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2017-02-23, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Yes. The bodyguards at the godsmoot seemed very, very interested in what the gods were thinking about right then. It's the sort of interest that tends to come about when you're watching people vote on whether to murder you, intensified by how they were also discussing whether to murder literally everyone that wasn't one of them or the Snarl.
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2017-02-23, 03:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2016
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Admittedly I could have phrased things better. For that I genuinely do apologize.
On the other hand, I gave passive aggressive snark in my last post back to Kish because the post I was responding to was passive aggressive snark.
"I'm sorry, it genuinely never occurred to me that anyone could not know 1) what passive voice is, and 2) that it's generally unwise for communicating."
I'm sorry. It genuinely never occurred to me that someone could be so ignorant. That's not an apology. That's passive aggressive snark. Which is why I responded in kind.
I thought it was pretty obvious given the only "who" I referred to was the gods. When Grey Wolf's entire first post then explicitly talked about the gods
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=338
I thought that everyone had gotten my meaning. I assumed that was made extra specially clear by my response to that.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=344
My bad. I genuinely thought it was pretty obvious I was talking about the gods.
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2017-02-23, 03:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
No, it doesn't. It is established that there is raiding done by both sides. But there is a larger context you cannot ignore: the goblins were created later, at a time when there was no good land left uncolonized. They had to set camps in badlands of various descriptions, lands incapable of feeding their population. The gods, in short, forced them into their roles as raiders. The "proper" races then responded in kind. The gods manufactured an unstable system which would cause their people and the goblins into permanent war.
You accuse Rich of wanting to have his cake and eat it. That's utterly false. The problem is that you are conflating "all goblins" with "those forcefully recruited into Xykon's army". They are not the same at all. Yes, Rich has goblins as antagonists. He also has a couple of dead humans (only one of which is still moving and talking, I'll grant you).But you should not from that draw the conclusion that, therefore, Rich is saying that all goblins and dead humans are evil.
EDIT:
It was not obvious. I had to assume and, like I said, I do that a lot, and in a significant portion of such I actually extrapolate too far.
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-02-23 at 03:08 PM.
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2017-02-23, 03:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2004
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
I think you might be underestimating how much the gods could do without any mortals actively buying into it. (Note that the Dark One, before he ascended, explicitly had never heard what the gods had done; he was shocked and outraged to learn it.)
That is: Take two groups of people. Make them physically distinct. Plunk one down on good farmland with natural resources, they can build whatever they want. Plunk the other one down on land that won't support them in any way. They can take some of what the first group has somehow, or get them to give it to them (begging?), or they can starve.
What happens then, and what would become each culture's accepted norm without either believing in evil for evil's sake--well, I'm going to stop while I'm still reasonably certain I haven't broken the no-politics rule.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2017-02-23, 03:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-02-23, 03:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
For my part, the existence of Right-eye's village (which was both peaceful and left undisturbed by the neighboring humans), and the hobgoblin citadel (in the middle of the mountains!) suggests that Redcloak and/or the Dark One deliberately exaggerated the disparity in resources as part of propaganda for The Plan. If nothing else, the citadel in the mountains suggests that (hob)goblins can make due with different resources than humans had.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2017-02-23, 03:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Was it still unclear after my response to your post? You know...the response that the answer to the question
You're using passive voice. "It's considered fine." Who considers?
"So having a bunch of good aligned creatures objecting to something that happens every day and is considered to be fine by the good alignment gods "
was made completely explicit that I was talking about the gods?
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=344
I'm definitely willing to take a certain amount of blame for not realizing sooner what needed clarifying but I clarified who I was talking about way before Kish acknowledged that I clarified.
"Who considers fine?"
"The good alignment gods consider it fine."
36 posts later.
"Ah! The gods! Finally, you identify who you've been speaking for!"Last edited by nocoolnamejim; 2017-02-23 at 03:21 PM.
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2017-02-23, 03:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Right eye either outright states or at least implies that life at the village is hard, though (sorry, afb), and that only through sheer hard work has conflict been avoided. I got the impression that it wasn't a scalable solution.
As to the hobgoblins, we never did see where they got their food from. They might have been raiders just like other goblins.
(it would be hilarious if it turns out that the Order did solve the issue of where goblins could get sufficient food by their non-slaying of the infinite hydra)
GWInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2017-02-23, 03:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Elan recognized that he should be making a speech about the Twelve Gods when he buried Therkla.
