OOTS #669 - The Discussion Thread [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

lothos

2009-07-16, 10:06 PM

Wow, I've never seen a thread completely zapped before.... probably the right call to do that. It was getting a bit nasty.

I personally found some of the postings in the previous version of the thread a little offensive, but I respect people's right to hold a different opinion. The thing is, the forum rules clearly state that this isn't the place to have real world religion discussions. That's clearly not what this board is for and I am pleased it's being kept that way.

While I was tempted to replying to some of the inflammatory postings in the last thread, I just made my wisdom check and decided not to post :-)

I'd like to re-post my comment now about Sheila Finkelstien. I wasn't the first to note it in the last thread (Kaytara was), but I just want to say again how much I loved the subtle continuity there.

Start of Darkness Spoiler
In the final panel of page 19 of Start of Darkness, Eugene Greenhilt notes that he was a childhood rival of Suzy Finkelstien. Presumably the mother of Sheila Finkelstien. Someone else noted how Suzy kept her maiden name too.

Enjoyable comic. Reminds me a bit of a character from the 1st Edition Adventure Module "The Throne of Bloodstone" - St. Solaris the twice martyred. Something only possible with resurrection.

Now Roy is "Roy Greenhilt, the twice deflowered" :-)

Kokopelli Jones

2009-07-16, 10:23 PM

Bravo, Rich. Beautiful.

And I'm glad I missed the flamewars. I got other forums, if I want those.

Tobimaro

2009-07-16, 10:27 PM

I personally enjoyed this comic. It is refreshing to see the fourth wall take another beating. :smallbiggrin: And I agree with Roy. Wierd, you know? :smalltongue:

pendell

2009-07-16, 10:28 PM

Sheriff of Moddingham: Okay my friends, can we please try this again without any first page shoutouts or real world religious or political discussion or flaming/trolling? Please.

Okay.

Umm .. more a philosophical strip than a humorous strip. I guess the sort of thing that you would see in an afterglow -- both for us, the readers, from the strip and for Roy, who gets the experience of de-flowering a second time.

I guess it makes a nice bridge, but the irony's just a little too subtle for my sense of humor. Thog in a leprechaun costume is more my speed as far as humor goes. But this would be an awful strip if it didn't have different moods now and then.

All in all, I'm pleased with the arc.

For tropers, Celia was just Put On A Bus. Just as well. She really doesn't understand what makes Haley tick, or why human adventurers do what they do. Come to think of it, Roy doesn't seem to either.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Wolf_Plague

2009-07-16, 10:29 PM

Thread Reloaded.

So, once again I admit my inability to find anything "deep" and "meta" in discussion of rules by characters living in the world these rules apply to. The "fictional character tries to imagine real world but fails in hilarious way" is an old trick used to point out flaws/advantages in RL without being too straightforward. What it kinda reminded me is "Last Action Hero" with chars from b-action-movie exploring our world, whole movie was built around that.

Thread Revolutions?:smallconfused:

DigoDragon

2009-07-16, 10:34 PM

That's a pretty funny conversation. :smalltongue:
"Or skill points?"

Kish

2009-07-16, 10:44 PM

She really doesn't understand what makes Haley tick, or why human adventurers do what they do. Come to think of it, Roy doesn't seem to either.
Y'know, it's possible to understand something and still disagree with it.

Roy thinks he knows more about Haley's motivations than he actually does, unquestionably. How guilty he will feel when he learns about her father is a matter for speculation, and how guilty he should feel is completely up for debate. To whatever extent Roy values lives more than "human adventurers," it's completely to his credit; I wish I believed that extent was more than minimal.

Glich

2009-07-16, 10:44 PM

Very insightful comic. Top shelf work Giant.

I have wondered my self what would our world be like if we had 100% iron clad prof positive confirmation of a after life.

dragoncmd

2009-07-16, 10:51 PM

Whooops boy did I add to that political discussion. Sorry about my part in making the new thread necessary.

Like the comic even though Roy's remark agreeing that Haley puts her greed over people's lives was incredibly uncalled for.

He makes the comment because from his perspective she is. Roy doesn' know haley's situation.

Aethir

2009-07-16, 11:13 PM

Outstanding comic Giant, it really shows off how deep Roy is within their world and how well rounded those mental scores are. Definitely one of the more insightful comics that really shows off how their world works from their eyes.

Callista

2009-07-16, 11:20 PM

Very insightful comic. Top shelf work Giant.

I have wondered my self what would our world be like if we had 100% iron clad prof positive confirmation of a after life.Well, that's the irony of it. Under any circumstance, afterlife or no, people find paths to violence. Good reasons, bad ones, or just two people wanting the same thing that they both need and only one can have... that's human nature. Hardly anybody actually wants it, but we all keep tangling ourselves up in it anyway, like a bunch of gunpowder sitting around minding its own business 'til someone strikes a spark.

He's definitely not one of those "Thog smash" type of fighters.

brilliantlight

2009-07-16, 11:34 PM

Whooops boy did I add to that political discussion. Sorry about my part in making the new thread necessary.

Like the comic even though Roy's remark agreeing that Haley puts her greed over people's lives was incredibly uncalled for.

Agreed, :haley: is greedy but I can't remember her risking someone's life for gold.

brilliantlight

2009-07-16, 11:37 PM

Well, that's the irony of it. Under any circumstance, afterlife or no, people find paths to violence. Good reasons, bad ones, or just two people wanting the same thing that they both need and only one can have... that's human nature. Hardly anybody actually wants it, but we all keep tangling ourselves up in it anyway, like a bunch of gunpowder sitting around minding its own business 'til someone strikes a spark.

He's definitely not one of those "Thog smash" type of fighters.

Actually I think this was one of the more interesting ones.

Dausuul

2009-07-16, 11:38 PM

Y'know, it's possible to understand something and still disagree with it.

Roy thinks he knows more about Haley's motivations than he actually does, unquestionably. How guilty he will feel when he learns about her father is a matter for speculation, and how guilty he should feel is completely up for debate.

Mmm... while Roy isn't aware of the whole deal with Haley's father, I think he has a pretty good bead on her motivations in general (but one slanted by his own point of view; see below). She's not just looking for gold to save her father from the evil king. She has plenty of avarice all on her own. (This is established in "On the Origin of PCs," but even without that, it's pretty clear from her behavior that money is not just a means to an end. Consider this little speech (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0402.html).) So Roy does have a point.

That said, there's also a clash of alignments going on here. Roy and Celia are both Lawful Good, and thus tend to see these things in terms of principles and moral duty and the innate value of human life. Haley is Chaotic Good; she sees things in terms of individual people and events. So when she's willing to kill evil creatures for their money, Roy and Celia see that as Haley caring more about gold than about lives, but Haley would probably see it as not caring about the lives of bad people.

Denvil

2009-07-16, 11:41 PM

{Scrubbed}

Kish

2009-07-16, 11:48 PM

Agreed, :haley: is greedy but I can't remember her risking someone's life for gold.
OotPCs spoiler:

I thought, right after she stole the big diamond, that the guard probably got executed for letting it get stolen.

Later, I concluded I was probably thinking the city was nastier than it actually was. Now...I don't know. The city's certainly plenty nasty, but it seems to be effectively lawless. In any case, I freely confess I have very little sympathy for Haley's attitude toward money. Her referring to the entire party's treasure as "My loot, mine!" made me want to slap her. Her acting like the whole idea of tipping a waiter was insane made me want to *bites off first two versions* gently persuade her to live on below-minimum wages for a year. And the big "she's saving up to ransom her father" reveal mainly made me think "wow, how dumb does she have to be to think 'might be willing to consider granting clemency to your father' means she'll ever see him again if she pays this bribe?" Telling the rest of the Order about her father and enlisting their help to rescue him is the obvious solution. Robbing and cheating them constantly instead...ech. So yeah. Never much liked Haley, never expect to.

So when she's willing to kill evil creatures for their money, Roy and Celia see that as Haley caring more about gold than about lives, but Haley would probably see it as not caring about the lives of bad people.As Celia said, "I just can't fathom caring more about gold than about another person's very existence." Haley could spell out to her that this is part of "not actually caring about Toby's life at all," and everyone on this forum could agree with her*, and that wouldn't change the fact that what Celia said--that Haley cares more about gold than about Toby's existence--is exactly true.

*I'd be generally ambivalent, myself, but I would phrase any effort to communicate my ambivalence to Celia in terms of the canine lives lost every day Toby was alive, not the price tag to get him back. I think she'd be more impressed by that argument.

sam79

2009-07-16, 11:59 PM

Sheriff of Moddingham: Okay my friends, can we please try this again without any first page shoutouts or real world religious or political discussion or flaming/trolling? Please.

Sure.

I like this comic; its both wise and funny. I like Celia, but I'm not sorry too see her leave.

Pretty much all that can be said without transgressing the rules. Seems a bit...odd not to be able to discuss issues directly raised by the comic, but as the last thread proved that this couldn't be done without nastiness creeping in, rebooting seems like the right decision.

The Shadow

2009-07-17, 12:01 AM

I'm kind of surprised the thread got killed - when last I looked a few hours ago, it seemed to me that people were being very civilized and respectful to each other. (With one notable exception, but he got banned as per his own request, so - problem solved.)

And Denvil, without going into great detail, I would say your interpretation of the comic is hardly the only possible one, or even (in my view) the most likely one.

David Argall

2009-07-17, 12:02 AM

Well, for the first time for me, I was rather unimpressed. Maybe the whole subject matter was just too deep, but it really left me feeling like... "whatever". I didn't catch any funny there. Sorry. (Indeed, it almost felt a little bit of politics hiding in there... :smallfrown: )

Well, granted it doesn't rate as one of the top strips around here, but it gives us a little plot advancement in confirming that Celia is headed to the bench, and gives us a few jokes, even it was hardly worth all the wait.

Roy's remark agreeing that Haley puts her greed over people's lives was incredibly uncalled for.
Haley is greedy, greedy, greedy. While we can say that technically she puts people's lives first, that is only true as an abstract principle. Her actions to get gold are routine. Her actions to save or protect lives rare.

Isi

2009-07-17, 12:02 AM

{Scrubbed}

Darkfury13

2009-07-17, 12:07 AM

{Scrubbed}

I think the point is more along the lines of an anaology between Celia's and Haley's issues. Rather than becoming angry over our differences, we should be more understanding and thus embrace peace.

Good comic! Very deep and still entertaining.

Raging Gene Ray

2009-07-17, 12:08 AM

{Scrubbed}

Someone else, I think it might have been Kish, said that Roy and Celia are not the voice of Rich. They are just Rich's way of showing how characters in a world where an afterlife is certain would try to imagine a world where it isn't.

If Rich is saying anything, it's that 100% concrete proof of the existence of an afterlife would not remove all the problems from the world.

EDIT: Ninja'd by a drunk philosopher. How embarrassing.

Darkfury13

2009-07-17, 12:12 AM

We lure you into a false sense of security. It's how we get ya :smallbiggrin:

Jimorian

2009-07-17, 12:16 AM

My only observation is that no matter what is proven or disproven, believed or not believed, human nature is such that some people will use it as an excuse to be bad, and some people will use it as a reason to be good.

Zevox

2009-07-17, 12:17 AM

{Scrubbed}
It isn't as though this was put in place because of this strip. Real-world religion and politics have been prohibited on these boards for as long as they've existed. Such topics inevitably become heated and it is too great of a task for the limited number of moderators (which these days seems to amount only to Roland St. Jude) to make sure everyone is being respectful during those conversations. I know the one other, much larger forum I visit also has the same policy (the Wizards of the Coast forums).

Though I also don't see what politics have to do with today's strip. Religion, sure, but not politics.

Zevox

Isi

2009-07-17, 12:23 AM

Right...because war and societal violence isn't political...of course not...silly me.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 12:23 AM

The prison was full of British officers who had sworn to die, rather than be captured.

Are you a Goon Show fan, Sam? :)

Hacktor

2009-07-17, 12:26 AM

Great Comic Giant. As always :smallbiggrin:

Needle

2009-07-17, 12:30 AM

So I must say again I liked this strip very much :smalltongue:

cavalier973

2009-07-17, 12:35 AM

I think Roy is giving an excellent exposition on Moral Hazard. When you know that Uncle Mert will buy you a new car if you wreck this one (as he did the last time, and the time before that), then you'll drink and play chicken all night long...

I think that this comic could also be a commentary on the play style that D&D games allow for. Try to play through an adventure, but without the "raise dead" or "resurrection" spells; each time your character dies, you have to start over at level 1 with a new character. Your wizard might retire to be a gentleman farmer sooner than he had planned....

Zevox

2009-07-17, 12:39 AM

Right...because war and societal violence isn't political...of course not...silly me.
Not when it's presented in such a generalized manner with no actual political references whatsoever, no. War/violence in general and politics are both separate entities that can exist without each other. Raising one does not inherently bring up the other.

Zevox

Denvil

2009-07-17, 12:41 AM

If Rich is saying anything, it's that 100% concrete proof of the existence of an afterlife would not remove all the problems from the world.

Thanks for the opinion, but I'd rather hear what Rich himself has to say. Apparently, however, even ASKING such a question is verboten, so I suppose I will not be getting an answer.

Nimrod's Son

2009-07-17, 12:47 AM

Dammit, on the same day I make a snarky post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6512273#post6512273) about nobody reading the main thread, something like this happens. And I didn't even get to see it.

Hmph. :smallmad:

Top shelf work Giant.
Steady on dude, it was only a glimpse of bellybutton. :smallwink:

Isi

2009-07-17, 12:53 AM

"Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln"

Denvil

2009-07-17, 01:03 AM

I think Roy is giving an excellent exposition on Moral Hazard. When you know that Uncle Mert will buy you a new car if you wreck this one (as he did the last time, and the time before that), then you'll drink and play chicken all night long...

Or, to quote the Bard (Will, not Elan): "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time...when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."

I suspect you are correct, cav, but my post asking if that was in fact the case was scrubbed as inappropriate. I suppose this one will be too. More's the pity.

HZ514

2009-07-17, 01:06 AM

I really really really loved this comic! The conversation was wonderfully written, it so perfectly captures the natural uncertainty about the afterlife. Thanks Giant!

Supermagle

2009-07-17, 01:12 AM

Talking about your former love partners in front of your current one? Now that's just bad form! :smallannoyed:

Charles Phipps

2009-07-17, 01:13 AM

Damn, I wish I'd been here for the actual thread.

Underground

2009-07-17, 01:31 AM

I cant believe to read that super stupid "without religion there would be less war" theory in this comic. :smallyuk:

Seriously, how naive can one possibly be ? :smallmad:

But well, at least it fits for Celia to be naive.

Talking about your former love partners in front of your current one? Now that's just bad form! :smallannoyed: If you do it on the first date, then yes. But Roy + Celia are well beyond that phase. Its still a sensitive subject, but being downright dishonest about it is not cool. If you cannot be honest in your relationship, then maybe its not such a good relationship after all.

Still I'm a bit surprised that Roy, being lawful good, did lose his virginity so easily. Thats not really typical for his alignment.

factotum

2009-07-17, 01:36 AM

I cant believe to read that super stupid "without religion there would be less war" theory in this comic. :smallyuk:

As far as I can see, it's saying exactly the opposite. Religious people are generally quite convinced of the existence of an afterlife (since faith exists where no proof is possible), whereas the comic is positing what might happen in a world where there WAS no afterlife as far as anyone knew.

Nice to see that it only took until the second page of this thread to start getting scrubbed posts, despite the warning on the first page...

Raging Gene Ray

2009-07-17, 01:46 AM

Thanks for the opinion, but I'd rather hear what Rich himself has to say. Apparently, however, even ASKING such a question is verboten, so I suppose I will not be getting an answer.

I'm not pretending to know anything about it. I was indirectly quoting another poster's idea that I thought was good enough to end the debate...at least the one going on in my head.

"Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln"

Oh...trying to kill with jokes, eh? Two can play at that game:

Two peanuts crossed the road and one was A-SALTED!!!

Seriously, though, translation please?

Denvil

2009-07-17, 01:52 AM

As far as I can see, it's saying exactly the opposite. Religious people are generally quite convinced of the existence of an afterlife (since faith exists where no proof is possible), whereas the comic is positing what might happen in a world where there WAS no afterlife as far as anyone knew.

And what it's positing is that people would be less inclined to risk their lives in wars, which is exactly what Underground was saying.

Oberon

2009-07-17, 02:05 AM

Supermagle

2009-07-17, 02:21 AM

Also, (unrelated/unimportant) is there a weird off-white border around the comic. Does everyone see this or is it a quirk of my browser?

No such problems in my browser.

Jimorian

2009-07-17, 02:26 AM

Also, (unrelated/unimportant) is there a weird off-white border around the comic. Does everyone see this or is it a quirk of my browser?

The background to the comic wasn't quite set to pure white. Somebody figured it out to be something like 254,251,250 instead of 255,255,255. High view angles on LCD screens can pick that up.

