var n = []; n[1] = "This is the very first AGC, the birth of Another Gaming Comic. Like most newborns, it was short on words and ugly as hell. So Ugly. Unbelievably ugly. In this case, it took a couple years and over 200 comics before it got even remotely less ugly. And no, there's no 'd' in college..." n[2] = "I really liked the idea of an elderly woman gamer. Especially if she was clever, ruthless, and tougher than all the guys. Dang, on the other hand, was named after the university-math-major protagonist from a short play I wrote in high school. I like to think it's the same guy, though he was charmingly bizarre in the play, and looks stunningly normal compared to his AGC compatriots." n[3] = "The round-the-table format was chosen for very specific reasons: my art skills are limited, and if it wasn't going to look good either way, I wanted to save as much work as possible via copy-and-paste." n[4] = "Ahh, Charisma... the perennial 'dump stat'. The greenish hair persists for quite a while, and was interpreted by many to be a design choice. No, I'm actually fairly colorblind. The hair became more brown when somebody told me." n[5] = "The character sheets are, of course, intentionally incomplete. This both gave me more room creatively, and also gave me cover: their very familiar-sounding version of D&D (later branded '2.5 Edition') uses parts of both AD&D and 3.0, and is therefore not completely faithful to either one." n[6] = "The description in the last frame embarrassingly says Joe where obviously it means Dan. Other than that, though, I like a lot of the little details on these character-sheets." n[7] = "A rare burst of roleplaying. Rare. 'The Pink Pudding' is an awesome name for an inn." n[13] = "I thought oval-head Steele looked humorously cartoony, but in retrospect it was mostly just dumb. Then again, he was always intended to sit sideways like this after the initial stretch." n[44] = "Ugh... that would be 'heels' not 'heals' in the first frame. I don't remember why exactly all the hair came out black in this one, but it was just one of the hazards of working in photoshop and compressing big images like this into gifs. Life has been so much better since I switched over to 100% Macromedia Flash." n[45] = "Ew... an extra line to the text at the top of the third frame actually damages the sense of the dialogue. It should definitely only be Dang (and not Steele) complaining that the trap-search is taking too long." n[46] = "I'm not sure why, but the spleen is always the funniest organ to threaten. Although intestines and genitals are also popular..." n[48] = "Carrying scrolls rather than memorizing Remove Curse/Remove Blindness/Break Enchantment = Smart, standard operating procedure.
Inventing your own 'percussive code' in case of situations like this = Silly and paranoid." n[51] = "'When you guys finish the labyrinth, I'll explain it'... um, I always knew the mechanism that triggered the poison-gas-hallway trap, but I kept putting off and ultimately forgot to make the explanatory comic. Years later, when reminded by a reader in my blog..." n[62] = "Unfortunately, the Index RPG system is fictional. I got a number of questions about this as the story arc progressed: some people found the system felt sort of real because many of the rules concepts (and flaws) are based loosely on real games I've tried or just read, plus a few that I would love to see in a game system, but probably wouldn't because they would be too complicated for pen-and-paper, and hard to balance too." n[63] = "Common RPG balance problem: the assumption that ANY ability can be balanced by sufficient cost. That's not to say that expensive powers are usually good, but designers sometimes don't think these things through if the option's cost is sufficiently prohibitive." n[64] = "Yes, the Burgermeister in the Index is a very thinly veiled makeover of the Merovingian. A good rule of thumb is, the cheezier an accent, the easier it is to imitate." n[65] = "BSOD would be the 'Blue Screen of Death' on Windows computers. It's much harder to get these days with Vista... but not impossible." n[68] = "
Jill's characters do all look like her husband once did, despite the fact that the description varies a little each time, and in this case, is reminiscent of one of my favorite arcade-game bosses, Rugal Bernstein from the King of Fighters
" n[70] = "With Steele's custom text-block-color (because he's GM and usually talks the most) and the individually colored text for 'in-character' speech, I was gradually moving in the direction of improving readability. That said, The Index series (later on) becomes some of my most text-congested and difficult-to-parse comics ever." n[71] = "I've noted many times - if the players are confident enough to boast, Game Masters should be very wary. Then again, it does depend on the players. Some people are big boasters... but in my experience, those aren't the ones who make really broken characters." n[72] = "You can do so much cool stuff in the Matr- er, I mean, The Index. Now if only I could keep my lines straight, like in the 2nd frame where that first paragraph should belong to Joe." n[73] = "So maybe I'm weird, but the car from MIB is basically my idea of cool - not counting all the alien tech upgrades. Big and square, from the days when cars looked like cars (instead of all looking the same). Yes, that makes no sense.
In the 4th frame, Dan's 'Don't get technical with me' should come after Dang finished. My typesetting was beginning to suffer under the overbearing weight of text." n[74] = "'Terminal case of concussion grenades' belongs in Jeopardy's Before and After category." n[75] = "For once, Joe was abusing all the game systems positive and negative modifiers to produce an unintended effect which wasn't broken so much as really, really awesome. Of course, naming your black and white pistols Yin and Yang and killing everything in a 90-degree cone would also look good in a movie-trailer." n[76] = "Nobody ever expects you to come at them through the furnace." n[77] = "In The Index RPG, how much you can do in a turn is based on your Action Points (AP). You get a certain number of AP per turn, which you must divide between movement, attacks, and other actions. If you want to be able to take actions when it isn't your turn, you have to save some for that, otherwise you'll have only passive defenses." n[78] = "Ah, 'vicious'. Every time I used to write it, it would come out with an extra 's' as in 'viscous'. Took years to get over. Dungeons and Dragons doesn't normally have anything like The Index game's 'Luck Points', but the recent Eberron D&D setting has their own version, which are awarded on a per-level rather than per-session basis." n[82] = "Mmm... Binary-Tree Fresh" n[98] = "Always be wary about 'Optional Rules' sidebars which have a major impact on the game; often they have not been playtested in the way that (we hope) the core rules have been." n[99] = "Umm, that should be 'defuse', not 'diffuse', which would be more of a prism thing. I wish it was as easy to edit these old comics as it is the newer ones." n[100] = "Secret notes from the GM are virtually never a good sign. When they go to the more erratic players, it's a serious cause for concern." n[101] = "Something very strange is going on in this comic (and at least once in the previous one), where several instances of the letter 'v' are misteriously (and unintentionally) replaced with 'w'. This has nothing to do with the Burgermeister's horrible accent, and I really have no idea why other random text acquired this slight Mr. Checkov accent..." n[104] = "In the first frame, I'm pretty sure that should be 'Without me, even you Humans will...' blah blah blah, not 'even you System'. Either it got shortened from the original manuscript, or I had some weird brain failure when typing it. And proofreading failure." n[105] = "I don't know how 'then he swings open both panes...' got typed as 'them he wings', but as usual I am horrified. Just one of the reasons there will probably never be an AGC book (because I'd have to remake the first 250-ish cartoons to reach a print-worth standard)." n[106] = "They are debating a fairly arcane point here, and I'm sure most readers are with Dan on this one: 'What the heck are they getting at'? The actual repercussions are a little ominous though." n[107] = "Umm, in the last frame, I'm sure that should be 'keep these guys BUSY', not keep them 'ready'." n[108] = "It seems that Steele is capable of really impressive acting (and thinking) when put on the spot. It's too bad the guys don't give him the chance more often..." n[109] = "I have to admit, I'm kindof proud how their adventures in the Index mirror so many key scenes from those other movies, yet it all fits well in their own, very different story." n[110] = "Oh boy, here's where we get bogged down. In my head was undoubtedly another awesome action scene, to parallel the one in those other Index-like movies, but trying to tell it turn-by-turn in the rules of a fictional game described in giant blocks of text makes for some hard-slogging as a reader. This is one of those 'learn from your mistakes' things, and lasts at least 5 strips..." n[111] = "Fight, fight, fight, fight..." n[112] = "Fight, fight, fictional-rules-system, fight, fight..." n[113] = "Hint, hint, Agents Unero and Rivers are patterned off the Terminator movies (gasp!). Seems like a good theme for older-model Agents though." n[114] = "Sure, I had a few cool ideas going on, but at this point readers are starting to nod off..." n[115] = "Interesting the Jill exclaims 'I'm the King'. I mean, here character