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So let me get this straight: Belkar's okay because he's outside the city walls while he's dealing lethal damage. So he's okay, even though they have yet to remove the Mark of Justice? (For some reason, my mind assumed they had removed the Mark for the battle) Also regarding predictions I don't think he's going to live out the fight, and either Roy or Vaarsuvius are getting killed. My money's on V. edit: gently caress, beaten, Sam Hall
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Apr 6, 2007 00:37
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The Mark only keeps him from killing things inside cities.
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Apr 6, 2007 00:48
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Gyges posted:The Mark only keeps him from killing things inside cities. And it only effects him if he kills -living- things, so right now he's been getting around that by attacking all of the undead that are trying to come over the walls. But, now that he's outside the walls, everything is fair game for him.
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Apr 6, 2007 00:53
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Okay, that clears things up. Burlew bends so many rules per strip it's hard to keep track.SuperKlaus posted:Guys let's hang out at the next con and be his "punch smartasses in the face crew."
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Apr 6, 2007 00:57
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hahah, erfworld has gone into WALLS OF TEXT mode. Honestly, do we -need- to know this crap for the comic?
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Apr 6, 2007 15:25
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Gally posted:hahah, erfworld has gone into WALLS OF TEXT mode. Some people have problems writing original and interesting worlds and getting across how original and interesting they are through subtle means, thus resorting to either Claremont-style expogab or Crazy-Jelly-Woman-style pseudoencyclopedia entries.
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Apr 6, 2007 17:13
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Gay Polymers posted:
Hmm. Belkar is on the ground... and Roy is on a flying zombie dragon high in the air... If you write, I will make it better.
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Apr 6, 2007 18:36
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Gally posted:hahah, erfworld has gone into WALLS OF TEXT mode. Weren't people bitching two pages ago because the exposition was taking forever?
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Apr 6, 2007 18:55
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Samedi posted:Weren't people bitching two pages ago because the exposition was taking forever? I think people just don't like the comic and will thus bitch about everything. v  vI really liked Belkar in this last strip, though I wish we could have seen the slaad. 
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Apr 6, 2007 19:20
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Samedi posted:Weren't people bitching two pages ago because the exposition was taking forever? I just don't think this is 'need to know' information. I don't care about how ever many schools of magic they have or what seperates them. If he needs to get this information out, do it in a way that doesn't count for and is in the same place as normal comic updates.
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Apr 6, 2007 22:22
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Gally posted:I just don't think this is 'need to know' information. I don't care about how ever many schools of magic they have or what seperates them. If he needs to get this information out, do it in a way that doesn't count for and is in the same place as normal comic updates. The Thursday exposition is explicitly not taking the place of the "real" comic, which turns up on Mondays and Saturdays. It's supposed to be a bonus that also serves the purpose of getting exposition out of the way.
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Apr 6, 2007 22:40
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The last 2 updates have both been the text stuff, so obviously one this week was replaced with it.
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Apr 6, 2007 22:58
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Vomax posted:
I thought we did, and it was the missing Angel.
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Apr 7, 2007 01:31
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Gyges posted:I thought we did, and it was the missing Angel. No, it was inferred that the slaad was a different entity. Especially since slaadi are toadmonster folk and the angel was an angel. Here's my conjecture: Belkar is Chaotic Evil. Of course, we can guess as much from his actions. He's not Lawful, obviously. It's doubtful he's Neutral, either. Though Wikipedia (as good a resource as any for nerd poo poo) says "They hold no illusions that following laws, traditions, or codes would make them any better or more noble" it also says "On the other hand, they do not possess the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has." And Belkar sure loves him some conflict. Demon A represents Belkar's drives, his id. It is his rampant desires, be they lust or hate (as per V's hypothesis). The crux of its argument is this: Belkar hates Hinjo, Hinjo must die. It isn't considering anything but the short term. Demon B is Belkar's ego, the rationalisation that tempers his id. It enables him to be malicious with forethought, rather than a mindless engine of destruction. As it itself states, Belkar has a duty to the "Greater You", and curtail his violence )at times) in order to be violent at a later date. It stops him from being a creature of pure instinct and refines him into the wisecracking sociopath we all know and love. The slaad, I suppose, would be the super-ego. Or, more likely, some kind of nightmarish opposite of the super-ego. One that espouses chaos and immorality rather than order and restraint. Since slaadi are chaotic neutral creatures (usually), it's more than likely it represents the chaotic side of Belkar's personality. Also possibly where he gets his wisecracking from, but who knows? Anyway, that's all just conjecture v v
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Apr 7, 2007 01:55
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 NEW STRIP IS UP And another dangling plot thread bites the dust.
