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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    If Ellipsis has the bad taste to say Complains' alignment is actively evil now because his response to "the heavily armed mass murdering brigand who killed most of our friends for profit and has never indicated seeing anything wrong with doing so is not at this moment attacking us" was "I'll kill him before he resumes being dangerous," I will...continue to be pissed off about that. Which I already am. So she has nothing to lose by writing it, really.

    Edit: But the question is "beneficial chief," not "good chief."

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    I'm gonna take the bold stance that murdering someone who just helped you while they cry about the death of their best friend is actually an evil act, but you do you.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    I'm gonna take the bold stance that murdering someone who just helped you while they cry about the death of their best friend is actually an evil act, but you do you.
    Im going to take the even bolder stance that ignoring half the context to make your stance doesnt make said stance right. He only helped them because he would have died along with the goblins. Before kore showed up, minmax was ready to go right back to gobbo murder.
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  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Calling it murder is a bit disingenuous. Even Thaco says it was a war camp that Minmax attacked. A war camp holding information about a coming goblin ruler named the white terror who will bring "pain and death to all non goblins". (who might I remind you actually exists). So I'm gonna go ahead and call attacking them justified. If you don't want to get attacked, maybe don't set up warcamps and tout plans to exterminate all life.

    Even if it wasn't. Even if Minmax was an evil monster like Goblinslayer, if someone is laying on the ground crying, and you murder them in cold blood, that's Evil. Period. Full stop. End of debate.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2020-10-22 at 07:29 AM.

  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    Even if it wasn't. Even if Minmax was an evil monster like Goblinslayer, if someone is laying on the ground crying, and you murder them in cold blood, that's Evil. Period. Full stop. End of debate.

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros, same message
    Calling it murder is a bit disingenuous.
    So is it disingenous or not to call it murder?
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    No author should have to take the time to say, "This little girl ISN'T evil, folks!" in order for the reader to understand that. It should be assumed that no first graders are irredeemably Evil unless the text tells you they are.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    I am not sure if you are implying that the gobbo murder qualifies for the first part or if you misunderstood and thought both refer to the same killing?

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Good catch on beneficial vs good.

    About sparing MM, as a scene, there are two aspects I noticed and that never convinced me.

    One is MM just giving up on fighting and treating the goblins as a neutral, or even friendly, party. Now, with a normal person, one would think that this is a result of MM being utterly crushed by Forgath's demise and, as a result, completely out of himself. However, what we know from MM's past is that he is absurdly adaptable. So he immediately switches to treating the goblins as his own group.
    ...The goblins he wanted to kill, because "they want to destroy the world"?! (maybe the switch is explained in-comic, but I don't remember it).

    Second, I don't think that not killing him was a believable option for Complains. I mean, for the act to be evil, as Thaco says, you need some good reason not to do it, right? From Complains' point of view, Minmax is a merciless marauder who attacked his home without warning and killed almost all of his comrades; given the very loose hierarchy at the camp (there's a chief and a teller, but no subchiefs) and the presence of a blind man and others considered too old to fight, those comrades weren't bound by being soldiers, but as part of a small community in which everyone knew each other from birth.
    It also wasn't war. MM isn't a soldier. Soldiers can forgive each other, because they were acting under orders from the big guys above; war was forced on them. But MM did what he did out of his own volition. So I don't agree with Thaco's rationalisation of the past.
    And, when Chief explained what had happened at the camp, he also said that Forgath wasn't to go unpunished. Forgath, who stopped and healed Thaco. MM? He didn't. What punishment was he to receive? And remember that even Forgath's position had been rolled back to "kill the goblins" by MM, and he attacked them on the bridge. So any grace points he had gained were lost, which also reflected on MM: what isn't a menace now will probably turn into one later.
    And Complains also had sworn a death oath on MM.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    I will go a step further; not only did Minmax attack the goblin camp of his own volition, he didn't do it out of any altruistic motives. He did it for personal gain, both physical in form of loot and spiritual through xp. In addition, he was outright gleeful about killing goblins. Whether you call that murder or not, this is certainly evil behavior.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Minmax genuinely believed that all goblins are evil. He did it to eliminate a threat to the area. Just like Forgath did. The only difference is that Forgath was confronted with the idea that maybe these goblins were not, in fact, evil. Saying that Minmax had no altruistic reasons to attack the goblin village is utter nonsense.

