Something I've Always Wondered

[ForgetsOldName]

Y&B mentions Herbert:

"Forgath, worshiper of he who hides behind a paper..."

http://www.goblinscomic.org/12132005/

Here's another one--not sure of this guy's name.

"Even the Smurfs had one woman!"

http://www.goblinscomic.org/08142005/

I consider all the references to the player's manuals, Fiend Folio, etc. as wall-breaking. Do the Brassmoon guards actually have a book called "Player's Handbook" that they consulted to see if they should become adventurers?

[warrl]

Having a comic where some characters are 'real' and some aren't doesn't make too much sense to me.

I once read a short-run (2.5 years) webcomic (that I can't find again) (found it) where some of the major characters didn't exist. In-comic. (No I won't tell you which ones.)

----------------------

I could see Kin being a PC. The player has played WizMax repeatedly, the same character over and over again in eight games under five different sets of RPG rules, and either the player or the DM (or both) is sick of it so is deliberately inverting things including being an underpowered class of a monster race with an impediment (the collar) to offset the race's level adjustment. Eventually, in lieu of gaining a level, that impediment may go away.

Now as for schedule, the player couldn't start the game at the same time that everyone else (two groups) was starting it. So the character was initially a minor NPC in Brassmoon City, and was supposed to be joining the GAP. However, real life intervened so the character fell off the wagon during the escape and instead joined Minmax and Fogarth a few weeks later.

Meantime, one of the GAP players (playing Dies Horribly) also had schedule issues and could no longer stay with the GAP - but instead became part of a third PC party with some new players. (Theoretically those "new" players could be the ones who were initially the Drow with F&M, but frankly I don't see it; more likely those three junior-high-school boys wandered off.)

[RidcullyJack]

The Drow who were with F&M are now Tuck, Yodette and Baka, most recently seen being savaged by Junior.

[Liesmith]

Y&B mentions Herbert:

"Forgath, worshiper of he who hides behind a paper..."

http://www.goblinscomic.org/12132005/

Here's another one--not sure of this guy's name.

"Even the Smurfs had one woman!"

http://www.goblinscomic.org/08142005/

I consider all the references to the player's manuals, Fiend Folio, etc. as wall-breaking. Do the Brassmoon guards actually have a book called "Player's Handbook" that they consulted to see if they should become adventurers?

Thanks, I forgot about the Smurfs reference, and I see what you're saying about references to the documentation, but I still don't see those latter references as wall-breaking. The Fiend Folio could easily be either an actual thing, in-universe, or it could be the name for the intrinsic knowledge characters inexplicably have about certain creatures. For instance, how a person who succeeds on a Knowledge (Nature) check can identify a wolf, even if they've never seen one before. The smurfs are the smurfs. All the same though, I chalk the Smurfs and Fiend Folio references up to the tone in the comic's early period; the fiend folio reference was still in the black and white period, and the Smurfs reference was made only four days after the Age of Color began.

The player's handbook references seem more like an either actual handbook (like the Paladin's handbook we see in the first page*) that's sort of a texbook for adventurers or it's just the name for the universal laws which govern the universe. Sort of like how we have the laws of thermodynamics to describe our universe, despite those not being actual "laws" that were passed by any governing body, rather they were discovered through experimentation and mathematical proofs.

Why does a ten-foot ladder cost less than a ten-foot pole? Because the laws of the universe say so.

Again, this is all artillery fire from my head canon; I just like rationalizing these things to fit in the story beyond "just repeat to yourself it's just a comic, and you should really just relax"...even if that is much more likely than any of my explanations.

*I'm not a hypocrite for referencing the first page after saying that the early period is inadmissible! I'm not out of order, YOU'RE OUT OF ORDER!

[WearsHats]

Strictly speaking, stats don't exist in a D&D world. There is no such thing as a +1 sword, only a sword with a minor magical enhancement to help it swing true. There's no such thing as hot points, only severity of wounds and relative strength of healing magic. There are no dice, no ability scores. That's all back end stuff for the players and DMs. It's not supposed to exist in character, for PCs or NPCs.

But you'd be hard pressed to find a D&D group where no one refers to any of those things in character. They're such an intrinsic part of our understanding of the game world that you have to go ridiculously out of your way to talk around them. (At least, when you're playing the game. You'll note that the officially licensed fantasy books which take place in D&D settings never mention things like hit points.)