is male and all, but..." n[116] = "Dan can be so many things at once; silly (the elevator buttons), practical (the elevator buttons, arguably), a moron (comparing them to Ninja Turtles for jumping down a hole in the street), and an idiot savant (the question of how the Burgermeister found the Muse...)" n[117] = "All Steele's pieces are falling into place. And yes, Jill's head from behind does look very much like Krang." n[118] = "Wow, I can't even read the refridgerator enough to remember if the brand was 'Coldair', 'Colder' or 'Coldar the Barbarian'. Background image aside, though, THIS is a real hardcore diabolical GM. He didn't screw the players - he manipulated them into screwing themselves." n[119] = "The end of this comic and the entire in-game action of the next one form one of the best imaginary action sequences. I wish I had the skill to animate them (in good enough quality to do them justice). I'm pretty happy with the crappy art from the last frame here, though. It was really hard doing action stuff before I got flash, and yet you can actually tell what was going on (even before Steele explains it in the next comic...)" n[120] = "I'd say 'sit back and watch the show', but really it's a lot of reading." n[121] = "Everyday physics, common-sense and morality are all pretty-much useless in the Matr- er, the Index. Depending too much on any one of them could easily get you killed." n[122] = "As Admiral Ackbar says: 'IT'S A TRAP!' Agent Gray's twister Clint Eastwood quotes are really sad, but apparently that's his thing. Agent Black has a lot more presence and personality." n[123] = "Eww... the second frame is a real mess since I somehow didn't put in most of the 'who's talking lines'. Down the right side it's Dang, Dang again, then Joe. You still have to read it left to right (mixing in Steele's blocks) to get the conversation in order. Horrible..." n[124] = "I don't know where you get your delusions, laser-brain... [kisses brother]" n[125] = "I'm not a big fan of Westerns in general, but I really like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." n[126] = "I have no idea where that 'was' in the first panel came from." n[127] = "Most of us assume a character a NOT immune to explosions until proven otherwise. Even in the Index." n[128] = "Dan has a car? And yet for some unknown reason, nobody considers getting a ride from him." n[129] = "Poor Dan, he tried not to provoke her... I hope it's clear that's his ponytail beside him in the last frame, not his vital head-fluids leaking out." n[130] = "Some of you, probably not all, recognize who I copy-and-pasted Dan's eyes from. Diabolical..." n[131] = "Having already been knocked down, Dan actually seems more brazen in the face of Jill's tyrany. Doesn't get anywhere on the 'why no pizza' front though. Jill is Jewish, but relatively passive about it. Are you allowed to play D&D on the Sabbath?" n[132] = "I like perogies, but I also like the 'genesis-effect bacteria' description of them. It's so true." n[133] = "My proclivity for drinking Diet Coke is indeed cliche. This whole comic is stuff I've discussed many times with many friends. Ironically, I recently switched over to No-Name diet cola, which I like as much as the real stuff, and doesn't cause me headaches (as most other decent-tasting cheap-brand diet colas do)." n[134] = "The first line of the second frame is misatributed to Jill - it ought to be Steele. I wish it wasn't such a big task to go back and fix all these errors in older comics, but if I started trying, it would eat a LOT of man-hours." n[135] = "I think the micromachines would probably be a big help for stuff like this in modern-setting games. Then again, I don't play a lot of modern-setting stuff, so what do I know." n[136] = "I have to admit, it's very satisfying when I feel that both the in-game and out-of-game stuff are interesting and/or funny at the same time." n[137] = "'What are you a psychopath?' he says, as he blows another civilian vehicle out of the way, tossing grenades from the sunroof of a speeding stolen car." n[138] = "Null is to Agent Black as Gandalf is to Sauron. Only with more jumping around and civilian casualties." n[139] = "It's hard to tell exactly why The Index story arc is such a fan favorite, but I think part of it is the feel readers get from the parallels with the Matrix movies. Time and again, I managed to work in little scenes where some part of the action is VERY reminiscent, even though the stories and the characters are all different. Just a little thing like mirroring the scene where one of the Twins (the white ghost guys) changes lanes to pick up the other one from the road... something about it creates that warm fuzzy Matrix feel much more convincingly than I ever would have thought." n[140] = "For once, Dan is trying to play the game and everyone else is being distracted by trivial stuff. Creepy little-girl related trivial stuff." n[141] = "It's probably hard to tell from my overstrained art, but that last mini-frame is supposed to be Firewall sliding past the explosion. I was drawing in photoshop, and trust me... I'm not good at that. Ugh, and these next few strips have SO MANY TYPOES! If they were in flash I'd go back an fix them, but for old photoshop comics it's too much work..." n[142] = "I AM pretty proud of the photoshop art in this one, I mean I used a lot of different elements (including some modified digicam shorts of myself for bodies in suits), and I think you can genuinely tell what happened in the action." n[143] = "I'm told GM/PC romances never work out. This is kindof an exceptional circumstance though... with the huge advantage that it's a very short term passing thing." n[144] = "" n[145] = "It's a lot easier for me, writing the story, to engineer the prophecies (linked to the strip where they appeared) than it would have been for Steele, who doesn't control the player characters. Nevertheless, I'm very happy with the results. And 'without caffeine we'll all conk out around 3pm' tied up very nicely as well." n[146] = "I loved KoF 98. That was an awesome fighting game. Dang is being way too hard on himself though, he kicked a lot of ass, and definitely pulled his weight in The Index. Still can't spell 'graffiti' for some reason." n[147] = "As cool as Dr. Stan's philosophy sounds (and in some ways, it IS the best way to approach a lot of situations in real life), I'm very glad that not many people have the clarity and detachment to treat EVERYTHING in that way. If winning is by definition everything, you are really going too far, and you'll miss out on a lot a the things that make life better, like friends." n[148] = "The Craw Wurm is a fairly powerful creature once in play, and has long been a staple of MTG newbs, but it is not very efficient. You can get MUCH better things for less cost..." n[149] = "This is what the experts call a 'recap'. And Knowing is half the battle." n[150] = "I've know people like this, but myself being a 'backup-character' addict, I really can't understand not taking the opportunity to try another RP personality and a whole new block of stats. I like choosing and combining options." n[151] = "Clerics have been very good since 2nd Ed (even better in 3.0/3.5), but in the older version, pressure from the other players tends to gradually force out all their interesting memorized spells in favor of more healing. Usually, they are reduced to being 'the guy who casts a Cure spell every turn'." n[152] = "I actually did a pretty good job of making Nuclear Dan's character sheet look hand-scrawled despite actually making it with a pencil tool (or similar) in photoshop." n[153] = "Spurts of roleplaying by Dan never last for very long. And really, how could they when the guy names his character after Rogaine..." n[154] = "Ruh-roh, Shaggy..." n[155] = "Ewwwwwwww! I typed the wrong homophone in the second frame (here instead of hear). That's way more embarassing than regular typoes because it gives the false impression that I don't know the difference between the two words. Ugh." n[156] = "Man this is an ugly comic. I think you can see what I was going for, but the floating thought-images are truly craptacular. I have no idea what expression I was going for in the third frame, but I failed. And the copying errors! 