Redcloak's failed characterization, and what it means for the comic as a whole.

[Omergideon]

Did we ever come to a conclusion as to whether or not it's okay to slaughter wights indiscriminately and why? I mean, classically in the Monster Manual, they're all hateful entities and apparently they survive off of humanoid flesh and all, so it's probably okay as a means of protecting humanoid entities, but what about other undead creatures with positive intelligence modifiers?

Hmmm

i do not know about there being a consensus. However if a wight is a mere biological robot with no real sapience, only an imitation therof, AND is a present and actual danger to innocent people......then I would say destroying it is probably more justified. In that reasoning with it may be impossible. If however a non-violent option does present itself, such as with more intelligent undead, then killing them is likely much less justified. My own 2 cents really.

Though someone who delighted in the act of killing them (rather than seeing it more neutrally, or as an needed but undesireable act) would still be doing something wrong to my eyes.

Edit: And to add an addendum, in an FPS the other "characters" are often actively trying to kill you, and so your actions do not carry the same weight as if in the game you begun to gun down russian civilians because "hey, they are just russians, and so in universe are baddies right?" I think it adds a useful distinction. So if goblin parties are attacking villages for food, slaves and mayhem then killing them to protect people is probably right. Going on to the village and killing the women and children who did no fighting "cos Goblins is evil innit" would not be right.

[Kish]

When you refer to the in-game character, I tend to agree with you.
But the issue discussed was different. (see previous post).

In Belkar's words:
Don't hate the Player Character, hate the Game System

I don't know which "previous post" you're telling me to see, or which in-game character you're referring to.

What I do know--what I, and multiple other people including the comic's author, have pointed out, to have it roundly ignored by the OP and everyone arguing the same case as him--is that the game system, D&D, does not actually support "it is morally correct to kill goblins for being goblins." So the belief that it is correct to do so is not one Nerd Paladin or anyone else got from reading any D&D book.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

To me, it seems like the same logic behind locking people up for, say, partaking of an illegal substance. Once they're "evil" it's the same as being a "criminal" so people departmentalize in their minds that the subjects no longer "count."

[Bastian]

It snowballs from there. This thought process in itself is not a 'humanizing' of monsters but a consideration of actions from intelligent motivation, because these creatures are as intelligent as humans. It even says so in the Monster Manual.

It does. If the game (whatever the game) dynamics revolves around killing (large numbers of) sentient beings an 'objectification' process must take place. Period.
D&D was not created to be always like that. But in such a setting, the players self-image would boil down to two choices:
a) I am hero / great warrior who killed many servants of evil;
b) I am a killer with no coscience. Oh, and a racist.

The 'Always Evil' ruleset allows us to indentify with a) when playing such a scenario. Because that is, in the Giant's own experience, the scenario of 9/10 of the D&D campaigns.

[ThePhantasm]

When you refer to the in-game character, I tend to agree with you.
But the issue discussed was different. (see previous post).

In Belkar's words:
Don't hate the Player Character, hate the Game System

No, its really hate the players who don't understand the moral complexities of the game system. Rich isn't criticizing D&D itself.

[Reverent-One]

I don't know which "previous post" you're telling me to see, or which in-game character you're referring to.

What I do know--what I, and multiple other people including the comic's author, have pointed out, to have it roundly ignored by the OP and everyone arguing the same case as him--is that the game system, D&D, does not actually support "it is morally correct to kill goblins for being goblins." So the belief that it is correct to do so is not one Nerd Paladin or anyone else got from reading any D&D book.

I haven't seen Nerd Paladin say it is "morally correct to kill goblins for being goblins" though. He seems to be saying that goblins do evil things that make it morally correct to kill goblins in order to stop those things.

[Bastian]

No, its really hate the players who don't understand the moral complexities of the game system. Rich isn't criticizing D&D itself.

As Belkar was, before having his marked of justice removed. You got my point.

[RickGriffin]

It does. If the game (whatever the game) dynamics revolves around killing (large numbers of) sentient beings an 'objectification' process must take place. Period.
D&D was not created to be always like that. But in such a setting, the players self-image would boil down to two choices:
a) I am hero / great warrior who killed many servants of evil;
b) I am a killer with no coscience. Oh, and a racist.

The 'Always Evil' ruleset allows us to indentify with a) when playing such a scenario. Because that is, in the Giant's own experience, the scenario of 9/10 of the D&D campaigns.

But is it? Does the player's satisfaction at the end of the session come from having defeated evil or from having killed yea many mooks? The problem with claiming the first one is that most DMs don't know how to write in evil except in a manner befitting a cartoon supervillain. You didn't confront anything really evil evil, you just punched out Cobra Commander and called it a day.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

Don't they do those things because they were made that way by the gods of the world?

It basically boils down to a big theological argument over the validity of free will, if nothing else-and we sure as !@#$ aren't going to solve THAT one in this thread...

Rick: Part of the problem is that those DMs that DO know how to write really evil people tend to be railroader Storyteller types (like me!), and players are notoriously wary of that style of gaming, so they all just go write novels instead.

[Bastian]

I don't know which "previous post" you're telling me to see, or which in-game character you're referring to.

What I do know--what I, and multiple other people including the comic's author, have pointed out, to have it roundly ignored by the OP and everyone arguing the same case as him--is that the game system, D&D, does not actually support "it is morally correct to kill goblins for being goblins." So the belief that it is correct to do so is not one Nerd Paladin or anyone else got from reading any D&D book.

This one, previous page - the thread is moving quite fast and I fear there might be some overlappings.

Specicist technically (since Racism applies to members of the same species and hasn't appeared so far within Oots) - but I see your point, from a metagaming perspective. Those paladins would be indeed racist/specicist with a penchant for genocidal massacres. Those imaginary paladins and characters.

