Erfworld 51

[Slothboy]

I really liked this strip. It nailed down a game mechanic for us and in the meantime gave some good character development for Parson. I actually had some warm fuzzies there at the end.

Good stuff.

[Loyal2NES]

It's funny how this is the only comic I've ever seen, wherein nearly every page strikes up a discussion (or three) on the psychological/phisiological implications present within said page.

At first glance it seems like the artwork is the selling point, and yet here we see... It's quite possibly something more.

[TiamatRoar]

Yeah, about that..

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Everyone seems to think it's some evil caused by Stanley -- whether he's aware of it or not.. But I thought it was just the rules of ErfWorld.

Think about it -- in just about every strategy game there is, you have random trainable cannon fodder, and then you have 'hero characters'. Hero characters generally being unique in some way, sometimes with higher stats, special abilities, or some other thing that sets them apart from the regular squad. Most importantly, they always have NAMES.
Then you have the nobodies, the random cannon fodder that you send to fight enemies, mine for resources, scout out areas, and so on, who have no identity beyond 'Guard' or 'Worker' or 'Lookamancer'.

In Parson's Klog, he mentioned how, apparently, created units just 'pop' into place, apparently with memories and backgrounds prewritten about their life before poppage. If this is true, it's not too far out there to imagine those units as having names before they became Lookamancers and Dirtomancers and things. Misty "was" Misty. Now she's just a Lookamancer.

... running along this same line, Wanda is probably a hero character -- a 'noble' if you will. She is, after all, highly unique among Croakamancers, knowing a great many spells and bits of knowledge beyond her chosen field. Likewise, it's pretty obvious that Ansom and Vinnie are hero characters, too -- they lead armies and look very distinctive.

Stanley is an interesting exception, of course. Ansom (well, Vinnie) says that he's not "noble". He's "common infantry". And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at Stanley and figure out that, not only does he look pretty generic and unassuming, but even the name 'Stanley' screams less "Dark Overlord" and more "Worthless Cannon Fodder". Stanley's not a hero character. He's a generic nobody who decided to BE a hero character. And he refused to let go of his name.

At any rate, I find these little wordly nuances rather fascinating. I'm interested to see what else crops up.

... wow, that was quite a bit for one little Spoiler tag, huh?

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Yea, odds are that Stanley is some random nameless warcraft Grunt or starcraft Zergling or Zealot (while Wanda's a Jim Raynor or a Kerrigan or a Phoenix) that somehow became the actual PLAYER of his team after the old one got killed off somehow (the "sort of" "regicide" that Vinnie mentioned). Bogroll may not be a hero character, either, which is why Stanley had trouble remembering his name as well. Likely, Stanley skipped the whole "promote to warlord" game mechanic as well, I'd imagine, since Vinnie and Ansom seemed to indicate that the way he moved up the ladder wasn't a very gameplay-legit one

[shakes019]

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Seriously, does everything have to be in spoiler tags?

Okay, now that I've fixed my premature posting, regarding the whole "who has a name issue": I think it's like Magic cards. Some creature cards have specific names, even though they are not necessarily special creatures, and some are just generic creature names.

So Bogroll is a garrison creature, but has a specific name, but Misty is the Erfworld equivalent of "Quirion Elf".

[jindra34]

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Seriously, does everything have to be in spoiler tags?

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absolutely not but it is fun

[fehler]

Misty reminds me of what Sizemore would be if he didn't have such a happy-go-lucky attitude about his lot in life.

I'm wondering if those really were chains earlier. She's not chained now, though she's under guard (but it seems like a protective guard, and not a confinement guard). It seem like an inconsistancy. Unless the game borad is powered through a "tether" of some sort, resembling a chain.

Ansom has no lookamancers. Does he not get a game board? Or has Stanley stolen his lookamancers?

[Querzis]

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Seriously, does everything have to be in spoiler tags?

Okay, now that I've fixed my premature posting, regarding the whole "who has a name issue": I think it's like Magic cards. Some creature cards have specific names, even though they are not necessarily special creatures, and some are just generic creature names.

So Bogroll is a garrison creature, but has a specific name, but Misty is the Erfworld equivalent of "Quirion Elf".

Everyone until now had a name beside her and not all of them were hero or warlord. Seriously, she is malnourished, afraid of Parson, as a speech impediment and above everything else she was chained to the table. She is quite obviously a slave. Anyway, I wonder what Parson is doing, if its not night movement then what is the exploit he is talking about?

[Doshi]

It seems very likely to me that Misty is either a slave, a prisoner or an uncroaked. If only important units have actual names, then doesn't the fact that her name was formerly Misty imply that she was demoted to a lower status? I think she interprets Parson's use of her former name as a suggestion that Parson is willing to promote her back to her former status, which would explain why she is willing to help him. I think she will give Parson some useful information on erf world combat mechanics. That, I suspect, will be the subject of Thurday's klog.

[Ave]

the 'was' bit.. could be a captuered unit? forced labor?
edit- see page 26, 3 casters in chains by the table. one of them?

anyhow.. nice to see parson will be doing something interesting in the near future.

To me she looks like she has been recycled once (err croaked).

[SteveMB]

To me she looks like she has been recycled once (err croaked).

It's hard to compare something illuminated by the light globe to something illuminated by other sources, but Misty's skin color reminds me of Vinnie's.

[Ultimatum479]

She is not uncroaked. She is old and malnourished. She has wrinkles. Old uncroaked would be decomposing, not wrinkling.

We already have evidence that Stanley doesn't always quite play by the rules. There have been several theories of why, but regardless of the reasons, we know he's not quite like Ansom in that regard. We also know that he likes his Shmuckers.He got away with paying less than he should have paid for the summoning spell. He probably pays less than he should for unit upkeep as well, hence Misty's malnourishment.

