Stats in every strip?

[Shian Tieus]

I've been wondering into the forum for several days, without posting nothing but my webcomic (in art and craft section), because I am not good in written english.
Anyway, I have noticed one thing running on, expecially in this section of the forum. This thing leaves me surprised.

For every action taken by a character into the comic, there is a discussion thread in here about his/her allignment/stats/hit points/class/level.
Ok, I understand that OOTS is a role-playing-game based comic, but, first of all, it is a comic.

D&D-based jokes are, obviously, strictly connected to the plot but... is necessary to bind every action to a stats?

Yes, V zapped Kubota without a good reason... and so? Does it must imply a change in his allignment?
Yes, Elan thinked that bring him alive to Hinjo was a good idea... does it stricly imply that he multiclassed paladin? Or that he becomed legal?
Could this things simply means that they think that it was the right thing to do at the moment?

Even if I am caothic, I can think that a person who surrenders to me worth more than a painful death... an even if I am legal, i can think that "going around" the rules can be the right thing to do, in a certain moment.

For example, Roy decided not to following Miko, even if they were legaly under arrest. And Roy was legal.

If a character likes cooking or making origami, this does not mean that he has ranks in profession (cook) or craft (Paper stuff)... it is simply a role-playing detail.

roling everithing is unrealistic, in my opinion. Not only in a comic, but even in a "real" RPG.

Is this just an opinion of mine or someone does agree?

I just "leave the seed"... then, I let you discuss.

I hope that the discussion is clear... as I so, I'm not so good writing in english.

[DBJack]

I know what you mean. The boards are constantly clogged with allignment threads and repeating threads. Especially the last few strips have sparked huge allignment threads. An occasional one might be good, but maybe, instead of 4 or so per strip, they can be lumped, such as '596 Allignment Change Discussion.'

And I don't really understand the need of it. For all of Roy's chaotic acts, his deva acknowleged that keeping to an allignment is hard, and some acts in other allignments will happen, as long as they try to stay with one allignment.

(And don't worry, I can understand you.)

[KBF]

First of all, it's 'lawful.' Lawful and legal have totally different meanings.

Also, Elan must have multi-classed paladin.

[SPoD]

Yeah, this annoys me too. It seems as if the very tangible shift in V's personality is being ignored in favor of deciding whether or not she shifted alignment, followed by an endless discussion on what alignments actually mean and what alignment V was in the first place. It doesn't matter. What matters is that V is currently willing to take risks with people's lives based on the sketchiest of reasoning, and that's dangerous, no matter what alignment it is.

[AstralFire]

Yeah, this annoys me too. It seems as if the very tangible shift in V's personality is being ignored in favor of deciding whether or not she shifted alignment, followed by an endless discussion on what alignments actually mean and what alignment V was in the first place. It doesn't matter. What matters is that V is currently willing to take risks with people's lives based on the sketchiest of reasoning, and that's dangerous, no matter what alignment it is.

True, but everyone agrees on that. Disagreement causes more chatter. Alignment is a subject of much disagreement.

And to some extent that is being argued out indirectly through alignment, anyway.

I do agree that there's too many of them, though.

[cheesecake]

I never understood it either. I can understand speculation threads. But making D&D stats and wondering about this and that....seems.....like....a....waste.....of......t ime.

[Ascension]

What I find hilarious is when a thread for wild, random speculation about the future has (Spoilers!) in the title, like they somehow actually have proof of future events via telepathy or something and are actually spoiling stuff instead of just discussing what might happen.

[AstralFire]

What I find hilarious is when a thread for wild, random speculation about the future has (Spoilers!) in the title, like they somehow actually have proof of future events via telepathy or something and are actually spoiling stuff instead of just discussing what might happen.

You and me both, brother. You and me both.

Well, actually what I find baffling is that people consider themselves spoiled by that.

I remember a guy who went crazy on GameFAQs screaming about how he couldn't get away from "SSBB spoilers." Not about the (admittedly cool) story mode, but the roster.

o.O

[Fitzclowningham]

I agree that the endless alignment threads are somewhat tedious, but fitting the story in with D&D stats is half of the reason I like the strip in the first place. Rich is a talented artist and a phenomenal storyteller, but he has another area of expertise - he did D&D for a living, and well.