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Apr 7, 2007 04:34
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404GoonNotFound posted:
It's like he reads our thoughts. 
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Apr 7, 2007 04:44
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the_steve posted:It's like he reads our thoughts. I actually laughed out loud after reading this thread and then the new strip. Totally looking forward to the next one now!  Speculation based on current strip: Will the 'line of low level clerics' repel the horde of zombies and maybe even kick the death knight's rear end? Hobgoblin zombies don't strike me as having particularly many HD, and with most of them turned/destroyed I think the knight will be easy pickings.
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Apr 7, 2007 05:54
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the_steve posted:It's like he reads our thoughts. The GitP forums had a lot of the same ideas. I think some strips have arisen entirely out of the plotline speculation on there. Either that, or Burlew's a goon. Wanderer fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Apr 8, 2007 |
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Apr 7, 2007 05:58
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Wanderer posted:The GitP forums had a lot of the same ideas. I think some strips have arisen entirely out of the plotline speculation on there. Either that, or Birlew's a goon. He's watching us right now!
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Apr 7, 2007 06:29
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Fuego Fish posted:
I hope so, because I like that explanation.
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Apr 7, 2007 06:51
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Wanderer posted:Birlew  Burlew!Man, death knights kick so much rear end. LET THE REAPING BEGIN! 
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Apr 7, 2007 07:54
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I picked up OOTS a while back because I created a halfling dual-dagger ranger in a game of Ravenloft that I was playing - after we'd done it, some of the people in the game pointed out it's resemblance to Belkar and I started reading. I'm glad I did, OOTS is easily the best webcomic I've read, alongside Achewood. Few other comics can really get the personalities of their characters down to pat, but both Achewood and OOTS manage it. It was also pretty amusing to sit and read through this thread and see you all predict some of the stuff that's came later. On the V issue raised a good 15 pages back, I'd always assumed it was a male. I think I'm used to female characters being drawn with breasts and hips, and the lack of them just made me assume male. It also has a pretty masculine name. Until the stuff with the inn after they left the dungeon - the whole 'oh man hayley and V in a room together lesbians am i right!!' bit - it never even occured to me that the gender of V was in question. I'd really like an avatar of Xykon now, because until recently I never noticed his constant grin. It just makes everything he does and says that little bit funnier to me. For his voice though, I imagine him speaking like a friend of mine, so he has a swedish accent. Vaugely clueless but at the same time knowing. I could never imagine him with a bender voice. It's too loud and too american. A friend of mine has the OOTS board game, and since a question was asked about it ages ago and went unanswered - it's kind of fun. It's also very long, and the way the rules work means it can really get tedious. The way the game works is that you have cards which represent rooms that look much like the ones in the start of the comic. You move your characters from room to room, and when you enter a new one, the other players put monster tokens down from their hands. Linear Guild monsters will almost always demolish their nemesis other than YikYik against Belkar, so this means you can kill your teammates. You can also just attack them if you want. However, combats are often won by giving your teammates "treasure". Each treasure token has little pictures of characters on, and you gain bonuses in combat based on how many pictures. If it has two pictures of Elan on, that's a big bonus in combat if you give the treasure to Elan. So you're balancing being a horrible dick so you can win the game with keeping your team alive so you can keep killing monsters. Monsters drop random treasure cards, so that's how you get treasure - if a treasure has a picture of you on, it's worth points when the game ends. Obviously you want to win, so you need to be careful about passing loot to your "allies". You don't want them to get more points than you! As you progress deeper into the dungeon - each floor has 6 rooms - more monsters appear. Floor two, two appear, floor three, three appear, etc. The final floor is Xykon's Lair. Obviously this has the strongest monsters in. Hayley (who I