Are we too serious? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

pendell

2013-10-22, 09:11 AM

Looking through the fifteen bazillion threads on alignment and what character X could do to Y, and what the optimal solution is ..

... I wonder if we're missing the point?

I mean, yes, this is a fantasy comic, but isn't the entire point supposed to be that it's funny?

I mean, yes, there's a dramatic story here, and yes Rich has some serious ideas, but at the end of the day, isn't what he trying to do more than anything is to make us laugh? And to sell books, of course? But ain't the funny the main thing?

I have to wonder if , when the response to a strip is more nerdrage than laughter , whether we -- whether I -- am doing something wrong.

Whether I'm missing the whole point of following this strip in the first place.

What do you think? Are we as a board too serious? Or is what happens a natural byproduct of making rules jokes to a very smart group of people , many of whom know these rules by heart? Or is the fact that we talk about alignment, and the trivia of rules, a sign that we're off course?

Regardless of whether it's true or not, I don't have the foggiest idea what to do about it.

Personally, I find the rules distracting rather than helpful. Because when the Giant pushes against them for the sake of the story, as in Laurin and her houseruled infinite-wormhole power , which will no doubt function for as long as the plot requires it, to be a distraction. It breaks my suspension of disbelief. It's obviously a houserule, and it will obviously serve to railroad the order into conflict, until some equally crazy homerule serves to break them out of it. It seems as if the rules of the world just don't make any sense and we are dependent from author fiat for a resolution.

And if this were a completely made up world outside the D&D framework, the question would never come up. When the author reveals the rules of the world a bit at a time, the author fiat is less obvious and suspension of disbelief is intact. But when the author is working against a core set of rules that he didn't write, and both he and his audience are fully aware of, then when he breaks those rules he's obviously breaking the framework of reality. It's far more obvious than when Tolkien, say, retcons a cheap ring of invisibility into the One Ring To Rule Them All. Tolkien knows all the rules of middle earth and we don't, so when he pulls a fast one we can't see behind the curtain and suspension of disbelief is maintained. Working with the D&D rules, by contrast, is like trying to pull the same stunt WITHOUT the curtain, in full view of an educated audience. The result is not wonder, but nerdrage.

So for me the D&D rules and framework are becoming more of a distraction from the story and less of a contribution to it.

What say you?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

KillianHawkeye

2013-10-22, 09:18 AM

To a certain degree, yes. However, the rise of over-analysis (be it D&D related or otherwise) stems from mainly two factors: that people have an abundance of extra time on their hands, and that the comic is so good and so thought provoking that people want to spend more time thinking about it than reading it.

As to your complaint about Laurin's wormhole power, I think you're wrong about it breaking suspension of disbelief. Ninth level powers only cost 17 power points to manifest, and as a near-Epic or Epic level Psion, she has probably around 400 of those per day. She can easily do a couple dozen wormholes without even breaking a sweat.

Bulldog Psion

2013-10-22, 09:25 AM

No, I don't think so.

It just indicates a high level of interest in a comic that of necessity updates slowly. People want to be engaged with the comic, and the only way for them to do that most of the time is to discuss stuff on the forums. I'm sure that Mr. Burlew would rather have pages of excited fans talking about minutiae than an echoing, empty, abandoned site that nobody ever visits or cares about.

Personally, I think the D&D rules add something to the comic rather than detracting from it. Historical fiction, for example, is always going to generate some chat about how historical it is and how much the author is stretching things, assuming that it is popular enough to generate such chatter.

In a similar way, having D&D rules behind the story gives it a different feel from, say, "The Lord of the Rings" (of which I am an immense lifelong fan). It represents a different type of canon, and it's interesting to analyze the story in those terms also. IMO, of course.

What would conversations consist of if we were "less serious"? "That strip was funny." "Yep, that strip was funny." "See ya next week." Talk about dull as dishwater.

(And, as noted, Laurin is within the rules, other than having Wormhole conveniently ported over from 2nd to 3rd edition, that is.)

pendell

2013-10-22, 09:31 AM

As to your complaint about Laurin's wormhole power, I think you're wrong about it breaking suspension of disbelief. Ninth level powers only cost 17 power points to manifest, and as a near-Epic or Epic level Psion, she has probably around 400 of those per day. She can easily do a couple dozen wormholes without even breaking a sweat.

Yes. No doubt a psion was written into the story from the beginning specifically to force this confrontation.

But in some ways that's my point -- I shouldn't be in a position where the question "Are psions really that overpowered"? even comes up. The fact that it's even a question, or that people can argue about it, is an artifact that we're reading about rules made for a shared universe which is not under Rich's control. Compare to Rowling's Potterverse. Nobody tells JK Rowling "Wizards can't do that" or "Dementors don't have that kind of power". Because they are entirely her creation, and there's no external basis for questioning the author's choices. But Rich, working in the D&D universe, puts him in a position on a strip-by-strip basis when people question how that happened within the rules, or what feat allows Tarquin to catch two arrows, or what item allows it. And even worse, Rich sometimes feels obligated to defend his choices.

The way I see it, an author should never be in the position where they feel they have to defend those kinds of choices. It's an artistic, creative, choice. If Rowling wants to make it possible for wizards to mind control someone, she just makes up the imperious curse. She shouldn't have to defend why wizards can do that , and because she's not working against a published rule set she doesn't have to. Nor do her choices cause a massive hunt through the SRD to determine what feat or spell could make this happen, or what this reveals about Voldemort's class and level.

So my point is: The fact the question even comes up is a distraction, a break in the storytelling flow, a point of question which doesn't need to be there.

Although I suppose there's nothing to be done for it. This story is locked into D&D 3.5 for good or ill.

What would conversations consist of if we were "less serious"? "That strip was funny." "Yep, that strip was funny." "See ya next week." Talk about dull as dishwater.

A well made point. Good debate can be a form of entertainment.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

AstralFire

2013-10-22, 09:34 AM

Order of the Stick would (in my view) have been an even better story if it had never been attached to any rules at all. But Order of the Stick would not have the active, churning community that continually draws new people in of its own volition and supports Mr. Burlew without the D&D component. It's overall a significant benefit to the health of the comic. I can name a few comics which I think continue to be well-written but have squandered their community involvement over the years, making them basically fade from consciousness... and a comic with a rabid audience that's written poorly but has oodles of audience involvement is doing quite well.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-22, 09:37 AM

pendell

2013-10-22, 09:39 AM

A good point, AstralFire.

A follow up -- to what extent does Rich deliberately foster that nerdrage, and the speculation?

Consider the Oracle. He didn't have to write the Oracle in. But instead he's used the Oracle as a vehicle to communicate cryptic clues to the audience about the future story. I don't know how many electrons have been enslaved to discussion over what exactly the Four Words were, or how Belkar will die, or what Elan's happy ending was.

These clues have generated no end of speculation, some of it very silly. But it's also greatly increased audience involvement and participation which would not exist if the Oracle had not been written into the story.

So maybe these arguments, the discussions about alignment, the rules-lawyering, the speculation -- is not a bug, so much as a feature? To draw our attention and keep it?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-22, 09:42 AM

These clues have generated no end of speculation, some of it very silly. But it's also greatly increased audience involvement and participation which would not exist if the Oracle had not been written into the story.

So maybe these arguments, the discussions about alignment, the rules-lawyering, the speculation -- is not a bug, so much as a feature? To draw our attention and keep it?

I'd say so. Let's not forget that The Giant also has, or at least had, a passion for gaming himself as evidenced by the other associated boards here in the playground. Heck, the name of this entire website comes from his handle on a different D&D discussion board.

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 09:44 AM

Short answer: Yes

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 09:52 AM

As others have noted, one of the things that is fun is that the comic generally sticks to DnD rules. There are even comics spoofing large, spiked chain builds, for example, and jokes about druids and wizards being overpowered.

So it is fun to speculate on character stats, feats and spells and so forth.

On the other hand, it does seem to inspire undeserved nerdrage when an un-booked psionic power is used, or a character does not make an optimal decision, or a wall of fire lasts longer than someone (incorrectly) believes it should.

I suppose (stating the obvious here) like everything else, there's a healthy middle road that involves in-game speculation with a measure of perspective.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-22, 09:55 AM

On the other hand, it does seem to inspire undeserved nerdrage when an un-booked psionic power is used, or a character does not make an optimal decision, or a wall of fire lasts longer than someone (incorrectly) believes it should.

I suppose (stating the obvious here) like everything else, there's a healthy middle road that involves in-game speculation with a measure of perspective.

Indeed. I think that the problem is overstated though. The playground is, as boards that deal with D&D related issues go, remarkably civil and friendly. I have no doubt that the rules of posting were expressly designed to keep nerdrage discussions within happy limits. And, what is arguably more important, the Giant has selected moderators that do an excellent job of enforcing those rules in a reasonable and fair way.

Sylian

2013-10-22, 09:58 AM

I mean, yes, this is a fantasy comic, but isn't the entire point supposed to be that it's funny?

I mean, yes, there's a dramatic story here, and yes Rich has some serious ideas, but at the end of the day, isn't what he trying to do more than anything is to make us laugh? And to sell books, of course? But ain't the funny the main thing?I don't think so. Obviously, comedy is a big part of it, but I don't think that is the main reason he still writes this comic. He has stated numerous times that he's glad that he decided to focus less on D&D jokes and more on characters and story, and that's what we have here. If I were to guess, I'd say that the majority of readers keep coming back because of the characters, the story and the drama, not because of the humor, even if that, too, is a part of it.

At this point in time, the comic has turned from focused on jokes with a story in the background that explains why they were in the Dungeon to begin with, to a focus on characters and story, suspense and drama.

factotum

2013-10-22, 10:15 AM

I agree. If the whole point of the comic is to be funny, it implies that the actual story and characters are unimportant, which is most definitely not the case as far as I'm concerned.

martianmister

2013-10-22, 10:25 AM

Short answer: No. We're not serious enough.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 10:27 AM

:vaarsuvius: "I blame Cerebus." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0242.html)

Jay R

2013-10-22, 10:28 AM

I read the strip - alone, in my office -- for the enjoyment of the humor and the story.

Then, for the next couple of days, I speculate in the forums to test my knowledge of D&D rules, and my understanding of the characters. This is no different from wondering if Leonard will marry Penny on The Big Bang Theory, or speculating on what will happen in the unreleased sixth book of A Song of Fire and Ice, or even trying to figure out how the Cowboys will do next weekend.

Questioning whether the D&D rules allow what a character does is no different from when I complain that the swords in Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood are not from the time of Robin Hood, or when my father points out an 1870s Remington in a Civil War movie. It has always been a standard audience reaction to question whether a certain aspect in a story belongs there. In his essay, "On Fairy Stories", Tolkien stated that a fantasy story required secondary belief, that hinged on an inner consistency.

The requirement to be consistent within a story dates back at least to Aristotle.

So while yes, people can take away the enjoyment of the strip by ignoring the humor and just doing the speculation, it's just as possible to enjoy it fully, and then go on to have a different enjoyment in speculation.

And the number of posts on a given topic does not give you any clue which is going on, since my enjoyment of the strip is done alone, but the speculation is a joint activity taking place on the fora*.

---------------

*Yes, I know that the plural form "fora" is disappearing in modern English, being regularized to "forums". But in a post in which I refer to Aristotle, I really ought to be pedantically correct about a word from a classical language.

pendell

2013-10-22, 10:56 AM

Jay R, well said.

Still, I have to wonder if that level of criticism is a good thing. I'm reminded of something David Drake wrote about one of his books (http://david-drake.com/2010/out-of-the-waters/)

Most educated people have an idea of what Ancient Rome was like. Much of what they think they know is false. I find it distressing to have folks write (and even phone!) me to complain about some “mistake” in my fiction when in fact my statement was correct.

For example, I’ve learned not to refer to Roman shields as being plywood, though in fact they were plywood and archeologists use “plywood” to describe the material from which they were molded. If I say the shields were “laminated wood,” people don’t complain (and I hope that I avoid breaking their suspension of disbelief).

Whereas I could say that the legions of Carce go to war wearing topcoats and tails without anybody claiming I was historically wrong. (They might think I was a complete twit–I would think I was a complete twit if I did something so silly–but that’s a separate matter.)

My purpose in writing is to tell interesting, exciting stories that many people will take pleasure in reading; my role is not to educate readers. I hope, however, that those who read The Books of the Elements will get glimpses of a culture very different from our own–but which is nonetheless one of the major supports on which our culture has been built.

It honestly makes me wonder if that's why so many people choose to write fantasy as opposed to hard science fiction or historical fiction. Because anyone attempting something in those fields has to contend with hard-core nerds who will be happy to explain at great length why 1) FTL doesn't work that way. 2) Artificial gravity doesn't work that way. 3) The gladius was not used by the Legions in that time period 4) A commoner couldn't wear a blue shirt because that was a very expensive dye etc. etc. etc.

Whereas in a fantasy environment you can just make it up out of whole cloth and say "A wizard did it."

So writing in a shared universe -- whether that shared universe is the real world of history or the world of D&D 3.5 -- has a particular set of challenges. On the one hand, the audience already has some familiarity with it and you don't need to spend any time explaining, for example, why Potterverse wizards never carry guns. OTOH, that framework also serves as a limiting factor on your innovations. For example, if Vaarsuvius started teleporting when the rules and previously establish story clearly make it impossible for V to do so, it will set off howls of rage.

*Thinking*

So maybe it works here because we've got some mature posters? That it's all right to discuss the minutiae of rules, or individual difficulties, provided we can do so civilly without throwing our toys out of the pram? And that the ability to do so is a matter of self-discipline?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Karsoff

2013-10-22, 10:58 AM

I agree with Bulldog Psion entirely. The use of the D&D rules, and the discussions that it generates, are one of the strongest parts of the comic as far as I am concerned.

The sheer number of other webcomics that are funny or serious and based in a fantasy world is pretty darn large. The Giant accepted the challenge to create a compelling story while being bound (mostly) by an outside ruleset that his readership was likely to be intimately familiar with. That's pretty unique.

I think I gotta go with Bait on this one. I got interested in this story because of my fondness for D&D. There are a bunch of good webcomics but this one is my favorite and I think part of that was/is because of the setting it works with. There are some forum goers I'd label "too-enthusiastic" that ruin some of the fun that comes from discussing the rules of D&D/the webcomic but I like the discussions, overall, that comes from the D&D rules.

