How is option 3 canon? Did the creator of the comic say it anywhere? Because it's definitely not in the comic. In fact, the scene in which MinMax and Forgath meet the GAP after returning from the Maze of Many contradicts this option. If the goblins had gained independence from Herbert, the DM, that should have become obvious to both him and the established player characters (MinMax and Forgath) the moment they meet. I cannot imagine they would have just taken that without commenting on it. The far more likely result would have been that the game stopped right then and there. It would be the equivalent of a monopoly board (to use an example everyone probably knows) suddenly starting to move pieces and give out money all of its own; would you really just shrug and keep playing if that happened to you?SpellsBedly wrote:Canonically it's option 3. The goblins are NPC's in a campaign world who have declared themselves PC's, they are independent minds running on the same rules as RPG characters.Sessine wrote:Well... if this page doesn't count as proof, then something very, very odd just happened.
I see only three possibilities, logically speaking, for the Goblins:
!. They are player characters. They were originally being run as a separate adventuring party, but plotlines have merged.
2. They are NPCs controlled by Herbert. Most of their adventures so far were written by Herbert for his own private amusement because... um, some DMs can just be like that? maybe he's a wannabe novelist, or
3. They are some weird independent manifestation of sentience created by the world itself.
Under Hypothesis 2, Minmax's player is on a solo adventure surrounded by Herbert's NPCs, and... nah, I can't buy it. Dynamics are all wrong.
Hypothesis 3? I don't even... well... maybe, but you gotta admit it's really weird.
The page simply makes the most sense - and is funniest - under Hypothesis 1.
Minmax though has a player. It doesn't come up much anymore, and it generally doesn't make much of a difference in terms of how he acts, but in this case it can be argued that his player is finding a way for him out of the situation by outright telling the Goblins, in character, because there is no out of character for them, that he needs to be stopped.
Ignoring that angle one could argue it's just good character development. Minmax still acts impulsively, but has gained a small amount of reflection on his previous actions. It's not a stand alone development, the though process to get to "struggle really, really, really hard" was an improvement over the one leading to "I'm going to pee on it!". Minmax is getting a bit less impulsive and more experienced. Maybe he even gained a point of intelligence or wisdom somewhere along the way?
Even more so, the game wouldn't even have continued much earlier. When Minmax and Forgath meet Goblinslayer, the situation he and Brassmoon City are in is a direct result of the actions of the goblins. If they are independent minds, they changed the DM's world without his knowledge. As soon as Herbert focuses on hat part of the world (because the PCs arrive there), he should notice things are suddenly different. Are we to believe that Herbert is just ignoring that the world he designed and thus controls completely suddenly is different from where he left it at?
The most likely explanation is that the goblins are NPCs in full control of the DM, given class levels to make them more of a challenge for the players. That fits all the facts we have.