The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas

The Index of the Giant's Comments VI
Version 6.12

with thanks to Xapi, B.Dandelion, ChristianSt, & theangelJean
and to Jesse Baruffi and David Lawrence of Geekademia
and special thanks to Rich Burlew and ThePhantasm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Giant

Except we know the answer....

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How to Contribute: Suggest new quotes to be included! Read the guidelines first. Then, when suggesting a new quote, also mention the number of the current comic if possible, as well as a brief summary of what it says. The more helpful information you give, the easier the Index can be updated.

The Index provides easy access to direct statements about the Order of the Stick comic from its author, for the purpose of forum discussion. It is intended as a research aid; its entertainment value as a trivia collection is incidental.

Spoiler: Index Guidelines (PLEASE READ - Updated 04/03/2023)

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These rules were decided by forum vote. They specify what sorts of comments are suitable for inclusion in the Index and what sorts are not. This thread is run by its caretaker in accordance with forumgoer consensus.

Rule A: The quote or comment must still be accessible online.

1) | This includes the use of The Internet Wayback Machine and other methods of accessing comments that may not still exist in the archive.

2) | This does not include second-hand sources, like "I remember Rich said this, but the thread does not exist anymore." Even if you are 100% certain Rich said that, if the quote is not demonstrable or provable it cannot be included.

3) | This does not include Rich's commentary in books or in any medium that cannot be legally accessed for free.

Rule B: The Index is for collecting only quotes that have to do with the Order of the Stick comic or other fiction works by Rich Burlew.

1) | This excludes non-comic-related opinions, statements, etc. from Rich. So if he says "I like Italian food" or something like that, it is not to be included.

2) | This may include information related to the comic, like Rich's views on Dungeons and Dragons, book publishing, art design, etc. . . so long as these quotes are still within the sphere of comic-related discussion. Uncertainty should be decided by thread poster consensus.

3) | This excludes GiTP forum rules, updates, or general information. That is for the admins and mods to publicize and spread word about, not this index.

Rule C: The index is a forum tool, meant primarily to provide easy access to direct statements from the author for the purpose of forum discussion. Thus, while the index may be fun to read through on a whim, this is not its primary purpose or focus - it is a research aid more than it is a trivia collection. It is for discussions more than it is for leisurely reading. (rescinded as rule on 12/16/2014)

Rule D: If two quotes seem to contradict each other, only the quote that illustrates Rich's most recent and current opinion or position will be included. The index is not meant to be a complete collection for leisurely reading. It is meant to be an accurate research aid for forum discussions. (reference to rescinded rule removed on 12/16/2014)

Rule E: Quotes that contain redundant information need not be included. This reduces clutter. The quote should only be included if it provides new information or clarity, or if it expounds upon information included in a prior comment. This reduces clutter. The quote should only be included if it provides new information or clarity, or if it expounds upon information included in a prior comment.

Rule F: The index-keeper (Jasdoif) has the job of updating the index in keeping with thread-goer consensus.

1) | He/She may reorganize the index if deemed necessary, though all reorganizations can be reversed by majority vote.

2) | He/She may immediately add a comment to the index without any vote, discussion, or consensus required if the comment obviously is in accordance with these agreed rules.

3) | He/She may never fully "reject" a comment's inclusion, however, he/she may postpone its inclusion until further discussion (and, if the divide in opinion appears even, a vote) decides the matter.

4) | If a comment's inclusion is uncertain, a vote requires a majority. If there is a tie the comment will not be included. Remember, the purpose of the discussions and votes are to reach some measure of consensus, not division. (updated on 04/03/2023)

Rule G: Transcripts of Q&As with Rich Burlew may be included, in their entirety, in additional posts to the Index. Rule A applies as normal, but all other Rules may be varied contingent on community acceptance. Quotes can be added to the Index proper from the Q&As. This is not considered redundancy for the purposes of Rule E.

Rule H: To reduce how many posts in the thread are consumed by votes instead of discussion, normal changes to the Index are done in groups of quotes.

1) | General Update Procedure (updated on 04/03/2023)

• Any update to the Index requires community support. Additions will only be voted on if discussion doesn't reveal a clear and strong consensus; removals are always voted on.
• If a vote is necessary for any additions, the curator will call for voting on those additions. At the curator's discretion, posts in the discussion that qualify as votes may be counted as votes; these posts will be noted when the vote is called for. Further discussion, beyond reiterating personal reasons for voting alongside the vote, is discouraged while the vote is going on. Addition must "win" a majority (by at least one vote) for the quote to be added.
• If any quote removals have community support, the curator will call for voting on those removals, separately from any voting for additions. Removal must "win" a majority (by at least one vote) for the quote to be removed.

2) | Special Update Cases

• If the curator finds a quote to be clearly aligned with the agreed-upon thread rules, the quote may be immediately added to the update queue. When the update cycle happens, the quote is still held to usual procedure with regards to possible votes on additions.
• If the curator finds an already-present quote to be unequivocally violating the agreed-upon thread rules, most likely if the cited quote ceases being available online, the quote may be removed immediately without regard to the update cycle.

Spoiler: Old Inclusion Text (Rescinded 07/22/2016)

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The inclusion procedure below was proposed and adopted in a more informal fashion than the rules above, but still represents how this community project is expected to be run with regards to including new quotes.

Participating doesn't require an understanding of this procedure: we discuss the merits of quotes after they're proposed in the usual forum fashion, and the curator will call for nominations or votes at the appropriate time.

But for those interested in the details:

• Quotes with a clear consensus to include or exclude after discussion will be included in or excluded from the next update, as appropriate.
• Quotes the curator deems clearly aligned with the inclusion guidelines will default to be included in the next update without needing extended discussion, but may be voted upon at the time of the update (see below).
• Quotes without a clear consensus to include/exclude after discussion will default to be included in the next update, but may be voted upon at the time of the update (see below).
• Updates will happen when there are six quotes ready to be included or if it has been two months since the last update.
• When an impending update is announced by the curator, and prior to the update being done, people can PM the curator requesting a vote on the particular "default" inclusion quote(s) (the quotes with strong consensus to include do not need to be voted on). Two separate posters must request a vote on a quote for it to occur, otherwise the quote will be included.
• If a vote is necessary, the curator will call for voting on all quotes set to be voted upon. Discussion, beyond reiterating personal reasons for voting alongside the vote, is discouraged while the vote is going on. Per thread rules, to be included a quote must "win" a majority by at least 2 votes.
• Only votes called for by the curator are binding.

Spoiler: Table of Contents

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• FIRST POST
  
  • Latest Updates
  • Alignment
    
    • General Information
    • D&D Alignment
    • Specific Characters
      
      • Evil Characters
      • Good Characters
      • Neutral Characters
  • Visual Art
    
    • General
    • Drawing
    • Art & Magic
    • Art & Merchandise
  • D&D Rules and Explanations
    
    • Accuracy
    • Characters: Items and Stats
      
      • Order of the Stick
      • Other Characters/Creatures
    • Combat Scenes
• SECOND POST
  
  • Story, Plot, and Characters
    
    • General Information
    • Vampirism
    • The Gates and their History
    • Familicide
    • Calendars, Dates, Maps
    • Culture, Religion and the Afterlife
    • Reading Too Much Into It
  • Character Development and Backstory
    
    • The Order of the Stick
    • Vector Legion
    • Other Characters
• THIRD POST
  
  • Writing
    
    • Storytelling Mistakes?
    • Plot Holes
    • Writing Process
    • Tools and Logistics
    • Forum and Reader Reactions
    • References and Influences
    • Story Development
    • Reflections from the Author
    • Real World Intent
    • Character Naming
    • The Story as a D&D Spoof
  • Supporting the Strip
    
  • Spoilers from Book/PDF Content
    
    • Start of Darkness
      
    • Snips, Snails and Dragon Tails
      
    • How the Paladin Got His Scar
      
    • Kickstarter Bonus PDFs
      
• FOURTH POST
  
  • Thread History
    

Latest Updates
🍌Elan and Nale are Tarquin's Only Children(#8) "...Tarquin would have been highly aware of the fact that multiple children means multiple heirs...a potential threat to him."	#1291	2023/11/30
🍍🍌Elan is (Still) Chaotic Good Elan let Tarquin fall because he was using a different interpretation of Chaotic Good. See also here, about the similar situation with Nale.	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌Malack (and Nergal) are Evil(#12) "He never actually says that either he or Nergal is Neutral, merely that it would be logically consistent if they were."	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌On Death Gods and Neutrality(#12) "What Malack says is entirely reasonable, but so is the idea that a culture could fear death so much that they conceive its personification as inherently malevolent...."	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌On Not Updating Past D&D 3.5(#1) "...I feel absolutely great about sticking with 3.5".	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌On What Makes Good Magic for a Story(#2) "I like my magic like I like my Star Trek technology: Full of nonsense terms that the audience has to infer the meaning of based on contextual clues."	#1291	2023/11/30
🍍🍌On the Forum and the Comic(#9) "I don't read the GITP forums at all anymore, either in or out of the OOTS context." See also here and here.	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌Selecting the Northern Deities(#6) "I mostly worked backwards from how I wanted the vote in the Godsmoot to shake out".	#1291	2023/11/30
🍍🍌The Comic Cannot Be Posted on a Consistent Basis(#9) "What you're suggesting is not something I can actually do." See also here(#10) ("So the remainder of the comic is going to take as long as it takes....")	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌The Giant on Using Elan as His Avatar(#5) "...for situations where the character image is going to...possibly be interpreted by newcomers as a depiction of me, I think it's better for everyone if I...use someone who matches me demographically."	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌Wrecan is a Crusader Also, Tarquin wasn't envisioned as a swordsage.	#1291	2023/11/27

Spoiler: Alignment

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General Information
The Morality of Deception "Taking advantage of someone is neither Good nor Evil, inherently. What matters is what you take advantage of them for."	#981	2015/04/28
"Lovable" Does Not Mean "Not Evil" Case in point, Thog.	#936	2014/01/11
Genocide is Always Evil See also here.	#935	2013/12/24
Alignment and Authorial Intent What does the Giant mean when he says X character is Y alignment?	#903	2013/07/23
Azure City's Chaotic Government Azure City's chaotic government (under Shojo) was still good, not evil.	#891	2013/06/06
Alignment and Environment Enor and Gannji were not operating wholly outside the ethical framework of the Empire of Blood. This doesn't change the nature of their acts but does mean that the acts are not as indicative of their overall alignment as some might suppose.	#812	2011/10/25

D&D Alignment
🍌On Death Gods and Neutrality(#12) "What Malack says is entirely reasonable, but so is the idea that a culture could fear death so much that they conceive its personification as inherently malevolent...."	#1291	2023/11/30
Usefulness of the alignment system in D&D games A great aid for teaching new inexperienced players how to roleplay.	#921	2013/09/29
"Lawful" vs "Legal" More here and here.	#891	2013/06/03
D&D's Alignment System Thoughts on how it could be improved.	#838	2012/02/18
About Lawful Alignments On being Lawful in D&D and the OOTS.	#281	2006/02/15

Specific Characters
Evil Characters
🍌Malack (and Nergal) are Evil(#12) "He never actually says that either he or Nergal is Neutral, merely that it would be logically consistent if they were."	#1291	2023/11/30
Everyone on Tarquin's Team is Evil And Tarquin is kind of like the Elan of their team. See also: here.	#934	2013/12/08
Redcloak is Evil More here(#5) ("If you're reading Redcloak's dialogue and uncritically accepting every word of it, you're overlooking one of his defining character traits: that he cloaks his vile actions in lofty rhetoric to convince himself that he is morally and ethically superior to the likes of Xykon.") and here(#9) ("...furious about getting less even if one slice was technically enough to survive on....")	#830	2012/01/23
Tarquin is Lawful Evil	#763	2010/12/07
Belkar is Chaotic Evil	#251	2005/12/01
Nale, Sabine, and Thog are all Evil	#142	2005/01/20
Good Characters
🍍🍌Elan is (Still) Chaotic Good Elan let Tarquin fall because he was using a different interpretation of Chaotic Good. See also here, about the similar situation with Nale.	#1291	2023/11/30
Haley is Chaotic Good	#936	2014/01/12
Shojo is Chaotic Good	#891	2013/06/05
Durkon is Lawful Good	#798	2011/07/27
Neutral Characters
Girard is Chaotic Neutral	#980	2015/04/25
Who Else is Neutral A long list of Neutral characters in the comic. See also here and here(#2) ("...most normal mortal people are True Neutral...").	#903	2013/07/22
Enor & Gannji are True Neutral	#812	2011/10/24
V is True Neutral (and Always Was) "Vaarsuvius was never Neutral Good"; strip #11 does not suggest otherwise.	#801	2011/08/17

Spoiler: Visual Art

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General
Azurite Hair is Naturally Blue(#9) "... I decided to riff on Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz and make almost everything blue, including the hair of many of its inhabitants."	#1232	2021/04/27
The Julio Scoundrél story in Snips, Snails and Dragon Tales Indirectly Inspired the New Art Style(#5) "...I guess it was a test bed, but it wasn't an intentional one at the time."	#1208	2020/07/31
An Order of the Stick Animated Series?(#9) "It's not a thing I'm pursuing at this time."	#1193	2020/03/01
Order of the Stick Won't Be Remastered(#8) "...it is what it is, in all its deeply flawed glory." See also here ("I could see myself doing clean-up on the odd mouth here or there, but probably not a full redraw").	#1193	2020/03/01
"How the Paladin Got His Scar" is in the New Art Style As everything going forward will be, unless it's meant to be inserted in the middle of older art. Also, How the Paladin Got His Scar is in grayscale instead of bluescale, because the color-less art's reliance on dark separating lines didn't work out with a single blue color.	#1042	2016/07/03
Why Some Wounds are Black "I often use a mixture of black marks and red ones in order to break up the visuals from being a mass of red lines."	#1005	2015/09/15
The Web and Print Versions of Strips are Designed Concurrently Also, the thought processes behind #443, #750 and #887; and some favorite strips.	#980	2015/04/27
What Bothers the Giant about Early Strips' Art Tangents, wriggly lines, exterior shots...but not the stick figure style, and full redraws are unlikely.	#980	2015/04/24
Art Colors can Change Whether because the Giant doesn't like the old color, or because his system doesn't. See also here(#14) ("I started to pick more realistic colors for the scenery as I began drawing more complex situations, both to sell the scene and to help the characters be the visual focus of a given panel.")	#942	2014/01/28
On Changing Font Style The failure of the Giant's old computer means the style couldn't stay the same, hence the change from "Comic Sans" to "Wildwords Lowercase".	#936	2014/01/04
Light and Art The art style doesn't show lighting and shading, much like how it doesn't show noses.	#871	2013/02/26
Speech Bubbles Don't overthink them...they are subservient to the story. Malack's bubbles are only black when he "vamps out."	#870	2013/02/18
True Subjective View In 843 V gets cornered.	#843	2012/03/07
Character Appearances & Forum Speculation Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. For example, just because two persons have similar hairstyles doesn't mean they are related.	#683	2009/10/06
Why Book Corrections Don't Get to the Online Strip Undoing the differences between online and book versions of strips would be inefficient.	#665	2009/06/25

