The Order of the Stick: T-Rex, Troll Sex and Will Checks

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Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

I feel dumb for liking that bird and his dialogue.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2010 01:49

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:47

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Vorgen posted:

You're joking, right?

Right??

Um... guys... I don't think I can like D&D anymore.

There's like a million D&D books and they cover just about everything. Imagine D&D as being written 10% of the time by serious, intelligent designers and 90% of the time being written by the kind of person that like harry potter/lion king slash fanfiction.

Try not to hold it against D&D; its the victim. Decades of being the victim.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2010 07:16

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

That actually worked and I laughed. Not at the reveal but the perfect bard moment.

# ¿ May 13, 2010 15:26

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

A Big Dark Yak posted:

* just kidding, no one plays divine minds

What the hell is a divine mind

# ¿ Jun 28, 2010 05:05

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Mylan posted:

Let's not get started down this road. This thread used to argue all the drat time about if Erfworld discussion belonged here. It'll happen for any other tangental webcomic/video whatever, I guarentee it.

Can't discuss something that never loving updates.

Speaking of which didn't someone a couple months back claim that Order was out of material and would go down to super slow updates again? Seems like this one has managed a pretty steady clip for a while.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2010 01:44

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Man the lizard cleric dude is sweet

This arc has been surprisingly good

# ¿ Jul 24, 2010 10:29

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Idran posted:

Except there are ceremonial swords too that are more useless than ceremonial maces or scepters or whatever in killing people.

No, it's basically what Piedmon Sama said.

In addition to this dating quite far back in D&D there's orders that are, in fact, allowed to use edged weapons though obviously that depends on the setting. Not sure if any of those orders still exist in modern editions, though.

Pope Guilty posted:

Belkar's still CE, he's just learned to hide it.

I'm pretty sure that learning to hide CE makes you not CE anymore.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2010 05:00

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Halloween Jack posted:

IIRC, the way alignments were described in some editions of D&D (AD&D 1, I think) playing anything but Lawful Good meant being deeply psychotic.

The best part of this argument is firing up google and hitting '95 style masterpiece websites with lines such as the following:
"The man who created Dungeons & Dragons is still out there creating. If you got here following a link from his site, or if you just wanted to check out his new game, this is the place to look. And let me thank him for his positive comments on this page"

http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/char/ And yeah there's an animated gif. Background. Modern web design suddenly doesn't look so bad.

I don't really want to get into one of those weird rear end alignment arguments, but Belkar making the decision (or being reprogrammed by his cat master) to be less violent so as to escape repercussions, but more importantly selecting to stick his neck out to aid his allies, is an alignment shift towards neutral from chaotic. Having a plan that pays off in the end is totally against the grain of being chaotic. And dumb. And he was both of those things at the start of the comic.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2010 14:31

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

I'm hoping the lizard cleric's diet is just something weird and gross, not a switch up to another plot where we spend the next 25 strips having the party fight Tarquin due to his cleric eating babies or something.

Red_Mage posted:

Yes, but an antipaladin is a paladin who falls, then takes his next level in blackguard, which gives him evil versions of all paladin abilities that benefit from his previous levels, and allows him to multiclass freely and not worry about reverse falling.

How precisely is this any different than, say, making up a variant where the paladin falls, redeems himself with a test of faith and becomes a PALADIN AWESOME?

If you're going by what you can and can't do in D&D game your DM can just say "no that's stupid" and hit you with a bag of cheetos like you're bad puppy, no?

# ¿ Aug 20, 2010 10:24

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Red_Mage posted:

By rules as written the Blackguard can multiclass freely, the paladin cannot, and the blackguard cannot fall again. While I definitely like your suggestion more, I find it hilarious that not only is evil quicker easier and free-er, it is more mechanically sound.

Games and fanfic writers everywhere have a mad hard on for the idea that you can be a drooling chaotic evil dreadnought of death and destruction without it being restrictive or frustrating. That's just a thing gamers do.

I'm not quite sure what you mean mechanically speaking.

Didn't they remove all the free/open license stuff for 4.0 or whatever? I'd heard (perhaps even in this thread) that it was a great deal more restrictive.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2010 23:23

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

It's a neat layout but needs stronger reference to the passage of time to keep you from reading it like a normal strip. But it's great once you figure out what it is doing.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2010 12:23

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Or he enjoys a son that is fun as opposed to a son who is a colossal tightwad with charisma as his dump stat?

