Order of the Stick

Spared no expense on the art budget for this climax

A comic involving a party of classic D&D style adventurers who refer to the rules in an in-universe style. Much of the "humour" comes from wry observations about the system and settings, which often walks the line between parody and copyright violation. The comic has gone from fun parody to serious pastiche of epic fantasy over the years, something that's known in the industry as "Doing a Cerebus".

The story is written by Rich Burlew, who's claim to fame is coming in second place (or, as he likes to call it, "first loser") in WotC's contest to write the next great campaign setting. Rich lost to Eberron, which should give you good idea about what he came up with, depending on how you feel about Eberron. We'll never actually see his entry, as one of the conditions of the competitions was that Wizards of the Coast got to keep it, and it seems they locked it in a darkened room and forgot about it. This is probably a good thing.

Butthurt Fa/tg/uys tend to whine about the fact that this is a stick-figure comic, which goes to show that we know dick-all about design and simplicity. Compared to Servants of the Imperium this shit is gold.

Recently, Burlew raised over ONE MEELLION DOLLAHS via Kickstarter to get all the paper and ink books reprinted, despite the whole thing being available for free on his website which involved everyone who donated pretty much being showered with keychains and never-before-seen comics, plus other stuff.

/tg/ of course, loves all of Order of The Stick... but nobody is going to accuse /tg/ of having good taste. Besides, everyone knows that Andrew Hussie's MSPA webcomics are a million times better, because Rich Burlew is Andrew's bitch. fapping to homestuck is all we want to do.

Before You Get Butthurt About Battle Strategies...

Here's the thing: No matter what I draw in any battle scene, within ten minutes of posting it someone chimes in about how the characters are stupid for not executing this, that, or the other tactic. Never mind that said tactic would likely end the fight in one panel when it is my job to provide you with an entertaining battle scene. Never mind that said tactic may result in the person winning whom the plot does not need to win. Never mind that the fight may not be over yet. No, all that matters is that these characters are not living up to someone's imagined D&D tactical mastery.

Well, I don't give a damn anymore. The characters fight the way they fight to make an interesting page. They may make subpar decisions, I don't care. I don't spend enough time with the D&D rules anymore to eke out all of these Ultimate Killer Strategies anyway, so we're really running up against the limits of my knowledge and ability. The characters can't be better strategists than I am, and I care more about other aspects. Such strategies are usually boring to read and visually bland to look at anyway. There aren't going to be a lot of invisible save-or-die effects thrown around, because there are only so many ways I can draw characters succeeding at Fortitude saves (and then I still have to verbally explain what just happened). You should stop expecting them, because I'm not going to use them.

My job is to entertain, not to showcase perfect D&D tactics. If you can't be entertained by anything BUT perfect D&D tactics, that's on you.

--A quote from the author

Links

• Skub
• The website
• The TVTropes article where you can see all the clichés Burlew uses.