Why ISN'T it a shell game?

[Edric O]

There is something that for the life of me I just can't understand. Why isn't the system protecting Kraagor's Gate a shell game? It seems like a shell game would be objectively superior to a gauntlet at accomplishing this task. Let me explain:

If an intruder does NOT explore all the dungeons, they do not find anything, in both the shell game and gauntlet scenarios.

If an intruder DOES explore all the dungeons, then:

1. If it's a gauntlet, they find the entrance to the final dungeon immediately.

2. If it's a shell game, they find nothing, realize they've been tricked, and start looking for the gate elsewhere. They may or may not find the entrance to the final dungeon. Even if they do find it, it won't be immediate, so they'll be slowed down somewhat.

Now, #2 obviously provides more protection for the Gate than #1, right? So why on Earth did Serini choose #1? Sure, maybe a gauntlet honors Kraagor as a barbarian, but having his Gate protected by dungeons full of monsters already did that. Is an additional symbolic homage really worth compromising the defense of the Gate?

It just doesn't make any sense to me.

[Gnoman]

The classic shell game has a serious vulnerability - if you catch the guy palming the ball, you can attack him directly to get your money.

A metaphorical shell game has the same serious vulnerability. If you catch on, there is a very real chance that you can deduce the actual location of the thing you're looking for and head straight for it. And, if this happens, the target is inherently undefended. In which case going for a shell game guaranteed your defeat.

[Edric O]

A metaphorical shell game has the same serious vulnerability. If you catch on, there is a very real chance that you can deduce the actual location of the thing you're looking for and head straight for it. And, if this happens, the target is inherently undefended. In which case going for a shell game guaranteed your defeat.
Well, the target wouldn't be undefended in this case - there would still be a final dungeon anyway, it's just that in the shell game you don't get to open the entrance by doing anything. The entrance just doesn't open and you have to find it and force your way in.

Now in the gauntlet version, that option still exists - you could find the location of the final dungeon and force your way in without actually running the gauntlet - except that there's the additional vulnerability that the final dungeon will open by itself if someone does run the whole gauntlet.

Why would intruders be more likely to "catch on" in a shell game scenario than in this gauntlet scenario? Imagine a shell game in which everything is exactly the same as in this gauntlet, with one single exception: the tattoos do nothing.

[OvisCaedo]

One reason I've seen people kick around about this kind of thing (like, why have an entrance at all?) is the potential impact on divination magic and such. If there's a 'right' way in but it's extremely difficult or confusing, that'll still be the method divinations are likely to point them to. Though it's hard to say how much that's a real reason or influence; the potential vagueness of divination magic can be all over the place, and the gates are presumably enormously warded against direct divinations since they're otherwise so hard to find. Even Xykon and Redcloak seemingly needed a book of coordinates, and had to use a roundabout scry to figure out where Soon's gate actually was instead of being able to look for it directly.

[KillianHawkeye]

As Serini explained it, the gauntlet would not be passable by anyone other than the most powerful of enemies, and even then it would take them a long time. Long enough for her to get help from her former allies.

The only reason that it is failing now is she never expected it to be the only gate left, or that she would be the only member of the Scribbles left alive.

[BaronOfHell]

I suppose Xykon would have had another true location in his Serini's diary, had it been a shell game.

[Precure]

Hot take: Serini is stupid. She was the Elan/Tarquin of her group after all.

[MoiMagnus]

Well, the target wouldn't be undefended in this case - there would still be a final dungeon anyway, it's just that in the shell game you don't get to open the entrance by doing anything. The entrance just doesn't open and you have to find it and force your way in.


And that final dungeon could have a thousand doors protected by high level monsters, where you're forced to go through all of the door and defeat monsters in each of them in order to get to the final room of that final dungeon.

This place IS the final dungeon. Your remark is just that there should have been decoy positions beforehand, with fake puzzles that are pointless to solve. And to that there there is a meta answer: the bad guys would eventually reach the final dungeon, so the author decided it wasn't worth the time to go through all the decoys that might have delayed them. Especially since the author gave to the bad guys Sereni's journal, so access to a lot of informations about the actual position of the final dungeon.



Now in the gauntlet version, that option still exists - you could find the location of the final dungeon and force your way in without actually running the gauntlet - except that there's the additional vulnerability that the final dungeon will open by itself if someone does run the whole gauntlet.

It's not an additional vulnerability. It's the door.

You're arguing that "protection at the decoy + protection at the final place" is better than "protection at the decoy + zero protection at the final place".
I'm arguing that "double protection at the final place" is even better, since the probability that the enemy shortcut the first half is zero.

There is not an "additional vulnerability". It's the one and only door to the final place, and it's protected as much as possible.



Why would intruders be more likely to "catch on" in a shell game scenario than in this gauntlet scenario? Imagine a shell game in which everything is exactly the same as in this gauntlet, with one single exception: the tattoos do nothing.

Except for divination. Or for human flaw, let's say for example that the bad guy find track the position of the final dungeon (and not any of the decoys) using some mistake made by the architect (like putting too much info in their personal journal).

[Beni-Kujaku]

Hot take: Serini is stupid. She was the Elan/Tarquin of her group after all.

Three points: first‚ there has to be an entrance. Maybe for maintenance‚ maybe to observe the inside of the rift somehow‚ or simply to be able to form a "last line of defense" close to the gate if need be. Otherwise‚ they would simply have buried the gates in thousands of tons of riverin-lined dimensionally-locked rock. Since there has to be an entrance‚ and that Mindrape or other divinations can reveal it‚ the intended entrance has to be as difficult as possible. Having a "shell game" means you can find the ball in the dealer's pocket. Having a gauntlet means even if you know where it is (as the OotS figured out quite quickly)‚ you still have to fight everything.

Second‚ this was a tribute to the group's barbarian. A hidden entrance is not what Kraagor would have liked. The Scribbles probably didn't think it would ever come down to a last Gate‚ and if protecting the world can double as the most ultra-fitting metal tomb ever‚ young Serini would go for it.

Third‚ Serini wasn't an illusionist. She cannot cast high-end illusions to hide an entrance. Even if she could‚ Draketooth already did it‚ and much better. If something is a big enough threat to the gates‚ better not allow them to bypass two gates the same way. The Scribbles had five different ways to protect their gates. An invader had to have a pure heart‚ to resist microscopic assaults‚ to invade a city and beat ghost-paladins‚ and to see through epic-level illusions. What was left? Well‚ mundane skills. Trapfinding‚ persistence‚ and pure physical might. If a would-be invader was to attack Kraagor's gate after Draketooth's‚ they are likely to think of a shell game and give up after a dozen doors to find another entrance‚ only to find there is none.

[Precure]

I mean, tribute or not, building one of the last bastions of hope as a game of challenge is exactly the thing Elan and Tarquin would do.

[Ionathus]

Not everything has to be 100% optimized. It is okay to occasionally have a personality.

An epic-level rogue building an uber-dungeon full of endgame monsters in order to hide one of the world's cosmic keystones - with the reasonable expectation that her other epic-level friends won't all collectively get themselves wiped out beforehand - is already a very secure approach. The traps that force you to run the whole gauntlet increases that security. And then you enter the final dungeon, which has additional traps and safeguards on its own.

Serini has already made this dungeon a rock-solid deterrent to all but the most powerful enemies. The fact that these specific enemies (some of the most powerful in the world) are able to overcome those deterrents is overshadowing how effective this would be in all other circumstances. If this system is already safe in 99.99% of cases, I don't see any value in an argument over whether Serini is "stupid" for not cutting out the homage to Kraagor to make it 99.995%.

As OvisCaedo pointed out, there are also potential reasons this could be more secure than a complete decoy, such as divination magic or the psychology of your enemy. If you create an obvious path that is guaranteed to lead to the treasure, but make that path insanely difficult and tedious to complete, there are circumstances where that's safer than just making a total decoy. If you can get your opponent to accept the terms of the fight and commit to it, you might be able to predict their behavior more effectively. If you stonewall them and don't give them a "path of least resistance," there's no telling exactly what they might do. And you really don't want a team with the power of Xykon and the ingenuity of Redcloak to reject your terms and do something you aren't expecting.

But hey, calling Serini stupid because she uses a slightly unconventional strategy when we don't know the baseline assumptions is a recurring event on this forum, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised.

[gbaji]

And I think the main point is that if it's a shell game, then it means that there's a method to get to the gate that does not require running through all the dungeons. That's a vulnerability. I'm not sure how "figure out that the dungeons are a red-herring and find the secret real hidden entrance to the gate" makes it more secure than "Nope. There is actually no way to get to the gate except by physically entering every single final room in every single one of these dungeons, and surviving".

A few of us (myself included) have proposed ideas like "why not just have the gate buried under tons of rock and the dungeons don't lead to it at all"? But as a few other people have pointed out, to whatever degree divination spells can be used, while they may not be able to tell you exactly where a gate it, or how to get there, they presumably can tell you what *wont* lead to a gate. And to me, that's a completely satisfactory rationale. If someone can use divination and discover that the dungeons aren't the way to get to the gate, then Serini has expended all of these resources for nothing. A potential gate seeker will just start doing other things, like digging around the area looking for the gate. And will find it, and with no real cost or difficulty except time.

By requiring the dungeons to be traversed to get there, it requires that anyone reaching the gate must be powerful enough to fight their way through all the dungeons. That's a much higher bar than "anyone with dig/passwall spells and time".

[KorvinStarmast]

The only reason that it is failing now is she never expected it to be the only gate left, or that she would be the only member of the Scribbles left alive. Yep.

Hot take: Serini is stupid. She was the Elan/Tarquin of her group after all. Given that she was hot for Girard, yep.

Not everything has to be 100% optimized. It is okay to occasionally have a personality.
You are on the wrong forum to make that assertion. :smallwink:

[Lumix19]

Firstly, sentiment. She built it for Kraagor, just with her own twist.

Secondly, divination spells may have revealed the real location of the Final Gate if it was a true shell game.

If it was a true shell game Redcloak could ask a divination spell something like "Will I find the Gate through one of these doors?" and the answer would be "No". Whereas with this set-up, the answer might be "Yes", or at least "Maybe" depending on how strictly the spell interpreted the question.

Redcloak may not be able to directly request the actual location from his deity, but Serini seems to think that more vague divination spells would at least give some response.

[BloodSquirrel]

Hot take: Serini is stupid. She was the Elan/Tarquin of her group after all.

Not so hot a take, IMO.

Serini's poor judgment has been one of the most consistently portrayed aspects of her character. I posted the same thought on the main thread: Her defenses being "clever" but not very rigorous is very much in line with her accidentally revealing the secret to V when she could have avoided it just by giving a rough approximation, and not realizing how pointless it was to keep the secret anyway, since The Order wasn't exactly about to speed-clear all of the dungeons to beat TE to the gate in the first place.

Or how she was hoping for her team to get back together and come to her rescue after she was the one to come up with the "Hey, how about we promise to never talk to each other ever again?" plan.



But hey, calling Serini stupid because she uses a slightly unconventional strategy when we don't know the baseline assumptions is a recurring event on this forum, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised.

It doesn't exactly help that when said baseline assumptions are revealed, then tend to validate her critics.

[Provengreil]

Not everything has to be 100% optimized. It is okay to occasionally have a personality.

An epic-level rogue building an uber-dungeon full of endgame monsters in order to hide one of the world's cosmic keystones - with the reasonable expectation that her other epic-level friends won't all collectively get themselves wiped out beforehand - is already a very secure approach. The traps that force you to run the whole gauntlet increases that security. And then you enter the final dungeon, which has additional traps and safeguards on its own.

