Ultimate OOTS Book Tournament 2: The final match!

[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

Start of Darkness
Blood Runs in the Family


Dungeon Crawling Fools
On the Origins of the PCs
No Cure for the Paladin Blues
Snips, Snails and Dragon Tails
Haleo & Julelan + Uncivil Servant
Good Deeds Gone Unpunished
War and XP
Utterly Dwarfed
Don't Split the Party


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. For the finals, we will have an extended three week voting period. Voting for this match will close Sunday, May 31, at which time I will announce the winner of the Grand Championship!


The Current Match

Match 20: Blood Runs in the Family vs Start of Darkness

[rgrekejin]

I once again vote for Start of Darkness.

[understatement]

Blood Runs in the Family.

[Mariele]

Blood Runs in the Family.

[deltamire]

Blood Runs in the Family

[Linneris]

Blood Runs in the Family for reasons listed in the previous SoD vs BRitF thread.

[PopeLinus1]

Start of Darkness

[CriticalFailure]

[Bold] Start of Darkness [\Bold]. It’s a much tighter story, and the character arcs all go together so well.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Start of Darkness

[Sylian]

Start of Darkness

[Vulkos]

Start of Darkness

[knag]

Blood Runs in the Family

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Blood Runs in the Family

[Sir_Norbert]

Start of Darkness

[Procyonpi]

Blood Runs in The Family

[Aidan]

Start of Darkness

[trtl]

Start of Darkness

[Laurana]

It's a mistery to me how SoD can be rated so high. To me it's inferior to Good deeds gone unpunished, Don't split the party, and also War and XPs. Of course BRitF is way better so I vote for

BLOOD RUNS IN THE FAMILY

[jwhouk]

Blood Runs In The Family

[rgrekejin]

It's a mistery to me how SoD can be rated so high. To me it's inferior to Good deeds gone unpunished, Don't split the party, and also War and XPs. Of course BRitF is way better so I vote for

BLOOD RUNS IN THE FAMILY

I have the same feelings about Blood Runs in the Family. It's clearly inferior to War and XPs and Don't Split the Party, and maybe Utterly Dwarfed too. Tarquin just isn't interesting enough to carry an entire book as the major villain. He's funny at first, but begins to grate on my nerves before the book is half over. That, and the title never won't make me think of someone experiencing a bout of bloody diarrhea.

[Mariele]

Comes down to personal preference, I guess. I consider the first three books a bit of a slog. Some fun jokes here and there, but overall not worth rereading. Don't Split the Party was tedious, but was starting to get better. I personally hated the whole Therkla sideplot and the Celia v. Haley thing got on my nerves. V's sideplot and the introduction of the fiends was about the only thing I bother rereading that book for. I consider SoD to be a bit better than Don't Split the Party because it was an interesting look at the villains and why they're doing what they're doing, and it was nicely wrapped up and paced. Utterly Dwarfed and Good Deeds Gone Unpunished are equal to me--great storytelling but completely lacking in humor. BRitF knocks all of the rest out of the ballpark by being hilarious with great storytelling. I still consider the pages from the pyramid to the fight on the airship to be the best of the entire comic, honestly. I recommend the comic to people just because that entire segment was so powerful to read through (especially the mummy scene). The characters were fun and it was nice to see a comic that so constantly broke the 4th wall to do it in an interesting way for once--it would have felt weird to have the main characters be so genre savvy and not have a character like Tarquin in at some point.

I already voted, so this is just me gabbing while waiting for the next comic strip. :P

[KorvinStarmast]

Match 20: Blood Runs in the Family vs Start of Darkness
Blood Runs In The Family

(Beyond the fact that it's actually a part of the OoTS story on line and SoD is not)

Lots of moving parts that mesh well together.

Rich proves willing to once again kill a major character.
Belkar chews out Roy after Durkon dies.
The whole gladitorial schtick and Belkar finally acts like a ranger vis a vis the dinosaur.
Tarquin: the villain who slowly but surely reveals to both Elan and the reader just what a (censored) he is.

And, thankfully, Nale dead as well as Zrrdti dead. Then two dying was quite satisfying as a reader.

For me, the killer moment in that story is when V realizes "Oh my merciful elven gods, what have I done?"
It iis one of the best moments in the whole series.
(Kind of a Bridge on the River Kwai last line by Alec Guinness moment, but with a much darker tone)

And as Icing on the cake, Belkar's line near the end as the portal to the water world opens " maybe someone's been yanking everyone's chain (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0900.html)" ...

[Ruck]

Close call, but after much deliberation, I'm going with Blood Runs in the Family due to how many major arcs it pays off and the stunning scenes thereof.

[PixelKirby]

Start of Darkness.

[137beth]

And the final results are in! The winner:

Match 20: Blood Runs in the Family vs Start of Darkness (11-10)

Blood Runs in the Family is the new Grand Champion of the Stick!

Thank you to everyone who participated in this tournament. There were some surprising results, such as Don't Split the Party coming within striking distance of the finals. Some things were also surprisingly similar to the last tournament: despite the large margin of error that comes from a small sample size and self-selection, the finals in this tournament nearly ended in a tie, just like the previous tournament.

In the last six years, I've heard many statements along the lines of "forums are dead." I was pleasantly surprised to see that in this tournament, the participation was actually up. The original tournament had only 14 votes in the final (not counting my tiebreaking vote). This time the final got 21 votes, of which 18 were cast during the same length of time that the original final had.

What Comes Next?
You've been freed. Do you know how hard it is to lead? You're--oh, wait, sorry, wrong thing.

When the printed version of Book 7 is released, I intend to launch the Ultimate OOTS Book Tournament 3. The format might be different than the first two tournaments.

Between now and then, I am also planning on running (at least) two other tournaments on this board, asking about your favorites for other aspects of OOTS. The format will again be different.

Two years after the completion of the Ultimate OOTS Book Tournament 3, I intend to launch a fourth iteration, to see how readers' opinion changes once the entire series is further behind us.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

When the printed version of Book 7 is released, I intend to launch the Ultimate OOTS Book Tournament 3. The format might be different than the first two tournaments.

Between now and then, I am also planning on running (at least) two other tournaments on this board, asking about your favorites for other aspects of OOTS. The format will again be different.

Two years after the completion of the Ultimate OOTS Book Tournament 3, I intend to launch a fourth iteration, to see how readers' opinion changes once the entire series is further behind us.

Thanks for running this tournament! These will certainly be fun to look forward to.