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ToxicFrog posted:I read the first two of those (and the first short story collection) earlier this year, and I'm still not sure what I think about them or whether I'll go back to them. Like, the situations they find themselves in, and their solutions to those situations, are often hilarious, but the characters themselves are a group of terminally unfunny assholes who probably deserve to spend several books being hosed around by a vengeful wizard god, and that drags it down pretty heavily for me. There are those who identify with the kind of loserish but funny guys who are aware of their lameness in playing D&D and still manage some underachieving success in the romantic and job markets like the protagonists, and there are those who identify with the morbidly obese autists who don't bathe and have never known the touch of a non-plastic woman, like the antagonist.
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May 7, 2017 21:42
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Mel Mudkiper posted:No, I mean, obviously its loving weird but... Buggered if I remember! "Monster has female captive who becomes love interest" maybe?
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May 7, 2017 21:50
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Number Ten Cocks posted:There are those who identify with the kind of loserish but funny guys who are aware of their lameness in playing D&D and still manage some underachieving success in the romantic and job markets like the protagonists, and there are those who identify with the morbidly obese autists who don't bathe and have never known the touch of a non-plastic woman, like the antagonist. Oh, Mordred is even worse. My point is that I don't really enjoy stories where every major character, protagonists and antagonists alike, is a raging idiot and/or rear end in a top hat, and the only role actually likeable characters have is to be either background decoration or collateral damage. This is also why I dislike K.J. Parker.
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May 7, 2017 21:54
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Runcible Cat posted:Buggered if I remember! "Monster has female captive who becomes love interest" maybe? I am legit googling right now trying to find this post because I am obsessed with knowing the answer
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May 7, 2017 21:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am legit googling right now trying to find this post because I am obsessed with knowing the answer I'll see if I can find the threads, but there were - 4? - of them and digging out that one particular guy....
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May 7, 2017 22:02
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ToxicFrog posted:I read the first two of those (and the first short story collection) earlier this year, and I'm still not sure what I think about them or whether I'll go back to them. Like, the situations they find themselves in, and their solutions to those situations, are often hilarious, but the characters themselves are a group of terminally unfunny assholes who probably deserve to spend several books being hosed around by a vengeful wizard god, and that drags it down pretty heavily for me. Yea, I also found the protagonists really obnoxious but it was still fairly funny overall. I would like to see a similar stab at the concept but have the protagonists take full advantage of their meta knowledge "in game", to poke fun at tabletop tropes. Break the economy, abuse rules loopholes, etc. dumb stuff like the commoner rail gun or whatever
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May 7, 2017 22:47
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Huh, and here I thought litRPG was just a rebranding of western isekai LN/WN style fiction, but it's apparently even worse.
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May 7, 2017 22:50
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am legit googling right now trying to find this post because I am obsessed with knowing the answer I found the original! No answer to your question though, I'm afraid. quote:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13385072550A94591300&page=0
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May 7, 2017 23:44
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My tentative dip into the LitRPG world was Way of The Shaman: Survival Quest by V. Mahanenko. The protagonist gets screwed over by a girl--because you know girls are bad-- and is imprisoned in a VR world where he has to mine ore. A thrilling open like that bled down into paragraphs about leveling up skills and trying to earn gold by killing rats. I haven't looked myself, but I've heard some readers send emails debating skill points and other points of math. I'm assuming they use multiple exclamation points.
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May 8, 2017 00:19
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Jesus christ
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May 8, 2017 00:22
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FastestGunAlive posted:Yea, I also found the protagonists really obnoxious but it was still fairly funny overall. I would like to see a similar stab at the concept but have the protagonists take full advantage of their meta knowledge "in game", to poke fun at tabletop tropes. Break the economy, abuse rules loopholes, etc. dumb stuff like the commoner rail gun or whatever Yeah, that's the other thing -- I was expecting dick jokes, but I was also expecting some Murphy's Rules style abuse of the game mechanics, and it didn't really deliver much on that front.
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May 8, 2017 00:45
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Runcible Cat posted:I found the original! No answer to your question though, I'm afraid. I.... I... *ties noose to rafters* Goodbye friends EDIT: I've never actually read TVTropes before and I am finding the experience... wildly unpleasant Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 00:58 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 00:46
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Antti posted:But yeah, Aurora for me is the generation ship story. It takes a long hard look at the very concept and goes as far as possible with it. I agree. In certain ways, certainly in terms of its underlying concept, I think it's one of the best sci-fi books of the last 30 years. Science is fundamentally about searching for answers, evaluating facts, and not relying on dogma; so it was interesting to read something and realise that sci-fi readers (including myself) had never really questioned the concept that colonising the galaxy is humanity's inevitable Manifest Destiny. Without getting spoilery, I'll say that I don't necessarily agree with KSR's conclusions in Aurora, but I greatly valued reading a book which respectfully and intelligently forced me to re-evaluate my own beliefs. And it's obviously very timely at the start of the 21st century, as we face a looming environmental catastrophe on Spaceship Earth. I still have no patience for people who whinge about NASA planning a Mars mission when there are people starving in Africa, but Aurora was the first book I've read in years and years that actually thought outside the traditional sci-fi box and arrived at a new conclusion, whether I agree with 100% of its fundamentals or not.
