LitRPG

Gask · Jan 30, 2023

Ritley said:
writing a woman as if she was a dude. Overall just a bad character

That and male characters that typically can only ever be either simps, robots, villains or fools are tropes that plague the genre.

The authors love to go on and on about how beautiful and strong these women supposedly are but they're almost always completely devoid of any hint of femininity beyond "sexy" and instead function as bizarre male facsimiles for the most part. It's pretty gross, especially so when their male lead functions as the eternal boy.

Tuco · Jan 31, 2023

Void said:
Primal Hunter is entertaining, but if he fucking "smirks" one more motherfucking time...<insert SLJ meme> Huge way overleveled beast approaches...Jake smirks. If the entire series ends with him smirking and then getting pulverized out of reality by someone better, I will be happy. Not once in 4 books did I ever feel like I was actually worried for his continued existence. Of course I never am with these books, but this one doesn't even really pretend like the others do. Also also, some of his writing style just irks the fuck out of me. All the AKAs, the "one would have to say" and countless other quirks he repeats constantly. But the motherfucking smirking. FUCK!

I finished Primal Hunter book 4. I enjoyed it but I think all of these books are more enjoyable in the newbie farm stage than the mid or late stages. I wasn't really bothered by the smirking, but could definitely tell this book didn't have a ton of editing and rewriting. Gotta pump one out every few months, lol.

Rogosh · Jan 31, 2023

Gask said:
That and male characters that typically can only ever be either simps, robots, villains or fools are tropes that plague the genre.

The authors love to go on and on about how beautiful and strong these women supposedly are but they're almost always completely devoid of any hint of femininity beyond "sexy" and instead function as bizarre male facsimiles for the most part. It's pretty gross, especially so when their male lead functions as the eternal boy.

Yeah, I dont read female leads in litrpg. Just cant get into it, if its a mix of male and female its generally not as bad.

Tuco · Jan 31, 2023

I think I'm going to read he who fights with monsters next. No spoilers. Need a pallete cleanser, probably the next horus heresy book.

Gask · Jan 31, 2023

Tuco said:
I think I'm going to read he who fights with monsters next. No spoilers. Need a pallete cleanser, probably the next horus heresy book.

Spoiler: Jason is "amazing" and also everyone else becomes Jason in the end, it became quite insufferable. The very first arc of the story was its highest point.

Tuco · Jan 31, 2023

Gask said:
Spoiler: Jason is "amazing" and also everyone else becomes Jason in the end, it became quite insufferable. The very first arc of the story was its highest point.

fuck, now I can't read that series now that I know. I'm done with this thread!

Void · Jan 31, 2023

Farrah is my favorite character in those books.

Brahma · Feb 1, 2023

Tuco said:
I think I'm going to read he who fights with monsters next. No spoilers. Need a pallete cleanser, probably the next horus heresy book.

Save your read time man. Series becomes a slog halfway through.

velk · Feb 2, 2023

Ritley said:
The one about farming using traps to level is the unorthodox farming series I mentioned. Book 2 of that just came out not long ago.

This was a good recommendation - would never have read this without it, but I quite liked it.

Nothing at all like what I expected.

Lenardo · Feb 2, 2023

i know, i really liked those books.

slippery · Feb 3, 2023

I need to read more murderhobo

Tuco · Feb 24, 2023

velk said:
This was a good recommendation - would never have read this without it, but I quite liked it.

Nothing at all like what I expected.

I just finished those two books. I enjoyed them but

the prolog where the protagonist is old and basically says "everything works out great, I'm rich and have a huge family and let me tell you how I got there" spoils sense of exploration and suspense, especially early on in the book when you don't know where the story will go. One of the reasons I like litrpg (and the larger genre of Isekai) is that the world is totally foreign with foreign rules for the reader and protagonist to explore together. To spoil it shaves off a huge part of this.

Plus I hate spoilers in general.

It also fell into the same "trap" of a lot of litrpg where so much of the character's progress was a bit unearned and the "exploits" he found were too obvious. Stuff like being in a world where a high int score gives everyone Batman levels of memory and an subgroup of people exist for exploitation, but homeboy is going to be the first to discover card counting in single deck blackjack? Or the idea of mob farms, which is something I figured out when I was a kid and played Ultima 7? I've kinda learned to ignore that common flaw that litrpg has and suspend disbelief.

velk · Feb 26, 2023

Tuco said:
It also fell into the same "trap" of a lot of litrpg where so much of the character's progress was a bit unearned and the "exploits" he found were too obvious. Stuff like being in a world where a high int score gives everyone Batman levels of memory and an subgroup of people exist for exploitation, but homeboy is going to be the first to discover card counting in single deck blackjack? Or the idea of mob farms, which is something I figured out when I was a kid and played Ultima 7? I've kinda learned to ignore that common flaw that litrpg has and suspend disbelief.

