It never rains in Manchester...
It’s Grogmeet two days of RPGs with friends followed by MORPCon. AND it’s sunny in Manchester! This Grogmeet I’d offered four games, which is three more than I usually do, and whilst not panicking, as I’d run all but one of them before, I had a certain amount of nerves building up.
Chetham’s Library
But first, I got a super early train, dumped my bags and headed off to Chetham’s Library for the tour. A foot problem (happily now on the mend) had me limping through the streets like a fevered pilgrim, in search of a cure. Eventually, I gathered with others seeking the same thrills and awaited the opening of the gates. The tour was an hour and encompassed stepping back in time through the buildings and rooms, some wonderful stories and finally, time to browse through the library itself.
I left culturally and I’d say almost spiritually refreshed, this was a library for the people, signifying the best that humans can be. I hope the wonderful staff keep it going for many more decades to come.
I rushed back to the hotel, grabbed gaming stuff, met some grogs and hobbled on to the Northern Monk for some Paranoia.
Paranoia
After breaking a bench, rolling around on the floor and dousing the table and myself in a pint of ale, I calmed down and began the journey into madness that is a Paranoia session.
I’d given out coloured Post-it notes for each of the players, to allow them to send secret messages to me. This proved very popular and post-game, I have the job of trying to piece together what they thought was going on from around 30 odd messages, “I sneak back and execute Mal-B-ING as a communist.”, “What do you advise Friend Computer?”, “Quietly kill her and hide the body”, “I am inspecting Roland-R-ATT’s gun to make sure it is functioning properly”, “Everyone else keeps passing notes, I don’t!”
As it turns out, eight clones later, the group had brought a certain amount of calm to Alpha Complex, admittedly the calm after a force twelve hurricane, with death and destruction stretching out behind the troubleshooters. An amazing group of players threw themselves into the spirit of the game, so much thanks to Chris, Debbie, Andy, Another Chris and Paul.
Back to the hotel, to finally check in and meet more grogs before more steps (15,000 in total for the day!) to arrive in time for …
Matrons of Mystery
But this was no normal Matrons game, Simon had constructed a beautiful game themed around Quatermass with a map to die for, and as an ex-cartographer, I can safely say these things. Through a series of intriguing cards myself, Jon, Matt and Paul slowly constructed into the ravings of a madman a cogent and compelling mystery. I was so impressed with how the GM set up the game and guided us through it and especially impressed with Matt, who took 30-odd clue cards and said, “I got this, I can explain what is going on.” Obviously, he couldn’t BUT he went far enough for the rest of us to build on his bonkers babbling and it just about hung together. Through luck and skill, we came up with a master plan to destroy the big bad and save the day. Cue cheers!
My foot was now throbbing somewhat and on medication and realising I shouldn’t have had any alcohol, I weaved my way back to the hotel and an early night. Even a bad foot, couldn’t stop me from picking up a Falalfel wrap on the way from Go Falafel, the first of many.
Index Card RPG
I’d seen Neil post a lot about Index Card RPG and I’d downloaded and read through the quickstart, so was excited to try it out, especially the setting, Aliens-take-over- midtown-America, “I’m from Bloomington, Minnesota and I say kill ‘em all!”
Neil explained our characters and the various timers and structure that the game would run within - a single target number for each scene made it simple and we acted in a strict turn order, with various clocks counting down to more baddies, things failing, bombs going off and this all meant we were engaged and the game moved forward at a fair pace.
My thoughts are this would make a perfect introductory RPG, as there is a lot of structure, everyone knows when they are going next and there is a constant stream of action to keep you engaged and focused.
The highlight has to be sending a bomb up to the alien’s mothership, just as the bomb blew up and the last clock ticked down, thrilling stuff - although I enjoyed the range of weaponry that Lt. Shepherd could bring to bear on each scene. Great fun to play with Ed, Chris and Gav and masterful GMing from Neil, so much so, it convinced me to put in an order for this game.
PS - Close, but sadly no TPK this time, Neil!
Tales from the Loop
Free League tend to rule the waves of the RPG cons, and whilst I’m an avid fan, I’d not really done much with Tales from the Loop. That was until a weekend away gaming got me running Oz Mills’ fantastic UK-based Loop campaign, They Grow Up So Fast.
I’d realised to my horror, that I’d forgotten the range of 1980s OS Maps and town plans, but luckily had a couple of backup maps, so all was not lost. Settling down I dealt the characters out, interestingly Maria was the character that linked them all together and she ended up as a spare - in the end, this worked well, as we envisioned the other characters coming together as they pined for Maria away on her posh holiday abroad.