Serini has already made this dungeon a rock-solid deterrent to all but the most powerful enemies. The fact that these specific enemies (some of the most powerful in the world) are able to overcome those deterrents is overshadowing how effective this would be in all other circumstances. If this system is already safe in 99.99% of cases, I don't see any value in an argument over whether Serini is "stupid" for not cutting out the homage to Kraagor to make it 99.995%.

As OvisCaedo pointed out, there are also potential reasons this could be more secure than a complete decoy, such as divination magic or the psychology of your enemy. If you create an obvious path that is guaranteed to lead to the treasure, but make that path insanely difficult and tedious to complete, there are circumstances where that's safer than just making a total decoy. If you can get your opponent to accept the terms of the fight and commit to it, you might be able to predict their behavior more effectively. If you stonewall them and don't give them a "path of least resistance," there's no telling exactly what they might do. And you really don't want a team with the power of Xykon and the ingenuity of Redcloak to reject your terms and do something you aren't expecting.

But hey, calling Serini stupid because she uses a slightly unconventional strategy when we don't know the baseline assumptions is a recurring event on this forum, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised.

It gets better. As someone pointed out in the main comic discussion thread, most groups going after the gates would have trapfinding skills. That would quickly lead them to the backstage and/or to to disarm the marker traps, meaning that doing anything other than powering through actually leads one only to further delays, despite those action usually being objectively the right idea.

[Bacon Elemental]

The problem with the Tomb being a shell game is that trying to win at it it's a COLOSSAL undertaking.

If you see a shell game done with three cups, well, its tempting to give it a go if you don't know how the game works.

If a street punter whisks the ball through five hundred cups, that's a very different matter.

No seriously dangerous invader is gonna play the Monster Hollow shell game before doing a whole bunch of divination and closely examining the rest of the canyon with a panoply of spells and hell, probbably smacking everything with a pickaxe to listen for voids. The comic actually covered why making the Hollow a shellgame would be counter-productive: There's no incentive to play it before searching every rock and stone of the canyon 100 times over!

If I have a budget of a million gold, spending 900,000 of the gold on a completely pointless megadungeon that serves as nothing but a timewaster and could be bypassed by someone standing back and saying "Look this is so obviously a big trap designed to get us killed, there are CR20 monsters in here" will mean I only spent 100k on the actual dungeon defense!

[Aquillion]

As Serini explained it, the gauntlet would not be passable by anyone other than the most powerful of enemies, and even then it would take them a long time. Long enough for her to get help from her former allies.

The only reason that it is failing now is she never expected it to be the only gate left, or that she would be the only member of the Scribbles left alive.
Yeah, but this doesn't answer the question of why, after you clear all the dungeons, it teleports you to the actual Gate, when it could just... not do that. Or teleport you to someplace horrible instead, even.

Even if Serini needs access to the gate for some reason, she could just make it so you also need one more tattoo, which has to be manually applied and which only she knows.

Yes, sure, a powerful enough enemy could still see through that and brute-force it somehow, but it wouldn't add any vulnerabilities and would have some risk of stalling attackers for a very long time if they guess wrong about what's going on.

(Of course the story reason is that that would be boring, but.)



No seriously dangerous invader is gonna play the Monster Hollow shell game before doing a whole bunch of divination and closely examining the rest of the canyon with a panoply of spells and hell, probbably smacking everything with a pickaxe to listen for voids.Except that the actual attackers are doing just that.

Either way, regardless, the point is... the actual gate is already located somewhere else, that's a given, and Xykon and company have failed to discover it. Its anti-scrying defenses held. It's just that after they go through every dungeon they'll be teleported to the actual location.

So why not just... not do that? Like, build everything exactly as it is now, but either have no teleport to the final gate at the end, or have the teleport require a passphrase or tattoo or other thing that only Serini knows?

I don't see how it would make the defenses any weaker.

[dancrilis]

Yeah, but this doesn't answer the question of why, after you clear all the dungeons, it teleports you to the actual Gate, when it could just... not do that.

Currently the correct way to get to the gate is 'explore the dungeons', adding a trick ending to it not only makes it not really a gauntlet but changes the correct way to find the gate to 'find Serini and ask her'.

Xykon is well able to use any number of tactics to either retrieve Serini from any afterlife she inhabits or to determine that she is still alive and so use his knowledge of her to draw her out (as he has done previously) - and nearly any similarly powerful entity would be able to do likewise.

This ignores that with an answer of 'figure out the trick' he could decide to bypass it by conscripting a whole army of goblins to excavate (as she initially used Dwarves to), or even find those Dwarves and conscript them, or develop an epic spell to help his search or whatever.

Allowing a straightforward one can access what is being protected by 'doing thing X' is sometimes the safest method of protecting something.

For instance if Serini said that 'also with all the tattoos you need a seven digit code I have memorised and never written down and this needs to be spoken aloud in halfling' then the gauntlet becomes pointless the correct way to get the gate is 'find Serini' - and sufficent divination is likely to return that answer.

[Rynjin]

No seriously dangerous invader is gonna play the Monster Hollow shell game before doing a whole bunch of divination and closely examining the rest of the canyon with a panoply of spells and hell, probbably smacking everything with a pickaxe to listen for voids. The comic actually covered why making the Hollow a shellgame would be counter-productive: There's no incentive to play it before searching every rock and stone of the canyon 100 times over!

Sure, but...so? If the entire point is to be a timewaster anyway (powerful enemies will eventually defeat everything and move on), then the shell game method is the BIGGER TIMEWASTER.

[Resileaf]

What is more dangerous?

Fighting through a hundred dungeons filled with deadly monsters or setting up a dig site to search for the gate under a hill?

If you fight through a hundred dungeons, that means you're expending resources and spells to do so and an eventual ambush can come up after you've tired yourself clearing a bunch of tough monsters. As Serini stated, she never expected to be the last Scribbler standing and was hoping that she would be able to help her team get over their hatred of each other so they could work together in the case of someone attacking them.

[BloodSquirrel]

What is more dangerous?

Fighting through a hundred dungeons filled with deadly monsters or setting up a dig site to search for the gate under a hill?


The problem is that the case for the existence of gauntlet preventing someone from setting up the dig site is not as strong as it could be.

"Helps fool divination magic" is an answer, but it feels more like a post-hoc justification than a really, really solid reason. It's workable, but it's not impervious to scrutiny.

Case in point: it relies on the attackers getting a very, very specifically worded answer to their questions which we don't have a good reason to expect they would get. Why would "Defeat the dungeons" be the answer a divination gives if "Dig here" is also a possible way to get to the gate, and would be faster and safer? And what if instead of asking "How do we get to the gate?" they ask "Where, specifically, is the gate?".

If you think about it from the other direction- You have a gate whose location is set, you need to prevent a bad guy from access it, but you also might need to access it yourself- then it's hard to see how you would arrive at Serini's scheme with forward-thinking logic.

On the other hand, if you assume that Serini came up with the idea for the gauntlet first because it just seemed like a neat idea, then worked out how to make it access the gate, it's pretty believable as something someone like that would come up with. I have enough experience with real-world engineering projects to recognize how often that sort of thing happens.

[Rynjin]

What is more dangerous?

Fighting through a hundred dungeons filled with deadly monsters or setting up a dig site to search for the gate under a hill?

The danger level is largely irrelevant, only the time given. Given the way resources work in D&D your window to perform an ambush on low-resource foes is pretty small, and you're better off messing with them when they're doing something non-combat related (and the Clerics, Wizards, etc. have likely prepared a bunch of utility spells, actively reducing their combat prowess).


As Serini stated, she never expected to be the last Scribbler standing and was hoping that she would be able to help her team get over their hatred of each other so they could work together in the case of someone attacking them.

Didn't Serini also state that the Scribblers should have zero means of communicating with each other, this making the point moot anyway?

The entire moral of this story is that Serini isn't half as clever as she thinks she is, and her paranoia has left the world one step away from destruction.

[ZhonLord]

Didn't Serini also state that the Scribblers should have zero means of communicating with each other, this making the point moot anyway?

Correct. They cut off all contact and swore to never interfere with each other. No "just checking in" or anything like that.

However, Serini herself cheated by taking monsters from Dorukan's dungeon, and Dorukan+Lirian cheated by leaving an opening in Doru's Cloister spell so they could still have romantic times together. And considering Girard's paranoia, I would be shocked if he didn't also cheat in some manner.

[Bacon Elemental]

Correct. They cut off all contact and swore to never interfere with each other. No "just checking in" or anything like that.

However, Serini herself cheated by taking monsters from Dorukan's dungeon, and Dorukan+Lirian cheated by leaving an opening in Doru's Cloister spell so they could still have romantic times together. And considering Girard's paranoia, I would be shocked if he didn't also cheat in some manner.

We know that Girard was on good enough terms with Serini that the "Blow up Soon Kim" trap in the desert was set to alert her as well as his clan, but not much else on that front

[TurboGhast]

Correct. They cut off all contact and swore to never interfere with each other. No "just checking in" or anything like that.

However, Serini herself cheated by taking monsters from Dorukan's dungeon, and Dorukan+Lirian cheated by leaving an opening in Doru's Cloister spell so they could still have romantic times together. And considering Girard's paranoia, I would be shocked if he didn't also cheat in some manner.

I could see Girard sending someone to make sure the others weren't cheating in direct violation of how they're not supposed to spy on eachother.

[Bacon Elemental]

Sure, but...so? If the entire point is to be a timewaster anyway (powerful enemies will eventually defeat everything and move on), then the shell game method is the BIGGER TIMEWASTER.

Yeah but the point is by putting it behind the megadungeon, you guarantee that no amount of snooping around Backstage or Frontstage or anywhere in Monster Hollow will reveal an alternative path. No divination short of "Give me the exact location of Kraagor's Gate to the meter", which I seem to recall being a question that the gods won't answer ( And won't let anyone who would answer, find out), will tell you to do anything but go into the dungeons. Find The Path will just point you into a new random dungeon each time et cetera. The idea isn't "Which wastes more time" but "Which is more resistant to being circumvented." (We're assuming that there has to BE a back way in somewhere, that is not keyed to one specific person)

Ultimately, the reason why any of these Gates are anywhere accessible at all (Half of Azure City could have been wiped out in a heartbeat if an assassin shot at the lord of the city and missed!) is the plot, as far as I can tell from what's actually been said in-story. But since the one universal convention in every gate design has been "Must be a relatively simple way to access the Gate (lirians is in the open forest, Dorukan's has a ward and a locked door on it, Soon's is in a room in a castle, Girard's is sealed in a thin plaster and lead sheathe in an open part of the pyramid)", it feels fair to assume that there's some unstated in-narrative reasoning. "Make the assumptions that mean the plot works not the ones that mean it doesn't" and all.


Now is Serini's dungeon design perfect? No, absolutely not. It would probbably, for example, have been an equal tribute (And a much greater challenge) to have each dungeon lead directly into the next with no breaks and no possible retreat through one-way teleport traps, then at the end of THAT is a single mark that when you backtrack brings you to wherever the Gate is. But I dont think "I can imagine a better design" is inherently a criticism of the Tomb.

[gbaji]

Case in point: it relies on the attackers getting a very, very specifically worded answer to their questions which we don't have a good reason to expect they would get. Why would "Defeat the dungeons" be the answer a divination gives if "Dig here" is also a possible way to get to the gate, and would be faster and safer? And what if instead of asking "How do we get to the gate?" they ask "Where, specifically, is the gate?".

