OOTS #1297 - The Discussion Thread

[bunsen_h]

The mark of a good Faustian benefactor is that they can lie to you without saying anything technically untrue.

There are several ways that such stories can go.

• Outright tragedy. The bad consequences are laid out in advance, and the interest comes from watching the protagonist degenerate to their ultimate fate.
• How will the bad consequences accrue despite the protagonist trying to avoid them? How was/will the protagonist [be] tricked?
• How will the protagonist turn the tables on the evil power -- tricking the devil in turn? This comes up most frequently when the protagonist never meant to create a deal in the first place, but has somehow been trapped by rules they didn't know about. See, for example, Haldeman's "I of Newton". ("Of course it's not fair. We're Evil! Look it up!")

[gbaji]

I don't want to accidentally imply that one must know the rules in order to enjoy the comic, that's obviously not the case. But if your reaction to an argument centered on the rules is going to be, "I don't know the rules and I don't care to learn," then it feels like you're trying to shut down the conversation.

I think it's more that not everything that happens in the comic has to comply with strict 3e rules, and this may seem to be a case where that is in effect.

Everything that's happened recently has had rewards for people who like the rules: Calder hypnotizing Sunny while frozen, Elan casting a spell he's never cast before, V trying to exploit a weakness Calder doesn't have anymore. All of those are awesome. And then there's a whole bunch of stuff to please people who like the rules that people who don't like the rules wouldn't even know to care about, like Calder hovering in place or the analyzable action economy.

Except that every single one of those things also makes complete sense even if you know nothing of the rules of 3e D&D. A dragon being in stasis but still aware of this and able to use its mind makes sense and is explained via the very simple "he's kind of a mindbender". I don't need to know what that means in game terms to understand that he's got mental abilities, and for whatever reason this means that even while his body is frozen, his mind is still able to do things (like control Sunny). Same deal with attempting to use cold abilities on a fire breathing dragon. The dialogue itself explains that normally a red dragon would be vulnerable to cold, but this one isn't, and we don't need to know a lick about the game rules to follow along with that.

Polar Ray is the glaring exception of the past few strips, and if you're going to argue it doesn't matter that it's a glaring exception, then you're back to arguing that the ball floats because gravity failed.

Except it's only a glaring exception if you are starting with "I'm a rules purist and I must make everything that happens in the strip fit into my knowledge of the rules". If you are just reading the comic, and don't know or care about the rules, nothing is out of place at all. The reaction is "Oh. He just fired cold beams out of his eyes and hit the wizard. That's cool (hah. Literally!)". Done. We move on.

I'm not saying Ocular Spell is the answer. I'm saying proving that Polar Ray followed no rules requires just as much positive evidence as proving that a particular rule was followed, because that would be unique among ray spells and unique among other events of the past two or three strips. It is not a safe default.

Or we assume, as Rich himself has stated numerous times, that if he has a choice between "make things just like the rules say" and "make my story and art work and be fun/cool", he will do the later.

At the end of the day, what body part a spell shoots out of is just a cosmetic effect. And might even seem silly to be strict about when we're dealing with non-humans anyway. Speculating about what combination of feats and spells and metamagic bits may have been invovled is great. Taking that a step further and saying "well that doesn't work because to do that, it would require X level of caster of Y class, which would cause the spell to be Z level of power and result in <something that didn't happen in the strip>" is not great. Because at that point, you are running towards rejecting what the strip actually showed us (that Calder fired off a polar ray, which took the form of two parallel beams emanating from his eyes, that hit V for significant damage, but did not appear to have been fatal) because it doesn't match up with "how the rules should work". Speculate all you want about what exact game rules and effects were in play to do that, but at the end of the day, all of that speculation takes a back seat to what was actually shown to happen in the strip itself.

Doesn't mean we can't or should not speculate. But I think what was being said previously is that if your speculation leads you to a conflict with what was actually shown in the strip, you should either change the speculation to find something that does work with what was shown in the strip, or just shrug and say "well, Rich doesn't always follow the rules", and move on.

Or... we go with the "least complex explanation", which is that the polar ray spell says that it "springs from your hand", and dragons don't have hands (they have claws), so Rich decided to have the ray come from his eyes instead (cause that looks cooler, and allows him to keep the head in the frame. And since it would look strange to have one ray coming out of one eye, but not the other, he just showed it graphically as two parallel rays. But it's still just one casting of a normal polar ray spell, that just looks different (ie: purely cosmetic difference) when cast by this dragon in this situation. This allows for what we see, without requiring any extra feats or ablities, and also why V might survive it.

[Kish]

Also a sudden twist has already been done, so I think doing that a second time would be a lot less impactful.

What was the twist?

(Hopefully you don't mean the time not being after Vaarsuvius' death; over 95% of the forum guessed that immediately. What did surprise people was that the IFCC did not possess Vaarsuvius but just left their body empty.)

[danielxcutter]

What was the twist?

(Hopefully you don't mean the time not being after Vaarsuvius' death; over 95% of the forum guessed that immediately. What did surprise people was that the IFCC did not possess Vaarsuvius but just left their body empty.)

That entire bit as a whole counts as a twist I’d say. The time and leaving the body empty.

[Somniloquist]

What was the twist?

(Hopefully you don't mean the time not being after Vaarsuvius' death; over 95% of the forum guessed that immediately. What did surprise people was that the IFCC did not possess Vaarsuvius but just left their body empty.)

I think you're forgetting that most readers of the comic don't spend an unhealthy amount of time keeping up with these forum threads debating every possible plot twist. For normal people (i.e. not us), that was a pretty neat twist.

[H_H_F_F]

I think you're forgetting that most readers of the comic don't spend an unhealthy amount of time keeping up with these forum threads debating every possible plot twist. For normal people (i.e. not us), that was a pretty neat twist.

I can attest that as someone only casually involved in discussions (and who read up to around Kraggor's tomb with no breaks) that was indeed a neat twist. I tried to figure out what would be the significance. I guessed correctly that the familycide would impact the order negatively, and thought that was the plan; I didn't consider the whole "while V's alive" aspect.

