I have a problem with the Godsmoot [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Lord

2015-12-20, 11:03 AM

Okay, much as I like this comic this feels kind of weak. The God who wants to consult the Elders is only doing so as a courtesy to his previously mortal status. Given that he, as a God, would presumedly know whether or not the worshippers he is consulting are dominated, it would be the essence of simplicity for him to show up say 'Okay guys, Hel is magically dominating my council, and cheating. Therefore her vote should be dismissed, and in any case I see no reason to accept the vote of a High Priest of Hell twenty or so times, through the bodies of my worshippers.'

I'm sorry, I just don't see any rational reason in universe why the God wouldn't know the person he's talking to is dominated. That seems like a very easy thing to detect for a deity. And once he did, it throws the validity of the Dwarvish Elders out the window, or at the least gives him grounds to declare the Council Compromised.

Then again the Gods Moot so far has demonstrated itself to have all the moral integrity of the Dark Lord Sauron, given that one of the High Priests murdering the entire host party on the behest of their deity in what is effectively parley in no way disqualifies their vote.

Really the Godsmoot so far has been unforgivably slipshod in its organization. If whomever designed this farce had been paying even the slightest bit of attention they should have made the Gods fully aware of what was happening below, specifically so stunts like this couldn't happen. Or they could have given specific protection to the people who were playing host to the Godsmoot, thereby instantly destroying Hel's vote. Or they could have, you know, given orders that the meeting ground be magically shielded against teleport!

Its not inconceivable that some enterprising Demonlord might use the Godsmoot as an opportunity to raid wipe the High Priests at a Godsmoot. Its as if whomever made the rules and defenses of this ceremony specifically designed them to be bypassed.

Now granted all of that is necessary for the completion of the story.
'Sorry, you murdered the Creed Priests, so you can't vote.' Would be rather anticlimactic after all.

But is it just me, or is Hel really overconfident about this whole thing?
Look, I get that getting ten thousand Dwarf Souls might be a huge benefit to her. However there is a very, very big reason why her evil plan will be a complete and total failure.

Nobody likes her.

At all.

Oh, there are clearly some lesser deities who look to her as a superior, but in the process of doing this she has alienated several of them. Moreover, by her current actions, and derailing the vote for entirely selfish reasons she is going to earn the hatred of everyone who has ever had a dwarf for a worshipper. Which means when the next world is created, the other Gods are probably going to call freaking crusades against her worshippers, specifically to prevent her from becoming the very influential figure she expects to become. Spite is a very powerful force, and I sincerely doubt she could actually dethrone Odin. For one thing, she's clearly among the youngest of the Gods out there.

This is like a teenaged girl smashing her Fathers car in a way which kills a bunch of pedestrians and then expecting to be given a brand new car just because her Father is a presidential candidate. I don't care how persuasive she is, the wallet is still in the hands of somebody else.

...Granted thats a terrible metaphor, but the point still stands.

That said, there was a way Hel could have gotten everything she thinks she's going to get and more. All she had to do. All she had to do, WAS NOT GLOAT!

Just say:
'I don't think we should risk universal destruction just for the sake of a world we can just as easily rebuild. Therefore I vote YES.'

Bang, she's a hero antagonist. Then once the votes have been cast she can mention 'Oh by the way, I get all the Dwarves in the world. Have fun sleeping at night.'

As it is she's spent the last few strips doing nothing but gloating about the fact. And its the gloating which really seals her failure. If she had just kept the little tidbit about the Dwarves to herself and voted quietly she could have gloated about it once it was all done, and gotten off without a hitch, achieving all her objectives. And if the plan had failed, she would have lost nothing. As it is, if the plan fails she's officially been relegated to a villain of the week. If it succeeds, she is the ultimate karma houdini, and one thing which villains and heroes alike almost universally despise is a karma houdini. She's made herself into a public spectacle, and endlessly gloating about how nobody but her is going to gain anything from her actions.

Hell, she might even incur the wrath of the other Pantheons because everybody else voted based one whether or not destroying the world was a justifiable response to the ever-growing threat of the Snarl. Certainly nobody's going to be giving her the time of day after she corrupted what was supposed to be an impartial decision with petty power mongering.
If she hadn't gloated, then nobody would hold it against her since she's already a God of Evil, and is probably voting in many of the other Gods favor.

Maybe Hel is a very intimidating and dangerous threat against the World, since if she wins everything ends. But to my mind her chances of becoming God of the New World are about a fifth of Kubota's chances of becoming Lord of Azure City.

Now all we need is for a Snarl tendril to disintegrate her from right out of nowhere.

P.S
Vote Loki 2016, because he's better than all the candidates.

Murk

2015-12-20, 11:34 AM

The thing is, you make an enormous amount of assumptions about the coming comics.
I mean, it's not like the comic has ended already. Just because Hel or Durkon says "Haha this will work nobody will suspect anything awyesh" doesn't mean it actually turns out that way.

You make plenty of those assumptions. "The hosts are all vampirized and nobody cares", for example. This is through - but maybe only because nobody knows yet. Who knows - maybe once the other high priests find out, they will complain?

Also, "everybody hates Hel"? Why? What makes you say so? Of course, no Gods so far have shouted "Hel is my buddy!". Doesn't mean they don't feel it. At least one demigod was willing to make a deal with Hel, as well as the former-members of the Creed of Stone. There's at least some out there who feel friendly towards her and her cause.

But more important, again, we are not done yet. Maybe (probably) Dvalin would notice the council members being dominated. Maybe this is all part of a bigger plan? Maybe Hel is an idiot? Maybe Durkon has some tricks up his sleeve? Maybe the other high priets will do something about it all?

Heksefatter

2015-12-20, 12:14 PM

My guess? The other priests have no knowledge of Durkula's murders, nor do the deities. Why would they know? The Creed of Stone doesn't worship a god, so there is no deity to tell the other gods about what happened.

Secondly, it isn't ten thousand dwarves that Hel is getting, but ten million. Everyone else is being shared by rest of the pantheon, which means that they will be shared between 17 gods (unless there are even more gods who did not attend the godsmoot). And that's not counting the demigods. That's a huge relative boost for Hel.

Thirdly, who is saying that noone likes Hel? Fenrir doesn't seem like the nicest chap around. Why wouldn't he get along with Hel? And what about Vafthrudnir, god of secrets? We know almost nothing about him, but why should we rule out that the god of secrets be able to get along with the goddess of death? Also, Loki seems to get along to a degree with Hel. He's her father and called her "sweetie." Yes, they have a conflicted relationship, but who says that in case Hel succeeded Loki wouldn't decide to cut his losses and go along with the new leader of the Northern pantheon? Why wouldn't some of the other gods?

Fourthly, even if Hel's scheme was only a partial succes, ie. while she does get a major boost in power, it turns out that she's not powerful enough to unseat Odin (note that she says that the dwarven souls may "well make me more powerful than Grandfather Odin", which DOES imply that it might NOT). Or maybe the other gods gang up on her, as you suggest. That would mean that Hel only gets a major victory, but not a total victory. So? How does that make her scheme a failure or invalidate it in any way?

Fifth, who knows about the dwarves? Dvalin is "only" a demigod and the clan leaders may well not be his priests. Maybe Dvalin communicates with them simply by manifesting his image before the clan leaders and he doesn't read their minds in any way?

wumpus

2015-12-20, 12:55 PM

I'm sure this is in the main comic thread, but I'm not going to read the whole thing.

The point is that if the dwarves agree to the world being destroyed, it is no longer clear that such isn't a "heroic death". Hel could lose both the dwarven souls she is counting on, and thus destroy the world for no gain (of course if "death and destruction" are in her portfolio as expected, she might just want to destroy the world to be true to herself).

Roland Itiative

2015-12-20, 01:09 PM

hrak

2015-12-20, 01:17 PM

Ahh, This is exactly why I made my thread. So I could link it to Posts such as these and not have to explain everything incorrect about the logic behind the OP.

A Page at a Time (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472663-A-Page-at-a-Time)

But I'll explain a little..

You've literally given the Giant no chance to flesh out where this is going and how the plan will work. You've just assumed you already know.

Not mention you seem to have forgotten that the Godsmoot is an extremely top secret event, where gods of competing and opposing factions meet. How do you know what the reactions of the rest of the High Priests will be to the slaughter of the hosting clerics? You don't. So why don't you complain about plot holes after you know the plot, Not Assumed the plot.

Porthos

2015-12-20, 02:11 PM

Quoth The Giant:

If I'm HPoOdin, the minute the HPoH leaves, I call the vote concluded and "No" the winner. Wasn't that the whole point of Roy's attack - you have to be there to vote? Not just once, but until the matter is decided?

Also, how can it possibly be legal for a Dominated person to vote? Vampires may be new, but the existence of enchantment spells is not, and since we know Dvalin has done this before I'd be surprised if no one ever tried enchanting a clan elder before. Don't tell me the assembled high priests plus their body guards have no one who can spot a Dominated person; Insight is a wisdom-based check.

There's a big gaping hole in the plan.

Yeah, those almost sound like the sorts of thing that might be dealt with further in future comics. Weird.

Also Quoth The Giant

Umm, why can the gods only hear each other? Is it arrogance or can they literally only hear people who are praying directly to them? If it's the latter, then why the hell was it set-up that way? Couldn't the priests just broadcast Roy's speech to their gods? They don't trust each other enough to meet in the same place, but they have their priests meet and don't let them have any say? Or do they have say, but the gods just can't hear them during the godsmoot which, again, why would it be set-up that way? This doesn't make that much sense. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt but this feels like a shoehorned plot point to be dramatic. It may have been planned well ahead of time and it could still be explained, but I don't really understand why it was laid out like this.

Because the gods do not want to hear from their priests right now. The purpose of this meeting is to listen to each other, not mortals. It's the Godsmoot, not the Priestsmoot. Do you ask the termites in your house whether or not you should fumigate? Do you hear proposals from the dust mites regarding what color you should paint the living room?

I don't know why everyone expects that the gods are some sort of universally benevolent and egalitarian group that treats mortals fairly and with respect at all times. Certainly not from anything I've ever written.

Finally, Quoth The Strip

https://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/Cats_Are_Aliens/Banners/Hel%20Priest_zpsv6pywjna.png So what I am hearing, apart from some meaningless political blather, is that you have no spells left, no protection from the rules of the Godsmoot, and no deity to object on your behalf. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0995.html)

And the gods who would care about what Hel is doing and would switch their vote? Gosh, too bad about that "no backsies" rule (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1001.html). :smalleek:

That might not cover all of your objections, but it should get the jist of them.

Vinyadan

2015-12-20, 02:23 PM

Just a very short notation: these are the gods of the dwarves, the same gods which find it OK to send to Hel any family-loving, hard working, caritative dwarf who died in his bed after getting malaria. They work differently from how most people figure gods should work.
Besides, it's not even sure Dvalin really wants to know what the councillors think. His intentions could simply be that the organs perform their duties, as they would do under normal conditions. If, under normal conditions, the councils can pass laws while dominated, then though luck - they will give their vote, in the same way as they would have passed a law even though dominated, if there is no dwarven control organ verifying the free will of the councillors.

Dr.Zero

2015-12-20, 03:02 PM

Honestly I don't know how to state properly my feelings about the Godsmoot.

But this arc isn't intriguing me or making me wish to know more.

I'm all like: "Ok, when will this Godsmoot thing be over? Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?"

Yeah, I know: the whole point is that the Godsmoot has introduced a new danger for the world.

I could reply that we all know -or at least assume, basing our assumption on the prophecies and the foreshadowing- that the world shall not end.
But we all know even that there shall be some kind of happy end for the story, so Xykon and team evil shall lose, at end.

The situations seems similar, but...

I don't know: maybe I don't find the character development of Roy interesting. Or maybe I find Durkula deeply uncharismatic and boring, specially if compared to Xykon.

Or maybe the tiebreaker of the tiebreaker, even if clearly expected (3 yes, 3 no, a Plan B involving teleport: it was kind of clear that something was going to happen to prolong the vote), annoys me even more than Roy.

Or the whole position of the demigod of Dwarves: "Yeah, I don't like to condemn all my people to hell, but, hey, I must ask to the council, because of an oath I swore. And if, just by chance, happens that the council turned evil -because magic or even because, I don't know, some evil dwarves managed to take control of the council with totally natural means, because sometimes evil people manages to gain power, you know- well, then who cares? Let's roll with it!"

Because -domination, vampirization and other magic means aside- the simple idea that Dvalin could vote yes if the council tells him so, even if he knows this is totally evil and bad for dwarves, tickles me in the wrong way.

Surely Rich will soon make this interesting again even for me -we have the prophecy about Durkon, and a lot of things Rich planned ahead which means everything will go in its proper place- but I cannot wait that we return back to some more "action".

Murk

2015-12-20, 03:33 PM

Ganbatte

2015-12-20, 03:47 PM

Again with this assumption.

That Durkon or Hel thinks this is how it will work, does not mean it will work this way. Maybe the vampire dominates all dwarves, and Dvalin says "Yeah, no way I'm gonna vote yes now, no matter my oath - these are clearly dominated. I'll vote No." or even "OK, yeah, I was bluffing. I assumed they would vote no. Now they have voted yes, I'll vote no anyhow. Oops."

Why do you guys keep saying Dvaling "doesn't recognise dominated dwarves" when we aren't at that part in the story yet at all?

It's a lose-lose scenario to me:
Either Dvalin votes "NO" because he acts like a sane and proper God of Dwarves recognizing how this obviously doesn't benefit his race at all;
or he votes "YES" because his dominated council "told him so", at which point I think everyone in both his and our world will do a gigantic facepalm.

Overall we're left with only one sane resolution and an extremely stupid one, something which hardly works at building up suspance or expectancy at seeing how this whole thing will pan out.

My hope is that something unpredictable will happen and totally overshadow this whole "vote" thing, who will quickly and thankfully dropped.

Kish

2015-12-20, 03:58 PM

goodpeople25

2015-12-20, 04:00 PM

Actually from by reading of the rules Dvalin has no special ability to tell if a person is dominated. Saying he's a god, so he should know doesn't really cut it story wise either. Now if him getting the results involves him watching the vote or being there, then he has the same resource everybody else has for knowing some one is under dominate person a DC 15 sense motive check. (Swirly eyes are most likely only there for us and when it's funny) But i would say that comes down to the interpretation of how sense motive checks work, if its a check you make automatically or if you have to chose to sense motive. And if it's the later i can see it working. Honestly i don't see why he would expect domination outside of reading this comic, or why he would even be there outside of getting the votes, And it's probably just a line of reasoning each like the godsmoot, or even just a final decision like the other pantheons gave the northern one, not much to figure out domination on. And i think it's quite possible the vote has no godly oversight and the votes are transmitted by magic or some other way.
Now gods could be watching dwarvern lands before the vote and notice Durkula enacting his plan but honestly I'm not sure they would and there might even be a policy against remote sensing,ect during a situation like this to help avoiding other gods trying to secure a vote or having a freak wildfire or thunderstorm,ect coincidently killing a voter.
But still story over rules and my ideas for possible outcomes and storywise i think it's more likely that Hel's plan would work, it most likely will be stopped of course, the world's not going to end now and the plan going wrong very likely could lead to at least some death and destruction. But it has to be stopped or the point is a bit hollow. Though maybe the order going to dwarvern lands is going to focus on the personal reasons angle, then the plan is strictly secondary so it could have no chance for success and still work but the first one seems more consistent with the rest of the book to me.

Ganbatte

2015-12-20, 04:19 PM

This thread puzzles me. Know what evil gods are, absolutely, universally, and reliably?

Evil. "Gods" would have been an equally accurate but less immediately relevant answer.

So Fenris screams that he wants to destroy everything and literally piss on the graves of all the other gods' worshipers, and Hel gloats about how she's going to be Queen of the Northern Pantheon in the next world, and who is going to consider themselves "alienated" by either of them? Only people who had really weird misunderstandings of what they were. At most, someone might reclassify Hel as a more dangerous threat than previously thought, but none of the other gods is going, "Woah, I always thought Hel was an unfeeling facade hiding a heart of marshmallow, but now I see that she really is a mean jerk, a jerky jerk, the jerkiest jerk of all! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0351.html)."