OotS takes place within a genre, one a lot of us are very familiar with. That means he has a very broad range of references he can throw in, and most of us will know what he's talking about without him having to explain them. Now that's cool because of how much it enriches the story, but there's more. By constraining himself to work within the rules and conventions of D&D, Rich makes the story even more interesting to those of us who've played the game. A huge part of any session (in my experience, around half) is players arguing with the DM about how he/she implements the rules, and/or why their character should be able to evade them. When we readers digest a strip, we have recourse to the game to decipher what really happened. A testament to Rich's superb ability to meld the game and the story is that it's very seldom that someone comes up with an instance of a strip being inconsistent with D&D.

In short, having the game rules underlie the story makes OotS a much richer experience for me than it would otherwise be. If that means I have to wade through 15 "V's alignment" threads, I'm ok with it. TV Tropes, on the other hand, must die.

[Warren Dew]

What I find hilarious is when a thread for wild, random speculation about the future has (Spoilers!) in the title, like they somehow actually have proof of future events via telepathy or something and are actually spoiling stuff instead of just discussing what might happen.

This is actually required by the forum guidelines. We're supposed to put all speculation in spoilers so that people can avoid it if they want.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

What I find hilarious is when a thread for wild, random speculation about the future has (Spoilers!) in the title, like they somehow actually have proof of future events via telepathy or something and are actually spoiling stuff instead of just discussing what might happen.Rich specifically requested that, because when he sees random speculation he wants to go out of his way and change the plot to prove it wrong.

[mr.fizzypop]

True, but everyone agrees on that. Disagreement causes more chatter. Alignment is a subject of much disagreement.

And to some extent that is being argued out indirectly through alignment, anyway.

I do agree that there's too many of them, though.

http://www.cold-moon.com/images/Motivators/Alignments/alignment2.jpg

[Chronos]

Eh, a lot of us here are nerds. And nerds enjoy nitpicking and analyzing and combing through fine details. It's an essential part of the way we go about appreciating a work of art. You don't have to agree, of course, but you also don't have to read the threads.

[Underground]

[...]
Yes, Elan thinked that bring him alive to Hinjo was a good idea... does it stricly imply that he [...] becomed legal? [...] Even if I am caothic, I can think that a person who surrenders to me worth more than a painful death... an even if I am legal, i can think that "going around" the rules can be the right thing to do, in a certain moment.

For example, Roy decided not to following Miko, even if they were legaly under arrest. And Roy was legal.

Its "Lawful", not "Legal".

Roy is lawful good. Not "legal good".

Legal means that something is allowed by the law. Lawful means someone adheres to rules - keeps his word etc.

I could understand most of the rest of your posting easily, but using "legal" instead of "lawful" was really confusing.

[Jenx]

It was already pointed out that it's "lawful" not "legal". In the 3rd post int the thread too.

I personally don't care about people trying to dissect every single piece of the comic. I don't like it, but that's my personal opinion. What I do get annoyed by is people making dozens of threads about the same topics that are already being discussed in a dozen of already existing threads. If you think you actually have something important to add to the subject, why not just post in the old thread, but make a new one? What's the point?!

[Shian Tieus]

Its "Lawful", not "Legal".

Roy is lawful good. Not "legal good".

Legal means that something is allowed by the law. Lawful means someone adheres to rules - keeps his word etc.

I could understand most of the rest of your posting easily, but using "legal" instead of "lawful" was really confusing.



First of all, it's 'lawful.' Lawful and legal have totally different meanings.

ok, ok, don't kill me^^

I made some confusion, because in Italy we use the same term for "legal" and "lawful" (The term is "legale"...)

[Kcalehc]

It always seems odd to me that people come on to post their opinion on how it is somehow bad/wrong that others express thier opinions on the message boards. As if your discussion of their threads is somehow more valid than their discussion of a comic. I'm not sure if its irony or hyporacy (also not even fully sure how to spell that or exactly what irony means); but still it doesn't seem to follow logically. And yes I realise that my post in response also falls into the same trap; it just feels odd that people complain about others complaining.

[Shian Tieus]

It always seems odd to me that people come on to post their opinion on how it is somehow bad/wrong that others express thier opinions on the message boards. As if your discussion of their threads is somehow more valid than their discussion of a comic. I'm not sure if its irony or hyporacy (also not even fully sure how to spell that or exactly what irony means); but still it doesn't seem to follow logically. And yes I realise that my post in response also falls into the same trap; it just feels odd that people complain about others complaining.

