June 4, 2016: Okay, that was weird...

[Alarikun]

You said it Thaco... you said it.

Seriously... where do they go from here? I guess they can't... undo the event. So they can only go forward?

[extrabigmehdi]

Hum ... I suppose the one that is discussing at left, is big ears ... and the one at right ... I don't know: either minimax or names.

[Delphince]

Created an account so that I could say that last event was extremely creative and well-executed. I'm a huge fan of temporal paradoxes and the amount of attention to detail required to prevent them from having huge plot oversights in how they are showcased, and this was brilliantly done.

[happymuffen]

I made an account to say that its logically impossible for everyone in a group to die while going through those rooms.

[Baphomet]

I really wish they'd let us see how Fumbles is doing instead of yammering about time travel. Right after Big Ears hits the Fumbles-golem in the first room, we can only see it in the first panel, it's not clear if it's lying face-down in the water, and it's conspicuously off-panel for as long as they stay in that room, even on the next page. Then on this page, Big-Ears-golem hits Fumbles, we don't see what happened to him, and he's still conspicuously off-panel for the remainder of the page. Complains-golem just hit him with his sword and also tackled him, assuming it did to the real Fumbles what the real Complains did to Fumbles-golem. That looked like a big hit with the axe/tomahawk(?), maybe a power attack and/or smite, and Fumbles can't have that much HP to begin with. He may very well be dead.

[RocketScientist]

I feel like if Fumbles was dead, that is what they'd be talking about right now, instead of which door to take to avoid various versions of themselves and/or Kore.

[Baphomet]

I feel like if Fumbles was dead, that is what they'd be talking about right now, instead of which door to take to avoid various versions of themselves and/or Kore.

I agree that this ought to be the case. If it turns out that they have totally failed to notice, that would be pretty weird, yeah?

[Insane Kitty]

ThacO would have noticed immediately upon taking off his blindfold if anyone was down, instead of being nettled by their babbling. I think where they go from here would be over the ledge towards the door they were working on in the other room, but in this room.

[M0rtimer]

You know, I'm curious how Kore is going to react once he enters that room, if he enters it. I mean... He doesn't look like the type to stop until the one standing across him is dead.

So what happens when two unstoppable forces collide?

[Gift Fastidious]

I made an account to say that its logically impossible for everyone in a group to die while going through those rooms.

You just need at least one of them to die in the second room, with the group killing all the monsters in the first room and exploring to see if there's more on the other side of the waterfall.

And Kore entering here will quite likely be very interesting. Not just seeing how well he survives it, but I also like the design of these time mosnters, including how Thaco's got a weird blank puppet face from his mask. Kore is a bunch of hideous distorted faces hidden under a walking Rube Goldberg Death Machine, I imagine whatever he ends up facing would end up actually looking *less* abominable.

[Sessine]

You know, I'm curious how Kore is going to react once he enters that room, if he enters it. I mean... He doesn't look like the type to stop until the one standing across him is dead.

So what happens when two unstoppable forces collide?

An excellent question. But I seem to recall Thunt has hinted in the livestream that Kore is not traveling blindly. He already knows something about this dungeon. (Which makes sense, if he's really the last surviving paladin from so long ago; he's had a lot of time to pick up information. He might have been through this dungeon before. He may even have access to the memories of all those souls he's captured.) He could well have advance knowledge of how to avoid the traps.

If he understands he's seeing a distorted illusion of himself here, he can simply ignore it and walk through the waterfall door without fighting.

But that's speculation. Even if there is a glorious epic battle of Kore-vs-Kore in this room, I don't expect to see it depicted. There's more suspense if we, like the GAP, only know that Kore is following them but have no idea how close he is getting.

[Krulle]

Prliminary perma-link: http://www.goblinscomic.org/06042016-2/


I always felt like Kore is the obvious "boss" of this "level" they have to fight.
He gives incentive to continue, strengthen yourself, avoid him and continue on minor quests, until you have the strength, experience, and equipment to make a stand.
"Junior" seems to be the boss for Dies Horribly's group (Grem, Saves a Fox, ...)
I'll see how it all plays out in the end though, but the groups are guven a purpose this way, and cannot slack off without being overrun...

