Interview Questions For Rich

[Shale]

All the plotting is done in advance, and outlined with each beat in a sequence assigned to a future strip. So, for example, the last few strips might look like this on my outline:

<snip for space>

So I guess the answer is, I plan it out meticulously first and then edit it all on the fly.

No question of my own, I just wanted to say that I've idly wondered about your plotting process for ages and thank you for taking the time to spell it out!

[SaintRidley]

So this isn't a question, nor is it meant to contradict what you just said.

I used to write fanfiction. For me, what I got out of it was mostly practice. I would try on different styles, grounding myself in the familiarity of an established property. It was, in a way, risk free. Most of what I did wasn't so much intended to fix something I saw as wrong or to do a "what if" as much as it was about trying to extend my enjoyment by exploring the moments the author chose not to show and how I imagined the author might have done it had they written it.

One of my friends does work on fanfiction as a phenomenon. It goes back as early as Chaucer's time - some people wrote unauthorized Canterbury Tales. She works predominantly in modern fanfiction and adaptations though, specifically modern fanfiction based on Victorian era works, especially Sherlock Holmes fanfic and adaptations. I don't think I'd be mischaracterizing her research if I said that one of the things she finds happening is that much fanfiction is in part motivated by the desire to extend the life of the work, especially when the author in question is dead. Fanfiction is one way in which engaged readers, without whom the work would have no life at all, keep the story alive.

At least, that's how I see it.

[An Enemy Spy]

I'm not a big fanfiction reader and I only look at stories that I think look interesting to read or look so awful that I can have a good laugh at them. Just looking in the Just In section now I can see lots of stories that are basically "Character X and Character Y have a sexy sleepover. I suck at summaries lol. don't like don't read" I can't tell you how many summaries I've seen where it's "The characters of this show are all in high school!". If you're going to do that, why not just make up your own cast of teenagers and put them in school together? You've already altered the premise so much that the canon characters will be unrecognizable anyway.

However, there is potential for fanfiction to be something much more substantial.

I am a big fan of Star Trek, but the odds of me ever getting to write official Star Trek stories are slim to none. So I make up a starship and create original characters to be the crew of that ship. I then send them on adventures, meeting new kinds of aliens while also dealing with the old standbys like Romulans and Cardassians. They explore new areas of space, and maybe on occasion intersect with the events of the actual show. Maybe I could set in the future, with the Enterprise-F as my ship, or in the time between TOS and TNG. I think that's a fantastic idea for a fanfiction.

For an example of something I'm actually doing, you'll notice my sig has a teaser stolen from the Princess Bride with a link to a Pokémon story at the bottom. This is a project I started a few years ago because I was unsatisfied with the lack of quality of the original stories I was writing, so I decided to write a story whose purpose would be to practice my writing skills while also hopefully entertaining people. Now, the world and the characters I use are all completely original, though the creatures and some of the superficial plot elements in it are obviously taken from the games, elsewise I could hardly call it fanfiction. It's allowed me to better understand how to write stories and looking at the rough chapters at the beginning compared to what I'm writing now, I think it's improved my writing style immensely.

[Bulldog Psion]

Wow, this is incredible! Thanks for answering these questions! Let's see if I can come up with a worthwhile one.

If you were just starting the strip now, would you change the party at all? Would you have different classes/genders/races involved, or would you make the same OotS we're currently familiar with?

AND/OR ...

Since the desert area had dinosaurs in it, which is great, is there any chance that the Dwarven lands will have, say, a Pleistocene theme? With mammoths, woolly rhinos, or something along those lines? Please? Because that would be great for some -- well, okay, one -- of your fans. Even if they only showed up in the background of a single establishing frame or whatever.

[woweedd]

What Alignment was Girard Draketooth? To me, he seems textbook Chaotic Neutral.
Do you ever plan to include a Transgender character in the comic?
On a related note, What are your feelings on the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity story arc in retrospect?
How did O-Chul dump Charisma given that all his talks with the MITD present him as fairly convincing and personable?

[Czhorat]

I'm not a huge fan of it. But then, I'm not a fan of fanfiction as a concept. It's probably a generational thing, but I don't really understand the point—what does the author get out of it? It runs counter to every reason I have for wanting to write and create, so it just seems like a huge waste of time.

Do you mean what does the author of the original work, or the author of the fan-fic?

