Virtual Grogmeet 2025
Having missed face to face Grogmeet back in January (due to the very good reason of being at Grogten), I was very much looking forward to getting some gaming in with a few different grogs.
There’s much to enjoy about Virtual Grogmeet, the range of games on offer, sessions across the whole weekend and playing from the comfort of own home. With extra-long sessions an option this year, I was even tempted to run a double session.
Virtual Grogmeet kicked off on the Thursday evening with the traditional pup quiz, this year hosted by the Titterpigs podcast, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it due to a regular gaming commitment. Following on was one session on the Friday evening, three on the Saturday, a Sunday morning interview and two further sessions on the Sunday. I knew I wouldn’t be able to play at all of them, but here are the ones I was involved in.
Friday evening: Gran Mecannismo
GM: Alistair Smith
Adventure: A Game of Two Halves
VTT: Roll20
Comms: Discord
I remember this game being released a few years back and thinking how interesting it looked; a clockwork powered renaissance Italy with intrigue and adventure. In the adventure A Game of Two Halves (written by the GM) I played a shamed Calcio player looking to redeem himself. Our party followed a trail of robbery, assassination, underworld intrigue, socialising mixed with a bit of spying and a good old scrap.
This was a really enjoyable session with the right mix of components to keep us engaged throughout. I found the system (based on Tripod by Graham Spearing) was at my perfect level of crunch, with a great mix of rolls feeding into the narrative. With top GMing bringing it all together, it was an evening well spent.
Saturday morning and afternoon: Pirate Borg
GM: Me!
Adventure: A Crown of Fetters
VTT: FoundryVTT v12
Comms: Discord
While I’ve enjoyed playing Mork Borg, I couldn’t see myself running it, and I thought I was done with any Borg-likes. That was until I dipped into Pirate Borg earlier this year (I had the PDF from a bundle and grabbed the book not long after); while it uses the Mork Borg system the flavour and implementation make it really shine. I love the support and community that goes along with it and Limithron’s podcast has become a regular listen.
By fate or coincidence I stumbled across the A Crown of Fetters Pirate Borg adventure by 1Shot Adventures (there’s a GURPS version as well), and I could see how it would be a great fit for a con game. It doesn’t lean as heavily into the Dark Caribbean weirdness of other Pirate Borg stuff, but I really enjoyed the setup of the adventure and it drips with Pirates of the Caribbean flavour. I’m sure I read the author ran it in a 4 hour con slot, but I could see no way this would fit into a single con slot. When the opportunity came up to run a multi-session game it was an obvious choice for my Virtual Grogmeet game.
The adventure sees the party joining The Morning Passage on a voyage from St Kitts to Whispering Cay and much strangeness ensues. My players AJS MikeW Jeremy ScottR really engaged with the set up and flavour of the adventure and we had a lot of fun with some of the set pieces. However, wanting to keep within the allocated timescale (and aware that ScottR had been playing since very early in the USA), we didn’t quite get the epic climatic battle I had planned, but still it was a lot of fun.
It’s an adventure I’d like to run again, maybe as a filler with one of my regular groups.
Saturday evening: Cosmic Dark
GM: jwmuk
Adventure: Every Sunrise
VTT: Discord (for rolls and sharing images)
Comms: Discord
Having heard much, but never played Cthulhu Dark, I was drawn to the premise of this. I’m not a big SF gamer, but the idea of a scenario that leads to the protagonist’s eventual doom has a certain appeal.
jwmuk went for a tech-lite delivery with dice rolls, images and maps in Discord which was a perfect fit for a mostly theatre of the mind game. Our PCs started out as little more than a name with a specialism (the only bit of character creation in the system) and a single Changed attribute which starts at 1 and goes up to 6 (marking the end of your PC). Our objective: as employees of Extracsa, evacuate the research team from the planet Onull which is being consumed the anomaly known as The Glitch. Simple…
This was a roleplay heavy session with the system, such as it was, getting out of the way. It was interesting as a player to identify when your character was being changed by events, requiring a changed roll. It was weird and disturbing in the best possible way and a whole load of fun.
Sunday morning: Interview
I enjoyed listening to Dirk the Dice interviewing fellow scouser Ste Brotherstone of Scarred For Life about his latest exploits into roleplaying, geekery and the dark corners of our 70s and 80s childhoods he explores in the Scarred for Life books.
Then it was an afternoon of real life stuff before heading back to the virtual gaming table for the final session of the weekend.
Sunday evening: Knave
GM: Blythy
Adventure: The Wizards of Sparrowkeep
VTT: Roll20
Comms: Discord
I was curious to try out Knave as I’ve read so much about it - very much an OSR system with a few moderns twists that try recognise and solve some of the issues with B/X based retroclones.
Unusually for a one-shot we created characters at the start of the session which was great fun
The setup for the scenario was great, with our party arriving in a valley recently cursed with strange magical occurrences. The four wizards in their towers must be responsible somehow and that’s what we had to unpick. It was a scenario with a bit of everything; a bit of investigation, some social interaction and a good few fights.
While I enjoyed playing Knave, I probably won’t run out to buy it. Also because I recently bought a POD copy of FORGE which is based on Knave, and IMHO is a better fit for how I like to play.
In a flash the Virtual Grogmeet weekend was over. Huge thanks to the GMs who ran the games I played in, and the players in my game and those other games. The biggest thanks go to Dirk the Dice and Blythy for once again organising and delivering a fantastic event. Roll on the next one!