I think you're confusing Evil for Stupid Evil.
An Evil God who's actually worth its salt shouldn't spill the beans about the master plan he'd been waiting for since forever while that's still in the early stages of development and very vulnerable to unforeseen events (like Hermod chickening out).

"Who is going to consider themselves alienated by her now?"

Let's see.... any evil worshipper who might have wanted to follow an intelligent, clever Evil God tactician and might now feel embarassed by Hel's childish premature gloating. Any neutral "minding my own business" guy who might have easily ignored her before but is no longer now that she proved herself willing to end the entire world for some power. Any good crusader, hero or good being of any sort who might have ignored the "Queen Underdog of the Underworld" but not the "Cackling Monologue Villainess who wants to kill everyone".

The list goes on.

Stray

2015-12-20, 04:44 PM

Let's see.... any evil worshipper who might have wanted to follow an intelligent, clever Evil God tactician and might now feel embarassed by Hel's childish premature gloating. Any neutral "minding my own business" guy who might have easily ignored her before but is no longer now that she proved herself willing to end the entire world for some power. Any good crusader, hero or good being of any sort who might have ignored the "Queen Underdog of the Underworld" but not the "Cackling Monologue Villainess who wants to kill everyone".

The list goes on.

So, everyone that is not present at the godsmoot to witness her monologue, and in case of world reboot will be already dead and unable to affect her in any way?

Ganbatte

2015-12-20, 04:54 PM

So, everyone that is not present at the godsmoot to witness her monologue, and in case of world reboot will be already dead and unable to affect her in any way?

Gods don't die when the world is remade son.
She can either win at this little plan of hers and face most of the other gods + new followers with her newfound load of power OR fail and face most of the other gods + old followers with only the boots she's wearing.

Announcing how everyone but you is an idiot is a very bad move to do before having actually obtained any power over them.

Cazero

2015-12-20, 05:02 PM

I don't get why people get so upset about the Lawful dwarf god of dwarves and Lawfulness who ascended to godhood due to how well he embodied Lawful dwarfness in life. Procedure matters. In the context of the oath, dismissing the consultation of the clan leaders as 'a formality with a foregone conclusion' is a Chaotic act. Ignoring the result of the dwarven council vote is ignoring the expressed interests of the dwarves. Doing either of those is ground for Dvalin to get kicked down from his divinity ladder.

I think you're confusing Evil for Stupid Evil.
An Evil God who's actually worth its salt shouldn't spill the beans about the master plan he'd been waiting for since forever while that's still in the early stages of development and very vulnerable to unforeseen events (like Hermod chickening out).

You forgot the part where she's Evil. The evil gloat is a form of sadism, so it fits the behavior of many villains. Smart tricksters like Loki despise it, but power-hungry sadistic jerks craving for attention and dominance will totally do it at the first opportunity and keep doing it until it backfires on them. Then it starts being Stupid Evil.

137beth

2015-12-20, 05:04 PM

This thread puzzles me. Know what evil gods are, absolutely, universally, and reliably?

Evil. "Gods" would have been an equally accurate but less immediately relevant answer.

Hey! No fair! The comic never established that the evil gods are evil, pulling that out of nowhere is a complete deus ex machina! Also, filler. I'm sure there's a TVTropes article which PROVES that the Goodsmoot is bad writing! And none of what's happening in the comic is Morally Justified, either!

One of the complaints raised during books 4-5 was that the gods weren't getting involved in the threat to the world. Now, with the Godsmoot, we get to see what sort of involvement they are considering. I personally like the way it's been handled so far.

I also find it interesting that there seems to be a motif of a specific D&D power source/archetype being emphasized in each book. In some ways, WaXP demonstrated the ultimate limits of martial power. We saw two huge armies clash, and Roy wasn't able to win with pure martial capabilities. DstP, meanwhile, showcased the power and limitations of arcane power in OOTS. The central plot of DstP was enabled by a powerful arcane spell (Cloister). The climax of DstP featured V gaining "complete and total arcane power", yet unable to actually solve all the problems facing the order. BriF, by contrast, was about bardic power. The main villain of BRiF focused on exploiting narrative trends and comic-book-logic. And it still wasn't enough for him to win.
While book six isn't over yet, I feel it is safe to say that it is about divine power (the idea, not the specific spell). It makes me eager to see what book seven will be about....

Dr.Zero

2015-12-20, 05:07 PM

Or the whole position of the demigod of Dwarves: "Yeah, I don't like to condemn all my people to hell, but, hey, I must ask to the council, because of an oath I swore. And if, just by chance, happens that the council turned evil -because magic or even because, I don't know, some evil dwarves managed to take control of the council with totally natural means, because sometimes evil people manages to gain power, you know- well, then who cares? Let's roll with it!"

Because -domination, vampirization and other magic means aside- the simple idea that Dvalin could vote yes if the council tells him so, even if he knows this is totally evil and bad for dwarves, tickles me in the wrong way.

Again with this assumption.

That Durkon or Hel thinks this is how it will work, does not mean it will work this way. Maybe the vampire dominates all dwarves, and Dvalin says "Yeah, no way I'm gonna vote yes now, no matter my oath - these are clearly dominated. I'll vote No." or even "OK, yeah, I was bluffing. I assumed they would vote no. Now they have voted yes, I'll vote no anyhow. Oops."

Why do you guys keep saying Dvaling "doesn't recognise dominated dwarves" when we aren't at that part in the story yet at all?

Heck, we might never even get there.

Please, before saying I've assumed something, read what I've actually wrote and what you quoted.

Because my point was not based on the council being dominated, vampirized or whatever.
But "[...] or even because, I don't know, some evil dwarves managed to take control of the council with totally natural means, because sometimes evil people manages to gain power, you know- well, then who cares? Let's roll with it!"

And I underline "natural means".

You could reply that this will not be the case, the means will be magic/supernatural.

But my point was that the whole Dvalin's vote policy seems quite stupid: if for some reason the council were controlled -not like "dominated/hypnotized" but like "under the rule of"- evil people, who bargained with Hel for the destruction of the world in exchange of something (maybe for some power role in the afterlife? for something else? just use you fantasy), then Dvalin would be fine with it: "Hey, ok, you -oh evil dwarf- gained control over the council by natura means [politic? something else? whatever], go ahead, say me to vote to condemn all the dwarves to hell."

It's surely a convenient policy for the plot, to prolong the vote, but far away from what I'd expect from a demigod.

To put it in another way: reading it, I rolled my eyes up, saying mentally: "Come on!"

Of course, I don't even take in account your "I was bluffing" option and I hope I don't need to explain why I hope something like that will never happen.

Sir_Norbert

2015-12-20, 05:41 PM

Seto

2015-12-20, 05:50 PM

Honestly, I think that the moment Durkula leaves this room to go Dominate dwarves, if he does (which would seem strange since he's certainly aware of the rules), his vote will be invalidated. The comic has insisted way too much on the "representative needs to be physically present in order for the vote to count" rule for that not to happen.

Cizak

2015-12-20, 06:02 PM

Either Dvalin votes "NO" because he acts like a sane and proper God of Dwarves recognizing how this obviously doesn't benefit his race at all;

Dvalin isn't a God of Dwarves. He's a king who ascended to godhood because the lawfulest race on the planet revered him because of his lawfulness. Like how he, for example, swore an oath to consult the council on all important matters and how he was lawful enough to stick to that oath throughout his lifetime. That sure sounds like something a very lawful race would love if their lawful royal demigod kept doing.

or he votes "YES" because his dominated council "told him so", at which point I think everyone in both his and our world will do a gigantic facepalm.
I'm getting a vibe of "this is how all readers function because I say so" and it feels familiar.

This is assuming he simply pops into the room and asks "Hey guys, destroying the world, yes or no?" and then leaves after being given a single unified "no" from all present council members. We don't know how that would play out. Maybe he actually arranges a meeting where the council debates and argues and then agrees to "yes". In that case, it would be very fitting for a god who got his godhood by being lawful to obey this decision.

Overall we're left with only one sane resolution and an extremely stupid one, something which hardly works at building up suspance or expectancy at seeing how this whole thing will pan out.

Hm, readers declaring on the forums that there're only X possible solutions to the plot even though we have no idea how or what Rich is planning and whether or not we even have all relevant facts yet? This also seems very familiar.

Stray

2015-12-20, 06:05 PM

Gods don't die when the world is remade son.
She can either win at this little plan of hers and face most of the other gods + new followers with her newfound load of power OR fail and face most of the other gods + old followers with only the boots she's wearing.

Announcing how everyone but you is an idiot is a very bad move to do before having actually obtained any power over them.

Kish already covered other gods, they know her (longer than this world existed) and know that she is Evil. The only thing they might have not known is how chatty she is. You then listed people whose opinions about Hel are irrelevant and won't even have information to form these opinions. New followers won't know a thing about current events because world rebirth is secret known to very few mortals (or to nobody at all if this time they make world-prison correctly). And old followers also won't be informed about shenanigans at the latest Secret-Vote-To-Annihilate-The-World. Evil cultist isn't considering worshipping her since nobody worships her, neutral person or a good hero have no way of harming a god. So she is venting to her closest family, who already have her in low regard. The only way for her is up, she has nothing to loose.

Deprox

2015-12-20, 06:50 PM

You're leaving out an obvious third possibility: that this arc will be about the Order trying to prevent the Domination or undo it before the elders arrive at the Godsmoot.

Oh boy, will that be fun. Like, dirt farmers fun. And we're all Vaarsuvius.

One thing that has been bothering me for a while is: People seem to think it's completely OK if the pacing seems wrong now, because when it's a book, it won't feel wrong. But... This is not a book being released page by page. This is a webcomic, and its strips will be later compiled and sold as a book for people who want to support the author's work. If the book is the real deal and comics are supposed to feel wrong, then why don't quit the webcomic format and only sell books? We don't hear from Rich for 3-4 years until a book with proper pacing is released, no one can crtiticize his work in progress, everyone wins. Or at least put a disclaimer on the FAQ, telling readers that this is a book being released page by page at non-regular intervals, not a webcomic and that people shouldn't come here thinking they're going to enjoy themselves.

I, for one, won't ever buy a book with compiled strips if said strips dind't give me a certain level of enjoyment when I read them. This arc is the first time it ever happened, and I've been reading since strip #50. All the other arcs up to now were paced in a way that I wanted to know so badly what would come next. This arc is just... Not interesting at all. I don't really care about what happens next, I only want this tedious moot to be over so we can go back to the interesting plot. It's not like Rich is a bad author at all, since he made me and thousands of other people keep up with a stick figure webcomic for more than 10 years. I'll probably be able to say "Now that it's over, it was worth the waiting" at a later time, but that's not the way a webcomic is supposed to be built, especially one that is not updated on a regular schedule. If we are spending months on something that is only making us wait for it to end, that's not enjoyment, that's torture.

I know Rich cares nothing about me or my opinion, and he shouldn't. Like Vaarsuvius, I just want the record to show I consider this an utter waste of my prodigious... Love for the well-written story OotS was up to this arc.

dps

2015-12-20, 07:11 PM

It's a lose-lose scenario to me:
Either Dvalin votes "NO" because he acts like a sane and proper God of Dwarves recognizing how this obviously doesn't benefit his race at all;
or he votes "YES" because his dominated council "told him so", at which point I think everyone in both his and our world will do a gigantic facepalm.

Overall we're left with only one sane resolution and an extremely stupid one, something which hardly works at building up suspance or expectancy at seeing how this whole thing will pan out.

Why would you assume that "sane" has any meaning when describing the actions of gods? Have you ever read any classic mythology?

OTOH, pretty clearly what's NOT going to happen is that Dvalin consults the high council, they tell him to vote yes, so Hel wins and the gods remake the world. And the reason that it's not going to happen has nothing to do with how insane or stupid that would be--it's not going to happen for the meta reasons that it would be bad story-telling and end the comic prematurely. Keep in mind that voting to end the world in this context isn't necessarily insane or evil anyway--some of the gods voted that way because they felt that it was better to destroy the world and remake it than to let the Snarl destroy everything including them permanently; even Roy admitted that he wasn't sure that that wasn't the smart thing to do, so it's at least possible that a non-dominated, non-evil dwarven high council might vote to destroy the world (though I find that unlikely).

My hope is that something unpredictable will happen and totally overshadow this whole "vote" thing, who will quickly and thankfully dropped.

I think it's likely that either something will happen to prevent Dvalin from consulting the council, or from actually voting once he's done so. But that's just a guess.

Ganbatte

2015-12-20, 07:12 PM

Dvalin isn't a God of Dwarves. He's a king who ascended to godhood because the lawfulest race

blah blah blah not the point. The point is that he's in a position meant to care about the well-being of dwarves, not blindingly following Joffrey's orders even when ordered something obviously fishy and stupid.
I could see that coming from some zealot priest puppet of the faith (or Durkon), but from a Demi-god of the whole race I'd expect something better.

This is assuming he simply pops into the room and asks "Hey guys, destroying the world, yes or no?" and then leaves after being given a single unified "no" from all present council members. We don't know how that would play out. Maybe he actually arranges a meeting where the council debates and argues and then agrees to "yes". In that case, it would be very fitting for a god who got his godhood by being lawful to obey this decision.

And doom the entire race to hell.

Hm, readers declaring on the forums that there're only X possible solutions to the plot even though we have no idea how or what Rich is planning and whether or not we even have all relevant facts yet? This also seems very familiar.

Except you cut out the part where I look forward to something else happening beyond those two possibilities.
I already asked you in the last thread not to misuse my posts, this will be the last.

Kish

2015-12-20, 07:15 PM

"Who is going to consider themselves alienated by her now?"

Let's see.... any evil worshipper who might have wanted to follow an intelligent, clever Evil God tactician and might now feel embarassed by Hel's childish premature gloating. Any neutral "minding my own business" guy who might have easily ignored her before but is no longer now that she proved herself willing to end the entire world for some power. Any good crusader, hero or good being of any sort who might have ignored the "Queen Underdog of the Underworld" but not the "Cackling Monologue Villainess who wants to kill everyone".

The list goes on.
And everyone on it is either stupid (the neutral and good ones you propose who are going, "Wait, so the evil goddess of death is actually dangerous?") or irrelevant (she has, and apparently because of the wager she made with Loki and Thor, can have no living followers, remember?). So yeah.

Not that her premature gloating is wise, but it makes no sense to go from "she's gloating prematurely" to "her plan will fail in some unspecified way because no one likes her."

Ganbatte

2015-12-20, 07:30 PM

Not that her premature gloating is wise, but it makes no sense to go from "she's gloating prematurely" to "her plan will fail in some unspecified way because no one likes her."

Huh? Who said that?

Keltest

2015-12-20, 07:31 PM

And everyone on it is either stupid (the neutral and good ones you propose who are going, "Wait, so the evil goddess of death is actually dangerous?") or irrelevant (she has, and apparently because of the wager she made with Loki and Thor, can have no living followers, remember?). So yeah.

Not that her premature gloating is wise, but it makes no sense to go from "she's gloating prematurely" to "her plan will fail in some unspecified way because no one likes her."

She has just made it clear to every god not on her Christmas list that if she wins, they are in the dog house big time. Even if they cannot retract their votes to destroy the world, they are certainly capable of taking steps to prevent her plan C from succeeding. for example, ordering all agents they have in the area to safeguard the Dwarven Council of Clans from marauding vampires.

Cizak

2015-12-20, 07:32 PM

blah blah blah not the point. The point is that he's in a position meant to care about the well-being of dwarves, not blindingly following Joffrey's orders even when ordered something obviously fishy and stupid.

Who says he is "meant" to care for their well-being? Answer: You. But I've already explained how the lawfulness of Dvalin and his entire race play into it. But it's always easier to move the goalposts of your "point", even when you're being directly quoted, isn't it?