Rich has been very vague about how divination magic works in his world (and rightly so, since that way only leads to madness and enternal internet dissection - hopefully of the divinations!). But it's entirely possible that due to the gates and rifts themselves, you may not be able to ask direct questions like "where is the gate?" or "what's the fastest way to the gate". But perhaps more specific (20 questions) style questions like "Are these dungeon doors the way to the gate?" may work.

So even if you ask a question like "can I dig to find the gate", you may get a "yes", but trying to ask where to dig would become more problematic. So now you're presented with say 200 doors to try versus an infinite number of places and directions you could try digging. Now the doors seem like a better choice.

Again. We have to assume that anyone with access to any divination, upon encountering the hallow, would spend as much time on divination as possible to determine if the doors actually lead to the gate. If the immediate answer is "no", then they'll spend all their time elsewhere. But if the answer is "yes", and all their other questions about where it's actually located, or to try to figure out some way to bypass the dungeons is indeterminate at best, you'll eventually just try the dungeon doors.

I also speculated in another thread (I think? I lose track) that such things may actually work in some sort of metamagical way based on intent. So if someone designs something and they create a route to get somehwere, then divinations somehow latch on to this and that becomes the "correct" way to get there. So as long as Serini does provide that there is a means to get there, and the intended means very specifically is "explore every single dungeon", then that is what all divinations on the subject will reveal (at most).


If you think about it from the other direction- You have a gate whose location is set, you need to prevent a bad guy from access it, but you also might need to access it yourself- then it's hard to see how you would arrive at Serini's scheme with forward-thinking logic.

Maybe. But if you had that criteria, you might come up with a trigger for opening the gate that would be the same trigger (so no additional ways to get it), but that you would have automatically, but anyone else would have to go through a ridiculous amount of effort to obtain. The solution here does that perfectly. Since she's the one who stocked the dungeons, she automatically has explored every single one. But once stocked, anyone else receiving the same trigger condition has to fight through every single room of every single dungeon.

She, on the other hand, only needs to wait for one dungeon to be cleared (perhaps by the hogboglins nearby), and then wander in the single now empty dungeon, and open up the portal to the final dungeon and inspect the gate (if needed). It's actually a pretty decent way of doing this.

The only flaw I can see is that if this portal opens up for more than just her somehow (it's still unclear how that works) then she becomes a vulnerability as well. Anyone who can find and capture her can just carry her with them, clear just one dungeon, and use her to access the final dungeon. If this is the case, then ironically, Xykon could have finished this up years ago if he'd stopped to capture her after attacking, and just questioned her.

[BloodSquirrel]

Rich has been very vague about how divination magic works in his world (and rightly so, since that way only leads to madness and enternal internet dissection - hopefully of the divinations!). But it's entirely possible that due to the gates and rifts themselves, you may not be able to ask direct questions like "where is the gate?" or "what's the fastest way to the gate". But perhaps more specific (20 questions) style questions like "Are these dungeon doors the way to the gate?" may work.

So even if you ask a question like "can I dig to find the gate", you may get a "yes", but trying to ask where to dig would become more problematic. So now you're presented with say 200 doors to try versus an infinite number of places and directions you could try digging. Now the doors seem like a better choice.

Again. We have to assume that anyone with access to any divination, upon encountering the hallow, would spend as much time on divination as possible to determine if the doors actually lead to the gate. If the immediate answer is "no", then they'll spend all their time elsewhere. But if the answer is "yes", and all their other questions about where it's actually located, or to try to figure out some way to bypass the dungeons is indeterminate at best, you'll eventually just try the dungeon doors.

This is more or less what I was talking about- it's plausible, but it's very noticeably post-hoc, and doesn't stand up to determined scrutiny. For example: divide the canyon in half. Ask whether the place to dig is in one half. If the answer is 'no', ask for the other half. If it's 'yes', divide that half into half, and repeat the process until you've narrowed it down to a 10' square.

Would Serini have thought of that? Probably not. That's the kind of thing V would have done. Which is why "Serini didn't think this entirely through" is such a powerful force multiplier when it comes to explaining her defenses. It's entirely in-character.

It's kind of like when Roy asked the Oracle which gate Xykon was going to next. If you had to figure out why he wouldn't get a correct answer beforehand, and presupposed some sort of metamagical reason involving Soon's gate you'd have been completely wrong. Instead, it was just Roy overlooking a possibility while trying to phrase all of the loopholes out of his question because of his past experience with the Oracle and his lawful nature.



Maybe. But if you had that criteria, you might come up with a trigger for opening the gate that would be the same trigger (so no additional ways to get it), but that you would have automatically, but anyone else would have to go through a ridiculous amount of effort to obtain. The solution here does that perfectly. Since she's the one who stocked the dungeons, she automatically has explored every single one. But once stocked, anyone else receiving the same trigger condition has to fight through every single room of every single dungeon.


Or just have the portal require a password, which only Serini knows. It isn't the specific mechanism people are questioning here, it's the idea behind the scheme.

[Resileaf]

Didn't Serini also state that the Scribblers should have zero means of communicating with each other, this making the point moot anyway?

The entire moral of this story is that Serini isn't half as clever as she thinks she is, and her paranoia has left the world one step away from destruction.

Sure, that's what she said at first, to make everyone stop fighting and agree to set up gate defenses where they wished. Doesn't meant she intended to make that reality forever. It's not like she kept that part of the deal anyway, she remained in contact with Girard at least long enough to make a bet on how long it would take for Soon to break his oath. Seems likely that she intended to get in contact with the other Scribblers over time as well.

In any case, we literally have her in 1278 saying that she was hoping to make the other Scribblers get over their petty squables, so clearly she herself believed she would get in contact with the others.

[BloodSquirrel]

Sure, that's what she said at first, to make everyone stop fighting and agree to set up gate defenses where they wished. Doesn't meant she intended to make that reality forever. It's not like she kept that part of the deal anyway, she remained in contact with Girard at least long enough to make a bet on how long it would take for Soon to break his oath. Seems likely that she intended to get in contact with the other Scribblers over time as well.

It was a bit of a naive expectation on her part. Soon wasn't about to break his oath, and Girard wasn't about to just cool off. Making a plan to get together again in a year to formally exchange notes or at least have their proxies meet if they couldn't stand to do it in person would have been wiser.

[brian 333]

It was a bit of a naive expectation on her part. Soon wasn't about to break his oath, and Girard wasn't about to just cool off. Making a plan to get together again in a year to formally exchange notes or at least have their proxies meet if they couldn't stand to do it in person would have been wiser.

Would they have agreed to that? Serini may not have had the best solution at the moment, but separating friends who are about to get into a fight with the intent to make them hug and forgive each other later is a much better solution than letting them duel and possibly kill each other.

[BloodSquirrel]

Would they have agreed to that? Serini may not have had the best solution at the moment, but separating friends who are about to get into a fight with the intent to make them hug and forgive each other later is a much better solution than letting them duel and possibly kill each other.

Yes, because "Kill each other right now" and "never talk to each other again" are the only two possibilities, with no middle ground possible, such as the one I outlined previously.

[BRC]

IMO, Sereni's Solution isn't terrible, if we assume that the gate HAD to be something accessible.

Which, there are many reasons why the Scribbles might want to be able to access their gates instead of just burying them in a big hole. The wards might require maintenance for example.

If she set up the whole thing as a shell game with a secret, extra door elsewhere, then that's a vulnerability for somebody to find, and she's trying to future-proof this setup into perpetuity as much as possible.

If she tied the "Final Dungeon" rune to herself specifically, then the gate can only be accessed so long as she's alive.

If she ties it to some key she can pass on, then that's a vulnerability somebody can steal.

if any of the doors were decoys, then that's just one less door a lucky villain would have to handle.

The biggest vulnerability right now is if somebody grabs her and compels her to take them through, and that's kind of unavoidable.

I can see two layers of security that seem like they would be pretty trivial (although, that's making up how the magic works)

1) Make the runes dependent on having earlier runes, so you need to do the dungeons in a specific order.
Or
2) give Sereni herself the ability to turn off the "Give somebody a butt-rune" trap for one dungeon, thus locking them out of the final dungeon and restarting the clock as they now need to find out how to bypass the whole setup.

[Resileaf]

It was a bit of a naive expectation on her part. Soon wasn't about to break his oath, and Girard wasn't about to just cool off. Making a plan to get together again in a year to formally exchange notes or at least have their proxies meet if they couldn't stand to do it in person would have been wiser.

That's the usual thing with chaotic people. They don't tend to quite understand what a paladin is about. Serini thinks "Oh, I'll just get everyone to agree not to disturb each other and then in a couple of years I'll see if I can make them hug it out" and then gets surprised that the paladin takes that oath so seriously that he refuses to reconsider.

Meanwhile Girard is still certain that Soon is about to come try to take his gate any day now that he stubbornly refuses to go see the paladin as well.

[BloodSquirrel]

IMO, Sereni's Solution isn't terrible, if we assume that the gate HAD to be something accessible.

Which, there are many reasons why the Scribbles might want to be able to access their gates instead of just burying them in a big hole. The wards might require maintenance for example.

If she set up the whole thing as a shell game with a secret, extra door elsewhere, then that's a vulnerability for somebody to find, and she's trying to future-proof this setup into perpetuity as much as possible.

If she tied the "Final Dungeon" rune to herself specifically, then the gate can only be accessed so long as she's alive.

If she ties it to some key she can pass on, then that's a vulnerability somebody can steal.

if any of the doors were decoys, then that's just one less door a lucky villain would have to handle.


The problem here is that, if the gates require access and maintenance, and they will need to continue to do so after Serini dies, then the gauntlet will do as much to prevent the good guys from accessing it as the bad guys.

This isn't without a real-world parallel: people are always the biggest weakness in any security setup. You can make your password database unhackable, but you can't stop one of your employees from re-using the same password for their personal email account or writing it down and sticking it on their monitor. You can put a badge reader in place, but you can't stop someone from tailgating someone who has a badge.

[Ionathus]

It was a bit of a naive expectation on her part. Soon wasn't about to break his oath, and Girard wasn't about to just cool off. Making a plan to get together again in a year to formally exchange notes or at least have their proxies meet if they couldn't stand to do it in person would have been wiser.

I find it hard to swallow that "propose a breakup then secretly plan to make amends later" is somehow obviously more naive than "propose a breakup with a 1-year checkin."

For one thing, the Scribblers were ready to kill each other. Proposing a complete no-contact, "go our separate ways" would've been a lot easier for them to swallow in the moment.

For another thing, the Scribblers could easily cancel the 1-year checkin if they're still seething, and then they're no better off than before. I really don't see a meaningful benefit, and it has a greater risk of being rejected in that moment when blades are drawn.

And I really don't understand where you're getting the idea that Epic-level heroes who have agreed to cut off contact would be literally incapable of re-establishing that contact, if both parties were willing.

I know nitpicking is this forum's thing, but constructing flimsy reasons to criticize Serini's conflict resolution kind of misses the point that Serini's conflict resolution probably kept everybody in that room alive.

[BloodSquirrel]

I find it hard to swallow that "propose a breakup then secretly plan to make amends later" is somehow obviously more naive than "propose a breakup with a 1-year checkin."

For one thing, the Scribblers were ready to kill each other. Proposing a complete no-contact, "go our separate ways" would've been a lot easier for them to swallow in the moment.

For another thing, the Scribblers could easily cancel the 1-year checkin if they're still seething, and then they're no better off than before. I really don't see a meaningful benefit, and it has a greater risk of being rejected in that moment when blades are drawn.

And I really don't understand where you're getting the idea that Epic-level heroes who have agreed to cut off contact would be literally incapable of re-establishing that contact, if both parties were willing.

