Order of the Stick killed 4e

[nockermensch]

I'm about 10% serious here. Burlew's comic kept a lot of D&D fans thinking in terms of how 3E works. And what's probably more damning, nobody rose to the challenge of producing a 4E equivalent comic that got that kind of traction. And coming from D&D, this is really bizarre.

D&D seems to have a tradition of comics that poked fun at the systems' many absurdities. AD&D had at least Yamara, 3E has OotS, but even with people in these comics speaking in-character about Hit Points and Saving Throws, the writers could still create interesting characters and write compelling stories about them.

To put it in other words, the previous editions, while far from perfect, had enough good things going for them that writers could tear into the bizarre parts and end with comics that looked like affectionate parodies. And the rules, while still bad in many points, at least allowed for campaigns and scenarios with some resemblance of verisimilitude: For starters, you could have fights where the results were uncertain. People complain about rocket tag from a game balance standpoint, but the truth is that it pretty much reflects your expectations: If there's a lot of super powered people throwing super punches around, things could "realistically" swing any way. This is good when you're writing a comic because you can keep the suspense until the end.

Finally, apart of wonkish exceptions that would become the butt of jokes (hi, Evasion), you could usually directly imagine how every character ability worked in the world in a coherent fashion. This allowed people to picture the characters and then the scenes in their minds (and a cartoonist to draw them).


4e lacks all these. The fights are for the most part pre-decided affairs decided in a grinding way. Powers work in ways that are very hard to impossible to picture in-game (try to picture how Marking works). To picture that happens in the game world outside the combats, you basically need to leave the system and freeform.

So, here's the argument again: The existence of Order of the Stick not only kept 3E in people's minds, but it also produced the nagging feeling that "I couldn't have this story happen in 4E" at least in my mind, and I don't think I was the only one that had those thoughts. Obviously, the 90% where I'm joking is that OotS wasn't the reason for the 4E debacle. That happened because 4E was a bad edition with few to none redeeming points. OotS was just one of the various things that made its shortcomings painfully clear.

[Rawbeard]

try to picture how Marking works

a red X appears over a monsters head and it goes "what the hell is that?"

[Ancient History]

I'm about 10% serious here. Burlew's comic kept a lot of D&D fans thinking in terms of how 3E works. And what's probably more damning, nobody rose to the challenge of producing a 4E equivalent comic that got that kind of traction. And coming from D&D, this is really bizarre.

This is...not quite true. The official Dungeons & Dragons comic book was based off of 4e, right down to starting races and cosmology, and it was brilliant. But it didn't sell. And few other gaming comics really tried to do 4e gaming jokes - hell, the only one I can think of off the top of me head was OotS, and that was in one of the print books to basically explain the differences between the two systems.

Also, I'm marking you off for not mentioning Knights of the Dinner Table.

[Prak]

It could be kind of interesting to do an OotS style comic for Pathfinder, come to think of it.

[codeGlaze]

I actually really like Will Save World For Gold. And pretty much hawk it when ever I can.

[Voss]

Gah. I can't even look at that. That level of pixelation was not meant to be combined with this resolution.

[Prak]

I get the idea of sprite comics- they're easy, and it's a style that hooks a lot of people, but yeah, either the scale needs to be smaller, or they need to be more detailed sprites.

[Corsair114]

Wow, and here I thought 4E was killed by pants-on-head stupid design decisions combined with equally pants-on-head stupid marketing decisions.

I see I may have been wrong with my initial impressions.

[erik]

I thought this was a 4e based webcomic.

[edit:]

The official Dungeons & Dragons comic book was based off of 4e, right down to starting races and cosmology, and it was brilliant. But it didn't sell.

Oh yeah! I remember the freebie comic I got from Gencon a while back. I read that to my son as one of his favorites until it fell apart (I think it fell apart at the hands of my youngest son who is the other kind of bookworm).

[Prak]

Yeah, the actual official 4e comic was actually pretty good. The problem is that by basing a narrative off of 4e, you show how completely shit-tastic it is as anything other than a beer and pretzels dungeon run.

[Judging__Eagle]

I actually really like Will Save World For Gold. And pretty much hawk it when ever I can.

Would be bearable if the author used the "speech bubble" sprites of the characters as the actual illustrations of the characters.

Not even very interesting aside from that.

I recall that the "Yet an other Fantasy Gaming Comic" is an other much D&D based series that was originally focused around the monsters of a setting. I haven't been reading it regularly in a long time, but it does have a large amount of updates from 2006 to present.

