Horrible Implications

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BenLWolf
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Horrible Implications

Post by BenLWolf »

Sorry if this has been done before, but after thinking for a bit there's a lot of really bad implications from the old D&D strip.
One: Once the game ends, does the world end? If so the entire world probably has a decade to last.
Two: At the end of the game, Tarot is either going to disappear, be hollowed out, or completely lose all her connection to the divine. Think about getting to talk to god every day until he says "Bye!" and everything metaphysical you know about disappears.
Three: King's life is over. If the house pets dogs live as long as ordinary dogs, he's probably 4 or 5 and has about 7 years or less to live. If he gets turned back into a human for "winning" all his experiences as a dog are rendered meaningless. If he stays a dog, he's lost 90% of his life. He can't win no matter how it turns out.
Four: If the dogs have human-like lifespans then he's still now in a position where a bad run of ferret luck, God Player disinterest, or misfortune means he's utterly stripped of all his rights and shoved into a humane society. Please let it be a no-kill shelter or he gets an even WORSE run.
Five: As one of only 2 PCs, King has Ground Hog Day powers. No matter what he does, he can't really be punished for it as long as the players keep at the game. To remove the PC of half the players would render the game moot and destroy the world. I doubt anyone wants to go through the trouble of starting it all up again so if King decides to abuse the system, no one can stop him. He can either have a short horrible life or a life of complete, rampant insanity with no limitations.
In the long run, a lot of characters are going to lose quite a bit and possibly everyone will lose everything. I don't mind plot swings, but this one REALLY needed to be better thought out. You can drive a zeppelin through the new plot-holes if you really try.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by RandomGeekNamedBrent »

one: no, because Kitsune stated explicitly that the universe wasn't created for the game. It existed before the game and it will exist after the game.
two: Tarot probably already had her psychic powers before she was the avatar. Sure, they'll be weaker without dragon, but I doubt she'll lose all of her powers.
three: this one's actually pretty accurate. If he turns human again, he'll go to jail for "escaping" before his court date, and if he stays a dog, he'll die young. however, I like to think his short life as King will be happier than his long life as Joel would have been.
also, Rick has said the Housepets live about twice as long as pets in our universe, so he'd probably have about 18-20 years left.
four: I assume all shelters in this universe are no-kill, but also that Rick wouldn't make this an issue.
five: King is not Pete's avatar. Pete doesn't have an avatar yet, so there's already only one PC. and king can't do anything other than live his life.
six: there was no six
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Dissension
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by Dissension »

BenLWolf wrote:Sorry if this has been done before, but after thinking for a bit there's a lot of really bad implications from the old D&D strip.
One: Once the game ends, does the world end? If so the entire world probably has a decade to last.
This is not implied by the comic. The current game is being played in the Housepets! universe, but it's just hosted there; the end of the game will not result in the destruction of the universe.
Two: At the end of the game, Tarot is either going to disappear, be hollowed out, or completely lose all her connection to the divine. Think about getting to talk to god every day until he says "Bye!" and everything metaphysical you know about disappears.
This is not implied by the comic. Spirit Dragon likely ran through dozens (if not hundreds) of avatars prior to Tarot. The game no longer being played in the Housepets! universe does not mean the metaphysical world stops existing or that the characters who can tap into such would necessarily lose the ability to do so.
Three: King's life is over. If the house pets dogs live as long as ordinary dogs, he's probably 4 or 5 and has about 7 years or less to live. If he gets turned back into a human for "winning" all his experiences as a dog are rendered meaningless. If he stays a dog, he's lost 90% of his life. He can't win no matter how it turns out.
Pets in the Housepets! universe live about twice as long as in the real world. Should King die as King, he would have an easier time getting into Heaven than if he died as a human, but the choice is, ultimately, his.
Four: If the dogs have human-like lifespans then he's still now in a position where a bad run of ferret luck, God Player disinterest, or misfortune means he's utterly stripped of all his rights and shoved into a humane society. Please let it be a no-kill shelter or he gets an even WORSE run.
You assume a lot here. Animal shelters in the Housepets! universe are not necessarily the same as those in ours.
Five: As one of only 2 PCs, King has Ground Hog Day powers. No matter what he does, he can't really be punished for it as long as the players keep at the game. To remove the PC of half the players would render the game moot and destroy the world. I doubt anyone wants to go through the trouble of starting it all up again so if King decides to abuse the system, no one can stop him. He can either have a short horrible life or a life of complete, rampant insanity with no limitations.
This is a pretty dark assertion, especially given that Great Kitsune is a benevolent game master. King is not a "player character," he is an unaligned third party entity.
In the long run, a lot of characters are going to lose quite a bit and possibly everyone will lose everything. I don't mind plot swings, but this one REALLY needed to be better thought out. You can drive a zeppelin through the new plot-holes if you really try.
Your entire line of accusation is baseless and this can be attributed to one fact - Housepets! is a silly Web comic that is family-friendly and comedic in nature. Even in the very serious story arcs, there is an element of humor. The comic will not take a turn for the dark and the "plot holes" you allege do not stand up to investigation.
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BenLWolf
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by BenLWolf »