I know nitpicking is this forum's thing, but constructing flimsy reasons to criticize Serini's conflict resolution kind of misses the point that Serini's conflict resolution probably kept everybody in that room alive.

We saw how Serini's plan worked out. We're down to one gate and a world teetering on the edge of destruction. But, as usual, that is ignored in favor of poorly-supported counter-factuals and hypotheticals where even just proposing that they take a less absolute step must have resulted in everyone dying in the room because... uh... well... because it's just an assumption you have to make or else the argument completely falls apart.

Find it as hard to swallow as you like- but by more meaningful metrics, the case against Serini is pretty damning.

[JNAProductions]

We saw how Serini's plan worked out. We're down to one gate and a world teetering on the edge of destruction. But, as usual, that is ignored in favor of poorly-supported counter-factuals and hypotheticals where even just proposing that they take a less absolute step must have resulted in everyone dying in the room because... uh... well... because it's just an assumption you have to make or else the argument completely falls apart.

Find it as hard to swallow as you like- but by more meaningful metrics, the case against Serini is pretty damning.

What's the case?

Could Serini have potentially done something more effective to safeguard the world? Probably.
Did Serini have the knowledge that we do, up to and including things that happened after she did her bit? Not at all.

People aren't perfect.

[georgie_leech]

We saw how Serini's plan worked out. We're down to one gate and a world teetering on the edge of destruction. But, as usual, that is ignored in favor of poorly-supported counter-factuals and hypotheticals where even just proposing that they take a less absolute step must have resulted in everyone dying in the room because... uh... well... because it's just an assumption you have to make or else the argument completely falls apart.

Find it as hard to swallow as you like- but by more meaningful metrics, the case against Serini is pretty damning.

Gotta say, "an Epic Sorcerer Lich and Goblin Cleric systematically conquer and destroy the Gates one by one" being a more blamable/foreseeable outcome than "three people with weapons drawn/spells mid-cast all furious with each other will fight unless something intervenes" is an... interesting take.

[Kish]

I find it hard to swallow that "propose a breakup then secretly plan to make amends later" is somehow obviously more naive than "propose a breakup with a 1-year checkin."
Indeed, the "1-year check-in" approach would have suggested that Serini had critically misread the room and thought Girard was going to be back to considering Soon his best friend as soon as he calmed down a bit, not setting a bomb to kill him.

[Snails]

In the spur of the moment, Serini thought the best way to halt an argument that was seriously damaging friendships was to propose an immediate break and a nominally permanent separation...and then she could repair the damage and re-stitch the friendships later on.

That does not look like a stupid plan, even if the second half was largely a failure.

And not arranging check-ins is neither right nor wrong. Either Serini did not think of the idea or she thought it would be counter-productive. She had to make the call based on what she knew, and that call may have turned out to be sub-optimal but it does not seem foolish to me. Her eye was presumably on getting situation better, not worrying how this might help achieve the worst of all situations.

[BloodSquirrel]

In the spur of the moment, Serini thought the best way to halt an argument that was seriously damaging friendships was to propose an immediate break and a nominally permanent separation...and then she could repair the damage and re-stitch the friendships later on.


Indeed, the "1-year check-in" approach would have suggested that Serini had critically misread the room and thought Girard was going to be back to considering Soon his best friend as soon as he calmed down a bit, not setting a bomb to kill him.


What's the case?

Could Serini have potentially done something more effective to safeguard the world? Probably.
Did Serini have the knowledge that we do, up to and including things that happened after she did her bit? Not at all.

People aren't perfect.

I'd just like to note how, again, all of these attempted defenses rely on extreme binaries to sound even remotely plausible. If Girard wasn't going to be Soon's best friend they can't even have a formal protocol to talk business with each other. If Serini wasn't going to propose permanent separation, she couldn't propose and immediate break. If Serini didn't have perfect knowledge of the future, she couldn't have foreseen any problems at all with her plan.

Well, sorry, but I'm not buying into that premise.

[brian 333]

Yes, because "Kill each other right now" and "never talk to each other again" are the only two possibilities, with no middle ground possible, such as the one I outlined previously.

That was a non-starter while they were mad. They needed a cool-down period before they would rationally think that through. The idea you call a middle ground was apparently Serini's intent anyway.


I'd just like to note how, again, all of these attempted defenses rely on extreme binaries to sound even remotely plausible. If Girard wasn't going to be Soon's best friend they can't even have a formal protocol to talk business with each other. If Serini wasn't going to propose permanent separation, she couldn't propose and immediate break. If Serini didn't have perfect knowledge of the future, she couldn't have foreseen any problems at all with her plan.

Well, sorry, but I'm not buying into that premise.

You are the one forcing binary options here. You reject any possible 'other' argument as one way or the other, and ignore the entire spectrum between them.

What about your middle ground? It is equally arbitrary. A year from then, the two who were about to do unforgivable things may have been, (and apparently were,) still mad at each other. Would not the fight have resumed at that moment?

The only time The Scrabble appeared able to cooperate was when the world was in danger, and by that time the reasons for the agreement were both dead, and the other two were in contact.

So, there was a middle ground. Serini took it. Too bad the end of the world happened 50 years too late to get the band back together.

[georgie_leech]

I'd just like to note how, again, all of these attempted defenses rely on extreme binaries to sound even remotely plausible. If Girard wasn't going to be Soon's best friend they can't even have a formal protocol to talk business with each other. If Serini wasn't going to propose permanent separation, she couldn't propose and immediate break. If Serini didn't have perfect knowledge of the future, she couldn't have foreseen any problems at all with her plan.

Well, sorry, but I'm not buying into that premise.

Whereas some us find "while three people are actively threatening violence with each other is a good time to suggest keeping in touch" a non-starter of a premise. :smallconfused:

[JT]

I'd just like to note how, again, all of these attempted defenses rely on extreme binaries to sound even remotely plausible. If Girard wasn't going to be Soon's best friend they can't even have a formal protocol to talk business with each other. If Serini wasn't going to propose permanent separation, she couldn't propose and immediate break. If Serini didn't have perfect knowledge of the future, she couldn't have foreseen any problems at all with her plan.

Well, sorry, but I'm not buying into that premise.

Remember that -- before they nearly came to blows -- Girard was actively concealing the location of (at least) one rift from (at least) Soon from the beginning. If we're to believe the tale as related by Shojo, the Scribblers agreed with Serini's plan to never contact each other. There would be no reason for Soon to ask for the location of what would become Girard's Gate after they agreed to separate; the logical assumption is that Soon asked for the locations from the guy who took 2 levels of ranger before that fight and separation agreement.

[Aedilred]

What we have regarding the agreement is Shojo's brief summary of Serini's proposal and "they swore an oath to that effect".

Serini's proposal was no interference in the other gates: no spying, no "checking in visits", nothing. I'm not sure this expressly rules out voluntary contact with each other or visiting if there's an invitation. And even if it did, this would only really bind Soon. From what we see of the Scribblers' dynamic, the central conflict was Soon vs. [Girard ft. Dorukan and Serini] with Lirian not apparently taking sides but presumably with Dorukan if push came to shove. So Serini's intention is really to defuse that by getting Soon and his awkward scruples out of the way in a manner that he will accept and which provides some sort of assurance for the others that he won't come poking his nose in their business on the basis that he knows best.

Soon is also the most likely of the group to interpret the oath rigidly and assume that this means "no contact", and probably the least likely to let friendship interfere with this interpretation, whereas Serini and Girard will take the view that it's more important to honour the spirit of it than the letter - and we know that Dorukan and Lirian remained in contact anyway. Indeed the oath to enforce the terms of Serini's proposal may even have been Soon's idea, with the other four already thinking of ways to get around it.

In this context, the idea that Serini could rebuild some bridges and reassemble the team, or at least the team minus Soon, to defend her gate if necessary, seems entirely reasonable.

[gbaji]

This is more or less what I was talking about- it's plausible, but it's very noticeably post-hoc, and doesn't stand up to determined scrutiny. For example: divide the canyon in half. Ask whether the place to dig is in one half. If the answer is 'no', ask for the other half. If it's 'yes', divide that half into half, and repeat the process until you've narrowed it down to a 10' square.

And if the answer to every location is "yes"? Technically, if you are digging, you can dig in any direction, for any distance, so every single location on the worlds surface would get a "yes" answer ("sure. start digging. you'll eventually find it..."). Not terribly useful.

The dungeon doors specifically lead into dungeons, with tunnels, and rooms. That's the purpose of the doors. So a "yes" answer to "can I find the gate by exploring through these doors" hugely reduces the amount of "space" the question narrows things down to. "Can I get to the gate by digging in this spot on the surface of the world", does not confine that "space" at all (again, the entire space under the surface is technically accessible via digging from every spot on the surface).

And yes. We could assume that divinations could give directional answers (ie: "If I start at this point and dig in <specific direction> will my tunnel encounter the gate") and triangulate the gate's actual position with a not too terrible number of divinations (not a "few", but probably reasonable if you're already "close" already). I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that divinations don't work that way in Rich's world, because surely someone like Redcloak would have tried that first thing. Or the gates simply can't be divined using methods like this. Or something else.

At the end of the day, a team consisting of an epic sorcerer and a very high level cleric, with pretty vast amounts of spellcasting between the two of them, upon encountering the hallow with its huge number of doors, decided that trying the doors until they found one that lead them to the gate was the right approach. We can certainly speculate about all the things they could have done differently (without actually knowing what they tried first), but this is what they did do. They clearly do believe that this is the best/correct way to find the gate. And they are correct. Serini did build the hallow such that doing this will eventually get you to the gate. We can assume she was an idiot who missed some obvious alternative to that method, or we can maybe assume that she had good reasons for doing it, but we just don't know exactly what those reasons are.

I'm going to lean in that second direction here.

[Aquillion]

Rich has been very vague about how divination magic works in his world (and rightly so, since that way only leads to madness and enternal internet dissection - hopefully of the divinations!). But it's entirely possible that due to the gates and rifts themselves, you may not be able to ask direct questions like "where is the gate?" or "what's the fastest way to the gate". But perhaps more specific (20 questions) style questions like "Are these dungeon doors the way to the gate?" may work.I think we can safely assume that OOTS divinations are at least not more powerful than D&D divinations (after all, the whole reason they'd work differently in OOTS is because D&D divinations have the potential to derail plots.)

And D&D divinations are way, way more limited than people are suggesting here.

Augury is just "would this action bring good or bad results"; Divination, the closest thing to a spell that directly answers questions, gives you a single cryptic rhyme. Crucially for both, you can't ask multiple questions about the same topic - this specifically makes brute-forcing a problem with multiple questions impossible.

The yes-no question spell is Commune, which only gives you information based on your deity's knowledge and is therefore entirely useless here (The Dark One doesn't know where the Gate is.)

There's also Vision, but that will definitely fail because the Gate is unquestionably of "legendary importance" and the spell doesn't work at all on things like that.

[Kish]

Divination (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divination.htm) "can provide you with a useful piece of advice in reply to a question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity that is to occur within one week. The advice can be as simple as a short phrase, or it might take the form of a cryptic rhyme or omen."

So it's not going to be useless and it doesn't have to be either cryptic or rhyming. For that matter, augury would be plenty to make the difference here:

:redcloak: Will exploring these doors one by one have good or bad results?

If it's the way Serini described, this gets the result "good" and Redcloak does it. If it's any of the ways people have come up with that this could actually be only a diversion and not a gauntlet because Kraagor's TombSerini's Monster Hollow is about being a stereotypical rogue, it gets the result "bad" and Redcloak looks for another course of action.