Reddish Mage

2013-10-22, 11:03 AM

Looking through the fifteen bazillion threads on alignment and what character X could do to Y, and what the optimal solution is .. . But when the author is working against a core set of rules that he didn't write, and both he and his audience are fully aware of, then when he breaks those rules he's obviously breaking the framework of reality. It's far more obvious than when Tolkien, say, retcons a cheap ring of invisibility into the One Ring To Rule Them All. Tolkien knows all the rules of middle earth and we don't, so when he pulls a fast one we can't see behind the curtain and suspension of disbelief is maintained. Working with the D&D rules, by contrast, is like trying to pull the same stunt WITHOUT the curtain, in full view of an educated audience. The result is not wonder, but nerdrage.

So for me the D&D rules and framework are becoming more of a distraction from the story and less of a contribution to it.

What say you?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I think your conflating a couple of issues:

1. Alignment & Morality
This strip contains some very heavy moral situations and characterizations. Not talking about that is quite impossible if we are going to give the strip its due (as Rich is purposely injecting ethical discussions into the wars and fights). Alignment is a structure of D&D and the characters describe their behavior in terms of alignment, so discussing the characters personalities or their ethical decisions are difficult to avoid. The forum bans religion and political discussion and alignment is one of the only remaining available acceptable forms of discourse (together with literature and [to some extent] abstract philosophy).

2. Optimal D&D tactics
Okay, to some extent this is for D&D power-gamers and those who want to talk about the ruleset. Fine with me. You can enjoy the strip without this and some of these discussions amount to complaints of the form of "Why didn't character X just do Y!"
I can see a few ways that even the average member of the audience or Rich could see something as a mistake (such as if a named spell or class ability doesn't work the way it should, particularly in some grossly obvious way) or if a character didn't use some ability or common tactic that should be obvious to even a casual gamer. These discussion can get tiresome as what you usually have is someone throwing out a wrong-headed interpretation of the rules or going on about tactics that are not obvious to people that don't frequent power-gaming forums. It happened every time I recall during those pyramid fights.

3. The author is breaking reality!
First, everything I read or heard about Tolkien is that he wrote "the Hobbit" after "Lord of the Rings." So if he retconned anything, it was the One Ring as a simple ring of invisibility, not the reverse. Second, I'm not sure what you are arguing here. It sounds like if Mr. Burlew tried to pull some sort of a retcon stunt we wouldn't like the result (it would be transparently obvious to the D&D crowd) and thus justly take to the forums to complain. Rich doesn't have the luxury of being able to rewrite the laws of the D&D universe. That's a truth of the genre he's writing within. Even if Rich uses house-rules and homebrew, he can only go so far with it before the story becomes "Stickverse d20" instead of a story that is meant to resemble a D&D 3.5 campaign with a great deal of metagaming and post-modern 4th-wall breaking.

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 11:13 AM

Gift Jeraff

2013-10-22, 11:23 AM

I see the rules discussions as just fun things to talk about (if you like that stuff), not critique as to what should or shouldn't happen in the story.

Spoomeister

2013-10-22, 11:26 AM

The debates here are no different than the debates among my gaming group about the games and campaigns they're currently in.

A good GM makes judgement calls about which rules to follow, which to homebrew, which to throw out, etc. and needs to be fair and consistent in communicating them to the players, all in the name of balancing gameplay and tactical concerns vs. story and storytelling.

The kind of tradeoffs Rich makes in telling this story... picking and choosing what follows the rules or is a joke or commentary on the rules... the subsequent debates among the lot of us... that all tracks pretty similarly.

I don't think OOTS forum folks are too serious about the story. They get a bit serious and snippy with each other occasionally... but that's slightly different than taking seriously a comic meant as a joke strip. It seemed to stop being a 'joke' comic and turned into a 'storytelling webcomic' by about 100 - 150 strips in.

zimmerwald1915

2013-10-22, 11:26 AM

First, everything I read or heard about Tolkien is that he wrote "the Hobbit" after "Lord of the Rings."
The Hobbit was conceived well after Tolkein conceived of the first glimmerings of his mythology, but it was written and published years before Lord of the Rings. After the latter was published, Tolkien put out a revised edition of The Hobbit to bring it more in line with The Lord of the Rings, including a rewrite of the Riddle Game. You remember when Frodo makes reference to "the story [Bilbo] told the dwarves and put in his book," or when Bilbo is talking during the Council of Elrond and he makes reference to said false story? He's talking about the originally published version of the Riddle Game, which had Gollum promising Bilbo the Ring as a "birthday present" and then reneging.

pendell

2013-10-22, 11:35 AM

First, everything I read or heard about Tolkien is that he wrote "the Hobbit" after "Lord of the Rings." So if he retconned anything, it was the One Ring as a simple ring of invisibility, not the reverse. Second, I'm not sure what you are arguing here.

As towards 1), I believe this is incorrect. Tolkien had written the world of the Silmarils and the fall of Gil-galad and Morgoth and Beren and Turin years before he wrote the Hobbit. Neither Sauron or the Rings of Power were in this universe.

The Hobbit, as I understand it, was originally a fairly bog-standard fantasy adventure, but as he fleshed it out, he drew more and more on his pre-existing fantasy world, until the little funny story of hobbits was swept up into a grand adventure. The magic ring, which throughout the hobbit is just a ring which makes people invisible, was reinvented into the Ring Of Power, and with that the connection to the Dark Lord, the Servant of the BBEG of his original mythos, and thus tied in. Then he went back and wrote a second edition of The Hobbit to retcon these changes in. As discussed (http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/booksbytolkien/hobbit/editions.htm)

1951 - 2nd/1st UK Allen&Unwin
The second edition of the UK Hobbit was published in 1951 (3,500 copies).

...

The text also has some corrections of the fourth impression but a number of errors remained. As Tolkien was writing the Hobbit sequel, The Lord of the Rings, he became aware of inconsistencies between the characterization of Gollum in the Hobbit and the features of desperation and obsession with the Ring that were required as motivation for his behavior in The Lord of the Rings. The original Gollum was less crazed and degraded by his long association with the Ring. As a result, Tolkien substantially revised Chapter 5. These are described in detail in the Annotated Hobbit.

Thus the retcon of the Ring as the Ring of Power required a revision of the original Hobbit, which wasn't in the first edition but showed up in later versions, the same as Star Wars has gone through multiple revisions since its original film release.

I don't recall anyone complaining about it the way they complain about, say, Han shooting first, because Tolkien was a more skillful author than Lucas was. His changes with Gollum's character were so consistent with his pre-established character that it seems very few people noticed. By contrast, Lucas reinvented Han from a pragmatic killer to a wide-eyed idealist who would let the other guy shoot first even from a range of five feet. The personality switch was jarring, obvious, and so provoked rage which lasts to this day.

As towards your second question, my thesis is that Rich Burlew generates a lot of discussion and controversy on these boards by his choice of the D&D framework which would not exist if he had created a homebrew world from scratch.

This thesis has since been answered by others who have contended that this discussion and argument, in the main, adds to rather than detracts from the entertainment value of the comic, and I find myself persuaded by their arguments. It's only individuals who go off the rails into nerdrage, and that's why mods are for.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Liliet

2013-10-22, 11:43 AM

First of all, I don't think I personally would read this strip if it was still *only* funny. I dislike physical and slapstick humor, the sort that Belkar and Elan usually bring to the table. V is comedy gold, true, but this is an ensemble cast...

The reason I and, I believe, many people read this strip is story and characters. And as far as I understand, the key to good humorous storytelling is that the story itself should always be serious. The characters may be wacky, the adventures along the way may be silly, but their goal should not be made fun of, or the readers just lose interest.

And we are definitely not missing the point when discussing Familicide, Miko, Tarquin, Oracle's prophecies. Rich made all those controversial on purpose, and from those rare times he participates in the discussion you can tell he really cares about what we think on these matters.

Now, I believe that DnD rules framework does not add to the story by itself, but Rich is specifically telling the story of a DnD world and exploring DnD gaming morality, so it's an integral part of the comic. And who are we to deny rules lawyers their fun? (so long as they don't start saying that the comic is bad for not being optimised and bit-to-bit accurate)

Scurvy Cur

2013-10-22, 11:51 AM

"Casting Power Word Stun instead of Hold Monster would have been a better choice" is fine.

"Casting Power Word Stun instead of Hold Monster would have been optimal decision (based on this detailed metagaming breakdown) and the character should have known this and the author did a bad job with this strip because the character made this choice," gets silly. Most people don't take it that far, but I've seen it come up at least a few times.

Pretty much this.

It's one thing for us all to sit around and go "huh, character X should have taken action A instead of action B, it probably would have worked out better for him". A lot of people, myself included, derive a lot of enjoyment from analyzing choices and strategies. It's a pretty mentally engaging way of getting your head into a game or even a story.

Where it crosses the line is when we take that observation and construct the following accusatory conclusion:

X should have done A instead of B
X has been shown to be intelligent
It follows that, since X is intelligent, I feel that X would never make a mistake. Ever. No, not even then
Since X picked a choice that worked out badly, X has made a mistake.
Since X has made a mistake, that mistake was not consistent with X's demonstrated characer.
Thus it follows that the author haswrongfully betrayed years of character portrayal.

(Logically unsupportable arguments italicized, wild emotional overreactions bolded)

And this is the crappy sort of post that leaves those of us content to analyze things about as far as the first argument that "A would have been better than B", and delve into analysis as to why with a bitter taste in our mouths and a sincere wish that people could be a little more reasonable on the Internet.

F.Harr

2013-10-22, 11:55 AM

Are we too serious?

ARE WE?

Yes. Yes, we are.

But people have fun in all sorts of ways, so let's not get too worked up over it.

Equinox

2013-10-22, 12:03 PM

AKA_Bait

2013-10-22, 12:05 PM

Are we too serious?

ARE WE?

Yes. Yes, we are.

But people have fun in all sorts of ways, so let's not get too worked up over it.

Are you, sir, suggesting that we are too serious about whether we are too serious?! :smalltongue:

This comic is run by D&D 3.5 Schroedinger Rules. Meaning, the 3.5 rules only exist when it's necessary to produce a "haha, let's make fun of this 3.5 rule minutia!" moment. Rest of the time, the comic is on "don't take the rules too seriously! It's just a cartoon!" mode.

I seriously disagree with this. As far as I can tell The Giant applies the rules pretty consistently, departing only when its necessary for some reason. Otherwise, he tends to work the plot in ways that minimize the impact of the rules or to bend rather than break them. See, e.g., V getting benched rather than nerfed.

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 12:08 PM

Yuki Akuma

2013-10-22, 12:16 PM

This comic is run by D&D 3.5 Schroedinger Rules. Meaning, the 3.5 rules only exist when it's necessary to produce a "haha, let's make fun of this 3.5 rule minutia!" moment. Rest of the time, the comic is on "don't take the rules too seriously! It's just a cartoon!" mode.

And yet we see the characters doing things fully consistent with the rules all the time, even when no mention of them is made, such as how many attacks they make per round, how many spells they can cast in a day, and such.

AstralFire

2013-10-22, 12:22 PM

This comic is run by D&D 3.5 Schroedinger Rules. Meaning, the 3.5 rules only exist when it's necessary to produce a "haha, let's make fun of this 3.5 rule minutia!" moment. Rest of the time, the comic is on "don't take the rules too seriously! It's just a cartoon!" mode.

Actually, as far as I can tell, Mr. Burlew writes the comic 95% to D&D rules, except when they're things a lot of DMs would handwave (like Belkar being able to one-shot really weak gobbos who mean nothing narratively). He just keeps them out of the focus. Did you confuse OotS with The Daily Show?

Equinox

2013-10-22, 12:22 PM

See, e.g., V getting benched rather than nerfed.The only reason it's even necessary to bench (or nerf) V is due to her inability to cast one spell at a time.

In 919, for example, she casts Stoneskin, then Fly, then flies away, then Fireball, then Wall of Fire, without any other character of the hundreds present in the scene doing anything. Pretty much the same happened in, let's say, the encounter with the Chimera - three or four spells, while the Chimera just stands like an idiot and takes it.

So don't give me that "applies the rules pretty consistently" thing please. Everyone is exactly as powerful as the story requires them to be, period. Sometimes the power is achieved by giving them a homebrew spell or power, and sometimes by having the enemies stand there like idiots while the hero casts four spells in a row.

ti'esar

2013-10-22, 12:24 PM

Personally, if anything's taking things too serious around here, it's this thread.

AstralFire

2013-10-22, 12:28 PM

The only reason it's even necessary to bench (or nerf) V is due to her inability to cast one spell at a time.

In 919, for example, she casts Stoneskin, then Fly, then flies away, then Fireball, then Wall of Fire, without any other character of the hundreds present in the scene doing anything. Pretty much the same happened in, let's say, the encounter with the Chimera - three or four spells, while the Chimera just stands like an idiot and takes it.

So don't give me that "applies the rules pretty consistently" thing please. Everyone is exactly as powerful as the story requires them to be, period. Sometimes the power is achieved by giving them a homebrew spell or power, and sometimes by having the enemies stand there like idiots while the hero casts four spells in a row.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0919.html

V's Flight spell was still active.

She casts Stoneskin. Standard. Flies up. Move. Enemies are largely focused on not V, a lot of the ones we see don't even have ranged weapons, and they have no idea who Vaarsuvius is yet.

Fireball. Fireball leaves no visible trail, and it can be difficult to tell where it originated from while you're screaming in pain.

Wall of Fire.

That was definitely multiple rounds.

I'll give you the chimera one, but that was pretty obviously being played for laughs, so...

Equinox

2013-10-22, 12:38 PM

That was definitely multiple rounds.Thank you. That was my point. That was multiple rounds. In which no one else present in the battle did anything significant.

Now, how many actual D&D encounters did you play in which, for three or four whole rounds, no one except one character did anything worth mentioning?

Clearly, the author of the comic is not trying the avoid the "wizards are powerful" trope. He is, in fact, embracing the trope and playing it out in a "see!? SEE!? Do you see how powerful V is once I let her run rampant!?" way. Even if it requires bending rules in V's favor.

zimmerwald1915

2013-10-22, 12:42 PM

Thank you. That was my point. That was multiple rounds. In which no one else present in the battle did anything significant.
What purpose would have been served by showing what Tarquin, Miron, Laurin, the mooks, Roy, Belkar, Elan, Durkon, Haley, or Spiky were doing in between the fireball and the wall of fire? Would that purpose have been worth breaking up the pace of the comic as it stands?

