting Fantasy system using three attributes: Skill, Luck and Stamina, and mainly rolling 2d6, but it is most well known for its weird and creative science fantasy setting, with a wealth of imaginative characters, pre-gens and adventures. I thought it would be easy to hack and an easy system to learn, alongside the crunchier elements of Car Wars.

So, much prep in creating three Troika scenes and two Car Wars combats. The basic premise was Amateur Night at the Big Top, inspired, at least visually, by the Shaun Ryder solo album - has it got too complicated yet?

The Big Top is a Car Wars arena, with a circus theme in terms of its staff and half-time entertainment, i.e., the Ringmaster is the owner, Clown Fist takes care of security, the Lion Shamer runs logistics, and along with the High-Wire Twins, they all contribute to the show.

Scene one started with the drivers being pulled into a room, and the Ringmaster announcing someone was threatening to sabotage the race. A reward of $10,000 for whoever caught them. Cue a series of investigations, including a gun fight with some saboteurs in the boiler room and a tense disabling of an auto gun emplacement up in the gantry above the race track. One of the players discovered that mines had been planted on the track, but decided to keep that to themselves.

All in all, the players did well, discovering the hazards and disabling them, which gave them additional dollars up to $15,000 to use to design their cars.

A break, and then we got to work designing cars or picking from a stock list and pimping them up. The Spitfire seemed most popular: a Vulcan Machine Gun up front, a flamethrower in the back, solid armour, and, for some, the addition of a smoke screen.

Everyone entered the arena at different gates and were soon getting up to speed and taking the odd pot shot, but it was a fairly gentle start as we got to grips with the rules and especially the manoeuvres.

Turns started ticking over, the speed increased, and cars lost control and hit the side walls or spun out. I kept things simple; spin-outs usually lead to a phase-by-phase skidding reduction to 0mph, but I ignored this. Also, I struggled with collisions; ignoring the Ram dice in plain sight on the movement table 🤦🏻 and instead introduced a homebrew of roll 3d6 for damage or roll 1d6 and then roll that number of dice for the damage - I quite liked this, at times, devastating rule.

Eventually, two of the combatants were out of the race. Fabio’s car had all its tyres blown out, skidding to a halt, and a final burst of flamethrower in the direction of Andrew before he left the car and ran for safety. Jon and Mike had been having their own personal duel, and eventually Mike’s armour succumbed, and a final shot took out his power plant; he too ran for the side lines.

Very sporting of Jon and Andrew to not gun down Fabio and Mike’s drivers as they ran for cover, I know if I’d have been playing with friends and brothers, we’d have done exactly that!

With Jon weakened from his duel, Andrew took advantage, destroying the rear of the car and shredding the driver inside. Jon cursed his luck as a pair of his heavy rockets went flying harmlessly into the night sky. A brutal end to the night’s entertainment.

So, twenty odd turns had taken around two and a half hours, but in game time, it was around 20 seconds! The trophy was awarded to Andrew, the inaugural winner of the GrogLove Car Wars Big Top Arena!!

Much thanks to players Andrew, Fabio, Jon and Mike for throwing themselves into the fun and being patient as rules were consulted or made up!

I was tag teaming with my other half as she headed into London, and so I headed home to let the dog out, only time for a few chats, before I began the journey back. Happy to see the announcement for Grog Law come up on my phone, 17th October, another day not to be missed.

Big thanks again to Jim, Dave and Alex for doing all the organisation around the event, it looked seamless, but I know from my own experience it takes commitment and effort, and they’ve created a very welcoming space for TTRPG fans. Thanks again to Tash for keeping our sugar levels topped up.