Posts Tagged gary gygax

11 results.

Big Fish: Expedition To The Barrier Peaks (Deeper Still)

by on July 11, 2018 at 1:37 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

The one where one of the heroes dies.

Thanks Gary.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them.

Keith (me, Jim Clocks) is writing again this week, and just like last time it’s going to be a little fast and loose. I’ll be in black, Jon (our DM) is in blue. Another player, Eric shall be in red, as the prophecy foretold.

This is a Bonus Adventure where Jono takes old classic modules and updates them for 5e. It’s a fun chance for all of us to play versions of some of the classics.

I don’t want to spoil anything but one of the Cads dies in this one.

Rope-a-dope

The Couatl tells us that the people who used to inhabit this vessel travelled across worlds and planes, collecting creatures and vegetation. It doesn’t think they were inherently malicious in their intent, but it does think that they took on more than they could handle. Hence the whole creatures breaking out of their pods and everyone being dead thing.

The Couatl heals us up with fun flying snake magic and tells us we can seek out its aid later if we need to. We agree to let it know if we find a way out in return. Couatl friend!

I’m super pumped about this, another creature with the same alignment as me! I’m certainly the only lawful character in the group, and I may even be the only good character. (I’ll have to sneak a peek at some character sheets next session.)

I asked the Couatl for a feather. 5e item creation is pretty vague, but traditionally it’s a component in a bunch of magical items. I know it’s not a small request, but hey, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! He told us that he’d think on it, which is better than “no”.

That was a really nice touch.  More or less guarantees the Couatl will show back up at some point.

The Couatl explains to the party that on the floor above us there is a great and terrible evil, and that it can probably handle it on its own. In fact, if we go with it we would probably hinder it more than help. We didn’t really want to face a great and terrible evil anyhow!

We press onwards and downwards.

We come across what looks to be relatively intact bar/leisure area. The booze crazy warlock gets giddy and we get attacked by 3 Ropers.

Typically, Ropers stay very still to resemble stalagmites in caves to lure in their prey. But this is a spaceship. So they’re just big flesh cones hanging out in the corner of a 70’s sci-fi drinking establishment.

Real smooth Ropers. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish: Expedition To The Barrier Peaks (Deeper Still)

Big Fish: Expedition To The Barrier Peaks (We Need to Go Deeper)

by on June 27, 2018 at 5:14 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

The one where we all learn a valuable lesson about key cards.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them.

Keith (me, Jim Clocks) is writing again this week, and just like last time it’s going to be a little fast and loose. I’ll be in black, Jon (our DM) is in blue. Another player, Eric shall be in red, as the prophecy foretold.

This is a Bonus Adventure where Jono takes old classic modules and updates them for 5e. It’s a fun chance for all of us to play versions of some of the classics.

In our last installment your heroes messed around a bunch more on the first floor and nearly died at the hands of vegepygmies. But we also got a big ‘ole shoulder mounted cannon (that will totally pay off later) and an elusive Red Key Card. Things were looking up for the Cads as we ventured downwards.

What could go wrong?

Stop trying to make “Cads” a thing!

It’s a thing and you can’t stop it.

In The Future, Key Card Readers Are Assholes

If you recall, most of the doors in this spaceship are locked behind key card readers. It’s a pretty simple affair. You can put your hand on the door and an orb will glow in the colour of the required card. If you’ve got the corresponding key card you can put it in the slot and it will pop back out into a little tray or whatever and the door will open.

We come across a door that glows grey.

This shouldn’t be a problem, right? After all, we’ve got red. If you read the last installment you will know that by presenting the red key card to a police-bot we were told that we had the clearance of a military General. What rooms would someone with a rank of General not be allowed in, right?

We slide in the red card (that we fought so much for) into the slot and it whirrs, makes a noise and then eats the damn card. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish: Expedition To The Barrier Peaks (We Need to Go Deeper)

Big Fish: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (Still The 1st Floor)

by on June 14, 2018 at 3:15 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

When we last left our intrepid heroes they had just completed essentially an entire “lap” around the perimeter of a single floor of the crashed spaceship from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. And nobody died! Perhaps our heroes will not be so lucky this time. 

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

Keith (me, Jim Clocks) is writing again this week, and just like last time it’s going to be a little fast and loose. I’ll be in black, Jon (our DM) is in blue.

This is a Bonus Adventure where Jono takes old classic modules and updates them for 5e. It’s a fun chance for all of us to play versions of some of the classics.