Equinox

2013-10-22, 12:44 PM

AstralFire

2013-10-22, 12:45 PM

Thank you. That was my point. That was multiple rounds. In which no one else present in the battle did anything significant.

Now, how many actual D&D encounters did you play in which, for three or four whole rounds, no one except one character did anything worth mentioning?

Clearly, the author of the comic is not trying the avoid the "wizards are powerful" trope. He is, in fact, embracing the trope and playing it out in a "see!? SEE!? Do you see how powerful V is once I let her run rampant!?" way. Even if it requires bending rules in V's favor.

If this were being run as a campaign, this would be the DM passing notes with V's character while running many of the previous scenes. There are things going on, sure, but no one else who can see V has a particular reason to decide the first thing they should do is shoot him.

I don't like V and think V gets a fair amount of coddling in the plot at times, but I don't follow this critique at all.

Tev

2013-10-22, 12:51 PM

I think this is wrong on several levels

1) WHEN did Giant really breach D&D rules? He makes way too powerful spells, sure (Familicide, Cloister), but it's just a (big) stretch from existing known stuff. There's nothing like "Fighter reads a book and starts casting 7th level spells", even when some houserule happens it's something that coul happen in your game with friends. And it mostly just emphasises how strong someone is/ avoids confusion and need for explanation (like summon/call) etc.

Simply: Rich just makes minor changes to existing D&D rules for making a better story.

2) The fact that it's based on D&D rules makes this story elevated above 90% of fantasy crap out there, because you know what can you expect, and author is restricted from some really crazy plot devices. There's no sudden revelation after 1/2 of the story that "you can do THIS".

I'm just reading GRRM's poop, and honestly it irks me to no end how he keeps coming up with new spells and magic artifacts. You just can't know what hides behind the corner, so author is free to do his lazy work unchecked. On the other hand, Rich is constantly trying to work around the rules (mostly) known beforehand. And while it's surely exhausting for him, and some people complain endlessly how "this should've happen differently", it makes for a better story in which author will surprise you with some cleverly setup twist or character revelation, not with "LOL villains can do THIS now FU reader"

tl;dr: basing story on existing world/rules helps with author's discipline and overall story quality

P.S.: I like this yet-another-complaint-about-rules started with getting rules wrong (Epic psion and wormholes). It heavily hints that when you want to bash the D&D system it's based on, you should probably get better grasp of those rules (well, regarding combat at least, that's what it was primarily made for).

KillianHawkeye

2013-10-22, 12:52 PM

So, basically, what you're saying is, STORY TRUMPS RULES. Or, in other words, the "Giant applies the rules pretty consistently" camp is now going up in flames.

Which is what I was really saying all along. Thank you for proving me right.

No, what we are saying is that just because the point of view being shown does not show every single action being taken, it doesn't mean that V is taking extra turns or that the rules are not being followed. It just means that our focus for this strip is on what V is doing and we'll get back to the others soon enough.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 01:15 PM

I'll give you the chimera one, but that was pretty obviously being played for laughs, so...

Thank you. That was my point. That was multiple rounds. In which no one else present in the battle did anything significant.

Or, Trigak tried to do something significant (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html), but was hindered by the low ceiling height or the fact that Chimeras are not suited to indoor combat, especially in corridors. After getting hit by V's fireball, Trigak moved to ground level, no doubt preparing to charge, only to get hit by V's Lightning Bolt. Realizing that he was a dead Chimera unless something was done, Trigak decided to just engage in melee, only to get grappled where the sun don't shine. Then he tried fleeing, only to get shivved by Belkar.

Now, how many actual D&D encounters did you play in which, for three or four whole rounds, no one except one character did anything worth mentioning?

Why yes, yes I have. Virtually every session in the Star Wars: Saga Edition game I played in for two and a half years, one player, who played the party's other Jedi, did nothing worth mentioning. He'd activate DR, then forget he had it on. He's activate Battle Strike, then forget to attack with it before the duration ended. He'd move in the wrong direction, because he kept confusing another player's mini for one of the Sith we were fighting. Meanwhile, my Ithorian Jedi and another player's Imperial Knight are dueling other Sith, the player of the Protocol/Assassin Droid is firing at mooks, and the Gungan Scoudrel was lobbing grenades or firing a heavily modified blaster pistol into the melee, forcing the Sith to waste a use of the Deflect talent for the round so their attempts to use the Block talent against my Ithorian Jedi or the Imperial Knight. Basically four players were having their PCs take meaningful actions, even if those actions were only the Gungan scoundrel Aiming so that the amount of damage from her Blaster Pistol would go from 3d6 to 4d10. (I think. It's been a while.) Meanwhile, the player of the Human Jedi was wasting turns, was indecisive, would not pay attention during other players' turns, and took frequent smoking breaks between combat. But he loves playing RPGs, loves Star Wars, and was a good friend of the GM. Despite his PC's "sub-optimal" build, the player himself wasn't a disruptive player. (Believe me I've been around disruptive players; I know how to spot them.)

Clearly, the author of the comic is not trying the avoid the "wizards are powerful" trope. He is, in fact, embracing the trope and playing it out in a "see!? SEE!? Do you see how powerful V is once I let her run rampant!?" way. Even if it requires bending rules in V's favor.

Or Trigak was just a lame Chimera, whose name was a pretty stupid pun. (Note Trigak's last words.) Besides, V didn't even kill Trigak; Belkar did. Everyone in the party were genre savvy enough to suspect that a monster with a name was important, and that they might chase the monster to Xykon's lair. Belkar just wanted to kill stuff. He's exactly the sort of disruptive player I mentioned before. A player who doesn't care about the party's plans is worse than a player who builds a sub-optimal PC and makes tactical errors, because the latter can be taught or might learn from his or her mistakes. A disruptive player (or a character in a comic that can't be bothered to follow the plot) might send everything off the rails or wander away from the party and get himself (or another party member) in trouble (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0107.html).

warrl

2013-10-22, 01:20 PM

It honestly makes me wonder if that's why so many people choose to write fantasy as opposed to hard science fiction or historical fiction. Because anyone attempting something in those fields has to contend with hard-core nerds who will be happy to explain at great length why 1) FTL doesn't work that way. 2) Artificial gravity doesn't work that way. 3) The gladius was not used by the Legions in that time period 4) A commoner couldn't wear a blue shirt because that was a very expensive dye etc. etc. etc.

Oddly enough...

I'm working on both a fantasy story and a science-fiction story.

For the science-fiction story I can just wing it as long as I get things internally consistent.

For the fantasy story, I'm having to study geology (or consult with a geologist) in order to get the setting right.

warrl

2013-10-22, 01:30 PM

warrl

2013-10-22, 01:54 PM

What purpose would have been served by showing what Tarquin, Miron, Laurin, the mooks, Roy, Belkar, Elan, Durkon, Haley, or Spiky were doing in between the fireball and the wall of fire? Would that purpose have been worth breaking up the pace of the comic as it stands?

Also, we KNEW (from previous pages) what all those other characters were doing.

Tarquin, Miron, and Laurin were standing there watching. They really weren't doing anything important. You can see them (well, two of them) in 918 panel 5. Tarquin didn't find it necessary to get personally involved until #924, after Grand Theft Allosaurus, and then had to persuade (hire?) the other two.

The mooks were variously charging or shooting at Roy, Belkar, and Durkon. That's established in 916 through 918.

The Order (minus V) and Spiky were killing the mooks and kicking up dust - established in 917 and 918.

None of them did anything during 919 that was different in any noteworthy way from what they were already established as doing. We didn't need to see more of the same.

Vaarsuvius, meantime, went from passive temporary occupant of the nether realms to active major participant in the battle.

Tev

2013-10-22, 02:01 PM

It honestly makes me wonder if that's why so many people choose to write fantasy as opposed to hard science fiction or historical fiction. Because anyone attempting something in those fields has to contend with hard-core nerds who will be happy to explain at great length why 1) FTL doesn't work that way. 2) Artificial gravity doesn't work that way. 3) The gladius was not used by the Legions in that time period 4) A commoner couldn't wear a blue shirt because that was a very expensive dye etc. etc. etc.
Yes, in short - they are lazy. Too lazy to learn how to make good story following some pre-set rules, and too eager to make their own set of rules (that they could change on the fly as it suits them). I think this is biggest flaw of fantasy (and why I mostly avoid fantasy stories), because similar to leading - you won't make good story in your own world with your own rules when you can't make good story in someone else's world following HIS rules.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-22, 02:16 PM

Yes, in short - they are lazy. Too lazy to learn how to make good story following some pre-set rules, and too eager to make their own set of rules (that they could change on the fly as it suits them). I think this is biggest flaw of fantasy (and why I mostly avoid fantasy stories), because similar to leading - you won't make good story in your own world with your own rules when you can't make good story in someone else's world following HIS rules.

This is a bit of an over-generalization. Many fantasy worlds, the best ones in my opinion, do have set rules in place for how those worlds operate. This includes how magic in those worlds works. In some, the rules are clearly articulated and explained to the reader (e.g., Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Series) and in others the limitations of the rules are not explicitly stated but are observed in practice (e.g., Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard series).

King of Nowhere

2013-10-22, 02:16 PM

I think being tied to D&D rules is a really good thing for quite a collateral effect it has: worldbuilding.
Namely, knowing that the characters are D&D characters, and knowing their approximate level, allow us to figure out what they should or should not be able to do. That saves plenty of time that would have to be otherwise dedicated to establishing what the characters, even minor ones, are supposed to be able to do.
Otherwise, everytime V cast a spell, it would seem an ass pull. it would never be clear why sometimes a spell can solve a situation, while another time it doesn't. or why roy is able to face an army but not tarquin.
I'm a firm believer in Sanderson's first law (http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/): An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic. Basically, if I don't understand how magic works, and a wizard cast a spell, it's going to feel like a deus ex-machina. in fact, even if a wizard do not cast a spell it's going to feel like that. I need to understand what characters can or cannot do if I'm going to enjoy seeing them solve problems with their abilities. That applies not only to magic, but also to superpowers or stuff like roy's fighting prowess or haley lockpicking. Basically, if the character solves the plot with some special skill or power, it must have been established previously that he had said skill or power.
Now, in oots, the D&D frame takes care of that. beautifully.
Then, since it's a comedy, sometimes the rule of cool or the rule of funny can superseed the rules of gaming.

EDIT:

Yes, in short - they are lazy. Too lazy to learn how to make good story following some pre-set rules, and too eager to make their own set of rules (that they could change on the fly as it suits them). I think this is biggest flaw of fantasy (and why I mostly avoid fantasy stories), because similar to leading - you won't make good story in your own world with your own rules when you can't make good story in someone else's world following HIS rules.
Then you hadn't found the right kind of fantasy. I also dislike those books where there are no consistent rules to what characters or magic do, but there are plenty others where the distinction is clear. In fact, I never really liked fantasy before I discovered that side of it. i can recommend any book by brandon sanderson, or the wheel of time saga (althoug this at the beginning starts like a traditional fantasy, and readers get introduced into how the magic works in subsequent books).

AstralFire

2013-10-22, 02:20 PM

This is a bit of an over-generalization. Many fantasy worlds, the best ones in my opinion, do have set rules in place for how those worlds operate. This includes how magic in those worlds works. In some, the rules are clearly articulated and explained to the reader (e.g., Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Series) and in others the limitations of the rules are not explicitly stated but are observed in practice (e.g., Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard series).

Yes, but as someone who aspires to write fantasy, Tev's still right. I'm of the belief most good fantasy authors got good by learning how to write stories under someone else's rules before they started making their own. I started writing fantasy stories first and I didn't really learn how to fix my flaws until I learned to write more realistic things first.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 02:24 PM

Oddly enough...

I'm working on both a fantasy story and a science-fiction story.

For the science-fiction story I can just wing it as long as I get things internally consistent.

For the fantasy story, I'm having to study geology (or consult with a geologist) in order to get the setting right.

Huh. I would have thought it would be the other way round.

Yes, in short - they are lazy. Too lazy to learn how to make good story following some pre-set rules, and too eager to make their own set of rules (that they could change on the fly as it suits them). I think this is biggest flaw of fantasy (and why I mostly avoid fantasy stories), because similar to leading - you won't make good story in your own world with your own rules when you can't make good story in someone else's world following HIS rules.

That's not true of all fantasy authors. Professor Tolkien was a philologist, and he tried to take care to keep details like the phases of the moon consistent throught LotR. (Especially in Books Three and Four, where the Fellowship has split into three sections.)

The issue really should be: is the work internally consistent. If an author writes a horror/fantasy story where Vampires are at their strongest at high noon (which is consistent with many pre-20th century Vampire stories and folklore) then he can't have a sequel where a Vampire hides from the sun because he'll combust if it toushes his exposed flesh. If this is too complicated, don't write a horror, fantasy, superhero or science fiction story. Instead write a romantic comedy, a police procedural, a western or a non-fiction blog about your cat.

One of the benefits Rich gets by relying on the D&D rules is that Magic A is always Magic A. The downside is that it's harder to surprise certain readers. We don't know what power Laurin manifested at Haley, but already people are speculating it was something potentially lethal (as if Mind Thrust Augmented to 9th level isn't bad enough!). By the same token, it's possible for readers to guess what the MitD might be, to suggest what the feat Horace taught Roy was, or speculate what level Wormhole should be.

If an author makes something up, and then blatantly contradicts themselves, they lose credibility. When Rich forgets which cantrips Durkon prepared, or how many barred schools Tsukiko should have, he gets to go "Whoops." We can catch the mistakes, and he's willing to admit them. I doubt GRRM would be willing to accept criticism about how a Maegi's spells are supposed to work, since the system makes no sense. Was Daenerys able to hatch the eggs because she sacrificed the Maegi? Because Daenerys is of Targaryen blood? Because the red comet was approaching? Did the red comet approach because the dragons hatched? Maybe GRRM should have stuck to writing a seven part historical fiction piece on the War of the Roses instead? (And I should point out that I like the SoI&F books.)

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 02:42 PM

OK, gotta defend GRRM a little bit here.
The entire point to his system of magic is that it IS a confusing mystery that doesn't (and hopefully never will) make sense. Magic in Westeros (and even to the east) is generally presented to the reader as if he or she was living there, via fear, innuendo and misunderstanding. It needs to feel new and unique each time it is introduced to preserve the feeling that there's an awful lot out there we just don't know about.