And the IFCC are very aware of the deities, especially that honked off five-headed dragon lady.
Anyhow, I believe the dragons would be taking more aggro from a jumped up hairless monkey person killing a lot of dragons than anything relating to alignment. But then the Council of Wyrms theme song is 'Draco Uber Alles'.
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2017-02-23, 03:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
To take this interesting observation...
It's very similar to the dynamic of the Western Continent where the elves have all the good lands and the human kingdoms are fighting it out over the desert in-comic.
I wonder if the humans would be considered evil for trying to take the elven lands.Last edited by nocoolnamejim; 2017-02-23 at 03:30 PM.
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2017-02-23, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
You do misremember. Redcloak brings up that the goblins have less than the humans, and Right-eye's response is "so?" its only Redcloak who insists that should be cause for conflict.
As for the hobgoblins, that begs the question though, raiders of who? That hobgoblin base was implied to be pretty far away from other civilization, and while my Knowledge (Historic Logistics) skill isn't especially high, I don't believe there were ever any significant city-states that survived exclusively through banditry and raiding. The Vikings, Goths, Huns, etc... all actually had decently resource-rich lands they were coming from, even if they didn't have agriculture or infrastructure on the scale of the civilizations they were raiding.“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2017-02-23, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-02-23, 03:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
But it wasn't a city state. It was closer to a Roman military encampment. For all we know, they had literally set up for a week on their way between raiding territories. Sub-Subsistence cultures that had to raid neighbours have existed, mostly in prehistory, because the moment people figured out walls that became a lot harder. As a rule of thumb, they weren't the kind to write* stuff down, so we tend to know of them only from the PoV of the raided, which wasn't kind to them. They certainly never became what we'd call civilizations, though - they existed in the margins of them.
Grey Wolf
*This being prehistory, I mostly mean art-wise, rather than actual writing, of course.Last edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-02-23 at 03:47 PM.
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
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2017-02-23, 03:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
The citadel and village only existed because they had not yet come to the attention of the LARGE portion of the world who were given express permission by their deities to commit genocide against the goblinoids.
"They haven't managed to find and kill us yet" is not really a sustainable life strategy. The ultimate goal is to change the world so that "kill any goblionoid on sight" is no longer an acceptable way of thinking, not just to hide in nooks and crannies from the close to 1/3rd of the world that thinks that way.Last edited by littlebum2002; 2017-02-23 at 03:50 PM.
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2017-02-23, 03:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-02-23, 03:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Fair enough, but it still means that the fundamental reason why goblins are thought as the "evil" ones here is because the gods f***ed them over in order to have antagonists and that no one tried to solve the "goblins live in the badlands, so they invade the better places" root of the problem (or at least, didn't manage to solve it). So the fundamental reason the goblins are considered the "evil ones" in this equation is because people (including the gods) are jerks to goblins.
I'm not saying that, but I can get why what I said wasn't clear.
I wonder if the goblins have access to that kind of magic.Last edited by Unoriginal; 2017-02-23 at 03:51 PM.
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2017-02-23, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2017-02-23, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
If that were simply a temporary base of operations, it seems rather unlikely to me that they would have left their non-combatants there, unable to fend for themselves due to the raiders all being absent, for over a year while they were on another continent campaigning.
Also, its pretty elaborate for a temporary camp, though I will admit to that being at least plausible.“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2017-02-23, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2004
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
I think it works much better to look at individual morality rather than racial morality.
That is: I know this fellow who. Even as he kept saying what he was doing was for the benefit of the tribe of his people who had come with him, his actions showed a consistent willingness to sacrifice them to keep the monster happy, and ultimately they all died, some killed by people the fellow recognized as enemies, a whole lot killed by the monster.Spoiler: Start of Darknessmurdered his own younger brother to stop him from destroying a complete monster who had amused himself by watching the younger brother's wife and two older children die
Does it make anyone more or less evil if I mention that the one I called the "fellow" is a goblin and the one I called the "monster" is (or at least was) human?
If I say "here is a character who cuts a defenseless five-year-old girl in half" or "here is a group of characters who whip elderly slaves who they freely acknowledge can't work any faster than they are, because they find it amusing to watch the slaves fall over," isn't it clear already that both are villains? Does it really make any difference which ones are human, which ones are hobgoblins, or what the gods think about the matter?
