No matter how many people he/she kills, the people still loves him/her

[Dewani90]

This was a take-that to the readers once, by referring to Thog, that no matter how many times he has killed, people still like him, now let’s see, we know a lot of characters who had killed at some point, some have the highest body count ever like V, or Belkar, how tall do you think that pile of goblins is? (and you can’t give “no exp” even if the mook is way below your level you still get a minimum of EXP), now then, let’s go with villains and others we still like no matter if they kill hundreds… but first…

Can you tell me the name of any character at Cliffport not related to the order or the linear guild?, how about Azure city from the ones that weren’t related or had any interaction with the order or Xykon forces, how about the empire of blood, the mechane, dwarven lands, Gobbotopia, gnome city, the desert, etc…

We got desensitized at the fact of people being killed in this comic unless they a main character, being for one, nameless and easy to switch and two, stick figures with no actual memorable features, we couldn’t care less if the oracle died and stayed dead because he is an ass, we didn’t mind the order of the scribble being killed one by one, heck, some of us were probably cheering for Xykon to win against them, specially because the elven maiden got everyone sick and that’s hardly sporting, the draketooths being killed and staying dead?, who cares?, maybe only V, but that’s because of the poor strangers they seduced.

So yeah, we kinda don’t care for how many people they kill (as most of the dead are named NPC 1, NPC2, NPC3, repeat ad nauseam), we will still love them as characters, do tell, any character you like?, I like Xykon because he reminds me of a certain overlord, and Sabine, because even if it’s twisted beyond recognition, she still demonstrated that a demon can love.

[hamishspence]

(and you can’t give “no exp” even if the mook is way below your level you still get a minimum of EXP)

Not in 3e. More than 8 levels of difference between player and encounter = no XP from encounter.

[martianmister]

Is there a question?

[hamishspence]

Yes, there is a question in the OP's post - but it's half-way through and is phrased as if it were rhetorical:


Can you tell me the name of any character at Cliffport not related to the order or the linear guild?, how about Azure city from the ones that weren’t related or had any interaction with the order or Xykon forces, how about the empire of blood, the mechane, dwarven lands, Gobbotopia, gnome city, the desert, etc…

[martianmister]

Well, this comic is called Order of the Stick, it's very hard to find characters that never interacted with Order of the Stick, or their antagonists.

[hroþila]

I don't think that quote about people finding Thog lovable was literally about loving him as a character. The author, after all, is on record saying that he loves writing Thog. In my opinion, it was more about some people trying to find excuses for Thog's behaviour just because they liked him as a character, i.e. about rationalizing the character's flaws or not acknowledging them. In Thog's case that usually came as "he's not smart enough to be Evil, this is just Nale's influence". For other characters, the rationalizations are different and often more bewildering.

[Mike Havran]

I don't think that quote about people finding Thog lovable was literally about loving him as a character. The author, after all, is on record saying that he loves writing Thog. In my opinion, it was more about some people trying to find excuses for Thog's behaviour just because they liked him as a character, i.e. about rationalizing the character's flaws or not acknowledging them. In Thog's case that usually came as "he's not smart enough to be Evil, this is just Nale's influence". For other characters, the rationalizations are different and often more bewildering.Given that the statement was made by Tarquin, it was equally aimed at his fans, not only Thog's.


Not in 3e. More than 8 levels of difference between player and encounter = no XP from encounter.Shouldn't Belkar's encounter there be something like "hobgoblin troop" with higher CR, rather than XY encounters with a 1HD hobgoblin for 0 XP each?


Well, this comic is called Order of the Stick, it's very hard to find characters that never interacted with Order of the Stick, or their antagonists. Frudu Biggens and Samwose. I'm really rooting for them.

[hamishspence]

While large numbers of lower CR creatures can be turned into a high CR encounter, 8 is the maximum level difference accounted for in the XP chart.

[zinycor]

Personally I love villains and anti-heroes so that sort of characters killing unnamed NPCs doesn't worry me at all.

[KorvinStarmast]

Word Salad
1. Who is this "we" that you are referring to?
2. Can you please use full stops/periods at the ends of sentences and not commas. Your post is barely coherent, even though I think you have a point to make in there somewhere.
3. Killing is a part of the game ... so it's part of the strip. Also, during the battle for Azure City, killing was going to be a huge part of the story because it's a war. War has a lot of killing in it, because it's war.

As to your title, you are using people interchangeably to refer to in comic and out of comic (fans of OoTS?) which adds further confusion.

[Hardcore]

These are, btw, fictive killings, by fictitious characters, of stick figures.

[Peelee]

So yeah, we kinda don’t care for how many people they kill
How often does the Order kill when they're not being threatened or attacked? And who in the Order does such killings? Lastly, have those people expressed any remorse over their actions at some point and made attempts to change?

[martianmister]

How often does the Order kill when they're not being threatened or attacked?

Countless times.


And who in the Order does such killings?

Belkar Bitterleaf.


Lastly, have those people expressed any remorse over their actions at some point and made attempts to change?

I don't think so.

[Quartz]

Not in 3e. More than 8 levels of difference between player and encounter = no XP from encounter.

I presume you're referring to Belkar and Azure City here? He surely got XP for that encounter. The individual goblins and hobgoblins were below his XP threshold, but the encounter as a whole was threatening - look how beaten-up he was at the end.

And he got RP XP for declaring himself a Sexy Shoe-less God of War!

[hamishspence]

I presume you're referring to Belkar and Azure City here? He surely got XP for that encounter. The individual goblins and hobgoblins were below his XP threshold, but the encounter as a whole was threatening - look how beaten-up he was at the end.

Haley and Durkon, at least, seemed to think that he wouldn't get XP:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html

[Benjamin Vazque]

It's true, I'll grant, that a lot of readers are deplorably uncaring about the deaths of unnamed characters - a million is a statistic and all that.

I would point out, however, that the comic actually makes an active effort to call that out from time to time. Sometimes it's directly, as with O-Chul's conversation with Hailey before the battle of Azure City, or Belkar being reminded (almost certainly a futile exercise) that having green skin and fangs isn't enough reason to kill something while descending into the Dungeon of Dorukan.

Other times, however, it's by first killing a number of members of a given group namelessly to allow us to desensitize ourselves to their deaths and only then focus on a member of that group for further characterization. Kazumi and Daigo are the go-to example here, but an argument can be made that similar things happened with the introduction of the gnomish police officer in Tinkertown (prior to which the civilian deaths had been random collateral damage), and Jirix and Oona, both of which serve to help humanize Redcloak's followers beyond the mass of identical orange faces which attacked Azure City.

Enjoy,
Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

[Emanick]

Haley and Durkon, at least, seemed to think that he wouldn't get XP:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0439.html

If I happened to be DMing the Battle of Azure City, I’d give Belkar XP for that encounter. Not a ton, but some. Even for a level 13ish character, taking on hundreds (?) of mooks solo is a challenge.

That said, I agree that by RAW Belkar probably wouldn’t get any XP, unless some of those clerics had a few levels on them.

[vegetalss4]

Shouldn't Belkar's encounter there be something like "hobgoblin troop" with higher CR, rather than XY encounters with a 1HD hobgoblin for 0 XP each?


I am not entirely sure rules for those (Troops as a swarm) got introduced in 3.5, but even if they did it would be entirely up to the DM which set of stats to use.
Having it be one encounter with 100's of level 1 hobgoblin warriors would be entirely legitimate (and indeed was the default way to do that).
There was a guidance system for estimating which CR a group of lower level creatures were for the purpose of making a challenging encounter, but for XP purposes it would be
[number of creatures]X[xp pr creature] rather than something based on that estimate, which in this case would be XY*0.

[Rrmcklin]

As others have said, the issue isn't that people like characters like Thog. The issue is that people try ignore what the characters actually are because they like them. It's fine to like Thog, or Belkar, or Tarquin, just don't come up with excuses for how they're "not really evil", as people commonly did (do?) with all three of them, and probably others as well. It's very simple, actually.

Edit: Though it seems more like the OP wasn't looking for genuine discussion, they just wanted to rant about something. This is there first post in a very long time.

[MartianInvader]

I mean, it's a comic based on D&D. D&D is a game where 80%+ of the rules are about how you fight things, and gameplay tends to involve a lot of killing.

I guess it's a reasonable complaint, but one you could make of about a zillion different movies/games/comics.

[Benjamin Vazque]

As others have said, the issue isn't that people like characters like Thog. The issue is that people try ignore what the characters actually are because they like them. It's fine to like Thog, or Belkar, or Tarquin, just don't come up with excuses for how they're "not really evil", as people commonly did (do?) with all three of them, and probably others as well. It's very simple, actually.

Edit: Though it seems more like the OP wasn't looking for genuine discussion, they just wanted to rant about something. This is there first post in a very long time.

I'm having difficulty coming up with an evil character other than Xykon which hasn't been claimed to be "not really evil" on these forums at some point. Thog, Belkar, and Tarquin could be joined by Nale, Redcloak, Malack, Tsukiko, and possibly Hilgya in having been claimed to be not evil at some point in the forum despite being very definitely evil in the cominc.

Enjoy,
Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

note: Yes, I'm aware that Hilgya might turn out to be CN, maybe. That's why I said "possibly".

[Liquor Box]

I'm having difficulty coming up with an evil character other than Xykon which hasn't been claimed to be "not really evil" on these forums at some point. Thog, Belkar, and Tarquin could be joined by Nale, Redcloak, Malack, Tsukiko, and possibly Hilgya in having been claimed to be not evil at some point in the forum despite being very definitely evil in the cominc.

Enjoy,
Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

note: Yes, I'm aware that Hilgya might turn out to be CN, maybe. That's why I said "possibly".

Another recent one was the frost giant Roy fought on the Mechane, or Therkla.

Has anyone argued that Sabine or those three devils who are manipulating V are not evil?

[Rrmcklin]

or Therkla.

Therkla wasn't evil, at least not as far as The Giant was concerned. She was True Neutral.

[Peelee]

Another recent one was the frost giant Roy fought on the Mechane, or Therkla.

Therkla was TN, per author.

[Liquor Box]

I stand corrected - I guess the people arguing she was not evil were correct (at least so far as we take the Giant's comments as definitive) that time.

[woweedd]

TYwo things:
A. I kinda got the sense that line was also referring to the person saying it on a meta level. I saw a lot of people thinking of Tarquin as if he was this cool suave helpful mastermind who happened to be Evil, and freaked out when it was revealed his whole thing was a carefully-controlled act, and that, underneath it all, he was a petulant narcissist just like Nale.
B. Discounting Belkar and V, the Order's kills have been either in self-defense or in warfare, which you could debate the morals of, but which is generaly considering acceptable cause. Plus, Belkar got Mark of Justice-d for his trouble and hasn't done much unjustified killing since and V has spent the last book wracked with guilt,

[Stabbey]

An incredibly surprising amount of people seem to be unhappy that the human female vampire died just because she was funny, even though she was evil and her host was apparently also evil.

[KorvinStarmast]

An incredibly surprising amount of people seem to be unhappy that the human female vampire died just because she was funny, even though she was evil and her host was apparently also evil. The pernicious influence of Twilight strikes again. :smallyuk:

[Finagle]

The author is the one who created a lovable, childlike murderer.

It's no indictment of the audience if they find him likable. It's more an indictment of a sick mind that could create such a thing. I think the author realized this, it made him uncomfortable, and he decided to blame the fans in print. It world hardly be the first time this happened in a webcomic.

[Emanick]

An incredibly surprising amount of people seem to be unhappy that the human female vampire died just because she was funny, even though she was evil and her host was apparently also evil.

I saw a number of people on the forum express that opinion, but I think in all or almost all cases, this was just folks expressing affection for a fun but evil character, not people being seriously upset that she was killed.

[Lexible]

Can you tell me the name of any character at Cliffport not related to the order or the linear guild?

He Who Must Not Be Named
He Who Must Not Be Seen
He Who Must Not Be Toilet Trained

[Emanick]

He Who Must Not Be Named
He Who Must Not Be Seen
He Who Must Not Be Toilet Trained
Didn’t they interview with the Linear Guild?

[DeliaP]

I'm having difficulty coming up with an evil character other than Xykon which hasn't been claimed to be "not really evil" on these forums at some point.



What??? Xkyon's meant to be evil??

Boy, have I been reading this webcomic wrong! :smalleek:

[Rrmcklin]

The author is the one who created a lovable, childlike murderer.

It's no indictment of the audience if they find him likable. It's more an indictment of a sick mind that could create such a thing. I think the author realized this, it made him uncomfortable, and he decided to blame the fans in print. It world hardly be the first time this happened in a webcomic.

Um, no? It's most definitely isn't the author's fault that some fans have trouble understanding you can both like a character while still acknowledging that they are evil. That is most certainly on the people who say things like "Thog is too stupid to be evil" as if stupidity and malice can't go hand-in-hand.

[wumpus]

Um, no? It's most definitely isn't the author's fault that some fans have trouble understanding you can both like a character while still acknowledging that they are evil. That is most certainly on the people who say things like "Thog is too stupid to be evil" as if stupidity and malice can't go hand-in-hand.

There's the official giant word that sufficiently young children should be assumed non-evil (at least in his comic strip they always default good unless the author goes out of the way to specify the child is evil*). The question is if Thog's childish traits include innocence: read enough strips and this should be obvious, but the giant doesn't appear to feel the need to make this explicit often.

There's also the question of Mr. Scruffy and cats in general. Mr. Scruffy is a special case in that he appears to be a ranger's animal companion, although it appears more likely that Mr. Scruffy choose Belkar instead of Belkar summoning Mr. Scruffy (or a companion at all). Cats in general are extremely murderous (and kill even more when well fed) but somehow Mr. Scruffy appears to be intentionally pushing Belkar's alignment up the chart. No, I don't think he remotely has the time to manage even Pandemonium (one notch less evil than the Abyss). Mr. Scruffy appears to fit this "good by fiat" condition where innocence is maintained by a creature that appears to understand the alignments well enough to affect a PC (non-companion and non-magically special cats are still neutral no matter how many mice, birds, chipmunks, and rabbits they kill). Maybe Mr. Scruffy is less murderous than Belkar, although that seems unlikely.

* Not that this happened in OOTS. But the way the comment was written, it appeared to admit the possibility of an evil child, just that such was so unexpected that it would require explicit author depiction of said evil.

[denthor]

On the subject of evil in this comic. So evil..

Look up down sideways it is all in the author mind . He is obviously from the pit and here to use comic relief as a way to turn you to the darkness. AND YET YOU KEEP READING.
Was not my warning clear.
There is only one solution

YOU TO ARE EVIL.

slash slash slash slash

[Kish]

What??? Xkyon's meant to be evil??

Boy, have I been reading this webcomic wrong! :smalleek:
Nah, Xkyon's a saint.

Xykon, on the other hand...

[woweedd]

There's the official giant word that sufficiently young children should be assumed non-evil (at least in his comic strip they always default good unless the author goes out of the way to specify the child is evil*). The question is if Thog's childish traits include innocence: read enough strips and this should be obvious, but the giant doesn't appear to feel the need to make this explicit often.

There's also the question of Mr. Scruffy and cats in general. Mr. Scruffy is a special case in that he appears to be a ranger's animal companion, although it appears more likely that Mr. Scruffy choose Belkar instead of Belkar summoning Mr. Scruffy (or a companion at all). Cats in general are extremely murderous (and kill even more when well fed) but somehow Mr. Scruffy appears to be intentionally pushing Belkar's alignment up the chart. No, I don't think he remotely has the time to manage even Pandemonium (one notch less evil than the Abyss). Mr. Scruffy appears to fit this "good by fiat" condition where innocence is maintained by a creature that appears to understand the alignments well enough to affect a PC (non-companion and non-magically special cats are still neutral no matter how many mice, birds, chipmunks, and rabbits they kill). Maybe Mr. Scruffy is less murderous than Belkar, although that seems unlikely.

* Not that this happened in OOTS. But the way the comment was written, it appeared to admit the possibility of an evil child, just that such was so unexpected that it would require explicit author depiction of said evil.
Thog, by poessing an INT above 2, is assumed to understand the concepts of Good and Evil well enough to hold an Alignment. The Giant exempts children because, ya know, assuming the correct answer to a problem is to kill a child is monstrous, both on the moral level and on the "there's a better solution" level, most likely, raising the child to be Good. Their Alignment is, as one fourmite put it, TBD. Mr. Scruffy, although fairly violent, is still True Neutral. His INT is too low to comprehend morality, even if his status as Animal Companion to a high-level Ranger does afford him a better ability to understand and follow commands. His effect on Belkar is not intentional on his part. It merely occurred that way. Shojo, after all, was pretty much the only living creature Belkar actual respected, and that respect passed to his one remaining legacy, and the feeling is very much mutual. Feeling empathy for Mr. Scruffy is the first piece of empathy Belkar's felt in...ever, but it's not intentional for Scruffy. He just likes his master, and is loyal enough to kill for him, as any Animal Companion would be. Notably, I would argue this makes Scruffy morally superior to most cats, as, in my experience, they do not grapse the concept of loyalty well.:smallbiggrin:

[Kish]

Notably, I would argue this makes Scruffy morally superior to most cats, as, in my experience, they do not grapse the concept of loyalty well.:smallbiggrin:
That's very far from true of the cats I've known.

[Peelee]

That's very far from true of the cats I've known.

Seconded. Every cat I've had has been fiercely loyal.

