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...Or done well.
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May 7, 2017 16:46
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Fables is a great example of why I tend to avoid serialized fiction. Eventually, the plot becomes more important than the setting or atmosphere. Fables would have been fine as isolated noir stories around its theme of fairy tales in New York, but it eventually became this bloated generic fantasy war story. I also do not get why Fantasy and Sci-Fi are so interested in series. I keep adding your recommendations to Good Reads and keep seeing almost everything is Book 1 of something series. I feel like stories and fiction in general works much better as a single isolated expression of an idea rather than a drawn out over-narration of a setting. Its very strange to me to see how few Sci Fi and Fantasy stories are comfortable existing in isolation.
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May 7, 2017 17:20
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I also do not get why Fantasy and Sci-Fi are so interested in series. I keep adding your recommendations to Good Reads and keep seeing almost everything is Book 1 of something series. Partially Lord of the Rings conditioning fans to buy multiple books to get the full story, mostly 
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May 7, 2017 17:28
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Patrick Spens posted:Yeah, Fables is definitely not a fairy tale. From a sufficiently archetypal viewpoint, everything is a fairy tale. Miss Wonderly is little red riding hood, Sam Spade is the lumberjack, Gutman is the Big Bad Wolf, and the picnic basket is the Maltese Falcon.
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May 7, 2017 17:29
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:From a sufficiently archetypal viewpoint, everything is a fairy tale. Miss Wonderly is little red riding hood, Sam Spade is the lumberjack, Gutman is the Big Bad Wolf, and the picnic basket is the Maltese Falcon. Ok there Campbell
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May 7, 2017 17:30
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lol I'm really sorry for not enjoying American Gods and not falling in line with 'millions' of true literati. in a thread that regularly describes litRPG as a legitimate genre Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 17:48 on May 7, 2017 |
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May 7, 2017 17:46
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Everything being a series is a plague and a half. Just recently I finished City of Stairs and I liked it despite some misgivings and yet was left with little desire to read the inevitable rest of the inevitable trilogy. I wasn't surprised to discover it had been written as a standalone. In general the flight of imagination (fantasy) or exploration of an idea (SF) is only a sort of target ideal of what they're about, the nuts and bolts is delivering something familiar and accessible to reliable buyers because
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May 7, 2017 17:51
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What even is litRPG Like, I recognize the parts, but cannot think of how they might make a whole
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May 7, 2017 17:53
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gonna hack mel's goodreads and put a ton of isekai LNs on his list
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May 7, 2017 17:58
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Peel posted:gonna hack mel's goodreads and put a ton of isekai LNs on his list I am gonna assume that's bad
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May 7, 2017 18:10
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Mel Mudkiper posted:What even is litRPG There are two definitions of litRPG. One refers to any fantasy or sci-fi story set in an RPG world like Ready Player One. The other definition refers to a very specific subgenre of books written by and for...a very specific kind of person and mindset, where you are treated to endless descriptions of stat blocks, modifiers, combat rolls, and the main character's inventory management. I wish I was making that poo poo up. I tried reading one of the most recommended litRPG novels, and it was literally three hundred pages of "I swung at the wolf and hit, doing nine thousand points of damage. I searched its corpse and found 3 wolf bones, 2 wolf sinews, and 1 wolf pelt. That was good because I needed 4 more wolf sinews to upgrade my bow. I saw that my harvesting skill had increased by one point. Now it was at 28 points. I approached the next wolf." Yes, there is a market for this. No, I don't know why.
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May 7, 2017 18:16
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What the gently caress. Give me a title, I need to go see this for myself
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May 7, 2017 18:19
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Patrick Rothfuss, Name of the Wind.
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May 7, 2017 18:20
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I thought it meant Dungeons & Dragons novels 
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May 7, 2017 18:22
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Liking fairy tales is kinda compulsory for reading fantasy. That and classic mythology.
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May 7, 2017 18:22
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Peel posted:Everything being a series is a plague and a half. Just recently I finished City of Stairs and I liked it despite some misgivings and yet was left with little desire to read the inevitable rest of the inevitable trilogy. I wasn't surprised to discover it had been written as a standalone To be fair, the next two books have different protagonists (the 2nd follows Mulagesh, the 3rd is Sigrud) and pretty large time jumps between them, especially for the third. It's a pretty loose trilogy, especially in this day and age. Also, the follow-ups are super super good and if you liked the first one, you really should finish it out.