    The real example of Minmax's morality was when he attacked Goblin Slayer for torturing Kin every day. He also thought she was a monster, but he would kill her, not torture her. There is a line that he doesn't cross. He attacked a goblin war camp, not a village, and I have no reason to believe he would go around killing goblin women and children either, even if he did thing that doing so would take care of a potential threat from. Minmax isn't Kore.
    Last edited by tomaO2; 2020-10-22 at 02:08 PM.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    I do appreciate Anteros sticking the "what Minmax does to goblins, however horrific from any rational perspective, can't be murder" and "a goblin killing Minmax is automatically murder" brain-twisting assertions in the same post; it saves me from thinking, even for a second, that it could possibly be a productive use of my time to argue with him.

    Edited to add to toma02, though: Minmax aggressively didn't care about the goblins doing anything that made them evil. Forgath brought up the subject and Minmax outright said "what's gotten into you?" XP, XP, XP, loot, loot, loot.

    Getting back on subject, aggravated as I was by the earlier strip I brought up, I don't think Ellipsis is going to take it to "Complains actually has an evil alignment."
    Last edited by Kish; 2020-10-22 at 04:57 PM.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Technically, none of them can. Paladins aren't allowed to willingly associate with beings they know to be evil long term except for the purposes of redeeming them or combating their evil, and Big Ears is doing neither to any other member of the party.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    Edit: But the question is "beneficial chief," not "good chief."

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    It depends on where the 3 is:

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    Quote Originally Posted by Midnight Roamer View Post
    I think he did the only morally acceptable thing by killing everyone.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    Edited to add to toma02, though: Minmax aggressively didn't care about the goblins doing anything that made them evil. Forgath brought up the subject and Minmax outright said "what's gotten into you?" XP, XP, XP, loot, loot, loot.
    Why don't you read the bit where Forgath finds the scroll that talks about the white terror.


    "They steal babies in the night. They attack villages. They are evil."
    https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/03122006

    Minmax, from the bottom of his heart, truly believed that the goblins were evil, as did Forgath until the Teller confronted him, as would most D&D players, because, back in the day, when this comic started, it was a bit of a novel subversion to have the "evil" race being good (these days, the whole gray morality of races is everywhere, to the point where it's actually refreshing to see evil races that are actually evil again). Minmax was also willing to change his mind after being forced to stay in their company less than a day.

    Sure, Minmax wanted XP and loot, but he wouldn't have done it if he had any qualms about the morality of his actions. Whether it was a good/evil act is up to debate, but there isn't a scrap of evidence that he would have done this if he had thought it was an immoral act. If Minmax was that type of person, he would have been fine with Goblin Slayer torturing kin every day in order to hunt down the goblins.
    Last edited by tomaO2; 2020-10-22 at 07:25 PM.

  13. - Top - End - #73
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    I do appreciate Anteros sticking the "what Minmax does to goblins, however horrific from any rational perspective, can't be murder" and "a goblin killing Minmax is automatically murder" brain-twisting assertions in the same post; it saves me from thinking, even for a second, that it could possibly be a productive use of my time to argue with him.

    Edited to add to toma02, though: Minmax aggressively didn't care about the goblins doing anything that made them evil. Forgath brought up the subject and Minmax outright said "what's gotten into you?" XP, XP, XP, loot, loot, loot.

    Getting back on subject, aggravated as I was by the earlier strip I brought up, I don't think Ellipsis is going to take it to "Complains actually has an evil alignment."
    If you can't see the difference between killing someone who has surrendered in cold blood and attacking an active war camp then you're right, there's no point in ever conversing.

    What the Drows did to the elderly at the war camp was murder, but Minmax wasn't there for that and given his history probably would have acted against the Drow if he was. Everything Minmax did at the camp was against an enemy combatant.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2020-10-23 at 01:12 AM.

  14. - Top - End - #74
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    The concept of combatant is a bit iffy in this case... everyone is a combatant, if you force them into combat. In particular, Young&Beautiful explains the need to create warcamps exactly because adventurers would kill women and children, and keeping men away in a warcamp creates a more appealing target. So the definition of warcamp would be more like "distractioncamp" in a war that isn't being waged by the Cryptic Fall against other, but by opportunistic, unprovoked raiders and marauders against the Cryptic Fall clan.

