too…much…AWESOME

That was incredible. How rare is it that you find a team of roleplayers that are THAT GOOD? Man, that’s the kinda thing that makes me want to rangle some people together for a game night. You make a hell of a story-teller man.

Noah, for the love of God, write this screenplay.  Pitch it, sell it, I saw this so vividly in my head, and I think the world deserves this group and their adventures.

I was  literally applauding  these guys.  There’s good planning and then there’s being a master strategist.  I love great strategies like these and they are F***ing brilliant.

ah another great story by a bard named spoony…..hearing all this makes me want to get into d&d even more

Awesome story Spoony! I did love the vampire larper who killed the entire coven with c-4 better but this one was close :P.  I do want to commend your players though on a point-Always stick together!  Ive DM’ed too many campaigns where the players turn on each other or sale each out each other-they fall apart fast and people drift away.  Also, Kudos on you for rolling with the unexpected and going off the beaten path/crippling that Mary Sue NPC.  I always remind myself as a DM-even the friggin Emperor in Star Wars was taken down by someone in the end-NO ONE is a god, or untouchable in the end.  If you ever do a con in Texas sometime, offer a 1 shot D&D campaign for an afternoon-I would pay money to sling dice with you :)

this campaign NEEDS to be made into a movie.

 Who’d have thought that sitting in front of a computer screen and watching a man talk for almost two and a half hours about a tabletop RPG campaign would bring me as much joy and excitement as sitting down to watch Seven Samurai again. I probably haven’t watched that in at least two years (not sure why, I own it on DVD) and this tirade was the most entertaining thing I’ve seen since. If not for the graphic/disturbing imagery (I can’t be the only one who immediately thought of A Serbian Film when skullfuck murder was mentioned) this would make for an excellent series of films. There was a villain who was (as mentioned) as compelling as Dark Knight’s Joker, a group of Ocean’s Eleven style thieves/heroes that even Sun Tzu would praise for their strategies (well, except for the unnecessary loss of life, but these are hardly ideal circumstances), and the underlying moral struggle of impulsiveness versus decisiveness with the added sub plots of romance, internal group turmoil and a criminal empire. Keep Michael Bay, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg or Uwe Boll away from it and you’ve likely got a Game of Thrones level epic production.

I live in constant fear that there will, one day, be no more stories to tell. Hopefully, that day is a long way off.

Here We go. My random musings.

- Spartacus/300 Meets Ocean’s 11; That’s EXACTLY how this series would look on screen. Turn it into a 5-10 part mini-series ASAP.

- “I’m not that kinda thief” is CLASSIC comic relief mischief. T-shirt worthy

- I can imagine a re-jacked Brad Pitt as Temest Thales or someone as manly/monstrous. Achilles meets Harvey Two-Face.

Thank you for uploading your role-playing experiences Noah. This brings back nostalgic memories for me too. Ugh! back to work…

I was bewitched for 2 hours and it was so worth it! 

So, these Stepsons are The Sacred Band of Thebes? The Sacred Band of Thebes was a elite troop of selected soldiers,
consisting of 150 lovers and beloveds, who formed the elite force of the
Theban army in the 4th century BC. As Phillip II said,  “Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.”

Best. Story. Ever!! :DDD
You seriously make me want to at least try a tabletop RPG if only just once. Sadly, in my country nerds of that calibre are very hard to come by, and the ones that exist are all meat-heads who only want to be the best like no-one ever was with their fighters. For this reason I’ve never tried to play before but now I really want to! *siiiiiiiigh*

Anyway, I loved this story!! I loved it so hard!! You gotta share more countermonkey stuff with us if you have any others, even if they’re not as awesome as this was. Story time is Fun time.

Also, this was a liiiiiitle longer than 90 minutes Spoony XDD and it was awesome.

Also, I believe homosexuality was actually encouraged among the hypolites because, let’s face it, you’re gotta fight harder and be more pissed off if some-one fucks with your boyfriend.

Ohhh I love the preview frame. :D And I love Noah’s incredibly wrong assessment of how long he spoke. xD But to be fair: IT DIDN’T FEEL THAT LONG. I got so into the story that honestly, I could have sworn that wasn’t more than maybe an hour or so. Seriously, I could have watched a movie in the time it took to watch this (and yet, I wouldn’t choose any other way :D).