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May 7, 2017 18:30
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I am gonna assume that's bad https://twitter.com/hiren_trip/status/809513573105995776 'Light Novel' is a Japanese fiction category consisting of short books with anime-style illustrations aimed at the teenage/YA market. It's uncannily like western fanfiction in its trends and also average quality level and is a big proportion of the source material for contemporary anime. 'Isekai' ('alternate world') is a popular LN genre in which the relatable highschooler hero travels to a generic fantasy world just like a videogame and owns villains/picks up anime chicks with his super skills. Like if ready player one/armada were less full of explicit references but also an entire genre. but now people are bringing out the litRPG so i can't really compete
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May 7, 2017 18:36
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Mel Mudkiper posted:What the gently caress. Try this: AlterWorld (LitRPG: Play to Live. Book #1) by D. Rus on Amazon. It's one of the bigger hits back in Russia and the first one is currently free. The appeal is mostly the ridiculous levels of wish-fulfillment and pandering that the premise allows. I must admit I kinda sorta enjoyed it. Megazver fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 7, 2017 |
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May 7, 2017 18:37
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litfairytalerpg. "I looked at my character sheet. [full-page table of badly-formatted stats] My nose length stat had increased by 1.3%. Only 3.2cm more to go and it would count as a finger, and I could equip another magic ring! But which ring? I considered the rings I already had. [half page breakdown of rings and their effects] I saw that I had two unspent points from my last level-up, and put them into dexterity, increasing my dodge chance by 7%. Soon, I thought, soon I would be powerful enough to take on Grey Wolves, the larger and more powerful version of Gray Wolves, and my rate of pelt-gathering and experience gain would double." litrpg is awful and I am perversely glad it exists, but I have no intention of reading more. I'm just so happy there's a hosed-up spreadsheet genre about being forced to mine ore in everquest 1. 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 18:42 on May 7, 2017 |
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May 7, 2017 18:40
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Basically stories about people being trapped in places just like popular videogames, trapped in places that literally are popular videogames, or just playing popular videogames is a big category all over the world right now, which isn't surprising when you put it that way but is still kind of amazing in how terrible it tends to be.
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May 7, 2017 18:39
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https://twitter.com/BrianTMcClellan/status/861259059483115521 If anyone is interested.
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May 7, 2017 19:07
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This empire, is it solar?
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May 7, 2017 19:22
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I mean, trapped in a video game isn't exactly a new contrivance. It's the narration using d20 rules that fascinates me
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May 7, 2017 19:38
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Kesper North posted:This empire, is it solar? It's not LitRPG of an RTS game, no.
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May 7, 2017 19:47
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Mel Mudkiper posted:
When you refer to series, are you specifically referring to books where you must read all of them in order to be able to follow the narrative arc, (like with Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or whatever) or would you also place something like Discworld, which has a persistent setting but mostly self contained stories, in that category?
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May 7, 2017 19:52
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Chairchucker posted:When you refer to series, are you specifically referring to books where you must read all of them in order to be able to follow the narrative arc, (like with Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or whatever) or would you also place something like Discworld, which has a persistent setting but mostly self contained stories, in that category? The second. The one in which the first story is pretty clearly self contained and then becomes an expanded series/world if it becomes popular
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May 7, 2017 19:54
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Audiences like the familiar. Agatha Christie has Poirot and Miss Marple. Tom Clancy has Jack Ryan. Clive Cussler has Dirk Pitt. It makes sense in so many ways for an author to continue writing books in a universe that readers enjoy, and that the author is already familiar with enough to not have to reinvent too much.
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May 7, 2017 20:00
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Yeah I don't like those stories either? I prefer my fiction self contained. If you are gonna do a sequel, do something like Plague of Doves and The Round House by Louise Erdrich
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May 7, 2017 20:05
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah I don't like those stories either? I prefer my fiction self contained. Well, that's certainly an opinion you are allowed to have.
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May 7, 2017 20:20
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yeah I don't like those stories either? I prefer my fiction self contained. Chairchucker was specifically talking about works that are self-contained but share a setting, though? Discworld, Poirot and Marple are all "series" in the sense that they have recurring characters and are all set in the same world, but you can also pick pretty much any of these books off the shelf and read it without having read any of the others and it'll stand on its own.
