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9to5 (dot cc) Friends 2: Marc!

by keith on February 18, 2016 at 10:16 am

Posted In: 9to5 Friends, Other podcasts, Podcast, Podcasting

Hey! It’s Marc! You might not really know Marc yet, but you will soon. Marc is kicking around the idea of starting up his own blog and podcast here on 9to5 (dot cc), so hopefully you’ll get to see a lot more of him in the coming weeks, months and years. Or something.

Other than the fact that Marc is hanging out with us, this is really a lot like an episode of 9ES, so if you’re not sure if you should listen, well, you totally should.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

I swear I will whip up some custom intro music for our friends episodes, but not today! Ha ha!

The bed music during our advertising is an old loop by Dan of Steel!
The bed music while we explain what the episode is about is Son of a Bit “Chased by a Running Chupacabra” used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Finally, the song we use in the intro is “Shiny Spaceship” by the 8-bit Ninjas. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

└ Tags: ash vs evil dead, bruce campbell, deadpool, deadpool review, dungeons and dragons, dungeons and dragos, eagles of death metal, friendship, irish lucky charms, japanese comics are weird, jesse hughes, jesse hughes france, jesse hughes nra, kanye west, kid cudi, lucifer, manga, marc, pancakes, r rated superheros, xfiles

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Running My First RPG, Session 1 of Space Puncher – The Perspicacious Geek

by keith on November 25, 2014 at 11:51 am

Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m running my first ever tabletop RPG for a few friends. I chose Gamma World for the system, but tweaked the setting a little for my own designs (I included the general setting email I sent the players at the bottom of the article). The plan is to run a 5 to 6 game story arch that is open ended enough that if people want to keep going I can do it again. I am very inspired by comic-book story structure, where smaller adventures with a beginning, middle and end potentially make up a bigger storyline. I guess we’ll see. I’m trying not to be overly ambitious after only a single session.

Let’s do a quick roundup of the players and their characters for reference (obviously keeping anything secret about their characters out of it since let’s face it, they’ll probably read this):

Jon (from 9ES): Playing Navison, a robot who has some information on a job for the other characters.
Sarah: Playing Mr. Gordo, a psychic monkey who makes a living as hired muscle.
Pat: Playing Mr. Salvatore, a nightmarish swarm of insects who makes a living as a spy and sometimes hit man.
Eric: Playing Skraw, a wheeled hawkoid who is a sort of eco-freedom fighter, willing to do anything to make money to save the beloved forests of his home world.
Ève: Playing Lee Ken, a mythic plant who resembles an elf who is also the sworn protector of said forest, looking to do anything she can to save living creatures and make money to keep her operation going.

Both Ève and Sarah have never played a tabletop RPG before, but both have some experience with some more complex board games (Arkham Horror to name the big one). Jon DMs my regular D&D game and Eric and Pat play in it. The other caveat was that Sarah and Ève both only agreed to play one session to give it a shot. If I didn’t win them over I would be inviting two new players to the next session. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: 9to5 blog, dnd, dungeons and dragons, first rpg, first time dm, first time dungeon master, gamma world, geek blog, Montreal, montreal gamer, montreal geek, montreal geek blog, perspicacious geek, rpg

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Running My First Tabletop RPG – Perspicacious Geek

by keith on October 28, 2014 at 3:58 pm

Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

I actually own these steampunk vanity dice, but in beige.

I was really, really tempted to chime in and contribute my two-cents regarding the whole Jian Ghomeshi scandal that is sweeping our great Canadian nation. Then I realized that I would have nothing to add to the conversation and would just be offering my opinion based on hearsay and speculation. And hey, that’s what 9ES is for, am I right?

Instead, I will talk a little about the process that I am employing to build up to the first “proper” RPG that I will be running. This game is going to be the basis of a few articles about how I decided to run my first game, what I want the feel of the game to be, how I hope to achieve it and whatever other stories might come from running an RPG for the first time.

First bit of clarification, I’m talking about pen and paper RPG here, not some new-fangled computer role-playing game. Nor am I referring to bedroom roleplaying. I say “proper” RPG since in the past I used to run a terrible pick-up game that I called “ZOMBIES!!!!!” (and I am showing restraint with the number of exclamation marks employed in the title). I think it’s worth pointing out that I employed the all-caps, multiple exclamation marks titling before the Twilight Creations version of the game came out. Theirs was probably better.

Anyhow, the formula was pretty simple and based heavily on narration. Character creation took about 5 minutes: you would decide what formulaic character from a zombie movie you were, attribute a pre-selected amount of points into various stats, add bonus points that would kick in for “hero mode” (which was when some incredible act would probably save the team and kill your character) and then roll a few D20s on an ever increasingly large list of random items your character might have on them at the time of the zombie outbreak. These items could range from paperclips to a bazooka. The game was nearly always based in a high school and I would force the players to roleplay through a high school lunch hour for about 30 minutes (the goal being to create some character tension between the two dimensional characters; the jock hates the dweeb, the pretty girl is secretly a lesbian, the quiet kid is really a knife expert or whatever else the players came up with). ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: dnd, dungeons and dragons, first rpg, first time dm, gamma world, geek blog, montreal blog, montreal geek, montreal geek blog, rpg, running your first rpg, table top rpg, tabletop, tabletop rpg, zombie rpg

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9to5 Entertainment System 56: The World Needs More Tentacles

by keith on February 27, 2014 at 7:52 am

Posted In: 9ES, Podcast, Podcasting

So Scott has the plague or something so this one is no Scotts allowed! Your bi-weekly dose of a bunch of Montreal geeks shooting the shit is ready for your earholes. I don’t have very much to talk about in this post so I’m going to use this little space to thank our loyal (and ever so slowly growing) fanbase for sticking with us for an astonishing 56 episodes so far (forget about the lost episodes!). If you like what we’re doing seriously share us and like us on Facebook and do good things to us on iTunes. Get ready! Go! 9es 2013offended

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The bed music during our advertising is Tone Commander!
The bed music while we explain what the episode is about is Son of a Bit “Chased by a Running Chupacabra” used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Finally, the song we use in the intro is “Shiny Spaceship” by the 8-bit Ninjas. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

└ Tags: akira, bit coins, canada gold, carey price, d&d, delorean, dungeons and dragons, eve online, geek podcast, king in yellow, mike babcock, montreal geek, montreal geek podcast montreal, montreal podcast, mount gox, true detective, until the ribbon breaks

Fuck Mondays: Delving Into The Tomb of Horrors – Part 4 The Final Chapter

by keith on July 29, 2013 at 8:03 am

Posted In: Keith, Videogames

Here it is, the grand finale… the buildup and confrontation with the demi-lich Acererak. Here is the story so far:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

In the next area there is a rainbow staircase leading up to a magical door. I won’t tell you exactly how we got through this door, not because I don’t remember, but because I want you to figure it out for yourself when the time comes. However, part us figuring out this room involved teleporting one the characters to the entrance of the dungeon, naked. Why is he naked? His gear gets teleported somewhere else. Where? Read on, we’ll get to it. Sprocket is teleported away and presumably goes off to live the rest of her life as a sad, ugly little naked gnome.

After dealing with the magic door we make it into what is clearly the tomb of the demi lich. Written in platinum above the tomb are the words “Here Lies the Demi-Lich Acererak, Suck My Dick”. Or it may as well have at this point. In this room there is a set of iron armor in each of the four corners, a large sealed jar, two chests and the tomb itself. We pop open both chests, temporarily forgetting where we are. In one chest is 10,000 platinum pieces, in the other there are thousands of poisonous needles that kill Bernadette McGillicuddy. We clearly forgot to disarm trap or something. We come back to our senses and set in motion the golden rule and search the shit out of everything. We discover two things. First, the big jar contains a goddamned Ifrit. Let’s not fuck with that. Second, one of the suits of armor conceals a hidden passage. What do we do then? We keep fucking going. We don’t fuck with the jar, we don’t fuck with the tomb, we don’t fuck with anything. I cannot stress this enough. Don’t fuck around with anything that might be dangerous because it will fucking kill you. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: acererak, d&d, dnd, dungeons and dragons, gary gygax, old school d&d, tomb of horrors, tomb of horrors playthrough

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Fuck Mondays: Still Stuck in The Tomb of Horrors – Part 3

by keith on July 22, 2013 at 10:45 pm

Posted In: Keith, Uncategorized, Videogames

This thing isn’t even in the article, but it runs you over after a gas knocks you out.

In case you are wondering what you’ve missed, make sure you read the first two parts of our journey into the Tomb of Horrors:
Part 1
Part 2

And now, what was going to be the epic conclusion of 9to5 (dot cc)’s delve into the depths of Evil and a final confrontation with the demi lich Acererak (I think it’s worth noting that just about every player at the table had a different way of pronouncing his name). Why is it not the epic conclusion? When I wrote this all out it was nearly 3000 words long, which is too long for your fun time internet reading experiences. So I chopped it into two. However, you can read this and rest assured that the 4th part is already written. It’ll be up next week. Cross my heart. As always Jono (the DM) has added his insights in blue.

