The Order of the Stick began as a twice-weekly comic that debuted new strips on Mondays and Thursdays. The strip was originally produced to entertain people who came to his website to read articles, but it quickly became the most popular feature, leading Burlew to eventually abandon writing articles almost entirely. Burlew initially intended the strip to feature no plot whatsoever-depicting an endless series of gags drawn from the D&D rules instead-but Burlew quickly changed his mind, and began laying down hints of a storyline as early as strip #13.

The Order of the Stick began its run on September 29, 2003, on what was Rich Burlew's personal site for gaming articles at the time. An alternate version of the strip appeared monthly in Dragon magazine for 22 issues these strips, among others, are collected in Snips, Snails and Dragon Tales. While primarily comedic in nature, The Order of the Stick features a continuing storyline serialized in one- to four-page episodes, with over 1200 such episodes released as of October 2021.Īlthough it is principally distributed online through the website Giant in the Playground, ten book collections have been published, including several print-only stories ( On the Origin of PCs, Start of Darkness, and Good Deeds Gone Unpunished). This in turn is often used by the author to parody various aspects of role-playing games and fantasy fiction. Much of the comic's humor stems from the characters' awareness of the game rules that affect their lives or from having anachronistic knowledge of modern culture.

Taking place in a magical world that loosely operates by the rules of the 3.5 edition of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons ( D&D), the comic follows the sometimes farcical exploits of six adventurers as they strive to save the world from an evil lich sorcerer. The comic is written and drawn by Rich Burlew, who illustrates the comic in a stick figure style. The Order of the Stick ( OOTS) is a comedic webcomic that satirizes tabletop role-playing games and medieval fantasy. Principal characters, from left to right:īelkar Bitterleaf, Vaarsuvius, Elan, Haley Starshine, Durkon Thundershield, and Roy Greenhilt

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