I could see that coming from some zealot priest puppet of the faith (or Durkon), but from a Demi-god of the whole race I'd expect something better.

Again, being a demigod of the dwarven race doesn't give you these obligations you seem to believe are given to you. Dvalin is not The Dark One; the dwarves already had several gods long before Dvalin ever ascended. Dvalin didn't ascend because a god was needed to look after the dwarves, he ascended because his lawful race revered him because of his lawait a minute.

And doom the entire race to hell.

As an ultra lawful regent would if his ultra lawful council decided it and he was bound by a lawful oath, then yes. Absolutely.

Except you cut out the part where I look forward to something else happening beyond those two possibilities.

You claim you hope something else happens, but you're saying that right now there are only two scenarios. What's the point if listing those two possibilities, then? You can't declare that "Overall this can only end in two possible scenarios" and then get offended when people point out that we don't know that.

Keltest

2015-12-20, 07:34 PM

You claim you hope something else happens, but you're saying that right now there are only two scenarios. What's the point if listing those two possibilities, then? You can't declare that "Overall this can only end in two possible scenarios" and then get offended when people point out that we don't know that.

we actually do. Destroy the world, yea or nay is a pretty binary scenario. Whether it happens because Dvalin decides the council cant express its will when dominated or because they end up voting not to destroy the world is a matter of how the possibilities are reached.

Cizak

2015-12-20, 07:41 PM

we actually do. Destroy the world, yea or nay is a pretty binary scenario. Whether it happens because Dvalin decides the council cant express its will when dominated or because they end up voting not to destroy the world is a matter of how the possibilities are reached.

You're arguing something I'm not. The world will either get destroyed or not, yes. I'm adressing the proclamation that "This decision can only be the result of ways A and B because those two are the only ways the plot can move forward from here".

Keltest

2015-12-20, 07:47 PM

You're arguing something I'm not. The world will either get destroyed or not, yes. I'm adressing the proclamation that "This decision can only be the result of ways A and B because those two are the only ways the plot can move forward from here".

Youre right. I suppose its possible Rich is rendered unable to finish the comic at all due to a freak accident or something, but barring that rather unlikely circumstance, Dvalin is still either going to vote No, because the dwarves don't want to die and can express such, or Yes because the council is Dominated and he cant see through this annoyingly transparent attempt to tamper with the vote.

If you have an alternative end to Dvalin's sub-sub-subplot, by all means enlighten us. But bear in mind the Order assassinating Dvalin is rather implausible.

Jasdoif

2015-12-20, 08:01 PM

Yeah, I know: the whole point is that the Godsmoot has introduced a new danger for the world.I disagree, actually.

The whole "point" of the Godsmoot is for the vampire spirit driving Durkon's party to drag the Order of the Stick to a location where he can present himself as a threat to the world, where he and Roy can fight things out for a while, and where he can leave while still being a threat; resulting in a scenario where the Order of the Stick needs to thwart HPoH instead of heading for the last Gate to stop Xykon immediately, simply because HPoH's getting the world destroyed obviates anything Xykon may be attempting and has a more pressing timeline.

Simultaneously putting the main Gate plotline into character-driven terms; and elevating the OotS' role in events from stymieing potential threats to individual Gates that might doom the world, to actively opposing direct threats to the world.

All the political-y stuff is the price tag on the invoice of the window dressing, framing the conditions of the aforementioned plot so the in-universe sensibility and consistency is apparent to the audience.

If you have an alternative end to Dvalin's sub-sub-subplot, by all means enlighten us.Suppose the Godsmoot doesn't conclude, because (for example) other vampirized Order of the Stone clerics revert the temple into the mountain; crushing the high priests and bodyguards within.

Keltest

2015-12-20, 08:03 PM

Suppose the Godsmoot doesn't conclude, because (for example) other vampirized Order of the Stone clerics revert the temple into the mountain; crushing the high priests and bodyguards within.

That might delay it, but the moot still needs to happen. There are two other pantheons who are waiting on the results. Besides which, Hel wants the moot to conclude, not drag on forever. A moot in eternal deadlock is a moot not destroying the world.

Jasdoif

2015-12-20, 08:11 PM

Besides which, Hel wants the moot to conclude, not drag on forever. A moot in eternal deadlock is a moot not destroying the world.Hel wants the world destroyed. The destruction of all the Gates, prompting the gods to destroy the world since the Snarl would do it anyway and they don't want to get caught in it themselves, serves her purposes just as well as the Godsmoot deciding to destroy the world before that happens.

Seto

2015-12-20, 08:13 PM

If you have an alternative end to Dvalin's sub-sub-subplot, by all means enlighten us. But bear in mind the Order assassinating Dvalin is rather implausible.

HpoH teleports away in order to Dominate the dwarves, as he seems intent on doing, and Hel's vote is nullified because she doesn't have a physical representative in the room anymore, thus showcasing how too much eagerness to win can cause you to oversee flaws in your plan ? I have trouble believing he'd be stupid enough to do that, but hey, it's certainly possible, and this is where the last panel seems to be leading.

As for the "the pace is slow and I don't like the Godsmoot" comments, a lot of people seem to have that problem. I understand how you could think that, but for what it's worth, my taste differs on this matter. There is certainly not too much talk and too little action, as the awesome fight we just had showed. I thoroughly enjoyed the fight between Roy and HpoH as one of the best we've had so far, I enjoy the portrayal of the Gods and their Priests, and I find myself in no shortage of suspense regarding the various ongoing events - the vote, the animals, and Belkar. Even though I'll admit I was a bit frustrated to get only one strip of Belkar and to see that particular storyline delayed.

Keltest

2015-12-20, 08:21 PM

Hel wants the world destroyed. The destruction of all the Gates, prompting the gods to destroy the world since the Snarl would do it anyway and they don't want to get caught in it themselves, serves her purposes just as well as the Godsmoot deciding to destroy the world before that happens.

Which is all well and good, and would also be interesting to see since Team Evil is already working on the last gate and doesn't want to kill the world if they can help it, but that is explicitly not on the agenda, and the teleport orb doesn't have enough charges to get them there before the godsmoot ends if they cant dominate the council.

Kish

2015-12-20, 08:23 PM

Huh? Who said that?
...the starter of the thread you're posting in, in the OP? What on earth have you been responding to here?

However there is a very, very big reason why her evil plan will be a complete and total failure.

Nobody likes her.

At all.

Ganbatte

2015-12-20, 08:43 PM

...the starter of the thread you're posting in, in the OP? What on earth have you been responding to here?

So you chose to focus on those three lines instead of considering the overall argument.
Okay, I guess?

Jasdoif

2015-12-20, 08:50 PM

Which is all well and good, and would also be interesting to see since Team Evil is already working on the last gate and doesn't want to kill the world if they can help it, but that is explicitly not on the agenda, and the teleport orb doesn't have enough charges to get them there before the godsmoot ends if they cant dominate the council.I think you're confusing "not explicitly on the agenda" and "explicitly not on the agenda", myself.

But I don't see the rest of it being an issue. If they can't dominate the council, there's still likely the rest of the vampirized Creeders to bring down enough of the mountain on top of the high priests at the Godsmoot. HPoH and friends are vampires: even if they can't dominate themselves some faster transportation than their own gaseous form abilities, they can still quite a number of miles a day; and we don't know how it will be between the Gate and wherever the dwarven Council would meet.

Come to think of it...even the "crush the Godsmoot" part is optional, until Hel's worried about the other high priests acting against her vampires after the Godsmoot is concluded. The vote isn't for "don't destroy the world", it's for "don't destroy the world immediately, but give the mortals another chance to fix things". If the Godsmoot votes not to destroy the world, but the last Gate is later destroyed, they'll go ahead and destroy the world.

Keltest

2015-12-20, 09:29 PM

I think you're confusing "not explicitly on the agenda" and "explicitly not on the agenda", myself.

But I don't see the rest of it being an issue. If they can't dominate the council, there's still likely the rest of the vampirized Creeders to bring down enough of the mountain on top of the high priests at the Godsmoot. HPoH and friends are vampires: even if they can't dominate themselves some faster transportation than their own gaseous form abilities, they can still quite a number of miles a day; and we don't know how it will be between the Gate and wherever the dwarven Council would meet.

Come to think of it...even the "crush the Godsmoot" part is optional, until Hel's worried about the other high priests acting against her vampires after the Godsmoot is concluded. The vote isn't for "don't destroy the world", it's for "don't destroy the world immediately, but give the mortals another chance to fix things". If the Godsmoot votes not to destroy the world, but the last Gate is later destroyed, they'll go ahead and destroy the world.

The only reason hel would want to destroy the moot, assuming she is capable, is because she has already lost and wants to minimize interference from the other high priests. A necessary prerequisite for that is that Dvalin's vote has been settled one way or the other.

Jasdoif

2015-12-20, 09:43 PM

The only reason hel would want to destroy the moot, assuming she is capable, is because she has already lost and wants to minimize interference from the other high priests. A necessary prerequisite for that is that Dvalin's vote has been settled one way or the other.Hmm....No, "she has already lost" is not a requirement, "wants to minimize interference from the other high priests" can stand on its own. Preventing Dvalin's vote from being settled one way or the other would be accomplished just as well by destroying the Godsmoot (or possibly the dwarven Council, if they physically meet somewhere) before settling can occur.

Wildroses

2015-12-20, 09:50 PM

Somebody in the main comic discussion thread already pointed out that if Durkon leaves his vote is invalidated, and that it can't possibly be legal for a dominated person to vote. The Giant's comment:

"Yeah, those almost sound like the sorts of thing that might be dealt with further in future comics. Weird."

So I'm pretty sure the fact we are all sitting here pointing out how it can't possibly work ever is going to make us all look like ninnies at some future update.

I also wonder if part of the backlash against Dvalin refusing to vote to save his race until polling the council is culture clash myself. Most people here belong to cultures which believe life is more important than keeping a promise, and individuals should have complete personal choice in all decisions they make. Under our culture, Dvalin should have said: "I must save the Dwarves! I shall choose by myself with zero consultation to vote to save them." But the dwarves do not belong to a culture like ours. They belong to one in which a promise you made should be more important than lives, and that once you have chosen an alignment you must stick with it no matter how difficult it is at times. Dvalin is making the right moral choice for the culture he belonged to. We can condemn his culture for it, but I don't think it would be fair to call his choice idiocy or bad writing.

Also I completely disagree that Rich should be spending three to four years writing a book without letting us see any of it until then. If he did that, I'd have forgotten about The Order of the Stick by the time it came out and wouldn't buy it. Releasing it a page at a time keeps me interested and more inclined to buy the finished product.

Kish

2015-12-21, 12:37 AM

So you chose to focus on those three lines instead of considering the overall argument.
Okay, I guess?
Sure, whatever you say.

Mightymosy

2015-12-21, 03:51 AM

My guess? The other priests have no knowledge of Durkula's murders, nor do the deities. Why would they know? The Creed of Stone doesn't worship a god, so there is no deity to tell the other gods about what happened.
[...]

Why would they know?
They are GODS!!!

This has been bugging me since the whole godsmoot thing started.

Xykon, a mortal (who already died, anyway) can buy some item from a supermarket (a TeeVoo) and watch things from a distance and after it happened (it can record multiple scenes and he can watch those later).
Eugen, again someone who died, can watch anything with "epic inside" from above.

The gods can't watch what happens at what is basically their telecommunication service institute at the moment?
And, having World 1.0 seen gone to dust because of infighting, have not installed a security system that prevents mortals (or in this case, a vampire) from rigging their voting ceremonies?

Okay, so the gods don't want to "listen" to the mortals right now because of (I don't know why, since at least the good gods should have some interest in their followers, but whatever). Let's accept that this meeting is gods only. Shouldn't they still try to make sure the integrity of the setting is in place?
Ok, I get it, otherwise the story couldn't happen they way it is planned, but it feels a bit strange to me.

At least Thor is shown several times with angels. Don't the gods have personell to work for them?
Maybe this will be shown afterwards. Maybe we will see soon how an angel calls Thor and tells him what happened during the time he was busy listening to Hel gloating over evil plans.

Maybe this is because Mr Burlew is afraid to make the comic too long and too wordy, but for my taste this whole ending the world voting has been portrayed a bit too simple.
Of course, more detail might have lessened the dramatic impact, so it could be that this is just the right way how it was done. I'm not a storyteller, so I wouldn't know. I can only say that as a reader, there were a couple points at which I was like "Wait, what about...? Why isn't there...?"
Like I said, maybe some stuff will appear in a different light later when we get more info.

PS: Also, isn't there an oracle who can tell the future? Can't the gods send an angel to the cute little orange guy and ask him whether the mortals succeed saving the world from the snarl or not?

Mightymosy

2015-12-21, 03:57 AM

[...]
This is like a teenaged girl smashing her Fathers car in a way which kills a bunch of pedestrians and then expecting to be given a brand new car just because her Father is a presidential candidate. I don't care how persuasive she is, the wallet is still in the hands of somebody else.
[...]

I may have similar feelings like you about the godsmoot thing, but I have no problem with the way Hel is portrayed. If you read classic greek myths, a lot of that stuff is gods being like that. Even the older ones act like irresponsible pubescent teenagers. Most of the time, if I remember correctly. I think taking some basic human feelings and tendencies to go about things to extremes and showing what happens might have been the premise for a lot of the myths in the first place....

Keltest

2015-12-21, 07:45 AM

Hmm....No, "she has already lost" is not a requirement, "wants to minimize interference from the other high priests" can stand on its own. Preventing Dvalin's vote from being settled one way or the other would be accomplished just as well by destroying the Godsmoot (or possibly the dwarven Council, if they physically meet somewhere) before settling can occur.

Which, again, is specifically counter to her agenda. She WANTS the vote to be finished, one way or the other.

Dracon1us

2015-12-21, 08:03 AM

Honestly I don't know how to state properly my feelings about the Godsmoot.

But this arc isn't intriguing me or making me wish to know more.

I'm all like: "Ok, when will this Godsmoot thing be over? Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?"

Yeah, I know: the whole point is that the Godsmoot has introduced a new danger for the world.

I could reply that we all know -or at least assume, basing our assumption on the prophecies and the foreshadowing- that the world shall not end.
But we all know even that there shall be some kind of happy end for the story, so Xykon and team evil shall lose, at end.

The situations seems similar, but...

I don't know: maybe I don't find the character development of Roy interesting. Or maybe I find Durkula deeply uncharismatic and boring, specially if compared to Xykon.

Or maybe the tiebreaker of the tiebreaker, even if clearly expected (3 yes, 3 no, a Plan B involving teleport: it was kind of clear that something was going to happen to prolong the vote), annoys me even more than Roy.

Or the whole position of the demigod of Dwarves: "Yeah, I don't like to condemn all my people to hell, but, hey, I must ask to the council, because of an oath I swore. And if, just by chance, happens that the council turned evil -because magic or even because, I don't know, some evil dwarves managed to take control of the council with totally natural means, because sometimes evil people manages to gain power, you know- well, then who cares? Let's roll with it!"

Because -domination, vampirization and other magic means aside- the simple idea that Dvalin could vote yes if the council tells him so, even if he knows this is totally evil and bad for dwarves, tickles me in the wrong way.

Surely Rich will soon make this interesting again even for me -we have the prophecy about Durkon, and a lot of things Rich planned ahead which means everything will go in its proper place- but I cannot wait that we return back to some more "action".

Agree. sadly this arc remands me of "the phantom menace"...the aftertaste of the bone-dry Galactic Senate scene, like satirezed in the Simpsons. I love, really love, everything about politics and policys, but that don't mix well with Epic. I appreciate the colorful storytelling of Rich, his portraying of the bickering gods...but after "Blood Runs in the Family" , it feels a little underwhelming.

I second V.'s point: "Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?"

Onyavar

2015-12-21, 09:13 AM

Why would they know?
They are GODS!!!

Also @OP and several seemingly disgruntled readers.