[Throknor]

At the end of the day, a team consisting of an epic sorcerer and a very high level cleric, with pretty vast amounts of spellcasting between the two of them, upon encountering the hallow with its huge number of doors, decided that trying the doors until they found one that lead them to the gate was the right approach. We can certainly speculate about all the things they could have done differently (without actually knowing what they tried first), but this is what they did do.

They also had her diary which has proven mostly accurate so far as to locations. She may even have put some notes to the effect of "built a bunch of dungeons to hide how to get to the gate". She obviously didn't note the whole method to access the gate but given that even Soon knew about her plan to use dungeons with monsters it's reasonable to think that she included that much in her own diary. After all, they knew Girard had a pyramid but aren't shown learning that from O-Chul in his 'series of illusions' speech.

As far as divination goes it's already been lampshaded (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1039.html).

[brian 333]

See how useful The Oracle's information has been?

Except for some from specific NPCs, I've never found divination spells to be all that useful in game. Either we asked the wrong questions or we misinterpreted the answer, or the answer was cryptic to the point of uselessness. Devinition works fine for small stuff, but for plot-relevant things it is less effective.

I get the feeling that those who think scrying and divining are the solution never actually played the game. No DM I know, including myself, would reward repeated attempts to divine a way past the dungeon to get to the treasure. The first answer is the only one that would contain useful information.

Example: use the divide and subdivide method. Draw a line down the canyon and ask, Is the entrance on the right side or the left side, (or differentiate any way you like.) The answer is yes, because the entrance can be on either side. Now divide whichever side and ask again. You have excluded half the doors, so presumably those will not be searched. Now no matter how you subdivide, the answer is no.

Oops.

So, you ask an oracle, "Which door leads to the gate?"

Answer: "The last one you enter."

Okaaay.

So, I challenge anyone to name the spell or magic item used, and I will answer. Let's see how effective divination really is.

[Precure]

As far as divination goes it's already been lampshaded (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1039.html).

Yeah, now I remember. Didn't gods blocked any information regarding the gates? Divination is practically useless in this case.

[gbaji]

My rule of thumb when players use divinations in my games is to provide them with sufficient information to head them in the correct direction of the quest if they need that additional nudging, but that's about it. In my writeups on divinations I'm actually quite specific that divinations will not always distinguish between "difficult/dangerous versus easy/safe" when asking questions like "which way should we go to get to X". Basically, if the players are trying to use divination to bypass any significant obstacles, they're going to fail. Now, if they are using them to learn some additional information which may make them more successful (ie: "should we go to town X and talk to NPC Y before heading to the bbeg?") it's a diferent story. Of course, in most cases, I'm laying out stuff like this specifically for the players to have access to things that will enable them to complete the quest, so skipping stuff along the way is often a pretty likely way to just straight up fail anyway.

And honestlly? Usually divinations are tied to some deity anyway. So the answers are often a lot less about absolute truth as what their deity actually wants them to do. So again, it's usually something I can use to basically tell the PC: "your god commands you to go to X and do Y". It's a tool I can use as the GM to provide the players with information they may need ("Your god tells you that to complete your quest you will need a fruit from the tree of <whatever> located in the land of <wherever>"). Saves me time having to put this stuff in clues they will need to find at some point. But yeah, never to bypass the quest itself. That's just not fun...

[Lumix19]

Yeah, now I remember. Didn't gods blocked any information regarding the gates? Divination is practically useless in this case.

Potentially. The gods have an agreement not to share information about the Gates with mortals, including (I believe) their locations.

But the Dark One isn't party to that agreement. I believe his difficulty is that the other gods have occluded his ability to see where the Gate is. So perhaps with his deific scrying he's able to see quite a bit, including some information that he can pass one to Redcloak through divination, but he's just not able to share what the gods don't want him to see (i.e., the exact location of the Gate). He could still learn a lot from spying on Serini though.

So he might be able to provide vague clues like, "Yes, you are in the right area", or "Yes, you must go through the dungeons to find the Gate", depending on what his deific scrying has shown him. But Redcloak probably can't just cast commune and have the Dark One tell him exactly where it is like Hel did with her High Priest and the Godsmoot.

[Kamunami]

While not quite the same, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we got a repeat of Girard's final gambit, where what LOOKS like a dead end is actually the last barrier to the Gate. That is to say, a fake shell game.

[RedSand]

A shell game would be a rogue's way of building a dungeon. You are making the assumption that the order did, which is that Serini would build this according to her own instincts as a rogue. But you fail to realize the Order has only just realized themselves: Serini really, really hates herself.

She clearly blames herself for the party's dissolution, sees her inability to keep them together after Kraagor's death as a deep and personal failure. His death might even be partially her fault. Because she hates herself, she doesn't trust what would be the most natural approach to her, which is why she went with what Kraagor, her dead friend who she literally put on a pedestal, would want instead. This mistrust in her instincts make her unique, though; every other gate failed due to the prideful, limited approach they took to guarding the gate. If she gets over these feelings and starts acting like a rogue in addition to her barbaric approach to dungeon design she might just manage to save the world.

[Ionathus]

I don't know if this has come up, but I just want to note for the Divination discourse that Serini outright mentions at least part of this consideration in the last panel of 1278 - she acknowledges that her dungeon was built, at least in part, to account for divination magic (and specifically designed to make an ass joke, which is fantastic :smallbiggrin:)

Maybe 3.5 is different (not that Rich cares too much about the rules these days), but divination in 5e isn't restricted to deities. The Dark One isn't the only power out there that a potential invader could turn to: some of the other gods might both have that information and be willing to flout (or sneakily circumvent) the rules on The Great Gates Information Blackout, plus external powers like the Modrons or even arcane magic sources could use divination as well. A person designing this gauntlet would have to account for all of those as well.


A shell game would be a rogue's way of building a dungeon. You are making the assumption that the order did, which is that Serini would build this according to her own instincts as a rogue. But you fail to realize the Order has only just realized themselves: Serini really, really hates herself.

She clearly blames herself for the party's dissolution, sees her inability to keep them together after Kraagor's death as a deep and personal failure. His death might even be partially her fault. Because she hates herself, she doesn't trust what would be the most natural approach to her, which is why she went with what Kraagor, her dead friend who she literally put on a pedestal, would want instead. This mistrust in her instincts make her unique, though; every other gate failed due to the prideful, limited approach they took to guarding the gate. If she gets over these feelings and starts acting like a rogue in addition to her barbaric approach to dungeon design she might just manage to save the world.

Interesting theory. I'm not sure if Serini truly hates herself or if she's just lost hope or confidence in her own abilities, though. It would mean roughly the same for this choice of hers - she can feasibly say she's building it in Kraagor's honor, but hedging with these traps does kind of make it seem like she lacks the courage of her convictions.

[Snails]

I'd just like to note how, again, all of these attempted defenses rely on extreme binaries to sound even remotely plausible. If Girard wasn't going to be Soon's best friend they can't even have a formal protocol to talk business with each other. If Serini wasn't going to propose permanent separation, she couldn't propose and immediate break. If Serini didn't have perfect knowledge of the future, she couldn't have foreseen any problems at all with her plan.

Well, sorry, but I'm not buying into that premise.

Nope. You are simply failing to understand Serini's perspective, so you are getting distracted by irrelevancies.

If Serini is confident that time is on her side and she will surely be able to adequately stitch things back together with sufficient effort then the details of the immediate deal does not look so important...to her mind.

"Hey, I got this. I just need to separate these three as quickly as possible, they will cool down, and with enough social elbow grease it will get fixed. For the moment, I will keep talking and adding promises until they agree. Everything will get fixed to make real sense on down the road."

So, you think that the deal Serini blurted out was unnecessary legalistic and heavy-handed and suboptimal in other various ways? Yes, Serini would surely agree with you. But in the moment, I doubt she would think about any of these things carefully. And it is just not within most people's capacity to think all that carefully on their feet. That is a highly realistic kind of error.

In the moment, Serini did not see how promises and legalisms would be used as excuses and get in her way of fixing things later. Her kind of mind does not see these things as important. Surely Girard would come around to her perspective, right? Surely Soon, as a stick in the mud as he could be, would see that working together was better once the other three were with her?

[Rynjin]

In other words, Serini is extremely arrogant and doesn't nearly have the level of competence necessary to justify it.

[gbaji]

In other words, Serini is extremely arrogant and doesn't nearly have the level of competence necessary to justify it.

I would say that she's acting according to a chaotic alignment. "Say something dramatic to get them to stop trying to kill eachother now and work stuff out later" is a chaotic alignment's solution to the problem at hand. "Come up with a formal set of rules for us to interact so we can work together while not actually interacting any more than necessary" is a very lawful way to approach things.

Of course she was winging it. And maybe not thinking things through all the way. It's in her nature. 1 part clever. 1 part wishfull thinking. Several parts "I'm sure I can pull this off".

[Snails]

In other words, Serini is extremely arrogant and doesn't nearly have the level of competence necessary to justify it.

I see no basis for declaring it either arrogance or not arrogance.

It is a mental/emotional blind spot, which made her prone to not foreseeing that certain details could be very important to others. She simply cannot grasp that that which is so unimportant to her might be very important to some of her dear friends, more important than even their mutual friendship. It is classic Chaotic Good Intentions going on here.

I have no idea what you mean by "have the level of competence necessary to justify it". Serini saw a very heated argument. She shut the argument down for good reasons. What does she need to justify and to whom?

Yes, she made mistakes. Surely she would agree, with the benefit of years to reconsider every word. But in the moment she was as competent as she was, and doing nothing did not seem like a reasonable option.

[Liquor Box]

The classic shell game has a serious vulnerability - if you catch the guy palming the ball, you can attack him directly to get your money.

A metaphorical shell game has the same serious vulnerability. If you catch on, there is a very real chance that you can deduce the actual location of the thing you're looking for and head straight for it. And, if this happens, the target is inherently undefended. In which case going for a shell game guaranteed your defeat.

This is the answer IMO. If you invest a heap of time and resources in a series of dungeons that aren't a prerequisite for accessing the gate, then they are all wasted if the attacker bypasses them.

[Rynjin]

I see no basis for declaring it either arrogance or not arrogance.

...You say, then name one.


It is a mental/emotional blind spot, which made her prone to not foreseeing that certain details could be very important to others. She simply cannot grasp that that which is so unimportant to her might be very important to some of her dear friends, more important than even their mutual friendship. It is classic Chaotic Good Intentions going on here.

"Cannot grasp that anybody could value something she does not" is extraordinarily arrogant.


I have no idea what you mean by "have the level of competence necessary to justify it". Serini saw a very heated argument. She shut the argument down for good reasons. What does she need to justify and to whom?

Yes, she made mistakes. Surely she would agree, with the benefit of years to reconsider every word. But in the moment she was as competent as she was, and doing nothing did not seem like a reasonable option.

I mean that she acts like she has all the answers and cannot conceive that anybody could know better than her, and yet every single action she has ever taken has ended in failure. She is clearly not hot **** like she thinks she is.

[Snails]

"Cannot grasp that anybody could value something she does not" is extraordinarily arrogant.

I love unintended irony.

[Ionathus]

"Cannot grasp that anybody could value something she does not" is extraordinarily arrogant.

I would love to see you cite your sources that Serini "cannot grasp" that other people wouldn't share her priorities. All I see in the Scribbler backstory is Serini breaking up a fight between friends and telling them all to take a breather and cool off, telling them what they want to hear, hoping that she can patch things up later. That's not arrogance, dude. That's literally just conflict resolution.