[Benjamin Vazque]

Seconded. Every cat I've had has been fiercely loyal.

Thirded. Cats can certainly be aloof at times, but once they bond with someone - human, dog, or other cat, I've seen all three - they tend to be friends for life.

Enjoy,
Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.

[woweedd]

That's very far from true of the cats I've known.


Seconded. Every cat I've had has been fiercely loyal.


Thirded. Cats can certainly be aloof at times, but once they bond with someone - human, dog, or other cat, I've seen all three - they tend to be friends for life.

Enjoy,
Benjamin A. Vazquez, U.E.
Ok, fair. I was joking. I spent a large portion of the first 6 years of my life surrounded by cats, and, as a nervous child who did not deal well with crowded environments, that may have colored my opinion. The asthma didn't help. In truth, I love them just as much as I love any animal. Except mosquitoes. And cockroaches. And hippos.

[Chronos]

Mr. Scruffy is true neutral because he's an animal. Which makes him more good than Belkar. Thus, if Belkar's alignment shifts to become more like Mr. Scruffy, it means he's less evil (though, as Haley says, it still probably averages out to somewhere south of neutral).

And cats can be loyal to individuals; they're just not loyal to groups, the way that humans and dogs can be. A dog can think "I do not like this other dog, but he is a member of my pack, and so I will help him". A cat can't.

[Worldsong]

The author is the one who created a lovable, childlike murderer.

It's no indictment of the audience if they find him likable. It's more an indictment of a sick mind that could create such a thing. I think the author realized this, it made him uncomfortable, and he decided to blame the fans in print. It world hardly be the first time this happened in a webcomic.

This sounds a lot like a variant of the theory that the only way to comprehend evil is to be evil (or in this case, the only way to make a twisted character likeable is if the writer is twisted).

I disagree with this theory on the basis that this would imply that being good is not so much a choice as a LACK of choice* and because it sounds too much like propagation of the us vs them belief in terms of morality, which I disagree with even more vehemently since it sounds like an easy way for someone to convince themselves that they MUST be good, because they're a part of the 'us' group (and I do detest people finding excuses to not have to think about their actions).

Being creative, having an open mind, being able to comprehend different perspectives doesn't make you evil, and all three of these things could result in someone being able to create a psychopathic unrepentent childlike murderer who yet somehow manages to have the charisma to make people like reading about them. All three of these things are traits which I would encourage in a person since they show that a person is more than just a machine who just follows instructions on how to be a good person.

*Since the only good people would be those who couldn't even imagine taking an evil option, therefore them being good isn't a matter of choice.

[hamishspence]

Being creative, having an open mind, being able to comprehend different perspectives doesn't make you evil, and all three of these things could result in someone being able to create a psychopathic unrepentent childlike murderer who yet somehow manages to have the charisma to make people like reading about them. All three of these things are traits which I would encourage in a person since they show that a person is more than just a machine who just follows instructions on how to be a good person.

A quote that might be appropriate here - from Terry Pratchett's novel Nation, on why being able to think like a villain, doesn't make you one.


It was a strange, chilling thought, dancing across his head like a white thread against the - terrible red background. It went on: He can think like you. You must think like him.
But if I think like him, he wins, he thought back.
And his new thought replied: Why? To think like him is not to be him! The hunter learns the ways of the hog, but he is not bacon. He learns the way of the weather, but he is not a cloud. And when the venomous beast charges at him, he remembers who is the hunter, and who is the hunted!

[Worldsong]

A quote that might be appropriate here - from Terry Pratchett's novel Nation, on why being able to think like a villain, doesn't make you one.


It was a strange, chilling thought, dancing across his head like a white thread against the - terrible red background. It went on: He can think like you. You must think like him.
But if I think like him, he wins, he thought back.
And his new thought replied: Why? To think like him is not to be him! The hunter learns the ways of the hog, but he is not bacon. He learns the way of the weather, but he is not a cloud. And when the venomous beast charges at him, he remembers who is the hunter, and who is the hunted!

Oddly enough (or perhaps not, given it's Terry Pratchett we're talking about) I was thinking of the same author, but a different book.

...he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable then of going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? - Jingo

Your quote fits this situation a lot better though, so thank you for the improvement.

[nolongeralurker]

Can you tell me the name of any character at Cliffport not related to the order or the linear guild?, how about Azure city from the ones that weren’t related or had any interaction with the order or Xykon forces, how about the empire of blood, the mechane, dwarven lands, Gobbotopia, gnome city, the desert, etc…

We got desensitized at the fact of people being killed in this comic unless they a main character, being for one, nameless and easy to switch and two, stick figures with no actual memorable features,

Funny you should mention this, I was actually just thinking again right now about what a mini-Fridge Horror moment it was for me when I realized the three-year-old mentioned in the strip about the parade in the Empire of Blood (the one who liked the Sesame Street parody characters) was now motherless (when Judy(?), the mother, was killed). Another woman replaces her as one of the announcers (with part of the joke being how easy it was to switch them). I think her name was Cathy. At least, I know Cathy was one of them's name. Also I think the other announcer was Rick. So there you go, I remember the names of some characters who didn't interact with the Order, and was even sad when one of them died! (though, to be fair, it was only retroactively, when I realized her death would bring grief and non-wellbeing to a young child.)

[Nilan8888]

This isn't one of them, 'someone likes X in the comic so therefore there must be X in that person' is it?

I hope not, because it's a silly premise. If anything the reverse is probably true.

People who like reading about evil characters are just entertained by certain things. No more than if they like the Night of the Living Dead series and want a zombie apocalypse to happen. It has no bearing on the real world.

I could just by the same stroke say people who only like the good characters do so because they refuse to acknowledge the Miko-like darkness within their own souls....

[Rrmcklin]

I mean, you could just actually read what a thread is about before complaining about it...

[Darth Paul]

Ok, fair. I was joking. I spent a large portion of the first 6 years of my life surrounded by cats, and, as a nervous child who did not deal well with crowded environments, that may have colored my opinion. The asthma didn't help. In truth, I love them just as much as I love any animal. Except mosquitoes. And cockroaches. And hippos.

And also, your opinion was colored because cats are evil. But because many of them are cute, they get away with it. :smallamused:

[woweedd]

And also, your opinion was colored because cats are evil. But because many of them are cute, they get away with it. :smallamused:
Cats do not adhere to human morals.

[Emanick]

Cats do not adhere to human morals.

[citation needed]

[woweedd]

[citation needed]
No, you misunderstand me. Cats are not immoral, they're amoral. They cannot comprehend morality. Most notably, humans often define morality, as in D&D, in terms of Altruism VS Selfishness, but those two things, one could argue, require self-awareness, the concept of oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Since most animals cannot comprehend this concept, they are not bound to morals as we understand them.

[wumpus]

Mr. Scruffy is true neutral because he's an animal. Which makes him more good than Belkar. Thus, if Belkar's alignment shifts to become more like Mr. Scruffy, it means he's less evil (though, as Haley says, it still probably averages out to somewhere south of neutral).

And cats can be loyal to individuals; they're just not loyal to groups, the way that humans and dogs can be. A dog can think "I do not like this other dog, but he is a member of my pack, and so I will help him". A cat can't.

That's more or less how I would define chaotic, whereas the dog's group loyalty is lawful.


No, you misunderstand me. Cats are not immoral, they're amoral. They cannot comprehend morality. Most notably, humans often define morality, as in D&D, in terms of Altruism VS Selfishness, but those two things, one could argue, require self-awareness, the concept of oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Since most animals cannot comprehend this concept, they are not bound to morals as we understand them.

And they'd pretty much have to be awakened or otherwise have an INT>=3 to have an alignment at all. From what we've seen of Blackwing, I'd assume that Blackwing is only neutral since V is neutral (or at least was when "find familiar" was cast). I don't think that animal companions have the same magical boost, but Mr. Scruffy is drawn in such a way that you suspect he is almost as smart as Thog, and thus should have an alignment.

[woweedd]

That's more or less how I would define chaotic, whereas the dog's group loyalty is lawful.



And they'd pretty much have to be awakened or otherwise have an INT>=3 to have an alignment at all. From what we've seen of Blackwing, I'd assume that Blackwing is only neutral since V is neutral (or at least was when "find familiar" was cast). I don't think that animal companions have the same magical boost, but Mr. Scruffy is drawn in such a way that you suspect he is almost as smart as Thog, and thus should have an alignment.
Animal Companion are slightly smarter then normal members of their species, enough so to understand and carry out somewhat complex directions, but not enough so to represent a point boost. Also, Familiars are quite a few points smarter than their species would suggest, and, while i'm not sure, I think their alignment can differ from their masters. Blackwing, certainly, has often served as V's conscience, Jiminy Cricket-style.

[Boring McReader]

TYwo things:
A. I kinda got the sense that line was also referring to the person saying it on a meta level. I saw a lot of people thinking of Tarquin as if he was this cool suave helpful mastermind who happened to be Evil, and freaked out when it was revealed his whole thing was a carefully-controlled act, and that, underneath it all, he was a petulant narcissist just like Nale.
B. Discounting Belkar and V, the Order's kills have been either in self-defense or in warfare, which you could debate the morals of, but which is generaly considering acceptable cause. Plus, Belkar got Mark of Justice-d for his trouble and hasn't done much unjustified killing since and V has spent the last book wracked with guilt,

It was clear all along that Tarquin was a petulant narcissist. What slipped past me was that if you took away his understanding of the laws of drama, he was as impulsive and foolish as Elan. What seemed like calculated competence was really his slavish devotion to dramatic logic. As soon as he lost sight of the plot, his failures began piling up. Trying to reconcile his apparent competence with those later failures led to misunderstanding his motivations.

[Emanick]

No, you misunderstand me. Cats are not immoral, they're amoral. They cannot comprehend morality. Most notably, humans often define morality, as in D&D, in terms of Altruism VS Selfishness, but those two things, one could argue, require self-awareness, the concept of oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals. Since most animals cannot comprehend this concept, they are not bound to morals as we understand them.

Nah, I agree with you, I was just being facetious. :smalltongue:

[Darth Paul]

... Mr. Scruffy is drawn in such a way that you suspect he is almost as smart as Thog, and thus should have an alignment.

I actually suspect that Mr. Scruffy is considerably smarter than Thog, based on the comic.

There again, dryer lint is considerably smarter than Thog.

Socks are considerably smarter than Thog. The leprechaun costume was... okay, I'll stop now.

[martianmister]

If the kitty is truly smarter than Thog, I can see it's alignment as "You're bad and you should feel bad."

[Mike Havran]

If the kitty is truly smarter than Thog, I can see it's alignment as "You're bad and you should feel bad."Which would fit current Belkar as well.

[AutomatedTeller]

Even Elan is smarter than Thog!!

[Lacuna Caster]

In Thog's case that usually came as "he's not smart enough to be Evil, this is just Nale's influence". For other characters, the rationalizations are different and often more bewildering.

There's the official giant word that sufficiently young children should be assumed non-evil (at least in his comic strip they always default good unless the author goes out of the way to specify the child is evil*). The question is if Thog's childish traits include innocence: read enough strips and this should be obvious, but the giant doesn't appear to feel the need to make this explicit often.
People tend to see Thog as not-evil for reasons that I see as totally understandable, insofar as he apparently has the intellect of either an infant or intellectually handicapped person and we don't generally hold either infants or the intellectually handicapped as responsible for criminal behaviour. Quoting D&D rules about minimum int scores doesn't really counter this intuitive real-world standard.

He is also, within the context of in-group interactions, unfailingly positive and obliging, and much more evidently loyal to his 'friends' than, say, early-strip Belkar. (Noticeably, the number of people he randomly butchers during his time spent with Elan is zero.) I'll allow that under the rules he probably racks up plenty of 'evil points', but I think one can make an entirely plausible case that Thog, if transplanted to a different peer group, would turn around relatively quickly.

[woweedd]

People tend to see Thog as not-evil for reasons that I see as totally understandable, insofar as he apparently has the intellect of either an infant or intellectually handicapped person and we don't generally hold either infants or the intellectually handicapped as responsible for criminal behaviour. Quoting D&D rules about minimum int scores doesn't really counter this intuitive real-world standard.

He is also, within the context of in-group interactions, unfailingly positive and obliging, and much more evidently loyal to his 'friends' than, say, early-strip Belkar. (Noticeably, the number of people he randomly butchers during his time spent with Elan is zero.) I'll allow that under the rules he probably racks up plenty of 'evil points', but I think one can make an entirely plausible case that Thog, if transplanted to a different peer group, would turn around relatively quickly.
I mean...I know you explicitly told me not to do this, but, by definition, a creature with an INT above 3 is able to comprehend morality enough to have an alignment, period.

[hamishspence]

People tend to see Thog as not-evil for reasons that I see as totally understandable, insofar as he apparently has the intellect of either an infant or intellectually handicapped person and we don't generally hold either infants or the intellectually handicapped as responsible for criminal behaviour.

The Giant has made it clear that Thog is not "intellectually handicapped" - just "fantasy dumb" - low intelligence, but not to the point of disability:


I don't consider any of the characters in the entire comic to be "mentally handicapped." Thog is not smart compared to Roy, but he does not have an atypical neurology. He is capable of determining right from wrong, and chooses wrong consistently. I know people like to project this idea onto Thog that he's not responsible for his actions because he's dumb, but…he is responsible. We know he is because the orcs on the island are the same as him and don't murder people just for fun.

In D&D terms, anyone who has an Intelligence of 3 or higher is capable of determining right from wrong (because they have an alignment); speak, read, and write a language fluently; and generally looking after themselves on a daily basis while adventuring in a dangerous dungeon. This does not describe most real-world people with mental handicaps (to my knowledge). Which means the bulk of the spectrum of mental handicaps probably sits somewhere below 3 and above 2, because it's a system designed for action-adventure and it doesn't need more granularity than that. It doesn't want to have the conversation, and honestly, in this case, I'm inclined to agree. D&D is a system that only describes people within a certain range of mental ability, and OOTS follows suit.

If I was depicting Thog (or anyone else) as displaying behaviors and attitudes common among actual mentally disabled people and then mocking them, you would certainly have a point. I don't think I am. Thog is "fantasy dumb." It's a trope of the genre that I'm using, not a reflection of the real world. I know everyone loves to repeat that line I said about the only worthwhile part of fantasy being what it tells us about the real world, but that doesn't need to apply to every single part of the entire story. Sometimes, you have to sell the rest of the fantasy world straight in order to highlight the things you want to talk about. The "barbarians are stupid" cliché falls into that category for me.

[Fyraltari]

Noticeably, the number of people he randomly butchers during his time spent with Elan is zero.
It was neither random nor successful, but I think this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0396.html) makes it pretty clear that Thog is evil.

I'll allow that under the rules he probably racks up plenty of 'evil points', but I think one can make an entirely plausible case that Thog, if transplanted to a different peer group, would turn around relatively quickly.

But he isn't in a different group. He might become good under some circumstances but this is true of most evil characters in this comic.

[Lacuna Caster]

The Giant has made it clear that Thog is not "intellectually handicapped" - just "fantasy dumb" - low intelligence, but not to the point of disability:

I mean...I know you explicitly told me not to do this, but, by definition, a creature with an INT above 3 is able to comprehend morality enough to have an alignment, period.
My point is that from the perspective of a casual observer who associates a particular use of language and lack of foresight with mental disability, identifying Thog as mentally disabled is a completely understandable impression, and it's not fair to blame readers for that.

I know what the rules say, and I know what the author has said on the subject. You know what else D&D rules have to say? All black dragons are chaotic evil, and so are most goblin toddlers. Have fun with your selective ethical standards.


It was neither random nor successful, but I think this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0396.html) makes it pretty clear that Thog is evil.
I'm not disputing that Thog is evil-by-the-rules, but he gives the impression of essentially being a huge angry baby that just wants the other kids to play with him. Basically, if the author is gonna go out of his way to make Belkar into a potential fixer-upper, it is not unreasonable to look at other characters with a certain amount of empathy, given their relative starting points.

[Fyraltari]

I'm not disputing that Thog is evil-by-the-rules, but he gives the impression of essentially being a huge angry baby that just wants the other kids to play with him. Basically, if the author is gonna go out of his way to make Belkar into a potential fixer-upper, it is not unreasonable to look at other characters with a certain amount of empathy, given their relative starting points.

He wants friends, true. But he clearly understands that people don't enjoy suffering an it amuses him to inflict it on them (except on his friends). Of all the evil characters in the comics he is one of the most redeemable, but that doesn't make him something else than evil.

Nobody said you couldn't empathize with him. Empathy isn't reserved to some people and not others that's kind of the point.

[hamishspence]

You know what else D&D rules have to say? All black dragons are chaotic evil, and so are most goblin toddlers.

Nope to both of those. The MM specifically makes it clear that beings that are "born evil" have "Always Evil" in their statblock. Similar for "born (some other alignment)".

Goblins have "usually X alignment" in their statblock (X, in this case, being NE).

Nowhere in "D&D rules" is it stated "Most goblin toddlers are evil".

The MM also states that even "Always Evil" creatures have rare exceptions, so, not all black dragons are CE.


My point is that from the perspective of a casual observer who associates a particular use of language and lack of foresight with mental disability, identifying Thog as mentally disabled is a completely understandable impression, and it's not fair to blame readers for that.

A case could be made that these "casual observers" jump to conclusions - assuming disability when the assumption is unwarranted, and where stupidity (or just lack of education) is a valid explanation.

