Redcloak's failed characterization, and what it means for the comic as a whole.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

I'm happy to argue with the author! I just don't disagree with him on anything except as to whether escapism is necessarily petty.

[ti'esar]

I'll just quote myself from page 6.
I, too, feel a bit embarassed in arguing with the author of my (by far) favourite piece of art on the net. But I really, really feel that his bold (pun intended) statements about "conforming to standard d&d conventions = racism" is over the top to say the least, and mighty disturbing for a lot of us gamers who, incidentally, happen to be quite nice people.

Nerd_Paladin, flawed as his argument might be, came across far less confrontational in his reasoning. :-/

I'd be more willing to agree with that if he hadn't been spending days now writing painstaking (if flawed) rebuttals to almost every single other post in the thread. I admire him for sticking by his guns, but you can't call that non-confrontational.

And I don't think that Rich meant everyone who conforms to standard D&D conventions is a racist. Rather, the "Always Chaotic Evil" concept is racist, and people who don't challenge it are implicitly supporting it. I seriously doubt this is because they're racist - most likely they just don't bother to think about the moral implications of their gaming.

[theNater]

The idea that the story, or at least one of the primary pillars of it, served as a deconstruction of black and white fantasy world morality seemed implausible to me because...well, why would anyone bother? I feel like we all know that black and white morality doesn't really work in practical terms and is, at best, a distortion that serves to make storytelling easier.

We know that black and white morality doesn't work in reality, but one of the things that has become clear to me through this discussion is that it doesn't work in 3.5 D&D as written either. Many, if not all, of the things that make black and white morality fail in reality can still happen in a D&D world just fine.

With respect to the goblins in particular, goblins in 3.5 D&D are not universally wicked. This is clear from the monster manual entry, but is one point that you have consistently failed to address.

[Paseo H]

And I don't think that Rich meant everyone who conforms to standard D&D conventions is a racist. Rather, the "Always Chaotic Evil" concept is racist, and people who don't challenge it are implicitly supporting it.

Either way, it's placing a moral burden on those who are judged harshly as 'passively complict' because they aren't actively shouting it down wherever it is found.

In any case, I'm in favor of a more nuanced view of the races. And it should not be overlooked that even today some fiction use aliens or monstrous beings in place of real world races to put forth a racial agenda.

[Rennard]

So we have:

1. Humans like it
2. Goblins like it
3. The gods like it
4. Nobody likes it but they can't stop it.

Let's throw in:

5. Everybody likes it
6. Mindless destructive conflict needs no incentive; it simply happens, sparking #4
7. The violence is a construct as artificial as this list, the world in the comic, and the comic itself.

1 and 2: I didn't say that they LIKED it - I said that they don't want the alternative. I also said that we cannot lay the blame on one side all the time, nor understand the reasoning behind each historical moment the choice was made. But it is a choice, and it was made.

3. If the gods have enough power to artificially continue race wars for their amusement, then there is no point to calling it racism. It just becomes fact. Gods eliminating or constantly and effortlessly subverting free will makes both sides slaves to the immortal's whims, and neither side can be blamed for their actions.

4. They "can't" stop it is impossible unless their free will has been subverted (as in #3). They WON"T stop it brings us back to 1 and 2.

5. The story itself defeats this argument.

6. Destructive conflict is NEVER mindless, and is ALWAYS the result of incentives, even if they are not ones we understand at the time or agree with. It's tempting to simply wave away the reasons for atrocities by turning into mindless acts, but that devalues the lessons they teach.

7. If the conflict can be boiled down this way, then again, the free will of the participants has been subverted by an omnipotent narrator, and they are not responsable for their actions.

There's also a fourth possibility: The cycle of violence, no matter how it started in the first place, is a DAMN hard thing to break.

The point of my post is to demonstrate why this is so. Cycles of violence are not things in and of themselves, but actions taken by people at points in time.