[Kardwill]

Yeah, I first thought the plan was to encourage V's dark side to plant an Evil, "the end justifies any mean" pawn in the Order. I guessed there was more (there is always "more" in any Deal with the Devil story), but I didn't expect the timing twist, although it was obvious in retrospect (like any good surprise twist should be )

[fuschiawarrior]

Just because people figured out, it doesn't mean it wasn't intended as twist.

My take is that IFCC needs a souless but still living body near the Gate for their artifact/ vessel plan to work, what they need it for I don't know but they will probably not possess their body.

I don't worry this plot thread wil have an unsatisfactory resolution Rich has been planing it since before the OotS went to see the Oracle, it's probably as old as the planning for Belkar's death. Rich hasn't disappointed on the delivery of these old plot threads so far.

[brian 333]

I am reminded, in each of these rules debates, that The Giant has consistently shown a broader and deeper grasp of the rules than all of us. In the very few instances where there is a legitimate claim that he got a rule wrong it has been shown that it was an artistic or storytelling choice. But even in such cases, there are no major rules violations; rather, an unlikely series of unlucky, (or lucky,) die rolls would be required.

If your conclusion is that anything on page is a rules violation, I suggest you might be one rule short of a full splatbook.

[Tubercular Ox]

I think it's more that not everything that happens in the comic has to comply with strict 3e rules, and this may seem to be a case where that is in effect.

I never said everything has to comply with strict 3e rules. I said claims that this doesn’t follow a rule need as much evidence as claims that it follows a particular rule, and I’ll add that in the absence of either of those, the evidence is strongly in favor of it following the rules in a way we don’t understand yet.

You are showing all or nothing thinking. Because I am arguing that Rich follows the rules to the extent that we can observe, you act like I am arguing that Rich must follow the rules all the time. And the nothing is demonstrated in your counterargument, that there can be no bias towards thinking something follows the rules, regardless of how many times it’s turned out to be the case.

Except that every single one of those things also makes complete sense even if you know nothing of the rules of 3e D&D … and we don't need to know a lick about the game rules to follow along with that.

Wow, yes, Rich is a genius for feeding rules fans without interfering with the story in a way non-rules fans would notice, except when you can’t figure out what rule he’s using in a single panel. Then all that genius leaves his body and we have to believe he lacks the subtlety to incorporate rules we haven’t understood yet.

But if later there’s additional evidence that explains this one panel in a way that follows the rules, the genius floods back into his body retroactively. Rich was brilliant! Why didn’t we have faith?

Why didn’t we have faith?

Except it's only a glaring exception if you are starting with "I'm a rules purist and I must make everything that happens in the strip fit into my knowledge of the rules".

Not me, for reasons stated above. Rich is following the rules to the extent we see him follow the rules, which is neither all the time nor never.

If you are just reading the comic, and don't know or care about the rules, nothing is out of place at all. The reaction is "Oh. He just fired cold beams out of his eyes and hit the wizard. That's cool (hah. Literally!)". Done. We move on.

Yes, if you stand on the sidelines while other people hunt, you get no easter eggs. If you think easter egg hunts are lame, you don’t even miss out on anything.

Why interfere? I’m not making any positive claims about the story other than, “Rich does this kind of thing a lot,” and it’s hurting you enough to speak out for a Rich that doesn’t like easter egg hunts, when he clearly does.

Or we assume, as Rich himself has stated numerous times, that if he has a choice between "make things just like the rules say" and "make my story and art work and be fun/cool", he will do the later.

I have yet to see an instance of this that was not in the context of people telling Rich he’s doing it wrong and should change. You should wait for me to say Rich is doing it wrong before leveling it at me.

But I think what was being said previously is that if your speculation leads you to a conflict with what was actually shown in the strip, you should either change the speculation to find something that does work with what was shown in the strip, or just shrug and say "well, Rich doesn't always follow the rules", and move on.

What? What speculation? My position the entire time has been that the evidence -- which includes the visual evidence of the panel itself -- does not support any particular conclusion at this time. This is the opposite of conflict with what is shown in the strip, in that I am putting the panel first.

Or... we go with the "least complex explanation", which is that the polar ray spell says that it "springs from your hand", and dragons don't have hands (they have claws), so Rich decided to have the ray come from his eyes instead (cause that looks cooler, and allows him to keep the head in the frame. And since it would look strange to have one ray coming out of one eye, but not the other, he just showed it graphically as two parallel rays. But it's still just one casting of a normal polar ray spell, that just looks different (ie: purely cosmetic difference) when cast by this dragon in this situation. This allows for what we see, without requiring any extra feats or ablities, and also why V might survive it.

This is not the least complex explanation, because it posits a kind of Rich that is contradicted by other panels in the same strip, other strips in the same scene, other instances of ray spells, and other times Rich has gone wildly outside the rules. A Rich that is considerably more low-effort than the Rich we see when we understand what he’s doing.

[KorvinStarmast]

My take is that IFCC needs a souless but still living body near the Gate for their artifact/ vessel plan to work, what they need it for I don't know but they will probably not possess their body.

The vessel mentioned here in panel 8 is thus destined to integrate with V, whose soul gets a time out.
That informs juxtapositions - V to fiends to V - in that strip. I had not thought about it that way, but as I look back at the strip I think you are on to something there. (Am I following your train of thought correctly?)

Rich has been planing it since before the OotS went to see the Oracle,

He sanded it for a while during book 5. (fun with typos)

The Giant has consistently shown a broader and deeper grasp of the rules than all of us.

He sure knows his source material, yes.

If your conclusion is that anything on page is a rules violation, I suggest you might be one rule short of a full splatbook.

I'll add a coda to that: in D&D 5e, the devs have in various ways stated clearly that the rules serve the game, not the other way around.
I get the idea that Rich takes that approach as well.

[gbaji]

I never said everything has to comply with strict 3e rules. I said claims that this doesn’t follow a rule need as much evidence as claims that it follows a particular rule, and I’ll add that in the absence of either of those, the evidence is strongly in favor of it following the rules in a way we don’t understand yet.

