When did you start reading OOTS and Why?

[DreamCreator]

Where was the series at when you first checked it out?

How many seconds/days/weeks/months/years ago did you begin it?

For me, the OOTS has been maybe the most continuous aspect of my life. Kind of a surprising thing. I've gone through childhood and adulthood still checking for the next update. Buying the books for a while too. My views on life and reality have developed a lot during this time.

And OOTS is still something I seem to feel an authentic connection to. I feel it is one of the most humbly created, and naturally charming creative works I've encountered in my life.

My discovery of it:

A friend of mine in middle school that I'd played a bit of DnD with mentioned the strip to me. When I opened Giantitp.com and clicked on the comic I was brought to the last page which had been written. That was #369, where Redcloak blasts down the door to the Azure city outpost tower, and is met by Miko. Of course, I had no idea the context, and proceeded to strip 1, and within minutes was dying of laughter at "Thorprayer" in particular.

It feels like I've stayed reading OOTS mainly just because it has steadily been really good. And the way Rich writes to the community feels really genuine and humble, which is why the comic stays interesting. I feel he is very true to himself and has a strong internal focus.

And, the strip grapples with philosophical and fundamental questions about reality that I've been in pursuit of my whole life. I particularly enjoyed when Roy dies and we get the both humorous, and in some ways very reasonable, view of a 'good' afterlife. Many aspects of which are in line with my current system of beliefs.

This thread may be premature (for me) since it's hard to share the depth of what I want to say or ask, and articulate it in a concise way. I don't use the forums much, I think about a decade ago I had another account, and I recently felt compelled to at least have an active account once again since I peruse the forums occasionally.

Thank you for reading, and I'm genuinely curious when you started reading it, what enticed you, or why you continue to read/follow OOTS.

I believe I was in 7th grade when I discovered it (Might've been 6th??), that was about 15 years ago, more than half my life.

EDIT: reading over the forum rules again and saw the thing about not discussing post counts or time on the forum. I want to acknowledge that and clarify that this has nothing to do with status or comparison. Just general curiosity and discussion. if this feels inappropriate for any reason by a moderator, then I apologize and will remove/submit to this being removed.

[Jason]

I started reading it around strip #6 or so. Because it was a funny D&D comic and the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion jokes made me laugh. And then it got interesting as well as funny.

[Fincher]

I first read it back during the fall of Azure City. I didn't stick around, and it basically faded from my mind. I came back during Blood Runs in the Family, after the part about Rich's thumb, and re-read it from the beginning, and I've followed it pretty steadily since then.

[Mightymosy]

I think I started when Nale failing the sending limit was the newest comic. I then started from #1 and laughed about 1 weekend long until I had read everything.

Now I want to know how it ends.

[pearl jam]

I saw a comic linked on a forum about Neverwinter Nights like right when Miko was being introduced to the strip, though it was not for some time later that I first visited the forum and later still when I registered to comment.

[Lombard]

Back in the mid aughts I was playing this Neverwinter Nights server called Avlis and there was a cluster of people there who were into OoTS so I decided to have a look. I think when I first started reading was right before Azure City started.

[Mastikator]

I believe there was about two years between I started to read the comic and creating an account on the forum. Soo.... 2006? 14 years. wow

[pwning doodes]

I actually started by reading Start of Darkness. My friend had a copy of it and lent it to me. I remember sitting on my bedroom floor reading late into the night. I then read the first two books that had come out in print, Dungeon Crawlin Fools and Paladin Blues. Those had already come out when I started reading, but War and XPs (Book 3) had not.

From then on, I followed the online strip pretty consistently, at least when I had access to a computer. When I stop and think about it, I’ve been following OotS for more than half my lifetime. It’s never felt like a huge thing that I’ve been obsessed with, but it’s always been there and it’s always been pretty fun to read. (I do remember annoying my family at the dinner table by sharing my MitD speculations, though.)