I've been on my toes cheering since the whole godsmoot thing started. The Snarl supposedly is a cosmic entity that threatens the gods themselves, why don't they do something about it? NOW we see the answers:
- The Gods, despite being mighty beings, are not almighty. They are three families who can't even convene in one room peacefully without having lethal arguments.
- They also are not all-knowing, and certainly not all-benevolent. They simply are a polytheistic pantheon of gods, they are not GOD.
- They are bound by rules they made by themselves, and you know, these rules are held barely together by logic-ducttape. This is by design. Just like in D&D and even in classical myths. I never fully understood the "Time of Troubles", where the gods walked Faerun - but it just was so. Why didn't Zeus stop the Trojan war? Why didn't he travel back in time to prevent Prometheus from stealing the fire or to prevent Pandora opening her box? In stories with divine intervention and yet a mortal protagonists is tasked to save the world, it's always because a lazy god used a shortcut ten millenia ago, instead of doing the right thing then. Everyone regrets it - now - but it's an error you can't simply fix by wiggling your fingers. Also, time-travelling gods hurt most brains.

Simply put, the gods are not perfect in stories like this. Like others pointed out, they are even defined by their own aspect image. When Fenrir gets to speak through a mortal shell, he can only scream "raaghr monster smash". Hand Hel a speakerphone, and she will mope about being treated unfairly and how she will have her revenge when she grows up. Now, she gets her chance, so she jumps the wagon and gloats prematurely before winning. As a matter of course.

The explanations that many readers pointed out, to the OP as well, are very good, yet more people still come up complaining about plotholes. I don't see any plotholes that can't be attributed to in-story uncompetence - of Hel or Dvalin or whomever. Also: Geez!! Enough with all the "gotcha" questions! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0599.html)

The brilliant story that Mr. Burlew tells us is under massive critique because either:
- Boo, why don't the gods stop the Snarl themselves?
- Boo, why isn't every detail of the voting procedures dumped at the readers at once so that they understand how the gods work?
- Boo, why do we need to put up with gods screwing up via voting procedures, let's focus back on the Order screwing up in combat action.
- Boo, all that combat is delaying the story and isn't funny anymore!
- Boo, with all those funny gags in the strips, clearly the story has jumped the shark!
- Boo, this arc is clearly a filler like the dirt-farmers, and we're all Vaarsuvius. (Hint: I'm not.)

I know how we all love to over-analyze the comic, but in recent threads like this one, I think that many forum posters have gone beyond the point where they tell the Giant what he should write (something he's defending himself against since ages ago), and are now attacking him for not writing what they want.

Dracon1us

2015-12-21, 10:16 AM

Just to clarify:

I love the Giant work. I do think that he has reached some pretty impressive narrative peak.
To the level of the master of the genre.
I want to read his story, not my story or the story requested by the readers.

Still, this is a forum and we, you know, discuss.

Ganbatte

2015-12-21, 10:35 AM

The brilliant story that Mr. Burlew tells us is under massive critique because either:
- Boo, why don't the gods stop the Snarl themselves?
- Boo, why isn't every detail of the voting procedures dumped at the readers at once so that they understand how the gods work?
- Boo, why do we need to put up with gods screwing up via voting procedures, let's focus back on the Order screwing up in combat action.
- Boo, all that combat is delaying the story and isn't funny anymore!
- Boo, with all those funny gags in the strips, clearly the story has jumped the shark!
- Boo, this arc is clearly a filler like the dirt-farmers, and we're all Vaarsuvius. (Hint: I'm not.)

This sure is a lot of strawmannin' for just a single post.

I know how we all love to over-analyze the comic, but in recent threads like this one, I think that many forum posters have gone beyond the point where they tell the Giant what he should write (something he's defending himself against since ages ago), and are now attacking him for not writing what they want.

I've never understood this notion that when someone criticizes/expresses dislike for something they're somehow trying to coerce the author into changing things altogether or forcing him to stop writing what he wants.
It sounds like a cheap way to delegiptimize a critique's worth by making it pass as some arrogant attempt at forcing the author, instead of legitimate honest comments about the audience's perception of the events.

Jasdoif

2015-12-21, 10:45 AM

Which, again, is specifically counter to her agenda. She WANTS the vote to be finished, one way or the other.Insofar as the destruction of the world means the end of any voting being held on it, perhaps :smalltongue: Seriously though, her goal is the destruction of the world, and the Godsmoot is a strong tool in that regard. Wrangling a vote whose final outcome destroy the world is the most obvious use; but it also serves to keep numerous high priests, who are presumably high-level and could quite effective against undead, sequestered away from the activities any vampires she has (or will have) outside the Godsmoot. Stalling the vote is preferable to arriving at a "no" outcome solely on that basis.

And even in the event the final outcome of the vote comes to "no", the world isn't off the hook. The resident spokesdeity for the "no" vote (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0998.html) insists they can still destroy the world if the last rift if opened....An option that won't be off the table if the vote is still pending (or stalled while, I dunno, the northern pantheon collect wrangles their currently second-to-high priests together or something) when it happens.

If nothing else, a vampire's dominate lasts for twelve days; even if HPoH commits all his forces on dominating the elders first, they could take off towards the last Gate at that point, perhaps leaving a vampire or two behind to keep an eye on the elders.

The Godsmoot isn't the primary threat here, the High Priest of Hel and company are....And being vampires rather than deities, the Order of the Stick has the capability of effectively dealing with them.

Keltest

2015-12-21, 10:56 AM

Insofar as the destruction of the world means the end of any voting being held on it, perhaps :smalltongue: Seriously though, her goal is the destruction of the world, and the Godsmoot is a strong tool in that regard. Wrangling a vote whose final outcome destroy the world is the most obvious use; but it also serves to keep numerous high priests, who are presumably high-level and could quite effective against undead, sequestered away from the activities any vampires she has (or will have) outside the Godsmoot. Stalling the vote is preferable to arriving at a "no" outcome solely on that basis.

And even in the event the final outcome of the vote comes to "no", the world isn't off the hook. The resident spokesdeity for the "no" vote (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0998.html) insists they can still destroy the world if the last rift if opened....An option that won't be off the table if the vote is still pending (or stalled while, I dunno, the northern pantheon collect wrangles their currently second-to-high priests together or something) when it happens.

If nothing else, a vampire's dominate lasts for twelve days; even if HPoH commits all his forces on dominating the elders first, they could take off towards the last Gate at that point, perhaps leaving a vampire or two behind to keep an eye on the elders.

The Godsmoot isn't the primary threat here, the High Priest of Hel and company are....And being vampires rather than deities, the Order of the Stick has the capability of effectively dealing with them.

You seem to be arguing about something different than I am.

Yes, youre right, the Godsmoot isn't the primary threat here. Which is why its frustrating that we are focusing on it so much. Half the Order is sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Belkar is trying to participate but being actively stymied. Durkon is temporarily unable to affect the outcome either way. Roy is the only one actually doing anything about the problem, but because the Godsmoot is the focus right now, it isn't going anywhere.

torugo

2015-12-21, 11:30 AM

I think durkon Plan is unreasonable in só Many way

First the fact a god should Know a dominated dwarf.

Second i dont see a dwarf King condening his race either way. Meeting the council is a formality...and By the way....could have been done BEFORE the godsmoot.

Third... Durkon Cant leave tô execute the Plan. First because him leaving nullfies hels vote. Second cause ódin said só not tô interviene.

Forth cause the vampire Hélper also câme by after ódin said he could not só he Cant leave neither.

Fith the Plan is exposed só all priests including the King demigod priest could in the time they have send messages tô gods warning about the Plan.

Só...durkon must have another Plan in mind...

Jasdoif

2015-12-21, 11:32 AM

You seem to be arguing about something different than I am.Possibly, though I seem to recall you saying Dvalin will either "vote Yes" or "vote No", while I see leaving the vote hanging as a possibility. It did dovetail nicely into narrative-y stuff, though, and I've found that calling out the window dressing as window dressing can make it feel less important and thus improve the feel of pacing.

Yes, youre right, the Godsmoot isn't the primary threat here. Which is why its frustrating that we are focusing on it so much. Half the Order is sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Belkar is trying to participate but being actively stymied. Durkon is temporarily unable to affect the outcome either way. Roy is the only one actually doing anything about the problem, but because the Godsmoot is the focus right now, it isn't going anywhere.Fair enough. The last panel suggests the focus is going to shift in short order (if only because The Vampire Briefly Known as Gontor isn't protected from the other clerics by the rules of the Godsmoot, and could be in Roy's reach), so that this thread came up now might mean we're going to advance just in the nick of average forumer patience time. Maybe.

Nightcanon

2015-12-21, 11:48 AM

You seem to be arguing about something different than I am.

Yes, youre right, the Godsmoot isn't the primary threat here. Which is why its frustrating that we are focusing on it so much. Half the Order is sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Belkar is trying to participate but being actively stymied. Durkon is temporarily unable to affect the outcome either way. Roy is the only one actually doing anything about the problem, but because the Godsmoot is the focus right now, it isn't going anywhere.

But how long has the Godsmoot been going on for? The meeting itself, from HP-Odin announcing the purpose, through Roy and Durkula having their duel and the Demigods casting their votes, a handful of minutes at the most. From the Order landing its delegations and Durkula attacking Gontor and then Belkar, a few minutes more. The only thing that would take a long time in real life that isn't represented accurately here is that if Belkar fell a significant distance (say 1000 feet) it would take longer for him to climb back up than it would to have the discussion in the Moot chamber. Going to the Godsmoot, sitting outside until it concluded its business, getting Durkon resurrected and continuing on their way was a valid and time-efficient option for the Order before the reveal that the Gods are considering destroying the world, and it is an even more valid and time-efficient option now that that threat is known and Roy considers himself to be in a position to do something about it.

veti

2015-12-21, 02:12 PM

Again with this assumption.

That Durkon or Hel thinks this is how it will work, does not mean it will work this way.

But that assumption is not being made here.

No matter how the story unfolds from this point, what we know with a fair degree of certainty right now is that Lurky McCorpsewhiskers (Jr) currently believes the plan is to hijack the dwarven council, and so forth. Which means: the plan must seem plausible, and even strong, to someone who has a high WIS.

Of course, it's theoretically possible he might be bluffing, and that's not the plan at all. But that seems an unlikely direction from here.

Furthermore, we don't know what the rules of the council are. We can surmise what it should say about dominated people, but we'd be guessing. And per Dvalin's stated intentions, it's the council's decision that matters. Once that's made, in the correct legal form - it's presumably binding no matter what shenanigans went into making it. If Dvalin overrules it, he's breaking his oath (and might even lose his divinity).

Vinyadan

2015-12-21, 03:18 PM

About the creed collapsing the building: they now are spawns of Dorkula, and their actions depend greatly upon its will. If they were to kill the other priests, it probably would be no different from a cleric summoning Monster HirghRomanNumeral and having it attack. I really think that would break the rules.
Besides, I don't know if that's mechanically possible.

About the rules not protecting the ushers: that's sad, but this meeting is to allow the gods to communicate without smashing each other's face, and without the clerics killing each other as they would likely try to do under normal conditions; we know that there was some tension between Malack and a visiting priestess, and I assume things would be much uglier between, I don't know, Fenrir's and Thor's high priests. The gods probably were happy with communication being possible and didn't really care about their hosts.

Jasdoif

2015-12-21, 03:56 PM

About the creed collapsing the building: they now are spawns of Dorkula, and their actions depend greatly upon its will. If they were to kill the other priests, it probably would be no different from a cleric summoning Monster HirghRomanNumeral and having it attack. I really think that would break the rules.Given that killing the other priests would eliminate the people who would "dust them on the spot" for breaking the rules, I'm not sure it'd matter at that point. To say nothing of the difficulty of proving they were acting on HPoH orders, particularly since he can't even get his own bodyguard to obey him.

Besides, I don't know if that's mechanically possible.I don't see why not. Something as simple as jointly casting stone shape and/or soften earth and stone to remove/weaken the structural support for the central room, and then letting gravity do the rest, would suffice; assuming they can't simply mold the cathedral back into its mountainous shape while there are still creatures in the area.

Ornithologist

2015-12-21, 05:09 PM

Kish

2015-12-21, 05:51 PM

Really? Because I'm anticipating the High Priest of Hel teleporting out of here*, after which the Order of the Stick goes after him* to stop him from swinging the dwarven elders' vote. What are you expecting to happen here that doesn't involve Roy?

*No one tell me about the rules of the Godsmoot. Yes, I read them as much as you did; if you think they're going to hold the High Priest of Hel or Roy or Belkar here, we'll know who's right within a few strips.

goodpeople25

2015-12-21, 06:13 PM

Really, my big issue with this right now is this: The Giant has said this won't be finished with a technicality(which is the way it should be).
So now that we are on tiebreaker #2, the tension feels lost to me. The ability to resolve this is no longer in Roy's hands, it's in NPCs who have never had screen time.

Think like a story told in memoir form. You know the character writing the story has to live, or they cannot write the memoir that's the form of the story.

I am assuming once book 6 is finished it will flow a bit better.

P.S. Mostly I really want Durkula to get what's coming to him, and get Real Durkon back. I miss him.
What makes you think this is in the hands of Npcs? To me If this second tiebreaker is for any purpose it is to put this in the hands of the order of the stick and not just the order of durkon's bodyguards as well as getting this story to dwarvern lands for a certain prophecy and to continue Durkon's arc.
Though why are we talking about things that haven't even happened yet?
And what Kish said.

Vinyadan

2015-12-21, 06:50 PM

Given that killing the other priests would eliminate the people who would "dust them on the spot" for breaking the rules, I'm not sure it'd matter at that point. To say nothing of the difficulty of proving they were acting on HPoH orders, particularly since he can't even get his own bodyguard to obey him.
If the clerics have enough points in Kn:Religion, they should know about the vampire-spawn relationship, although they may not need it to be high priests. But I was actually rather thinking about the gods. Dorkula is acting after Hel's plan, and, as long as the plan goes about exploiting loopholes, it may still be acceptable, but, if the rules are openly defied by a god, the other gods may simply choose not to care about the result. After all, they aren't all lawful, and even those who are may not accept a decision coming from a council where the explicit rules about "neutral ground" have been broken to come to a rigged result. A worse problem is that collapsing the building may kill Dorkula with the others, or that it may not be enough to kill any of them - who knows what crazy spells they have available.

I don't see why not. Something as simple as jointly casting stone shape and/or soften earth and stone to remove/weaken the structural support for the central room, and then letting gravity do the rest, would suffice; assuming they can't simply mold the cathedral back into its mountainous shape while there are still creatures in the area.

The problem I saw was that Gonthor has used up a lot of his spells, and vampirism doesn't seem to replenish spell slots. I wonder if they still can cast those spells.

Jasdoif

2015-12-21, 07:46 PM

If the clerics have enough points in Kn:Religion, they should know about the vampire-spawn relationship, although they may not need it to be high priests.That wouldn't tell them which was the master and which was the enslaved spawn...or, for that matter, that either of them is the master, or that the master is not himself enslaved by another vampire they haven't met yet.

But I was actually rather thinking about the gods. Dorkula is acting after Hel's plan, and, as long as the plan goes about exploiting loopholes, it may still be acceptable, but, if the rules are openly defied by a god, the other gods may simply choose not to care about the result. After all, they aren't all lawful, and even those who are may not accept a decision coming from a council where the explicit rules about "neutral ground" have been broken to come to a rigged result.Oh, but that's the key: If the Godsmoot is, shall we say, forcibly cancelled; no consensus was reached, so nothing results from the vote, so the world will not be destroyed immediately...same as if the ultimate result of the vote was not to destroy the world immediately.

Destroying the last Gate will prompt the destruction of the world, which is Hel's real goal. I put no bets on the other gods letting the Snarl unmake them simply to spite Hel, and I suspect she doesn't either.

A worse problem is that collapsing the building may kill Dorkula with the others, or that it may not be enough to kill any of them - who knows what crazy spells they have available.Assuming HPoH is even there if it happens, he's a vampire, with that nifty gaseous form ability. It even triggers automatically if he takes damage that should destroy him, which should a good chance of killing the other high priests. I think it'd work out OK for Hel in the long run, in any case.