Sure. But could "following the rules in a way we don't understand yet" include "it's just a normal polar ray spell, and the whole "two beams coming from they eyes" is just a cosmetic effect? Cause that's one one "side" was saying, and the other "side" inisisted that since there were two beams, and they came from the eyes, it had to be some other combination of feats and magic.

Which is where you jumped in seemingly supporting the "side" insisting that we must follow the path of discovering some combination of feats and metamagic to explain the effect we see in the strip. If that was not your intent, then we're fine and can move on.

But if later there’s additional evidence that explains this one panel in a way that follows the rules, the genius floods back into his body retroactively. Rich was brilliant! Why didn’t we have faith?

Sure. But in the meantime, we've had like 3 pages of posts of people insisting that what we were shown in the strip was inacurate because in order for there to be two beams coming from the eyes, the dragon would have to use some combination of feats which would increase the spell(s) potentency to point where V should be dead dead dead and/or that the dragon itself has to be well into epic levels of spell casting (or whatever) pushing its age category to <whatever>, etc, etc.

some of us are merely suggesting that the actual "simplest explanation" is that this is just how the strip is portraying a standard casting of a polar ray spell by a dragon, and not to read too much into it. Is it possible for there to be a more complex exlanation involving combinations feats and abilities? Absolutely. Need there be? No.

Yes, if you stand on the sidelines while other people hunt, you get no easter eggs. If you think easter egg hunts are lame, you don’t even miss out on anything.

Right. And when the easter eggs include yummy candy and result in happiness, that's great advice. But when the hunt you are on leads you to disastifaction or confusion or conflict, then there's a point at which maybe you should abandon it. Right?

At the point where folks are criticising (or at least questioning) the events in the strip, as a result of their examination of the magical process that they believe must be involved, then this maybe suggests to us that they have gone a bit overboard. That's all I'm saying. And I believe that's all the previous poster was saying, to which you responded earlier.

What? What speculation? My position the entire time has been that the evidence -- which includes the visual evidence of the panel itself -- does not support any particular conclusion at this time. This is the opposite of conflict with what is shown in the strip, in that I am putting the panel first.

You certainly seemed to be very negative towards the idea that this was just how Rich decided to portray the spell, and not some other feat being used:

Secondly, Rich has a habit of drawing rays from the finger. Assuming he gave up on that habit without impetus is like throwing a ball into the air, seeing it not come down, and assuming gravity failed that day instead of the ball having some quality that keeps it in the air.

Hard to take this as anything other than a sound rejection of the "this is just how he's portraying the spell in the art" position. So to now claim that you have no particular opinion, nor are making any claims at all, seems a bit strange.

This is not the least complex explanation, because it posits a kind of Rich that is contradicted by other panels in the same strip, other strips in the same scene, other instances of ray spells, and other times Rich has gone wildly outside the rules. A Rich that is considerably more low-effort than the Rich we see when we understand what he’s doing.

No. It is literally the least complex explanation. Maybe you and I just have radically definitions of "complex".

[Mic_128]

My take is that IFCC needs a souless but still living body near the Gate for their artifact/ vessel plan to work, what they need it for I don't know but they will probably not possess their body.

Huh, so just had a thought. We know that part of the IFCC's goals is the destruction of the gates and/or planet, as they'd hoped Hell's plan to vote for the gods to destroy the planet worked. The Order know they absolutely cannot destroy the gate. Team Evil aren't going to want to ruin their last chance for their plan(s). Both are going to be super careful not to destroy it.

So the IFCC sending their own vessel in to add some additional conflict around the gate might be just what's needed to break the last one and end the planet.

[Tubercular Ox]

we've had like 3 pages of posts of people insisting that what we were shown in the strip was inacurate

I'm happy I could keep the conversation going until you were ready to respond. I'm sorry these people weren't available to respond to.

Hard to take this as anything other than a sound rejection of the "this is just how he's portraying the spell in the art" position. So to now claim that you have no particular opinion, nor are making any claims at all, seems a bit strange.

This is all or nothing thinking again. You have decided on a particular claim, and now any evidence against that claim has to be challenged, even though you included that evidence in your thinking when you decided on your claim in the first place. It's not possible for you to believe in something unless you are actively working to make sure the evidence points only one way, and you project that belief on to me when you try to interpret what I'm saying.

Your claim creates a version of Rich that is different from the version of Rich that wrote the other panels in the strip, the other strips in the scene, and the other ray spells in the story. This counts as evidence against it. I am submitting that evidence because I think it's relevant and I would like to make a point about there being one Rich who writes every panel, and not one Rich when we understand him and another Rich when we don't.

It's not my intent to force a conclusion yet. This has consistently been my position.

No. It is literally the least complex explanation. Maybe you and I just have radically definitions of "complex".

Let's do it then. Complexity is not evidence. Nothing is too complex to be true, nor too simple to be false. Complexity as a consideration lets us force a conclusion when we need to make a decision and the evidence is not enough to tell us what is right. When used this way, it is intended to decide between arguments that are supported by the evidence. Your claim needs more evidence before it is supported by the evidence.

It is only one such tool for making decisions, and it doesn't need to be used every time such a decision is made. Deciding which tools to use requires a consideration of the consequences of the decision.

If we were scientists asking which hypothesis to test next, I would recommend the simplest explanation be tested first, but I would also consider the cost (money or otherwise) of testing the simplest explanation. If there were a possible hypothesis that were easy to test, I may recommend testing it ahead of the simplest explanation.

If we were the jury at a trial, there are many factors to weigh. What is the benefit of punishing the guilty or freeing the innocent? What is the harm of punishing the innocent or freeing the guilty? I would consider these in light of the specific case, and not as generic truths. Following the instructions of the court, I would prefer explanations that do not require made up evidence.

If we are somehow both of these at the same time, I will happily tell you one thing in one situation, a different thing in the other, and then spend however much time is necessary explaining why context matters.

So, for example, if the question is whether we should give up looking for a rules-based explanation for this one panel, the answer is a resounding no, because the evidence is not there to conclude there must not be one.

But if we were in That Other Thread, discussing what goes in the OP, I'd say nothing. Nothing goes in the OP, because there isn't enough evidence to present something as right ahead of everything else.