Drawing
Design of the Book Covers(#13) "...making sure all of the protagonists are on the cover....make sure the covers give you an idea of what's in the book without giving away spoilers...."	#1260	2022/06/22
The Crayon Drawings are Made with "Actual Crayons"(#3)	#1222	2020/12/30
Roy's Boots are Intentionally Misproportioned(#4) "It just became one of the things that makes Roy look like Roy, so it stayed around."	#1193	2020/03/01
Comic Panels are Often Drawn Out of Order "...based on what I feel like doing first or last, whether that's due to mood or difficulty or what have you."	#1166	2019/06/07
Redcloak Getting Footwear In the new art style, doing three toes with the skin tone "looked weak and unthreatening....So starting now, armored goblin-types get nice heavy boots instead."	#1013	2015/11/24
On Growing Art Complexity "It's what I needed to keep going after 11 years of the same story by way of challenging myself, while still trying to stay within the initial parameters of the comic's signature look."	#980	2015/04/20
The Larger Online Page Size Aids Readability and Showcases New Art Also, the font is larger because the online comic page is larger.	#949	2014/04/17
The Scenery is Harder to Draw Than the Characters Also, the new hands don't take longer to draw.	#949	2014/04/17
How the Giant Writes and Draws the Strips And an answer to the question - why are certain strips several pages long?	#896	2013/06/28
Examples of the Giant's Non-Stick-Figure Art Talent The Giant's art skills on showcase. Also more here.	#848	2012/04/11

Art & Magic
Meld Into Stone Art trumps rules accuracy here in order to show the warping of the spell effect.	#859	2012/07/26
Counterspelling The Giant doesn't use different art to differentiate between counterspelling with Dispel Magic and counterspelling with the same spell.	#830	2012/01/23
Spell Colors The colors come from the spellcaster's choice or personality, and not their alignment or the types of magic.	#731	2010/06/28
Invisibility Why the art for invisible characters isn't consistent (utility trumps consistency).	#706	2010/03/15

Art & Merchandise
Characters and Merchandise The presence, absence, position, or style of any character on any piece of merchandise has no bearing on any future (or past) plot points.	#816	2011/11/22
Black and White Books They are unlikely to ever be colorized, and were not originally in color; they were drawn them in black and white.	#781	2011/03/16
The Oracle's Location on the OOTS Poster Don't read too much into it.	#744	2010/09/05

Spoiler: D&D Rules and Explanations

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Accuracy
Character Experience Isn't Tracked(#22) "Everyone should consider their character sheets to have the little shrugging emoji guy where their level should be listed."	#1193	2020/03/01
Armies and High level characters in D&D "The idea that you can walk into any tavern and 2-5 adventurers of high level will be there is literally a joke."	#919	2013/09/18
Evolution of D&D Adherence The Giant hasn't made explicit statements about feats/items since 2008, OOTS' internal consistency is still maintained, and the Giant has no regrets about using D&D in OOTS. See also here(#13): D&D rules used in the comic are "entirely based on memory".	#886	2013/05/09
On the (Un)importance of Calling Out Rules "I don't think it's actually important for readers to really understand the game mechanics of what is happening, as long as it is plausible."	#808	2011/10/06
Game Balance Doesn't Matter in This Story "I was communicating the way I expected the audience would perceive it, then I began the process of abolishing that perception."	#806	2011/09/20
Only SRD (Core) Spells are Common Knowledge "...and everything else is 'obscure/non-existent' unless someone has researched it."	#806	2011/09/19
Rules Accuracy In The Comic "If you are looking for moment-to-moment rules accuracy from this comic, you probably should stop reading." For instance, the Giant avoids the D&D term "calling" for the sake of non-D&D OOTS readers, who probably would not understand its meaning.	#801	2011/08/17

Characters: Items and Stats
Order of the Stick
On the Greenhilt Sword(#3) It was magical in the beginning, despite the Shatter. The legacy powers "did not exist until recently".	#1201	2020/04/30
Blackwing's Explosion in #1020 is a Scroll Activation Mishap Furthermore, the writing on the scroll reads "STRIP #970 P5 ESTABLISHES THAT MAGIC ITEMS EXPLODE WHEN ACTIVATED IMPROPERLY".	#1020	2016/01/22
Vaarsuvius, Spiked Tentacles and Conjuration Vaarsuvius has never been able to cast Conjuration spells, including Evan's Spiked Tentacles. Just assume Vaarsuvius was casting Shadow Conjuration instead.	#980	2015/04/23
Why V Doesn't Have a Staff There is no narrative purpose for it, and it would just be one more item to keep track of in the art.	#878	2013/03/03
Durkon's Mass Death Ward The Giant didn't even know Mass Death Ward existed when he wrote the strip. He pegged it at 7th level instead of 8th.	#806	2011/09/19
Elan's Rapiers He has two. His original, and one from Julio Scoundrél.	#723	2010/05/13
OOTS' Stats The Giant hasn't written them down, and everything is up in the air until they need a specific ability.	#714	2010/04/10
A Piece of Straw Haley used a piece of straw to get out of the jail cell. Info on Haley's Dexterity, Level, etc.	#262	2006/01/03
The Giant on Stats in Earlier Strips Elan singing about skill points, Haley having Rapid Shot and Manyshot, Roy and Vaarsuvius' mental ability scores, verbal components in OOTS, and insight about Vaarsuvius' spellcasting.	#180	2005/05/14
Elan and Nale are Twins So Nale has the same Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution as Elan.	#65	2004/05/03
Other Characters/Creatures
🍌Wrecan is a Crusader Also, Tarquin wasn't envisioned as a swordsage.	#1291	2023/11/27
Babies shouldn't be statted The inclusion of combat stats for newborns encourages combat with newborns, which shouldn't happen. See also the Giant's proposed alternative "stats", here and here.	#922	2013/10/04
Malack's Grapple Skills Malack's grapple skills were a hunting aid, not for optimization/combat. A character's skills have to be looked at in the context of their whole life, not "what I would do in a game."	#906	2013/07/30
Girard's Illusion Runes They are a ninth-level spell, not an epic spell.	#893	2013/06/11
The Keoghtum's Ointment The Keoghtum's Ointment removes deafness because it is extra strength.	#863	2012/09/12
Tarquin Doesn't Have Trap Sense "I don't usually bother making fun of mechanics anymore, but if I do, I'm not that subtle about it."	#858	2012/07/23
Malack's Undead Malack reanimates the dead Draketooths into mummies.	#856	2012/06/20
The Crimson Mantle Spoiler: Start of Darkness Show Generally it is not known by non-goblins that the mantle is the source of power.	#826	2012/01/12
Tsukiko Breaks The Rules Tsukiko has too many schools. The Giant doesn't make character decisions based on common player trends.	#800	2011/08/14
Acid-Born Shark The Giant created it, and made fun of himself in the comic.	#785	2011/04/06

Combat Scenes
Aarindarius Effortlessly Defeating the ABD? Hyperbole in the illustration, though Vaarsuvius thought it plausible for Aarindarius to assist.	#980	2015/04/25
Xykon vs Dorukan There would be no dramatic function to drawing out the fight. "If it helps, think of that page as a montage scene rather than a direct moment-to-moment narrative."	#960	2014/08/18
Realistic Injuries? Unbelievable things will happen in a crazy fantasy story.	#930	2013/11/13
Disintegrate is useful	#918	2013/09/12
Malack and Mass Death Ward Why did Malack bother checking if Durkon protected himself when he could simply dispel the spell and not care at all?	#876	2013/03/02
Battle Scenes and D&D Tactics "My job is to entertain, not to showcase perfect D&D tactics. If you can't be entertained by anything BUT perfect D&D tactics, that's on you."	#873	2013/02/28
Roy's Arena Fight With Thog Roy's strategy to taunt a dungeon-crashing Thog into breaking the pillars.	#808	2011/10/06
Zz'dtri's Break Enchantment The Giant didn't read the casting time while making the strip.	#804	2011/09/07
Miko's Fight How Miko defeated the OOTS off-panel and captured them; with a degree of detail the Giant hasn't done "before or since"(#21).	#251	2005/11/30

Spoiler: Story, Plot, and Characters

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General Information
Elan Hasn't Told his Mother about Nale's Death(#2) "I don't think he would have had the opportunity to do so yet."	#1208	2020/07/31
The "Official" Elan Song Tune(#6) "I think of it as being similar to Row, Row, Row Your Boat, except with four rows and an extra repeat at the end, like: Row, row, row, row your boat, your boat-boat."	#1201	2020/04/30
The End of House Kubota(#4) "...the house was probably disbanded and his remaining assets seized by Hinjo to be used setting up the town seen in the first story of Good Deeds Gone Unpunished."	#1201	2020/04/30
Protection from Law is Illegal in Many Places	#969	2014/12/01
There will be seven books (from the main online comic)	#910	2013/08/15
Dragon Continuity The Dragon Magazine strips and Gygax magazine strips exist in a separate continuity from the OOTS strips.	#863	2012/11/25
Some Thoughts on Visuals and Story People get invested in the story, not the art, of a comic.	#838	2012/02/18
More Prequels? The total number of planned prequel stories is "pretty much fixed"; at least one more as of 09/16/2015.	#804	2011/09/01
Not everything needs a backstory Not everything needs a backstory, or even has an interesting one worth telling.	#729	2010/06/23

Vampirism
Thrall-Durkon was Like Malack's Puppet(#18) "...the thrall merely took on the personality that Malack wanted it to have....Vampire Durkon, as we later got to know him, was inside Durkon's mind that whole time absorbing memories but having no (or very limited) control over the body's outside actions".	#1193	2020/03/01
Coffin-less Vampires Immediately Turn to Dust When "Killed"	#1131	2018/07/31
Why Most Vampires Don't Get Overwhelmed by Their Host's Memories And why HPoH did.	#1130	2018/07/28
HPoH Didn't Exist Before Durkon Was Vampirized Though he arrived "with certain knowledge, like language and whatever Hel told it to do as she was shoving it in there."	#1112	2018/02/13
The Nature of Vampirism "...a negative energy consciousness created in the shape of your own worst impulses, stuffed into your dead body to animate it."	#1112	2018/02/13
Durkon Can't Show HPoH Fake Memories	#1009	2015/10/19
Malack Chose to Worship Nergal And "shaman" is a descriptive term, not a non-cleric class.	#949	2014/04/19
There is Only One Way that Vampirism Works And nothing that happens with vampires can be assumed to work for other undead. Also, knowledge of how vampirization works is rare, even among clerics.	#949	2014/04/18
Vampires Have Free Will	#949	2014/04/18

The Gates and their History
On the Snarl and the Dark One's Plan for the Gate Details about the Snarl's role as an implement of mutually assured destruction.	#1185	2019/11/10
About Girard's Double Bluff About Girard's double bluff to protect the Gate.	#895	2013/06/21
Soon's Castle Soon built the castle, but did not build Azure City.	#804	2011/09/01
Soon's Gem and Gate Details about Soon's rift and how it is protected. The gate/rift could not be moved. You can shift a gate to another plane, but not another place on this plane.	#801	2011/08/21

Familicide
Familicide How Familicide works. More here.	#879	2012/03/07

Calendars, Dates, Maps
Death of Old Age in OOTS "Eugene literally died of old age. When a person reaches a certain age, the gods roll dice to see what his or her maximum lifespan is going to be, and when the person hits 12:01 on that birthday, they keel over dead from no apparent cause."	#933	2013/12/06
Map of the Western Continent It is constantly changing.	#746	2010/09/12
OOTS Age Range Intended to be early to mid 20s. Durkon is the "dwarf equivalent" of this age range, in his 50s.	#732	2010/07/02
Chronology & Timeline Anything that states a numbered, dated year references the Northern calendar. The Oracle uses the Southern calendar. Further details on timeframe of Belkar's death prophecy included. Some time references in the strip (like the deva's chart) should not be taken too literally.	#725	2010/05/26

Culture, Religion and the Afterlife
On the Dwarven Textile Industry(#12) "Keeping in mind that I am absolutely 100% inventing this answer on the spot...."	#1260	2022/06/22
On Dwarves, Death, and Dishonor Dwarves know they go to Hel if they die dishonorably, and their culture takes this into account: All dwarves learn how to fight, and consistently living honorably is a solution, even if they die in a normally nonviolent role.	#1004	2015/09/15
The Afterlife Isn't Important to OOTS It's only important that the characters find living preferable to it.	#998	2015/08/17
Spiritual Progress in the Afterlife The afterlife leads down a path of "letting go" of life, including an inability to learn new things.	#998	2015/08/16
The Soul Economy Spirits produce Soul PowerTM in life, which is collected in the afterlife.	#998	2015/08/16
The Purpose of the Godsmoot It's a neutral meeting ground for the gods, who don't meet in person across pantheons anymore. More here, on both Godsmoots in general and the one in the comic in particular.	#998	2015/08/13
How Non-Theistic Religions Work in OOTS More on the Giant's view for D&D in general here and here.	#995	2015/08/01
On Elven and Goblin Deities The Elves worship Western gods in addition to their own. The goblins worshipped no one prior to the ascension of the Dark One.	#978	2015/03/19
Elven Government and Political Relations with the Outside World Why did the elves help Azure City yet not try to stop Tarquin's tyranny? More here	#915	2013/08/29
Class Systems and Careers Also, FYI, Durkon isn't "white."	#882	2013/04/08
Nergal and Undeath Nergal is not against undeath. Malack just doesn't like using the undead as cannon fodder.	#870	2013/02/21
The Rise of the Dark One Spoiler: Start of Darkness Show The other gods lost their one shot to gang up on him and kill him. The Dark One has since been building his power.	#864	2013/01/04
Religions and Deities in OOTS World Background details on who worships whom, and on Thor, Hel, and the Twelve Gods. See also here(#4) ("...the vast majority of citizens of Azure City, Miko included, worship all twelve gods as a single pantheon") and here(#11) ("Functionally speaking, the Twelve Gods are all True Neutral....their alignment is pulled in all directions at once by different believers projecting their own morals onto them, and they end up in the middle somewhere.")	#848	2012/04/11
SoD Paladins & Miko's Fall Spoiler: Start of Darkness Show Only the crayon pages are narrative by Redcloak. Not every event is necessarily "seen." Certain scenes are largely shown from Redcloak's perspective. Details of why the paladins who killed Redcloak's people may or may not have fallen, why it doesn't matter, and how showing it would have cheapened the effect of Miko's fall later.	#706	2010/03/15
On Evil Characters and Resurrection Evil characters are not discouraged / prohibited from raising the dead in OOTSverse. Spoiler: Start of Darkness Show Right-Eye's family wasn't raised because Redcloak doesn't control Team Evil's finances to pay for resurrection, Xykon does.	#566	2008/06/15

Reading Too Much Into It
On Breaking the Fourth Wall(#6) "Anyone in the comic could theoretically do it...."	#1277	2023/03/10
On the Overestimated State of Goblin Civilization(#9) "If you wanted to hand out an award for Most Improved Civilization relative to their starting point, sure, maybe the goblins would rate well by that measure, but otherwise they're objectively worse off."	#1260	2022/06/22
There Have Already Been More Than Nine Sides in the Comic(#8) "This is one of those things that I think has been maybe taken a little bit too literally, as if there are exactly nine factions involved."	#1232	2021/04/27
The Colors of the Council of Clan Barriers Are Not a Portal Reference "I've never played Portal and forgot it existed until you just pointed it out."	#1157	2019/03/01
About the Lizardfolk Prostitute in #676 It was a joke about then-recent 4th Edition D&D's Dragonborn art. "It is not a trans gender individual at all (because it is a cis-female)...."	#1143	2018/10/09
Repeated Strip Titles are Accidental See also here(#4) ("...reusing titles...is not symbolic of any deep connection between the strips...").	#1088	2017/08/04
HPoH Made a Tactical Error in #1009 Durkon "showed him Roy telling him the story about what happened with Eric. That's it."	#1009	2015/10/19
The Comic (not) Commenting on D&D Playstyles "There is more important thematic ground in this world for me to cover than whether or not people powergame."	#995	2015/07/30
Earth isn't in the Rift "Earth will never show up."	#945	2014/02/15
On Blackwing, Rifts, and Memory	#944	2014/02/10
Is Thog Mentally Handicapped? No, he is not. See also here (on why a mentally handicapped character will not be portrayed)	#935	2013/12/30
Malack's Chamber Plans This was intended to use the imagery of factory farming, not the Holocaust. Malack plans to create a vampire ruling class.	#875	2013/03/01
Malack's Vampirism and LGBT Malack's condition is not an allegory for LGBT.	#875	2013/03/01
Belkar's Jokes Belkar making a joke about something does not make it so.	#786	2011/04/11
Current Politics There are no references to current politics in the strip beyond those which readers invent themselves.	#732	2010/07/02
TV Tropes The Giant is aware it exists. No, he doesn't use it for ideas or reference it in any way in the comic.	#705	2010/03/04
Hidden Meanings Not everything in the comic has one.	#667	2009/06/02

Spoiler: Character Development and Backstory

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Note: For character stats and items, see the D&D rules section.