'this isn't about game', 'wholeDsale'? I'm going to go hide in the closet now." n[157] = "" n[158] = "I never did check out the pnp Diablo books, but I'm sure the spell Corpse Explosion could be a cool addition to D&D, and has undoubtedly been added to many campaigns in horribly unbalanced homebrew versions." n[159] = "Good old Vulcan syndrome. Though come to think of it, elves really are a lot like Vulcans... or vice versa." n[163] = "Eww, I added an 'n' to Mercutio. Stupid typoes." n[164] = "Jill is pretty scary, but just because she CAN be unreasonable doesn't mean she ALWAYS is..." n[165] = "Most people do have 'default behavior'. It's important to learn to anticipate and deal with those behaviors of your fellows, whether it be work, MMOs or pnp RPGs. One sign of people who like roleplaying is they often have different default behaviors for each character they play." n[166] = "In the old archives, where I named each comic, these ones were called things like 'The adventures of Dan Solo'. Which seemed clever at the time." n[167] = "It really is Ray Harryhausen's fault D&D skeletons are so fast. Making seven stop-motion skeletons fight with live actors without CG or digital compositing took for freakin' ever to start with. Making them move slower would take twice or three times as much work, and actually make the scene LESS exciting. And so mummies and zombies are slow, skeletons are fast. Because that's what all the old movies told us." n[168] = "" n[169] = "" n[170] = "I think I can safely say that my presence strongly impacted the development of my (7-years) younger sister. And doubtless warped her irrevocably. She seems to have come out okay though. And no, I did NOT torment her to any abnormal degree." n[171] = "I 100% believe what Stan said in the 2nd frame about being offended. It's a really poor way to react to any situation, and no matter how bad something is, or how profoundly it goes against your belief system, the state of being offended can only be counterproductive. It's like deciding not to think." n[172] = "I have been alerted that this is a *sigh* continuity error, in that at this time (Dan and Stan's childhood), Joe Chaos would not yet have earned his moniker. Unfortunately, Joebacca sounds way better than anything starting with 'Irving'." n[173] = "Some of my friends had tales of a Magic CCG player named Shawn who would take an inordinate amount of time to decide on his moves, so I named the first of the kids in his honor. I'm told this is not much of an exaggeration..." n[174] = "I'm sure somebody out there remembers playing Magic around the point in time when these cards were relevant, but the really sad thing is that even among readers who DO know the game, many won't remember these cards much at all." n[175] = "The reader who transcribed this to OhNoRobot (along with a great many other ones, which I greatly appreciate) dubbed the customer 'Captain Neckbeard'. If you've ever worked in retail, you have probably met such a person, though the appearance varies tremendously." n[176] = "'Don't X when you could heal me' is such a popular refrain that many people refuse to play healing classes." n[177] = "I like the single glove = 75% rule, because I can TOTALLY see some designer (or especially the Dragon Magazine 'designer'-types) writing that and not seeing the problem." n[191] = "This is where you avert your eyes, take cover beneath your school desk and get out your geiger-counters." n[192] = "I really like 'I don't know what the Dice Rolling Song is, but'. That sentence fragment is funny enough to me that I probably should have left it unfinished, with Dang being cut off." n[193] = "Logs... birch logs." n[194] = "If you've read through my Real D&D Excerpts, the discussion in frame two probably sounds very familiar." n[195] = "This is pretty reprehensible... not Dan's finest hour. The D&D groups I've been in relied on players being honest about their HP and castings and such, because we're all adults and it's not the GM's job to police our character sheets and deal with cheating." n[196] = "I think that was actually character development. The more you know, the weirder they get. Just like real people :)" n[197] = "I'm sorry, but I find the solution of 'rolling' the sack or dummy down the stairs extremely funny. The first line in the last frame ought to belong to Dan, but my typesetting waa so inadequate at the time I didn't even notice the error. There are typoes all over the place too..." n[198] = "Vampires really are bad news." n[199] = "Whatever happened in there, that was one messy fight..." n[200] = "This is the nightmare everyone has when they hear 'mummy' in D&D." n[201] = "Now that... that just blows..." n[202] = "It is really REALLY smart to carry scrolls of rarely-used emergency spells. Remove Curse, Cure Disease, maybe a Remove Blindness, definitely some Restoration or Lesser Restoration if you can swing it. A Dispel Magic in case you are out. A Knock even if you have a rogue. Most of the time you won't have them memorized, but a little pre-emptive spending can totally save your asses." n[203] = "Before you try this 'at home' (ie. at the arcade), I totally made up the pen trick, I'm pretty sure it doesn't work, and if it did, I'm pretty sure it would be vandalism. I still think it's funny though." n[204] = "Whoever decided that button-mashing in Streetfighter VS X-men should increase supermove damage or reduce damage when blocking, that person was either a moron, or in charge of increasing the sales of physical consoles (and/or replacement parts)." n[205] = "" n[206] = "The character Dang was based on (from a very short play I wrote in highschool) is a little too fond of his 'answer the test, rather than the question' strategy. That said, it is still a very good tool to keep in your problem solving arsenal." n[207] = "For first year university residence, everyone was two-to-a-room. My roommate's first language was French, though he could get things across in English. I'm actually reasonably bilingual, but I'm so non-social that I never let on the whole year that I spoke or understood French. Somehow, to me, this made sharing a room LESS awkward. On a more comic-related note, I honestly don't remember whether or not I had decided on Dang's real name yet at this point. Knowing me, though, I probably had." n[208] = "Yep, I definitely spent too much time at the arcade in university. In my defense, though, their arcade was awesome." n[209] = "I'm really bad for having a million story and character-development ideas which are always 'later'. Yet somehow, I often find myself in places where I don't know where I'm going. Honestly, when I introduced the 'Three Arcade Guys', as much as I liked them, I didn't yet have a good idea what their purpose would be." n[210] = "The problem with transitions lenses is that after a few years the lose the ability to go completely clear (or completely dark), and in losing the absolutes, you find that your entire world is mired with shades of grey." n[211] = "Operation Infinite Jackson was awesome. I must remember to name more of their twinks and gambits... BTW Sepia Snake Sigil is sickeningly overpowered if you can get it off (in pre-third-Edition)." n[212] = "It turns out that Dan's character dying opened up a whole new world of cities where they were no longer Wanted on pain of death." n[213] = "The first frame is supposed to be a Dan's-eye-view after staring into the lightbulb for a couple minutes last comic. You can see how wonky his eyes are in the remaining panels." n[214] = "I like how quickly the allegiances shift in the last frame." n[215] = "Dan's getting so pissed-off he accidentally pronounced Geas right... we all know this can't go on forever." n[216] = "To be fair, Steele is not making it easy on Dan. And Jill's only feeding into it by encouraging the NPC." n[217] = "Mmm... popcorn..." n[218] = "You can tell I had fun with this one, even as Nuclear Dan succombed to paranoia." n[230] = "SLIGHT ART UPGRADE! Art takes a lot more time though, so don't get your hopes up..." n[243] = "The original version of this had an oldschool html-image-map so that Dan's computer screen in Panel#2 linked to the downloadable wallpaper I made for The Index storyline." n[244] = "Seriously, naming humorous CoH characters (and guilds) is inhumanly entertaining. If there was some way to quit my day job and do this for a living..." n[245] = "Nobody ever makes restaurants with major shock value names, like Mafioso Pizza, or Nazi-Burger. Actually, maybe they do... and I just never hear about it because they go out of business." n[246] = "This one took a long time. The more detailed sprites were still pretty new, plus I needed a bunch of special effects and a representation of young Jill. I'm not 100% satisfied with the example Jill provided, but it's hard to strike the right balance of convincing the others and yet not revealing more than Jill would be willing to." n[247] = "WOOHOO! DOUBLE TREASURE! Wait, did Jill say her husband had a +2 bonus to magic saves?" n[248] = "I don't think Jill meant that Joe had an ACTUAL police record, but that would sure be an interesting thing to explore... hmm. Nah..." n[249] = "Seriously, who ever invented NPC reaction rolls... you may have tried it out for a while, but eventually you just give up and make the NPCs do what you want or what makes sense." n[250] = "I kindof like this setup for a module. I should actually write it sometime. I should, but I won't... I have WAAAAAAY too many things that I already don't have time to do." n[251] = "Dan is pretty special sometimes." n[252] = "It has to be a bad sign for the DM when the players are so organized that they convinced Dan to cast a non-damaging group buff. The four-cleric model is pretty rough, when anybody can cast any spell in your buff list - or take time out to drop a Heal spell." n[253] = "I find it funny that Jill's 'always had a soft spot for humans.'" n[254] = "Not Dan's finest hour... I love Steele's little stick-figure imagination bubble in frame 2 though." n[255] = "The no-feat Tower Shield on a cleric is such an optimal choice that it may cause Joe actual physical pain to see Dan ruin it by stubbornly wasting his time on touch spells." n[256] = "The closeups have slightly better detail, but they look kinda creepy O_o" n[257] = "If they hadn't tried to argue earlier that the all-cleric thing was based on individual choices, it would be harder for Steele to act like this is a big deal. But Joe's 'DPS projections' sure does sound like a sneaky plan..." n[258] = "It does smell like a sneaky plan, but the players have every right to work out their character choices together, if they want to." n[259] = "Ahh, onomatopoeia. Where would comics be without you. In this case, bogged down in 7 rounds of combat that wouldn't really help the flow of the story." n[260] = "I'm not sure exactly how, as a GM, I would lure PCs into a trap based on their foreknowledge of the treasure-tables... but it would be so