Also, I disagree with your point regarding US history, but don't want to discuss IRL affairs on here

Fair enough. But I wasn't talking about US history, I was speaking about the US as it is today. US history is a very bloody affair.

[KillItWithFire]

This seems like the OP is trying really, really hard to say that the only way D&D should be played is a kick-in-the-door style detect-evil/smite-evil deal and that we should remember that because it's a game and nothing more... Where I disagree is in that we should think of it as a game and the enemies as nothing more than stat blocks.
1) games where we all sit around and throw dice at each other are very boring.
2) Just because it doesn't exist in reality means we shouldn't care about how it feels? That makes sense logically true (I'm not going to run and protest outside the white house about goblins rights) But they are perfectly real within the confines of the game. If you roleplay a detect/smite pally who makes no effort to talk to people before said smiting based on the fact that their stat block says evil you are roleplaying a racist.

[jidasfire]

I'd be more willing to agree with that if he hadn't been spending days now writing painstaking (if flawed) rebuttals to almost every single other post in the thread. I admire him for sticking by his guns, but you can't call that non-confrontational.

Well, depends. If you simply mean that the ongoing responses are in and of themselves confrontational, then I suppose, but he has been pretty civil and measured in his responses. He's been addressing the actual arguments of his opponents rather than making personal attacks, which is more than can be said of many of the people who seem to want to hurt him personally for disagreeing with one aspect of a comic he apparently likes quite a bit. A lot of people are making a lot of ugly and insulting assumptions about him, and he's basically ignored it and held firm to his arguments, refining as necessary without exactly backpedaling. I'm not saying I agree with him, or that I'd do what he's doing in terms of addressing his detractors, but as far as being confrontational, I'd say he is not really being such.

[Rusty]

{{Scrubbed}}


Look NP, if you don't like what The Giant's doin', there's no reason to get up in a fuss about it. It's your choice to continue reading even when you disagree with things.

But The Giant's right - sentient beings have souls - that is, they experience empathy, love, hate, greed, and all those other emotions that humans share. Though they may have different cultures, different upbringings, different interests, different beliefs, etc. they are similar in their thought process. They're written that way so we can better familiarize with them, but also because it's the more likely scenario.

Now racism is the wrong term, here - since, as you said, goblins and humans aren't technically of the same race. The term "prejudice" applies, however, and that's exactly the point The Giant's been getting across.

Is Redcloak justified in doing some of the actions he takes (like killing others for the sake of his goals)? Of course not. But he's dedicated, which is why he's the perfect bearer for the mantle. The fact that his history is so tragic and him going into a life of "super crimes" falls in with reality: so many people with tragic lives develop lives of crime. It's just another link to reality, yeah? One of many in the story. And the story's better for it because it illustrates it in a fun perspective that's not actually real but still believable.

See, it's things like that that gives the story humanity. Why does a story need humanity? To connect with the audience. You don't become invested in characters that are cardboard cut-outs, one dimensional, nor direct representations of the author's beliefs and only those beliefs. It's more interesting to see a mix of characters, a mix of beliefs, clashing, bouncing off each other, arguing, and generally driving the characters bonkers - just like real life. :D

[Taelas]

The point being made is that:



so- even if a goblin child is "more likely to be Evil" than a human child, it is still:

That is completely irrelevant, because no goblin is irredeemably Evil... and it does not make any difference even if they were. If I assume a goblin child is irredeemably Evil, but do not act on that assumption alone, I have done nothing wrong. I am prejudiced against the child, certainly, but having a prejudice is not in and of itself wrong.

You've had to use 'assuming' twice in that sentence - that's everything which is wrong with stereotypes right there.

Stereotyping exists for the reason that people are lazy; assuming that a stereotype is true without examining it is called 'prejudice'.

Acting on prejudice is called 'racism'.

That's what The Giant was getting at with this bit here:

What you call prejudice, I would call experience. It is not wrong to be prejudiced against something. It is wrong to act solely on the basis of a predisposition, though. (As you note, it's essentially racism.)