[gordo]

I made an account to say that its logically impossible for everyone in a group to die while going through those rooms.

Walk into the room, confront the mirror characthers. Wipe then.
Walk to the second room, confront the mirror characthers, get wiped by then.

Anything I missed?

[Delphince]

I made an account to say that its logically impossible for everyone in a group to die while going through those rooms.

Walk into the room, confront the mirror characthers. Wipe then.
Walk to the second room, confront the mirror characthers, get wiped by then.

Anything I missed?

Better to quote you and agree than counter the OP with a similar retort.
These rooms make plenty of sense. While it's plausible that there are situations where you'd initially find the room empty and move on out a different door like they wanted to, or choose never to attack in the first place, with this being a fantasy dungeon there's probably magic in place to ensure a conflict arises. Either way, you face the assailants who fight like you but not quite as well, and you win. Winning is assured because the worse you do, the weaker the other team will be, all the way to the extreme of just a half-dead bad guy dragging himself into the room and somehow still managing to nearly wipe your entire team. Your team enters the next room injured and/or down party members, and get destroyed by a fresh version of yourselves from the first fight. Your whole party is now dead, and the remaining bad guys walk out of the room.

It's brilliant.

[JustRight]

You know, I'm curious how Kore is going to react once he enters that room, if he enters it. I mean... He doesn't look like the type to stop until the one standing across him is dead.

So what happens when two unstoppable forces collide?

It should be an infinite loop for the single-minded Kore - - never quite killing his 'opponent'. Except he may have prior knowledge of this dungeon and just refuse to fight in the duplicates paradox room...

[Drevvy]

I feel like if Fumbles was dead, that is what they'd be talking about right now, instead of which door to take to avoid various versions of themselves and/or Kore.

I think Fumbles is just fine. A few panels back, the version of him was pointing at the doorway with the rest of them.
The blow that broke the axe didn't seem to have any immediate effect on him.

[SuperVaderMan]

I made an account to say that its logically impossible for everyone in a group to die while going through those rooms.

Walk into the room, confront the mirror characthers. Wipe then.
Walk to the second room, confront the mirror characthers, get wiped by then.

Anything I missed?

And what happens if they don't decide to walk through the waterfall after that? Well, logically you might say that then they would've never had a fight to begin with, because they never went through and therefore their other-selves wouldn't be in the room to fight.

Of course this introduces another problem. This is all occurring in a game that's taking place IRL, yes? So imagine your scenario playing out. The players have this tough battle against their counterparts and come out triumphant. Then what? Technically they shouldn't be allowed control of their characters at that point, or else the time loop can't happen. So the GM just says to them "ok, now you go feel compelled to go through the waterfall" and then they fight, and then they all die. They're not allowed to retreat, not allowed to strategize to overcome this fight, not allowed to do anything to avoid this outcome. Then the GM gets to feel all smart and smug for about 10 seconds before he realizes his game's screwed now. Or at best the GM realizes his game will be screwed after the party wipes their counterparts, so he has to fudge a way to break the time loop anyway.

You see how this doesn't work? In any other story it might, but in the context of a real game with real people, this scenario just wouldn't play out this way without some form of railroading or another.

Like, why do the GAP and MM tell their new counterparts to go through the waterfall? Most reasonably intelligent players, after realizing that they're in a timeloop, would stop and discuss if they should try to break it. Considering the demon axe of doom got broken in the last fight for (thus far unexplained but likely contrived) reasons, I think a good number of people might come to the conclusion that "hey, if these demon guys don't go through the door, then they won't fight their past selves and therefore the axe won't get broken. It might not work, but we should at least try, right? And not allow this super demon to destroy the world?" But no, for no discernible reason they all just point at the door and allow it to happen. It appears to be a unanimous decision, too, with no discussion about it beforehand.