The Order of the Stick
On the Flashback in 623(#1) "...it's intended to be a memory."	#1208	2020/07/31
On the Expansion of Blackwing's Role(#10) "Blackwing provided someone who would already know everything that had happened and could serve as V's confidant...And second, I felt like the moment when Blackwing popped into existence to carry Xykon's phylactery was the pinnacle of that particular running joke." Also, Mr. Scruffy's role was "planned out before Shojo was even killed."	#1201	2020/04/30
Vaarsuvius is Genderqueer(#6) But "not talking about gender is just culturally part of being an elf". See also here(#8) ("Even though I played it for laughs at times during the early days, I always tried to make it so that V themselves was never the butt of the joke....").	#1193	2020/03/01
We're Not Likely to Learn More about Belkar's Family(#7)	#1193	2020/03/01
On Haley, Honesty and History "...She literally says she is going to miss being honest with Crystal."	#981	2015/04/28
OOTS were Originally Going to Wander the Dungeon Forever Which changed partly for the joke potential in towns and wilderness.	#980	2015/04/26
The Main Cast were Devised for Joke Potential "Silly jokes for Elan, angry jokes for Belkar, sarcasm for Roy, etc."	#980	2015/04/26
Haley is Bisexual	#972	2015/01/13
Belkar Turned Down the Gnome Merchant in #969 "Whether or not it would be immoral for Belkar to go on the date is...less important than how Belkar feels about going on the date." Also discusses Haley's morals.	#969	2014/12/01
Haley's Decision to Stop Using Gendered Insults It's growth of her character. She's been trying to be a better person since being with Elan.	#959	2014/07/31
Why V Didn't Kill Laurin Character growth: V is learning not to kill "from a purely consequentialist viewpoint."	#935	2013/12/20
Belkar and Bloodfeast Belkar's concerns about 'Bloodfeast' were part of his character development, not an effort to make V look bad.	#932	2013/11/20
The Dream Runes Elan's victory as character development. Also, Nale was the only LG member affected by the runes.	#893	2013/06/11
V is a Vegetarian	#891	2013/06/03
What Belkar Saw What Belkar saw while affected by the dream runes.	#890	2013/05/25
V's Children The Giant made them adopted to leave open the possibility that V/Inkyrius are gay or lesbian.	#882	2013/04/09
Haley's Leadership A greedy self-centered rogue becomes leader. Belkar and Haley are the only one's who questioned her leadership skills during the Azure City Resistance.	#882	2013/04/07
Durkon and Malack's Breakup Durkon reacts not only to Malack's vampirism, but to his alliance with the Linear Guild. He knows that Malack does not know Belkar isn't innocent.	#872	2013/02/26
Parental Problems Parents are in the story only to introduce conflict. That fathers are included and mothers are absent for the human characters is simply a coincidence. See also here(#7) on the latter point ("...there's just not much more to it than poor planning and unexamined influences.")	#815	2011/11/18

Vector Legion
🍌Elan and Nale are Tarquin's Only Children(#8) "...Tarquin would have been highly aware of the fact that multiple children means multiple heirs...a potential threat to him."	#1291	2023/11/30
Malack's "'Snakey' Lower Half" Was Not Intentionally a Secret(#7) "The thing is, there is a slightly different type of 'snake person' in D&D that's one of those monsters that has been trademarked, so it was better to gloss over that detail in dialogue."	#1201	2020/04/30
The Inspiration for Tarquin was Elan See also here(#2) ("It was fun to think about how to turn Elan's obsession with stories into something menacing....")	#980	2015/04/26
Tarquin's Adventuring Party is Named "Vector Legion"	#945	2014/02/17
Drama and Breaking a Character "Drama is all about taking characters and pushing them until they break, one way or the other. If a character can't be broken, then they have no place as a main character in a story." More here.	#934	2013/12/08
Malack is not Paranoid	#906	2013/07/30

Other Characters
On the Surprise of Sangwaan's (Re)death Scene(#6) "...I had absolutely no plans to ever address the character or her demise again....But...I surprised myself by finding more depth there."	#1260	2022/06/22
How Dragons Run in OOTS(#6) "...I would assume something like a larger dog or even a cat."	#1232	2021/04/27
Minrah Isn't a "Main Cast" Character(#4) "Minrah is traveling with the team and helping them out, but she is not a member of the main cast, which is and has always been numbered at six."	#1208	2020/07/31
On Nale's Focus on Malack(#11) "....Nale likely hated (the Vector Legion) equally but spent more effort planning Malack's death because Malack was harder to kill."	#1208	2020/07/31
There is no "Better" Possibility for What MitD ( :mitd: ) Is(#3) "It's not a guessing game I added to the strip just for extracurricular fun and games, it's part of the story. There's no answer that's better than what he is because everything written for the last 15 years has been written with that answer in mind."	#1208	2020/07/31
On Loki and (Dis)honesty "...because his followers believe he is incapable of honesty, he actually is incapable of honesty (except to Thor)." Also, "honesty" is distinct from "not lying": "If Loki tells the truth in the cause of trickery, he is still not being honest."	#1177	2019/08/26
The Mutable Nature of the Gods "...the fact that the gods are the way they are now does not preclude them having existed in some other form in the past—one that we might not have thought of as 'gods' ."	#1177	2019/08/26
On Hinjo and Miko Spoiler: How the Paladin Got His Scar Show "Cousin" is an informal term of address, they aren't legally related.	#1122	2018/05/21
On Hilgya and Her Husband Ivan "...their marriage was never consummated and he probably was completely unaware that she was forced into it..."	#999	2015/08/20
About Thirden He made an effort to improve his diction over the years, and "Squeaky" is a nickname about his singing voice.	#991	2015/06/22
Bozzok and Crystal's Falling Out Bozzok told Crystal she couldn't think for herself; Crystal proved otherwise.	#981	2015/04/29
Miko and Kilkil Developed Differently than Planned	#980	2015/04/26
O-Chul Offset His Low Charisma with Social Skill	#980	2015/04/25
The MitD ( :mitd: ) Reveal is a Crucial Part of the Story And we will actually get an answer(#3) to what he is.	#980	2015/04/24
The Secret Society of the Sapphire Guard A subset of the Twelve Gods' clerics and paladins; Every member had some cleric or paladin levels.	#980	2015/04/24
Hel Has No Living Worshippers "That means literally not one single living person, ever."	#962	2014/09/11
On Julio rescuing Tarquin's Brides-to-be Julio rescued the potential brides from Tarquin before their weddings, not after. Spoiler: Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails Show Virginia is one of the rescued brides-to-be.	#932	2013/11/21
Kubota and Hinjo Why Kubota still wanted to kill Hinjo after the other nobles had given up.	#891	2013/06/09
The Azurite Nobles and Hinjo The nobles thought they could save their own skins from Xykon with Hinjo out of the way.	#891	2013/06/06
Scrying in the Desert It was Zz'dtri who scryed on the Order after they found Girard's illusion.	#870	2013/02/18
Miko's Popularity Miko's story was not "cut short" because of fan opinions - it was precisely the length intended. The Giant does not make storytelling decisions based on finances.	#863	2012/12/18
Miko and Shojo Shojo was the "tape" that held Miko's character together for so long. He was responsible for much in Miko that was good/positive.	#815	2011/11/18
V's Splices There won't be a prequel book about them, and the Giant hasn't developed a backstory for them; not even deciding if they're from previous versions of the world(#20).	#801	2011/08/21
Sarah Met Eugene When She Was Nineteen	#650	2009/05/02
Miko's Unchanging Role "Everything from the point where Miko drags the Order to Azure City in chains in #251 is more-or-less exactly what was always going to happen, with only some tone changed."	#559	2008/05/29
Miko's Blade Blood-Bathing Comment in #120 "...she's under the impression that some clearly evil force like a giant demon or something is responsible, so the speech there is mostly grandstanding. Once she sees Durkon explains they are not evil, the bloodlust backs away."	#285	2006/02/23

Spoiler: Writing

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Storytelling Mistakes?
On How Elan's Parents' Marriage Is Not a Plot Point(#29) "I don't feel that it's something that necessarily demands a more specific on-panel answer than that."	#1193	2020/03/01
On the Ephemerality of Memories from the Afterlife Roy can remember anything that happened in the clouds, and the rest is "fuzzy" but not completely forgotten.	#1022	2016/02/08
Assume Accuracy Unless Shown Otherwise "It works because I say it works, and the rest of the story will be written as if it works," and dialog is how the comic conveys non-visual information.	#1000	2015/08/30
Why Roy Didn't Mention the World in the Rift at the Godsmoot Roy assumed the gods already knew, and bringing it up wouldn't have helped the comic.	#998	2015/08/13
The Improbable Happens The most statistically probable outcome of an event isn't necessarily what occurs.	#980	2015/04/23
Why Elan Didn't Hold Tarquin Prisoner Story-notable villains never stay captured; Elan knew this. More here.	#975	2015/02/16
OOTS is Not Still in Girard's Illusion "If you don't like the story since then, then you just don't like the story."	#942	2014/01/28
Malack is Ash Vampires take their gear with them when they assume gaseous form, but not when they're destroyed.	#906	2013/07/28
On Character Importance and Leadership Skills The Giant doesn't feel a character suffers for not having "leadership skills," and won't force someone's development just to give them said skills.	#882	2013/04/07
On Plots and Boredom "If one does not care about the protagonists or antagonists and is not emotionally invested in their struggles, and all one cares about is the resolution of the MacGuffin chase, then you will almost certainly be bored with a lot of the material I'm producing."	#876	2013/03/02
True Resurrection True Resurrection as a narrative-wrecking device, and an answer to the age-old "why didn't x character do y?" question.	#862	2012/09/07
A Missed Opportunity in 602? Why Hilgya was not the Cleric of Loki working for the Thieves' Guild.	#860	2012/08/18
The Gods Created Creatures After The World Was Created Is this a contradiction? No. There is no Gaia hypothesis in OOTS world.	#845	2012/03/20
No Purpose? "As a general rule of thumb, no one should say the sentence, 'There's no (or no other) possible narrative purpose for Rich to have done X!' until the story is completed. Because there's always a narrative purpose, you just haven't thought of what it is."	#826	2012/01/10
Surprises Are Not Deus Ex Machinas More here.	#806	2011/09/19
Racism and Sex in OOTS There's no correlation between skin color and promiscuity, nor is there too much promiscuity among the women portrayed in the comic.	#650	2009/05/02
Typo in 597? Nope. It is a joke.	#597	2008/09/30
On the Legality of Miko Arresting the Order of the Stick Shojo was asserting "holy" authority for the charges, and no secular authority opposed Miko detaining the Order.	#251	2005/12/01

Plot Holes
Why Redcloak Thought the Polymorphed Hobgoblin Spy Had to Die(#3) "...the bottom line is, he was prepared to kill him if he needed to....The exact situation he might have been worried about was probably not clear even to him."	#1232	2021/04/27
The Giant Does Check Older Comics For Consistency(#6) "...for something like Hilgya's reappearance, I thought it was important to go back and look at exactly what was said and done in that original scene."	#1208	2020/07/31
How Hel Predicted the Godsmoot Vote The exact same vote was held in the Order of the Scribble's day, and she knew enough the gods individually to make an accurate estimation.	#1000	2015/08/27
On the (Un)importance of Random NPCs Minor characters should not be expected to resolve critical plot elements. Regardless of what those plot elements may mean for their future.	#968	2014/11/21
Why Didn't Malack Prepare Word of Recall? Further explanation here and here (with a few remarks on plot holes in general).	#906	2013/07/29
Did Durkon Lie? No; the Giant forgot that Durkon said he didn't prepare "Detect Magic."	#894	2013/06/19
Why Didn't Girard Prepare a Better Trap Against Undead? "There is a big jump from knowing that illusions don't affect undead to being able to do anything about it--or expecting every defense to affect every possible creature type."	#893	2013/06/11
Roy Knowing Redcloak Had An Eyepatch in Girard's Illusion O-Chul and Vaarsuvius both told him. It's covering the wrong eye because they didn't specify which eye.	#886	2013/05/04
Why Destroy Tsukiko's Remains if Redcloak was just going to tell Xykon he killed her? One reason is so that Xykon would be unable to Speak With Dead on Tsukiko... or Raise Dead.	#866	2013/01/26
The Giant Addresses Supposed Inconsistencies, Part II A character thinking one thing instead of another thing is not a mistake, it just is. The rift grew according to Redcloak's predictions, but he was measuring the actual hole, not the cracks.	#816	2011/11/30
The Giant Addresses Supposed Inconsistencies, Part I Including - why Haley was surprised that Miko was killed, info on Nale's self-delusion and ego, how the rift got so close to Xykon's Tower (it grew), and what is and isn't a plot hole.	#816	2011/11/29

Writing Process
🍌Selecting the Northern Deities(#6) "I mostly worked backwards from how I wanted the vote in the Godsmoot to shake out".	#1291	2023/11/30
The Purpose of Creating Tinkertown(#3) Instead of having to revisit plot threads tied to e.g. Cliffport, it "was better to have a fresh location"; and then the Giant "saw an opening to draw an adorable town of steampunk gnomes".	#1277	2023/03/10
On Scripting by Scene or by Strip(#11) "In situations where a conversation needs to explicitly move the plot forward, I develop the entire scene ahead of time....But for other sorts of scenes, it's less likely that I script it completely in advance."	#1232	2021/04/27
On Coming Up with a Book's Title(#7) "Sometimes, it just comes to me before I'm even done with the strips....Sometimes, I sit and wrack my brain when the printer is waiting for my files to start production....Most of the time, though, I have a vague idea that I need to hammer into shape." More about "Blood Runs in the Family" in particular here.	#1222	2020/12/30
The Giant on How He Works on the Comic(#12) "...I'll take a shot at answering it in more depth even though I don't really have 'regular' creation days. That is, I don't plan out what I'm going to work on ahead of time or schedule specific tasks for specific days. I usually...."	#1222	2020/12/30
On Greyview's Personality(#11) The main idea was to give the Monster in the Darkness a counterpoint to everything O-Chul told him, to show that he had internalized the lessons and wasn't going to backslide.	#1201	2020/04/30
The Giant Has a Sounding Board(#5)	#1201	2020/04/30
Characters Have a Specific Reason to be in the Comic(#27) "I'm telling a specific story, and if that character type doesn't have a role in the story then they won't be in it."	#1193	2020/03/01
How the Comic's Pacing Is Maintained Over Time(#30) "The first panel of every strip continues on from the previous one....The last panel has...a punchline or a reveal or a cliffhanger...All the middle stuff, that's the story."	#1193	2020/03/01
On Choices and Character Deaths "Character deaths are a function of that character's traits, not random. Their deaths flow logically from their flaws." More here.	#981	2015/04/30
Advice for Aspiring Webcomic Writers "It's important, when starting a career like this, to know what your true priorities are and pursue them...."	#980	2015/04/26
On Open-Ended Characterization "I don't really bother deciding things about the characters unless they have a purpose." Details like Elan's last name will be revealed if/when they become significant to the story; and details like Elan's Mother's name aren't given "on purpose"(#28).	#980	2015/04/26
The Giant Writes Everything Too Long In his own opinion, at least. See also here(#10) ("When I'm tight on space, I re-evaluate those clarifications to see...if I'm wasting space explaining details that 90% of the audience will get right away").	#980	2015/04/26
D&D Rules that Harm the Story True Resurrection, and also Teleport. See also here(#7) ("At the power level that the heroes are at right now, there are a lot of 'invisible' spells that would often affect the outcome of a fight. Especially things like fire immunity or mind blank, where having it means being able to completely no-sell an enemy attack. It's become a bit awkward to constantly need to either show those spells being cast or have someone discuss how they have such-and-such a spell running....")	#980	2015/04/25
How the Giant Outlines the Comic's Plot "I plan it out meticulously first and then edit it all on the fly."	#980	2015/04/23
Characters as Plot Devices Both Redcloak and Malack had humble beginnings that developed into something more.	#906	2013/07/28