Porthos

2009-07-17, 02:28 AM

Neat little philosophical moment for OOTS. If only Roy were right.

Also, (unrelated/unimportant) is there a weird off-white border around the comic. Does everyone see this or is it a quirk of my browser?

There's definietly a different color border than normal, though it doesn't show up in some monitors as much as others.

See this thread for details. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118431)

whitelaughter

2009-07-17, 02:41 AM

So, Celia realises that she isn't cut out for the adventurer's life - good, she's not a complete moron after all!

I find it difficult to believe that the Plane of Air is all sweetness and light though, given some of the monsters there - including those Belker is named after. Can't help thinking that Celia must live in areas that are protected from carnage by the local heroes: djinn and so forth. Especially if Rich's universe include the ongoing war between the Djinni and Etreeti.

I suppose it's understandable that Roy would think that the promise of immortality and of being raised as encouraging warfare, because of his MBA - he'd have been *taught* how to use those facts to inspire his troops, and to use the careful selection of targets for raise spells to improve unit morale. But that implies that he doesn't know much about the realm war; fiends deliberately, permanently massacring each other. And Xykon's response to V* is a good reason why creatures who know they are evil should avoid unnecessary risks.
of course, Roy may have considered this, and is just spinning a theory to stop his girlfriend and 2IC fighting!

*http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0652.html - last two panels

Idless

2009-07-17, 02:43 AM

I think it was a lot of "warm smile" funny

Not "haha funny", but as refletive humor and meta humor goes, it was good!

I never saw the flames, but I never thought a comic like that could light the fires. Maybe just because I'm not that religous - but if it incited that in people... its... you know... alomst at least... kinda like... art...

...Idless

Idless

2009-07-17, 03:15 AM

"Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln"

"The war is a bared continuation if the politics, but with other means"

Thats my attempt at translating it, from top of head!

Some german war theoretic, on general philosophy of war.

...Idless

Gitman00

2009-07-17, 03:26 AM

Heh. I see Rich was heavy-handed with the irony today.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 03:54 AM

"The war is a bared continuation if the politics, but with other means"

Thats my attempt at translating it, from top of head!

Some german war theoretic, on general philosophy of war.

He was quoting Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), a Prussian soldier and military theorist. "War is merely a continuation of politics."

Tundar

2009-07-17, 04:23 AM

Bye bye Celia.

spargel

2009-07-17, 04:47 AM

Haley is greedy, greedy, greedy. While we can say that technically she puts people's lives first, that is only true as an abstract principle. Her actions to get gold are routine. Her actions to save or protect lives rare.

That's only true in the early strips, where Haley's entire personality was pretty much about money.

multilis

2009-07-17, 05:09 AM

Sheriff of Moddingham: Okay my friends, can we please try this again without any first page shoutouts or real world religious or political discussion or flaming/trolling? Please. Are you surprised given the comic?

In the mythical world of center earth, the dwarves of iron mountain were proud of their lack of religion. They looked down on the foolish elves who worshipped trees, the humans who worshipped various animals and the orcs who worshipped the moon. "Fools", they thought, "if everyone was like us without phony gods and afterlifes, there would be no cause for war and everyone would be happy".

Every first day of spring the dwarves would have a big parade down the mountain, pulling their high tech siege weapons, celebrating the glorious revolution that brought about their kingdom. The dwarves were famous for their skills in all the big wars, and their many millitary interventions in the affairs of their neighbours and "break away" parts of their kingdom.

Ancalagon

2009-07-17, 05:15 AM

Are you surprised given the comic?

No. But it still can be discussed without remarks as:
"This is like RL <something>" (which is wrong) or "No is like RL <something else>" (which is also wrong). ;)

The point of the comic is truely funny. If poor Roy only knew how stupid mankind is, he'd... he's better off not knowing. ;)

multilis

2009-07-17, 05:29 AM

...If poor Roy only knew how stupid mankind is, he'd... he's better off not knowing. ;)
I think humans are quick to find fault with and blame others and often not so quick to fix themselves.

For example in center earth, the humans loved to ride around in chariots that weighed several thousand pounds pulled by a large team of horses, but complained about the horse poop, how it was supposedly stinking up the land and competition for "horse feed" was the supposed cause of wars. All this of course was the fault of their leaders.

A few humans thought they were special and caring because their chariots were a bit smaller and were pulled by 1 or 2 less horses, though sometimes it cost several times as much feed and poop to make these chariots.

Very few humans rode cheap easily available mini-ponies that ate and pooped less than 1/100 as much and got places nearly as fast, or tried to make better mini-ponies that would usually be just as good as the massive chariots.

(Hopefully it is not politics to mention that a bicycle with electric motor powered by comparitively cheap/light lifepo4 battery is lots of fun, though not as useful as a cheap velomobile could be if ever someone started mass producing)

blueblade

2009-07-17, 05:30 AM

This may have been just my (mis)interpretation. But I found I like Roy a lot less in 669, after how he refers to Haley as someone he can't see eye to eye with, but has to work with. After everything they've been through and the experiences they've shared? Not to mention everything she's done for him (most of which he knew about):

She's carted around his body for months.
Went to huge risk and sacrifice to get it back
Led the resistance for months while waiting for the scry from V
Didn't just up an leave when the going got tough
Kept Belkar in line and even realised that he had violated his mark and got suitably angry with him.

In short, she was the epitome of good. Maybe not 100% lawful, but who is Roy to judge her for that?

Just my two cents. And yes, I may just be a little sad that the happy days of the order are gone for good...

RMS Oceanic

2009-07-17, 05:33 AM

Nah, I'm not seeing it. Roy is not saying he disagrees with everything Haley's done. He just saying that he disagrees with Haley about how important treasure is. You can be indebted to someone for helping you out and still disagree with them about stuff.

BlueWizard

2009-07-17, 05:45 AM

Ready for Roy-time!!! :roy::roy::roy::roy::roy::roy::roy:

LXH

2009-07-17, 05:57 AM

Unless I missed or forgot something, he's also not aware of the actual reason behind Haley's obsession with gold. To the unknowing eye, she does come across as exceptionally greedy.

Ozymandias9

2009-07-17, 06:05 AM

Not seeing eye to eye with someone on something doesn't mean you don't respect them. It merely means you disagree with them. It is a tad more important because the thing they disagree on is part of the job they share: thus the part where he has to work with her.

I don't doubt that if there was another equally reliable thief without Haley's gold obsession (as Roy understands it) and without more objectionable fault, he would prefer to work with them. I also don't doubt that Haley and him will stay in contact and remain friends for a long time, probably the rest of their lives.

Belkster11

2009-07-17, 06:05 AM

Exactly. I think if Haley TOLD her friends: "The reason I'm hording a lot of gold is because my daddy's being held hostage by an evil dictator." then they would be a lot more lenient about it.

Roy's not dissing Haley despite everything she's done for him.

See #666.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0666.html ("Quite the contrary!"')

Didn't you see his annoyed look when Celia was ranting about how "Haley does what's only convient to her!"

Ancalagon

2009-07-17, 06:09 AM

As much as Roy likes Celia, I think he's just telling her that about Haley to get it over with.
There's no need to discuss Haley with Celia and he basically shuts the issue down. It seems fair and legit to me to do that... and he was not rude or something...

sam79

2009-07-17, 06:11 AM

Are you a Goon Show fan, Sam? :)

Well spotted!!! Yes, I am indeed. My father enjoyed the series first time round when he was young, and got me into it via BBC's audio tape collection when I was in my teens. I assume that the fact you caught the reference means that you are a fan too?

Finzy

2009-07-17, 06:17 AM

Eh, damn.

I was kind of hoping the strips would take a more adventurous route after Roy came back, but we're still getting a lot of philosophing I see.

Don't take me wrong, it does take a nice view on things (me being a pretty religious person afterall), but it kind of feels out of place if you ask me, when the strip's usually so full of comedy and whatnot. And when the setting is so bizarre (heck, usually the characters in the strip intentionally play it down, like in the case of Kings of Nowhere/Elsewhere/Somewhere, it just feels odd to suddenly have such a deep meaning to everything). Still, a good strip.

Now please bring back Thog, puppies and ice cream. :smallbiggrin:

RMS Oceanic

2009-07-17, 06:18 AM

Gwynfrid

2009-07-17, 06:25 AM

I didn't like this comic very much, I have to say. I got the main joke, I found it clever, but it just didn't work very well for me.

Also, Rich used the opportunity to try and explain Celia's worldview, which I didn't think was necessary. I always liked Celia and understood her perspective as a LG outsider, wholly out of place in the all-too-Material Plane. Might Rich have felt a need to explain her for the benefit of Celia-haters on this forum ?

One thing I liked was seeing Roy and Celia's reunion and developing relationship, and I kind-of-liked the deflowered joke (Roy's line was a little too long to work well, though). It nicely shows how comfortable they are with each other, seeing eye-to-eye on things like that. Of course, Celia has to be benched, since staying in the next arc would make no sense for her. I just hope we'll see her again in the future.

Overall, I would still commend Rich on taking the risk to address real-world issues in his comic. That was daring. It didn't work very well in my opinion (and it did offend those people who are easily offended), but you can't soar to new levels without going out on a limb sometimes. Thanks !

Jimorian

2009-07-17, 06:26 AM

We're still in the breather space after the breakneck pace of Vaarsuvius' deal with the IFCC. Don't worry, the plot will pick up again.

Yeah, the book is just about wound down, then when the next one starts we'll be back on the Road to Adventure! :smallbiggrin:

Pronounceable

2009-07-17, 06:48 AM

Thread clearage, cool. Never seen one of these before.

As someone said before, topic restriction applies to the forum and not the strip. And if posters go for trolling and flaming for whatever reason (including the strip), they deserve whatever they get. It's not like anyone is holding a gun to them to comment here...
...

As I've said before, this is the best metaness we've ever got. And boy, is Roy optimistic...

Pronounceable

2009-07-17, 07:02 AM

Friends do not have to be completely and totally in agreement over everything. They're free to point out or complain about the other's real or percieved shortcomings.

And not wanting to hear girlfriend dissing an old friend is a pretty valid desire.

And for those who look at Haley with rose tinted glasses: She's greedy. She's effing greedy. She may have a legitimate reason to earn as much $$$ as fast as possible and willing to part with loads of gold for her dad, but she'd still be swindling the team if she didn't have any reason to. She won't rob them blind and take off into the night, but will happily cheat them out of a % of their share.

Freefall

2009-07-17, 07:15 AM

That's so sweet!

Cywar

2009-07-17, 07:19 AM

Hey Rich, this is one of the most awesome Strips so far. I declare this one my personal favorite.

Thank you.

cavalier973

2009-07-17, 07:36 AM

Or, to quote the Bard (Will, not Elan):

You realize, of course, that the real writer of William Shakespeare's plays was actually Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford?

brandr

2009-07-17, 07:39 AM

[english lit flamewar]

You realize, of course, that the real writer of William Shakespeare's plays was actually Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford?
[/english lit flamewar]

Murdim

2009-07-17, 07:39 AM

And for those who look at Haley with rose tinted glasses: She's greedy. She's effing greedy.I would gladly agree with the fact that Haley is effing greedy, but as for the "rose tinted glasses", it ends up being a compliment for her since her goodness is still greater than her greed :smallbiggrin:

Also note that wanting money for a precise, non-materialistic goal (say, freeing a loved one from a tyrant) hardly qualifies as "greed"... yeah, Haley certainly is a greedy person who loves money a bit wee way too much for itself, but the main reason why she wants to accumulate money for now has nothing to do with "being a rich girl". What she'll do after freeing her father and helping to save the world and why is, of course, a whole other story...

Elder Tsofu

2009-07-17, 07:46 AM

Was some good discussion in the other thread, although I expect it got out of hand after I stopped reading - shame.

I like this comic, it get you to think a bit on your own.

pflare

2009-07-17, 08:00 AM

I think those two make such a great couple. They balance each other out really well. Too bad they won't be able to spend an eternity in Celestia together.

Dacia Brabant

2009-07-17, 08:14 AM

Seriously, though, translation please?

"War is simply a continuation of policy by another means." -Carl von Clausewitz, a prominent 18th century military theorist, perhaps best known for his concept, "the fog of war."

And going back through the thread to find other things to reply to I see someone's already given the gist of this quote. Oh well.

Every first day of spring the dwarves would have a big parade down the mountain, pulling their high tech siege weapons, celebrating the glorious revolution that brought about their kingdom. The dwarves were famous for their skills in all the big wars, and their many millitary interventions in the affairs of their neighbours and "break away" parts of their kingdom.

And as they march down under their stone archways commemorating each victory they can be heard to chant, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité!"

Oh wait, nevermind that last part, everyone knows that all dwarves are Scottish. :smalltongue:

Morthis

2009-07-17, 08:27 AM

Unless I missed or forgot something, he's also not aware of the actual reason behind Haley's obsession with gold. To the unknowing eye, she does come across as exceptionally greedy.

She is greedy beyond that though. On the Origin of PC's addresses this. Rich even says in there that Haley was always greedy, even before she found out about her father.

Corian

2009-07-17, 08:29 AM

Have not posted in a while. I loved the joke about how Roy's "logical" conclusion did not hold in his hypothetical world, meaning ours... And then I realized he was actually right. Yes, our world is a serious bloodbath a lot of the time, but actually much less than most fantasy settings I know of, and much less (apparently) than the OOTS-verse.
{scrubbed}

NerfTW

2009-07-17, 08:33 AM

pendell

2009-07-17, 08:35 AM

Also, Rich used the opportunity to try and explain Celia's worldview, which I didn't think was necessary. I always liked Celia and understood her perspective as a LG outsider, wholly out of place in the all-too-Material Plane. Might Rich have felt a need to explain her for the benefit of Celia-haters on this forum ?

Interesting, because the Deva who judged Roy's case is also an outsider but seemed to be much more understanding. I remember her comment on the lines of 'you're trying' to Roy. She recognized that it's one thing to be an outsider of Pure Law And Good, quite another thing to be a mortal having to live on the material plane.

The Deva seems to have wisdom Celia does not yet have. I wonder how that works? Aren't they both immortal?

Why can't Celia and Roy have Celestia together? When Celia's an outsider, so presumably will live forever. When Roy goes to his reward for the last time, all she needs to do is get someone to cast Plane Shift for her, and they can be together forever, yes?

Still .. there's a lot Celia just doesn't understand about human beings. Even simple things like the fact that they can't cast spells as sorcerers or shoot lightning from their fingertips at will.

I also am tempted to stick up for Haley against Roy. Haley grew up the daughter of a thief, living in Greysky city. What would you expect her to be like? When a person's spent however many years of her life with a thief for a father and much of her career with Bozzak as a boss and Crystal as a co-worker, the wonder is not that she's not as good as someone who grew up in a whole family with a loving mother. The wonder is that there's a spark of goodness left in her at all.

Haley keeps secrets. Lots of secrets. And why shouldn't she? Telling people like Hank or Bozzak your secrets is asking for a throat to be cut. So now she's suddenly supposed to act like an exalted Paragon, because she's spent a year or two out of that environment?

I would say Haley's my favorite character in the whole strip, and the only female character I find remotely sympathetic. Not because she's so good. She's not. But because she's had to fight so hard to overcome the obstacles put in her way, and managed to do without acquiring the stick up her spine that characterizes almost every other good female in the strip, except maybe the fisherwoman-turned-paladin.

And if I had to choose who I'd want to spend an afterlife with -- Roy and Celia and Miko vs. Haley and Elan -- give me the chaotic good afterlife any day.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

GoC

2009-07-17, 09:04 AM

It's like people said, though. It was unfair to post a comic that discusses things we can't discuss the real-world equivilants of here. That was just asking for trouble.

Yeah. The Giant should amend the rules so that some leeway is allowed when discussing the comic itself.

Great comic though.

Angelus-alvus

2009-07-17, 09:11 AM

Jaltum

2009-07-17, 09:28 AM

The idea that because Roy says something means Rich endorses it is bizarre. Roy frequently makes confident statements that are entirely wrong. Remember the Oracle? Remember the end of... was it book 2? When Roy is crowing about victory over Xykon (cut to Xykon) and absolutely no loose ends (Cut to Nale and Thog)?

Was this strip that kind of joke? Maybe. People have made good arguments for both sides; it kind of hinges on if you think our world is more or less violent than Roy's, and if you think that believing you know there's an afterlife without evidence but with certainty is the equivalent of believing in the afterlife the way Roy does. Discussing either of those would require breaking the forum rules, which is too bad, but doesn't mean the forum rules are a bad idea.

I saw the last thread; despite good efforts all around, I don't think a productive dialogue on religion was happening, in no small part to the maddening tendency of people not to read the thread before they post. The conversation just keeps getting reset to the baseline, and when the baseline is OMG RICH INSULTED MY FAITH, that isn't tenable.

pendell

2009-07-17, 09:30 AM

It's obvious why it isn't allowed for us to discuss religion here.

