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Ditocoaf posted:An image that kept springing to mind when thinking how I was going to answer Boba Pearl's question, was the comic Necropolis. (One of those comics that's stopped updating for years and revived briefly several times, which may come back some day but will probably never finish. But possibly my favorite comic in that category.)
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Jan 31, 2022 23:18
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Ditocoaf posted:An image that kept springing to mind when thinking how I was going to answer Boba Pearl's question, was the comic Necropolis. (One of those comics that's stopped updating for years and revived briefly several times, which may come back some day but will probably never finish. But possibly my favorite comic in that category.) I'd read it.That art is rad.
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Jan 31, 2022 23:51
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Ronnie's choice
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Feb 1, 2022 00:10
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Boba Pearl posted:I feel like I already know the answer by the vast love of Thorsby comics, but do you like it when the magic system is very explained, or like "it's magic." Depends on if it is relevant to the story and if you have no other way of conveying the rules. World building is not a suitable replacement for a story and many fantasy settings fall into that trap. So if you need outright exposition to explain a magic system, it should be relevant, foreshadow something important, be interesting, and most importantly be worth the time that could otherwise be spent moving the story forward. But if a magic system is going to be constantly relevant you can probably just show-don't-tell it being used as long as you're consistent. And if it's not relevant enough, you can still hint at it and let it be a mystery, proving your world is bigger than just what's shown. Consistency is key there too, to be worthy of the reader's curiosity. Sometimes you can have entire rule systems that are rigid and objective, but aren't explicit in the text, yet determine what events/elements do or do not happen in your story. Often these are in a "story bible" and I think of them as a DNA or a molding that leaves a purposeful negative space, a consistent absence that proves the nature of your world. Just be careful not to stop the story dead in its tracks to explain something, and what time you use better be worth it. Thornsby gets away with it because he is a master of foreshadowing and most of his asides are comedic and absurd in their length and detail (similar to Hitchhiker's Guide). I think your comic since the introduction of frog uncle has been pretty good at this. Maybe could use 5% more explanation. For instance, when one of the characters turned into a panther I lost track of what was going on, but it wasn't a hindrance.
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Feb 1, 2022 01:44
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I'm fine with "its magic", and agree with the sentiment to not use it as an excuse for an rear end-pull, because rear end-pulls are bad. Thorsby is good because he's good at what he does, not because what he does is intrinsically good.
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Feb 1, 2022 01:55
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:Thorsby is good because he's good at what he does, not because what he does is intrinsically good. The Wolverine of webcomic creators
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Feb 1, 2022 02:06
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The Bloop posted:I would certainly be happy to see more I too. It kinda sucks when weird webcomics just kind of peter out and fade away before finishing. Alien Loves Predator and Ectopiary come to mind.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:25
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Snake Maze posted:I think you don’t necessarily need to lay everything out and have a bunch of exposition on how it works, but if magic is going to be an important part of the setting you the author need to know how it works and have consistent rules for what magic is capable of. yeah, this. you only need to explain the bare minimum the audience needs to understand things, but the unspoken rules need to have some sense of coherency.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:32
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Ditocoaf posted:An image that kept springing to mind when thinking how I was going to answer Boba Pearl's question, was the comic Necropolis. (One of those comics that's stopped updating for years and revived briefly several times, which may come back some day but will probably never finish. But possibly my favorite comic in that category.) just chiming in wyatt's art is great and he also illustrated the first (and not the terrible second) one-shot of spiderverse that introduced us to peni parker 
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Feb 1, 2022 02:40
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Alright! Before each chapter, Necropolis drops a few pages of illustrated lore, which are definitely cool and not entirely optional, but I don't think are a great fit for the post-a-day format that I like in this thread. Instead of posting them on their own or dumping them all at once, I'm going to post one page of the prologue-lore alongside each of the first three pages of the actual chapter. I've reread to make sure, and I think this will work well:      
Ditocoaf has a new favorite as of 03:16 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 03:00
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Boba Pearl posted:I feel like I already know the answer by the vast love of Thorsby comics, but do you like it when the magic system is very explained, or like "it's magic." You don't need to explain what exactly Gandalf can do or how he does it, but Gandalf also can't magic away problems without it being unsatisfying.