Tools and Logistics
There is no OotS "Series Bible"	#1117	2018/04/17
On the Absence of a Random Comic Button "...I don't think it's really that good of an idea considering how tightly connected the comic is from one strip to the next."	#984	2015/05/11
A Buffer of Strips Wouldn't Help "A buffer is therefore counterproductive because it reduces the urgency to produce."	#980	2015/04/25
The Giant Would have Split Book Five's Arc to Make It Easier to Print "But there are too many threads that go through both to split now."	#945	2014/02/17

Forum and Reader Reactions
🍍🍌On the Forum and the Comic(#9) "I don't read the GITP forums at all anymore, either in or out of the OOTS context." See also here and here.	#1291	2023/11/30
🍍🍌The Comic Cannot Be Posted on a Consistent Basis(#9) "What you're suggesting is not something I can actually do." See also here(#10) ("So the remainder of the comic is going to take as long as it takes....")	#1291	2023/11/30
On Denouements(#8) "So I guess the real question here is, is the subplot you're concerned about necessarily one that I think is important enough to deserve a denouement?"	#1277	2023/03/10
The Giant is Always Surprised by Reactions(#32) "To some degree, every single thing I put in the comic gets at least one reaction that I could not possibly have predicted."	#1193	2020/03/01
The Giant on Fanfiction "I'm not a huge fan of it....If people enjoy fanfiction then cool for them. It's just not for me." More here.	#980	2015/04/24
There is No Longer a "Target Audience" for OOTS "...I just write it and let it all work itself out. "	#980	2015/04/24
Is Power an Intended Theme of the Comic? "...Power doesn't interest me at all per se, but the ongoing and habitual mischaracterization by a subset of my readers about what constitutes power does."	#980	2015/04/23
How the Giant (Doesn't) Deal with Reader Criticism "There are also deep tissue structural reasons for every single strip that appears, but most readers will never be aware of them, even after the fact."	#980	2015/04/17
The Giant Shows Obvious Tactics Not Working "...to avoid constant comments like, 'Haley is so dumb, why doesn't she use the wands she just bought on it?'" Also, Haley used a wand of Magic Missile in #973.	#973	2015/01/22
On Writing Female Characters The difficulties and fan reactions.	#883	2013/04/09
V's Gender History Why the Giant made V's gender ambiguous and what discussions about it were like in the early days. Roy's 'V-man' comment is not necessarily indicative of V's true gender.	#793	2011/05/29

References and Influences
The Giant Hasn't Watched The Walking Dead(#7) "So if there's any connection there, it was the other way around."	#1232	2021/04/27
Don't Expect Any More Tribute Strips	#1147	2018/11/27
Elan's Exclamation in On the Origin of PCs Spoiler: On the Origin of PCs Show "Last, best hope for peace" is a Babylon 5 reference.	#980	2015/04/27
On Managing Real-World References Research is done to validate references.	#980	2015/04/25
The Giant Hasn't Read the Discworld Books Nor is "Only living things can learn and change" a theme of OOTS. More on the Giant and the works of Terry Prachett here.	#980	2015/04/25
Influences on the Comic	#980	2015/04/24
Martin The Giant hasn't read George R. R. Martin.	#913	2013/08/22
The Dwarven god Thor OOTS Thor is not based off of D&D Thor. Until referenced in the comic, the Nordic legends/mythology does not exist in OOTSverse.	#86	2004/07/12

Story Development
The Movie Theater World Is Canon(#4) #301 and the panel in #1140 are "...something that happened on one of the other worlds before the current one."	#1277	2023/03/10
Writing Characters As They Have Evolved(#10) "Everyone except Durkon is harder, because....I often will write a punchline then stare at it and realize that the character can't say that anymore because they grew out of that mindset a while back." "With Durkon....Even just having Minrah there to serve as his cohort sort of automatically gives him something to do."	#1277	2023/03/10
Serini was Always Going to Return(#1) "...it was planned from the first introduction of the Scribblers...."	#1260	2022/06/22
On Planning and the Conflict between Elan's and Haley's Fathers(#10) "Well, I had plans for it starting when I drew the strip where Haley is looking at the letter. Which might count as being planned in that it wasn't paid off for like ten more years, but I'm pretty sure I didn't know it was going to happen until I created that page."	#1222	2020/12/30
The Importance of Gods' Colors was Planned in Advance(#1) "...from the time I introduced the different pantheons during the first set of crayon strips."	#1222	2020/12/30
The "Shadowy Sea Monster" in the Don't Split the Party Bonus Strips was the Ancient Black Dragon(#1) "...I wrote that sequence while the story was in progress and then cut it. So it was intended as foreshadowing for events that hadn't happened yet at that time."	#1201	2020/04/30
Durkon was Never Imagined as Staying Dead(#19) "I'm not sure what the point of doing that might have been, but it wouldn't have helped me tell the story I was telling."	#1193	2020/03/01
On Continuity from Comedy(#17) "A lot of the things that are crucial parts of the story were just random gags early on that I then had to work into a cohesive narrative without invalidating the earlier comics." Such as the Elven pantheon and swirly eyes showing domination.	#1193	2020/03/01
The Reason for the Draketooth Mummies' Mimicry(#5) "I needed a way to get it to say, 'Your fault,' without there being any meaning or intent on the mummy's part."	#1193	2020/03/01
The Golden Mist Barrier at the Godsmoot It's a normal feature, to prevent votes from being voided by departure.	#1005	2015/09/15
Selective Hearing at the Godsmoot "The purpose of this meeting is to listen to each other, not mortals." The Good gods aren't in control, either.	#998	2015/08/16
Character Awareness and Limitations of Panel-to-Panel Storytelling The last panel of #995 was intended to convey "Durkon notices Belkar turning to run." More on looking around (in and out of D&D rules) here.	#995	2015/08/04
On Veldrina Representing the Western and Elven Churches "...she's an elf, and the elves don't worship the Northern Gods."	#990	2015/06/15
Why the Hobgoblin Army Was Homogenous "I didn't really want the audience to weep for the hobgoblin dead, though, so I made them all interchangeable."	#946	2014/03/02
A Battle with the Linear Guild was Cut from Book Five See also here and here.	#945	2014/02/17
The Plot Has Been Rearranged and Expanded More Than It Has Changed	#945	2014/02/17
The Story is Still (Sort Of) Evolving "I'm trying to wrap up more than I add, but if there weren't room to add I would get bored before the end." See also here(#2) ("...the big questions of what's going to happen? ...locked that in around the time of the first crayon drawing scene in Paladin Blues").	#945	2014/02/17
Durkon Becomes a Vampire Originally, Durkon was going to become a vampire in the dungeon of Dorukan. This plot element has been developing for some time and even predates Xykon himself. This strip is included as a bonus in book 5 (Blood Runs in the Family).	#906	2013/07/28
Plotting the Girard's Gate Arc "Writing begins with the scenes that I want to have happen, and then I develop stuff around them to make that seem reasonable."	#906	2013/07/28
Nale's Wand Its function in the story. Also, a brief side-note about why Xykon showed up at Girard's gate a few seconds too late.	#904	2013/07/25
Worldbuilding vs. Foreshadowing "Say hello to your boss for me."	#801	2011/08/18
Dungeon of Dorukan History Originally, Dorukan was not even necessarily a person.	#196	2005/06/20

Reflections from the Author
🍌On Not Updating Past D&D 3.5(#1) "...I feel absolutely great about sticking with 3.5".	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌On What Makes Good Magic for a Story(#2) "I like my magic like I like my Star Trek technology: Full of nonsense terms that the audience has to infer the meaning of based on contextual clues."	#1291	2023/11/30
🍌The Giant on Using Elan as His Avatar(#5) "...for situations where the character image is going to...possibly be interpreted by newcomers as a depiction of me, I think it's better for everyone if I...use someone who matches me demographically."	#1291	2023/11/30
The Giant's Favorite Book(#1) Good Deeds Gone Unpunished, for "the freedom to create all-new characters and write plots that only tangentially affected the main storyline of the comic". (Of main storyline books, Blood Runs in the Family, "the most recent one" at the time.)	#1277	2023/03/10
On Changing Elan's and Nale's Original Appearences(#10) "...have you ever used an entire story arc as a vehicle for changing a costume you don't like anymore?"	#1260	2022/06/22
The Giant's Favorite Self-Comedic Drawing(#5) Spoiler: Good Deeds Gone Unpunished Show "The banana tree scene in Good Deeds Gone Unpunished"	#1260	2022/06/22
On Transcribing Durkon's Accent(#8) "I do sometimes vary his accent depending on whether I think the meaning will be lost in a specific sentence if I don't...."	#1222	2020/12/30
The Giant on Being Constrained by His Own Decisions(#6) "...I accept the downside of being locked into certain aspects that I decided early as the price I pay for the freedom of getting to invent everything else as I go."	#1222	2020/12/30
The Giant's Favorite Character to Write(#31) "My favorite character to write is whichever one I'm focusing on at the moment." "...the most fun I've had writing a character in a long time was actually Zhou Bo...."	#1193	2020/03/01
The Giant on Doing Things Differently "I'm not really a 'go back and change it' kind of guy". Though if the comic were to restart today, #35 would never be made, there would be more women in the cast, and less direct rules references.	#980	2015/04/25
The Giant's Favorite Story Arc Start of Darkness. "It's the most complete as a story."	#980	2015/04/25
The Giant's Four Basic Regrets About the Comic	#980	2015/04/25
The Giant on Satisfying Strips	#980	2015/04/24
Writing OOTS isn't All Fun and Laughs Also, the Giant on regrets and emotions while drawing the comic, and on the jokes he's the most happy with.	#980	2015/04/24

Real World Intent
The Giant on Future Projects(#10) "I 100% fully expect to continue writing after OOTS is finished....What form that writing takes is still uncertain." See also here(#2): "I have definitely considered science fiction, yes....I have zero interest in horror, however."	#1193	2020/03/01
There are no Plans to Include a Transgender Character "...transgender-ism is the sole topic that has seen multiple people telling me my work caused them personal pain...." More here and here.	#1143	2018/10/10
On Author and Character Separation "Not everything a character says is intended to be the author's point of view. "	#980	2015/04/24
Verisimulitude as a Tool It's for story elements that shouldn't attract reader attention. More here.	#979	2015/03/30
On Why The Giant Writes for Representation "To do otherwise would be self-serving cowardice."	#972	2015/01/13
Authorship and Responsibility "Every aspect of the comic is under my direct control, so the only person who should be judged regarding the appropriateness of the language is me...." Also see this.	#959	2014/07/27
The Importance Of Messages in Stories "The author should not leave out his or her message so as not to disrupt the delicate story." More here: "The story is a tool for getting my ideas across, nothing more." (Also, Hinjo is color-blind.)	#959	2014/07/25
The Giant Applauding 5E D&D's Acknowledgement of Diversity Specifically, how the core rules take into account gender, gender identity, and sexuality; as referred to the article here.	#958	2014/07/24
On Distasteful Jokes in OOTS "I simply have no interest in doing so anymore because I have grown the **** up since then...." Also, there will be no rape scenes and no more spiked tentacle jokes in the comic.	#935	2013/12/20
Tarquin's Internal and External Evil About the message that the Giant developed Tarquin's character in part to convey.	#934	2013/12/08
On the story taking a more moral stance Two reasons from the author.	#931	2013/11/19
Stereotypes and Characters More thoughts on stereotypes, including race, weight, and vocation.	#931	2013/11/19
Slut-shaming in OOTS The Giant apologizes for Haley's slut-shaming in the comic, and gives further thoughts.	#931	2013/11/18
Challenging Storytelling Conventions "[There are] people who need to have their strict views on storytelling challenged. Much like Tarquin does."	#930	2013/11/13
Art Should Challenge Preconceptions	#891	2013/06/07
LGBT Characters Why there aren't more in the comic. Also see this, and what the Giant is doing about it.	#882	2013/04/08
D&D, Alignment, and Morality The Giant on the comic's criticism of the way D&D has been played for over three decades. "D&D cannot and should not begin and end at black-and-white, and indeed already doesn't, if everyone would just learn to look at things a little more complexly." See also here (D&D "racism" and alignment).	#835	2012/02/14
The Purpose of Fiction "Fantasy literature is ONLY worthwhile for what it can tell us about the real world; everything else is petty escapism." See also here.	#835	2012/02/14

Character Naming
How a Name Sounds is More Important Than Its Meaning(#7) "After all, people butcher the name Xykon constantly (Zykon, Xyklon, Xkon) but everyone still knows who they're talking about because no other character in the strip has a name even close to his."	#1208	2020/07/31
Azurite Names Why O-Chul isn't Oh Chul.	#879	2013/03/10
Tarquin's Name Named after a Roman King, not the Grand Moff.	#749	2010/10/11
Malack's Name Not based off of Darth Malak. Originally was going to be named Malachi.	#749	2010/10/10

The Story as a D&D Spoof
Order of the Stick Isn't Based on a "Real" Tabletop Game(#16) "I think I cribbed maybe three or four jokes from things that happened in a game session I played...."	#1193	2020/03/01
The OOTS World is a Humorously-Thin D&D Setting "...the generic vanilla world I'm using in OOTS fits for a comedic satire of the fantasy genre."	#949	2014/04/21
On Children, Souls and Afterlives Also, D&D cosmology makes no sense. More here (also, there is no "overgod" in the OotS cosmology).	#946	2014/03/19
D&D Spoofing The Giant on the comic's shift in focus from D&D gag-a-day jokes to a story that might appeal to a broader fanbase. More here.	#829	2012/01/22

Spoiler: Supporting the Strip

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Note: Digital PDFs of certain comic books are now available, see the shop page for more details.

Supporting the Strip
Don't Expect More OotS Magazine Strips(#10) "It was fun when I did it, but I'm really a lot more interested in the story than thinking up one-off gags over and over, especially when I can't hang them on the ongoing plot."	#1208	2020/07/31
There Could Possibly Be More Side-Story Books In the Future(#12) "I...can't rule out some stories that don't get released until after the main series ends, but there are no plans for a full-on spin-off or sequel or what have you."	#1208	2020/07/31
On the Periodic Availability of Past Calendars "...every single year, someone starts a thread like this and asks about the old calendars, so I turn them back on."	#1187	2019/11/24
Why the Giant Doesn't Use Print-On-Demand "You would be paying more for worse books...."	#1119	2018/05/03
On the Comic As a Business The website was originally intended to support a game design career, and the gaming comic was envisioned to keep people visiting the site to see the latest gaming articles. The comic was never produced purely for arts' sake: "It is a business of selling a creative work, but it is still a business." See also here, on Wizards of the Coast's Setting Search contest and how it led the Giant to "start Giant in the Playground as a place to publish my further work...."	#1066	2017/02/21
Other eBooks The Giant has "every intention of releasing all the regular books in the series as PDFs", and possibly Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tales eventually.	#1066	2017/02/21
Why Some PDFs are Larger than Others High resolution raster artwork, mostly.	#1029	2016/03/22
The OotS Strips in Gygax Magazine Will Be in a Collection Someday	#1020	2016/01/22
The Kickstarter Cameo It's Veldrina, who first appeared in 986.	#986	2015/05/18
The Giant's Feeling about the Kickstarter Today "Complex."	#980	2015/04/27
On Webcomics and Print as Mediums The webcomic is just a distribution method. "There are comic strips, and there are comic books, and there are hybrids in-between the two (like OOTS), and all of these things are published both on paper and on the internet"(#26).	#980	2015/04/25
Publication in Another Language? Unlikely to happen.	#980	2015/04/25
The Giant Doesn't Know How the Kickstarter Stories Will Be In Print Yet "One book or dispersed?" "...no idea yet."	#945	2014/02/17
How to Financially Support the Giant The Giant does not accept direct donations. Buying merchandise is preferred. More here, including thoughts about Patreon and digital products.	#918	2013/09/14
An OOTS "Munchkin" Board Game? No current plans for one.	#897	2013/07/06
An OOTS Computer Game? No current plans for one. See here for more.	#892	2013/06/10
For Those Who Missed Out on Kickstarter The swag, sans patches, will be very likely available again at some point.	#870	2012/02/24
Top Webcomics Do not vote for OOTS on Top Webcomics.	#724	2010/05/19

Spoiler: Spoilers from Book/PDF Content

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Spoiler: Start of Darkness

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Start of Darkness
On Xykon Losing His Ability to Taste Coffee(#5) "...the purpose of that scene was more to show Xykon losing touch with his humanity, specifically the way that his biological body may have actually been preventing him from becoming a true monster."	#1277	2023/03/10
On Redcloak's Niece(#11) "I felt Right-Eye needed the motivation his family provided in order to do what he attempted at the very end of Start of Darkness."	#1222	2020/12/30
How Xykon Broke Out How Xykon broke out (with some insight into The Giant's writing process). On Xykon and Redcloak's escape from Lirian, see also this post.	#862	2012/09/07
Redcloak's Little Sister She had not committed an Evil act, and certainly did not deserve execution.	#835	2012/02/14

Spoiler: Snips, Snails and Dragon Tails

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Snips, Snails and Dragon Tails
Dragon Magazine Alternate Panel What didn't show up in Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails.	#799	2011/08/03

Spoiler: How the Paladin Got His Scar

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How the Paladin Got His Scar
Hinjo is "Around 15-16" during How the Paladin Got His Scar And the animal Saha Kapoor spoke with is a binturong.	#1135	2018/08/19

Spoiler: Kickstarter Bonus PDFs

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Kickstarter Bonus PDFs
Cornered For Donations "Nervous" and "Afraid" look pretty much the same, which helped with the misdirection at the start of Belkar's story.	#871	2013/02/25
Fire Threat Belkar did not actually burn the town down on his first adventure.	#870	2012/02/23

Spoiler: Thread History

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Index Threads
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas Curated by Jasdoif.	#1182	2019/10/20
The Index of the Giant's Comments V―On a Saner Forum, We Wouldn't Need this Index Curated by Jasdoif.	#1025	2016/02/24
The Index of the Giant's Comments IV - A Rich Source of Quotassium Curated by Jasdoif.	#976	2015/02/25
The Index of the Giant's Comments III - We've Left a Banana In Charge Curated by Jasdoif.	#946	2014/03/09
The Index Reloaded --- (Index of the Giant's Comments II) Curated by ThePhantasm.	#928	2013/11/08
Index of the Giant's Comments Curated by ThePhantasm.	#812	2011/10/25

Spoiler: Geekademia Interview Table of Contents

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Part 1: Kickstarter and the Fans
- 1A: Introduction
- 1B: OOTS Kickstarter Project
- 1C: OOTS Fandom & GiTP Forums
- 1D: OOTS Soundtrack Thread & OOTS Animated
- 1E: OOTS & Social Networking

Part 2: The Comic and Role-Playing Games
- 2A: On Whether Rich Has Time For Role-Playing
- 2B: Will There Ever Be an OOTS World Created for a Gaming System?

Part 3: The Comic's Storyline, Part I
- 3A: The "Darkness" of the Storyline
- 3B: On Behind-The-Scenes Story Commentary In Interviews and Books
- 3C: What Is The Comic About?
- 3D: On The Comic & D&D Rules
- 3E: Creating the Character Wall Poster
- 3F: On Fanart & Whether Roy Wears Pants
- 3G: Putting an End to the Crack Pairings Thread

Part 4: Modern Fantasy and D&D
- 4A: On Keeping Fantasy New & Interesting
- 4B: TVTropes & Lazy Criticism
- 4C: Public Perception of D&D
- 4D: Jack Chick & Tom Hanks

Part 5:The Comic's Storyline, Part II
- 5A: Rich's Favorite Characters to Write Jokes For
- 5B: Rich's Favorite Characters to Write Drama / Character Struggles For
- 5C: Vaarsuvius' Moral Conflict
- 5D: The Storyline & the D&D Alignment System
- 5E: On Keeping Plot Twists Secret
- 5F: The Desert Plot Arc & Law vs. Chaos
- 5G: The Possibility of an Order of the Scribble Prequel Book
- 5H: The Kickstarter Donor's Choice Stories
- 5I: The Conclusion of the Storyline
- 5J: How Much Story Is Left To Tell

Part 6: Outro and Ending

Special Thanks to Xapi and B.Dandelion for transcribing the interview. Reformatted for the index by ThePhantasm. Original interview by Jesse Baruffi and David Lawrence of Geekademia.

Geekademia Interview

Spoiler: Part 1: Kickstarter and the Fans

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1A: Introduction

Jesse - Hello, this is Geekademia on the Non-Productive Network, my name is Jesse Baruffi...

David - I'm David Lawrence.

Jesse - ...and we're here with another special guest, Rich Burlew, the author and artist of the Order of the Stick! Hello Rich!

Rich - Hey, how's it going?

1B: OOTS Kickstarter Project

Jesse - Pretty good. So, the reason... I think the reason we were able to get you on today is the fact that you're going through a very large donation drive at the moment on the website Kickstarter.

Rich - Yes. Yes, I am.

Jesse - So, to anyone who might not know about this, why don't you tell us a little bit about it?

Rich - Alright, well. For a while I've published my own books, of the Order of the Stick, and because I'm a small one person company, I ran out, essentially, of all the existing books, which isn't just a problem for selling those books, but also for selling any future books, because people like to have things in whole sets, so I was worried about what would happen when I put out my next book if my entire back catalog was unavailable.

So I had heard about Kickstarter, I had followed some projects and I thought "Well, I'll put up a little Kickstarter and we'll try to get..." I get people bugging me all the time to... not bugging, you know... asking all the time when the next reprint would be of one of my books in particular, War and XPs, which is the biggest, fattest, most expensive book to print so far. So I was like... and I absolutely did not have the money for it.

And so I thought "Well, I'll put up a Kickstarter for it, and if it goes well, I get to reprint the book, and if it doesn't go well, I'll have something to say next time somebody asks me [why] isn't War and XPs in print". And I thought that was worth it right there. So I set up this Kickstarter project drive and it's... pretty good so far. We got it funded enough to reprint that book in about... 36 hours I'd say, and it's gone on from there to funding the reprinting of every single book that I have - six - the ones that are regularly in print, and it's been pretty amazing. I had no idea that I'd get this sort of response from my readers. Yeah, it's been a ride, to say the least.

1C: OOTS Fandom & the GiTP Forums

Jesse - As someone who goes on the forums on your website from time to time, it seems you've got some extremely devoted fans.

Rich - Yes, that would be an extremely charitable description. No, it's wonderful, I love my fans, I do have fans that are very dedicated, often more dedicated than I am. You know, they're dedicated to some of the minutiae about the comic that has never crossed my mind, and... but that's great, I mean, I'm happy that they can get that enjoyment from it, even though I don't want to even worry about it. . . [crosstalk] . . .like the number of character appearances or who has the most number of kills in the comic, you know. Good for them. . . [unintelligible]

Jesse - Yeah, you've got bigger things to worry about, like what happens in the story. . .

Rich - Story, yeah.

1D: The OOTS Soundtrack Thread & OOTS Animated

Jesse - One thing I noticed recently on the forum that I thought was kinda interesting is the fact that people have started to. . . sort of making a soundtrack to the series. . .

Rich - I saw the thread title, but I haven't been. . . I haven't been on the forums as much as I should since this started, been having to put up an update almost every single day for the past two weeks, so I haven't actually caught exactly what's going on there, but it's an interesting idea, I mean, I know that Homestuck does similar sorts of things with the fans creating soundtracks and he actually uses them in his animation, which I don't think is gonna happen for the Stick, but it's still a great idea to be able to have something to listen to... I don't know, it's an interesting idea.

1E: OOTS & Social Networking

Jesse - One thing that I really wanted to ask you about, 'cause I think this is kinda fascinating... I've noticed most people in the webcomics... I guess, field? . . . are. . . basically kinda throw themselves on every social networking site there is, whether it's like Facebook or Twitter or Tumbler or any of that stuff.

Rich - And you're saying I'm a backwards Luddite hermit.

Jesse - Well, yes, but I mean it as a compliment.

Rich - I had to download Skype in order to have this conversation.

Jesse - I certainly don't mean that as an insult. It seems to me that it's something we here at Geekademia don't even use a lot of that stuff. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to have a Facebook page for the podcast. But I was just wondering if that was a conscious decision on your part or is that something you're just too busy for.

Rich - Yeah, it's pretty much a conscious decision, I mean, I am a technologically backwards Luddite, that makes it easy . . . but second, I think, if I want people to see my content, I want them to sort of come to my website, instead of maintaining different websites at 15 different social networks. I don't want to have to worry about whether my Facebook page is updated in addition to my website. And some of these I'm just a late arrival to, in the sense that there is an Order of the Stick website that somebody created, a fan created, and it's been out there and everybody's linked to it, and everyone liked it in their profiles or whatever and I don't have control of that, so rather than there being two competing Facebook pages I just sort of let that live it's own life as a fan created thing and I'll concentrate on my own website.

I will probably get dragged into Twitter very soon [N.B. As of 3/15/2012 Rich has a Twitter account for OOTS. -ThePhantasm] but, ah, not yet, haven't crossed that threshold yet, and every thing else, either I'm oblivious to it or I just haven't had the time to learn and figure out whether it works for me.

Jesse - Ok.

Rich - I think I'm also a little bit older than a lot of the other webcomic - I mean, I'm not OLD old, I'm 37, but I think a lot of the webcomic creators out there are college or just there after, and therefore are a lot more 'up' on these technologies than I am. And I use a Mac, which is not always up to speed up until very recently with the iPad explosion coming and such.

Jesse - Gotcha. Well that makes sense and I'm only a little bit younger than you, but yeah, I kinda feel similarly. If I was going to do something creative, I'd focus on that instead of the endless, like, updating of other things, personally.

Rich - Yeah, I have enough trouble keeping my own website updated, so it seems like I would just be adding more work on myself. And I had a fairly large audience before Facebook became "the" thing that everybody had to be on. I started this in 2003, I don't know exactly when Facebook started peaking, but I know that I already had a substantial audience by that point, so I don't know that I saw right away what the benefit would be, and now that I do, it looks like somebody already did a page for me, so. . . I let it be.

Spoiler: Part 2: The Comic & Role-Playing Games

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2A: On Whether Rich Has Time For Role-Playing

Jesse - Order of the Stick is of course a huge gaming comic so I was wondering if you still had time to do any role-playing these days?

Rich - No, no, I haven't in a while. The last role-playing I did was when I was working on... when I was gonna do Snips, Snails an Dragon Tales, the limited book with the Dragon Magazine strips, I did some 4th Edition role-playing to be sure I knew sort of what I was talking about, which I probably didn't but I can pretend better, and that was over a year ago now.

It just doesn't work, you know, it hasn't really worked out that way, that I had as much time for that as I used to, sort of fallen by the wayside, but not in a way that I'll never go back to it, just in a time way. I think you get busy at a certain point in your life, with your work and your family and your such and such, and whether or not you have time for it is sort of random, sort of up in the air. I mean, I still get a lot of that sort of fix from thinking about it, talking about it and such like that.

But in a certain point, I was always the DM when I played, and at a certain point it just feels like I'm taking that much time to craft a complex story, maybe I should just write it down and someone would pay me for it. I guess that's possibly maybe a little bit of it, because I'm now sort of essentially a professional fantasy writer, that I can't really bring myself to put the same amount of effort I did when I was in college and such and it was the focus of my creative attention.

2B: Will There Ever Be an OOTS World Created for a Gaming System?

Jesse - And along those lines, I realize that doing it at this point would probably be a mountain of effort and give too much away, but I've seen people on the forums asking if some day there would actually be an Order of the Stick world created for any sort of gaming system. Do you think you would do that if you had the time and opportunity?

Rich - Let me tell you, I started working on that a few years ago, and what happened is, I got about 20 or 30 pages in, and WotC announced 4th Edition. And I didn't know what was gonna happen with it, I didn't know whether I was gonna want to make it for that, I didn't know if making it on 3rd Edition would still be possible with the game license, would they find a way to revoke that, it was all up in the air, everything was sort of chaos and I had no idea what was gonna happen. . . so I put it aside, and then have never gone back to it since, really.

It wasn't compatible at all with 4th Edition, so therefore that wasn't going to work, and I don't know, I didn't know whether I would ever really have the direct audience that I thought it should so I think I just sort of let it lie fallow after that.

I cannibalized parts of it, the document I started working on. . . I think the last compilation I put out, Don't Split the Party had some black and white cartoons that were from that project, and I know the map that I did in the back of one of them for Azure City was actually of the Azure City country description, so you know, pieces of it have been seen here and there ever since.

But another problem was that I'd done a write up for Elan's Dashing Swordsman class, and since then I had at least three things I've put into the comic, you know. . . here's this joke about this class that has this ridiculous cliched hero abilities. . . and if I put out that class, I can't really do that any more. Can I then say "Oh, it has this ability too?" 'cause I've already taken people's money to say "This is the class that it is!." So I think it's easier to leave things vague and up in the air and just use them when I want to as humor rather than as concrete game rules.

Spoiler: Part 3: The Comic's Storyline, Part I

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3A: The "Darkness" of the Storyline

Jesse - As far as the storyline of the OotS goes, one thing that has definitely happened as time goes on is that, despite continuing to be funny and continuing to be a humor comic on some level, there have been some much darker elements introduced.

Rich - Yes.

Jesse - So what made you decide to take that shift and still remain with the same characters and story?

Rich - I don't know, I think I've always had a draw to that shock reveal. Not shock for the sake of shocking, but that dramatic sudden moment when something happens in the story you absolutely did not see coming and perhaps as an either darker or more impactful moment that you ever thought was possible in a work, in the work you were seeing.

I used to do that as a DM, I used to set up situations where the players thought one thing was happening the entire time, they walk in the door and see a scene that threw all their preconceptions on the ground and stomped down on them. I think I really enjoy that, I think it creates powerful moments in the story, and sometimes that means doing something dark, sometimes that means taking your comedy villain who is bored and having him slaughter a room full of Paladins with a bouncy ball. You know, because it's so perverse, and it's such a violation of their honor and law mindset, where they're these noble Paladins who will defend to the last man, and they just get destroyed like that. The goal is sort of, not offend, but bother the reader. . . it should bother them. You should look at Xykon and say "He's a horrible monster." He can still crack a funny joke, but you shouldn't be sympathetic to him, and if you are, I don't know if I necessarily I want to know about it, because that's a little scary.

And that was one of the problems with SoD, "here's the story of Xykon," but I'm not going to make him even slightly sympathetic, if anything, you're going to think worse of him by the time you're done with this. So, I think I have an affection for writing the villains, because of that ability to sort of make your jaw drop, you know, heroes can't really do that without. . . you know it's going to be. . . no one's gonna gasp when they do something specially heroic or kind. And I really don't want my heroes to be dark, with the exception of Belkar, but that's another story.

I don't want Roy to suddenly do something out of character or shocking, the closest thing I got to that was I had Haley kill off the assassin that had been harassing her, and that was still pretty surprising, and I think a lot of people didn't see it coming, but I also sort of goofed there in the sense that I cut the scene that made it more obvious that Crystal was still actively trying to kill Haley, truce or no truce, so that was something I fixed in the book. . . but it's still, it was a fairly surprising, but again, like I said, I still have to go darker to be surprising like that, so, I think that's where it comes from really.

Jesse - Ok.

3B: On Behind-The-Scenes Story Commentary In Interviews & Books

Rich - You see I'm just as wordy in my interviews as I am in the comic, it all flows naturally from me.

Jesse - Believe me, we'll have you on as long as you want to stay, if you want to just talk for twenty minutes, that's awesome. I will take one bit of fanboyish break from the interview. . . when we started this podcast, I had a couple of people who were sort of my long shot goals of people to get on the show, and you were towards the top of people I didn't think I'd get but I was gonna try anyway. So I thought you might want to know that. Again, we don't mind to listen to you talk.

Rich - Honestly, I was excited at the chance to talk about something other than Kickstarter, because I've done a bunch of interviews and they're all about Kickstarter, sometimes to the point of not even mentioning what my comic is about. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but at a certain point you want people to find out, I mean, the people who already know what my comic is about, already know what my comic is about, so they don't need to get the spiel but I like being able to talk about it, actually about my comic and not how much money I can raise.

Jesse - Sure. As someone who writes as well, not professionally unfortunately, I know it is sort of fun to be able to talk about the creative process, because it one of those things the readers never see, they don't know what's going on in your head while you're doing it.

Rich - Sure, that's why I do the commentary in the books, they're sort of what I would think to talk about, that's not always what someone who is reading would think to talk about or want to know about, so they're not always exactly what people are looking for in terms of behind the scenes.

3C: What Is The Comic About?

Jesse - Ok, I think David wants to ask you a couple of questions. I've been crowding the mic so I'll let him ask a couple of things. . .

David - So, you mentioned nobody asks you what your comic is about... what is your comic about?

Rich - My comic is a comedy adventure fantasy comic. It's about a group of adventurers, heroes or warriors (whatever you want to call them) called the Order of the Stick, as they go about their adventures with minimal competence or knowledge of what they are doing, and eventually sort of stumble into a plan by an undead sorcerer to conquer the world, essentially, and they're out to stop him and conquer their personal problems at the same time. Hopefully not in that order, so they get their personal problems taken care of before the final battle. And it's a comedy.

3D: On The Comic & D&D Rules

Specially in the early parts it has a lot of role-playing games... the whole thing is sort of within the framework of Dungeons and Dragons. The early strips made many explicit references to this, specially for jokes. The later strips just use it as the framework of the world, in terms of deciding what kinds of spells can a sorcerer cast, what kinds of spells can a cleric cast, etc. etc. I don't really worry about "oh, this character doesn't have enough hit bonus to... you know, let me roll the dice", if the story needs him to hit, he hits, if the story needs him to miss, he misses.

There's a certain segment of my fans who think that's grossly unfair. Not that they necessarily believe I should roll the dice, but they believe that the percentages should be accurately represented, so that if somebody swings their sword at someone 20 times, they should hit a number of times equal to their, you know, relative attack bonus blah blah blah. That doesn't happen, that's not something I worry about.

But yeah, it's essentially a fantasy adventure quest story, of a warrior out to avenge his father against a sorcerer, and the sorcerer happens to be trying to conquer the world at the same time. That's a nutshell. And it's stick figures, that needs to be said. If you're picturing that in the most elaborate fantasy artwork, that's not what we're talking about. They're basically really simplistic colorful block characters going about this.

3E: Creating the Character Wall Poster

Jesse - You can't see this, but behind us in the studio is the big double poster of all the characters.

Rich - Hah! That took forever.

Jesse - I can tell.

Rich - What's funny is I had worked on it, and then had to put it aside, and when I got back to it I had introduced like 4 new characters that had to go on. I had to find room for Tarquin and Malack and Kil-Kil over in the corner of the villains poster, and I put Captain Malack's helmet on... not Malack, Tarquin's helmet on. He was still new enough that I thought people who weren't caught up to the story, I didn't want them to see who he was before. . . you know some people only read the books. . . yeah, so, did that at the last minute.

3F: On Fanart & Whether Roy Wears Pants

David - It's funny, I just saw some fanart for Order of the Stick, but it was drawn like Frank Frazetta.

Rich - [Laughs] Yes.

David - Super detailed, very. . .

Rich - Yeah, what I always find interesting is the choices they make for the parts of the characters that are really not be able to tell what's going on because they're sticks. I've seen fanart that was really realistic of Roy fighting except for some reason he had no pants, like he had one armor piece over his torso but his legs were bare. That's why I think at one point I had Haley make a crack about how she's wearing long pants but you can't tell because she's a stick figure. Because I wanted to put a stop of that, I wanted no more pantless Roy. That's a whole other direction that I'm sure is out there on the Internet, but I don't need to see it.

David - Well, that kills my next question. . .

Rich - [Laughs]

3G: Putting an End to the Crack Pairings Thread

David - Once again, on the forum for a while, there was a whole section of people. . .

Rich - Oh, yeah. We had to slay that once people started crossing some lines. Once they crossed the Elan - Nale incest line, we had to put a stop to that. . .

David - As well you should.

Rich - Yeah, exactly.

David - There are some weird people there. . .

Spoiler: Part 4: Modern Fantasy & D&D

Show

4A: On Keeping Fantasy New and Interesting

David - There's a question though: can Fantasy be taken seriously anymore?

Rich - You mean in the sense that a lot of it is recycled? A lot of it is the same sort of material all over again? I think so. I think there's definitely something to say with fantasy still. Order of the Stick is in many ways sort of a critique I guess, a spoof of a lot of fantasy cliches, but once you see the cliches, you dodge them. I mean, there's plenty of fantasy writers who don't do the same old "warriors on a quest" thing, which I'm doing but by way of sort of turning it on it's head. I think there's plenty of room in fantasy for unique stories.

I think the number one thing people can do to make their fantasy something new and interesting is to not marry it to the same old medieval sort of time period for no apparent reason. I mean, if magic exists in a world, why can't it exist in a different historical setting. I think there's still plenty to say, and I think there's still plenty for me to make fun of, so, you know, hopefully that will keep going on both sides.

4B: TVTropes & Lazy Criticism

David - Question: We have talked about TVTropes, even mentioned the name. . .

Rich - [Laughs] Sorry, what was the question?

David - The thing is, they have sort of these shorthands, like he's the "Chosen One," he'll save us from "the Dragon" or "the Evil Wizard."

Rich - Yeah, like the next thing that happens would have to be the thing that happens 'cause this thing happened because the trope said so.

David - Yes. I mean, do you think it's possible just to divorce completely. . . to walk away and do something else?

Rich - It's hard. There was a point in time a few years back when I felt like every time I put out a strip the number one response to it was "Oh, he's just doing this trope", "he's just doing that trope", you know, and put a link to it, "see, he's just not original at all". And I don't know whether that just became less popular as a way of sort of pigeonholing things, or whether I've actually broken enough of them now that nobody assumes they know what's gonna happen next. But one way or another that doesn't seem to happen as much anymore.

People try to sort of guess what I'm gonna do, and I hopefully kick it in the shins and run away laughing. But I think there's a danger of over simplification of literature, of becoming so wrapped up in these compartments that put every element of the story that you sort of miss the story. It's sort of like a lazy criticism. Criticism in the classic sense of actually doing a critical piece, not in a complaining way. It lets you churn out an analysis of a work without putting much thought into it. I think it's fun to point to the website and see the different ways different works do the same sort of cliches, not in a bad sense, but I do think there's a danger in taking them too seriously as the 'be all, end all' of literary criticism.

D - Yes, indeed. I have read a lot of fantasy, and it's always like "here's the Chosen One, here's the Local, here's the obviously evil sorcerer who betrays everyone. . ."

Rich - Yeah, exactly. I think fantasy is more prone to that than almost any other genre. And that's partly because there have been a few titans of the genre who sort of formed everything that was to come after.

And also honestly because of Dungeons and Dragons. I think people playing D&D has reinforced certain stereotypes in their mind [unintelligible] RPGs that follow the same tropes and all of these sort of things, has reinforced this sort of monolithic fantasy from which few authors deviate and, well, so. . . but there's a lot of the same old same old out there too. So I think fantasy gets probably a lot more of those, those tropes listed, than almost any other genre.

You know, Science Fiction, I'm a huge SF fan, SF is, every story you read is esentially a completely different setting, I'm sure, Space Opera stuff tends to be a lot of the same, whatever, but you can just go off and do something wildly different and still be Science Fiction, and I think less people do that with Fantasy these days.

4C: Public Perception of D&D

David - You mentioned the impact of Dungeons and Dragons. There was a huge backlash against D&D. . .

Rich - Yeah, sure.

David - Do you think we're likely to see something like that again?

Rich - I don't think so. I mean, there's certainly always going to be people who are still going to say the same charges against it, you know, that are still gonna say the things that weren't true then, and still aren't. But I don't think it's wildly circulating. I think because it was new then, people didn't know what was going on, didn't know what this thing was, and then they got a lot of misinformation from various sources, and the media picked it up and ran with it as a media scare. And now it's old news. It's been around for thirty and some odd years, you don't get articles in the media about Dungeons and Dragons making people sacrifice goats [interference] . . . "Dungeons and Dragons is coming out with a new edition, because D&D owner Hasbro has released this information in this press conference, blah blah blah."

So I think that's not gonna resurface. I mean just the fact that it's owned by Hasbro now gives it a legitimacy that I think it probably didn't have back in the day, when it was owned by a bunch of guys in Wisconsin [interference] gives it a "Oh, obviously it has to be OK, it is owned by the company that does Mr. Potato Head." And I don't think it's in Hasbro's interest to let those kind of stories exist.

When you're a big corporation, you kinda get that power in the sense that if they're going to do a story about Dungeons and Dragons, they're going to immediately walk up to your Hasbro or WotC and ask for a quote, and then their sort of media team will take care of it from there. But I think the days of mass hysteria scare about D&D are behind us at this point.

Jesse - I think there are bigger scapegoats now as well.

Rich - Yeah, absolutely, there's the Internet and all of it's glory. Playing D&D seems downright quaint now, you can find people who are in their 50s who've been playing D&D for 30 years, it's not. . . you know, in detriment of the hobby, but it's not something that all teenagers are flocking to these days. When you're 13 you're like "Hey, let's go play D&D tonight!" You have to get those kids into the hobby in a way that isn't really happening right now. I'd say as long as it's not threatening tomorrow's children I think it'll stay on the right side of the public opinion.

4D: Jack Chick & Tom Hanks

David - Speaking of threatening children, what we do on the show... are you familiar with the Jack Chick comic Dark Dungeons?

Rich - I am, vaguely, passingly familiar, as much as any long time D&D player could be.

David - We might have to do a show on Jack Chick.

Rich - I like to think of my comic as a sort of tribute to the great comic that had come before. Could I have done a Dungeons and Dragons themed comic if not, like I said, if not, if the giants of the genre had not put forth that independent comic creation of lore?

Jesse - Dark Dungeons was a very interesting book. I would say it's not even close to the craziest thing Jack Chick has ever done.

Rich - Yeah, not top ten really.

David - No. But the thing I love about his. . .

Rich - [unintelligible] it wasn't as crazy, he's gone really off the [unintelligible] then, then it probably wouldn't have been taken seriously until this day.

David - Well, according to Dark Dungeons, apparently the sourcebook is an actual spell book, from which you can actually, literally just call up the devil and say "hey."

Rich - Spells, yeah, exactly. I've certainly heard that. All I can say is I think the copies I've been using must be defective in some way, either there's a misprint or a page missing because I've been playing the game since I was 11 or 12 and I've yet to actually cast a magic spell, deeply disappointed at that.

David - How about Mazes and Monsters?

Rich - Oh yeah. Tom Hanks has a lot to answer for.

David - Yes he does.

Rich - [unintelligible]

Jesse - He unleashed Forrest Gump upon the world, he has to pay for that. Now we get into Dave's axe grind.

Rich - Personal media vendetta should actually be the title of this podcast.

David - He knows what he did.

Jesse - Where gonna try to get him on the show for a reconciliation. They're gonna hug each other on the air.

Rich - Or just volleyball with him.

Spoiler: Part 5: The Comic's Storyline, Part II

Show

5A: Rich's Favorite Characters to Write Jokes For

Jesse - Back into the Order of the Stick a little bit as far as the characters, to talk a little about the characters. I have my theories on this, but I'm wondering if you have a personal favorite character as far as writing.

Rich - It depends on whether you mean. Writing the jokes or writing the personality and internal conflicts? Jokes is easy: Belkar, with Elan a close second. You've got your sort of. . . either your violence jokes or your bad person gets their comeuppance jokes with Belkar, and then Elan has your dumb jokes, has your silliness, has your kinda child-like comedy, and I like writing both of those.

5B: Rich's Favorite Characters to Write Drama / Character Struggles For

As far as writing a personal sort of inner thoughts on your life, whatever, things (sic) I really like writing Haley a lot. She's got issues, I think she's probably got the most legitimate issues of the people in the Order, and that makes her interesting to write. It's interesting how she's going to react, based on her upbringing and sort of what she's been through in her life to this situation or that situation.

I think that makes it more. . . to you, Elan's pretty straightforward, you know what he's gonna do. You may not know in the sense that it's something completely random and off the wall and pull out a hand puppet and start worshiping it, but you know he's gonna do something weird and silly and ultimately harmless, because he's a good person, and nothing bad is gonna happen to him as a result.

And you know Belkar's gonna do the opposite, he'll take the most awful, irredeeming sort of path that he can find and get away with.

But you don't know what Haley's gonna do in a situation. She wants to be a good person, but she wasn't raised that way, she was raised to be a thief. And so she sort of has to struggle with being a hero, what comes easily to, well, it comes pretty easily to Roy. He'll snap at people, he'll be sort of verbally abusive, but he's not gonna... he's never attempted to do the wrong thing, really.

Jesse - There was the one time, but...

Rich - Yeah. Exactly, and that was a big point of development for him. But really, since then, that was within the first 150 or 160 strips, so for the majority of the comic's lifetime he's been pretty clear on what he should be doing.

5C: Vaarsuvius' Moral Conflict

Jesse - It seems like Vaarsuvius has become a character with a lot of internal moral conflict recently as well.

Rich - That's true, that is correct, and that was a conscious sort of effort on my part, because I felt like Vaarsuvius had been underutilized. . . by the end of the War and XPs book I felt like Vaarsuvius was sort of. . . "and then we have an elf!" Which is a problem I still have with Durkon but I have plans to address as well.

And so I think I crafted almost all of Don't Split the Party around "let's [unintelligible] a better arc". . . some of it I had planned already, some of it I already knew that when I did the first. . . spoiler by the way, if anyone hasn't read this. . . when I did the first small black dragon, that I was gonna have the older one come back and be a villain in some point that would attack Vaarsuvius for what he or she had done. But the sort of sell your soul angle was a little more recent, and more of an attempt to really get at what Vaarsuvius issues were in life. So that sort of dovetailed nicely into one story that I'm really happy with.

5D: The Storyline & the D&D Alignment System

Jesse - That brings - the whole idea of the Black Dragon and the demons - brings up another thing, which is the idea that you seem to play a lot with: the idea of Evil, like, there's a huge variety of villainous characters with motivations all across the spectrum from, you know, and in some ways it seems like the comic tries to deconstruct that. In other ways it plays it straight. . .

Rich - More like, I think both are valid, you know what I mean? Both are ways of looking at the problem, and I think again ,getting back to the history of fantasy literature, I think there are an awful lot of cardboard cutout tackling [unintelligible] villainy out there, and that's a choice to make when you're writing your story, and I sort of want to have it both ways, I want to be able to have villainy villains, and at the same time, not writing a character that doesn't make sense, not writing a character that doesn't have a motivation to what they're doing.

And I think there's a lot of debate among my fans, because they're not necessarily used to seeing that from fantasy villains, especially when it comes to Black Dragons, undead sorcerers, and Goblins who are out to destroy the Gods. You expect those sort of characters to be very straightforward, and I try to make it a little more complex than that, which, I was thinking, readers, in this [unintelligible] open up alternate interpretations, people would swear that 'cause Redcloak thinks what he's doing is the best for the Goblin people, that Redcloak is in fact the good guy, that he is the hero of the story. And that's... an interesting viewpoint. And I'm glad that I provoked that. I'm glad that I wrote a character that is layered enough that some people would say he's absolutely in the right, but yeah, I really like turning it upside down and not assuming that because it's a Dragon it has no emotions. I think D&D appeals to people who are much more Math & Science oriented, that. . . I can sort of surprise them more by delving into the emotional side of things, and they don't see that coming, if they're D&D fans. And people who are generally fiction fans just enjoy it on it's own merits.

Jesse - So, it comes out to not being as simple as the nine simple moral codes that D&D ascribes to.

Rich - Yeah, and I think one of the themes of Order of the Stick is there's this guide alignment system in D&D where it places every single person in one of these nine moral codes, and for the entire history of the game, that I've played it, people have been complaining that that's overly simplistic. "Oh, it's more complicated than that." And it absolutely is more complicated than that, but they're also doing it wrong. They think because they have this alignment they have to act this way, this one specific given way, and I think each one of those categories is so wide open to interpretation.

And that was a lot of what Miko Misayaki was about, was that she's lawful good, but she's a complete bitch, you wouldn't want to spend time with her at all. And I think that was sort of the flip side of the sympathetic villain: the unsympathetic hero. Or at least good guy. So yeah, I definitely like to subvert expectations in that specific way, because I think the alignment system gets a bad rap from people who aren't trying to make it work, and say "that's overly simplistic."

Jesse: Yeah, I certainly enjoy the alignments for the same reason that you do. I agree that it doesn't have to be super simple. I don't know if you've done this, but have you ever sat around talking about characters in stories and what their alignments were, or your friends for that matter?

Rich: Yeah, back in the day. We used to. . . it's usually a good way to try to explain to new players of D&D how it works, you pick the sort of archetypical characters. But one of the problems with that is that those characters will be associated forever in that mind with what that alignment is. And I also think there's some naming flaws with the alignment. I think by calling one of the alignments "lawful" they've created thirty years of people thinking it means you have to obey every last "keep off the grass" sort of law. And that's not really what it's supposed to mean, it's supposed to mean sort of an ordered way of thinking, having a personal code, having a set of tenets that is greater than yourself.

Jesse: I think that may come from Elric, and Michael Moorcock having the whole. . .

Rich: It absolutely comes from Elric. He did Law and Chaos, those were his two. And you know, he didn't have to worry about a billion people trying to interpret what he meant by that, he just needed to present it in the context of his stories. So no negative to him for doing so, but I think it was adopted and has been argued and debated ever since by people playing the game.

5E: On Keeping Plot Twists Secret

Jesse: As someone who works pretty hard at keeping your story twists shocking and such, do you have anyone that you've brainstormed with, or is it just something you keep completely secret until you're ready to do the big reveal?

Rich: I keep a lot of it internal. I write down notes, I think of things, and sometimes I think of things and change them later. Not deeply, I think my main plot points have been the same since I started really thinking about the plot and sort of sketched out things that would happen, but there are certainly minor details that change at the time I'm writing the scripts. Certainly moment by moment actions can change, twist or whatever in a way if I think of something more interesting at the time that I'm writing it than I did five years ago. Then I go with that, but really the big moments have all been pretty close to how I pictured them a long time ago.

Sometimes, some of these things are where I would be, I would write down a note like "and then they go to the desert." And I knew that when they got to the desert, Tarquin would be there, and they would do some desert-ey stuff with him before going back, before finding out what they needed to find and then go back out. But I didn't really get too worried about what happened in his empire until I was starting to plot this story arc, because it didn't really, it affected them personally but it didn't change the plot with Xykon and Redcloak, so I had the sort of freedom to put that on the shelf until I got to it. Now I would think from here we'll sort of flow more from what I just did than it would have previously, sort of work that back in.

Jesse: The current arc seems to be a lot about family.

Rich: Sure.

5F: The Desert Plot Arc & Law vs. Chaos

Jesse: Actually. . . I've bounced this theory around, but I wanted to ask you if this was something you intended or if it's just my imagination. For the most part, a lot of the conflicts in the book have been about good and evil, but I felt like in the current arc, it's been more about conflicts between law and chaos, would you say that was intentional?

Rich: Absolutely intentional. I mean, I think good and evil are easily grasped, and I think it's a little less intuitive for people to really understand law and chaos, as they are - if they exist - as concepts. Because here you have Tarquin, for most of the first part of the story, is evil, is just straight up evil. But he loves his son. He cares about family. He likes his empire running orderly. He doesn't just sort of go around slaughtering people for kicks. He has a plan, he has a goal, which he's sort of executing step by step. He's not Xykon. He's not this sort of crazy force of evil. You can almost picture Tarquin existing in the real world.

So I think yeah, absolutely -- and then Ian, Haley's father Ian, is sort of the opposite. He's a good guy, but he's abrasive, paranoid, a little bit crazy, a little bit off the deep end, not really together because he's sort of so chaotic that he kinda can't detach from that. He can't be not chaotic for a moment and see the way things are really kinda going on around him. So yeah, I think there's definitely that undercurrent.

Jesse: Yeah. And I noticed sort of the idea of Girard Draketooth and his real hatred of Soon Kim, the two of them being very lawful and very chaotic.

Rich: Right, exactly. Where you would, I think most people would immediately go "yeah, but-but Soon Kim was a paladin, he wouldn't do something bad," and you have to see that to Girard's point of view, just the sort of organiz-- that a man doesn't create a secret organization of warriors unless he plans to use it for something. You know what I mean, the sort of. . . expecting-the-worst-in-human-nature-at-all-times pessimism that says that if Soon Kim is gonna make this sort of legion of magical warriors and keep them secret from his populace, that clearly he's up to something.

And there's also, I mean there are certain events that happened in that history between Girard and Soon Kim that have not been revealed that will certainly maybe make him seem a little less paranoid than he does right now, but not not-paranoid. But yeah, there's more there going on with what happened with the Order of the Scribble than has been revealed. But that's all gonna be unwound as the story comes towards its conclusion. There's more to learn, I mean, they had to go find Girard right now, so some pieces will be found then, I'm sure.

5G: The Possibility of an Order of the Scribble Prequel Book

Jesse: Do you think you may do a prequel book about the Order of the Scribble someday, or is that not something you're sure about?

Rich: I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't currently have any plans to and I wouldn't know what I would do with it. I think the main thrust of their story needs to be included in the online strip. You need to know exactly what happened all that time ago that made them so angry at each other in order to understand the main story. So therefore I wouldn't want to shunt it to a side book. When it needs to be told, it needs to be front and center, and then once it's been told, it'll influence what people think about the characters after that.

So I wouldn't want it to be. . . I had told much of the story, much of the things that Redcloak revealed to Tsukiko in the recent strip about how he was tricking Xykon was already known by people who had read Start of Darkness. But it didn't sort of change what was going to happen next for them to have known it separately. But anything about the Order of the Scribble isn't really like that. It's important in a way that would change things, and therefore it can't be let out of the bag early. But by the same token, I wouldn't object to writing a story of them just fighting Baron Pineapple, or something like that. Certainly wouldn't have any problems with that, but I think the main conflict between them is gonna be in the main comic at some point.

5H: The Kickstarter Donor's Choice Stories

Jesse: Okay. Well, speaking of that, I'm gonna take it back to the kickstarter for just one second.

Rich: Sure.

Jesse: Which was that several people bought stories about characters that they wanted you to write about. And I know you said for a while those had not been revealed to you yet. Has that come about yet, do you know who those characters are going to be?

Rich: Three people have bought them, I've only been contacted by two of them so far. I contacted all of them and have only heard back so far from two of them, they both gave me sort of a spectrum answer of, "I like this character and that character but I wouldn't mind if it was this character." So I haven't nailed down the final list for them. I'm waiting for what the final third person says, because if two of them both pick the same character, then I'm definitely gonna do that one, but otherwise I might pick some of the ones that appeal more to me. So far the ones that have been floated are Therkla, the assassin, the half-orc, the Cliffport police department, do a detective-spoof sort of something like that, and the demon roaches. . . [NB: As of 3/16/2012 the stories are Pre-Order Belkar, Therkla, and the Cliffport Police Department - ThePhantasm] which I've no idea what I would do, but maybe I'll come up with some idea and throw that out there and then some other options beyond that. But then again, it's that I still haven't heard from the third person, so that could be something totally in left field still coming our way.

Jesse: Cool, cool, cool.

5I: The Conclusion of the Storyline

David: I know a lot of webcomics authors say, "well I have a very specific end and that's it." Is Order of the Stick actually gonna have a conclusion, or do you just wanna keep on writing it?

Rich: No, no. It has a conclusion. I know exactly how it ends. I think every single plotline that I've introduced has a definitive conclusion to it that will be in the main comic. It's not gonna be ignored or just left hanging forever. There's definitely gonna be a final book of the main storyline.

But that being said, one of the reasons I've been sort of experimenting with some of these side projects is that there's plenty of room for these characters to keep doing stories. I think they're well-defined characters, and I can always go back. That's why I've been doing things like the Stick Tales and. . . which is the characters telling the story of a famous work but using themselves, sort of like what the Muppets used to do. Then things like Julio Scoundrel spinning off sorta into his own crazy land of comic book type of and that kind of stuff will let me create even when I've moved on to what I'm gonna do next in the world, after the Order of the Stick. I can still come back and do an Order of the Stick related project, even though the story, the plot, has reached its proper conclusion and so on. So I guess I'm sort of setting up now for what will happen next.

5J: How Much Story Is Left To Tell

Jesse: And I think I've read in interviews or in things you've written that the comic is more than halfway done at this point?

Rich: Oh yeah, definitely more than. . . well, I say that, but you should take it with a grain of salt because I run long. Things are always longer than I plan them out to be because I always think of things in the middle that need to be addressed, either they're logical concerns or a character moment that needs to happen in order for it to be emotionally realistic. So then there will be an extra strip here, an extra strip there, and it'll add up. So it's definitely more than halfway done in terms of number of books, but the number of strips left, I don't even have a clue what that's gonna end up being. Some people are all "he's gonna plan to end it at strip 1000." Absolutely not. It will go way past strip 1000 because we're already at 833 and we're not done with this book yet, and there's at least two more books left. So yeah. It's to go. If you're not a reader, there's still plenty of time to jump on.

Spoiler: Part 6: Outro & Ending

Show

Jesse: I personally have all the books. No big surprise there considering as I've told you I have the poster on my wall. So I think we're gonna wrap it up, but I just wanna ask you, do you have anything else you'd like to add, or anything you'd like to plug or mention?

Rich: Kickstarter's still running at http://www.kickstarter.com, you can find it by typing in "Order of the Stick." My website's http://www.GiantITP.com, and so on and so forth.

Jesse: But I wouldn't ask you to spoil the comic even though I want to be like, "what's gonna happen next?" But I understand that would be unfair.

Rich: I am proud of you for not asking me either Vaarsuvius' gender, or what the Monster in the Darkness is, or how Belkar's gonna die. Those three questions everyone asks.

Jesse: Yeah, I figured you keep those things a secret for a reason, and it would be lost if you were to just blab it out. So I tried not to ask those.

Rich: Two of them are really important and one of them is so not important that it doesn't even need to be answered.

Jesse: Exactly.

Rich: I'll let you figure out which ones are which.

Jesse: Exactly. All right, well then I think that's all the time we have, but I would like to thank Rich Burlew one last time for being on with us.

Rich: Thank you for having me.

Jesse: Of course. I'm Jesse Baruffi.

David: And I'm David Lawrence. And you can reach us at [email protected].

Jesse: And go to our website at http://non-productive.com/geekademia. And that's it.

Twitter Q&As

Spoiler: @RichBurlew Twitter Q&A - 02/17/2014

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(original transcription by ChristianSt)

All these questions were asked and answered after Strip #945.
There is minimal editing:

• Capitalized the first letter of each question
• Removed any Twitter-handles/RT/etc.
• Bundled conversations to single Q&A points
• Added "RB" / links to the tweets to mark all of Rich's answers

"Apparently, I'm answering questions or something? Huh."

• We've been reading OOTS for 945 strips (plus print-only extras); isn't it time to see under the hello kitty umbrella?
  RB: Nope.
  Nope? lol the more time you stretch the plot on and on the more people will bore out and quit reading
  RB: If it's boring you, stop reading. No hard feelings. But I'm not changing years of planning to appease anyone else at this stage.
  
  
• I don't know if its ever said, but is Elan's mother still alive?
  RB: Yes, absolutely.
  
  
• I've always wondered....will we ever see Belkar's history?
  RB: I did a short w/ some of Belkar's history for KS backers which will eventually be printed. Probably not more than that, tho.
  
  
• In comic 943, is Julio's last line supposed to be "hit the head" or "hit the hay"?
  RB: First one. Google, if you don't get it.
  
  
• So which of the #OotS characters is you? Or any?
  RB: None of them. And also, all of them.
  
  
• What's the Snarl's alignment?
  RB: Pulling slightly on the left front wheel. They should rotate its tires soon.
  
  
• We are on 945. Don't Split the Party ended at 672. Another book in the works?
  RB: Yes, but not yet. Lots of prep work to do before printing.
  
  
• Was that the final panel of the book?
  RB: Future unclear. Ask again tomorrow.
  
  
• Is the MitD more a plaid kinda fellow or a polka dot chap?
  RB: Paisley, obviously.
  
  
• Any plans for another Adventure Game expansion in the somewhat near future?
  RB: Near future? No. Someday? Maybe.
  
  
• How long does it take to go from "Let's make an OOTS compilation" to it actually going to press?
  RB: More than you'd think. Extra strips to draw, commentary to write, then a lot of strip formatting to get it ready for printing. This time, more than usual, because I have to recreate 5 strips that got eaten, then re-letter the whole book for reasons.
  
  
• What's your favorite colour? And how could that possibly be connected to oots?
  RB: I like every color for different reasons and in different situations, and how that applies to OOTS should be self-evident.
  
  
• Are you really?
  RB: Yes.
  
  
• Thumb all good now?
  RB: It's complicated. As good as it's getting, but there's permanent loss of mobility + feeling. I just need to work around it.
  
  
• How different is the story now from what you plotted day 1?
  RB: I didn't plot ANYTHING on Day 1. But once I did plot it, it's expanded or rearranged since then more than it's changed.
  
  
• Which character did you have the most fun evolving for OotS?
  RB: Geez, all of them. Maybe Belkar, simply because it was such a challenge.
  
  
• Think you'll finish that series on world building?
  RB: Probably not. But I may write something else on the topic someday.
  
  
• Will the compilation book for the super-sized current arc also feature bonus strips?
  RB: Yes, definitely.
  
  
• What’s the snarl taste like?
  RB: Acrimony.
  
  
• Would you ever, at the end of the comic, make a OoTS campaig book with stats?
  RB: I was working on one in 2007, then they announced 4th Ed and I shelved it. Now? Probably not.
  How did the release of 4e change your mind?
  RB: I was uncertain whether I was using 4e in the strip—or whether there would be a market for 3e after 4e was released.
  Convert it to pathfinder & release! It's just dnd 3.75 :)
  RB: Well, I only wrote like 5%, and I'd rather spend my time on fiction than game material going forward.
  
