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

[rbetieh]

"Deus ex machina" does not refer merely to the involvement of a god. It refers to an implausible plot device that is handwaved away by Word of Author (I'm hesitant to say "god" here for fear you'll get the wrong impression) that resolves some apparently irresolvable situation.

There is no possible interpretation of OotS where Command Undead could be considered a deus ex machina. Can I be more blunt?

No need to get snippy or blunt friend.

Do remember the original plays actually brought a god on stage specifically to solve those problems that the protagonist was forced to pray for intervention with. It was a religious reminder to the audience that man is nothing without the gods.

Given that our OOTS gods have the bad habit of being un-reliable in the first place, I would say any time the solution was "I prayed to my god and..." we should analyze it further. What we are looking for is, if the god solved an unsolvable problem for the character, like in the Weather Control incident.

The issue is whether Tsukiko and 4 wights in redcloaks room were an unsolvable problem. Considering he just imploded his way through an entire resistance (another divine intervention), I doubt it.

But look at Durkon now, one minute he can't cast Find The Path, the next he can cast True Seeing in the same stinking canyon. Unless Find The Path requires an actual modern day GPS and satelite system in OOTS, I can consider this an act of Author Shenanigans. That doesn't mean I don't like the story, it just means Cleric magic is unreliable and there is no reason to assume that any cleric power will just work.

So no, the fact that Redcloak has command undead is not a reason to assume he can just use it and it will work. If it were that way, he wouldn't have bothered to explain it, Thog didnt explain to anyone he was a dungeoncrasher, eh? And since no Cleric power just works in this comic, people need to be more even-handed in how they handle the opinions of people that they don't agree with. Instead of "you used that wrong!!!!!!" maybe a little more, "I can see how you might have thought X, but look at Y" might be in order.

Also, I am wearing 5/- platemail so blunt away, but it wont affect me.

[rbetieh]

"Deus ex machina" does not refer merely to the involvement of a god. It refers to an implausible plot device that is handwaved away by Word of Author (I'm hesitant to say "god" here for fear Lyx will get the wrong impression) that resolves some apparently irresolvable situation.

There is no possible interpretation of OotS where Command Undead could be considered a deus ex machina. Can I be more blunt?

EDIT: Forgive my aggressive wording in the second person, I mistook you for Lyx. Derp.

Well, It looks like my response was lost to the winds. I would quote it, but I see it as the last post when I hit quote. Suffice it to say that if I had seen your edit, I probably would have left the sentence with the angry faces out . But otherwise, I would only add, that the Gods are too unreliable to assume any god-power would just work, including Command Undead. Evidence is Durkons inability to cast Find the Path, but ability to cast True seeing, in the same canyon.

[Math_Mage]

The reasoning for why Find the Path failed, as I understood it, is that the target was Girard's Gate, which one could reasonably expect to be warded. True Seeing, on the other hand, affected Durkon. Consider that the very last spell cast on the Draketooths' schedule before the Familicide hit was Shifting Paths, listed twice, which I would expect to be a splatbook or homebrew spell that explicitly counters Find the Path (and likely does other things as well).

Besides, control over undead has been 100% reliable in terms of being able to cast the relevant magics (obviously Tsukiko's control over her wights was not 100%). The specific issues with Durkon and Thor aside, there's no reason to suppose that Command Undead would be in any way unreliable.

[Feather Sigil]

in D&D, goblins are never harmless creatures that you can leave to their own devices without having to worry about them. Goblins, in D&D, are always a threat, and therefore violent conflict with them is almost always inevitable. That conflict is more or less the engine that drives the entire game.

1. Why can't there be a setting where goblins are harmless creatures that you can leave to their own devices without having to worry about them? Don't tell me "because they're Always Chaotic Evil", because that is as much of an arbitrary, meaningless excuse as "because that's how it always is".

2. Are there no D&D settings without goblins? If not, I'll make one right now. It's called "The Planet With No Goblins". TPWNG is a Generic High Fantasy World but there aren't any goblins or anything even remotely resembling goblins. Are you saying any campaign anyone would want to play on my planet is completely unworkable?

It only works and makes sense if "The Order of the Stick" is not a comic about D&D.

What does it mean for a comic to be "about D&D"? OOTS is a comic set in a world where D&D mechanics are well-known aspects of everyday life.

Redcloak's narrative and background are at odds with those conventions; in order for it to work, those conventions have to simply not be so.

