13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by brnforce » Wed Nov 14, 2018 6:35 pm

Generic wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:33 am
Pink Bunny wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:27 am I dunno. Someone who was literally shape-shifted into part rabbit fleeing into a hole during her fight or flight reflex after already trying to fight via overkill doesn't seem that far fetched to me. Her managing to hold said limb to smash it if anything was the part that seemed a bit surprising. Even with adrenaline it just feels like it would massively outscope her in strength.

But eh.
Yes. It's wierd. We already seen Buzz throw Bowst through several tree trunks, smash several more while running through them, stab through skin and flesh without any backdrop and throw Forgath so he plows up a ditch as he lands. Through vegetation, roots and dirt. Like he was a sharp plow pulled by an ox. Buzz has a sky high strength.

And why she went "rock smash!" instead of casting a spell at it.
Her spells lead to her dying with her target. If she cast a spell right now she would die for good. She had no other options other than the rock.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by PoisonSymic » Wed Nov 14, 2018 9:43 pm

brnforce wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 6:35 pm
Generic wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:33 am
Pink Bunny wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:27 am I dunno. Someone who was literally shape-shifted into part rabbit fleeing into a hole during her fight or flight reflex after already trying to fight via overkill doesn't seem that far fetched to me. Her managing to hold said limb to smash it if anything was the part that seemed a bit surprising. Even with adrenaline it just feels like it would massively outscope her in strength.

But eh.
Yes. It's wierd. We already seen Buzz throw Bowst through several tree trunks, smash several more while running through them, stab through skin and flesh without any backdrop and throw Forgath so he plows up a ditch as he lands. Through vegetation, roots and dirt. Like he was a sharp plow pulled by an ox. Buzz has a sky high strength.

And why she went "rock smash!" instead of casting a spell at it.
Her spells lead to her dying with her target. If she cast a spell right now she would die for good. She had no other options other than the rock.
Her specially high-powered ones do, at least, so she can only use those once a day. And given that it just *ate* one and is still up, it's doubtful that anything she can cast normally would be effective. She and Bowst are relatively low-level adventurers, and not particularly skilled ones.

She's basically panicked and flailing at it with anything in reach, she got *lucky* that stone turned out to be the negative.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Generic » Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:11 pm

PrismCat21 wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:29 am Shouldn't it be "Bull's Strength"? Instead of Bull Strength?
To make clear she just want one horn on Forgaths IME? 😁
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Generic » Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:01 am

Is it just me, or is the pacing a bit off on these two last pages? We have five or something panels of Idle crawling. In the middle one she is safe for now. Then she comes to a rest for three more panels before she suddently is stabbed at the last panel. After that I expected the comic to start being frantic again.
Then we have four panels of Idle spotting a rock. And five of her... Pulling the tendril out? Holding onto it when Buzz tries to retract it? Rock is gone though, since we see both her hands. I guess she did not get that first one. Whatever, I can trust in there being rocks all over the place in there. But why do we use three panels to give that rock importance? Whatever. And now three panels of her smashing the tendril.
Why is it going so slow here? At least for me several panels from the same angle in a row suggest a bit of serenity. On the previously page this was done great. Idle is coming to a rest over a few panels. And WHAM! Surprise!
Is it so the big action panels can be at the end of every page? Thunt, your art is good. You can blow a panel or two up for us. Give it importance. Just have Idle smash the tendril. We can trust she grabbed a rock somewhere. Give it a reaction shot to show it violently* reacting to the stone, and then move to a half page panel of Forgath looking badass. You are allowed to do that. We would like that. It would conserve the frantic situation of a maimed ball monster full of teeth chasing people all over the place much better.



*Well, I know the reaction should not be so violent. But I really only know because Krulle is a Loremaster and deserves bonus exp. In comic Kliks react spectacularly to their negative on touch. That is what has been established.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Krulle » Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:47 am

@Wolfie: np. apologies accepted. Additional advantage: we have the lore about Kliks linked in this thread, where it may be beneficial for discussions.

Thanks, Generic. I'm not a loremaster, but pretty handy with duckduckgo. (if that wouldn't have found the blog, google would have found it for me.)
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Starling » Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:52 am

Generic wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:33 am
Pink Bunny wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:27 amHer managing to hold said limb to smash it if anything was the part that seemed a bit surprising. Even with adrenaline it just feels like it would massively outscope her in strength.

But eh.
Yes. It's wierd. We already seen Buzz throw Bowst through several tree trunks, smash several more while running through them, stab through skin and flesh without any backdrop and throw Forgath so he plows up a ditch as he lands. Through vegetation, roots and dirt. Like he was a sharp plow pulled by an ox. Buzz has a sky high strength.