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Feb 1, 2022 05:21
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Foxfire_ posted:I think I generally agree with fantasy doorstopper author Brian Sanderson's take. It's fine if magic is magical, as long as it doesn't solve the plot. I've tried to understand his vaunted magic system but I can't see it under the constant barrage of push pull pull push burned push pull burn
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Feb 1, 2022 05:28
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Foxfire_ posted:I think I generally agree with fantasy doorstopper author Brian Sanderson's take. It's fine if magic is magical, as long as it doesn't solve the plot. sanserson doesnt know poo poo about anything and shouldnt be listened to
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Feb 1, 2022 05:48
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I've never read a sanderson but it seems like a decent enough take. Mayhaps not gospel, but I don't see following it ever leading you wrong. I was going to say that magic in your setting should be concrete enough to serve its place in the plot. No matter how well thought out you have it in your head (and, to be clear, this isn't directed at you specifically Boba), the reader probably doesn't care unless the details of how magic works are important to the work; worldbuilding on the page should serve the story at hand. Its why the Silmarillion isn't part of the LotR, or moreover the hobbit. A story with a Vancian wizard that only takes place over a single day can get by with "I can only cast these spells, once each", whatever it takes to recharge isn't salient. (I've never read any Vance either.) Fantastic Foreskin has a new favorite as of 06:27 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 06:10
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I'm all about soft magic. Patricia McKillip, Peter Beagle, the kind of thing where you don't have rules so much as vibes, where the magic has to fit the tone more than any hard and fast set of preestablished rules. Sanderson's perspective is logical and so are his magic systems, but he doesn't acknowledge the value of vibes-based magic.
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Feb 1, 2022 06:26
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https://wiki.lspace.org/Narrativium that is the best answer to questions about rules
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Feb 1, 2022 06:41
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I'll refine what I said in my first response by cutting it down to what I think is my ultimate takeaway: Vibes-based or detailed-rules magic can both be amazing, or anything in between, because there are tons of different roles magic can take in a story. What ultimately makes the difference is that the author has a really good feel for what they want magic to be in this fictional universe, and is skilled at executing on that vision. Boring or unsatisfying magic is usually the result of an author unthinkingly importing how-magic-works from various inspirations and not making it cohere, either with its constituent parts or with its significance in the story.
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Feb 1, 2022 06:42
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I drew this to commemorate the utterly horrible weather we're having presently. Thankyou for your sympathy towards those of us who live in Australia
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Feb 1, 2022 07:49
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It's hot as hell in NZ and we aren't even getting close to your ridiculous temperatures  please don't melt!
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Feb 1, 2022 07:56
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Sleve McDichael posted:It's hot as hell in NZ and we aren't even getting close to your ridiculous temperatures Sorry, I missed that, I was distracted by the sound of bits of myself being peeled off other bits of myself
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Feb 1, 2022 07:59
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Tree Bucket posted:I drew this to commemorate the utterly horrible weather we're having presently. Thankyou for your sympathy towards those of us who live in Australia Amazing.
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Feb 1, 2022 08:41
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Tree Bucket posted:I drew this to commemorate the utterly horrible weather we're having presently. Thankyou for your sympathy towards those of us who live in Australia hello fellow sufferer
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Feb 1, 2022 08:49
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I see you. It's hot as balls today.
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Feb 1, 2022 09:34
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It's cold actually, and snowy
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Feb 1, 2022 09:48
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I hope a snow leopard eats you
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Feb 1, 2022 10:00
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if i'm reading something with magic in it's because i'm reading for light entertainment, so the best magic system is one where the author does all the thinking work for me and i can burble "huh huh funny light go brrrrrrr"
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Feb 1, 2022 10:23
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Tree Bucket posted:I drew this to commemorate the utterly horrible weather we're having presently. Thankyou for your sympathy towards those of us who live in Australia I hate how this works both for the body, and the world. It's a really good comic.
