Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
SuperKlaus
Oct 20, 2005


Fun Shoe
Well, guys, what say we take Mr. Vanderhuge's suggestion and find out if Order of the Stick can support an ongoing thread or if it's best left as something occasionally discussed in the Webcomics Thread or BSS Derailed?

For those not in the know, The Order of the Stick (should be found at http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootslatest.html) is the humorous story of a bunch of stick figure adventurers living in a very typical Dungeons & Dragons high fantasy world. Rich Burlew's excellent writing skills give the comic a wide appeal while his uncanny grasp of current Dungeons & Dragons rules gives almost every strip a special fourth-wall-breaking payoff for the true nerds among us. You can find his stuff in print under the names "Origin of PCs," "Dungeon Crawling Fools," and "Ain't No Cure for the Paladin Blues," which I recommend for the quality bonus material found therein.

Recently in Order of the Stick, the generally chill yet malicious lich Xykon has taken command of an enormous army of hobgoblins and is moving to assault the Asian-themed Azure City as part of his plot to conquer the world, or destroy it or something. Zealous paladin Miko has become convinced that Shojo, lord of her city and her boss, has entered an unholy alliance with Xykon and the Order and after going on a nice long rant about how everyone but her fellow paladins is Evil attacked the old man. So, there you go, discuss recent events, old events, whatever.

For my two bits, Miko's as fallen as they come and the only question is whether she'll take blackguard levels or become a bizarro variant paladin. The clincher is her statement that "everyone here 'cept us paladins is Evil whether or not they detect as such ." Seeing as how D&D has absolute standards of Good and Evil that paladins can sense with a moment's concentration (Lord am I familiar with this after GMing for a paladin for years), if she's attacking people who she knows aren't Evil, then she's Evil. End of it.

Also to answer a question from the last thread, yes, a person can be brought back to life even if the body is completely destroyed unless you either can't find 25,000 gold coins and a high-level divine caster for True Ressurection or some soul-binding trickery is involved. Or if they died of old age. I would like to say that I thought Haley's reasoning that the heroes can't kill Nale because he'd just get raised doesn't hold water. He's Evil, stupid! He forms Evil teams, and a universal aspect of Evil teams is that the members don't have any loyalty to each other! Besides, even if his underlings raised him they'd be out a lot of cash.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bamf
Jul 20, 2000

Yeah, it took a big turn with this last strip. It's as interesting as any actual comic I read.

maltesh
May 20, 2004

Uncle Ben: Still Dead.
From my point of view, I'd probably have to agree that she's Fallen as a Paladin. If so, if the character's going to stay around, she's either not going to notice, or completely reject that it has happened. If she becomes aware, and accepts it at this point, I'd be almost certain that she'd commit suicide.

I doubt she can take onthe entire Sapphire Guard and the Order of the Stick by herself, so it seems likely that she'll be taken down. And if she is, she'll wind up imprisoned, at least up to the coming invasion.

And if she's in jail, she'll probably run into the only character we've seen in Azure City who isn't obviously evil-by-look to a Paladin whose Detect Evil capability isn't working anymore, and has a vested interest in taking her side in this matter... Nale.

That's my prediction at this point. Mikko escapes with the Linear Guild.

The Werle
Aug 8, 2005

Fireworks for Christmas is absolutely American
The quality and narrative of OOtS has jumped leaps and bounds ever since Rich quit his dayjob. The extra effort that goes into the stories, the double and triple length strips, and just the general jump in artistic effort and layouts has lead to this strip being my #2 favorite webcomic behind Scarygoround.

I was always really baffled in the old Webcomic discussion threads when people bitched about the Mikko storyline and character, because I could even then see that it was going to lead into awesome new directions. Xykon is a decent villain, but for the sake of maintaining the freshness of the strip and preventing it from being one Xykon story after another new villains really needed to be developed. Mikko and the Linear Guild have both been really strong additions to the strip.

Captain Rufus
Sep 16, 2005

CAPTAIN WORD SALAD

OFF MY MEDS AGAIN PLEASE DON'T USE BIG WORDS

UNNECESSARY LINE BREAK
Its probably my favorite ongoing strip. It knows almost perfectly when to be funny or where to put in a little drama. And STUFF HAPPENS, as opposed to dragging things out endlessly. Eventually plot threads are tied up which lead to new directions.

SuperKlaus
Oct 20, 2005


Fun Shoe

The Werle posted:

The quality and narrative of OOtS has jumped leaps and bounds ever since Rich quit his dayjob.

Huh, I must not have been paying attention. When did he do that? I think I might have to go buy some more of his books now...