As pointed out, the island orcs also talk like Thog:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0552.html

And the strip where Thog commits his first on-screen murder, is called "Stupid isn't always Cute" not "Disabled isn't always Cute" or "Childish isn't always Cute"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0051.html

[hroþila]

Of all possible descriptors for Thog that come to mind, "angry" wouldn't come to mind at all is what I'm trying to say with questionable eloquence here.

[Peelee]

People tend to see Thog as not-evil for reasons that I see as totally understandable, insofar as he apparently has the intellect of either an infant or intellectually handicapped person and we don't generally hold either infants or the intellectually handicapped as responsible for criminal behaviour.

Even if you want to go with this argument, if an infant or intellectually handicapped person kept murdering people with an axe, said person would not be free to keep on keeping on, regardless of culpability. Such a person would be moved to a facility capable of restraining them, because something would clearly be not right.

[hamishspence]

Thog's fear of "cooties" might be an indication of him having "the mindset of a 12 year old" but not of an infant.

[Emanick]

Thog's fear of "cooties" might be an indication of him having "the mindset of a 12 year old" but not of an infant.

More like an 8 year old, really.

[hamishspence]

More like an 8 year old, really.

Any age slightly before adolescence works, though the trope (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlsHaveCooties) is associated with age 10 or less - "under 11". The point being that it's not "infancy" - Thog is no overgrown baby or overgrown toddler.

[Kish]

I've been, for a while, somewhat puzzled by the implication that Thog is responsible for the people he kills unthinkingly, but Elan is not responsible for killing everyone left in the dungeon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html).

(I think Elan would happily confirm, if you asked him, that he understands that no one enjoys being blown up. If you then tried to connect it to anything he ever did, he'd call you a meanie-face.

In fairness, may not apply to post-Empire-of-Blood Elan, a mere 900 strips after Elan was introduced.)

[Rrmcklin]

I've been, for a while, somewhat puzzled by the implication that Thog is responsible for the people he kills unthinkingly, but Elan is not responsible for killing everyone left in the dungeon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html).

(I think Elan would happily confirm, if you asked him, that he understands that no one enjoys being blown up. If you then tried to connect it to anything he ever did, he'd call you a meanie-face.

In fairness, may not apply to post-Empire-of-Blood Elan, a mere 900 strips after Elan was introduced.)

Well, to me, the distinction isn't about responsibility, it's about intention and potential for growth.

Thog is an idiot who legitimately enjoys killing and hurting people. His idiocy is irrelevant to his sadism and malice. Elan is an idiot whose actions frequently endangered others, though often not intentionally or he expressed remorse afterwards.

So, yes, Elan is responsible for the things he's done that have gotten people hurt or killed. But I'm sure he's done a lot less of them than Thog, and he's certainly never malicious about it. Now that might reasonably not make a difference to you, but it does to me (and I'd assume many other people).

Also, probably some handwave about how the Dungeon was only filled with monsters or evil people. Which has some unfortunate implications, but basically everything in the dungeon had been trying to kill them so...

[hamishspence]

I've been, for a while, somewhat puzzled by the implication that Thog is responsible for the people he kills unthinkingly, but Elan is not responsible for killing everyone left in the dungeon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html).

Roy does say "You're lucky no-one got hurt" (in the explosion)

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0120.html

which may imply that, at least at the time, he didn't see any remaining dungeon monsters as "people".

Even during the trial, nobody's arguing that a bunch of creatures in the dungeon died unnecessarily - only that the gate destruction is dangerous to the universe as a whole.


During the trial, their main defence is "Had the gate not been destroyed, Redcloak might have come back and seized it".


basically everything in the dungeon had been trying to kill them so...

And the most notable exception, the flumphs - leave once it's possible to do so - and as a result, don't die - though they do get a bit squashed by Roy and Elan.

[zimmerwald1915]

basically everything in the dungeon had been trying to kill them so...
Welcome, righteous warriors. . .

Edit: it seems Hamishspence and I have different ideas about the "most notable exception." Which is good, because it means there is more than one.

[hamishspence]

Edit: it seems Hamishspence and I have different ideas about the "most notable exception." Which is good, because it means there is more than one.

One of those "other exceptions" turned out to be Evil (with Good being "just a phase he was going through"), betrayed them, and then probably died after that fall when informing Xykon of the Order's plans:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0112.html

The other guy, we don't know his fate.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0101.html

He may have realised that by helping the Order against Xykon, he'd made things extremely dangerous for himself - and gotten out.

Welcome, righteous warriors. . .
"Most notable exceptions still alive and in the dungeon shortly before the fight with Xykon" was what I was thinking of. The Earth and Fire fey were both dead, and Celia had left, by then.

[Mightymosy]

I think Elan would feel pretty bad if he came to know that he accidentally killed people by blowing up the dungeon. It's just that this was never seriously discussed, I think. Logically, there ought to be someone else in the dungeon when it collapsed. I don't think the Giant discussed this, or did he? Maybe everyone - including the characters - just never thought this through?

[martianmister]

Belkar basically massacred these surrendered goblins and no one said or do anything about it.

[woweedd]

I've been, for a while, somewhat puzzled by the implication that Thog is responsible for the people he kills unthinkingly, but Elan is not responsible for killing everyone left in the dungeon (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html).

(I think Elan would happily confirm, if you asked him, that he understands that no one enjoys being blown up. If you then tried to connect it to anything he ever did, he'd call you a meanie-face.

In fairness, may not apply to post-Empire-of-Blood Elan, a mere 900 strips after Elan was introduced.)
I mean, it's not like they didn't murder a lot of those monsters anyway.

[Kish]

There's a difference between "Oh look, another room full of hostile goblins! Attack!" and "I have no idea what's on the several levels of this dungeon I never even set foot on, but I'm going to assume it's chock-full of legitimate targets, with no more random nonevil creatures like the flumphs, and no more of Dorukan's employees still around. Boom!"

[woweedd]

There's a difference between "Oh look, another room full of hostile goblins! Attack!" and "I have no idea what's on the several levels of this dungeon I never even set foot on, but I'm going to assume it's chock-full of legitimate targets, with no more random nonevil creatures like the flumphs, and no more of Dorukan's employees still around. Boom!"
Fair point. Still, while that would probably cause a blip on the Malv-o-Meter, given Elan's generally behavior otherwise, I don't think it'd be enough for an Alignment shift.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think Elan would feel pretty bad if he came to know that he accidentally killed people by blowing up the dungeon. It's just that this was never seriously discussed, I think. Logically, there ought to be someone else in the dungeon when it collapsed. I don't think the Giant discussed this, or did he? Maybe everyone - including the characters - just never thought this through? Given that they took a shortcut to get to Xykon's room by the gate (what gate? :mitd: ) it is fair to assume that a variety of sentient creatures were still stumbling around in the areas of the dungeon that the Order had bypassed.

Belkar basically massacred these surrendered goblins and no one said or do anything about it. Belkar killing things is his MO. For over 600 strips. It's what he does, it's all he does. (Terminator reference). There is nothing ambiguous about the blood on his hands. In one of the commentaries (OoTPC I think) Rich remarked that he was not going to delve into Belkar's childhood/troubled childhood/how he got that way since he wasn't interested in trying to open the door to a justification of Belkar's generic murderhobo persona. He needed that lead sheet vs Miko's Detect Evil attempts for a good and sufficient reason.

[Doug Lampert]

While large numbers of lower CR creatures can be turned into a high CR encounter, 8 is the maximum level difference accounted for in the XP chart.

No! Large numbers of low CR creatures can make a single high EL encounter. You don't add or combine CRs to make a CR. Encounters have an "Encounter Level" (EL) not a CR.

Claiming that you combine CRs is exactly how people miss the reason that Belkar gets no XP for the hobgoblins.


I presume you're referring to Belkar and Azure City here? He surely got XP for that encounter. The individual goblins and hobgoblins were below his XP threshold, but the encounter as a whole was threatening - look how beaten-up he was at the end.

And he got RP XP for declaring himself a Sexy Shoe-less God of War!

The encounter as a whole only gives RP XP, because the individual creatures are what you check on the XP chart. The XP chart uses CR, not EL. If he got any XP, it was EXACTLY the RP XP for declaring himself a Sexy Shoe-less God of War.

In the usual case, you would usually get similar results by giving XP for EL rather than CR. But hordes of low level opponents are one of the exceptions, and they specifically call that one out as not worth any XP unless something makes it worth a Role-playing Reward due to special circumstances.

Seriously, there's this long section in the rules discussing CR and EL, and they never combine lots of low CR to make a high CR, and the XP table uses CR not EL. There are (non-core) rules for combining lots of creatures into a single horde using that as a high CR monster, but there's never any requirement to use those rules, they're not core or SRD, and AFAIK they've never been mentioned in the comic and there's no sign that Rich was using them in that scene.

[martianmister]

Belkar killing things is his MO. For over 600 strips. It's what he does, it's all he does. (Terminator reference). There is nothing ambiguous about the blood on his hands.

I was talking about how no one did anything to prevent him from killing those goblins and said nothing to him.

[Lacuna Caster]

Thog is an idiot who legitimately enjoys killing and hurting people. His idiocy is irrelevant to his sadism and malice. Elan is an idiot whose actions frequently endangered others, though often not intentionally or he expressed remorse afterwards.

There's a difference between "Oh look, another room full of hostile goblins! Attack!" and "I have no idea what's on the several levels of this dungeon I never even set foot on, but I'm going to assume it's chock-full of legitimate targets, with no more random nonevil creatures like the flumphs, and no more of Dorukan's employees still around. Boom!"

Roy does say "You're lucky no-one got hurt" (in the explosion)... ...And the most notable exception, the flumphs - leave once it's possible to do so - and as a result, don't die - though they do get a bit squashed by Roy and Elan.
The intro pages to Paladin Blues describe Redcloak as 'the lone goblin who survived the dungeon of dorukan'. If no non-evil creatures died as a result of blowing up the gate it would frankly be such a miracle of contrivance that it hardly counts in Elan's favour anyway.

I'm not 100% clear that Thog does show clear signs of proactive sadism? I mean, you can see him smiling with satisfaction after/during hurting folk in various panels, but so do roy and haley (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0200.html).


Even if you want to go with this argument, if an infant or intellectually handicapped person kept murdering people with an axe, said person would not be free to keep on keeping on, regardless of culpability. Such a person would be moved to a facility capable of restraining them, because something would clearly be not right.
Oh, I agree completely. Whether Thog (or Elan) is malicious is quite secondary to the question of whether they're dangerous, and I am firmly of the opinion that you don't try to rehabilitate someone in the middle of a potentially lethal dungeon while trying to fight world-ending threats. That, you leave to the grown-ups.


Another case that probably bears inspection here is the MitD. He doesn't seem obviously stupider than Thog, and while he doesn't do much to help Xykon/Redcloak, he also did very little to stop them engaging in all manner of awful crimes for a number of years. Is he supposed to be 'a good man' or not?

[wumpus]

In one of the commentaries (OoTPC I think) Rich remarked that he was not going to delve into Belkar's childhood/troubled childhood/how he got that way since he wasn't interested in trying to open the door to a justification of Belkar's generic murderhobo persona. He needed that lead sheet vs Miko's Detect Evil attempts for a good and sufficient reason.

I don't have the commentaries but read (possibly quoted/misquoted) that Rich wasn't interested in telling Belkar's origin story in that it would be entirely unfunny, depressing, and could possibly make Belkar a sympathetic figure, which wasn't what he was supposed to be at all.

[woweedd]

The intro pages to Paladin Blues describe Redcloak as 'the lone goblin who survived the dungeon of dorukan'. If no non-evil creatures died as a result of blowing up the gate it would frankly be such a miracle of contrivance that it hardly counts in Elan's favour anyway.

I'm not 100% clear that Thog does show clear signs of proactive sadism? I mean, you can see him smiling with satisfaction after/during hurting folk in various panels, but so do roy and haley (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0200.html).


Oh, I agree completely. Whether Thog (or Elan) is malicious is quite secondary to the question of whether they're dangerous, and I am firmly of the opinion that you don't try to rehabilitate someone in the middle of a potentially lethal dungeon while trying to fight world-ending threats. That, you leave to the grown-ups.


Another case that probably bears inspection here is the MitD. He doesn't seem obviously stupider than Thog, and while he doesn't do much to help Xykon/Redcloak, he also did very little to stop them engaging in all manner of awful crimes for a number of years. Is he supposed to be 'a good man' or not?
A. Thog has actively stated his love of boredom-driven rampages and went along with Nale's plan to kill a massive amount of people solely as bait.
B. The MITD is a fundamentally good being, just one who has had the misfortune of being surrounded by bad influences since he was, functionally, a child. If I had to peg his alignment, i'd put him as True Neutral. He's not done anything particular Good, yet, but neither has he done much Evl so far as we can tell. If he is guilty, it is only of inaction. As far as I believe, in D&D, you need to actually DO Good/Evil things to tip the scales.

[Lacuna Caster]

A. Thog has actively stated his love of boredom-driven rampages and went along with Nale's plan to kill a massive amount of people solely as bait.
Look at those poor little fellas! They're all tuckered out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1byycwl8qgc&t=1m15s). :P


If [the MitD] is guilty, it is only of inaction.
Now hang on a second. Is the MitD or is the MitD not intelligent enough to realise that what Xykon and Redcloak regularly do is very wrong? And if he does know this, is doing little or nothing to stop them particularly consistent with caring what happens to other people?

[wumpus]

The Giant has made it clear that Thog is not "intellectually handicapped" - just "fantasy dumb" - low intelligence, but not to the point of disability:

Generally speaking, OOTS characters have "stat (or sheet) intelligence" and "character intelligence". They aren't quite the same and the Giant may use either depending on what the story needs.

Consider the order.

When we first meet them, Elan is on the edge of disability thanks to his low intelligence and wisdom. He could probably get by without one, but without both he is in trouble. Either the Giant got tired of these jokes, or Elan put his levelups in those stats and not charisma as his character grew. I'd probably say that Elan switched to using "character stats" and that his character sheets still gives him intelligence and wisdom penalties (assuming the Giant wanted to reference them).

Vaarsuvius has high intelligence stats, but rarely acts smarter than Roy, Halley, or even Durkon. This appears to be an issue with role playing in general: the DM can cheat and let inhumanly high intelligences act on information they "shouldn't have" directly but may have inferred by their ultra-intelligence. Perhaps the DM should give such characters additional information, because the player is limited to 18 int (and probably a touch lower). Clearly character intelligence is used nearly all the time, unless needing to show that V is a wizard and required to have other-worldly intelligence.

Roy is a bit odd in that his character stats match his sheet stats. It is just that his sheet stats are high across the board to the point he appears to have loaded the dice, or more likely the DM took pity on a pure fighter and gave him a massive point buy (if he agreed to put a lot of it in mental stats). I wonder if Roy's stats were created completely differently than the others, although the Giant got a lot of mileage out of the "fighter with high mental stats" jokes.

And finally Red Cloak appears to be the smartest character in the whole story. Perhaps not the wisest and that appears to be a problem with his character sheet (or block, do NPCs get a whole sheet?). By the sheet, Red Cloak must have a high wisdom score (he survived the cleric dual during Azure city), but the whole "Plan" seems a foolish course of action. Red Cloaks character stats and sheet stats appear to have switched on intelligence and wisdom.

Thog may have a dismal intelligence on the sheet, but while his character is certainly dumb, he always has a basic understanding of what is going on (unless such requires advanced training).

[Peelee]

Roy is a bit odd in that his character stats match his sheet stats. It is just that his sheet stats are high across the board to the point he appears to have loaded the dice, or more likely the DM took pity on a pure fighter and gave him a massive point buy (if he agreed to put a lot of it in mental stats). I wonder if Roy's stats were created completely differently than the others

Man, you really don't like the idea of getting lucky stat rolls.

[Fyraltari]

The intro pages to Paladin Blues describe Redcloak as 'the lone goblin who survived the dungeon of dorukan'. If no non-evil creatures died as a result of blowing up the gate it would frankly be such a miracle of contrivance that it hardly counts in Elan's favour anyway.
True.


I'm not 100% clear that Thog does show clear signs of proactive sadism? I mean, you can see him smiling with satisfaction after/during hurting folk in various panels, but so do roy and haley (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0200.html).
Roy and Haley smiles when getting the upper hand on an opponent who attacked them unprovoked. Thog kill non-threatening people while thinking about puppies.



Another case that probably bears inspection here is the MitD. He doesn't seem obviously stupider than Thog, and while he doesn't do much to help Xykon/Redcloak, he also did very little to stop them engaging in all manner of awful crimes for a number of years. Is he supposed to be 'a good man' or not?
The MitD is guilty of moral/mental laziness, that is letting someone else do his thinking in his place. I'd argue that until "ESCAPE" he was Neutral and has since, thanks to O-Chul's guidance, become Good.

[Worldsong]

On the subject of Elan, I think if he had considered the possibility of there still being someone in the dungeon who wasn't a servant of Xykon he'd either have decided that it would be a downer if someone innocent died and thus this wouldn't happen (since at the time he was in full Story Mode), or he'd actually have refrained from pressing the button out of fear of having overlooked someone or something. As it stands I feel like he just pressed the self-destruct button without even considering the possibility that this might have bad consequences.

