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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by 137ben View Post
    I'd been assuming for years, without realizing it, that either Redcloak was right that the gods deliberately gave the goblins a terrible starting condition, or that he was completely wrong and the goblins didn't really have a divinely-created bad starting position.

    The possibility that the goblins' bad fortunes were created by the gods by accident was not something I considered. But it does fit with the story.
    Hanlon's Razor- "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

    I guess this would be a corollary or variant as instead of stupidity, it's neglect, unless you consider passive neglect a form of stupidity (which, I guess one could in the sense of oversight).

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.
    True though we have to remember that moral alignment is still in play. Neutral and Evil gods exist and the latter would likely want to maintain terrible conditions. After all, terrible conditions leads to crime and thus leads to them having more power.

    Smart crime lords know that they maintain their hold as long as society does not provide sufficiently for everyone, they can collect the left-behinds for their own agendas and powerplays. They also exploit what people want. The mob rose in large power because of the ban on alcohol and subsequent bootlegging of alcohol.

    As such, malefic forces have a motivation for keeping things unfair so they end up benefitting. Fostering and exacerbating conflict could very well be the goal of certain gods or similar power, especially for their own purposes.
    Last edited by CountDVB; 2021-04-22 at 01:16 PM.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.
    I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by CountDVB View Post
    True though we have to remember that moral alignment is still in play. Neutral and Evil gods exist and the latter would likely want to maintain terrible conditions. After all, terrible conditions leads to crime and thus leads to them having more power.

    Smart crime lords know that they maintain their hold as long as society does not provide sufficiently for everyone, they can collect the left-behinds for their own agendas and powerplays. They also exploit what people want. The mob rose in large power because of the ban on alcohol and subsequent bootlegging of alcohol.

    As such, malefic forces have a motivation for keeping things unfair so they end up benefitting. Fostering and exacerbating conflict could very well be the goal of certain gods or similar power, especially for their own purposes.
    In which case the Goblins are right to want to blow up the entire system and start over, and keep blowing it up until the chips fall more their way. I doubt even the evil gods want that, so they'll be more amenable to compromise.

    Quote Originally Posted by Teioh View Post
    I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop
    I don't know... but clearly when the vacuum is big enough, you can end up with spontaneous ascension.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2021-04-22 at 01:22 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Teioh View Post
    I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop
    Probably some sort of arrangement with Fenris I suspect. It's like how some media companies will sit on ideas for years or decades and don't do anything with them, but will still go on copyright strikes with them.

    That and well, fantasy isn't just the key thing the deities do for this. They do all sorts of things. I mean, with the world of movie theater snacks, who goes with which pantheon?

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by MoonCat View Post
    Publishing to stop fiddling hits very hard on today, the deadline of my thesis.
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Teioh View Post
    I wonder why? Clearly you can be a God of a race you didn't create. Why would a God turn down a competiton free market? You think some lesser God would have moved in and set up shop
    Maybe they were afraid that associating with "the ennemy" would result in them losing more worshippers from their established base than they woild gain from the goblins.

    Like how in The Elder Scrolls the elven god Stendarr isn't really popular among the traditionnal High Elves because he is "an apologist of Man" (and they don't like humans. At all).
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Torath View Post
    Good luck, MoonCat! Knock 'em dead!
    Good luck, MoonCat! We believe in you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    In which case the Goblins are right to want to blow up the entire system and start over, and keep blowing it up until the chips fall more their way. I doubt even the evil gods want that, so they'll be more amenable to compromise.
    Blow up to threaten an imperfect system is not gonna get the results you want. Especially if not all the goblins are in board at all with this.
    Last edited by CountDVB; 2021-04-22 at 01:26 PM.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by CountDVB View Post
    Blow up to threaten an imperfect system is not gonna get the results you want. Especially if not all the goblins are in board at all with this.
    Won't it? Thor wouldn't even be considering goblin welfare right now if it weren't for the Plan. None of them would.

    I'm not saying the comic will (or should) end with the Dark One pulling off his plot, but I understand.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I don't fully agree.

    It IS a much needed strip, yes, and very interesting. It also sheds additional light on the matter of the creation of the world when, previously, we only had the Dark One's word on everything.

    What this confirms to me is that:
    1) The goblins' plight goes to the heart of what we currently call 'privilege'. While ostensibly being equal and held to the same standard, in point of fact it is far easier due to circumstance for the under-privileged monster races to be pushed into being weak fodder for other species than it is for dwarves or humans or elves. The other races were special to one god or another. The goblins had Fenrir. Whatever he thought of them, it was evidently so dis-satisfactory that, in my view, the goblins fired him as god and turned to worshipping one of their own in his place. It's possible Fenrir never revealed himself to them or made worshippers of them, viewing them indeed as mere cattle.

    2) We cannot wholly blame the good deities in the pantheon for this. This is not Middle-Earth, where all the world is fashioned to a Good design by Eru Illuvatar, and evil only exists because rebellious lesser spirits pervert his creation. No, this world was created by a mixture of good and evil gods from the start. Because of this, good has input into the process but they only get their way so long as they can persuade enough of the neutral gods to go along. As a result, there's a big section of creation that is evil by design, and the lot of the creatures so-created is thoroughly miserable. The system is unjust and broken from the start due to the presence of evil beings at its creation.

    3) Because of this, while we cannot blame the good gods entirely we can certainly blame the three collective pantheons as a whole for setting up a rotten world. Unfortunately, this is an appeal that will only work on the good and neutral gods. The evil gods don't care -- in fact, making it a miserable place is kind of the point, as it fosters evil .

    4) Thus , by the nature of good and evil which transcends the gods, the denizens of OOTS world have a legitimate grievance against their pantheons, and a legitimate pretext for war.

    Making a better world will require either A) remaking it with the assistance of 'ally' deities or B) The Valkyrie Profile solution.

    Spoiler
    Show

    In the True Ending, Loki kills all the gods but himself, then Luneth kills him and ascends in his place, becoming the sole ruler and god of the world.


    The downside is that even with mortal inputs or all formerly-mortal deities, there's no guarantee that the next world will be better than the current one. The gods reflect mortals, and vice versa. A new pantheon made up exclusively of former mortals would probably contains the same mixture of good and evil as the existing pantheon. Which means the new world would also be flawed.

    5) This conversation gives Redcloak a pretext to pull the trigger on the snarl and end the world. You read it yourself: The gods aren't going to be making any big changes to the world now that it's been created. Which means the goblins are always going to have the rough end of the stick and Redcloak's dream of a peer civilization equal with the PC races will be forever unrealized.

    Given this, Redcloak's likely solution will be to ensure the destruction of this world so that the Dark One will have a hand in making the next one ... IF he can ensure the Dark One's survival to that point, which at this point is doubtful, according to Thor.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Hi Brian. My thoughts right now on the matter of the "goblin question" are:

    1) We have confirmation that the goblinoids weren't created as fodder. They were not designed to be on a disadvantage. Their creator intended them to be able to overcome all other races. They were designed to pull a zergling rush. As the zergling rush failed, their creator lost interest in them. They became broken toys.

    2) The Gods aren't the solution for mortal problems. They don't care all that much, and even those who care, are bound by rules and stuff. It's up to mortals to solve their problems, learn to work together, and build a better world.

    3) Redcloak expects that his God will solve everything for the goblins. But the Dark One won't. It's up to the goblins to improve their condition. Like Right-Eye attempted. Like the former hobgoblin leader did.

    4) Destroying the World will solve nothing for the Goblins. Because the goblins aren't in their current condition due to any betrayal from the Keepers of the Status Quo, but as a consequence of being designed as a zergling-rush plot. And The Dark One being there in the next world's creation changes nothing: You make a new world, the goblins face the same problem when the zergling-rush fails. Unless they are created as something else. And if they are created as something else, then Redcloak wouldn't be sacrificing real goblins for imaginary ones, but for imaginary whatever else.

    All in all, the point is: It's up to the mortal races to solve their co-existence problems. Gods won't solve the problems for them. If someone relies on the Gods to patch things up, they are more likely to end up blowing up the World instead.
    Last edited by The Pilgrim; 2021-04-22 at 01:31 PM.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Xihirli View Post
    The problem the goblins are facing is a death spiral. Once they start losing, they begin losing FASTER. The game needs a blue shell.
    TDO and Redcloak have a blue shell, or at least are trying to get one. It's just that the heroes & gods are throwing a hissy fit about it.

    They're certainly not justified in doing so, but when you're looking at the inequality your race suffers like it's a death spiral, The Snarl starts to look more and more appealing. You're less likely to try the traditional routes if you believe they're rigged against you, and gradual change is a lot less appealing than a big outlandish scheme to "stick it to The Man".
    Last edited by Ionathus; 2021-04-22 at 01:30 PM.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ornithologist View Post
    of all the people who interact with it, Samwise who might not be saying that as an excuse.
    Evidence in favor: He took it up only as a last resort; the Ring utterly failed in tempting him to have the Best Garden Ever™; he had no trouble giving it up when Frodo asked for it back.
    Last edited by georgie_leech; 2021-04-22 at 01:34 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant View Post
    We should try to make that a thing; I think it might help civility. Hey, GitP, let's try to make this a thing: when you're arguing optimization strategies, RAW-logic, and similar such things that you'd never actually use in a game, tag your post [THEORETICAL] and/or use green text

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ionathus View Post
    TDO and Redcloak have a blue shell, or at least are trying to get one. It's just that the heroes & gods are throwing a hissy fit about it.

    They're certainly not justified in doing so, but when you're looking at the inequality your race suffers like it's a death spiral, The Snarl starts to look more and more appealing. You're less likely to try the traditional routes if you believe they're rigged against you, and gradual change is a lot less appealing than a big outlandish scheme to "stick it to The Man".
    That's less a blue shell and more a giant nuke. One being handled by people who don't know how it works and aren't considering how bad they could screw up.

    And appealing doesn't mean practical nor logicial. Hence why Righteye said that he was still the same angry teenager he was back all those years.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by The Pilgrim View Post
    All in all, the point is: It's up to the mortal races to solve their co-existence problems. Gods won't solve the problems for them. If someone relies on the Gods to patch things up, they are more likely to end up blowing up the World instead.
    None of your responses address the fact that the goblinoids definitely started out at a disadvantage, even if it wasn't an intentional one. Durkon says it. Thor admits it. This is proof that the gods allowed it to happen.

    Quote Originally Posted by CountDVB View Post
    That's less a blue shell and more a giant nuke. One being handled by people who don't know how it works and aren't considering how bad they could screw up.

    And appealing doesn't mean practical nor logicial. Hence why Righteye said that he was still the same angry teenager he was back all those years.
    I agree wholeheartedly. TDO's plan is terrible and it won't work. Redcloak is deluded about his situation, his own motives, and his prospects. I'm just pointing out that, if Redcloak thinks the deck is stacked against him, it's not really surprising that he's refusing to sit down at the table and play.
    Last edited by Ionathus; 2021-04-22 at 01:46 PM. Reason: putting words in pendell's mouth

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by ratfox View Post
    When did it become traditional for dwarves to have a Scottish accent in the first place? Does Gimli have a Scottish speech in the books? I think my introduction to the trope was Warcraft, which was largely based on Warhammer; but I don't know whether Warhammer dwarves have an accent.
    In the DVD commentary for LotR, John Rhys-Davies (who plays Gimli) said that he felt he had to come up with an accent for Gimli and was playing around with the voice, and what came out was a Scottish accent.

    He didn't put too much thought into it; he just thought it fit.

    So, that's where it came from. The whim of an actor.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by CountDVB View Post
    5- Forever unrealized because of Redcloak's fault. The one who screwed up his brother's work with the goblin/human community and the one who refused what was pretty much the best shot he had with his goals regarding the deal with Durkon, all because at his core's he's a frightened and angry teenager who's way in over his head and while hardened by experience, still too irresponsible to own up to his failures.
    This really sums it up, if there is going to be a solution it can't and we now see never could come from the Gods. Their hands are tied more ways then one, and while they made the best functioning world they could under the circumstanced... I kind of don't think it was this one. This was the self aware stick figure parody, the bottom of the barrel for a few pantheons long into a cycle that none of them genuinely thought could ever be broken that ends with every world ultimately being a waste. Whatever the best of possible worlds they could make was is long gone before this one, and Durkon's offer was best chance Redcloak will ever have to undo the failure of destroying his brothers work. Because this is it, this is the one chance to end the cycle and create real system change at the highest of all possible levels by removing the existential threat to the gods.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    The gods as an institution still have culpability here. As Durkon rightly pointed out, the general inequity of their origins and living situations is fostering and exacerbating that very conflict, so expecting mortals to do all the work needed to remediate it is neither fair nor reasonable. And not only do some races (e.g. Dwarves) have better land, food, equipment etc, they even have their own gods specifically to look out for their interests. Until The Dark One, the goblins didn't.
    You might not think it's fair but it's eminently reasonable in the context we have and the only workable plan left, because the gods tier their own hands for very good very Snarl looking reasons, and also because frankly just doing nothing and hoping the gods can just fix all your problems is kind of silly. Yes, I consider spending all your time trying to work out the best way to extort the gods into what you want when you could put that same effort into actually fixing things sitting around doing nothing. Charitably I might add, considering pursuing those plans tanked a legitimately successful example of goblinoid/humanoid relations in a violent and tragic way.
    Last edited by Dragonus45; 2021-04-22 at 01:49 PM.
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ionathus View Post
    I think one thing we've seen in abundance in OotS, for good or ill, is multiple largely-homogenous communities. Goblins tend to stick with other goblins. Elves stick with elves. Dwarves live up near the North Pole, and only a few venture forth. Remember how Laurin hates elves because they have the top lush portion of the Western Continent locked down, and everybody else has to "fight for scraps"? Humans intermingle, but that may be the exception more than the rule.

    [Citation needed]
    I wonder if the secret of human success, besides having an extra feat, is just the ability (and inclination) to interbreed. We are the "anything that moves" race, at least as long as the others are concerned.

    Hence why bards are overpowered :)
    Last edited by faustin; 2021-04-22 at 01:49 PM.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Xihirli View Post
    The problem the goblins are facing is a death spiral. Once they start losing, they begin losing FASTER. The game needs a blue shell.
    blue shell XD
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by faustin View Post
    I wonder if the secret of human success, besides having an extra feat, is just the ability (and inclination) to interbreed. We are the "anything that moves" race, at least as long as the others are concerned.

    Therefore why bards are overpowered :)
    No joke, I've seen a similar thought in plenty of settings and even some written fantasy series. Humans are quite often the rats of fantasy humanoids: not the strongest, not the smartest, not the longest-lived, but still insanely adaptable and frickin' everywhere. Living in all the nooks and crannies of the world. We're goshdarned survivors, baby.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidSh View Post
    In the real world it was also a grammatical (case) difference. Fenrir is nominative case, Fenris genitive, as part of the phrase Fenrisulfr, that is, Fenris Wolf.
    Really? Huh. Thanks for explaining.

    Quote Originally Posted by Good Coyote View Post
    My point was that if the starting group of humans chooses, say, the physically strongest member to be their chieftain, then that chieftain's descendants are potentially advantaged by a genetic predisposition to strength, which was given to them by the gods (and can also be seen as everybody else being hampered as weaker by the gods).

    It's also possible that your stats are rolled at random at birth and you cannot genetically inherit anything in ootsworld. However, the chieftain's descendants are now also advantaged by being the children of the chief. The beginning of inherited wealth. Maybe their line is more likely to have the opportunity to produce a hero who has a very high quality weapon which becomes an ancestral blade.
    Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.

    Quote Originally Posted by MoonCat View Post
    Publishing to stop fiddling hits very hard on today, the deadline of my thesis.
    Good luck! And a bit of advice from someone who watched an acquaintance flail: try to allow for Murphy's law. Don't assume that, for example, printers will never fail, computers never crash, etc. Leave yourself a bit of slack. (My acquaintance waited until the last possible time to get her thesis wrapped up, then had a printer failure.)

    EDIT:
    Quote Originally Posted by Ionathus View Post
    No joke, I've seen a similar thought in plenty of settings and even some written fantasy series. Humans are quite often the rats of fantasy humanoids: not the strongest, not the smartest, not the longest-lived, but still insanely adaptable and frickin' everywhere. Living in all the nooks and crannies of the world. We're goshdarned survivors, baby.
    In Babylon 5, it was proposed that humans are uniquely good at forging communities from disparate groups of people. In the real world, of course... we aren't all that great about it, in many cases.
    Last edited by bunsen_h; 2021-04-22 at 01:52 PM.

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by bunsen_h View Post
    Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.
    I don't know about the rules, but from the parent/child dynamics we've seen, genetics does seem to influence stats to some degree. Roy, despite being a fighter, is still very smart like Eugene. Haley and Ian are both dextrous rogues. Tarquin and Elan/Nale are all, canonically, devilishly handsome.

    Quote Originally Posted by bunsen_h View Post
    In Babylon 5, it was proposed that humans are uniquely good at forging communities from disparate groups of people. In the real world, of course... we aren't all that great about it, in many cases.
    Maybe it's a comforting thought, if you're creating alien/fantasy races, to imagine an idealistic world where humans handle diversity well.

    For believability, sometimes it's an end result: "here in the 51st century, we've finally learned the lessons of the past and are so anti-racist that we're even the best anti-racists in a galaxy of alien races."
    Last edited by Ionathus; 2021-04-22 at 01:58 PM. Reason: reply to bunsen

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by faustin View Post
    I wonder if the secret of human success, besides having an extra feat, is just the ability (and inclination) to interbreed. We are the "anything that moves" race, at least as long as the others are concerned.

    Hence why bards are overpowered :)
    According to Redcloak it's the reason he doesn't consider Orcs to properly oppressed.
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ginasius View Post
    I think you should start a thread about Fenrtanylr or whatever it is called....
    At this point, we could make an entire Chain of Corrections about Fentanyl's name.
    If you know any OOTS liveblogs or similar reactions that aren't dafukdidiwatch or mindareadsoots, please message me with them. I am starved of OOTS reaction content.
    Also anyone analyzing it or using it as an example for something like thewebcomicsreview does sometimes. I just need more OOTS content.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roselily2006 View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dion View Post
    Ha ha ha ha. No, just kidding. We should argue.

  23. - Top - End - #173
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Flumph

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by bunsen_h View Post
    Is there anything in the rules which addresses this? -- whether children of characters with certain stats tend to have stats which resemble their parents'? In-comic, the chosen professions of Horace, Eugene, and Roy tend to suggest otherwise, though clearly Roy is no dunce.
    I don't think there are rules for stats of kids specifically (there might be an obscure published article somewhere but it never comes up in actual games, so). I don't see Eugene as a particular example against such heritability though, and as said by Ionathus, there are some clear lines of things being passed down.



    In general and just thinking about this more, the old age rules do suggest that heritability and early childhood experiences don't affect life expectancy (and neither does diet or literally anything else).

    It's possible that humans are just so completely different from us in ootsworld that they lack not only genetics (yet can still inherit appearance) but also stuff like "the effects of your mother being malnourished while she was pregnant with you," and "the effects of being malnourished and understimulated yourself in early life," to the point that there's just no actual disadvantage to being born impoverished at all.*

    But all of that does seem kind of aligned with the stuff that Elan brought up about Nale's upbringing. For that matter, that storyline did seem to suggest that traits like dramatic flair and penchant for complicated scheming are inheritable. It's also suggested that being hit in one's soft undeveloped baby skull can affect your future outcome. I think the story we're told about heritability and individual starting positions in ootsworld (within the Human race) is that there are effects and they can disadvantage you for life, you're just still responsible for your own moral choices and unlearning what you've been taught in adulthood.



    *Personally I'm not a fan of this kind of thing. I don't see the goblins in oots used as an actual stand-in for disadvantaged humans. Rather it seems like the story is saying "this broad principle of fairness and inherited inequality is true, and in our story it applies to goblins, though it also applies elsewhere." So I don't have a problem with that.

    But generally I dislike when stories take things like oppression based on the experiences of actual humans, and apply it to an inhuman group, and then completely bar it from applying to humans within the world. In itself it's not bad for a single fantasy world to do this. But it's something of a trend, and I dislike "human" becoming equated with "majority group, privileged, etc." in an entire genre. Because it isn't true that "privileged person from the majority group" equals "having humanity."
    Last edited by Good Coyote; 2021-04-22 at 02:10 PM.

  24. - Top - End - #174
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    So Thor says that the goblinoids weren't intentionally created to lose/as xp-fodder... But some god clearly had it out for them when they created the world.

    Whoever created the dwarfs and the gnomes gave them an attack bonus vs. goblinoids. Knowing you have a bonus when fighting specific races is an incentive to fight these races rather than other races as you'll have an extra edge if you fight goblinoids rather than f.ex. humans or elves.

    So it would seem that some god desired conflict between the gnomes/dwarves and the goblinoids and wanted to gnomes/dwarves to be more likely to win such conflicts.

  25. - Top - End - #175
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    SwashbucklerGuy

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ionathus View Post
    None of your responses address the fact that the goblinoids definitely started out at a disadvantage.
    No, they didn't start at a disadvantage. They were created by Fenris to actually prevail. But the scheme failed.

  26. - Top - End - #176
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    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Roselily2006 View Post
    At this point, we could make an entire Chain of Corrections about Fentanyl's name.
    Why have a chain of corrections? We all know his proper name is FernGullyr.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Pilgrim View Post
    No, they didn't start at a disadvantage. They were created by Fenris to actually prevail. But the scheme failed.
    According to today's comic, second page, panels 2-3:

    Durkon: "But tha goblins start'd out wit less, so tha's na usu'lly wha happens. Wha happens, tha dwarf wins cuz 'e's gotta better axe an' better armor an's been eatin' better food 'is whole life!...it's na 'xactly fair fer tha goblin.

    Thor: "I mean...yes, that's true. We didn't really plan it that way on purpose...but I guess we didn't really prevent it, either.
    Last edited by Ionathus; 2021-04-22 at 02:06 PM.

  27. - Top - End - #177
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    Devil

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    I wonder how Redcloak or the Dark One would feel if they knew that the goblins were intended by Fenris not only to not be victims but to actually dominate the entire world and he just miscalculated?

  28. - Top - End - #178
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    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by masamune1 View Post
    I wonder how Redcloak or the Dark One would feel if they knew that the goblins were intended by Fenris not only to not be victims but to actually dominate the entire world and he just miscalculated?
    Blame Fresni for abandoning them, or shift blame to the other gods for not "adopting" them after his abandonment. Or probably both. I can't imagine the revelation of their failed supremacy would be very comforting, though.

  29. - Top - End - #179
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    Flumph

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Thinking about it still (my apologies for having such messy thoughts today), the fact that Commoner and Aristocrat are NPC classes definitely suggests that you can end up with mechanically different things depending on your birth station.

    According to Google, the aristocrat not only has more skill points and proficiencies, but also a larger hit die (d8 v d6), so literally better health and harder to kill.

  30. - Top - End - #180
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    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: OOTS #1232 - The Discussion Thread

    Like the addition of Gleipnir

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