OotS was actually why I got into D&D. I was intrigued by all the jokes and kept asking my dad to explain them (he had played as a kid). In middle school, I looked up a group online, and my dad accompanied me while I played with a group of adults in a university classroom. That didn’t last for long, but it was the beginning, and it was definitely thanks to OoTS.

[Brutalitops]

I kept seeing it on tv tropes so eventually I checked it out. I started reading it out of habit but the comic just kept getting better and better. So I started around the time of the high priest of hel dueling roy in the godsmoot.

[Schroeswald]

I just kept seeing it constantly linked on the Irregular Webcomics forums (specifically the Darths & Droids part) and I read a couple bits, most specifically Miko's fall, before deciding to just read the whole thing over the course of week (at that point Rich was at 1169) and then making my first forum post in 1170's thread.

[Kaytara]

I think I started reading when the comic was on the Azure City arc? (Based on when I joined the forum, 2008, this was at the end of the Azure City arc or the start of the separation arc.)

I think I first heard of it because, at the time, it seemed that almost every other TV Tropes page was referencing OotS either as the page example or even trope codifier or trope namer. I was reading other fantasy webcomics at the time and got curious, and then the excellent storytelling as Cerebus Syndrome set in really drew me in.

It's wild how long ago that happened. I was around 15-16 back then and now I'm an Adult(TM). Throughout my remaining years of high school, uni, and now starting a PhD, the comic took some long hiatuses and there were times when it was barely updating, and times when I stopped reading but caught up later, and somehow, it's always been here and is still here. I have enormous respect for Rich as a story craftsman for his commitment and passion, and on a personal level for how he's grown and changed over the years. Even if I no longer obsessively stalk the forums to defend Vaarsuvius's honour, or produce tons of fanart, this comic will always be dear to my heart.

[amanamana]

I've been playing D&D and other RPGs for almost 30 years now, so I came to know a lot of people who game.

In 2003, I was having a beer with my gaming group when some old friends of one of the guys joined us. They started talking about a comic where some character's rapier was sundered by another one talking too loud in the last issue (#17). I just heard half of it and that made no sense to me, but the guys were laughing so hard that I decided to look for this new comic when I went back home. I could not find it, knowing almost nothing about it and the comic being so new at the time. Me being drunk had no connection to it at all, I'm sure.

The next day I tried again and found it. I've been reading OotS since then, even though it took me years to join the forum.

When talking about fiction, OotS and A Song of Ice and Fire are the two running "book-series" that I'm most invested in. They've been a big part of my personal life.

So much so that I've been DMing a D&D 3.5 game set in OotSverse for the last 3+ years. The game is set 8 years before Dungeon Crawlin' Fools. Last session the group almost finished the campaign, but the BBEG escaped. This next saturday the group may finally finish the job or, at least, corner the villain and make him go for broke in one last gaming session.

Cheers.

P.S: This comes to show how the D&D community is at the same time small and far reaching. I'm not from a English-speaking country and even as early as 2003, at page 17, the comic had already reached my gaming table.

[KorvinStarmast]

Where was the series at when you first checked it out?

I first saw it in Dragon Magazine some years ago and I hated it. I was used to Wormy, Finnieous, and Snarf Quest. I'd no idea at the number of years that it had been running. It didn't register with me and the art did nothing for me.
Fast forward a few years later, 2015.
I am at RPG.SE reading comments under a question. I see a link to the "Polearm shop" sketch. I am a Monty Python fan. I first heard that sketch on the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. (On vinyl). I'd also played back when we all cracked up over how EGG drew up tables that included a glaive-guisarme-voulge and the ever popular Bohemian Ear Spoon.
I enjoyed that strip a lot.

So, I checked out the first OoTS strip when I got done enjoying that.
It kinda sucked, since I never got into 3.5.
But I clicked to strip number two, and three strips later I was hooked.
Been enjoying it for a bit over five years now. Have all of the books on pdf and SSDT in printed version.

[B. Dandelion]

I got drawn in through TV Tropes too. I also remember I found TV Tropes as a result of being linked to the Xanatos Gambit trope from a Gargoyles website, so it's a direct progression from Gargoyles > TV Tropes > OOTS. It was late 2007 when I found TV Tropes and early 2008 before I became a regular reader of OOTS. 523 was the current strip when I had finished archive binging.