Slowly and dramatically peeling back the lid on the mysteries of the unknown is a vastly different challenge than magic in the DnD world. It's an apples to asteroids comparison, IMO. Clearly presented rules on magic - i.e. Melisandre has three shadow baby spells prepared for the day!- would be awful.

AstralFire

2013-10-22, 02:46 PM

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 02:57 PM

Er, D&D magic is a ripoff of a type of magic created for a book. It's just that the relatively bland form with odd rules in which it is usually presented is the result of trying to make D&D generically applicable to settings that didn't focus on word magic.

In "Dying Earth" stories, most mages could memorize one, or at most, two, spells at a time. But those were powerful spells, equivalent to 8th or 9th level spells, so the trick was to prepare in advance, and try to catch your rival off guard with your spell. It took days (sometimes weeks) to memorize a spell. (This is reflected in AD&D, where it took one hour per spell level to memorize a Magic-User spell.)

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 03:00 PM

ti'esar

2013-10-22, 03:03 PM

Sunken Valley

2013-10-22, 03:10 PM

This is a serious webcomic on human nature, free will and predestination, raising children, cycles of violence and correcting the errors of the previous generation.

Ain't been funny since 2009.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 03:51 PM

But then again, if you go too far with the "magic is magic and it's mysterious and you can never understand it", then it is a brazen plot device, and that usually hurts the story.

Incidentally, as far as the original topic goes, I have to say that if I ever make a webcomic of my own, and it becomes popular enough to have a forum, I'd vastly prefer a forum where people endlessly speculate on and dissect the comic - even if 90% of that discussion is utterly insane - than a forum where people are mostly just making silly jokes and otherwise displaying a lack of interest in the actual details of the story, no matter how much of that story is meant to be played for laughs,

My point is that GRRM is trying to eat his cake and have it too. You can either eat your cake or have it but you can't do both. (And whoever keeps writing "THE CAKE IS A LIE!!" on the break room walls, please stop destroying Aperture Co. property.) He wants to make magic rare, which is fine, but he's taking two opposite approaches. Wargs are real. Fine. There are rules for Wargs. Fine. There is blood magic. Fine. But the rules for blood magic contradicts itself. There are assassins who can look like anyone. Fine. They have rules, codes, and teach new members. Great. They keep secrets. Even better. There is a group called Maegi. They don't teach their skills to outsiders, but they let people know who they are. Erm. Their magic is blood magic that either anyone can do, or can be done by only royalty. Uh huh. There is a guild that makes Westeros' brand of Alchemist's Fire. Sweet. But their Alchemist's Fire is not based on science, and if there are Dragons (or red comets) their formulas are more effective. Say what? How did they never notice this before?

At some point there needs to be consistency. If Daenerys can work wonders because of her Targaryen blood, provided she performs a dangerous ritual, or Melisandre, a priestess of R'hllor. can use the blood of a king (or their descendants, including bastard children) because royalty is symbolic of R'hllor's ruling the world, that's one thing. Magic that uses symbolism is an established fantasy trope. But why should Alchemist's Fire rely on Dragons to be more effective? Why couldn't a Maegi protect herself from Dothraki, when a Warg can effectively acheive immortality by leaping from body to body? Basically, I don't have a problem with the Faceless Men, the Wargs or using symbolic forms of magic (dragonglass kiling an Other, king's blood being needed for a ritual of a R'hllor). I have a problem with every other form of mysticism that GRRM has shown being inconsistent.

Also, the Cake is a lie.

veti

2013-10-22, 04:58 PM

This is a community. It's based on OOTS, but to a large extent it follows "community" rules that are quite independent of that basis.

Like any community, it has many voices. Younger and older, aggressive and passive and both, welcoming and stand-offish, abrasive and courteous, violent and gentle, you name it, it's (probably) here. And people - including, crucially, a constant influx of new people - want to "belong" to it, and to do that (or so it's widely perceived, true or not) - they have to establish the things they have in common with everyone else here.

That means D&D. Anecdotes, bragging about how cool some campaign or character is. And, inevitably in the context of the strip - rules-lawyering, nitpicking, arguing, linking to TVTropes (the site on the web that surely holds the record for "highest ratio of incoming links per unit valuable content").

The alignment system is one of the biggest sources of conflict, partly because it's so vague that (as noted in previous threads), there's absolutely zero consensus even among veteran D&D players as to what it means, and partly because Rich is determined to write his own take on it, so he's more-or-less deliberately stimulating that debate.

And because "updates" are occasional, while the "community" is a constant, ongoing thing - the result is massive over-analysis. Imagine playing a D&D campaign where sessions were only ten minutes long, but all the players spent all their time together anyway and talked about nothing but the game for several days between sessions. Pretty intense, no?

ChristianSt

2013-10-22, 05:05 PM

I don't play D&D, so maybe an avid D&D-player sees it different.

But I'm playing other RPGs regularly for quite a long time (>10 years or so), and from reading this forum, I have the feeling that the Giant plays more than the rules than the tables I played at.
I don't play RPG's to follow the rules, I play them to have fun - so when a story is awesome, than some rules-fumbling here and there is no problem. (Also even unintentional rules-braking happen rarely from what I read here - which is quite a hard challenge over such a long run)

But discussing about such stuff isn't bad - heck if I would know D&D I might throw in some random stuff there, too, just because discussing about OotS is why a large part of us are here.

@the GRRM discussion:
I don't see any problem with how GRRM handles magic in ASOIAF (up until now AKA book 5). From a Westeros standpoint magic is pretty rare - it dried simply up some time in the past, but seems to creep back again. That there are different approaches to magic isn't even new (heck sorcerers and wizards draw they power from completely different sources, not even considering much rarer seen types likes psychics). Having magic A, magic B and magic C working with different rules isn't problematic. Only if things happen that brakes the suspension of disbelief problems arise (and at least from my point of view that hasn't happened in ASOIF nor in OotS)

martianmister

2013-10-22, 05:27 PM

So, the point of this thread is arguing about the fans who arguing about the comic? This thread is too serious. :smallamused:

hamishspence

2013-10-22, 05:38 PM

So, the point of this thread is arguing about the fans who arguing about the comic? This thread is too serious. :smallamused:
I'm surprised no-one's brought up the Heath Ledger in Batman "Why so serious?" meme yet.

Unless they have and I missed it.

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 05:51 PM

Weimann

2013-10-22, 05:52 PM

warrl

2013-10-22, 06:05 PM

as a relative newcomer, there does seem to be a comparatively (to other boards where I lurk or post) literal, left-brained/engineer-type vibe to this particular online community. Don't mean that in a bad or good way, but it was my strong impression after lurking for a week or two

I disagree, but I believe I know exactly why you have that impression.

It's because there IS an external, codified, published set of rules - with a lot of minutia - that the comic's universe is supposed to mostly adhere to, so we can easily display our left-brained/engineer tendencies to a much greater extent than is true of most other webcomics.

But if you ignore the number-crunching and rules-checking posts and look at the discussions of story and characters-as-people, really we aren't much different from the forum communities for Gunnerkrigg Court or El Goonish Shive.

Math_Mage

2013-10-22, 06:10 PM

I admit I'm surprised to see pendell making this post. It seems uncharacteristically poorly thought out.

I mean, yes, this is a fantasy comic, but isn't the entire point supposed to be that it's funny?

I mean, yes, there's a dramatic story here, and yes Rich has some serious ideas, but at the end of the day, isn't what he trying to do more than anything is to make us laugh? And to sell books, of course? But ain't the funny the main thing?
That hasn't been the case for a long time. OotS is no longer just a series of gags attached to a story, it's a story with lots of humor. OotS doesn't just parody the rules, it tells a serious story. Heck, it even parodies its own seriousness--and ours.

I have to wonder if , when the response to a strip is more nerdrage than laughter , whether we -- whether I -- am doing something wrong.

Whether I'm missing the whole point of following this strip in the first place.
Nerdrage is the wrong response, but laughter is not the only right response. There is no continuum between the two. OotS is more complex than that.

Personally, I find the rules distracting rather than helpful. Because when the Giant pushes against them for the sake of the story, as in Laurin and her houseruled infinite-wormhole power , which will no doubt function for as long as the plot requires it, to be a distraction. It breaks my suspension of disbelief. It's obviously a houserule, and it will obviously serve to railroad the order into conflict, until some equally crazy homerule serves to break them out of it. It seems as if the rules of the world just don't make any sense and we are dependent from author fiat for a resolution.
Ugh. It is unhelpful to criticize the use of rules based on a poor understanding of the rules. Rich does not follow every rule all the time, but he follows most of the rules most of the time, and breaks them when following them would make the story worse, not better. So when you see something and think Rich is screwing with your suspension of disbelief through author fiat in a way that has no redeeming value, you should at least check back over the rules to make sure Rich is actually using author fiat in the way you think he is.

And if this were a completely made up world outside the D&D framework, the question would never come up. When the author reveals the rules of the world a bit at a time, the author fiat is less obvious and suspension of disbelief is intact. But when the author is working against a core set of rules that he didn't write, and both he and his audience are fully aware of, then when he breaks those rules he's obviously breaking the framework of reality. It's far more obvious than when Tolkien, say, retcons a cheap ring of invisibility into the One Ring To Rule Them All. Tolkien knows all the rules of middle earth and we don't, so when he pulls a fast one we can't see behind the curtain and suspension of disbelief is maintained. Working with the D&D rules, by contrast, is like trying to pull the same stunt WITHOUT the curtain, in full view of an educated audience. The result is not wonder, but nerdrage.

So for me the D&D rules and framework are becoming more of a distraction from the story and less of a contribution to it.

What say you?
I think people who misunderstand the rules are more distracted than people who understand them. There is a legitimate question of whether it would be worthwhile to pretend to adhere to D&D rules while actually breaking them willy-nilly, but this comic is not doing that.

Sloanzilla

2013-10-22, 06:17 PM

I actually don't mind if some of you sometimes seem a little Vulcan.

The Westeros board became some big old Women's Study Majors vs. Trolls board ("Page 650 of Book 5...Sexism! or not?") coupled with conspiracy theorists.

And every single video gaming/Pathfinder board is 90% class warfare ("Why do the developers of Game X hate Monks, Zerg, Warlocks, etc. so much?" so a little engineerishness here isn't really terrible.

zimmerwald1915

2013-10-22, 06:50 PM

And every single video gaming/Pathfinder board is 90% class warfare ("Why do the developers of Game X hate Monks, Zerg, Warlocks, etc. so much?" so a little engineerishness here isn't really terrible.
That phrase...I do not think it means what you think it means.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-22, 08:52 PM

I actually don't mind if some of you sometimes seem a little Vulcan.

Actually, I'm Bajoran. :smallwink:

The Westeros board became some big old Women's Study Majors vs. Trolls board ("Page 650 of Book 5...Sexism! or not?") coupled with conspiracy theorists.

Conspiracy theorists? What kind of conspiracy theorists? Ones blaming the downfall of the Targaryns on the failure of Lord Tywin Lannister to smother the Imp at birth? We want nothing to do with such outlandishness here at these forums! :smalltongue:

And every single video gaming/Pathfinder board is 90% class warfare ("Why do the developers of Game X hate Monks, Zerg, Warlocks, etc. so much?" so a little engineerishness here isn't really terrible.

That phrase...I do not think it means what you think it means.

No more rhyming, I mean it!

Would anyone like...
A peanut?

:smallbiggrin:

Koo Rehtorb

2013-10-22, 08:58 PM

Maybe this thread is, in itself, too serious. :O

ti'esar

2013-10-22, 09:20 PM

Maybe this thread is, in itself, too serious. :O

:durkon: Ye dinnae say.

oppyu

2013-10-22, 09:33 PM

What do you think? Are we as a board too serious? Or is what happens a natural byproduct of making rules jokes to a very smart group of people , many of whom know these rules by heart? Or is the fact that we talk about alignment, and the trivia of rules, a sign that we're off course?

I reject the implication that as a member of this group, I am a very smart person. That is all.

SaintRidley

2013-10-22, 10:04 PM

I read with an analytic eye. It's part of my training, and not easily discarded. The funny is a main thing, and it's a very good main thing. But it's not the one and only main thing. What Rich has to say about the world through this comic is often more gripping to me than the humor is, and I'm more than happy to sift through the comic to find out the many things the Order of the Stick is trying to say about art, love, literature, the nature of life and death, and so on.

So, no. I'm not taking it too seriously. I think I'm taking it just seriously enough.

Tev

2013-10-23, 04:53 AM

This is a bit of an over-generalization.

That's not true of all fantasy authors.
...
Of course it's generalization that doesn't apply to every author, but I think it's at the root of the reason why many authors write fantasy and not history or whatever (as was also pointed out in this thread). And Tolkien as counter example is ridiculous, his story was just side product of making his world.

GRRM was bad example - his world building is great, it's his storytelling that sucks and makes it come off so cheap and OMG another bombastic revelation!
Having known more about that world and it's mechanics beforehand would prevent some of it (not the least by forcing author to work on his story, as was the point of my first post itt).

Better example would be Rowling - yeah that's low hanging fruit, but I think she's pretty good example of generic fantasy author, sue me :P - she is pretty good storyteller (well, let's say mostly), but her characters are stupid, and world building is baffling at best. It hurts the story that could have been great, and degrades it to just easy fun read. Redirect that effort to make your world magical into the characters and you might get much better story . . . at least imo.

Sanderson does sound intriguing though.

I admit I'm surprised to see pendell making this post. It seems uncharacteristically poorly thought out.
I see it more as provocation.

god I'm tired I hope this post will make any sense when I'll read it after some sleep

pendell

2013-10-23, 06:13 AM

I see it more as provocation.

More a call for discussion. I deliberately avoided words and phrases that would provoke people and deliberately aimed to compliment the reader, rather than insult him/her.

Also a sort of emotional response as I was writing up a discussion for another thread about psionics and just found myself asking "Why? Why do I care about this? Who CARES if psionics are overpowered or not? Who CARES if it makes since within the D&D framework or not? WHY CAN'T I JUST ENJOY THE STORY?

And then I started this thread, to see if anyone else agreed with me. It appears at this point I have a gist of a point, but for many people these discussions, these arguments are a feature rather than a bug, as it helps them to learn about D&D and the dialog itself can be entertaining.

Reading this thread, I daresay for many forum participants the community here is as much a draw as the comic itself is.

god I'm tired I hope this post will make any sense when I'll read it after some sleep

It does.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-23, 08:43 AM

Reading this thread, I daresay for many forum participants the community here is as much a draw as the comic itself is.

