The Ultimate OOTS Book Tournament: match 11

[137beth]

Greetings to all people of the Playground, and welcome to
The Ultimate Order of the Stick Book Tournament II!


Back in 2014, I ran (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?339639-The-Ultimate-Order-of-the-Stick-Book-Tournament-Round-1) a series of polls to determine the forum's favorite OOTS book. Start of Darkness won that tournament (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?362708-The-Ultimate-Order-of-the-Stick-Book-Tournament-THE-FINALS!), defeating Blood Runs in the Family by one vote. Since that time, the number of available books has increased, and the readership has had more time to reflect on earlier stories in light of more recent events. Hence, I felt it was time for another tournament. Without further ado, I present

The Contestants

Dungeon Crawling Fools
No Cure for Paladin Blues
Start of Darkness
War and XP
Don't Split the Party
Blood Runs in the Family
Good Deeds Gone Unpunished
Utterly Dwarfed


On the Origins of the PCs
Snips, Snails and Dragon Tails
Haleo & Julelan + Uncivil Servant


I have grouped together the two stories which are currently digital-only. The 11 contestants will compete in a double elimination tournament, with your votes deciding who wins each match. The winner of the entire tournament will be crowned Grand Champion of the Stick!

Due to the fact that there are more than 8 but fewer than 16 contestants, five books will get a free pass on the first round. The contestants were seeded randomly. You can see the entire tournament bracket on Challonge (https://challonge.com/9vr5zli0).

Vote once in each match by posting your vote in this thread. Voting for these matches will close Friday, January 24, at which time I will post the next match. I will vote only in the case where a tie-breaking vote is needed. Please put your votes in bold, since it makes it easier for me when tallying them.

Now that half of the matches for this tournament are complete, we will be doing only one match at a time for the remainder of the tournament.

The Current Match

Match 11: Dungeon Crawling Fools vs Utterly Dwarfed

[CriticalFailure]

Utterly Dwarfed.

[Ruck]

Utterly Dwarfed, certainly.

[Schroeswald]

Utterly Dwarfed

[LadyEowyn]

Utterly Dwarfed

[DLcygnet]

Utterly Dwarfed

P.S. I think you mistakenly crossed off No Cure For the Paladin Blues instead of Origin of PCs.

[137beth]

Utterly Dwarfed

P.S. I think you mistakenly crossed off No Cure For the Paladin Blues instead of Origin of PCs.

Thanks, I fixed it.

[Ionathus]

Utterly Dwarfed, absolutely.

[Mike Havran]

Utterly Dwarfed.

[rgrekejin]

Utterly Dwarfed

[Mightymosy]

Dungeon crawling Fools, by a mile, is my taste :-)

[Vulkos]

Utterly Dwarfed.

[137beth]

Dungeon crawling Fools, by a mile, is my taste :-)

Nice to see at least some competition this round:smallsmile:
Still it's not going to be close.

[Sir_Norbert]

Adding another vote for Utterly Dwarfed.

[RatElemental]

Utterly Dwarfed by a mile.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Utterly Dwarfed. Think this one should win by a mile.

[Sylian]

Utterly Dwarfed.

[knag]

Utterly Dwarfed.

[Gift Jeraff]

Dungeon Crawling Fools

[Procyonpi]

Utterly Dwarfed

[Linneris]

Utterly Dwarfed.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you like OoTS for the jokes: DCF.

If you like OoTS for the writing: Utterly Dwarfed.

I like it for both, but at this point I'll go for Utterly Dwarfed because I like what Rich did with Durkon's backstory and how it helped Durkon help the team to win.

[PixelKirby]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of Utterly Dwarfed.

Overall, just about every arc in OOTS is pretty well-written, and I love every story, including Utterly Dwarfed. But where I feel OOTS shines brightest is in it’s villains. Granted, this is but one of many things that makes Order Of The Stick great, but every last villain is an utter thrill to follow. Xykon and Redcloak are great, Tarquin was great...

But a lot of the arcs that didn’t follow or feature them prominently fell pretty flat. No Cure For Paladin Blues isn’t scoring as anyone’s favorite for a reason, and I’d be damned if I could truly remember jack about the vampires and Hel. Hel just wasn’t as interesting as previous villains, and a lot of this arc seemingly served as simple background information and details for the upcoming final book. The talk scenes dragged out for a while, and overall, it just wasn’t as engaging as other books.

That being said, it should be no surprise that I’m voting for Utterly Dwarfed.

[137beth]

Voting for this match is now closed. To the surprise of no one, the results are:

Match 11: Dungeon Crawling Fools vs Utterly Dwarfed (2-18)

The next match is up in a new thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?607067-OOTS-Book-Tournament-2-Match-12-Up-a-vote-Down-a-vote).