The funny thing is, I remember having followed enough TV Tropes links to the comic that I got interested once to check it out from the beginning -- but was so utterly baffled by strip #1 that I immediately abandoned the attempt, figuring it was just going to be too densely filled with D&D mechanics for me to follow or enjoy it. But when I got linked to #393 (probably from the "Anguished Declaration of Love" trope), it broke me. There is so much going on in that comic and I was insanely curious to get the backstory, so much that I couldn't let it drop and wound up biting the bullet to read through from the beginning just to be able to have a complete understanding of that one strip. It turned out to be easier than I expected, and by the time I'd made it I was definitely hooked.

[WoodStock_PV]

I don't really remember how I came upon the website, I guess I was just browsing D&D stuff on the social medias we had back then.. anyways.. I started reading on the forest bandit arc, can't remember the exact comic too, but I kinda remember Roy abandoning the party and getting a little bummed about it. I didn't become a regular reader until later because the updates were so sporadic I kinda gave up on it early on. And well.. here I am now.. I dunno how many friggin years later glad that Durkon just survived his encounter with Redcloak.

At this point in time I hope to see the grand finale of the comic as well as future projects by Mr. Burlew (which I hope are also "free" on the web, even though I have bought one of his books before).

[Celestia]

I believe I was introduced to the comic in the break between the fall of Azure city and the start of the next book. Someone linked me to this page on a different forum, and I decided to start reading it from the beginning.

[Mido]

Unsure, but it should be the time when Miko was "escorting" the OOTS and where groggy was a funny word to say.

My friends were making a joke regarding the groggy bit since we had a friend who had that as his nickname (IKR?). I thought it seemed interesting, started reading and found the jokes on 3.0/3.5 to be funny (bluff the stupid ogre pretty much sold me). Been tuned in ever since and bought the books up to the 4th book. Would love to have the 5th and 6th book but kinda short on coinage. ^^;

[understatement]

TV Tropes. I know.

Mainly, I didn't know what "Lampshade Hanging" meant, so I went over to the page...and the first ever characters of OOTS I saw was O-Chul, Redcloak, and a hobgoblin soldier. So yes, the former two will always have a special place somewhere.

Next trope was "Save the Villain" -- and back then I hadn't read Homestuck, so I was pleasantly surprised by the metaness of OOTS. I remember opening it up on my phone on a bus ride, and the first strip was D&D-themed. I didn't know anything about D&D -- I never played it, never heard of dice rolls or AOOs or spells or whatever -- and I almost dropped it right there and then. Still, the fulfillment of Eugene's prophecy just had me keep on reading.

The funny thing is, I barreled through the first 1000 strips in ~6 hours, which meant I missed so many plot points and details especially about the Godsmoot and Durkon's vampirization info, and I accidentally skipped all the way to the current strip (which was 1143). I thought that this was another webcomic that had been cancelled, so I decided to drop it. When I went to check the webcomic on TV Tropes I realized I skipped over a hundred strips' worth of material. I read up and clarified stuff just in time for 1144 to come out.

Didn't know there was an active forum until 1146. I joined the forum during all the Hilgya hubbub times.

[skim172]

The guest strip that Rich Burlew did for 8-Bit Theater. Which, looking back on it was friggin' 2004, 16 friggin' years ago!

I've been reading Order of the Stick for over my half my lifetime.

My referencing 8-Bit Theater must be like my parents talking to me about the music of Abba. 'No, kids, really - it's good! Give it a try, young whippersnappers!'

[Ariko]

When was back while Miko was stalking the order, before her face was shown or name given. Why was from an OotS screenshot someone used as a forum banner. on some forgotten forum I don't visit these days.

[dude123nice]

tv tropes, and it was fun and funny to read

[Wizard_Lizard]

I started reading OOTS last year I think, I'd found out about my kindle's internet browser, it was night, I was bored and couldn't sleep. I had been browsing the forums for a several months, not posting anything, I saw the comic and I read it almost continuously for several months, during which I created an account and began posting things.