I can’t even say much more because I’m just in awe of the story. That was fucking awesome. And really, I’m glad you went ahead with the horrible skullfuck scene… as horrifying as that is, I get the sense that you didn’t do it for the gore but because that’s what the character would have done. It was a realistic way to go… horrible, but realistic. And you know, this is how things escalate in real life conflicts too when things get bad enough. They do even now. This is something that happens to women in war zones. I haven’t heard of skullfucking but the stuff I HAVE heard is just as disgusting. (If you want to know, four words: rape with broken bottles.) And they do that just to break the morale of the enemy.

I kept thinking that you guys probably just learned a lesson on the human mind there… And it’s an epic way to learn it, by finding yourself descending into mindfuckingly cruel deeds, even if it’s just in a game.

I can’t blame you at all for letting them have a breath of victory. I get the feeling they really did earn it well. And they did pay with the lives of two (or three? I forget now) of their own. I honestly kinda love how the guy whose girlfriend got raped to death just threw his own life away to buy the others time. I can so get into his mindset in a situation like that.

On a completely different note: I seriously feel like trying GM:ing again now. This is something that’s been brewing throughout all these CM episodes I’ve watched actually… I think I’ll still suck at it but you know, you’re giving me so many ideas and a feel of what a good GM should be like and I honestly feel like I want to try again. :D I think you’re like becoming my idol, Noah.

Decapitation and jamming ones own balls to the mouth,
damn, that’s Witcher 2 levels of cruelty and darkness.
Yeah – funny how such images you can now find in video games.

(no decapitation here though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNwUKydoWGc&feature=g-hist&context=G26a3e17AHT00-PwAiAA

regarding the story as a whole – love it

I think we finally found a potential Spoony movie.

“Citizens, you had best bring me these men or I will gouge out your eyes and SKULL-FUCK you!!  I’m the fucking God of RAPE!  I’m the Goddamn AVATAR!”

Face fucking, mass slaughter, anal impalement, testicles shoved into mouths and eye sockets, it’s amazing what can come about when one unfortunate schmuck rolls a 20 and an 18!  That’s ALL it took to break everything down to this level. 

And you know what?  I’m glad it happened!  Bless you, Brendan, your irrational impulses have brought us the finest tale of Counter-Monkey to date!  

That was a damn good 2 hours.  I wish I could begin more of my mornings this way.

So well told!

I enjoyed this like you wouldnt believe!
Maybe you should have gone in more detail about Tempus fight,

I like how you make sure we understand the setting.

So much fun to imagine.

Honestly, listening to you tell that story and imagining it in my head..best movie i’ve seen in a long time..and im not praising my own imagination but something about the way you tell it makes it really easy to create epicness without Hollywood budget

’twas an epic greater than anything retold previus!

Seriusly great story, and worth the wait since you put up stuff last =D

Love Counter Monkey, and I would just love to see Tandem The Spoonys Sheet.
He would make an awesome NPC!

DUDE!
You should wright a book. Wright your own fantasy series about this.

I mean, sure, you took the setting, the backstory, and some characters
from Thieve’s World, but the campaign was an original story, right?
Just change a couple of things, but keep your original characters and
story, and base the rest loosely on where you got it from, and it will
be GLORIOUS!

Holy crap! I’ve heard about the butterfly effect, but never heard that a bottle of acid thrown into a guys face can result in skull-fucking, mass-murder and a rebellion!

And do people in Thieve’s World know about cement? If so, I know how to get rid of an immortal dude…

Two hours of goodness, epicness and awesomeness. Excellent job Spoony.

Dude that was fucking awesome the best story i heard from you yet man damn dark,gritty but interesting. i agree with some of the others that have put comments up spoony you need to freaken write a book about this shit change a few things or use the open license any thing just get that out there i know i would buy it.

This was the best story i’ve ever heard, at the end I noticed i was leaning towards the monitor and clutching my armchair because it was so intense.

Jeez – all you need to get Spoony fans giddy with delight is just a little skull rape and ass impalement.  Do this again the next time they start complaining about the time between vids.