    Would it have made a difference, if the Goblins had just sat in their huts playing chess? No, not at all. The Drows would have got there first and started killing them anyway, forcing them into combat, and then MM would have come in.

    It's clear that MM had a worldview distorted by expectations. He explicitly looked for a ranger "that hated Goblins a lot", without considering that hating a race was in and of itself a deep moral failure. This is actually where the PC/Player divide comes in, and i gets difficult to get through it: how much was MM his player, and how much was he himself? And how much was the warcamp meant to be a clean target during a D&D session, instead of a decoy to protect the children (but not the elderly and the disabled)? It's session logic vs setting logic. It's what made early Goblins satire, an aspect that has long since disappeared.

    If we look at MM as his own person, however, it becomes clear that his acts were driven by racism. https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/10142005 As Thaco says, he assumes that goblins as a whole are in a certain way. That goblins, as a whole, steal babies in the night, attack villages, and are evil. Humans also steal babies, attack villages, and are evil, but MM doesn't seem to care to expand this category to every single human.*

    *The puzzling remark made by Thaco the following page is something I never got, and I assume that it was another intrusion of session logic, or simply the acceptance of the fact that you need to defend yourself when you are attacked, and that's going to happen to goblins no matter what for a long time.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by tomaO2 View Post


    Why don't you read the bit where Forgath finds the scroll that talks about the white terror.


    "They steal babies in the night. They attack villages. They are evil."
    https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/03122006

    Minmax, from the bottom of his heart, truly believed that the goblins were evil, as did Forgath until the Teller confronted him, as would most D&D players, because, back in the day, when this comic started, it was a bit of a novel subversion to have the "evil" race being good (these days, the whole gray morality of races is everywhere, to the point where it's actually refreshing to see evil races that are actually evil again). Minmax was also willing to change his mind after being forced to stay in their company less than a day.

    Sure, Minmax wanted XP and loot, but he wouldn't have done it if he had any qualms about the morality of his actions. Whether it was a good/evil act is up to debate, but there isn't a scrap of evidence that he would have done this if he had thought it was an immoral act. If Minmax was that type of person, he would have been fine with Goblin Slayer torturing kin every day in order to hunt down the goblins.
    Goblins started in 2005. By then, having the "evil" races be good was no longer much of a subversion, it was commonplace. The AD&D Compete Book of Humanoids, that first officially brought up the idea of goblinoids not only as good but also as player characters was released in 1993, 12 years before the first Goblins strip. The Planescape setting specifically went about mixing up common perception of races and with Sigil, had a melting pot of all kinds of races living together peacefully. By the time D&D 3.0 came out, other successful games had already moved beyond "evil" races (e. g. The Dark Eye, Runequest) or had never bought into that to begin with (e. g. Shadowrun).
    Other media also moved beyond that long before the comic was released; see for example M:tGs Squee and Thangath, both introduced in 1997, or orcs in Warcraft III (2002) and WoW (2004)
    Goblin's basic idea was nowhere near as groundbreaking at the time it was released as people like to pretend. For that, it would have to have been released about ten years earlier.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Again, minmax showed up on the bridge specifically to continue his attempt to kill goblins. The only reason he stopped was that Kore was a greater threat. Killing him while he was distracted by his grief over losing forgath isnt murder, its good freaking sense. Minmax was an unrepentant goblin killing monster and right up till the end saw no issues with killing even more. His philosophy is "monsters are monsters, unless I have to spend time around them outside of combat, then those specific monsters are ok."
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Morgaln View Post
    Goblin's basic idea was nowhere near as groundbreaking at the time it was released as people like to pretend. For that, it would have to have been released about ten years earlier.
    Yes, I freely admit that Goblins was far from the first to do it, and was not trying to imply otherwise. That said, I still found the idea interesting at the time, as compared to most stories I had been reading up until that point. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Fighting Fantasy, Wheel of Time, Guardians of the Flame, Xanith (this one had more tones of grey in it, but wasn't in your face about it as more modern works), Thomas Covenant (kinda skimmed that one; progagonist morally flawed but still following the 'battle to save the world from evil' line), etc. I had also never played a D&D that played up the angle of goblins are people too.