Jan Matty's point (if I understood it correctly from his previous points) and mine, refer to the real people playing characters with similar dynamics in a D&D setting: he objects to the labelling of such people as racists, potential or otherwise.

I followed up his point showing that most of the 'gaming' perspective is imbued with such an objectification of sentient beings.

We independetly stated that we adore Mr. Burlew's work exactly for its critique and different perspective on 'traditional' setting and that we do not advocate nor like the 'black and white' / shallow approach to the game.

Our position are not divergent, nor I nor Jan are defending the OP's thesis.

[RickGriffin]

Rick: Part of the problem is that those DMs that DO know how to write really evil people tend to be railroader Storyteller types (like me!), and players are notoriously wary of that style of gaming, so they all just go write novels instead.

And this is WHY I decided to become a novelist: I always, always overthink these things.

And this is why Rich is making a comic instead of playing D&D, because he also overthinks these things.

Overthinking =! purposelessness, but exceeding the circle of thought that most people give consideration to in a form of media. A work of fiction that has come about because of overthinking another work of fiction doesn't make it poorer; it makes it richer.

But it is a flaw in D&D and other RPGs that in order to work as intended you do pretty much need to be Gary Gygax, otherwise you trip over the system's flaws and tell a story with a bad premise, which ends up meaning that most goblins in D&D are killed because they're in the Monster Manual, not because they are evil.

[Reverent-One]

Don't they do those things because they were made that way by the gods of the world?

Sort of, but not really. On a minor, but not irrelevant, opening note, we have the issue on whether or not the Redcloak's story from SoD is even true, he was told that by the Dark One, whose honesty is not established. Even if the story is true though, it doesn't say the goblins were made so they could only do evil, but they were given conditions that increased the likelyhood that they would. We've seen that goblins don't have to be evil, Right-eye's village seemed to be doing fine and living in harmony with nearby humans after all. So it seems that the goblins that are evil still have free will but they just, like Redcloak, decide to do evil.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

I tend to prefer Freeform Story Driven roleplaying to Dungeons and Dragons simply because it's more acceptable to do that kind of thing. In DnD... well, I can never make my players happy no matter what I do, so I just sort of stopped trying, and started trying to make myself happy.

Which has actually worked to a large extent, come to think of it.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

I tend to prefer Freeform Story Driven roleplaying to Dungeons and Dragons simply because it's more acceptable to do that kind of thing. In DnD... well, I can never make my players happy no matter what I do, so I just sort of stopped trying, and started trying to make myself happy.

Which has actually worked to a large extent, come to think of it.

[TheyCallMeTomu]

I tend to prefer Freeform Story Driven roleplaying to Dungeons and Dragons simply because it's more acceptable to do that kind of thing. In DnD... well, I can never make my players happy no matter what I do, so I just sort of stopped trying, and started trying to make myself happy.

Which has actually worked to a large extent, come to think of it.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

I'm surprised how long this is gone, given how little effort it takes to establish the OP wrong. Not because of his claims about the comic failing to move him, those are personal opinion that will differ between people, but because of his repeated claims that Dungeons and Dragons is meant to be played a certain way and only that way, claims that are not born out by the material nor by the experiences of the majority of players, which serve as the foundation of his post. He views the comic as a cheat, because it differs from his ideas of what Dungeons and Dragons is. The problem is that he cannot wrap his mind around the concept that Dungeons and Dragons is designed to be flexible enough to accommodate different play styles.

Someone who says "goblins in Dungeons and Dragons are always a threat and never innocent" when the Monster Manual says "usually evil" does not have the right to accuse other people of playing fast and loose with the rules, because "usually" means "sometimes not". It's basic English comprehension. And that's just a microcosm of the way it's continued to play out over the discussion, with the OP essentially stuck on the idea that divergence from the way HE plays D&D means that you're not being true to the game, despite quotes such as those brought up by Hamishspence from the Book of Exalted Deeds:

Quote:
"Violence in the name of good must have just cause."

"Even launching a war on a nearby tribe of evil orcs is not necessarily good if the attack comes without provocation - the mere existence of evil orcs is not a just cause for war against them, if the orcs have been causing no harm"
and from 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting:

Quote:
"In a world where characters have access to magic such as detect evil, it's important to keep in mind that evil people are not always killers, criminals, or demon worshippers. They mights be selfish and cruel, always putting their interests above those of others, but they don't necessarily deserve to be attacked by adventurers. The self-centered advocate is lawful evil, for example, and the cruel innkeeper is neutral evil."

which indicate that Dungeons and Dragons does discuss the very things he complains of the comic addressing. When pressed on this issue, the OP simply retreats behind the idea that because HE never plays with anyone who feels differently it means the RULES support his limited vision, in the worst kind of solipsism.

Further, he seems to labor under the misconception that having a sympathetic starting point means your actions aren't really truly Evil. This is also wrong, both in Dungeons and Dragons and the comic. As explored in many of the NPC villain write ups in published Dungeons and Dragons material, you can think you're doing the right thing and still be evil. Although, he did waffle on that one later.

[Baphomet]

I once played a game with a newbie DM where the first bit of the adventure revolved around goblins. Without knowing that, I happened to make a diplomacy-heavy character who spoke several languages, including goblin. Standard stuff: the local priest sent us out to deal with a group of goblins in a nearby ruin that were harassing caravans.

We headed up to the ruin and the group let me have a go at talking the goblins down or starting some kind of peace talks. We didn't really roll the diplomacy out, the DM just said that my attempts at conversation were met with "Gnyaah, f--- you!" followed by combat. While we all got kind of a chuckle from it at the time (especially with the high pitched, beavis-esque voice he used to shriek the profanity), it really soured my experience when we later learned the surprise "twist" that the caravans these goblins had been attacking were human and goblin slave caravans sponsored by the aforementioned priest's church, and the chief goblin in that ruin (who we killed, along with everyone else) was a noted freedom fighter.

