OOTS #595 - The Discussion Thread

[RobbyPants]

"Now can we PLEASE resume saving the world?"

AWESOME!

[squirrel]

That.

That is why I read this comic.

Brilliant.

[Return of Lanky]

I find it hard to disagree with V's solution.

If we assume V knew as much as can possibly be known, this could be a Lawful Good act: V removed a direct, very dangerous threat to the wellbeing of thousands in the only way it could be removed. Any person would agree that Kubota HAD to be stopped. V had the means and the motive.

Then again, it could be Chaotic Evil. The simple removal of an annoyance, via whatever path required the least work. No greater motive than convenience and opportunity.

The devil IS in the details, I suppose.

It didn't stop me from laughing loudly enough to wake my roommate. She's glaring at me now and demanding to know what I find so goddamned funny. She reads the comic, and I haven't the heart to spoil it for her.

[elonin]

V's actions were evil plain and simple. The reason s/he disintigrated Kubota was that he was being a nuisence. That plus captured villian = evil act. I'm not sure if V is evil but seems to be heading in that direction.

[Delgarde]

Oh, and on the subject of murder, yes, that's exactly what it is. But this *is* a gaming comic, and be honest - this is exactly the kind of thing that high-level PCs do. Wasn't that more or less Roy's argument in keeping Belkar where Roy could keep an eye on him?

Don't forget we're also dealing with a party without anyone leading it. Durkon's a natural follower, V's uninterested in anybody else, and Elan's trying, but he's too impulsive to do a good job of it. Not really a good situation to be in - they need Roy and/or Haley pretty badly...

[pjackson]

And yet...

If you have the opportunity to permanently stop future evil from occurring, and choose not to do so, then you've committed evil by inaction. Kabuto had just finished saying that he was going to essentially rig the trial, go free, and go right back to doing evil acts - not acting on that information is certainly evil by inaction. Good cannot NOT take action against evil when evil presents itself.

So, either V does nothing and lets Kabuto be prosecuted, in which case Kabuto commits future evil by his own admission and thus V commits an evil act, or V takes decisive action to stop the future evil from occurring and thus V commits an evil act.

There is no "Good" option here.

That is wrong.
There were several "Good" options.
For example.
Lawful Good - Take Kubota to trial and make sure he gets a fair trial. Just because Kubota thinks he can rig the trial does not mean he will succeed.
Chaotic Good - Use suggestion to make Kubota tell the truth when being tried.

[pjackson]

Oh, and on the subject of murder, yes, that's exactly what it is. But this *is* a gaming comic, and be honest - this is exactly the kind of thing that high-level PCs do.

Low level PCs too - but not "Good" ones played to that alignment.

[InuSaga]

*gasp* Oh, snap!

[Return of Lanky]

That is wrong.
There were several "Good" options.
For example.
Lawful Good - Take Kubota to trial and make sure he gets a fair trial. Just because Kubota thinks he can rig the trial does not mean he will succeed.
Chaotic Good - Use suggestion to make Kubota tell the truth when being tried.

Ah, but if you are sworn to uphold the law, do you serve it by putting the man in a position to violate it?

Not an argument for a LG to use, but I'd accept it from a NG or CG just fine.

The only argument against THAT is whether or not Kubota deserves death. And let's face it: I *dare* someone to justify his actions in a way that makes execution in the face of his probable "innocent" finding a good thing.

[brilliantlight]

It occurs to me that Vaarsuvius shares character traits with Miko. To me, this seems to parallel the assassination of Lord Shojo, with Elan replacing Hinjo.

Both seem to believe that 'the ends justify the means' and have a high (though not undeserved) opinion of themselves.

Just a thought.

That's a good poiint but V is much cooler then Milko.

[Lissou]

Aha ha, that was great.

Looks like a good time to change stories, too, and shift to another group. I'm not dictating the story, but it's the first end of page that seemed to have some "finality" to it. I guess we'll have to see.

[Aristeidis]

hahaha nice touch! If Elan couldn't do the trick on the boat... That's what wizards are for!

