Games

Any tabletop roleplaying game. You want to play it, bring it along and run it. It doesn't matter whether it's a mainstream system like Dungeons & Dragons, an indie game such as Apocalypse World, or something entirely of your own design. We welcome published and unpublished one-shot scenarios, free-form role-playing, and everything in between.

Game Submission

Games can be submitted in advance via the submission form and will be added to this page. But you can just pitch up with a game on the day and offer it then too!

If you're offering a game, please note that you're still responsible for writing your own sign-up sheet; we don't create them for you. You can download a blank sign-up sheet or create your own custom sheet.

Player Sign-up

Player sign-up will take place on the day, before each game slot. You may want to learn more about our signup system.

Game Schedule

Game submission for Concrete Cow 26 is now open, and games are being added below as the submissions arrive. Additional games will be offered on the day.

(And here's some of what was on offer at Concrete Cow 25.5.)

Morning Games (10am-1.30pm)

Alone in the Deep

Something has gone terribly wrong on the planet Rimor 89. Crew are failing to report for duty, strange sounds are echoing throughout the vessel, and it feels as though the ocean itself is trying to eat the submarine alive. Can the remaining crew figure out what's happening? Or will the Rimor 89 end up as yet another wreck on the ocean floor?

System: Mothership
GM: John Hutchinson
Number of players: 5
Notes: Warnings: threat, violence, body horror, psychological horror, helplessness/drowning.

In Sorte Diaboli - A Heavy Metal Call of Cthulhu Scenario

From the Call of Cthulhu anthology Year of the Goat, coming soon to DrivethruRPG!

Spring 1995, Finland. You're all members of a metal band, headed out to an ancient forest to record your next music video. After the Great God Pan sabotages the band’s filming, you must use all your toughness, grit, and possibly your instruments, if you are to succeed in escaping the forest alive.

System: Call of Cthulhu
GM: Jayson Green
Number of players: 5
Notes: Character pre-gens provided. 2-3 hours duration, including an intro of fleshing out your band at the start.
Content warnings: Body horror, physical transformation, possible PvP.

The Mouldavian Discrepancy

As the telegraph system expands across the Discworld, it occasionally runs into problems. For example, there's an accounting discrepancy showing up on the new line into Lower Mouldavia. The Grand Trunk employs people like you to fix problems like this - which may mean struggling through gods-forsaken forests in the depths of winter, climbing broken towers as the winds howl in from the Rim, fending off angry local wildlife, getting mixed up in local politics, and sometimes, even, on a bad day, accountancy.

But hopefully you won't have to go that far this time.

A scenario using the (GURPS-based) Discworld Roleplaying Game (2nd edition)

System: Discworld Roleplaying Game (GURPS-based)
GM: Phil Masters
Number of players: 5

One Last Fight

One Last Fight is a roguelike card-based roleplaying game where 1-6 players journey to defeat their final Nemesis - or die trying.

Players create their adventurers’ backstories together, establish the story of their Nemesis, and work together to overcome a gauntlet of Challenges (both physical and personal) until they find themselves in their Nemesis’ Lair.

One Last Fight is a storytelling-focused game where you tell a new story every time you play, that can end in two ways: either the Nemesis is defeated for good, or all players have Faced Death before they can get to the end of the Challenge Deck.

System: One Last Fight
GM: James Mullen
Number of players: 5
Notes: Safety Tools: Open Table, Lines & Veils, Pause Button

By the pricking of my thumb…

An adventure set in the Elizabethan Era. Lord Barkham a trusted and respected peer of the realm is dead, in mysterious circumstances. The Black Company is tasked with investigating and determining if it’s a case of foul play.

Pregens supplied.

Macbeth is a huge influence on this game!

System: Call of Cthulhu 5e
GM: Andrew Gardner-Blatch
Number of players: 6
Notes: X card present
Suggested age 16 plus. Themes of horror, terror and insanity.

Temple of Bast

Wanted! Down on their luck adventurers to loot a long abandoned temple, or die trying. Old fashioned dungeon crawl. Bring your ten foot pole.