sweet." n[261] = "Come on. Seriously. The statues ALWAYS come to life. ALWAYS. In fact, the only thing that ever prevents some statues from coming to life is the fact that all players know that they will come to life, and only by not doing so can they surprise the players." n[262] = "...ALWAYS..." n[263] = "There is a breed of players who not only wants there to be a great, deep backstory explaining why everything is happening, but who want to rapaciously devour all that story. Of course, even they are more likely to throw the book in the lewt sack in a one-off module. After a skill check to see if it's useful, of course." n[264] = "As a high level character, you start to look at most game mechanics as enemies. Enemies that can be slain by superior equipment and/or spells and class features. Well, maybe you don't... but I do." n[265] = "Millions of voices cried out in anguish. Others took notes. A large reason for the Dwarven Cleric Power Rangers story arc was that I never got a chance to do this IRL. 3.5 Ed. Clerics rule." n[266] = "I never get to do this because I find that most GMs ban metamagic rods. For some reason. I like the badly drawn 'in-character' dwarf faces." n[267] = "Environemtalists? Nice typo. I should hire an editor so I can fire him." n[268] = "Ah, the full gang of badly drawn 'in-character' dwarf faces. I only made them because these were temporary characters and I wouldn't be stuck with them forever. Thus allowing me to make Ironbeard Blue-Axe aka Electro aka Quick-Man (from Megaman). I chose more of a Cardassian armor motif for Jill's dwarf, though the mask screams Gundam villain." n[269] = "There's a not-so secret 'easter egg' on the last frame. Ya, the animation is pretty sad. The voice work and SFX made with my shitty microphone... much worse." n[270] = "I thought Bateman had the potential to be a fairly colorful occasional character. Prettymuch everything in this comic would be viable in real life, though you wouldn't sell PHBs at cost AND offer the cheap extra copies at the same time." n[271] = "I know, it's spelled graffiti. Looking back through the archives is horrifying sometimes, but it's still too much effort to edit out all the mistakes." n[272] = "The third panel lists Jill's last name as 'Cummings', which was a mistake. It was in the running, but I decided against that name, and I'm sure elsewhere I have referred to Jill's real last name, Hannover." n[273] = "Simple rule of [nearly] any MMO; if the stuff you're fighting is remotely challenging, pulling two groups instead of one is nearly always a wipe (for the non-MMO-people that means 'your group/raid is wiped out')." n[286] = "I love that not only did Dan remember every one of his misbegotten castings, but he acknowledged that he knew the embalmers were harmless." n[292] = "The intention in the third frame was to show all the other guys giving Jill an inquisitive and slightly disturbed look before continuing the conversation as if her cannibalism suggestion had never happened. Not sure how clearly that comes across. I have found I'm pretty fond of the type of humor where somebody says something disturbing, and you watch everyone else's reactions - something which doesn't carry over too well in comics with no art." n[293] = "In the last frame that should really say 'assume their archetype will BE effective'. You can totally see where a sentence has been restructured a couple times during the creative process. Actually, in the last few comics Dan has proven that you can very successfully make fun of somebody no matter how right they are about things." n[299] = "To be clear, Dan doesn't have any problem with gay people. It's just an immature schoolyard namecalling thing, and the sad thing is that 'gay' is one of the most common insults among public school boys, even though many of them probably don't even know what it is. I myself am really bad about using the word 'gay' in the fairy-elven-paladin-unicorn-rainbow sense, which (to me) has nothing to do with actual homosexuality at all... but it's still insensitive, because many people don't see it that way." n[306] = "Okay, so it's 4/3 pi-r-cubed. I'm sure Joe was doing that part in his head as he talked out the more complicated bits... yeah...
I think I succeeded in getting across the communication carried by Jill and Joe's meaningful glance though." n[310] = "I'm pretty proud of the posing on this one... it really looks to me like Steele has Joe in a deathgrip with blood on his mind, although this is a ridiculously flattering pose for Steele, in which he looks more muscular and less portly. Just to be clear, Steele has a large frame, and large mass, but there is a lot of strength there too." n[311] = "Bonus points if you recognized the Danmobile's license plate as the same as the LTD from Men In Black. I mean, I'm sure EVERYBODY noticed that... right...?" n[316] = "It's almost as if I put some art into this adventure. You can actually see the border crossing, and I rolled down the window and everything..." n[317] = "... and note the extensive use of scenery. I really went all out for this road trip." n[322] = "Nuclear Dan seems even less rational the longer they travel together, but Dang has a new theory." n[327] = "" n[328] = "Apparently, I slipped in a metric conversion joke. Fortunately, I don't think anybody noticed due to the quit-witted heckler." n[329] = "In the name of 'suspension of disbelief', please forgive my horrific web-translation German." n[330] = "I don't know if the short-lived Flaming Quasars CoH comic was really that interesting, but it had a very colorful cast. Interestingly, though Dang doesn't seem to like Dr. Who, he demonstrates as we go on that he knows a HELL of a lot about it...
The lower half of the last frame links to the Battlestar Galactica Cylon Centurions page, giving credit for one of the pictures of people in costume, which was used as background in that frame." n[331] = "Dr. Who was awesome. I mean, it was horrible in many ways, but you'll probably never again see a show with such a low budged aim so high in terms of sci-fi and traveling all around the space-time continuum. Tom Baker was awesome too. My 'Dr. Who's On First' routine? Not as awesome..." n[332] = "No, this is not a real game that was ever made. I apologize to anyone whose emotions were toyed with by the joyful idea of DWO, followed by the horrible (and yet more probable) prospect of it being as disappointing as Star Wars Galaxies was for Star Wars fans." n[333] = "It's almost like I'm foreshadowing... something. Who knows what though..." n[334] = "As you can imagine, this took much longer than most comics. Drawing takes a lot more time than copy-and-paste, AND I had to find images to add to the booths. The Klingon bat'leth is surprisingly easy to draw in Flash though." n[335] = "Fortunately, Ghost-Hacks are merely a nightmarish version of the future of human-data interfaces. Those 'social hacks' will get you every time though. Put another way, the weakest link in any security system is the people." n[336] = "If you ever checked out the short-lived Flaming Quasars comic, you'd know the 'Captain Cowboy barely speaks english' revelation was a long time coming. Poor Atomig Gestalt (Vanessa) just could not get Nuclear Dan and the others to beleive it." n[337] = "Interestingly, it didn't bother Dan at all when he thought one of his online friends was gay. Are stupid misplaced stereotypes still prejudice if you don't have a negative view of the people being stereotyped? It's hard to tell sometimes. Hmm, that reminds me: I have laundry to do too... Better not tell my girlfriend. O_O" n[338] = "The arcade guys are, of course, tied to Dr. Stan (we already knew that Oni was). In this case, it's hard to tell if it's some nebulous Stan-plan, or the far more realistic scenario of advertising. That's the problem with characters who are designated 'geniuses', it's hard to sort out when they are being geniusey and when they are just hanging out. That's how they like it too... stupid geniuses." n[339] = "**Actually, even at the time of writing, Burning Crusade had been out for quite a while, making this perhaps a little confusing. The problem is the the E3 storyline came out so slow it was pretty much time for the NEXT E3 by the time we got here. I like how in the third frame, howard (aka Nerf Bat) does a good job of pretending not to know Dan and Vanessa." n[340] = "I'm always too ambitious with my long storylines, so naturally, this strip, intended to 'tie-up' the E3 storyline, still throws out multiple loose ends. The only way I'll ever get through all my storylines is if I stop thinking of new things that should happen 'in a while'." n[341] = "My Diet Coke drinking is almost legendary among my friends, and my girlfriend tolerates it because it's 'my only addiction' (and not as bad as most). So I find it a little humorous that I've switched over to the ass-ugly no-name diet cola, which is much cheaper, tastes as good (though different), and doesn't give me headaches the way most off-brand diet colas seem to." n[342] = "This comic, where the gang changes over to D&D 3.5 Edition, reminds me of mumble mumble mumble..." n[343] = "In this comic we learned (1) Jill keeps multiple laptops upstairs (2) Jill is reasonably ethical insofar as is possible when illegally downloading copyrighted content (3) I can't even keep my own names straight - Dan said 'Infernus' here (his old character) when it should have been Ro-gaine (his current character)." n[344] = "I liked the old 3.0 version of the Elemental Savant. I'd have to say, though, the 3.5 version is a poor choice for almost anyone other than