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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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According to the author he just wanted to write a book about a guy who likes to hang out, do alchemy and hunt things. In his own words:




So it pretty much hyper focuses on that and doesn't try to be realistic or diverse. If you don't like it after the first book I wouldn't recommend reading any more. Personally I find it easy to finish the first book I'm highly critical of if it's in a genre I like.

The "Everyone is now in a video game and the MC loves it, let's move on ASAP" is kind of part of the genre. I enjoyed the tribulation characters in Isekei books experience in their new world for the first few times. After that the sooner the characters self-actualize in the new world the better.

TJT said:

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

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Bro you hate archer characters and read this book?




That's like being vegetarian and ordering the tomahawk ribeye.

Tuco you should probably check out the first Unbound book next-ish. I know how much you love certain elements of these stories, and this has a decent amount of it, but with a slightly more engaging main character. Yes, he quickly becomes ridiculously OP, but don't they all? I like some of the side characters in Unbound more than a lot of others too. Evie is best girl; I wish she were in all these books (although she doesn't really show up until book 2 maybe? hard to remember). And for others reading, while there is some faggotry and DEI, it doesn't really bother me in this series like it does in so many others. But, you've been warned if it would prevent you from enjoying it.

Hateyou said:

Still listening to Primal Hunter and not sure if I’ll keep going, it just doesn’t lend itself to audio very well, would probably like it a little more if I was reading it. I hate the constant rereads of the MCs stats and abilities. I’m only on book two and every time he rereads them it takes two minutes now, which I’ve started to fast forward through. By book five the updates are probably going to take seven minutes based on how much crap he gains all the time.

Also the combat can get pretty stupid. They’re still in the tutorial and he uses two evade skills that accidentally launch him 300 feet in the air. He then snipes a fleeing target that’s hundreds of feet away, then aims down and splits arrows into nine to rain on the enemies he was evading, then whips out two weapons and happens to land right on top of one with a downward strike to slow his impact and survive.

All of this super power being in the “tutorial” has me assuming he will be fighting greater dragons in the next book and Gods by the fourth. I’m fine with people becoming OP but this early seems absurd. I’ve only ever read DCC in this genre so maybe that spoiled me on what to expect from it. I’ll try another one or two from those ranking lists to see if it’s the genre or just this particular series that I don’t like.

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Yeah with how many people listen to litrpg I don't know why authors have huge stat pages. I skip every one which is annoying when I'm driving, mowing the lawn etc. I really doubt most readers care about more than a few +gooderer stats.

Path of ascension has minimal stat bullshit which is a nice relief. DCC does litrpg really well by not focusing on stats as much as gameified abilities and synergies which are way more interesting to read about.

I wish more authors would have consistent power scales in terms of how fast characters can run, jump or how big of a crater they make with a given ability. It does seem like characters attain movie superman power quickly, then increase in power tenfold while the action sequences stay at movie superman levels. I try not to think about it too much.

New Savage Awakening episode just dropped

Tuco said:

New Savage Awakening episode just dropped

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I've watched everything that channel has to offer now. I had to rewatch about half of them because I discovered (from the comments) that sometimes the subtitles have funny shit in them too.