# ¿ Oct 16, 2010 00:08

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

buy I'm soon to be married

# ¿ Oct 21, 2010 05:15

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

It works and I am pleased.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2010 18:55

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

This is actually much better PLOT than I expected!

# ¿ Nov 16, 2010 22:09

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Cliff Racer posted:

Thats because its the backstory to 1984.

What, perpetual combat against a foreign power to provide stability of empire? That's not something from 1984, that's a real thing that goes on to this day.

I'm just surprised OoTS tied up several elements effectively like this. All this stuff was referenced earlier and then neatly tied together.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2010 00:11

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Nipponophile posted:

It's almost as if the guy has some kind of long term plan for his story, but that level of plotting can't be possible, not in a mere webcomic.

A pre-written plot doesn't make the writing smooth or keep the monologue both in character and a functional parody. It was a good strip and a good reveal that might just set up why Girard is so hard to find and roll this plotline into the overarching plotline.

I even have a glimmer of hope we won't see the boring and clich� Elan must kill his father crap.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2010 02:40

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Those last three panels are amazing.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2010 00:38

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Melche posted:

Of course he's Tarquin, so he probably doesn't need to get killed out of it. Elan will probably throw him of a cliff, then not check to see if he's dead because no one could possibly survive that.

That scene works perfectly in my mind but replace 'throw off cliff' with 'the empress of blood falls on him'

# ¿ Nov 21, 2010 21:10

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

I have nothing to say about this strip other than poo poo am I grinning.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2010 23:37

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

This is actually going beyond my hopes. He seriously is writing this character totally out of the clich�. Great dialogue too. I like the idea of this tempering Elan's mindset towards a more realistic view of the world, the shocking wonder that is character development and all.

Anybody!

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 17:40

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Tarquin definitely has a plan for stuff like Xykon showing up. Probably a scroll or something to re-assemble his full party in a pinch. And I think, being crafty, his party could definitely handle Xykon.

And his lines during the process would be awesome.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2010 20:39

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

oobey posted:

Times like these are why I love OOTS.

I don't want to empty quote, but this is some seriously great writing justifies my love for OOTS.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2010 18:29

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

dpbjinc posted:

There's one problem with Tarquin's plan: Right now, he's ruling the kingdom from the shadows.

...

If he finds out about Tarquin, Xykon will realize that there's no way Tarquin would ever let himself be used.

...

Therefore, Tarquin's plan will only succeed in two cases. First, he reveals his control over the countries.

What? So his plan can only succeed if a force that doesn't know about him and isn't actively looking for him is made aware of his existence so they can act on it to not succeed by sending assassins against him when Xykon doesn't even do that?

# ¿ Dec 2, 2010 12:54

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Unless he's under a spell to act like that, then when certain conditions are met it triggers his true personality?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 03:52

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

didn't this elf glare at him/her before?

edit : I seriously can't find it. Weird, wonder why I thought that?

Spiderdrake fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Feb 13, 2011

# ¿ Feb 13, 2011 03:37

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Your eye shifts to the last panel thinking he's terrified by the violence, but no, he's looking at his own hands in horror. I got a good chuckle out of that, it always impresses me when stick figures manage to pull off effectively visual gags.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2011 04:53

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

CapnAndy posted:

Who wants to bet that Draketooth is The Champ?

Uh, isn't he a halfling Illusionist? I could swear he was, but maybe I'm confusing another member of the other party?

I wouldn't mind if it was related to him though or something. I like Tarquin and these strips have been decent, but I'd kinda like if I felt like the strip was moving towards either the plot, or the main characters becoming better suited to the end game.

Right now I'm just sad about lizard men

Spiderdrake fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Mar 24, 2011

# ¿ Mar 24, 2011 03:46

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

I just noticed he is patting an adult red dragon on her nose.

Tarquin gets more bad rear end the longer you look at his panels.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2011 23:56

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

The war on drugs / industrial prison complex and that stuff is probably the best real world example of Lawful Evil I can think of.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2011 19:41

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Tarquin is a good example of why authors should replace their earlier characters with later ones. I find his dialogue really refreshing. I feel like there's a point where any really conniving character ends up looking like (for lack of a better term) some sort of mary sue thing. Tarquin doesn't. He's every evil mastermind with none of the blunder or eye rolling stupidity. Even well written stories too often just go 'oh well uh here's something dumb' out of the antagonist's mouth, just to hold to the trope. Tarquins cares not for the tropes.