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May 8, 2017 01:05
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I have a sneaking suspicion that "everything is a series" is a matter of market forces and publisher preference and perhaps a reaction by aspiring writers to match those requirements. The ability to generate a trilogy or longer series is of value to publishers, since if they're going to do a three book contract it's probably demonstrable through their marketing research that people are more likely to pick up book 2 of a series they already read book 1 of than a new, completely distinct and separate work by the same author even if they enjoyed that author's work. I wouldn't be completely shocked if a lot of genre fiction gets pitched as its own thing and somebody asks the author if they can tweak it to allow for the possibility of sequels or to adjust the narrative to create a series or something. I think there may also be something to the way a lot of Internet writing sites (fanfiction places, etc.) often tolerate interminable stories where one chapter follows another in a narrative that never really ends until the creator gets bored; it'd be easy to imagine aspiring writers internalizing this. If nothing else, it seems to be a problem that "normal" literature doesn't have as often, and arguably the problem is worse in some genres (thrillers, crime novels, mysteries, etc.) than in SF/F. They're not making books into series because they think the story works better, they're doing it to either chop something up into more marketable chunks or stretch something they think will be profitable out for a while. A more interesting question, I suppose, is what books in the genre should've stood alone without sequels or a series.
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May 8, 2017 03:54
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Runcible Cat posted:I found the original! No answer to your question though, I'm afraid. please god tell me that that's parody
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May 8, 2017 04:03
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Nakar posted:A more interesting question, I suppose, is what books in the genre should've stood alone without sequels or a series. But I suppose thats not a question to answer easily since books you have read are already cut up or written in a way that they are part of series. so it's harder to separate what could have been standalone vs what is already a series since that's inherently in your perception of the book. Xaris fucked around with this message at 04:12 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 04:08
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Another take on the series thing: making a fantasy world is hard work! That's a lot of world-building and investment and you're gonna live there for an entire novel - so why stop there? Why not keep finding ways to keep returning to your second home, especially as you further develop it and get super-invested? That's comfort, that's fun....and publishers love series. Also writers tend to plot big for these kinds of things, and it's very easy to realize you now need to write three books instead of one or whatever. As a reader though I generally prefer single books that I can read and enjoy - and if there are sequels, let them be optional, not mandatory. That said I won't avoid a series - working on Malazan again, and why yes I will happily reread the Foreigner series in a few years. Mel Mudkiper, by the way, one of the reasons I recommended Cyteen (aside from it being outstandingly good) is because it's a standalone. It has a sequel that the author wrote years later and while it's fun, it's also the least-necessary sequel I've ever seen.
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May 8, 2017 04:14
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Yep. I think even more brilliantly are books that standalone excellently but more is always a good thing. Like Traitor Baru Cormorant works excellently and satisfactory as it's own book and I wasn't even expecting to have another one but because there is I'm perfectly happy.
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May 8, 2017 04:16
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C.M. Kruger posted:Huh, and here I thought litRPG was just a rebranding of western isekai LN/WN style fiction, but it's apparently even worse. I thought it was stuff like Jim Hines' Jig the Goblin Series, or Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion -- decent writers writing actual novels clearly derived from their RPG playing. Do they make special bleach just for your eyes, I need that now
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May 8, 2017 04:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:please god tell me that that's parody but lying is wrong
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May 8, 2017 04:18
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neongrey posted:but lying is wrong Is it? God does not exist or is not omnibenevolent, or such works would not exist therefore God cannot be a source of morality therefore everything is permitted, and do as thou wilt is the whole of the law
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May 8, 2017 04:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Is it? But that would mean litRPGs are permitted, and that cannot be borne.
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May 8, 2017 04:24
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Seriouspost: are "litrpgs" actually discussed on this forum? Is this just something I somehow missed until now? I'm kinda surprised nobody's done a hateread thread.
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May 8, 2017 04:29
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:therefore everything is permitted, and do as thou wilt is the whole of the law And love is the law, love under will. But if your will score is < 12, you suffer a -2 penalty to your associated actions and also a reduction to area of effect when casting thaumaturgical spells.
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May 8, 2017 04:32
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I just remembered Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series, where a bunch of college students get sucked inside their Dungeons and Dragons world, which even as a teenager I thought was kitschy as hell... but then the rest of the series plays as a pretty straight alternate world fantasy as they go about sparking an industrial revolution and overthrowing slavery. In fact I remember it being pretty good, although I was about 15 when I read it.