So many others have already stated this: But goddamn Spoony, make a movie out of this. Make SOMETHING out of this. Change a few names, change a bit of the setting and you got yourself one of the most original and intense stories in fantasy yet. A movie, a novel, a comic ANYTHING. o.o

Best use of two hours in my life. This story was… wow. Just wow. I honestly didn’t know it was possible to reach the HSQ just by talking about a campaign from years ago, but you Spoony, you can pull it off with gusto.

If you ever get tired of making videos, you could probably get a job on a radio station dramatizing novels. You are an excellent storyteller.

“The Banishing of Tempus Thale”

Written by Noah Antwiller.

…You know, if I were to go to a movie theater, pay full price, and sit down and watch this Counter Monkey episode on the big screen, I would not feel cheated. That was brilliantly told, beautifully compelling and just a fantastic epic story. Bravo Spoony.

Spoony, I freaking love your Counter Monkey segments, and this did not disappoint. As always, the story was interesting and compelling, the characters were entertaining, and you had great energy. I have to say, I really liked that you were so willing to not only go along with what the players were doing, but you were willing to take it beyond ‘kid stuff’ as my step-dad would say. You had some pretty fucked up things going on in your campaign and you owned it.

You make me proud to RP.

The more I watch your reviews though, the more I wonder about your thoughts on homosexuality. You make a lot of ‘gay jokes’, but I can’t think of any particular instance where you’ve been ‘offensive’. I suppose it really doesn’t matter, and making any statement, pro, con, neutral, or who gives a fuck, would only cause some fans who feel differently to turn against you. It’s just my curiosity.

After all, we Americans have to know what our celebrities think, feel, their politics, what they eat, where they went to elementary school, what size shoes they wear, etc. 

Wow that was an interesting story!  I don’t know if I’d like the game or the books as the main character sounds like such an unlikable character I couldn’t get into it.  

It was 2 hours plus some of pure awesome. That campaign sounds so intricate and well done that I am truly jealous that I’ve yet to have a game work that way. You could take their whole adventure and make it into a playable video game! It’s so dark, yet not so for shallow reasons, as fucked up as skull fucking and revenge murder with homophobic overtures is, it actually really does seem to fit the story! Best episode yet, Sir Spoon, even more so than Tandem’s last run (and I fucking love that episode). I don’t care how long this is, I will be forcing each and every one of my best friends to give an ear to this. Our games could be so much more epic with this kind of thinking and strategy. I just hope I don’t have to skull fuck a love interest to get it.

Sounds so familiar.  There’s nothing like having a group of intelligent players who turn things upside down and create something far and above what you could have ever planned in advance.  Love the series, and hope there are many more to come.

Spoony dude, you are in general an awesome story teller~ I noticed that in the Hotel from Hell Vlog too~ You get such passion, it makes it easy for the listeners to get involved and interested~
Heck, I’ve never played DnD, but I enjoyed listening to each of your Counter Monkey tales~ It helps a lot that you explain too~

Thank you for doing this~

You, my dear friend, are a fascinating storyteller :) really enjoyed listening to you even though I’ve never even heard of Thieves’ World

That was an amazing story. Very entertaining and well told. I should have been working, instead of listening to it, but it was worth it.
I really wish I had played tabletop games back when I was younger, sadly, in the places I lived, the concept was completely alien.

 It just occurred to me to ask why Tempus didn’t have a scrying spell cast to find Brendan’s character. He would have presumably had the resources to do so.

I would really like to play a game half as good as that

I’m partial to the Age of Manure Counter-Monkey myself, but that’s in part because of the instant-classic hilarity that 14-year-old logic brings.

Just the NAMES of characters like “Hinsty David” or “Mr. Mockingham” are hilarious to me for similar reasons as Tommy Wiseau’s The Room is hilarious; it’s so bad it’s transcendent.

Still, this is a great story and it demonstrates how Role-playing can be adventurous and fun (well, and very very dark), rather than just about pimping stats and abusing rulesets. It’s a great story to balance out the other tales in CM, where we have seen flagrant griefing, rules abuse, flaws in game-story design or even flat out off-the-wall disgusting cruelty.

It lets the uninitiated glimpse the real stories of tabletops beyond the tired tropes of the Dead Ale Wives skit, and stereotypes. Both the good and the bad.

