Oots 633

[Roman]

Here is the link: Giant In the Playground Games

 

[JoeGKushner]

Let the cries of filler begin!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Now THAT's a plausible fiendish bargain!

Kind of passing the buck onto future generations. V would be playing a small but pivotal role in an eventual obliteration of all that is Good.

There's also the "time with the fiends" scenario to consider, but that seems more like it's to make sure they come away with something that works.

Definitely sacrifice your family now,

or MAYBE sacrifice a lot of innocents at some cosmically distant future point.

The choice would be pretty obvious for your average human being (they'd almost definitely save their family unless they were of particularly coldhearted badass noble bent) but will V take the long view, or will V act out of a need right now?

And if V does fall, one wonders if falling to the forces of evil is going to be one of the reaching themes in OotS. Certainly Miko fell. V might fall. Who else? And will the ridiculous naivete and idiot purity of Elan be needed to save them in the end?

 

[humble minion]

I think the real kicker of the bargain might be a little more obscure.

With the sort of power he's being offered, you'd think V would splat the dragon pretty handily in a few rounds (assuming, of course, the dragon doesn't have a deal of her own going...). The real question will come up afterwards, when there's three masters of arcane power sitting in V's psyche with nothing to do. Will he dismiss them, or will he be tempted to keep them hanging around for a few days so he can scribe as many of their spells into his spellbook as possible?

(Never mind what V's family might think when he uses horrible necromantic powers or summoned demons to save them, or course.)

I really do think that OotS is at its best when the PCs are all actually together in the same place now and again, but whatever issues I sometimes have with Rich's pacing and plot construction, the man's got an exceptional gift for thinking and plotting laterally. He'd be a damn good GM, I reckon.

 

[SPoD]

There's also the "time with the fiends" scenario to consider, but that seems more like it's to make sure they come away with something that works.

It's unclear in the comic whether that time is before or after V's eventual death. Intentionally unclear, IMO. It may be that V thinks that the meter starts running when s/he dies (in which case this is a great deal) but it actually starts at some time of the fiends' choosing before then (which makes it a significantly worse deal).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

OMG I am sooo stealing that soul splice thingey

 

[Asmor]

There's something V's missing. I don't know what, but it's definitely not as simple as they're making it sound, and it's also no coincidence that V happened to be the "lucky one millionth visitor."

While it very well may be a test case, if V refuses then they should have no trouble finding someone else to tempt. For that matter, it's suspicious in itself that they'd make their test case with someone who's probably one of the most powerful spell casters alive.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ok, I think I get what alignment each of the fiends is now. orange= LE; purple = NE; and yellow = CE. don't you think? look at the souls they each tout, and the second-to-last panel.

Still not sure how this splicing is supposed to work. One specializes in a barred school, another does arcane casting. Necro might be the other banned school, I forget. Just remember conjuration and thinking, "wow, V's a moron!" I guess with this splice, V can use te barred school(s), cast epic, AND spontaneously access every single spell known between the four of them? Man, that sounds awesome.

 

[Warehouse23]

Being a mission-oriented player, I'm wondering how this fits into the goals of the OoTS campagin. If V makes the deal and saves his family in realistically, two, three rounds tops, the Fiends have his soul for a comparable amount of time. Say, having long-term goals, they decide to cash-in later, rather than immediately. Is there any relationship between the Gates and the Snarl that pure Evil would be interested in? If the Snarl destorys the (planet/plane/metaverse?) does Evil benefit? Is there any risk of the piper needing to be paid at a campaign-critical juncture?

If I couldn't think of anything where a few rounds of my time would get in the way of advancing the main quest, I think I'd take the Fiendish deal (I guess that makes me a LN player....)

 

[RefinedBean]

Nothing like opening up a webcomic and seeing a massive wall of multi-colored text.

Big yawn. Let's keep things rolling.