Apocron
Dec 5, 2005
Order of the Stick probably has the highest calibre story in all of webcomics. You might want to let people know you have spoilers in the first post description. Just in case someone wants to read it from the start fresh. I know I probably would have made the mistake of reading your post and then ruining a lot of plot developments.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
Order of the Stick is probably my favorite currently-running webcomic and I even own the official board game. (http://www.apegames.com/oots/oots-dod/oots-dod.html) I would recommend it (the comic) to anyone who is entertained by fantasy cliches!

I'm answering Leikr Elferston from the main webcomics thread. SPOILERS FOLLOW, and there's probably too many for me to blank out the whole section, so those not in the know can just scroll real fast!

Leikr Elferston posted:

I just don't think a total bitch would end up beign a Paladin, anymore than somebody who liked burning down forests would end up as a druid.

There's a cliche in lovely fantasy writing that Paladins are assholes, it comes from a few factors but I think Burlew is one of the people who look at Paladins and see them falling as a ready-made character arc. It just gets a bit tiresome the fourth or fifth time, especially since it leads to more DM's and players who are stuck on the idea that Paladins are big dumb jerks, or become convinced that the alignment rules suck because they read about a lot of contrived false dillemmas, or similar outcomes.

I would be with you on this except that OotS has gone out of its way to show that paladins aren't assholes. Hinjo and the other members of the Sapphire Guard are good, reasonable people, and honestly Roy follows the Lawful Good alignment faithfully enough that he could easily be a paladin instead of a fighter without dramatically changing in character.

It's specifically Miko who's a violent and judgmental bitch. And we already know that she was pretty much told to leave her monastery and become a Paladin, so it's not like it was the ideal vocation for her to start with.

quote:

Either way, the rule semantics are a bit off. They talk about a paladins willingly comitting evil acts, but since evil acts are sometimes inherently evil, it's not clear wether they mean that you have to understand the act's implications, or simply that "willing" means you can't be controlled by a spell or something.

Yeah, that's the tricky part. If a paladin sees a bunch of sinister writhing imps and hacks them apart, and then the illusion spell cast on her dissipates and she realizes that she's actually killed a bunch of human children, does she fall? All we've got is this:

The D20 SRD posted:

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

And if we assume for a moment that Miko is right in her estimation of the facts (Shojo and Roy are in league with Xykon and plan to violently take over Azure City via hobgoblin horde, and if Shojo is merely accused rather than dealt with he can easily twist the laws in his favor and escape), her actions were technically justified, though distressingly violent.

END OF SPOILERS!

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jan 29, 2007

404GoonNotFound
Aug 6, 2006

The McRib is back!?!?
This is probably a stupid question, but I stopped reading around 362 or so and just started again, so... does anyone happen to have a cipher for Haley's gibberish?

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

theres a fwiggin' genocide going on acwass da borda, why dont we do sumfin..? pweeez no votey for joe biden uWu
...which, I think, is one of the interesting points about Balkar's whole running vendetta with Miko. The point where he's trying to get her to fall by killing him? He misses the point entirely, unsurprisingly.

Sure, she's angry about what he's done, but that's to be expected. He's killed guards, he's mocked her at every turn, he's been performing evil acts left and right... yes, it has become personal for her, which isn't good, but Paladins aren't freaking Jedi. Just because you have a personal loathing for Evil doesn't make you evil.

Had Miko killed Belkar when she gave him the chance, she would have stayed a Paladin. Now, what she's just done? THAT's a fall point, right there.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

404GoonNotFound posted:

This is probably a stupid question, but I stopped reading around 362 or so and just started again, so... does anyone happen to have a cipher for Haley's gibberish?

It's a simple substitution cipher, but the problem is that it changes every strip.

I bet someone somewhere has compiled a list of translations but I'm not sure where it is.

Bobulus
Jan 28, 2007

I was really happy that Rich finally resolved a bunch of his dangling plot lines, like the cyphered-speech thing. And doing it with style! The oddly effective Elan rescue was a great way to do it.

Kahrytes
Jun 4, 2004

Now I need a drink. Not this one. Another one. And in a different place.

The Werle posted:

I was always really baffled in the old Webcomic discussion threads when people bitched about the Mikko storyline and character, because I could even then see that it was going to lead into awesome new directions. Xykon is a decent villain, but for the sake of maintaining the freshness of the strip and preventing it from being one Xykon story after another new villains really needed to be developed. Mikko and the Linear Guild have both been really strong additions to the strip.