They're just part of life in a D&D world, and Goblins is written by someone who loves playing the game. It's written for both gamers (who can laugh knowingly about the rules jokes) and non-gamers (who need the information conveyed by those jokes to help them understand how this world works). Should the goblins have known (even before taking levels) that the thing in the chest was a +1 sword? No. But would you find it referred to any other way at the game table? Not likely.

It's no different when you talk about things like the Fiend Folio or the Players Handbook. They shouldn't exist in character, but I belive Thunt mentioned that, for example "That's not from the Fiend Folio!" is something he heard at the game table more than a few times.

In short, these things belong in the comic. Even coming from NPCs. We can't just take them away because it "makes sense."

[RidcullyJack]

In short, these things belong in the comic. Even coming from NPCs. We can't just take them away because it "makes sense."

+218 fanboy points for incidentally referencing all the way back to black-and-white comics.

[ForgetsOldName]

My old Gygax-era Dungeon Master's Guide starts with an admonition that players must never, never open this sacred tome. It also has a lot to say about how dungeon masters are not like us mere mortals, apparently not considering the possibility that these exalted beings might someday sit at the other end of the table. Of course the players have read it cover to cover, as with the monster manuals and their sacred "Cthulhu" copy of Deities and Demigods. On more than one occasion I have proposed that the obvious solution is that there's a book called Fiend Folio for sale at the local Wizard fair, but that everyone and his brother knows it's completely unreliable and is unlikely to describe the monsters you'll actually be meeting. This never goes over well. Somehow I don't see Herbert in my camp. I see him turning red and yelling "You've never heard of the player's manual! Quit talking about it!" He then takes another swig of Mountain Dew to emphasize his seriousness, adjusts his glasses, and goes back to his hex-map.

[RidcullyJack]

My old Gygax-era Dungeon Master's Guide starts with an admonition that players must never, never open this sacred tome. It also has a lot to say about how dungeon masters are not like us mere mortals, apparently not considering the possibility that these exalted beings might someday sit at the other end of the table. Of course the players have read it cover to cover, as with the monster manuals and their sacred "Cthulhu" copy of Deities and Demigods. On more than one occasion I have proposed that the obvious solution is that there's a book called Fiend Folio for sale at the local Wizard fair, but that everyone and his brother knows it's completely unreliable and is unlikely to describe the monsters you'll actually be meeting. This never goes over well. Somehow I don't see Herbert in my camp. I see him turning red and yelling "You've never heard of the player's manual! Quit talking about it!" He then takes another swig of Mountain Dew to emphasize his seriousness, adjusts his glasses, and goes back to his hex-map.

I can see Herbert saying "What do you mean, 'I try to find mayor and get Dellyn Goblin Slayer's job?' Of course you're following the Yuan-ti to the Maze of Many. Do you know how long it too me to write that dungeon crawl? Look at the thickness of this folder! 217 alternate realities, colour-coded. Oh, you're going to the Maze of Many, and you'll like it!"

[Liesmith]

I prefer to think that Herbert snapped when Minmax threw a Henderson in the plot by starting a fight with Goblinslayer, and now he's making up the entire Maze of Many arc in a fit of blind rage.

Minmax: "I attack the Psion with all these awesome weapons laying around!"

Herbert: "The weapons are now a puddle, the Psion doesn't look like he even really noticed your attack."

Forgath: "I--"

Herbert: "You're stuck to a wall, listening to four Kins discuss math." *tosses Forgath's player a calculus textbook* "Here, read this. I'll tell you when you can stop."

[WearsHats]

The thing that is driving Herbert nuts is that, even though FMK's memories get reset every time, he's had to DM nearly two million runs through the Maze.

[warrl]

In short, these things belong in the comic. Even coming from NPCs. We can't just take them away because it "makes sense."

+218 fanboy points for incidentally referencing all the way back to black-and-white comics.

But can either of you, without looking, name the first character to appear in the comic?

► Show Spoiler

This is a trick question

► Show Spoiler

The first character to appear is so short-lived, he is never given a name

(apparently you can't nest spoilers here...)

