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''The Order of the Stick'' (''OOTS'') is a comedic webcomic that satirizes tabletop role-playing games and medieval fantasy. The comic is written and drawn by Rich Burlew, who illustrates the comic in a stick figure style. Taking place in a magical world that loosely operates by the rules of the 3.5 edition of the role-playing game ''Dungeons and 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. 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. This in turn is often used by the author to parody various aspects of role-playing games and fantasy fiction. While primarily comedic in nature, ''The Order of the Stick'' features a continuing storyline serialized in one- to four-page episodes, with over 1000 such episodes released so far. Although it is principally distributed online through the website ''Giant in the Playground'', seven book collections have been published, including several print-only stories (''On the Origin of PCs'' and ''Start of Darkness''). 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''. ==History== ''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. 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.〔Burlew, ''Dungeon Crawlin' Fools'', Author Commentary, p. 20.〕 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, ''Dungeon Crawlin' Fools'', Introduction, p. 5.〕 ''The Order of the Stick'' began as a twice-weekly comic that debuted new strips on Mondays and Thursdays. When presales of the first ''OOTS'' compilation book allowed Burlew to make writing his full-time job, he increased the number to three per week. Since 2007, the comic has been published on an irregular schedule due to the author's ongoing health concerns. In September 2012, Burlew had an accident in which the tendons in his right hand were severed, resulting in a hiatus until December 31, 2012. At the end of September 2013, Burlew estimated that the story will be finished in "about four years". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Order of the Stick」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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