Redcloak's backstory and arc have nothing to do with game mechanics, so we must turn to fantasy cliches for comparison and you've already admitted the subversive nature of OOTS with regards to fantasy cliches. Redcloak's plot and the goblins in OOTS are precisely that: a subversion. You argue the necessity of the very cliche it subverts but if it was so necessary it wouldn't have been subverted.

it's about a more nuanced, complex world that doesn't at all resemble tabletop gaming

Because all tabletop games must follow the same tropes and plots.

[rbetieh]

The reasoning for why Find the Path failed, as I understood it, is that the target was Girard's Gate, which one could reasonably expect to be warded. True Seeing, on the other hand, affected Durkon. Consider that the very last spell cast on the Draketooths' schedule before the Familicide hit was Shifting Paths, listed twice, which I would expect to be a splatbook or homebrew spell that explicitly counters Find the Path (and likely does other things as well).

Besides, control over undead has been 100% reliable in terms of being able to cast the relevant magics (obviously Tsukiko's control over her wights was not 100%). The specific issues with Durkon and Thor aside, there's no reason to suppose that Command Undead would be in any way unreliable.

That's a good explanation, I can buy that.

[MonkeyBusiness]

EDIT: I should write "Ce n'est pas un jeu des cachots et des dragons" under every comic from now on.

This made me laugh out loud. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.


Regarding the comic being "about" D&D ...
I always think of D&D and comics as being a subset of fiction. And the point of fiction is to shed light on life, through the actions and interactions of characters. That's what is happening here.

Regarding how the familicide spell knocked out the Draketooth clan:
When V first cast the spell, we saw hundreds of dragons and dragony creatures dying. Yet we knew already that the specific dragon V cursed evidently had only one child, who died without issue. So it's clear that familicide works on all relations of the subject of the curse
not just decendents.

Regarding Goblin ethics:
Coat points out that goblins are capable of the same love and compassion humans feel, and raises the objection that they then violate that ethical inclination when they slaughter humans (and, I'd add, each other). This does indeed happen .... but then Coat seems to be saying that this violation is a flaw in the story. Do I understand your line of reasoning, Coat?

Because I don't see that as a story flaw at all. In fact, I see it as one of the story's strengths. Failure to be consistent about ethics is normal for any individual, or culture. seems very accurate. Humans violate their own ethics all the time, in reality as well as in the comic. Miko is a great example of how ethics can be abandoned due to war-related atrocities, and personal conflict and failures.I feel it's a complex picture of ethics that is presented here, and that's one reason I keep reading this comic.

-Monkey




--

[Wardog]

I've skipped most of this thread, so this may have already been said, but:

1) The OOTS gods are not omnipotent or omniscient. They are fallible. Just because they created goblins and other monsters to be inately evil enemies to be slaughtered for xp with impunity doesn't mean goblins are inately evil enemies that can be slaughtered with impunity.

2) If some goblins are evil and some aren't, then the ones going out raiding and pillaging will tend to be the evil ones, and the ones who stay at home minding their own business will tend to be the non-evil ones. So killing goblin raiders is probably something that you can do without to many qualms, but following them back to their villages and killing everyone there isn't.

3) If Recloak takes the view that "Our people have been unfairly done by - we should go out, crush our enemies and set up a new society in which we are on top and our enemies are unfairly done by justly kept down", then he is only repeating what many, many people have thought or done in the real world.

So to sum up, nothing about the cosmic lot of the goblins, or Redcloak's response to is seems at odds with what we know about the OOTS-verse.

[Rig]

Well, i was randomly linked here, so why not. Given the comic so far, i expect that the fundamental problem with redcloak's character, e.g, just how mind-numbingly stupid it is to risk your species on a Lich, will not be anywhere near as cut and dry. I'll admit to not having read start of darkness, but i do know that this story is not coalescing around a simple "doomsday" villain, not another ridiculous idiot with no sense of scale who is followed blindly by his mooks. To be honest, that's the best argument there is for there being more to this gamble. You do not focus on bland chunks of xp and create a army of solid religious zealots. This is a good enough world for MAD to have some attempt at being controlled by "rational actors", and Redcloak is smart enough for that. If he isn't, his mook's are.

On that note, can i be informed as to how many enemies you'd need to throw at epic level characters on Xykon's power before conversation of jujitsu becomes irrelevant? The sea of enemies overwhelming those guards points to an upper limit. Honestly, unless goblins genuinely are chunks of xp denied personality and Redcloak is only different for being a villain and knows this, then I'd like to get inside their heads one of these days.

[kpenguin]

The Modguin: Thread necromancy? Thread locked.