Grogmeetish 2020

I've never been to Grogmeet before, although from what I could determine from last year's Twitter chatter, it seems to consist largely of people exchanging jam, with maybe some games in between.  Obviously in 2020 the jam exchanges aren't possible, but the games are.

Game 1

When in doubt, I find a modern day Call of Cthulhu game is a safe choice.  'Restitution' (coming soon to the Miskatonic Repository, I believe) is set in the Netherlands and based on current events, specifically the de-poldering of one of the polders.  Our group of entirely normal people (the mayor of the nearby city, a journalist and a PR specialist) went to do a press thing at an archaeological dig and things went downhill from there in true Call of Cthulhu style.

I really enjoyed this scenario.  Being a modern day scenario, it's entirely possible to jump into the location in Google Streeview and take a look around.  I wasn't sure what a polder or a dyke looked like, but now I've learned something.  Also the pacing is excellent, gradually ramping things up as the horror goes from more mundane fears to full on supernatural terrors.

Game 2

I skipped the middle session, as things were pretty booked up by the time I came to look at it and I figured a break would be good for me.  But in the evening it was time for another outing of Mother Said I Never Should.  While I wasn't initially planning to run anything, when the only Liminal game on the schedule booked up entirely from GMs before player bookings opened, I thought maybe they could use another game and took up Dirk the Dice's invitation.

A few hours before the game I lost two players, due to illness and getting the wrong time zone, but soon had replacements and we dived in.  Some enthusiasm for cricket lead to the group being called Edgbaston Investigations, and through stealth, charm, and creative use of pepper spray, they solved the case.

I've run this scenario enough times now that I barely look at my notes.  Since I'm planning to write it up for publication, I actually looked at it again properly, and was surprised to find various elements from the first time I ran it that I no longer use.  It's been interesting to compare what I run now with the original version and see how I've refined it.

Reflections

I know I'm going to want to attend the real life version of Grogmeet once that's a thing again, which is annoying, because it's a long way to Manchester.  The Dutch GM in my first game mentioned flying in for it, and so long as he's not far from the airport his journey's probably quicker than mine.

There was quite a lot of additional stuff going on that might make it worth a trip next time though, including a quiz on Thursday and a Mausritter tournament on Friday, neither of which I attended because I had other regular games happening, plus the RoomZoom of Roleplay Rambling on Sunday morning which I did get to.  So maybe it'll happen.  LARP permitting.  Otherwise I'll be looking out for Virtual Grogmeet next spring.

I guess I'd better learn to make jam.