Rereading A Webcomic Named Order of the Stick

I remember reading Order of the Stick way back in my freshman year in high school. I didn’t know how I ended up in the site but I sure loved the comic!

Back then, I still had no idea what Dungeon & Dragons is, so there were a lot of stuff that were lost on me. I was a big fan of fantasy/rpg so I did get some of the humor. I also liked how it played on the tropes of the fantasy/rpg genre, and the self-aware characters that populate the strip. But that was like 7-8 years ago (okay I’m bad at calculating years), and I nearly forgot about it.

How did I find it again? Well, I was part of this community called The Videogame Guild, and one of them posted something about DM of the Ring, a webcomic by Shamus Young (check the link, I swear it’s funny). It was a parody of Lord of the Rings when done as a campaign in D&D. It was hilarious and its humor actually reminded me of Order of the Stick. But, at that time, I have completely forgotten the title, but ol’ Google has his ways. Using the keywords stick, D&D, and webcomic, I ended up at the site. I was surprised that nothing much has changed in the site. Anyway, I’ll be quickly discussing this particular webcomic.

CHARACTERS

The characters are all funny and have very identifiable personalities. Each one of them are also defying or making fun of their particular stereotypes in their race and class. For example Roy, who is a fighter, is actually very smart and sensible. Contrary to the stereotype that fighters are dumb. Or Belkar, the halfling ranger, who is seriously psychotic which defies the notion that halflings are fun-loving and kind. The whole party mostly bickers from time to time, with mostly Elan, the idiotic bard as the main source of annoyance or Vaarsivius the Elf, as the butt of some of jokes because of his androgyny.

Like I said, they are mostly self-aware with their situation and makes fun of the particular tropes in their world. Something like this:

The dwarf is Durkon by the way, which some kind of dim-witted cleric. Seriously, Roy seems like the straight man in all the idiots aboard their party.

The villains on the other hand, are also made fun of with their stereotypes. Like the Lich King hiring the minions in discounted prices (which explains why they are in abundance and suck at fighting). All in all, the characters are lovable and funny!

PLOT

The plot is more or less, typical defeat the evil lich king with a lot more hijinks. From what I remember, it does expand to a more complex plot, but I have yet to push forward to that. Anyway, here’s Roy summarizing the plot for me:

So yeah. basically that’s it. I’m still reading it up and I have yet to get to the part where they face the lich king. I do remember that they will, and they succeed. But the lich king isn’t entirely dead or something. The plot is simple to follow and still revolves around the fantasy world. There are some parody of the real world, too.

Anyway, if you haven’t read it, read it now! Check it out at this site: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html

The strip is around 900 so it’s a looooong read and it still isn’t over yet. I had fun reading it, it’s like discovering your old toy and now with better and newer features!