Indeed it is. It's because religion is a source of endless flame wars that make arguments over Vaarsuvius' gender look like kids in a sandbox in comparison. It's perfectly reasonable that the Giant doesn't want to pay for server space so that other people can hijack it for arguments over issues that are only tangentially related to the comic.

For the people who says it's just roy's opinion because he's a fictional character, if that isn't Rich true opinion about the subject, why would he make his MAIN character say something lkike that?

Because he's trying to give the main character a little depth.

Roy is not Marty Stu. Roy is not always right. In fact, at one point in recent memory he was so wrong that he wound up taking an unexpected vacation to the upper planes at an inconvenient moment. Roy nearly abandoned Elan to his fate. Roy incorrectly assumed that Elan's bard song had saved him from a fall when it was actually V's magic. Roy was completely fooled by Sabine into going on a pointless 37 strip side quest. Roy was taken in completely by Nale's impersonation of Elan. Shall I go on ?

Roy is not an author insertion character. He is the main character -- the hero -- of the story, but he's an arrogant, sarcastic, flawed human being. He's also intelligent. And because he's intelligent he sometimes gives his own unsupported half-baked theories more credit than they really deserve ... which is a flaw of arrogant but intelligent people.

So I don't think this an Author Soapbox. It's just Roy trying his best to explain to Celia why humans see the world so differently from Sylphs. And failing miserably, of course, because Roy doesn't really understand the way humans think, even humans like Haley whom he's traveled with for years.

Come to think of it, does anyone really understand the way humans think?

Heck, I have enough problems explaining how my spouse thinks, and I've known her since 1993. I can't really explain her, just acknowledge that she's wonderful.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Optimystik

2009-07-17, 09:32 AM

They're different alignments - they can't see eye to eye by definition. The OP's argument is quite confusing. :smallconfused:

Kurald Galain

2009-07-17, 09:39 AM

Didn't you see his annoyed look when Celia was ranting about how "Haley does what's only convient to her!"

Roy knows better about Haley because Haley once said the very same thing about him.

Angelus-alvus

2009-07-17, 09:44 AM

@pendel:
Did you read my whole post?
Or course Roy isn't the author's personification in the comic. But make a strip saying stuff that he KNOWS we can't discuss is a little bit fishy, don't you agree?
It's exactly as you said. religion discussions create flame wars. But if we can't talk about the strip that he made this isn't a discussion thread. It's a praisemeorthisthreadwillberebooted thread. He made somethng he knew it's forbidden to talk about.

Zevox

2009-07-17, 09:50 AM

HealthKit

2009-07-17, 09:51 AM

They're different alignments - they can't see eye to eye by definition. The OP's argument is quite confusing. :smallconfused:

Yet 2 people of the SAME alignment might not get along with each other or see eye to eye. Both Miko and Roy are/were Lawful Good... and we all know how that turned out.

Dacia Brabant

2009-07-17, 09:52 AM

I still say: watch Go God, go! from South Park (the best chaotic neutral cartoon ever made).

Hey, now that you mention it, both Rich Burlew and Richard Dawkins have the same first name! Coincidence?!?!?!

:smalltongue:

arguments over issues that are only tangentially related to the comic.

I pretty much agree with everything you said except this, since the issues in question are the focal point of the dialogue in panels 7-12 of OOTS #669. They can't really be tangentially related if the basis for the irony in the second half of the comic is reliant upon some understanding of what these issues are. You wouldn't get the joke without that, and it's pretty difficult to discuss the joke without bringing up what it's referencing.

Jaltum

2009-07-17, 09:55 AM

What Zevox said.

Also, you're combining 'criticize Rich' and 'talk about real world religion' as if they were the same thing somehow? As if you couldn't talk about real world religion in order to say why you really LIKED this strip, or as if we aren't allowed to criticize the strip as long as it doesn't veer into the forbidden zone.

You could, for instance, say that you don't think the Giant has done a very good job creating a world where people really act like they know what the afterlife has in store, and this strip comes off like a rather hasty band-aid. (There's a thread about that down the page.) You could complain about Celia's description of the Plane of Air not being consistent with D&D RAW. (In this very thread, I think, somewhere.) Etc. There's no 'don't criticize Rich' rule.

pendell

2009-07-17, 09:56 AM

But make a strip saying stuff that he KNOWS we can't discuss is a little bit fishy, don't you agree?

No, I don't. In the strip, as author he's allowed to say what he wants. And he's also permitted to refuse his web board to turn into a never-ending flamewar.

It's a praisemeorthisthreadwillberebooted thread. He made somethng he knew it's forbidden to talk about.

I disagree.

Valid criticism: It wasn't funny.

Valid criticism: Roy doesn't seem to have an understanding of what motivates humans.

Valid criticism: This is touching awfully closely on real-world religion, which we can't argue about here.

I don't think Mr. Burlew wants flattery. If he made a strip that failed to entertain or wasn't funny, I think you can say so in a polite fashion and your post will stand. But there's a big difference between criticizing his artistry and accusing him of deliberately fomenting a religious flame war -- something he and his mods have taken great pains to avoid in the past.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Angelus-alvus

2009-07-17, 09:58 AM

These forums aren't the extent of his readership. Rich is under no obligation to refrain from including things in his comic simply because they're on the (rather short) list of things that are banned from discussion on these boards.

ZevoxYou're right. That's why this isn't a discussion thread. Because we can't disagree discuss the strip because the subject is banned.

pendell

2009-07-17, 10:01 AM

I pretty much agree with everything you said except this, since the issues in question are the focal point of the dialogue in panels 7-12 of OOTS #669.

Of *this strip*, yes. Of the comic as a whole? Not so much.

I wouldn't be surprised if this thread gets rebooted a second time.

That's also why I proposed moving the religious discussion to another forum in a separate thread. We've been seeing the afterlife, gods, devils in OOTS verse for several hundred strips now -- of course it's going to tempt people to talk about the real world ideas that inspired the D&D myths. We need to have that discussion somewhere, but this isn't the place.

I don't pay for this server. I'm a guest on Rich's board. Since I'm a guest in his home, I'll respect his wishes. What happens in someone else's home would be a different story.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Optimystik

2009-07-17, 10:03 AM

Yet 2 people of the SAME alignment might not get along with each other or see eye to eye. Both Miko and Roy are/were Lawful Good... and we all know how that turned out.

Oh, I never disputed that. :smallsmile:

While it's possible that two people of the same alignment MAY have different outlooks on life, it's certain that two people of different alignments WILL have different outlooks on life.

They can get along, be comrades, even best friends, but they'll never agree on everything.

Jaltum

2009-07-17, 10:05 AM

Zevox

2009-07-17, 10:22 AM

Something to discuss about this strip--and I mean this sincerely, not as a counterargument--is that we get names for, apparently, all the Good and Evil afterlives. At first I thought Limbo would be TN, as a sort of 'and the rest,' but the pairing with Nirvana suggests that it's the NE afterlife.

Anyone with more D&D cosmology knowledge know if those six are by-the-book or homebrew? And are we assuming there are three more that Roy didn't bother mentioning? The judgment deva mentioned a LN afterlife, right?
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Plane), two of the planes Roy mentioned are not part of the standard D&D (Planescape) cosmology (assuming we equate "heaven and hell" with Celestia and Baator). Valhalla and Nirvana. The standard D&D cosmology has the following planes (again, according to Wikipedia - I'm not familiar with them all myself):

Celestia: Lawful Good.
Bytopia: Good, somewhat lawful.
Elysium: Neutral Good.
The Beastlands: Good, somewhat chaotic.
Arborea: Chaotic Good.
Arcadia: Lawful, somewhat good.
Mechanus: Lawful Neutral.
Acheron: Lawful, somewhat evil.
The Outlands: True Neutral.
Ysgard: Chaotic, somewhat good.
Limbo: Chaotic Neutral.
Pandemonium: Chaotic, somewhat evil.
The Nine Hells of Baator: Lawful Evil.
Gehenna: Evil, somewhat lawful.
Hades: Neutral Evil.
Carceri: Evil, somewhat chaotic.
The Abyss: Chaotic Evil.

Those are the "outer planes" of the cosmology. The inner planes are the elemental and energy planes, and the only others are the "transitive" planes such as the plane of shadow or the ethereal plane. So Valhalla and Nirvana are complete homebrew inclusions on Rich's part, completely absent from standard D&D. How they fit in is anybody's guess.

Edit: After seeing the below post, I checked Wikipedia's specific article on Mechanus, and apparently it is indeed a renamed Nirvana (technically now known by the full name of "The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus").

Zevox

Dacia Brabant

2009-07-17, 10:24 AM

That's also why I proposed moving the religious discussion to another forum in a separate thread.

Good idea. Any suggestions where to go?

Something to discuss about this strip--and I mean this sincerely, not as a counterargument--is that we get names for, apparently, all the Good and Evil afterlives. At first I thought Limbo would be TN, as a sort of 'and the rest,' but the pairing with Nirvana suggests that it's the NE afterlife.

Anyone with more D&D cosmology knowledge know if those six are by-the-book or homebrew? And are we assuming there are three more that Roy didn't bother mentioning? The judgment deva mentioned a LN afterlife, right?

Those terms go back to the old AD&D cosmology, and were taken by Gary Gygax from various real-world religions that vaguely analogize to his alignment-based cosmological system.

Limbo is Chaotic Neutral and diametrically opposed to Nirvana, which is Lawful Neutral. Heaven, properly the Seven Heavens, is of course Lawful Good and Hell, or the Nine Hells, is Lawful Evil, while the Abyss is Chaotic Evil and Valhalla is somewhat Chaotic Good aligned. Now the prototypical Chaotic Good plane though in AD&D is Mount Olympus, but of course we know from the crayon comics that the Olympian gods were all killed by the Snarl in the previous OOTS world so Roy wouldn't know about that plane.

Some of them have since been renamed via the Planescape setting, such as Nirvana becoming Mechanus and the Heavens becoming Mount Celestia, but the idea of the Great Wheel is still there. (Not getting into the 4th Edition cosmology, which is quite a bit different.)

pendell

2009-07-17, 10:33 AM

Good idea. Any suggestions where to go?

Not at this time. I'm soliciting suggestions.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Turkish Delight

2009-07-17, 10:34 AM

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Plane), two of the planes Roy mentioned are not part of the standard D&D (Planescape) cosmology (assuming we equate "heaven and hell" with Celestia and Baator). Valhalla and Nirvana. The standard D&D cosmology has the following planes (again, according to Wikipedia - I'm not familiar with them all myself):

Celestia: Lawful Good.
Bytopia: Good, somewhat lawful.
Elysium: Neutral Good.
The Beastlands: Good, somewhat chaotic.
Arborea: Chaotic Good.
Arcadia: Lawful, somewhat good.
Mechanus: Lawful Neutral.
Acheron: Lawful, somewhat evil.
The Outlands: True Neutral.
Ysgard: Chaotic, somewhat good.
Limbo: Chaotic Neutral.
Pandemonium: Chaotic, somewhat evil.
The Nine Hells of Baator: Lawful Evil.
Gehenna: Evil, somewhat lawful.
Hades: Neutral Evil.
Carceri: Evil, somewhat chaotic.
The Abyss: Chaotic Evil.

Those are the "outer planes" of the cosmology. The inner planes are the elemental and energy planes, and the only others are the "transitive" planes such as the plane of shadow or the ethereal plane. So Valhalla and Nirvana are complete homebrew inclusions on Rich's part, completely absent from standard D&D. How they fit in is anybody's guess.

Zevox

I think Valhalla and Nirvana may be the 'old-school' names for two of the planes above, in the same way the Seven Heavens became Mouth Celestia. Either Planescape or 2nd edition AD&D changed the names of some of them.

Someone with a better memory than I, feel free to correct me.

Scarlet Knight

2009-07-17, 10:38 AM

I believe that this comic helps us remember that our background shapes how we all look at the same picture & still come up with different responses.

Celia & Roy looking at the life of adventurers certainly differ, as was explained.

But also Roy vs Haley as to her level of greediness.

Haley is greedy but gave almost all of her gold to help the Azure City resistance.

Roy doesn't seem to give her credit for that.

Is it because he was away from his cloud & doesn't know? Was it because he's a lawful fighter and believes it's a leader's obligation to outfit his troops?

Haley is a chaotic rogue. She thinks giving away her gold to others was a very good deed. Espcially if she was raised in a guild where even if your superiors gave you something, they always managed to get it back and more...

Optimystik

2009-07-17, 10:49 AM

I think Valhalla and Nirvana may be the 'old-school' names for two of the planes above, in the same way the Seven Heavens became Mouth Celestia. Either Planescape or 2nd edition AD&D changed the names of some of them.

Someone with a better memory than I, feel free to correct me.

Correct.

Nirvana = Once part of Arcadia, now moved to Mechanus (LN)
Valhalla = part of Ysgard (Between Limbo and Arborea) (Strong C, leans toward G)

Random832

2009-07-17, 11:39 AM

Now the prototypical Chaotic Good plane though in AD&D is Mount Olympus, but of course we know from the crayon comics that the Olympian gods were all killed by the Snarl in the previous OOTS world so Roy wouldn't know about that plane.

The Greek gods don't exist in the default setting anyway, despite the fact that Olympus itself does, so there's no reason he wouldn't.

Porthos

2009-07-17, 11:40 AM

But if we can't talk about the strip that he made this isn't a discussion thread. It's a praisemeorthisthreadwillberebooted thread. He made somethng he knew it's forbidden to talk about.

You may be unaware of this, but only TEN PERCENT (or so IIRC) of his readership actually uses this forum.

Ten. Per. Cent.

So if he creates a comic that might (and I stress might) have some RL implications that some people can't discuss here.... Well, that's just too bad.

Rich doesn't and should never taylor his comic to the ten percent of readership that uses the forums. Actually, his comic shouldn't be taylored for any specific part of his readership, but that's neither here nor there. :smallwink:

Besides, when it comes to criticism, there is plenty that is allowed here. People have complained for pages and pages about the strips before. Check out a bunch of old Discussion Threads if you don't beleive me. But what you can't do is bring in Real Life Politics/Religion/Whatever to buttress your points.

So consider it a challenge to discuss/comment/criticize this strip without bringing those topics up. And everyone loves a good challenge, no? :smallamused:

Anyway, as for your central point, again I think you are misinterpreting Authorial Intent here. I gave my reasons in the now unthread, so I shant repeat them here. But there are still plenty of things here to discuss besides the rather silly and unjustifiable (if one reads the enitre comic, including the Celestia sequences), "OMG Rich hates teh religion" rant.

jlvm4

2009-07-17, 12:10 PM

I believe that this comic helps us remember that our background shapes how we all look at the same picture & still come up with different responses.

And that is why I liked the comic so much. It wasn't that it was particularly funny, or that I agreed with it, or that it moved the action along; but that Roy was doing something profoundly human at that moment. Given what had just happened to him (resurrection, not the sex), it would only make sense that he was trying to make sense of it all. And do so based on his own background (however clueless some might consider it). He trusts Celia enough to talk honestly with her, and that's a good thing.

Ideally, he could also trust that not everone sees the same thing the same way. Lord knows, I've said things that had no intended sub-text or offense, but managed to tick off the recepient anyway just because their background had some free-association responses to words or thoughts that weren't even on my radar screen. Good friends can expect a 'say what?' to follow and then maybe a productive discussion.

But this is an internet forum, so more likely it ends in flames and destruction. Part of that's the nature of the beast (text does not convey emotion the way a personal discussion does) but part of that's us operating in an arena devoid of background that at the same time provides an illusion of intimacy. Intimacy and understanding can breed forgiveness of unintended slights, but it can also mean we take things way too personally. A 'they should have known better, so of course they meant to hurt me.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling now, but I hope Rich keeps up these sort of comics that serve the characters and his story. Even if I don't like it, I prefer it to a strip that caters to me (or anyone else) at the story's expense.

Angelus-alvus

2009-07-17, 12:24 PM

Ok, so 10% of the people who read actually uses the forum. So that makes his less wrong? do things like: "I write what I want, but I want to no one say I'm wrong" is correct?
Okay then, let's just talk about that theory of Roy's without going deep into religion.
Like it was said in this thread before the reboot, the wars would just increase. If there were no afterlife people would just seek as much pleasure as possble. Drug dealers would have much more "customers" and the police action would be even weaker because very few people would risk willing their lives to protect what is right. People would kill each other and in a way or another, with or without God's existecnce. The faith in religion is in a way or another conected with the moral of the people without one the other would crumble.
This IS Rich's comic and he can do watehever he wants with the plot. That's his free will. But I still think he's deeply wrong. I just hope he won't do another strip like this one.