It's a more recently started comic, but it's definitely got an old school vibe with respect to how some of the creatures are illustrated, NSFW at times b/c it also has old school treatment of naked characters, and somewhat queer friendly. http://www.yafgc.net/archive.php

[Voss]

I thought this was a 4e based webcomic.

It is, but honestly the pony aspect (rightly) gets more play and the writer dovetails most of it in general RPG shenanigans rather than 4e specific stuff. The comic does have mechanical stuff, but most of the real interaction comes from roleplaying stereotypes (RD is the brute, Fluttershy is the newbie, system mastery jokes, etc). The fact that the mechanics are 4e is kind of beside the point- in fact in the last 30 comics, then only 4e specific joke is not having a skill challenge.

[Prak]

Oh, right. Friendship is Dragons. I gotta be honest- anytime they specifically mention 4e mechanics, it makes me wonder why the hell I read it.

[OgreBattle]

(try to picture how Marking works)

In association football, marking is an organized defensive strategy which aims to prevent a member of the opposing team (usually a striker) from taking control of the ball. Several marking strategies exist in football, and they mostly differ to each other according to duties assigned to defenders, positioning and off-the-ball style.

Man-to-man marking, or man marking, is a defensive strategy where defenders are assigned a specific opposition player to mark rather than covering an area of the pitch.[1]
The idea of man-to-man marking was perfected by the Italian teams of the 1960s and 1970s. Teams such as Inter Milan and AC Milan used it in their so-called catenaccio formation. This consisted of four man markers with a sweeper playing behind them. This brought much success to these teams and soon these tactics became popular throughout the world of football. However, this tight marking was often at the expense of the (attacking) spectacle of the game itself, because "defenders preoccupied with their defensive markings may be reluctant contributors to the team's offense".[2]
Famous examples for man marking performances are Berti Vogts against Cruyff in 1974, Claudio Gentile against Diego Maradona and Zico in 1982, or Guido Buchwald against Maradona in 1990.
The strategy is one that has been supposedly dying out in football over the past decade or so despite Greece's success with it in the 2004 European Championships. It is however often used by lower-tier teams, as well as teams defending themselves from much stronger opponents.


Zonal marking is a defensive strategy where defenders cover an area of the pitch rather than marking a specific opponent. If an opponent moves into the area a defender is covering, the defender marks the opponent. If the opponent leaves this area, then marking the opponent becomes the responsibility of another defender.[3]
The biggest advantage of zonal marking is its flexibility. When the team regains possession of the ball, players are still in their positions and can start an attack more quickly. Communication is very important when zonal marking is used, to ensure that no gaps are left in the defensive coverage. Zonal marking is more difficult when defending set pieces such as free kicks and corners, and most teams change to man marking in these situations.[4]
The formation used by a team may dictate whether or not to use zonal marking. Teams playing 4-4-2 usually operate a zonal marking system, but teams playing a sweeper do not. Amongst professional teams zonal marking is the most common system; 15 of the 16 teams that reached the knockout stages of the 2004 UEFA Champions League used zonal marking.[5]
Training methods to develop this technique include the coloured cones and the 5-metre rope. The coloured cone is set up by having certain colours set out in sections of the pitch, each player will be put in the coloured section and will not be allowed to leave it. The 5-metre rope is a piece of equipment where the four defenders are attached by a rope which means they are used to staying and working together.

[Prak]

The fact that the mechanic of marking in 4E may have come from football just makes it even more fail, and possibly a deeper level of "WotC does not know their market"

[shadzar]

I'm about 10% serious here. Burlew's comic kept a lot of D&D fans thinking in terms of how 3E works. And what's probably more damning, nobody rose to the challenge of producing a 4E equivalent comic that got that kind of traction. And coming from D&D, this is really bizarre.

not really. OotS is more about his story and world and pretty much poked as much fun at how screwed up 3.5 is already as he stated. so little changed that you could play off things later when he actually got to fights and the story going. there just really isnt any decent story that can told with 4th and only being able to fly during combat or whatever other weird powers it had. the system destroys the author ability which is the base of most D&D spells and such.

also since most combat oriented comics can use AD&D/BD&D seamlessly and you not even know it was doing it, why bother trying to adapt to 4th edition and its weirdness. who has time to learn all the kinks to be able to draw them out.

Bill S thought 4th made better stories possible with anime tricks, but it doesnt. it failed, and thus he is no longer at WotC during the middle somewhere of 4th/4E.

[nockermensch]

Yeah, the actual official 4e comic was actually pretty good. The problem is that by basing a narrative off of 4e, you show how completely shit-tastic it is as anything other than a beer and pretzels dungeon run.