I've been misundersood. Probably for translation errors.

At the end of the post, i clearly said "I just leave the seed and let you discuss".
I only think that this could be an intresting discussion thread... just exposed my opinion and said: does someone agree or it'sm me that I am weird?

If I resulted critic or offensive, was not in my opinion, and I beg pardon for this.

[Fighteer]

Alignment is one of the most argued about features of D&D, so it's only natural that, in a comic based on D&D rules, people would argue about the alignments of the characters. I agree that the "Belkar is Chaotic Good" threads and their ilk get old after a while, though.

[AKA_Bait]

I never understood it either. I can understand speculation threads. But making D&D stats and wondering about this and that....seems.....like....a....waste.....of......t ime.

Well, it's fun. Fun can also be a waste of time.


What I find hilarious is when a thread for wild, random speculation about the future has (Spoilers!) in the title, like they somehow actually have proof of future events via telepathy or something and are actually spoiling stuff instead of just discussing what might happen.

Actually, I believe that the giant specifically asked that threads specuilating about future events be marked spoiler so he would avoid reading and possibly being influenced by them.

MULTI-NINJA'D!


Eh, a lot of us here are nerds. And nerds enjoy nitpicking and analyzing and combing through fine details. It's an essential part of the way we go about appreciating a work of art. You don't have to agree, of course, but you also don't have to read the threads.

Indeed. Also, alignment threads tend to pop up when there is something in the current, or a recent, strip to make us wonder about the morality of the characters. I suspect, were this not a D&D strip, there would still be threads talking about if the characters were 'good people' for doing what they did. As it happens, we are D&D geeks and the strip is D&D based so those discussions get phrased in terms of the D&D alignment system.

[Jenx]

Well, at least in 4th edition the number of alignments has been reduced, so hopefully in 6th or 7th edition D&D will finally get with the times and remove the alignment system all together, because nobody can ever agree how it's supposed to work or be interpreted.

[AstralFire]

Well, at least in 4th edition the number of alignments has been reduced, so hopefully in 6th or 7th edition D&D will finally get with the times and remove the alignment system all together, because nobody can ever agree how it's supposed to work or be interpreted.

I'm rather happy with how the 4E alignment system worked out, honestly. It's based on who you ally yourself with cosmically much more than anything else, which strongly lessens debate.

[Chronos]

Eh, personally, I think they just took some of the more common misunderstandings about alignment and officially codified them. A lot of people used to think that "lawful good" was the "most good", so now, it's not even possible to be lawful unless you're good. Likewise with chaotic evil.

[AKA_Bait]

Eh, personally, I think they just took some of the more common misunderstandings about alignment and officially codified them. A lot of people used to think that "lawful good" was the "most good", so now, it's not even possible to be lawful unless you're good. Likewise with chaotic evil.

Yeah. I also didn't like it. Took away what felt to me like a wider range of characters. Personally, having debatable alignment rubrics was a good thing in my book, since it allowed more interesting worlds.

[Edea]

I'm rather happy with how the 4E alignment system worked out, honestly. It's based on who you ally yourself with cosmically much more than anything else, which strongly lessens debate.

I personally like the fact that the game mechanics are now completely divorced from the alignment system. That's actually one of the few things about 4e that I see as an absolute and total improvement over 3e. Now people who don't want to **** with it don't have to, and those that do can just add alignment considerations in as a houserule, instead of having it interwoven with the RAW to the point where it's difficult to remove -_-.

[Denamort]

In my opinion I believe that some things are overanalyzed. I'm REALLY nerd, so I understand the pasion for debate, but sometimes people cross the line. Recently I see a post about how Belkar could kill almost every enemy with one stab! In D&D this is imposible (in a battle when the enemy can defend himself, acording to the tipe and lvl of both, enemy an player, etc. we all know the rules). This is certanly a plot recourse, there is no other explenation. This specific post was made half seriously, half joke so the answers where funny, but when is 100% seriously becomes a really pointless discusion.