[Mordar]

Reordering a bit of your quote

If we were scientists asking which hypothesis to test next, I would recommend the simplest explanation be tested first, but I would also consider the cost (money or otherwise) of testing the simplest explanation. If there were a possible hypothesis that were easy to test, I may recommend testing it ahead of the simplest explanation.

Your claim creates a version of Rich that is different from the version of Rich that wrote the other panels in the strip, the other strips in the scene, and the other ray spells in the story. This counts as evidence against it. I am submitting that evidence because I think it's relevant and I would like to make a point about there being one Rich who writes every panel, and not one Rich when we understand him and another Rich when we don't.

You have an N of 0. Unless I have missed other ray-casting dragons. We have an N = 1 for instances of monster blood being dripped on to injured halfling faces providing the injured halfling with monster-related powers. I guess it is safe to say that if Belkar catches a little Calder blood in the face he'll be able to fly and breath fire, right? Surely the specifics of those two instances must be irrelevant to the outcomes as presented by the previous examples themselves, right?

Further, "Rich that has (I believe) explicitly stated that he will not cleave to the rules as written, and (paraphrasing) those rules will service the story when necessary" is easy condition that reconciles your two Rich dilemma.

You have rejected the null hypothesis out of hand (the least complex explanation) and are requesting evidence that the null is the true state. Not typically the process.

- M

[bunsen_h]

You have an N of 0. Unless I have missed other ray-casting dragons. We have an N = 1 for instances of monster blood being dripped on to injured halfling faces providing the injured halfling with monster-related powers. I guess it is safe to say that if Belkar catches a little Calder blood in the face he'll be able to fly and breath fire, right? Surely the specifics of those two instances must be irrelevant to the outcomes as presented by the previous examples themselves, right?

Not described explicitly as a "ray", but we have Draco-mom's Finger of Death, which emanated from her "claw". That's a weak "ranged spells don't come from the eyes" undermined by "one would expect a 'finger' spell to come from a 'finger', right?"

[Tubercular Ox]

You have rejected the null hypothesis out of hand (the least complex explanation) and are requesting evidence that the null is the true state. Not typically the process.

This is a brutal misunderstanding of how the null hypothesis works, and since what I am arguing for is compatible with better statistics, let me explain with an example.

We flip a coin a hundred times and it comes up heads ninety times. We conclude that the coin is biased in favor of heads, by a lot. Then we bring in the magic purple space crystal, whose quantum vibrations are alleged to excite probability and change the outcome of events. We intend to flip the coin a hundred times again in its presence.

The correct null hypothesis is that the coin should come up heads some statistically reasonable distance from 90% of the time. Forgetting that the coin is biased and assuming the coin will come up fifty-fifty is the wrong null hypothesis.

In this metaphor, the magic purple space crystal is ignorance, heads is Rich following a rule, and tails is him not. The null hypotheses advanced by the forum are even more ridiculous than assuming an unfair coin is suddenly fair. Somehow, because we can’t divine what rules Rich was using in a particular panel, there are always piles of people to tell us the coin surely came up tails when the history of the story is that it comes up mostly heads, because tails is low-effort and low-effort is somehow more believable despite the evidence that Rich puts the effort in.

[Peelee]

We flip a coin a hundred times and it comes up heads ninety times. We conclude that the coin is biased in favor of heads, by a lot.

No, we can't. We can suspect that it is, but that's a pretty small sample size, and randomness means that it's not impossible to grt a run of 90 head results in 100 flips. It's unlikely, sure, but not impossible, and we can't conclude from that small number.

In this metaphor, the magic purple space crystal is ignorance, heads is Rich following a rule, and tails is him not.

This metaphor is bad because you're assigning exactly equal possibility to the two, when "not following the rules" is significantly easier due to how many ways it can be accomplished. And it also ignores that the Giant isn't interested in moment-to-moment rules accuracy, and doesn't care enough to verify when he works off memory and assumes its correct.

You're thumbing the scales and then trying to argue based off that, and that's even before considering everything the author has said on his own diligence in strictly adhering to the rules.

[Tubercular Ox]

No, we can't. We can suspect that it is, but that's a pretty small sample size, and randomness means that it's not impossible to grt a run of 90 head results in 100 flips. It's unlikely, sure, but not impossible, and we can't conclude from that small number.

So if the null hypothesis is that a fair coin comes up heads 50ish times in a hundred, we can do math to figure out exactly how significant it is that the coin came up 90 times instead. It’s, what, 8 standard deviations out? I forget.

But rather than believe that I’ve defined as biased any coin more than two sigma out after 100 trials, you assumed I must have made some childish error that needed correcting.

That’s bias.

Then, directly after assuming I’m too dumb to have a statistically accurate definition of biased, you introduce your own statistically inaccurate definition of bias by implying that all we need are more flips and eventually we can conclude it’s biased. That’s not how it works. All that happens with more flips is the numbers get sillier, there’s no point where you can conclude it’s biased except the arbitrary one you pick. And you conveniently picked a point beyond 100 trials without consulting me.

This metaphor is bad because you're assigning exactly equal possibility to the two, when "not following the rules" is significantly easier

It’s not about what is easier, it’s about what Rich has demonstrated he prefers to do. If every Monday morning you come out of your house and see that my lawn is freshly mowed, then one Monday morning have to leave by the back door and don’t get to see my lawn, thinking to yourself, “Oh, it’s probably unmowed because that’s easier,” is bad inference.

Also, what? I’ve not assigned equal possibility to the two. I specifically set it up to be 90% heads, which is not a claim about Rich but a part of the example. I actually said assigning exactly equal possibility to the two is a thing people do that is wrong, in addition to always picking tails despite the predominance of heads in the reference sample.

The correct way to determine the percentage we should use is to observe the reference sample, i.e. all the previous art. But we should probably stop treating Rich as a stochastic process, anyways. I only went here because of the silly things I see being done in the name of a null hypothesis.

And it also ignores that the Giant isn't interested in moment-to-moment rules accuracy, and doesn't care enough to verify when he works off memory and assumes its correct.