This thread has been good (???) because now I have a lot of 4E comics to read and see if that can work, but what you described here is the feeling I was talking about.

[Whatever]

No love for Sidekick Quests? It's a mechanics-focused 4e comic for/about kids. Doesn't poke fun at the mechanics, though, because it's trying to teach them.

[Kaelik]

Oh, right. Friendship is Dragons. I gotta be honest- anytime they specifically mention 4e mechanics, it makes me wonder why the hell I read it.

To be fair, the entire thing is a giant fucking stupid railroad, so 4e is the best reflection of that, because the ponies can only deviate from the railroad by MTP, because their abilities do nothing.

[mhensley]

Rich rips 4e a new asshole in one of the latest oots books. Unfortunately, that storyline isn't available online.

http://www.giantitp.com/GIPOTSDr.html

[Prak]

Oh, right. Friendship is Dragons. I gotta be honest- anytime they specifically mention 4e mechanics, it makes me wonder why the hell I read it.

To be fair, the entire thing is a giant fucking stupid railroad, so 4e is the best reflection of that, because the ponies can only deviate from the railroad by MTP, because their abilities do nothing.

Also to be fair, it's not really a great comic anyway, as with most "lets take screenshots from (X) and add captions that tell the story of a gaming group playing those characters!" comics.

[Drachasor]

Oh, right. Friendship is Dragons. I gotta be honest- anytime they specifically mention 4e mechanics, it makes me wonder why the hell I read it.

To be fair, the entire thing is a giant fucking stupid railroad, so 4e is the best reflection of that, because the ponies can only deviate from the railroad by MTP, because their abilities do nothing.

Also to be fair, it's not really a great comic anyway, as with most "lets take screenshots from (X) and add captions that tell the story of a gaming group playing those characters!" comics.

You can do that and be great. Darths and Droids is amazing, imho. FiD is not nearly as good -- but it isn't bad.

But I think you can make a good comic with almost any game, because a lot of story is amenable to any mechanics -- not all aspects of story, mind you, but a lot.

Consider OotS. Almost all of the plot could be done in 4E. Sure, the jokes would be different, and there wouldn't be the constant belittling of non-casters. But Liches, gods, the Gates, etc? Those all still work. The biggest change would be Miko since Paladins in 4E don't fall, but you could have her story without her "fall" causing a loss in abilities. A lot of the rest would be detail changes, escape changes, and other stuff at the edges. Some homebrew would be needed still, of course, but Rich isn't afraid of that.

I'm not saying 4E is a good system, mind you, just that I don't think it prevents a comic story. As far as limiting story goes, I think one of the biggest things it does is encourage players and DMs to envision limits that the system doesn't require. The writing really encourage people to self-impose a lot of limitations. Though I am certainly not a fan of how a lot of situational mechanics were lost from 3.5, nor how unnaturally class powers develop.*

*Would it REALLY have been so impossible to let people scale powers with level? It's bizarre they didn't do this and instead have you permanently forget how to do things. In many cases you couldn't even keep a consistent theme with a given character because earlier abilities just didn't have close enough equivalents later on. Very weird.

Even worse is they didn't even need to spell out abilities. They clearly had a pretty developed system for how powers worked. They could have had some sample powers and then a system for creating powers from scratch -- possibly even on-the-fly. But obviously that reduces the amount of pages devoted to new powers in splat books which hurts the bottom line. Bleh.

[nockermensch]

I may be wrong since I stopped paying attention on 4E very quickly, but doesn't it lack Save or Dies? Something simple like that makes impossible to Vaarsuvius to single-handedly save the day a couple of times (vs. young black dragon, vs. huge demon the imp summoned).

[shadzar]

4th is actually, save-or save- or save-or die.

[Drachasor]

I may be wrong since I stopped paying attention on 4E very quickly, but doesn't it lack Save or Dies? Something simple like that makes impossible to Vaarsuvius to single-handedly save the day a couple of times (vs. young black dragon, vs. huge demon the imp summoned).

Yes, there's nothing exactly like that as best I know. Usually it is "Ongoing Effect, Save Ends" but some of them are pretty debilitating. The more equal classes would naturally result in the casters not saving the day with a single, overpowered spell. At least, that wouldn't completely end the encounter. So exactly how those encounters played out would be different. I don't think that significantly alters the story, however.

Heck, with the giant demon it could be used to help further V's frustration at not having enough power. Though, granted, the god-like magic from the soul splice would not be even loosely based on any game powers in a 4E version. That would perhaps be the biggest change to how the story interacts with the game mechanics, I think.