So the takeaway I got from that was that the concept of goblins = evil is so widespread that even when it is subverted people expect it to be played straight.

[Kish]

I would venture that a better takeaway would be that sometimes, particularly with an inexperienced DM, a DM will have a plan that involves you taking a nasty pratfall which s/he is sufficiently attached to to railroad it through even if a better/more experienced DM might be thinking, "Okay, this should actually lead to them finding out what's going on before they do something bad."

[veti]

I disagree. Any explanation I try to compose hinges on the fact that I think that fiction is a real representation of how our culture thinks. And the sad fact is whilst in our world we have no orcs, and people do not often make the leap "since killing orcs in DnD is fine, it must be fine to hurt people in real life" it reflects a sad thing that is true. Once people can be placed into a group that you are not in, whether grouped by race, religion, gender or even football team, we begin to stereotype them. Any given individual from "group x" is at risk of being steroetyped and treated prejudicially because of it. And we may even present or invent justifications for the act. Some may even have merit. however this is the same process that leads fans of Milwall to declare fans of Derby (2 football teams) as THE ENEMY(tm). And such can lead to violence or worse. And this happens very frequently in human culture and experience.

If that is your worry - and I'd agree, it's a real danger - surely the more salient issue in D&D is not "race", but "alignment". Once you label a creature - of any race - as "evil", a disturbing number of players think it's perfectly justified to kill it on sight, without any further trial or due process beyond the fact that it pinged some paladin's radar.

P.S: Beside, in DnD it has been repeatedly stated that Goblins are not always evil anyways, so without proof positive of the evil of a specific Goblin himself I would call it's execution unnecessary and evil itself. And for my thoughts on the idea that Goblins themselves are Evil etc etc etc, I recommend the works of David Gemmel who explores the concept in great detail in many books.

See? There's you doing it right there. You just implied that if an individual goblin were shown to be "evil", you would consider its execution "necessary" and non-evil. So no sooner have you got through explaining how it's wrong to judge people by placing them in groups (with which I wholeheartedly agree, by the way), than you've established a new criterion for placing people in groups in order to judge them.

Gary Gygax, in his later years, dropped the concept of "alignment" completely from his own games, citing the fact that "the concept caused so much misunderstanding and confusion". (Reference here, in case you want to know more.)

[TheyCallMeTomu]

I tend to dislike alignment myself.

[Darakonis]

Sorry, I missed this in my earlier post:



I CARE. I care, and every goddamn person in the world should care, because it's objectification of a sentient being. It doesn't matter that the sentient being in question is a fictional species, it's saying that it's OK for people who look funny to be labeled as Evil by default, because hey, like 60% of them do Evil things sometimes! That is racism. It is a short hop to real-world racism once we decide it is acceptable to make blanket negative statements about entire races of people.

Our fiction reflects who we are as a civilization, and it disgusts me that so many people think it's acceptable to label creatures with only cosmetic differences from us as inherently Evil. I may like the alignment system overall, but that is its ugliest implication, and one that I think needs to be eliminated from the game. I will ALWAYS write against that idea until it has been eradicated from the lexicon of fantasy literature. If they called me up and asked me to help them work on 5th Edition, I would stamp it out from the very game itself. It is abhorrent to me in every way.

So, complaining that I am failing to uphold it is the best compliment you could give me.

Hear, hear. I haven't read something that rang so true with me in ages. Thank you.

Peace,
-Darakonis

[Omergideon]

See? There's you doing it right there. You just implied that if an individual goblin were shown to be "evil", you would consider its execution "necessary" and non-evil. So no sooner have you got through explaining how it's wrong to judge people by placing them in groups (with which I wholeheartedly agree, by the way), than you've established a new criterion for placing people in groups in order to judge them.

I would agree that the labelling of "evil thus we slaughter" is as much an issue as doing it to races. It is the actions of individuals that determins how we should treat them.

Allthough I was certainly unclear in my quoted part here. It happens when you write a 1am in the morning I mean to say, and hopefully established it in other posts I have made, that execution is only to be called justified in very specific situations. The exact ones vary but an example would be "this thing is trying to kill me right now". Other options may be better, but when it's self defence or active defence of an innocent to kill may be necessary. That is my philosophy on the violence against evil things. I meant more to say that the specific critter needs to do something to require death before I would call it justifiable. However I would never, EVER, call it good. Never. Morally neutral at best. And to require death......for me means no other reasonable options exist.

I admit it means that I think even Roy fell below the mark back when he killed the sleeping Goblins who were then harmless. C'est la vie.

[Nerd_Paladin]

This is in chronological order, with longer answers condensed into spoiler tags just for the sake of taking up (slightly) less room. If I overlooked anyone, or did not do a thorough enough job addressing everyone's arguments...shoot me, I guess, there's not much more to be done.

Silly troll is silly.

Off to a rousing start I see. <further commentary under spoiler tag.>

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Look NP, if you don't like what The Giant's doin', there's no reason to get up in a fuss about it. It's your choice to continue reading even when you disagree with things.

This isn't even close to a fuss, but do go on.

But The Giant's right - sentient beings have souls - that is, they experience empathy, love, hate, greed, and all those other emotions that humans share. Though they may have different cultures, different upbringings, different interests, different beliefs, etc. they are similar in their thought process.

Goblins aren't sentient beings. They're not beings at all. They're a fictional concept and they can have whatever qualities a writer likes. They can be pure evil, burst into flames in sunlight, have hearts that are baked potatoes, and die when someone throws a feather at them. And it would not be equivalent to "racism" to write them that way.

They're written that way so we can better familiarize with them, but also because it's the more likely scenario.