[cheesecake]

I wonder what V's alignment is. Certainatly not lawful!

[Caranthir]

On a rather different note, has anyone seen www.oots.cz because seeing Belkar shouting in Czech is brilliant.

Wow, I had no idea that anybody is translating this brilliant comic into Czech! The translation is rather good....there is a few issues that I would take on diffently, but overall great piece!

[brilliantlight]

What in the world V?!?!?!? Killing prisioners is evil, evil. This was not awsome it was freaking stuipid!
I think this goes in the chaotic column too as it will get them exiled probably, and no way was it well thought out; I doubt Elan is going to lie, and besides that magic he mentioned its going to be used against the order of stick. And after that good luck stopping Quar, he can still start monster attacks and their won't be any OotS to stop them this time.

How will Quar be stopped? I just don't know...


Hmm... some similarities, I wouldn't be surprised if Elan tried to subdue V right now. Kubota was the polar oppisite aligment wise, and V is probably CG still, while Miko was lawful good, ditto with Elan and Hinjo

Elan is a bard and can't be LG. He himself says he is CG. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0445.html

[pjackson]

I find it hard to disagree with V's solution.

If we assume V knew as much as can possibly be known, this could be a Lawful Good act: V removed a direct, very dangerous threat to the wellbeing of thousands in the only way it could be removed. Any person would agree that Kubota HAD to be stopped. V had the means and the motive.

Kubota HAD been stopped.
He was a prisoner and thus not a direct threat.
The only people he is a real threat to are those between him and Hinjo's throne - a few dozen at most.

There were many alternative ways to remove the threat.
Killing Kubota then could not possibly have been a good act.
It might have a been a neutral one if it was necessary, but it wasn't.
It was an evil act.

[Holammer]

Wow, I had no idea that anybody is translating this brilliant comic into Czech! The translation is rather good....there is a few issues that I would take on diffently, but overall great piece!

Whoa whoa whoa! This is a big no no afaik!
I'm pretty sure the giant doesn't take kindly upon people translating and reposting his comics offsite!

[Dr. Simon]

I'm not going to touch the alignment thing as arguments like this remind me why I never use it in play.

But....

Jokewise I think it would have had more punch if Kubota's line about the "Trial of the Century" had been the last thing said before his disintegration. Elan's "Yeah but..." speech in between kind of deflates the moment a little.

(Oh, and you only need to go a few strips from the start of OOTS to see Roy killing helpless goblins by the bucketload. It's D&D, it's what an adventurer does).

[factotum]

Either way V will teleport them away (I doubt the ship has antimagic cells)

Except V can't cast Teleport because it's in one of his barred schools.

[Obscurejones]

V wants xp. The villain shoots his mouth off about prestige class's. Zappy go villain. XP is Gained plot move forward. Go V

[Threeshades]

Am I the only one who will mis that beautiful purple +5 armor?

[Solmage]

I haven't posted in a really long time - but I just had to add my voice, "V, that was pure awesomeness"

I am concerned about V edging towards "the dark side" but it was foretold by the oracle in a way, so little to be done about that. Just hope he finds his way back to his cool former self :)

[Return of Lanky]

Kubota HAD been stopped.
He was a prisoner and thus not a direct threat.
The only people he is a real threat to are those between him and Hinjo's throne - a few dozen at most.

There were many alternative ways to remove the threat.
Killing Kubota then could not possibly have been a good act.
It might have a been a neutral one if it was necessary, but it wasn't.
It was an evil act.

I have to disagree.

Kubota proved, at least twice, that the Sapphire Guard's code of laws could do jack and diddly to punish him for his crimes. Handing him over to their trials, after he admits to being able to flaunt them, would hardly be Good. Lawful maybe, but not Good.

Good is not nice. Good can kill in the dark, or arbitrarily. If it can be justified.