Hey, hey, easy there slugger. It's just something that was bothering me in the back of my head. And the entire little arch basically catapulted itself from silly to metaphysics in one move and broke the mood. It was pretty jarring.
I admit a lot of what I said probably isn't true, I'm not the artist, but that's no reason to assume I'm performing "baseless attacks". I'm just putting things out to discuss them. I was a little snippy at the end, sure, but the thing sat sour with me. That's my fault. You don't have to be combative.
Now look at it from the perspective of the game. Tarot and King are PCs. They're the lil guys on the character sheet. They have minds of their own, but then a fully developed character for an in depth real world RPG can be said to have the same thing. Tarot, being the sweet little pommy she is, probably took it up willingly. What annoys me is that King got shoved into a game against his will and the deck is stacked insanely out of his favor.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by RandomGeekNamedBrent »

Diss never said "attacks". he said "accusations" which are not the same at all.

also, I think we already established that Tarot is the only PC. Pete wanted King, but he couldn't get him, so he's not a PC. but he was still shoved into this against his will, which is why Pete's a jerk.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by BenLWolf »

Still, some new points make this entire thing worse. If the world that we're watching existed before the game started, three divine powers that no one fully knows or understands have hijacked a town. We know only one of them has the best of intentions. The DM essentially forced to be neutral since he's moderating a good and evil player at the same time and they're still around. This does not exactly make me feel comfortable, especially since Pete is the more clever, rule lawyer type who knows how to abuse the system at least until he gets caught.
For a more standard religious perspective you have Jesus and Loki playing a game under Buddha. I'm not exactly excited for the prospects of the light side. Also, if they're in control of everything, they bumped off an old man to give ferrets a massive load of cash to start their game. Sure, he was probably about to go anyway, but we don't know if they hastened it or set up the will.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by RandomGeekNamedBrent »

they aren't in control of everything and Milton went naturally, I'm pretty sure
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by Dissension »

BenLWolf wrote:Also, if they're in control of everything, they bumped off an old man to give ferrets a massive load of cash to start their game. Sure, he was probably about to go anyway, but we don't know if they hastened it or set up the will.
The comic does not indicate the cosmic nerds are in control of everything, nor is it possible to draw the conclusion that they were in any way responsible for Mr. Milton's death or the arrangement of his will.
BenLWolf wrote:Hey, hey, easy there slugger. ... You don't have to be combative.
Please refrain from this. It can very easily be misconstrued as attempting to provoke an emotional response, which is classified as "trolling" by the forum rules. These Web forums are among the friendliest on the Internet. If you feel like something is said in hostility, it is probably best to send a private message to the user asking for clarification instead of accusing them publicly of attacking you.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by BenLWolf »

The comic itself shows that they are in control of more than we could ever hope to be. Before they showed up the world was bound to physics essentially the same as our own. All of a sudden magic exists now and you can utterly recreate life on a whim.
This brings me into a problem of writing. Suspension of disbelief is shattered when you do something like this. It's akin to having Sarah Conner, in the last 10 minutes of terminator 2, point at the T-1000 and scream Vitriolic Sphere which causes a ball of acid to fly out of her hand and dissolve the machine. Your mind is now forced to shift gears without a clutch.
Also, while they may NOT have killed Mr. Milton, the possibility is there. There's enough darkness in the comic to allow for it. Most of it came in with the character of King, showing that PETA is there, animals can die horribly without human help, people suffer just as much in the house pets world as our own, and if anything it cements our standards of reality harder into place until all of a sudden they're all shattered out of the blue. While it's perfectly acceptable for someone to do this with their own creation, to do so arbitrarily is jarring at best.

As for the second point, we're not robots. Everything we say, do, and think is tinted with emotion. I've been around the internet a lot so I expect the most prominent emotion to be hostility. Right now I feel your threatening me with the "ban hammer" for being a "troll" because I'm posting in a way you don't like.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by Dissension »

Please do not put words into others' mouths. You have not been threatened with a ban. I apologize if you are reading hostility into my posts, but assure you once again that it is not there. My function is to enforce the [forum rules] and ensure a positive posting experience for all users. Part of that is making sure we do not use condescending or potentially inflammatory language toward one another.