Really? How do we judge what a monster is "likely" to be like, given that there are no monsters? As for relating to them better, if that's what the writer wants that's his prerogative. It is not, however, morally wrong or "racist" to write them in another manner.

Now racism is the wrong term, here - since, as you said, goblins and humans aren't technically of the same race. The term "prejudice" applies, however, and that's exactly the point The Giant's been getting across.

Well, there's pre-judging and then there's just judging. Some characters in OOTS are indeed pre-judging, and that's how Mr. Burlew wants it, and it's his story. But Mr. Burlew's assertion that this is the norm in standard D&D, that the game encourages that, and that it's morally wrong and "racist" for the game to be structured as it is doesn't sit well with me or seem valid. Given that, I find his effort to scourge said phenomena via the comic misguided.

See, it's things like that that gives the story humanity. Why does a story need humanity? To connect with the audience. You don't become invested in characters that are cardboard cut-outs, one dimensional, nor direct representations of the author's beliefs and only those beliefs. It's more interesting to see a mix of characters, a mix of beliefs, clashing, bouncing off each other, arguing, and generally driving the characters bonkers - just like real life. :D

Indeed. If Mr. Burlew's story were self-contained and his story alone, that would be one thing. But his story is indelibly chained to a wealth of outside material, and he's using his story to comment on that material, and I disagree with the comment he is making.

This silly troll will show himself out now.

Sorry, Nerd Paladin, but I contend that your premise is fatally flawed from its initial assumption, before it even reaches the comic. Hell, it's fatally flawed on three points.

Point #1 - You shouldn't have emotional reactions to fiction.

That's a misquote and a mischaracterization. What I said was that you should not become so emotionally invested that you lose your objectivity. And you shouldn't.

I do like Brecht though. <continues under spoilers>

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[quote]Point #2 - D&D is purely about black-and-white morality, and cannot and should not be anything else.

Also a misquote. What I said was that it works best that way and was written with that in mind; it's a game about noble heroes, despicable villains, vile monsters, and amazing feats. The most recent PHB says as much in almost those same terms. The more "moral ambiguity" you put into the game, the harder and harder it is to keep it on the rails. "The Order of the Stick" actually demonstrates this very well. There are other games that do better with exploring moral complexities, but D&D has never lent itself well to that.

A game in which the players have to figure out who the villain is can be a ton of fun. A game in which the players have to stop a war from breaking out when some jerk starts faking attacks is awesome.

That does sound awesome. It doesn't seem that morally complex though; "Some jerk" sounds like a bad guy to me.

As a corollary, your belief that in the D&D that everyone plays, goblins exist solely to be slaughtered, and therefore the comic is wrong is absurd. I have played in games where my party was confronted with an orcish civil war, and helped the orcs who would coexist with the nearby human settlements defeat their rivals. I've stopped a war between elves and gnolls by catching the rogue who stole the gnolls' war trophies. I've helped a group of goblins who were being enslaved by a cruel dragon. I've run a game in which local orcs entered into a deal with nearby human kingdoms to become mercenaries, safeguarding local populations while still getting to have the conflict that they craved. I have played games with friends, with strangers, online and on tabletops, and no one has ever said, "Oh, these goblins aren't evil? Well, that's a flawed game."

As you will. Have you ever played a game where racist Paladins ran down screaming goblin children? I never have. This would seem to be the norm in many circles, according to Mr. Burlew. I have not experienced it myself. I certainly wouldn't say it's what the game designers had in mind.

[

b]Point #3 - OotS is flawed and wrong for not being exactly like your conception of D&D[/b]

I'd say it's more about aiming its satirical barbs at a flawed misconception of what D&D is supposed to be (see above) and on some, frankly, rather weird ideas about he real world ethical ramifications of D&D playing.

If you want to tell a story that is focused on something different, then this is not the way to go, naturally. But Mr. Burlew has explicitly said that changing the world through his art is what he wants to do.

Indeed. But what he wants to change, among other things, is the way that fantasy gaming works, based on his rather profound moral outrage over what he perceives as some kind of fantasy literary fascism. Which i think is...curious, to say the least. <continues in spoiler.>

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I can empathize with you - I have been angry at an author outright ignoring world conventions in glorified fanfic and being smug about it being the Right Way to Write Stories (Kirill Yeskov, I'm looking at you). But D&D has so much more... Diverse conventions than Tolkien has (and, as people have mentioned, Tolkien isn't black and white either). It is possible to choose an interpretation that fits the story and design, and I think the author has done so admirably. This is why I like The Giant's story, and deplore Yeskov's work.

Well, Tolkien was black and white as regards to how he treated monsters. Tolkien is just one example of a storytelling tradition that fantasy gaming draws on; it's a useful one to reference for example because almost everyone knows it and its influence looms rather large in the game material in very obvious ways.

Although I'm still having trouble containing my righteous indignation at a lot of what NP's argument implies).

Lay it on me. <continues in spoiler.>

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Nerd_Paladin is arguing from a perspective of a story being a story - a self-contained, just-so thing that is subject to specific rules and conventions and has no bearing and indeed, should have no bearing on or reflection of reality, because that simply confuses the line between fiction and reality.

Sort of. What I'm saying is that you can't just pick up fiction and treat it like it's real because, well, it's not. This notion that wholly vilifying monsters is "racist" because that's how it work if you did it to a real group of people doesn't hold water to me because goblins are not a real group of people. In fact, they're not people at all, they're monsters. We cannot say whether fantasy depictions of monsters are fair or morally correct because there are no real monsters to compare them to.

Art does not just imitate life, art holds a mirror up to life and reflects both its flaws and high points.

Indeed. However, D&D is not, in my view, reflecting the thing that Mr. Burlew feels it is.

While the Giant isn't self-centered enough to use a webcomic as some kind of sociopolitical soapbox,

Actually, it would seem from his commentary here that he's doing just that.