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May 8, 2017 04:51
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Would GGK's Fionavar Tapestry series fall under this?
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May 8, 2017 05:07
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here i thought "litRPG" meant things like the expanse which seem like something 4-5 guys would come up with playing a tabletop game
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May 8, 2017 05:11
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shrike82 posted:Would GGK's Fionavar Tapestry series fall under this? Litrpg? No
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May 8, 2017 05:31
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah, I guess my issues isn;t so much connected universes or series as much as it seems to be the expectation in genre fiction that a successful book should have a sequel or series attached to it whether the narrative actually justifies it or not. Well, someone haven't read enough Dragonlance I see. Or Warhammer books for that matter. Blame the publicists, cause I have a hard time blaming the author for trying to get a livable salary. On that matter, we will know when Mieville is down on his luck when a new Bas-Lag book shows up.
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May 8, 2017 05:57
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freebooter posted:I just remembered Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series, where a bunch of college students get sucked inside their Dungeons and Dragons world, which even as a teenager I thought was kitschy as hell... but then the rest of the series plays as a pretty straight alternate world fantasy as they go about sparking an industrial revolution and overthrowing slavery. In fact I remember it being pretty good, although I was about 15 when I read it. I read the first four? of those at around the same age and likewise they were alright--though that was less 'are trapped in an RPG' and more just straight portal fantasy where a wizard used an RPG as a snare to get appropriate heroes lined up. They don't talk about hit points and while some of the game abilities are used, they play it fairly straight and actual swordfighting and such is dramatically described rather than gamified. I don't know if the series ever reached a real conclusion, I read those four and after the first one there wasn't a lot of plot that I recall, they established their freed-slave colony and fought some battles about it and that was basically it. Been a while though. Also in the realm of 'challenging tabletop tropes', someone recommended Orconomics from this thread and that one was actually kinda funny. It had its flaws, most notably both major female characters needing male assistance to transcend their personal problems, but overall it was fairly clever. It's not litRPG in that no real world people are transported, it's just the RPG world working as it seems designed to do...which means it has issues that are coming to a head, most notably in the local economy being dependent on treasure raided from monsters. I couldn't get into C&C for the reasons someone else listed above--it wasn't very funny for one thing, but for another the leads were all just complete assholes who couldn't find a GM to run RPGs for them in a closed chicken restaurant and then felt themselves completely superior to the person who volunteered to show up just because he wasn't their exact same brand of rear end in a top hat.
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May 8, 2017 06:11
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occamsnailfile posted:I read the first four? of those at around the same age and likewise they were alright--though that was less 'are trapped in an RPG' and more just straight portal fantasy where a wizard used an RPG as a snare to get appropriate heroes lined up. They don't talk about hit points and while some of the game abilities are used, they play it fairly straight and actual swordfighting and such is dramatically described rather than gamified. I don't know if the series ever reached a real conclusion, I read those four and after the first one there wasn't a lot of plot that I recall, they established their freed-slave colony and fought some battles about it and that was basically it. Been a while though. Yeah, there was interesting stuff hinted at like how the main character's son was prophesied to kill the wizard that sent them there? Or was the only one who could sword-in-the-stone a weapon that could kill him? But then he ended up writing a bunch of tangential books following native-born fantasy worlders with only a mild connection to the original characters, and then he died.
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May 8, 2017 06:15
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freebooter posted:Yeah, there was interesting stuff hinted at like how the main character's son was prophesied to kill the wizard that sent them there? Or was the only one who could sword-in-the-stone a weapon that could kill him? But then he ended up writing a bunch of tangential books following native-born fantasy worlders with only a mild connection to the original characters, and then he died. As a kid I also liked the conceit of his novel D'Shai, where everyone has a magic, inherited caste job (ruler, soldier, cook, acrobat, etc.) based on a secret philosophy, and at the end you see that every single philosophy is based on some concept of balance, whether competing political interests, offense and defense, flavors, etc.
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May 8, 2017 07:02
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Mel Mudkiper posted:EDIT: I've never actually read TVTropes before and I am finding the experience... wildly unpleasant That's TV Tropes for you. Hieronymous Alloy posted:please god tell me that that's parody That's TV Tropes for you. I'm kind of surprised we haven't had a mock thread for a while, or maybe we did and I missed it. Hopefully it isn't the foul nest of lolicon apologists it was when Fast Eddie ran it, but I bet it still has droves of ghastly wannabe writers like that.
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May 8, 2017 09:44
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Mel Mudkiper posted:No, I mean, obviously its loving weird but... I'd assume it's like getting pets as cosmetic loot from a raid. ... 