Kish

2009-07-17, 12:35 PM

Ok, so 10% of the people who read actually uses the forum. So that makes his less wrong? do things like: "I write what I want, but I want to no one say I'm wrong" is correct?
I would venture that to say he's wrong, you should first find something Rich Burlew is actually saying, not just assume the character who says things you disagree with is his mouthpiece.

I'm not getting into the moral implications of having a strip which deals with religion when religion is a barred topic on the forum, just the assumption that Roy=Rich.

Nimrod's Son

2009-07-17, 12:36 PM

You're right. That's why this isn't a discussion thread. Because we can't disagree discuss the strip because the subject is banned.
Oh, shush. Real-life religion wasn't mentioned in the strip so there's no reason whatsoever to talk about it here.

Porthos

2009-07-17, 12:38 PM

do things like: "I write what I want, but I want to no one say I'm wrong" is correct?

No, it's not correct. As the mods (and Rich himself) have repeatedly said, criticism of the comic is expressly allowed here.

I really am straining to see how you come to this conclusion. Again, check out any half-a-dozen different threads that constantly criticize this strip.

I won't address the rest of your post because:

A) I, again, think it misreads what Roy was saying. Remember, Roy expressely believes that an afterlife will exist in his little thought experiment. Go and re-read the comic, all the way through.

and

B) it skirts too close to Real Life Discussion for my tastes.

If you really need to get stuff off your chest about this comic, why don't you email or PM Rich about it? You know, that way you can address your concerns/criticisms without violating Forum Rules.

Just a suggestion.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 12:48 PM

Well spotted!!! Yes, I am indeed. My father enjoyed the series first time round when he was young, and got me into it via BBC's audio tape collection when I was in my teens. I assume that the fact you caught the reference means that you are a fan too?

Yes, my dad was also a fan and had a collection of episodes on phonograph records back in the '70s, which I listened to many times as a kid. Since I was already a Monty Python fan, I loved the Goon Show, which had the same kind of crazy, absurdist humor, even though I didn't get some of the jokes because they were either too dated or too British. I recognized the line from one of the episodes (Tales of Men's Shirts, I think). My personal favorite was "The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea."

---Listen! Someone's screaming in agony! Fortunately, I speak it fluently!

Sebastrd

2009-07-17, 12:48 PM

Best comic yet. Good job, Rich. :smallwink:

Faceist

2009-07-17, 12:54 PM

It's kinda sad...
If a thread isn't full of praises it's just rebboted. It's obvious why it isn't allowed for us to discuss religion here. Because Rich wants to say wathever he wants and wants that no one tries to criticize that. For the people who says it's just roy's opinion because he's a fictional character, if that isn't Rich true opinion about the subject, why would he make his MAIN character say something lkike that? Let's suppose that this is really not Rich's opinion about religion, that would simply make him an hypocrote for standing for something he doesn't believe and be so strict about not allowing people criticize that strip.
I still say: watch Go God, go! from South Park (the best chaotic neutral cartoon ever made).Discussions about religion are expressly forbidden on the forum because, while it is a topic that engenders a lot of debate, people are too prone to becoming offended and subsequently derailing the discussion. No offense meant, but I feel this is what you are doing. Understand that Rich is not slamming his beliefs down your throat and refusing to allow you to argue your own case: he is having a fictional character muse upon the afterlife in his own world, making no (or at least tangential) reference to real-world religion. The fact that it is the 'main' character in this instance is irrelevant, because a good writer (which Rich clearly is) is capable of distancing himself from his characters, just as a good writer is capable of using any character (not just the protagonist) as a mouthpiece when appropriate. [For example, Belkar might be a chaotic evil murderer, but if it's piquant and appropriate, he can be correct in his statements or act as Richs "in strip" voice.] In this particular instance it made sense for Roy (just having come back from the Afterlife) to muse 'pon it.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 01:02 PM

It's like people said, though. It was unfair to post a comic that discusses things we can't discuss the real-world equivilants of here. That was just asking for trouble.

As I said in the post I made that was scrubbed, it is not surprising that this strip ignited a flamewar. A lot of people are simply too neurotic, defensive, and uptight to behave themselves when they feel their unverifiable belief-system is being attacked.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 01:08 PM

Does it have anything to do with belief in the afterlife? Possibly. It is tempting to say that war was more common in our world when belief in the afterlife was more widely held, but that statement requires serious statistical analysis to back it up.

I could point to many real-world examples of belief in an afterlife being used to get people to engage in risky--or self-destructive--behaviors, but that would be against the rules.

Jaltum

2009-07-17, 01:09 PM

*facepalm*

And some people can't resist the urge to throw rocks at hornet nests.

Sotris

2009-07-17, 01:24 PM

I'm in the 'Awesome comic' camp. :smallbiggrin:

Also, it sort of reminded me an old fantasy novel- I forget the title and the author, but it was set in ancient times (in our world), with magic active but constantly fading and running dry as it was being used by humans. Dragons and other magical creatures die first because they cannot survive without magic, Spells begin to lose power, Atlantis begins to sink because its rulers have used magic to tectonically stabilize it, etc.

In the turmoil of the times, there is a group of radical activists (considered terrorists by most) that seek to further drain magic, and completely edadicate it from the world.
Their reasoning for commiting such an 'atrocity' is this: There is war and conflict in the world because people feel safe in their use of magic. Healing spells, protective shields, immunity to fear or pain, charms of courage and endurance, even ressurection, make warfare seem like a sort of game to soldiers and leaders- while the poor innocents are left to die and suffer as collateral damage.
But if magic wasn't around to empower and protect them, if a single stab from a copper dagger could lead to death in excruciating pain, or if a single stray arrow could kill soldier, general and king alike, then everyone would think twice before eagerly marching to war. People would try to discuss and work things out first, and eventually Peace would reign on the world.

...Of course, the reader knows (from personal experience:smallfrown:) that the radicals' reasoning is wrong, and that humans will keep slaughtering each other even when magic fades- but, for the people of the time in the story, the logic seems quite sound. That's what this comic reminded me of.

...Anyway, I wonder: Was this strip just a stand-alone philosophical venture from Rich, or was it a reference to something that will have significance later on- Perhaps in the End of the Comic?

A bit like, perhaps (perhaps), what the reaction of V's familiar when facing the Snarl was?

Isi

2009-07-17, 01:42 PM

"The war is a bared continuation if the politics, but with other means"

Thats my attempt at translating it, from top of head!

Some german war theoretic, on general philosophy of war.

...Idless

War is naught but a continuation of politics by other means---Clauswitz

A point made in reference to another posters' suggestion that war and societal violence is not always political.

Blah...

Ron Miel

2009-07-17, 01:44 PM

Agreed, :haley: is greedy but I can't remember her risking someone's life for gold.

In the inn fire, she was only concerned with retrieving the gold, and persuaded V to help her, putting both of them at risk. Miko, meanwhile, was risking her own life, checking if there were any people left in the inn.

Kaytara

2009-07-17, 01:49 PM

In the inn fire, she was only concerned with retrieving the gold, and persuaded V to help her, putting both of them at risk. Miko, meanwhile, was risking her own life, checking if there were any people left in the inn.

Nah, I don't think that one counts. Even V, the scrawny wizard, argues that it's a nonmagical fire and deals little damage.

Optimystik

2009-07-17, 01:50 PM

In the inn fire, she was only concerned with retrieving the gold, and persuaded V to help her, putting both of them at risk.

"It's nonmagical fire, it inflicts a mere 1d6 points of damage." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0243.html) Neither of them were exposed to significant risk.

EDIT: Your jutsu is strong, Kaytara :smallsigh:

Kaytara

2009-07-17, 01:57 PM

"It's nonmagical fire, it inflicts a mere 1d6 points of damage." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0243.html) Neither of them were exposed to significant risk.

EDIT: Your jutsu is strong, Kaytara :smallsigh:

Had to happen for a change. XD

David Argall

2009-07-17, 02:06 PM

{Scrubbed}

Angelus-alvus

2009-07-17, 03:09 PM

It's not about us feeling attacked. I just love calm debates about religion. I know many people that truly respct everyone's faith. However what makes me angry are people that do their best to manipulate a conversation and try to shut the other opinions.
About Haley's greed, if my memory serves right, wasn't she gathering all that gold to save her father?

sam79

2009-07-17, 03:19 PM

Yes, my dad was also a fan and had a collection of episodes on phonograph records back in the '70s, which I listened to many times as a kid. Since I was already a Monty Python fan, I loved the Goon Show, which had the same kind of crazy, absurdist humor, even though I didn't get some of the jokes because they were either too dated or too British. I recognized the line from one of the episodes (Tales of Men's Shirts, I think). My personal favorite was "The Dreaded Batter-Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-on-Sea."

---Listen! Someone's screaming in agony! Fortunately, I speak it fluently!

It is indeed Tales of Men's Shirts, and thanks for putting me out of my misery. I love this quote (it is one of the few really good Goon Show quotes that works totally out of context, to fans and non-fans alike), but couldn't for the life of me remember which episode it was from.

For me, the Goons came before Monty Python, but liking one tends to mean liking the other.

Some of the references are too British for me to understand too, and I am British; it is very much a product of its post WWII context. It always surprises and delights me when its zany appeal crosses national borders. My girlfriend, whose French, doesn't like it (read: get it) at all.

My favourite episode has to be 'Ill Meet By Goonlight', where the Allied invasion of Crete is effected with the help of sockfulls of luke-warm spaghetti.

Oh, and so this is not totally off-topic, I agree with your point about how people don't play nice when their (often unquestioned) ideologies are subjected to debate. And if Rich prefers not to have such debates take place here...well, it is the Giant's playground.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 03:27 PM

{Scrubbed}

Denvil

2009-07-17, 03:37 PM

{Scrubbed}

Porthos

2009-07-17, 03:40 PM

About Haley's greed, if my memory serves right, wasn't she gathering all that gold to save her father?

And Roy (or anyone else for that matter) knows this, how exactly? :smallsmile:

Random832

2009-07-17, 03:41 PM

About Haley's greed, if my memory serves right, wasn't she gathering all that gold to save her father?

If she was naive enough to believe it would have worked when she started out, she's not now - though she could be going on inertia, or out of some misplaced Lawful impulse.

Denvil

2009-07-17, 03:54 PM

My girlfriend, whose French, doesn't like it (read: get it) at all.

C'est la vie. Ironic, since the French invented the idea of "Theatre of the Absurd." My mother doesn't get Python either. Never liked it, never thought it was funny. Except for the Lumberjack Song. The first time she heard that she totally came apart. It was hilarious. :)

Oh, and so this is not totally off-topic, I agree with your point about how people don't play nice when their (often unquestioned) ideologies are subjected to debate.

Well, what do you expect? When you can't back up your position with any actual facts, you're going to get upset when it's attacked.

Porthos

2009-07-17, 03:58 PM

However what makes me angry are people that do their best to manipulate a conversation and try to shut the other opinions.

Then it's a good thing that no one here (including Rich) is doing that, yes? :smallsmile:

BTW, while I'm here: Strawman Arguments. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)

I'm not saying that you are intentionally engaging in Strawman Arguments. But I am saying that stating certain things that are demonstrably untrue and then arguing against them pretty much fits the bill, unintentional or not.

Anyway, I'm pretty darn close to saying all that I have to say about this subject. So unless something really piques my interest on this part of the discussion, I will simply give an adieu.

Peace, out.

Roland St. Jude

2009-07-17, 04:03 PM

It's kinda sad...
If a thread isn't full of praises it's just rebboted. It's obvious why it isn't allowed for us to discuss religion here. Because Rich wants to say wathever he wants and wants that no one tries to criticize that. {Scrubbed}

Sheriff of Moddingham: This is a patently false accusation. The only discussion thread ever to be rebooted was this one. And it wasn't done because anyone criticized the comic. It was done by me, in accordance with long-standing rules, and Rich had nothing to do with it personally.

To recap:
You may criticize the comic.
You may not discuss real world religion and politics.
You may not insult Rich, personally.

Forbiddenwar

2009-07-17, 08:33 PM

anyway, getting the thread going:
sorry if had already been said, but wasn't Celia's belly button cute?:smallredface:
And a question: are those clothes that roy is wearing the clothes he went on his date with? And died in? and rotted in? :smallyuk:

And: I thought this was a beautiful end to the book, didn't you?

Forbiddenwar

2009-07-17, 08:56 PM

Can I also tip my hat to Roland. He must have had a busy time in the last 24 hours. Remember, don't shoot the messenger, especially if he is a gunslinger.

If we wish to discuss Real Life and OOTS, we are welcolme to make a group in google to do just that. the rules, as I see them, say what are okay and what are out of bounds on Giant's servers, (he pays for them without any ad space and we are guests here) not what can be spoken of at all.

I surprised no one mentioned this, but in the comic I got a feeling of deja vu. Isn't it common for tv characters to say something like "who knows, we might be characters in a box in someone's living room" I got the a similar feeling from this strip. I wonder why that is? And what TV trope that is called? can someone link it?

Bubbles

2009-07-17, 09:05 PM

Personally, I found the difference between Roy's philosophizing and RL reality to be a sweetly sad kind of ironic.

But rather than dig more into ground tread over well enough by other people, I thought I'd go off onto a different tagent that occured to me.

When Celia first returned after Roy's death by Tsukiko zapping that 'Not-a-booty-call' amulet and Haley, there was no end to the speculation that Celia was pregnant.

Now, this is a stretch, but the title of 669 is 'Logical Conclusions', and one logical conclusion of sex is pregnancy...so my wild speculation is..could all those who wildly speculated before about Celia being pregnant only now be correct..just a hundred, give or take a few, comics off? Since Celia is likely headed off to school again. it's a possiblity. And the pay off would simply be a epilogue to the story where we find out if Roy turns out have the same exact relationship with children that he had with Eugene and that Eugene had with Horace..or will he have grown enough to break the cycle? say if his son or daughter wishes to be a wizard or whatever else instead of a fighter.

I'm sure this isn't the first time it was speculated...but I thought I'd bring up it again.

Kish

2009-07-17, 09:45 PM

This post is likely to sound like I'm a grouch, I'm afraid.

"Celia and Roy aren't using any form of protection" or "whatever form of protection they're using just failed" is not a logical conclusion.

Yes, I remember all the speculation about Celia being pregnant, the claims that her stomach was bigger than when she'd been seen previously (it wasn't), the flat assertions that she was pregnant with no effort to provide reasoning at all. Those posts made me cranky. I was grateful when Kazumi's pregnancy established that the time frame didn't work and they mostly ceased. I didn't realize until just now that one of the results of it being established that Roy and Celia just had sex, is that those posts will resume. Oh well...*points* hey, is that Miko over there?

Epileptic Ent

2009-07-17, 09:46 PM

Hehe, I laughed out loud for quite a while after reading the comic,
then rolled on the floor laughing reading the original discusion thread,
and finally laughed my ass off when it was rebooted :smallbiggrin:
Good Job.

Igniting such a discussion is a sign of true artistry - the comic is not only funny, it touches on a subject that makes people think. And ... *sigh* ... some people always fail at thinking :smalltongue:

For those who did: In this comic Roy epicly fails to imagine a world without knowledge of what is beyond the material plane. And in a very funny way. That's it folks. Oh ... and Skill Points. :smallcool:
No reason to feel insulted, no reason to feel like YOUR beliefs are under assault - if you feel like that you totally misunderstood the comic and should reread it ;)
And even less reason to think that what Roy thinks is what Rich thinks - that borders on insulting Rich.

So, move on, nothing to see here.

Forbiddenwar

2009-07-17, 10:35 PM

Now, this is a stretch, but the title of 669 is 'Logical Conclusions', and one logical conclusion of sex is pregnancy

What's that claymation character that stretches? gumbo? well, he reminds me of you.
logically "Logical conclusions" because it is the end of the book and Roy is drawing conclusions.
But I like random speculation! keep it up.

lothos

2009-07-17, 11:27 PM

Indeed it is. It's because religion is a source of endless flame wars that make arguments over Vaarsuvius' gender look like kids in a sandbox in comparison. It's perfectly reasonable that the Giant doesn't want to pay for server space so that other people can hijack it for arguments over issues that are only tangentially related to the comic.

Well said. I love the fact that these forums don't get overtaken by such discussions. It's obvious that many people have strongly held opinions on those topics. In some cases opinions that matter more to them than anything else in life.

(snip)
That's also why I proposed moving the religious discussion to another forum in a separate thread. We've been seeing the afterlife, gods, devils in OOTS verse for several hundred strips now -- of course it's going to tempt people to talk about the real world ideas that inspired the D&D myths. We need to have that discussion somewhere, but this isn't the place.

I don't pay for this server. I'm a guest on Rich's board. Since I'm a guest in his home, I'll respect his wishes. What happens in someone else's home would be a different story.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

What a great idea. Someone should create a thread on a different website, one not affiliated with GITTP, one where such discussions are appropriate. Then link to that forum in a posting here. I assume that's allowed by the forum rules here. Just make sure there is a clear warning with the link so that people know that it's a link to a different website with different rules on appropriate content.