The central disagreement seems to be on this point, of whether or not a piece of genre fiction set in a fictional world can or should relate to reality, or if it should rather stick to the preconceptions of its stated setting lest it "muddy the waters" or, in the more common words of literary critics, "be pretentious".

No, the central disagreement is whether Mr. Burlew's lampooning of fantasy gaming and his moral outrage over the content of that game is based on an accurate assessment of the material and whether his comic does a fair job of contextualizing the people and material that it's taking umbrage with. Everyone keeps trying to say, "Oh, you're saying Rich can't do this or this with his characters?" I've said over and over that it's his prerogative to write his own story and his own world however he wishes. What I take issue with is what he's trying to say about D&D and people's gaming habits with it.

The argument that this, or indeed any story should adhere to an unexamined black-and-white morality can be dismissed by applying the Hitchcock Principle.

The issue is that this story is not just this story, this story is also a commentary on a game, and that commentary strikes me as unpalatable. For more on this, see comments since page 8.

Okay so as far as I can tell the argument is this:

Redcloak is a goblin, and because goblins are monsters and not real, there is no point in using him as a touchstone for human issues, and doing so is pointless soapboxing because nobody believes that Redcloak is a human.

Not really an accurate summary, no, you've garbled several different points together. This is understandable, given the size of the thread and the many different fronts that the discussion is working on.

To whit, the argument is that Redcloak's story represents Mr. Burlew's take on what he feels are the morally repugnant qualities of fantasy gaming and D&D in particular; he feels that D&D is a racist game (or at least, contains a great degree of racist content), and that it is a "short jump" from depicting monsters as evil to employing hateful stereotypes against real people. I contend that that is not only not a short jump, that it's such a profound leap that you would need the diminished gravity of the moon to get it done.

Heroes and monsters are a storytelling tradition dating back to Gilgamesh, it's true. There was a bad thing, and I killed it. There was a bad man, and I killed him too. But these aren't complex stories; they incuriously assume the killing was good or necessary, and beat their chests in triumph.

Somewhat off-topic, but "Gilgamesh" is an INCREDIBLY complex story. <folklore geekery under spoiler tab.>

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Gilgamesh's abuse of power and lesson in humility, the depth of his (almost homoerotic) relationship with Enkidu, the paradigm between gods, humans, and beasts, the depth of Gilgamesh's crisis of mortality, these are PHENOMENALLY complex issues. Now, the hero's conflict with various monsters, THAT's straightforward.

A stock villain doesn't sustain much scrutiny. The evil witch in Snow White doesn't need a reason to poison the apple; she's just jealous and eeeeeeeeevil. But she also gets virtually no screen time. Sooner or later the audience will ask, "Holy cow, what a stupid idea. An apple, are you kidding me? To put her to sleep? It makes no sense. Stab her! Or if you're jealous of her beauty, give her an apple that makes her ugly! Sleeping apple, sheesh."

But the evil queen is the best character in that story, even though she's not particularly complex (although her symbolic value goes a long way; read Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's essay "Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother" for an intriguing look at that). Really, she's almost the only character in the story, and certainly the only one who does anything. Every other character's actions are just a reaction to what she's done. It's normal for your villain to drive the plot, but in this case the villain is the ENTIRE plot.

Irrational Evil is just unsatisfying. To paint all goblins in the story as irredeemably evil reduces the complexity of the narrative to that of a first-person shooter. I've already got a nephew who tries to tell me stories of his virtual battles, and they're even less interesting than Herakles.

As I've mentioned a few times, the issue is not how evil Redcloak is or whether I like the way he's evil, it's the relationship between the comic and what it's commenting on. For the record, though, I think Irrational Evil can be VERY satisfying. Take the depiction of the Joker in the "The Dark Knight" for example, a story that not only refuses to ascribe rhyme or reason to the villain, but even openly mocks the idea with his various, conflicting, BS backstories and limp-wristed faux Freudian Excuses (if you'll pardon the TV Tropes). As I said before, it depends on the story, and the character. Not everyone looks good in grey.

So your point is that "The Order of the Stick" is a great story, but a poor, angry, moralizing satire of D&D and the various elements of the gaming habit that "disgust" the writer."*
And you think that the satire is "misplaced" and talk about it on 8 pages. Lolwat?

Well, it's a good subject of discussion. Don't you think? There's some really insightful stuff in this thread. Even the author weighed in. Oftentimes what we don't like makes the best subject for analysis. And the urge to share negative opinions about media is a VERY strong motivator.

Seriously - analyzing and debating about something with your key argument being "it's not worth of debate" is flawed in itself.

When did I say "The Order of the Stick" is not worth debating? I said that it's not worth the time to craft an elaborate story whose primary rhetorical agenda is to explain the already-obvious point that black and white fantasy morality doesn't make sense in a more complex setting. And it's not. But the subject of its success or failure is worth looking at, and really, pretty much ANY extended artistic endeavor is worth talking about no matter how it turned out. Do you really never speak a word on something you consider poorly executed?

So, I'm not even sure what we're arguing about anymore if each interpretation is valid within its own world.

Because "The Order of the Stick" is not just about its own world. And Mr. Burlew feels that the interpretation presented in fantasy games (that it's possible for a fake monster to be inherently, irredeemably evil, at least in the context of the game world) is NOT valid at all, and is, in his words, "disgusting." <continues under spoiler.>

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Then there's the fact that Nerd-Paladin doesn't actually seem to be arguing his own view of simplistic alignment, but rather that one should judge the actual actions of another creature.

I'm not sure I see how those statements are contradictory, myself. Can you expand?

I find that indefensible in the face of how many people have come into this thread and debated the point. That kind of point (i.e. that there is only one workable approach) is disproven by the mere fact that it's debated at all, much less debated with the fervor that this thread has inspired.