About Alingment:
First, most of the debates are about the definition of every alingment and is imposible to determinate wich definition is correct.
Secondly, Elan multiclass to Paladin because he wants to take Kubota for a trial!!! That is ludicrous in every possible way. Being Chaotic doesn't mean reject every rule just for fun or doing whatever you want just because you want to do it, being chaotic means, basically, following your own moral code. If a man surrenders and you are Good you can't say "I'm chaotic" and stab him.
About Vaarsuvius change alingment by killing Kubota. Yes, Varsuvius did a evil act, but one evil act doesn't mean she/he is evil, she/he is still True Neutral and act as she/he wanted, wich will be ONE of the ways of understanding what is a True Neutral.
In summary, some debates are extremly pointless and some people make exagerated deductions from the most simple situation.
However, even if I find annoying that kind of post, I believe that everyone has the rigth to post his opinion, without considering how stupid I think it is, and I have the choise of not reading the post, so I can't complain about those post.

[AlexanderRM]

Yeah. I also didn't like it. Took away what felt to me like a wider range of characters. Personally, having debatable alignment rubrics was a good thing in my book, since it allowed more interesting worlds.
Also actually makes the world seem more real, instead of being just a black and white "these people are evil, these people are good, these people are also good/evil but more so, these people are 'unaligned'". You actually do have morality debates and gray areas (and even grayish-white areas like we have in D&D) IN REAL LIFE. How shocking.




About Vaarsuvius change alingment by killing Kubota. Yes, Varsuvius did a evil act, but one evil act doesn't mean she/he is evil, she/he is still True Neutral and act as she/he wanted, wich will be ONE of the ways of understanding what is a True Neutral.

Actually, I wouldn't quite call that an evil act. Vaarsuvius (in their own opinion) effectively knew that Kubota was evil, and as it happened, that one act saved... prevented things from going exactly as Kubota expected them to go. While the motivations might have been slightly off, I could really see a paladin-type character (not even a miko type, just a paladin who potentially puts a bit more emphasis on the "good" than the "lawful") doing exactly the same thing in that situation, provided the amount of information Elan had. Kubota is clearly Evil and is either chaotic, or deliberately trying to evade the law (about as bad). SMITE EVIL!

[Blue Ghost]

I shall take the opposite view.
Alignment and stats should not be treated in the same vein. It's just plain silly to have endless arguments about Roy's Strength score or how many levels of Dashing Swordsman Elan took. Alignment, on the other hand, is a perfectly valid issue for discussion.
Why the difference? Whereas stats are only trivial in-game numbers, alignment is a moral system. People will use the alignment debates to express their own moral views. Even if one does not believe the D&D alignment system works in real life, people will always have strong views as to what is right or wrong. The alignment threads are an outlet for people to express their views on morality in the guise of a lesser issue, namely the stats of a role-playing game.
I agree that in real life, morality is not always black and white. However, there is definitely right and wrong. It is precisely because we have gray areas, where right and wrong are not clearly defined, that these alignment and morality debates are able to go on. Is killing a surrendered prisoner always wrong? Does motive matter? Is it always necessary to obey authority? These are important questions to consider, and the alignment threads encourage thinking about these issues without quite the tension of an open debate on morality.

[factotum]

Yeah. I also didn't like it. Took away what felt to me like a wider range of characters.

That sounds like you believe that people with the same alignment must perforce have the same character. So, let's just look at the Lawful Good characters in OotS, shall we?

Roy
Durkon
Hinjo
She-who-must-not-be-named (aka Miko)
Eugene
Lien

I'm sure there may be others I've forgotten, but those six suffice to make my point: can you seriously say those people all have the same character? Because I'm not seeing it, myself...

[Inhuman Bot]

What I find hilarious is when a thread for wild, random speculation about the future has (Spoilers!) in the title, like they somehow actually have proof of future events via telepathy or something and are actually spoiling stuff instead of just discussing what might happen.

I belive it's because of something like the giant reads the forums sometimes, and they put "spoiler" on it so the giant will less likely read it, and thus not destroy all chances of it happening.

At least, that's what I was told.

@^ I think Eugene is NG, for the record.

[Lokasenna]

I belive it's because of something like the giant reads the forums sometimes, and they put "spoiler" on it so the giant will less likely read it, and thus not destroy all chances of it happening.

At least, that's what I was told.

@^ I think Eugene is NG, for the record.

No. Aside from implications in Cloudy Heaven and any strips I have forgotten, in OtOoPC, Roy says that Eugene is Lawful Good. The exact scene involved Eugene talking to Roy after swearing never to talk to Roy again, and Roy thought he was doppleganger, as Eugene was so Lawfully Good that he would never break his word.

[Kish]

@^ I think Eugene is NG, for the record.
:smallconfused: His Good alignment is much more questionable than his Lawful alignment.