I won't be participating in that other thread, but some people here obviously feel constrained by the forum rules here. If they "take it outside" I think that would work out well for everyone.

In another thread, you quoted something said earlier by Spod, I think you actually had it in your signature for a while:

And you can spend all day pounding on the keyboard, dissecting other people's posts sentence-by-sentence, trying to convince people that they should care about the same things you care about, but they never will. Ever.

I couldn't agree more. That's why I'm not going to get involved in a thread even on another website debating real world religion or politics. If you like you can say I'm not open to being challenged on my beliefs, or you can suggest that I'm not open to new ideas. I just don't find those types of discussions online are really ever productive, despite the best intentions of many involved.

Gan The Grey

2009-07-17, 11:37 PM

I think we, as readers, sometimes forget some of this comics intricacies. Mainly, the fact that each character (PC-wise) in the comic is presumably being played by a real-person in our world.

That being said, as with a real DnD session, everything a character thinks/does/says is colored by the limited experience/imagination of his player. It's no different here. In essence, Rich is playing all of the characters in his strip, and he is trying to write their personalities based on what he envisions them to be. But, like a DnD session, Rich is not his characters. This will inevitably make his characters less believable in their opinions on some things because of the difficulty of accurate portraying a philosophy that you don't necessarily subscribe to.

Oh, and about the Haley running back into the building for gold...Gold = saving her father's life. Therefore, saving the gold is saving her father. She totally considers human life important.

Xondoure

2009-07-17, 11:47 PM

Zevox

2009-07-18, 12:07 AM

Oh well...*points* hey, is that Miko over there?
:smalleek:

Don't even joke about that!

:smallwink:

I think we, as readers, sometimes forget some of this comics intricacies. Mainly, the fact that each character (PC-wise) in the comic is presumably being played by a real-person in our world.
No, no they're not. They simply exist in a world where the rules of D&D apply, just like the laws of physics. They are not meant to represent an actual game of D&D. Belkar even makes a comment about that here (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0606.html) (panel 6).

Zevox

Pronounceable

2009-07-18, 12:49 AM

And now it seems people are afraid to comment. Cool. This is something new.

Maybe we'll finally get a main thread that can actually be read fully.

RMS Oceanic

2009-07-18, 12:53 AM

Gan The Grey

2009-07-18, 01:55 AM

Yeah, I looked back and read what I said, and it doesn't really say what I was meaning to say.

I was making a metaphor (one that didn't quite come out right) about how Rich is basically the player trying to represent characters that don't necessarily share his world view, and doing so will always be hindered by Rich's experience and imagination. Like a quiet, shy person trying to play a loud, outgoing character in a DnD session. Doesn't always work out...right.

And that goes both ways. I think some people tend to forget that this a character talking, a character talking from his experience as dictated by the situation. I think Rich did a fantastic job of portraying Roy as a guy who just came back from the afterlife talking to someone who's already immortal. His speech made perfect sense for their reality as based on the evidence his character had at his disposal.

It was also a great poke at a DnD itself. Our characters do things that we in life will never dream of, for two reasons: One, what won't you do when you know that God(the DM) has got your back (unless you have a particularly cruel DM). Two, the fact that Raise Dead-ish spells are printed in great description in your rulebook practically screams at you to go to stupid things.

I don't see how this strip has anything to do with our reality. Nothing at all.

Arkenputtyknife

2009-07-18, 02:10 AM

What a great idea. Someone should create a thread on a different website, one not affiliated with GITTP, one where such discussions are appropriate.
Long long ago, during an argument not entirely unlike the one that's been trying to flare up here, a forum was created for just this purpose: http://ootsforum.myfreeforum.org/

You can see how much use it got. Good idea or bad, not many people can be bothered to spend their time on multiple forums covering a single webcomic.

David Argall

2009-07-18, 02:14 AM

Oh, and about the Haley running back into the building for gold...Gold = saving her father's life. Therefore, saving the gold is saving her father. She totally considers human life important.
Her father has been held prisoner for years now. His life is not in any notable danger, certainly not compared to anybody who might not have gotten out of that fire. So yes, Haley rates human life important, but she is rating gold higher.

[At which she may not be wrong. Gold is largely just an accounting medium, a measure of value, not a value of itself. So since 5000 gp will finance a raise dead, something of greater value is worth more than a human life, as is evidenced by the failure to spend that 5000 to raise some individual.]

Gan The Grey

2009-07-18, 03:23 AM

Her father has been held prisoner for years now. His life is not in any notable danger, certainly not compared to anybody who might not have gotten out of that fire. So yes, Haley rates human life important, but she is rating gold higher.]

By that logic, people should never take risks in order to help others. No one should resist a tyrant that enslaves people, because someone might die in the war.

There are two different kinds of people when it comes to money: those that want it just to have it, and those that use it as a means to an end. Haley is not the first person, as is evidenced by the fact that she is trying to use it to free her father. That money is literally a symbol of his freedom. And, some would argue that a life without freedom is not a life at all.

Raging Gene Ray

2009-07-18, 04:03 AM

Oh well...*points* hey, is that Miko over there?

Yes! Kazumi is pregnant with Miko, who is pregnant with everyone, ever! It's like the ending to 2001.

Hallavast

2009-07-18, 05:27 AM

Great Comic. I can tell the script was edited and re-edited probably more than once.

First, I think the fact that this update made some instantly think "Oh dear, this will be very controversial" is a good thing.

But what is really being said here? I've come up with 3-4 answers that are worth entertaining:

A) The level of violence in this comic (and by association DnD settings in general) is staggeringly high.

B) The level of violence on earth is absurdly high considering the general lack of knowledge pertaining to its ultimate outcome.

C) Roy is full of crap and doesn't know what he's talking about.

I'm willing to agree with a little of each.

sam79

2009-07-18, 05:55 AM

His life is not in any notable danger

Do we actually know this? Is he, for example, shown in Origin of the PCs with all limbs and not subject to daily torture? Or are we, like Haley, simply presuming that he is alive and (relatively) well? Could not Evil Dictator person have simply killed him to prevent the chance of him escaping, and sent the 'ransom' note anyway, knowing that his daughter would do all she could to pay up anyway?

We know that amongst Haley's motivation for gathering treasure is this issue of the ransom. But how different would her actions have been had her father been safe and well? Would she have gone back into the inn fire for her gold? Would she have pulled that con over her friends with the 6 rocks, or deflected Roy's questions regarding her loot with the words "feminine products"? We'll never know, of course, but I suspect she would. It strikes me that she is a character who enjoys money and the finer things in life that it can buy, and will use dishonest and unlawful means to acquire it. But surely this is obvious, as she is a Chaotic good-ish Rogue.

rxmd

2009-07-18, 06:25 AM

Gold is largely just an accounting medium, a measure of value, not a value of itself. So since 5000 gp will finance a raise dead, something of greater value is worth more than a human life, as is evidenced by the failure to spend that 5000 to raise some individual.]

Actually, it follows by the same logic that human life as a value in D&D is rather meaningless (especially as compared to real-world morality), as evidenced by the fact that it costs 40x more to get somebody out of prison, than to raise them from the dead. In D&D, life itself is a commodity.

A more crucial issue seems to be how you spend your natural lifespan. In other words, spending your life in freedom seems more important than whether you're currently alive or not. If Haley's father knew about Tyrinar's offer, and was certain of the existence of 17th level clerics (not a given), it would even make sense to kill himself and wait for Haley to spend 25.000 gp on a True Resurrection somewhere out of prison, rather than eight times that amount on the somewhat optimistic hope that Tyrinar will keep his word. If he had a way to get a part of his body to a friend (such as cutting off his finger and smuggling it out before committing suicide), it could be done for 1/20th the money and would need only a 13th level cleric to pull off. If he had had the wisdom to leave small portions of his body (a bit of skin perhaps, or some hairs, or a milk tooth) with Haley and a couple of other people as a safety deposit, he could have made it even easier.

It seems that given this lack of intrinsic value of human life in a D&D universe, gold is actually as valid an indicator for making value judgments as anything else. Vis-a-vis human lives, it has the added benefit of higher granularity, since human lives can be value-judged only in 5000gp chunks.

Kaytara

2009-07-18, 06:43 AM

There are two different kinds of people when it comes to money: those that want it just to have it, and those that use it as a means to an end. Haley is not the first person, as is evidenced by the fact that she is trying to use it to free her father. That money is literally a symbol of his freedom. And, some would argue that a life without freedom is not a life at all.

I disagree. Haley's habits of hoarding the gold and polishing it have nothing to do with her father. Indeed, Rich explicitly said in the commentary to Origins that he wanted to show that Haley was always obsessed with money, for example.

So I'd say that by herself, she's definitely in the first category. Her father's situation forces her to ALSO be in the second.

Ron Miel

2009-07-18, 07:05 AM

Oh, and about the Haley running back into the building for gold...Gold = saving her father's life. Therefore, saving the gold is saving her father. She totally considers human life important.

Perhaps I failed to make my point clearly. The inn was on fire. People right there and then were in immediate danger of death. Miko was there, risking her own life making sure that everyone gets out safely. Meanwhile, Haley was only concerned with rescuing her money. And she also put V in danger. As for the non-magical fire doing "only" 1d6 of damage, she was lucky not to get herself and V killed in the explosion. Even if she was just doing it for her father, it still shows a lack of concern for other people.

lothos

2009-07-18, 08:28 AM

Long long ago, during an argument not entirely unlike the one that's been trying to flare up here, a forum was created for just this purpose: http://ootsforum.myfreeforum.org/

You can see how much use it got. Good idea or bad, not many people can be bothered to spend their time on multiple forums covering a single webcomic.

I wondered if someone might have already done that. I guess people might use it more if they knew about it and wanted to have unmoderated and unrestricted discussions.

I don't know if this fits in with the moderators thinking, but I'd like to suggest that the forum rules include a pointer to that place as a note underneath the rules about acceptable forum content. A sort of "if you don't like the rules, go some place else... try over here" kind of thing.

In my opinion it's easier to tell people not to engage in a certain behaviour if you can tell them point out to them that there is another place where they can indulge themselves.

Kish

2009-07-18, 08:34 AM

sam79

2009-07-18, 08:56 AM

More that it's obvious because she's Haley. Stereotypes aside, there's no rule that says a rogue, even a Chaotic Neutral rogue, has to be more treasure-motivated than any other adventurer.

We'll probably get into semantics here, its obvious that Haley is simply adhering to the stereotypical rogueish motivation for personal gain. While there is no rule to state that rogues are more motivated by treasure, the 3rd Edition PHB bumpf for rogue says: "Rogues adventure for the same reason they do most things: to get what they can", treasure included. It would be most unusual for a rouge, particularly of the 'traditional' Thief type like Haley, not to be motivated strongly by financial gain. This is not the case for the other PC classes. The strip plays with this idea, by introducing the ransom plot thread as an additional motivation, but Haley is on some ways just a (stereo)typical rogue.

snafu

2009-07-18, 08:57 AM

A) The level of violence in this comic (and by association DnD settings in general) is staggeringly high.

I'd go with this one. Roy may be right: in a fantasy world where there's an endless afterlife to look forward to, life is cheapened to begin with. Easy resurrections only cheapen it further - not only is death not the end, it isn't even a one-way path! Suddenly death literally is just like going into another room. In such a world, killing a Good person is doing them a favour, and killing an Evil person, well, then they deserved it. And if you yourself die in the process, what of it? You'll be rewarded generously after death.

However, it's also rather destroyed an argument I was making a few weeks ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6400831#post6400831), when someone wondered why anybody would be evil if the fate of evil souls is well known to be unpleasant. I suggested that plane shifts and resurrections are things that happen to legendary heroes with access to high-level priests or wizards, such as the common man might never meet ever in his whole life - so all the general population have to go on is hearsay and old wives' tales.

That idea's just been pretty thoroughly exploded. So, if the afterlife and the gods are as surely known to exist as the trees and the stars, then why would anybody be evil? Wouldn't your whole mortal life be dedicated to getting yourself the best berth possible for the long term? I'd imagine people going to the local cleric for regular checkups: 'yep, you still show up on Detect Good. See you next month.' If there's an afterlife, then surely there's no possible better investment of your time and resources than in maximising your alignment position to get into your favourite plane; a few decades of inconvenience and discomfort in the process are a small price to pay. Bit like picking the right extracurricular activities to impress the admissions tutors at your chosen university, only for infinitely higher stakes...

boyflea

2009-07-18, 09:29 AM

very beautiful - best strip since the one with the fish.

to have affected so many people with such a throwaway conversation just shows how much the fans love this story!

if the devil is in the details, then god is rolling dice just behind the horizon. ;)

rxmd

2009-07-18, 10:02 AM

It seems that given this lack of intrinsic value of human life in a D&D universe, gold is actually as valid an indicator for making value judgments as anything else. Vis-a-vis human lives, it has the added benefit of higher granularity, since human lives can be value-judged only in 5000gp chunks.
That would be true, if everyone who had the money to be resurrected automatically was. As it is, that doesn't work at all.

Roy, in the last strip, says, "Sure, it's not commonplace, but I think even knowing that it's a possibility encourages the mortal races to take risks." There is a huge gap between that and, "And therefore the logical value of a life is five thousand gold." Death is still permanent in the vast majority of cases in the OotS-universe.

I realize that in the OOTS world this is the case, but it's more because it's somewhat irrelevant to the story rather than to any intrinsic aspect how the world works. In an actual game, this is the kind of thing that makes you go crazy as players come up with weird ideas every now and then.

It's somewhat inevitable, because the game provides all the mechanics. Once you have some 20-50.000 gp as a character, it's relatively easy to get yourself moderately safe from death. Just deposit small body parts and 10.000 gp each with a couple of trustworthy friends to hedge your bets. Have them scry in on you periodically to determine whether you're alive; if not, get them to have you resurrected. As a higher-level character, you could also start an insurance company offering to get clients back from death. Take a deposit of some small body parts and 10.000gp to cover the eventual cost of the spell. Periodically determine whether the client is alive using magical means. True resurrect them if they're dead. Store the body parts of clients in several different places across the world to cover your own risks. In a world with airships, Greater Teleport, teleport object and sending, all you need for this is a few 13th level clerics and wizards. These you get into providing services for your company by offering them resurrection for free. Instantly, a life will be worth exactly 10.000 gp plus a regular subscription fee.

The lesson is basically that when you have a fictional world, as soon as you change some minor part of how it works (such as the permanency of death) you may completely screw up the applicability of real-world value systems to the actions of your players. If you want to save your real-world morality, you need to invent all sorts of artificial restrictions. A DM may have the gods refuse to resurrect people, pirates-ex-machina could raid the diamond-and-body-part storage rooms of your company, etc. pp. All this gets increasingly railroady and unconvincing. The only reason that Rich doesn't have this problem in OOTS is because it's a non-interactive storyline and he calls all the shots.

snafu

2009-07-18, 10:14 AM

Instantly, a life will be worth exactly 10.000 gp plus a regular subscription fee.

Thing is, you don't even need to put up the 10,000gp bond. Just the premiums will do to cover the company's expenses. It's a life insurance policy to pay out 10,000gp in the event of the insured's death. You don't have to have the 10,000gp per customer in a vault somewhere, because most of them aren't going to need it before they die of natural causes. You pay the resurrection cost for those who get killed out of the premiums paid by those who don't.

Kish

2009-07-18, 10:23 AM

It's somewhat inevitable, because the game provides all the mechanics. Once you have some 20-50.000 gp as a character, it's relatively easy to get yourself moderately safe from death. Just deposit small body parts and 10.000 gp each with a couple of trustworthy friends to hedge your bets.

So long as some small portion of the creature’s body still exists, it can be resurrected, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death.
So, no.

You're also presuming level 13+ clerics are common as dirt, in a world where Haley said she wasn't sure that there are any level 17 clerics. Or perhaps you're assuming that Haley's statement is silly in any D&D world (i.e., ultra-high magic settings are the only settings)? In any case, no. I don't agree with all your premises, so I don't agree with your conclusion. The very small number of people who have parts of their body (after death) harvested by one of the world's very small number of high-level clerics, presuming said cleric has the diamonds and the desire to resurrect them, can come back. You say that leads logically to "the value of a resurrectable creature's life has a specific value in gold." I say it leads logically to "death is permanent in the vast majority of cases, and lives are still as valuable as they are in a world without resurrection."

rxmd

2009-07-18, 10:44 AM

So, no.

Ah, you're right, that complicates things somewhat. :smallsmile:

That restricts the Level 17 Life Insurance Company business model to high-level campaigns (in general, if you have a campaign setting where it's interesting to play a character of level X, there will be a couple of other persons of level X +/- 1 around eventually). So the monetary value of a life rises, from 10.000gp to 10.000 gp plus the eventual cost of getting body parts out in worlds without 17th level clerics, or to a flat 25.000 gp in worlds that have them.