I'm fairly sure that I was one of the few people who was bitching about the Miko storyline and character, and my problem was an irritation with Miko as a person. I like the interactions between the OotS and Miko, and her insane tirades, I just get irritated because I know how annoying a PC like that is in a D&D game.

I really hope she falls soon.

Black August
Sep 28, 2003

I'm pretty convinced this act is going to turn her into a screaming, delusional, rage-fueled Blackguard. I pretty much called and anticipated that about halfway into her storyline, and I'm waiting for the conversion any strip now.

EDIT: Also I assumed Miko was a tongue-in-cheek representation of your typical 13-year old playing a Paladin to the insane extremes they do, and what it'd logically end up becoming in an ordered and sane story. That is, she goes Blackguard and is hunted down by the good guys, since any rear end in a top hat Paladin in half the horror stories one hears would end up that way, fast.

Zwachro
Mar 7, 2003
C808BEA

404GoonNotFound posted:

This is probably a stupid question, but I stopped reading around 362 or so and just started again, so... does anyone happen to have a cipher for Haley's gibberish?
There's a translation here.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Miko killed a defenseless old man in cold blood, in clear violation of a "Hay, don't kill people, murder is bad" law.

Even if Shojo had been manipulating the law for his own ends, murder is still murder.
Whether she believed the trial would be rigged or not, it was still (as far as I know) a law that Shojo would indeed have to go to trial, and that's a law she would have to respect until she could plead a good enough case to have this law changed.
She instead, openly defied the entire legal system because Shojo was pulling a few of the strings, and trying to come up with loopholes to justify the fact that she's a cold blooded murderer who wants to do things her way, LG or not.

I think Roy explained her fairly well at first, after the incident at the inn
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html

Although I'd say she's gone considerably downhill from there.

HitTheTargets
Mar 3, 2006

I came here to laugh at you.
I have no idea why it took me so long to realize why they're called the Order of the Stick.

Calaveron
Aug 7, 2006
:negative:

Paladin's class description posted:

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
She certainly disrespected Shojo, what with bisecting him in half. Not to mention that she attacked a defenseless old man that registered as Good.
I seriously hope she loses her Paladinhood, then tries taking on the Order of the Stick with no Paladin abilities, gets her rear end kicked, thrown into jail with Nale/turned into a Blackguard by Xykon.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Calaveron posted:

She certainly disrespected Shojo, what with bisecting him in half. Not to mention that she attacked a defenseless old man that registered as Good.
I seriously hope she loses her Paladinhood, then tries taking on the Order of the Stick with no Paladin abilities, gets her rear end kicked, thrown into jail with Nale/turned into a Blackguard by Xykon.

What I see happening is, she lost her Paladin powers on the spot after killing Shojo, but she's so loving amped on self-righteous fury that she doesn't realize it.
She tries to take on Xykon, who just wtfomgpwns her and at the last possible second, she either realizes how wrong she was, and dies with this knowledge as a final gently caress you to the character, or she turns to the dark side in exchange for power, since that's all she really wanted.

bgaesop
Nov 1, 2005

by Y Kant Ozma Post

HitTheTargets posted:

I have no idea why it took me so long to realize why they're called the Order of the Stick.

What, you mean that they're stick figures or did you mean the in-game reason? Because in the comic they refer to themselves as the Order of the Stick, but we haven't learned why, unless I missed something.

HitTheTargets
Mar 3, 2006

I came here to laugh at you.
The spoiler thing. It also explains the Linear Guild.

Chamberk
Jan 11, 2004

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire
One thing I like about this latest comic is that Shojo's cat is getting the gently caress out of there in the last panel. Awesome.

This really is a good comic, and this is coming from someone who's never played D&D, though I'm familiar with all of the fantasy tropes. The characters and plot and humor are good enough to keep me reading.

Gally
May 31, 2001

Come on!
I just read the whole thing. Man that was great. of course I come in at what might be THE biggest cliffhanger the thing has had. :cry: UPDATE ALREADY.

I'm glad I showed up after A LOT of dangling plot lines got resovled, the rogue not able to speak correctly got really old towards the end there.

Gally
May 31, 2001

Come on!
Behold how awesome I am that I can double post almost 10 minutes apart.

Calaveron
Aug 7, 2006
:negative:

bgaesop posted:

What, you mean that they're stick figures or did you mean the in-game reason? Because in the comic they refer to themselves as the Order of the Stick, but we haven't learned why, unless I missed something.

They call themselves that because when they at first formed the group, they couldn't decide on a name, quarreling ensues. Roy sarcastically suggests Order of the Stick adter a branch he picked up, and it took.
It's on the "On the Origin of PCs" book.