    Today, I've read so many variants on the story that I'm just plain sick of it (which makes a couple recent stories that actually just go hard ball into making the classic monster races evil again to be a breath of fresh air. I'm a big fan of the manga Frieren at the Funeral, which also does a good job of writing how someone might be as an immortal. Then there is Goblin Slayer, and Overlord, just went all in on the concept. Re: Monster went too far though, in that the main was just too immoral for me to support), and Goblins doesn't do the job as well as, say, OOTS, in the engagement of the morality of the racism, while balancing levity with drama.
    Last edited by tomaO2; 2020-10-23 at 11:10 AM.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by tomaO2 View Post
    [FONT=Comic Sans MS]

    Why don't you read the bit where Forgath finds the scroll that talks about the white terror.
    Why don't you reread the parts before that? Starting with Minmax's first appearance, which holds the answer to what Minmax would do if someone he had attacked was lying down helpless in front of him? Instead of offering the excuses Minmax started coming up with after he'd lost an eye to Complains--after "Names swore a damn death oath on me (after I butchered most of his friends for personal gain)" didn't convince Forgath as well as Minmax wanted it to--as though they had mattered to the earlier "What's gotten into you?" Minmax.

    Whether it was a good/evil act is up to debate
    Holy crap. Yeah, I'm gonna be disengaging from you now.

    If you want to understand how nauseated I am right now, try actually rereading the strips where the man you're defending gleefully butchers dozens of innocents sometime.

    (And yes, of course Minmax saw no moral issue in his mass murder, just as Dellyn saw no moral issue in raping Kin. That doesn't mean "so he's not that bad"--that means, "so he's exactly that bad." In both cases.)

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous


    "Nauseated"?

    If this talk makes you actually feel nauseated, then, man, you are way to worked up about this. This is not the comic for you if you can't tolerate some murder, because the scale of that got way worse after book 1. I'm not sure how you read the entire thing.

    If you wanna talk about attacking people that don't want to fight we can go back to the literal first page of the comic, the one where a paladin was running away for his life, and was ruthlessly hunted down by the goblins. You think they cared that the Paladin didn't want to fight anymore? It's kill or be killed, man. No one has the moral high ground. I'm not really sure why you have such a hate on for MinMax, in particular. If all he wanted was to do is kill goblins, then he wouldn't have initially spared Vorpal. The specific reason for not doing so was because "he's harmless".

    Forgath didn't spare Thaco because Thaco was begging for his life. It was because Thaco wanted to save his son's life. Sacrificing yourself, and protecting others, shows you have empathy. That was the turning point.
    Last edited by tomaO2; 2020-10-23 at 05:07 PM.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    A confusing place reference, Minmax first appearance is after an off screen Kobold fight where the dialog doesn't answer that question, followed by an demon encounter, followed by Herbert trolling them with an crippled orc who kills himself. And his first warcamp appearance is against the bigger group, so link to what I assume Kish means for convenience: https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/12172005 (though I don't remember the question to "which holds the answer to what Minmax would do if someone he had attacked was lying down helpless in front of him" being asked)
    Last edited by Ibrinar; 2020-10-23 at 05:05 PM.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous


    I also worked out that the Minmax scene in question was him killing a goblin who was pleading for his life, while Forgath confronted the Teller. I'll agree that it was described a badly, but I didn't think it worth bringing up.

    The question I believe Kish is talking about is "is Minmax evil?" The scene in question "proves" Minmax is evil by showing him killing a helpless goblin that was just begging for his life. My response to that is begging for your life doesn't mean you are good, and killing someone begging for their life doesn't make you evil, or neutral, as the case may be (does make you fairly merciless, I'll grant).

    Mixmax bad, goblins good. That is the thrust of Kish's argument. Kish really seems to hate Minmax.
    Last edited by tomaO2; 2020-10-23 at 05:18 PM.

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Ibrinar View Post
    A confusing place reference, Minmax first appearance is after an off screen Kobold fight where the dialog doesn't answer that question, followed by an demon encounter, followed by Herbert trolling them with an crippled orc who kills himself. And his first warcamp appearance is against the bigger group, so link to what I assume Kish means for convenience: https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/12172005 (though I don't remember the question to "which holds the answer to what Minmax would do if someone he had attacked was lying down helpless in front of him" being asked)
    I think the more relevant page would be this one, where Forgath and Minmax discuss the reason for attacking the goblin warcamp. Minmax was convinced that them being adventurers and goblins being first level monsters was enough of a reason.