This whole timeloop thing only really works if you both
a) Eliminate the variable of player agency, i.e., either railroad the game or outright remove the pretense that this game is actually being played by someone.
b) Pigeonhole the characters into acting stupidly to allow the timeloop to happen.

[Krulle]

We've discussed it, and I, as well as some others, are of the opinion it will work. It all depends on how the GM presents the information to the players.
If the players do unexpected things, the GM can always just present it as magical opponents instead of a time loop.
If the GM does not disclose that when describing the room(s), his options are open and he can, if fitting, make it happen.
In this game it did happen, however unlikely you may find that.

[SuperVaderMan]

I suppose I have too much faith in these 'players' then to have spotted the potential solution to their axe-demon problem.

Since the author is apparently shackled to this campaign's events, though, I wonder if Big Ears is going to be killed off or will be leaving soon? Personally I would be rather upset that my character's main objective of 'keep the demon from breaking out of the axe' had been so unfairly ripped from me in a way that no one could have possibly anticipated, even when measures (ack, so evil!) had been taken to make sure that wouldn't happen. Probably not, though, considering the equally BS thing that happened with MinMax's player and the whole 'Kin suddenly doesn't know why she likes your character anymore because an offscreen NPC (from his perspective) dropped her necklace into an oblivion hole' thing.

[Morgaln]

Sorry, but this page infuriates me. The party is just acting completely idiotic. They've just figured this was a time loop. A time loop that directly caused the axe to break and thus will cause the demon to be released. That's basically the worst possible thing that could happen. Not that we got any explanation what actually made the axe break, but be that as it may. The party then goes ahead and ensures that everything plays out as it did and the axe breaks. Any player worth his salt would immediately try to break the loop and thus save the axe from being destroyed. But instead the party points at that door for no reason we can discern. Why would they do that? They gain nothing from it. Their past selves will gain nothing from that. They know exactly what happens when their past selves go through there and there is nothing there for them! There's no reason to point at that door. On the contrary, if they pointed at one of the other doors, they might prevent everything that happened. This makes zero sense.

[Krulle]

The Axe broke before either party figured out that it is a time loop thingy....
BE finds out after the axe of previous group breaks.

[Arch Lich Burns]

But they could have tried to do something to prevent the past selves from breaking the axe of the past, past selves.

[RocketScientist]

I think they're even more confused about the time loop than we are. They probably just didn't think of that. That's not a stretch. The comic's been up for a couple of days, and somebody just thought of it now.

[Morgaln]

Wait, you think I thought of this just now? I was wondering that already when we saw this page from the other side of view. I was still hoping this wouldn't be the time loop it looked like at that point, or that there would be something else on the other side of the door that would give them a reason to go through there. Even when it became apparent there wasn't, I expected there would be some conversation in the party on this page that explained why they chose to do so. But there's nothing; they just point at that door. Why do they do so? They've not even talked to each other, they all just do it. Almost like, say, a DM decided they had to whether they want to or not...

[SuperVaderMan]

Sorry, but this page infuriates me. The party is just acting completely idiotic. They've just figured this was a time loop. A time loop that directly caused the axe to break and thus will cause the demon to be released. That's basically the worst possible thing that could happen. Not that we got any explanation what actually made the axe break, but be that as it may. The party then goes ahead and ensures that everything plays out as it did and the axe breaks. Any player worth his salt would immediately try to break the loop and thus save the axe from being destroyed. But instead the party points at that door for no reason we can discern. Why would they do that? They gain nothing from it. Their past selves will gain nothing from that. They know exactly what happens when their past selves go through there and there is nothing there for them! There's no reason to point at that door. On the contrary, if they pointed at one of the other doors, they might prevent everything that happened. This makes zero sense.

Exactly. Why did they point at the door? Even if we accept the idea that they just didn't think of breaking the time loop (even though any player worth their salt would have, especially Big Ears with regards to the axe), why did they unanimously decide to ensure the time loop continues?

Iunno. No reason.