And why she went "rock smash!" instead of casting a spell at it.
Not that weird, considering that in extreme do or die situations our bodies can overcome mental limitations to increase our strength to levels where muscles not only tear themselves apart but also rip themselves off our bones. We are speaking of magnitudes of strength where one can lift a boulder weighing half a ton off one's body to save one's own life.

Also, this is a pen and paper RPG so strength differences don't even apply because one can just roll a dice to see if their action succeeds and the GM has no choice but to go through with it even if someone says "wait wait wait, that thing was like super strong a minute ago". o:)

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by rwstyles » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:58 am

This explains why the warped klik did not fight Forgath. It did not want to deal with the stone hand.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by jbrecken » Thu Nov 15, 2018 9:41 am

I'm just happy this page had no red numbers

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Morgaln » Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:35 pm

Starling wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:52 am
Generic wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:33 am
Pink Bunny wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 1:27 amHer managing to hold said limb to smash it if anything was the part that seemed a bit surprising. Even with adrenaline it just feels like it would massively outscope her in strength.

But eh.
Yes. It's wierd. We already seen Buzz throw Bowst through several tree trunks, smash several more while running through them, stab through skin and flesh without any backdrop and throw Forgath so he plows up a ditch as he lands. Through vegetation, roots and dirt. Like he was a sharp plow pulled by an ox. Buzz has a sky high strength.

And why she went "rock smash!" instead of casting a spell at it.
Not that weird, considering that in extreme do or die situations our bodies can overcome mental limitations to increase our strength to levels where muscles not only tear themselves apart but also rip themselves off our bones. We are speaking of magnitudes of strength where one can lift a boulder weighing half a ton off one's body to save one's own life.

Also, this is a pen and paper RPG so strength differences don't even apply because one can just roll a dice to see if their action succeeds and the GM has no choice but to go through with it even if someone says "wait wait wait, that thing was like super strong a minute ago". o:)
A GM is perfectly in his right to proclaim an action impossible to do. Just because someone wants to outrun a car or climb a glass wall barehanded doesn't mean he's getting a roll to do so.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Formaltide » Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:04 pm

Generic wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:01 am Is it just me, or is the pacing a bit off on these two last pages? We have five or something panels of Idle crawling. In the middle one she is safe for now. Then she comes to a rest for three more panels before she suddently is stabbed at the last panel. After that I expected the comic to start being frantic again.
Then we have four panels of Idle spotting a rock. And five of her... Pulling the tendril out? Holding onto it when Buzz tries to retract it? Rock is gone though, since we see both her hands. I guess she did not get that first one. Whatever, I can trust in there being rocks all over the place in there. But why do we use three panels to give that rock importance? Whatever. And now three panels of her smashing the tendril.
Why is it going so slow here? At least for me several panels from the same angle in a row suggest a bit of serenity. On the previously page this was done great. Idle is coming to a rest over a few panels. And WHAM! Surprise!
Is it so the big action panels can be at the end of every page? Thunt, your art is good. You can blow a panel or two up for us. Give it importance. Just have Idle smash the tendril. We can trust she grabbed a rock somewhere. Give it a reaction shot to show it violently* reacting to the stone, and then move to a half page panel of Forgath looking badass. You are allowed to do that. We would like that. It would conserve the frantic situation of a maimed ball monster full of teeth chasing people all over the place much better.



*Well, I know the reaction should not be so violent. But I really only know because Krulle is a Loremaster and deserves bonus exp. In comic Kliks react spectacularly to their negative on touch. That is what has been established.
Based on my memory of the comic, Thunt has always been extremely detailed, or tried to be extremely detailed, on some nuances. One of these seems to be animations (He's used several panels before just to show characters rolling their eyes back and forth in deep thought). Just now he used several panels to show how Idle looked to the side, noticed a rock, failed to reach it and pulled the tendril out upwards so that she could reach it, then slammed it back down in anger to smash it.

I imagine to Thunt, this must all play as a smooth animation in his mind and he just has to illustrate it as imagined or it wouldn't feel right. It'd look great in the animated series, but it probably feels slow here because this is a sorta-weekly comic.

On that note, I've never felt that Thunt treats this as a weekly series. I feel that he writes this comic with the intent of it being read smoothly, all at once, as a completed work. Otherwise he wouldn't, as you pointed out, make the pacing so slow that we spend a whole week watching Idle grab a rock and smashing a branch. He does use cliffhangers frequently but I feel that this aspect of his style shows that he would rather sacrifice pacing for quality, and consistent pacing is what a true weekly series would need.
Generic wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:11 pm
PrismCat21 wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 11:29 am Shouldn't it be "Bull's Strength"? Instead of Bull Strength?
To make clear she just want one horn on Forgaths IME? 😁
Yeah what's up with the one horn?

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Arrow » Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:59 pm

Formaltide wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:04 pm Yeah what's up with the one horn?
I don't want to to seem rude, but -
Are you seriously asking?
He has had one horned helmet for like 94% of the comic

Ever since January 2006 http://goblinscomic.com/comic/01132006

And, while not told in the comic, that "this is a helmet" helmet means very much to Forgath because he inherited it from his father, and it is a piece of a fabled "named armor" that was used to defeat an evil magic entity that nearly destroyed his home village (if I recall correctly). That evil entity could cut through anything like it was air until, by chance, the dwarves found out that the entity would loose that ability if it learned the name of the item - hence why they labeled every piece of the armor with "this is a ____".

Given that this helmet was very close to his heart, it is not surprising this is the way his IME armor took shape.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Formaltide » Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:48 pm

Arrow wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:59 pm
Formaltide wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:04 pm Yeah what's up with the one horn?
I don't want to to seem rude, but -
Are you seriously asking?
He has had one horned helmet for like 94% of the comic

Ever since January 2006 http://goblinscomic.com/comic/01132006

And, while not told in the comic, that "this is a helmet" helmet means very much to Forgath because he inherited it from his father, and it is a piece of a fabled "named armor" that was used to defeat an evil magic entity that nearly destroyed his home village (if I recall correctly). That evil entity could cut through anything like it was air until, by chance, the dwarves found out that the entity would loose that ability if it learned the name of the item - hence why they labeled every piece of the armor with "this is a ____".

Given that this helmet was very close to his heart, it is not surprising this is the way his IME armor took shape.
No offense taken, since I could see why you'd assume I didn't notice, but I'm well aware of that.

Technically the entire horn wasn't broken off, so if his helmet was so dear to him that it affected his IME in that manner, I was sort of expecting a broken horn on his other side. But it's literally just one horn and then nothing, so I assumed that perhaps his IME was being shaped some other way because if it was so accurate that it'd reflect the missing horn, I'd have expected that it'd be accurate enough to reflect the remaining part of it as well.

Not only that, but he's not even wearing the helmet anymore, yet his IME still echoes the helmet. If it was so dear to him that it's affecting his IME, don't you think he would always imagine it in its full glory and not some half-broken helmet? In that case, his IME should reflect the helmet in its perfect condition. As in, it should show both horns.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Xavier78 » Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:24 pm

Some of you think too hard. This comic can actually be entertaining if you just turn your brain off for a while.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Krulle » Thu Nov 15, 2018 10:58 pm

The "This is a Bonus Story" had veen published by Thunt for 10 years of Goblins.
If you want to read it, buy the books, or be a forum member.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by BuildsLegos » Thu Nov 15, 2018 11:12 pm

Formaltide wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:48 pmTL;DR pedantic I.M.E. nitpicking
You must surely have also noticed that I.M.Es also become more elaborate as players level-up. Not only will a full helmet probably be his level-5 I.M.E., I imagine each level after that would add another piece of named armor and then show the name-tags at least 1 level after they're all showing. Not that Forgath will last that long, but it's a cool image to speculate.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Generic » Fri Nov 16, 2018 7:02 am

Formaltide wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 3:04 pm I imagine to Thunt, this must all play as a smooth animation in his mind and he just has to illustrate it as imagined or it wouldn't feel right. It'd look great in the animated series, but it probably feels slow here because this is a sorta-weekly comic.
I've gotten that impression as well. I think the falling hut in the Viper Warcamp and early Brassmoon shows signs of wanting to be animation. In the case of the falling hut it really works. Not so much in brassmoon. It has gotten better since, but from time to time it still goes into these kinds of slow motion at odd places.

I think Idle fiddling with her pipe and dropping it over and over was a great use of high detail. It also served to avoid the talking heads of Bowst and Forgath doing a little exposition. Some slow paced below the belt humor in a flat slow angle. Great!

But during an action scene? I can understand if some find it cinematic and fluent. I am not that kind of reader though as I read mostly in emotion. For me it's a bit jarring and ill paced.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Generic » Fri Nov 16, 2018 7:07 am

BuildsLegos wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 11:12 pm
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Try not to call people pedantic and nitpicky by misquoting them , please?

If it gets wordy down the line, we can use the spoiler tag instead.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by BuildsLegos » Fri Nov 16, 2018 10:41 am

Well they're words I use to describe myself, so I hardly see the problem. But the spoiler tag is a good idea, thanks.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by SirAlexander » Fri Nov 16, 2018 11:21 am

Could It be that the second horn is not showing because there is no Forgath there but Klik matter?