Dan. Losing two caster levels is harsh (and not worth it until you get your capstone ability of becoming an elemental), but the inability to inflict damage of other element-types is crippling at higher levels, particularly with recurring villains or anyone who uses divinations on you." n[345] = "Percentile strength was really weird and bad. In 2nd Ed, your melee guy should really make sure he's a race with +1 Str, because turning your 18 into a 19 to avoid the random roll gave you as much as an extra +2 to hit and a ridiculous +5 additional damage. Similarly, if you wanted to be tough, find a race from some sourcebook that has +2 con, because 19 Con isn't much different from 18, but as soon as you hit 20 Con you freakin' regenerate. Minotaurs from Dragonlance were perfect, with +2 Str and +2 Con (and other benefits to boot)." n[346] = "Joe doesn't get mad... he plots your downfall." n[347] = "On the one hand, the 'Reserve Feats' from Complete Mage are a big help to memorizing casters everywhere. On the other hand, as you approach level 10 the damage ones (like Fiery Burst) make it less worthwhile to ever memorize your lower level damage spells again, and it may not be a good thing to remove any incentive to ever be a melee-Cleric (or Bow-Cleric)." n[348] = "I would just like to make clear, in the name of GMs everywhere, that we have examined this issue and to my knowledge, the experts back us up: you can't do what Jill is doing to qualify for a PrC. Of course, it's Jill's house..." n[349] = "The idea that Joe, an 'expert minmaxxer', would suggest dropping Conjuration is apparently pretty contentious. I know Conjuration is amazing, but I still hold that it is a case of Joe playing to his 'audience', in this case, compromizing between what is 'best' and what Nuclear Dan could actually be convinced to do..." n[350] = "Finally, the boring .rtf versions of the gang's 3.5 edition character sheets was ready! (download here)." n[351] = "For anyone who can't remember and was too lazy to google it, Richard Kimble would be the protagonist from The Fugitive. Whereas 'Shutting Up, Sir' is a C-3P0 quote, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, fear my outdated pop-culture references. Anyway, I thought this was actually relatively entertaining for a recap comic." n[352] = "I don't think it's any surprise that Dan was 'forgetting' to roll the spell failure chance that was built into the old curse. The old curse was actually a hybrid of the 3rd edition 'half your actions fail' curse with the good-old 2nd-ed feel of 'one of your stats is halved'. More recent editions are usually smart enough to give static values for penalties, rather than fractional multipliers. As soon as you start doubling or halving things, all kinds of balance issues tend to arise." n[353] = "I'm sure everyone who has played RPGs has had some occasion where vehicles/mounts would spontaneously appear and/or vanish based on plot-based concerns. You can't really take horses into most dungeons, and being D&D, if you tied them up outside for even a couple hours the odds are they'd be eaten by trolls, or a grey render, or snatched away by a Roc or something." n[354] = "In case it isn't yet apparent, I love the elemental-summoning reserve feat from Complete Mage. It doesn't have much combat value (certainly NO combat value from traditional attacking/tanking on the part of your feeble little elemental, even when you are high enough level that you get bigger ones), but it has a thousand-and-one other uses. For one thing, the ability to summon a small fire elemental totally eliminates the need to carry around flint and steel, saving you a whole gold piece right there!" n[355] = "The 'battle map' view presented here isn't 100% to scale, primarily due to the fact that I wasn't originally planning on using it to detail movements going forward. Which is why I just showed the 'line of ogres' without regard to their 10x10 space. The map as shown was conveniently not scaled in such a way that I could fudge it all as 'ten-foot-squares'. I'll try to do better in future if I continue using map-o-vision." n[356] = "The 'of Bashing' shield mod is an unusual +1-equivalent enhancement - and right in the DMG. It makes your shield count as a +1 weapon, but it also makes it count as 2 sizes larger for its Shield-Bash damage. A spiked heavy shield normally deals 1d6, so two sizes larger hits one of the key break-points in the die-code size-increase table. 1d6 > 1d8 > 2d6... and suddenly you have a 1-handed greatsword that also gives you bonuses to AC (assuming you have the Improved Shield Bash feat). The only drawback is that since the shield is not actually enchanted as a +1 weapon, rather, it 'counts' as one due to another magic property, you can't really add further weapon enhancements. But it's already a really cheap magic one-handed greatsword, so make it out of adamantite or cold-iron and just enhance it's AC bonus, and everything will work out fine in the end." n[357] = "This is a brief detour before returning to the regularly-scheduled storyline. Although I meant to do a strip like this soonish, the question of what triggered the trap ('I'll tell you after the labyrinth', Steele said) lingered for about a year before I totally forgot. Then more than a year before a reader brought it back to my attention, and I got off my ass and did it." n[358] = "Dan is right... if this was anybody else's house, the appropriate response would be to threaten banishment. Unfortunately, since they play at Jill's, they have no real recourse except to shut their eyes and think of England." n[359] = "'...now that somebody else has used the name, it's going to stick forever' It's so true... if you have a familiar or something, you need to subtly but quickly work to trick/convince somebody else to start using the name you want for it, because it only takes a couple seconds for your beloved NPC companion to be forever branded 'Tinkerbell', or 'Weasel', or 'Skitter' or something." n[360] = "Ya, not the most original 'punchline', I didn't search the archives but it's probably used at least a couple other times. Or you could call it an old standby? I've found that in a lot of groups, a lot of the time, small attempts to roleplay rapidly fizzle like this as one or more players have a more immediate gameplay goal of some kind." n[361] = "If your GM allows Flaws from Unearthed Arcana (and I'm not sure why they would), Slow + Overland Flight = good minmaxxing. I think I can make the sweeping generalization that Slow - Overland Flight = bad. For anything. Even 'ranged' characters need to move, both to keep away from enemies, and for a lot of semi-travel/semi-RP situations." n[362] = "I had a line I wanted Joe to give (flaunting his expansive and unnecessary knowledge), but it really didn't fit into the flow in the first cell. Fortunately, I found a way." n[363] = "It's really bad when the players start metagaming interrogations. At that point, you're best off making NPCs one-million-percent reticent to discourage it... but then, that doesn't work when they are mind-controlled, mind-read, or worse - targets of Speak With Dead." n[364] = "Sometimes, you find you have just the right spell for the job. Other times, I realize after the fact that it sounds like they are conversing within Mercutio's Silence spell, though arguably they could communicate in other ways, or send the gnoll and somebody else out of the bubble to ask the question." n[365] = "When I'm scanning new books, I'm REALLY bad for misreading / misinterpreting spells as doing what I wanted them to do. It's easy enough to go the other way though... to miss that critical little detail that makes a spell good, just because you didn't expect it. I wouldn't expect a '1 rnd/lvl' duration on a big area damage-dealing spell, but what'd'ya know." n[366] = "WotC is generally insensitive to the needs of people who want to teleport... everywhere. Not to remove the point of travel in a campaign by moving long distances at infinite speed (which the Teleport spell always did, while eating a precious high-level casting slot), but to move short distances in infinite style." n[367] = "As much as 'this is Sparta' deserved a proper graphical tribute, I couldn't think of an image of it that I wanted to make, nor could I fit it in to the comic very easily. So you can, er, use your imagination... or whatever." n[368] = "The Summon Elemental Reserve feat from Complete Mage. Just in case you needed another reason not to bother including a rogue in your 3.5 Ed. party." n[369] = "Wise men know not to let debates about physics get involved with magic in their fantasy games. It can only cause problems." n[370] = "I wanted to use music from Furious Angels for the background, or at least some other exciting movie track, but couldn't find any. So I just did my best to hide what tune it really is." n[371] = "Yet another comic that is pretty much just characters explaining game mechanics and minmaxxing (while Steele gets mad). Very original. I wanted to slip in something about 'Dragon Magazine? That's even more broken than the stuff you pull out of Beholder mags...', but it didn't help the flow, or fit the space." n[372] = "I hope you remember Dan's online friends, Atomic Gestalt and the Flaming Quasars guild. He was their leader in CoH and founded the guild, but in WoW he's the newb..." n[373] = "One minor drawback not immediately apparent when your friends convince you to start playing WoW... Hopefully they have lower level alts to run along with you." n[374] = "Oh Dr. Stan... it always seems like you have a plan, but we just don't understand." n[375] = "Of