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May 7, 2017 20:21
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StonecutterJoe posted:I tried reading one of the most recommended litRPG novels, and it was literally three hundred pages of "I swung at the wolf and hit, doing nine thousand points of damage. I searched its corpse and found 3 wolf bones, 2 wolf sinews, and 1 wolf pelt. That was good because I needed 4 more wolf sinews to upgrade my bow. I saw that my harvesting skill had increased by one point. Now it was at 28 points. I approached the next wolf." Yes, there is a market for this. No, I don't know why. Jesus H Christ. I remember back in the days of the TV Tropes threads we were mocking one of their "writers" who was having trouble with his fantasy novel because it started off with fighting a monster that would give the protagonist his girlfriend as a rare drop but he was only starting out with 3 health potions and that wouldn't be enough or some poo poo like that and we thought that was HILARIOUS. People actually write poo poo like that? People actually buy poo poo like that? God almighty just when I think the world can't possibly get any stupider.
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May 7, 2017 20:24
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ToxicFrog posted:Chairchucker was specifically talking about works that are self-contained but share a setting, though? Discworld, Poirot and Marple are all "series" in the sense that they have recurring characters and are all set in the same world, but you can also pick pretty much any of these books off the shelf and read it without having read any of the others and it'll stand on its own. 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. Ender's Game comes to mind. Runcible Cat posted:Jesus H Christ. I remember back in the days of the TV Tropes threads we were mocking one of their "writers" who was having trouble with his fantasy novel because it started off with fighting a monster that would give the protagonist his girlfriend as a rare drop but he was only starting out with 3 health potions and that wouldn't be enough or some poo poo like that and we thought that was HILARIOUS. His girlfriend was a rare drop? Mel Mudkiper fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 7, 2017 |
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May 7, 2017 20:58
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Just to check again had anyone read Andromeda's Fall by William C Dietz ? I put it on my Kindle after a recommendation from here or the space opera thread and so far it's not great and I'm wondering if I should give up or keep going.
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May 7, 2017 21:04
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I'd like to remind you that the best LitRPG novels are the Caverns and Creatures series by Robert Bevan. It's 80% dick jokes, and every character lead (cept maybe Julian) is an rear end in a top hat. It's a wonderful series  Basic premise is rear end in a top hat C&C players (cause it's not dungeons and dragons, you see) get trapped in a game and end up having what can only be deemed misadventures if you have no soul.
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May 7, 2017 21:07
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Coldforge posted:https://twitter.com/BrianTMcClellan/status/861259059483115521 drat that's a very good price. I already bought it a few weeks ago and don't regret it though. Enjoying it a lot so far.
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May 7, 2017 21:18
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There should be a horror LitRPG where someone gets trapped inside a game and then discovers it uses FATAL
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May 7, 2017 21:23
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Mel Mudkiper posted:His girlfriend was a rare drop? Oh yes; he phrased it as exactly that. And everyone on the thread thought it was the most hideously, hilariously grognard thing we'd ever read. Apparently we were wrong all the time and he was actually pioneering a new genre. Jesus gently caress.
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May 7, 2017 21:30
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I'd like to remind you that the best LitRPG novels are the Caverns and Creatures series by Robert Bevan. Endorse, but the first book is a bit slow. From the second in they are hilarious. If I need a good, cheap laugh I just check the titles of his short stories set in that world. Multiple Orc Chasms, Probing the Annis, Genital Harpies, and Naga Please are personal title favorites.
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May 7, 2017 21:33
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Runcible Cat posted:Oh yes; he phrased it as exactly that. And everyone on the thread thought it was the most hideously, hilariously grognard thing we'd ever read. No, I mean, obviously its loving weird but... How does someone get a girlfriend as a rare drop like even by his own ruleset Was his girlfriend eaten by a monster? Was the monster apparently able to produce girlfriends for people who killed it? Did she only promise to date him if he killed the monster.
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May 7, 2017 21:33
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I'd like to remind you that the best LitRPG novels are the Caverns and Creatures series by Robert Bevan. 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.
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May 7, 2017 21:36
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