Blind Azathoth
Jul 28, 2006
Dia ad aghaidh's ad aodaun... agus bas dunarch ort! Dhonas 's dholas ort, agus leat-sa!... Ungl unl... rrlh ... chchch...

Calaveron posted:

She certainly disrespected Shojo, what with bisecting him in half. Not to mention that she attacked a defenseless old man that registered as Good.
I seriously hope she loses her Paladinhood, then tries taking on the Order of the Stick with no Paladin abilities, gets her rear end kicked, thrown into jail with Nale/turned into a Blackguard by Xykon.

Myself, I'd wager on her getting turned into a Blackguard by, and then joining, the Linear Guild. Even if she is going to become evil, she still hates Xykon, and believes he is in league with the Order of the Stick; the only group she doesn't have a particular hatred for at this point is Nale and his cronies. Becoming a Blackguard also requires peaceful contact with an evil outsider...and conveniently there happens to be one of those sitting in the cells she's probably about to get thrown into.

Black August
Sep 28, 2003

Blind Azathoth posted:

Myself, I'd wager on her getting turned into a Blackguard by, and then joining, the Linear Guild. Even if she is going to become evil, she still hates Xykon, and believes he is in league with the Order of the Stick; the only group she doesn't have a particular hatred for at this point is Nale and his cronies. Becoming a Blackguard also requires peaceful contact with an evil outsider...and conveniently there happens to be one of those sitting in the cells she's probably about to get thrown into.

Exactly. It's a hop, step, and a skip away from black armor and dark powers, all justified under insanity and delusion. Being a fallen Blackguard almost begs one to become delusional and requiring power again for the sake of "purity" and "vengeance", and considering how bad she's going to hurt, all it'd take is a few right words and a prison bust for her to be back in black.

EDIT: She may not need Sabine. Rules also state a Fallen Paladin can convert levels for Blackguard. I'd imagine she'd take a contract for story purposes, though.

Black August fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jan 29, 2007

Skeet Urchin
Jun 6, 2006

by Peatpot
thanks to you guys' constant babbling about this comic in the webcomic thread, I just went through the archives. I don't regret it ! this one is staying in my bookmarks.

Vomax
Oct 12, 2005

?
I was kind of sad when the comic started moving away from the humor it had in the first few strips, but this last update really grabbed my interest. I like that there are so many ways it can go from here, and it doesn't really seem like there's one theory that's ahead of any other. The Haley speech thing was getting pretty annoying, and I'm glad he finally finished with it, but I'm eager to see where he's going with the rest of the story.

Fuego Fish
Dec 5, 2004

By tooth and claw!
In the style of the Achewood thread:

:siren: NEW STRIP IS UP :siren:

And there we have it.

bgaesop
Nov 1, 2005

by Y Kant Ozma Post
The site is down! :derp:

Fuego Fish
Dec 5, 2004

By tooth and claw!

bgaesop posted:

The site is down! :derp:

Not for me, but here you go anyway.

Parahexavoctal
Oct 10, 2004

I AM NOT BEING PAID TO CORRECT OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS! DONKEY!!

the_steve posted:

What I see happening is, she lost her Paladin powers on the spot after killing Shojo, but she's so loving amped on self-righteous fury that she doesn't realize it.

I don't think being struck by lightning is something she can avoid noticing

Kahrytes
Jun 4, 2004

Now I need a drink. Not this one. Another one. And in a different place.

Parahexavoctal posted:

I don't think being struck by lightning is something she can avoid noticing

I think his post was before today's.

All I have to say is that was awesome. That's pretty much exactly what I'd do in such a situation with a PC, especially with the little "neener neener" dig at the end.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Parahexavoctal posted:

I don't think being struck by lightning is something she can avoid noticing

No, but I also posted this idea prior to the new comic. Or at least prior to me seeing it.

evilsake
Oct 25, 2004

by Fragmaster
Shojo looks pretty dead in that last panel, but like that discussion about how killing Nale would probably not really accomplish much, I don't think it's much of a big deal.

Edit: Was that book that explains their origins good? I wanted to pick it up but just sort of forgot about it. I don't generally like webcomics enough to buy their stuff :shobon:

evilsake fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jan 29, 2007

Efreet saiid
Jan 29, 2006

by Lowtax
Motion to partially hyjack this thread to discuss Goblins, also! I'm now interested in finding out about Kore and what his deal is, although the logistics and pace of goblins is wayy at the other end of the webcominc scale. I still think it's pretty cool though. Plus while zogonia is on haiatus, it has some pretty funny lines although it's more of a gag strip.

