Something I've Always Wondered

[Vertigo]

I know this may have been answered somewhere and if so, I'm sorry for asking, but... does the world of Goblins actually take place in the real world? Are there people playing these actual characters and it's all just some game? Or is it it's own world? Cause honestly, the Kin and Minmax thing is going to be killed for me if it's just some dude roleplaying by himself over a fake monster girl. ._. I'm genuinely curious if that's what it is though.

[Tofu]

The only work of fiction I know of that was based on actuall role playing games were the series of books assembled by George RR Martin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Cards) and the dragonlance series by Wiesse and Hickman. I presume there are many more, but the problem probably is that a game can take years to draw (like Goblins) and might probably take hours to actually play. Time moves in other ways - readers vs writers vs roleplayers ...

[Tofu]

SO, the answer to your question is "no' - mind you, Tarol gives out no details of the storyline mapped out into the future, so it might have been based on a game he ran years and years ago.

More info on WildCards - A very cool concept IMHO

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Roleplayer ... Cards.html

[Vertigo]

No, no, it seems you misunderstood me. Not a particular game session, I mean, is someone ACTUALLY playing Minmax and Forgath in the 'real world' versus the 'goblin world' and Minmax and Forgath are just characters two real life people made up. I'm saying, is this actually happening or is it two people playing at someone's house and Kin is just a monster someone generated.

I'm asking if the characters are real or being played by people in the 'real world'

I've thought this ever since Minmax said Forgath was played by a girl. It got me thinking is all. I would like to hope Kin isn't just made up, but if she is, it's just really sad and I won't be able to read their romance in the same light anymore.

[SamWiser]

Yeah, in the comic world, Minmax and Forgath are real people. One of the theories I have heard about Forgath is that his player is Herbert's little sister.

[Vertigo]

Ah that's a shame. It's still a good story, but that saddens me quite a bit.

[DrinksTooMuchCoffee]

A fictional game world is no less real than any other fictional world in any other work of fiction. A game isn't any less real than a movie or novel, nor is its respective world. Oops, I hope I didn't ruin your favorite movie by exposing that it's just a movie and isn't real. Oh, also the comic is fiction.

[Vertigo]

Apparently you don't understand what I'm saying. Kin isn't real. Minmax is in love with something that doesn't exist. It's just a couple people playing a tabletop game. I mean, it's still a good story, but I'm a little sad that some characters exist while others don't. I can read a book or play a video game and even if all the characters aren't real, they all exist in the same universe created in the book. Kin and the goblins don't exist outside of a game some people are playing. Minmax and Forgath exist as actual (fictional, but they exist in the 'real world' universe.) people, but everyone else isn't real. It's just sort of saddening to know Minmax and Kin aren't actually in love and it's just some dude who's pretending to be in love with a randomly generated game monster.

Like I said, still a good story, but knowing that is sort of downer.

I guess I have to explain everything down to the most intricate detail in order to get my point across.

[Vertigo]

This is of course assuming that the people playing as Minmax and Forgath see Minmax and Forgath as their avatars and play them as though they are actually the person who created them. I don't play tabletop games, but I know people who do and when they create a character they always act as though they ARE that character. Example being, a girl I know and her boyfriend always have their characters romantically involved since they are romantically involved in real life and act very much the same as they do in real life.

Now, if Minmax and Forgath are just characters that were created by two people and aren't meant to be taken as the same people who play them, then it's a lot less sad because that would make Minmax and Forgath characters of their own in their own right and would exist in the same universe as Kin so it wouldn't really matter.

What I AM saying is that if Minmax's actual player is in love with a fake monster girl, then that sort of sucks and is really sad for him since she's not... ya know... real. And to clarify, yes I realize Minmax and Forgath are made up as well, but they have people who exist in what is supposed to be real life for the story. So Kin is a made up character in a made up world by people who are supposed to be 'real' (Again, real as in what is supposed to be real life for THE STORY. Let me know if you need me to explain that for you again.) people in the 'real' world. So Minmax's player would be in love with something that doesn't exist. Does that make sense now?

[WearsHats]

No, no...

MinMax, Forgath, and Kin are as real as anyone in their world. As it happens, it's a D&D world, so some people are player characters and some aren't. But, to me, part of the whole point of the comic is that it blurs the PC/NPC division.

The goblins we know decided to become player characters. Prior to that, they were NPCs. Monsters. But what we learn right away is that they're not just the mindless evil cannon fodder the game would have us believe. They're people. With individual personalities and motivations. That's the lesson Forgath learned in that first battle, and it's the one MinMax has been slowly learning since he met Kin.

And the GAP decided to become PCs. Does that mean there's a group of human players who decided to play a campaign as goblins? Or does it just mean that, through that decision point, they took on classes and started earning XP, even without human players in another world? We don't know, and I don't think we'll ever know. It doesn't matter.

Likewise, we don't know if Kin has a player or if she's even gaining XP. She could be "just" a "monster" NPC. What difference would it make to MinMax either way?