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Feb 1, 2022 10:24
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I popped into read this thread a few months back and was very quickly enthralled by Hitmen for Destiny (it was during the part where Lostclock was stuck in a cylinder with the acid rising) and I am very excited every time a new post appears - and really look forward to more of his work being posted! There is something extremely engrossing about the comic and while I know it would be so easy to pop over to his site and read it all like I genuinely want to, there is something nicer about having these bite size chunks with posting around it. Thank you for posting it 
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Feb 1, 2022 10:32
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It feels very good to see the webcomic in it's original form kind of, where you'd get periodic updates that help with the pacing.
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Feb 1, 2022 11:13
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Yeah, it simulates the effect of waiting for weekly updates and talking about them.
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Feb 1, 2022 11:25
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Yeah same, which is why when it is over I will be shamelessly begging for Trixie slaughteraxe to be posted in the same way.
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Feb 1, 2022 11:46
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Í had a lot of fun with that thread. I actually managed to guess a few of the twist puzzles, Thorsby set up in that story, which made me weirdly proud and a bit concerned for my sanity.
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Feb 1, 2022 14:39
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Feb 1, 2022 16:04
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Ditocoaf posted:I'll refine what I said in my first response by cutting it down to what I think is my ultimate takeaway: I think Thorsby really emphasizes how a "magic system" or "world building exposition" or whatever we want to consider it is something that's interdependent on other elements of the storytelling. Like, Thorsby's love of sharing complicated evolutionary nonsense only works because everyone, not just Lostclock, talks in a style that doesn't go for naturalism. Jymre's "Otherwise I will not be able to warn her not to step on the landmine and that will significantly increase the probability that she will step on the landmine!" as a punchline helps affirm the reality that this is a comic where characters are going to be unnecessarily verbose about things. He's also a very detail-focused artist, with an art style that feels low detail, which encourages people to read his comics like a treasure hunt and look for things like the vanishing graffiti or the happy caged monsters, which, along with how farcical the plots are, means reading Thorsby is all about setting up a comical number of dominoes that find new ways to defy expectations—exposition is both setup and punchline. The invisibility wand has charges to make things invisible and invisible people are blind, and from those two rules, the whole Orc Castle scene unfolded. On the other hand, Isaac in Tredlocity can do whatever works for the moment or what makes a good visual gag and we don't question it, because Isaac's a cheerful, whimsical person in a lighthearted comic—his ability to do or not do magic isn't driven by obstacles he needs to surmount and how much the reader should infer they're a challenge. The whole thing's contiguous with the rest of the comic, and you can't create a "rule" about worldbuilding without assuming a lot about the rest of the work.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:23
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Isaac's magic does have rules. Rule #1 is that it has to be whimsical tho, because his magic is fueled by whimsey.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:30
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I think in general, if you're going to explain anything about your magic system, it's more interesting to explain what magic can't do than what it can. For a Thorsby example, when Lostclock goes on his rant about how ghosts aren't real, not only is it a funny Lostclock moment, but it's establishing a ground rule that If you see a ghost, there's some other explanation.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:52
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Now I want to have Lostclock explain the evolutionary reasons that demons exist, why demons can be bound in a summoning circle, and all the other demon related stuff in Hitmen for Destiny.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:57
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Tendales posted:I think in general, if you're going to explain anything about your magic system, it's more interesting to explain what magic can't do than what it can. I feel like this was an irrational moment for him, and maybe he is wrong about the reality of ghosts
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Feb 1, 2022 17:03
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It's also funny because Lostclock is such a happy go lucky, positive guy with a zest for biology who loves weird things and loves studying the mechanisms of weird organisms but he becomes irrationally angry at the irrationality of ghosts
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Feb 1, 2022 17:35
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I'm happy to see so many people enjoying HfD, it's really something special and fun once you get past the initial shock of the art style Hitmen for Destiny #436: Seizing slug  ======================== Hitmen for Destiny #437: Stacking stiffs  ======================== Hitmen for Destiny #438: Chicken claws  Bodycount: +blow-bubble slug I can't wait to be awed by the sideways monkey's fighting techniques! Son of Thunderbeast has a new favorite as of 18:02 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 17:59
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