The Order of the Stick

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
The Order of the Stick
From Left to Right: Belkar, Vaarsuvius, Elan, Haley, Durkon and Roy.
Author(s) Rich Burlew
Website http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootslatest.html
Update schedule Updates three times a week
Launch date 2003 [1]
Genre Fantasy, Comedy

The Order of the Stick, nicknamed OotS, is a comedic fantasy webcomic based on the genre of pen and paper roleplaying games. While it is principally published on the web, three book collections have been published, including a print-only story (On the Origin of PCs). It also appears monthly in Dragon Magazine, published by Paizo Publishing. The number of pre-order sales for the first OotS collection, Dungeon Crawlin' Fools, encouraged Rich Burlew to quit his day job and write OotS full-time.

The comic is drawn and authored in a deliberate stick figure style by Rich Burlew, a graphic designer and game designer living in Philadelphia. While the stick figure art is usually created on a computer, accounts of historical events have been portrayed in hand-drawn crayon to distinguish them from events in the strip's present. The series has also received one art upgrade (humorously portrayed in the comic).

A significant portion of the humor of the strip is based on the characters being aware of the game rules which govern their lives—they discuss their hit points, their class levels, the chances of random encounters, and stop in the middle of combat to check their "to hit" modifiers. However, the players actually role-playing the characters are never seen or referred to. The characters also appear to be aware that they are characters in a comic strip. The humor of OotS is best appreciated by those who are familiar with the metahumor prevalent in webcomics and the conventions and clichés of pen & paper roleplaying games.

Contents

[edit] Characters

Main article: Characters of the Order of the Stick

The comic's central protagonists include:

  • Roy Greenhilt (human fighter, lawful good): Competent and shrewd, Roy is the Order's long-suffering leader and instigator of most of their adventures.
  • Belkar Bitterleaf (halfling ranger/barbarian, chaotic evil): As a humorous psychopath, Belkar acts as the group's id.
  • Durkon Thundershield (dwarven cleric): Playing close to type, Durkon is wise and stolid, but often taken aback by his companions' exploits.
  • Elan (human bard): Elan is happy-go-lucky, and not very wise. He means well, but survives mainly on charm and fool's luck.
  • Haley Starshine (human rogue): While deceptive and materialistic, Haley possesses a heart of gold and a hidden love for Elan. Since suffering a traumatic experience she has only been able to speak in cryptograms.
  • Vaarsuvius (elven wizard): Brilliant and powerful, though somewhat lacking in people skills. Vaarsuvius' gender is deliberately ambiguous.

[edit] Publications

[edit] The game

In partnership with APE Games, Giant in the Playground released the first OotS game, The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan. The game, which was released in September 2006, utilizes both cards and a board and has strong influences from games such as Talisman and Dungeon!.

The Dungeon of Dorukan is designed for 2-6 people, aged twelve and older. Each player controls one member of the OotS team to explore the dungeon and hunt down Xykon. The player is able to train their chosen member with a variety of shtick cards. Each character provides a different gaming experience, but the players always have the ability to either aid or harm their team mates.

Features:

  • Ability to train the characters with shtick cards from a personalized deck.
  • Build the board as you go play style.
  • Battles with monsters.
  • Discover and trade treasures.
  • Over 500 full-colour cards, illustrated by Rich Burlew.
  • Captures the spirit of OotS.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
 v • d • e 
The Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew
Characters: Roy Greenhilt | Durkon Thundershield | Haley Starshine | Elan | Vaarsuvius | Belkar Bitterleaf | Xykon
Character lists: General list | Linear Guild
Locations: General list
Miscellaneous: Haley's pseudo-language
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/h/e/The_Order_of_the_Stick_53d4.html"
In other languages