QFT. I would almost certainly still be a participant on these boards even if the comic ended tomorrow.

MtlGuy

2013-10-23, 12:20 PM

veti

2013-10-23, 02:14 PM

Also a sort of emotional response as I was writing up a discussion for another thread about psionics and just found myself asking "Why? Why do I care about this? Who CARES if psionics are overpowered or not? Who CARES if it makes since within the D&D framework or not? WHY CAN'T I JUST ENJOY THE STORY?

You absolutely can "just enjoy the story". But in that case - and please don't take this the wrong way, I hope you have some idea how valued you are as a poster...

... what are you doing on the forum?

Bulldog Psion

2013-10-23, 02:23 PM

In a word, yes.

The amount of analysis that goes into every issue is sometimes ridiculous. I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode 'Itchy & Scratchy and Poochie' where Homer confronts the hard core fans at an convention asking a man with a t-shirt that says 'genius' why he's so interested in a child's cartoon after that man points out a minor continuity error during a sequence in which Itchy plays Scracthy's ribcage like a musical instrument.

The release schedule inherently encourages this as fans digest the comic one to three pages a week and scrutinize everything in the perhaps incomplete context it's presented. Where if we would just wait a couple of weeks we'd know we we were way off base in the first instance.

As for rules consistency, who cares? If it's funny, do it. If it's good for the plot, do it. The comic has grown beyond simple gags and punchlines centered around game mechanics, it's an Epic now. Albeit it's a different form of media, Mr. Burlew's work imho is on par with the likes of Matt Groening or Pendelton Ward.

Interestingly, though, it isn't necessary to participate in rules discussions if a specific poster doesn't want to. If one is interested in the plot, one can confine one's posting to those elements. If the humor is what one is interested in, then one can limit one's observations to that part. If one is interested in the rules, there are discussions on that. If one finds the discussions distasteful, one is welcome to refrain from visiting the forums at all and just read the comic when it comes out.

None of these are superior to the others, IMO. It's a matter of personal taste.

Now, the precise amount of discussion time given to each of those elements may be unequal, but some elements just don't generate much talk.

pendell

2013-10-23, 02:25 PM

... what are you doing on the forum?

I enjoy the people. That's the first thought that comes to mind.

I do enjoy the conversations. I have something to share, and sometimes I have something to learn from others.

It's just that sometimes it feels like the forum gets in a rut, discussing the same things over and over again.

Sometimes I just need to step back and reorient my perspective.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Ridureyu

2013-10-23, 02:32 PM

To answer the original poster:

yes, yes, YES!!!!

(I'll have what I'm having)

AKA_Bait

2013-10-23, 03:58 PM

If one is interested in the plot, one can confine one's posting to those elements. If the humor is what one is interested in, then one can limit one's observations to that part. If one is interested in the rules, there are discussions on that.

In fairness, I'm not sure how true this is. Lots of discussions, perhaps especially those about the plot, end up being discussions about game mechanics at least to some degree. Because the comic is D&D rules based, predictions about how the plot will develop often involve discussions of what options are available to the characters mechanically. Right now, for example, just how many power points Laurin has left is being discussed (in more than one place) as part of evaluating predictions about the outcome of the current battle.

(I'll have what I'm having)

Don't forget to send a salami to your boy in the army Empire of Blood's legions.

Jay R

2013-10-23, 04:48 PM

I will continue to do what I enjoy doing.

Even if you think it's too serious, I will continue doing it.

Even if you think it's not serious enough, I will continue doing it.

Even if you think it's misguided, I will continue doing it.

I will continue to do what I enjoy doing.

Tev

2013-10-23, 05:29 PM

More a call for discussion.
Yes, that fits much better. And apparently it was successful at that.

It's just that sometimes it feels like the forum gets in a rut, discussing the same things over and over again.
That's just consequence of the size of thís community - people see overly long threads (and too many of them) and they don't have enough time (or interest) to read through that. But they still want to vent their emotions stirred by last comic so they post something . . . which was said numerous times before, and sometimes also proved wrong. Which creates more clutter and makes the problem worse.
Simple solution? I can't think of any.

But I do think that some seriousness is caused by heavy moderation - when you can't verbally smack some dork repeating simple observation for 17th time, when you can't drift into OT too much or god forbid into some real world analogies, silly things you can talk about tend to be taken way too seriously.

But it's not necessarily making it worse - I like this forum and it's discussions, it brings a lot of insight into the comic. However I do filter posts a lot, mainly by who made them.

zimmerwald1915

2013-10-23, 05:32 PM

That's just consequence of the size of thís community - people see overly long threads (and too many of them) and they don't have enough time (or interest) to read through that. But they still want to vent their emotions stirred by last comic so they post something . . . which was said numerous times before, and sometimes also proved wrong. Which creates more clutter and makes the problem worse.
Simple solution? I can't think of any.
Well, there's people developing the self-control not to post frivolous things that clutter up threads, as well as people developing the will and putting aside the time to read the threads to which they want to respond...

Oh, you said simple. Never mind then.

CrystalDragon

2013-10-23, 05:47 PM

But then he ruins it by having Melisandre or the Maegi drop hints about how magic works, mentioning blood magic, king's blood, and other things. If they want to be mysterious, they would be better off explaining nothing. At least the Three Eyed Crow is trying to teach Bran primal magic.
He's showing you parts of an elephant. Big deal. I don't see how anything has been "ruined".

But their Alchemist's Fire is not based on science, and if there are Dragons (or red comets) their formulas are more effective. Say what? How did they never notice this before?
Because dragons died once and they came back once. Two observational points do ****-all for helping you formulate a robust scientific theory. And when the alchemist's recipe started working overtime they didn't even know that the dragons were alive.

But why should Alchemist's Fire rely on Dragons to be more effective?
Magic.

Why couldn't a Maegi protect herself from Dothraki, when a Warg can effectively acheive immortality by leaping from body to body?
Maybe her spells are only good for Adept-type ****.

I have a problem with every other form of mysticism that GRRM has shown being inconsistent.
By "inconsistent" you mean that it doesn't all work the same way and you don't understand it. To a person from the 15th century who doesn't know **** about rocketry it sure seems inconsistent that a X-15 can fly higher than a Boeing because aren't they both planes and hey the Boeing is bigger and wait huh this **** is inconsistent and doesn't make sense.

gorocz

2013-10-23, 06:03 PM

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-23, 06:45 PM

By "inconsistent" you mean that it doesn't all work the same way and you don't understand it. To a person from the 15th century who doesn't know **** about rocketry it sure seems inconsistent that a X-15 can fly higher than a Boeing because aren't they both planes and hey the Boeing is bigger and wait huh this **** is inconsistent and doesn't make sense.

Heh. Forget the 15th century, there are people born in the 20th century who don't understand why an F-15 can't achieve it's maximum speed in five seconds after take off. :smallamused:

I guess the issue is that we have two viewpoint characters who have awakened Warg powers (and two others that could awaken those powers) and one viewpoint character training to become a Faceless (Wo)Man, and all three of them are being given instruction in their powers (Jon by living with the Wildlings, Bran directly by the Three-Eyed Crow, and Arya by the Faceless Men) while the only other viewpoint character using magic does so with no instructor, fumbling about like a Rogue with 1 rank in UMD trying to get a wand of CLW to activate. We know enough about Bran or Jon's abilities to understand what Wargs can do and we sit through Arya's training, but we get no explanation for blood magic.

Sloanzilla

2013-10-23, 06:57 PM

gorocz makes a good point

the internet really is a silly place

Tev

2013-10-23, 09:25 PM

Well, there's people developing the self-control not to post frivolous things that clutter up threads, as well as people developing the will and putting aside the time to read the threads to which they want to respond...

Oh, you said simple. Never mind then.

Yeah, people in such big community learning to moderate themselves.

Dream on.

edit actually with this many posters not even ridiculing the retards would work.

+1 to gorocz

Eulalios

2013-10-23, 09:35 PM

Lucas reinvented Han from a pragmatic killer to a wide-eyed idealist who would let the other guy shoot first even from a range of five feet.

I don't think I've ever seen the stupid version of the movie. Or if I did, it was so jarringly inconsistent with the original, that I still saw Han shoot first.

AstralFire

2013-10-23, 09:38 PM

I don't think I've ever seen the stupid version of the movie. Or if I did, it was so jarringly inconsistent with the original, that I still saw Han shoot first.

I can say that having seen that version of the movie first, I never noticed and Han's personality was quite apparent regardless. I've long considered it terribly overblown.

Reddish Mage

2013-10-23, 10:56 PM

I can say that having seen that version of the movie first, I never noticed and Han's personality was quite apparent regardless. I've long considered it terribly overblown.

The notion that Han would wait for the other guy to fire is incongruent, not only with his character, but in the way that scene was set up, and with common sense survival (the bounty hunter was threatening long before he pulled the trigger). That was simply one of the more obvious of the many redone scenes of the special edition.

How did this tie into OOTS again?

factotum

2013-10-24, 02:18 AM

The notion that Han would wait for the other guy to fire is incongruent, not only with his character, but in the way that scene was set up, and with common sense survival (the bounty hunter was threatening long before he pulled the trigger).

Perhaps more to the point, the revised version of the scene requires a professional bounty hunter to miss a stationary target at a distance of less than six feet with nothing interfering with his aim. No matter how you slice it, that's ridiculous--I mean, people make jokes about the poor aim of stormtroopers, but at least they're generally shooting at moving targets some distance away!

rodneyAnonymous

2013-10-24, 02:51 AM

The problem with the phrase "Han shot first" is that it implies Greedo shot at all.

Turkster

2013-10-24, 03:13 AM

Yes, I've never really paid attention to these forums even though I've been reading since the first fifty'ish comics, primarily because whenever I check the forum it's was always seems like one big argument about D&D rules. I've shown many people the comic over the years, they loved it, but then checked the forum and it was all almost a religious discussion about minor details that had barely anything to do with the story of the comic and more about what was "allowed" to happen.

We're all people of which the closest to D&D we ever got was finishing Neverwinter Nights, so we don't give a damn about the rules, I dare say peoples knowledge of the D&D rules seems to make them enjoy the comic less.

Coat

2013-10-24, 04:32 AM

I think the use of the DnD rule set has two major and very interesting advantages.

Firstly, it helps to pack fantastic amounts of detail into the comic: little examples, like Haley's boots glowing green, or Tarquin snatching of the two arrows aimed at Miron (probably) because he's providing cover, so they were going hit him instead - the comic is packed full of this kind of thing.

While any comic can build in this kind of detail, few do. Using a published ruleset both provides a layer of underlying detail that most authors simply don't have time to create, making it easier for The Giant to come up with the details to pack in, and secondly and equally importantly, it creates a language for us to read and interpret the detail The Giant adds.

If it had been any other setting, and the boots had glowed green, how would we know what it means?

For me, finding these little details is a big part of my enjoyment of the comic - and I can read it over and over again, and still see something new every time (which is a good reason to buy the books).

Secondly, it's a fantastic framework for Rich Burlew to play games with his audience - something he does extraordinarily well.

Telling a story in small increments that are published regularly is a model that goes back to the serial novels in newspapers in the 1800s. Dickens was the first great master of this form, and if you read his work, you can see the multiple levels of anticipation he builds and delivers on in each chapter of his works. He knows his audience, and he knows how to play on their emotions to create excitment and stimulate discussion that will sell the next episode.

Rich is doing the same thing - but here, the feedback loop is even tighter. What using a fixed ruleset like DnD does is create a structure for the discussion that really ties down what is possible. That lets us speculate far more effectively - and interestingly - about what's going to happen next. And it means that when the thing that happens next is not what we predicted, but still plausible and within the rules, the surprise - and enjoyment of the surprise - is so much the greater.

Imagine if we were watching the same confrontation between OotS and Team Tarquin, without the benefit of the ruleset. How's it going to go? 90% of the forum would predict that the Order will win, because they're the heroes and TT are not the Big Bad. 10% would argue that TT will win, because Tarquin is fought them effectively outside the pyramid. No further useful discussion possible.

With the DnD ruleset, we've got a very good idea of the power gap between the OotS and Team Tarquin, and we know that at best, this is going to be a very hard fight for our heroes. The ruleset has poured a massive bucket of tension and expectation into this encounter, making the eventual outcome, and the discussion along the way, so much the more rewarding.

So the use of the DnD rules, in my opinion, really do add significantly to the comic. That's not to say that The Giant couldn't produce something fantastic and rewarding without them - I'm sure he can, and will. But they do make this comic unique, in a good way. I think the nerdrage and narging that happen on this forum are a small price to pay for that.

That said, there is one significant downside: while the rules create an way that helps The Giant show off his mastery of his form, the fact that he's using a geeky game and geeky rules as his setting means it's just never going to get the proper literary appreciation that, in my opinion, it deserves. And that is a shame.

pendell

2013-10-24, 08:23 AM

The notion that Han would wait for the other guy to fire is incongruent, not only with his character, but in the way that scene was set up, and with common sense survival (the bounty hunter was threatening long before he pulled the trigger). That was simply one of the more obvious of the many redone scenes of the special edition.

How did this tie into OOTS again?

It ties into OOTS because we are in part discussing the concept of "out of character", which is what happens when present actions jar with previously established facts about the universe so strongly that it breaks the audience. Breaking published rules when the universe officially runs on D&D 3.5 is one way to do this. Another way -- what Lucas did -- is to change Han Solo from a pragmatic "look out for number one" morally ambiguous smuggler to someone who is a slightly tarnished version of the lone ranger, who would never fire the first shot even when the villain is pointing a gun at you from five feet away.

Tolkien also retconned Gollum's character between the first and second editions of the Hobbit, but he was quite a bit more respectful and the changes are subtle. So no one threw their toys out of the pram when the Hobbit's second version was released -- at least, not that I know of. I've only seen the second edition but I've never heard or read anyone complaining how the hobbit was a great story before LOTR ruined it !!!1!!!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

factotum

2013-10-24, 10:35 AM

I've only seen the second edition but I've never heard or read anyone complaining how the hobbit was a great story before LOTR ruined it !!!1!!!

To be fair here, anyone who was old enough to be likely to have read the first edition of the book *before* having read the second edition would be, what, 70 at least by now? They probably don't post on discussion forums that much. :smallwink:

Onyavar

2013-10-24, 02:04 PM

and a comic with a rabid audience that's written poorly but has oodles of audience involvement is doing quite well.