played) can make short work of them, but this doesn't apply to everyone. Whoever gets out of the dungeon with the most loot wins. You also get a bonus for being the person to kill Xykon. However, if you die, you're sent back to the start. If you're down on floor 4, this can take a loving long time - you walk every step, dropping your treasure as you go. You can pass through 3 rooms per turn, but even at this speed it takes a good while. Then, walking back, monsters spawn in the rooms you're passing through, again. Since you're all on your own, there's a drat good chance you'll lose the five wounds you have, and die again. In our game, the person playing V died. This locked her out of the game, because it sent her back and she just couldn't kill the creatures that kept spawning on her as she tried to get to where we were. She hadn't picked up abilities (which comes from killing monsters) because she'd spent all her time walking back, she had no people to give treasure to, since they have to be on your floor. She was basically hosed from the first few turns. Then she got to wait for about an hour and a half while we trudged through the final few floors, fighting 6 or 7 monsters at a time, which also took goddamn forever. It's a nice idea, and it's fun, but honestly it has some kinks that really need looking at. V being so goddamn poo poo is one of those kinks. :/ Taear fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Apr 7, 2007 |
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Apr 7, 2007 07:57
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404GoonNotFound posted:
Goddamit Rich Burlew. 
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Apr 7, 2007 09:43
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Burlew has mentioned that people guessing where his stories are going frustrates him to no end so he goes out of his way to change things up. In the only moment I ever disliked him he made a post in his forums complaining about people figuring things out and then said that's the reason updates (at the time) we going so slowly, he was changing things constantly. He was really pissy about it, like it was somehow their fault they wanted to discuss the plot and guess what was going to happen and were apparently often enough right. Edit: Actually, I decided to find the post and it isn't as bad as I remember. Still, it kind of sucks that he could've just said "predictions stay in prediction threads only or need to be spoiler tagged" (a valid enough rule) rather than threaten possible deletion of the board. OoTS is still cool and he otherwise seems like a nice guy. evilsake fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Apr 7, 2007 |
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Apr 7, 2007 10:57
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That's funny because predictions and speculation are a pet peeve of many GM's. I can remember in one game this friend of mine kept trying to guess the plot(ooc) and it drove me up the wall. That said, his statements in that thread make me wonder what kind of DM he was, because he's coming across as very much in the "frustrated writer" mode. In the interview I linked to he talked about adjusting the story to fit the players actions when he was DMing, but he still seems to have a bug up his rear end about suprises being 'ruined', not just for other people, but for him. I think his call of putting them in spoilers is a good move, but his reaction seems a bit harsh. OTOH speculation really can be the bane of a story, especially in bulk. You get a dozen people blabbing out psudo-fanfiction about how they think things will pan out, it's not suprising that a writer (or a reader)could see that and feel like it devalues the actual story. At the gaming table it can completly ruin a scene, even moreso than other sorts of OOC crosstalk. Fuego Fish posted:No, it was inferred that the slaad was a different entity. Especially since slaadi are toadmonster folk and the angel was an angel. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0068.html Along with a modron, their opposite number. Wich of course makes me want to see Belkar's Modron, who is probably in worse shape than his angel. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Apr 7, 2007 |
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Apr 7, 2007 12:31
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Leikr Elferston posted:Actually we've seen a "Shoulder Slaad" in action before, here- The demon said "it's just us and the slaad" which means Belkar doesn't have a modron at all. Unsurprising, given his complete disregard for the law. Still, I think that by the way the demons didn't want the slaad to come out, it's a death slaad and the source of Belkar's incredibly malicious streak (see: lighting Miko on fire, kobold salsa) 
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Apr 7, 2007 13:19
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It would make sense that Belkar's chaotic side is evil as well.