Yes, of course it ignores this, because it’s not relevant. I have the comic, it creates an observable pattern, I’m trying to base my predictions off of that pattern. It doesn’t matter if he’s right because he remembered it, because he looked it up, or because a magic purple space crystal alters the comics moments before uploading, the comic is still right and it’s a matter of record.

You're thumbing the scales and then trying to argue based off that, and that's even before considering everything the author has said on his own diligence in strictly adhering to the rules.

And again, Rich’s output is observable. If it’s all heads (it’s not, but pretend), and then Rich insists it’s all tails (he doesn’t, but pretend), Rich is not describing the data set, for whatever reason.

I do not get how “Look at what he’s done before” counts as thumbing the scales. Loading the scales, maybe, with existing evidence that’s available to all of us. If the scales lean heavily towards Rich having some process that includes the rules, that’s not my fault. That’s Rich.

[KorvinStarmast]

The odds of this digression being productive are very low.

[Mordar]

This is a brutal misunderstanding of how the null hypothesis works, and since what I am arguing for is compatible with better statistics, let me explain with an example.

Null hypothesis: There is no significant event occurring, no connection or association between events, etc. Any perceived difference is observational, sampling or experimental error, or bias. "The observed does not represent a significant deviation from the norm."

You observed in panel two that Calder fired a ray spell from its eyes. You know that is atypical by RAW. You know there are additional conditions on use and depiction of RAW in this particular medium. You have (I believe) stated that accepting the null (that there is no significant variance from the norm in this webcomic) requires equal support to an alternative hypothesis (let's keep it simple and say it is "Calder has some RAW-supported methodology for overcoming the Ray = Finger limitation").

Demanding evidence to support the null is an interesting way to approach the discussion. Perhaps you have rejected it because you believe sufficient evidence exists from previous humanoid casters casting ray spells. Bunsen gives that argument some support below. I still think my pun stands.

It seems I will have to go turn in my PhD now though...unfortunate.

We flip a coin a hundred times and it comes up heads ninety times. We conclude that the coin is biased in favor of heads, by a lot. Then we bring in the magic purple space crystal, whose quantum vibrations are alleged to excite probability and change the outcome of events. We intend to flip the coin a hundred times again in its presence.

The correct null hypothesis is that the coin should come up heads some statistically reasonable distance from 90% of the time. Forgetting that the coin is biased and assuming the coin will come up fifty-fifty is the wrong null hypothesis.

In this metaphor, the magic purple space crystal is ignorance, heads is Rich following a rule, and tails is him not. The null hypotheses advanced by the forum are even more ridiculous than assuming an unfair coin is suddenly fair. Somehow, because we can’t divine what rules Rich was using in a particular panel, there are always piles of people to tell us the coin surely came up tails when the history of the story is that it comes up mostly heads, because tails is low-effort and low-effort is somehow more believable despite the evidence that Rich puts the effort in.

Let's assume (as Peelee mentions) that you set your n sufficiently high that we all accept there is a bias in your coin...call it 10,000. Now, I'm not sure what "excite probability" means, and how we would test it, but if it means "alter the performance of this flipping coin", we should again flip the coin another 10,000 times. Optimally we would measure the impact of the MPSC on several other coins too, right, while controlling other environmental conditions to the best of our ability? After 2x 10,000 flips of however many coins, if there is a calculated significant difference then between pre=PMSC and post-PMSC, yes, we can reject the null and agree the MPSC impacts the performance of the coin(s) in some fashion. Even in that case we wouldn't be free to assume the method by which the MPSC has that effect, though.

Suggesting it is ignorance to believe that the eye Polar Rays are not indicative of using either 1 or 2 10th level spell slots, or a 12th level spell slot, or an array of feats developed over several levels all intended to be able to fuse Iceman and Cyclops seems to be a little extreme. Maybe that isn't what you mean. Maybe you mean ignorant of the intent of the author and artist. Sure, that is reasonable. So, for purposes of this discussion, we contemplate what is most likely given the experience we have reading the comic, other comics, genre-affiliated fiction, playing RPGs, and consuming other media.

More ridiculous to suggest that the guy who provided a 7-field flow chart that speaks to the steps he takes in incorporating D&D rules into OotS with all branching pathways leading to "LEAVE IT" bypassed a rule of minimal to moderate impact (and *zero* impact in this specific instance as Calder could use its dragonly hands) than to suggest that the empirical properties of a coin and/or the universal forces that act upon that coin have suddenly altered while nothing else is impacted? I guess maybe I shouldn't be so quick to return my degrees.

So, once again, what is our n? Contemplating reasonable factors surrounding the event. Looks like I was wrong when I said n = 0, because it seems to lean to n = 1. Based on either, I'd probably still be inclined to lay 3-1 or 4-1 against rejecting the null, and even higher against the multiple 10th-level slots, or 12th level slot.

Shifting focus slightly...how do you think Rich prioritizes ("puts the effort in") to the following, and by what relative proportion?

1. Narrative
2. Humor
3. Layout
4. Rule (RAW) adherence

Assuming 100 effort units, I'm somewhere around 50/12/30/8. Rules service drama in the alley and all that. Hugely biased, of course. But this informs my gamble on the likelihood of Polar Ray vs. Ocular Spell Polar Ray x2 vs. Ocular Split Ray Polar Ray. Especially after reading more about the Ocular Spell and Split Ray options.

Again, admitting bias and speculation: The nature by which the Polar Ray(s) emanate from Calder's eyes is at most a niggling issue to the majority of the readers. This is Easter Egg level, not "Elan is actually a Greater God that has been traveling with the party to help them along, as evidenced by his fourth-wall cracking abilities and genre-savviness" kind of variation.

So based on all of the above, I am still saying Null is most likely, and the burden of proof remains on the alternative hypothesis. Although since we're dealing with a single observational, I guess pointing to panel 2 might serve that burden. If so, I still put most of my Kitkats on null, particularly as expressed by "Rule of Cool". Not just a pun.

However, if Elan does Fizban I totally called it first (and I'm not going to look to see if anyone else called it before me) and I demand no less than 10 internets.

No, we can't. We can suspect that it is, but that's a pretty small sample size, and randomness means that it's not impossible to grt a run of 90 head results in 100 flips. It's unlikely, sure, but not impossible, and we can't conclude from that small number.

