LitRPG

Hateyou said:

You might like The Painted Man (Or The Warded Man depending on your country) by Peter V. Brett. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it but the characters starts out using magical wards and hand to hand fighting demons. I think he eventually moves into weapons but I remember the fighting being very close quarters type stuff. Sorry if my memory is incorrect, but it’s a fun series anyways. I think when I was reading it only two books were out, I just looked it up and they’re all out now so I may pick it back up.

Click to expand...

You should let your good memories stay where they are and not read any more of that series. The first two were good, with the first one being actually awesome.

I am fuzzy on the details here so I could be getting specifics wrong, but book 3 has a lot of the various female povs, including the sister of the spear guy (Sheherezade or something), and while I'm completely fine with good female characters, these quickly fall into the intolerable category like so many others over the years (Wheel of Time). On top of that, this book repeats a TON of shit that you already knew from the previous books, but just from a different perspective. That made that shit super boring for me because the new angle added nothing interesting.

And then the book ends in a literal cliffhanger after this big huge fight we've been building up to. As in, someone is hanging off of a cliff, and we have no idea if they will survive (other than that of course they will survive). I said fuck it after that book, and my best friend, the one that introduced me to the series in the first place, agreed and has never read the last ones either.

velk said:

I was reminded of this discussion when I was reading one recently.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Antimage-Isekai-LitRPG-Adventure-Magic-ebook/dp/B0CJBL9RXV

For a real high level summary, guy gets isekaied to fantasy world by an archmage, who turns out to be.. uh, a bit of an asshat. ( Really, anyone who extra-dimensionally kidnaps people to do stuff for them is probably an asshat in general, but this guy goes the extra mile ).

When the archmage gets insistent, guy ends up taking a magic resistance talent that makes him unable to use magic, and to gradually destroy magic items that he is touching so that he can escape.

He ends up as a hand-to-hand fighter because non-magical weapons aren't worth shit, and he can't use magical weapons.

I've read the first few books of the series, and I thought it was well-written, pretty entertaining and had a good pace of character progression that is actually meaningful. ( and occasionally funny - when the downsides of the 'run at the casters and punch them' start to become obvious they try various evolving strategies starting with 'hang onto this rock when we launch it at the enemy' ;p )

Worldbuilding is interesting, with sort of mid-fantasy setting, but where the world undergoes periodic apocalypses that knock everyone back to the stoneage, so it's full of remnants of previous magictech civilisations, or necromantic empires or high-fantasy settings.

It's an interesting take, where the MC's knowledge of Earth science would lead to a lot of great tricks with magic, but he can't use it, so is teaching other members of his adventuring team. A bit of tech uplift going on too - I liked the overall dynamic with his team.

Click to expand...

I read some of the first one. Did they have to make the MC a faggot who is into Centaurs?

Like really?

I have an irrational hatred of gay ass archer type characters. So I didn't get past him choosing archer.

Hateyou said:

Checking out Primal Hunter right now. Only at chapter 18 so far but I’m already critical of it.

All these people get sucked into a video game and when they all get together they don’t have a single conversation about “wtf is going on?” They just start out as if this happens to them every day. They all just discuss their stats and classes, etc. And for some reason the nerdy quiet main character is some prescient super assassin who relishes in murdering at level 1? Then the major injury in the group early on there’s zero reaction from the person. Pretty terrible start but whatever. So far the human interactions are all really forced and not natural in the way they talk to each other.

I’ll keep going hoping it gets better as I see it recommended highly all over the place.

Click to expand...

I'm not going to say it is amazing, but I've kept reading to whatever book they are currently on (like 12 or so). I've grown more and more bored as it progressed, and rated them worse and worse, but it isn't horrible for many books. However, that intro stuff is really just something the author poorly used to get us into the real story. Other than the personal relationships from that first group, almost none of what happens there is ever addressed again or matters. Think of it more like the opening cutscene in a video game that just provides the backdrop for the game you're about to play. I'm sure the author would have preferred to skip that part, but he had to come up with some cardboard excuse for why it was all happening and why this guy was the main character.

The more annoying thing is the overused phrases you'll encounter. And because I'm helpful like that (and because I can't allow myself to be the only one that is being driven insane by it), do a shot every time you see phrases like:

"All of this is to say that"
"One must remember that"

There are others, but I can't remember them currently. They are infuriating.

The author actually does one thing pretty great, and that's give a solid recap at the beginning of each book. Unfortunately, these last few books (10-12 or so), I would have been better off just skipping the entire books and reading the recaps. The series is reaching its expiration date for me, but it took many books to get there, and most of these series never really end, so up to you whether or not you want to ride it out until you can't take it anymore.