I've done perhaps one bit of what I suppose would be classified as fan-fiction (a re-telling of Hans Christen ANderson's "Little Matchstick Girl" in the world of Mary Robinnette Kowal's Glamourist Histories universe). For me, it was a fun creative exercise and a tribute to works which I love. For Kowal, I suppose it was a thank you for her work. It's a way to become part of a larger conversation.

I'd also argue that broadly-reimagined derivative works are part of culture; we recycle plots and themes from Homer through the present day. "Reimagined" or "Derivative" doesn't, in this context, mean bad or even unoriginal. OOTS is, in a way, a derivative work of Dungeons and Dragons. You've taken broad concepts, various stylistic elements, and a few definitions right out of the SRD and remixed them into something new.

Hrm,.... if you're still around, that raises another question:

If you were to re-start OOTS today, would you drop the D&D trappings entirely?

(Although I'll not likely write any OOTS-related derivatives out of respect if it isn't your thing).

[Phoniex]

I would just like to say that as a "well read and literate" college educated person, who has read many of the classics and many best sellers... OOTS is better than most current writting and a more epic tale than many a classic. Do you think you will ever get a "mainstream" or major award for writting? I know you have won many online and "comic" awards. But to me OOTS is much closer to something like Dragonlance or other mutiple volume novel than a comic anymore. Is that something you would like or would you prefer to sell another 100 books?

I mean I have told several people who are not into or know anything about D&D about your comic and then they spend hours and days reading it to get caught up just like any book. And at the end its more than a comic to them as well.

[DavidBV]

I would just like to say that as a "well read and literate" college educated person, who has read many of the classics and many best sellers... OOTS is better than most current writting and a more epic tale than many a classic. Do you think you will ever get a "mainstream" or major award for writting? I know you have won many online and "comic" awards. But to me OOTS is much closer to something like Dragonlance or other mutiple volume novel than a comic anymore. Is that something you would like or would you prefer to sell another 100 books?

I mean I have told several people who are not into or know anything about D&D about your comic and then they spend hours and days reading it to get caught up just like any book. And at the end its more than a comic to them as well.

Same thing here, you're a master storyteller, Rich.

A question: have you ever completely finished a strip, ready to publish, and then suddenly scrap it in favor of a new idea, or because something in it (artistically, or story-wise) didn't feel right after thinking about it? And in that respect, don't you sometimes think that maybe working with a 30 days "buffer" would give you a certain flexibility to think about things calmly? In a very small scale I myself write, and I've often scrapped entire parts and rewritten them... it really feels scary to work the way you work: write, and make it public the same day, forever done and no way back.

[Gusion]

If Order of the Stick were made into a TV series or a movie, do you have actors or actresses that you see as ideally playing any of the characters?

Assuming unlimited budget. Your choice if you want to go animated or not.

[The Giant]

- how is the hand doing ? did it healed well ? i cut my finger some ~15 years ago and the scar looks terrible today :/

Yeah, my thumb has the Mark of Zorro on it permanently.

My hand is what is is. I don't have a full range of motion—the knuckle is very stiff, and when I work a lot it tends to swell and get even stiffer. I sometimes have to take a break from drawing to ice it. There's pain, especially after working but sometimes just because. It definitely limits the amount of time I can work on a single day, though I've mostly been able to work around the limitations on what I can actually do with it. Luckily, because I work on a computer, if I draw a bad line because my knuckle didn't want to bend, I can just undo. I can also magnify the canvas so that the curves I'm drawing don't need to be so tight. I would have a lot more trouble drawing if I needed to do it on paper.

-- which (side-)story arc are you most proud of ? the one you look back and think 'yeah, i totally nailed this one perfectly'

Start of Darkness, probably. I can't think of anything in that I would significantly change.

Since you dislike the "crappy" style of the early strips (Dungeon Crawlin' Fools), do you think you'd ever be interested in redrawing them at some point in the future? Not out of obligation of course, but for personal satisfaction?

I could see myself doing clean-up on the odd mouth here or there, but probably not a full redraw. That time would be better spent going forward. I guess I wouldn't rule it out, though.

Is there any particular part of the D&D 3e rules that "gets in the way" of your story more consistently than others? I mean, it doesn't really get in the way because it's swept aside the moment it becomes inconvenient, but I hope the question makes sense.