[hamishspence]

If I assume a goblin child is irredeemably Evil, but do not act on that assumption alone, I have done nothing wrong. I am prejudiced against the child, certainly, but having a prejudice is not in and of itself wrong.

It could be all that's required to have a Lawful Evil alignment.

[Friv]

Sorry, Nerd Paladin, but I contend that your premise is fatally flawed from its initial assumption, before it even reaches the comic. Hell, it's fatally flawed on three points.

Point #1 - You shouldn't have emotional reactions to fiction.

This is a very Brechtian viewpoint, and unfortunately I can't dismiss it out of hand, but I can certainly dismiss the idea that it is the only way of looking at fiction. While some authors have certainly attempted to remove such emotional connections from their work, the fact is that if I cannot forget, even for a few moments, that the fictional people I am reading about aren't real, the fiction that I am reading is inherently worthless and I will not continue reading it. The whole point of entertainment is to care, and to form emotional bonds by convincing people, just a little, that they're reading about something that matters. Otherwise, you might as well not be writing at all.

Now that that's out of the way, on to your second assertion.

Point #2 - D&D is purely about black-and-white morality, and cannot and should not be anything else.

You're wrong.

I refuse to be drawn further into any discussion that uses this as a base, because as a base it is cripplingly weak. D&D is not a board game. You don't just kick in the door and start murdering everything because it's there. A game in which the players have to figure out who the villain is can be a ton of fun. A game in which the players have to stop a war from breaking out when some jerk starts faking attacks is awesome. Black and white morality can exist in D&D just fine, but it's nowhere near the be-all and end-all of the game, and frankly games in which everyone lines up at the beginning, color-codes themselves for your convenience, and goes to war are boring games.

As a corollary, your belief that in the D&D that everyone plays, goblins exist solely to be slaughtered, and therefore the comic is wrong is absurd. I have played in games where my party was confronted with an orcish civil war, and helped the orcs who would coexist with the nearby human settlements defeat their rivals. I've stopped a war between elves and gnolls by catching the rogue who stole the gnolls' war trophies. I've helped a group of goblins who were being enslaved by a cruel dragon. I've run a game in which local orcs entered into a deal with nearby human kingdoms to become mercenaries, safeguarding local populations while still getting to have the conflict that they craved. I have played games with friends, with strangers, online and on tabletops, and no one has ever said, "Oh, these goblins aren't evil? Well, that's a flawed game."

Point #3 - OotS is flawed and wrong for not being exactly like your conception of D&D

This point is almost not worth getting into, as your version of D&D is drastically more limited than how the game actually operates, but you've made it the crux of your argument, so I will touch on it long enough to say that it is a silly argument to make. The idea of alignment being more complex than you give it credit for is not a new thing. The game opened with an evil halfling. In the prequel book, which I'm guessing you never read... oh, wait, I think I have to spoiler that. Okay.

Spoiler

Show

Roy finds a nonviolent solution to a band of orcs causing trouble, realizing that they're just waiting for a concert. The paladin of his party gets angry, because greenskins clearly exist to be killed, and Roy leaves the group over it.

It has always been the case in this comic that species does not determine sympathy, and the fact that it took you over six hundred strips to notice? Not the strip's mistake.

[pendell]

Sorry, I missed this in my earlier post:



I CARE. I care, and every goddamn person in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil. I may like the alignment system overall, but that is its ugliest implication, and one that I think needs to be eliminated from the game. I will ALWAYS write against that idea until it has been eradicated from the lexicon of fantasy literature. If they called me up and asked me to help them work on 5th Edition, I would stamp it out from the very game itself. It is abhorrent to me in every way.

So, complaining that I am failing to uphold it is the best compliment you could give me.

With respect, sir, then what about the wights that ate Tsukiko?


It seems to me that you are upholding the very convention, in that strip, that you are tearing down with the character of Redcloak. Tsukiko, after all, made the mistake of assuming her wights were human, creatures with thoughts and feelings and emotions.