I mean that she acts like she has all the answers and cannot conceive that anybody could know better than her,

Correction: she could not conceive that The Order and The Sapphire Guard descendants could know better than her. And at the risk of necro'ing that particular dead horse from discussions a year back, she was entirely reasonable to not trust the people who had blown 3 of 4 other gates through incompetence. She was one of the original Scribblers, so how likely would it be that these relative baby adventurers had secret information about the gates from a Godsmoot that she didn't know about?

And, incidentally, she DID change her mind when presented with all the facts. She explicitly acknowledged that she hadn't considered the "god" angle. We have on-panel evidence that she's capable of conceiving other people could know more/better than her.


and yet every single action she has ever taken has ended in failure.

Yeah, like helping to seal some rifts that were threatening the entire planet, or stopping her friends from killing each other, or defending one of those gates with an epic-level dungeon for 50 years. Real failures across the board. Just a total screwup of a person.


She is clearly not hot **** like she thinks she is.

Quotes from Serini about how "hot ****" she thinks she is:

Oh yes! The only threats more terrifying than an old lady with a blowgun are the two clowns who got beat by the same old lady!

Of course I think that! He ripped me apart like I was a bundle of twigs! Dor and Liri were so much better than me, and he killed them both! I'm only alive because I wasn't important enough for him to make sure I was dead!

You're darn tootin' I am [terrified of Xykon]! I'm an old woman with some weird monster friends. I can't stop him! I apparently can't stop you dumb lunks either, but it seemed like the better bet.

Characters are allowed to oppose the heroes without being complete morons. They're allowed to be making rational decisions with imperfect information. They're allowed to be wrong, or rude, or dismissive. I genuinely don't get the white-hot hate for Serini.

[Rynjin]

I would love to see you cite your sources that Serini "cannot grasp" that other people wouldn't share her priorities.

Ask Snails, it was his wording.




Correction: she could not conceive that The Order and The Sapphire Guard descendants could know better than her. And at the risk of necro'ing that particular dead horse from discussions a year back, she was entirely reasonable to not trust the people who had blown 3 of 4 other gates through incompetence. She was one of the original Scribblers, so how likely would it be that these relative baby adventurers had secret information about the gates from a Godsmoot that she didn't know about?

Much more likely than someone who's been holed up in a cave diddling themselves for decades with little access to information from the outside world.


And, incidentally, she DID change her mind when presented with all the facts. She explicitly acknowledged that she hadn't considered the "god" angle. We have on-panel evidence that she's capable of conceiving other people could know more/better than her.

Getting help from her has been like pulling teeth, and she's STILL wasting everybody's damn time even in the most recent chapter.




Yeah, like helping to seal some rifts that were threatening the entire planet, or stopping her friends from killing each other, or defending one of those gates with an epic-level dungeon for 50 years. Real failures across the board. Just a total screwup of a person.

She hasn't defended **** from anybody. She made the dungeon and it's folding to the first real threat that's shown up.





Characters are allowed to oppose the heroes without being complete morons. They're allowed to be making rational decisions with imperfect information. They're allowed to be wrong, or rude, or dismissive. I genuinely don't get the white-hot hate for Serini.

Because I don't like people who are rude, wrong, and dismissive, especially when they keep acting all smug even after they've been proven wrong repeatedly. From an in-universe standpoint, she's a crotchety old bitch who's representative of the smug know-it-all "elder who knows best" while being woefully behind the times and unwilling to incorporate new viewpoints unless quite literally beaten into doing so. From an out of universe standpoint, she represents what feels like an interminable, pointless stall in the plot; an active impediment to us actually getting to see something more interesting than her and the Order bickering for 2 years.

In both cases, I hate her.

[Ionathus]

Much more likely than someone who's been holed up in a cave diddling themselves for decades with little access to information from the outside world.

She spent five and a half decades traveling the world and making friends, then got attacked by Xykon, then spent half a decade in this cave adding to the gate's defenses.


Because I don't like people who are rude, wrong, and dismissive, especially when they keep acting all smug even after they've been proven wrong repeatedly. From an in-universe standpoint, she's a crotchety old bitch who's representative of the smug know-it-all "elder who knows best" while being woefully behind the times and unwilling to incorporate new viewpoints unless quite literally beaten into doing so. From an out of universe standpoint, she represents what feels like an interminable, pointless stall in the plot; an active impediment to us actually getting to see something more interesting than her and the Order bickering for 2 years.

In both cases, I hate her.

Given that I disagree with you about basically every characterization you've made here and everything that you seem to enjoy & hate about a narrative, I don't see much point in continuing to engage. Thanks for the discussion. I hope the story can start moving in a direction you find satisfying soon.

[Breccia]

I get the feeling that those who think scrying and divining are the solution never actually played the game. No DM I know, including myself, would reward repeated attempts to divine a way past the dungeon to get to the treasure.

I really like this answer, and I want only to add a little to it.

Yes, there would be cases that a DM might simply say "well you'd skip the entire dungeon" and block divining magic for plot reasons. Railroading is the most negative term used for that, but it's not a negative thing. A mystery novel/movie/etc isn't all that entertaining when the detective says "It was the butler, he hid the evidence in his secret safe in the greenhouse, the combination is his dead wife's birthday" sixty seconds after showing up. If a D&D session is going to be an entertaining story, like, say, a thousand-plus growing strong internet comic, it needs the appropriate time to have that story unfold.

It is much easier to do that when there's a solid reason. Such as "the pantheons have collectively blocked the information from any magic weaker than themselves, which is more or less everything, because it's universe-shattering implications must be controlled". Something that might sound suspiciously like railroading in a randomly chosen campaign, but is on point here and has been for hundreds of pages.

I think it's fairly safe to say that, if a few high-level spells could have found the precise location of the gate, it would have happened by now. Four of the main characters are world-class spellcasters, and three of them have no problems doing research.

[Ionathus]

A mystery novel/movie/etc isn't all that entertaining when the detective says "It was the butler, he hid the evidence in his secret safe in the greenhouse, the combination is his dead wife's birthday" sixty seconds after showing up. If a D&D session is going to be an entertaining story, like, say, a thousand-plus growing strong internet comic, it needs the appropriate time to have that story unfold.

I dunno. Chip Driver is the world's greatest detective, and he's so good, he solves the mystery ten pages into Six Feet Under Par. And that's the best book I've ever read! So I think sometimes the mystery can unfold quickly if it suits the story's needs.

[Peelee]

I dunno. Chip Driver is the world's greatest detective, and he's so good, he solves the mystery ten pages into Six Feet Under Par. And that's the best book I've ever read! So I think sometimes the mystery can unfold quickly if it suits the story's needs.

Look, comparisons to Chip Driver are unfair. Not everyone can be the world's strongest president.

[Kish]

I get the feeling that those who think scrying and divining are the solution never actually played the game. No DM I know, including myself, would reward repeated attempts to divine a way past the dungeon to get to the treasure. The first answer is the only one that would contain useful information.
Not that I'm clear on why we're acting as though Xykon and Redcloak were D&D players rather than webcomic antagonists here, but, okay, if we're looking at it this way.

How many DMs that you know, including yourself, would hand the PCs "you cannot solve this plot and can waste as much time as you like trying"?

Because that's why "Why did Serini make it possible to reach the Gate at all?" amounts to.

[Resileaf]

Much more likely than someone who's been holed up in a cave diddling themselves for decades with little access to information from the outside world.

She had enough information to guess exactly how Soon's gate was destroyed. Seems like she's keeping up with outside info pretty well.

[gbaji]

"Cannot grasp that anybody could value something she does not" is extraordinarily arrogant.

Don't really feel like diving into the other characterizations of Sereni other than to observe that she's Chaotic Good, and therefore is going to act based on that alignment.

This particular statement is a bit of an overreach IMO. That *can* be arrogant, but it can also be "reasonable". Depends largely on whether the thing that others are extremely emotional about really is something to be extremely emotional about in the first place. You've never had a couple friends get into a huge fight over something you consider to be pointless? Happens all the time. Emotions get heated, words are said, mountains made out of molehills. And sometimes, as an observer to this the whole time you're thinking "why are they making this such a huge deal?". And guess what? A lot of the time, the words and actions back and forth after the initial event/cause/whatever for the fight are far far far more damaging then that initial thing was.

So yeah. Sometimes, being the voice of reason and stepping in and just separating those two, letting them cool off, and hoping that over time they'll come a bit to their senses is not at all an arrogant thing to do. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But I wouldn't call that arrogance. I'd call that "hope".

[Snails]

Because that's why "Why did Serini make it possible to reach the Gate at all?" amounts to.

And the comic has answered this possible criticism in story: Gates may not be entirely stable, and probably should be inspected every few decades or similar.

An actually impossible to defeat to defense may doom the whole world.

[Rynjin]

Don't really feel like diving into the other characterizations of Sereni other than to observe that she's Chaotic Good, and therefore is going to act based on that alignment.

This particular statement is a bit of an overreach IMO. That *can* be arrogant, but it can also be "reasonable". Depends largely on whether the thing that others are extremely emotional about really is something to be extremely emotional about in the first place. You've never had a couple friends get into a huge fight over something you consider to be pointless? Happens all the time. Emotions get heated, words are said, mountains made out of molehills. And sometimes, as an observer to this the whole time you're thinking "why are they making this such a huge deal?". And guess what? A lot of the time, the words and actions back and forth after the initial event/cause/whatever for the fight are far far far more damaging then that initial thing was.

So yeah. Sometimes, being the voice of reason and stepping in and just separating those two, letting them cool off, and hoping that over time they'll come a bit to their senses is not at all an arrogant thing to do. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But I wouldn't call that arrogance. I'd call that "hope".

Dictating to others what they "should" be emotional about is indeed classic arrogance. You consider your own viewpoint as the default, the only one that matters. Moreover, you actually moved to act on it.

Everybody is guilty of this occasionally, especially the "thinking it" part. "I am above these petty squabbles, and am the reasonable one". Failing to take into account the fact that the reason they're emotional in the first place is that it DOES matter to them.

Concocting some harebrained plan to manipulate your allies from behind the scenes into understanding that their feelings are useless and they should all just forget about it is something that sounds like a very good idea to someone who's not very socially savvy, but rarely works out in practice.

[brian 333]

Not that I'm clear on why we're acting as though Xykon and Redcloak were D&D players rather than webcomic antagonists here, but, okay, if we're looking at it this way.

How many DMs that you know, including yourself, would hand the PCs "you cannot solve this plot and can waste as much time as you like trying"?

Because that's why "Why did Serini make it possible to reach the Gate at all?" amounts to.

I am acting as if they are characters in a story, actually. That the story format arises from a D&D background is the reason I referred to it like a D&D session.

As a DM I have occasionally had players attempt game-breaking acts. I'm fairly certain that's where the idea for Cloister came from. But to illustrate, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which Data and Jordie enter the Holmsian setting comes to mind. Data immediately begins to solve several mysteries at once. Why did Jordie get upset and walk out?

Sometimes, when players seek to exploit their way around a challenge to get to the treasure, they ruin the fun. So it is the DM's job to keep attempts to exploit or clever means of bypassing to a minimum. Let the clever player 'win' on the small stuff, keep him in check for the rest. Occasionally, you have to just say, "No, that's not going to work." That's when I use the letter of the rules. Because all of the scrying rules say the DM dictates the answer.

The question of why Serini made the gate accessible is open to debate. But I challenge anyone to make an inaccessible goal. Where do you begin?

Bury it in multidimensional stone? I bring an army of goblins armed with picks, hoes, and shovels. Or a xorn.

Make none of the teleport traps link to it? We're going to need a titanium elemental.

Make its location unscryable and leave it hidden under a layer of stone? Umm, isn't that what she did?