Apathy is a distinctly Neutral trait verging on Evil, but in Elan's case it's not that he failed to consider it because he doesn't care but because he's easily distracted by his own thoughts and was acting on the assumption they'd won and everything would be okay (for both himself and everyone who isn't a baddy).

And the only person they'd met inside the dungeon who didn't turn out to be evil one way or another was Celia, who was already leaving. I'm still not sure about the teenager goblins (I could accept the argument that, motivations aside, they did help the OotS and only one of them actually betrayed the party). Nale and co got rid of Celia's coworkers so Elan neither knew they existed nor would exploding the castle have changed much since they were already dead.

Overall I'd say that while Elan should take some responsibility for blowing the dungeon up thoughtlessly it shows a flaw in his judgement (doesn't think things through, gets carried away) rather than in his personality (didn't knowingly or willingly condemn anyone who didn't deserve it to their fate of being blown up along with the dungeon). Anyone who worked together with or served Xykon of course doesn't really matter because if you're aiding an evil lich in world domination you can't complain if a hero blows you up.

On the subject of Belkar, I'd guess originally he existed purely for the sake of black humour (and to be the butt of some jokes) and by the time the comic became more serious The Giant preferred to keep him around and decided that the rest of the party must have felt sufficient loyalty to the blighter as part of their team to let him help them out with saving the world rather than cutting his throat in the middle of the night (both Roy and Elan would probably have been bothered by the idea of slitting his throat anyway).

I wouldn't be surprised if Vaarsuvius had offed Belkar, and I'm guessing the main reason that didn't happen is because V isn't going to kill fellow party members without consent from the party leader, no matter how unreliable and psychotic the party member is. Of course spreading Exploding Runes and letting the party member walk into them is a different matter...

On the subject of MitD, I'd call it Neutral. It's following the lead of an evil party, but a Neutral character is perfectly capable of being part of an Evil party without being or turning evil. From the perspective of Good it could be argued that anyone who aids Evil of their own volition is also Evil, but frankly if you treated ethics like that you wouldn't have Evil/Neutral/Good, you'd have Evil/Less Good/Good.

It's been made clear that MitD doesn't actually agree with what Xykon and Redcloak are doing, and it doesn't really seem to understand it either. It just goes along with what they ask of it because they're the only people it knows and it's much easier to let other people do the thinking for it.

Before O'Chul came along it was definitely not any better than Neutral, but I don't think it was Evil either. For the most part it was just too lazy to establish its own alignment.

[B. Dandelion]

Overall I'd say that while Elan should take some responsibility for blowing the dungeon up thoughtlessly it shows a flaw in his judgement (doesn't think things through, gets carried away) rather than in his personality (didn't knowingly or willingly condemn anyone who didn't deserve it to their fate of being blown up along with the dungeon). Anyone who worked together with or served Xykon of course doesn't really matter because if you're aiding an evil lich in world domination you can't complain if a hero blows you up.

According to Start of Darkness, the goblins in the dungeon came from a peaceful village built by Right-Eye. Xykon burned it to the ground and "recruited" them to his cause by threatening them all with gruesome death if they didn't comply. They were slaves, basically, even the evil ones. I think they would indeed have cause for complaint that the heroes not only didn't rescue them, but slaughtered them all without a second thought.

[Rrmcklin]

According to Start of Darkness, the goblins in the dungeon came from a peaceful village built by Right-Eye. Xykon burned it to the ground and "recruited" them to his cause by threatening them all with gruesome death if they didn't comply. They were slaves, basically, even the evil ones. I think they would indeed have cause for complaint that the heroes not only didn't rescue them, but slaughtered them all without a second thought.

I mean, you don't when the heroes have no way of knowing that, and no attempt is made to tell them such information.

[B. Dandelion]

I mean, you don't when the heroes have no way of knowing that, and no attempt is made to tell them such information.

So the good guys have no responsibility to make sure that people in the vicinity of the bad guy are deserving of death before killing them, and the burden is entirely on enslaved people to alert "heroes" to their plight even when the "heroes" they've seen so far kill them on sight. When they did try to surrender, Belkar cut them down anyway.

Personally, I love Elan, but I would much rather have the narrative actually come back to this point and address it properly rather than try to push the blame onto the people who got slaughtered.

[Rrmcklin]

So the good guys have no responsibility to make sure that people in the vicinity of the bad guy are deserving of death before killing them, and the burden is entirely on enslaved people to alert "heroes" to their plight even when the "heroes" they've seen so far kill them on sight. When they did try to surrender, Belkar cut them down anyway.

Personally, I love Elan, but I would much rather have the narrative actually come back to this point and address it properly rather than try to push the blame onto the people who got slaughtered.

I mean, yes? When you attack and try and kill people, they have no obligation to ask your circumstances before fighting back.

I don't recall the Order going out of their way to kill any of them, and they did listen to those teenagers who offered to help them.

It's not good, but it's not evil either. If the Order have no way of knowing any of this, they have no way of knowing it. Hell, even before SOD it's made clear to us (the audience) is basically forcing the Goblins into his service.

[B. Dandelion]

I mean, yes? When you attack and try and kill people, they have no obligation to ask your circumstances before fighting back.

Elan blowing up the castle and killing everyone left in the dungeon constitutes "fighting back" against the goblins who were last seen fleeing or surrendering?

It's pretty clear that was never what he was doing. He blew up the castle because it seemed like what he was supposed to do for the sake of drama, and the issue of the people he almost certainly killed in the process has simply never come up. My point was that you can't just say it's fine, their deaths don't matter because they had it coming by working for Xykon -- we explicitly know they were being coerced. They were victimized by the villain and then victimized again by the heroes.

[Lacuna Caster]

I mean, yes? When you attack and try and kill people, they have no obligation to ask your circumstances before fighting back.

https://s8.postimg.cc/5l3rpartx/reframing_the_narrative.png

It's not difficult to imagine that Xykon was sending his goblin mooks out on raids against the surrounding peasantry for food and such, and that Roy otherwise had fair reason to believe that Xykon was a serious threat that had to be dealt with quite separately from his family vendetta, but the early strip itself never particularly delves into this question and so far as I can tell the audience at the time didn't especially care. ...Because it was a stick-figure comedy webcomic. So, you know, no judgement.

But.... yes, when you actually interpret their behaviour literally and in earnest and in the light of what the author has to say about appropriate adventuring ethics in later stories, the Order's average behaviour is only fractionally better than, say, the old-school sapphire guard's (and actually worse than early-strip Miko's.)

You could even go ahead and retcon things so that Elan did deliberately blow up the gate as a last-ditch defence against Xykon's surviving minions under Roy's direct orders under circumstances where that really seemed like the only viable option to save his team and... it still looks kinda bad.

"So this random kobold who worships an evil God told you that our boss was living here, and our boss allegedly killed your Dad's master, therefore you're justified in carving up dozens of us, even when asleep or surrendering, then dropping a building on all our heads, to get at this one evil-doer that you haven't actually seen in person before?"

[hroþila]

Roy: "Goblins have been raiding the villages in this area for months"
Dungeon Crawlin' Fools, p. B

[Worldsong]

Looking back at my post I did make it sound too cut and dry, so I'll try again.

Yes, the goblins can complain about the fact that they're effectively slaves who get cut down/blown up without remorse from the heroes. I'd argue that the main problem would still be Xykon enslaving them rather than the OotS killing them, but it's true that you can't label them Evil just because they're acting on the orders of an evil lich who isn't giving them a choice.

I still wouldn't count it against the OotS as an evil act for a bunch of reasons.

Roy, Haley and Vaarsuvius went to a dungeon to get rid of some goblin raiders who were threatening the countryside and stop an evil lich who controlled said goblin raiders. They could have considered the possibility that the goblin raiders weren't doing this voluntarily, but the goblins never gave any indication that they were forced into this and they didn't give any indication of being willing to talk it out either. Finding out whether the goblins had a choice or not may have been more Good, but it's not required for being Good.

Belkar is a no-brainer, and the only question with Belkar is why the rest of the OotS tolerates him. Best I can say about that is that getting the psychotic killer to help you kill a bigger evil while trying to rein in his evil acts isn't going to count against your Goodness unless you're a paladin. Belkar is also the only one who kept killing goblins after they surrendered.

Elan is in the same boat as Roy, Haley and Vaarsuvius. Him pressing the self-destruct button after the goblins had surrendered was certainly a sign of him being careless, but it's not Evil.

The very important thing here is that the Deva told Roy that the Good realms don't punish you for incompetence or poor judgement. Elan wasn't trying to hurt anyone when he pressed the button, and he was perfectly willing to treat the goblins as people as long as they weren't trying to kill him or his friends (see his interactions with the teenager goblin).

I could imagine it being mentioned at some point, but I'd expect it to come down to "you should think before you act" and I think Elan already got the character development arc where he learned to be more careful/thoughtful (he might have gotten two, actually). However it seems like Elan has low INT and WIS so a certain impulsiveness is just part of his character (but doesn't necessarily affect his Alignment).

[KorvinStarmast]

Elan blowing up the castle and killing everyone left in the dungeon constitutes "fighting back" against the goblins who were last seen fleeing or surrendering? It is a mistake to assign or infer malice when the obvious explanation is stupidity or sheer incompetence. We are talking Elan, here.

There is a difference between accidental death and murder, but I am not sure that matters to your approach here; you seem to be trying to shoehorn some moralizing into the early stages of when OoTS was transitioning from gag strip to a story with considerable depth. That's low quality, external retcon of head canon, at best.

Beyond that, see hroþila's point. The presumption and protestations of innocence are being strained to the point of parody.

[Lacuna Caster]

It is a mistake to assign or infer malice when the obvious explanation is stupidity or sheer incompetence. We are talking Elan, here.
Yeah, but nobody else in the order particularly brings up Elan's misstep as something he needs to seriously reflect on or atone for. Elan might have the excuse of stupidity, but most of his companions don't. And while I'm perfectly aware that the early strip had a very different tone and emphasis from it's later development, this didn't prevent certain other characters having their words and actions taken in deadly earnest and subjected to minute ethical analysis from their first appearance (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0120.html).

Besides, when it comes to the automatic assumption that green people wearing black robes are up to no good, how is "it was only a gag-a-day webcomic, it shouldn't be taken seriously" a better excuse than "it's only a tactical wargaming exercise, it shouldn't be taken seriously?" I wouldn't say the protestations of innocence are being strained to the point of parody so much as that the early strip's straining to parody is being taken with a perfectly straight face.

[Kish]

My problem with that is, rather, Rich has said that no one in the strip (prior to Ivan's reappearance, anyway) is supposed to be seen as either 1) mentally disabled, or 2) not morally responsible for their actions.

I don't see any way to square 2) above with Elan's behavior that doesn't point to, "So Elan is, like Thog, a casually destructive mass murderer, who laughs in glee and exclaims 'Just like in a Vin Diesel movie!' as the bomb he set off kills hundreds."

[woweedd]

My problem with that is, rather, Rich has said that no one in the strip (prior to Ivan's reappearance, anyway) is supposed to be seen as either 1) mentally disabled, or 2) not morally responsible for their actions.

I don't see any way to square 2) above with Elan's behavior that doesn't point to, "So Elan is, like Thog, a casually destructive mass murderer, who laughs in glee and exclaims 'Just like in a Vin Diesel movie!' as the bomb he set off kills hundreds."
Oh no, I acknowledge that what Elan did was an Evil act. I merely think his conduct otherwise is enough to make him Good. And, of course, DCFs Elan is not modern Elan.

[hroþila]

Recklessness is not a moral choice.

[woweedd]

Recklessness is not a moral choice.
Ok, as someone on the side of "Elan made an honest mistake and, while it probably dinged his Alignment meter something fierce, it wouldn't be enough to push him to the Evil box", that's some bull. If you could reasonably anticipate the consequences of your decision, you are morally responsible for those consequences. And while Elan's low Intelligence might be enough to be a mitigating factor, for the same reason Celestia doesn't generally consider childhood escapades, it can't absolve him entirely.

[Doug Lampert]

Recklessness is not a moral choice.

Actually, it is, reckless disregard for the consequences to others of your actions is EVIL.

Elan is not a mentally disabled, he chose to do something he knew was dangerous, because it would make a cool scene, even knowing there were other people in the area. That's an evil. Good people worry about the consequences of their actions. Neutral people have compunctions about hurting the innocent.

What alignment is it that just doesn't care enough to even think about it?

[woweedd]

Actually, it is, reckless disregard for the consequences to others of your actions is EVIL.

Elan is not a mentally disabled, he chose to do something he knew was dangerous, because it would make a cool scene, even knowing there were other people in the area. That's an evil. Good people worry about the consequences of their actions. Neutral people have compunctions about hurting the innocent.

What alignment is it that just doesn't care enough to even think about it?
Eh, I wouldn't be surprised if his low Intelligence is a mitigating factor, since, after all, the afterlife doesn't generally consider childhood escapades for, i'm assuming, that very reason, but he's definitely not absolved. I'm pretty sure he's still Good, but it's definitely a ding.

[B. Dandelion]

It is a mistake to assign or infer malice when the obvious explanation is stupidity or sheer incompetence. We are talking Elan, here.

There is a difference between accidental death and murder, but I am not sure that matters to your approach here; you seem to be trying to shoehorn some moralizing into the early stages of when OoTS was transitioning from gag strip to a story with considerable depth. That's low quality, external retcon of head canon, at best.

You appear to be conflating me and my arguments with those of other people in the thread: the main thing I've taken issue with is the idea that the lives of the goblins lost in the dungeon "didn't matter". I haven't said anything about Elan acting with "malice".

I did say he made victims of the victimized and that the "heroes" were of no help to people who could have used a hero. I'm drawing mainly from Start of Darkness in doing so, not DCF. Start of Darkness came years after DCF and the Giant if he chose could have used it to specify things like, oh, that there were multiple escape passages in the dungeon that the goblins all knew about, or that Xykon had exclusively recruited among Evil goblins, or what have you, but instead he hammered in on the slavery issue and made Redcloak's (ostensible) concern for their lives of paramount importance to the climax.

(Personally I tend to think this issue actually will come up again. Redcloak could easily be the type to throw the transgressions of the good guys back in their faces and ask by what measure they call themselves better than him.)


Beyond that, see hroþila's point. The presumption and protestations of innocence are being strained to the point of parody.

Well, I think that second sentence is certainly true. It's absurd the degree to which people are trying to defend the purity of Elan's innocence.

[hamishspence]

I'm drawing mainly from Start of Darkness in doing so, not DCF. Start of Darkness came years after DCF and the Giant if he chose could have used it to specify things like, oh, that there were multiple escape passages in the dungeon that the goblins all knew about, or that Xykon had exclusively recruited among Evil goblins, or what have you, but instead he hammered in on the slavery issue and made Redcloak's (ostensible) concern for their lives of paramount importance to the climax.

(Personally I tend to think this issue actually will come up again. Redcloak could easily be the type to throw the transgressions of the good guys back in their faces and ask by what measure they call themselves better than him.)

Given how many goblins are in the throne room,

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0105.html

it's possible that Xykon recalled all of them to it shortly before the climax (as well as laying out snacks etc):

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0104.html

and that there are no goblins left in the unexplored areas of the dungeon to be blown up in the explosion.

[Lacuna Caster]

Given how many goblins are in the throne room... ...it's possible that Xykon recalled all of them to it shortly before the climax (as well as laying out snacks etc)...
It's conceivable, sure. But ideally the heroes should be checking that's true before enacting their scorched-earth policy, and they weren't under immediate time pressure following Xykon's defeat. (Contrast with Miko, who enters and searches a burning building just to guarantee that all civilians have been evacuated.)


Also, on the "they attacked first because you were committing a home invasion" point- as far as I can tell, this is a pretty accurate description of the Order's behaviour during the Starmetal quest and versus the YA Black Dragon in particular. Roy & Co. legitimately have no better explanation for killing things in the swamp than "mad lust for treasure"/"scales weren't all shiny"/"obviously cool adventure location".

.

[hamishspence]

It's conceivable, sure. But ideally the heroes should be checking to ensure that's true before enacting their scorched-earth policy, and they weren't under immediate time pressure following Xykon's defeat.

Yup. And the rest of the Order all seem to take the tack that what Elan did was stupid - but mostly because it may have deprived them of gold and XP, and endangered them.

Also, on the "they attacked first because you were committing a home invasion" point- as far as I can tell, this is a pretty accurate description of the Order's behaviour during the Starmetal quest and versus the YA Black Dragon in particular.

And the Deva is pretty critical of Roy for deceiving the rest of the party into going on the Starmetal quest.

[woweedd]

It's conceivable, sure. But ideally the heroes should be checking that's true before enacting their scorched-earth policy, and they weren't under immediate time pressure following Xykon's defeat. (Contrast with Miko, who enters and searches a burning building just to guarantee that all civilians have been evacuated.)


Also, on the "they attacked first because you were committing a home invasion" point- as far as I can tell, this is a pretty accurate description of the Order's behaviour during the Starmetal quest and versus the YA Black Dragon in particular. Roy & Co. legitimately have no better explanation for killing things in the swamp than "mad lust for treasure"/"scales weren't all shiny"/"obviously cool adventure location".

.
A reasoning your beloved Miko agreed with, it should be noted. Which doesn't make it any better ot me, but seems like the sort of thing you'd probably care about. Also, in fairness, swamps are not generally inhabited and,a s afr as we can tell, they were running away when the dragon started attacking them. Now, murdering it? That was Evil...But it was pretty much V's fault and decision, and V is not exactly a moral paragon.