Well? Couldn't the same thing be said of goblins?

Goblins have only cosmetic differences from humans in OOTSworld. I can hardly dispute the nature of that world with its creator. But that's not the way orcs and goblins were written in other D&D or in Lord of the Rings which preceded it.

In the original stories, goblins and orcs were not human . So anthropomorphizing them is just as doomed an endeavor as it is when Tsukiko mistook her wights for friends and lovers. They were created 'in mockery of elves' by the Dark Lord for the specific purpose of serving as cannon fodder. They were not "good" creatures. Same with the draconians in Dragonlance. They were creatures created by the vilest of dark sorcery to provide cannon fodder for the armies of darkness. They were not humans with green skin and teeth, or humans with wings and scales. They were organic, living wights.

As originally specified in D&D, before there were 'usually X' descriptors, the line between creatures which were human-like (could be tragic evil or very good) was between humans and demihumans (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings) and "wight" type creatures to serve as their antagonists -- monsters (orcs, trolls, wights, ringwraiths, liches).

So it seems to me that what you're doing with OOTS is not so much abolishing this line as moving it. To move goblins from the list of monsters to the list of demihumans. But we're still dealing with objectified sentient creatures. Wights, with INT 11, are indeed sentient.

Indeed, it seems to me the nature of fantasy evil to objectify all sentient creatures -- to make goblins, hobgoblins, and eventually humans, elves, dwarves, and all the other races corrupt automata who obey the will of their master. The end-state of a wholly evil intelligent species incapable of doing good seems to be the desirable goal of fantasy evil.

Is that the nature of fantasy good and fantasy evil? Does true exalted good seek to move all sentient creatures into the realm of "demihuman" while vile darkness tries to move even Solars into the realm of "monster"?

Or have I completely misunderstood what is going on in those panels?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

ETA: C.S. Lewis once posited four possible outcomes for meeting an alien species:

1) They are wholly good, better than us. Like angels.
2 and 3) They are partially good and partially evil, but are capable of redemption.
4) They are wholly evil and incapable of redemption.


Is it your intent to take option 4 completely off the table?

-- BDP.

[Werekat]

Too interesting a discussion not to chime in.

Nerd Paladin, I think the question here is whether the author chooses to write to describe something or to influence the future. To expand a bit:

Our minds don't really discriminate whether an object is imagined or real. If something sparks emotion, a relationship is formed. We start treating things as if they were real (I can't go too far into this w/o violating board rules, but if you want a further discussion - feel free to message me for my E-mail).

If writers want to see the world remade in the image of what he believes to be right (and there are few writers who wouldn't like that, I think, at least with some of their work), they have no choice but to write their story so that their readership starts relating to their fictional characters the way the writers want them to react to real people. This can be done in a variety of ways - in 1984, for instance, we feel repelled by generally what happens, by the people that sustain the madness, even as our opinion of the main character may vary (whether he is at fault for breaking before dying, for instance). We do not want that particular outcome to come about, we are thus less likely to sustain it later.

If you want to tell a story that is focused on something different, then this is not the way to go, naturally. But Mr. Burlew has explicitly said that changing the world through his art is what he wants to do.

I can empathize with you - I have been angry at an author outright ignoring world conventions in glorified fanfic and being smug about it being the Right Way to Write Stories (Kirill Yeskov, I'm looking at you). But D&D has so much more... Diverse conventions than Tolkien has (and, as people have mentioned, Tolkien isn't black and white either). It is possible to choose an interpretation that fits the story and design, and I think the author has done so admirably. This is why I like The Giant's story, and deplore Yeskov's work.

[Morph Bark]

Yes, the real world is, but the artificial game world is not. So is "The Order of the Stick" about a realistic moral world or an artificial binary one? It can't be both. In short, either Redcloak makes sense, or the comic world does.

It's an artificial non-binary world.