(Even in a world with 13th level clerics only, I guess you could save even the Level 13 Life Insurance Company business model somehow. You could implant magic items into people's bodies that teleport part of the body back to the company in the event of death, or items that notify the company upon their death so that you can send out an appropriate teleporting creature to collect part of the body, or whatever. All this merely drives up the monetary cost.)

You're also presuming level 13+ clerics are common as dirt, in a world where Haley said she wasn't sure that there are any level 17 clerics. Or perhaps you're assuming that Haley's statement is silly in any D&D world (i.e., ultra-high magic settings are the only settings)? In any case, no. I don't agree with all your premises, so I don't agree with your conclusion.

Feel free to disagree to your heart's content :)

Oh, and I'm not presuming they're as common as dirt; all you need is one cleric, or two if you want to motivate them by offering them free resurrection in the case of their own death. I realize that there might be all sorts of settings with a shortage of high-level NPCs, but that's already a secondary restriction. In a world that has only spells of level N, a level N+1 spell won't have moral repercussions. Worlds with level 17 clerics have a revolving door afterlife, in worlds with level 13 clerics it revolves a little more slowly, and in other worlds it may not revolve at all; in those campaign settings, you may as well tear the appropriate level spell sections from your Player's Handbook, but that's a statement of the obvious. If resurrection is available, a life is worth what resurrection is worth. If it's unavailable on principle, the whole discussion is moot. In a world without 9th level clerics, Roy and Celia wouldn't be having the discussion.

Kish

2009-07-18, 10:50 AM

If resurrection is available, a life is worth what resurrection is worth.
I also take issue with the assumption that a level 17 cleric, one of the most powerful servants of her god, able to cast the most powerful pre-Epic cleric spells there are, is going to have the time or the desire to set up an insurance company.

So--yes. If guaranteed resurrection is available, a life is worth the cost of that guaranteed resurrection. The Oracle arranging for resurrection makes sense. The super-rich being able to arrange for True Resurrections when they die can work, always bearing in mind that the person who can resurrect them, by definition, is beholden to other powers which might provide a conflict of interest. There is no way to get from there to "a life has a gold piece value" without hand-waving away things that ought not be hand-waved away.

Yahzi

2009-07-18, 10:52 AM

Not at this time. I'm soliciting suggestions.

Some places where you can argue religion without restriction:

http://www.freeratio.org/

http://www.randi.org/site/

As for the comic - Rich brings up a good reason to explain why clerics with raise dead don't have a massive morale boost over other leaders. And why Raise Dead failed so often (well, in 2E, at least). Because people don't necessarily want to come back!

Even better, it explains why Raise Dead works on adventurers, who are having fun or doing world-shaking things, and doesn't work on peasants, who have no desire to return for more drudgery.

All within the D&D trope.

You say that leads logically to "the value of a resurrectable creature's life has a specific value in gold." I say it leads logically to "death is permanent in the vast majority of cases, and lives are still as valuable as they are in a world without resurrection."
Well, lives without resurrection are assigned a value (via wrongful death court cases and such) and it's not particularly high. :smalltongue:

But it's more than that - the DMG specifically equates XP with gold, at a ratio of 1 to 5. This means a 20th level character represents the same amount of investment as a large castle. And we know how many large castles there are in any given D&D world... ergo, high-level people can't be that rare.

The world D&D players live in can't actually reflect a real medieval world at all. I went to great lengths in my campaign (see my sig link) to fix this, by changing the level curve (XP required doubles every level) and making peasant's deaths the source of XP for their rulers (thus recreating feudal society, as opposed to regular D&D where peasants exist for no reason other than to be scenery).

snafu

2009-07-18, 11:02 AM

I also take issue with the assumption that a level 17 cleric, one of the most powerful servants of her god, able to cast the most powerful pre-Epic cleric spells there are, is going to have the time or the desire to set up an insurance company.

She doesn't have to set up the insurance company. Some other bugger sets up the company, does the day-to-day organisation of the body part sample storage and keeps the books and collects the premiums, all as a private enterprise. Then whenever a policy falls due, the Company pays the deceased's relatives or fellow adventurers or whoever they nominated, and refers them to a priest of appropriate level and alignment who will happily perform the resurrection ritual in exchange for a suitable donation to the Church - one which will be amply covered by the value of the insurance payout.

The insurance agent's happy, because he takes his commission on every policy. The deceased's happy, because he gets raised from the dead. The priest's happy, because she gets a tidy regular income on these deals and that's not to be sniffed at, have you seen the cost of roof repairs on a decent-size temple these days? It's all good business.

In fact I think it's such a good idea someone should set it up. Needs a bit of seed capital to get started; I think there's five Lawful Neutral dragons living on the mountain up there, I wonder if they'd put up the money in exchange for a share of the equity?

Yahzi

2009-07-18, 11:15 AM

The priest's happy, because she gets a tidy regular income on these deals
But priests manifestly don't exist merely to make a profit. Getting raised by a priest should require more than money; it should require you to be of the same religion or alignment, and willing/capable of doing something to advance the church's agenda.

Well, except possibly for LE. They might work just for money. But they won't settle for an insurance premium; they're going to want everything you have. :smallbiggrin:

rxmd

2009-07-18, 11:16 AM

I also take issue with the assumption that a level 17 cleric, one of the most powerful servants of her god, able to cast the most powerful pre-Epic cleric spells there are, is going to have the time or the desire to set up an insurance company. [...] always bearing in mind that the person who can resurrect them, by definition, is beholden to other powers which might provide a conflict of interest [...]

Exactly. This is the kind of particular in-game restriction that you need to come up with as a DM to restrict the scope of the impact of the underlying game mechanics. Of course you will always have something that you can throw in the sprockets of the wheels of your players' weird ideas as a DM, but I guess one aspect of the fun in gaming is precisely to play with these implications of the rules, in terms of numbers (which gives us geekery threads), but equally so in terms of the moral impact. So I like toying around with ideas such as the Level 13 Insurance Company, regardless of whether they ought or ought not to be feasible in a given particular setting.

There is no way to get from there to "a life has a gold piece value" without hand-waving away things that ought not be hand-waved away.

Oh well, I don't know about what "ought" to be - this started as a completely theoretical discussion, so I was speaking theoretically myself. In practice in OOTS, where Roy's life is worth 10,000 gp plus some 220 strips of questing, the main point is of course the latter, and if someone were to hand-wave that away I'd ask myself why they come here to read the comic.

Massy

2009-07-18, 12:25 PM

No time to read the whole thread.

I'd just like to say that I admire this one. It was a nice I-didn't-see-that-coming piece of wisdom thrown at us. Apparently, too many people here are unable to appreciate Rich sticking his neck out this way instead of the usual funny.

David Argall

2009-07-18, 02:11 PM

Do we actually know this?
What we know is that Haley knows of no connection between her current stock of gold and her father's life. So there is even less reason for her to be saving the gold.

Actually, it follows by the same logic that human life as a value in D&D is rather meaningless (especially as compared to real-world morality), as evidenced by the fact that it costs 40x more to get somebody out of prison, than to raise them from the dead.
The value of any good varies, sometimes widely, according to circumstances. That makes computing the value of a human life rather difficult, but the result, if accurate, is far from meaningless. All sorts of decisions are influenced by how much one deems a life is worth. One even routinely risks one's own life because it is "worth it".

If Haley's father knew about Tyrinar's offer, and was certain of the existence of 17th level clerics (not a given), it would even make sense to kill himself and wait for Haley to spend 25.000 gp on a True Resurrection somewhere out of prison, rather than eight times that amount on the somewhat optimistic hope that Tyrinar will keep his word.
There are additional "ifs" here. One is the Soul bind spell, and in earlier editions, druids had a spell that prevented bodies from being used for undead, or to be raised. Other roadblocks are possible, and cheap where one has a hope of a 200,000 payout.

It seems that given this lack of intrinsic value of human life in a D&D universe, gold is actually as valid an indicator for making value judgments as anything else. Vis-a-vis human lives, it has the added benefit of higher granularity, since human lives can be value-judged only in 5000gp chunks.
No, the human life has intrinsic value, a rather high one too. The problem with it, and other values, is that it is hard to know, and changeable. Really, that applies to gold too, but it makes for an easier game if it has a fixed value.

Dixieboy

2009-07-18, 03:06 PM

If he had a way to get a part of his body to a friend (such as cutting off his finger and smuggling it out before committing suicide), it could be done for 1/20th the money and would need only a 13th level cleric to pull off. If he had had the wisdom to leave small portions of his body (a bit of skin perhaps, or some hairs, or a milk tooth) with Haley and a couple of other people as a safety deposit, he could have made it even easier.

I believe the body part has to have been a part of the person at the time of death or some such.

Carnivorous M.

2009-07-18, 04:54 PM

-waits patiently for Godwin's Law to take effect if it hasn't already, because if it has she is just too durn lazy and sleep-deprived to read and comprehend the whole discussion to see so-

ocdscale

2009-07-18, 09:27 PM

Morgan Wick

2009-07-18, 09:57 PM

Start of Darkness Spoiler
In the final panel of page 19 of Start of Darkness, Eugene Greenhilt notes that he was a childhood rival of Suzy Finkelstien. Presumably the mother of Sheila Finkelstien. Someone else noted how Suzy kept her maiden name too.

OH MY GOD IT OBVIOUSLY MEANS IT WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!!1111!!!1!!!eleven!

harami2000

2009-07-18, 10:12 PM

Pronounceable

2009-07-18, 10:12 PM

Zevox

2009-07-18, 11:17 PM

Hmm, I may be one of the few who didn't see this as commentary on the real world. Rather thought it was foreshadowing the Order letting the Snarl (or more likely, simply failing to prevent it) kill off the Gods in order to make the world a little more peaceful.
Huh? Er, how do you figure? The afterlife in the Order of the Stick and generic D&D would still exist without the gods. They have scant little to do with it, other than that their domains are presumably where their Clerics, Paladins, and other divine casters go after death, assuming they are judged to be of the appropriate alignment.

Plus, if the Snarl gets loose, the only hope they have is for the gods to escape again and once again trap it in a re-made world...

Zevox

Rev. George

2009-07-19, 02:26 AM

by changing the level curve (XP required doubles every level) aYou can do similar by making XP spendable. You want to buy LVL3? it costs 2000 XP. Have fun earning more xp, LVL4 costs 3000 XP and you just spend all your experience.

But priests manifestly don't exist merely to make a profit. Getting raised by a priest should require more than money; it should require you to be of the same religion or alignment, and willing/capable of doing something to advance the church's agenda.

I've always handled it as a mechanic of alignment and religion. Without going into too much detail, anyone can try to raise/rez anyone else, it is just more likely to fail if you are a LG cleric of thor and the subject is a CE worshiper of Loki.

-+G

Seeker

2009-07-19, 02:41 AM

sam79

2009-07-19, 03:32 AM

Okay, I feel it needs to be said, with no disrespect meant:

The rules are right in that politics/religion discussion isn't usually needed nor wanted. But this comic raises said issues, and as said, was asking for it. That the moderators reboot a topic solely because of a mostly friendly discussion is strange to me. And as I look through the topic, many things criticising The Giant even slightly are scrubbed to an extent. Cult of personality much? The Giant is great, don't get me wrong, but it's kinda scary the way people end sentences with 'Rich is always right!'... OK, not quite Animal Farm yet, but you get my meaning. But I suppose its done willingly by the fans, so no fault there....

Good comic, however.

While it can be seen as not quite cricket to post such a strip if discussing the key issues it raised is forbidden on the connected forum, I agree with you that the rule regarding discussion of religion/politics is a good one. And even if I didn't think it was a good one, it behoves me to obey it if I want to participate in the forum.

But we should also remember that we on the forum are only a small minority of the total readership, and thus the comic should not feel bound by the discussion rules that pertain here; that would be kind of silly.

It is hardly surprising that the fans who bother to sign up and post on the forums are often the most, well, fanatical, and that often it does seem that Rich can do no wrong in some poster's eyes. But as for moderators seeking to create a Cult of Personality by deleting posts simply for criticizing the comic or its author; not something I can say I've noticed. I was involved a little in the rebooted thread, and while the majority of posters were indeed friendly in their disobedience of the rules, there was a considerable and vocal (or whatever the equivalent word for text-based conversation is) who were not. So we had a thread in which nearly all the poster (myself included) were in breach of the rules, and in which some people (myself, I fervently hope, not included) weren't playing nice; rebooting looks like a good decision.

snafu

2009-07-19, 05:39 AM

That insurance company thingy: a god of money or commerce might like it. Not to mention it'd be good PR among powerful characters of the world for pretty much any god, esp a LE, who'd let his clerics do it.

_Dangerously_ good PR. Suppose the Life Insurance Company's policies become popular, and suddenly Raise Dead is not confined to rich, high-level adventurers any more. Suddenly Farmer Murphy, accidentally crushed to death by an oxcart, is raised by the Lawful Neutral priests of Oekonomus the God of Fair Trade thanks to the regular payments he made to the insurance firm. The general population can now avail themselves of the revolving door afterlife.

Oekonomus does awfully well out of this. His temples earn vast fortunes. Worshippers, of course, get a discount; naturally, the people flock to the (now gloriously appointed and gilded) holy places of the faith. The priests, following their god's agenda, invest in merchant expeditions to far-off lands - and their associated insurance company is on hand to cover their expensive cargos. The church becomes the central bank of the kingdom. They are the ones who set out the laws of the marketplace; contracts of business are to be adjudicated by canon law in the cathedral of Oekonomus.

The other gods grow envious of this. Oekonomus is too rich and powerful. The church, through its interests at all levels of business, has come to effectively rule the country; even the king is heavily indebted to their lenders, his very crown being his collateral. The overseas merchant empire grows year on year. Priests of other gods preach that Oekonomus has cheapened death, that he is blasphemously commercialising what ought to be a holy miracle, that he is selling the sacred in a shameful sacrilege. But more and more the people flock to the Temple of the Moneychangers. And in reality, that's what the other gods don't like to see.

Enter our adventuring party. Their mission is to put a stop to all this - perhaps on behalf of a king who fears the growing power of this ecclesiastical corporation, or perhaps on behalf of a rival church. A chaotic evil party might be favourite - because the best way to put a stop to the Raise Dead Insurance Company is to get hold of a list of all their clients, and kill as many as possible in a titanic serial killing spree. Bankrupt them!

Kish

2009-07-19, 09:53 AM

And as I look through the topic, many things criticising The Giant even slightly are scrubbed to an extent.
Anything referring to real-world religious or political issues has been scrubbed. That includes criticism of Rich, but also posts which amounted to, "The way the latest comic demonstrated [if I say these words they will get scrubbed] was great."

Milandros

2009-07-19, 10:14 AM

_Dangerously_ good PR. Suppose the Life Insurance Company's policies become popular, and suddenly Raise Dead is not confined to rich, high-level adventurers any more. Suddenly Farmer Murphy, accidentally crushed to death by an oxcart, is raised by the Lawful Neutral priests of Oekonomus the God of Fair Trade thanks to the regular payments he made to the insurance firm. The general population can now avail themselves of the revolving door afterlife.

Oekonomus does awfully well out of this. His temples earn vast fortunes. Worshippers, of course, get a discount; naturally, the people flock to the (now gloriously appointed and gilded) holy places of the faith. The priests, following their god's agenda, invest in merchant expeditions to far-off lands - and their associated insurance company is on hand to cover their expensive cargos. The church becomes the central bank of the kingdom. They are the ones who set out the laws of the marketplace; contracts of business are to be adjudicated by canon law in the cathedral of Oekonomus.

The other gods grow envious of this. Oekonomus is too rich and powerful. The church, through its interests at all levels of business, has come to effectively rule the country; even the king is heavily indebted to their lenders, his very crown being his collateral. The overseas merchant empire grows year on year. Priests of other gods preach that Oekonomus has cheapened death, that he is blasphemously commercialising what ought to be a holy miracle, that he is selling the sacred in a shameful sacrilege. But more and more the people flock to the Temple of the Moneychangers. And in reality, that's what the other gods don't like to see.

Enter our adventuring party. Their mission is to put a stop to all this - perhaps on behalf of a king who fears the growing power of this ecclesiastical corporation, or perhaps on behalf of a rival church. A chaotic evil party might be favourite - because the best way to put a stop to the Raise Dead Insurance Company is to get hold of a list of all their clients, and kill as many as possible in a titanic serial killing spree. Bankrupt them!

The problem with all of this is simple economics. Adventurers are the equivalent of Nicholas Cage in National Treasure, not John Smith the data entry clerk. A peasant earns 1sp a day. A simple Raise Dead, with all it's restrictions on requiring a bady, costs 5000 gp in components alone. That's 50,000 days of work, or, assuming a 7 day work-week, 136 years of saving every penny earned.