[hroþila]

You guys are thinking in real world terms instead of in fantasy dumb terms. It's not that Elan doesn't care, it's that it doesn't even cross Elan's mind because he's dumb. And since all this talk is about an inferred disaster we didn't see and no one in the comic talks about, I'll question whether it even happened: Elan's dramatic instincts wouldn't have triggered if the act was going to kill all those innocent people. They got away somehow.

Regardless, recklessness doesn't make you innocent in the real world, but it sure as hell doesn't make you a murderer either (people here were explicitly comparing it with Thog's murders).

[Lacuna Caster]

A reasoning your beloved Miko agreed with, it should be noted. Which doesn't make it any better to me, but seems like the sort of thing you'd probably care about.
I'm not denying there were always valid grounds for criticising Miko's particular approach to hunting evildoers. What annoys me is the double-standards that were, and to some extent still are, applied to analysing her behaviour.

(What kind of person (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1129.html) gives up living like a princess to help out total strangers? Well, I don't know for sure, but it certainly seems like Miko had strong opinions as to what should be done (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html) with that kind of money.)

[hamishspence]

(What kind of person (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1129.html) gives up living like a princess to help out total strangers? Well, I don't know for sure, but it certainly seems like Miko had strong opinions as to what should be done (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0207.html) with that kind of money.)

It's easy to rant at others for not donating to charity, and assume the worst about them. However, we know that Miko "only receives a small stipend from her lord"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0225.html

so she may not necessarily do all that much "donating to charity" herself.

[Lacuna Caster]

It's easy to rant at others for not donating to charity, and assume the worst about them. However, we know that Miko "only receives a small stipend from her lord"

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0225.html

so she may not necessarily do all that much "donating to charity" herself.
Really? So what is she doing with all the loot drops from the hundreds of evil creatures she's killed? Because I'm pretty sure there's a certain recommended wealth-by-level for 16th-level NPCs. (Nor, after rescuing the king of somewhere, did she ask for, say, a giant gold tankard (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0170.html) filled with beer.)

If we're going to take Miko's word about dragon-racism being kosher, I think it is unfair not to take Miko's word about how she would give to charity. There's actually more evidence for the latter.

[woweedd]

Really? So what is she doing with all the loot drops from the hundreds of evil creatures she's killed? Because I'm pretty sure there's a certain recommended wealth-by-level for 16th-level NPCs. (Nor, after rescuing the king of somewhere, did she ask for, say, a giant gold tankard (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0170.html) filled with beer.)

If we're going to take Miko's word about dragon-racism being kosher, I think it is unfair not to take Miko's word about how she would give to charity. There's actually more evidence for the latter.
Wait, where are you getting 16th-level from?

[Lacuna Caster]

Wait, where are you getting 16th-level from?
Rich made the mistake of actually scripting out Miko's second fight with the order in a forum post, from which the class-and-level-geekery folks were able to infer that she's probably around a Monk-2-Paladin-14 with improved-two-weapon-fighting and 5 attacks per round. (She's also the highest-ranked and most powerful paladin of the guard.)


Anyway. On the topic of the Order visiting the swamp/forest- real-life wilderness might be sparsely inhabited, but a D&D world has sapient creatures crawling from every orifice, particularly if you're an adventurer. And the YABD, given his family history, probably had reason to fear for his life.

[woweedd]

Rich made the mistake of actually scripting out Miko's second fight with the order in a forum post, from which the class-and-level-geekery folks were able to infer that she's probably around a Monk-2-Paladin-14 with improved-two-weapon-fighting and 5 attacks per round. (She's also the highest-ranked and most powerful paladin of the guard.)


Anyway. On the topic of the Order visiting the swamp/forest- real-life wilderness might be sparsely inhabited, but a D&D world has sapient creatures crawling from every orifice, particularly if you're an adventurer. And the YABD, given his family history, probably had reason to fear for his life.
That's by her word, and she's not known for being the modest type.

[Lacuna Caster]

That's by her word, and she's not known for being the modest type.
No. She defeats Hinjo easily even while injured and without her paladin powers, and he's the second-most powerful member of the guard, so it's fair to say she has a substantial advantage in terms of combat experience. (She also gives Hinjo explicit orders while the OOTS are being escorted to trial, which it seems very unlikely she could get away with if she didn't actually have the rank she thought she did.)

If Miko just made money as a freelance adventurer and only kept 1/3 of her expectable earnings she could still live like a princess. And yet she doesn't.

[Peelee]

Really? So what is she doing with all the loot drops from the hundreds of evil creatures she's killed?

She talks about the money the Order got from the dragon as ill-gotten wealth. She could very well not take anything from the creatures she kills, seeing it as tainted or as stealing from the dead.

[Kish]

And since all this talk is about an inferred disaster we didn't see

We most certainly see the dungeon explode. That you choose to close your eyes to anything other than "now there's a bright orange splash on the page" means you should only speak for yourself.


(people here were explicitly comparing it with Thog's murders).
Yes, because throwing a "recklessness doesn't make you evil" slogan isn't actually a compelling argument. Recklessly setting off a bomb in an inhabited area (which is what Elan did, not inferred, as explicit as could be) most certainly does make you a mass murderer.

[woweedd]

We most certainly see the dungeon explode. That you choose to close your eyes to anything other than "now there's a bright orange splash on the page" means you should only speak for yourself.


Yes, because throwing a "recklessness doesn't make you evil" slogan isn't actually a compelling argument. Recklessly setting off a bomb in an inhabited area (which is what Elan did, not inferred, as explicit as could be) most certainly does make you a mass murderer.
I think what dingushs him form Thog is in what he would have done, had he thought it through. If you explained to Thog, in a way he could understand, why his actions were wrong, he wouldn't reconsider them one bit. Elan? Would. Basically, I feel like the difference is in what they would have done had they thought it through. Ask Elan now, and he'd probably relaiz ehta what he did was Evil. The ability to recognize his past actions as being wrong is what distinguishes him from Thog, or the Empress of Blood.

[Kish]

If you explained to Thog, in a way he could understand, why his actions were wrong, he wouldn't reconsider them one bit.
See, I disagree here. He values the lives of people he recognizes as people, like Nale, Elan, and all dogs. Thog doesn't value most people's lives--but then, for most of the comic neither has Elan, really ("Hooray! The people whose names I know are saved!"). My problem here is that you're handwaving the process of "explain...in a way he could understand." If you tried to do that with Thog, he'd probably be uncomprehending of why the lives of people he'd never had fun with mattered, then shut the conversation down by calling you "talky-man." If you tried to do that to pre-Empire of Blood Elan, he'd shut it down by calling you a meanie-face. Is one of those really so much better than the other that one of the people described here is Good and the other Evil? (Particularly bearing in mind that the Good one is the less stupid of the two?)

[hamishspence]

If you tried to do that to pre-Empire of Blood Elan, he'd shut it down by calling you a meanie-face.

While Elan initially calls V a meanie for yelling at him, he does listen when V explains why V was so angry at Elan's action:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0128.html

so something similar might apply to other actions.

[woweedd]

See, I disagree here. He values the lives of people he recognizes as people, like Nale, Elan, and all dogs. Thog doesn't value most people's lives--but then, for most of the comic neither has Elan, really ("Hooray! The people whose names I know are saved!"). My problem here is that you're handwaving the process of "explain...in a way he could understand." If you tried to do that with Thog, he'd probably be uncomprehending of why the lives of people he'd never had fun with mattered, then shut the conversation down by calling you "talky-man." If you tried to do that to pre-Empire of Blood Elan, he'd shut it down by calling you a meanie-face. Is one of those really so much better than the other that one of the people described here is Good and the other Evil? (Particularly bearing in mind that the Good one is the less stupid of the two?)
Well, yeah. I'm specifically referring to current day Elan.

[hroþila]

We most certainly see the dungeon explode. That you choose to close your eyes to anything other than "now there's a bright orange splash on the page" means you should only speak for yourself.
We saw the dungeon explode. We didn't see anyone dying in the explosion.

Also, when did I say I speak for anyone else? Why the snark?

Yes, because throwing a "recklessness doesn't make you evil" slogan isn't actually a compelling argument. Recklessly setting off a bomb in an inhabited area (which is what Elan did, not inferred, as explicit as could be) most certainly does make you a mass murderer.
It'd be criminally negligent manslaughter at most.

[Kish]

You keep saying "We" where you should say "I." That indicates that your "inferred disaster" tosh speaks for someone other than just you.

[hroþila]

If you can't stop disrespecting me, I'm not going to bother debating you.

As explained, the disaster I was referring to was the mass casualty scenario. We didn't see it: we didn't see anyone dying in the explosion and it was never referenced either in the comic or by the author as far as I know. Therefore, that the disaster happened is an inference. I'm not sure what part of this is problematic?

[Worldsong]

If a friend of mine blew up an inhabited area where a large portion of the inhabitants have made a determined attempt to stab, shoot or otherwise harm me and my friends I'd still disapprove, but I wouldn't say it's as bad as the guy who blew up an inhabited area where the inhabitants have done nothing worse than be unpleasant in conversation.

If I then learned that those people in the first inhabited area were being so violent because their families were held hostage I'd point out to my friend that he really should have been more careful and that we have to do something to make up for it, but I still wouldn't put it on the same level as the guy who blew up the second inhabited area.

[Kish]

If you can't stop disrespecting me, I'm not going to bother debating you.
Please, tell me what exactly I need to say to stop getting this "we didn't see Elan blow up an area established as inhabited" stuff.

[hroþila]

Please, tell me what exactly I need to say to stop getting this "we didn't see Elan blow up an area established as inhabited" stuff.
You could start by reading my posts, particularly the bits where I explain what I'm saying we didn't see.

Was the area inhabited? Yes.
Did it have escape routes? Yes.
Was the tone of the comic one that would lead us to believe people actually died there? In my opinion, no.
Did we see people dying in the explosion, or were we ever told about it later? No.

Based on that, I personally believe no one died in the explosion, except perhaps some leftover enemy combatants at most, and that everyone else somehow got away. Yes, this outcome would be miraculous in the real world, but this is not the real world: this is light comedy and silly fantasy.

But further, I also believe that even if the disaster happened (again, the disaster=innocent people dying in the explosion), that would be manslaughter, not murder, and thus that Elan can't be equated to Thog. Feel free to disagree, but again, there's no need to be insulting like you're being.

[Kish]

You misunderstand. You implied you would stop trying to convince me of what "we" see if I said something. What is that? Getting you to spell out the underlying reasoning behind denying that Elan blew anyone up is something, but ultimately, not worth dealing with the slogans and the Wes, to me.

[Svata]

Can you tell me the name of any character at Cliffport not related to the order or the linear guild?, how about Azure city from the ones that weren’t related or had any interaction with the order or Xykon forces, how about the empire of blood, the mechane, dwarven lands, Gobbotopia, gnome city, the desert, etc…


Bolding mine

You're right. I can't name any characters that didn't interact with anyone in the comic.

[hamishspence]

It's fairly safe to say that had the explosion not happened, the Order would still have sought to kill all remaining "monsters" in the dungeon.

Dungeon Crawling Fools commentary:

"The end of the sequence pretty much required the castle be destroyed. Because I had already established that the OOTSers had bypassed several levels to get to the end, gamer logo dictated that they would go back and clean up the extra monsters for bonus XP and gold. Well, that didn't strike me as the most interesting set of stories - OOTS: Quest for Free Swag" was not my idea of an epic tale. As is often the case when stuck with a story quandary, I turned to Elan and asked him to screw up on an epic scale. So he blew up the castle, alleviating me of the burden of explaining why they never went back for extra adventuring."

[hroþila]

You implied you would stop trying to convince me of what "we" see if I said something
Now you're making things up just to be confrontational. That's not what I said or implied at all: what I said is that insulting other people's posts as "nonsense" is not conductive to debate. I also don't appreciate your insistence that I'm speaking for anyone else just because I'm using "we" to describe factual information (i.e. not interpretations) like what was actually shown in the comic.

Have a nice day.

[Dion]

”Hooray! The people whose names I know are saved!"

Yeah, that’s an absolutely awesome line.

If believing that made you evil, then about 99.99% of humanity is irredeemably evil.

[Kish]

Now you're making things up just to be confrontational. That's not what I said or implied at all: what I said is that insulting other people's posts as "nonsense" is not conductive to debate.
Sure. Neither is tossing a slogan as if it was a devastating argument, or repeatedly asserting what "we" see after the person you're ostensibly trying to debate with has made it clear they don't consent to you speaking for them. And yet you're only interested in complaining about my tone, not adjusting your approach.

Have fun.

[Worldsong]

Sure. Neither is tossing a slogan as if it was a devastating argument, or repeatedly asserting what "we" see after the person you're ostensibly trying to debate with has made it clear they don't consent to you speaking for them. And yet you're only interested in complaining about my tone, not adjusting your approach.

Have fun.

The "we" thing is primarily an issue if someone is trying to act like their opinion is shared by others.

This isn't an opinion. It's documented fact that everyone gets to see the same thing, namely what the comics show.

Here Elan has activated the rune, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0118.html) here the OotS escapes, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html) here we see the dungeon exploding and the direct aftermath. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0120.html)

When he's saying "we don't see anybody die in the explosion" that's pretty much literally looking at the pages and observing "there are no corpses to be found". You can object to the "we" thing on principle, but unless there's a different version of the comic available where there are corpses him saying "we don't see anybody dying in the explosion" is him stating an observable fact which is easily proved either false or true, independent of what opinion someone holds.

You can argue that there MUST have been people who died in the explosion since it doesn't make sense otherwise, but what he's been going on about is that no matter how much sense it makes, completely factually speaking you don't see a single corpse (you see two tentacle things get squashed, but they survived).

[Kish]

I can also point out that "we didn't see anyone die" is a fallback position from "an inferred disaster we didn't see," a much broader claim than hroþila, or apparently you, wishes to now acknowledge. Equating them is like if I said that Belkar actually assaulting Roy was "an inferred assault which we didn't see" (a statement with clear implications) and, when challenged on this, retreated to "the dagger hit off panel (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0085.html)."

hroþila did, eventually, acknowledge "this outcome would be miraculous in the real world" but claimed "this is not the real world: this is light comedy and silly fantasy." The latter part of that claim would, I think, be fascinating to the many, many people who have been brutally murdered, tortured, and, at least, come within inches of being raped by Tarquin. That would be fascinating to the luckless dwarves cleaning Hel's throne. And, indeed, an ironic claim: Either mass murder is a thing that happens in this world and thus Thog is responsible for his killings, or it is not and so Elan is not because "light comedy and silly fantasy."

[Worldsong]

I can also point out that "we didn't see anyone die" is a fallback position from "an inferred disaster we didn't see," a much broader claim than hroþila, or apparently you, wishes to now acknowledge. Equating them is like if I said that Belkar actually assaulting Roy was "an inferred assault which we didn't see" (a statement with clear implications) and, when challenged on this, retreated to "the dagger hit off panel."

hroþila did, eventually, acknowledge "this outcome would be miraculous in the real world" but claimed "this is not the real world: this is light comedy and silly fantasy." The latter part of that claim would, I think, be fascinating to the many, many people who have been brutally murdered, tortured, and, at least, come within inches of being raped by Tarquin. That would be fascinating to the luckless dwarves cleaning Hel's throne. And, indeed, an ironic claim: Either mass murder is a thing that happens in this world and thus Thog is responsible for his killings, or it is not and so Elan is not because "light comedy and silly fantasy."

Personally I'm still holding to the position that the difference between Thog and Elan is that Elan either didn't think anybody would be harmed or was so busy thinking about the rules of drama that he completely forgot to consider all the consequences, whereas Thog is fully aware that he's killing people, has no reason to object to killing people, and in fact enjoys killing people.

Of course it'd still be a lot better if Elan actually thought about his actions, but I'm going to choose the idiot who harms people because he doesn't think things through over the idiot who harms people because he wants to harm people.

Most of those things are a result of the Cerebus Syndrome. The characters themselves complain (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0242.html) that things seem to have become more dangerous. The first hundred pages or so was meant as a bunch of jokes to begin with, and the explosion of the dungeon only happened about a dozen of pages after that. Meanwhile these significantly darker things you talk about all happen several hundred chapters later (the party arrives at the Western Continent somewhere between 600-700, the stuff with Hel occurs even later), during which a lot has happened and the comic has become notably more serious in some aspects.

Also, the horror that is the Empire of Blood and the dreadful fate of the dwarves share the quality that we're explicitly told that these things happen and that it's a big issue. Meanwhile I've been digging around and I can't find anyone in the entirety of the comic say anything about people dying in the explosion Elan caused. Even when people point out that Elan messed up it's about endangering the rest of the party or blowing up the gate. So with Elan's explosion we're left to speculate whether anybody was actually killed by the explosion itself (and it happens in the beginning of the comic, where things were a lot more lighthearted) whereas with Tarquin's tyranny and Hel's bet we're explicitly told/shown that it happens and is bad (and happens later in the comic, where things have become more serious in general). Reading the first 100 pages and the last 100 pages there's a distinct difference in the nature of the story (to me, at least).

And with Belkar there's a unsound effect and a scream to indicate that yes he did hit something with his dagger, and odds are that was Roy (and Belkar is talking about using his dagger to inflict harm moments before throwing the thing). With the explosion we don't get anything to indicate "someone was killed by this explosion": no sound effect, no screams, nobody saying "this rune is going to kill people who aren't us", no visuals of anyone being present near the end other than the OotS (and Xykon&co, who we know escaped). It's certainly possible it happened, but unlike all these other examples there's no concrete proof that someone died in that explosion.