"Good goblins are dead goblins."--Some guy who literally existed so Rich could demonstrated Redcloak's Implosion spell on someone who didn't deserve audience sympathy.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2017-02-23, 04:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Thank you for your long post. I read it but I am still not sure....
You complain that what I wrote could be percieved as me generalising things, but then you suggested I should have worded it like this:
"Bottom line: It's a comic. A parody. Maybe we should all step back a little and try not being insulted, regardless of the group supposedly being maligned. Laughing about oneself is a huge step in character, I have found."
Your suggestion was to not mention specific groups I mentioned.
I mentioned these groups specifically because these were groups the comic either made fun of or which were discussed in relation to the comic making fun of - the intent was to create a clear connection to the comic.
Thus, the "It's a comic" in the beginning of the paragraph...
I could have wrote
"It's a well-intentioned comic. A non-offensive parody[...]"
or something along those lines.
That would have made it a little more clear that I don't approve of other comics or media that make offensive and bad fun of these particular groups (I thought that was clear from the context, but hey, maybe it wasn't )
So, semantics aside I still have no clue why, or how, transgender people feel insulted by the comic. Maybe that would be part of the way to understand the actual problem?
That being said, we can talk about other media as well, if people want.
Just one problem with "mainstream" media is that this means different things to different people.
For example the "mainstream" media I watch (like, TV series), has a lot more jokes that could be seen as discrimination against socially awkward nerd people than it has jokes against transgenderism or lesbian/gay people, for that matter.
I would point out that the second group is being discriminated in the way they are underrepresented in numbers, and I'd agree to that. Transgender people in media I watch are rare, but when they appear they are often either victims (in crime stories - the Mentalist, discussed briefly in the last comic discussion thread, had one really nice episode about it) or comedic relief (in comedy). So, if you say "Transgender people should get more representation as in, for example, taking leading roles in stories (protagonists)", then yes! Unfortunately they'd have to stand in a long, long line of applicants who also are criminally underrespresented in "mainstream media". And yes, I agree that's unfortunate.
We may be slowly getting someplace, though - for example we had this comedy show where a gay couple (is gay insulting? I don't know. If it is, I can replace it with other words) is getting some lady to have a child for them. I wasn't getting warm with the show, mostly because we were watching other shows more regularly at the time, and a lot of the jokes just weren't "clicking" with me, but I was, and still am, happy that the show was created. And who knows? After we finish our current series', we might give the show another try. I needed a couple episodes to like the Mentalist, maybe this will happen with that series as well?Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
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Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2017-02-23, 04:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2017-02-23, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
What's the current debate about?
: But you can't make an omelette without ruthlessly crushing dozens of eggs beneath your steel boot and then publicly disemboweling the chickens that laid them as a warning to others.
avatar made by Haruki-kun
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2017-02-23, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Don't understand the part about the starmetal. Could you explain, please?
The part about Roy is that he proudly gloated over the dragon killing, and the deva didn't note it, despite generally caring for "bad language". So gloating about a murder done by your team is morally better than giving your jerk father sarcastic lines? Hmmm...
And Roy was being held responsible for Belkar because he is his leader. He is also Varsuuvius' leader.
My personal explanation is that the Giant left it out for space reason/forgot to include it, but I am not sure, of course.
Thank you!Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2017-02-23, 04:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Boytoy of the -Fan-Club
What? It's not my fault we don't get a good-aligned female paragon of promiscuity!
I heard Blue is the color of irony on the internet.
I once fought against a dozen people defending a lady - until the mods took me down in the end.
Want to see my prison tatoo?
*Branded for double posting*
Sometimes, being bad feels so good.
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2017-02-23, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2008
Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
This is the Valjean dilemma, right? Is a thief less a thief because he stole the loaf of bread to feed a child instead of stealing the loaf of bread because EVEL? Sure, that's a small scale example that could easily bend your way.
Is a group that pillages because their village will starve and their people will die if they don't less a group of pillagers than the group who does it for the evillulz?
I guess my point here is: if you steal/murder/burn with intent, regardless of the root of the intent, you are a thief/murderer/arsonist. All kinds of questions fly up, though, when you consider the beings benefiting from the theft/murder/pillaging without participation. That, of course, is the question of throwing out the babies with the bathwater.
TANGENT: Is calling Andi an Engineer in the STEM sense a disservice? Do we have proof she is more than an Engineer in the mechanic sense?