The problem I saw was that Gonthor has used up a lot of his spells, and vampirism doesn't seem to replenish spell slots. I wonder if they still can cast those spells.The current expectation is for a multi-day pause, the vampires could certainly recover their spell slots in that time. There's a lot of questionable-ness around HPoH's plan and how his departure, if that's in fact what he's planning, would affect the vote currently in progress; but as long as the Godsmoot is keeping all the high priests sequestered away from the last Gate while waiting for Dvalin to consult the dwarven Council, there's no real advantage to cutting it short prematurely.

Nightcanon

2015-12-21, 09:50 PM

I think the issue with destroying the building is that it has already been created by the Creed of Stone, who then needed to wait until tomorrow and the renewal of their spell slots to unmake it. That is to say, the temple is the result of spells with 'instantaneous" time that have already had their effect, rather than the result of continuous magic that relies on continuous concentration, or that can be dispelled, dismissed, any more than the effects of a fireball can be reversed simply stopping concentration, dispelling or dismissing them. Possibly the Creed of Blood get new slots in the evening rather than the morning like Durkula, but they might be too busy to prepare them this evening.
Plus, y'know, plot armour. No one who needs to stay alive is going to be killed by the Creed of Blood collapsing the temple.

Jasdoif

2015-12-22, 01:34 AM

I think the issue with destroying the building is that it has already been created by the Creed of Stone, who then needed to wait until tomorrow and the renewal of their spell slots to unmake it.A pause of multiple days, like Dvalin's delay is expected to require, would certainly get them to every time of day; recovering spells isn't going to be a problem unless there's some particular need for a rush.

archon_huskie

2015-12-22, 09:20 AM

Plus first King of the Dwarves only says must consult with the elders. He does not have to follow what they say.

Onyavar

2015-12-22, 10:07 AM

This sure is a lot of strawmannin' for just a single post.All of the arguments I listed were present either in this thread or in one of the "complaint" threads that were started since ~1002.

I've never understood this notion that when someone criticizes/expresses dislike for something they're somehow trying to coerce the author into changing things altogether or forcing him to stop writing what he wants.
It sounds like a cheap way to delegiptimize a critique's worth by making it pass as some arrogant attempt at forcing the author, instead of legitimate honest comments about the audience's perception of the events.

It is a cheap way to heave critique on something that hasn't played out yet. Does a critic go to the concert, expecting Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, walks out after two parts and writes an angry letter to the concert hall? The famous part is also the fourth and last - the critic has to listen to all the other three parts first. He needs to see the entire composition before he can talk about his personal audience perception. Otherwise, it's just audience assumption: "Hey, I wanted to hear them singing, not the boring orchestra all the time. Why don't they sing here?"

The DStP thread of island orks and ninja politics was under heavy critique back then: everyone wanted Roy quickly rezzed. Finish Kubota off! Hurry, hurry, back to the plot, we're waisting time and panels! But that arc was needed, among other things, for Elan's and Vaarsuvius' character growth. We can say that in retrospect, not in advance.

I have yet to see critical people opening a thread to openly apologize to the Giant because they understood in hindsight why he told the story he did.

Roland Itiative

2015-12-22, 11:10 AM

Plus first King of the Dwarves only says must consult with the elders. He does not have to follow what they say.

What would be the point of consulting them, if he didn't follow their decision? There would be no point in consulting them just to then go the other way.

2015-12-22, 11:19 AM

What would be the point of consulting them, if he didn't follow their decision? There would be no point in consulting them just to then go the other way.
To hear and consider their views, and the reasons for those views. Perhaps they have information that he does not.

EmperorSarda

2015-12-22, 11:25 AM

To hear and consider their views, and the reasons for those views. Perhaps they have information that he does not.

It's not for new information. It's because Dvalin is a deity who operates on Lawful Stupid. He made an oath to consult the dwarven Council of Clans on all matters relating to them. He's fulfilling his oath.

2015-12-22, 11:30 AM

Really, my big issue with this right now is this: The Giant has said this won't be finished with a technicality(which is the way it should be).
So now that we are on tiebreaker #2, the tension feels lost to me. The ability to resolve this is no longer in Roy's hands, it's in NPCs who have never had screen time.

I have to disagree. The whole set of tiebreakers, and the delays in summoning the demigod priests, and now, the delay of summoning/consulting the clan elders, provides time for Roy, Belkar, and the rest of OOTs to act.

If the original vote hadn't ended in a tie, Roy would not have had the chance to confront HPoH, or recognize that HPoH was not Durkon.

If the demigod priests had not been delayed, Belkar wouldn't have made it back up the mountain. Not-Gontor wouldn't have been able to get to the Mechane. The rest of OOTS wouldn't have the opportunity (still pending) to discover that something was happening.

If Dvalin hadn't thrown it into another tie breaker, then the decision on ending the world WOULD have come down to a bunch of NPCs (the demigod priests) resolving the issue. Since the story isn't done, and un-making the world wouldn't be an Elan "happy ending" we all know what Dvalin's vote would hve to be. Instead, there is time for OOTS to act (and time for HPoH and Not-Gontor to act on plan B, and maybe on C, D, and E) while simultaneously imposing a deadline for those actions.

2015-12-22, 11:33 AM

It's not for new information. It's because Dvalin is a deity who operates on Lawful Stupid. He made an oath to consult the dwarven Council of Clans on all matters relating to them. He's fulfilling his oath.

There was a purpose for that oath. The "stupid" part is that he holds to his oath even when it's obvious (to us, at least... though maybe we're wrong, because we're missing some bit of information) what the answer must be.

Kish

2015-12-22, 11:49 AM

He's the archetypal dwarf. An' being a dwarf is about doing your duty...especially when it makes you miserable (and doesn't make any sense). You swear an oath to consult people before giving any ruling, you consult them even when their only imaginable answer is, "NO you moron!"

2015-12-22, 12:04 PM

Do we KNOW that's the only possible answer?

If the world is unmade, then (per Hel and pretty well acknowledged by the other gods) then the souls of all the Dwarves go to Hel. This is presumably a bad thing. ;)

If the world is not unmade by the gods, and the Snarl escapes, what happens to the mortals the Snarl destroys? We... Don't... Know.
-- if their death is normal, then their souls presumably go to Valhalla, and their soul-boost goes to whatever God they followed.
-- if their souls are consumed by the Snarl, perhaps they are totally lost/destroyed. This sounds like a worse thing.
-- if their souls are consumed by the Snarl, perhaps their soul-boost actually strengthens the Snarl. This is definitely a worse thing, and maybe, just maybe, it'd be less bad for Hel to be strengthened than for a god-destroying abomination to be strengthened.

Maybe the choice is obvious. But we aren't all-knowing (or all-informed). Heck... We don't even know just what it is with the Snarl, since there appears to be a planet hanging out in the cage the gods formed around him.

EmperorSarda

2015-12-22, 12:21 PM

There was a purpose for that oath. The "stupid" part is that he holds to his oath even when it's obvious (to us, at least... though maybe we're wrong, because we're missing some bit of information) what the answer must be.

And that purpose was made centuries ago when he was a mortal. The purpose does not matter. All that matters is that Dvalin made that oath and is blindly following it.

He's the archetypal dwarf. An' being a dwarf is about doing your duty...especially when it makes you miserable (and doesn't make any sense). You swear an oath to consult people before giving any ruling, you consult them even when their only imaginable answer is, "NO you moron!"

This.

Ganbatte

2015-12-22, 01:14 PM

It is a cheap way to heave critique on something that hasn't played out yet. Does a critic go to the concert, expecting Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, walks out after two parts and writes an angry letter to the concert hall?

Apart of the fact that expressing criticism isn't "writing angry letters" (again with this assumption that critiques are somehow personal attacks directed at an author) a concert and a webcomic released little by little in time are two entirely different things.

I have yet to see critical people opening a thread to openly apologize to the Giant because they understood in hindsight why he told the story he did.

And thank god they don't, the reason behind certain choices and the reader's perception of its execution are two entirely different things, again.

Nightcanon

2015-12-22, 02:00 PM

A pause of multiple days, like Dvalin's delay is expected to require, would certainly get them to every time of day; recovering spells isn't going to be a problem unless there's some particular need for a rush.

Sure, but as far as we can know, much of the Creed of Blood has an errand in the Dwarven lands to get to, while Durkula is either going to go along or is going to need to find some way of staying clear of Roy in the intervening time, and might not find it convenient to rest to pray for spells. If the Creed is successful, it doesn't need to destroy the temple (though I concede that they might return able to do so as Plan H, or wherever we're up to by then).

Nightcanon

2015-12-22, 02:16 PM

Apart of the fact that expressing criticism isn't "writing angry letters" (again with this assumption that critiques are somehow personal attacks directed at an author) a concert and a webcomic released little by little in time are two entirely different things.

I've seen some fairly aggressive criticisms of the Giant and his work (including those that conflate the two) on here, and some pretty touchy responses to the Giant's occasional and generally good-natured suggestion that people wait and see what happens rather than making assumptions that he doesn't know what he's doing: people who are quite happy snark at the Giant then immediately complain when they feel he responds in kind.
My own feeling is that while the page-by-page release of the comic is effectively a loss-leader to draw people in and encourage them to buy the books, we're still effectively hanging round his place of work getting stuff for free, and I think there's an obligation to be good guests.

KorvinStarmast

2015-12-22, 02:19 PM

My own feeling is that while the page-by-page release of the comic is effectively a loss-leader to draw people in and encourage them to buy the books, we're still effectively hanging round his place of work getting stuff for free, and I think there's an obligation to be good guests. FWIW, while you point on manners is well made, I suspect that the various ads we see on the site are income sources.

To get back on topic, the Godsmoot isn't over yet, it's still a work in progress, so I find it hard to have an opinion on it as a story element.

Ganbatte

2015-12-22, 02:44 PM

I've seen some fairly aggressive criticisms of the Giant and his work (including those that conflate the two) on here, and some pretty touchy responses to the Giant's occasional and generally good-natured suggestion that people wait and see what happens rather than making assumptions that he doesn't know what he's doing: people who are quite happy snark at the Giant then immediately complain when they feel he responds in kind.

Y... yeeah, that's.... one perception of the events.

My own feeling is that while the page-by-page release of the comic is effectively a loss-leader to draw people in and encourage them to buy the books, we're still effectively hanging round his place of work getting stuff for free, and I think there's an obligation to be good guests.

Sure, but that doesn't mean avoiding to express criticism when feeling that something is falling short. Just because a few people happened to be rude in the past doesn't mean that "good guests" should neuter their critical minds.

SaintRidley

2015-12-22, 02:52 PM

It seems to me the only reason anyone here considers Dvalin's adherence to the oath stupid is because they already know about the High Priest of Hel's plan to use it to his advantage. That doesn't make the oath or adhering to it stupid; it makes the readers who feel he's stupid look petulant because they can't handle a minor character actually sticking to his characterization.

Jasdoif

2015-12-22, 03:06 PM

Sure, but as far as we can know, much of the Creed of Blood has an errand in the Dwarven lands to get to, while Durkula is either going to go along or is going to need to find some way of staying clear of Roy in the intervening time, and might not find it convenient to rest to pray for spells. If the Creed is successful, it doesn't need to destroy the temple (though I concede that they might return able to do so as Plan H, or wherever we're up to by then)."Much of the Not-Highest Clergy of Hel" does not necessarily mean "All of the Not-Highest Clergy of Hel". Splitting them up is certainly an option...like if the single-use teleport orb doesn't have the capacity to teleport all of them, or if gathering all of them in a single place to teleport them is a problem (for instance, I doubt The Vampire Briefly Known as Gontor is going to remain intact for long if he loiters with the orb in full view of all the high priests).

It seems to me the only reason anyone here considers Dvalin's adherence to the oath stupid is because they already know about the High Priest of Hel's plan to use it to his advantage.I was getting a "consequence of strict consensus-based representation" vibe off it, myself.

Nightcanon

2015-12-22, 04:23 PM

Y... yeeah, that's.... one perception of the events.

Well, I think it's fair to say that for pretty much every strip, there's at least one person who leaps to the conclusion that X is going to happen next, and because they think that X would be dull/ lame/ obvious, it follows that the Giant has lost the plot and is dull/ lame/ obvious.
This thread is a case in point: in the main discussion thread recently the Giant responded to those who complain that we need to get back to the main plot by pointing out that at the moment the Godsmoot is the main plot and is entirely relevant to the fate of Durkon, Roy and the world, and that the plot holes that people assume exist might be addressed in forthcoming strips. Then we get this thread, which complains that there are obvious procedural objections to Hel's behaviour, that there's no way Dvalin isn't going to know that the Dwarven Council has been dominated, and this should all just be resolved now in this particular way. That would no doubt be very neat and convenient for those compiling the history of the Godsmoot in the Time of the Gates, but it doesn't help the story of the Order of the Stick at all. We pretty much know that in the end, Hel and Xykon will be defeated and the Order will be victorious, Belkar will probably die and Elan, Haley and probably Roy too will be happy in the end. What we don't know is how that is going to come about, which is the exciting thing. Yet if we are quiet and watch, it's happening there in front of us.

FWIW, while you point on manners is well made, I suspect that the various ads we see on the site are income sources.

To get back on topic, the Godsmoot isn't over yet, it's still a work in progress, so I find it hard to have an opinion on it as a story element. Fair enough re the ads. To be honest I don't really notice them as there are only a couple per page (and they are at least generally for either RPG or webcomic-related products).

Ornithologist

2015-12-22, 05:12 PM

I have to disagree. The whole set of tiebreakers, and the delays in summoning the demigod priests, and now, the delay of summoning/consulting the clan elders, provides time for Roy, Belkar, and the rest of OOTs to act.

If the original vote hadn't ended in a tie, Roy would not have had the chance to confront HPoH, or recognize that HPoH was not Durkon.

If the demigod priests had not been delayed, Belkar wouldn't have made it back up the mountain. Not-Gontor wouldn't have been able to get to the Mechane. The rest of OOTS wouldn't have the opportunity (still pending) to discover that something was happening.

If Dvalin hadn't thrown it into another tie breaker, then the decision on ending the world WOULD have come down to a bunch of NPCs (the demigod priests) resolving the issue. Since the story isn't done, and un-making the world wouldn't be an Elan "happy ending" we all know what Dvalin's vote would hve to be. Instead, there is time for OOTS to act (and time for HPoH and Not-Gontor to act on plan B, and maybe on C, D, and E) while simultaneously imposing a deadline for those actions.

The short answer is that I loved the first tiebreaker vote, it gave Roy a fighting chance to finish it before the vote.

Now, on tiebreaker 2, the Order has to find and protect x clan leaders from x vampires, and their only means of transport to them was stolen by the enemy.also, they have no idea where they are, but the enemy does.

Oh and more more bit: Only one current Order member knows any of this, and he can't leave to let anyone else know.

Tell me, what good options does Roy have right now? I mean options where he personally can make a difference on the outcome now?

Keltest

2015-12-22, 05:33 PM

The short answer is that I loved the first tiebreaker vote, it gave Roy a fighting chance to finish it before the vote.

Now, on tiebreaker 2, the Order has to find and protect x clan leaders from x vampires, and their only means of transport to them was stolen by the enemy.also, they have no idea where they are, but the enemy does.

Oh and more more bit: Only one current Order member knows any of this, and he can't leave to let anyone else know.

Tell me, what good options does Roy have right now? I mean options where he personally can make a difference on the outcome now?

I think its a bit of a stretch to assume that Roy is unable to leave. Durkon is clearly bound there, but there is an argument to be made that Roy has no formal role in the vote and is therefore free to give up beating on Durkon and leave.

Kish

2015-12-22, 05:48 PM

The short answer is that I loved the first tiebreaker vote, it gave Roy a fighting chance to finish it before the vote.

Now, on tiebreaker 2, the Order has to find and protect x clan leaders from x vampires, and their only means of transport to them was stolen by the enemy.also, they have no idea where they are, but the enemy does.