Best Counter Monkey Ever. It was like two hours, but God it was entertaining. It was hilarious, it was sick, it was it was just amazing. The Thieves World world is very interesting and complex, and it seamed like all the PCs played brilliantly (except of course that split second of impulsiveness). Next time, tell us how this campaign would have gone if not for seriously pissing Tempus Thales off. Once again great job.

The best CM yet, you are an amazing story-teller. The whole story almost played like a movie in my head.

Funny how what you consider to be your best campaign  started with one of the PC royally screwing it up on one of the first missions, ya know sometimes we do our best when we are forced to think in the moment, and sometimes the oppose is true like when your player threw a bottle of acid in the face of a demigod with a short fuse.

How’s about an example of something that is awesome and involves either poor thinking or poor planing: Counter Monkey.

no matter how many details you get wrong these videos are Hilarius and fun and often exciting to, I wouldn’t really mind if you stopped with your Spoony videos and continued with nothing but this, (But please keep both up!) It’s also awesome to see someone dedicated to  a series to the point of sitting in a chair talking to an invisible audience for two hours strait to get a story out to the public to see the dedication to a game players and a DM can have, I hope to see more!

(Oh god, I just spent more time and effort writing a comment than i ever will on an essay.)

Hi Spoony. I haven’t often been compelled to comment on this site, but here I just felt the need to speak up. This is by far and away the best installment of Counter Monkey ever and one of the best pieces of media you’ve produced, period. Hilarious and awesome in equal measure for the full 2+ hours. In fact, fuck Thieves’ World canon, THIS STORY deserves to be novelised. You couldn’t possibly make this shit up. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Thank you so much, this has been my favorite thing that you have made.  An true triumph of storytelling and role playing.  5/5

Okay THAT was a story worth telling ten times over. It took as long as a movie to tell, and honestly this is what a movie should be made about. 

It would take some retooling, the names first and foremost. There’d be some time spent at the beginning establishing this imperial age setting, and WHY it is both parts realism and pure fantasy, and then some time spent on character pinball (Reservoir Dogs style perhaps). Setting up the player characters as bro thieves. Setting up the Tempus character there as you have here, I wouldn’t change one thing about how you described his sheer scope of power. Until he got hit in the face with the acid, I had no idea if he’d be a deus ex machina benefactor or a heartless slasher.

Remember that slo-mo scene near the end of Snatch where Brad Pitt in the ring starts tripping out? I imagine an effect like that would carry the pivotal acid flask moment. A spectrum of mixed feelings going back and forth between comedy, impending doom and tragedy, confusion, and sheer “OH SHIT, NOOOOOO” factor would be a backbone to all of this. I’m sure when you experienced it, it felt like a silly faux pas. Keeping part of that feeling would be essential, but I’d execute that as a pause right before Tempus really REALIZES what just fucking happened. Like the sudden stillness of the post-divine intervention in Pulp Fiction. 

The rest of the movie would hinge on the viewer’s willingness to believe that all this shit really could happen because one guy fucked up. I certainly did. Like shooting Marvin in the face, some things just go BAD. I can imagine the fascination in an audience at this moment onward. Like. “Whoa, someone decided to make a movie about this? … Lol. Really? It’s definitely different, and not preachy. Where in the HELL is this going?” 

Only thing I’m foggy about is the meta stuff. Like how you told US Tempus was just coming in there to save their asses and tie a ribbon on the quest, hinting at future adventure but smarmily so. That would be tricky exposition for sure. Maybe he’d be saying something about it to his guards as he’s coming to them down the hallway.

The whole bounty issuing thing is great, and I doubt I’d change one thing about it for film. That whole back and forth of how they should kill or not kill their buddy for a pretty penny, just needing a way to drop off the wizard on Tempus’ doorstep. The way the target himself has to admit, “Yeah that IS a lot of fuckin’ money… Shit.” The plotting they have to harvest the 100 gold coin stool pigeons. 

What’s FANTASTIC about this setup, all of it, is that by moral dilemma, the hero has to win. But this story has removed the illusions of heroes. Both sides deserve major comeuppance, but will it be both, one or the other, or neither? This would be one of those times where sitting down in a theater, surely before spoilers could reach me, I’d be puzzled as who would win THE ENTIRE movie. Either side could I guess, and I’d just be pulling straws at what the movie itself wanted to say. It’s something I really enjoyed about the first half of Death Note, and it could work wonders again here. Somewhat cutthroat thieves versus a fleshbound god-tyrant.