[Velaryon]

The guest strip that Rich Burlew did for 8-Bit Theater. Which, looking back on it was friggin' 2004, 16 friggin' years ago!

I've been reading Order of the Stick for over my half my lifetime.

My referencing 8-Bit Theater must be like my parents talking to me about the music of Abba. 'No, kids, really - it's good! Give it a try, young whippersnappers!'

I believe I saw this at the time, as I was a fan of 8-Bit Theater at the time. I guess it didn't really make an impression on me at the time though, because I didn't start reading OotS for a few more years. What finally brought me here I think was a link off the Wizards of the Coast forums (wow, that's going back a ways...) back in 2007 or 08. I was just a reader of the comic for awhile before joining the forums. I don't remember exactly where in the comic it was, maybe somewhere in either War & XP's or Don't Split the Party.

[Darth Paul]

I kept seeing it on tv tropes so eventually I checked it out.

Glad I wasn't the only one!

I started reading a few strips away from the end of BRitF, and I forced myself to start at the beginning. I watched the new strips post as I was working through the archives, catching up. The moment when I got to the last post, after racing faster and faster, through the comics, was like sprinting head first into a brick wall.

[skim172]

I believe I saw this at the time, as I was a fan of 8-Bit Theater at the time. I guess it didn't really make an impression on me at the time though, because I didn't start reading OotS for a few more years. What finally brought me here I think was a link off the Wizards of the Coast forums (wow, that's going back a ways...) back in 2007 or 08. I was just a reader of the comic for awhile before joining the forums. I don't remember exactly where in the comic it was, maybe somewhere in either War & XP's or Don't Split the Party.

Ah, a fellow member of my generation! Remember the good old days, when we were playing Pokemon on the Game Boys, watching American Idol, and listening to the Backstreet Boys? We used to skateboard around in our denim jackets, punk haircuts, and platform shoes down to the disco to listen to Elvis and dance the jitterbug, hop on the trolley for a nickel, drink moonshine, speculate on Wall Street, and then die in the Somme.

Good times.

[dps]

I started reading OotS in either 2006 or 2007. After this much time, I have no idea why.

[Mr. Demiurge]

I stumbled across TV Tropes first and noticed how often it was being mentioned there, probably around late 2008 or so. Came over to see what the fuss was about, enjoyed it, and I've been reading it off and on ever since.

[JT]

Started reading somewhere around #100... not sure where I got a link to it.

I spent the next hour or so binge-reading from the beginning, and thus began my impatient waiting. I still don't understand why there can't be a new page every 30 seconds.

[Grey Watcher]

... I've gone through childhood and adulthood still checking for the next update. ...

Once again, the internet reminds me I'm not a young man anymore. OOTS didn't exist until I was a couple of years into college.

Of course, I'm ALSO used to being the longest running reader in these threads, but multiple people do indeed have me beat.

As for when I started, the latest strip was the author's favorite, #0035, "Rogues Gone Wild!. I remember because I hit the end of the archives and came back a few days later, the then-topical "wardrobe malfunction" joke stuck out to me for some reason (in a good way). That, and I share Rich's amusement with overly elaborate machinery.

I first heard about the strip on the old fan forums for an even-then-defucnt video game series called Quest for Glory. Someone posted an altered version of Exasperated Roy from #0022, Leadership in Action, panel 11, though I didn't check it out properly for a few more weeks. I don't remember what the second prompt was, but I've been compulsively checking this site and helping crash the servers ever since.

[Jason]

Once again, the internet reminds me I'm not a young man anymore. OOTS didn't exist until I was a couple of years into college.

Hah. I graduated around 3 years before OOTS got started. If you're not young then I must be practically fossilized.

The punchlines were what first attracted me to OOTS, but what's kept me a reader for all these years is that this little stick-figure comic has depth and real characters. There's some real storytelling going on here. For me it's the best webcomic around. And it still gets laughs from me.