I'm not sure that the number of people who speak up about something is a good indicator of what's right or wrong. This reminds me a bit of the Spartan Senate, wherever whichever party could shout the loudest was allowed to carry the day. But if you want to put it to a vote, I have a great many game designers over many decades on my side. Also, I have "The Order of the Stick", which illustrates in great detail how the game conventions break down as soon as they touch anything resembling a morally complex setting.

I wonder if the OP will be willing to amend the title of the thread to :

"Redcloak's characterization, and what it means for the comic as a whole"

it avoids the assumption that it was "failed".

"Flawed" would have been a better word, yes, or maybe just doing it your way.

I'm surprised how long this is gone, given how little effort it takes to establish the OP wrong.

Perhaps it's a feistier argument than you give it credit for. <continues under spoiler.>

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Not because of his claims about the comic failing to move him, those are personal opinion that will differ between people, but because of his repeated claims that Dungeons and Dragons is meant to be played a certain way and only that way, claims that are not born out by the material nor by the experiences of the majority of players, which serve as the foundation of his post.

What I said was that it works best a certain way and was plainly designed with that way in mind; as a game of noble heroes, vile monsters, wicked villains, and incredible fantasy. I know this, because the game material says so, and because it provides us with things like categorized alignment and hundreds and hundreds of monsters who are largely a pack of fiends designed to be dispatched in glorious combat. I also know this because I've read "The Order of the Stick", which shows us how the conventions of the game fare poorly in a more realistic setting (something we all probably knew anyway.

I haven't seen Nerd Paladin say it is "morally correct to kill goblins for being goblins" though. He seems to be saying that goblins do evil things that make it morally correct to kill goblins in order to stop those things.

Indeed. It seems to me that you almost MUST have a conflict with the enemy in order for him to even be the enemy, and for there to be any kind of plot at all. Of all the published adventures I have read, run, or played in, none instructed the heroes to go kill monsters "just because." I suppose someone COULD structure their game in this rather flimsy way, but that then is the fault of the gamer, not the game.

[Set]

There's an Order of the Stick strip where Rich Burlew points out something absurd about D&D?

I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!

[Set's monocle pops out as he drops his crumpet into his tea]

[Math_Mage]

Gotta applaud N_P's endurance. I do agree that giving fantasy races inherent alignments is not racist on the part of the players, DMs, or game creators (though characters often act on those traits in a racist fashion, e.g. the Paladin who detect-smites every goblin he runs across because hey, Usually Neutral Evil, right?).

However, I disagree on basically every point related to the actual comic. Here are the points where you have been mistaken from the original post right up to your most recent one:

-Having sympathetic portrayals of the Usually Neutral Evil goblin race is not a departure from D&D. Not only is it nonsensical to claim that evil can never be portrayed sympathetically, not only is it nonsensical to claim that any departure from the sourcebooks' portrayal of fantasy races damages the comic, but the sourcebooks don't actually say goblins are always evil. Nor does OotS say goblins are NOT Usually Neutral Evil--only that they are such as a result of divine action, which Redcloak seeks to reverse. This is not a wishy-washy view of racial alignment, it's a DEEPER view. Feature, not bug.

-OotS may spend plenty of time parodying the in-world implications of game rules even now, but the comic hasn't been about that since before Strip 100--hell, that was even lampshaded in comic 242. Your dismay that RC does not still fit the early tone of the comic is entirely misguided, and your contention that RC's characterization represents a jarring turning point of the comic is flat-out wrong, because the comic made that turn long before RC was significantly characterized.

-D&D morality is neither black & white, nor incapable of describing a complex and nuanced world/story. Indeed, much of OotS is devoted to showing how D&D can support complex worldbuilding and storytelling, and the comic spends plenty of time mocking the black & white paradigm--not to show that tabletop rules cannot be applied to complex situations, but rather to show that D&D morality doesn't have to be, SHOULDN'T be, simplistic black & white absolutes. (Bolded because this point irritates me most--when you make such arguments as "By reading Order of the Stick, we can see how the conventions of the game fare poorly in a more realistic setting," it shows the extent to which you misunderstand the comic.) As such, the complex issues raised in OotS in no way undermine its relationship with D&D in general or alignment in particular. OotS is about the complex, nuanced world of tabletop gaming, silly bits and all. It's also about the complex and nuanced story being told in that world. THERE IS NO CONFLICT THERE.

-Redcloak's characterization is among OotS' most compelling features, and to claim it undermines the comic is frankly nuts.

[Nerd_Paladin]

G
-Having sympathetic portrayals of the Usually Neutral Evil goblin race is not a departure from D&D. Not only is it nonsensical to claim that evil can never be portrayed sympathetically, not only is it nonsensical to claim that any departure from the sourcebooks' portrayal of fantasy races damages the comic, but the sourcebooks don't actually say goblins are always evil. Nor does OotS say goblins are NOT Usually Neutral Evil--only that they are such as a result of divine action, which Redcloak seeks to reverse. This is not a wishy-washy view of racial alignment, it's a DEEPER view. Feature, not bug.

I still don't see how D&D has ever been a game about racist Paladins skewering helpless goblin children. Have you played that game? I've never played that game.

Your dismay that RC does not still fit the early tone of the comic is entirely misguided, and your contention that RC's characterization represents a jarring turning point of the comic is flat-out wrong, because the comic made that turn long before RC was significantly characterized.

When did I say I didn't like the change in tone? I do contend that somewhere around "Start of Darkness" (really somewhere in the midst of the "War and XPs" arch, but SoD is a good landmark in the midst of that) the comic changed considerably. Of course, it's always changing.

not to show that tabletop rules cannot be applied to complex situations, but rather to show that D&D morality doesn't have to be, SHOULDN'T be, simplistic black & white absolutes.

Well now we're getting somewhere.