The Expedition Continues

As we mentioned at the end of our last entry, Jon has decided to give us the option at the end of each session we spend in the Barrier Peaks to either abandon or keep going in the quest.We decided as a party to stick it out and spend more time in this funky 70s sci-fi nonsense. So the burning question was this: Do we venture down into the lower levels of this strange building/dungeon/mage tower (spaceship)?

The answer was: No.

Instead we decided to spend even more time exploring the first floor.

I think it more or less paid off.

This entry might be a little shorter than the rest, because really at is core, it is simply the three members of the party who showed up (Jim Clocks the Rogue, Jaxxo the Lizardman Monk and Tidus the Triton Cleric) fighting vegepygmies.

Lots and lots of vegepygmies.

With grenades and laser cannons. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (Still The 1st Floor)

Big Fish: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1st Floor)

by on May 30, 2018 at 8:33 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where our heroes end up on a crashed spaceship. Probably. Or maybe an abandoned moonbase? Who knows man, this is all kinds of crazy. What happens when late 70s sci-fi collides with 70s high fantasy? Find out as Jon takes us on the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

Keith (me, Jim Clocks) is this week, and it’s going to be a little fast and loose. I’ll be in black, Jon (our DM) is in blue. Because blue is his favorite color. If you’re enjoying these, tell your nerdy friends!

If you’re not familiar with “Barrier Peaks” I’ll try to keep the history lesson brief. In 1975 there was science-fiction RPG called “Metamorphosis Alpha”, created by James M. Ward for TSR. This would ultimately evolve into what we know (and love) as Gamma World today. In 1980, in an effort to bring Metamorphosis Alpha to more players, Gary Gygax created an entry into TSR’s “S-Series” of gaming modules called “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” which was essentially Metamorphosis Alpha but intended to be played by Dungeons & Dragons players.

So what does that mean? That means Wizards and Fighters will explore an irradiated crashed spaceship for no real reason! Thanks Gary!

Monsters are plaguing the Grand Duchy of Geoff: go figure it out.  That was the plot. I really wanted to have someone named “Jeff” send you on the quest but that was an obvious Elise moment.

Maybe it could have been her cousin? “Hey guys, this is my cousin Jeff, he’s got a mission.”

One of the neat things about modules in the “S-Series” is that TSR included a special booklet of illustrations for the DM to show to the players. It’s a cool little thing that certainly helps immerse players. Especially considering these modules were from an era before a DM could just image search a visual reference.

We played the Tomb of Horrors (the first and most famous “S Series” campaign) a few years back and after wrapping it up we kind of talked about running Barrier Peaks because it seemed completely bonkers.

Those visual references are a real treat.  Mostly amateur art but whoever was drawing them was obviously having a lot of fun with it.  There are like 90 in the book which is a pretty significant investment in page count for a module.

Most of these were apparently done by Erol Otus (who brought us the amazing cover of “Deities and Demigods”. But we can also thank Jeff Dee, Greg K. Fleming, David S. LaForce, Jim Roslof and David C. Sutherland III for these hokey-ass illustrations. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1st Floor)

Big Fish – The Fancy Party – A D&D Adventure Blog

by on December 13, 2017 at 3:20 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

A Lizard at a Fancy PartyHere it is! The first “official” Adventure Blog from Jon’s new D&D campaign! Unfortunately we missed the first few sessions since we didn’t think about doing this until a few weeks ago. Get to know the setting and characters in our Prologue. You can also check out our mini-adventure it Tragidore here. You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

In this week’s adventure: Our resident Lizardfolk Monk, Jaxo, decided that his adventure would be “that time we stumbled into a room we shouldn’t have at a fancy party.” That was my suggestion for an adventure! We should have a little bonus if our pitch gets selected. That would be a fun incentive.

That’s a great idea.  Maybe they start with inspiration?  That’s pretty appropriate.  We’ll start that in phase 2.  Remind me.

I’ve kind of decided to try and pitch adventures where combat isn’t evident. I’m sure Jon will probably work combat in most of the time since it’s D&D and people love them some combat. I think it’s fun for the starting point to not inherently resolve with a fight. Last game I suggested “that time we played baseball in the rain.” I realized as I made that suggestion that it was a scene in a Twilight movie. The shame.

What we ended up with was being trapped in a pocket dimension by Ice King Glacius Rex. The pocket dimension had us being bodyguards for a Dwarven princess at a fancy party and time seemed to reset every 30 minutes. Like Groundhog Day. But every 30 minutes instead of 24 hours.

Was this your first fancy party idea? Anything on the cutting room floor worth mentioning?