I notice that for all of the posts saying that Serini's defense sucks, we have zero posts saying how to do it better. There are some good ideas on how to make it suck differently, but better?

(If I missed those, link or post below.)

[Precure]

I think you're giving too much importance to Serini's "oath" suggestion.We already know that Serini was in touch with Girard and Lirian was in touch with Dorukan. Serini was also using Dorukan's dungeon to hire monsters, so it was only Soon who seems to cease all comunication with others.

[gbaji]

Dictating to others what they "should" be emotional about is indeed classic arrogance. You consider your own viewpoint as the default, the only one that matters. Moreover, you actually moved to act on it.

She wasn't dictating though. She was hoping. Expecting maybe. Praying? There's a world of difference between sitting two people down and telling them their squables are silly and they must "work it out right now!", and separating two people who are fighting and then hoping that giving them that time to cool off will allow them to realize that maybe other things are more important than whatever they were fighting over, and find ways to be, if not friends again, at least civil to eachother.

She only "moved to act" on diffusing the immediate conflict. Her hope that they would eventually get over things and work together in the future was not at all dictated by her. She just hoped it would happen, and gave time for that hoped for outcome to occur. I'm not sure how this is at all arrogant. Most people would call this a reasonable course of action.


Everybody is guilty of this occasionally, especially the "thinking it" part. "I am above these petty squabbles, and am the reasonable one". Failing to take into account the fact that the reason they're emotional in the first place is that it DOES matter to them.

Concocting some harebrained plan to manipulate your allies from behind the scenes into understanding that their feelings are useless and they should all just forget about it is something that sounds like a very good idea to someone who's not very socially savvy, but rarely works out in practice.

Again though. Her solution of separating them and then hoping that over time they'll get over things is *not* what you are claiming. If, on the other hand, she'd done what some have suggested (and which brought this entire line of conversation about), and set up a firm schedule of meetings between the Scribblers so that they could coordinate their efforts in defending the gates, and just required that everyone "get over yourselves", then *that* would be arrogant, and *that* would be her dictating things to the others.

Please show me where in the strip its shown that she "manipulated" her allies here? She just separated them and then hoped that over time that they'd come to their senses and realize that the defense of the gates was more important than their squbbles. They didn't. But that's her failing to recognize just how deeply these people hated eachother at the end. Again, the dictated (arrogant) solution would be to continue to force them to work together and repeated insistence by her that their squabbles were meaningless and should be ignored.

She didn't do that. She did the opposite of that. She took no action, either manipulative or direct, to force her former party members to work together after that point. And what's ironic, is that it's her very "hands off" approach that was criticized in this thread earlier.

[Rrmcklin]

I think you're giving too much importance to Serini's "oath" suggestion.We already know that Serini was in touch with Girard and Lirian was in touch with Dorukan. Serini was also using Dorukan's dungeon to hire monsters, so it was only Soon who seems to cease all comunication with others.

I agree with the general sentiment, but it's weird to bring up Serini stealing monsters from Dorukan as a point in favor of it, because we know for a fact she wasn't actively trying to do that without contacting him.

[Snails]

I think some readers are judging Serini harshly because she was initially such a $#!^head towards the Order. The Tale as communicated via Soon/Shojo suggests she did not have those kind of attitude problems back in the day. She made errors, to be sure, but not errors of the kind that befuddled the Order.

[Kish]

Indeed, the Secret Lore of the Sapphire Guard strongly implies (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html) that she was the best and wisest of the Order of the Scribble. Which is kind of interesting. Even as recently as the previous strip, even after her grudging agreement to treat the Order of the Stick as allies, she was reacting to a request that she share any information she didn't see an immediate and pressing need to with "Get stuffed!"

So...is this indicative solely of her having changed, or did Soon represent her far more positively than most people who had interacted with her would have?

[Liquor Box]

Again though. Her solution of separating them and then hoping that over time they'll get over things is *not* what you are claiming. If, on the other hand, she'd done what some have suggested (and which brought this entire line of conversation about), and set up a firm schedule of meetings between the Scribblers so that they could coordinate their efforts in defending the gates, and just required that everyone "get over yourselves", then *that* would be arrogant, and *that* would be her dictating things to the others.

Please show me where in the strip its shown that she "manipulated" her allies here? She just separated them and then hoped that over time that they'd come to their senses and realize that the defense of the gates was more important than their squbbles. They didn't. But that's her failing to recognize just how deeply these people hated eachother at the end. Again, the dictated (arrogant) solution would be to continue to force them to work together and repeated insistence by her that their squabbles were meaningless and should be ignored.

She didn't do that. She did the opposite of that. She took no action, either manipulative or direct, to force her former party members to work together after that point. And what's ironic, is that it's her very "hands off" approach that was criticized in this thread earlier.

Did you accidently misquote me here? My name is on the passage you are quoting, but it's not a post I made

[Precure]

I agree with the general sentiment, but it's weird to bring up Serini stealing monsters from Dorukan as a point in favor of it, because we know for a fact she wasn't actively trying to do that without contacting him.

There is some posts that claims she break the oath by simply being in Dorukan's Dungeon, even though she didn't do anything to the gate itself.

[Snails]

So...is this indicative solely of her having changed, or did Soon represent her far more positively than most people who had interacted with her would have?

The simplest and most natural explanation is that Serini was indeed the most friendly of the Scribblers, and that her bitterness is the fallout of years of frustration from trying to repair the broken friendships.

That the Most X character, after sustaining many unfair slings and arrows of fate, finally gets flipped to the Most Anti-X is a classic dramatic trope, and fits with the kind of tale The Giant seems to be trying to tell. And it is often the heroes' job to flip this character back sufficiently to help the quest (Ep8 Luke, Aberforth Dumbledore, etc.).

I suspect that a couple important parts of past history may prove to have been very misleading, while not ever contradicted. I trust The Giant will avoid going Rashomon on details like what Serini's personality was in the past. The Giant already already declined golden opportunities to play that game before, and with the last breathing Scribbler on the stage he is still not playing.

[gbaji]

Did you accidently misquote me here? My name is on the passage you are quoting, but it's not a post I made

Why yes. Yes, I did. :smallredface:

Not even sure how. I don't think I was even doing a multiquote in that response, which is why this usually happens.

I should start a thread: Things I've accidentally pasted into an OotS forum post (but usually catch):

Linux command lines
Paragraphs of work related email/documents
Random difficult to spell usernames
Snippets of code
Long non-mnemonic passwords stored in secure electronic safes

[Ionathus]

Things I've accidentally pasted into an OotS forum post (but usually catch):
...
Long non-mnemonic passwords stored in secure electronic safes

"secure" :smallbiggrin:

[georgie_leech]

"secure" :smallbiggrin:

Hey, the safe was plenty secure, it was the squishy human bit that wasn't :smallwink:

[woweedd]

The simplest and most natural explanation is that Serini was indeed the most friendly of the Scribblers, and that her bitterness is the fallout of years of frustration from trying to repair the broken friendships.

That the Most X character, after sustaining many unfair slings and arrows of fate, finally gets flipped to the Most Anti-X is a classic dramatic trope, and fits with the kind of tale The Giant seems to be trying to tell. And it is often the heroes' job to flip this character back sufficiently to help the quest (Ep8 Luke, Aberforth Dumbledore, etc.).

I suspect that a couple important parts of past history may prove to have been very misleading, while not ever contradicted. I trust The Giant will avoid going Rashomon on details like what Serini's personality was in the past. The Giant already already declined golden opportunities to play that game before, and with the last breathing Scribbler on the stage he is still not playing.

Yep. The idea of someone getting their life so ****ed that they become their own anti-thesis is a running trope in stories. Notice how, whenever a good guy turns evil, it's usually not just any good guy, but a true paragon, the greatest and most heroic of us all, who falls? That kinda thing.


Indeed, the Secret Lore of the Sapphire Guard strongly implies (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0277.html) that she was the best and wisest of the Order of the Scribble. Which is kind of interesting. Even as recently as the previous strip, even after her grudging agreement to treat the Order of the Stick as allies, she was reacting to a request that she share any information she didn't see an immediate and pressing need to with "Get stuffed!"

So...is this indicative solely of her having changed, or did Soon represent her far more positively than most people who had interacted with her would have?

Also, I will note, while Serini has clearly gotten a lot more cynical, she does still appear to know a thing or two about getting along with people: Her vast array of allies from monstrous races normally considered evil, and her recognition of the raw deal goblinoids, kobolds, and the like have gotten does show a strong sense of empathy, buried under all the jaded cynicism. Her outlook is actually more enlightened then many other Good characters in the comic.

[gbaji]

Hey, the safe was plenty secure, it was the squishy human bit that wasn't :smallwink:

Yup. Weakest link <---

These sorts of tools are actually pretty decent in terms of security. But at the end of the day, you kinda have to actually copy/paste to use the stuff inside. Which means it's there ready to be pasted anywhere else if you forget. No way in heck I'm going to eyeball these things and then type them out by hand. That's just... insane. Not to mention they only pop up and are visible for like 30 seconds anyway.


Also, I will note, while Serini has clearly gotten a lot more cynical, she does still appear to know a thing or two about getting along with people: Her vast array of allies from monstrous races normally considered evil, and her recognition of the raw deal goblinoids, kobolds, and the like have gotten does show a strong sense of empathy, buried under all the jaded cynicism. Her outlook is actually more enlightened then many other Good characters in the comic.

I see Serini as the curmudeonly old person, sitting on her rocking chair, waving her cane atwhacking the neighborhood "kids" for walking on her lawn.

[brian 333]

I see Serini as the curmudeonly old person, sitting on her rocking chair, waving her cane atwhacking the neighborhood "kids" for walking on her lawn.

I think this as well, and I think she leans into it to keep the young'uns confused.

[Ionathus]

Yup. Weakest link <---

These sorts of tools are actually pretty decent in terms of security. But at the end of the day, you kinda have to actually copy/paste to use the stuff inside. Which means it's there ready to be pasted anywhere else if you forget. No way in heck I'm going to eyeball these things and then type them out by hand. That's just... insane. Not to mention they only pop up and are visible for like 30 seconds anyway.

Maybe your tool is different, but I know many password managers can autofill your login credentials without you needing to manually Copy them (thus putting them in your clipboard and leaving them at risk of being CTRL+V'd later on). You can click the "fill" button and then input your main PW and it autofills from there.

[gbaji]

Maybe your tool is different, but I know many password managers can autofill your login credentials without you needing to manually Copy them (thus putting them in your clipboard and leaving them at risk of being CTRL+V'd later on). You can click the "fill" button and then input your main PW and it autofills from there.

Yeah. We use those too. Yubikeys and whatnot work that way. But those also assume some existing account and known password/key, which you then add a one time key to (basically like the old RSA keyfob thingies, but new and improved). But you also need some means to store actual service/system account passwords so that a controlled list of people can access them and allow change enforcement policies. And those typically come in the form of some sort of e-vault mechanism you authenticate to, and retrieve the stored data (like passwords) from.

And yeah. Sometime you have to be able to type these things out, by hand, on a keyboard, on a computer when it's not up and connected to a network and therefore can't use those other tools (while suspended, upside down, in a loud data center server farm MI style, perhaps). Of course, copy/paste isn't working there either, which makes that a total PITA. This is where learning the correct destruction method for post-it notes comes in handy. :smallwink:

[brian 333]

The more I learn about being connected, the less I want to be connected. Old fashioned filing cabinets with paper in them are never coming back, but if you want data security, don't put it on a system that can potentially be connected to the internet.

People are always going to forget passwords, always want to write them down and reuse them. No matter how sophisticated the system, there will always be a human in the loop.