I now what you mean...
huh. (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/)

It stopped. No way. I thought that one would go on forever.

So, no, I don't know what you mean.

AstralFire

2013-10-24, 02:25 PM

I now what you mean...
huh. (http://www.dominic-deegan.com/)

It stopped. No way. I thought that one would go on forever.

So, no, I don't know what you mean.

I was referring to Homestuck - Andrew Hussie's a great writer, but Homestuck's become horribly overextended.

veti

2013-10-24, 02:33 PM

To be fair here, anyone who was old enough to be likely to have read the first edition of the book *before* having read the second edition would be, what, 70 at least by now? They probably don't post on discussion forums that much. :smallwink:

You'd be surprised. One of the great things about books is, you can still read them even if they're a lot older than you are.

Rest assured, if I can lay my hands on a 1st edition of The Hobbit, my children will read it before they get to the corrupted version...

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-24, 03:04 PM

You'd be surprised. One of the great things about books is, you can still read them even if they're a lot older than you are.

Rest assured, if I can lay my hands on a 1st edition of The Hobbit, my children will read it before they get to the corrupted version...

Is it really a "corrupted" version? While it is true that Tolkien rewrote the chapters in question, making Gollum more of a villain in the revised version, in terms of the "Watsonian" conceit that The Hobbit represents Bilbo's memoirs, the original version is supposed to be a false account that Bilbo came up with to explain where the Ring came from. Later on, Frodo revised the story to match the truth about Gollum (and about Bilbo).

Furthermore, this change isn't like Greedo's blaster misfiring in the Special Edition (honestly, that's the only charitable way to explain Greedo's ineptitude). Whether Gollum was offering the Ring as a wager or not, Bilbo and Gollum engaged in a test of wits. If anything, Gollum becomes a more canny and devious opponent thanks to Tolkien's later changes. By contrast, Greedo goes from looking like a thug with a gun to looking like a schmuck who doesn't know how to aim a gun. The former is a threat to be taken seriously (which Han does by shooting Greedo under the table) to a buffoon who doesn't know how to fire a blaster. What's more, the editing in the Special Edition is horrendous. There is no way that Greedo could have missed, had he fired, given the direction his blaster was pointing before the edit. :smallannoyed:

factotum

2013-10-24, 04:07 PM

Yeah, I agree...I don't "get" this idea that the first version of something is always the best and any revisions are automatically bad. As another example from literature, take Larry Niven's "Ringworld". In the first scene the main character extends his birthday by teleporting around the world so that he stays on the same date as long as possible--however, in the first edition Niven messed up and had him teleporting around the planet in the wrong direction! He fixed that in later editions--does that make them inferior or "corrupted" in some way?

Ridureyu

2013-10-24, 04:32 PM

The Nerdery Credo

All revisions are bad.

All editors are bad.

All sequels are bad.

All remakes are bad.

All adaptations from book to movie are bad.

All new things are bad.

The only good things are the things I enjoyed when I was six.

PairO'Dice Lost

2013-10-24, 05:14 PM

So, regarding something from the first page that I'm surprised no one has touched on yet:

Compare to Rowling's Potterverse. Nobody tells JK Rowling "Wizards can't do that" or "Dementors don't have that kind of power". Because they are entirely her creation, and there's no external basis for questioning the author's choices.
[...]
The way I see it, an author should never be in the position where they feel they have to defend those kinds of choices. It's an artistic, creative, choice. If Rowling wants to make it possible for wizards to mind control someone, she just makes up the imperious curse. She shouldn't have to defend why wizards can do that

Except people do complain about the inconsistencies, dei ex machina, etc. in Harry Potter, all the time. There are big arguments on why stuff introduced in book X can't be or wasn't used to solve some problems in earlier books (e.g. Marauder's Map vs. Chamber of Secrets, does the Map find the Chamber or not?), why certain things in the world make no sense ("Giving time machines to students so they can take more classes!? Are you insane!?"), and so forth.

Hundreds of fanfics and online debates have attempted to reconcile these inconsistencies, retcon "explain" the reasoning behind them, re-write parts of earlier books taking new information into account, take an inconsistency as a launching pad to change things, etc., or even just take background characters and anecdotes and expand them into full-fledged stories to explain why they're the way they are...and often these fanfics and debates are as long or longer than the passages (or books!) that spawned them cough Methods of Rationality cough.

Take another example: the current Avatar series, Legend of Korra, recently had a two-parter episode that explained the origin story of the Avatar in a way that appeared to contradict established canon in some ways. The ensuing discussion in the LoK thread in the Media Discussion forum essentially went like this:

"Cool episode, I loved it!"

"Me too! Except for [blah]; I don't think it meshes with [plot point] from episode [number] from season 2 of Last Airbender."

"Nah, that works just fine. You see, we already knew [other plot point from season 3], so in that context if you just assume [potential explanation] it all makes sense."

"But then [character backstory] doesn't make sense because [potential plot hole]!"

"Yeah, and on that note, I thought [character]'s [character trait] didn't mesh with [similar character]'s portrayal in Last Airbender, and because of that the series is weaker for it."

"Well, actually, if you assume that [old knowledge] happened because [new knowledge], which makes sense given episode [number] of season [number], then in the context of [plot point] it all makes sense!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, [length of time] is nowhere near long enough for [plot point] to happen! I mean, compare it to [real world analogy]...."

"But if you consider that bending lets you [capability], then [alternative explanation], and obviously that together with [supposition] implies that [plot point] could happen if [character] does [thing] and...."

And around and around it goes, about the origin of bending, about spirits, about technology, about character motivations, and more. We meet around half a dozen spirits over four or five seasons and have very little information about spirits and the Spirit World otherwise, but because there are perceived contradictions between stuff in this episode and what we've seen before and because the universe appears to operate by established rules, people can start debate with even that little information.

The "seriousness" of OotS discussions has nothing to do with the fact that it uses D&D 3e rules, or any RPG rules at all. It has everything to do that if a series like OotS (or Harry Potter or Avatar or Star Wars or...) has apparently-internally-consistent rules, however much or little information the audience has about them (see: the Force and midichlorians, hoo boy...), devoted fans will discuss and nitpick and complain and discuss and extrapolate and predict and discuss and debate and otherwise make a big deal over "mere" entertainment.

Doug Lampert

2013-10-24, 05:18 PM

It ties into OOTS because we are in part discussing the concept of "out of character", which is what happens when present actions jar with previously established facts about the universe so strongly that it breaks the audience. Breaking published rules when the universe officially runs on D&D 3.5 is one way to do this. Another way -- what Lucas did -- is to change Han Solo from a pragmatic "look out for number one" morally ambiguous smuggler to someone who is a slightly tarnished version of the lone ranger, who would never fire the first shot even when the villain is pointing a gun at you from five feet away.

Tolkien also retconned Gollum's character between the first and second editions of the Hobbit, but he was quite a bit more respectful and the changes are subtle. So no one threw their toys out of the pram when the Hobbit's second version was released -- at least, not that I know of. I've only seen the second edition but I've never heard or read anyone complaining how the hobbit was a great story before LOTR ruined it !!!1!!!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The Anotated The Hobbit has the entirety of both versions of chapter 5, I've seen it in bookstores within the past year.

ChristianSt

2013-10-24, 05:26 PM

"Cool episode, I loved it!"

"Me too! Except for [blah]; I don't think it meshes with [plot point] from episode [number] from season 2 of Last Airbender."

"Nah, that works just fine. You see, we already knew [other plot point from season 3], so in that context if you just assume [potential explanation] it all makes sense."

"But then [character backstory] doesn't make sense because [potential plot hole]!"

"Yeah, and on that note, I thought [character]'s [character trait] didn't mesh with [similar character]'s portrayal in Last Airbender, and because of that the series is weaker for it."

"Well, actually, if you assume that [old knowledge] happened because [new knowledge], which makes sense given episode [number] of season [number], then in the context of [plot point] it all makes sense!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, [length of time] is nowhere near long enough for [plot point] to happen! I mean, compare it to [real world analogy]...."

"But if you consider that bending lets you [capability], then [alternative explanation], and obviously that together with [supposition] implies that [plot point] could happen if [character] does [thing] and...."

:smallbiggrin: I have zero clue about what that discussion was, but reading this "summation", I kinda want to jump in despite knowing I don't know anything about the topic :smallwink:.

zimmerwald1915

2013-10-24, 05:31 PM

:smallbiggrin: I have zero clue about what that discussion was, but reading this "summation", I kinda want to jump in despite knowing I don't know anything about the topic :smallwink:.
Having read, though not posted in, that particular discussion I will assure you that it is exactly as hilarious as Pair o'Dice made it out to be.

ti'esar

2013-10-24, 06:44 PM

The Nerdery Credo

All revisions are bad.

All editors are bad.

All sequels are bad.

All remakes are bad.

All adaptations from book to movie all bad.

All new things are bad.

The only good things are the things I enjoyed when I was six.

Sigged....

DolGrenn

2013-10-24, 07:50 PM

Are we too serious? Yes.

Why? Because somebody found reason enough to ask the question. :smallbiggrin:

Ridureyu

2013-10-24, 07:57 PM

Sigged....

Be sure to fix my typo!

Also, people complained about Harry Potter plot elements that were just fine - but if they didn't line up with an individual fan's desires... well, she got death threats over relationship pairings. I think there was even one (attempted, never made it very far) lawsuit over Harry/Ginny being a couple.

ti'esar

2013-10-24, 08:05 PM

Be sure to fix my typo!

Also, people complained about Harry Potter plot elements that were just fine - but if they didn't line up with an individual fan's desires... well, she got death threats over relationship pairings. I think there was even one (attempted, never made it very far) lawsuit over Harry/Ginny being a couple.

I actually thought the typo was intentional. It reads pretty well in context.

And using shippers as an example of how insanely obsessive and petty fans can be is aiming pretty low, IMO.

Edit: Seriously?

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-24, 08:06 PM

Be sure to fix my typo!

Fix a typo?!? Heresy! Leave it unchanged!

Ridureyu

2013-10-24, 08:12 PM

I actually thought the typo was intentional. It reads pretty well in context.

And using shippers as an example of how insanely obsessive and petty fans can be is aiming pretty low, IMO.

Edit: Seriously?

Well...

...He-Man fans threatening to sue because "Product specifications may vary" actually applied to one pre-ordered product.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-24, 08:20 PM

Well...

...He-Man fans threatening to sue because "Product specifications may vary" actually applied to one pre-ordered product.

If He-Man fans can sit through the pilot episode of the Filmation cartoon from the 80's without complaining, they have no right to complain about anything. :smallannoyed:

(Seriously, I realized my love of that show was all nostalgia when I actually rewatched it several years ago. The production values were atrocious, and the plots made Challenge of the Go-Bots look cerebral!)

Ridureyu

2013-10-24, 08:24 PM

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-24, 08:34 PM

The thing is, modern fan culture has become too entitled, and threatens to implode upon itself and make geekery even more marginalized than it current is. Right now, we are at the point where EVERYTHING new is universally "hated," even if it's loved. Most filmmakers - with very rare exceptions - realize that they just don't need to pander to fans anymore, because fans will hate it, anyway. Even the Marvel Movie Universe seems to be slipping into the "Whatever movie is new SUUUUUUCKS" trope nowadays. This is not good, as it drowns out valid criticisms and makes fans in general look like entitled babies.

(EDIT) And yes, the new Castle Grayskull. mattel first previewed the blueprints with "This will probably have to be scaled down due to budget." The end result is a castle that was only SLIGHTLY scaled down... but some people are screaming and threatening lawsuits.

The original Castle Grayskull playset was a piece of plastic that swiveled open slightly, and had a dungeon a figure could slide into. That's it. Snake Mountain had a primitive voice chip, making hissing sounds when a button was pressed. The less said about the Slime Pit the better. :smallwink: So any complaining about a new toy is entitled whining.

On the other hand, there is a place for constructive criticism. I have a bit of constructive criticism regarding "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."; every other episode seems to be a bottle show, or somehow lackluster. The episodes that either introduce new villains or follow established ones (like the pilot, the third and fifth episodes) are interesting; the other two have been paint-by-numbers filler, with the fourth episode being especially mediocre. The plot could have fit right in on "Chuck" or "Fringe". They could do better, without needing to blow their budget each week.

Porthos

2013-10-24, 08:47 PM

Hey, who wants to feel old?

Worst. Episode. Ever.

The episode of The Simpsons that immortalized that phrase aired 16 and a half years ago. :smallsmile:

Ridureyu

2013-10-24, 08:53 PM

Bulldog Psion

2013-10-25, 12:06 AM

The difference is, do you have some constructive criticism for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or do you roll on the floor while SCREAAAAAMING entitlement? There is a huge gap between the two, and far too often we fall in the latter camp.

Actually, it seems to me that 99% of the time, the rules discussions are fairly mild. I see very little screaming entitlement on these boards. There have been a few outbreaks of obnoxiousness, but to me at least, "rolling on the floor while SCREAAAAAAMING entitlement" seems to bear no resemblance to the actions of most people on these boards.

IMO, your comment is completely off base for describing the majority of discussions and posters on these forums, which are highly civilized most of the time.

Unless discussing the rules at all or using them as a basis for trying to extrapolate what might happen is in itself deeply offensive. Which does seem to be the position of some people posting in this thread.

Jay R

2013-10-25, 08:27 AM

The Nerdery Credo

All revisions are bad.

All editors are bad.

All sequels are bad.

All remakes are bad.

...

All new things are bad.

The only good things are the things I enjoyed when I was six.

Agreed. No D&D Next. No 4th edition. No 3.5E, or 3E, or 2E. No AD&D. No BECMI. We will all now go back to original D&D.
(No, not the first published version. We don't want the edited and revised "original D&D". We are all going to play Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.)

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-25, 09:38 AM

The difference is, do you have some constructive criticism for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or do you roll on the floor while SCREAAAAAMING entitlement? There is a huge gap between the two, and far too often we fall in the latter camp.

My sister once yelled at people for enjoying the fourth Harry Potter movie because "It was inaccurate!" In the theater. Loudly. "None of you are true fans!"