Oh and more more bit: Only one current Order member knows any of this, and he can't leave to let anyone else know.

Tell me, what good options does Roy have right now? I mean options where he personally can make a difference on the outcome now?
The one he's going to take, of course.

What do you mean, you want more details? Why do you want me to spoil to plot of the current book for you? If I could do so, about a third of the way in, that--not, as you seem to believe, my being unable to do so--would indicate it was badly written.

(On an unrelated note I think you mean protect x clan leaders from y vampires.)

Malfarian

2015-12-22, 06:00 PM

In retrospect the godsmoot will make sense, the problem I think is that we're all expecting it to be a conclusion, when instead it's the start of the final chapter of the story. It's the "backstory" of the next quest.

The Giant has CONTINUED to surprise ALL of us, don't foolishly discount him yet.

If you don't care for the story, you can always stop reading. I don't understand you whiney tits.

Mal

EmperorSarda

2015-12-22, 06:22 PM

Ornithologist

2015-12-23, 05:42 AM

The one he's going to take, of course.

What do you mean, you want more details? Why do you want me to spoil to plot of the current book for you? If I could do so, about a third of the way in, that--not, as you seem to believe, my being unable to do so--would indicate it was badly written.

(On an unrelated note I think you mean protect x clan leaders from y vampires.)

I'm not making any claims about quality of writting, really just giving my opinion of tiebreaker #2. I'm saying that the tension / conflict of this scene (Will or won't the world be destroyed) is gone for me. The main vote and set up for the Roy/Durkon fight was in my top 3 sections of the comic.

One tiebreaker is a great twist. The second so soon feels repititive.

Now if there were a third one, that would be a hilarious overly long joke. (In a good way, I love overly long jokes.)

Finally; Yes, me and math are currently seeing other people. Math thinks I spend to much time at work. I still say I can sleep when I'm dead, or passed out from to many double shifts.

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 05:54 AM

All of the arguments I listed were present either in this thread or in one of the "complaint" threads that were started since ~1002.

It is a cheap way to heave critique on something that hasn't played out yet. Does a critic go to the concert, expecting Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, walks out after two parts and writes an angry letter to the concert hall? The famous part is also the fourth and last - the critic has to listen to all the other three parts first. He needs to see the entire composition before he can talk about his personal audience perception. Otherwise, it's just audience assumption: "Hey, I wanted to hear them singing, not the boring orchestra all the time. Why don't they sing here?"

The DStP thread of island orks and ninja politics was under heavy critique back then: everyone wanted Roy quickly rezzed. Finish Kubota off! Hurry, hurry, back to the plot, we're waisting time and panels! But that arc was needed, among other things, for Elan's and Vaarsuvius' character growth. We can say that in retrospect, not in advance.

I have yet to see critical people opening a thread to openly apologize to the Giant because they understood in hindsight why he told the story he did.

See, that's the problem if you tell a story with a web comic you update about once a week - it takes so much time until you reach certain points which you set up earlier.

While I agree with you that one shouldn't judge the story as a whole until it is finished, delaying any kind of judgment, criticism or even feedback until the very last panel is shown wouldn't be fitting, either, at least in my opinion.

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 06:10 AM

It's also a good example of lawful stupid. Of sticking to an oath no matter what.

Maybe that's basically what feels a bit off with the whole Godsmoot thing for me, on the side of the mortal participants.
If one or two or more of them are portrayed as "lawful stupid" dwarves that stick to a stupid oath even if it means they and their people die a horrible death with a horrible afterlife, fine.
But that no one acts is what I find a little bit unfitting, given the stakes at hand.

I would expect at least one high priest going "Screw that, screw my god, I want to live. Cancel Skype (R) spell right now."
Or at least have some them have more intense discussions, or at the very least inner struggles whether they should break up with their god.

Maybe that will come later, or maybe that is the price the author is willing to pay for the setup he wishes to have without stealing too much spotlight from his main characters.
I don't know, and maybe we will find out, maybe not.

I'm not saying the story is badly written, I just voice an opinion I had with the Godsmoot part of the current arc.

Actually, in summary I like this arc very much for an adventure story. The idea of taking a highest-stakes senario (world destruction alert) as a setup scene for the beginning of a story, instead of using it in the finals, is a kinda new and cool idea, and applaud Mr Burlew for coming up with it and I'm curious where it will go.
Also, I think most of the execution of that story so far has been pretty good, which is how most of OotS has been, naturally. Just because one detail seems a bit iffy for me doesn't mean I don't like it overall. Compare with the orchestra example someone had: I like the symphony, I like the current piece that is being played right now, I only feel one or two notes of one instrument were a bit off a few seconds ago...

Vinyadan

2015-12-23, 06:59 AM

The only thing I'd expect is that the other bodyguards would assault their clerics. I assume that even the evil clerics tried to get their guards as lawful as possible. But clerics kneeling before their gods are nothing strange. They are a selected few, after all.

I find the discussion about Dvalin very interesting. In my eyes he isn't being stupid, he simply is following a law he made in which he devolved some powers to the dwarven councils. After all, if the law says "the President shall follow the parliament's opinion according to XXX matters", then the President cannot act autonomously without breaking the law. Even if he were to decide, for example, that the capital city need sewers because thousands die each year because of bad hygiene, he still wouldn't be authorized to autonomously write and sign a law to do that. He would need the parliament to vote.
Of course, there are some differences. Dvalin only needs his word for the vote to be passed: he doesn't need the complex structure which gives power and authority to mortal politicians. So he is only bound by the law. Another question is whether he still is a king of the Dwarves, and whether the oath is only relevant for the (mortal) dwarf who bears the title, and not for any dwarf who has sworn: after all, the POTUS swears to execute his office, and he doesn't say how long, but everyone expects him to stop as long as his term ends (otherwise stuff would get problematic). The problem is: given that he was the first king, was there already a distinction between his person and the office of king?
I also find it interesting to see a relatively democratic god. Dvalin is giving his followers a choice: no other god has done the same. On one side, this looks like a really cool thing to do. On the other side, Dvalin isn't using his superior knowledge and experience as reasons to paternalistically coerce a path upon his followers; in a certain sense, it's as if he were weaselling out of his responsibilities as a god.

hroþila

2015-12-23, 08:13 AM

Vinyadan

2015-12-23, 08:28 AM

I don't see why the other bodyguards would turn against their own priests. Most of them aren't gloating undead monsters who have been playing them like fools for a while.

If Roy was the bodyguard of Real Durkon, High Priest of Thor, and Real Durkon voted Yea to destroy the world, Roy wouldn't have attempted to murder him.

Yes, but if I had kids and I knew that I could stop the world from being destroyed killing the priest I am supposed to protect, it would be hard to resist. It would be a kill or be killed situation, after all.

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 08:59 AM

Yes, but if I had kids and I knew that I could stop the world from being destroyed killing the priest I am supposed to protect, it would be hard to resist. It would be a kill or be killed situation, after all.

Yep. And that's what I would have thought at least one, if not more of all the mortals present could have done, talked about or at least thought of.
Sure, there was this very short talk between the priests of Freya and the sun god, and Wrecan's intervention, but it just didn't feel like enough action considering what's at stake.

Again, maybe we will see more, maybe it was a deliberate design decision in order not to steal spotlight from the main characters and to keep the focus on having the tense fight between Roy and Durkula.

Maybe Dvalin is delaying his vote not mainly because he has to ask the dwarven kings, but also because he has an agenda of his own he wishes to get time for?
Again we will see.

EmperorSarda

2015-12-23, 11:22 AM

I would expect at least one high priest going "Screw that, screw my god, I want to live. Cancel Skype (R) spell right now."
Or at least have some them have more intense discussions, or at the very least inner struggles whether they should break up with their god.

You want the story to examine some NPC's faith with their god because the priest might be uncomfortable with the god's answer?

I find the discussion about Dvalin very interesting. In my eyes he isn't being stupid, he simply is following a law he made in which he devolved some powers to the dwarven councils. After all, if the law says "the President shall follow the parliament's opinion according to XXX matters", then the President cannot act autonomously without breaking the law.

Except in this case Dvalin was more like governor of a state making that law/oath to abide by the state legislature on all things concerning that state. And now he is president and still abiding by that oath.

Mordar

2015-12-23, 11:41 AM

Maybe that's basically what feels a bit off with the whole Godsmoot thing for me, on the side of the mortal participants.
If one or two or more of them are portrayed as "lawful stupid" dwarves that stick to a stupid oath even if it means they and their people die a horrible death with a horrible afterlife, fine.
But that no one acts is what I find a little bit unfitting, given the stakes at hand.

I would expect at least one high priest going "Screw that, screw my god, I want to live. Cancel Skype (R) spell right now."
Or at least have some them have more intense discussions, or at the very least inner struggles whether they should break up with their god.

The only thing I'd expect is that the other bodyguards would assault their clerics. I assume that even the evil clerics tried to get their guards as lawful as possible. But clerics kneeling before their gods are nothing strange. They are a selected few, after all.

Yes, but if I had kids and I knew that I could stop the world from being destroyed killing the priest I am supposed to protect, it would be hard to resist. It would be a kill or be killed situation, after all.

I would suggest that you consider the following:

You know with 100% certainty that there is an afterlife;
You know with 100% certainty that there is a specific divinity to which you are pledged;
You know with 100% certainty that you are favored (greatly, in the case of the high priests!) by that divinity;

You likely have an immediate family that you believe will be granted access to the appropriate afterlife;
You likely will be reunited with them following death because families (of high priests) generally share common faith;
You likely believe that if the Snarl gets out, there will be no life and no after-life for anyone.

Given those 6 things, what percentage of high-Wisdom, high-faith individuals are likely to say "Screw this, I want 20 more (race-relative) years of mortal life at the risk of losing the forever-after that I believe to be so valuable I have devoted most of my other mortal years to securing"?

I grant that points 4 and 5 are less important for certain divinities/HPs, but those first three are pretty solid inducements.

As for the bodyguards, I think the first three applies to most/all of them, with diminishing returns for points 4-6.

- M

Jasdoif

2015-12-23, 11:43 AM

Yes, but if I had kids and I knew that I could stop the world from being destroyed killing the priest I am supposed to protect, it would be hard to resist. It would be a kill or be killed situation, after all.Sounds like you'd be a poor choice to send as a bodyguard to one of these events, then. I imagine high priests normally find bodyguards whose faith in their god/goddess, or at least to their high priest/priestess personally, is closer to "unswerving".

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 12:10 PM

You want the story to examine some NPC's faith with their god because the priest might be uncomfortable with the god's answer?
[...]

If I'm supposed to believe the fate of the fantasy world and all its inhabitants is on the line and that person is part of the decision making process AND if I'm supposed to immerse in that story and care about the outcome?
Then YES.

This is not some random answer a cleric gets from their god. This is something that is supposed to shock me, I assume. How am I supposed to be shocked if the characters in the story don't seem to care that much?

Take for example Durkon's death and transformation. This was brilliantly done in my opinion. I almost cried. We got a full page with Durkon crying as he was murdered, and we got his team terrified. Even Belkar was shaken by Durkon's death. Seeing Belkar amongst all characters care about that tragedy made it appear even more tragic to me, as the reader.

Now we have a situation where everyone in the Oots world might face a terrible fate - and in that light I personally feel there is too little reaction from the people directly and indirectly involved with the situation - at least right now at the moment and for my taste. Again, this is just a minor thing for me, and doesn't lessen the quality of the OotS for me by a significant margin anyway...

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 12:20 PM

I would suggest that you consider the following:

You know with 100% certainty that there is an afterlife;
You know with 100% certainty that there is a specific divinity to which you are pledged;
You know with 100% certainty that you are favored (greatly, in the case of the high priests!) by that divinity;

You likely have an immediate family that you believe will be granted access to the appropriate afterlife;
You likely will be reunited with them following death because families (of high priests) generally share common faith;
You likely believe that if the Snarl gets out, there will be no life and no after-life for anyone.
[...]

Are you?

I think you should at least question the 100% certainty that you are favored by your diety in the moment you hear that diety has no qualms about sending you to a horrible fate.......

Not that I require any of the priests or the bodyguards to actually go all-out and kill other priests, their own priest or themselves, for that matter. I just find the overall reaction of the priests and bodyguards to be a bit underwhelming so far.

Maybe now that they dismissed their Skype (R) spells, the priests of the OotS gods will have a discussion among themselves, without their more or less uncaring dieties, and discuss among mortals how to avoid the impending fate? We will have to wait and see, I guess.

Vinyadan

2015-12-23, 01:06 PM

Sounds like you'd be a poor choice to send as a bodyguard to one of these events, then. I imagine high priests normally find bodyguards whose faith in their god/goddess, or at least to their high priest/priestess personally, is closer to "unswerving".

Well, yes, I probably would be. I don't think I'd ever go so much out of my way looking for someone to protect, given that life makes you responsible for the well-being of enough people already. And I do suppose the priests are aware of the fact that they may end up voting about nasty things, and they try to get the right people for the job. The guards also likely trust their gods a lot.

But I think that the most important factor is that the vote is still going, and that they hope the situation to get right on its own.

Except in this case Dvalin was more like governor of a state making that law/oath to abide by the state legislature on all things concerning that state. And now he is president and still abiding by that oath.

O yes, right, because his decisions now also touch every other living being on the planet, not just the dwarves. I don't know if a governor can also be president; a medieval comparison would be the king of Bohemia being elected emperor - he would remain king of Bohemia, and also get authority over the whole empire. The problem with Dvalin is that there isn't a well-defined institutional framework for him to work with, otherwise I'm sure he'd be all over it :smallcool:

Peelee

2015-12-23, 01:19 PM

goodpeople25

2015-12-23, 01:36 PM

Are you?

I think you should at least question the 100% certainty that you are favored by your diety in the moment you hear that diety has no qualms about sending you to a horrible fate.......

Not that I require any of the priests or the bodyguards to actually go all-out and kill other priests, their own priest or themselves, for that matter. I just find the overall reaction of the priests and bodyguards to be a bit underwhelming so far.

Maybe now that they dismissed their Skype (R) spells, the priests of the OotS gods will have a discussion among themselves, without their more or less uncaring dieties, and discuss among mortals how to avoid the impending fate? We will have to wait and see, I guess.
Which deities have no qualms over sending some of their subjects to a horrific fate? I would think clerics let alone high priests wouldn't find going to the afterlife a horrible fate in this case not ideal maybe but not horiffic, and those who vote No are voting to give the mortals a chance, not letting the snarl unmake them. So i assume you mean the dwarfs going to Hel which only 6 demigods (so not even in the main parthenon) have voted with knowledge of, and the ones who voted Yes are two (most likely Evil) lords of giants who voting to damn the dwarves shouldn't be a surprise to anyone and Sigrun who's role as the valkyrie queen likely restricts her answer and 1 undecided Demigod who is actually deciding to consult with mortal representatives.

Mordar

2015-12-23, 01:37 PM

Are you?

I think you should at least question the 100% certainty that you are favored by your diety in the moment you hear that diety has no qualms about sending you to a horrible fate.......

Wait, what?

Those arguing for the world's destruction are the ones who will send all souls to their afterlives. The followers of a deity would, i imagine, believe they get a special place in that afterlife. Imean, it's not s good as being alive, but "horrible fate" makes me think you don't understated how their world works.

Only dwarves would get to claim that, and if they frame their vote in the context of savrificing for the greater good, then it's even harder to rebel.

As Peelee indicates, I do not believe any of the priests would view death as a horrible fate when I will receive my promised afterlife (whatever version that may be, it is the one that I as a high priest believe very much is what I want)...in fact, it is a reward to be appreciated when it comes. Now, sure, I might want more mortal life, but not nearly as much as I want eternal reward over oblivion via Snarl. And those that might be sweating mortals failing to fix the gate problem can be contented by the knowledge that there is a still a universal destruct button ready to be pushed if the gate breaks.

Have a look at Roy's mom and brother - they both have it way better than when alive...and they aren't particularly pious. The folks who want eternal battle get eternal battle, the folks that want peaceful green fields get peaceful green fields, the folks who want a endless buffet of halfling kidney pie get their endless buffet.