This metaphor is bad because you're assigning exactly equal possibility to the two, when "not following the rules" is significantly easier due to how many ways it can be accomplished. And it also ignores that the Giant isn't interested in moment-to-moment rules accuracy, and doesn't care enough to verify when he works off memory and assumes its correct.

You're thumbing the scales and then trying to argue based off that, and that's even before considering everything the author has said on his own diligence in strictly adhering to the rules.

Also not taking into account the relative importance and impact of a rule and the other constraints of the depiction.

The null-rejectors may, of course, be correct. Calder may be a baddddddd Epic dragon. Since we know the OotS will survive and continue this quest line, it makes the "So what is the point of the battle with Calder" a much more interesting discussion.

Not described explicitly as a "ray", but we have Draco-mom's Finger of Death, which emanated from her "claw". That's a weak "ranged spells don't come from the eyes" undermined by "one would expect a 'finger' spell to come from a 'finger', right?"

Good point. Upon review...SRD says nothing about the emanation of this spell?!? Matches expectation but not required by rules. Still, the composition of that panel as a whole kind of leans in favor of the alternative hypothesis.

- M

Boy did I miss out. Avoiding double post:

So if the null hypothesis is that a fair coin comes up heads 50ish times in a hundred, we can do math to figure out exactly how significant it is that the coin came up 90 times instead. It’s, what, 8 standard deviations out? I forget.

But rather than believe that I’ve defined as biased any coin more than two sigma out after 100 trials, you assumed I must have made some childish error that needed correcting.

That’s bias.

Then, directly after assuming I’m too dumb to have a statistically accurate definition of biased, you introduce your own statistically inaccurate definition of bias by implying that all we need are more flips and eventually we can conclude it’s biased. That’s not how it works. All that happens with more flips is the numbers get sillier, there’s no point where you can conclude it’s biased except the arbitrary one you pick. And you conveniently picked a point beyond 100 trials without consulting me.

I admit I am not sufficiently familiar with measuring the bias of a single coin to the expected norm beyond what I have already indicated...

But "adding more subjects/trials" is *exactly* how you increase the p-value so as to as-close-to-definitively say two samples are significantly different. The number of subjects/trials necessary to reach the p-value depend on the magnitude of the difference between the values for those subjects/trials. Of course, the confidence you decide you want to accept is sort of arbitrary, but the fields with which I am familiar generally hold to 0.05 or 0.01. So if you want a better than 95% chance of being correct that the coin is biased, you need a bigger pool of flips than if you happy with a 75% chance of being right. I think the 100 flips with 90 heads is 80% probable bias?

It’s not about what is easier, it’s about what Rich has demonstrated he prefers to do. If every Monday morning you come out of your house and see that my lawn is freshly mowed, then one Monday morning have to leave by the back door and don’t get to see my lawn, thinking to yourself, “Oh, it’s probably unmowed because that’s easier,” is bad inference.

Also, what? I’ve not assigned equal possibility to the two. I specifically set it up to be 90% heads, which is not a claim about Rich but a part of the example. I actually said assigning exactly equal possibility to the two is a thing people do that is wrong, in addition to always picking tails despite the predominance of heads in the reference sample.

The correct way to determine the percentage we should use is to observe the reference sample, i.e. all the previous art. But we should probably stop treating Rich as a stochastic process, anyways. I only went here because of the silly things I see being done in the name of a null hypothesis.

It is not assuming the lawn is unmowed because it is easier than mowed. it is taking conditions into consideration, identifying the default state, and determining the most likely outcome. In your standard Monday example, assuming all standard conditions, the null is that the lawn is mowed because that is not a significant difference than normal. Yes, it would be silly in this case to think it unmowed, and not easier. If I know you never mow the lawn when it is raining because, well, rain, and it rained all weekend then the expectation here would be unmowed. In this example, it would be silly to expect rainy-weekend-Monday to be the same as normal Monday.

That is not this, though. We know not only the weather, but if we heard the mower, if you were known to be out of town, if it is the middle of a snowy winter, if it was freshly mowed because you were paying my kid $10 to mow it every Sunday and he was at a baseball tournament this weekend so couldn't do it, all of those things. We can shift our odds of success.

Yes, of course it ignores this, because it’s not relevant. I have the comic, it creates an observable pattern, I’m trying to base my predictions off of that pattern. It doesn’t matter if he’s right because he remembered it, because he looked it up, or because a magic purple space crystal alters the comics moments before uploading, the comic is still right and it’s a matter of record.

And again, Rich’s output is observable. If it’s all heads (it’s not, but pretend), and then Rich insists it’s all tails (he doesn’t, but pretend), Rich is not describing the data set, for whatever reason.

I do not get how “Look at what he’s done before” counts as thumbing the scales. Loading the scales, maybe, with existing evidence that’s available to all of us. If the scales lean heavily towards Rich having some process that includes the rules, that’s not my fault. That’s Rich.

You're shifting the odds of success based on what you have observed and recall. You appear to have connected that "Polar Ray" spells are ruled as coming from the hand because the SRD (or book, or whatever) says they do. You appear to have observed that other ray spells have launched from caster hands in the comic. You appear to have concluded that because Rich follows rules most of the time, and Polar Ray says it comes from the hand, and other characters have cast rays from their hands, that if Calder's Polar Ray comes from the eyes (like it did) there must be a specific, game rule compliant condition that allows that to be the case. On the surface, that sure seems reasonable.

I'm of the opinion that his output suggests rules compliance to be a tertiary consideration. When Miko pushed past HInjo, shoved Shojo down, spoke, then drew a weapon, then broke the stone throne and terminally injured Shojo all while Hinjo stood there all of 3 steps away and did nothing...I didn't assume Miko got a surprise round plus four hasted actions. Later, when the same immobilized Hinjo managed to countercharge a leaping attack Miko just before she ended Belkar and perfectly parry the strike I didn't assume he had a readied action and set of 3 feats that would allow it to happen.