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Sessine » Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:47 pm

Forgath's visible IME is not a physical thing, it's an emotional statement showing who he is. Compare it to the first panel on this page:

http://www.goblinscomic.org/comic/01062014/

The single horn in his IME is bigger than the one on the real helmet. The other part of the IME helm is smooth as glass, no trace of the broken stub at all. Given how he has begun to feel about Idle, and all that has led up to this moment...? That, right there, is a discarding of half measures. A declaration of war.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Formaltide » Mon Nov 19, 2018 12:19 pm

BuildsLegos wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 11:12 pm
Formaltide wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 5:48 pmTL;DR pedantic I.M.E. nitpicking
You must surely have also noticed that I.M.Es also become more elaborate as players level-up. Not only will a full helmet probably be his level-5 I.M.E., I imagine each level after that would add another piece of named armor and then show the name-tags at least 1 level after they're all showing. Not that Forgath will last that long, but it's a cool image to speculate.
You must have surely noticed as well that despite IMEs evolving, there is no given reason for why Forgath's IME is missing a horn and the only thing that correlates to it at all is the fact that his actual helmet also happens to be missing the same horn. That being said, there is no guarantee that even at max level his IME would ever change since it seems to be emulating his actual helmet, or at least the state it was in for a majority of the comic thus far. That said, I do like your speculation of how it would visually progress and I think that'd be pretty cool.

You also must have surely noticed that I initially asked a single sentence question, and was essentially challenged to nitpick in order to justify why I'd bother asking such a question. You seem to be implying that I felt the need to nitpick out of nowhere and flood everyone with a wall of text, when it was a response that was incited by a challenge to discuss a topic.
Xavier78 wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 8:24 pm Some of you think too hard. This comic can actually be entertaining if you just turn your brain off for a while.

:lol: Lurking around here for quite a while, I've felt the same way, but at the same time I also feel that if we don't kind of reach for straws like this then we'd have very little to discuss and the forum would be pretty dead. It's all in good fun -- perhaps for some, discussing like this IS how they find the comic to be entertaining.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by TheDarkTyger » Mon Nov 19, 2018 8:03 pm

Kick his ass, For!

....then patch Idle up. That was a pretty deep stab in a very dangerous spot.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by BuildsLegos » Mon Nov 19, 2018 10:02 pm

Formaltide wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 12:19 pmYou must have surely noticed as well that despite IMEs evolving, there is no given reason for why Forgath's IME is missing a horn and the only thing that correlates to it at all is the fact that his actual helmet also happens to be missing the same horn. That being said, there is no guarantee that even at max level his IME would ever change since it seems to be emulating his actual helmet, or at least the state it was in for a majority of the comic thus far. That said, I do like your speculation of how it would visually progress and I think that'd be pretty cool.
If the helmet is informing his I.M.E. because it was important to him, which is a safe extrapolation of what we know of I.M.E.s, then I think the loss of the horn should also have influence. After all, it was the same fight where his world-view was challenged enough that he spared Thaco's life. At risk of it being too obscure, maybe the lost horn is meant to reflect on Forgath's willingness to consider the perspective of others. If so, then it 100% should continue in his I.M.E. now that the helmet has been destroyed.
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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Formaltide » Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:37 am

BuildsLegos wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 10:02 pm
Formaltide wrote: Mon Nov 19, 2018 12:19 pmYou must have surely noticed as well that despite IMEs evolving, there is no given reason for why Forgath's IME is missing a horn and the only thing that correlates to it at all is the fact that his actual helmet also happens to be missing the same horn. That being said, there is no guarantee that even at max level his IME would ever change since it seems to be emulating his actual helmet, or at least the state it was in for a majority of the comic thus far. That said, I do like your speculation of how it would visually progress and I think that'd be pretty cool.
If the helmet is informing his I.M.E. because it was important to him, which is a safe extrapolation of what we know of I.M.E.s, then I think the loss of the horn should also have influence. After all, it was the same fight where his world-view was challenged enough that he spared Thaco's life. At risk of it being too obscure, maybe the lost horn is meant to reflect on Forgath's willingness to consider the perspective of others. If so, then it 100% should continue in his I.M.E. now that the helmet has been destroyed.
Now that's a theory I'm willing to get behind. My original question was very unspecific and quite frankly, poorly written in terms of discussion, but its intent was to find out, "Why does his IME match his helmet in its one-horn state, rather than either its two-horn state or the now-digested state it is currently in at present?" I was curious if it was intentional, and if it was, then why specifically that version of the helmet?

Referencing back to Forgath's "moral awakening" moment would certainly fit the bill.

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Re: 13th November 2018 - Bullheaded

Post by Davis8488 » Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:43 pm

It's not a full helmet either, by the way I look at it, but rather the remaining horn and the name plate: the two most symbolic aspects of the helmet
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