I’d keep in the menace of Tempus where he starts his death-lottery, but scale down the visceral way he goes about it. I mean, yeah, cutting off the woman’s head and punting it through a field goal probably would’ve run my reservations into oblivion just as quickly. And I’d also scale down his godhood to SOME degree. While unkillable and a one-man army, there’s any number of fantasy-babble ways you can turn a man into a super saiyan. Somewhere between T-800 invulnerability and  no higher than T-1000 invulnerability.

The whole war of attrition between the two sides, especially with the magic stuff, would serve well as montages. Assuming you have the wizard describe well enough in detail how his magic-artillery would ensure choice victories, a montage would do just fine in place of illustrating what the viewer already knew was gonna happen by way of said wizard guy pointing at marks on a map and saying in-world jargon. The choice of montage music might make or break this scene. I mean if it’s not a heartbeat of the plot, there’s no point in seeing EVERY PEDANTIC DETAIL OF IT. Having seen 300 cemented that for me.

Putting a tyrant like Tempus through a TORRENT OF STEEL, a raw blender of overdue justice, would be the greatest guilty pleasure I’d ever sit back and soak in. And I think the player character survivors should total to about the same. I have no trouble believing some of them died the way they did, and it actually took NOTHING away from the pull of this story. Although at first you made it sound like the guy Tempus killed in melee was making a tradeoff blow to keep him busy, apparently it was just a distraction outright? That’s something I’d change just for the sake of cinematic etiquette.

And yet I think the hardest thing to meditate upon would be the NAME of this opus. Just so long as it’s not a titular line, there’s a perfect decision waiting in the wings.

GREAT episode(s)!
This story was really enjoyable and you’ve made me want to try the thieves world setting a lot! Haha!

Jolly good show!

im actually sad your story is over, cant wait til the next story

The first 20 or so minutes I was getting really bored but afterwards it was all gravy. Didnt really get good and hit it until the acid to the face

The gang threw acid in Tempus Thales face, hijinks ensue.

I was GLUED to the screen! That was such an amazing tale. I had to watch it twice.

This was amazing. Hands down the best Counter Monkey to date. I was glued to the screen the entire time, and as of this post, it’s 2:00 AM and I usually go to bed at 10 or so.

Keep up the great work, Spoony. You really outdid yourself with this story.

PS: The only downside to this is that it makes me want to get into tabletops even more, but the people I know who do play/want to play are in other states, countries, ect. It makes me sad.

From now on I’m not considering myself a DM anymore, cause that is something beyond.
This is the most awesome game that I ever heard of.
Thank you for sharing, Spoony.

Dear Noah,

I must say that (agreeing wish Desiree X) that this is far superior to anything that Hollywood as produced this year. Wonderfully told, extremely engaging, and thoroughly entertaining. I would gladly pay $12.50 to see this in theaters and I wouldn’t even think to use my student discount! I must say Noah your anecdotes have greatly aided my struggle to relax during my college senior midterms! Studying for a Civil War class has never been more enjoyable when your are listening to a tale where a flask of acid is being hurled into a demi-god’s face! 
  Cheers friend and thank you very much for all your hard work!

A truly epic tale Spoony. You are obviously a great story teller (being a DM and all) to hold an audience for 2 hours of you sitting and talking.  

That story was brilliant! I love this stuff!! Such a GREAT story! It felt so real. 

btw When picturing Tempus Thales I pictured Cyan from Final Fantasy 6. Awesome! 