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Apr 7, 2007 17:22
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sakesniper posted:Burlew has mentioned that people guessing where his stories are going frustrates him to no end so he goes out of his way to change things up. In the only moment I ever disliked him he made a post in his forums complaining about people figuring things out and then said that's the reason updates (at the time) we going so slowly, he was changing things constantly. He was really pissy about it, like it was somehow their fault they wanted to discuss the plot and guess what was going to happen and were apparently often enough right.
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Apr 7, 2007 17:28
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Taear posted:It's a nice idea, and it's fun, but honestly it has some kinks that really need looking at. V being so goddamn poo poo is one of those kinks. :/ Shows what you know, V kicks rear end in that game! His area attacks mean you can effectively apply a single bonus-from-giving-loot to multiple monsters at a time, and his large amount of "flip to avoid taking a wound" cards mean he can lose three fights and still rest up to full health in one turn.
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Apr 8, 2007 04:23
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From the OOTS message boardquote:Reading a plot twist that I've spent months or even years setting up being spoiled and discussed and dissected days or weeks or months before it shows up is infuriating. Sure, it also ruins the comic for others, but what you're not seeing is that it ruins the comic for ME, too. It makes me not want to draw the next issue. It makes me want to quit the comic altogether and go back to graphic design. Today's comic is late precisely because I spent more than half the day figuring out if I still wanted to continue with the current subplot. That's interesting. I've never heard of an artist or writer being so influenced by his fan base in such a negative way. While I can see where he's coming from, I think he needs to get over himself. To me, it sounds like he thinks his ability is so great that even the suggestion of someone else being able to predict the plot is an insult.
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Apr 8, 2007 05:02
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I think Burlew thinks of himself more as a D & D dungeon master (hold your jokes, please) than a comic book artist. As such, he's probably used to improvising on the fly for when his players guess where he's going, and he's carrying it over here. Problem is, that works fine in the premise of the game, sometime ad-libbing a plan B ending onto a campaign or story arc is good for keeping your players on their toes. As a writer though, he has to realize that out of the thousands of people reading his strip, people are going to guess where he's going. And while it's not necessarily bad form to change reality on the fly in a game setting, I think everyone would like to see his planned stories come to fruition, rather than his third of fourth choice, because he's worried that people will guess it in advance. And even if he can't differentiate between players and readers, sometimes as a DM, you have to throw your players a bone and reward them for being clever. Sometimes a group of people coming to the same ending for a story, just means that it was the right choice.
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Apr 8, 2007 05:08
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I think it's because in the past Burlew has been so successful in making these twists happen, and they've been rewarding for both him and the readers. The strip is more successful now, and has a larger audience of guessers, and much like monkeys and typewriters, they're going to get it right more often. I don't really see that as invalidating the work he does put into it, but I can see how it would piss him off. Since Burlew's strip is so much more than the twists anyway I don't think it'll ever be so offputting that he'll lose readers. Another angle to consider is that because he's kind of adhering to the D&D ruleset is that his plot choices are limited, and those limitations are just as apparent to his audience as it is to him.
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Apr 8, 2007 05:39
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clockworkjoe posted:That's interesting. I've never heard of an artist or writer being so influenced by his fan base in such a negative way. While I can see where he's coming from, I think he needs to get over himself. To me, it sounds like he thinks his ability is so great that even the suggestion of someone else being able to predict the plot is an insult. I can empathise with him somewhat. It would certainly get frustrating feeling like all your big plot twists are going to be reacted to with OH YEAH CALLED IT TWO MONTHS AGO. Sometimes for something to best influence the reader it needs to be surprising, and I can see how Burlew would get frustrated with the idea of all these people essentially making his writing less effective through an external process he has no real influence over. Not to say that the fanbase are somehow at fault for speculating, but I think his perspective is more sympathetic than it's being given credit for. It also sounds to me like he'd rather people talked thoughtfully about what's happening and what has happened than tritely about what might, which is fair enough really.