[hamishspence]

It seems to me that you are upholding the very convention, in that strip, that you are tearing down with the character of Redcloak. Tsukiko, after all, made the mistake of assuming her wights were human, creatures with thoughts and feelings and emotions.

Redcloak doesn't have be be correct in his assertions, one must note.

The truth might possibly be different from both their beliefs.

[pendell]

Redcloak doesn't have be be correct in his assertions, one must note.

The truth might possibly be different from both their beliefs.

Maybe, but there are other clues that the Undead are not Humans Without A Pulse. I'm thinking of the discussion in SOD when then-human Xykon and Redcloak debated changing Xykon into a lich. Xykon DID raise the point that such a step would be -- I forget the exact words -- a step above and beyond, a step from which there was no return, pretty much guaranteeing damnation. Changing from human to undead would be a shift from being a fallen creature with some hope to an abomination with no hope of being anything but Evil with a capital E.

I'm sure you can see my confusion. Twilight and Joss Whedon write the Undead As People Too, so Rich's categorization wouldn't work in those worlds. Tolkien and Lewis said that goblins, ogres, trolls, hags and werewolves were not. ISTR in Prince Caspian the dwarves offered to invite ogres and hags to join Caspian's army, and they were turned down because "we would not have Aslan on our side if we did that." This in the middle of a war of liberation where nonhuman talking animals, dwarves, and satyrs overthrew a human tyranny, which is essentially the same Aesop that OOTS is striving at -- we may look different and be different, but we're people just like you underneath.

Whedon, Burlew, Lewis, and Tolkien all have monsters and demihumans. Just where the line is drawn differs across all those works, but the line nonetheless exists. The line between creatures which are capable of good, and creatures either created by evil, or subverted by evil, into the robot legion flunky henchmen of doom because evil would rather have mindless compulsion rather than voluntary allegiance.

Twilight is, well, Twilight.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

One of tolkien's essays said that while Orcs were "the fingers of Morgoth"- they still fell within The Law- they may not be tortured, if there is a parley they must be dealt with honestly, and so on.

[Nerd-o-rama]

You know, the more I read Nerd_Paladin's arguments, I'm beginning to realize that this is a conflict of literary interpretation more than morals (although I'm still having trouble containing my righteous indignation at a lot of what NP's argument implies).

Nerd_Paladin is arguing from a perspective of a story being a story - a self-contained, just-so thing that is subject to specific rules and conventions and has no bearing and indeed, should have no bearing on or reflection of reality, because that simply confuses the line between fiction and reality. It's not quite a pre-Modernist perspective, but it's close in principle. It's also an argument a lot of Real True Literary Critics use to disparage genre fiction like OotS or fantasy in general - it is set in a wonderland of arbitrary rules and, because it cannot be confused for reality, cannot relate to reality.

Rich Burlew, the author, as well as most of us supporting the author's viewpoint are arguing from a more strictly Modernist perspective (whether OotS is a Modern or Post-Modern work overall I leave to the people who took more than two semesters of Lit in college). Art does not just imitate life, art holds a mirror up to life and reflects both its flaws and high points. While the Giant isn't self-centered enough to use a webcomic as some kind of sociopolitical soapbox, he does write it to reflect reality, and appears quite confident in his choice to do so.

The central disagreement seems to be on this point, of whether or not a piece of genre fiction set in a fictional world can or should relate to reality, or if it should rather stick to the preconceptions of its stated setting lest it "muddy the waters" or, in the more common words of literary critics, "be pretentious".

I happen to agree with the author's passionate argument that all fiction can hold a mirror up to reality, and that the Order of the Stick is a better peace of fiction for doing so.

[Cizak]

Not irredeemably Evil, but they certainly can be evil. Ever been bullied at school?

Wow... WOW. You did NOT just say bullies deserve to be executed, did you? PLEASE, tell me that's not what you meant. If you can tell me that that's not what you meant, please do so, because that's... that's just... wow. I have no words for that. If I misunderstood that quote, it would be the best misunderstanding I've ever made.