But D&D IS a game that breaks morality down to a simple system; alignment. Nine options, they all have a definition, and everything, EVERYthing, fits into one category or the other. Even the concept of Neutral does not really reflect a vast continuum, it's as concrete an idea as Good or Evil (albeit it annoying hard to understand and implement much of the time). Good, Evil, or Neutral, that's the world we're looking at. Doesn't look much like the real world to me. If ONLY things were that simple, right?

And the mechanical elements of the game that are tied to alignment only push us even further into artificial abstraction. I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that anyone trying to simulate a reasonably plausible moral system would include Detect Evil and Protection Against Good features. Here's where the goblin massacre in SoD really trips us up; Paladins who go around offing kids really oughtn't stay Paladins long. There's a triggered effect when they do that, and we've seen it happen. Now, I know Mr. Burlew made the point that, for the sake of story, we will never know the full ramifications of what happened that day, but we may presume that if the Sapphire Guard habitually burned down goblin villages and massacred the inhabitants (as Mr. Burlew says they did) that there must be an awful lot of Falling Paladins that shake out of that. And yet they continued with the practice, really?

Here the attempt to create a moral inversion where the "good guys" are acting evil and the "bad guys" are largely hapless falls apart because, given the context of the game materials that we know are relevant to this story, it doesn't work. This sort of thing could (and does) happen in the real world, but not in D&D, with its watchful gods and defined alignment categories. When some Marines go off their rockers and say, "Let's do the whole ****ing village!" none of them visibly fall from grace right after.

[Math_Mage]

I still don't see how D&D has ever been a game about racist Paladins skewering helpless goblin children. Have you played that game? I've never played that game.

Some time in the last couple pages, a poster related a story of an adventure where his DM railroaded him into helping human slavers kill the goblins who were attacking the caravan for righteous purposes. That has basically the same moral overtones. Subverting the "usually" alignments is a fairly popular pursuit, and I'm surprised you continue to maintain it doesn't happen. Heck, even the "always" alignments are fair game in some sourcebooks, never mind some actual adventures (I read a particularly lengthy dramatization of one online adventure that centered around the conversion of a devil--a pity I don't have the link on hand).

So yes, I have played that game. It's called D&D.

When did I say I didn't like the change in tone? I do contend that somewhere around "Start of Darkness" (really somewhere in the midst of the "War and XPs" arch, but SoD is a good landmark in the midst of that) the comic changed considerably. Of course, it's always changing.

In the original post, you lamented that Redcloak's characterization represented an unnatural shift away from OotS' early tone, which was primarily about rules jokes. However, a cursory perusal of the comic shows that its tone changed no later than the end of Dungeon Crawling Fools, that this change was lampshaded in No Cure for the Paladin Blues (I even provided the link, for heaven's sake), and that Redcloak's dark characterization is therefore merely the topping on a healthy helping of Cerebus Syndrome.

Well now we're getting somewhere.

But D&D IS a game that breaks morality down to a simple system; alignment. Nine options, they all have a definition, and everything, EVERYthing, fits into one category or the other. Even the concept of Neutral does not really reflect a vast continuum, it's as concrete an idea as Good or Evil (albeit it annoying hard to understand and implement much of the time). Good, Evil, or Neutral, that's the world we're looking at. Doesn't look much like the real world to me. If ONLY things were that simple, right?

And you know what happens when players treat the game that simplistically?

You get Miko.

This was lampshaded here. You should probably archive crawl everything related to Miko to see why it is FUNDAMENTALLY AN ERROR to treat the alignment system as black & white boxes.

And the mechanical elements of the game that are tied to alignment only push us even further into artificial abstraction. I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that anyone trying to simulate a reasonably plausible moral system would include Detect Evil and Protection Against Good features. Here's where the goblin massacre in SoD really trips us up; Paladins who go around offing kids really oughtn't stay Paladins long. There's a triggered effect when they do that, and we've seen it happen. Now, I know Mr. Burlew made the point that, for the sake of story, we will never know the full ramifications of what happened that day, but we may presume that if the Sapphire Guard habitually burned down goblin villages and massacred the inhabitants (as Mr. Burlew says they did) that there must be an awful lot of Falling Paladins that shake out of that. And yet they continued with the practice, really?

You mean, it's implausible that an organization would continue performing wrong actions despite clear evidence of bad outcomes? I find that entirely plausible. The fallen paladins may not understand or accept the idea that those particular actions caused their fall (just look at Miko again). The Sapphire Guard may not be aware of their fellows' falls--as noted by the Giant, Miko's fall was exceptionally visible and should not be taken as the norm. The Sapphire Guard may not accept the explanation offered by the fallen paladins, out of racism or devotion to Soon's directive or lack of corroborating evidence (after all, most OotS paladins who kill evil goblins probably do not fall). At every step there is a possible or likely explanation for how this deleterious practice could have persisted--for generations, even--despite the existence of hard evidence that it was a BAD IDEA.

Here the attempt to create a moral inversion where the "good guys" are acting evil and the "bad guys" are largely hapless falls apart because, given the context of the game materials that we know are relevant to this story, it doesn't work. This sort of thing could (and does) happen in the real world, but not in D&D, with its watchful gods and defined alignment categories. When some Marines go off their rockers and say, "Let's do the whole ****ing village!" none of them visibly fall from grace right after.

None of the paladins visibly fell from grace in the comic, and yet it was an emotionally repugnant scene. You could try to make a case that the paladins were entirely justified in slaughtering those goblins down to the children (knowing, of course, that D&D and the author both disagree with you), and it wouldn't make the scene any less impactful, or Redcloak's motivations any less meaningful. Of course, I've already provided a number of points showing why the likely (though hypothetical) falling paladins don't break the comic, so this is just a little something extra.

