OOTS #1172 - The Discussion Thread

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

I'm sure people wheel start discussing the comic again soon.

[Kantaki]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?

His mom can start a zen-garden?

[KorvinStarmast]

Sorry, I don't understand. My German is pre-Industrial and mostly religious.

I am guessing that you sing in the choir or in a glee club. Close? My German, what I have left of it, is/was Hoch Deutsch. Fading faster than Cat Stevens' blue jeans, though ...

What you're talking about sounds more like light rail.

LIght rail would and will be cheaper, where it is implemented. (I was recently in Vancouver BC who have a decent light rail set up ...)

But do you know who would fit through that hole? A sexy shoeless god of war.

But he's still busy with a big blue worm.

The part that worries me about self-driving cars is that sooner or later, some bright spark will realize that a car is now a cage for a captive audience that can be delivered to whatever destination a bunch of advertisers wish it to be. You get in the car and sit around watching ads on a screen. You say, “Take me to Pizza Stockade.” It replies, “If you want pizza, let’s go to Pizza Fortress!” and you don’t have a way to override the controls. And you’ll sign a User Agreement when you buy the car (or rent the autocab) that signs away you’re rights to decide where you’re going.

Yep, the EULA ... true evil incarnate.

Well done, Cleric, and many happy returns.

You nailed that pun.

[JT]

I think it was invalidated with an Goblin business owner in his elderly age.
Meaning that the world did survive.

The Gods agree to recreate the universe just as it was, minus the rifts (which will still eventually form, of course). :)

[jokem]

I feel bad for Durkon, he's spent so much of the past few stories immobilsed, hahaha.

On the plus side, petrification is probably easy to fix at their levels. Stone salves, turn stone to flesh, remove curse.

I think it would require Break Enchantment instead of Remove Curse. Minor niggle...

[Peelee]

I am guessing that you sing in the choir or in a glee club. Close?

Apologies to Marx for butchering his joke here, but I would never want to be part of a choir or glee club that would have me as a member. I'm largely quoting The Office (US) here, mostly Dwight. I did make a The Office (UK) reference with the territorial army, to Dwight's British counterpart Gareth.

[KorvinStarmast]

Apologies to Marx for butchering his joke here, but I would never want to be part of a choir or glee club that would have me as a member. I'm largely quoting The Office (US) here, mostly Dwight. I did make a The Office (UK) reference with the territorial army, to Dwight's British counterpart Gareth.

Ah. With the two pointers being (I had thought) 18th - early 19th century (pre industrial) and religious, my mind went to Oratorios in the classical and baroque periods. I was raised on classical music, and while I sang for a while that talent plateaued sometime in high school and has since degraded thanks to smoking for too many years.

[Schroeswald]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?


I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

Clearly that is not working.

[Cazero]

I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

I'll settle for getting my Turing driving license.

[DavidSh]

Assuming that the no take backs rule apply here too, then vamps have voted yes 4 times (assuming domination release doesn't allow a revote) and 2 non-dominated members voted no.
By my count there are 15 members, though I'm not sure if the High Priest gets a vote.
I'm still unsure if not voting can stall the process l, or if it's just until a majority is reached (i.e. "it doesn't matter, there's more of them than us!").
Assuming it's until a majority, they only need 4 more votes and it doesn't matter.
At least these idiots have some remorse for what they've done though.

There's no particular reason for the Godsmoot "no take back" rule to apply in a Dwarven council of clans meeting. For a more normal vote that didn't immediately lead to the destruction of the world, I would think every member would want to have his/her vote recorded. If they are going to allow votes called out before the discussion is closed, it only makes sense for the chair to ask for confirmation after all votes are in, in case somebody is convinced to change his/her mind. I suppose there would need to be some kind of time limit so that a member can't block the vote.

(This isn't forbidden politics, is it? My experience in such procedure comes from various clubs, not from government.)

[Kantaki]

Clearly that is not working.

Well duh.
How are A.I. supposed to learn about morality if that's a forbidden topic?

[CriticalFailure]

dare we hope that Durkon also has some ranks in Knowledge (Engineering)

[nmphuong91]

As the Vampires themselves have shown us, you can cast the spell outside the barrier, entering afterwards... All Durkon would need to do is to walk close to the Dominated Dwarves, freeing their wills...

1. Durkon is not known for his rule-lawyering ability. Given the time-sensitive nature of the event(don't have time to heal someone else), he doesn't have enough time to think about it and doesn't want to risk being late to the party.
2. The exact wording the Exarch said is "...explicitly forbid attacking or using any spell or supernatural on any creature...". The key word is "using", not "casting". That is, doesn't matter who/what/where you cast the spell on, if any creature inside the chamber is affected by said spell, you will be punished. I'd say that you can cast Magic Circle on yourself, walk in (just like the Dominated folk). But the moment your Circle start touching someone else, you are out. Probably you guy are not the first one who think about "I bring an explosive rune/symbol of x inside the chamber" kind of spell.