course, if shopkeepers carry the kinds of money required to buy magic gear from PCs (even at the not unusual 50% ripoff price), they all end up either being ganked and looted, or having to be high level warriors/wizards/etc themselves, who have achieved high levels of experience by defeating the endless hordes of shoplifters. Or bandits." n[376] = "Sometimes, one player's trash-item is another player's trophy." n[377] = "When I first posted this, Jill's equation was 'level+13'. Level +13 is crap - that's actually about standard AC for an arcane caster who isn't trying. AC 23+level is about what you need to be hard to hit (to most things). It costs a lot of gold to get to that point, especially without plate armor." n[378] = "Being partially colorblind is one of the (many) reasons I don't call myself an artist. Approximately once a year since I started the comic, somebody points out whichever color-failure is the most offensive, and I make them help me fix it. Like the green hair at the start... and then the green skin... and now most recently the green 'blue'. Which on reflection I could have known was greenish due to its color code being 0/255/255, but I never thought that was a problem because the purpose wasn't so much to be sky blue as to be a soft backgroundy color that would contrast with the white text-bubbles without blending in with any of the foreground colors." n[379] = "What? You mean the preceding thin and predictable 'No Pizza!' strip may actually have been leading up to something? Ridiculiculous!" n[380] = "Dang's quote is from Les Miserables (Victor Hugo), which didn't even stump Jill, who responded with a reference to the book's protagonist. As if anybody cared." n[381] = "Davros? His name is Davros? In retrospect, I was hinting at it in AGC #333 and AGC #340, but without the miracle of hindsight, I doubt anyone would have had enough information to guess why I was 'wasting' frames on Dang's staredown with the mannequin." n[382] = "If I were smarter, I wouldn't have named one character 'Dan' and another 'Dang'. Even though they sound different out loud. What is REALLY weird is that after making this, my girlfriend ended up picking a greek place at a food court, we had falafels, and she fell in love with them. I'm now a close second." n[383] = "Dan has obviously gone through a lot of phases in his life. Unfortunately, it's hard to convey the correct tone of Davros' line in the 3rd frame. It's not intended to be a double-take so much as a flatly-delivered sarcastic line, self-interrupted for effect. Or you could just ignore me and read it however makes sense to you." n[384] = "Being de-facto immune to a large category of spells is good. Doing it for less than 15000 gold is hard not to do. Now Aquatic Action... that's more of a Joe Chaos fetish." n[385] = "Now THAT's meta-gaming." n[386] = "It's like OMG, there iz new wow model viewer. Now me can go back 2 make wow comic. Less thinking and looks better. Seriously, I was very put off when after the previous wow-comic a new expansion came out and broke the utility. I mean, I wanted to go back to D&D for a while, but nothing is more annoying than having the choice taken away." n[387] = "I was frankly shocked to find that the name 'Retpile' was not in use (at the time of writing this, according to the World Of Warcraft Armory search). I may have underestimated the bottom-rung of the player-base. Or not." n[388] = "Friends don't let friends twink. It sounds a lot more fun in theory than in practice." n[389] = "To be clear, when Davros pronounces the dagger to be a 'poor quality' item, he's not dissin' +1 flaming weapons. Even in a land of complicated multisource twink-inspired optimzations, flaming is a perfectly respectible and straightforwardly effective enhancement. Putting it on a d4 base damage weapon (without multiple interwoven dagger-based PrCs) it just trashy." n[390] = "You have to love when not only do your players go out of their way to prevent your carefully planned recurring villain from... er, recurring... but they have the gall to complain that it's making divination harder." n[391] = "When the party splits up, it poses significant problems for any GM." n[392] = "Sadly, this really is how many players think. From 'dead IS intimidated' to divining information based on the GM's purchases." n[393] = "'You ride another day' would almost be a good catchphrase, but I don't think it has enough staying power. Everyone would forget where it came from, and then it just wouldn't work." n[394] = "It's nice to see Dan and Jill on the same page for once." n[395] = "Explosive Spell is really not that good a feat, especially considering the Ro-gayne hasn't spent any feats increasing his spell save DCs... but given creative license, one can come up with a situation that makes it seem cool :)" n[396] = "Of course, while proving mostly oblivious to many facets of the rules, Nuclear Dan still knows exactly how fire works." n[397] = "And so we have discovered yet another situation that causes Nazi Jill to become increasingly scary." n[398] = "Of course, by saying 'I fail to see the irony', Dan is effectively acknowledging that he does." n[399] = "Dan still won't tell what's on the note? Saw it coming. The last frame, though? Out of the blue." n[400] = "I wasn't so much lazy in not having updated their gear as I forgot to even think about it. On the other hand, they both had prettymuch all blue around level 20, and with some enchants, so by the low-to-mid thirties they could plausibly have not replaced much." n[401] = "This is so old, it's not even a joke. It's not even funny. Reactions to it? Almost funny. But not quite. I tried my best." n[402] = "I don't plan on doing many 'Dan at the office' comics, because I don't see that being where the humor is, nor does it advance my plotlines at all. But I have all the stuff there now so that, if I think of a really good one, I can crank it out pretty quick. In the future, it may be a good tool for those weeks when I don't have much time, but again... only if I think it's funny enough." n[403] = "Seriously... when you are making a comic (or prettymuch any creative work), never promise something will be 'EPIC'. Raising expectations is a big headache." n[404] = "When planning an adventure, it's very easy to create massive swathes of flavortext. Sometimes, I have in my head an absolutely RIDICULOUS amount of detail, most of which the players will likely never learn. The key is to take a second look, distill it down to just the bare essentials (what the players actually need to know), and try to fit in the other details gradually as the heroes move through the area, and/or in response to the players' actions and inquiries." n[405] = "For the record, I really doubt Dan figured any of this out when he first read the note. He was just witholding information because he found it funny (and it bugged Jill). But he had a lot of time to think about it, and by the time his character rejoined the others, he probably had this all worked out, giving him that extra motivation to keep running with the 'secret note' thing." n[406] = "Where I come from, a Will save is an Act Of War. On another note, Moment of Perfect Mind actually substitutes Concentration, not Fortitude. It doesn't make that much difference since, despite my slip here, Lothar was built with that in mind." n[407] = "If you're playing D&D 3.5, and you are tired of spellcasters always getting the spotlight, Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords is the book for you. It has everything from awe-inspiring attack moves, to stances with great passive bonuses, to devious movement and defensive powers, to a few inconceivable and ill-defined blocks of cheese, like Ironheart Surge and White Raven Tactics." n[408] = "Lothar hasn't been holding out so much as every time they battled a powerful caster, it was being one-shotted by Ro-gayne's Empowered Explosive Greater Fireburst (of flaming carnage). Also, as has been pointed out to me, Manyjaws would fully affect the target (no miss chance). It and Improved Blink each have so many rules that by the time I got to the end I forgot thing I'd figured out at the beginning, like how as an 'Effect' spell, Manyjaws ignores it the same way it ignores Spell Turning." n[409] = "Dictum/Holy Word/Blasphemy are all pretty assinine spells, particularly with increased caster level. On the other hand, Silence can be pretty gross, and it's only a Level 2 spell." n[410] = "Remember, the main discussion of Ironheart Surge (IHS) was the last panel of of #407, and the first frame of #408." n[411] = "Once, a GM had a ghost try to give us a quest or something. Except upon seeing him, we all suffered multiple dice worth of stat damage, and let's just say that severely undermined the ghost's diplomatic agenda. As for Heat Drain, I find it funny that an 8th level spell gave a whole six temp hp as a side-effect, but it's actually 2 per target (that failed it's save), so they had to balance it against situations with a crowd of enemies. I actually hate using 'save negates' spells as either a player or GM, but they work well for stomping lower-level enemies." n[412] = "When something was pointed out to me by a reader, I snuck into this comic weeks later and made a little tweak that makes certain players look smarter later on. I don't know what that says about me or my comic, but that's what I did." n[413] = "Blowing up the guards seems like a case where it is a 'good' move, in many ways, and yet probably not the 'right' move, because if the Messiah had gotten off that Heal, they would have been in big trouble. With him dead, even