Based on median income levels of US earners of age 25 or higher, both sexes (i.e. a not spectacular $32,000 per year) [source: Wikipedia, appropriate caution should be taken], that's equivalent to approximately 4 million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the components of a simple Raise Dead, assuming no caster costs, temple costs, overheads, etc. Very few people will be able to afford costs or insurance schemes of that magnitude.

All of which goes to show how it doesn't work trying to apply the D&D economic, spellcasting or magic item creation rules "logically". They aren't there for that; they're tailored to PC actions, not a world background. If you want every little village to be staffed with level 17 clerics in the church, paladins for police and wizards running shops then you need to put a *lot* of work into justifying why they would do such a thing. Imagine a magical even gave everyone in our world Superman or Green Lantern - level powers. Who would bother turning up for work the next day to handle customer care complaints?

Forbiddenwar

2009-07-19, 11:23 AM

Based on median income levels of US earners of age 25 or higher, both sexes (i.e. a not spectacular $32,000 per year) [source: Wikipedia, appropriate caution should be taken], that's equivalent to approximately 4 million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the components of a simple Raise Dead,

Huh, I never thought of D&D being for PCs only. Puts another twist on some of the jokes in OOTS: "I'll have you know we are both playable in this edition" and "The adventurers are coming, The adventurers are coming!"

In another thread someone used a different stategy to estimate the cost of raise dead ( gold costs per $ per ounce, a gold piece is a 1/3 of an ounce, how much $ is 5,000gp in diamonds) and got $1 million and change. Still, both estimates emphasised the vast gulf between being a someone with a masters degree ($40-150K a year) and being an Adventurer($2-3 million a year, give or take)

rxmd

2009-07-19, 11:49 AM

The problem with all of this is simple economics. Adventurers are the equivalent of Nicholas Cage in National Treasure, not John Smith the data entry clerk. A peasant earns 1sp a day. A simple Raise Dead, with all it's restrictions on requiring a bady, costs 5000 gp in components alone. That's 50,000 days of work, or, assuming a 7 day work-week, 136 years of saving every penny earned.

Based on median income levels of US earners of age 25 or higher, both sexes (i.e. a not spectacular $32,000 per year) [source: Wikipedia, appropriate caution should be taken], that's equivalent to approximately 4 million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the components of a simple Raise Dead, assuming no caster costs, temple costs, overheads, etc. Very few people will be able to afford costs or insurance schemes of that magnitude.

Your argument rests on one particular way to calculate exchange rates of gold pieces to US dollars. You can calculate the exchange rate in a number of ways. You base it on labour, namely that a peasant earns 1 sp per day. Here you run into the well-known problems in the price tables that items are comparatively too expensive - a peasant needs to work four days to afford a basket, ten days to afford flint and steel, three weeks to afford a backpack or a crowbar, and almost a year to afford 10ft of chain (a fairly weak chain at that, where 5 feet weigh 1 pound).

Another way to calculate the $/gp exchange rate is by comparing prices on products. The classic extreme counterexample would be that Raise Dead costs roughly the equivalent of 1650 feet or 330 pounds of chain; go to a hardware store and look how much you'd pay for a footlength of chain thanks to industrial production. For a more reasonable example, Raise Dead costs the equivalent of 500 fine bottles of wine; assume a fine bottle of wine sells for $100 nowadays Raise Dead is the equivalent of $50.000, not cheap but affordable. This kind of discussion how gold pieces should translate into today's currency has been extensively developed, to the point that everybody is aware that this kind of comparison is a meaningless endeavour.

factotum

2009-07-19, 12:06 PM

If you want every little village to be staffed with level 17 clerics in the church, paladins for police and wizards running shops then you need to put a *lot* of work into justifying why they would do such a thing.

Or just set your campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting... :smallbiggrin:

Porthos

2009-07-19, 01:35 PM

Waitaminute. People are saying that the economics of DnD Does Not Scale Well with Real World Economic Theories? :smallconfused: :smallconfused: :smallconfused:

Well knock me over with a feather. I am shocked.... SHOCKED I say to hear that the designers of a game didn't run their ideas by Economic Theorists. :smalltongue:

It's almost as if this game evolved over decades with people throwing in things here and there that made sense at the time and that they were more concerned with such concepts as game balance over realism.

Clearly these game designers didn't know what they were doing. :smalltongue:

Look, it's been well established that Economic Realism only has a passing familiarity with DnD. And while Third Edition gets a lot flak (Craft Item exploits, I'm looking at you) the Economic Background of DnD has NEVER made sense. The economies of just about every single setting in every single edition should have crashed long ago (with the possible exception of Dark Sun - but since that's already an example of a failed civilization it probably doesn't count), if we were going to apply Real World attitudes toward them.

So why doesn't a Wizard spam out Magic Items and make himself a millionaire (50% profit FTW!)? Why don't craftsmen crash their local economies? Why don't Priests become Life Insurance Agents?

Because This Is A Game, Not A Simulation Of An Alternate Universe.

While that may seem fatuous, I think it gets lost sometimes in a lot of the "But why don't people do this or that" discussions. The simple fact of the matter is if people did this or that, then the game would break down and everyone would have to break out their DVD collection and watch some movies to pass the time instead of gaming.

Yes, these odd situations can make for great fodder in satire or parody (like say in a certain famous comic strip that satirizes elements of DnD :smallwink:). And when played straight, they can give an interesting campaign or three. But, by and large, people play DnD to either go out and slay the monsters or to have interesting philosophical challenges/challenging situations to overcome. And everything in between those two extremes.

But, funnily enough, most people don't play DnD to play Chartered Accountants or Insurance Agents. No matter how lucrative it might be. :smalltongue:

Besides, Third Edition already has a bad enough reputation thanks to "Magic Marts". Do we really want to go down the road where Priests are hawking insurance plans?

Not even Eberron (as far as I know) goes that far down the Rabbit Hole. :smallyuk:

So while all of this is an interesting case of Fridge Logic (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic), and worthy of a fun laugh or three, the simple answer to why these things don't happen is that this is a game. And one that is supposed to be based (even if it gets more tenuous with each edition) on Fantasy Archetypes*.

* Yes yes yes, I know I know I know. There's High Fantasy, Low Fantasy. Early/Mid/Late Medieval. Early Renaissance. Eastern/Western/Arabic Fantasy. And HodgePodgeStew from PopCulture.

Doesn't set aside my point, however. Perhaps in a setting where it's far closer to an Early Renaissance type vibe you might see ideas seep in like this. And in an Arcanum Steampunk style setting I wouldn't bat an eye. But Core DnD? Nahhh.

Dilvish

2009-07-19, 04:34 PM

I'm not an insurance agent, but I play one with my Aces & Eights character. :) It's a game set in an alternate history American west. He has managed to sell life insurance and property insurance policies. Unfortunately some of his clients have discovered insurance fraud. :( He also moonlights as an accountant for the town's hospital.

Porthos

2009-07-19, 04:52 PM

I'm not an insurance agent, but I play one with my Aces & Eights character. :)

That's why I said DnD instead of RPGs. :smalltongue:

I can definitely see such things in certain systems (especially with systems that are closer to the "modern" era). I just have a hard time importing it to Sword and Sorcery type stuff. :smallwink:

rxmd

2009-07-19, 05:19 PM

Waitaminute. People are saying that the economics of DnD Does Not Scale Well with Real World Economic Theories? [...] Doesn't set aside my point, however. Perhaps in a setting where it's far closer to an Early Renaissance type vibe you might see ideas seep in like this. And in an Arcanum Steampunk style setting I wouldn't bat an eye. But Core DnD? Nahhh.

Well given that this is OOTS, and OOTS is, if anything, a somewhat anachronistic comedy flavour of core DnD where people put things on color-coded parchments, have MBAs and draw up 401k plans, I don't see any problem with if readers start toying with other weird ideas :)

At least I find this kind of discussion considerably more amusing than the umpteenth variation on whether Xykon is level 21 or 28.

Porthos

2009-07-19, 05:38 PM

Well given that this is OOTS, and OOTS is, if anything, a somewhat anachronistic comedy flavour of core DnD where people put things on color-coded parchments, have MBAs and draw up 401k plans, I don't see any problem with if readers start toying with other weird ideas :)

At least I find this kind of discussion considerably more amusing than the umpteenth variation on whether Xykon is level 21 or 28.

*cough*

Yes, these odd situations can make for great fodder in satire or parody (like say in a certain famous comic strip that satirizes elements of DnD :smallwink:)
*cough*
:smallsmile:

Iz just saying that don't expect it in "normal" DnD. :smallwink:

PS: Rich has already taken at least one poke at trying to apply RL Economic theory to DnD (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html). It wouldn't surprise me to see more somewhere along the line. :smalltongue:

imp_fireball

2009-07-19, 06:29 PM

OK, reaction? My first thought was "Wow, this comic is really begging for forum flamewars." And sure enough, this is what I find. Glad I didn't see the original thread.

That aside, it was a very nice comic.

It only begs for flame wars because too many people either lack intelligence or take D&D far too seriously.

That aside, the comic was an ironic comparison to the real world, in proving that Roy, with all his philosophical stick figure cuteness, is factually incorrect in his speculation that anything would be more peaceful in the real world.

The only level of violence that differs between fantasy and reality is that the world of fantasy often risks omnicidal 'destruction of the universe/world' by the BBEG on more than one occassion.
-------

So yah, it's funny that Rich pulled that on us. I had a chuckle. Thanks man.

PS: Rich has already taken at least one poke at trying to apply RL Economic theory to DnD (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html). It wouldn't surprise me to see more somewhere along the line. :smalltongue:

That was actually the result of ignorance. In the real world, it would be like some CEO's accountant having an angerism because of all the losses the company has made in the past quarter. And all the shareholder withdrawal. And the loss of thousands of jobs. ... and the fact that it's only a small business because it's the middle ages.

Zevox

2009-07-19, 08:04 PM

Or just set your campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting... :smallbiggrin:
Er, no. In the Realms you'd probably be more likely to find a 17th-level Cleric in a major city than in most other settings, but you won't likely find any in a small village. You'll probably encounter a couple of local shrines staffed by at least a few Clerics each, almost certainly including one to Chauntea if there is any agriculture going on in the village, but they aren't at all likely to be that high-level.

Zevox

blueblade

2009-07-19, 08:47 PM

Thanks guys, some good points. I guess I was just annoyed by how dismissive and cold Roy was with that line, but I take the point that he was talking to Celia, not Haley, and probably wanted to shut down the conversation ASAP.

And yes, 666 still showed a mutual friendship and respect. Guess there's still hope for the Order yet!

Wormwood74

2009-07-19, 09:29 PM

*This post does not connote support of any religious or philosophical point of view*

I really liked what Rich did with this last strip. Immersing one's self in the perspective of an alternate reality to explore the implications of not just the alternate realities laws of metaphysics, but the implications of these changes in the laws of reality on morality constructs is a difficult task. Very tough to do because we are all immersed in our own paradigms built on our own existing rules.

Turning it around and putting yourself in Roy's shoes and having him ponder the societal / philosophical / religious / moral implications of a universe like ours from his alternate universe construted paradigms is difficult as heck to do. I really only recall one other author doing this well (Stephen R. Donaldson).

So, without any judgement on the meanings of the comic, let me just say that I think Rich did the writing equivalnt of sticking a triple back flip with 1 1/2 twists. Unbelievable degree of difficulty, and made it look flawless.

Bibliomancer

2009-07-19, 09:35 PM

And for those who look at Haley with rose tinted glasses: She's greedy. She's effing greedy. She may have a legitimate reason to earn as much $$$ as fast as possible and willing to part with loads of gold for her dad, but she'd still be swindling the team if she didn't have any reason to. She won't rob them blind and take off into the night, but will happily cheat them out of a % of their share.

As greedy rogues go, she's being very restrained. She's not stealing from the rest of the party, even though she could easily use her maxed out Bluff skill (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0412.html) to get away with it. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0008.html) She also has restrained from stealing from the local authorities, which I frankly find shocking (although it can be attributed to the good section of her alignment, maybe).

I'm currently running a campaign where a the CN rogue just attempted to sell contraband goods (experimental weapons) looted off a friend's body to an enemy country, and none of the other players objected because he wasn't stealing from them (for once). Of course, this was in Eberron.

Kish

2009-07-19, 09:50 PM

As greedy rogues go, she's being very restrained. She's not stealing from the rest of the party,

Oh? (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0129.html)

even though she could easily use her maxed out Bluff skill (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0412.html) to get away with it. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0008.html)
Could and did, indeed. That was a long time ago? Sure. It was also the last time she was actually in a position to steal from the rest of the party. Suggesting that she's actually changed since then would be purely speculative.

I'm also not clear on what authorities you're saying she's restrained herself from stealing from. Redcloak? (No. :smalltongue: (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0526.html))

Conuly

2009-07-19, 11:35 PM

I'm also not clear on what authorities you're saying she's restrained herself from stealing from. Redcloak? (No. )

Hey, it's a war. Things get looted, that's the whole point.

factotum

2009-07-20, 12:53 AM

Suggesting that she's actually changed since then would be purely speculative.

Actually, we know she's changed quite a bit since then. She's no longer ruled by self-doubt, for a start, and she and Elan are an item. I think she's also much friendlier with the rest of the team than she was back then--after all, they'd only been together a few days at that point in the strip.

Of course, you're right in that we don't know if that would be enough to stop her cheating them out of their share if she had a chance, but to say she hasn't changed is incorrect.

Jaltum

2009-07-20, 05:39 AM

It's also relevant that cheating the team is less useful/meaningful when the team is a long-running entity with corporate goals that you subscribe to; you just end up spending the money you stole from 'the team' to achieve team goals once the rest of the team runs out of money (because you stole it all).

The Order has pretty much tacitly agreed to sink all their resources into defeating Xykon, because of the whole 'the world ends' thing. It doesn't make sense for Haley to rip off Durkon, so that he can't afford appropriate armor for his level, because if he gets killed she loses her healing and meat shield. Etc.

As for not stealing from the local authorities--well, she didn't clean out the Azure City palace as she passed through. The mental image of Haley stealthing up behind Shojo mid-monologue and making off with the sapphire is kind of hilarious, though.

hewhosaysfish

2009-07-20, 07:36 AM

The mental image of Haley stealthing up behind Shojo mid-monologue and making off with the sapphire is kind of hilarious, though.

The sapphire with the gate in it? That would make things interesting later. :smallbiggrin:

:miko: : I, Miko Miyazaki, now fulfill the divine destiny that the Twelve Gods have revealed to me!
Soon: No! Miko, you don't need to-
:xykon: : I think that's our exit cue...
*CRRAAACK!!*
*pause*
Soon: : You know, I was expecting something a bit more... dramatic?!

Milandros

2009-07-20, 07:46 AM

Your argument rests on one particular way to calculate exchange rates of gold pieces to US dollars. You can calculate the exchange rate in a number of ways. You base it on labour, namely that a peasant earns 1 sp per day. Here you run into the well-known problems in the price tables that items are comparatively too expensive - a peasant needs to work four days to afford a basket, ten days to afford flint and steel, three weeks to afford a backpack or a crowbar, and almost a year to afford 10ft of chain (a fairly weak chain at that, where 5 feet weigh 1 pound).

Another way to calculate the $/gp exchange rate is by comparing prices on products. The classic extreme counterexample would be that Raise Dead costs roughly the equivalent of 1650 feet or 330 pounds of chain; go to a hardware store and look how much you'd pay for a footlength of chain thanks to industrial production. For a more reasonable example, Raise Dead costs the equivalent of 500 fine bottles of wine; assume a fine bottle of wine sells for $100 nowadays Raise Dead is the equivalent of $50.000, not cheap but affordable. This kind of discussion how gold pieces should translate into today's currency has been extensively developed, to the point that everybody is aware that this kind of comparison is a meaningless endeavour.

You're right, of course, and as I said it all just goes to illustrate the ridiculousness of D&D economics, and that you can't take it logically and apply it to insurance-type schemes. The economics are really for PCs only.

But your counter-example , while perfectly reasonable, doesn't take into account that the peasant *still* only earns 1 SP per day. If you take the "wine standard" of a raise dead being $50,000, then you have to accept that the peasant now earns only $10 a day - and will again have a very hard time saving up the 50K equivalent you suggest. Or, in other words, it's still 136 man-years of work for a peasant.

Of course, if peasants had that kind of treasure on them, there would be a lot of depopulated villages and no adventurers in the dungeons :)

Kish

2009-07-20, 11:40 AM

The sapphire with the gate in it? That would make things interesting later. :smallbiggrin:

:miko: : I, Miko Miyazaki, now fulfill the divine destiny that the Twelve Gods have revealed to me!
Soon: No! Miko, you don't need to-
:xykon: : I think that's our exit cue...
*CRRAAACK!!*
*pause*
Soon: : You know, I was expecting something a bit more... dramatic?!
Actually, it would make things interesting right away.
HINJO: Haley?! What are you--don't pull that out of there! No!
*BOOM*

The throne was built around the sapphire covering the gate; the gate itself was no more mobile than Dorukan's or Lirian's gates.