Except when Skynet gets involved. Then all bets are off.

[gbaji]

People are always going to forget passwords, always want to write them down and reuse them. No matter how sophisticated the system, there will always be a human in the loop.

Never underestimate the power of the post-it!

[Kazyan]

It could still be a shell game. There's totally a chance that Backstage counts as one of the final rooms.

[Aquillion]

It could still be a shell game. There's totally a chance that Backstage counts as one of the final rooms.If that were the case then it would have been false that Redcloak and Xykon will eventually get to the gate via their current progression.

[brian 333]

Serini is a rogue. There is a relatively high percentage chance that she plans to cheat. It may not exactly be a shell game, but it doesn't have to be an honest one.

[Kish]

If that were the case then it would have been false that Redcloak and Xykon will eventually get to the gate via their current progression.
Indeed. Serini spelled out the situation and so many people are looking for ways it's not what she said, it baffles me.

[Juno Delphox]

I think, strictly speaking... A shell game isn't as safe!

Even if there's a million outcomes for the call, that's a 1 in a million chance. Which translates to about once a month of you follow Littlewoods Law.

Not exactly super safe! Even worse, you can get lucky with that! That's the odds (roughly) of getting all the same number on 10d4. Unlikely, not impossible.

But a gauntlet doesn't care about luck. If there's 1000 dungeons, they need to get through ALL of them. That whittles away resources, including time. You can't get lucky and complete every dungeon in time. If each dungeon takes just 1 hour that's already over a month. But that's assuming you do each dungeon in one run, never resting. That's a breakneck pace with a lot of resources being used up.

Either you get to the last dungeon exhausted, or you've given a lot of time for Serini to rally the defense. It's much safer and suits the Barbarian nature better of Brute Force! :smallwink:

[RatElemental]

I think, strictly speaking... A shell game isn't as safe!

Even if there's a million outcomes for the call, that's a 1 in a million chance. Which translates to about once a month of you follow Littlewoods Law.

Not exactly super safe! Even worse, you can get lucky with that! That's the odds (roughly) of getting all the same number on 10d4. Unlikely, not impossible.

In a shell game none of the shells have the ball under them, the ball is hidden up the conman's sleeve.

[Draconi Redfir]

In a shell game none of the shells have the ball under them, the ball is hidden up the conman's sleeve.

Right, but if the person playing the game KNOWS that none of the shells have the ball, they're not going to bother picking a shell, and they're going to look for the ball elsewhere.

So you'd effectively be setting up 1000 dungeons with monsters, traps, and obstacles, and then people can just NOT go through them and still get to the gate. Kind of defeats the entire point.

[Emberlily]

to synthesize two previous points I've seen made here:

sereni's words and actions indicate she seem to have built her place to focus on delaying opponents, so that only the most dedicated will even bother and in those situations there would be time to try to bring the band back together

her plan, with the information we have now, is just a pure brute force gauntlet, with no trick to go around. but the biggest threats will likely know details about the situation, and know that this place was designed by a rogue, and those people would likely expect some sort of trickery

so when major threats arrive and see a huge (and at least mildly risky) waste of time, and especially if they know who designed this place, they are almost certainly going to waste a lot of time and resources trying to figure out the trick to circumvent the entire thing (and we saw that team evil did just this, in fact). if there is no trick at all, what this means is that the preconception of a trick buys way more time than any of the tricks I can think of (that wouldn't be outlandish enough to feel out of left field and weaken the story)

I guess we could call it another form of double bluff?

now, maybe there's some sorta rule thing I'm missing here that makes me wrong (I like what some ppl have said about how these ideas would affect divinations, but I have no real clue how sound any of those arguments are mechanically), but narratively, this is satisfying and seems sound to me

[Resileaf]

now, maybe there's some sorta rule thing I'm missing here that makes me wrong (I like what some ppl have said about how these ideas would affect divinations, but I have no real clue how sound any of those arguments are mechanically), but narratively, this is satisfying and seems sound to me

Mechanically, divination spells tell you what the DM wants you to know.

[Draconi Redfir]

considering the stone around all the doors was described as being special in some way, something about blocking teleportation or something i think? i wouldn't be surprised if it interfered with divination too.

[Throknor]

considering the stone around all the doors was described as being special in some way, something about blocking teleportation or something i think? i wouldn't be surprised if it interfered with divination too.

I think half the point is that any divination will reflect the fact that the way to get to the gate is through the dungeons. If there was another way in - which is what a shell game would have - then there would be a risk that a perfect divination check would state that rendering all of them pointless. Even if an attacker could actually get the literal answer 'One must enter the last room of every dungeon to find the gate' they would still have to be able - and willing - to do so.

Serina presumed she would have time to rally her friends (old or new) to simply ambush such an invader. Even without the others of the Scribble Serina would have been able to (for example) pull in a bunch of troll friends to ambush a normal exhausted group emerging from a dungeon run. The problem is two-fold: Serina has zero resources that can handle Xykon and Redcloak together and they are now going much faster than she imagined any group could.

She has little choice other than working with OotS now. She just needs to accept that and they can start planning.

[gbaji]

to synthesize two previous points I've seen made here:

sereni's words and actions indicate she seem to have built her place to focus on delaying opponents, so that only the most dedicated will even bother and in those situations there would be time to try to bring the band back together

Well, and to be fair, most people trying to get to the gate would fail against this many dungeons and monsters. She's not 100% dependent on calling on help. That was her fall back plan on the off chance that someone as powerful as TE showed up for some reason.


her plan, with the information we have now, is just a pure brute force gauntlet, with no trick to go around. but the biggest threats will likely know details about the situation, and know that this place was designed by a rogue, and those people would likely expect some sort of trickery

How would they know it was built by a rogue? The same information that would tell anyone who built it would also tell them that she built it to honor Kraagor, a barbarian, and thus built her dungeon to reflect pure strength. That's for folks who know the lore directly (as the Order got from Shojo). Presumably, the rare folks (like TE) who get it from her diary, also got the same info "she's a rogue, but built it to honor Kraagor, etc... So... maybe?

Anyone else would only know that it's called either Monster Hollow or Kraagor's Tomb, and contains tons of dungeons with high level monsters. If they heard either name, it would lead them to think of monsters and dungeons, not a rogue. So yeah. I'm not seeing Joe random adventuring party coming for the gate, having any reason to think that it was built by a rogue, much less that the whole thing might be a giant shell game.

That's a double bluff that would fail against most people she's planning on defending the gate against. Not a good plan.


so when major threats arrive and see a huge (and at least mildly risky) waste of time, and especially if they know who designed this place, they are almost certainly going to waste a lot of time and resources trying to figure out the trick to circumvent the entire thing (and we saw that team evil did just this, in fact). if there is no trick at all, what this means is that the preconception of a trick buys way more time than any of the tricks I can think of (that wouldn't be outlandish enough to feel out of left field and weaken the story)

Eh. I think anyone with some magical resources, when faced with that many dungeon doors like this, would spend at least some time poking around to see if there's some other way to get to the gate. But, as several people have posted previously, that's a strong incentive to make sure that there is no other way to get there other than through the dungeons. And yes, that means that "through the dungeons" has to be a way to get to the gate, otherwise there's the possibility that someone might be able to divine that the dungeons are a fake out, and spend their time/effort elsewhere.


I guess we could call it another form of double bluff?

now, maybe there's some sorta rule thing I'm missing here that makes me wrong (I like what some ppl have said about how these ideas would affect divinations, but I have no real clue how sound any of those arguments are mechanically), but narratively, this is satisfying and seems sound to me

I wouldn't rule out some additional stuff she's got up her sleeve. Maybe. But I do tend to agree with most posters that the dungeons themselves must lead to the gate. If divination can determine anything at all, then "these doors don't get you to the gate" would be the lowest hanging fruit to figure out. Even if it's a very vague "You must explore the dungeons to find the gate" sort of response, that's what you want if you are Sereni, right?

So any other "tricks" still need to be in the context of additional layers of <something> that you get to via exploring the dungeons. I'm still having a hard time thinking of much in the way of traps or tricks that will stop any group capable of defeating all the dungeons though, so... I mean, she's got her amnesia potion, so that could be used on the living members of TE, but there's a lot of stuff that goes out the window when there's a high power lich involved.

[Gnoman]

How would they know it was built by a rogue? The same information that would tell anyone who built it would also tell them that she built it to honor Kraagor, a barbarian, and thus built her dungeon to reflect pure strength. That's for folks who know the lore directly (as the Order got from Shojo). Presumably, the rare folks (like TE) who get it from her diary, also got the same info "she's a rogue, but built it to honor Kraagor, etc... So... maybe?

Anyone else would only know that it's called either Monster Hollow or Kraagor's Tomb, and contains tons of dungeons with high level monsters. If they heard either name, it would lead them to think of monsters and dungeons, not a rogue. So yeah. I'm not seeing Joe random adventuring party coming for the gate, having any reason to think that it was built by a rogue, much less that the whole thing might be a giant shell game.

Given the information blackout, it becomes difficult to know the Gate is there without serious information on who built it. The Order only knows about it because they happened to be trying to kill Xykon for unrelated reasons, and then got clued in by a descendant of one of the original Scribblers. Team Evil only knows about this particular Gate because they found Sereni's diary - without that they would have been spinning their wheels after Azure City at best.

I have a hard time seeing a scenario where "Joe Random Adventuring Party" comes looking for the Gate at all.

[gbaji]

Given the information blackout, it becomes difficult to know the Gate is there without serious information on who built it. The Order only knows about it because they happened to be trying to kill Xykon for unrelated reasons, and then got clued in by a descendant of one of the original Scribblers. Team Evil only knows about this particular Gate because they found Sereni's diary - without that they would have been spinning their wheels after Azure City at best.

I have a hard time seeing a scenario where "Joe Random Adventuring Party" comes looking for the Gate at all.

Sure. Was kind of part of my point. Even if someone did come by, and knew about the gate being there (or even just "something powerful"), they would either know little or nothing about it or they would have gotten their lore from the same sources as TE and the Order. Which leads to "In honor of Kraagor, this gate is protected by the strongest monsters Serini could find". Sure. I suppose there might be some suspicion that Serini, being a rogue, might have made the whole thing a bluff, but as several people have pointed out, the only thing that would do is make all of those dungeons and monsters worthless.

There could be some tricks added on top of the dungeons, but you can bet that you're going to have to actually explore the dungeons and deal with the monsters within in order to get to the gate. There's not going to be some "trick" that allows you to bypass these dungeons, or it would be a weakness, not an additional strength.

[Draconi Redfir]

I have a hard time seeing a scenario where "Joe Random Adventuring Party" comes looking for the Gate at all.

Probably part of the point.

Any adventurer could randomly stumble across a gate in the woods. Or at the bottom of a dungeon.

While much less likely, anyone could (intentionally or otherwise) shattered what they thought was a mundane sapphire. A failed assassination attempt for example.

The desert one was pretty well hidden by illusions, and actively guarded. So that one might have been safe, unless someone mistook the temple for a dungeon and didn't bother to talk to the locals. And illusions can be dispelled, worn out, or otherwise bypassed.


Any random adventuring party who comes across a thousand dungeon doors in a wall is very unlikely to say "lets explore all of them". They'd likely get killed or decide to get out with their loot long before hiting every single one.


Most of the other methods have it where "Joe random adventuring party" could come across the gate by COMPLETE ACCIDENT. This method of gate guarding ensures that the only ones who are actively TRYING to find the gate will succeed. And even then they must pass through every dungeon in the wall, and might be killed in any one of them.