BFRPG is a retro-clone similar to D&D B/X. https://www.basicfantasy.org/

System: BFRPG
GM: John Nash
Number of players: 6
Notes: Contains cats.

Not For A Million Dollars

"It's one of the biggest prizes in reality TV! But if you want to win, you have to take on a challenge - the kind of thing that would have most people going, "Not for a million dollars!" Our four contestants are going to be spending a weekend in a haunted house, and if they want to win the prize they're going to have to stick it out for the full 48 hours. What's the worst that could happen? Pay per view options available."

You've got your reasons for doing this reality show, and not all of them are money. And there can't really be any ghosts - can there?

System: Kult: Divinity Lost
GM: Sue Savage
Number of players: 4
Notes: 18+. Pause button, lines and veils and open table will be used.
Content: Horror, hidden agendas, adult themes including bullying, homelessness, medical neglect, domestic violence, suicide, mental illness, religious abuse.

Afternoon Games (2.30pm-6.30pm)

CRYO-SIQ

You’ve been hired to work aboard a small freighter doing a short level 1 jump through an ungoverned region of space. The cargo is a coffin-sized box. The stipulations are that you don’t open the box, you don’t ask about the box and you don’t ask about the client. There is a hefty bonus payment for the crew, one million credits. Not an unusual job, but unusual pay. Surely nothing can go wrong!

System: Mothership
GM: John Hutchinson
Number of players: 5
Notes: Warnings: threat, violence, body horror, psychological horror, helplessness, drug use, gambling debt.

Fishguts Crawl

You’re broke, bored, and one missed rent payment away from becoming street art. Then a suit from NEGABYTE MEDIA offers you a fat credstick: dive into a rotting megawhale carcass turned illegal rave-dungeon, find their missing “influencer” BikiniCoffin, and bring her back, alive if convenient.

Inside it’s bass, bile, cultists, and worse things nesting in the blubber. The job’s simple. The whale isn’t.

System: CY_BORG
GM: Syd Razavi
Number of players: 4
Age: 18+ (strong language, gore, body horror, drug/club imagery).
Safety: Quick content check-in at the table. We’ll use X-Card / Pause (tap the table or say “pause”), no questions asked.
Tone: Fast, loud, lethal, darkly funny cyberpunk horror.
Rules: CY_BORG taught at the table; pre-gens provided.
Conventions: No PvP unless everyone explicitly opts in. You can always step out for a breather.

The Ghost of Long-Legged John

The 18th century is an Age of Enlightenment, and the opinions of the gentlemen of the Lunar Society are clear on matters of Superstition. Ghosts and suchlike foolishness, they have determined, do not and cannot exist. So when one of Mr Josiah Wedgwood's trusted commercial representatives writes of terrifying apparitions in the village of Beldarham, a band of Special Associates of the Society may be despatched to dispel such foolish talk, determine the cause of this chatter, and return with an account for the Society’s records. You are those Special Associates.

However, the Society sometimes must admit that things worse than ghosts may dwell beyond the Boundary of the Darkness, outside the Light of Reason. It is unlikely that such is the issue here, but perhaps you should take some care.

A demonstration game of Trail of Cthulhu 2nd edition, and of the Boundary of the Darkness campaign frame.

System: Trail of Cthulhu (2nd edition)
GM: Phil Masters
Number of players: 5

Puppetland

Once upon a time there was an old man who used to make puppets. He created a land where all his puppets could be safe and content away from the human world. The puppets lived in peace and happiness until the evil Punch killed the Maker and took over his lands, ruling over them with an iron fist. The only part of Puppetland where Punch's influence did not cast its dread shadow was a town called Respite over the lake of milk and cookies. Led by the wise Judy this town was full of puppets who had escaped Punch's regime and now worked to overthrow the tyrant and bring joy back to Puppetland. This is the tale of some of those puppets.

Puppetland is a diceless storytelling horror RPG created by John Scott Tynes. It relies heavily on improvisation and role play by the players and GM. Each game of puppetland is designed to take no more than 1 hour so we will be playing through 2 scenarios. Character creation will be at the start of the session. Safety Tools will be in place.