Actually I do have a few constructive criticisms of the show. They seem to be having an issue with their budget not letting them tell the stories they want to tell. As a result they're cutting corners in some areas so that when they pull out a super-villain like Scorch (who's an actual villain on Earth-616, albeit an African American guy in a suit who got pounded on by Spider-Man and Daredevil a lot) they can have enough money for effects. But there are plenty of Marvel villains (including Avengers villains) who either have no powers (just special training) or whose powers don't require flashy effects. Batroc the Leaper, for example, is a Frenchman who has mastered Savate, and is able to use it to deadly effect. Taskmaster's powers don't need a visual effect, since they involve mimicing the combat skills of another character. Both Batroc's Brigade and Taskmaster's school for henchmen seem ideal targets for Coulson's crew to try and take down. A fight scene where Taskmaster mimics Ming-na Wen's moves, or Batroc and Machete (I forgot the name of the third member of the Brigade; any Marvel Zombies wanna help a fellow out?) fight Ward, while the non-combatants are trying to do something sciency, would be good climaxes to episodes based on espionage. I feel that Melinda having to infiltrate Taskmaster's hidden school, or Ward and Skye trying to locate a big bad's MacGuffin only to have Batroc and his cohorts leap out of the shadows (pun intended) would make great plots. The third episode of the show, where Skye goes undercover, was IMO, a great episode, and not just because it featured Graviton's origin story. It was great because it was a spy caper, and that's what S.H.I.E.L.D. should be about. Infiltrating an enemy compound or fighting Bond-style henchmen with super-skills or superpowers would make the show more distinctive than "superpowered person of the week" stories.

There's also the issue of interpersonal relations between the characters. I feel that Ward and Skye don't have any chemistry developing between them. They should switch things up a bit. Maybe Fitz has a torch burning for Skye, which either amuses or annoys Simmons. Maybe Ward and Melinda could have UST; I think that would work better than Ward and Skye. Or bring in a recurring character, like Ruth Bat-Seraph (aka Sabra), Pete Wisdom, both of whom work for affiliated espionage agencies (Bat-Seraph for Mossad, Wisdom for MI-13, the U.K.'s version of S.H.I.E.L.D.). They could strike up romantic sparks (although since both are Mutants, and Wisdom was part of Excalibur at one time, neither may be available for use in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lousy Fox and their stupid licenses!)

Finally, the bad guys working on "Project Centipede" are too generic. Give them a name! Are they part of A.I.M., trying to recover from the fiasco in "Iron Man 3"? Or could there be another group behind this? Maybe there's a third group that opposes both S.H.I.E.L.D. and "Project C" (not the hackers in "Rising Tide"), such as Zodiac, Fenris, or even Baron Zemo and his Thunderbolts! (Too bad they can't mention Doctor Doom or Latveria. Lousy license agreement with some studio for Fantastic Four!)

So I discussed issues I have with their budget saving measures, plots, characterization, and potential new directions. Is that constructive enough?

AstralFire

2013-10-25, 09:41 AM

FWIW, I am pretty sure the implied statement in that question was, "you are presenting a reasonable argument, but these other people I'm talking about are all entitled children."

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-25, 09:47 AM

FWIW, I am pretty sure the implied statement in that question was, "you are presenting a reasonable argument, but these other people I'm talking about are all entitled children."

No, Ridureyu was trying to figure out which camp I fell into. Like I said in the previous post, I recognize the limits the show has in terms of it's budget, it's inability to use characters licensed to other studios (the X-Men and their enemies, Spidey and the cream of his Rogues' Gallery, and the FF and their main opponents), but the show has pacing issues, some of the plots have been generic, and I don't see any chemistry developing between Skye and Ward. The show's trying to spark a flame, but it won't take. But when the show focuses on espionage combined with superheroes or villains, is when it's been at it's best. There's room for improvement, but the show isn't terrible. It just needs to realize that the spy stuff should be the focus, and come up with ways to be more "James Bond" or "Man From U.N.C.L.E.", and less "Fringe".

AKA_Bait

2013-10-25, 09:48 AM

Actually, it seems to me that 99% of the time, the rules discussions are fairly mild. I see very little screaming entitlement on these boards. There have been a few outbreaks of obnoxiousness, but to me at least, "rolling on the floor while SCREAAAAAAMING entitlement" seems to bear no resemblance to the actions of most people on these boards.

IMO, your comment is completely off base for describing the majority of discussions and posters on these forums, which are highly civilized most of the time.

Unless discussing the rules at all or using them as a basis for trying to extrapolate what might happen is in itself deeply offensive. Which does seem to be the position of some people posting in this thread.

Agreed. The boards here are remarkably civil and, for the most part, those with differing positions recognize that they are expected to support those positions with evidence (either from the comic, the Giant's remarks, or the D&D rules).

Agreed. No D&D Next. No 4th edition. No 3.5E, or 3E, or 2E. No AD&D. No BECMI. We will all now go back to original D&D.
(No, not the first published version. We don't want the edited and revised "original D&D". We are all going to play Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.)

You also left out some very important things that only become options post puberty...

FlawedParadigm

2013-10-25, 10:04 AM

Since about Miko, yes.

Aolbain

2013-10-25, 10:22 AM

This tread is giving me a headache :smallfrown:

Reddish Mage

2013-10-25, 10:54 AM

Actually I do have a few constructive criticisms of the show. They seem to be having an issue with their budget not letting them tell the stories they want to tell. As a result they're cutting corners in some areas so that when they pull out a super-villain ... The third episode of the show, where Skye goes undercover, was IMO, a great episode, and not just because it featured Graviton's origin story. It was great because it was a spy caper, and that's what S.H.I.E.L.D. should be about. Infiltrating an enemy compound or fighting Bond-style henchmen with super-skills or superpowers would make the show more distinctive than "superpowered person of the week" stories.

There's also the issue of interpersonal relations between the characters. I feel that Ward and Skye don't have any chemistry developing between them. They should switch things up a bit. Maybe Fitz has a torch burning for Skye, which either amuses or annoys Simmons. Maybe Ward and Melinda could have UST; I think that would work better than Ward and Skye. Or bring in a recurring character, like Ruth Bat-Seraph (aka Sabra), Pete Wisdom...

Finally, the bad guys working on "Project Centipede" are too generic. Give them a name! Are they part of A.I.M., trying to recover from the fiasco in "Iron Man 3"? Or could there be another group behind this? Maybe there's a third group that opposes both S.H.I.E.L.D. and "Project C" (not the hackers in "Rising Tide")...

So I discussed issues I have with their budget saving measures, plots, characterization, and potential new directions. Is that constructive enough?

I do feel there's a bit of anti-forum sentiment in general. What would we talk about all day if not critiquing the stories and that seems to imply either 1. "overly serious" attempts at literary analysis 2. "overly serious" comparison with previous works in the genre (including pointing out the continuity errors, especially when they are major). The other things to talk about appear to amount to "facile" comments and fan-fictiony flights of imagination. I'm not sure what we'd be left to talk about except for things that fall into those four categories.

On the tangent Agents of SHIELD, I tend to think the chemistry is actually between Skye and Coulson, and you can't argue that wouldn't make for an unusual pairing. I think the shows heroes need more emotion, more vulnerability, and more powerful fight scenes.

Also the third episode was troubling for me in the way Skye choose SHIELD and secrecy over an apparent commitment to Rising Tide ideals seems to me like an ass-pull. Skye never really got enough reason to ally herself with SHIELD's MiB-like priorities of keeping an absurdly dangerous world safe in secret.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-25, 11:36 AM

On the tangent Agents of SHIELD, I tend to think the chemistry is actually between Skye and Coulson, and you can't argue that wouldn't make for an unusual pairing. I think the shows heroes need more emotion, more vulnerability, and more powerful fight scenes.

Also the third episode was troubling for me in the way Skye choose SHIELD and secrecy over an apparent commitment to Rising Tide ideals seems to me like an ass-pull. Skye never really got enough reason to ally herself with SHIELD's MiB-like priorities of keeping an absurdly dangerous world safe in secret.

There's definitely a developing relationship between Coulson and Skye, but it feels more father-figure/daughter to me. Skye grew up in foster care, and episode five reveals some of the reasons she chose to side with S.H.I.E.L.D. over Rising Tide or the guy working with Graviton. Let's just say Skye's decision to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. was based on more complex motivations than we initially were led to believe in episode three.

I definitely agree otherwise that there's chemistry between Coulson and Skye. I don't see it becoming romantic, at least not this early on, especially since Jed and Maurissa are still trying to force the Ward/Skye UST, which is clearly not gonna happen. (I bought the DVD of "Doctor Horrible", so I think I'm allowed to refer to Jed and Maurissa by their first names. :smallbiggrin:) One of the issues the producers and writers probably need to work around is that several Marvel properties are either reserved for the movies, or are licensed out to other studios.

But there are thousands of other characters left in the Marvel U that are theirs for the taking and would be quite appropriate, like Taskmaster, Solo, Batroc's Brigade, the Secret Empire, the Maggia (and without the Comics Code Authority around to breathe down their neck, the Maggia can be referred to as the Mafia), Zodiac, the Smuggler, the Tinkerer, the Gargoyle (the Soviet agent the Hulk faced in "Incredible Hulk #1"), Baron Zemo and the "Thunderbolts", and the Crime Master (assuming they have the rights to him). Taskmaster operates a school for would be henchmen. Maybe Solo lost loved ones in a terror attack, similar to how Frank Castle lost his family in a gangland shooting. Now Solo might be a vigilante, targeting innocent minorities he blames for terror attacks. Batroc's Brigade make great henchmen for a big, Bond-villain style opponent. The Secret Empire, assuming they aren't being reserved for a Captain America movie, could be upper class reactionaries manipulating discontent among urban populations, in an attempt to gain power. Maybe the Secret Empire is promoting Centipede, or a similar project? Maybe the Hate-Monger is working with them? (Assuming they have the rights to the Hate-Monger.)

The Tinkerer could be running a "Mom & Pop" operation where he repairs advanced tech, including alien weapons from the Avengers' battle with the Chitauri. But he could also be a double agent, providing Coulson with the names of his customers on the sly. Baron Zemo, again provided he's not going to be in a Cap movie, could be gathering "gifted" people into a small army. But why? Is he planning to conquer the world... or save it? (He's tried to do both in the pages of Avengers and Thunderbolts.)

Solo doesn't need to be able to teleport, just run around with a machine gun screaming "While I live, terror dies!", requiring Ward and Melinda to try to save Solo's potential victims, while Coulson tries to talk him down. Maybe the Secret Empire have been behind Solo's rampage, conditioning him in secret. Or maybe Solo's just a man who lived through a tragedy, and now believes he's a hero, murdering innocent people, that he believes to be terrorists.

There's a lot of characters that could fit.Even Howard the Duck and Beverly could work. After all, Howard's always seen himself as a hardworking duck, trapped in a world he never made. Howard's politcal views are probably closer to Skye's than to Coulson's (let alone Ward's), and he's been on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar for a while, just driving his cab (with a driver's license that's only valid in another dimension, and no hack's license), picking up passengers whom he regales with his latest pontifications on politics, while shouting obscenities at other drivers and narrowly avoiding pedestrians. Not to mention battling Doctor Bong, armed only with his mastery of Quak Fu, his quick wits and Beverly's looks. (What? It could happen. All they have to do is mostly not show Howard until the end; the team is always a step behind him, until they catch him. Howard should be voiced by Patton Oswalt, who should be allowed to ad-lib as much as he wants. Before catching Howard, the team could play phone intercepts between Howard and Beverly, or overhear him arguing with his dispatcher over the radio. I should write to somebody about this. :smallbiggrin:)

Kalmageddon

2013-10-25, 11:46 AM

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-25, 12:16 PM

Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16289730&postcount=496) an example of someone who takes this comic and D&D rules way too seriously.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-25, 01:03 PM

Here's another one. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16290133&postcount=132)

pendell

2013-10-25, 01:22 PM

*Snicker*.

A more serious example of taking one too seriously occurred in the "Giant's comments" thread a few days ago. Martianmister (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16261195&postcount=1193) posted a joke, multiple people (including yours truly) responded to it as if it were serious.

That said, in my defense I will say that given some of the theories that go on around here my normal "that's so silly it has to be a joke" sensors are offline, possibly permanently.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Kalmageddon

2013-10-25, 03:15 PM

To a certain degree, yes. However, the rise of over-analysis (be it D&D related or otherwise) stems from mainly two factors: that people have an abundance of extra time on their hands, and that the comic is so good and so thought provoking

Mind explaining this part?
Because I can't really see anything "thought provoking" in this webcomic... But maybe we have a different definition of what that means.

AKA_Bait

2013-10-25, 03:27 PM

Mind explaining this part?
Because I can't really see anything "thought provoking" in this webcomic... But maybe we have a different definition of what that means.

So, the whole sequence with the Black Dragon mom and baby didn't make you think about what message D&D may be sending to young players about the treatment of those different from you?

pendell

2013-10-25, 03:32 PM

For me, "thought provoking" are the character-defining moments.

1) Haley's struggle with her own insecurity and fears, resolving in her choice to take a chance on Elan. "It's worth the risk. It may be worth ANY risk."

2) The trial scene in which they are made to answer for destroying the first dungeon. What is lawful? What is good? Is Miko Miyazaki "good"? Is Roy doing the right thing in choosing to side with Belkar against her?

3) Elan facing up in the dream sequence to the fact that his family is broken and there is no magic that can just fix it.

4) V's error and repentance.

And if you really want to see OOTS at its thought-provoking best, see "Start of Darkness". That's the book that for my money is the defining pinnacle of the series, in terms of storytelling for adults.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Jay R

2013-10-25, 03:44 PM

Five pages on whether or not we're too serious.

Yes, that's too serious.

This thread is a lot more serious than the fun, silly threads on the relationship between these characters and the rules of D&D.

Reddish Mage

2013-10-25, 04:06 PM

Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16289730&postcount=496) an example of someone who takes this comic and D&D rules way too seriously.

Actually when it comes to powergaming I find it interesting just how powerful spellcasters are expected to be and how exactly that's supposed to translate into the game. That isn't how any of the games I've played in actually go. I mostly play in mid-level games but in the high level games I've played everyone felt like they were contributing and the high level spellcasters weren't dominating (but the last time I did a high level game, the magic got turned off for most of the game, my cleric was only useful because next to the fighter he was the best in combat).

Aasimar

2013-10-25, 04:09 PM

Yes, absolutely.

This forum is way too serious, reads way too much into the comic.

But that's just one way to look at it, I come here when I WANT to overanalyze a bit.