(EDIT: Also, factotum brings up a good point about how the comic's events may not actually represent a constant stream of paladins lining up to behead children and fall, which might actually call into question their continued practice.)

And to return to the fundamental point, this discussion itself shows how the tabletop gaming rules can handle complex and nuanced situations. So again, we can see how OotS' complex and nuanced world, story, and view of alignment do not represent a departure from D&D. For yet another example of this, refer to Roy's afterlife trial.

[factotum]

But D&D IS a game that breaks morality down to a simple system; alignment. Nine options, they all have a definition, and everything, EVERYthing, fits into one category or the other.

But that doesn't mean that there are only nine possible types of characters, one for each alignment. In this strip we have two characters who are known to be Chaotic Evil (Xykon and Belkar) who, despite having the same alignment, are not the same character in any way. (Just to highlight one difference between them: Xykon tends to prefer watching death and chaos, even if it's caused by someone else, whereas Belkar is only really happy when he's personally stabbing someone).

So, since characterisation is only partially related to alignment, where's the issue?

As for the Sapphire Guard thing, I mentioned earlier that they probably didn't start out wiping out entire villages, but gradually pushed and pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable until they went over it and started Falling, at which point they stopped. We have no evidence that the Sapphire Guard ever mounted a raid like the one on Redcloak's village again, for example.

[Werekat]

Indeed. But what he wants to change, among other things, is the way that fantasy gaming works, based on his rather profound moral outrage over what he perceives as some kind of fantasy literary fascism. Which i think is...curious, to say the least. <continues in spoiler.>

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Well, Tolkien was black and white as regards to how he treated monsters. Tolkien is just one example of a storytelling tradition that fantasy gaming draws on; it's a useful one to reference for example because almost everyone knows it and its influence looms rather large in the game material in very obvious ways.

If I understood Mr. Burlew's comments correctly, he wants to change the way people in general look at the world, which will, in turn, naturally change how they game. Or, failing that, have them enjoy a good and complex story. If the man feels he's grown out of the simple stuff, hey, kudos! I personally like that - he's been spinning a fine tale, and I prefer shades of gray.

He does have a point - we are what we read, watch, and all. Fictional violence and bias is not equivalent to real violence, not at all. But water does wear away at stone; i.e. there's a reason military training programs use vaguely human-shaped targets rather than simpler bulls-eyes. It is not equivalent, but the portrayal does make a difference in the long run. The author is making a difference. And find me a writer who'd rather not make a difference the way he wants to rather than go by some "general convention of fantasy literature!"

Slight off-topic in spoiler:

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I'm somehow led to remember another author tract that doesn't read or watch like one. Cardcaptor Sakura, by Clamp, is an admitted attempt to insert as many untraditional familial relations into the story as the authors could manage. It's still a very good children's story, enjoyable even for adults. Seriously, as long as the author tract doesn't make the story less - why not go for it? Mr. Burlew has been wonderful at pulling this off, I think.

Spoilered for Tolkien stuff:

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By "monsters" do you mean Ungoliant, Shelob, the Barlog and their ilk? Because even the orcs and a similarly-corrupted hobbit (Gollum) have been shown to be quite ordinary living creatures, if rather unlucky in nurture. Those are, indeed, shown more as forces of nature than as creatures with morals. But everything on a smaller scale has more than two sides.

What I'm trying to get at is that there's more than one fantasy tradition. Some of it likely sprang from people enjoying a little moral debate with their D&D. The game's a fairly loose framework: the moral debate fits it quite well.

What I don't get where you think he's been misinterpreting it - there is more than one way to play the game. Did I understand correctly that you feel as if he's saying that people who play the game a certain way as 'racist'?

And to reply to a few other points down the thread...

When did I say "The Order of the Stick" is not worth debating? I said that it's not worth the time to craft an elaborate story whose primary rhetorical agenda is to explain the already-obvious point that black and white fantasy morality doesn't make sense in a more complex setting. And it's not.

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree on human nature. I am personally of the opinion that humans tend to simplify. A good simplification helps survival; saves you from getting bogged down in detail where time is crucial. We all simplify as much as we can. To go beyond that takes serious brain power - and any time where brain power is lacking, instincts or conditioned reflexes take over. And brain power will fail under stress, that is a given. What you need is reflexes.

When you're under duress, moral qualities fail. Not in everyone, mind you, but in most people. Conditioning takes over. We get our conditioning, unless specially trained, from our everyday environment - including well-crafted tales. What Mr. Burlew is doing here, I believe, is creating an additional stimulus for us, the readers, when under duress not to succumb to the very primordial, instinctive "they are our opponents, which means they must be evil" (another long topic we can take to PM, if you want) - but rather to keep a more complex moral view for a little longer.

Tl;dr: of course black-and-white morality doesn't make sense if you're in a complex situation. Problem is, a conflict situation is rarely seen as complex from the inside. When you start seeing things in black and white - and be stressed enough, and you will - you can use the reminder that it isn't. This story is a good reminder, and it doesn't suffer for it - what else could you want?

[Anarion]

I still don't see how D&D has ever been a game about racist Paladins skewering helpless goblin children. Have you played that game? I've never played that game.

I have. My best friend played a ranger in our previous campaign who did not want to kill any of the kobolds we fought. He was forced to kill two of them when the party accidentally fell into a mine and a powerful group of kobolds threatened his character's life. However, the party then incapacitated two others, his wizard friend shapeshifted into a kobold to make negotiations possible, they healed the unconscious kobolds and then negotiated a settlement between the nearby mining town and the kobolds.

Throughout the entire campaign, his ranger insisted that killing the kobolds was wrong unless his own life was physically threatened and that the lives of kobolds and humans were of equal value.

Edit: There was no breakdown of the rules, the game functioned perfectly, and the outcome was unexpected and satisfactory. So, basically, you're just wrong.