Not that I require any of the priests or the bodyguards to actually go all-out and kill other priests, their own priest or themselves, for that matter. I just find the overall reaction of the priests and bodyguards to be a bit underwhelming so far.

Maybe now that they dismissed their Skype (R) spells, the priests of the OotS gods will have a discussion among themselves, without their more or less uncaring dieties, and discuss among mortals how to avoid the impending fate? We will have to wait and see, I guess.

Now if you are most interested in the HPs talking about the mortal view of these events now, I get it...the "...I bring snacks..." line portrays a flippance about the subject matter that would be disconcerting...if it weren't so funny. And the comic needs some funny to keep true to its roots and entertainment value. I imagine some readers will complain about the diversion, but I agree that it would be interesting to see!

- M

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 03:06 PM

As Peelee indicates, I do not believe any of the priests would view death as a horrible fate when I will receive my promised afterlife (whatever version that may be, it is the one that I as a high priest believe very much is what I want)...in fact, it is a reward to be appreciated when it comes. Now, sure, I might want more mortal life, but not nearly as much as I want eternal reward over oblivion via Snarl. And those that might be sweating mortals failing to fix the gate problem can be contented by the knowledge that there is a still a universal destruct button ready to be pushed if the gate breaks.

Have a look at Roy's mom and brother - they both have it way better than when alive...and they aren't particularly pious. The folks who want eternal battle get eternal battle, the folks that want peaceful green fields get peaceful green fields, the folks who want a endless buffet of halfling kidney pie get their endless buffet.

1) They don't get their promised afterlife because they are sent to Hel/hell, at least that's how I understood it.

2) Even then, I believe we were told a couple discussions ago, by Mr Burlew himself I believe, that the characters in OotS are afraid/terrified of death in spite of a proven to exist afterlife and that we shoud not underestimate death in the OotS world because of the possibility of a "revolving door afterlife" via resurrection spells.
(might be wrong about that, though. Maybe someone with better memory of that discussion can confirm or deny)

Now if you are most interested in the HPs talking about the mortal view of these events now, I get it...the "...I bring snacks..." line portrays a flippance about the subject matter that would be disconcerting...if it weren't so funny. And the comic needs some funny to keep true to its roots and entertainment value. I imagine some readers will complain about the diversion, but I agree that it would be interesting to see!

- M

I think the notion that a lot of readers might not have liked a "diversion" like I described could have been a factor for not including it in a webcomic which has a limited scope (~1 page a week).

Vinyadan

2015-12-23, 03:21 PM

1) They don't get their promised afterlife because they are sent to Hel/hell, at least that's how I understood it.

Interestingly, I can't see a dwarf among the guards, and all clerics of yes-sayers look like non-dwarves to me. Another reason no one is bent on murdering or hara-kiri, I suppose.

Mordar

2015-12-23, 03:23 PM

1) They don't get their promised afterlife because they are sent to Hel/hell, at least that's how I understood it.

That's just the dwarves, isn't it? Sure, not an insignificant proportion of the population, but I think only one (maybe 2?) of the HPs are dwarves.

2) Even then, I believe we were told a couple discussions ago, by Mr Burlew himself I believe, that the characters in OotS are afraid/terrified of death in spite of a proven to exist afterlife and that we shoud not underestimate death in the OotS world because of the possibility of a "revolving door afterlife" via resurrection spells.
(might be wrong about that, though. Maybe someone with better memory of that discussion can confirm or deny)

Being afraid of death is certainly still a factor...I'm not suggesting that the HPs would be happy with that part of the outcome...but the fear of oblivion and the mollification of knowing the afterlife will be maintained would outweigh the fear of death in this particular subgroup, I think.

I think the notion that a lot of readers might not have liked a "diversion" like I described could have been a factor for not including it in a webcomic which has a limited scope.

I would probably agree.

- M

Mightymosy

2015-12-23, 04:05 PM

Interestingly, I can't see a dwarf among the guards, and all clerics of yes-sayers look like non-dwarves to me. Another reason no one is bent on murdering or hara-kiri, I suppose.

Ah, I see. So for most of the priests voting to destroy the OotS world means they and their people get their respective afterlives now, with exclusion of all dwarves who will all be sent to hell?

Ok, so that would explain why some priests are not that upset. I guess. Shouldn't there be outrage from the few dwarves then?
The last demigod is a dwarf-only god, isn't he?

EDIT: But wait! If the majority of people affected are not dwarves and therefore not getting sent to Hel, then what's the point of Hel's plan?
Now I'm confused again.

Vinyadan

2015-12-23, 04:19 PM

EDIT: But wait! If the majority of people affected are not dwarves and therefore not getting sent to Hel, then what's the point of Hel's plan?
Now I'm confused again.

I guess she just wants to be the fattest of them all, not to weigh more than all the others put together.

King of Nowhere

2015-12-23, 06:14 PM

The Godsmoot is a meeting that includes gods of all alignments, and its rules are designed in a way that none of them complain. This is a humongous task to accomplish, specially considering this requires rules that acquiesce both Good and Evil deities, as well as Chaotic deities, which tend to have a disregard for rules altogether.

So yeah, it makes sense that the rules of the Godsmoot are as minimal and neutral as possible, and as such it ends up being a rather shoddy set of rules.

This. The rules are there to ensure that the gods would not have reasons to lash out at each other, thus creating another snarl. therefore the rules are such that they intend to minimize conflict among gods and suppress it if it should happen. they are not there to guarantee any fairness or justice or other nonsense that would only interest the good gods.

As for Dvalin accepting the "yes" vote of a dominated council, it could go either way. it is possible he may notice the domination and call the vote null. it is possible he may not notice the domination but decide that for the first time in one thousand years he feels he must disobey the council, and do so. Or, he could put honor before reason, and vote yes. Who knows, maybe the oots will go on a prolonged quest to prevent the elders from being dominated, only to discover at the end that dvalin would have voted "no" anyway.

As for hel gloating, yes, totally correct. spilling the beans prematurely would only antagonize people who had no particular reason to oppose her directly. and it may make the plan fail. if nothing else, roy would never have attacked durkula if hel had faked a reasonable excuse to vote yes, so hel already risked losing the vote for it.
So what? Can't a villain prematurely gloat from time to time?

orrion

2015-12-23, 06:55 PM

Ah, I see. So for most of the priests voting to destroy the OotS world means they and their people get their respective afterlives now, with exclusion of all dwarves who will all be sent to hell?

Ok, so that would explain why some priests are not that upset. I guess. Shouldn't there be outrage from the few dwarves then?
The last demigod is a dwarf-only god, isn't he?

EDIT: But wait! If the majority of people affected are not dwarves and therefore not getting sent to Hel, then what's the point of Hel's plan?
Now I'm confused again.

The rest of the people are divided up between the other gods, whereas Hel would get every single dwarf.

Apparently, Hel getting every single dwarf is enough to skew everything to her favor in terms of power.

Bobb

2015-12-23, 07:20 PM

To be fair, obeying the decision reached by an official vote of Dwarven leadership even if it screws over Dwarf-kind is Dwarfish as hell.

I personally hate watching that go down so we'll see how it goes I guess.

Lord

2015-12-23, 07:24 PM

I may have similar feelings like you about the godsmoot thing, but I have no problem with the way Hel is portrayed. If you read classic greek myths, a lot of that stuff is gods being like that. Even the older ones act like irresponsible pubescent teenagers. Most of the time, if I remember correctly. I think taking some basic human feelings and tendencies to go about things to extremes and showing what happens might have been the premise for a lot of the myths in the first place....

I stand corrected.

I think I'm just impatient to see whats happening with Xykon and Redcloak.

Cizak

2015-12-23, 09:34 PM

EDIT: But wait! If the majority of people affected are not dwarves and therefore not getting sent to Hel, then what's the point of Hel's plan?
Now I'm confused again.

"So by all means, parcel out the spirits of the humans and other races amongst the seventeen of you while I welcome ten million dwarves or more. Such an influx of resources could well render me more powerful than Grandfather Odin himself, if saying so wouldn't be too immodest." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1000.html)
And ten million are enough (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437655-Why-are-10-million-dwarf-souls-even-important/page2&p=19745902#post19745902).

Nightcanon

2015-12-24, 07:06 AM

(snip)

I find the discussion about Dvalin very interesting. In my eyes he isn't being stupid, he simply is following a law he made in which he devolved some powers to the dwarven councils. (snip)
The other thing is that if Dvalin is in some way the divine embodiment of due democratic process, then that, rather than the good of the world, may well be his prime directive: the outcome is of far less importance than the nature of the decision-making process.

Mightymosy

2015-12-24, 09:11 AM

The other thing is that if Dvalin is in some way the divine embodiment of due democratic process, then that, rather than the good of the world, may well be his prime directive: the outcome is of far less importance than the nature of the decision-making process.

Yeah, you know we have a saying that fits this kind of thinking:

Operation successful - patient dead.

Don't know how well it works in english translation, but oh well.

Dr.Zero

2015-12-24, 09:51 AM

Honestly I don't know how to state properly my feelings about the Godsmoot.

But this arc isn't intriguing me or making me wish to know more.

I'm all like: "Ok, when will this Godsmoot thing be over? Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?"

[...]

I don't know: maybe [...]

Ok, after some days thinking about it, asking to myself: "Why I don't like it?", I think I found a way to rationalize my feelings.

Before to go on, I want to say that these feelings surely are exacerbated by the fact that we are reading a webcomic, page by page, with the time spent between an update and the next one thinking about the page, the plot and everything. If I'd read it all together, probably I'd say: "Well here the plot is a little weak, but ok, who cares?"

Ok, now I'm going to talk about the Godsmoot, like I'd tell it to a friend, if this was a movie.
The "imaginary friend" expresses all the doubt which floated in my mind.
There is a LOT of fridge logic here, for the reasons I expressed above.
Don't read this as a hatred fuelled post, but with some irony.
And I hope my bad english didn't hinder me too much in expressing my feelings.

Me:"... Then the Gods feel the need to have this big reunion, to decide if they want to destroy the world immediately or wait a little more. And they gather their high priests for this reunion..."

Friend: "Wait, why don't they meet face to face?"

Me: "No idea, but it could be a rule between them."

F: "Well, it's quite convenient, since if they met face to face, the hero couldn't do anything about their decision..."

Me: "Yeah, ok, anyway this bunch of High Priests, like ten or so, meet each other in this secret place..."

F: "Hey, but if they have so many high priests, couldn't they send them to secure the last gate and rebuild the other ones?"

Me: "Well, this really was lampshaded, but anyway soon we will discover that some of the Gods are fine with destroying the world."

F: "Ok. Well they are just lucky that the priest of Thor and Loki don't kick each other asses on sight!"

Me: "No, you see, there is a rule to play fair: no one can attack a member of another group. Pay attention to this detail, because it will become important.
In the meantime the bad guy, the dwarf Durkula I said you about, vampirizes the clerics of Stone."

F: "Hey, wait a moment! What about the "let's play fair" rule?"

Me: "Well, they were not part of the meeting, since they are kinda of atheist clerics. So they were free targets, no
protection for them. And they cannot even vote, since they have not a god."

F: "But why were they there then?"

Me: "To build the cathedral where the meeting was going to happen."

F: "And why to work for a bunch of people who don't care about you and that you don't worship anyway, for a meeting to which you cannot partecipate anyway?"

Me: "... Well, if you put it this way... No idea, altruism, I guess. Or some other rule which binds them to work for free... Or they hoped that working enough for free, they could get a promotion and being invited at the next meeting."

F: "And then, if they have no God who can talk to them, how they know about this secrete meeting?"

Me: "Well.... Geez, enough with all the "gotcha" questions! They get the information from an atheistic, but dogmatic avatar of a weregod, who then doesn't care if they are all vamped! I don't know, ok?"

F: "Ok, go on. The bad guy vampirizes these B-class clerics, and?"

Me: "And in the meantime the voting starts. The gods who want to save the world are ahead of 1 vote..."

F: "Figured. And this Durkula appears to say: "Ehi, you forgot about me.", right?"

Me: "Right."

F: "Because they don't care about voting order..."

Me: "I guess they don't. Or maybe he was the last one anyway, since his Goddess is the weakest one."

F: "Ok, of course he votes to destroy the world, and they now are even, go on."

Me: "So a lot of things happen here. First, his goddess explains her plan which will bring her to dominate the next
world, when the gods will build it."

F: "Yeah, dear old evil gloating. It's a shame that as a Goddess I guess she had not a mustache to twirl."

Me: "Second, the vote needs a tiebreaker, based on the votes of the demigods, who were at the moment left out of the cathedral. Third, the hero, Roy, realizes that detail in the rules I pointed to you before: no one can attack a member of another group, but he, being a bodyguard, can attack the member of his group, Durkula. For another loophole, if he manages to destroy or force Durkula to run away before the voting ends, his vote will be nullified."

F: "I see: procedures as complex as the plot demands. Anyway a pure human warrior against a vampire cleric of the same level? Good luck!"

Me: "Well, indeed he had highs and lows during the fight, anyway, when he was almost a goner, he realizes Durkula is not really his friend anymore, but something evil, so he unleashes all his fury, activating his magic sword, which does a wallop to Durkula and heal himself. And Durkula is forced to use an antilife shell so that Roy cannot reach him anymore".

F: "Why didn't he do that from the start?"

Me: "He wanted to kill Roy to be sure that he cannot interfere with plan B, in the case of plan A failing epically."

F: "Which of course it does, doesn't it?"

Me: "It does fail, indeed. One of the demigods who pledged himself to Hel, changes his mind, and votes to save the world, so they are even again, 3 vs 3, with a last demigod who has still to vote."

F: "Why in these cases the votes are never 4-2, so that the last one does not matter? Go on."

Me: "But this one cannot vote at the moment, because he swore an oath to let the dwarf council to decide how he must vote, or something like that."

F: "Come on, you've got to be kidding me. The tiebreaker needs a tiebreaker?"

Me: "Eh, this too is lampshaded. Roy said the exact same thing."

F: "And of course, this one had to be the last again, like Durkula. Voting order as the plot demands, too. What happens next?"

(We will know in the next episode)

Oh, and between all this, I discovered that I like Roy mostly as the "only sane man" when there are the others to cover the role of the foil. This could be another reason I am not crazy about these last pages.

Now, seriously, I want to repeat it: my problem is clearly exacerbated by the fact that I am not patient enough to wait to read a bunch of pages together and instead I read them one by one. If it was a book, I'd not have so much time to over analize and a lot of the fridge logic would not come in my mind.

Excuse me for the text wall.

EmperorSarda

2015-12-24, 11:09 AM

Friend: "Wait, why don't they meet face to face?"

Me: "No idea, but it could be a rule between them."

Well no wonder you don't like the comic's pacing. You aren't paying attention. The gods don't dare meet in person because of the potential to cause more snarls. Because of what happened when they all argued together, creating the first world.

F: "Hey, but if they have so many high priests, couldn't they send them to secure the last gate and rebuild the other ones?"

Me: "Well, this really was lampshaded, but anyway soon we will discover that some of the Gods are fine with destroying the world."

You are also ignoring that the gods had this same vote 50 years back when the Soon and his party dealt with the gates. It's not a new thing.

F: "But why were they there then?"

Me: "To build the cathedral where the meeting was going to happen."

F: "And why to work for a bunch of people who don't care about you and that you don't worship anyway, for a meeting to which you cannot partecipate anyway?"

And also a place to meet on neutral ground. A place where a priest of anyone god does not have an advantage over another.

Me: "... Well, if you put it this way... No idea, altruism, I guess. Or some other rule which binds them to work for free... Or they hoped that working enough for free, they could get a promotion and being invited at the next meeting."

You assume they are working for free. That they are not being paid.

F: "And then, if they have no God who can talk to them, how they know about this secrete meeting?" Maybe because some of the main high priests contacted them for their services. This isn't the first Godsmoot after all.