[RecklessFable]

Wow... WOW. You did NOT just say bullies deserve to be executed, did you? PLEASE, tell me that's not what you meant. If you can tell me that that's not what you meant, please do so, because that's... that's just... wow. I have no words for that. If I misunderstood that quote, it would be the best misunderstanding I've ever made.

Only if the XP is worth the trouble.

[pendell]

One of tolkien's essays said that while Orcs were "the fingers of Morgoth"- they still fell within The Law- they may not be tortured, if there is a parley they must be dealt with honestly, and so on.

Maybe, but that didn't change the fact that orcs were at constant genocidal war with other species throughout the books. It may not have been lawful to torture an orc, but you didn't see many orcish prisoners either.

Even so, Tolkien in his letters expressed dismay with the idea of an incarnate Always Evil species, but by that point he'd written himself into a corner. I suspect Gandalf and company, the really good people in the books, would prefer a world where orcs could be redeemed and take their place alongside the other children of Eru -- given that they had been made from them in the first place. But it didn't happen within the scope of the books. Perhaps Rich Burlew is picking up the story where Tolkien left off, continuing the theme of redemption which Tolkien hinted at.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[VinRaven]

I'll just quote myself from page 6.
I, too, feel a bit embarassed in arguing with the author of my (by far) favourite piece of art on the net. But I really, really feel that his bold (pun intended) statements about "conforming to standard d&d conventions = racism" is over the top to say the least, and mighty disturbing for a lot of us gamers who, incidentally, happen to be quite nice people.

Being quite nice people doesn't keep them from being racist, choosing to assign goblins and orcs to races of XP-fodder is generally a glaring tell.

As has been said, experience influences prejudice, acting on unexamined prejudice is racism.

[Valyrian]

ETA: C.S. Lewis once posited four possible outcomes for meeting an alien species:

1) They are wholly good, better than us. Like angels.
2 and 3) They are partially good and partially evil, but are capable of redemption.
4) They are wholly evil and incapable of redemption.

Well, C.S. Lewis is known for his moral absolutism (saying more about that would violate the board rules). I don't think we're well advised listening to his point of view here.

[pendell]

Ah, but D&D world, and the OOTSverse in specific, is morally absolutist. That's why Roy was on trial for entrance to Celestia.

So moral absolutism is definitely worth discussing in D&D. It's not a relativist universe, where good and evil are subjective. Instead, OOTSverse is a world of complex, absolute, good and evil rather than simplistic, cardboard good and evil. For example, Redcloak is not a cardboard villain who is evil just because he has green skin and fangs. He's evil because he's deliberately blinded himself to the truth of his actions, freely and willingly pursuing a "noble" cause that does very little good to goblins but gets lots of people of all races hurt.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

Tsukiko's mistake wasn't in treating the wights as people. I mean, they have a 10 intelligence score. Her mistake was treating them as free willed people.

In the face of a powerful enough enchanter and the absence of Mind Blank, there's really no difference between a wight and a goblin.

[The Cat Goddess]

The "slaughter" of goblins in D&D is not indiscriminate (unless your DM is a jerk, I guess). As I said, I've never played a D&D game where the villains were just minding their own business before getting run down by crusading heroes. No published adventure has ever depicted that, to my knowledge.

So, in your view, Goblins (being "evil") should only ever be depicted as doing evil. A Goblin can't be shown having a family unless that family is shown participating in (or planning) evil activities. To do otherwise is to break away from the spirit of the D&D setting/game structure.

Have you never read the world settings... like GreyHawk?

Ah, but D&D world, and the OOTSverse in specific, is morally absolutist. That's why Roy was on trial for entrance to Celestia.