TheBigChulupa

2009-07-20, 05:51 PM

Nice to see a characters perspective on that stuff, well played Rich.

SmartGuy299

2009-07-21, 10:39 AM

Just a quick question that may have already been answered (I'm new here). Couldn't Celia be raised by true resurrection? I don't actually play DnD, but according to the spell description, it raises outsiders and elementals. Maybe there isn't anyone of a high enough level to cast it yet, but they would have 10 years per level of the caster to reach that level.

Kish

2009-07-21, 10:40 AM

Couldn't Celia be raised by true resurrection?
Not if Rich says she couldn't.

Optimystik

2009-07-21, 10:51 AM

teratorn

2009-07-21, 12:29 PM

Didn't like it... terribly contrived, painful to read. But it stroke a cord with part of the audience, the first reactions (before Roland cleansed the thread) were pretty funny.

Not that I don't understand some people liking it, in particular when seeing it from this prism:

And that is why I liked the comic so much. It wasn't that it was particularly funny, or that I agreed with it, or that it moved the action along; but that Roy was doing something profoundly human at that moment. Given what had just happened to him (resurrection, not the sex), it would only make sense that he was trying to make sense of it all. And do so based on his own background (however clueless some might consider it). He trusts Celia enough to talk honestly with her, and that's a good thing.

factotum

2009-07-21, 02:01 PM

Just a quick question that may have already been answered (I'm new here). Couldn't Celia be raised by true resurrection?

Probably, but 17th level clerics aren't exactly falling out of the sky in Stickworld--Durkon is maybe level 14, and those 3 levels to 17 would be harder to get than you'd think given the general level of opposition they run into.

Selene

2009-07-21, 02:50 PM

I like the insurance company idea. Not so much fun to set up as a player, but it's a great source of money for the PC/NPC/church. And it doesn't inconvenience them much at all. Toss in a few clauses about charges for body retrieval, fines on your heirs if you refuse to return, etc. and you're good to go. :smallcool:

Also, Roy & Celia are cute. I'm going to miss her.

Estelindis

2009-07-21, 08:52 PM

I was rereading the older comics earlier today and, when I got to 399 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0399.html), it really made me think of this comic in a different way.

For us, in this world, death is the "final" way of dealing with a person. Imprisonment is another option - but, when it comes to someone who has committed and re-committed terrible crimes, it seems like the only option is to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives to protect innocents. This or the death penalty... :smalleek:

In 399, the characters are dealing with a world in which even death isn't very final, especially if a person has a lot of influence. So, for them, binding a soul is the "final" way of handling the problem - with the added complication that, in D&D, it's possible for high-level characters to be almost overburdened with an abundance of ways to break out of even a very secure prison.

I guess I was just thinking that, in the OotSverse, something as evil as soul-binding is the equivalent of murder (or maybe the death penalty). I'm pretty willing to bet that fewer souls are bound than we murder people in this world... Yet, at the same time, a black sapphire worth 1,000 gp per HD of the person to be bound is perhaps a little more expensive than the average murder too.

Forgive my rambling style, please (it's late). Hopefully someone knows what I'm talking about! I wasn't going to come back to this thread, considering the nuking that had occurred (and the discussion seemed to be reasonable when I'd last checked it out), but this has given me a different angle on the whole OotSverse / real world comparison theme.

Yahzi

2009-07-21, 11:52 PM

Clearly these game designers didn't know what they were doing. :smalltongue:
Well, ya, but that's another topic...

So why doesn't a Wizard spam out Magic Items and make himself a millionaire (50% profit FTW!)? Why don't craftsmen crash their local economies? Why don't Priests become Life Insurance Agents?

Because This Is A Game, Not A Simulation Of An Alternate Universe.
My games are simulations. And my players are role-players. Their characters are out to survive. Surviving requires power. Power equals money. Therefore, they do anything they can (within character) to make money.

The only way I can stop my players from taking advantage of the rules to break the game is to beat them to it. If an insurance agency works, then I need to know, so I can set one up before my players do.

But, by and large, people play DnD to either go out and slay the monsters or to have interesting philosophical challenges/challenging situations to overcome.
I never understood how those things could be fun when set in a world that patently did not make sense.

If the orcs exist solely to be slain by the PCs - and not for any other reason, or even to be slain by any other entity - then the entire game becomes a module, where it doesn't matter what your PCs do, because the end (and every step along the way) is already pre-determined.

But then, some people like modules, I guess.

To return to the topic: the cool thing about this strip is that it shows that Rich knows his world has to make sense, at least on its own terms and to its own characters.

allenw

2009-07-22, 09:38 AM

If the orcs exist solely to be slain by the PCs - and not for any other reason, or even to be slain by any other entity - then the entire game becomes a module, where it doesn't matter what your PCs do, because the end (and every step along the way) is already pre-determined.

As I see it, in the Stickiverse, orcs and goblins do exist solely to be slain by the PCs. Yes, you could argue that they exist to be slain by NPCs as well, but when it comes down to it, PCs kill a *lot* more of them than NPCs do, and the people the gods really care about are probably PCs. (I don't think the Order are the only "PCs" running around, since the concept of "PCs" seems to be fairly well known in the Stickiverse.)
Also, I don't think you're being fair to the concept of modules. :smallwink:

RPGAgmJAY

2009-07-22, 10:16 AM

::A stranger wanders out from the Athasian desert, each step taken more laboriously than the last. His beard is thick with caked sand, his eyes ringed with crusted salt and his overcloak sheds fine silt with each movement. It is clear that this man suffers from acute dehydration as his weathered face shakes before you::

<cough> 'aven't... for a week now...

::his voice barely a hoarse whisper as he forces the words out pitifully::

please... please... need a....

::he grabs on to you, his eyes intense with the will to live after all this time::

...

...

...

NEW COMIC!

((For the record, I know better. This was an attempt at humor rather than a complaint. I've been following OOTS for a long time now and am well aware of the occasional delays. Mr. Burlew, you have my deepest respect and you may take a year per comic if you need... I'll still be there eagerly waiting.

BTW- Anyone appreciate the obscure campaign reference?))

Good Gaming!

-J

Geburrah

2009-07-22, 12:22 PM

Carteeg_Struve

2009-07-22, 01:55 PM

Good gods, is it not obvious why we can't discuss religion? Half the people on here seem only to be on here to debate things endlessly. And you wanna talk about RELIGION? I've lost very good friends in RL on that very topic. People are killed daily over it. It has caused the lion's share of wars in history. C'mon!

(back to lurking)

And Politics! Don't forget politics! :smallbiggrin:

Besides, if people want to debate stuff like politics and religion, they can log into IMDB like everyone else.

As for alternate universe simulation, that's exactly how I run my games. I want the story to come first, but I want some degree of realism to keep the challenge up. It's a good way to keep over-active players in check.

Player: "He rides to the mountain before sunset."
DM: "It's 100 miles."
Player: "He pushes his horse as hard as possible."
DM: "The horse keels over dead 25 miles in."
Player: "But I rolled a 20 on my ride skill!"
DM: "Congrats. You're perfectly riding a dead horse."

Sure, I don't implement everything to an exact real-world standard (I'm not an expert in all things), but some degree of common sense helps.

As for the economic system in roleplay worlds, it ain't perfect, but the core books have a basis upon which I can correct and build on. The crunch is just a minor portion to the story.

Sylvius

2009-07-22, 06:07 PM

Of course, Roy is right. D&D settings are far more violent than the real world.

Note that virtually everyone real (player characters) in a D&D setting has a violent vocation, and routinely puts himself in harms way.

In the real world, that sort of behaviour is far less common.

The mistake here comes is applying Roy's correct hypothesis to a comparison of worlds that treats NPCs as people. But they're not people, and they act markedly differently from how people (PCs) act.

Kish

2009-07-22, 06:18 PM

Hurkyl

2009-07-22, 06:58 PM

Selene

2009-07-22, 07:34 PM

It's funny how you make controversial assertions about religion in the very statement where you are trying to explain why we can't discuss religion.

Are you trolling here?

Hurkyl

2009-07-22, 08:32 PM

Are you trolling here?
As in trying to lure others into a religious discussion? No I am not. One of my pet peeves is when someone pushes their point of view in the same breath that they call for the end of discussion (or explain why we shouldn't be discussing it, or other similar points of metadiscussion) -- I am specifically criticizing that.

lothos

2009-07-22, 09:43 PM

DM: "Congrats. You're perfectly riding a dead horse.".

Hahahaha !
I guess it beats flogging a dead horse :-)

Selene

2009-07-23, 11:27 AM

As in trying to lure others into a religious discussion? No I am not. One of my pet peeves is when someone pushes their point of view in the same breath that they call for the end of discussion (or explain why we shouldn't be discussing it, or other similar points of metadiscussion) -- I am specifically criticizing that.

Ah, ok. Well I guess I just don't interpret the person's post the same way you did, then.

Estelindis

2009-07-23, 05:26 PM

Ah, ok. Well I guess I just don't interpret the person's post the same way you did, then.
I think I know what Hurkyl means: saying that religion should not be discussed in the same breath as putting forth the claim that religions have caused the most wars is not exactly self-consistent. :smallwink: That's what I got from the post in question, anyway.

But now I'm discussing the discussion of religion... It could only get more boring if someone was to discuss my discussion of the... Gah! :smallsigh:

Nothing to see here. :smallredface:

Snowyowl

2009-07-23, 05:39 PM

As for the economic system in roleplay worlds, it ain't perfect, but the core books have a basis upon which I can correct and build on. The crunch is just a minor portion to the story.

Right. I think the economics are over-simplified becuase we ALREADY have too many obscure rules about... well, anything, really. Adding extra rules is the preserve of the DM.

My point is, if you're playing with people who have a grasp of economics and the Machiavellian mindset needed to come up with the idea of a life insurance, you'll ensure that one already exists (and only then). If they try to... oh, I don't know, use True Creation to make a dynamo and rediscover electricity, you ensure that he laws of physics are different in your universe. Like in Erfworld, the DM has to out-cheat the players on every turn. There aren't rules for every single possibility in the core books, but the DM gets to put them in to foil the players.

This does NOT mean that the players are confined to a narrow list of choices, just that they don't break the unspoken rules of your universe (i.e. it's a fantasy roleplaying game. You CANNOT have machine-guns)

CelestialStick

2009-07-23, 06:42 PM

Right. I think the economics are over-simplified becuase we ALREADY have too many obscure rules about... well, anything, really. Adding extra rules is the preserve of the DM.

My point is, if you're playing with people who have a grasp of economics and the Machiavellian mindset needed to come up with the idea of a life insurance, you'll ensure that one already exists (and only then). If they try to... oh, I don't know, use True Creation to make a dynamo and rediscover electricity, you ensure that he laws of physics are different in your universe. Like in Erfworld, the DM has to out-cheat the players on every turn. There aren't rules for every single possibility in the core books, but the DM gets to put them in to foil the players.

This does NOT mean that the players are confined to a narrow list of choices, just that they don't break the unspoken rules of your universe (i.e. it's a fantasy roleplaying game. You CANNOT have machine-guns)

I teach economics so I probably have more economics in my campaign world than most, but even I don't add that much. I like to have as few house rules as possible (and yet still have many :smallredface:) and like the game to be as consist in the rules from campaign to campaign as possible. One thing I've added in terms of economics is different currencies. Like the empire ruled by a paladin has its imperial money, and the great trade republic has repubican money. The evil religious theocracy has its own kind of money, as does the half-elven realm across the river from it. I mean they all use platinum, gold, silver and copper coins, but they don't trade at par; they have different exchange rates. Imperial and republican coins trade one for one and represent the gp values in the books. The money used by the dwarves in their great underground city adjacent to the empire actually is has a higher percentage of precious metals and so equals 1.10 imperials or republics. The lawful evil theocracy's money is worth 0.70 imperials, while the half-elven money is worth 0.80 imperials.

Out in a great island chain off the coast of the empire, each little city-state mints its own coins (although they use the same names) and they trade for only 0.65 imperials. In the Icelands both kings and merchants mint money; the kings' coins are worth only 0.60 imperials, while the merchants' coins are worth .075 imperials (because historically kings and princes always devalued their money by mixing greater and greater amounts of base metals, shaving off the edges to mint more coins, and just minting smaller coins but claiming the same value for them). The pirate kingdom, which sits on a mithril mine, mints coins worth 0.95 imperials. I also have coins for a gnomish kingdom and for cloud giants, as well as for drow in the Underdark (worth 0.95 imperials, or they would be, if ever traded). (I just realized that I never did create an exchange rate for the gnomish coins. I'm thinking 0.90-0.95 imperials.)

The empire, republic, dwarves and pirate kingdom all use mithril and admantine coins of might higher denomination too. The island chain people have names for mithril and adamantine denominations, but don't actually have enough of the metals to mint coins out of them and just use them for bookkeeping entries, as the ancient Greeks had denominations above the dekadrachmae but never minted any such coins.

Now while this might add some economic realism to the game, it doesn't add that much, because in the real world exchange rates change constantly (as do prices) but I've kept them fixed for easy of play--after all, having to calculate exchange rates already adds an extra level of complexity. But I do prefer having the different currencies.

Snowyowl

2009-07-24, 10:21 AM

DwaggieBard

2009-07-24, 10:27 AM

I think I know what Hurkyl means: saying that religion should not be discussed in the same breath as putting forth the claim that religions have caused the most wars is not exactly self-consistent. :smallwink:

The term is "internally consistent".

Beren

2009-07-24, 11:29 AM

Now while this might add some economic realism to the game, it doesn't add that much, because in the real world exchange rates change constantly (as do prices) but I've kept them fixed for easy of play--after all, having to calculate exchange rates already adds an extra level of complexity. But I do prefer having the different currencies.

It seems to me that in your world, you probably wouldn't have to worry about exchange rates changing, since all the different countries are still using commodity money. If one currency is worth more (or less) than another, it's because it actually has more (or less) gold or other precious metal in it. If an empire were to totally collapse, its money would still be good. What would be interesting to think about is what would happen if one of your governments decided to use representitive money and mint a lot of worthless coins redeemable for real gold, or worse yet, if they decided to use fiat money that was only worth something because "they said so."

CelestialStick

2009-07-24, 01:50 PM

Right. This is what I meant: you teach economics (and presumably your players are acquainted with the subject), so you put economics in your campaign world (like the pirates who get a good exchange rate because they own a mithril mine). If the players don't really care about the economics of the game, you won't houserule any in.

Have a look at this topic (The Daimond Standard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118819)) for a series of dissertations on how the core rules don't make economic sense. They are designed to be fun to play, not necessarily to reflect how a universe with those laws of physics would work (I mean, using Wish could create a lot of political havoc)

Thanks for the link. :smallsmile:

As for the pirates, their control of the mithril mine gives them the wealth to put a higher percentage of precious metals in all their coins (or more accurately, reduces the usual government incentive to debase the currency).

It seems to me that in your world, you probably wouldn't have to worry about exchange rates changing, since all the different countries are still using commodity money. If one currency is worth more (or less) than another, it's because it actually has more (or less) gold or other precious metal in it. If an empire were to totally collapse, its money would still be good. What would be interesting to think about is what would happen if one of your governments decided to use representitive money and mint a lot of worthless coins redeemable for real gold, or worse yet, if they decided to use fiat money that was only worth something because "they said so."

I think that in a world where governments don't change the amount of precious metals in their coins, that market exchange rates among countries would probably tend to remain stable. Changes in the supply and demand of the precious metals themselves, however, could alter the exchange rates among coins of different metals. If copper suddenly became much more readily available, for instance, then a copper piece (from any country) would lose its value of 1/10 of a silver piece and 1/100 of a gold piece. If the demand for non-monetary gold suddenly rose, to take another example, a gold piece would rise in value above 100 copper pieces and 10 silver pieces, and so forth.

An empire whose government is on the verge of collapse almost certainly would have a government debasing the currency as it desperately sought to spend its way out of collapse in one way or another (to pay its bureaucrats, to mollify the restless poor, to pay off aggressors or to hire more troops) so there's a good chance that the exchange rates for its coins would become less favorable. Internal prices would likewise rise.

When Gary created the original D&D coins, he had in mind that a silver piece was like a nineteenth century American silver dollar and the gold piece was like the American double eagle coin, worth $20. He did however value the copper piece, at 10 per silver piece, like a dime instead of a penny. Then he posited a local economy like those of the California gold rush, where the constant influx of precious metal radically lowered its local value, causing radical inflation, and thus had the prices in original D&D much higher than they were in other places in 19th century America. I think he might discuss it in the 1st Ed DMG, but my copy has been packed away since I'm moving Tuesday, so I can't look it up (and I should be working or packing anyway. :smallredface:),