[Fhaolan]

Vinnie may be a 'vampire', but that doesn't mean he's uncroaked. We are making the assumption that in this game system vampire = uncroaked. Vampire might simply be a class of units that is popped just like other units, while uncroaked might very specifically be units that have been killed and re-activated as mindless zombies.

[Firestar27]

This brings up a question:
Is it actually impossible, or does Misty just think its impossible?
If I asked you, "Is it possible to do [insert thing that is unheard of]?", you would say "Of course not!" without even thinking of testing it. Even if I asked you, "You know for sure that it can't happen, not that it just doesn't happen?", you would still say that it is impossible.

[Ultimatum479]

If she's sure enough to defy his orders and not even bother testing it, then it's effectively impossible. She's the one who has to move them around, if I'm understanding the use of the table properly, so if she won't do it, then it is impossible, right? :P

[oogabooga]

I couldn't say why, but this "Misty" character causes me heart-ache...

Oh, me too. I didn't really give a second thought before to the lookamancers being chained to the table, but having the interaction like this makes the whole situation a lot more emotional. I hope there's going to be more about her.

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Maybe Misty and Parson together will be able to come up with a way to get free of Stanley and lead a vast uprising and all that fun stuff! Well, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised if Misty turned out to somehow be instrumental in Parson getting out of Stanley's control. And back home? Assuming he even wants to go home, of course.

[katana2665]

Nice bit...Onward Ho!

[Karellen]

Y'know, I'm very happy that it turned out you can't mess with the night/day cycle. That would have been a really anticlimactic solution; whatever Parson will have to do now will necessarily turn out to be much more interesting. I suppose he would have been a fool not to try out the possibility of night maneuvers, but even so, the fact of the matter is - that's not his selling point.

As it is, maybe Parson might actually get to show off his genius for a change. We're talking about turn-based strategy games; that means you're meant to work with the rules, not break them in simple and arbitrary ways that anybody from Earth would think of. 'Course, to win, he's probably still going to have to pull off some kind of paradigm shift on Erfworld warfare, but that'll be much cooler if he does it from within the system.

[Alysar]

What's in the box?

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I'm thinking expansion books

[skreweded]

I *heart* Gobwin Knob.


Kinda want to understand that name.

[jindra34]

What's in the box?

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I'm thinking expansion books

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Or more historical info, or movement rules (yeah right), or spellbook type things or who knows what...

[Ultimatum479]

Or maps?

Karellen, that'd be nice were it not slightly impossible. Let's give _you_ 25:1 defensive odds and see what you come up with. :P

I think his plan will still require his tactical abilities. It'll just employ an exploit to help it along. A lot.

[jindra34]

Or maps?

Karellen, that'd be nice were it not slightly impossible. Let's give _you_ 25:1 defensive odds and see what you come up with. :P

I think his plan will still require his tactical abilities. It'll just employ an exploit to help it along. A lot.

Do not forget parson only has a week to come up with a solution...

[nerdnumber1]

It was mentioned that Ansome didn't have any lookamancers. Is it possible that the lookamancers were all taken prisoner and forced to work? This would explain any malnurishment, bondage, and loss of name (to lower the moral of the prisoners).

[the_tick_rules]

so that ends that debate huh.

[A Large Bear]

But she affirms Parson's statement that units lose all move at the end of the turn.

[Ultimatum479]

Do not forget parson only has a week to come up with a solution...

...Huh what? He has a few hours.

[jindra34]

...Huh what? He has a few hours.

I was talking from the start and going on a turn being one day... thus he had about a week

[Fulminous]

It's really time to start thinking of this like what it is -- a turn-based strategy game, not just a world where people talk about things like turns and Move for no good reason. There's no way the units can move at night, because it's not their turn. If I play, say, D&D, and my character moves 40 feet across the map, he just can NOT go any further, even if I pick up his figurine and move it further down the map. The game rules don't allow it. Period.
Parson's exploit is going to be the second half of his plan -- the part that didn't get ruined by not being able to move out of turn. He's planning something for the dwagons, and right now he's trying to figure out how to get them into the position he needed within one turn. I bet that Misty is going to be conversant with rules about terrain, for example -- maybe dwagons can fly farther over plains than they can over mountains, and she can suggest an optimal route. Maybe she knows of alternate modes of transport (magic? Haste spells? etc?) that can extend the dwagons' move.

Also, sidenote: I expect that the reason units with 0 move can still mill around their local area (within Stanley's fortress, for example) is that they are staying within the confines of one 'hex' on the map that is Erfworld. They don't get immobilized -- they just can't cross over those boundaries.

[Misvit]

I agree with fulminous. The Plan, exploit, what have you, had to work on it's own right, however, being a gamer, using all the move as efficiently as possible is probably in his nature. I bet inwardly Parson's really agitated about Stanley leaving those dragons there.

[Ultimatum479]

Also, sidenote: I expect that the reason units with 0 move can still mill around their local area (within Stanley's fortress, for example) is that they are staying within the confines of one 'hex' on the map that is Erfworld. They don't get immobilized -- they just can't cross over those boundaries.

That's exactly my fear. Bogroll has 0 move and yet can easily walk all around Gobwin Knob. That means that all of Gobwin Knob is effectively a single spot -- even if it's bigger, it costs 0 move to walk around within it. That's VERY bad. It means that the moment any wall in Gobwin Knob is breached and the enemy units can come in, they can instantly pop up to Stanley's tower and kill him, thus winning. The battle better stop Ansom's troops before the wall breaks.

That would also explain why Parson's the only one who gets tired moving around within Gobwin Knob: apparently, movement costs for different terrain types don't apply the same way to him. He has a finite amount of stamina instead of a finite amount of movement, I guess.