So moral absolutism is definitely worth discussing in D&D. It's not a relativist universe, where good and evil are subjective. Instead, OOTSverse is a world of complex, absolute, good and evil rather than simplistic, cardboard good and evil. For example, Redcloak is not a cardboard villain who is evil just because he has green skin and fangs. He's evil because he's deliberately blinded himself to the truth of his actions, freely and willingly pursuing a "noble" cause that does very little good to goblins but gets lots of people of all races hurt.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

If this were true, then there would not be rules for "alignment drift". There would not be published examples of "Fiends" with Neutral and/or Good alignments. There would not be published examples of "Celestials" who had fallen and become evil.

[Fish]

The argument that this, or indeed any story should adhere to an unexamined black-and-white morality can be dismissed by applying the Hitchcock Principle. A discussion at a table, said the great director, is dull; preface that discussion with the knowledge that there's a bomb ticking underneath the table, and suddenly the same dialogue becomes fraught with meaning. The difference is tension. Tension is essential to nearly every genre of literature more advanced than a fairy tale or an Aesop morality sketch. Tension drives every horror movie, every drama, every farce. As an actor, I have had the opportunity to see first-hand what happens when tension breaks down. The plot becomes limp and uninteresting.

As a game, D&D derives tension from dice mechanics. The players need to choose a likely strategy and roll well; any combat could be their last. An unlucky streak or a natural 1 is the difference between continued life and a new character sheet.

Stories do not function that way. Stories derive tension by knowing there is a bomb under the table. We know, or think we know, what will happen — or at least what could happen. In order to know that, we have to be able to predict the plot, to a limited degree. The confrontation between Redcloak and Tsukiko worked because Redcloak is not a scenery-chewing, mustache-twirling Evil Goblin who is capable of any evil at any time. It worked because we comprehend his character, why he's subjugating himself to Xykon, why he's keeping secrets, what his plan is. If Redcloak could have simply killed her for no reason, months ago, the reader has no reason (or ability) to comprehend the motivations of the principals. No tension.

I don't see how it is possible to create a work of literature that operates on dice rolls for its tension. The reader has no attachment to the story, no grasp of the future. A D&D model is about riding the ragged edge of a probability curve; sooner or later the dice will turn cold.

[leakingpen]

Sorry, I missed this in my earlier post:



I CARE. I care, and every goddamn person in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil. I may like the alignment system overall, but that is its ugliest implication, and one that I think needs to be eliminated from the game. I will ALWAYS write against that idea until it has been eradicated from the lexicon of fantasy literature. If they called me up and asked me to help them work on 5th Edition, I would stamp it out from the very game itself. It is abhorrent to me in every way.

So, complaining that I am failing to uphold it is the best compliment you could give me.

I love you Rich! If I were a woman, I would want to have your baby right now. THIS... This is why I keep sending people to GITP, and telling people to read this comic.

[Jan Mattys]

Being quite nice people doesn't keep them from being racist, choosing to assign goblins and orcs to races of XP-fodder is generally a glaring tell.

As has been said, experience influences prejudice, acting on unexamined prejudice is racism.

With all the due respect: I am sorry, but I take offense when people calls me (or implies I am) a racist.
The Giant pissed me off with his assumption, and you did just the same.

Racism is a serious problem and should be kept well out of trivial conversations.

[Psyren]

With respect, sir, then what about the wights that ate Tsukiko?


It seems to me that you are upholding the very convention, in that strip, that you are tearing down with the character of Redcloak. Tsukiko, after all, made the mistake of assuming her wights were human, creatures with thoughts and feelings and emotions.

Well? Couldn't the same thing be said of goblins?

I can't imagine how you could draw a parallel between wights and goblins. Redcloak's point was not about morality - it was about control, and all undead (in both D&D and OotS) are hard-wired with the ability to have every single personal compunction and preference overridden by a powerful enough personality. In short, undead are not immoral - they are amoral.

The wights devoured their former master, followed by each other, at Redcloak's request without an iota of complaint or hesitation. Feel free to point out any goblins in the strip that would have done the same.