if the guards managed to intermingle with the party (so Ro-gayne couldn't catch more than a couple without frying his allies), it's likely they could prevail, especially since Lothar is fairly unscathed and the casters had loads of healing left." n[414] = "Jill always thinks ahead. Steele long ago gave up trying to 'enforce alignment' except in the most grievous cases, and as flagrant as this is... they had sufficient provocation to fight the NPC. Once fighting, they had little choice but to kill him, and, well, once he's dead, he's dead." n[415] = "By process of elimination, the newest player ends up being in charge of the whole game. It could take some time for him to get into the groove..." n[416] = "It was right after comic #399 that I got a message from one very astute reader who not only projected who I was planning to make the next GM, but also evoked the image of this comic's parody movie scene. The image was sufficiently compelling (to me, anyhow) that I couldn't resist :)" n[417] = "Rules-abusing debauchery is my new favorite description of, well, prettymuch everything that happens here." n[418] = "Whispers of the Vampires Blade: Eberron Adventure is a real module. I don't know if it works out every time (it seems kindof tricky to organize, but I've only seen if from the player's point of view), but when we played it, it was cool. I was considering using an existing module for the new campaign to save work, but I decided that was a stupid plan for a multitude of reasons, some of which could potentially have been lawsuits..." n[419] = "Shortly after posting this I received an email entitled 'FEAR'. The entire body text of the email was 'First panel. Bonus fear.' I'm so dense that it took me describing the email to my gf before I figured out that I had mistyped 'bonus feat' in the first panel >_<" n[420] = "Actually, a Warforged with the Jaws of Death and Multiattack can get pretty gross." n[421] = "To clarify, for the mortals out there: in the World of Darkness Vampire Setting (by WhiteWolf), Justicar was pretty close to the highest rank of Camarilla vampire, and Obfuscate is one of the Vampire Disciplines (one of the types of powers they can have)." n[422] = "Odo is one of the few things that could beat Data. Though it really depends on the situation... the more time and/or resources they have, the more likely Data would pull it off. I was supposed to describe the other security staff more, but it will have to wait because there wasn't nearly enough room." n[423] = "Dammit, Tetsujin IS good at search. I think he should start searching for his initiative dice though." n[424] = "For the record, they're more like triple-immune to the spell, because Warforged are specifically immune to Nausea as well. Their metagaming is not providing them with accurate information, but at the moment, they are still operating on the presumption that the adventure is intended for level 5 characters. As more inconsistencies arise, they may soon have to yield to the advice of Spock (and Sherlock Holmes)... when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, is true." n[425] = "All-warforged parties can really change the dynamic for a campaign, and can wreak havoc on premade adventures. The fact that they don't sleep alone can disrupt timelines and bring an early end to multi-day chase scenes - and that's before you get into their dozens of immunities." n[426] = "That would be an 'oops'. No matter how smart you think you are, it's easy to get carried away. I still suck at chess because as I ponder and rule out different moves, I go through so many options that I see one of the first ones again, forget why I excluded it and made a big error." n[427] = "Yes, I forgot that part of the reason Jill's character went prone was for an additional +4 to AC, which would stack with the cover." n[428] = "Warning: cannot burn down more than one orphanage-per-turn. Benign Transposition is a fun spell though." n[429] = "Some people enjoy planning to ensure that their party always has every skill, but a lot more roleplaying happens (and possibly more fun) trying to compensate for the skill(s) your party lacks. Like everything other than the die rolls, it depends a lot on the GM and on the players." n[430] = "I think Dan's reaction in the last frame is like most sane people's reaction if given the choice to become a (classic) vampire. 'So I'd be immortal, with eternal youth AND other superpowers?' 'But you'd be a monster!' 'Right. An immortal youthful supermonster...'" n[431] = "Honestly, I stole this twist from a (mostly-laughable) episode of the Sarah Connor Chronicles." n[432] = "If you look back at certain comics in this arc, knowing what Davros now knows, Joe has been quite clear in his innuendo ever since he heard the name of the adventure module - but in a way that really wasn't obvious to the others." n[433] = "Let this be a lesson: sometimes things that interact do not constitute a 'combo'." n[434] = "You may have guessed, this totally happened to me. Unfortunately I don't have a WoW sub anymore, so I couldn't track down the exact tree that trapped me." n[435] = "What are the odds? Well, something like this:
Entertainment > Realism = Suspension of Disbelief.
Interesting that when he thinks he's typing to a stranger, all Dan's capitals and punctuation disappear." n[436] = "I'm not told that WoW GMs aren't limited by server (or at least, not to a single one), making this more likely to happen, but making the first frame of this comic more or less a waste." n[437] = "Every group needs a little roleplaying, regardless of their usual playstyle. Then again, some players should be pushed into as little roleplaying as possible..." n[438] = "This comic wasn't overly funny, so I originally skipped over it to 439, and then 'backfilled' this later when I got a chance. But if you're just reading through the archives for the first time, you'd never even notice." n[439] = "If only all disruptive players could be so easily ignored (or their sillyness so easily integrated into the game by the other players)." n[440] = "I like the little RP elements, like how the gang's characters introduce themselves the same to each barkeep (with mechanical precision)." n[441] = "I'm a little concerned that I'm throwing out too many names for people (at least, those not familiar with the published Eberron setting), which could be further compounded by Dan's confusing Star-Trek parallels. Thus, I tend to fall back to 'Dan doesn't get it' humor, and childish name-calling in the last frame. I can't be super-clever all the time." n[442] = "When all else fails: defy expectations! Dan gave his character 13 Int for a reason; Improved Trip is an incredibly strong feat (one of the best in the PHB), and one I take advantage of far too seldom for my own characters." n[443] = "This was a clear case of rewriting during the 'typesetting' part of making the comic. Normally that means trimming and rewording dialogue to fit better (for instance, the aggressors were 'drawing shortswords and daggers' in the first draft). However, for this one there were many additions - most of the bottom bubbles in each frame of this comic were 'ad-libbed' as I went along. Because if I didn't fill in all that 'empty space', it just wouldn't be the giant wall of text you've all come to expect from AGC." n[444] = "Joe keeps aluding to his foreknowledge of the adventure, and Davros keeps aluding to it too, but although as readers we can see that, I don't think it's unreasonable that Jill is missing it. Dan can miss anything, of course." n[445] = "When you get to the last frame, and you don't have any single-frame ideas with which to tie it up... go someplace COMPLETELY different for a bit." n[446] = "I'm dancing a line here: what tiny percentage of people might not get that I'm talking about Fight Club in the third frame, weighed against what small percentage of people might find it funnier this way (without making the reference explicit)." n[447] = "The Night Hag stuff is from the main Eberron setting book. They don't go into a lot of detail there, which is perfect for giving campaign-writers discretion (though there are doubtless many more details in some other book elsewhere)." n[448] = "'Tourette's LIKE A FOX' is my favorite line in a long while. The comic timing in the last frame is hard to achieve in text form, and I'm not sure it totally comes across. '-or my name isn't Tetsujin... ...I AM TETSUJIN!'" n[449] = "As a 'Red' Dragon Shaman, Dan's character really is good at search (+5 mod). He never gets to really use it though..." n[450] = "My, Joe, you seem surprised. Is there some reason there would not be a warforged in the group of thieves? Why, whatever could your concern be? Unless you read the entire adventure module and this warforged wasn't there." n[451] = "Non-lethal damage is an odd game design concern. PCs need a way to defeat without killing sometimes, but it's hard to make a rule that makes sense logically for both plain blunt weapons, as well as swords (which would logically do less damage if using the flat of the blade), and spiked weapons (how the heck do you spike them non-lethally). 4th Ed has a solution a thousand-times more elegant (and I would suggest adopting it in 3.5 campaigns); when a PC 'drops' an enemy to zero or negative HP, they just choose whether they killed it or knocked it out. That's it." n[452] = "Apparently, Gravol isn't as ubiquitous everywhere as I thought. If you're confused, it's an over-the-counter anti-nauseant, with the active ingredient Dimenhydrinate." n[453] = "I'm with Dan. The only way to punish someone for 'failing to spare [you] the indignity of hant-to-hant combat' is to physically beat them. 