Ridureyu

2013-10-25, 07:40 PM

Agreed. No D&D Next. No 4th edition. No 3.5E, or 3E, or 2E. No AD&D. No BECMI. We will all now go back to original D&D.
(No, not the first published version. We don't want the edited and revised "original D&D". We are all going to play Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.)

Hey, I saw a fistfight in a game store once because one person was going to buy a 4E book, and the other person didn't like it.

"You're ruining the hobby! It's not D&D!" POW.

Also, I meant in general - "we" as in nerds, fans, gamers... the culture of negativity has gotten so bad that, although these are jokes picked because of how silly they sound, they aren't really THAT far off the typical mindset:

http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2013/10/while-discussing-importance-of-writing_16.html
http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2013/10/while-discussing-loyal-fanbase.html

Tev

2013-10-25, 09:05 PM

"thought provoking" . . . see "Start of Darkness". That's the book that for my money is the defining pinnacle of the series, in terms of storytelling for adults.
This, so much. You can try to dismiss most issues brought up in OotS as extreme cases in not-that-good game system that wasn't meant to be taken THAT seriously . . . but that alone requires quite a bit of thinking, so idk about lack of depth in OotS.

People are often too lazy to think.

For example people that are scared of even a possibility of being too serious. You actually can't achieve a lot / understand deep thoughts / somanyotherthings without putting too much effort into it.
Is OotS worth being too serious about it? I think it is deep enough, especially for young(er) people. So I see this whole "you guys are overanalyzing this" as a bit douchy.

Btw I really don't know why are "unserious" people reading this forum - what about talking with your RL friends about this comic when you want easy not-so-analytical discussion about it.

ti'esar

2013-10-25, 09:09 PM

Btw I really don't know why are "unserious" people reading this forum - what about talking with your RL friends about this comic when you want easy not-so-analytical discussion about it.

Not that I disagree with your overall point, but this assumes you have RL friends who read OOTS.

Tev

2013-10-25, 10:26 PM

"You know how I told you about this D&D comic I'm reading? So just now this crazy thing happened in it - this manipulative old dude who's trying to control half the world with 1984 style conflicts and old fashioned bloody dictatorship just killed his son because he defied him - really, he just shouted in his father's face "f*** you, I want to have nothing to do with you" and his daddy was like "ok" and made a hole in his chest. I was shocked, like when Tyrion decided to "visit" his father.
I immediately thought of that statistic saying that most murders are happening between people that know each other. Seems like a realistic story :D"

. . . and I really didn't think hard about that. Or you're not ever telling your friends about some crazy/amazing/surprising stuff that happened in a movie you saw? Especially with OotS - they'll like it and go through it quickly or they're not likely to read it so screw spoilers.

oppyu

2013-10-26, 01:56 AM

ti'esar

2013-10-26, 03:25 AM

What's the definition of serious discussion? I very much enjoy when this forum goes into story analysis, character motivations, etc, and the trivia threads are fun as well. But when the discussion turns to rules lawyering regarding the game this comic is loosely based on which I've never ever played nor intend to... *snoooooooooooooore*

I agree. There's a big difference between the more story-focused kind of analysis and rules discussion, and rules discussion itself shouldn't be confused with the "X should have done Y because of rule Z! THIS COMIC SUX! DEUS EX MACHINA!" ruleswankery that's most people's real target here.

Kalmageddon

2013-10-26, 04:06 AM

warrl

2013-10-26, 12:31 PM

Now, the precise amount of discussion time given to each of those elements may be unequal, but some elements just don't generate much talk.

And that's perfectly legitimate.

As an extreme example, take a look at the permanent (stickied, or always-near-the-top) fanart threads in this forum.

THERE AREN'T ANY. (They are tucked away in a different forum, which probably gets fewer posts in a month than a new-comic-is-up thread gets in the first day - but has the effect of keeping them simultaneously near the top and out of sight. Also, quite a lot of them are art BY fans, but with no detectable relationship to the comic.)

Compare that to Gunnerkrigg Court (http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/) which has at least three that are each over 20 pages. (One for original art (http://gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/21/fanart-gunnerkrigg-official-art-thread), one for slays on a particular in-comic meme (http://gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/410/boxbot-rule), and one for slays in general (http://gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/1152/opportunity).) Plus others that pop up for various reasons and are generally short-lived (my favorite being in response to a review claiming that Gunnerkrigg is a particularly poor D&D comic (http://gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/1531/gunnerkrigg-tabletop-adventure)... which is true in the same sense that OotS is a particularly poor Superman comic), although there is one based on another in-comic meme (http://gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/thread/1185/partyhat-rule) that is still near the top and up to 9 pages.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-26, 11:35 PM

Actually when it comes to powergaming I find it interesting just how powerful spellcasters are expected to be and how exactly that's supposed to translate into the game. That isn't how any of the games I've played in actually go. I mostly play in mid-level games but in the high level games I've played everyone felt like they were contributing and the high level spellcasters weren't dominating (but the last time I did a high level game, the magic got turned off for most of the game, my cleric was only useful because next to the fighter he was the best in combat).

Out of curiousity, Reddish Mage, how do you define low-level, mid-level and high-level campaigns, at least in D&D 3.5?

Hey, I saw a fistfight in a game store once because one person was going to buy a 4E book, and the other person didn't like it.

"You're ruining the hobby! It's not D&D!" POW.

Wow. Did the owner have to call the cops? Who threw the first punch? Inquiring minds want to know! :smallcool:

Jay R

2013-10-27, 10:25 AM

Hey, I saw a fistfight in a game store once because one person was going to buy a 4E book, and the other person didn't like it.

"You're ruining the hobby! It's not D&D!" POW.

This is being too serious. Do not confuse this with enjoyable and cordial arguments about how the rules apply to the comics.

Paseo H

2013-10-27, 12:35 PM

This is being too serious. Do not confuse this with enjoyable and cordial arguments about how the rules apply to the comics.

There's an in between, that makes the forum more "serious business" than needed.

I realized that when I saw this:

http://ourvaluedcustomers.blogspot.com/2013/09/to-his-friend_19.html

And I say that, knowing that I drive it a bit myself. Sometimes I find myself opposing a certain viewpoint on the forums and proverbially storming the gates at all hours in doing so.

Reddish Mage

2013-10-27, 12:51 PM

Out of curiousity, Reddish Mage, how do you define low-level, mid-level and high-level campaigns, at least in D&D 3.5

High level is 18+

low-level is less than 6.

Mid-level is anything in-between. According to the forums, mundanes should start feeling useless even at mid-levels. Truthfully, I've seen plenty of games were some spellcasters had abilities that could basically replace the mundane players. Often time it was overkill, as in a necromancer with plenty of undead at his/her command.

If the mundanes are having fun, it may be because the spellcasters simply weren't going around solving every problem, even if they were potentially able to.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-27, 01:26 PM

High level is 18+

low-level is less than 6.

Mid-level is anything in-between. According to the forums, mundanes should start feeling useless even at mid-levels. Truthfully, I've seen plenty of games were some spellcasters had abilities that could basically replace the mundane players. Often time it was overkill, as in a necromancer with plenty of undead at his/her command.

If the mundanes are having fun, it may be because the spellcasters simply weren't going around solving every problem, even if they were potentially able to.

In my view, high level play in 3.5 begins a lot earlier than 18th level. A case could be made that at 11th or 12th level the primary casters have entered high level play. At the very least, by the time a party is 15th level they should be considered high level. (And once they reach 21+ they are Epic).

In 4E, the Tiers system pretty much models that level of play. Heroic tier (levels 1-10) begin at low level, with the party slowly gaining power. Then at 11th level, the PCs have an exponential leap in power, as they enter Paragon Tier (levels 11-20). And finally, at 21st level the PCs enter Epic Tier (levels 21-30), with another exponential leap in power. And each Tier has a low, medium and high part; in low Heroic tier, the PCs have few or no magic items, have a single Daily power that they need to carefully determine when to use, and the PCs can't survive more than two or three encounters without needed to take an extended rest. By mid Heroic, a group of PCs can take on four or more combat encounters without needing an extended rest, especially if there is a skill challenge as well. Of course there are those who feel such a structured system is too restrictive. To them I say, you are entitled to your opinion. :smalltongue:

Reddish Mage

2013-10-27, 01:46 PM

In my view, high level play in 3.5 begins a lot earlier than 18th level. A case could be made that at 11th or 12th level the primary casters have entered high level play. At the very least, by the time a party is 15th level they should be considered high level. (And once they reach 21+ they are Epic).

I was going to say "low" may be extended to "about 8." I think even by 8-9 the casters have reached the point where they can overshadow the other players. I've certainly seen builds that do that.

Of course, your perception of power is relative. I've played a level 9-12th charger that was gimped to disallow triple charging damage (and prior to that I think I was only doing 100 damage if I rolled well).

I would think around level 10 would be "mid-level" for anyone but then I guess your play experiences can vary.

Sir_Leorik

2013-10-27, 01:49 PM

Of course, your perception of power is relative. I've played a level 9-12th charger that was gimped to disallow triple charging damage (and prior to that I think I was only doing 100 damage if I rolled well).

Please tell me more about this one legged damage-dealing machine! :smallbiggrin:

zimmerwald1915

2013-10-27, 04:18 PM

In 4E, the Tiers system pretty much models that level of play. Heroic tier (levels 1-10) begin at low level, with the party slowly gaining power. Then at 11th level, the PCs have an exponential leap in power, as they enter Paragon Tier (levels 11-20). And finally, at 21st level the PCs enter Epic Tier (levels 21-30), with another exponential leap in power.
A direct analogy is probably not terribly appropriate, since 3.5's progression is not as structured as 4e's and different classes do not progress evenly (I nominate me for understatement of the week). But said direct analogy suggests that in 3.5 characters between and including levels 1 and 7 are low-level, characters between and including levels 8 and 13 are mid-level, and characters between and including levels 14 and 20 are high-level. There is some minor justification to this. Martial types transition a bit in how they play at either level 6 or 8, depending on BAB progression. That's when they get their first iterative attack, and melee types have to start choosing between attacking or full attacking, or have to have either gotten or progressed pretty far towards getting Pounce. Spellcasters get a new spell level at either level 7 or level 8 depending on their progression, which spell level in core includes the first save-or-die, the first non-self shapechanging spell, and the first teleportation spell: phantasmal killer, polymorph and dimension door respectively. By level 8 everyone ought to have completed this transition. The barrier at level 14 is harder to justify. Full-BAB martials get their second iterative at level 12, and Medium-BAB martials get it at level 16, but the second iterative doesn't actually impact much on how the characters play. It is true that by level 14 all the spellcasters have gotten access to a new spell level - 7 for clerics, druids, sorcerers and wizards, 5 for bards.

For what it's worth The Order of the Stick seems to take the position that the dividing line between mid-level and high-level hovers or fluctuates somewhere around level 14. The Azurites start describing the Order as "high-level adventurers" in War and XPs, when the Order is around level 13. Xykon calls V "mid-level" near the end of Don't Split the Party when she's around level 14. Obviously, the perspectives of the speaking characters play a big role here, and the sample size isn't terribly large, but I have a hard time believing this is a coincidence.

warrl

2013-10-27, 04:28 PM

High level is 18+

low-level is less than 6.

In 3E, I'd say it's class-dependent. At low levels, each major class is still best at its own job. At mid-levels, a wizard/cleric/druid can out-Fighter the fighter *or* out-Rogue the rogue *or* out-Barbarian the barbarian *or* etc. while still performing his own job decently. At high levels, a wizard/cleric/druid can do his own job *and* out-Fighter the Fighter *and* etc.

It's about level 6 that I can state quite confidently (having done it) that a cleric can do the Barbarian schtick both better and more often than an actual barbarian. Other than it taking two standard actions to enter a Rage, instead of a free action.

In 4E it's pretty defined. At levels 11 and 21 there are major step-ups in power, explicitly- not just a cumulative effect of multiple rules that trigger at those specific levels and you wonder if it was really intended for all that stuff to happen at once, but as a clearly deliberate package of changes bundled together in "Paragon Paths" and "Epic Destinies".

factotum

2013-10-28, 03:33 AM

Doesn't the definition of low/mid/high level depend on the setting? There are settings (Forgotten Realms, famously) where characters who would be considered high level in other settings (say, 9th level fighter) are doing menial jobs like tending bar in a tavern, and where the most powerful people around are pretty much indistinguishable from demi-gods. The Stickverse seems to be a relatively low-level environment, where the most powerful cleric we've seen (Redcloak) has only just turned 17th level (Implosion was a new spell for him when he destroyed the Resistance), and where a major city with an army ten thousand strong only has 65 clerics who are above 3rd level (see strip #413).

Lombard

2013-10-28, 04:01 AM

So for me the D&D rules and framework are becoming more of a distraction from the story and less of a contribution to it.

What say you?

Sorry but this kind of makes me laugh because it's like asking if the comic should have used stick figures or not lol. But hey, no worries, to address the aforementioned and perhaps speak to some other items in your original post and include us all in the meta analysis... people like to post stuff about stuff they are into :elan:

Reddish Mage

2013-10-28, 09:52 AM

A direct analogy is probably not terribly appropriate, since 3.5's progression is not as structured as 4e's and different classes do not progress evenly (I nominate me for understatement of the week).

I second the nomination!

But said direct analogy suggests that in 3.5 characters between and including levels 1 and 7 are low-level, characters between and including levels 8 and 13 are mid-level, and characters between and including levels 14 and 20 are high-level.

For what it's worth The Order of the Stick seems to take the position that the dividing line between mid-level and high-level hovers or fluctuates somewhere around level 14.

I don't think that a direct analogy to 4e or low/mid/high is best when discussing how different play can be, and I think a four-tier structure best describes the transition in play. With 1-5 being gritty fantasy, 6-10 being heroic, 11-15 Wuxia and 16-20 superheroes!

There's a reason you have the E6 concept floating around (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?352719-necro-goodness-E6-The-Game-Inside-D-amp-D). At level 6 the PCs already seem beyond the ordinary with CR1-2 threats having become insignificant.

Factotum is right that you can have a setting where 9th level characters are doing menial jobs, though without doing my reading, I would say it strains unlikely a published setting would make it normal to have 9th level characters doing menial jobs (considering what the spellcasters are capable of at that level, I'd say a menial job is silly). In any setting where monster manual orcs and goblins are considered actual threats I'd say a level 6 PC is someone extraordinary to the vast population.

Stickverse is low-level next to the forgotten realm, but I don't think it is a low-level environment next to the baseline of what sort of NPCs you can find in cities according to the DMG.