[hamishspence]

Personally I'm still holding to the position that the difference between Thog and Elan is that Elan either didn't think anybody would be harmed or was so busy thinking about the rules of drama that he completely forgot to consider all the consequences, whereas Thog is fully aware that he's killing people, has no reason to object to killing people, and in fact enjoys killing people.


It's worth remembering how The Giant described Elan back in the Dungeon Crawling Fools book:

"He's basically a child, full of wonder and optimism. He never thinks his actions through and is painfully naive. He's not as dumb as he sometimes seems. Well, OK, maybe he is, but he has a certain ability to function regardless. Writing Elan usually means coming up with the most ridiculous and outlandish reaction I can come up with, then making sure it isn't mean-spirited. Because Elan doesn't have a mean bone in his body; while he is hurt and sad that Male betrays him, he still saves his brother's life in the end. Elan is, ultimately, my guarantee that OOTS will never become a dark comedy or an exercise in hate humor."

[Kish]

I remember, at the Familicide, several people being all, "Wait, the early strip indications of Vaarsuvius being sadistic and enjoying blowing people up with no moral restraint were supposed to be taken seriously?"

Can't imagine what brought that to mind.

But for me, I see a difference between holding Roy responsible for his attitude in strip #24 and holding anyone responsible for something that happened in strip #11xx, but strip #120 was distinctly after the comic had started having a plot. Elan's plot arc in the Empire of Blood is, in part, about him realizing that his prior attitude was wrong, that drama isn't a moral imperative and stories don't take precedence over people being hurt. Handwaving his previous attitude out of existence means that lesson makes no sense.

That said, as hamishspence just pointed out, I am well aware that my impression of how Elan did come across in Dungeon Crawlin' Fools is not how he was intended to come across--whether Rich recognized something in his writing that he wanted to change and changed it, or he would disagree with everything I've said here.

[hamishspence]

Elan's plot arc in the Empire of Blood is, in part, about him realizing that his prior attitude was wrong, that drama isn't a moral imperative and stories don't take precedence over people being hurt.

True, and the Giant does phrase it that way in BRitF commentary.

Handwaving his previous attitude out of existence means that lesson makes no sense.
Yup - Elan's previous attitude was wrong - but it wasn't so strong as to move him out of CG and into CN.


Still, as Tarquin exemplifies "Elan's belief in the dramatic structure of the world, extrapolated to its terrifying conclusion" - we know that, while Elan is a long way from Evil, his attitudes are ones that can potentially lead to evil, taken to an extreme.

[Worldsong]

I remember, at the Familicide, several people being all, "Wait, the early strip indications of Vaarsuvius being sadistic and enjoying blowing people up with no moral restraint were supposed to be taken seriously?"

Can't imagine what brought that to mind.

But for me, I see a difference between holding Roy responsible for his attitude in strip #24 and holding anyone responsible for something that happened in strip #11xx, but strip #120 was distinctly after the comic had started having a plot. Elan's plot arc in the Empire of Blood is, in part, about him realizing that his prior attitude was wrong, that drama isn't a moral imperative and stories don't take precedence over people being hurt. Handwaving his previous attitude out of existence means that lesson makes no sense.

That said, as hamishspence just pointed out, I am well aware that my impression of how Elan did come across in Dungeon Crawlin' Fools is not how he was intended to come across--whether Rich recognized something in his writing that he wanted to change and changed it, or he would disagree with everything I've said here.

I always saw Vaarsuvius as very trigger happy, but a trigger happy character has a different influence on a silly story and a serious story. It helped that up until the Familicide event Vaarsuvius mostly unloaded their arsenal on valid targets (enemies).

Other than freezing Elan because he was annoying.

And repeatedly blowing Belkar up.

I'm still not sure whether Vaarsuvius's conflict with Belker was an indication of a bad personality or not. With anybody else it would be a clear case, but given that it's Belkar...

And attempting to blow up Miko.

You know what, I probably should have been more worried about that part.

My interpretation of the Empire of Blood arc wasn't Elan moving from CN to CG, but more him moving from an immature and flawed CG (but still CG) to a more mature and sensible CG. He realized that his behaviour wasn't perfect, that he was letting one personality trait affect his judgement, and decided to be better from now on and not let his love for drama get in the way of being a good person.


Yup - Elan's previous attitude was wrong - but it wasn't so strong as to move him out of CG and into CN.

That is in a way what I've been trying to say (I'm not very good with words). There's various levels of good, and while Elan's attitude wasn't flawless (because of him often making poor judgement calls) it wasn't Evil or even Neutral.

I was trying to find a way to reference the Deva judging Roy (where a big emphasis is made on that you don't have to be perfect, that intent matters as much as the results, and that you aren't punished for not being a super genius as long as you use what mental ability you have as good as you are able) but I couldn't think of a way that wouldn't make it sound like I was linking two unrelated situations.

[Lacuna Caster]

She talks about the money the Order got from the dragon as ill-gotten wealth. She could very well not take anything from the creatures she kills, seeing it as tainted or as stealing from the dead.
It's not impossible, I guess, but there's no particular evidence for it, and I'm not sure why I should go so far to contrive an explanation as to why Miko could not mean what she says? Why not... just take her at her word?


I remember, at the Familicide, several people being all, "Wait, the early strip indications of Vaarsuvius being sadistic and enjoying blowing people up with no moral restraint were supposed to be taken seriously?"

Can't imagine what brought that to mind.
Yeah. That as well.


I mean, I can see a nominal difference between Elan and Thog in the sense that Thog can actually see his greataxe cutting into soft yielding humanoid flesh and see blood and viscera spilling out, whereas Elan would have to think through one or two logical steps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssjokgx0pUQ) in his head to work out that blowing up the keep might blow up creatures in the keep, and that's bad. I mean, I can hypothetically imagine that Nale told Thog he's sending people to puppy heaven, or something- he's not exactly hard to manipulate- but Thog can't really be unaware of killing people per se.

Hang on a second. A lot of Thog's victims probably did go to puppy heaven (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beastlands#Description). This world is messed up, man.

[brian 333]

While I loved Miko as an NPC, I loathed her as a character. She is probably the best written character in the comic.

But my vote has to go to Crystal: an unrepentant murderer whose sole purpose in the comic is to show what Haley could have been. She is more Haley's Evil Opposite than Sabine, intentionally warping all of Haley's best traits into an evil so casual and malignant that by contrast Haley looks Good.

I wouldn't want to meet her, but as a character in a comic it's hard not to love her.

Julio Scoundrel almost gets my vote, but I haven't seen him kill anyone, so he fails to meet the criteria of the OP's question.

[Lacuna Caster]

But my vote has to go to Crystal: an unrepentant murderer whose sole purpose in the comic is to show what Haley could have been. She is more Haley's Evil Opposite than Sabine, intentionally warping all of Haley's best traits into an evil so casual and malignant that by contrast Haley looks Good.
Which traits are these, exactly?

[Kish]

I'm going "wut?" at that.

Crystal has nothing except some minimal number of rogue levels in common with Haley. She's not a warped Haley; she's a stupid sadistic thug who doesn't even care about money.

(Maybe some minimum number of rogue levels. A minimum number of levels in a class that has Hide and Move Silently as class skills; it wouldn't be surprising if Crystal was actually a ranger/assassin.)

[Peelee]

It's not impossible, I guess, but there's no particular evidence for it,

There is; she explicitly calls out the horde as ill-gotten gains. Evidence isn't proof, it's just evidence. Is there any evidence that she did loot corpses?

[zimmerwald1915]

If believing that made you evil, then about 99.99% of humanity is irredeemably evil.
Erm. . . Isn't it?

[Lacuna Caster]

There is; she explicitly calls out the horde as ill-gotten gains...
Miko's assumption- reasonable or otherwise- is that the Order had most likely acquired their gold through some act of theft if it wasn't earmarked for another lawful purpose. She didn't seem to object to them looting from the dragon's hoard as long as the dragon was evil, and Miko rarely fails to voice her disapproval of anything.

[Fyraltari]

This world is messed up, man.
This world as evil as one of the four cornerstones of its reality. Of course it's messed up.



If believing that made you evil, then about 99.99% of humanity is irredeemably evil.Erm. . . Isn't it?
No.

While I loved Miko as an NPC, I loathed her as a character. She is probably the best written character in the comic.

But my vote has to go to Crystal: an unrepentant murderer whose sole purpose in the comic is to show what Haley could have been. She is more Haley's Evil Opposite than Sabine, intentionally warping all of Haley's best traits into an evil so casual and malignant that by contrast Haley looks Good.

I wouldn't want to meet her, but as a character in a comic it's hard not to love her.

Julio Scoundrel almost gets my vote, but I haven't seen him kill anyone, so he fails to meet the criteria of the OP's question.
What are you voting for and why did you vote twice?

Also Haley has more in common with Sabine than with Crystal, methinks, even Belkar doesn't think Crystal is an appropriate nemesis for her. And he had a horse as a nemesis.

[woweedd]

This world as evil as one of the four cornerstones of its reality. Of course it's messed up.


No.

What are you voting for and why did you vote twice?

Also Haley has more in common with Sabine than with Crystal, methinks, even Belkar doesn't think Crystal is an appropriate nemesis for her. And he had a horse as a nemesis.

Humanity or only caring about people you know?

[Fyraltari]

99.99% of humanity is not irredeemably evil. Seriously.

[The Pilgrim]

And Elan makes it to the Top spot of Performer of the Gesatest Act of Villany of All Times, for blowing up Dorukan's Dungeon after Xykon had already been defeated.

Displacing the previous holders of the title and now close seconds, the evil duo Calrissian&Antilles, for blowing up the Death Star II with all those innocent subcontractors in it, after Emperor Palpatine had already been killed.

[woweedd]

99.99% of humanity is not irredeemably evil. Seriously.
You're tlaking to Zimmer here. You know, they guy who believes that people don't change?

[hroþila]

Most of those things are a result of the Cerebus Syndrome. The characters themselves complain (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0242.html) that things seem to have become more dangerous. The first hundred pages or so was meant as a bunch of jokes to begin with, and the explosion of the dungeon only happened about a dozen of pages after that. Meanwhile these significantly darker things you talk about all happen several hundred chapters later (the party arrives at the Western Continent somewhere between 600-700, the stuff with Hel occurs even later), during which a lot has happened and the comic has become notably more serious in some aspects.

Also, the horror that is the Empire of Blood and the dreadful fate of the dwarves share the quality that we're explicitly told that these things happen and that it's a big issue. Meanwhile I've been digging around and I can't find anyone in the entirety of the comic say anything about people dying in the explosion Elan caused. Even when people point out that Elan messed up it's about endangering the rest of the party or blowing up the gate. So with Elan's explosion we're left to speculate whether anybody was actually killed by the explosion itself (and it happens in the beginning of the comic, where things were a lot more lighthearted) whereas with Tarquin's tyranny and Hel's bet we're explicitly told/shown that it happens and is bad (and happens later in the comic, where things have become more serious in general). Reading the first 100 pages and the last 100 pages there's a distinct difference in the nature of the story (to me, at least).

And with Belkar there's a unsound effect and a scream to indicate that yes he did hit something with his dagger, and odds are that was Roy (and Belkar is talking about using his dagger to inflict harm moments before throwing the thing). With the explosion we don't get anything to indicate "someone was killed by this explosion": no sound effect, no screams, nobody saying "this rune is going to kill people who aren't us", no visuals of anyone being present near the end other than the OotS (and Xykon&co, who we know escaped). It's certainly possible it happened, but unlike all these other examples there's no concrete proof that someone died in that explosion.
Exactly. I don't think that saying that the tone of the comic has changed a lot between #119 and Tarquin's arc is a controversial statement. Elan's action at the end of Dungeon Crawlin' Fools could certainly be reframed in future strips (like the slaying of the young black dragon was) and we could be shown that innocent people were in fact killed due to his recklessness, but I don't find that very likely, mostly because the most obvious point that could make ("Dramatics are not worth hurting people over") was already made in Blood Runs in the Family. And sure, there could be a plot point about how destructive and less-than-virtuous the Order has been at various points, and attention might be drawn towards Elan committing manslaughter (still not murder). But if that doesn't happen, then I'm going to stick to my interpretation: no one in the comic has an issue with it, the author has never commented on it, there are plausible explanations (using comic logic) for how every potential innocent victim might have got away, so I'm not going to assume the comic's purest character is actually his own grimdark remake.

[Lacuna Caster]

Displacing the previous holders of the title and now close seconds, the evil duo Calrissian&Antilles, for blowing up the Death Star II with all those innocent subcontractors in it, after Emperor Palpatine had already been killed.
The death star would, statistically, probably have had a fair amount of indentured labour involved in the construction, now that you mention it. Not a great analogy though- to Elan's knowledge the keep itself wasn't a megaweapon you could point at other cities. (And even if it was, and they knew it, the Order could simply have camped there to keep out hostile parties until... it was safe, I guess?)


...I'm going to stick to my interpretation: no one in the comic has an issue with it, the author has never commented on it, there are plausible explanations (using comic logic) for how every potential innocent victim might have got away, so I'm not going to assume the comic's purest character is actually his own grimdark remake.
Again, 'lone goblin that survived the dungeon of dorukan'. No more helpful goblin teens.

[hroþila]

Again, 'lone goblin that survived the dungeon of dorukan'. No more helpful goblin teens.
Said in a very particular context: character descriptions in a print book (known to include the occasional error e.g. regarding ages, and talking about Team Evil, so the other teenagers might not even count).

[Worldsong]

No more helpful goblin teens.

Not to sound overly controversial, but didn't one of those goblin teens immediately turn around and kidnap Haley?

[Fyraltari]

Not to sound overly controversial, but didn't one of those goblin teens immediately turn around and kidnap Haley?

The others did not.

[Synesthesy]

But maybe while Elan was waiting for the explosion to come right behind him, all good goblins and every good creatures found some secret doors and went away. Dorukan was good and epic, maybe the self destruction rune also triggered a spell that summoned an exit door near every good group of people.

[brian 333]

Which traits are these, exactly?

Haley's good traits versus Crystal's bad traits and vice versa:

Haley is smart, Crystal is not.
Haley at her worst cares about others. Crystal could not care less.
Haley values independence, Crystal values dependence. (Haley did what she chose to do, Crystal did what Bozzok told her to do.)
Haley has ambition and wants more out of life. Crystal had no ambition and was perfectly satisfied being a lackey.
Haley was greedy for money but kills only for necessity, Crystal was greedy for murder but money was a by-product rather than a goal.
Haley is generally nice and charming even when setting a guy up for the kill, but Crystal can't be nice to anyone even when it is in her best interest.

Try to apply virtually any trait posessed by Haley, good or bad, to Crystal, and you will discover Crystal is the opposite. They do have some things in common: both thieves' guild apprentices, both girls, both very capable in their respective fields. They grew up and came of age in very similar environments. But at every turn they reacted to the same stimuli by making opposite choices.

Sabine has fewer opposed traits than Crystal. Sabine is just an evil female character. Outside of alignment they have very little in common or in contrast. They are opposites only in one being CG and the other being CE.

Crystal, on the other hand, is a very deliberate inversion of Haley's character. Heck, even in combat style they are opposites: Haley is a ranged Dex build and Crystal is a melee Dex build.

[woweedd]

Haley's good traits versus Crystal's bad traits and vice versa:

Haley is smart, Crystal is not.
Haley at her worst cares about others. Crystal could not care less.
Haley values independence, Crystal values dependence. (Haley did what she chose to do, Crystal did what Bozzok told her to do.)
Haley has ambition and wants more out of life. Crystal had no ambition and was perfectly satisfied being a lackey.
Haley was greedy for money but kills only for necessity, Crystal was greedy for murder but money was a by-product rather than a goal.
Haley is generally nice and charming even when setting a guy up for the kill, but Crystal can't be nice to anyone even when it is in her best interest.

Try to apply virtually any trait posessed by Haley, good or bad, to Crystal, and you will discover Crystal is the opposite. They do have some things in common: both thieves' guild apprentices, both girls, both very capable in their respective fields. They grew up and came of age in very similar environments. But at every turn they reacted to the same stimuli by making opposite choices.

Sabine has fewer opposed traits than Crystal. Sabine is just an evil female character. Outside of alignment they have very little in common or in contrast. They are opposites only in one being CG and the other being CE.

Crystal, on the other hand, is a very deliberate inversion of Haley's character. Heck, even in combat style they are opposites: Haley is a ranged Dex build and Crystal is a melee Dex build.
Actually, getting this thread back on topic, Crystal's actually a lot like Thog. Just with her bulid focused on DEX rather then STR.

[Emanick]

Actually, getting this thread back on topic, Crystal's actually a lot like Thog. Just with her bulid focused on DEX rather then STR.

Eh, besides being stupid killers who obey their boss at least most of the time, I don't know how true that is. Thog is childlike and innocent in some ways (and far less innocent in other ways; I'm not arguing that he's anything but Evil, though he's probably redeemable if he ever spent enough time with the right people). He is easily charmed and seems to care more about breaking stuff (and people) than actually inflicting suffering on anyone. In other words, he seems to kill more because of the simple pleasure a child (and some adults) gets from hitting stuff with a heavy object and making it crumble, not because he savors the horrified emotional state he puts his victims in. I don't remember him ever expressing real malice towards anyone. His expression when he says "yay! time for fun!" after Nale tells him to take Elan back up to the room for the "demon summoning ritual" might be the closest he comes to any kind of sadism, but given what they ended up actually doing to Elan, I don't think it really qualifies.