It didn’t take long for the players (excellent stuff from Mike, Steve, Craig and Andy) to get into the minds of the teens and reminisce on 80s culture. After a few adventures during an overnight camp, the group moved on to the town of Great Yarmouth. No spoilers but there was a series of well-thought-through investigations, that got the teens into deeper and deeper trouble. A frantic chase in the final scenes, before one of the number ended up in hot water, whilst the rest pondered their next moves… but that would be for episode two.
I’ve really warmed to Tales from the Loop, the no violence/death to the PCs, helps to focus the mind on alternatives to straight-out combat and brings a lot of inventiveness into the games. Oz has done a fantastic job of representing the Norfolk Broads as the 1980s site of the UK Loop and I’m keen to run more of the campaign in the future. GrogLove?
Knave
I was running on empty as I munched some more falafels and lined up the final game of Grogmeet Eve, Knave first edition although the second edition is still available for pre-order, see here. I had tried and failed to run this game twice before but luckily a friend of my Discord, Sean F Smith, had stepped in, so, tired though I was, I felt I owed the OSR gods this much.
I had randomly rolled characters for this game, printed them out and laid them face down on the table, I immediately felt bad for Ian as he picked out the one PC with 1 Hit Point. The others (Ed, Ian 2 and Chris), seemed to visibly relax at this and we laughed and joked about what would befall us in The Maw of the Mountain.
A simple dungeon crawl, the scenario employs a timer to see if/when the Wyrm awakes, the party were over halfway through this when they left the first room, definitely an inauspicious start. They continued on their way, squeezing through caverns, climbing into the dark, defeating a few broodlings on the way and hearing the sounds of the restless dead.
Presently they came face-to-face with a sleeping dragon and a hoard of treasure, a carefully laid plan was thrown into disarray as the Wyrm awoke - a PC was gobbled whole, two more were incinerated, including Rat and with Rat went the strange ways and mythos of his Rat god.
This left only Jack (played by Another Chris), armed with a bag of sharp stones - somehow, I scarcely believed it, he whittled away at the Wyrm whilst avoiding death blows until a final stone slew the beast. Jack mourned his friends but put the loot to good use, devoting the money to helping the poor and downtrodden, as well as a significant tithe to the Rat god. What a nice chap!
Mythic Bastionland
Red-eyed, fuzzy of brain and limpy of foot, I made my way for the last time up towards Fan Boy three… and finally, normality had been restored, it was raining. This was not Grogmeet anymore. This was MORPCon. Roderick gave a rousing speech and we were off. Four brave knights of little consequence but big on principle entered the Shadowlands of Baccatis.
This was a procedurally generated game using the free quickstart, the main Kickstarter is live and has, at the time of writing, 20 days to go. Please back it! It’s from Chris McDowall who had played in my Paranoia game and in Index Card RPG, he’d handed me some flyers that I randomly sprinkled across the gaming tables. It is fair to say I’d liked but not loved Into the Odd, but with it’s extra levels of crunch and the building of maps being a game within a game, Mythic Bastioland had hit all the right RPG buttons for me. I especially enjoyed creating the hex map in the below picture using Hex Kit, a wonderful tool and this guidance from Mr McDowall.
So on to the adventure Neil from the Index Card RPG was joined by Gav, Tom and Charles, all wonderful players, bringing life to their pompous, deadly, corpulent and morose knights.
Initially, the party moved southwest, following a pillar of white smoke and entering a steep-sided canyon. A waterfall, trickling down rainbow-coloured rock proved too tempting for Loyset and he drank his fill - almost immediately the other PCs noticed his fingers becoming fatter, his face filling out, and jowls hanging loosely on his face. Continuing on they found the Swollen Seer, a short conversation that told of a River on an island, Monks making offerings to it, to, perhaps, calm it?
The knights satisfied that their destiny lay in that direction mount up and head to a village nearby, with some favours to the villagers a boat is procured to get to the island.
Many adventures later the knights have resolved the myth of The River and the Black Monks and are wet and bedraggled clinging to the deck of a ship bound for Misrachi, the capital of Baccatis. All of the knights are here but one, Garin, The War Knight. Garin lies at the bottom of the lake, his friends desperately tried to save him, but could only watch in horror as he spiralled down to his doom, unable to loosen his armour. Hopefully, I did Chris’ game justice, it felt like a lot of fun from this side of the table.
Huzzah! The players and GMs of MORPCon retire to the Port Street Beer House for a well-earned pint and there they recount their tales of the weekend’s gaming!
Final words…
Of course so much thanks to Dirk and Blythy for organising another fine weekend of gaming with friends, they and the attendees have made it a must-visit on the RPG Grand Tour. But also to the GMs who seem to raise the bar each year on the variety and quality of games and the infectious enthusiasm of the players who each game so special. I definitely overdid it this time, running four games when I usually run one and fitting in other events and traipsing around the city, but I don’t regret it, I’m just not doing it again. At least for another eleven months, until I’ve forgotten what I went through and sign up once more.
Here’s to Grogmeet 2024…