'Tank this!'" n[454] = "The Juggernaut has actually been nerfed from the version that I built a while back as a 'backup character' for a D&D campaign. The real version would have had three levels in the Dungeon Crasher fighter mod, which would add an additional 4d6+STR damage anytime he successfully bull-rushed an enemy into a wall (or other blocking terrain). Davros couldn't be that harsh though, because the level 5 characters would be one-shotted with alarming frequency." n[455] = "If you didn't know/remember, the Dragon Shaman's fast-heal aura only affects allies who are below 50% of their max health. Still a great way to heal your party up to 50% for free between fights though." n[456] = "Web is really rough. A very strong target that MAKES its save generally loses an entire round (unless its target stays in melee range). Anything that fails the save or is not absurdly strong or a highly skilled Escape Artist is in for a world of immobilization and lost actions." n[457] = "Joe had already been acting kindof suspicious, so this was one slip of the tongue too many. Dragon shamans may not be an overwhelming solo class, but with Red Dragon adaptation plus one level in a trapfinding class, it wouldn't be hard to be a one-man support machine who both fulfils most of the rogue's funtion while allowing the party's Real Healer to save more of their castings for in-combat healing. Plus, you have shitty fire breath, so no more flint and tinder!" n[458] = "I still like #286 where Dan listed off all his cheatin' fireballs." n[459] = "I've compromised a little on the 'realism' of my Gmail chat bubbles (showing 'me' for the person you are watching, rather than their chat name) because it's just so much easier to follow this way." n[460] = "I spent a LOT of revisions trying to figure out how to effectively (and briefly) tell the story of the Old Evil Campaign. This seemed like a good start though, and I'm very happy with how the character sketches turned out." n[461] = "If you're wondering, I drew out that lightning bolt pit diagram on my computer. While it likely depends exactly how tall (and wide) you make your paladin, and exactly where you position him along the bottom of the square, I found on my diagram that 15-degrees missed the top of his head, and 16-degrees cleared it on the rebound, so for me, it really did take a 15.5-degree angle to triple-bolt him." n[462] = "I'm pretty happy with how the fictional Excerpts turned out, though I had intended it to be a two-parter, not a three-parter. The off-table actions and the palace battle just dragged on too long - but I mean 'dragged on' in the nicest possible way." n[463] = "The day after posting this, I discovered this disconcertingly well-coordinated ad gracing the top of my page... Notice any resemblance?

[Note, the author does not endorse this link, but damn did it blend in]" n[464] = "It takes a lot of nerve to want to run an evil campaign with the same guys after hearing all that. Then again, it's not hard to blame all the bad feelings on Stan. Many readers were surprised the logical Dr. Stan would be so randomly petty." n[465] = "Some people were (not unreasonably) expecting 'that gamer girl' to be the new player. Unfortunately, Vanessa still lives down in the States. Also unfortunately, my plot and/or character development ideas (for out-of-game stuff) tend to be on an EXTREMELY slow burn...

BTW his actual last name is Bateman (sounds like BAIT-man), not Batman(TM), despite his tendency to dress in homage to the latter.

" n[466] = "This was the comic I put out as I released the new Evil Character sheets (Part 1) covering Count Massari and Domovoi." n[467] = "...And this one came with Evil Character sheets (Part 2) covering Tetsuo and Rugaru. It also has an easy to find easter egg, which I think is quite nifty." n[468] = "Lex specialis derogat legi generali, 'the specific law takes precedence over the more general law', is actually a core principle of nearly all game rules. For example, you can not take more than one attack of opportunity before your turn... but Combat Reflexes says you can take an additional AoO per point of Dex bonus, so the feat wins out over the general rule. In CCGs it's often called 'the Golden Rule', that what is printed on a card takes precedence over what it says in the rulebook." n[469] = "This is the first comic where I added Secret Notes (those little sticky-notes mixed in with the dialogue), allowing you to mouse-over to see what memos the players and GM pass back and forth. Of course, technically this allows me to cram even more text into each panel than ever before. I know... I'm a sick man." n[470] = "The 'mixer' is a weird idea. In a normal campaign, I'd just have the players go around the table and have them describe themselves, and maybe a bit of their backstory. This is an innovative solution for a campaign where the players are not expected to trust one another, though I doubt it would work out so well in practice. Fundamentally, as with ANY RPG group where the characters don't start off 'knowing each other', you are depending on the players to (A) not be jerks, and (B) willingly suspend disbelief enough to join forces, even if some of them really shouldn't get along." n[471] = "Dan does love his spell modifiers and prefixes. If your modified spell name gets long enough, just saying it feels almost like a real verbal component. Continuing my trend of innovation, I added mouse-over thought-bubbles. I don't know if these will totally replace normal in-panel thought-bubbles, but they do allow me to include relevant thoughts without increasing the level of word-clutter." n[472] = "One level of any ToB class adds so much power to a mid-to-high level melee character, it's pretty much a must-have splash. Frankly, it's tempting to take a one-level-splash even for some pure casters at the high levels, since if your 17th level is Swordsage/Crusader/Warblade, all your initial maneuvers (except the stance) can be up to 5th level maneuvers. 'Lose' one caster level for Swordsage and get Child of Shadow stance, Cloak of Deception, Shadow Stride, MindOverBody and Action Before Thought? If you don't have many swift/immediate actions, it's hard to say no." n[473] = "Fear (at least, fear-stacking) is a mechanically powerful ability in 3.5 Ed. However there is this irony that a character who spends a bunch of character options/choices on Fear is more frightening than one who spend all those resources on ACTUALLY being more dangerous. Then again, maybe the fear effects are due to the fact that other characters recognize that their opponent has made the meta-choice to stack fears, and because fear-stacking is mechanically powerful, they are afraid of THAT. There's some inside-out metagaming to wrap your mind around." n[474] = "Originally, I had planned for the half-orc to have another turn. Crunching the scenario, though, it turns out he didn't have a chance. I think I may be able to use the lost punchline later on, though..." n[475] = "There's some question of how Joe jumped to the conclusion that Jill's warshaper was a Changeling. I wish it were something brilliant, but it's mostly just my personal prejudice that Changeling is THE race for quick zero-ECL warshaper, even though Shifter would be statistically better for combat. I don't like Shifters." n[476] = "THIS one took a while... so much 'art' (by my standards), so many mouseover sections. And after all that storytelling, a 'punchline' stolen from one of my old old blog entries. MISSING DETAIL: Dan's character (Tetsuo) was supposed to become 'dizzy' around the second frame somewhere as he was hit by his postponed psychic enervation (from that energy stun in the first panel of #475). Unfortunately, that never quite made it into the script, and has since been passed over. They didn't do any more fighting that day anyhow..." n[477] = "Bateman only seems grabby in the looting because his gear strategy was to spend starting wealth on things that were expensive and hard to find (Ring of Blinking, Rogue's Vest) and not spend too much on basic armor, weapons and stat items which should be easier to replace. I love 'I'm not picky' - in context, I find that freakin' hilarious." n[478] = "I was talking with friends the other night, and I'm not alone having the mechanical pencil problem, though people really do tend to be divided; anybody who doesn't have 'the curse' usually prefers mechanical pencils hands-down." n[479] = "Normally, enacting villain cliches is a really bad idea (you may have noticed that stereotypical villains are not often successful villains). But when trying to feign weakness... it's actually kindof clever." n[480] = "I asked my GF if the wagons in the sketch-map looked enough like wagons. She said 'Sure, they look like penis/wagons.' I edited them a little, but they still look a bit like penis/wagons." n[481] = "I thought we were an autonomous collective...
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would--
ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one live there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week." n[482] = "With so little space left for art (after all the text), it's very hard to portray the simple and comically effective motions in the second frame. Put simply, Dan does the Obi Wan wave as he chants 'Yes they do'. When accused of using the Jedi Mind trick, he repeats the wave and in the identical tone of voice responds 'No, I'm not'. A good comic wouldn't have to explain that in the author's notes, but that's what you get here." n[483] = "" n[484] = ""