    Still, trying to see if Minmax is evil or not does not have any relevance here. The primary discussion point was, if Complains is evil for trying to kill mourning Minmax. For that, it does not matter one bit, if Minmax is good, bad or neutral. There is also the question, if we want to discuss rigid D&D-like alignment or morality closer to the real world. This might also clear a few issues up.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Radar View Post
    I think the more relevant page would be this one, where Forgath and Minmax discuss the reason for attacking the goblin warcamp. Minmax was convinced that them being adventurers and goblins being first level monsters was enough of a reason.

    Still, trying to see if Minmax is evil or not does not have any relevance here. The primary discussion point was, if Complains is evil for trying to kill mourning Minmax. For that, it does not matter one bit, if Minmax is good, bad or neutral. There is also the question, if we want to discuss rigid D&D-like alignment or morality closer to the real world. This might also clear a few issues up.
    I think discussing the fact that minmax is a rampaging mass murderer of goblins who had approached the GAP for the second time with intent to kill them is totally relevant to complains trying to kill him at the first opportunity and if that act is good evil or neutral. After all, motive is a valid part of deciding if an action is criminal or not, so the same should be said for what alignment it falls under. As an example. I kill someone. Depending on context the act could be good or evil. It was a child playing hopscotch in the street? Evil act. it was a brigand trying to kill a nun protecting her orphanage? Good act.
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Does Complains have the right to kill off Minmax, and for it to not be considered an evil act? Sure. It basically counts as an ambush. If you can't kill someone crying, then you can't kill when sleeping, or eating, or when that person's back is turned. In other words, it's only really an act that Big Ears should have a strong opinion over.

    I assume that the reason that Thaco was saying the difference between evil and fury is because they had just worked together vs a mass murderer that is a thousand times worse than Minmax. Yes, just moments ago, Forgath and Minmax were working together to kill them, but they also immediately started helping them when Kore showed up. They could have just ran, they could have tried to talk to Kore to get him to let them live. They were fighting goblins, so that should have worked. Kore does not kill literally everyone he meets, as Kin showed.

    They did neither. They helped the goblins to escape Kore, and Forgath died saving them. Furthermore, Minmax clearly showed no interest in continuing fighting the goblins and was grieving the life of the man that sacrificed himself to save them all. That's why Thaco considered killing Minmax to be evil. I wouldn't go that far myself, because I don't consider it to be *evil* to immediately attack someone you are forced to work with in order to survive. However, I understand Thaco's view, would have tried to stop Complains as well, and it is, at the least, not a smart decision, because Kore is still coming for them.
    Last edited by tomaO2; 2020-10-24 at 12:42 PM.

  25. - Top - End - #85
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    Again, minmax showed up on the bridge specifically to continue his attempt to kill goblins. The only reason he stopped was that Kore was a greater threat. Killing him while he was distracted by his grief over losing forgath isnt murder, its good freaking sense. Minmax was an unrepentant goblin killing monster and right up till the end saw no issues with killing even more. His philosophy is "monsters are monsters, unless I have to spend time around them outside of combat, then those specific monsters are ok."
    Only if you willfully ignore their explicit plans to wipe out all non-goblin life that they found in their war camp. He has a pretty compelling reason to track them down. Even Forgath, who deescalated the original situation was convinced they needed to do so.

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    I think discussing the fact that minmax is a rampaging mass murderer of goblins who had approached the GAP for the second time with intent to kill them is totally relevant to complains trying to kill him at the first opportunity and if that act is good evil or neutral. After all, motive is a valid part of deciding if an action is criminal or not, so the same should be said for what alignment it falls under. As an example. I kill someone. Depending on context the act could be good or evil. It was a child playing hopscotch in the street? Evil act. it was a brigand trying to kill a nun protecting her orphanage? Good act.
    Murdering said brigand in cold blood after he surrenders and lies on the ground crying is an objectively evil act.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    I do appreciate Anteros sticking the "what Minmax does to goblins, however horrific from any rational perspective, can't be murder" and "a goblin killing Minmax is automatically murder" brain-twisting assertions in the same post; it saves me from thinking, even for a second, that it could possibly be a productive use of my time to argue with him.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    Holy crap. Yeah, I'm gonna be disengaging from you now.
    The world must be a very different place for someone who willfully shuts their ears to everyone who ever disagrees with them. It's a fantasy webcomic discussion about a situation that's literally written to be morally ambiguous. I think you can manage to control your "nausea" at the other posters here if you try. Actually, if you could stop with the insults in general, that would be great.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    The concept of combatant is a bit iffy in this case... everyone is a combatant, if you force them into combat. In particular, Young&Beautiful explains the need to create warcamps exactly because adventurers would kill women and children, and keeping men away in a warcamp creates a more appealing target. So the definition of warcamp would be more like "distractioncamp" in a war that isn't being waged by the Cryptic Fall against other, but by opportunistic, unprovoked raiders and marauders against the Cryptic Fall clan.
    Ok, but how are Minmax and Forgath supposed to know that? Sure, in some hypothetical situation where Minmax murders a bunch of goblin babies in their peaceful village he's a monster, but that's literally not what happened in the story. We know from reading the actual story that goblins in the area are regularly raiding and enslaving other races to fuel a campaign to end all non-goblin life. Maybe this particular group wasn't part of it, but when they're masquerading as a war camp in the same area what are people supposed to think? It's like if you dressed up in a long red coat during the revolutionary war and went to stand in a line with your buddies holding muskets, then got upset that the revolutionaries attacked you. It's nonsense. They're literally pretending to be part of a hostile group.

  26. - Top - End - #86
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    About the paladin at the start of the story, his death might have something to do with punishment. Chief explicitly talks about punishing Forgath.

    There also is the possibility that, since the Warcamp is hard to find, letting go a survivor would mean knowledge of its position spreading to humans. Hawl needed a map to get there, which is how Kore found the remains of the camp.

    Of course, saying "in the Cryptic Fall polity, it is accepted law that...e.g. attackers are punished by death" can frame actions to explain why they were taken, but also doesn't tackle the issues the comic normally goes after, which is institutionalised racism in Brassmoon, or the odd, vaguely dystopian laws in the Warcamp (which are only partially explained by the Shield being a death trap, or the need to protect the women).

    Anyway, comparing MM killing the goblin to the goblins killing the paladin misses the point of MM and the paladin being attackers, and that everything would have been fine and dandy, hadn't they decided to just kill some goblins. The paladin also didn't surrender or ask for mercy.

    Also, Kore attacked MM and Forgath first. That's why they fought him, although it's clear that, even before that, Forgath didn't like him, as he called him the "cursed scourge of the Realm". But it really wasn't a matter of wanting to save the goblins, as far as I can see.

    About Thaco sparing MM, I realised later that Thaco also spared Goblinslayer, so it could be the result of a decision he took even before joining the GAP. I think this matter needs more discussion in the comic, however (there is some backstory yet to be told, as he didn't want to talk about Names' mother).
    Quote Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
    I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful — but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!).

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    Only if you willfully ignore their explicit plans to wipe out all non-goblin life that they found in their war camp. He has a pretty compelling reason to track them down. Even Forgath, who deescalated the original situation was convinced they needed to do so.

    Murdering said brigand in cold blood after he surrenders and lies on the ground crying is an objectively evil act.
    According to this comic its not about saving the world, its about "I promised id kill you, so lets get to me killing you." So we have minmax, FOR THE SECOND TIME, attacking the goblins so he can kill them. Not for any high minded ideals, but because they are goblins and thats what adventurers do. And in this case for revenge for daring to injure him earlier. He didnt surrender, he broke down upon losing his buddy. He had no regret for his actions, no wish to atone for murdering goblins for the crime of daring to exist in range of an adventure group. He was heartbroken over losing first kin and now forgath. That doesnt make him stop being a direct danger to the GAP and a man guilty of mass murder. Just because FOR THAT MOMENT he didnt want to kill them doesnt make him safe to be around, or give them any reason to not execute him on the spot.
    "Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
    Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    Ok, but how are Minmax and Forgath supposed to know that? Sure, in some hypothetical situation where Minmax murders a bunch of goblin babies in their peaceful village he's a monster, but that's literally not what happened in the story. We know from reading the actual story that goblins in the area are regularly raiding and enslaving other races to fuel a campaign to end all non-goblin life. Maybe this particular group wasn't part of it, but when they're masquerading as a war camp in the same area what are people supposed to think? It's like if you dressed up in a long red coat during the revolutionary war and went to stand in a line with your buddies holding muskets, then got upset that the revolutionaries attacked you. It's nonsense. They're literally pretending to be part of a hostile group.

    You raise many points whose ultimate answer would depend on more worldbuilding. One would be, "does the creation of a warcamp imply aggressive, bellicose intent?". It isn't an easy question to answer, as fortresses are generally built and soldiers are generally trained even in times of peace.


    Another one is "Were there other areas in this Realm where a weak clan could place its warcamp, considering also that it appears to be the clan's commercial hub, and that its location will surely be conditioned by the position of the village?"


    More importantly, MM didn't know anything about the White Terror's intent before attacking. And all of Duv's slaves are monsters. So those most likely couldn't be the reasons. As Forgath implies, the attack wasn't an answer to any known ill deed, and MM answers by bringing forward sweeping allegations against a whole race, not "around here...".


    For me, it's pretty simple. MM and Forgath went hobo-murdering. Forgath found out that their XP-fodder was actually made up of rational creatures with more or less the same basic desires as he had. MM didn't. He just wanted to kill monsters. He still thought he was supposed to kill Kin after saving her.


    But maybe that's the crux, "being supposed to". Again, the comic is generally against the constituted system: Goblins have weird rules and are ruled by their malignant enforcer (Young & Beautiful), Brassmoon institutionalised racism, MM is supposed to kill monsters...


    And Thaco taking the big step and sparing MM could be read as another step in the direction of destroying such systems.


    As an aside, I have never found Forgath being convinced by MM of the malignity of the goblins very believable, since it's a wisdom-based class vs his dim-witted friend (and he later was prepared to kill MM to save Kin). But I've found almost all of MM's turns very abrupt, so this one, MM suddenly liking Kin (the least odd one, it's mostly a matter of how it's described), MM grabbing Kin's leash, and MM becoming a companion of the GAP all seem driven more by narrative need than by characterisation.
    Quote Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
    I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful — but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!).

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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    You raise many points whose ultimate answer would depend on more worldbuilding. One would be, "does the creation of a warcamp imply aggressive, bellicose intent?". It isn't an easy question to answer, as fortresses are generally built and soldiers are generally trained even in times of peace.


    Another one is "Were there other areas in this Realm where a weak clan could place its warcamp, considering also that it appears to be the clan's commercial hub, and that its location will surely be conditioned by the position of the village?"


    More importantly, MM didn't know anything about the White Terror's intent before attacking. And all of Duv's slaves are monsters. So those most likely couldn't be the reasons. As Forgath implies, the attack wasn't an answer to any known ill deed, and MM answers by bringing forward sweeping allegations against a whole race, not "around here...".


    For me, it's pretty simple. MM and Forgath went hobo-murdering. Forgath found out that their XP-fodder was actually made up of rational creatures with more or less the same basic desires as he had. MM didn't. He just wanted to kill monsters. He still thought he was supposed to kill Kin after saving her.


    But maybe that's the crux, "being supposed to". Again, the comic is generally against the constituted system: Goblins have weird rules and are ruled by their malignant enforcer (Young & Beautiful), Brassmoon institutionalised racism, MM is supposed to kill monsters...


    And Thaco taking the big step and sparing MM could be read as another step in the direction of destroying such systems.


    As an aside, I have never found Forgath being convinced by MM of the malignity of the goblins very believable, since it's a wisdom-based class vs his dim-witted friend (and he later was prepared to kill MM to save Kin). But I've found almost all of MM's turns very abrupt, so this one, MM suddenly liking Kin (the least odd one, it's mostly a matter of how it's described), MM grabbing Kin's leash, and MM becoming a companion of the GAP all seem driven more by narrative need than by characterisation.
    I think in large part its driven by him being a D&D character and following the plot. "Ok, forgath is "dead" and im stuck in a dungeon with the GAP. I guess my only option going forward is to join forces, even if only for now." In truth, minmax himself isnt an evil or cruel personality. He is very much so a D&D character personality. You are supposed to kill monsters, finish quests, and level up. Monsters are monsters, named monsters might become important npcs some day, but in general, monster races are enemies to kill and why doesnt matter. There is more to him than just that, but it seems to be the primary way he was thinking because thats how the game is supposed to be played. When some tavern keeper hires you to kill the giant rats in the basement, you dont stop to ask why. You dont ponder on the ethics of killing rats who might just want a place to live and food to eat, you kill the giant rats and accept your reward! Then you move on and kill the next lowest level monsters, in this case, goblins. You dont question it. You are told "There is a camp of goblins not too far from the human village, go clear them out" and thats good enough for an adventure team.
    "Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
    Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."

    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Traab is yelling everything that I'm thinking already.
    "If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."

  30. - Top - End - #90
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    Default Re: Goblins XVIII: Being yourself can be dangerous

    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    According to this comic its not about saving the world, its about "I promised id kill you, so lets get to me killing you." So we have minmax, FOR THE SECOND TIME, attacking the goblins so he can kill them. Not for any high minded ideals, but because they are goblins and thats what adventurers do. And in this case for revenge for daring to injure him earlier. He didnt surrender, he broke down upon losing his buddy. He had no regret for his actions, no wish to atone for murdering goblins for the crime of daring to exist in range of an adventure group. He was heartbroken over losing first kin and now forgath. That doesnt make him stop being a direct danger to the GAP and a man guilty of mass murder. Just because FOR THAT MOMENT he didnt want to kill them doesnt make him safe to be around, or give them any reason to not execute him on the spot.
    And Complains says 2 comics later that he's going to kill Minmax because he swore a death oath on him. His plan the entire comic has been to hunt Minmax down. He's not concerned about Minmax being a threat to goblins. He explicitly wants to murder him for revenge.
    https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/02172006
    https://www.goblinscomic.com/comic/01152015

    So one is evil and the other isn't? That's a pretty big double standard you have there.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post
    You raise many points whose ultimate answer would depend on more worldbuilding. One would be, "does the creation of a warcamp imply aggressive, bellicose intent?". It isn't an easy question to answer, as fortresses are generally built and soldiers are generally trained even in times of peace.


    Another one is "Were there other areas in this Realm where a weak clan could place its warcamp, considering also that it appears to be the clan's commercial hub, and that its location will surely be conditioned by the position of the village?"


    More importantly, MM didn't know anything about the White Terror's intent before attacking. And all of Duv's slaves are monsters. So those most likely couldn't be the reasons. As Forgath implies, the attack wasn't an answer to any known ill deed, and MM answers by bringing forward sweeping allegations against a whole race, not "around here...".


    For me, it's pretty simple. MM and Forgath went hobo-murdering. Forgath found out that their XP-fodder was actually made up of rational creatures with more or less the same basic desires as he had. MM didn't. He just wanted to kill monsters. He still thought he was supposed to kill Kin after saving her.


    But maybe that's the crux, "being supposed to". Again, the comic is generally against the constituted system: Goblins have weird rules and are ruled by their malignant enforcer (Young & Beautiful), Brassmoon institutionalised racism, MM is supposed to kill monsters...


    And Thaco taking the big step and sparing MM could be read as another step in the direction of destroying such systems.


    As an aside, I have never found Forgath being convinced by MM of the malignity of the goblins very believable, since it's a wisdom-based class vs his dim-witted friend (and he later was prepared to kill MM to save Kin). But I've found almost all of MM's turns very abrupt, so this one, MM suddenly liking Kin (the least odd one, it's mostly a matter of how it's described), MM grabbing Kin's leash, and MM becoming a companion of the GAP all seem driven more by narrative need than by characterisation.
    They didn't explicity know about the white terror until after attacking the camp. They did presumably know about a group of goblins causing trouble in the area considering they went looking for them in the first place. Yes, the moral of the comic is basically "racism is wrong and needs to be ended" but the fact remains that several groups of goblins in the area actually were doing the things Minmax thought they were. In fact I think every single clan except the one he attacked is represented in Duv's group. It's entirely reasonable to think a war camp in hostile territory is hostile.

    Yes, Minmax was only there for the loot and exp, but he doesn't go around murdering people he isn't convinced are evil. He does try to be a good person despite the fact that he was misguided. We've literally been shown that about his character over and over and over.

    We don't have to wonder what Minmax would do if he finds out the Goblins aren't evil anyway. We know. He's not just with them for survival, he's with them because he witnessed their loss and it "humanized" them. He realized they aren't evil. If he thought they were evil, or just wanted revenge he'd have gotten up afterwards and fought them. He probably couldn't win, but there's no way he'd know that.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2020-10-24 at 05:19 PM.

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