Again, I make the challenge: Prove that letting Kubota going to trial, knowing he would almost certainly go free, is a GOOD act. Good doesn't have to be stupid, nor does it require the arbitrary approval of a court. Elan and V both KNOW Kubota is an evil jerk who needs to be stopped.

Elan is still innocent enough to believe in the justice system. Then again, would you really trust Kubota to justice for the third time?

It might be Chaotic Good to kill him, but it's certainly not EVIL. Kubota wasn't stopped. He was as free to abuse the Azure City laws as he was the last two times, which is a large part of the danger he represented.

[Lissibith]

Hee. Wasn't that what V wanted to do with the Linear Guild at one point?

Frankly, I love it. It's opening up a brand new set of possibilities for stressors on the order, as they're pretty well dependent on the Azurites at this point (being out at sea and all) and I certainly don't think this move will go unnoticed.

Eh, either way, I'm super glad V did what he did. It may be excellent character-building, but I cannot stand the sort of villain who relies on the good guys to follow the laws as the crux of his evilness. Come on, who hasn't seen the hero in that situation and thought to him- or herself "come on, just kill him."

[Kanenfawder]

Good is not nice. Good can kill in the dark, or arbitrarily. If it can be justified.

The above is 100% true.

Also, DEAR GOD THANK YOU FOR THAT COMIC. It was full of win.

[guayec]

I always read OotS but I this time I HAD to register to say that

THAT WAS #*&%ING AMAZING!!!

Now I have no doubts about V's gender: V is...

...AWESOME!

[brilliantlight]

You are jumping to conclusions here. V has much better motive than that.
For starters, V would not be bothered by a trial at all. She is not at all a necessary witness. At most, she would spend a few minutes on the stand telling details others already had told. From her view, Kubota's trial is a trivial issue. He will spend far more time convincing Hinjo not to try her and should he be put on trial for killing Kubota, the distraction would be major. Definitely a bad idea to kill Kubota if the trial is the big concern.


The distractions include summoning a major devil, arranging an attempted ambush of the mission to the orcs, summonsing a long list of monsters to attack... Large numbers have been killed, and if we assume Kubota was correct, his death saved large numbers of lives.


Good intentions do not make good deeds. And bad intentions do not make a good result bad.


Kubota's efforts could have killed V just a few minutes ago. And his earlier actions were also a good deal more than mildly inconvenient.


V did not use Gust of Wind to get rid of evidence. It's a standard trick to make Disintegrate more permanent. That can be reversed with a 7th level Ressurection. After that gust, you need the 9th level True Ressurection [or a host of minions gathering all the dust that is now scattered over the sea and is getting more spread by the moment.]
Kubota might have had Ressurection available, but it's unlikely he has the
9th level spell around.


Not hard at all really.

Now I would judge it was better that Kubota stand trial, but this is an outsider’s view, and is certainly a rebuttable view. So let us consider the “sin”.

Kubota was vocally guilty of several crimes, and clearly guilty of a great many more that had killed a number of people. He was boastful of his ability to win the court case, and presented enough evidence to make that boast creditable. So we can reasonably conclude that V saved a substantial number of lives even before we consider the problem of saving the world. V’s deed is thus default a good deed.

That could well be the case. If Kubota was able to game the system to find him innocent many people would die. I saw that gust of wind thing right away too.

[kierthos]

Wow.... 19 pages and counting of kvetching about possible shifts to V's alignment.

[pjackson]

How many chances must good give evil to give up and reform before they're justified in saying "it's not gonna happen" and ending the threat permanently? What you're saying is that they're never justified in saying so. This is a valid viewpoint, to be sure (I disagree, if you hadn't noticed)...but you'd better be prepared in living around a lot of evil people since they can't be permanently dissuaded.

In D&D they can - BoED has rules for changing people's alignment from Evil to Neutral to Good by talking to/with them. It isn't easy and is time consuming (an hour a day for a week minimum for a one step change) but it can be done.

The Mark of Justice spell can also work.

[Threeshades]

I'm officially mourning over this great loss.

Anyone who's with me is free to use the avatar (with credits to me of course)