Nilbop posted:

And here is exposed the old flaw of the alignment system in that it is completely subjective.

The problem is people weigh good a hundred times lighter than evil. A single evil act == you're EVIL. A single good act, in turn, has no meaning. Heroism is just taken for granted. How many people will act like a Lawful Evil character will do something heroic because 'oh well why not'. I mean, I'm agreeing with you, but subjective is fine if people didn't act like any evil act suddenly makes your soul turn black and you vomit up fiends every eight hours. But find me an alignment argument where people don't immediately say 'no one good would do this' or 'but he would kill a baby, so he must be EVIL'. They never have any opposite to that, there's never "no one evil can do this".

I don't remember what we're supposed to call D&D outsiders.

Most cultures are very strongly neutral. People, in large groups, generally are. Most people aren't actively malicious, in fact they're arguably not actively anything beyond people. The worst part of alignment systems is people don't realize they're not a prison, mind you.

Also Forgotten Realms, as it was in the BG era, will drive you nuts if you think about it in any manner approaching logically. It's not a functional setting, it exists purely to have Party, Will Travel, Get XP. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here since I don't really care, but I can strongly recall a huge D&D nerd friend of mine screaming nonstop about how FR was just piles of wizards all hiding in towers and spewing out magic items that no one in the populace ever used. Just nestled away in their treasure troves for an apparently infinite parade of adventurers.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2011 05:32

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Toussaint Louverture posted:

Vorpal nunchucks are a much better topic for discussion than the alignment system, really.

Me too, I'm sorry about that. I just read other forums and build up a need to vent. Inversely, I really like Tarquin and the recent strips for almost that reason. It's panacea to someone sick and tired of reading D&D arguments where people just shriek about 'killing babies'. Tarquin won't kill you for any price - he'll kill you for the right price.

seaborgium posted:

A lot of that was actually covered in the books.

I'm not sure that really makes the setting make any more sense. Like instead of a wizard did it, now it's the goddess of wizards did it so more wizards would do it?

I think his point was that the economy and nature of the setting just didn't make any sense, but really I'm not sure it was supposed to. It's almost exclusively for the purposes of providing a setting for people RPing silly adventures, isn't it?

# ¿ Apr 8, 2011 19:52

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Ponsonby Britt posted:

But what's easily identifiable, is capable of ripping somebody's head off with its bare hands, AND is apparently a Medium biped?

Technically a golem, but that's a lovely answer so I'll defer to "it has to be something plotty but who knows what"

# ¿ Apr 12, 2011 01:19

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

MadScientistWorking posted:

Wait the planar system is tied to a system that this comic has openly mocked? That all ready entrenches it into the stupid category.

Citation needed.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 00:20

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

HKR posted:

I cannot fathom the reasons why people sperg out about the default setting. There is no history there and the book have always stated that if you don't like something you are free to change it.

I can't fathom why people sperg out about anything involving D&D's rules, since unless I've been playing D&D wrong my entire existence there's literally nothing stopping you from just ... Not doing that.

Then again, technically we're reading a comic that is entirely a giant sperg fest.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 01:11

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

inthesto posted:

At that point, why bother with D&D rules in lieu of freeform roleplaying?

And when a mommy roleplaying system loves a daddy discontent with roleplaying system very much, they have a new roleplaying system...

MadScientistWorking posted:

There have been multiple characters who gamed the alignment system namely because any real character wouldn't follow a single alignment. And any character who actually does is really disturbing.

Give a specific example and explain how it relates to your earlier comment of 'openly mocks' given people have been doing that in D&D since Raistlin.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2011 09:24

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

inthesto posted:

(he has high INT and his lowest apparent stat is CHA, which still seems decent).

I thought there was a strip where they said he didn't dump stat CHA?

Maybe that was WIS or INT. I agree anyway, pretty sure he has great stats.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2011 23:48

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

Especially given that Tarquin aims for his son to leave and grow in power, as well as his right hand man being noted as capable of resurrection and prepared for it.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2011 19:10

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

We're all aware, the question is more rooted in "why does this keep coming up in the thread".

# ¿ May 29, 2011 19:50

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:47

Spiderdrake: May 12, 2001

terminal mehmet posted:

Are you asking why nerds get obsessed with stuff?

No, not at all? Is the context that vague?

# ¿ May 29, 2011 21:58

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > The Order of the Stick: T-Rex, Troll Sex and Will Checks

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