Posts Tagged montreal gaming

9 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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Big Fish D&D: Brubax and the Abominable Snowman – Part 2

by on May 23, 2018 at 8:14 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Keith

Where a great big axe gets a wonderful name. This is Part 2 of “Brubax and the Abominable Snowman”.

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 this bad boy up this week,  I’ll be in black, Jon (our DM) is in blue, and Eric has a few cents to chip in, he will be in red.

Obviously it might be a good idea to check out Part 1 of this adventure. Where were we? Oh right.

Upon entering into one of the side rooms of the tomb, there was some kind of a grooved floor and hand holds that were clearly Goliath height. Brubax hems and haws some more about what to do so Jaxxo just gives it his Lizardman Best and fails miserably. Brubax finally mans up and goes for it and with a Strength check of over 20 manages to drag the entire room revealing a tomb.

What was the backup plan if Brubax failed the test of strength?

No axe.  No point to challenges if there is no cost to failure.  

An Axe By Any Other Name

Sitting within the tomb atop a stone throne was a massive Goliath skeleton clutching an enormous axe of bad-assitude. The disruption of the entrance caused the skeleton’s head to tilt and the hilt of the axe shifted and angled towards our emo Barbarian. Calling to him.

Almost reluctantly the Goliath took a hold of the axe. It was once named “The Obsidian Divide” and now, it is his. Pressed to name it by the petulant Rogue he internally botches his “name axe” roll and proclaims:

“I shall call it… Sharon.”

That’s now canon. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Big Fish D&D: Brubax and the Abominable Snowman – Part 1

by on May 16, 2018 at 6:11 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where the party mostly succeeds at saving the mountain village and encounters a horrible monster that more or may not be abominable. This is Part 1 of “Brubax and the Abominable Snowman”.

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 this bad boy up this week,  I’ll be in black, Jon (our DM) is in blue, and Eric has a few cents to chip in, he will be in red.

If the reader is not yet familiar with Brubax, this will be the story where you will become so.

Brubax is a Goliath Barbarian. He presently lacks a purpose. But he is very good at hunting and killing monsters. He is most alive in the thick of combat against some legendary beast. And yet, even having slain a number of formidable foes, he finds himself lacking his raison d’etre.

Something is missing in our poor Barbarian’s life. A void which even our remarkable adventures cannot fill.

The entire land is still covered in a blanket of unseasonable snow, but our heroes have yet to track down Glacius Rex. The party finds themselves in a Goliath village, nestled within the mountains to the North called the “Spine of the World”. Badass name for mountains Jon, who says that R.A. Salvatore is not a master wordsmith?

Many people.  I’m actually not sure if that’s an R.A. original or if it was around before him.  He gets a lot of flack and a lot of it deservedly, but there’s a reason his novels are more widely known than some of the other scores of authors in the extended Forgotten Realms universe.  I think there are 130 novels in there? He’s far from the worst. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Big Fish – The Mostly Forgotten First Session

by on April 18, 2018 at 4:05 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Jon's Junk, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where our heroes (the authors, who are the real heroes) try to remember the earlier sessions of the Big Fish campaign that we didn’t actually think to write about.

But first! As we’ve previously mentioned, Jono has what, 20 years of Dungeon Master experience? Is there anything you would like to ask of him? He will gladly answer your questions! Bold. Double Underline. Highlight. Comment below, comment on our Facebook Page, or slide on into or DMs on Twitter. Or if you came here from reddit, just comment there. We’re easy.

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.

Not going to lie, it’s about 1:00 am in the morning and I’ve been drinking. We skipped our session because Jon was sick and I thought it would be fun to try and fill out the gaps of the first couple of sessions that we didn’t document here in the blog.

I’m really hoping that Jon can fill in some of the blanks here, a lot of this is really hazy.

So, the first session was a “group session”, where instead of the usual “This is my story” framing of the game you (Jon) run a session of the over-arching meta plot. What can you tell us about the meta-plot Jono?

Well, the meta plot hasn’t yet really made itself clear and we’re on session 8?  The old game was supposed to be beer and pretzels kill it and take its treasure fun, and instead became battle scarred veterans saving the cosmos from the mad egos of dead Gods.  We’re doing something different here.

The meta-plot is not going to be the focus of the game.  The focus is going to be on the shenanigans that you guys come up with during the storytelling part.  That said next session will have a little more meta-plot in it, so it isn’t totally forgotten.

So this was the very first adventure of our merry crew together. We were hired as independent mercenaries by Princess Bubblegum to escort a caravan through the land of whatever land we’re in. I refer often to our patron as Princess Bubblegum and our main villain as Ice King. How important is Adventure Time as an influence? ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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D&D Gameshare: The Time L’Eau Dur Messed Up (Part 1) – Big Fish

by on January 24, 2018 at 7:52 pm
Posted In: Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where the heroes of the Big Fish adventure find themselves running around Baldur’s Gate looking for magical children’s toys.

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. As always, I’m in black and Jon (our DM) is in blue. Our last adventure was “The Treasure Map“. You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page.

The last time we had a little session in the tavern as our future selves, a mysterious voice came out of the shadows and informed us that the next adventure would not be one of the good times.

It would be the story of the time that L’Eau Dur (our Genasi Warlock) “messed up really badly”.

Ominous. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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9to5 Entertainment System 85: Yeah, We Talk About Korn

by on May 14, 2015 at 7:19 am
Posted In: 9ES, Podcast, Podcasting

No really, we actually eventually talk about Korn. It might take us a little while to get there but eventually, it happens. Trust me. Sophie took advantage of her slightly freed up schedule to be on the podcast it was great. And then we stop being friends.9es 85

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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

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