Oots 606

[coyote6]

Nothing good can come from this.

Yeah, it'll be chaotic, not good.

 

[Kosh]

Not THIS game!

I mean The Game, the big one. The one that each of us plays everyday...

I just lost the game.

...

Great strip. I really like the meta-elements and post-modern motifs. Definitely my favorite strip in a long time.

 

[justanobody]

Yeah, it'll be chaotic, not good.

Since we are talking about Belkar.....

 

[Deset Gled]

While I enjoyed, and up to a point I applaud the somewhat experimental nature of, the last two strips, they do seem rather an abrupt departure from the style we've seen in the past. And that sets off warning bells for me, though it's entirely possible they will prove to be a false alarm.

I'm giving Rich the benefit of the doubt. He proved to me with the crayon-drawn snarl backstory that he knows how to screw around with the artistic style and still bring things back home. And the trippy stuff he did here at least fits with the basic theme of the comic. I'm happy to roll with it.

 

[Yair]

I guess if you pay no attention at all to (a) the artwork and (b) the last panel, you might come away with that impression...

Sorry, not impressed. I don't find the art amusing at all, and the single joke is just 'meh'. In the psat, it was just funnier. Lots of D&D jokes, piled together, clever dialogue... where art though?

 

[WalterKovacs]

No, I meant what I actually said, not something completely different.

But I see the "what I actually said" part needs clarification.

FK started out as a fairly simple, gag-oriented strip chiefly devoted to making fun of gaming culture, albeit from a different angle than OotS, then decided it needed a deep, epic storyline. OotS has gone down a parallel path.

OotS, however, stayed good. FK... really, really didn't. Mostly, I think, because FK decided it needed to hit the reader over the head with philosophically deep themes - and ones very similar to those discussed in this strip, at that - while OotS has focused on telling a really good adventure yarn, hinting at something deeper only when it arose organically from the story.

Until now. While I enjoyed, and up to a point I applaud the somewhat experimental nature of, the last two strips, they do seem rather an abrupt departure from the style we've seen in the past. And that sets off warning bells for me, though it's entirely possible they will prove to be a false alarm.

However, in this case it seems to be a parody of those kinds of philosophical turns or character growth moments.

At this point in a "traditional" story, Belkar, at his low ebb, sick from the curse, and the door about to bust in and he'd probably end up killed if he can't snap out of his craziness and get the cleric to remove curse him, etc ... in a normal story he'd have a character defining moment of some sort and character growth. However, instead he merely learns that he needs to fake character growth.

Heck, this is hardly the first time they've had this kind of character growth type moment. Durkon had to reject the Dwarf from the linear guild. Haley regained her voice. There was the whole thing with Elan recently as well. There is probably going to be some moment for Vaarsuvius soon too. It's just that, since it is Belkar, his character growth is realizing that things will be easier for him if he just pretends to have character growth. Odds are that, when the dream ends (and I think the epiphany is pretty much the end of the dream) that particular philosophical tangent will end as well.

 

[Relique du Madde]

So Belkar is going to become the Chaotic NEUTRAL sexy god of murder and death? Or at least he will fake becoming that?!?!

 

[JustKim]

FK started out as a fairly simple, gag-oriented strip chiefly devoted to making fun of gaming culture, albeit from a different angle than OotS, then decided it needed a deep, epic storyline. OotS has gone down a parallel path.

This has been the fate of the majority of all webcomics. I wouldn't say Fuzzy Knights and OotS are similar in this regard, any more than they are similar for both being in color and archived on the internet, frankly. But I do see the comparison you're making.

 

[MarkB]

Nice to see some actual in-comic confirmation that the story is just about characters set in a world governed by RPG rules and cliches, and not in any way intended to represent an actual campaign with players controlling these characters. Not that I ever thought otherwise, but I've seen it argued the other way a time or two recently.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Nice to see some actual in-comic confirmation that the story is just about characters set in a world governed by RPG rules and cliches, and not in any way intended to represent an actual campaign with players controlling these characters. Not that I ever thought otherwise, but I've seen it argued the other way a time or two recently.

The author did confirm that when 4e came out it wouldn't explictly follow rules from either 3.5 or 4e, and just borrow from whichever was convenient. But this may be the first time it was explicit within the comic.