That's fair, although worth considering is that he explicitly wasn't the first one to come up with the trap farm idea- why it isn't widespread is unknown, but quite possibly a future plot point.

The blackjack has got a few things working for it - we don't know how long they've had it as a game, people with high int score are generally rich by definition and don't need to cheat casinos, and they are far more used to magical or skill based cheating than mathematical vulnerabilities in the game itself. They can also kick anyone out at any time, you could argue they let him get away with more than they normally would just to try and find out how he was doing it as a low level farmer.
So my take would be implausible, but not to the point of breaking suspension of disbelief.

Void · Mar 16, 2023

Tuco said:
I just finished those two books. I enjoyed them but

the prolog where the protagonist is old and basically says "everything works out great, I'm rich and have a huge family and let me tell you how I got there" spoils sense of exploration and suspense, especially early on in the book when you don't know where the story will go. One of the reasons I like litrpg (and the larger genre of Isekai) is that the world is totally foreign with foreign rules for the reader and protagonist to explore together. To spoil it shaves off a huge part of this.

Plus I hate spoilers in general.

It also fell into the same "trap" of a lot of litrpg where so much of the character's progress was a bit unearned and the "exploits" he found were too obvious. Stuff like being in a world where a high int score gives everyone Batman levels of memory and an subgroup of people exist for exploitation, but homeboy is going to be the first to discover card counting in single deck blackjack? Or the idea of mob farms, which is something I figured out when I was a kid and played Ultima 7? I've kinda learned to ignore that common flaw that litrpg has and suspend disbelief.

Just read those books as well from the recommendations here. I want to reinforce the idea that I would have NEVER read them if not for you guys. The titles and covers alone would have scared me off. Given that, they were way better than I expected. Not phenomenal, but since I went in with almost zero expectation, I was pleasantly surprised.

I don't mind the "looking back on a long life" aspect necessarily, because 99 times out of 100 the main character never dies in books like these anyway. Also, maybe yours didn't have it, but both books had a "don't read this first part if you hate this shit" warning right in front of those sections, so he clearly got a lot of flack for it.

The funny thing is, looking back I can't really say too much that actually happened in these two books. I know that I liked them, and in general of course I know what happened, but I feel like all of the details were so unimportant that they left my memory the moment I didn't need them. Not saying that's bad, because clearly it held my interest enough, but it is all just lingering feelings.

Can't say I'm excited about any future bard stuff, but then again I'd have been even less interested in farming, so I'll give it a shot.

If you read the "in the future" intro to the second book, am I the only one that is speculating that Emily ends up being the one he marries? If I'm getting the name right. The daughter of the previous leader of the town that ends up becoming the leader and then going off to noble school, that chick. I feel like in a few years the author will bring them together. But I could be wrong.

Related but not, the next one in the Mage Farmer series (or whatever it is called) is out on KU, and I am most of the way through it. More decently good stuff. I enjoy the way that the author handles having a character that can literally win every fight and makes it so he still has trouble with stuff. I still think Ellie and Ben became "experts" WAY too quickly, but we're past that now so I just have to accept it.

Ritley · Mar 16, 2023

Void said:
Just read those books as well from the recommendations here. I want to reinforce the idea that I would have NEVER read them if not for you guys. The titles and covers alone would have scared me off. Given that, they were way better than I expected. Not phenomenal, but since I went in with almost zero expectation, I was pleasantly surprised.

I don't mind the "looking back on a long life" aspect necessarily, because 99 times out of 100 the main character never dies in books like these anyway. Also, maybe yours didn't have it, but both books had a "don't read this first part if you hate this shit" warning right in front of those sections, so he clearly got a lot of flack for it.

The funny thing is, looking back I can't really say too much that actually happened in these two books. I know that I liked them, and in general of course I know what happened, but I feel like all of the details were so unimportant that they left my memory the moment I didn't need them. Not saying that's bad, because clearly it held my interest enough, but it is all just lingering feelings.

Can't say I'm excited about any future bard stuff, but then again I'd have been even less interested in farming, so I'll give it a shot.

If you read the "in the future" intro to the second book, am I the only one that is speculating that Emily ends up being the one he marries? If I'm getting the name right. The daughter of the previous leader of the town that ends up becoming the leader and then going off to noble school, that chick. I feel like in a few years the author will bring them together. But I could be wrong.

Related but not, the next one in the Mage Farmer series (or whatever it is called) is out on KU, and I am most of the way through it. More decently good stuff. I enjoy the way that the author handles having a character that can literally win every fight and makes it so he still has trouble with stuff. I still think Ellie and Ben became "experts" WAY too quickly, but we're past that now so I just have to accept it.