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May 8, 2017 12:15
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Have any tvtropes authors ever actually been published? I don't mean self published or put out as an Amazon e book. I mean has a publisher ever looked at one of these stories and said, "yes we will invest in this"
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May 8, 2017 13:07
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Have any tvtropes authors ever actually been published? I don't mean self published or put out as an Amazon e book. I mean has a publisher ever looked at one of these stories and said, "yes we will invest in this" Well, I haven't been round there for a couple of years, but on the evidence I remember AHAHAHAHAHA gently caress NO NO CHANCE GETOUTTAHERE. The major problem with Troper "literature" was that they couldn't comprehend stories as anything other than "a load of tropes stuck together" (as you saw above). They couldn't manage characters as any more than buzzwords, they couldn't plot or structure a story or an arc, they couldn't write dialogue that sounded like human beings, let alone that advanced story or character in any way - it was actually kind of fascinating watching how hard they failed and how they couldn't figure out why they were failing.
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May 8, 2017 14:04
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Guess I should come out from under my rock with all the litrpg I read on Kindle Unlimited.Megazver posted:Try this: If I know this thread, even though I have recommended these before, I'd recommend against them overall. Theres like 6 or 7 total books and before you reach a satisfactory conclusion it gets REALLY sexist and rapey. So probably not really worth getting deep into if you find that sort of writing distasteful. Robot Wendigo posted:My tentative dip into the LitRPG world was Way of The Shaman: Survival Quest by V. Mahanenko. The protagonist gets screwed over by a girl--because you know girls are bad-- and is imprisoned in a VR world where he has to mine ore. A thrilling open like that bled down into paragraphs about leveling up skills and trying to earn gold by killing rats. I haven't looked myself, but I've heard some readers send emails debating skill points and other points of math. I'm assuming they use multiple exclamation points. This is one of my favorite LitRPG series. Its very true that some fans get really anal about the stat blocks and quest rewards not being consistent over the whole 5 books so far (?!?!?) though I don't really give a poo poo. If there's anything I could recommend about this series its to read the author's novel "The Beginning: Dark Paladin vol 1" as it does a better job showing the way the author thinks and sees the world than nearly anything in the first 4.95 books of Way of the Shaman. Otherwise the reveal at the end of book 5 is very jarring. As for other recommends in LitRPG, I'd recommend Awaken Online: Catharsis and Awaken Online: Precipice by Travis Bagwell, and Continue Online (5 book series) by Stephan Morse which is complete. Both of these series have a lot to do with the implications of Artificial Intelligences and the self-improvement of the featured characters. Viridian Gate Online (2 books so far) by J.A. Hunter which is about a humanity-ending cataclysm that is somewhat allayed by a company which has invented an MMORPG which humans can possibly transfer their consciousness into to live beyond the asteroid impact. Unfortunately, not everyone is starting off on an even footing as the company has taken bribes to set up some users as god kings able to enslave the rest of the users. Crucible Shard by Skyler Grant which I guess has 4 books. I've only read the first 2. The world it is set in is a hunger games like world where gamers are celebrities. The main character has been shanghaied into a scheme by his brother and his brother's friends to invade a game world and become rich and famous, but end up in a sort of UR-game that exists behind and below the rest of the games. The main character has impulse control issues and ends up solving most problems by having sex with horrifyingly powerful or just horrifying women (the goddess of fire and lust, a queen of spiders and venom, etc.) They are pretty fun romps and involve a lot to do with AI. World of Ruul by J. A. Cipriano which are about a guy who has his brain placed into a jar by a shadowy government conspiracy to be immersed in a game and try to take down a sentient virus that is threatening the entire world. Not sure about the recommend here as its full of "jokes" that aren't as funny as the author seems to think, but still kinda fun.
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May 8, 2017 14:27
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Mel Mudkiper posted:No, I mean, obviously its loving weird but... I imagine that for the type of person who would write litRPG, women's panties drop so rarely as to be almost mythical.
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May 8, 2017 14:37
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Have any tvtropes authors ever actually been published? I don't mean self published or put out as an Amazon e book. I mean has a publisher ever looked at one of these stories and said, "yes we will invest in this" TVTropers are the kind of people who would hand you a bowl containing a spoon, a jug of milk, a bag of flour, a couple eggs, and some cocoa, and happily say "I made you a cake! Isn't it great?"
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May 8, 2017 16:17
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Have any tvtropes authors ever actually been published? I don't mean self published or put out as an Amazon e book. I mean has a publisher ever looked at one of these stories and said, "yes we will invest in this" TV tropes has authors? What? I mean the last time I really looked at that place it must have been early on when it was interesting to have a name for things everyone knew about but couldn't easily refer to (e.g. "bottle episode"). Then a few years after that it seemed to be all anime all the time and I lost any interest. But now it has people writing original fiction? Seems like a severe case of scope creep, if a website can have scope creep.
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May 8, 2017 16:21
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