OOTS #969 - The Discussion Thread

[Gift Jeraff]

Men like you deserve to only meet women who are so "hard to get" that you will never "get" one.

How do you know that poster is both a man and attracted to women?

[Peelee]

I agree with your example but the situation may not be the same here.

When Haley got the 80% discount, the kind of persuasion she used is... well, not magic. It defies the natural order.

Did the gnomes put a major cut to the high profits they would have done or are they now losing money helping the order? If Haley is aware of which one is the good one, it may make a difference.

If Haley just made a persuasion roll and is done with it, that's not fair toward the gnomes. Certainly less fair than what Belkar did.
Because I'm quite sure that the gnomes speaking with Haley really had less free will in that matter than the one speaking with Belkar. For what we know, she could have refused if she wasn't interested in Belkar.
It's like when that girl asks 10 bucks to Dave and Dave thinks that it could give him an edge to give her.

A.) What does it matter if her persuasion wasn't magic? Is non-magical persuasion inherently not-Good?

2.) The gnomes are definitely taking a loss helping the Order. They are gambling on increased revenue stemming from the advertising in the upcoming book to make up for this lost revenue and bolster later sales. Or at least, that's the implication I get from the first thing Haley says.

c.) Diplomacy does not reduce free will; Haley's gnome may have been significantly more inclined to agree, but the nature of diplomacy means the person in question believes it is in their best interest to agree - just like how Belkar's gnome believed it was in her best interest to sell the item at half price instead of just scuttling it and taking a total loss.

4.) What does fairness have to do with it? If Dave believes he has a shot at a girl for giving ten bucks, well, that's Dave's problem. Even if she leads him to believe that, he is in full control of his faculties and is able to weigh the information presented vs. likelihood of success, at the very least.

[Doug Lampert]

I agree with your example but the situation may not be the same here.

When Haley got the 80% discount, the kind of persuasion she used is... well, not magic. It defies the natural order.

Evidence?

Because Haley explains how she got the deal and no unreasonable persuasion is mentioned, unless you consider breaking the fourth wall unnatural in TOotS?

There are some readers with an irrational conviction that Haley was using a diplomacy check to do something unreasonable there, but there's no evidence for this belief in the comic.

[Peelee]

Evidence?

Because Haley explains how she got the deal and no unreasonable persuasion is mentioned, unless you consider breaking the fourth wall unnatural in TOotS?

There are some readers with an irrational conviction that Haley was using a diplomacy check to do something unreasonable there, but there's no evidence for this belief in the comic.

It's more of a reference to Roy's last statement one strip earlier.

I am of the belief that playing on the fourth wall is against the natural order in a given story (even when it works well), and also that she did make a diplomacy check. In games (and presumably stories like this one), diplomacy checks are explained by persuasive arguments being made on the player's behalf. Just like how attacks are explained by swinging big ol' swords on the player's behalf. If you can't be persuasive or swing a sword, well, that's why stats and dice rolls and bonuses are quantified and easy to use.

But that's just me. See it as you see fit.

[Silferdrake]

Well, it seems that Belkar is still very much evil (no that there was much doubt about that earlier, but still). He may be evil with a slightly more sympathetic personality, but he's still very much a nasty bastard.

I assume he was talking about Banjo in the third panel?

[Themrys]

How do you know that poster is both a man and attracted to women?

I guessed. Women occasionally do say misogynist things, but are not as prone to judging "female gnomes" according to the behaviour of one single female gnome. That poster is either a man, or a very male-identified woman.
A woman likely wouldn't say "that gnome woman is easy to get" she would say "That gnome woman sure has a bad taste in men". Belkar didn't even try to "get" her, so why should she be "easy to get"? That is malecentric logic.

Regarding Haley's diplomacy check, we don't know what she told the people. Maybe the initial price was much too high, maybe Haley paid a bit of the price out of her own pocket, maybe she told them the OOTS has to save the world. She could have used immoral manipulation methods, or lies, but we don't know that.
Also, what has this to do with Belkar? Haley is a thief by profession. If she does something, that does not mean Belkar doing it is morally okay.

[Quild]

What is wrong? (Assuming that she wants it to be a date, indeed) Well, she wants to date a handsome man, and she decided to invite him for dinner.

A woman who judges men's attractiveness by their looks and not their self-perceived worth in terms of money or "niceness"? Shocking! A woman who makes her own decisions on whom to spend her time with instead of waiting for a man to make that decision for her? Shocking! A woman who has her own money and is able to pay for dinner? The horror!

It is sad that you think that way.
*snickers*


Doug (and Peelee) : Well, not sure we would have had any such "evidence" without the right timing. On the ship, Bandana mentionned "PC magic", even speaking about Roy. He has no magic, yet he is closer to a god than to a common NPC.
Haley tricks people on purpose on such deals. Belkar sized a double opportunity not to reveal his alignement (must come with his culture) and to have a good deal. Nothing to feel proud about, but that sounds more neutral than evil to me.

[Vahir]

I guessed. Women occasionally do say misogynist things, but are not as prone to judging "female gnomes" according to the behaviour of one single female gnome. That poster is either a man, or a very male-identified woman.
A woman likely wouldn't say "that gnome woman is easy to get" she would say "That gnome woman sure has a bad taste in men". Belkar didn't even try to "get" her, so why should she be "easy to get"? That is malecentric logic.

Regarding Haley's diplomacy check, we don't know what she told the people. Maybe the initial price was much too high, maybe Haley paid a bit of the price out of her own pocket, maybe she told them the OOTS has to save the world. She could have used immoral manipulation methods, or lies, but we don't know that.
Also, what has this to do with Belkar? Haley is a thief by profession. If she does something, that does not mean Belkar doing it is morally okay.

That's right, Haley is a thief, and a swindler as well, given her cheating the party of their earnings after Dorukan's, and her insider knowledge on the workings of shell games as seen in the battle for Azure City. My point is, if Haley can do all that and remain good, then the action of cheating someone else is not evil as such, and that therefore we shouldn't judge Belkar for making a bargain.

Edit: I suppose I just hate the "Heroic rogue" character archetype. When the villain steals and cheats, it's terrible, but when the hero does it, it's a sign of upstanding character.

[Peelee]

Haley tricks people on purpose on such deals. Belkar sized a double opportunity not to reveal his alignement (must come with his culture) and to have a good deal. Nothing to feel proud about, but that sounds more neutral than evil to me.

I do agree that it's not all that evil. Which isn't to say it's not evil. He openly lied about the items condition, and he is the one who offered to buy it at a discounted price. This is basically stealing. I'm sure this is nowhere near enough to to tip the grand cosmic scales in the southern direction (or at least, not for a non Lawful Good person or anyone who holds themselves to a higher standard), but its still something I would teach my kids not to do, ya know?

Although massive kudos to the Giant - I never really liked Belkar, and yet he's starting to grow on me recently. I may actually be kind of sad to see the little dude go.

[Keltest]

That's right, Haley is a thief, and a swindler as well, given her cheating the party of their earnings after Dorukan's, and her insider knowledge on the workings of shell games as seen in the battle for Azure City. My point is, if Haley can do all that and remain good, then the action of cheating someone else is not evil as such, and that therefore we shouldn't judge Belkar for making a bargain.

Edit: I suppose I just hate the "Heroic rogue" character archetype. When the villain steals and cheats, it's terrible, but when the hero does it, it's a sign of upstanding character.

Heroic Rogues are usually either Chaotic Neutral (and therefore heroic in terms of opposing the evil people rather than alignment), or Robin Hood type Chaotic Good people. Haley's all-purpose greed is rather strange for a solidly good character, and she knows it. Haley goes through a lot of self-doubt as to whether she is actually a Good character or not.

[Koo Rehtorb]

There's nothing particularly wrong with greed. It just depends on how far you're willing to go in pursuit of it.

[pendell]

Hmm .. so far as I can tell Belkar was already kilonazis deep in the evil alignment end of the pool at strip beginning and reached his nadir at the point he activated the mark of justice. After several days of throwing up, he started to improve, at least on the surface, for the sake of survival.

Now, there's no such thing as substitutionary atonement in D&D. No super-powerful being is going to just dump a whole bunch of good on a repentant Belkar and shift his alignment. We're not even sure that Belkar is all that repentant , anyway. In D&D, you've got to earn your alignment shift. Belkar has to do ... kilotheresas? kiloghandhis? ... worth of good before he's even at the shallow end of the alignment pool, let alone good or even neutrality.

So I think it's fair to say that Belkar's feeling remorse and refusal to take advantage of the gnomish store clerk constitutes a step towards good. But it's only a first step. Instead of 9999 kilonazis evil he's now 9998.66 kilonazis evil. He's still EVIL, just not as evil as he used to be. I think it is unlikely he'll ever reach even neutrality in this lifetime ... not unless he does something so overwhelmingly good that it instantly cancels out all the bad stuff, sort of like Darth Vader throwing the Emperor down the reactor shaft.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[crayzz]

How do you know that poster is both a man and attracted to women?

Priors.

That's right, Haley is a thief, and a swindler as well, given her cheating the party of their earnings after Dorukan's, and her insider knowledge on the workings of shell games as seen in the battle for Azure City. My point is, if Haley can do all that and remain good, then the action of cheating someone else is not evil as such, and that therefore we shouldn't judge Belkar for making a bargain.

Doesn't follow. Haley also has a history of doing very good acts, including freeing slaves at least twice. We also know from Haley herself that she doesn't always do good, and that the powers that be are not super strict with alignments (i.e. genuinely trying mitigates failures). Haley's various deceptions could very well be evil,* and that would not contradict the story nor the alignment system as OoTS portrays it.

* Actually, the example given of Haley's deception might be neutral. She needed the money to free her father. It was an evil act with a good goal which, by that deva's description, strikes me as neutral.

EDIT

Not to mention that I am not at all restricted by the OoTS alignment system; I can condemn such behaviour even if the alignment system does not. Though the Giant seems to want the alignment system to map to a functional ethical system (I guess this from my reading of the comic, and the Giant's past insistence that stories should have something to say about real life).

[hamishspence]

Now, there's no such thing as substitutionary atonement in D&D. No super-powerful being is going to just dump a whole bunch of good on a repentant Belkar and shift his alignment. We're not even sure that Belkar is all that repentant , anyway. In D&D, you've got to earn your alignment shift. Belkar has to do ... kilotheresas? kiloghandhis? ... worth of good before he's even at the shallow end of the alignment pool, let alone good or even neutrality.

According to DMG, it is possible for an evil character to instantly change alignment to good by having a "massive change of outlook" and sincerely repenting. But this is very much an exception to the general rule, of it being a gradual shift.

(Fiendish Codex 2 had special rules for Lawful characters of this kind - they become Hellbred, rather than going straight into the Good or Neutral afterlives. The only way to get out of becoming a Hellbred is to reduce your Corruption - and the only way to do that is to apologise to the victims of your evil acts, give up whatever you gained from them, and do some kind of penance).

So it may be "earn your afterlife shift" rather than "earn your alignment shift".

However, Belkar is Chaotic - and the Fiendish Codex 2 rules are optional anyway.

[dtilque]

You'd think so, but then again The Giant has made a point of demonstrating how Lawful Stupid some civilizations can be when it comes to people that are classified as "Evil". Would Redcloak be as hellbent on revenge if the Sapphire Guard hadn't embarked on near-genocide, simply because "Goblins are Evil"?

Just a nitpick here. The Saphire Guard didn't embark on near-genocide simply because Goblins are Evil. After all, the attack we see in SoD is hundreds of miles away from Azure City, so you'd think they'd need more of an incentive than that.

And indeed they have one. It's in the form of some prophecy to the effect that a goblin wearing a crimsom cloak will be instrumental in destroying their gate. Attempting to prevent this, they hunt down every goblin they can find who wears such an item.


ETA: It looks like davidbofinger already made a similar point. (I usually read the entire thread before replying, but I figured no one would address this. So I was wrong.) But I'm going to leave this up because of the slight differences. The prophecy (which we don't know the exact text of) definitely says it's going to be a goblin wearing a red cloak, not just some unidentified goblin from that village. Which is why all the paladins gang up on the previous bearer in SoD.

[Amphiox]

It might have been just this one gnome female, but there's no reason to think she's unusual for her species...

No reason... other than the assumption that gnomes are sentient, with the general average range of diversity in attitude and behavior that all sentient species have.

[xkcd_386]

Women occasionally do say misogynist things, but are not as prone to judging "female gnomes" according to the behaviour of one single female gnome.

Following stereotypes and making generalizations is what humans as a whole do.

[zimmerwald1915]

Following stereotypes and making generalizations is what humans as a whole do.

Yes yes, we all see what you did there, you're very clever.

[Wardog]

Belkar's long been established as not giving much of a muskrat's hindquarters about pain... and he's been truckin' on through while injured for pretty much ever.