Spoony is a good storyteller^^ I love these Counter Monkey’s^^
keep it up, Spoony! my boyfriend and I are huge fans of yours!^^

Seriously this is one of your best videos. And I’ve seen them all, more than once. You’re a great story-teller

This really would make a good book. Just change the names around. Here’s an example of the acid flask part, though with my horrendous writing.
“Oh my god, we’re so fucked, we’re so fucked. I bet there’s more goddamn occultist ready to magic our as-” Matthew spewed out before getting interrupted by an irate Peter.
“SHUT UP AND LOOT THE DAMN BODY! If we hurry-” The pounding on the door intensified; it seemed as if it would break any second now. ”nevermind, RUN!” Martin, who in a fit of instict, grabbed a flask of acid from his coat pocked and launched it at the now breaking door, hoping that he might slow the occultist down …as Tempus Thales entered the room.”Wha-wha-what the fuck?”The acid hit Tempus right in the left temple, blinding him. He barely managed a “Aha” before his screams of pain began. The group ran as hard as they could possible go, grabbing and pushing each other around as Tempus’s guards followed. They, however, knew the shadier areas of Sanctuary much better then the guards and they quickly lost the guards following them after a few false turns and a few climed walls.When they were safe in one their old meeting places, Peter grabbed Martin by the collar while Matthew was lying on the cold cobblestone, wondering what the hell they were going to do.”WHAT THE FUCK WE’RE YOU THINKING! WHAT THE FUCK! BLABLABLla-BLEGH!” yelled Peter in a fit of pure rage and confusion as he dropped to the ground looking dazzled. Martin, who was white in the face and looking about to faint during the whole ordeal, simple stood, looking out into space.

This was a really good story. I would expect a good hollywood movie to be of this caliber. Next time go even more in detail, give us more character bits and direct quotes. Because this stuff was so good that just skimming over is not doing it justice.

And when you start recording put a stopwatch next to the camera. Then if you say something bad (like a guy’s name) just remember what the stopwatch says and take a mental note of when it happened and bleep that guy’s name out. I do feel that giving keeping the other player’s annonymous is important.

I cannot wait for the next Spoony story.

That was a bloody and epic story with an interesting narrative weave between the in game events and the players.

I just can’t believe I sat through a two hour talk on role playing.

And here I thought our group did f*cked up things on our sessions. Turns out we have nothing on this group. I’m still reeling from Thales little example, I didn’t see that one coming at all.

Yet, strangely enough these videos just made me even more exited to continue the current campaign with my RP group. Please, let tomorrow be friday…

If made into a screnplay, for the skull-fuck scene I’d imagine cutting away to the heroes’ faces watching during the actual rape, and having an uproar and screaming coming from the crowd off-screen. Then cut back to Thales putting his pants back on with blood all over his lower body. The shock value is too much to pass up in terms of making things serious business.

This story makes me think of my friend. He LARPs, all the fucking time. I’m not kidding. He’s in character all the fucking time. And he’s one of those guys that Mary Sues the shit out of his character. To name the powers of his characters: Immortal, can stop time for as long as he wants, master swordsman (with adamantium weapons no fucking less), invincible (not having a lot of HP. Literally invincible), master of magics who could make golems out of anything, immune to every magic, able to break ANYTHING, able to summon Bahamut from FF8, wielder and master marksman able to get a kill-shot, from the hip, with a shotgun, while not looking, and aiming at enemies behind friends, having to hit a target the size of a soccer ball without hitting anything else every single time. It’s bullshit, and every time I call him out, he backpedals with the defense of staying in character and calling my character mentally insane.

Thanks. Now I want to run Thieves World. 

Haa…I run games that are very heavily political-social driven pretty often, but this one makes me looong for a game to go this way!
My games are pretty real and can get pretty dark… so I totally enjoyed this story. 
Fantastic episodes, Spoony! Keep’m comin!

Amazing story spoony. But I am glad I was using phones at some parts…. I have no idea how i would explain the skull thing and the impales and other stuff to people who were around me :p

When you spoke about hoplites you were thinking about the Theban Sacred Band. Great video btw.

Damn, you’re a good storyteller. Put this on in the background to listen to while I was working…annndd…now I forget what I was supposed to be doing.

I kinda imagine, when the thief was at Tempest’s mercy, horribly beaten and barely able to stand, clearly not walking away no matter what, like a hair’s breath from dying….

Tempest: “Tell me where the others are and what they’re planning, and I’ll spare your life. Betray them and I will reward you with your life.”

Thief: ~coughs up a bit of blood and smiles grimly~ “Sorry….I’m not that kind of thief.”

And he goes down swinging. Would totally be a badass use of that little in-joke and an epic way to go out.

EDIT: And I just saw the comment below mine is basically exactly the same as what I said. Whoops. lol