Virtual Grogmeet 2022

Back in the good old days of cons being face to face almost exclusively, Virtual Grogmeet offered something different… it was the first online gaming con I attended (think it was back in 2018), and it’s been a highlight of the gaming year ever since.

@theGROGNARDfile has once more done a stellar job of putting together a multi-day event that focussed on the Saturday as the main gaming day with loads of games to choose from, a quiz with a difference on the Thursday and a guest interview on the Sunday.

Something Stinks in Stilton

Saturday morning

I’d already decided to run Old School Essentials for this slot, I just needed to make a call on what adventure to run; I’m indecisive about adventure selection for cons and went through a load of modules before making a choice. Reading reviews, thinking about the challenges of running a particular adventure on FoundryVTT, whether the adventure could be completed in a shorter time slot… until I make that decision it all feels a bit of hassle. Once I’d settled on Something Stinks in Stilton (I already had a pdf of it) I knew I’d made the right choice and just had to get it all set up in FoundryVTT. I took a steer from @Monk3yBlood who has written an article on running Something Stinks in Stilton in the Midderlands setting, so using the Walshale Gardeners pregens and converting them to Old School Essentials made sense.

Only three of the four players that signed up were able to make it on the day, but that was fine, they were all top players and we had a lot of fun working through this twisted but brilliant adventure. It was pleasing that all the characters survived despite some treacherous dice rolls. The session overran by half an hour as I’d not paid attention to the time slots for the event, assuming they were 3.5 hours long rather than 3. I do stink at managing game time at cons at the best of times…

The Persephone Extraction

Friday and Saturday evening

At last year’s Virtual Grogmeet @theGROGNARDfile had an ambitious plan to run this Night’s Black Agents campaign across the three evenings of the weekend. A valiant attempt was made, but as it became clear we wouldn’t be able to complete it that weekend, @theGROGNARDfile suggested continuing in at Virtual Grogmeet 2022. So we’d waited a year for this, our characters dormant and waiting patiently to be deployed again.

The game ran over two sessions this time and saw our super spies heading to the final locations of the game, fighting cultists and supernatural terrors and thwarting the plans of the evil villains, an effective blend of the spy and horror genres. I really enjoyed getting back into the shoes of my agent Jian and working with the other players as our spies were played to their strengths and their expertise. Vampire supervillains vs our Night’s Black Agents crew, they didn’t stand a chance!

757 CE: The Flight of Beornred

Saturday afternoon

I love anything dark ages/vikingy so it was no surprise this this Basic Roleplaying adventure caught my eye. We were the last of King Beornred’s trusted thanes, and following his defeat by Offa we had to clear a road for him to flee to Wessex, making the road safe. The setting was well realised and the adventure a great mix of combat (dealing with Offa’s guards), intrigue (winning other Ealdormen over to our side) and investigation (finding out what happened at the deserted village). The Basic Roleplaying system did it’s job admirably, I happily play it again.

Interview

This year @theGROGNARDfile‘s interview was with author and adventure writing extraordinaire @mytholder. Much of the interview focussed on @mytholder‘s books, I haven’t read any of those but there was still lots of useful insights in there.

And with that the Virtual Grogmeet weekend was over for me. I know there were games still going on across the Sunday, it’s nice to see the event expanding. I’ve heard lots of great feedback about the event, long may it continue!