  
• Any ETA on the next A Monster for Every Season?
  RB: Won't start until I finish at least one more story PDF. May-ish? Maybe?
  
  
• Did you ever get that Cintaq?
  RB: No; thumb injury made it less priority, since holding a pen is harder than using a mouse now.
  
  
• Are you still having fun writing OOTS?
  RB: Mostly, yes. It's hardest when I'm not feeling "funny" and need to think up a punchline anyway. The drama is always fun.
  
  
• What percentage of the story would you estimate we've seen by now? How close are we to being done?
  RB: 71.34502%
  So how much more time does that give us? Three more years? More?
  RB: No less. Maybe more.
  
  
• I love Redcloak. Who's your favorite villain to write?
  RB: Mine too. Though Tarquin and Malack were fun, too.
  
  
• You have any ideas for post oots projects as we draw to the prepenultimate section of the story
  RB: Yes, many. Not all will wait that long.
  
  
• Should we expect a break of a few months between the end of current arc and start of next one?
  RB: Few months? No. Less.
  
  
• Are you planning anything special for the 1000th OotS strip?
  RB: Posting it shortly after 999 and not long before 1001, hopefully.
  
  
• Do you get much chance to actually play D&D anymore?
  RB: No, but that's OK. I'll likely check out 5th Ed when it's done.
  
  
• What do you think of D&D Next?
  RB: I've deliberately avoided it so far. I'm not planning on spending time playtesting, so I'd rather see it when it's done.
  
  
• I love that you've incorporated dinosaurs on this continent. Is that something you include in your D&D world-building? How?
  RB: In a sense. There are no bad monsters, only monsters you can find a niche for and those you leave for your next world.
  
  
• Are there any arcs or storylines that in hindsight you wish you'd done differently in some way?
  RB: I wish I hadn't left "Haley retrieves Roy's body" for the books. I wish I had broken this arc into two, so it'd be easier to print.
  Where would you have split this arc?
  RB: When they left the Empire, before the pyramid. But there are too many threads that go through both to split now.
  
  
• When you were playing D&D, what was your favorite race/class to play? (On the occasion you weren't the DM)
  RB: I was almost always DM, even stretching back to 1st Ed. But I like rogues and bards, because I like skills.
  
  
• Is it easier for you to play/write for 'evil' characters or 'goodcharacters'?
  RB: It's easiest to write a character with a strong set of beliefs and motivations. The exact nature of those matters less.
  
  
• Any chance of Nale/Malach/Tarquin prequel book a la Start of Darkness?
  RB: Yes, there's a chance. Not 100% chance, tho.
  
  
• Have you painted yourself into any corners without meaning to do so? If so, where?
  RB: A few times, mostly on little nitpicky stuff. Sometimes, that's why a given strip gets delayed. Can't think of any now.
  
  
• Is the story still evolving/expanding, or pretty much set now?
  RB: Sort of both. I'm trying to wrap up more than I add, but if there weren't room to add I would get bored before the end.
  Is that why this book ended up so long?
  RB: Partly. But I cut a whole battle with the LG when I was recuperating because I had too much material.
  Might this battle reappear in the Print version?
  RB: No, I actually like it better without.
  Would this battle originally have been when the OOTS figured out who "Thog" actually was?
  RB: Yes, exactly. But with ~4 months to think about it, I decided it wasn't necessary and let Elan pre-empt it in his recap song.
  
  
• What do you use to draw the "Scribble" parts of the comics?
  RB: Crayola crayons on bristol.
  
  
• Which of your characters would you most like to hang out with?
  RB: The flumphs. I trip a lot.
  
  
• RB: A lot of near-duplicate questions, so if I skip yours, it may be because I already answered it. Or I'm deliberately dodging it.
  I will file my pathfinder/3.75 question in this category
  RB: No interest in Pathfinder. My goal is to move AWAY from being linked to any IP that I don't own, not toward a new one.
  
  
• Is there a map of the OOTS world anywhere?
  RB: Yes, on my hard drive. It will probably end up as bonus content in a book.
  
  
• Any time table for rest of kick stater stories?
  RB: As soon as I can. I want nothing more than to get them off my plate, but I can't let regular strip be any slower than it is.
  
  
• What artwork in OotS have made you most pleased with the results?
  RB: Mostly the recent stuff I've done for the KS. The wallpapers, and the Monster for Every Season. And the dino chase.
  
  
• Did Tarquin's adventuring party have official name like Order of the Stick and Linear Guild do?
  RB: Vector Legion. TWITTER CANON!
  
  
• Do you know how the KS stories are being put in print? One book or dispersed?
  RB: That will depend on their length and whether or not I have a better place for any given story. So, no idea yet.
  
  
• Do you actually have a set answer to "the big three" questions
  RB: I might, if I knew what they were.
  V's gender and The monster in the dark's identity I forget the third. oh right Belkars death
  RB: Yes, I know all three.
  
  
• Any ideas for projects after OOTS? Other than OOTS 2: Order Stickier, of course. :-P
  RB: Many, many ideas. None that I can share now. Some are already in the works (tho shelved while I finish Kickstarter work).
  
  
• What class is Tarquin?
  RB: Upper.
  
  
• Was Thog KIA in his match with Roy or will there be more of him in the future? (or neither?)
  RB: Those are not mutually exclusive scenarios.
  
  
• Any chance of another strong lead female character joining the group in the next arch?
  RB: Depends on your definition of "lead." If you mean equal to core 6, no. Otherwise, yes. One is already here.
  
  
• Was there originally an intent to keep Durkon as Malach's thrall a while longer (hence, the 100 strip comment)?
  RB: No, it was always intended to last only a short time. Thralls aren't interesting characters.
  

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Links to other Q&As/interviews can be found in the OOTS in the Media thread.

Thread number six...sounds like a perfect number. Anyway!

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Since we're due for an update cycle in five days....

Proposed Items for Index 6.1
On Loki and (Dis)honesty "...because his followers believe he is incapable of honesty, he actually is incapable of honesty (except to Thor)". Also, "honesty" is distinct from "not lying": "If Loki tells the truth in the cause of trickery, he is still not being honest.".	#1177	2019/08/26	Tentative, appears will be included without vote
The Mutable Nature of the Gods "...the fact that the gods are the way they are now does not preclude them having existed in some other form in the past—one that we might not have thought of as 'gods' ".	#1177	2019/08/26	Tentative, appears will be included without vote
Minrah is not a Character Replacement	#1180	2019/09/16	Tentative, appears will be eligible for vote

I love how we have managed to reference bananas in 3 of the six thread’s titles, the reason of which would be utterly incomprehensible to those who don’t pay attention to avatars.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Schroeswald

I love how we have managed to reference bananas in 3 of the six thread’s titles, the reason of which would be utterly incomprehensible to those who don’t pay attention to avatars.

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And to think, the typo that actually led to it all was in the second Index thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jasdoif

And to think, the typo that actually led to it all was in the second Index thread.

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I can't even remember what your pre-banana avatar was!

I hope someone backed up The Linker's pic because although I understand altering the comic is against the rules it was too good to be lost forever.

Yeyah democracy!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jasdoif

Thread number six...sounds like a perfect number. Anyway!

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Since we're due for an update cycle in five days....

Proposed Items for Index 6.1
On Loki and (Dis)honesty "...because his followers believe he is incapable of honesty, he actually is incapable of honesty (except to Thor)". Also, "honesty" is distinct from "not lying": "If Loki tells the truth in the cause of trickery, he is still not being honest.".	#1177	2019/08/26	Tentative, appears will be included without vote
The Mutable Nature of the Gods "...the fact that the gods are the way they are now does not preclude them having existed in some other form in the past—one that we might not have thought of as 'gods' ".	#1177	2019/08/26	Tentative, appears will be included without vote
Minrah is not a Character Replacement	#1180	2019/09/16	Tentative, appears will be eligible for vote

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In case I have forgotten to say any of those in the previous iteration:

In favor of inclusion of Loki's quote and the one about the nature of the gods (maybe they can be consideres somehow related), and against the inclusion of the one about Minrah, even though (or maybe exactly because) I love the character.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hroþila

I hope someone backed up The Linker's pic because although I understand altering the comic is against the rules it was too good to be lost forever.

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As someone who had never heard of this whole thing before this exact moment and had no idea why Jasdoif had a banana avatar, I’m anxious to see it if anyone recovers it.

The moderators removed the picture for violating board rules. I don't think they would be happy if anyone recovered it and linked to it.


Edit - But I don't think it's wrong to describe it. I hope. Think of comic # 943 panel 6 with Jasdoif's avatar replacing Bandana.

I'm sorry if this question is inappropriate, but can anybody link me to the comment of The Giant, where he explains Hinjo is color blind?
I've been trying to find it linked above, but I can't seem to find it...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jannoire

I'm sorry if this question is inappropriate, but can anybody link me to the comment of The Giant, where he explains Hinjo is color blind?
I've been trying to find it linked above, but I can't seem to find it...

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Can’t link right now but look under ‘Writing’ -> ‘Real World intent’ -> ‘The importance of messages in the story’ -> ‘more here’.

Great thanks!
I guess I'll revise every statement I ever made about 'hiding in plain sight'...

Count me as for inclusion of Loki's (dis)honesty and against the other two.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by factotum

I can't even remember what your pre-banana avatar was!

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Pretty much the same, except feytouched instead of banana.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ron Miel

The moderators removed the picture for violating board rules. I don't think they would be happy if anyone recovered it and linked to it.

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Yeah...I wouldn't even have referenced it, except I didn't want to steal be incorrectly attributed with The Linker's thunder. Aside from the obvious impropriety, thunder is likely to mean lightning and I don't particularly want to be zapped.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jannoire

I'm sorry if this question is inappropriate, but can anybody link me to the comment of The Giant, where he explains Hinjo is color blind?
I've been trying to find it linked above, but I can't seem to find it...

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While you've gotten an answer...here, have a full treatment:

Real World Intent
The Importance Of Messages in Stories "The author should not leave out his or her message so as not to disrupt the delicate story." More here: "The story is a tool for getting my ideas across, nothing more." (Also, Hinjo is color-blind.)	#959	2014/07/25

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Giant

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Amarsir

More specifically I think it was the mention of the ex that felt forced. It just didn't feel necessary to give a backstory on the armor. Bandana loaned extra cold weather gear to Haley. Relevant. Fine. But the only reason to specify it came from an ex-girlfriend is to inform us that A) Bandana is single, or B) Bandana is gay. I'm guessing it's not the former, and the latter would be fine if it was plot-relevant or in service of a joke. But at this moment it feels more like something the author wanted to check off.

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Yes, of course the point of her mentioning that she had an ex-girlfriend is so that you know she is gay. That is part of how including gay people in your comic happens, short of me showing her having sex with another woman. I already waited 38 strips from her first appearance to mention it. How many more strips do I need to wait before including LGBT representation in the comic? 100? 200? How subtle do I have to be to make you, personally, comfortable? This is the first comic that explores Bandana as a character, so this is when it shows up. The alternative is deliberately keeping her "in the closet" to satisfy some arbitrary standard of "narrative smoothness." Not acceptable.

If it seems awkward to you…oh well. Sometimes, correcting a past mistake is awkward. Sometimes, in order to move forward, we have to stop waiting for the moment to be right, or the situation to arise organically, or whatever euphemism you want to put on the idea of maintaining the status quo because it's easier, and just do it. If it's "forced" now, that's only because I failed to include any obviously gay characters for 900+ strips and that is so completely uncool that I need to fix it NOW, not later. If that produces some rough edges, well, I guess we'll all just have to put on our adult pants and learn to live with that one solitary flaw in this otherwise pristine work of art* for the sake of inclusion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Amarsir

Absolutely. But that job is servicing the larger story.

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No. Stories exist primarily for the purpose of delivering messages to one another, whether about human nature, or the world around us, or what have you. They are how humans have communicated life lessons since the dawn of language, and probably before. Whether or not that is why you read them, that is definitely why people write them. If the story is incapable of delivering the message that the author is trying to send about how they see the world, then that is a failure of the story, and the story needs to change. The author should not leave out his or her message so as not to disrupt the delicate story. That's the cart leading the horse.

*This is sarcastic. No one quote me saying that I think OOTS is a pristine work of art. It is not.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Giant

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lathund

If Rick had decided to make Bandana colourblind, I would just as much want that colourblindness to have a function in the story; now or in the future. Because else, why bother writing in an explicitly colourblind character? Sure they exist, but why mention it?

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I don't give a damn if diversity in OOTS has a function in the story. Diversity in OOTS has a function in real life. I will happily sacrifice any or all story logic on the altar of accomplishing one fraction of an ounce of real good in the real world. The story is a tool for getting my ideas across, nothing more. Some of those ideas are thoughts on D&D and how it should be played, some are thoughts about right and wrong, and some are thoughts about the world around us and how we should treat other people. If there was a problem with OOTS before, it was that it was not properly reflecting how I see the world; now, it's a little closer.

For you, OOTS is a silly little comic strip you read a few times a month. For me, it's eleven years of my life and a primary source on my thoughts and feelings that people will use to judge my contributions to the world and any future works I create. If I want to make it more closely align with how I really feel, I'm going to ****ing well do it.

Also: Last time I checked, colorblind people enjoy the full extant of rights and privileges that people with full spectrum vision enjoy, and it is in fact thoroughly illegal to discriminate against someone for colorblindness, as it would be for anyone suffering a medical disability. If colorblind people were being denied the same rights as other people—or even getting killed for being colorblind—you could damn well be sure I would be certain to include one in OOTS.

EDIT: Hinjo is red-green colorblind. CANON.

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Dear Jasdoif, Grand and Feytouched Banana in the Playground,

it seems the "latest update" entry in the first post is ironically outdated …


All the best,

Vargtass

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vargtass

Dear Jasdoif, Grand and Feytouched Banana in the Playground,

it seems the "latest update" entry in the first post is ironically outdated …


All the best,

Vargtass

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I know we're not the ones to enter in such minutiae,_________Oh, we surely are :-)
but shouldn't we call an update that is not up to date a downdate? :smallbiggrin:

Yay, a new thread! I’ll reiterate my support for all three quotes.

With Gray Mage's post, the tweet is below the threshold for a vote (6 for, 13 against). So!

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Proposed Items for Index 6.1
🍌On Loki and (Dis)honesty "...because his followers believe he is incapable of honesty, he actually is incapable of honesty (except to Thor)." Also, "honesty" is distinct from "not lying": "If Loki tells the truth in the cause of trickery, he is still not being honest."	#1177	2019/08/26	No vote required, will be included.
🍌The Mutable Nature of the Gods "...the fact that the gods are the way they are now does not preclude them having existed in some other form in the past—one that we might not have thought of as 'gods' "	#1177	2019/08/26	No vote required, will be included.

With nothing eligible to be voted on, there will be no vote; both entries are now in the Index.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by b_jonas

Also, could the summaries make up their mind about whether they call the author Rich or The Giant?

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Done; the entry descriptions should now consistently refer to the Giant as "the Giant", except for that part where it quotes the Giant calling himself "Rich".

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vargtass

it seems the "latest update" entry in the first post is ironically outdated …

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Better? :smalltongue:

The Giant has a new quote. I'm pretty sure it should be included (though I'm open to being convinced), but I can't really concisely explain what is being provided.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Schroeswald

The Giant has a new quote. I'm pretty sure it should be included (though I'm open to being convinced), but I can't really concisely explain what is being provided.

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"Snarls on a Plane". :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The MunchKING

"Snarls on a Plane". :p

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And done in one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Schroeswald

The Giant has a new quote. I'm pretty sure it should be included (though I'm open to being convinced), but I can't really concisely explain what is being provided.

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"More detail on the mechanics of the ritual, and how the Dark One would use it/would have to use it. Also exactly what Thor meant by 'a single 9th level spell'." Or something like that.

Regardless, I do support it being included.

I also support it being included. It clarifies a lot of things that have been debated on the forum for a long time.