Just because your character is in love, that doesn't mean anything about what you think of the other player or even what you think of the other character. RPGs are about, well, role playing. Taking on the life of a fictional character for a while. Someone who may well have different ideas, mannerisms, etc. from you. I'd certainly hope MinMax's player isn't running around trying to stab random creatures with swords in order to gain experience and treasure, and I'm pretty sure he isn't illiterate.

[Liesmith]

Unless I'm mistaken, the GAP decided to become adventurers, not PCs, and the only (surviving) PCs that we know about are Minmax and Forgath. Here's how I've always thought of the world of Goblins, based solely off my head-canon:

1) Everyone in the Thuntverse is real, regardless of whether or not they're an adventurer, PC, or NPC. They all have free will (barring special circumstances), and live lives from birth to death.

2) Player-characters are set apart by their "Player". This is essentially the same thing as a soul in some real-world mythology: it can't be quantified/proven/demonstrated/sold/traded/damaged/destroyed/etc, but it colors your personality and makes you you. In the Thuntverse, this grants no special powers, aside from the fact that PCs get a form of reincarnation (by coming back as new characters), and they have some control over their lives to a certain point (they get to choose their attributes and race, for instance)...but they're still real people who are born, live with free will, then die. They just get another try if they don't like how things turned out. If they want to stop the cycle of rebirth, they "quit the game".

3) If a player quits while his character lives, then that character becomes an NPC, and continues to live their life with free will. Nothing changes for them, except they don't get to reroll.

4) The DM is essentially a meta-deity for players. In addition to the usual pantheon, which governs all races within the 'verse (including PCs and NPCs), the DM governs only the PCs. This is what prevents them from abusing their reincarnation ability by remembering countless past lives, or using knowledge from beyond the veil (Google) to benefit themselves. The DM is the counterbalance to prevent PCs from turning into little godlings (without working damn hard for it, first).

This is based off of nothing in particular from the comic, but is what helps me rationalize the two aspects of the comic world: the world we see, and the game being played.

EDIT: Regarding souls in the game: yes, pretty much everything has a soul, but it's almost a physical attribute, like an individual's genetic code. It can be quantified, traded, stolen, or destroyed.

[DuIstalri]

That' pretty much what I was thinking Liesmith, glad to see I'm not the only one. Having a comic where some characters are 'real' and some aren't doesn't make too much sense to me. (except in cases like Darths and Droids, which is very obviously NOT something like Goblins ) After all, if this comic was following the adventures of some real people playing in a game of DnD, then any scene without them makes no sense.

[Litharian]

A bit of information I remember, don't know how accurate it is... It was mentioned that
'Die's Player always wore a green glove to sessions'

I don't know if it's canon, but to me, I envision something more like a tabletop cyberspace. This 'Herbert' is running several sessions all at once, separate sessions, through telecommunications. Some of his players took up the goblin mantle, some of his players took up the adventurer mantle... Grem is a late comer, as is Kin, perhaps even separate from their party groups in real life. Biscuit is a well-intentioned Minmaxer who took 'Tortured by Demons forever' for a lot of bonuses, after his lizardman character was dissolved... And since each party has their major villain, as well as strife between the parties...

It would be the best DnD game EVER.

[ForgetsOldName]

I think people complicate it too much. Thunt decided to make a comic that played on some of the absurdities of DnD, mainly the existence of entire races that always irrationally attack PCs yet never think of opening the poorly locked chest and never diminish in number, and he created "player character" characters to comment on the dumbness of it. Then he worked it into a long term story. The distinctions between PC, NPC, monster, and adventurer start leading you into paradoxes pretty quickly. I assume he's decided by now whether the major characters like Dies and Kin have players, but there hasn't been much in-comic about players other than Herbert, Forgath, Minmax, and the three dumb monster baits. The comic has moved in a different direction.

Kin is a paradox, it's part of her definition. She's a "good" character of a race that is by definition always evil, highly intelligent but absurdly irrational, always getting wiped out yet ever available in huge numbers, strongly full of themselves but always provoking others to massacre them. Maybe in the end there is a Kin-player and a Minmax-player who get to live happily ever after, but you're still not going to be able to unkink the meaning of it.

[WearsHats]

A bit of information I remember, don't know how accurate it is... It was mentioned that
'Die's Player always wore a green glove to sessions.

I believe that was from the non-canonical (but very cool) fan film Players: Life Through Their Eyes.

[DrinksTooMuchCoffee]

Coming from along the Simulationist axis myself, I go with the entire game universe existing even if it doesn't come into the game session. Since I can't run SimUniverse in my head either, even things without notes are "there" waiting to be detailed, kind of like the Silmarillion to LotR. So while I go along with Herbert running a game for the two groups of players, I'm also happy thinking of a lot of what we see in the comic as conceptually what would be happening in the game world without them, even so far as Herbert not being aware of it or only in the barest notes.

[T' Northerner]

The answer, for me, lies in Pratchet's theory of L-space. The goblin universe is simultaneously a real place in the multiverse AND an invention of a DM named Herbert. Minmax is both a character invented by some player, and a real person.