I believe the default state is rules in OotS aren't necessary but do provide a framework. I don't think that is a 90% state, but I really don't think it applies to fiddly issues. I think something needs to indicate that an occurrence is significantly different than normal. The mind control of Sunny from within the trap needs a rules-based explanation because it was set up as a rules-based trap, and it was provided. Hinjo watching Shojo's assassination doesn't need a rules-based explanation because it was drama. The IceClops attack doesn't because the spirit of the spell is observed, and the other needs of the narrative, including the layout, take precedence.

- M again

[KorvinStarmast]

However, if Elan does Fizban I totally called it first (and I'm not going to look to see if anyone else called it before me) and I demand no less than 10 internets.

If that is what happens, I will set fire to the OotS books I have in physical copy, and delete the ones I have on .pdf.

Since we know the OotS will survive and continue this quest line, it makes the "So what is the point of the battle with Calder" a much more interesting discussion.

Similar to the battle with Durkula, it might be to build tension and almost TPK the Order, but that was a climactic battle for that book; I don' think this one is. I am going with "gain Serini's trust" as a good reason for it.

Number me among the number of readers who gives less than two hoots how RAW the cold eye rays are.

[gbaji]

This is all or nothing thinking again. You have decided on a particular claim, and now any evidence against that claim has to be challenged, even though you included that evidence in your thinking when you decided on your claim in the first place. It's not possible for you to believe in something unless you are actively working to make sure the evidence points only one way, and you project that belief on to me when you try to interpret what I'm saying.

Quite the opposite. I think you're engaging in a fair bit of projection here. I'm not the one insisting that one explanation is "the truth" and that another is "false". You are. You are the one who has roundly rejected the idea that it could possibly just be an artistic representation of a bog standard normal casting of the polar ray spell. I quoted you making this statement earlier:

Secondly, Rich has a habit of drawing rays from the finger. Assuming he gave up on that habit without impetus is like throwing a ball into the air, seeing it not come down, and assuming gravity failed that day instead of the ball having some quality that keeps it in the air.

This is you saying "Nope. It can't be that, because... <reasons>". What many of us are saying is not that we think it absolutely must be just an artistic display of the spell, but that we disagree with your assertion that it cannot be an artistic display of the spell.

You are the one who appears to be engaging in "all or nothing" thinking. Your argument is essentially "It cannot be just art, so it must be <some other much more complex explanation>". And no. Many of us don't really care about it that much, except to the point that a number of posters have then careened off on a series of tangents about how to make two beams both coming form the eyes work while complying with strict rules, and have found themselves concluding that it would require some combination of much higher spell casting levels, and multiple meta magic feats, and potentially pushing the dragons level higher than expected, and all of them conclude that if the spell was interpreted that way, then V just got hit with two instances of the spell and both were cast with a sufficiently high caster level that V should be far far more dead than the strip seems to show.

Which leads one to think "maybe we should not assume such a strict intepretation of the rules and just go with the idea that it looks cool and move on".

Your claim creates a version of Rich that is different from the version of Rich that wrote the other panels in the strip, the other strips in the scene, and the other ray spells in the story. This counts as evidence against it. I am submitting that evidence because I think it's relevant and I would like to make a point about there being one Rich who writes every panel, and not one Rich when we understand him and another Rich when we don't.

And for the record, this is you, once again, making the same "It can't be just art" argument. I'm not the one saying it can't be some combination of metamagic feats. You are the one saying it can't be just an artistic representation of the basic spell. You have the directionality of who is using which form of argument backwards.

It's not my intent to force a conclusion yet. This has consistently been my position.

No. Your position has consistently been that it can't just an artistic way of displaying an otherwise normal polar ray spell. You argued this earlier. You just argued it again.

Let's do it then. Complexity is not evidence. Nothing is too complex to be true, nor too simple to be false. Complexity as a consideration lets us force a conclusion when we need to make a decision and the evidence is not enough to tell us what is right. When used this way, it is intended to decide between arguments that are supported by the evidence. Your claim needs more evidence before it is supported by the evidence.

It is only one such tool for making decisions, and it doesn't need to be used every time such a decision is made. Deciding which tools to use requires a consideration of the consequences of the decision.

If we were scientists asking which hypothesis to test next, I would recommend the simplest explanation be tested first, but I would also consider the cost (money or otherwise) of testing the simplest explanation. If there were a possible hypothesis that were easy to test, I may recommend testing it ahead of the simplest explanation.

If we were the jury at a trial, there are many factors to weigh. What is the benefit of punishing the guilty or freeing the innocent? What is the harm of punishing the innocent or freeing the guilty? I would consider these in light of the specific case, and not as generic truths. Following the instructions of the court, I would prefer explanations that do not require made up evidence.

If we are somehow both of these at the same time, I will happily tell you one thing in one situation, a different thing in the other, and then spend however much time is necessary explaining why context matters.

So, for example, if the question is whether we should give up looking for a rules-based explanation for this one panel, the answer is a resounding no, because the evidence is not there to conclude there must not be one.

But if we were in That Other Thread, discussing what goes in the OP, I'd say nothing. Nothing goes in the OP, because there isn't enough evidence to present something as right ahead of everything else.

That is an enormous amount of word salad which still failed utterly to even touch the question of which of the two exlanations for what we saw in the strip is "more complex".

At the end of the day there are two broad explanations before us:

1. That the dragon followed strict rules and thus had to take the occular feat *and* have cast two polar ray spells into his eyes in order for what we saw in the strip to work.


2. Or... We just say that dragons don't have hands, and can thus project ray spells from any appropriate part of their bodies (claws, eyes, mouth, tail, whatever), and Rich choose to use the eyes because this allowed him to keep Calder's head in frame, so that he could use the one frame to both show the spell effect *and* allow for dialogue.


It's not about what I think is actually true here. It's about which is "less complex". And yes, no matter what else we think or want to believe, opttion number 2 is vastly less complex than option number 1. It requires only one "thing" to assume (that Rich is fine with just displaying the polar ray spell as emanating from the dragons eyes). Option 1 requires a number of additional assumptions, each of which not only increases the base complexity but *also* makes what we were actually shown in the strip less and less likely (that V survived). Several posters have already discussed (in more detail than I could) all of the different assumptions we'd have to make and what that would cause in terms of spellcasting level, and then what that would mean in terms of damage V would have taken. And how and when he would have had to have cast the spells into his eyes to do it (and whether being in stasic affected this).