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2017-02-23, 04:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
I think Rich has too low of an opinion of "being responsible for what someone else does." The deva explicitly says she'd accept him not being responsible for Belkar at all if he wasn't the group leader (so Durkon is in the clear for just watching Belkar and Vaarsuvius torture Yukyuk, apparently), and though she did bring up Belkar, she accepted frankly ridiculous excuses ("I'm his prison warden! Don't ask why I've consistently been glad to be away from him when he's killing goblins who are trying to surrender or apprentice barbarians when not in my sight, made no efforts to restrain him from anything but what he did directly in front of me until Shojo insisted on acting like him killing some NPC guard meant something, and then I was as passive as could be: happy to go along with the Mark of Justice, happy to coach Belkar on how to get Hinjo to remove the Mark of Justice").
The young black dragon's death was Vaarsuvius' sin, not Roy's. It wouldn't fly in a game I was running, it might or might not fly in a game Rich was running, but it flies in the comic Rich is writing, without that meaning it wasn't a sin at all.Last edited by Kish; 2017-02-23 at 04:47 PM.
Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2017-02-23, 04:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
This is incorrect. Any "always evil" race is born that way, this includes black dragons. What crime has a black dragon committed when it breaks out of it's shell?
Except that many of the chromatic dragons EXPLICITLY often leave eggs to hatch untended and do nothing for the children. So, no. That's not what's happening.
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2017-02-23, 05:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
I agree with what you say, but I don't see which part of the debate you're addressing
That elf was a monster who killed goblins not because they were malevolent, but because they're goblins.
The thing I thought as weird is that the Giant consider that D&D saying "Species X's individuals are generally Evil, because they have a tendency to do Y malevolent behaviors out because instinct, culture and society and usually enjoy it too" is bad, but his own justification is "goblins are considered evil because the gods made them the world's punching bags, and now this Evil Goblin God and his Evil priest are lashing out against it."
In the first case, it's acknowledging what your average D&D goblin's behavior is likely to be, just like someone would say "Star Trek's Klingons have a tendency to be pretty violent", "LotR's Hobbits are generally a peaceful folk", or "doing a deal with a Dragon in Shadowrun is usually not wise."
But in the second it makes that the whole goblin species suffered a great, fundamental injustice, despite not being really more malevolent than any other species and just wanting enough lands to live well, with the Dark One and Redcloack going "enough! You wanted us to be the bad guys? Well, we're going to use this abomination to threaten you!" only once they got pushed too far big jerk gods and bigoted mass-murderers.
And when you think about it, if the Order succeed at countering Hel's plan, they'll save millions of Dwarves from an helish afterlife. But if the Order succeed at countering Redcloack's plan, they'll doom millions of goblins to suffer in a life where the gods themselves have stacked the deck against them, and then an afterlife that's not much better.
I'm honestly not trying to insult anyone or the like, I just find there is.. a dissonance, maybe it's the term, in finding "those beings are likely to kill the adventurers on sight and be cruel to them because their society encourage it" to be bad, but then turning it into "those beings are likely to be killed by adventurers on sight and have other people be cruel to them because those people's gods and the rules of the world encourage it". Because instead of making it about who's malevolent and who's not, it makes the whole thing "those divine jerks decided who was the good guy here, but it's not factually true."
idk, maybe I'm just too tired to think about it rationally.
Sorry for the rant, I hope I didn't offend anyone.
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2017-02-23, 05:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
Not true. There is nothing saying they're born that way. Unless you're talking about beings such as Fiends.
In which case, the explanation is: most chromatic dragons, when left by their parents to hatch and fend for themselves, with the intellect of adult humans (and I think the knowledge), are likely to commit acts such as knowingly attacking sapient beings or making them suffer in other ways, because they want their riches/to toy with them/to enslave them/to eat them after coming to the conclusion it's what they want to do. Not all will think that way, but most.
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2017-02-23, 05:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: OOTS #1066 - The Discussion Thread
I don't think the Order simply smashing Xykon, killing Redcloak, reconquering Gobbotopia and returning Azure City to Hinjo, and restoring the status quo ante is in the cards, or would be treated as a happy ending if it was.
That said, I think it would be a mistake to underestimate Redcloak's hypocrisy or that of his god. If I were Oona, I'd be kicking myself for having guilted Redcloak into strengthening economic and social ties with me.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II