Per the forum rules, if you wish to discuss this further, you are welcome to contact me via [private message]. All further discussion in this thread should be relevant to the original topic.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by RandomGeekNamedBrent »

BenLWolf wrote:The comic itself shows that they are in control of more than we could ever hope to be. Before they showed up the world was bound to physics essentially the same as our own. All of a sudden magic exists now and you can utterly recreate life on a whim.
We don't know about "before they showed up"
as far as we know, the cosmic beings have been in this world the entire time, we just didn't learn about them until later in the comic. We already knew at least something was different between the HP universe and ours which allowed pets to be bipedal and speak in human tongue. Perhaps it was the magic that exists in Rick's universe which made this difference. and for all we know, there could be magic in our own world that we don't know about. Just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
So the introduction of the cosmic nerds didn't change the reality of the comic, only our perception of it.
also, we don't know the limits of this magic. Yes, the cosmic being can likely alter the universe in any way they wish, but they're governed by rules, which means some law enforcing cosmic being would correct anything that went against these rules. In addition, Pete and Dragon are governed by the rules of the game, so kitsune will correct anything either of them do that breaks the rules. So the Cosmic beings can't freely alter reality on a whim.
BenLWolf wrote:This brings me into a problem of writing. Suspension of disbelief is shattered when you do something like this. It's akin to having Sarah Conner, in the last 10 minutes of terminator 2, point at the T-1000 and scream Vitriolic Sphere which causes a ball of acid to fly out of her hand and dissolve the machine. Your mind is now forced to shift gears without a clutch.
I think that the magic aspect of the comic was introduced early enough in the comic's run that your example is an exaggeration. Pete was introduced less than half a year into the comic, which if we look at the comic's 4 year run so far as a 2 hour movie, it would be like introducing magic in the first 15 minutes. And since we didn't have any trailers for the comic, we weren't lied to about what to expect, we just weren't told.
BenLWolf wrote:Also, while they may NOT have killed Mr. Milton, the possibility is there. There's enough darkness in the comic to allow for it. Most of it came in with the character of King, showing that PETA is there, animals can die horribly without human help, people suffer just as much in the house pets world as our own, and if anything it cements our standards of reality harder into place until all of a sudden they're all shattered out of the blue. While it's perfectly acceptable for someone to do this with their own creation, to do so arbitrarily is jarring at best.
However, as I said in my first point, Kitsune wouldn't allow that. I'm pretty sure killing Henry Milton would break the game's rule of intrinsic benevolence.
Not to mention that Rick most likely won't make the comic that dark. King is likely the darkest he'll let it get, and that's arguably not that dark considering it seems he has a better life as King then he did as Joel.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by Karl »

Don't take this as an offence, but I think you look into Cosmic Nerds and their U&U Game too deep and too serious.
You must remember that this comic is actually a cartoon about cute pets, where the author shows his personal humor, gags and slice of life in a comedic way.
The Game is also a form of a comedy. Mr. Griffin stated that he often plays D&D with his friends very often, so we can say that U&U is based on what he experienced during sessions, all that done in a funny way.
What you must learn is to look upon Cosmic Nerds... with a pinch of salt. Of course they have supernatural powers, far beyond of a mortal, but they're still childish. Even their game is silly in its way.
The comic is bound by rules which were created by Mr. Griffin himself. He said personally that there are serious things, but they are always toned down since it's a PG comic created for comedy and silliness mainly. Also, in each strip there must always be implemented humor.
Also no one can die in dramatic in this comic since it's mainly family friendly.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by IceKitsune »

Personally I really think some people over think what The Cosmic Nerds are doing here. They aren't Evil they're just childish jerks playing what amounts to a game of D&D because they are bored. They aren't the good guys here (Not even Dragon, I mean come on if you take away the supernatural powers they are basically having what amounts to a by proxy fist fight over D&D) but they aren't out to kill anyone or destroy the world. People need to stop taking into account their powers when they do stuff it makes them (and what they are doing) seem more important then what it is.

Seriously this is basically if Joey (Dragon) and Lester (Pete) were fist fighting over D&D or at best you can say it would be equivalent to LARPing, maybe. Oh and I say its a fist fight (by proxy) because as far as we know Tarot and who ever Pete's Avatar will be actually have to fight each other.
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Re: Horrible Implications

Post by Sinder »

the original name for the game was "The Horrendous Space Kablooie"
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