Matrons of Quatermass-tery

I’m planning to run a game at Grogmeet 2023 in November, This will be my first time running a game face to face since (thinks…) the 1980s. But, it’s about time I did, so i set myself a target that i couldn’t back out of.

The game will be a scenario using the excellent Matrons of Mystery by Sue Savage. If you don’t already own it then you need to immediately go here to buy it. Don’t read the rest of this post first, get over there quickly and buy it!

The concept of the main game is that the players are a group of murder mystery-solving ladies of a certain age (think Miss Marple). The genius is that even the GM doesn’t know who the murderer is – their identity ‘discovered’ by the players after finding a number of suspects, secrets and clues. The underlying game mechanisms are pretty straightforward and are derived from Powered by The Apocalypse. There’s a good review here.

My Grogmeet game is going to adapt the premise slightly in setting the mystery in a world of 1950s British alien invasion dramas (most obviously Quatermass but there’s a sprinkling of John Wyndham in there too). Hence we have Matrons of Quatermass-tery…..

It’s 1953. The matrons are on holiday in the once lovely seaside resort of Grimscale Sands. But there’s been a murder. And, as usual the murder will have been committed by some evil alien intelligience or one of their earthly minions. This seems to be happening all the time nowadays, someone should write a letter to the Daily Telegraph. Thankfully the Matrons are on hand to save the world (and East Anglia) from alien domination. The players will receive the following preamble:

Welcome to Grimscale Sands

The Matrons last visited Grimscale Sands before the war(s). It used to be a lovely, remote seaside town somewhere in England. Since then it appears to have changed for the worse.

First the Royal Navy seem to have set up some sort of mysterious high security weapons testing establishment and so the West Bay is now out of bounds. An industrial concern has been funded by the Government to commission a large and disagreeable waste processing facility – it’s dark chimneys and domes dominate the estuary to the East. Just offshore is an ugly exploration rig owned by the British Experimental Energy Group – probably looking for gas (what else could it be?) Also, the lovely hotel on the headland has now been taken over and become a private school for unusually gifted children – whatever that means. The charming ancient stone circle seems to have been occupied by some beatnik archaeologist and even the tropical plant hothouse at the Rectory is now out of bounds.

The Matrons have taken rooms in the village inn – the strangely named Taroo Ushtey Arms. The owner is amiable enough but other residents and shopkeepers are oddly dreary. Even though they are superficially polite, there is something vacant behind their eyes. Just like the residents, the food has a permeating blandness to it – fish and chips, ice cream, whelks – all of it quite insipid. There is only one other resident in the inn, a cold, prim-looking woman with a notebook who doesn’t make eye contact or conversation.

And then there is the fog. It rolls in from the sea, pushing up the valley on an almost daily basis. It has a strange cold dankness to it that chills the bones through.

And now to top it all, It seems to be a hotbed of alien invasion murders. How inconsiderate. Perhaps a cup of tea first….

Rule Changes

Adaptions to the rules are fairly light-touch:

As well as clues & secrets the Matrons will discover Phenomena, e.g. a sudden lunar eclipse (just clues but they hint at the nature of possible aliens)

Also they will come across various assets that may be of use in defeating the Alien (e.g. a stash of explosives.)

There will be two stages to resolution. First identify the murderer and the nature of the Alien (as per the normal ‘putting it all together rule’). Then a second stage where the Alien must be defeated using assets and other clues (a similar dice roll but with some jeopardy)

And thats about it. Hopefully i can write up how it goes after Grogmeet in November !