Crystal, on the other hand, is mostly a sadistic thug. She doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities (unless I forgot some). She kills because she likes inflicting suffering on other people, not because it gives her some sort of childlike pleasure. She doesn't enjoy cute things, or indeed, show affection for anyone, at least not that I recall. She's highly self-centered in that, and most other, respects, unlike Thog, who is loyal to Nale basically because he likes him, not because he gets any sort of special benefit from doing so. (Certainly he does benefit - there's plenty of ice cream, late weekend bedtimes, etc., and he gets to do "fun" activities like go on murder sprees - but, as his reaction to hearing about Nale being "lost in witch's forest" shows, he genuinely cares about his boss.)

To be clear, many of these differences rest on the assumption that Thog kills because he likes the physical act of slaughtering people, not the more subtle act of making people suffer and die, which may seem like a distinction without a difference. But the two seem very different to me - at least in terms of villain psychology, of course; it's not going to matter much to the people who get slaughtered or to their loved ones. And, given Thog's lack of apparent interest in the emotional states of anyone he attacks, and lack of apparent sadism or malice, the assumption seems like a pretty good one to me.

[brian 333]

Actually, getting this thread back on topic, Crystal's actually a lot like Thog. Just with her bulid focused on DEX rather then STR.

That's what I meant by Crystal being Haley's evil opposite. Just as Thog is a deliberate inversion of Roy, Crystal is a deliberate inversion of Haley.

And as much as I hate the Crystal character, I love her as an NPC.

[Lacuna Caster]

Haley's good traits versus Crystal's bad traits and vice versa:

Haley is smart, Crystal is not.
Haley at her worst cares about others. Crystal could not care less.
Haley values independence, Crystal values dependence. (Haley did what she chose to do, Crystal did what Bozzok told her to do.)
Haley has ambition and wants more out of life. Crystal had no ambition and was perfectly satisfied being a lackey.
I think part of my confusion here is that I feel a number of Haley's traits are somewhat informed attributes- outside of Origins you rarely if ever see her embarking on rambunctious solo adventures, for example. For the most part Haley seems quite content to act as, well, Roy's lackey. There are also a couple of other traits that I don't see obviously mirrored, unless I wasn't paying attention- is Crystal particularly honest and trusting, for example?

Hey hey hey- guess who I think is Haley's law/chaos opposite? Hint: They both lost parent/s young and had overly-paranoid CG father-figures!

[Kish]

Ian Starshine is officially Chaotic Neutral. Word of the Author.

[brian 333]

I think part of my confusion here is that I feel a number of Haley's traits are somewhat informed attributes- outside of Origins you rarely if ever see her embarking on rambunctious solo adventures, for example. For the most part Haley seems quite content to act as, well, Roy's lackey. There are also a couple of other traits that I don't see obviously mirrored, unless I wasn't paying attention- is Crystal particularly honest and trusting, for example?

Hey hey hey- guess who I think is Haley's law/chaos opposite? Hint: They both lost parent/s young and had overly-paranoid CG father-figures!

Actually, Crystal has never lied on panel and absolutely trusted Bozzok. But that may be a result of not seeing her nearly as much as Haley.

As for Haley being Roy's lackey, we see this is untrue when Elan was captured by bandits and Haley lead the rescue attempt. We see it again when Roy was dead.

[ti'esar]

Ian Starshine is officially Chaotic Neutral. Word of the Author.

TBH, I've never understood what interpretation pegs him as lower than Shojo on the alignment chart. (Though that's another thread, probably).

[Kish]

While I concur with that, I'd also be shaking my head if Rich said Ian was Chaotic Good in any context but "he's better than Shojo," so I'll take it.

[brian 333]

While I concur with that, I'd also be shaking my head if Rich said Ian was Chaotic Good in any context but "he's better than Shojo," so I'll take it.

We actually know very little about Ian Starshine other than what we see in his opposition to Tarquin, (which is a Chaos vs. Law issue, not a Good vs. Evil issue.). Haley's memories are not valid evidence because children tend to idealize their parents and parents tend to shelter their children.

That said, the only good we even hear about from Ian is that he steals from the rich and gives a percentage to the poor after expenses. Which is a self-serving kind of Good intended more to prop up his image than to actually help anyone.

So I have to agree that rumors of Ian's Goodness may have been exaggerated.

[Worldsong]

Honestly I always took for granted that Ian Starshine was Chaotic Good because of him being Haley's father (I thought the '40% after expenses' thing was a bit of a joke about how he's both Good and Greedy). If The Giant's saying he's Chaotic Neutral I'm guessing Ian isn't as altruistic as I thought he was.

Although I'm also somewhat surprised Shojo's Goodness seems to be brought into question (or at least his Goodness in comparison to another Chaotic character). The guy was a bit too eager to just do whatever but his actions were still aimed towards ensuring the safety of the world and promoting peace and prosperity within his city.

[Mightymosy]

Wasn't Ian trying to free the people from Tarquin? If so, that sounds good to me...

[The Pilgrim]

Wasn't Ian trying to free the people from Tarquin? If so, that sounds good to me...

I suppose that by marking Ian as CN, The Giant was making the statement that Ian's opposition to Tarquin was more over ideological grounds (Law vs Chaos, Autocracy vs Anarchy) than over concern for the dignity of other living being's life.

[Rrmcklin]

Honestly I always took for granted that Ian Starshine was Chaotic Good because of him being Haley's father (I thought the '40% after expenses' thing was a bit of a joke about how he's both Good and Greedy). If The Giant's saying he's Chaotic Neutral I'm guessing Ian isn't as altruistic as I thought he was.

Although I'm also somewhat surprised Shojo's Goodness seems to be brought into question (or at least his Goodness in comparison to another Chaotic character). The guy was a bit too eager to just do whatever but his actions were still aimed towards ensuring the safety of the world and promoting peace and prosperity within his city.

I would imagine the question has something to do with all the manipulation and lying involved. Which fair enough, although I think both the circumstances of Azure City's politics and, as you say, him legitimately trying to protect the world and his people qualifies as good.

[Lacuna Caster]

Actually, Crystal has never lied on panel and absolutely trusted Bozzok. But that may be a result of not seeing her nearly as much as Haley.

As for Haley being Roy's lackey, we see this is untrue when Elan was captured by bandits and Haley lead the rescue attempt. We see it again when Roy was dead.
Every member of the Order (minus Roy) was willing to rescue Elan- that's not an insignificant point of development, but it's not a particular sign of independence per se. And when Roy is dead, she explicitly sticks with the largest group she can find until Celia basically forces her to leave, and neither Roy being dead or being split from the team casters was actually her decision. (I mean, you can give her credit for not, say, huddling in a foetal ball until the hobgoblins came and speared her, but that was mostly a situation foisted upon her.)

Belkar, now, shows independence. V shows independence. Miko and Celia show independence. (One can debate whether they show independence in a particularly positive light, but it's there.) Haley, so far as I can tell, only really shows it when she goes to rescue her father with the potion of glibness (which was sufficiently swift, effortless and consequence-free that I'm not sure it counts for much.)


Ian Starshine is officially Chaotic Neutral. Word of the Author.

I would imagine the question has something to do with all the manipulation and lying involved. Which fair enough, although I think both the circumstances of Azure City's politics and, as you say, him legitimately trying to protect the world and his people qualifies as good.
I would have thought Ian's whole rob-from-rich-give-to-poor angle plus fight-the-power was at least nominally CG? I'm also not sure that Shojo's approach to saving-the-world was especially defensible (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545494-Questions-about-the-early-strip-and-Sapphire-Guard).

[ArkenBrony]

I would have thought Ian's whole rob-from-rich-give-to-poor angle plus fight-the-power was at least nominally CG? I'm also not sure that Shojo's approach to saving-the-world was especially defensible (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?545494-Questions-about-the-early-strip-and-Sapphire-Guard).

think of ians belief of give to the poor with expenses. self first before others. i think the stick it to the man side of his identity is way more powerful than actually causing good.

also, disliking evil shouldn't be a quality of only good. good has lasting benefits to all, while evil only has benefits if you are in the right part of the system.

[Kardwill]

Not to sound overly controversial, but didn't one of those goblin teens immediately turn around and kidnap Haley?

The presence of those teens (and their willingness to go against team Evil, even if it's just "a phase") still underlines the presence of noncombattants in the dungeon just before its destruction. To be honest, the fact that their fate was never addressed after Elan blew up the dungeon bothered me at the time, in part because that kind of reckless killing bother me when my players do it at the gametable.

That said, I don't hold it against Elan, since it was a narrative convenience in the early days of the comic, where it was al about mindless murderhoboism. If that happened in the comic as it is now, I would probably freak out a little and be more critical about the character comiting the act.

[brian 333]

Every member of the Order (minus Roy) was willing to rescue Elan- that's not an insignificant point of development, but it's not a particular sign of independence per se. And when Roy is dead, she explicitly sticks with the largest group she can find until Celia basically forces her to leave, and neither Roy being dead or being split from the team casters was actually her decision. (I mean, you can give her credit for not, say, huddling in a foetal ball until the hobgoblins came and speared her, but that was mostly a situation foisted upon her.)

Belkar, now, shows independence. V shows independence. Miko and Celia show independence. (One can debate whether they show independence in a particularly positive light, but it's there.) Haley, so far as I can tell, only really shows it when she goes to rescue her father with the potion of glibness (which was sufficiently swift, effortless and consequence-free that I'm not sure it counts for much.).

I don't necessarily disagree so much as quibble with this, so I won't argue that you are wrong. But it brings up another dichotomy: Haley is a leader, Crystal is a follower. Haley takes charge of Celia and Belkar, assumes responsibility for Roy's corpse, and organizes and leads the Azure City Resistance. Crystal follows Bozzok until he leads her to an horrific existence, but only turns on him when Haley convinces her to. She then follows as Haley leads her to her final death.

I believe that Crystal is such an unsympathetic character that many readers dismiss her out of hand. She has no good character traits, she is not personable, and she hates puppies and kittens. She is irredeemably Evil, and not in the fun way that Xykon is Evil.

Readers hate her so much that they overlook how difficult it is to create and write such a character. She is a lousy person and nobody likes her. But she is an awesome character. She is a perfect mirror for Haley, she is an unforgettable villain, and she is the most Evil Opposite character in the story.

As much as I hate Crystal, I love her too. And the part that hits me in the feels the hardest is that for the flip of a coin's difference, that could have been Haley.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

True, and the Giant does phrase it that way in BRitF commentary.

Yup - Elan's previous attitude was wrong - but it wasn't so strong as to move him out of CG and into CN.

I may come to regret stepping into this conversation, but still:

There is a certain subset of people who, upon seeing a LG character chose to stay true to their L side over their G side immediately label such characters "Lawful Stupid". In this forum, the usual target for such accusations is Dvalin, who will not break his oath to consult others about important decisions even when said decision is important. Now, I normally find such accusations ludicrous (in Dvalin's case, for example, I see no issue with him talking to the dwarven council. Heck, I'd prefer it if he went full democratic and insisted on dwarven-wide referendums every time). Gods already come over as petty or even full blown despots and tyrants, and I find it more than a bit alarming how many people somehow deride the idea of a god not unilaterally making decisions that affect others without consulting them.

Nevertheless, I do think that in this case, and setting no precedent, early Elan can be most accurately described not as Chaotic Good, but Chaotic Stupid. He acts impulsively based on what his gut tells him at any given time, with no regards for consequence. If challenged, he might claim he wants good for those around him that he likes (which I have to say, I've always classified as a Neutral stand - Good requires you to want to help those that aren't personal friends too), but that's just talk. He is too immature and impulsive to actually have an actual position in the Good-Evil scale.


Honestly I always took for granted that Ian Starshine was Chaotic Good because of him being Haley's father (I thought the '40% after expenses' thing was a bit of a joke about how he's both Good and Greedy). If The Giant's saying he's Chaotic Neutral I'm guessing Ian isn't as altruistic as I thought he was.

Nah, I figure it's the other way around: he's the reason why Haley, despite wanting to be Good, is merely Good-ish. He (and his lessons) are what drags Haley's decisions towards Neutral (well, that and her greed, which we don't know she got from him, although it seems quite likely)

Grey Wolf

[hamishspence]

Nah, I figure it's the other way around: he's the reason why Haley, despite wanting to be Good, is merely Good-ish. He (and his lessons) are what drags Haley's decisions towards Neutral (well, that and her greed, which we don't know she got from him, although it seems quite likely)

The Giant makes a point in Blood Runs in The Family, that, considering Greysky City's horribleness, Ian has a point about distrusting others. Which is why Haley's so forgiving of him - she realises he did what he thought was best, when raising her.

As for "Good-ish" - or "not Good enough" that's more Haley's perspective, than "in-universe".


Facts about cosmological forces are largely unrelated to what people feel about themselves and others. Haley feels she is not "Good enough" based on a complex set of personal experiences and insecurities; the universe still dumps her in the Chaotic Good box, next to Elan and Shojo.

[Worldsong]

I would imagine the question has something to do with all the manipulation and lying involved. Which fair enough, although I think both the circumstances of Azure City's politics and, as you say, him legitimately trying to protect the world and his people qualifies as good.

Lying is anti-Lawful, not anti-Good.

Shojo was lying because he put the safety of the world above an oath made by a dead man, and more specifically because all of his closest servants would object vehemently to him ignoring the oath despite the fact that from his perspective the oath had a lower priority than keeping the world from exploding.

Him faking senility was to increase his chances of surviving while remaining the ruler of the city... and I have a hard time with the idea that we should knock someone's alignment down for their decision that they'd rather pretend to be a fool than actually be dead. Especially since one could make the case that he thought it better to have him on the throne, trying to keep the world safe, than one of those aristocrats who only thinks about status and power (hello Kubota).

Of course Shojo went really extreme with his belief that he had to keep everything hidden from the paladins, but for me to believe that he wasn't Chaotic Good I'd have to see someone present a solid argument that his end goal wasn't actually the safety of the world

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As for "Good-ish" - or "not Good enough" that's more Haley's perspective, than "in-universe".

I don't disagree with this, and I am sorry if I came across as meaning anything else. My point is that Haley has high expectations of her own actions that she occasionally fails to reach (less so lately, of course, she has had character growth). I believe that in her heart, she always knew that cheating her friends out of money wasn't Good, but the paranoia instilled by her father (for good reasons, I'm not throwing stones at Ian here) meant that she couldn't bring herself to be as Good as she would want herself to be (while still being overall Good for the purposes of univeral classification). Ian, on the other hand, has no such expectations, IMnpHO. He has no problem with being Neutral.

Grey Wolf

[Mightymosy]

Yet again I arrive at a comparison with Enor&Ganji:

They deliver innocents to Tarquin's torture prison - and classify as neutral.
Ian lets himself get thrown into said prison in the hopes to eventuall free the people from this tyranny, and also classifies as neutral?

Man, this alignment stuff is obnoxious.

At some point I had been introduced to Das Schwarze Auge, a German P&P roleplaying game. When I read OotS my impression was that DSA was a very blatant ripoff from D&D, with mostly cosmetic changes - but this alignment stuff they left out, and I think I am happy they did. It played well without such.

[zimmerwald1915]

Ian lets himself get thrown into said prison in the hopes to eventuall free the people from this tyranny, and also classifies as neutral?
Basically, politics has no bearing on alignment. Redcloak is even more dedicated to freeing an oppressed people than Ian is, and he's Evil.

[KorvinStarmast]

You keep saying "We" where you should say "I." While you fabricated out of whole cloth a body count due to Elan's screw up. (Go back and read the strips from him pushing the button to the explosion. Notice anything like what you'd see in a Hollywood movie?) Strips 115-120. (Can't recall if published DCF had a bonus strip on this). Notice the marked exit door? With that anachronism/fourth wall break, you can also presume that the alarm was going off all over the dungeon (just like in a Bond movie) just as easily as you can't; you are willfully being uncharitable here, and even mean spirited. Not sure I understand why.

As explained, the disaster I was referring to was the mass casualty scenario. We didn't see it: we didn't see anyone dying in the explosion and it was never referenced either in the comic or by the author as far as I know. Therefore, that the disaster happened is an inference. I'm not sure what part of this is problematic? It did not happen on screen. Familicide did. That's a significant difference, IMO.

Now you're making things up just to be confrontational. Right. It's the internet, and it's Kish badgering someone over a pet peeve. Nothing new under the sun.

I suppose that by marking Ian as CN Ian was an AD&D 1e thief. Just FYI, CN was close to a default alignment for thieves as PCs at a great many tables.

[The Pilgrim]

Ian was an AD&D 1e thief. Just FYI, CN was close to a default alignment for thieves as PCs at a great many tables.

I thought that, prior to 3.0, CN was just the default alignment of a madman.

[KorvinStarmast]

I thought that, prior to 3.0, CN was just the default alignment of a madman. nope. Not even close. It was one of the few niche alignments that sort of fit a thief's MO and wasn't evil. you could go True Neutral thief, but a lot of people got itchy about that since a druid's True Neutral position wasn't often in harmony with what thieves did.