[RidcullyJack]

Yes, I could (You'll have to believe me; but then I did read books 1 and 2 again recently).

[zennyrpg]

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.

This is my head cannon as well. Herbert just puts way too much time into NPC back-stories/ side-stories.

I'm fine with Kin not being a player. I imagine Minmax's player as really into the game. He spent a lot of time Minmaxing his character and he even plays him in character with a minmaxy attitude. But then Herbert started DMing this really emotional complicated story, so the player had to adapt. Now he's really invested in the story and has made his character fall in love with a pc. Maybe minmax's player likes Kin's smarts (since hes a minmaxer, he probably thinks hes really clever and therefore identifies with her). So maybe he's crushing on the character (is there a word for crushing on a fictional character?).

All of this doesn't make Minmax/Kin's love any less 'real' (since this is all a fictional story anyway), it just adds a meta-level where Minmax is also controlled by a player who is roleplaying through this amazing (love) story.

[Wolfie]

I had a theory on one of the old forums, I think it was Keenspot, that the GAP and the original group, including Forgath, Minmax and the Wonder Drow Trio(TM), are two different groups (now three) that Herbert was running near simultaneously.

The Original group was a group of casual D&D players, just in it for the LOL's and XP. Once the Drow Trio died off, MM and Forgath's players wanted to continue to play without waiting for the others to re-roll characters. Thus, the MM and Forgath group needed another member.. enter Kin. She's probably originally a PC run by Herbert and then taken over by a player who joined at a later date... or it was always Herbert's or Minmax's player's girlfriend. The players for Minmax and Forgath are learning to role play better and get into the characters they've created, thus the lessening of the 4th wall breaking and the more realistic acting of Minmax as the comic goes on.

The Drow Trio then re-rolled their characters and re-entered the realm.. where they ran into Dies and Klik.. and we know how that ended up.

The GAP was/is a group of serious D&D players who really get into the role play of the game. The expositions are more in character as is the interactions between everyone.

Then again, it is just a theory.

[WearsHats]

The way I see it, the world we've seen is the real world. Since it's a D&D world, there have to be players and at least one DM, but they're just incidental backstory. Herbert is like Maglubiyet, a powerful being who lives on another plane and nominally has control over the wider world, but who has little to no direct influence on the actual story.

[friedkitty]

I see a cross between Wears and Wolfie's theories. It is a real world...in the way the matrix was real. It is a world created by Herbert. Forgath, MM, the drows, these are avatars, for the want of a better word. So although controlled by the player characters in the real world, here they are living through their avatars. So MM's mind is really here, within the Minmax avatar. It is a game, but a game world. The others, (I still see Kin as an NPC, although an important one) are constructs of this world. However, Herbert's World has gone awry, and the NPC's have developed sentience. They are now operating on their own, so GAP, Kin, goblinslayer, annd the others have become real. Hence MM's ability to fall in love with an NPC, in this world.

Eh. It works for me.

[brnforce]

I see a cross between Wears and Wolfie's theories. It is a real world...in the way the matrix was real. It is a world created by Herbert. Forgath, MM, the drows, these are avatars, for the want of a better word. So although controlled by the player characters in the real world, here they are living through their avatars. So MM's mind is really here, within the Minmax avatar. It is a game, but a game world. The others, (I still see Kin as an NPC, although an important one) are constructs of this world. However, Herbert's World has gone awry, and the NPC's have developed sentience. They are now operating on their own, so GAP, Kin, goblinslayer, annd the others have become real. Hence MM's ability to fall in love with an NPC, in this world.

Eh. It works for me.

I think of it about the same. If you ever saw the cartoon "ReBoot" it's like that only in the DnD universe instead of inside a computer. Also, the characters that inhabit the world of Goblins don't really understand that their "creators" are just people playing a game in our universe. Or rather; Their creators are actually people playing a game in a universe that is actually the creation of a mad webcomic artist.....

[Wolfie]

I think of it about the same. If you ever saw the cartoon "ReBoot" it's like that only in the DnD universe instead of inside a computer. Also, the characters that inhabit the world of Goblins don't really understand that their "creators" are just people playing a game in our universe. Or rather; Their creators are actually people playing a game in a universe that is actually the creation of a mad webcomic artist.....

I love reboot!

anywho.. carry on, nothing to see here...