So where were we? Oh yes, that’s right, completely stuck at this weird altar/temple place, with images of people doing everyday activities (presumably reaping and sowing and whatever non-Adventurer people in Dungeons & Dragons do) except, get this, all the people have no flesh! Creepy. Finally we remember the all-important rule of Tomb of Horrors: fucking checking everything with every ability that lets you check anything. What does that mean? It means you cast Detect Magic, Detect Trap, Detect Secret Door all the time, every time. That last one was our mistake. We were scouring the walls, floors and ceilings looking for traps, but for some reason we forgot to look for Secret Doors. Eventually we realized our error and found a door to the next corridor.

Yeah, that room was one of the places where Gary decided to make wacky dungeon dressing. There were portraits of good-aligned Gods and people doing normal things. In the book, it’s revealed that the players are supposed to wonder if maybe Acererak isn’t so evil. I think in the thousands of times this module was ran that happened all of never. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: acererak, d&d, dnd, dungeons and dragons, gary gygax, old school d&d, tomb of horrors, tomb of horrors playthrough

Fuck Mondays: Delving Into The Tomb of Horrors – Part 2!

by keith on June 10, 2013 at 7:31 am

Posted In: Fuck Mondays, Keith

Look at me, I’m dancin’!

Wow, it’s been a long time since I wrote part 1 of the Tomb of Horrors playthrough and honestly, the whole thing is getting a little blurry in my mind. The fact that I may or may not (read: was definitely) drunk at this stage has nothing to do with it. As before Jon (who was our Dungeon Master) is in blue. So, where were we?

This was a great night. There were 6 (I think) players, more than at the first session, and word had spread about how nonsense the whole thing was so we could just get into it. Delightful.

Oh yeah, the magical dancing scimitar wielding skeleton. Now, I have no way of actually knowing whether or not he was actually dancing but when Jono showed off the carefully illustrated Figure 13D, it certainly looks like he’s dancing, doesn’t it? It sure does.

Fuck the dancing giant dual-scimitar wielding skeleton (10HD 32hp AC2 2×2-12dam), you’re forgetting about the lever trap room. The idiots all went through a portal without properly activating it first and got teleported into a room that was a 10x10x10 cube. No visible exits, 3 levers on the wall. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that the Tomb is legendary for. The levers each can be pushed, pulled, and shifted up, down, left and right. One combination opens the whole floor to a 100ft drop with a pit filled with spikes and one combination opens a tiny hole in the ceiling to escape through. The gang managed to expect the floor to give way, so when they fucked it up and opened the trap they survived. They then managed to escape with no one dying. I was so, so proud. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: acererak, d&d, dungeons and dragons, fuck mondays, gary gygax, rpgs, tomb of horrors, tomb of horrors review

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Fuck Mondays: Delving Into The Tomb of Horrors – Part 1

by keith on May 1, 2013 at 1:28 pm

Posted In: Fuck Mondays, Keith

An “adventure”… yeah right Gary. That’s like when Pinhead says he’ll provide you ultimate pleasure.

It’s not Monday but who cares?

So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m going to be engaging in some classic late 70s-80s pop-culture geek fandom. The goal being to play old games, watch old movies and broaden the scope of my geeky historical knowledge. Some of these things I will have watched or played before and some I’ve never even been exposed to. The first historical artifact that I’m going to peruse is the 1978 Dungeons & Dragons module The Tomb of Horrors. There are better sources than this website for the history of this notorious D&D module but to sum it up: Gary Gygax was sick of D&D players not dying in his dungeons, so he made a dungeon to kill off players as quickly as he could.

Originally I planned on simply reading through the module and giving the good readers my perspective, however when Jon heard about this he got giddy with glee, clapping his hands and dancing a jig. Tomb of Horrors is one of the most notoriously unfair and lethal D&D campaigns ever created. Filled with “fuck you, you’re dead now” moments from start to finish. It is the stuff of D&D legend and he had never had the chance to run it for a group of players. He forbid me from reading the module (which I respected) and then ran the tomb for us. For that reason, he’ll be commenting on the narrative. He’ll be writing in blue. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: acererak, d&d, dungeons and dragons, fuck mondays, gary gygax, rpgs, tomb of horrors, tomb of horrors review

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9to5 Entertainment System Episode 7: Personal Tabletop Gaming Origin Stories

by keith on January 3, 2012 at 1:30 pm

Posted In: 9ES, Podcast, Podcasting

We all talk about what got us into the joy of roleplaying games, all by very different paths. I don’t really want to spoil too much about this one since it’s all a nice sort of meandering story that centers around our youth and our development into the geeks that you know and love today. Basically, if you want to get nostalgic with us, we’d love to share.