[LoneStarNorth]

Coming from along the Simulationist axis myself, I go with the entire game universe existing even if it doesn't come into the game session. Since I can't run SimUniverse in my head either, even things without notes are "there" waiting to be detailed, kind of like the Silmarillion to LotR. So while I go along with Herbert running a game for the two groups of players, I'm also happy thinking of a lot of what we see in the comic as conceptually what would be happening in the game world without them, even so far as Herbert not being aware of it or only in the barest notes.

This is basically it in a nutshell.

When you play a game of D&D the DM doesn't tell you what Joe the blacksmith gets up to when you're off in the dungeon crawl, but it's still assumed that he goes about his daily business as usual. And maybe sometimes things happen to him which qualify as adventures, like he gets robbed or his son gets sick and he has to travel to a distant town for medicine or whatever. In Goblins we DO see what the NPCs get up to when they're not around the PCs. But when Minmax and Forgath meet up with the GAP again Herbert will just be saying something like...

"You encounter a group of four goblins, and you recognize them as the group that you parted ways with back at the warcamp adventure. However, they seem to be better armed than you recall. The young orange goblin, Names, still wields the blade he scarred you with, Minmax, but he no longer has his magic shield and if you're not mistaken he looks a bit more monstrous and feral than before. The yellow goblin is wearing full plate armour which glows with a yellow light..." and so on.

[Liesmith]

The now-ended webcomic 1/0 delved into a lot of this subject, as well. There was a lot of discussion in that comic about how the characters existed between the frames that the artist drew. Similarly, most of the characters didn't have fourth walls, except for one who decided to one day stop believing in the artist, and could no long understand all the real-world references that the other characters made.

I think this personal fourth-wall is something that translates well into Goblins. NPCs have a fourth wall, PCs don't.

[RidcullyJack]

The now-ended webcomic 1/0 delved into a lot of this subject, as well. There was a lot of discussion in that comic about how the characters existed between the frames that the artist drew. Similarly, most of the characters didn't have fourth walls, except for one who decided to one day stop believing in the artist, and could no long understand all the real-world references that the other characters made.

I think this personal fourth-wall is something that translates well into Goblins. NPCs have a fourth wall, PCs don't.

Minmax breaks the 4th wall, and implies Forgath is a PC with 'The Kiss'; and the Drow are PC, restarted as Yodette, Tuck and Baka.

Has anyone else broken the 4th wall? (Just because a character hasn't broken the 4th wall doesn't mean they aren't a PC, they might just be better staying in character.)

[The Rotting King]

I always figured that the characters just exist in their own universe, like the characters in an actual D&D game. Sure, I may be playing Steve the Sorcerer, but Steve is still Steve. I'm just controlling the way I think he would act even if I wasn't there. The only difference with the Goblins universe (because everyone is aware of the fact that their world is governed by game laws) is that Steve knows I'm there, but he's still acting like he'd act because he's played how he'd act.

This way of thinking, of course, does not apply to those other three idiots, who are basically what would happen if three terrible, terrible role players were dropped in a D&D universe.

[ForgetsOldName]

The now-ended webcomic 1/0 delved into a lot of this subject, as well. There was a lot of discussion in that comic about how the characters existed between the frames that the artist drew. Similarly, most of the characters didn't have fourth walls, except for one who decided to one day stop believing in the artist, and could no long understand all the real-world references that the other characters made.

I think this personal fourth-wall is something that translates well into Goblins. NPCs have a fourth wall, PCs don't.

Minmax breaks the 4th wall, and implies Forgath is a PC with 'The Kiss'; and the Drow are PC, restarted as Yodette, Tuck and Baka.

Has anyone else broken the 4th wall? (Just because a character hasn't broken the 4th wall doesn't mean they aren't a PC, they might just be better staying in character.)

Not-Walter breaks the fourth wall, as does Young-and-Beautiful, the guards in Brassmoon discussing the price of ladders, and the one-legged orc and the miserable girl farmer. Not-Walter is explicit, the guards are at least aware that they are DnD NPCs, and the orc and farmer are obviously sarcastic comments by Herbert. All of these are likely to be NPCs.

[Liesmith]

Not-Walter is a direct messenger for Herbert, and the guards are aware of the rules, as everyone in the world seems to be. They're like laws of physics for this universe. The guard mentioned that he wanted to become an adventurer, not a PC. So far, there doesn't seem to be anyone who has talked about transitioning from NPC to PC, and I don't remember anyone aside from established PCs discussing out-of-game knowledge.

When did Y&B break the fourth wall? I poked around in the archives a bit but couldn't find it.

[DrinksTooMuchCoffee]

When did Y&B break the fourth wall? I poked around in the archives a bit but couldn't find it.

Might be the character sheets, but being aware of the nature of their universe isn't exactly fourth-wall breaking, IMO. It can still be a real world to them, but it just operates by BS D&D rules.

[Changes_everything]

The now-ended webcomic

Blasphemer! How dare you utter that phrase in the sacred Goblinscomic forums! Never shall you speak those accursed words again!