Of course, by RAW, suffering HP damage doesn't actually cause pain".

(Or at least, any mechanical effect with "Pain" in the name").

[xkcd_386]

Yes yes, we all see what you did there, you're very clever.

Did what where? Is there a reason for sarcasm?

[zimmerwald1915]

Did what where? Is there a reason for sarcasm?

Your post itself was a generalization based on a stereotype.

[Throknor]

Not just because they were evil, but also because one among them (Redcloak, though they didn't known that at the time) threatened "the very foundations of creation itself".

Prophecy leads to causal loops. The goblins think they were attacked for no reason, so one strikes back by actions that may release the snarl. The Sapphire Guard know the goblins may release the snarl, so they attack pre-emptively. Both sides feel they are in the right. (Though they might have anyway, for other reasons.)

The same thing happens in the Terminator franchise. From the human point of view SkyNet attacked them and they fought back. From SkyNet's point of view it was barely awake when humans tried to kill it, so it fought back.

The Dark One specifically created the Crimson Mantle to give knowledge of the gates to the goblins such that they could secure one for him to use to blackmail the other gods. Where the Sapphire Guard went wrong was slaughtering goblin families instead of just capturing the Mantle and limiting their kills to those goblins that were actually capable of fighting back. Whether they misinterpreted the prophesy on purpose is a question for another thread, but to say his goblin tribe was attacked for no reason is incorrect. In fact, if they had killed only the Mantled one, taken it and left then the goblin now called Redcloak would never have risen to power.

So yes, it is their older attacks on goblins that lead to the retribution that destroyed them. But they were not without cause - just badly executed.

[xkcd_386]

Your post itself was a generalization based on a stereotype.

No it was not. It was a counter to the "women aren't as generalizing as men are" statement.
My reply being that gender has no effect upon willingness to follow stereotypes.

[Cizak]

Like, really just meant food and nothing more. It might have been just this one gnome female, but there's no reason to think she's unusual for her species.

There's no reason to think she's not an individual with her own personality, no. That's probably true for most of her species.

[BrokenChord]

I guessed. Women occasionally do say misogynist things, but are not as prone to judging "female gnomes" according to the behaviour of one single female gnome. That poster is either a man, or a very male-identified woman.
A woman likely wouldn't say "that gnome woman is easy to get" she would say "That gnome woman sure has a bad taste in men". Belkar didn't even try to "get" her, so why should she be "easy to get"? That is malecentric logic.

Ah, I sense it... Yes... The misandry is strong in this one. (For that matter, it's also strong in my computer's vocabulary, because apparently misogyny is a word, but misandry isn't.)



As for the comic, y'know, a lot of people are like "oh well, he's probably going to shift alignment in his last few minutes as shown by the item not burning him or something." But I have a sort of different idea. What if the Giant is just trying to send a message through Belkar's character development and the bond we've formed with him? The message translates to real life, but I'll use game terms for those who appreciate making parallels. I think what the Giant might be doing is saying that just because somebody beeps when you use Detect Evil, it doesn't mean they're just a terrible sleazebag who has no positive justification for existing. They can be complex, they can feel shame and act to try to minimize their wrongdoings, and they can have decency buried in there, all while still being Evil, whether that's because of what they do or their outlook on life.

There's no reason for Belkar to stop being Evil, but that's because there's no reason being Evil completely wipes out all opportunities to have goodness. (Intentional use and omission of capital letters.)

[Themrys]

Following stereotypes and making generalizations is what humans as a whole do.

Not about a group we belong to. A human woman would be more likely to stereotype gnomes as a whole.

Also, remember: Malecentric logic.

@Broken Chord: Your computer is right. Misandry is not a thing in the real world.

[Doctor Awkward]

Unsurprisingly, Protection from Law is illegal in many places.

Am I really the only person who burst out in an uncontrollable gigglefit when they read this?

I just can't be. I know it.

The number of puns in that sentence is too damn high.

[Quild]

Following stereotypes and making generalizations is what humans as a whole do.

Everyone generalizes from one example. At least, I do.

[Angelalex242]

Everyone generalizes from one example. At least, I do.

I see what you did there...

[Porthos]

I see what you did there...

Doesn't top my all time favorite of "Only a Sith deals in absolutes".

...

I'd really like to think the ironic nature of that statement was intentional on Lucas' part....