True Resurrection, without a doubt. It's literally impossible for a mortal character to ever be completely out of the story because of its existence. Actually, all forms of resurrection are kind of a pain in the ass, though the other versions have roadblocks you can throw in the path. But because True Resurrection exists, every character death is met with, "Well, they could still come back!" forever.

Also, Teleport. Characters who blip right to their end destination do not for an engaging journey make.

Which Oots book did you enjoy the most?

I don't know, probably the most recent one. These books happen over such a long span of time that it's hard to qualify the entire book with a single experience, though. Did I enjoy the entire five years BRitF rook to make? No, of course not. But neither can I say the same about the years DStP or WaXPs took.

Can you list all the material you created for the 3.5 books that you contributed too? IIRC the acid shark is one, but I don't know of any others specifically.

I'm not going to dig up the books and list off the contents, no. I wrote half of Dungeonscape, half of the Eberron Explorer's Handbook, about 15 monsters for Monster Manual III, and a dozen illusion spells for Dragon Magazine that got picked up into the Spell Compendium.

Dungeonscape was the last thing I did for them. At some point after that, they asked all their freelancers what their availability over the coming months would be; I responded that I would be working on a new OOTS book (what would become Start of Darkness) and wouldn't available over the next few months. They never contacted me again, and I was off the freelancer list by the time Fourth Edition rolled around. Considering SoD is one of my favorite things I did—and a much better moneymaker than freelance writing, too—I don't regret the decision, but I'll admit I didn't realize I was burning the bridge at the time.

[Vinyadan]

Is there a program you use to write scripts? Are there any you would recommend?

(Also, I just read DStP as Don't Shoot the Pianist )

[Yanisa]

How do you flesh out your world? Does it only get detailed when the plot demands it? Or did you have a clear idea of the world when or even before writing the major story elements?

[Kish]

Dungeonscape was the last thing I did for them. At some point after that, they asked all their freelancers what their availability over the coming months would be; I responded that I would be working on a new OOTS book (what would become Start of Darkness) and wouldn't available over the next few months. They never contacted me again, and I was off the freelancer list by the time Fourth Edition rolled around. Considering SoD is one of my favorite things I did—and a much better moneymaker than freelance writing, too—I don't regret the decision, but I'll admit I didn't realize I was burning the bridge at the time.

...Uh. Now I wish I could ask someone at WotC (I don't even know who) to explain the rationale behind their "if a freelancer is unavailable for a few months, kick her/him to the curb forever" policy.

[The Giant]

What's your impression of the webcomic as medium? How do you see it as different from traditional paper comics, both in advantageous and disadvantageous ways?

Honestly, at this point, it's nothing but a distribution method. The two main advantages it has are unlimited reach and the archive—I don't have to worry about getting books into stores just for people to discover them and I can write complex stories that call build on previous continuity without worrying that people won't have access to the older material. The main disadvantage is that they are difficult to monetize. Less than 5% of the people who read OOTS buy any given compilation book; the original stories fare better, but On the Origin of PCs is the best selling book I've ever done and it still tops out at about 10% of the regular audience.

Related, do you think that Order of the Stick ever loses something in being committed to print?

OOTS in particular? No, not really, because I've been planning for print ever since the first book was published. I suppose you could say that it loses the ability for me to do something really unique with the digital medium, like animation or sound or whatever, but I don't have the skills to pull those off anyway. For example, Homestuck is an incredible use of the web medium, but since I couldn't do something like that anyway I don't think I'm losing out by going to print. My professional background is as a print designer anyway; it's what I'm comfortable with.

What is the biggest gain you see in putting the books in print?

I get paid. Also, people loan them to one another, which is a good way to get new readers hooked.

Oh, and I get a nice-looking bookshelf with my work on it. That's good for morale.

There are a few different fan translation projects on the forums here. What do you think would be necessary for you to be interested in having your work translated and published in another language? Would you even like for that to happen anyway?

I would have to be convinced that there was actually a market in that language beyond the English-speaking market, and I'd have to be convinced that the translator was capable of translating puns and wordplay intact. Given that I have enough trouble converting my English-speaking readers online to sales, I have trouble believing that a foreign language edition would generate enough sales to be worth the cost of translating and then publishing.

Let's say someone wanted to teach a course on comic literature, and wanted to use one of your books as a required text for the class. Assuming the teacher chose to use all of the online strips as course reading, but wanted to include one of the books in print, would you recommend one of the print-only prequels, or one of the compilations, and which one?

Start of Darkness again. It's the most complete as a story. On the Origin of PCs is really a bunch of vignettes crammed together.

If there were one plot decision you could go back and change, what would it be and if it wouldn't spoil something for the future, why?

I don't know. I'm not really a "go back and change it" kind of guy, and I see more surface detail stuff than real plot issues. Like, I would strike #35 from the record, but that didn't really affect the plot, did it?

If you were just starting the strip now, would you change the party at all? Would you have different classes/genders/races involved, or would you make the same OotS we're currently familiar with?

If I was starting it now without any preconceptions but knowing everything I know now? I would probably include at least one more woman. I can't imagine ditching any of them, however, so I don't know how that would work out with seven main characters.

What Alignment was Girard Draketooth? To me, he seems textbook Chaotic Neutral.

Yep.

Do you ever plan to include a Transgender character in the comic?
On a related note, What are your feelings on the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity story arc in retrospect?

I currently have no plans to include a transgender character because I think I kinda screwed up with the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity story arc. I think I had my bite at that apple and don't think addressing the topic again would really solve anything. It's not as though I could have a transgender character without revisiting the existence of the belt, which may serve to trivialize their identities. However, if I later come up with a way to fit such a character in, I have no objections to doing so.

I certainly intend to include transgender characters in future works I write.

How did O-Chul dump Charisma given that all his talks with the MITD present him as fairly convincing and personable?

Skill ranks. It didn't come naturally, he had to work at it.

[Gift Jeraff]

What alignment is Blackwing?

When will you stop answering the questions in this thread?

[Gusion]

When will you stop answering the questions in this thread?

Really? Why would you ask that?

Sigh.

[Yuki Akuma]

If, for some reason, you had to write Order of the Stick as 'generic heroic fantasy adventure fiction' rather than specifically a Dungeons and Dragons pastiche, do you think you would have been able to tell the same general story?

[The Giant]

If you were to re-start OOTS today, would you drop the D&D trappings entirely?

No, but I would certainly downplay the direct references to the rules in the early strips. Let it be a general parody of fantasy gaming instead of a specific critique of the 3.5 system. Not only would it have served me better when the system got replaced but it would stem the tide of endless nitpicks over what can and can't be done by the rules.

Do you think you will ever get a "mainstream" or major award for writing?

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *snort* ha ha ha ha ha ha no. Not only will OOTS never win a major award for writing, but I would suspect that the fact that I made OOTS will prevent me from ever winning any major awards for writing for anything I ever write in the future, regardless of format. Like it or not, I will always be the D&D Stick Figure Guy to some people. It'd be nice to be wrong, but I won't hold my breath.

Same thing here, you're a master storyteller, Rich.

A question: have you ever completely finished a strip, ready to publish, and then suddenly scrap it in favor of a new idea, or because something in it (artistically, or story-wise) didn't feel right after thinking about it? And in that respect, don't you sometimes think that maybe working with a 30 days "buffer" would give you a certain flexibility to think about things calmly? In a very small scale I myself write, and I've often scrapped entire parts and rewritten them... it really feels scary to work the way you work: write, and make it public the same day, forever done and no way back.

I do it all the time. But a buffer doesn't work for me because of various aspects of my situation that don't apply to most people. Without going into detail, the main struggle is for me to overcome the things that keep me away from my desk in the first place. Once I'm sitting down to work and feeling good, half the battle is won. A buffer is therefore counterproductive because it reduces the urgency to produce. Sometimes, the only thing that gets me into the office when I'm feeling like **** is the realization that it's been 8 days since I posted a new comic. If I had a buffer, I would use it up almost immediately.

By a similar token, some of you may be inclined to wonder why I'm answering questions instead of working on the comic. And again, I say: the fact that I'm sitting at my desk means I'm working. Be more worried when I disappear entirely, because that means I'm not at my desk at all.

Is there a program you use to write scripts? Are there any you would recommend?

I use a text file. Sorry.

How do you flesh out your world? Does it only get detailed when the plot demands it? Or did you have a clear idea of the world when or even before writing the major story elements?

As I've said before, OOTS is a ridiculous paper-thin skeleton of a world. I've only sketched out the broad strokes and I fill in anything I need when I need it.

