The East Midlands Runemasters

So last weekend the first meeting of the East Midland's RQ Phalanx went ahead. This is a project I've been organising with Tim Challis, a fellow RQ fan I met online back in November. We were both a little frustrated lack of  opportunities to play Runequest on a regular basis and so decided to setup a Facebook group with the hope of gathering enough people within the East Midlands (a loosely defined area in the middle of England, UK consisting of the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire & Lincolnshire) who were also interested in playing Runequest. We managed to get around 30 members and after polling them we agreed on a date, Sun 27th January 2019 & a location, Boards & Swords, in Derby. Initially we had 12 people who indicated they would attend with 3 possible.

Originally we had two GM setup, with myself as a reserve GM, just in case one of the other GM couldn't turn up or we got more players than two GMs could handle. In the event this was a prudent move as one of the GMs dropped out and I stepped in.

The event was organised between 11:00 & 17:00 as the shop was open from 10:00 until 18:00. As one of the organisers I got there just after 10:00 to ensure everything was setup and indeed a couple of tables had been put aside from us. I setup on a table with RQ books prominently displayed so the rest of the players could easily spot us. By around 11:00 we had 9 members present and decided to wait another 30 minutes whilst everyone got drinks, had a comfort break and we sorted out would would play in each game.

Tim ran one table and I ran the other. We split the players so Tim, as an experienced RQ GM took 3 of the "rookie" RQ players along with another player who had already played Broken Tower, the RQRPiG Quickstart scenario I intended to run. Tim ran Stealing the Eye.
This meant I had three players in my game, all of who were experienced RQ (if not RQRPiG) players.

Although I GMed a fair bit back in the mid 80s it was for AD&D 1e and Cthulhu and since then I can recall GMing GURPs once (in the late 90s) and a handful of sessions for my wife & kids; Hero Kids & D&D B/X (in the last 12-18 months). I'd played a lot of Runequest 2e back in the mid 80s to early 90s but never GMed it. So GMing a Runequest, Roleplaying in Glorantha was a bit of a step into the unknown for me, especially as I'd never GMed for people I hadn't met before, my previous GMing experiences had always been for players I already knew.

I'd chosen to run The Broken Tower as it was available as a free download from Chaosium's web site as part of the Quickstart package they provide.

Although I'd prepared the scenario I hadn't been able to spend the time I'd anticipated reading the rule book over Christmas as my wife was ill and had spent much of Christmas in hospital so I'd spent most of the time travelling between home & the hospital and looking after our boys. This showed up at times in the scenario as we had to discuss a few of the rules, look them up and needless to say I got a few wrong. However, having three experienced RQ players mitigated this somewhat as they were able to roll with the decisions.

So how did I find my session as a GM? Well first and foremost I enjoyed it. Yes, I made mistakes and probably cut short the scenario as the other group finished and we still a fair bit to get through so I "panicked" a bit but having said that the players came up with what I thought was an excellent ending. I thought my players were excellent; experienced role players who constantly kept me on my toes and who were focused, thoughtful and good company.

I learnt a number of lessons as a GM. These guys made decisions quickly and so left very little time for me to make notes and read ahead, just to remind myself of details. Something I definitely need to plan for in future. Previously I've always tended to run either my own scenarios or heavily modified bought scenarios and I discovered that no matter how many times I read a scenario it just doesn't stick in my mind like it does when I write stuff down. And names! Unless I come up with names myself I just don't seem to be able to remember them. Not sure how to overcome this other to maybe write up extensive notes before hand.

As an experience organising an event and meeting some new people as well as seeing some familiar ones in a new setting, all with shared interests it was fun. I have new respect for anyone who organises a large event as even this small one took up quite a lot of time. I fully intend to organise some more and to continue to GM RQ as I believe with a few more sessions I can get to a reasonable standard. I'd also like to play some RQ too! Certainly the feedback was positive & hopefully this was genuine rather than people being polite; I certainly asked for constructive criticism as I'm sure there was room for improvement. Needless to say I can't thank Tim enough for all his help and advice throughout this process of setting up this group - it is as much his project as mine.

I thought Boards & Swords were excellent hosts, a really friendly bunch of people. There were a couple of minor issues. As it was a really cold & windy day and sometimes when the shop door was opened a gust of cold air whipped up any loose papers on our table and as it is an open plan area there was a lot of background noise as the place was packed, largely with people playing card games from what I could see. However, both were minor issues that wouldn't stop me going back again.

One of the things that came out of the session was a desire to rename the group as The East Midlands Runemasters; the original name East Midland's RQ Phalanx was one I came up with on the spur of the moment when Tim & myself decided to setup a group.