CW : body horror as experienced by puppets, childlike characters in distressing and horrifying situations (all the puppets are adults but view the world in a childlike fairytale manner), horror themes relayed in a children's storytelling style

System: Puppetland
GM: Sarah Dovey
Number of players: 4
Notes: Age 15+

Year of the Rat

The Year of the Rat, a famous casino ship, went missing a month. An insurance claim worth 10 million credits has been claimed by the owner, and Flysafe does not want to honour that.

You have taken on the job of retrieving the black box from the ship before Flysafe has to pay it out, or it is coming out of your pocket. Why would you do this? Salvage rights! Who wouldn't want the contents of an entire casino…

With a potential jackpot, will you get a lucky streak, or end up paying the ultimate price for your greed?

This session will last for roughly 3 hours and have the option of taking one of eight pregenerated characters.

Beginner friendly, cheat sheets will be provided, no previous experience required!

System: Mothership
GM: Sam Connolly
Number of players: 5
Content Warnings: Gore, dismemberment, and injury, Animal related violence (rats)

A Desperate Cry

Modern day Louisiana. You answer a call from Sullivan Goodwin, a patient in a local hospital. He's been involved in a traffic accidnet while looking for his missing daughter, Jodie,, and wants the investigators to carry on the search while he is incapacitated.

A complicating factor is that Jodie is terminally ill and has just missed her latest medical appointment. She needs to be found and medicated before her condition worsens uncontrollably

Content warnings: Terminal illness, cancer, leukemia, usual cosmic horror beasties

System: Call of Cthulhu 7e (Modern Era)
GM: Paul Mazumdar
Number of players: 4
Notes: Age: 18+
X-Card and pre-game trigger discussion

The Light on the Hill

The Church of St Isodora has stood on Hatlow Hill for over 800 years, however strange disappearances have put the current restoration work in jeopardy. It's up to the Friends of the Spire to investigate what has happened and uncover the secrets that lie below the hill!

System: Call of Cthulhu
GM: Geoff Bridges
Number of players: 5
Notes: Rated PG-13, Safety tools (lines/veils/x-card) will be in place.
Pre-generated investigators are available
Please note this is a playtest of a work-in-progress scenario.

Evening Games (7.30pm-11pm)

SILO-15

SILO-15 is a research station orbiting a forsaken icy rock in a backwater system on the Outer Rim. It is owned and operated by Bicycle Day, (to some, unethical) hippie scientists. Communications ceased two days ago and Garvey the Rake, a pit boss in the nearby former mining colony at Siesta-3 Autonomous Zone station, wants to know where his drugs are. He has hired the crew to investigate and retrieve his goods. Surely it's just some minor technical problem, right? Right?

System: Mothership
GM: John Hutchinson
Number of players: 4
Notes: Warnings: threat, violence, body horror, psychological horror, drug use.

Lunarious

A mysterious invitation and a missing Prince. As fledglings, tonight could be a chance to prove yourself in Kindred society.

Play as a Kindred, a Vampire, in this gripping one-shot by Elyse Haws

Beginner friendly

System: Vampire: the Masquerade 5th edition
GM: James Ravenscroft Marston
Number of players: 3-5
Notes: Age range 18+
Content warnings: Blood, mental illness (portrayal), violence, gaslighting, manipulation.
Safety tools: RPG consent checklist, X cards, lines and veils.

The Las Vegas Legacy

Though less well-known than its Nevada namesake, Las Vegas in New Mexico is a giant gambling den. Sometimes disputes get out of hand, and a recent argument led to a man's death and a very large bounty that has attracted bounty hunters from all over the West, including yourselves. But does the large bounty suggest that somebody wants a quick solution without a great deal of investigation...?

Tales of the Old West is a Year Zero powered game set in the Wild West. There are no great old ones, aliens, or monsters...the old West is hard enough as it is. This is being offered as a shorter game for those that want to play in the evening slot but want to get away rather earlier than midnight.

System: Tales of the Old West
GM: Paul Mazumdar
Number of players: 5
Notes: Age: 15+
X-Cards
Dice required: a number of d6s, of which five should be a different colour from the others.