...Uh. Now I wish I could ask someone at WotC (I don't even know who) to explain the rationale behind their "if a freelancer is unavailable for a few months, kick her/him to the curb forever" policy.

Eh, don't get too worked up on my behalf. I didn't pursue it, either, because it's frankly very low-paying work compared to pretty much anything I could do for OOTS. I could spend one day making new t-shirt designs and make more than I made for all four of those projects combined. It's also fairly thankless; they threw out an entire chapter from Dungeonscape and took a hatchet to one of my prestige classes in editing and I never even got an explanation as to why. At this point, if I was going to spend any time writing D&D material, it would be for publishing through GITP, not freelance.

[Kish]

Eh, don't get too worked up on my behalf.

I'm not, I'm just mystified. I could hear that a freelancer I hated with the heat of a thousand suns had been dropped from a freelancer list for not being available for a few months, and while I'd probably approve of that hypothetical freelancer being dropped in principle because I probably wouldn't think much of her/his writing, I'd still be going, "Wait, that was the reason?"

[The Giant]

I'm not, I'm just mystified. I could hear that a freelancer I hated with the heat of a thousand suns had been dropped from a freelancer list for not being available for a few months, and while I'd probably approve of that hypothetical freelancer being dropped in principle because I probably wouldn't think much of her/his writing, I'd still be going, "Wait, that was the reason?"

I don't know that it was the reason, I just know that's what happened. I would not rule out thousand-sun heat hating playing a role, either.

[Gift Jeraff]

Really? Why would you ask that?

Sigh.

What?

[brian 333]

Young artists look to the world around them and especially to the media in which they intend to create for inspiration and for practical guides for their work. OotS, as a successful webcomic, is certain to have aspiring webcomic writers avidly devouring every page, analyzing every line, and studying it as both a commercial enterprise and as a Golden Fleece of their art.

Knowing now how things went for you, if you could look back on your own experiences and draw a lesson for such aspiring artists, would there be anything in particular you would want to teach them to do or to avoid in their own career?

[Peelee]

Hmmm. If you were asked to freelance for the D&Ds again, would you do it?

[nogall]

what's the biggest perk you ever got from doing OOTS? did you get to know or got a compliment from someone you really admire? were you able to cut lines at conventions? get books sent for free to you?

[hope "perk" is the right word, not english native]

[RoamingSorcerer]

Of all the different editions and variations of D&D, what is your personal favorite?

[Quild]

OOTS contains quite a lot of references, do they come from your general knowledge that you use into your work, or do you sometimes have an idea and makes some research on how to make it work?

For instance, #560 contains a lot of little things. Was your train of thought "They're on an isle, I've heard about this show that is on a island, let's google LOST to make references at it"?

In the same idea, what about puns?
Did #761 - Advanced (S)wordplay required a lot of work on dialog? Or is it really easy to you to write such stuff and why you did it?

[nyjastul69]

I'm not going to dig up the books and list off the contents, no. I wrote half of Dungeonscape, half of the Eberron Explorer's Handbook, about 15 monsters for Monster Manual III, and a dozen illusion spells for Dragon Magazine that got picked up into the Spell Compendium.

Dungeonscape was the last thing I did for them. At some point after that, they asked all their freelancers what their availability over the coming months would be; I responded that I would be working on a new OOTS book (what would become Start of Darkness) and wouldn't available over the next few months. They never contacted me again, and I was off the freelancer list by the time Fourth Edition rolled around. Considering SoD is one of my favorite things I did—and a much better moneymaker than freelance writing, too—I don't regret the decision, but I'll admit I didn't realize I was burning the bridge at the time.

Thanks for the answer. That's more than I would have guessed. I didn't realize you wrote that much of Dungeonscape. That's one of my favorite 3.5 books.

[Douglas]

Do you ever check Class and Level Geekery, not for rules conformance because I know you don't really care about it, but for continuity? To make sure you're not contradicting yourself?

[faustin]

One of the themes in the comic is "Only living things can learn and change". Is it a wink to the Discworld ?

[ChristianSt]

Thanks for all those answers! It's really nice to hear these rather random tidbits. It's like a small-scale commentary we have some sort of input to.

How do you feel about the Kickstarter? It certainly was a huge success, but are there any things you regret/would have done otherwise in hindsight? Did it change your perception of your fanbase?