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Apr 8, 2007 05:48
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Wait, so Ferrinus likes the game, but Taear hates it? Now I feel like Belkar. Well, you both said it's long so i'll probably give it a miss.NutShellBill posted:I think Burlew thinks of himself more as a D & D dungeon master (hold your jokes, please) than a comic book artist. As such, he's probably used to improvising on the fly for when his players guess where he's going, and he's carrying it over here. Scaramouche posted:Another angle to consider is that because he's kind of adhering to the D&D ruleset is that his plot choices are limited, and those limitations are just as apparent to his audience as it is to him. Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Apr 8, 2007 |
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Apr 8, 2007 07:44
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Leikr Elferston posted:That isn't really a limiting factor. He can play on the rules but they're not going to bind him to plot, they're not that restrictive. It's not as if he's using proper CR or loot tables, although I think a few people have used logic like that to try and guess the levwel of the PC's, for istance. I mean more like "is the female paladin going to become a blackguard" and "are those 3 xykons just skeletons, undead servants, death knights, etc." Both of those scenarios are essentially direct lifts from the rules for potential storylines. When I say limiting I don't mean that Burlew's a limited storyteller (because he's not) but rather that some of his storytelling choices can be predicted, not by being creative, but by being a big nerd who knows the rule book backwards and forwards.
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Apr 8, 2007 07:48
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I guess so but that's part of the fun of it. It's also true with any secret or plot twist, writers try and lay hints or establish a context or do foreshadowing, but at the same time they don't want it to be too obvious or it ruins the suprise.
Efreet saiid fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Apr 8, 2007 |
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Apr 8, 2007 08:39
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I've never gotten the 'IT SUCKED I COULD TOTALLY CALL THE TWIST' good twists shouldn't come out of NOWHERE, they should be hinted at... and if you can pull it all together, yey. The OOTS guy seems a big high and mighty at how annoyed he is if people hit the nail on the head. Changing his plot??? Thats just lame.
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Apr 8, 2007 09:13
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Gally posted:The OOTS guy seems a big high and mighty at how annoyed he is if people hit the nail on the head. Changing his plot??? Thats just lame. I don't think it's that bad when you're writing a comic strip or comic book, but it seems like it would be a stupid decision. Like if around issue #9, Alan Moore had decided to make a revenge crazed Byron Lewis the real cape killer; it would spoil all of the previous foreshadowing and wouldn't really make a lot of sense no matter how well the book was written from that point forward. Hell, look at DC's Armageddon 2001 event. All that people remember about it at this point is the stupid cop-out ending with Hank Hall. I'm not saying that the series would have been good if they had stuck to the original plan, but it wouldn't be considered a joke.
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Apr 8, 2007 15:25
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Hinging people's appreciation of your story on being able to "surprise" them is stupid and rather childish. Every story has been told. The important thing is how you tell it. This is a very basic thing every great author understands. Subplots are stories withing stories, so they've all already been told, too. So you can't be original with your story by writing another story to go along with it. You need to be original and interesting in your method, in your dialogue. Plus, OOTS is great, but it's incredibly linear. Of course people can guess things if you've set them up 40+ strips ago, since they've had weeks to think about how that set up might turn out.
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Apr 8, 2007 16:21
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You guys are bit too down on Burlew, in his initial post in that thread he comes across like a bit of a primadonna but remember that this is a guy who's trying to entertain and create and ongoing story, and his enthusiasm and personal process is a big part of what makes that work.Lurdiak posted:Hinging people's appreciation of your story on being able to "surprise" them is stupid and rather childish. Every story has been told. The important thing is how you tell it. This is a very basic thing every great author understands.
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Apr 8, 2007 17:30
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