Battlemage Farmer, yeah I’ve liked that one quite a bit. Ben and Ellie so far haven’t been too central to the story so I don’t care as much, but yeah I agree.

For anyone that likes the stereotypical Asian cultivation type stories, The Jade Phoenix series is pretty good. Normally can’t stand the genre, but even though this had a lot of the same tropes it was just more entertaining than most of them are.

velk · Mar 16, 2023

Void said:
Just read those books as well from the recommendations here. I want to reinforce the idea that I would have NEVER read them if not for you guys. The titles and covers alone would have scared me off. Given that, they were way better than I expected. Not phenomenal, but since I went in with almost zero expectation, I was pleasantly surprised.

Can't say I'm excited about any future bard stuff, but then again I'd have been even less interested in farming, so I'll give it a shot.

Interestingly, he recently released his next book on Royal Road - Death, Loot and Vampires, apparently for the cheap editing ;p I assume he'll move it to KU in a bit.

It's not in the same series - premise on this one is dude getting Isekaied to a particular shithole of a world, where he immediately gets murdered by some cultists that need to sacrifice a hero to become vampires, a plan that goes rather off-track and ends up with the MC as a vampire hero.

I thought it was good fun - the MC is a gigantic asshole, but that sort of goes with the territory. It's not quite satire, but is certainly very tongue-in-cheek. I got some good laughs out of it at times.

Was an interesting take on some of the Rice vampire lore - vampires aren't world ending threats in this world because they are too apathetic; they just don't care about stuff enough to go on killing rampages. The best way of dealing with ancient vampires is building cities over their resting places so that they passively absorb enough life force from the people around them that they never have to actually get up and go looking for food.

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

Void said:
I don't mind the "looking back on a long life" aspect necessarily, because 99 times out of 100 the main character never dies in books like these anyway. Also, maybe yours didn't have it, but both books had a "don't read this first part if you hate this shit" warning right in front of those sections, so he clearly got a lot of flack for it.

That's funny. I listen to these books on audible and there was no warning. I don't know who likes that plot device, but it's fairly popular. Even if most of the the MC survives, they end up dead or destitute frequently enough in fiction to make their adventure suspenseful. I'm way on the dramatic side of hating spoilers and it's one of the biggest reasons I quickly abandoned The Name of the Wind - Wikipedia because I feel like if I already know the state of a present day character I can't get invested in the story of how they got there.

I just don't know who starts a book series and thinks, "Man, I could really enjoy this more if I just knew that everything ended up perfect for the main character, all this suspense and mystery of what happens next is just too much for me!"

Void · Mar 21, 2023

Tuco said:
That's funny. I listen to these books on audible and there was no warning. I don't know who likes that plot device, but it's fairly popular. Even if most of the the MC survives, they end up dead or destitute frequently enough in fiction to make their adventure suspenseful. I'm way on the dramatic side of hating spoilers and it's one of the biggest reasons I quickly abandoned The Name of the Wind - Wikipedia because I feel like if I already know the state of a present day character I can't get invested in the story of how they got there.

I just don't know who starts a book series and thinks, "Man, I could really enjoy this more if I just knew that everything ended up perfect for the main character, all this suspense and mystery of what happens next is just too much for me!"

Man, I always forget about audiobooks. My commute is 3 miles so I never use them. Haven't actually listened to a book since we used to drive back and forth to college around 1990, and you had to buy a fucking booklet full of cds to get one book.

Fucking kids nowadays!

I have been tempted to listen to a few just to get a taste of the voices, particularly Dungeon Crawler Carl, but it is just far more convenient for me to read than listen most of my day. And I worry that a voice I don't like will get stuck in my head. Like, what if Donut doesn't sound as awesome as she should??

Tuco · Mar 21, 2023

Void said:
Man, I always forget about audiobooks. My commute is 3 miles so I never use them. Haven't actually listened to a book since we used to drive back and forth to college around 1990, and you had to buy a fucking booklet full of cds to get one book.

Fucking kids nowadays!

I have been tempted to listen to a few just to get a taste of the voices, particularly Dungeon Crawler Carl, but it is just far more convenient for me to read than listen most of my day. And I worry that a voice I don't like will get stuck in my head. Like, what if Donut doesn't sound as awesome as she should??

I'm curious to know how close this is to your perception of Donut. I can't think of Donut or Carl any other way than how Jeff Hays does it.

I listen to audio books when doing chores, driving (my commute is also 3 miles tho), hanging out at the park, walking with my kids etc etc. I also listen when I go to sleep or if I wake up for no fucking reason like I did this morning at 2AM after having a dream about a stupid argument with a coworker that would literally never happen. It's enough time to get through ~20 hours a month I'd guess, and all that time I can't effectively read.

Brahma · Apr 27, 2023

Has anyone read the Surgecaller series? Thus far it's seems OK, 1/4 the way of book one.

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