You could say that we used CN as a cop out since we didn't want to be evil, but could not be Good (alignment-wise) based on alignment as it existed then.

At least in 2e you could be a chaotic Neutral rogue and be a thief and it fit, more or less.

EDIT:
As an aside, a number of you have pointed to something about V from early in the strip that carried over to and was fully realized in the familicide sequence: V was never shy about using arcane power just because V could. And in a few instances, you could see a certain mean streak/impatience with lesser mortals, openly manifested. (See V's point made about disintegrated black dragon being indistinguishable form disintegrated humanoids, among others).

[Lacuna Caster]

While you fabricated out of whole cloth a body count due to Elan's screw up. (Go back and read the strips from him pushing the button to the explosion. Notice anything like what you'd see in a Hollywood movie?) Strips 115-120. (Can't recall if published DCF had a bonus strip on this). Notice the marked exit door? With that anachronism/fourth wall break, you can also presume that the alarm was going off all over the dungeon (just like in a Bond movie) just as easily as you can't; you are willfully being uncharitable here, and even mean spirited.

Again, 'lone goblin that survived the dungeon of dorukan'. No more helpful goblin teens.

Said in a very particular context: character descriptions in a print book (known to include the occasional error e.g. regarding ages, and talking about Team Evil, so the other teenagers might not even count).
Look, the question here isn't so much whether Elan actually killed people as whether Elan could reasonably anticipate the risk of people being killed given his intelligence score. The author could decide or retcon that not a hair on the heads of those goblin teens were harmed and it wouldn't make Elan's decision any better, it would just mean those goblins were very fortunate that the building came equipped with the sturdy escape passages that Elan never bothered to check existed.

This logic also cuts both ways. For example, when Elan is kidnapped by the bandits, did anyone think there was a serious risk that the comic's 'purest character' would be tortured or sold into slavery? If the comic is or was a PG-13 hollywoodesque universe with elastic laws of probability and a high degree of self-awareness, are the PCs allowed to walk around making decisions on the basis of that information? If Roy had remarked, with a weary sigh, that Elan would most likely be romancing the bandit queen by now and they could come back and pick him up later, would he be wrong, exactly?

[woweedd]

Look, the question here isn't so much whether Elan actually killed people as whether Elan could reasonably anticipate the risk of people being killed given his intelligence score. The author could decide or retcon that not a hair on the heads of those goblin teens were harmed and it wouldn't make Elan's decision any better, it would just mean those goblins were very fortunate that the building came equipped with the sturdy escape passages that Elan never bothered to check existed.

This logic also cuts both ways. For example, when Elan is kidnapped by the bandits, did anyone think there was a serious risk that the comic's 'purest character' would be tortured or sold into slavery? If the comic is or was a PG-13 hollywoodesque universe with elastic laws of probability and a high degree of self-awareness, are the PCs allowed to walk around making decisions on the basis of that information? If Roy had remarked, with a weary sigh, that Elan would most likely be romancing the bandit queen by now and they could come back and pick him up later, would he be wrong, exactly?
The comic is a dramedy with a high degree of self-awareness, but still treats itself fairly seriously, increasingly so as time goes by. Was what Elan did Evil? Yes. Even if he wasn't considering the consequences, he stil knew there was a possibility. Does that ame him not a Good guy? In my opinion, no, particularity given that Book 5 was all about him developing past that.

[brian 333]

Elan did not intentionally destroy the dungeon. He touched a button because it said "do not touch."

[Lacuna Caster]

Elan did not intentionally destroy the dungeon. He touched a button because it said "do not touch."
No, I'm pretty sure that button came with a descriptive warning label (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0118.html)?


think of ians belief of give to the poor with expenses. self first before others. i think the stick it to the man side of his identity is way more powerful than actually causing good.

also, disliking evil shouldn't be a quality of only good. good has lasting benefits to all, while evil only has benefits if you are in the right part of the system.
Oh, it's always possible to imagine that Ian is doing other things off-panel that would tilt his karmic balance, or that there are other nuances to his motives.

I was just pointing out that one can draw certain parallels between Haley and Miko's backgrounds. Azure City is generally supposed to be a nicer place than Greysky, but given the local nobility make apparently regular efforts to assassinate eachother and Miko spends a lot of time hunting down Evil creatures with zero backup, a certain degree of Shojo's constructive paranoia could easily rub off on her.

[hamishspence]

I thought that, prior to 3.0, CN was just the default alignment of a madman.


nope. Not even close. It was one of the few niche alignments that sort of fit a thief's MO and wasn't evil. you could go True Neutral thief, but a lot of people got itchy about that since a druid's True Neutral position wasn't often in harmony with what thieves did.

You could say that we used CN as a cop out since we didn't want to be evil, but could not be Good (alignment-wise) based on alignment as it existed then.

At least in 2e you could be a chaotic Neutral rogue and be a thief and it fit, more or less.

2e Chaotic Neutral description:

Chaotic Neutral: Chaotic neutral characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions. With this as a guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment. Good and evil are irrelevant when making a decision. Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon! This alignment is perhaps the most difficult to play. Lunatics and madmen tend toward chaotic neutral behavior.



1e Chaotic Neutral description: PHB & DMG:

Chaotic Neutral: Above respect for life and good, or disregard for life and promotion of evil, the chaotic neutral places randomness and disorder. Good and evil are complimentary balance arms. Neither are preferred, nor must either prevail, for ultimate chaos would then suffer.

Chaotic Neutral: This view of the cosmos holds that absolute freedom is necessary. Whether the individual exercising such freedom chooses to do good or evil is of no concern. After all, life itself is law and order, so death is a desirable end. Therefore, life can only be justified as a tool by which order is combated, and in the end it too will pass into entropy.

[The Pilgrim]

nope. Not even close. It was one of the few niche alignments that sort of fit a thief's MO and wasn't evil. you could go True Neutral thief, but a lot of people got itchy about that since a druid's True Neutral position wasn't often in harmony with what thieves did.

You could say that we used CN as a cop out since we didn't want to be evil, but could not be Good (alignment-wise) based on alignment as it existed then.

At least in 2e you could be a chaotic Neutral rogue and be a thief and it fit, more or less.


In the Alignment Description of 2ed Player's Handbook, CN was literally described as the alignment of lunatics and madmen, and nothing else. In the subsequent example of gameplay, the CN character was described as just acting randomly and recklessly.

The extremist, straight-jacket one-faced way in which alignments were described, is the thing I disliked the most about editions prior to 3.0.

EDIT: By the way, one of the things I liked the most about #1138 is how The Giant pegged the canonical 2ed description of LN ("a soldier who follows orders without questioning them") as the description of LN-E ("I was just following orders"). While the canonical 2ed description of CN had evolved into CN-E ("Lulz"). It illustrates how the aligment system evolved for the best in 3rd Ed.

[Kish]

Given that Ian did not get converted to Chaotic Good when he was updated to 3.5ed, he's Chaotic Neutral in 3.5ed terms, not just 1ed ones (in which he'd pretty much need to be worse than Tarquin for Tarquin to be Good Evil...I mean Lawful Evil...and him to be Evil Neutral...I mean Chaotic Neutral).

[Fyraltari]

But maybe while Elan was waiting for the explosion to come right behind him, all good goblins and every good creatures found some secret doors and went away. Dorukan was good and epic, maybe the self destruction rune also triggered a spell that summoned an exit door near every good group of people.

That's my new headcanon. In fact that door (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0119.html) was never to be seen before and looks suspisciously like these ones (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0054.html).

[KorvinStarmast]

2e Chaotic Neutral description:

Chaotic Neutral: Chaotic neutral characters believe that there is no order to anything, including their own actions. With this as a guiding principle, they tend to follow whatever whim strikes them at the moment. Good and evil are irrelevant when making a decision. Chaotic neutral characters are extremely difficult to deal with. Such characters have been known to cheerfully and for no apparent purpose gamble away everything they have on the roll of a single die. They are almost totally unreliable. In fact, the only reliable thing about them is that they cannot be relied upon! This alignment is perhaps the most difficult to play. Lunatics and madmen tend toward chaotic neutral behavior. And? I just noticed a typo in my other reply, which was I meant to say "CG" in 2e not "CN" ... that was me being sloppy on the keyboard. 2e opened up the door, in the PHB, for a CG rogue/thief.

1e Chaotic Neutral description: PHB & DMG:

Chaotic Neutral: Above respect for life and good, or disregard for life and promotion of evil, the chaotic neutral places randomness and disorder. Good and evil are complimentary balance arms. Neither are preferred, nor must either prevail, for ultimate chaos would then suffer. Chaotic Neutral: This view of the cosmos holds that absolute freedom is necessary. Whether the individual exercising such freedom chooses to do good or evil is of no concern. After all, life itself is law and order, so death is a desirable end. Therefore, life can only be justified as a tool by which order is combated, and in the end it too will pass into entropy. And? A thief is all about absolute freedom-his or her own, that's a reason why the thief takes things; (again, Lawful and thief could not mix, usually, and neither could Good and thief, so if you did not want to be evil, for the party's sake, TN and CN were your only choices).

Did you play 1e? I did. A lot. DM's it quite a bit. CN was a common thief alignment. (So were some of the evil alignments). We didn't have quite the anal retentive RAW/rules text attitudes that the 3.x crowd is so famous for. Not sure if we are communicating here.

[hamishspence]

A thief is all about absolute freedom-his or her own, that's a reason why the thief takes things; (again, Lawful and thief could not mix, usually, and neither could Good and thief, so if you did not want to be evil, for the party's sake, TN and CN were your only choices).

Did you play 1e? I did. A lot. DM's it quite a bit. CN was a common thief alignment. (So were some of the evil alignments). We didn't have quite the anal retentive RAW/rules text attitudes that the 3.x crowd is so famous for. Not sure if we are communicating here.

Thieves could be Lawful. LE thieves guilds, very organised and ruled with an iron fist, made a lot of sense. When I google 1e thief, I get:


They are usually not allowed to be good, and never allowed to be lawful good; the majority are evil.


Doesn't say anything about them being banned from being LN though.

That said, if you go right back to Holmes Basic D&D, the immediate predecessor to 1e, we get:



CHARACTER ALIGNMENT

Characters may be lawful (good or evil), neutral or chaotic (good or evil). Lawful characters always act according to a highly regulated code of behavior, whether for good or evil. Chaotic characters are quite unpredictable and can not be depended upon to do anything except the unexpected -- they are often, but not always, evil. Neutral characters, such as all thieves, are motivated by self interest and may steal from their companions or betray them if it is in their own best interest. Players may choose any alignment they want and need not reveal it to others. Note that the code of lawful good characters insures that they would tell everyone that they are lawful. There are some magical items that can be used only by one alignment of characters. If the Dungeon Master feels that a character has begun to behave in a manner inconsistent with his declared alignment he may rule that he or she has changed alignment and penalize the character with a loss of experience points. An example of such behavior would be a "good" character who kills or tortures a prisoner.


So, there was an idea that thieves were neither Chaotic nor Lawful.

[The Pilgrim]

Yep, one of the things about pre 3ed was than Chaos was implied to be worse than Law, and Neutrals were about being obsessed with cosmic balance. Lawful Evil was supposed to be "good evil". CG was pretty much regarded as what CN became in 3ed.

4ed was a step back from 3ed in that regard.

One of the things I liked most of the Empire of Bood arc was how at the beggining a lot of people were arging that LE Tarquin was "evil you can work with", and Malak was regarded as a likable LN. 2ed mentality at work. By the end of the book, though, both had proven to be monsters worse than Xykon. Good job, Giant.

[Rrmcklin]

Given that Ian did not get converted to Chaotic Good when he was updated to 3.5ed, he's Chaotic Neutral in 3.5ed terms, not just 1ed ones (in which he'd pretty much need to be worse than Tarquin for Tarquin to be Good Evil...I mean Lawful Evil...and him to be Evil Neutral...I mean Chaotic Neutral).

….Is this a thinly veiled comment on how there's only one way to be good? Because I can't imagine how that working very well for real life or fiction.

[Kish]

I'm not sure what you got from what I said, but no. It's a (not veiled at all, I thought) comment that in 1ed, Lawful was equated with Good and Chaotic with Evil, with Lawful Evil characters consistently described in terms that made them far less evil than Chaotic Evil characters, and arguably less evil than Chaotic Neutral characters.

[hamishspence]

4ed was a step back from 3ed in that regard.

4e basically merged LE and NE into one broad "Evil" class. It also merged CG and NG into one broad "Good" class. Most characters that would be CG in past editions, would be called just "Good" in 4e.

[KorvinStarmast]

So, there was an idea that thieves were neither Chaotic nor Lawful. Indeed, as was true in the original game when Thieves were in Greyhawk and we only had L/N/C alignments. I mentioned the TN option up there, but what I found at the table in 1e was fewer players feeling that TN fit as well as CN. (It certainly fit the guidelines for TN thieves, to be sure).

The extremist, straight-jacket one-faced way in which alignments were described, ... wasn't that big of a deal if one was not an anal retentive RAW style or bust player or DM. The notable exception of Paladins and the LG and the "you shall never" stuff that EGG provided for that class.
The combination of being LG and All Those Cool Powers you got as a paladin (see also being Good as a Ranger), and since you had to have certain minimum threshold rolls to even get into the class, the DM could (and sometimes did) play "gotcha" with those two classes in particular.

Plenty of neutral thieves played more toward the good side and very few DM's that I played with gave a hoot. Granted, our experience can hardly be called universal.

[hamishspence]

An interesting bit from 1e (found in the Alignment Throughout the Ages thread)

D&D Alignment Throughout the Ages (http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,691.0.html)

ALIGNMENT

After generating the abilities of your character, selecting his or her race, and deciding upon a class, it is necessary to determine the alignment of the character. It is possible that the selection of the class your character will profess has predetermined alignment: a druid is neutral, a paladin is lawful good, a thief can be neutral or evil, an assassin is always evil. Yet, except for druids and paladins, such restrictions still leave latitude - the thief can be lawful neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, chaotic evil, chaotic neutral, neutral, or even neutral good; and the assassin has nearly as many choices.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yet, except for druids and paladins, such restrictions still leave latitude - the thief can be lawful neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, chaotic evil, chaotic neutral, neutral, or even neutral good; and the assassin has nearly as many choices.[/I] Interesting point, however, if you came from original D&D, where a thief can't be lawful at all (from L/N/C days) I can see how a lot of us defaulted to, at the table, precluding lawful from alignment choices, even though strictly speaking it was an option.

[The Pilgrim]

... wasn't that big of a deal if one was not an anal retentive RAW style or bust player or DM.

Which were more common than it was desirable. And the way rulebooks were written didn't help. So many powerplayers with a PhD in Rules Lawyering... dark times, my friend, dark times...

(Yet, of course, my experience isn't necessary universal either).

[KorvinStarmast]

Which were more common than it was desirable. And the way rulebooks were written didn't help. So many powerplayers with a PhD in Rules Lawyering... dark times, my friend, dark times... I guess we've both been in the trenches on that one. We had Rules Lawyers/grief players in OD&D that led to a couple of games breaking up ... and in 1e ... so it's not an ill that just cropped up all of a sudden in 3.x.

[The Pilgrim]

I still regard in great steem the sole DM in my club who had the fortitude to balance the powerhungry wizard by barring some spells out of the setting, or who stopped pesky rules lawyers by dropping an Ancient Red Dragon on their heads. He was ostrazised to a very small cult of players, though.

(Funny to realize The Giant did similar things to cap V, barring her from Conjurarion or dropping an ABD and the IFCC on her when she crossed the line).

[Rrmcklin]

I'm not sure what you got from what I said, but no. It's a (not veiled at all, I thought) comment that in 1ed, Lawful was equated with Good and Chaotic with Evil, with Lawful Evil characters consistently described in terms that made them far less evil than Chaotic Evil characters, and arguably less evil than Chaotic Neutral characters.

Ah, okay then. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[martianmister]

I don't necessarily disagree so much as quibble with this, so I won't argue that you are wrong. But it brings up another dichotomy: Haley is a leader, Crystal is a follower. Haley takes charge of Celia and Belkar, assumes responsibility for Roy's corpse, and organizes and leads the Azure City Resistance. Crystal follows Bozzok until he leads her to an horrific existence, but only turns on him when Haley convinces her to. She then follows as Haley leads her to her final death.

Wasn't the point of that team-up was to show how bad she was as a leader?


Hey hey hey- guess who I think is Haley's law/chaos opposite? Hint: They both lost parent/s young and had overly-paranoid CG father-figures!

Right-Eye's son? I got nothing else.

[brian 333]

Wasn't the point of that team-up was to show how bad she was as a leader?

Bad leader? She was handicapped by chaotic team members. A leader is only as good at leading as her followers are at following.

But she did organize the Azure City Resistance and she did get Roy's corpse to Durkon. And as bad a leader as she might have been, Crystal never even tried to lead.

[hroþila]

I see Haley as a passable leader who would rather eschew leading if at all possible.

[brian 333]

I see Haley as a passable leader who would rather eschew leading if at all possible.

How would you rate Crystal's leadership skills?

[hroþila]

How would you rate Crystal's leadership skills?
I'd rate them as "N/A".

[KorvinStarmast]

How would you rate Crystal's leadership skills? The same way I'd try to divide by zero: I wouldn't, since they are undefined.

[The Pilgrim]

If we divide 100 by Crystal's leadership, the result is Infinite. So, under certain point of view, Crystal's leadership is infinite.