Me: "I guess they don't. Or maybe he was the last one anyway, since his Goddess is the weakest one."
Or she never sends a High Priest so her vote was unexpected. You're not paying attention.

And Durkula is forced to use an antilife shell so that Roy cannot reach him anymore".[/I]

F: "Why didn't he do that from the start?"

Me: "He wanted to kill Roy to be sure that he cannot interfere with plan B, in the case of plan A failing epically."

And for personal reasons after all. He is essentially the Anti-Durkon.

Now, seriously, I want to repeat it: my problem is clearly exacerbated by the fact that I am not patient enough to wait to read a bunch of pages together and instead I read them one by one. If it was a book, I'd not have so much time to over analize and a lot of the fridge logic would not come in my mind.

So your problem is that you have too much time on your hands rather than anything about the content of the book.

So how about this as a suggestion? Stop visiting giantitp.com for 6 months. Then come back and read nearly 24 strips that you have not seen before?

Doug Lampert

2015-12-24, 11:22 AM

Ok, after some days thinking about it, asking to myself: "Why I don't like it?", I think I found a way to rationalize my feelings.

Before to go on, I want to say that these feelings surely are exacerbated by the fact that we are reading a webcomic, page by page, with the time spent between an update and the next one thinking about the page, the plot and everything. If I'd read it all together, probably I'd say: "Well here the plot is a little weak, but ok, who cares?"

Ok, now I'm going to talk about the Godsmoot, like I'd tell it to a friend, if this was a movie.
The "imaginary friend" expresses all the doubt which floated in my mind.
There is a LOT of fridge logic here, for the reasons I expressed above.
Don't read this as a hatred fuelled post, but with some irony.
And I hope my bad english didn't hinder me too much in expressing my feelings.

Me:"... Then the Gods feel the need to have this big reunion, to decide if they want to destroy the world immediately or wait a little more. And they gather their high priests for this reunion..."

Friend: "Wait, why don't they meet face to face?"

Because last time the gods got together and argued face to face they destroyed the world and one whole pantheon without actually meaning to.

Maybe repeating that would be suboptimal.

Me: "No idea, but it could be a rule between them."

F: "Well, it's quite convenient, since if they met face to face, the hero couldn't do anything about their decision..."

Me: "Yeah, ok, anyway this bunch of High Priests, like ten or so, meet each other in this secret place..."

F: "Hey, but if they have so many high priests, couldn't they send them to secure the last gate and rebuild the other ones?"

Yep, they could re-implement the currently failed solution RATHER than discussing things. Oh, wait, deciding to do that would take a meeting of some sort, and since the gods don't meet in person making that decision would require that their representatives meet somewhere....

What was it you were objecting to again?

Me: "Well, this really was lampshaded, but anyway soon we will discover that some of the Gods are fine with destroying the world."

F: "Ok. Well they are just lucky that the priest of Thor and Loki don't kick each other asses on sight!"

Me: "No, you see, there is a rule to play fair: no one can attack a member of another group. Pay attention to this detail, because it will become important.
In the meantime the bad guy, the dwarf Durkula I said you about, vampirizes the clerics of Stone."

F: "Hey, wait a moment! What about the "let's play fair" rule?"

Me: "Well, they were not part of the meeting, since they are kinda of atheist clerics. So they were free targets, no
protection for them. And they cannot even vote, since they have not a god."

F: "But why were they there then?"

Me: "To build the cathedral where the meeting was going to happen."

F: "And why to work for a bunch of people who don't care about you and that you don't worship anyway, for a meeting to which you cannot partecipate anyway?"

Me: "... Well, if you put it this way... No idea, altruism, I guess. Or some other rule which binds them to work for free... Or they hoped that working enough for free, they could get a promotion and being invited at the next meeting."

Yep, refusing to participate in meetings between the gods who govern and can destroy your world at any time just because you don't think they respect you enough couldn't possibly have any negative consequences. So for such people to participate actively requires a prolonged explanation despite it's total irrelevance to Our Heroes and their quest.

F: "And then, if they have no God who can talk to them, how they know about this secrete meeting?"

Um, what in the world makes you think the gods can't talk to a non-worshiper if they want to? Or their various high priests. Geez, that question is just insanely stupid. Seriously, it is.

Me: "Well.... Geez, enough with all the "gotcha" questions! They get the information from an atheistic, but dogmatic avatar of a weregod, who then doesn't care if they are all vamped! I don't know, ok?"

F: "Ok, go on. The bad guy vampirizes these B-class clerics, and?"

Me: "And in the meantime the voting starts. The gods who want to save the world are ahead of 1 vote..."

F: "Figured. And this Durkula appears to say: "Ehi, you forgot about me.", right?"

Me: "Right."

F: "Because they don't care about voting order..."

Me: "I guess they don't. Or maybe he was the last one anyway, since his Goddess is the weakest one."

F: "Ok, of course he votes to destroy the world, and they now are even, go on."

Me: "So a lot of things happen here. First, his goddess explains her plan which will bring her to dominate the next
world, when the gods will build it."

F: "Yeah, dear old evil gloating. It's a shame that as a Goddess I guess she had not a mustache to twirl."

Me: "Second, the vote needs a tiebreaker, based on the votes of the demigods, who were at the moment left out of the cathedral. Third, the hero, Roy, realizes that detail in the rules I pointed to you before: no one can attack a member of another group, but he, being a bodyguard, can attack the member of his group, Durkula. For another loophole, if he manages to destroy or force Durkula to run away before the voting ends, his vote will be nullified."

F: "I see: procedures as complex as the plot demands. Anyway a pure human warrior against a vampire cleric of the same level? Good luck!"

I guess you're not reading the same comic as the rest of us, cause in the OotS world one of the major themes is that fighters aren't actually useless compared to other characters. And yeah, this only works because the casters are horribly unoptimized, but you know what, if you build an actual for play cleric, and THEN vampirize him, you'll find that the result is actually quite feeble for its CR, because he'll have already taken feats that vampire gives as a bonus (completely wasted feats in core, you don't get to replace or retrain in core D&D). He'll have put a bunch of points and one of his best magic items into Con (completely wasted when he becomes a vampire). He might well have dumped Charisma (as in fact Durkon did), in which case his vampiric powers will have pitiful saves,...

I could keep going, but you're objections are largely nonsensical in comic, and in actual play with badly optimized casters, and plenty of actual games have badly optimized caster.

Me: "Well, indeed he had highs and lows during the fight, anyway, when he was almost a goner, he realizes Durkula is not really his friend anymore, but something evil, so he unleashes all his fury, activating his magic sword, which does a wallop to Durkula and heal himself. And Durkula is forced to use an antilife shell so that Roy cannot reach him anymore".

F: "Why didn't he do that from the start?"

Me: "He wanted to kill Roy to be sure that he cannot interfere with plan B, in the case of plan A failing epically."

F: "Which of course it does, doesn't it?"

Me: "It does fail, indeed. One of the demigods who pledged himself to Hel, changes his mind, and votes to save the world, so they are even again, 3 vs 3, with a last demigod who has still to vote."

F: "Why in these cases the votes are never 4-2, so that the last one does not matter? Go on."

Me: "But this one cannot vote at the moment, because he swore an oath to let the dwarf council to decide how he must vote, or something like that."

F: "Come on, you've got to be kidding me. The tiebreaker needs a tiebreaker?"

Me: "Eh, this too is lampshaded. Roy said the exact same thing."

F: "And of course, this one had to be the last again, like Durkula. Voting order as the plot demands, too. What happens next?"

SERIOUSLY!!! That's one of your complaints?! Really?

WHAT ORDER WOULD YOU HAVE THEM VOTE IN?

I mean, you're gonna have the guy who needs DAYS to cast his vote go FIRST and let everyone else wait for him?!

I'm boggled that you even think this is a question or a matter of plot trumping some sort of imaginary alternate procedure.

If they had a rigid voting order, something no actual voting group I know of does, then the first time he EVER voted on anything they'd have set his vote last.

(We will know in the next episode)

Oh, and between all this, I discovered that I like Roy mostly as the "only sane man" when there are the others to cover the role of the foil. This could be another reason I am not crazy about these last pages.

Now, seriously, I want to repeat it: my problem is clearly exacerbated by the fact that I am not patient enough to wait to read a bunch of pages together and instead I read them one by one. If it was a book, I'd not have so much time to over analize and a lot of the fridge logic would not come in my mind.

Excuse me for the text wall.

Except your "fridge logic" should be answered by a few seconds thought, NONE of your objections require any additional information. Several are the way they'd be if anyone involved in any way were even vaguely sane, which means your "objection" is that not all of the characters are totally freeking nuts!

Why don't they meet in person? Really? How could that end badly.

Why don't they have a rigidly set voting order in which the goddess who never votes goes early? (Really? why would they? Twice why would they, why have the rigid order and why have Hel anywhere but last since she's not gonna vote anyway so waiting for her vote is a pointless waste of time anytime you don't need to record every vote to reach a decision.)

Why don't they have a rigidly set voting order in which the guy who takes DAYS to vote goes early? (What?! I'm still boggled that you think this objection is "fridge logic" rather than "fridge insane stupidity".

Seriously, THINK about your objections. Most evaporate like the morning dew if you apply a bit of actual thought.

Dr.Zero

2015-12-24, 12:29 PM

Why don't they meet in person? Really? How could that end badly.

I reply separately to this, not to nitpick, but because it is so representative of everything else you said.
If the worlds ends, they must meet face to face anyway to rebuild it.
Not.a.darn.difference. in how badly a meeting between the gods could end.

Why don't they have a rigidly set voting order in which the goddess who never votes goes early? (Really? why would they? Twice why would they, why have the rigid order and why have Hel anywhere but last since she's not gonna vote anyway so waiting for her vote is a pointless waste of time anytime you don't need to record every vote to reach a decision.)

Why don't they have a rigidly set voting order in which the guy who takes DAYS to vote goes early? (What?! I'm still boggled that you think this objection is "fridge logic" rather than "fridge insane stupidity".

Seriously, THINK about your objections. Most evaporate like the morning dew if you apply a bit of actual thought.

Ok, I tried to be ironic. Not working.

Thus, seriously.
The whole point in my "fridge insane stupidity" is not to say that what happened is impossible by the law of physics of the comic, because I never said that, is that everything listed (and more) requires an assumption ad hoc or a quite convenient coincidence.

Like your "they don't meet face to face because the meeting would end badly" (even if they must do it anyway some time later).

Like the order or not order in voting.

Like the last one to vote must be a lawful silly.

Like the clerics of Stone are there because they must obey to the gods anyway (dear me, why they don't pick a god then, if they know they exist, they communicate with them and must obey them anyway? Because then they would not be targettable by Durkula). Because of course you realize that, plot convenience aside, there is not a single reason this meeting could not happen in a forest, in a stone circle, in whatever church, on a peak of a mountain, or in whatever place else, without needing any building and without needing any atheistic cleric, right?

And so on.

One or two assumptions ad hoc, lucky or unlucky coincidences, here and there, introduced well far away from each other, to serve the plot, are ok.
A bunch together make me roll the eyes. Break my suspension of disbelief (yeah, that exists even in a dnd based comic).

This is the bad side of it.

The good side is that, even with the rolling eyes in this arc, there are almost another 1000 pages that I still can appreciate, and with some luck there will be more coming, as soon as this godsmoot is over.

Kish

2015-12-24, 12:47 PM

As for "why don't all the high priests smack down Xykon"--that may be addressed in the comic, but for now, I'll just say that I think in addition to being way too wedded to the "tier uber alles" concept, people are way too wedded to the concept that the Forgotten Realms is a low-powered world and a world where the power level hasn't been explicitly defined should be assumed to have hundreds of level 50+ characters running around.

Clearly if eighteen epic-level priests who functioned like a well-oiled machine set out to destroy Xykon they would succeed. What if they top out at level 14-15 instead and one Meteor Swarm kills most of them? What if Fenris' priest insists on using AoEs with friendly fire and catching as many people as possible in their radius without regard for whether Odin's priest is supposedly an "ally" now, while Balder's priest demonstrates a lack of aptitude for combat, Mani's priest tries to contribute as little to the battle as possible, Njord's priest uses Word of Recall as soon as the group doesn't function like a well-oiled machine because no way am I dying for you losers' incompetence, and Loki's priest suddenly outright changes sides when the battle starts because it turns out Loki has some kind of "private understanding" with the Dark One?

Like your "they don't meet face to face because the meeting would end badly" (even if they must do it anyway some time later).
Not just the person you're addressing, but Rich (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19670753&postcount=23) addressed this.

I might add that "even if they must do it anyway some time later" presupposes that the world will be destroyed; if you're doing that there's really no need for a vote, is there?

And the High Priest of Hel didn't need the ushers to be specifically non-theistic clerics. He just needed the presence of some form of servant in the building who he could get alone, who wasn't subject to protection which, he went in knowing, extended only to the representatives and their bodyguards. Yes, Hel's backup plan could theoretically have foundered there had there been no servant who was willing to "listen to a private word" from a charismatic and deceptive priest, as it could have if the starmetal turned out to instantly obliterate vampires rather than healing Roy, but that doesn't make it an unlikely plan, just a not-guaranteed one. Despite what some forum optimizers claim, you don't generally have guaranteed success.

Doug Lampert

2015-12-24, 06:04 PM

Like your "they don't meet face to face because the meeting would end badly" (even if they must do it anyway some time later).

Like the order or not order in voting.

Like the last one to vote must be a lawful silly.

Like the clerics of Stone are there because they must obey to the gods anyway (dear me, why they don't pick a god then, if they know they exist, they communicate with them and must obey them anyway? Because then they would not be targettable by Durkula). Because of course you realize that, plot convenience aside, there is not a single reason this meeting could not happen in a forest, in a stone circle, in whatever church, on a peak of a mountain, or in whatever place else, without needing any building and without needing any atheistic cleric, right?

And so on.

One or two assumptions ad hoc, lucky or unlucky coincidences, here and there, introduced well far away from each other, to serve the plot, are ok.
A bunch together make me roll the eyes. Break my suspension of disbelief (yeah, that exists even in a dnd based comic).

This is the bad side of it.

The good side is that, even with the rolling eyes in this arc, there are almost another 1000 pages that I still can appreciate, and with some luck there will be more coming, as soon as this godsmoot is over.

As Kish points out, they need only meet face to face anyway if you presuppose the result. Yet we know they have these things quite often (many people there have been to multiple such meetings, and they are known to have had one 50 years ago also). They've voted on this VERY ISSUE before without needing a face to face, so NO, we DON'T know that they'll need a face to face anyway.

They're perfectly capable of doing one of these and not destroying the world. Doing it many times even.

"Oh no, at some nebulous point in the future I may need to jump from a great height without a parachute, therefore I shall make such a jump today for no good reason." Sane people don't think that way, they avoid easily avoidable risks, a face to face prior to building a new world is an easily avoidable risk. They have a procedure to avoid it.

For some reason you find people acting sanely contrived.

That the last one to vote is the lawful silly one is even more clearly the only sane way to organize things, that ANYONE is lawful silly might be a stretch, but that the lawful silly one votes last makes 100% perfect sense and ANY OTHER ALTERNATIVE would be the absurd contrivance.

Imagine how you'd feel if they started the demigod vote and said, "Oh, we absolutely MUST vote in order, and that order says that mister wait three days goes first, so let's put the meeting on hold even though the other six demigod representatives might easily settle this without need for his vote at all."

That somehow strikes you as LESS contrived?!?! I'm really baffled by this claim, but I simply can't see how else to read your posts.

Seriously, I can see a problem with contrivances piling on, but the things you are complaining about are not contrivances AT ALL, in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM!

The alternatives you seem to want, THOSE would be contrivances, and particularly cumbersome ones to present in a comic at that.

For contrivances to "pile on" there need to be some actual contrivances, and the possible contrivances in this story line don't even make your list! You don't complain about the existence of a lawful stupid demigod (not that this should be at all surprising given what we've seen of OotS dwarves), instead you complain about his spot in the voting order, please explain to me in what possible sane universe he wouldn't have his vote placed as late in the process as possible?