I stole every bit of this. A couple of games had party type scenarios like Dragon Age or FF6, there’s some fundamentals there. I think the 2nd edition Strahd module (Root Of Evil) had a time reset party scene. They’re usually slow affairs with lots of descriptions of NPCs and long discussions. That’s good RP, but I felt like things hadn’t been madcap enough in the game.  When it came to me it kind of fell together… who doesn’t want to play a Groundhog Day D&D session?

So the adventurers are basically serving a bratty self-important Dwarf princess and our main goal at the outset was to make sure that the party she is throwing goes off without a hitch.

Our Lizardman Jaxo is the star of the show and after consulting with another awkward Lizardbro attending the party decides that the Dwarf princess could be of assistance with curing his people of the genophage that is killing off the Lizardfolk.

So he’s like “Ok, I will convince her.” Convincing her for some money becomes his main priority for the rest of the adventure. My happy-go-lucky pirate character promptly tries to pocket some silverware since it’s made of fancy silver. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments

Big Fish – The Terrible Trouble at Tragidore – D&D Adventure Blog

by on November 29, 2017 at 2:57 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon's Junk, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

The Terrible Trouble at TragidoreA side-quest where a small contingent of our beloved heroes tackle probably the most critically panned module from D&D past: The Terrible Trouble in Tragidore.

Hey there! In case you missed it, here’s the intro to Jon’s new D&D Campaign “Big Fish” You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

Years ago, Jono ran the Drunken Step-Dad of all D&D Modules “The Tomb of Horrors” for us (and you can read the epic 4 part retelling of that particular adventure here) and it was great. The old school, seemingly off the cuff vibe of it was a delight.

While I do have a pen and paper pedigree (today’s theme is alliteration), my time with D&D in any form has been limited to the past few years. That means that there are all these great little pieces of in-game and out of game lore that I know nothing about.

I don’t know the pantheon of The Forgotten Realms, I don’t know about the Lords of Waterdeep or the comings and goings of Baldur’s Gate. Hell, throughout most of my life I didn’t even know what a Beholder was.

Also though, I know nothing about the out of game history. I don’t know what THAC0 really means (it’s like Armor Class or something). I don’t know about the classic modules or why they’re so beloved (or in this case, disliked). I know that the “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” is batshit sci-fi insanity-meets fantasy but I’ve never gotten a chance to play it.

To Hit Armor Class 0.  Your THAC0 started at 20.  Naked AC was 10, and best AC is -10.  So a level 5 fighter with a THAC0 of 16 needs a 10 to hit AC 6.  Easy as fuckin pie.  It was changed in 3rd edition, though how it stuck around in 2nd baffles me to this day.  In 2nd edition saving throws went down as they got better as well.  One of the design decisions they made for the 3rd edition release was “if a number goes up on your character sheet it should be a good thing”.  Why would anyone care about all this?  You should probably edit this out.

Nope, going to leave it in. I don’t know, maybe because stats going up is a lot easier to get your head around? Wait a second, in old editions did some stats go up while others went down as you leveled? That’s super weird.

Yep.

Anyways, when we don’t have at least 4 players available for a session, Jono has decided to run some classic modules for us. And this brings me great joy. It’s like getting to see some of the history of the game.

So What’s All the Trouble?

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish – The Terrible Trouble at Tragidore – D&D Adventure Blog

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

by on July 29, 2013 at 8:03 am
Posted In: Keith, Videogames

Table ShotHere 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: , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Fuck Mondays: Delving Into The Tomb of Horrors – Part 4 The Final Chapter

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

by 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.

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: , , , , , , ,

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

by on June 10, 2013 at 7:31 am
Posted In: Fuck Mondays, Keith

 

Look at me, I'm dancin'!

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: , , , , , , ,
2 Comments

9to5 Entertainment System 36: Art With a Hammer and Steel

by on May 23, 2013 at 4:33 pm
Posted In: 9ES, Podcast, Podcasting

You might wonder why sometimes we’re a little with posts. Sometimes the comic is late, sometimes the podcast is late, sometimes we say we’re going to post something and it takes a long time to come out (or never does in some cases). Why is this? It’s because we don’t create art. We forge art. We are art smiths. Sophie doesn’t even own a pencil, she only owns a hammer and an anvil. So yeah, sometimes the process is a little longer than those “traditional” artists but we do it with pride. Traditional hand crafted and forged arts, a couple times a week, right here on 9to5.cc. Listen it up yo.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Who can forget our music providers?

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: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on 9to5 Entertainment System 36: Art With a Hammer and Steel
  • Page 1 of 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • »