MitD XVII: [Y]ou were quite clear. I was just being pedantic

[Kish]

My view is he writes a gaming comic. Gaming material is a bunch of writing prompts. We have to assume he enjoys writing to prompts or he wouldn’t be writing a gaming comic. For example, the very first comic is all about the update to 3.5, and after that a joke about how rangers got nerfed.

And he's said that he regrets beginning the comic with that strip, too.

“I barely even reference the 3.5 rules anymore, using them just to determine what sort of spells or class abilities a character might have and then ignoring them the rest of the time,” is an admission that he uses gaming material for writing prompts and is not a simulationist.

That's so completely backwards from anything I could imagine reading that as. Something he said about how little he thinks about the game rules now means, somehow, that game rules are huge and central.

[Ruck]

And he's said that he regrets beginning the comic with that strip, too.

That's so completely backwards from anything I could imagine reading that as. Something he said about how little he thinks about the game rules now means, somehow, that game rules are huge and central.

Yeah, I agree, and I think the focus on the OOTS as a product of a writing prompt is still misguided, as I'll elaborate below...

My view is he writes a gaming comic. Gaming material is a bunch of writing prompts. We have to assume he enjoys writing to prompts or he wouldn’t be writing a gaming comic. For example, the very first comic is all about the update to 3.5, and after that a joke about how rangers got nerfed. The update prompted the comic. This is common for many authors. Anyone entering any kind of writing contest is expecting to be given a prompt, and writing well to prompts is a sign of expertise.

I don't think it follows that he has to enjoy "writing from a prompt" because he's writing about gaming, and the assumption that OOTS came from a prompt is even more tenuous and thinly sourced. "OOTS is based in gaming, therefore the story and character arcs came from writing prompts" just doesn't follow for me, especially given how far removed the story has gotten from gaming.

The early comic jokes like the one you reference came before he decided on the series-long arcs and the story he wanted to tell. I think the point came where he realized he had an audience for the strip and decided that if it was going to be a major work of his, that he would want to tell the kind of story he wanted to tell. To the extent there was any prompting, it was only from the characters he had already created and what he had to work with about them from the early strips.

Writing prompts are for exercises in writing. This isn't an exercise; it's something Rich has been working on for almost twenty years (and still has a few to go, most likely); it'll likely be the work he's most remembered by. I think, knowing how long a story he was planning out when he decided to plan the overall arc, his storytelling choices would reflect what he wanted to say and be remembered by, not just picking D&D tropes and monsters and what have you he found interesting and then writing a story around them.

[woweedd]

I’m basing it more on the Q&A he gives to MitD fans, not what he’s actually written.



I agree this is the big disagreement.

My view is he writes a gaming comic. Gaming material is a bunch of writing prompts. We have to assume he enjoys writing to prompts or he wouldn’t be writing a gaming comic. For example, the very first comic is all about the update to 3.5, and after that a joke about how rangers got nerfed. The update prompted the comic. This is common for many authors. Anyone entering any kind of writing contest is expecting to be given a prompt, and writing well to prompts is a sign of expertise.

“I barely even reference the 3.5 rules anymore, using them just to determine what sort of spells or class abilities a character might have and then ignoring them the rest of the time,” is an admission that he uses gaming material for writing prompts and is not a simulationist.

“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?” shows that, however distant he is from simulationism, he feels bound by his prompts, which is how prompts work. Writing outside the prompt is a faux pas.

“There’s no answer that’s better than what he is because everything written for the last 15 years has been written with that answer in mind,” implies that he had no scenes in mind while shopping for the monster, because any scene he had in mind prior to picking the monster wasn’t tailored to the monster. IOW, all of the MitD’s scenes are prompted. Maybe not always by its statblock, but it has to figure.

So the best contrast for this idea and the idea that he had his plans first, then picked a monster, is the Protean. My version of the story has to be that, first, Rich was attracted to the Protean in some way. We can keep using it as a metaphor for change. Then he had to try the monster out, see what work it does for him as an author, and it doesn’t. It’s almost unique in that every scene you want to write to it starts with yet another round of monster shopping, making the MitD exponentially more difficult to write for than any other character. Maybe for a main character that could happen, but for the villain’s comic relief it’s a chore.

On the other hand, if Rich decided in advance that the MitD was going to switch sides, if he knew there was going to be a tower scene and an escape scene, and that the monster was going to have to beat up Miko and help O-Chul escape, then yeah, the Protean is great. It can slide through any hoop you pass over it, and it can never be disproven because it can slide through any hoop you pass over it.

But it’s still a pain to write for Rich, because choosing the Protean still means he has to shop for monsters for as many of the scenes as he’s picked out in his head. The Protean is not an out for Rich, it’s U-turn straight into the monster manuals to look for a real out.



CoC spells are not dependent on class, level, feats, attributes, or other features. Anyone can learn one, even a level 1 commoner with a few weeks on his hands. There’s an explicit rule that says monsters can learn them too, with the same rules as PCs, from books, from teachers (maybe the father he remembers seeing), or from plot intervention. The HH has a few hooks that would justify plot intervention. We’ve already seen the MitD be strangely familiar with high level magic when it recognized Tsukiko’s half ritual. And then you have everything else I’ve already written: CoC spells are not allowed, by the rules, to be exactly what’s in the book, they have to be strange and mysterious, and they can’t seem easy, mundane, mechanical, or safe, all of which the spell commits to.

I think the spell is grounded firmly in the rules and not dodgy in the least, I left the word in because of sentiment on the board.

But with that out of my system: What’s your definition of supported? And I’m not asking you to represent the thread on this, just speak for yourself. Can you give me a few examples of things you think would be supported vs unsupported to help clarify?

For reffence, I was being literal: you don’t know Rich. None of us actually do. If the only way you interact with someone is when they're in a piblic-facing capicity, you don't know them. And I don't think psychoanalzying a man we've never met is a very productive avenue.

[puzzler7]

Welcome to the Protean People! Platoon? Party? Partnership? Patrol? Pack?

I'm thinking "Pack" but I'm open to suggestions.

I'd vote for Protean Platoon, if only for P..t..n symmetry.

[Tubercular Ox]

For reffence, I was being literal: you don’t know Rich. None of us actually do. If the only way you interact with someone is when they're in a piblic-facing capicity, you don't know them. And I don't think psychoanalzying a man we've never met is a very productive avenue.

Then we should erase every Rich quote from the top thread. They're misleading.

[Keltest]

Then we should erase every Rich quote from the top thread. They're misleading.

In what way are they misleading?

[Ruck]

Welcome to the Protean People! Platoon? Party? Partnership? Patrol? Pack?

I'm thinking "Pack" but I'm open to suggestions.

I'd vote for Protean Platoon, if only for P..t..n symmetry.

How about Pro-team?

[Tzardok]

In what way are they misleading?

I think Tubercular Ox is trying to build a false dichotomy. His original point was "I know what kind of person Rich is and what he thinks like from reading his comic and his posts, and from that I can deduce what the MitD is". And after the impossibility of this was pointed out, he now goes "Well, if we can't know what Rich thinks, then all his quotes won't help and can't be considered," ignoring that there is a difference between using what he said and guessing what he thought when he said that.

[Tubercular Ox]

In what way are they misleading?

I think Tubercular Ox is trying to build a false dichotomy. His original point was "I know what kind of person Rich is and what he thinks like from reading his comic and his posts, and from that I can deduce what the MitD is". And after the impossibility of this was pointed out, he now goes "Well, if we can't know what Rich thinks, then all his quotes won't help and can't be considered," ignoring that there is a difference between using what he said and guessing what he thought when he said that.

It's unambiguous to me that Rich is an author trying to create his own story within the confines of D&D, but people are treating it as inarguable that Rich is an author trying to recreate his own story within the confines of D&D. If it's impossible to know Rich's thoughts without illegal psychoanalysis, don't post what Rich thinks. It's not a false dichotomy, it's a blatant contradiction.

[Peelee]

It's unambiguous to me that Rich is an author trying to create his own story within the confines of D&D, but people are treating it as inarguable that Rich is an author trying to recreate his own story within the confines of D&D. If it's impossible to know Rich's thoughts without illegal psychoanalysis, don't post what Rich thinks. It's not a false dichotomy, it's a blatant contradiction.

Perhaps this might help.

What I really want is to write the comic with moderate broad-strokes adherence to the concepts embodied in D&D, and for everyone to get off my back when I get some of the fiddly details wrong, or invent a new thing that doesn't currently exist in the game.

Flowchart of D&D rules accuracy as they pertain to the comic, as drawn by the author.

"Within the confines of D&D" is not as hard and fast as you seem to think it is.

[Tubercular Ox]

Perhaps this might help.


Flowchart of D&D rules accuracy as they pertain to the comic, as drawn by the author.

"Within the confines of D&D" is not as hard and fast as you seem to think it is.

I'm happy to have more quotes from Rich. Is that from a different thread?

[Peelee]

I'm happy to have more quotes from Rich. Is that from a different thread?

In a quote block, there's a little double arrow box next to the name of the person being quoted. Click that and it'll take you to the post/thread it was posted in.

There is also an index thread compiling comments made by the author.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It's unambiguous to me that Rich is an author trying to create his own story within the confines of D&D, but people are treating it as inarguable that Rich is an author trying to recreate his own story within the confines of D&D. If it's impossible to know Rich's thoughts without illegal psychoanalysis, don't post what Rich thinks. It's not a false dichotomy, it's a blatant contradiction.

Therefore I should delete all quotes where the author states facts about MitD such as "The reveal is a crucial part of the story"?

Yeah, that is not going to happen.

GW

[Ruck]

"Within the confines of D&D" is not as hard and fast as you seem to think it is.

Yep, that's it. Rich has been repeatedly clear that D&D gives the story an origin and a rough framework, but he doesn't much care about strictly adhering to it. "Within the confines of D&D" isn't accurate; "the story was prompted by creatures in D&D Rich thought were cool and decided to write around" even less so.

[lio45]

Yep, that's it. Rich has been repeatedly clear that D&D gives the story an origin and a rough framework, but he doesn't much care about strictly adhering to it. "Within the confines of D&D" isn't accurate; "the story was prompted by creatures in D&D Rich thought were cool and decided to write around" even less so.

I find Ox makes an interesting/decent case for the HH, but I strongly refuse his portrayal of Rich as someone who ever felt the need to dig into source manuals before moving forward with his story, even in the very earliest days (let alone nowadays!)

Can one of you guys find Rich’s “flow chart for fidelity to the rules in the comic” for us? :) That’s all the psychoanalysis we need …

Edit - found it myself:

[Peelee]

Can one of you guys find Rich’s “flow chart for fidelity to the rules in the comic” for us? :) That’s all the psychoanalysis we need...

Flowchart of D&D rules accuracy as they pertain to the comic, as drawn by the author.

Glad to pre-emptively be of service.

[lio45]

Huh. That’s what I get for not clicking on any links from questionable sources. :P ;)

(Actually, even without clicking, had I paid a bit more attention to your link’s title, I’d have figured it out!)

[Tubercular Ox]

In a quote block, there's a little double arrow box next to the name of the person being quoted. Click that and it'll take you to the post/thread it was posted in.

There is also an index thread compiling comments made by the author.

Thank you!

When I read that quote and look at that flowchart, I see someone trying to create a story telling people he's not trying to recreate a story.

The entry point for the flowchart is "Do I remember?" meaning he's confident he knew at some point in the past. This is what I've been saying. He reads the rules first, gets his ideas, then creates his story. The counterclaim I'm hearing is he wrote his story first then went into the monster manuals and tried to make something fit. That contradicts the flowchart.

As for the confines of D&D, fair enough. Confines is a very restrictive word and I think we are both imagining something more liberal. Let me backtrack and congratulate you guys on taking the size thing a lot less seriously than eight years ago. That's in the right direction.

[Peelee]

The entry point for the flowchart is "Do I remember?" meaning he's confident he knew at some point in the past. This is what I've been saying. He reads the rules first, gets his ideas, then creates his story. The counterclaim I'm hearing is he wrote his story first then went into the monster manuals and tried to make something fit. That contradicts the flowchart.

Suffice it to say that I have a significantly different takeaway from what he says about how rules interact with the story than you do.

[Ruck]

There is a huge, unsupported leap from this:

The entry point for the flowchart is "Do I remember?" meaning he's confident he knew at some point in the past.

To this:

This is what I've been saying. He reads the rules first, gets his ideas, then creates his story.

---

Suffice it to say that I have a significantly different takeaway from what he says about how rules interact with the story than you do.

More specifically, how does "I try to remember the rules for mechanics when they come up in the story, and if I get them wrong, I don't really care" translate to "He reads the rules first, gets his ideas, then creates his story"?

[Keltest]

Thank you!

When I read that quote and look at that flowchart, I see someone trying to create a story telling people he's not trying to recreate a story.

The entry point for the flowchart is "Do I remember?" meaning he's confident he knew at some point in the past. This is what I've been saying. He reads the rules first, gets his ideas, then creates his story. The counterclaim I'm hearing is he wrote his story first then went into the monster manuals and tried to make something fit. That contradicts the flowchart.

As for the confines of D&D, fair enough. Confines is a very restrictive word and I think we are both imagining something more liberal. Let me backtrack and congratulate you guys on taking the size thing a lot less seriously than eight years ago. That's in the right direction.

You may want to look closer at the flow chart, as there is in fact not actually an option where he checks the rules to see if theyre correct. He makes a half-remembered reference that may or may not be correct and doesnt really care if it is.

[Sir_Norbert]

Thank you!When I read that quote and look at that flowchart, I see someone trying to create a story telling people he's not trying to recreate a story.

Maybe it would aid clarity if you told us what you mean by the word "recreate"?

The Giant is certainly not trying to retell an already existing story, and I can't think what else the word could mean in this context.

[lio45]

Rich doesn’t have enough free time to go and “read D&D rules” before writing his story, and that suggestion flies in the face of everything we know. He (generally) knows the rules because for many years, he was gaming/DMing. The way he talks suggests those years are mostly behind him.

[Jasdoif]

There is also an index thread compiling comments made by the author.

Ahem.

---

He (generally) knows the rules because for many years, he was gaming/DMing.

And also a freelance writer of D&D material for Wizards of the Coast.

[InvisibleBison]

I feel like people are losing sight of how the fact that the comic has been going on for a long, long time. Statements Rich has made about his creative process or how he engages with the D&D rules in 2022 or in 2013 don't necessarily reflect how he was thinking about things in 2004 when he picked the identity of the MitD. I think it's very risky to base a theory on a much later quote, especially since we know his attitude on these things has changed over time.

[Peelee]

I feel like people are losing sight of how the fact that the comic has been going on for a long, long time. Statements Rich has made about his creative process or how he engages with the D&D rules in 2022 or in 2013 don't necessarily reflect how he was thinking about things in 2004 when he picked the identity of the MitD. I think it's very risky to base a theory on a much later quote, especially since we know his attitude on these things has changed over time.

I agree, but he has so stated that he decided what threMitD was after he figured out the story and also that the reveal is a crucial part of the story. This means that he came up with the story first and then found something that fit the story he wanted to tell and not that he picked a creature and wrote a story around it.

[Tubercular Ox]

Thank you all for your answers, I’m sorry for not replying one by one. We’re starting to look in the same direction here.

As long as rich has ideas, he’s not going to go back for more. And in the modern day, there may be no more ideas to go back for because he’s already read every 3.5 manual he’s ever going to read. They’re not printing any more.

But at the moment when he was looking up a MitD, he had no ideas. He even told us he was expecting the MitD never to be revealed.

So the quote is “Once I started developing the real story that I was telling, around strip #100, I figured out what the monster really was and have been dropping hints ever since.”

That’s not the same as “he has so stated that he decided what the MitD was after he figured out the story”

My suggestion is that he was in the process of developing the story when he put conscious effort into figuring out what the MitD was, which counts as developing the story. It wasn’t this first, then the other. He knows his material, he uses it to have ideas, then he runs out of ideas and returns to the material. That's how he went from a general knowledge of D&D to a D&D parody comic to needing a monster for the MitD to be and checking the manuals for one.

And from a practical standpoint, why would he make any decision that would limit the number of monsters that could be the MitD without first looking to see if there were an awesome monster that would blow him away? I’m not saying the HH is that monster, I’m not saying that monster exists. He may have gotten tired of looking and decided to settle on something. But every plot point he adds to the MitD without knowing what it is just limits his options and makes the MitD harder to choose. Even something as simple as deciding on a child robs him of the possibility of an amazing monster without the right life cycle.

[Ruck]

But at the moment when he was looking up a MitD, he had no ideas. He even told us he was expecting the MitD never to be revealed.

He was never expected to be revealed initially. Once he started developing the real story he was telling, he decided on what MitD was and that the reveal would be "a crucial part of the story."

So the quote is “Once I started developing the real story that I was telling, around strip #100, I figured out what the monster really was and have been dropping hints ever since.”

That’s not the same as “he has so stated that he decided what the MitD was after he figured out the story”

It is a lot closer to "Rich figured out the MitD's species in the process of developing the real story, because that species and reveal is a crucial part of the real story" than it is to "Rich looked through monster manuals to find a cool monster he likes, then wrote the story to that."

My suggestion is that he was in the process of developing the story when he put conscious effort into figuring out what the MitD was, which counts as developing the story. It wasn’t this first, then the other.

Sure. But, again, this comes down to the MitD's species and reveal being "a crucial part of the story," and not just a guessing game or a chance to draw an awesome monster. Because it's a crucial part of the story, my assumption at least (and I think that of most others) is that the species is relevant in some way to the story itself, or at least to MitD's story, and that's why Rich chose it. Not because he was flipping through books to find a really cool monster.

And from a practical standpoint, why would he make any decision that would limit the number of monsters that could be the MitD without first looking to see if there were an awesome monster that would blow him away?

Because the story of MitD has more to do with what kind of person he is and what his character is rather than how cool his species type is.

I’m not saying the HH is that monster, I’m not saying that monster exists. He may have gotten tired of looking and decided to settle on something.

I don't think something he considers "a crucial part of the story" would fall under something he would get tired of looking for and settle on.

But every plot point he adds to the MitD without knowing what it is just limits his options and makes the MitD harder to choose. Even something as simple as deciding on a child robs him of the possibility of an amazing monster without the right life cycle.

I don't really understand what plot points you think could be added that could limit the species, other than your example. (And said plot point is crucial to the MitD's arc and development, so, yes, I do think he would have decided on that first.)

Again, this argument seems to be premised on the idea that MitD's species was chosen for its coolness or how much it impressed Rich, rather than for the needs of the story.

[Peelee]

It is a lot closer to "Rich figured out the MitD's species in the process of developing the real story, because that species and reveal is a crucial part of the real story" than it is to "Rich looked through monster manuals to find a cool monster he likes, then wrote the story to that."

Especially since the MitD isn't a terribly big part of the story. The author could easily have just dropped him and had Redcloak and Xykon escape the Dungeon of Dorukan alone. Speaking solely for myself, I find it straining credulity to think that he was coming up with a story, thought of a monster, made that the MitD, and then wrote that story around what it was rather than coming up with a story, came across a monster that happened to fit in with said story, made that the MitD, and then worked him into parts as needed.

[Keltest]

It is a lot closer to "Rich figured out the MitD's species in the process of developing the real story, because that species and reveal is a crucial part of the real story" than it is to "Rich looked through monster manuals to find a cool monster he likes, then wrote the story to that."

Sure. But, again, this comes down to the MitD's species and reveal being "a crucial part of the story," and not just a guessing game or a chance to draw an awesome monster. Because it's a crucial part of the story, my assumption at least (and I think that of most others) is that the species is relevant in some way to the story itself, or at least to MitD's story, and that's why Rich chose it. Not because he was flipping through books to find a really cool monster.

Dont these seem to contradict this?

Because the story of MitD has more to do with what kind of person he is and what his character is rather than how cool his species type is.