Option 2 is absolutely the less complex explanation. That doesn't guarantee it's the correct one (I have never claimed that). And normally, I'd be all over the whole "lets find a rules explanation for this". But in this case, actually applying the rules leads us to conclusions that don't match other parts of the strip (like the small matter of V not having X's for eyes right now). It's also entirely possible that Rich is assuming that the feat was used, and V just got hit with two very high level polar rays, and Calder just rolled like all 1s and 2s for damage (twice!). But if that's the case, then it really doesn't matter which method was actually used to create the spell effect we saw. At the end of the day, Calder hit V with a cold based ray spell, and it badly damaged V but didn't cause death. Done. And if we see Calder use no other ray spells emanating from his eyes in this battle, then it really wont matter which is "true".

[brian 333]

Bad statistics make bad arguments.

Writing fiction is not about statistical probability. If an author does a thing one way 99 times and does it differently the hundredth, random chance has a zero percent chance of being the cause.

When The Giant said that he didn't care about strictly following the rules, I understood that to mean he was not calculating BABs and EACs and rolling every attack. I can see places where saves failing were unlikely, but they failed anyway. What I cannot find are examples of The Author simply discarding The Rules.

When Vaarsuvius says, "Once again probability services drama like a 2 copper harlot," it does not mean Rich has discarded the combat rules. It means he is not rolling the dice, but is instead basing hits and damage on how it helps tell his story.

So, instead of how statistically likely an event might be, a more reasonable test might be to ask, "How dramatically satisfying is a particular thing?

Because if the author has done a thing 99 times one way and once another, it was likely to have been a dramatic choice, not a random die roll.

[Unoriginal]

What I cannot find are examples of The Author simply discarding The Rules.

There are plenty of instances.

One that come to mind:despite the blacksmith's claim of the contrary, and the several visual demonstrations of the effect, in D&D 3.5 starmetal weapons don't do anything special to Undead (so long as they're Material Plane Undead).

EDIT:

There is also the fact a starmetal blade would be doing extra damage to Sabine all of the time, not just sometime.

Or how about, during the same conflict, Durkon using Weather Control to kill a bunch of Animated Trees (but somehow not killing every NPC with lower HPs than said Trees that were in the area)? That one is explicitly Thor discarding The Rules.

[Peelee]

What I cannot find are examples of The Author simply discarding The Rules.

Who said anything about discarding the rules? There's a near-infinite number of ways to deviate from the rules without discarding them. No small amount of which have been used in OotS. Which is why i said that it's not a 50/50 chance, since "follow the rules exactly to the letter" is only one possible route and "deviate in X way" is any number of possible routes. Also, the author has directly said, and offered diagrams, that he doesn't care about strict, to-the-letter adherence to the rules.

[Kish]

I'd just like to point out that Rich has an established and lengthy precedent of people saying "Maximized Fireball" or "Empowered Lightning Bolt" or "Quickened Chain Lightning" when they use metamagic. The argument:

Rich would not go against his established precedent, thus Calder's Polar Ray must actually be an Ocular Polar Ray,

would make my head hurt even if not married to repeated assertions that every time Rich says loudly and clearly that he doesn't care about the rules it indicates that he cares about the rules.

[gbaji]

Who said anything about discarding the rules? There's a near-infinite number of ways to deviate from the rules without discarding them. No small amount of which have been used in OotS. Which is why i said that it's not a 50/50 chance, since "follow the rules exactly to the letter" is only one possible route and "deviate in X way" is any number of possible routes. Also, the author has directly said, and offered diagrams, that he doesn't care about strict, to-the-letter adherence to the rules.

Doubly so since we're literaly talking about a cosmetic effect here. For a spell which, if we were literally interpreting the text, the dragon should not even be able to cast (cause he doesn't have hands). I mean. If we want to be stupid level literal here.

Rich has deviated far more from "the rules" in the past than this one.

[brian 333]

There are plenty of instances.

One that come to mind:despite the blacksmith's claim of the contrary, and the several visual demonstrations of the effect, in D&D 3.5 starmetal weapons don't do anything special to Undead (so long as they're Material Plane Undead).

EDIT:

There is also the fact a starmetal blade would be doing extra damage to Sabine all of the time, not just sometime.

Or how about, during the same conflict, Durkon using Weather Control to kill a bunch of Animated Trees (but somehow not killing every NPC with lower HPs than said Trees that were in the area)? That one is explicitly Thor discarding The Rules.

Star metal also doesn't return when thrown. A DM has full discretion when assigning attributes to metals in a campaign; that's hardly a rules violation. But take it as one, if you like because it is one, not hundreds, of violations.

And the Sonic damage from the Control Weather spell was divine intervention, with Thor being shown to have done the deed, not an alternative use of the spell that any cleric can use. Again, not a rules violation.

Who said anything about discarding the rules? There's a near-infinite number of ways to deviate from the rules without discarding them. No small amount of which have been used in OotS. Which is why i said that it's not a 50/50 chance, since "follow the rules exactly to the letter" is only one possible route and "deviate in X way" is any number of possible routes. Also, the author has directly said, and offered diagrams, that he doesn't care about strict, to-the-letter adherence to the rules.

And I have agreed with this. The author does not care about the rules, he cares about the story. It is my exact thesis from my previous post.

Using statistics to determine any probability for an event in the story is as pointless as a sphere. Every event, every sword stroke, every spell effect is chosen by The Author for reasons he chooses. None of them are the result of a die roll. Sunny 'failed her save versus Domination' even though no die was ever rolled.

[Peelee]

And I have agreed with this. The author does not care about the rules, he cares about the story. It is my exact thesis from my previous post.

Using statistics to determine any probability for an event in the story is as pointless as a sphere. Every event, every sword stroke, every spell effect is chosen by The Author for reasons he chooses. None of them are the result of a die roll. Sunny 'failed her save versus Domination' even though no die was ever rolled.

Sure, but who are you arguing with here?