Even if that weren't the case, Durkon wouldn't want to test the theory. He only got one chance to make this work, and no DM to ask whether his interpretation of the rule is right (or the DM doesn't want him to metagaming, consider that this is in-universe rule).

[Rogar Demonblud]

poor Mildred Thickbelt who died of pneumonia

And she only got to that point because not a single dwarf cleric or paladin thought "Screw it, we'll set up a payment plan after I cure disease".

I told him you'll almost certainly be safer on a highway with a bunch of people in hacked cars (as long as those cars still have an emergency brake pedal, which they should) than on a highway next to a drunk or tired driver.

Or more likely, a texter. I watched a cop jump the curb today because he was too busy with his Personal Distraction Device.

[Caerulea]

What if the hammer returns and shatters Durkon!?


I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

Note: This account operated by a GPT-2 based chatbot, version 2.71828.

[DavidSh]

Now I wonder, if all of the clan chiefs violate the law and are turned to stone, is the meeting automatically adjourned for lack of a quorum?

[Jay R]

My guess is that the hammer returns, and the roof collapses. People have time to dodge, and survive, but the room floods with sunlight. No vampires, no domination, and the ones who haven't voted yet vote to save the world.

End of council, and Durkon turns back to flesh.

[Not really. While I believe that this is the most "likely" result, the most likely result rarely happens in this strip. Rich has surprised me before, and I suspect that he is going to surprise me again, with a result that looks very reasonable after the fact, but which we didn't see coming.]

[Doug Lampert]

I just assume most posts in this forum are on autopilot and everyone's just testing to see if their chatbot can learn morality.

Nah, we have the destination of the self-driving threads set to Star Wars here. We're trying to get a chatbot that can write a better script than the Prequel movies.

[Wraithfighter]

I'm guessing this has already been brought up... but in a story full of rules-lawyering already, including by Lawful types like Thor and Durkon, couldn't Dvalin just say "Uh, I can plainly see that all of the people voting 'Yes' are dominated by vampires, which means that they are not voting, the vampires are voting, who do not have standing here to cast a vote"?

It'd make for a less entertaining story, I guess, but its been this giant issue with the subject for a while now. It's like signing a contract with a gun to your head: The contract is null and void, because it was done under duress, and this is like a hundred miles past duress...

[Fish]

The contract is null and void, because it was done under duress, and this is like a hundred miles past duress...

Durkon: Says here, “If any party is found not t’ be in ‘is right mind, th’ entire contract is automatically nullified.”

Vampire: I don’t know about that.

Durkon: Tha’ is in ev’ry contract. It’s known as a Sanity Clause.

Vampire: You can’t fool me, there ain’t no Sanity Clause.

[MartianInvader]

Durkon: Says here, “If any party is found not t’ be in ‘is right mind, th’ entire contract is automatically nullified.”

Vampire: I don’t know about that.

Durkon: Tha’ is in ev’ry contract. It’s known as a Sanity Clause.

Vampire: You can’t fool me, there ain’t no Sanity Clause.

Durkon once learned saxophone, not opera.

[Fish]

He’s a dwarf. Could’ve been a rock opera.

Besides, are you tellin’ me that “Durkon Thundershield” isn’t a Groucho Marx name?

[selyan]

I was kind of hoping that Durkon will try to change the main proposal to something like: "Should vampirism be illegal by dwarven law?" instead. Oh well

[Iruka]

My faith has been rewarded.

All hail Peelee!

[Peelee]

All hail Peelee!

I could get used to posts like this.

[Squire Doodad]

I could get used to posts like this.

Pelee be sleeted!

That close enough?

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'm guessing this has already been brought up... but in a story full of rules-lawyering already, including by Lawful types like Thor and Durkon, couldn't Dvalin just say "Uh, I can plainly see that all of the people voting 'Yes' are dominated by vampires, which means that they are not voting, the vampires are voting, who do not have standing here to cast a vote"?

It'd make for a less entertaining story, I guess, but its been this giant issue with the subject for a while now. It's like signing a contract with a gun to your head: The contract is null and void, because it was done under duress, and this is like a hundred miles past duress...

The odds of this being resolved by anyone but the Order is minimal.

[Dion]

How book ends:

Durkon is smashed by his own hammer.

Sigdi flies into a barbarian rage and kills all the vampires. Sigdi doesn’t turn to stone because vampires aren't living creatures.

Minrah joins the order.

Book ends with funeral for durkon’s dust.

The end.

[schmunzel]

That was a Hel of a Knowledge (Astronomy) check on Durkon's part. To know exactly where the sun was in the sky (and how the underground chamber is oriented with respect to the surface world), and do the math on the fly to spear the ex-exarch dead-on with a ray of sunlight.

Unless, of course, that was all just dramatic coincidence, and the hammer throw was for another purpose altogether...

Mechane - here she comes :P

sch

[Dion]

Mechane - here she comes

Deus ex Mechane, eh?