As for OOTs, I'm thinking that Shojo won't be rsurected, Rich has set up the recurection thing and a priest is on the way, so I think something is going to get in the way of that happening. I also agree with people's speculation about the linear guild, that would be way cooler than her siding with the lich.

Generally i think OOTs goes through good and bad phases, when it gets bottom-heavy with subplots it tends to drag, but when he cleans them up it gets good again.

Battlestar Ferrinus posted:

Order of the Stick is probably my favorite currently-running webcomic and I even own the official board game.
Is the board game any good?

quote:

I would be with you on this except that OotS has gone out of its way to show that paladins aren't assholes. Hinjo and the other members of the Sapphire Guard are good, reasonable people, and honestly Roy follows the Lawful Good alignment faithfully enough that he could easily be a paladin instead of a fighter without dramatically changing in character.
I don't know about roy, but yeah I think it's reasonably clear that he set up the other paladins to contrast with Miko. Wether he did that in response to criticism or not is another matter, but honestly he's done pretty well so far and has played around with a lot of cliches.

quote:

It's specifically Miko who's a violent and judgmental bitch. And we already know that she was pretty much told to leave her monastery and become a Paladin, so it's not like it was the ideal vocation for her to start with.
Yeah but she should not have gotten to a high-level paladin with her attitude at all. Nobody would do a story in wich a druid is wandering around saying I FUCKN HATE TREES but rear end in a top hat paladins are so common they dominate people's perceptions. you don't see as many jackass fighters as paladins, in fact if it wasn't for zogonia I woulnd't even be able to think of an rear end in a top hat rogue.

quote:

And if we assume for a moment that Miko is right in her estimation of the facts (Shojo and Roy are in league with Xykon and plan to violently take over Azure City via hobgoblin horde, and if Shojo is merely accused rather than dealt with he can easily twist the laws in his favor and escape), her actions were technically justified, though distressingly violent.
I'd say that such a reckless action would qualify as dishonerable or even unlawful, maybe even evil. After all, if somebody is forever striking first and asking questions later, that to me is kinda evil in and of itself, because they're not taking due care and acting responsibly.

bgaesop
Nov 1, 2005

by Y Kant Ozma Post
Happy Elf, I think the main reason that the jackass paladin is a cliche is because it fits in real life. Cops are the real world equivalent to paladins, and guess what the cliche is there? They're jackasses. Of course, many cops are not jackasses, and maybe they would be cool people if it weren't for their ridiculous code of honor/stupid laws, but still, it's what sticks in people's minds.

Of course, Paladins also have the whole holier-than-thou thing going on automatically since they actually, you know, are holier than most people.

And there's nothing about humbleness or being a smug rear end in a top hat in the Paladin code. Or maybe there is in some versions, but not in the ones I've played with.

edit: The Paladin in Goblins is a nice guy :v:

bgaesop fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Jan 29, 2007

Empress Theonora
Feb 19, 2001

She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.

bgaesop posted:

Happy Elf, I think the main reason that the jackass paladin is a cliche is because it fits in real life. Cops are the real world equivalent to paladins, and guess what the cliche is there? They're jackasses. Of course, many cops are not jackasses, and maybe they would be cool people if it weren't for their ridiculous code of honor/stupid laws, but still, it's what sticks in people's minds.

Of course, Paladins also have the whole holier-than-thou thing going on automatically since they actually, you know, are holier than most people.

And there's nothing about humbleness or being a smug rear end in a top hat in the Paladin code. Or maybe there is in some versions, but not in the ones I've played with.

edit: The Paladin in Goblins is a nice guy :v:

Come to think of it, are there any webcomics with sympathetic Paladin leads? There's Mikoish jerks, and then the paladins in Boschen and Nesuko who are just as nuts as everyone else in that comic (well, maybe Boschen is nice), but I don't read many fantasy comics, so I'm not sure what the paladin playing field as a whole is like.

fake edit: i swear that paladins in my comic would be nice if there were any justifiable reason for them to appear :v:

fake fake edit: I like how the colors on Miko's clothes are reversed after she gets struck by the Gods.

fake fake edit edit: It's also interesting that from the look on her face, she looks more surprised than angry. Maybe instead of being a Blackguard, Miko will realize the error of her ways and endeavor in improve herself in the future. :unsmith:

Empress Theonora fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jan 29, 2007

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

evilsake
Oct 25, 2004

by Fragmaster
Maybe Miko will kill herself forever and we never have to deal with her stupid rear end again

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply