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There are diamonds in the rough, and we will find them. Everybody knows the big books of the genre. If you feel like giving smaller authors an opportunity, check this thread. If not, go choke on LoRG. Rules: 1) Feel free to recommend books written by you or any other random dude - but not the wildly successful ones. 2) Do not post garbage. Small-time authors does not mean bad quality. This thread is for gems hidden in the dirt, not your little brother's three-page LitRPG. 3) Don't spam. Post a book only once. Check if somebody has recommended the same book you are about to post about. I will start with the book I wrote - big surprise. It's a LitRPG that includes a bunch of crabs and manly bros. Note that I'm a small-time dude so, in all probability, my book sucks compared to your favorite books. Also note that I am a winged wolf, not an armed wolf. How well can a wing type? https://www.amazon.com/Crab-Fighter-Legend-Book-ebook/dp/B098PL7C48
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Sep 12, 2021 19:32
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wingedwolf posted:3) Don't spam. Post a book only once. Check if somebody has recommended the same book you are about to post about. wingedwolf posted:Hey y'all, I wrote something: https://www.amazon.com/Crab-Fighter-Legend-Book-ebook/dp/B098PL7C48
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Sep 12, 2021 19:35
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Inspiration is like a reverse wizard; it can be late or early, but never precisely when it is needed. Still, fair enough. I deleted my comment in the other thread.
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Sep 12, 2021 20:56
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What is litrpg and why should I read it? e. does it actually contain quote:You've been hit by Messenger Gnoll! Damage sustained: 16 points. Life 44/60 in the text like this indicates? Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2021 03:29
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Famethrowa posted:What is litrpg and why should I read it? Litrpg is for those whose taste in literature is less than discerning. Might I suggest Xianxia? It is a far more refined genre that can broaden your horizons culturally.
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Sep 13, 2021 03:44
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Does this thread kind of overlap with the web serial and Kindle Unlimited threads a lot?
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Sep 13, 2021 05:59
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Oh, I love it.
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Sep 13, 2021 12:36
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Honest question as a fellow web serial auteur, OP, what separates your story from the stories that I like to read like He Who Fights With Monsters, Defiance Of The Fall, Delve, The Wandering Inn, and especially Pale? I understand that your story features a crab, but you're not exactly selling me on the story. Talk me through the themes, really make me taste the pathos. Does the restrictive nature of the GameLit mechanics reflect the unyielding prison of your crustacean protagonist's exoskeleton? I understand that he's Level 13. Did you select that number for the symbolism? But most importantly, don't sell yourself short! Don't prime the audience to think it sucks because you say it might suck!
Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2021 12:47
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shirunei posted:Litrpg is for those whose taste in literature is less than discerning. Might I suggest Xianxia? It is a far more refined genre that can broaden your horizons culturally. I hit u for 12 points of damage
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Sep 13, 2021 13:13
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Phac gripped his bone sword and walked in the cavern. The ever-growing thirst was making him desperate, and he would get nothing by waiting. The King rubbed its pincers together in something Phac interpreted as a crab’s war cry. “Yeah, I know. Let’s fight”, said Phac in a calm voice, the words scratching his dry throat. The King accelerated rapidly, moving diagonally towards him, trying to approach while keeping him in range of its pincers. Luckily it wasn’t too fast, but still faster than Phac could have been. As it swiped a pincer at him while moving, Phac fell flat on the ground, the pincer whistling powerfully over his head. He suppressed a shiver, knowing that this one hit would have been enough to incapacitate him, if not outright kill him. On the ground, Phac swiped his bone sword against the King’s moving feet, pouring 6 of his 8 stamina in the strike with Smash. With a loud crunch, one of the King’s feet broke, causing it to stumble, but the power of the strike had already been spent. Before the King had time to recover, Phac rushed back into the tunnel. He hadn’t moved from his original spot so far, just so he could retreat quickly. He stood there panting heavily, having spent 6 of his 8 stamina points. Enraged, the King tried to follow and put its legs in the tunnel, only receiving a 1-stamina Smash from Phac in return. Its leg cracked a bit and the King, realizing it couldn’t fit properly, pulled back and stared angrily at the arrogant little human, waiting for him to come out again. Phac sat down to recover his stamina. This would be a long battle.
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Sep 13, 2021 13:54
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Dungeon Crawler Carl is a great LitRPG series of books. The set up is Earth is impounded by a galaxy spanning league of various races for the purposes of extracting all of it's material wealth, the process of which is mostly instantaneous and kills like, 95% of the population. The big money though, is in televising the dungeon crawl; essentially a reality tv show where the survivors are forced to go through a deathtrap dungeon kinda deal for the entertainment of trillions of aliens. The game aspects are mostly there because its easier to get their new reality tv stars up and ready to entertain the masses.
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Sep 13, 2021 16:34
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wingedwolf posted:1) Feel free to recommend books written by you or any other random dude - but not the wildly successful ones. Could you elaborate how successful books should be to recommend them here? For example, I have a friend that wrote a book that rocketed to the top of top web fiction for a few days - wow. But! It then mysteriously vanished from the site, as if the admin's banned it due to the user manipulation. So weird. Anyway, would my friend's book be of an appropriate popularity for this thread?
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Sep 13, 2021 17:57
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Cicero posted:Does this thread kind of overlap with the web serial and Kindle Unlimited threads a lot? Yup. Given they just registered and immediately posted this, and haven't since, it looks like the author needed an excuse for doing self-promo without it looking like it was just self-promo.
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Sep 13, 2021 18:37
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Rob Filter posted:Could you elaborate how successful books should be to recommend them here?
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Sep 13, 2021 19:42
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Oh don't get me wrong, this is certainly self-promo. I've followed some threads for a while but only registered for the occasion. And then I thought that if I'm helping myself, I might as well help others too. I've seen some stories that fail to gain traction in RR or wherever due to a slow start, but then turn out to be pretty solid. I think that's a shame, and I think that there are people willing to give less known stories a chance. This is the place for them. And people can self-promote too, why not? So no, Dungeon Crawler Carl is an excellent story (I've read it) but it isn't fit for this thread. And as for the guy who did the manipulation, whoever he is, I'm sure that he was caught, punished accordingly, and never did it again. LitRPG means including any sort of game mechanics into a book, but it isn't annoying like 'You dealt 12 damage!' It's more like, levels, Classes, Quests, Skills that can evolve or are special, etc. Also, for the special person who stole my heart by asking for more info, have a more detailed synopsis of The Crab Fighter (possible spoilers): Our guy Phac (pronounced almost like gently caress) is a rough, sailor guy. He lands in an unknown litrpg world and falls in a crab full of giant crabs. Completely overpowered crabs. He fights his hardest and manages to escape, unlocking a crab-related class in the process. He then lands into the slightly wider world (an island), makes manly and fun friends, as well as crab friends later on, and generally has adventure. But he is impulsive and antagonizes the strong people, who also turn out to be bad guys. Not bad bad, but trying to save the island in a different way than Phac. They fight, Phac gets stronger until he can actually match the antagonist, and the island erupts into an orc-filled, crab-swarmed, devil-infested civil war.
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Sep 13, 2021 20:02
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wingedwolf posted:Our guy Phac (pronounced almost like gently caress) is a rough, sailor guy. He lands in an unknown litrpg world and falls in a crab full of giant crabs. Completely overpowered crabs. He fights his hardest and manages to escape, unlocking a crab-related class in the process. He then lands into the slightly wider world (an island), makes manly and fun friends, as well as crab friends later on, and generally has adventure. But he is impulsive and antagonizes the strong people, who also turn out to be bad guys. Not bad bad, but trying to save the island in a different way than Phac. They fight, Phac gets stronger until he can actually match the antagonist, and the island erupts into an orc-filled, crab-swarmed, devil-infested civil war. Follow up question: are your books as poorly written as this summary, and if so, isn't posting about them technically in violation of rule 2 of this thread?
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Sep 13, 2021 20:18
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wingedwolf posted:Our guy Phac (pronounced almost like gently caress) is a rough, sailor guy. He lands in an unknown litrpg world and falls in a crab full of giant crabs. Completely overpowered crabs. He fights his hardest and manages to escape, unlocking a crab-related class in the process. He then lands into the slightly wider world (an island), makes manly and fun friends, as well as crab friends later on, and generally has adventure. But he is impulsive and antagonizes the strong people, who also turn out to be bad guys. Not bad bad, but trying to save the island in a different way than Phac. They fight, Phac gets stronger until he can actually match the antagonist, and the island erupts into an orc-filled, crab-swarmed, devil-infested civil war. Okay, but... like, what does Phac want, other than to fight guys and get stronger so he can
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Sep 13, 2021 22:46
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[Minor spoilers ahead] Phac wants to survive, initially, and later save the island from the bad guy. This bad guy also wants to 'save' the island from something else, but his way of doing it is unacceptable to Phac (and a lot of other people). He wants to sacrifice the few to save the many, while Phac wants to risk everyone to save everyone. Those two people are opposites. Answering anything else would be quite a spoiler, KU can help you find out. But yes, of course there are things happening. The various characters and their development are as important as the plot itself, if not more. It's not uga bunga punchy wacky. And well, the story certainly could be non-LitRPG, but back when I wrote it I wanted to write a LitRPG so... wingedwolf fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Sep 13, 2021 |
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Sep 13, 2021 23:55
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wingedwolf posted:Oh don't get me wrong, this is certainly self-promo. I've followed some threads for a while but only registered for the occasion. And then I thought that if I'm helping myself, I might as well help others too. I've seen some stories that fail to gain traction in RR or wherever due to a slow start, but then turn out to be pretty solid. I think that's a shame, and I think that there are people willing to give less known stories a chance. This is the place for them. And people can self-promote too, why not? AIDS
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Sep 13, 2021 23:55
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"I can't answer your questions because it's spoilers, but suffice to say the book is very cool and good" is not really a persuasive pitch
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Sep 14, 2021 00:01
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Rob Filter posted:Could you elaborate how successful books should be to recommend them here? For example, I have a friend that wrote a book that rocketed to the top of top web fiction for a few days - wow. But! It then mysteriously vanished from the site, as if the admin's banned it due to the user manipulation. So weird. Anyway, would my friend's book be of an appropriate popularity for this thread? Which story was that? I had to deal with the WFG/TWF staff for a bit and they were a bit of an odd bunch. wingedwolf posted:Also, for the special person who stole my heart by asking for more info, have a more detailed synopsis of The Crab Fighter (possible spoilers): This doesn't answer any of my questions!
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Sep 14, 2021 00:17
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to be completely sincere: these kinds of books are so completely antithetical to the idea of storytelling I cannot believe they even exist. the thought of taking the least interesting part of the least interesting genre of video games and turning that into a full non-CYOA book that you just placidly slide your eyes over is actively horrifying to me. e. that and I really can't help but feel like your "crab" choice is some sort of SEO optimization, given the 3 whole books you've created this month. Famethrowa fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 00:51
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Yeah, "LitRPG – but not garbage" is a contradiction in terms. There really is something pathological about it.
Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 00:54
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wingedwolf posted:[Minor spoilers ahead] This is definitely the story to take those Big LitRPG fatcats down a peg.
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Sep 14, 2021 01:57
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Which story was that? I had to deal with the WFG/TWF staff for a bit and they were a bit of an odd bunch. I've been facetious, because the name of the story that rocketed to the top only to mysteriously vanish - it was not written by a friend, but instead by someone within this very thread. The name of that book? Crab Fighter. I know. This comes as a great surprise to everyone that someone currently violating the norms of a community to relentlessly self market has a prior history of violating the norms of a community to relentlessly self market. I know. But somehow we must move on, to a better and brighter future. quote:And then I thought that if I'm helping myself, I might as well help others too. I've recently been in contact with top scientists who are looking into alternate sources of posting energy, and early results show that the sheer loving arrogance of this sentence can help fuel this thread to continue sustainably for hours, even days into the future. Famethrowa posted:to be completely sincere: these kinds of books are so completely antithetical to the idea of storytelling I cannot believe they even exist. the thought of taking the least interesting part of the least interesting genre of video games and turning that into a full non-CYOA book that you just placidly slide your eyes over is actively horrifying to me. To drop the poo poo posting if only briefly, the LitRPG genre has some fun stuff, and their is definitely a bunch of stuff writers can explore with LitRPG properties to write interesting stories. Like, I will read flowers for Algernon's level 60 intelligence build mage. lmao, I will read it. Of course I totally understand why people dislike the genre, its often endless stories of numbers going vrmmmm and power fantasy characters going vrmmmm, the promise of a number line stretching from 1 to infinity only to be cancelled without conclusion when the author moves to Canada. Or way worse that a bunch of authoritarians use it to create universes where its totes cool for there to be one supreme leader who makes all the decisions because they are objectively the smartest due to their highest intelligence stat and they are also the entire military of the world due to having the highest nuclear proliferation stat, look how cool this level ten thousand overlord is, blah, so many bad fashy works in the genre. But there is something fun and silly here I enjoy reading, and I will happily consume genre trash alongside lit. I love genre trash. And hell, some writers have even written stories I consider actual big L Literature in the genre as well.
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Sep 14, 2021 06:25
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Rob Filter posted:Like, I will read flowers for Algernon's level 60 intelligence build mage. lmao, I will read it. I don't know what this is supposed to mean, but it fills me with cold revulsion nonetheless
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Sep 14, 2021 06:34
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Antivehicular posted:I don't know what this is supposed to mean, but it fills me with cold revulsion nonetheless You have honed your instincts well.
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Sep 14, 2021 06:47
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what if it's only metaphorically a book and only logistically a litRPG I think all the other threads I frequent are sick of me plugging my poo poo but I will never stop
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Sep 14, 2021 07:33
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Famethrowa posted:to be completely sincere: these kinds of books are so completely antithetical to the idea of storytelling I cannot believe they even exist. the thought of taking the least interesting part of the least interesting genre of video games and turning that into a full non-CYOA book that you just placidly slide your eyes over is actively horrifying to me. they're the final form of genre fiction, the ultimate conclusion of its oppositional tendency to literature.
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Sep 14, 2021 09:25
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Rob Filter posted:I've been facetious, because the name of the story that rocketed to the top only to mysteriously vanish - it was not written by a friend, but instead by someone within this very thread. The name of that book? Crab Fighter.
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Sep 14, 2021 15:47
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Rob Filter posted:To drop the poo poo posting if only briefly, the LitRPG genre has some fun stuff, and their is definitely a bunch of stuff writers can explore with LitRPG properties to write interesting stories. Like, I will read flowers for Algernon's level 60 intelligence build mage. lmao, I will read it. What does the experience of having arbitrary numbers and levels add to the power fantasy? Why not read an isekai, xianxia (as mentioned) or hell even just a trashy Warhammer book? I'm a sucker for genre trash when I want comic book nonsense, but this seems like an evolution of The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters but without even being interesting in an "outsider art" way.
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Sep 14, 2021 16:14
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Famethrowa posted:What does the experience of having arbitrary numbers and levels add to the power fantasy?
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Sep 14, 2021 16:55
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Famethrowa posted:What does the experience of having arbitrary numbers and levels add to the power fantasy? Why not read an isekai, xianxia (as mentioned) or hell even just a trashy Warhammer book? I'm a sucker for genre trash when I want comic book nonsense, but this seems like an evolution of The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters but without even being interesting in an "outsider art" way. Yeah, this is the question to me. I've been fighting the urge to shitpost because whatever, people like what they like, I'm not going to poo poo on someone for having tastes I don't share, but at the end of the day I fundamentally don't understand what the rpg element adds to the narrative. What goal does that piece serve for the story? What does it add in terms of themes it lets you develop, or hooks it adds to the character, or whatever? I just don't see how it makes the story more interesting or engaging at all. My suspicion is that it's ultimately fanservice - people who like MMOs get a vicarious dopamine hit from watching somebody else's character level up. If that's all it is, cool. It's not for me but I at least understand it, it's a form of porn for MMO otaku. If that's not it, though then why? I give no shits at all about MMOs or RPGs but I do like well-told pulp stories. What can an author do with the rpg element that s/he can't do without it that would make me interested in the story?
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Sep 14, 2021 17:02
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Alexander Wales does interesting things with the LitRPG format (Worth the Candle, This Used to be About Dungeons). Definitely still not to everyone's tastes -- especially Worth the Candle, which gets very weird and hosed up in parts -- but they're very different from typical LitRPG's. Probably helps a lot that he draws from tabletop RPG's, not video game RPG's, with the former being much more suited for telling stories than the latter.
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Sep 14, 2021 20:56
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Cicero posted:Alexander Wales does interesting things with the LitRPG format (Worth the Candle, This Used to be About Dungeons). Definitely still not to everyone's tastes -- especially Worth the Candle, which gets very weird and hosed up in parts -- but they're very different from typical LitRPG's. Probably helps a lot that he draws from tabletop RPG's, not video game RPG's, with the former being much more suited for telling stories than the latter. How do you think that format helps the story? Not sarcasm, genuine question. I was thinking about this and I realized that Kieran Gillan's "Die" comic probably counts as a litrpg - it's got the trope of "a group of gamers get sucked into a game and have to deal with the in-game rules" as its basic setting. In that case, I can point to specifically what Gillan is doing with that framing - the series has a theme of be careful what you wish for/fantasy meets reality where the characters all have to deal with the disconnect between their power fantasies as they're idealized in the game versus what that actually means in real life and how incredibly lovely it is to actually live out murderhobo fantasies. In that case, I can point to a specific reason for using the litrpg framing - it's a jumping-off point for grimdark pulp, and an explicit critique of rpg culture while also generating some fun ideas when he tries to figure out how classic rpg tropes like mage-kings or whatever would actually work in real life. I don't know if Gillan could tell the same story without the litrpg framing. From what I've seen of the coverage of the genre, though, it seems like most authors don't do that, though, so I'm not sure what the rpg element adds to anything.
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Sep 14, 2021 21:21
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gently caress it, I'll try to explain the appeal of litRPGs. Expect a healthy dose of unrestrained venting and rambling, though, because I'm in too deep and I have brain problems. To preface, I don't entirely get it either. I get some of it. I currently write what is definitely a take on the genre, but I'm told it doesn't really scratch the itch of litRPG fans (same for isekai--what I write is an isekai by the rules as written, but it's not isekai enough for isekai readers). The appeal that I see in it is as follows: 1.) The serialized nature of most litRPG stories. Most of these start as webfiction--not written to be consumed all at once, but gradually, a chapter at a time. Due to the way internet audiences and online income and habitual consumption work, the ideal method to "making it" is to write one story that hooks everybody and then drag that fucker out as long as you possibly can. The obvious way to do it--at least, obvious to me, because I'm a god drat dweeb--is to go full anime shonen protagonist with it. The hero gets stronger every episode. They get beat, they get stronger, they come back and beat the bad guy, and then they fight a bigger bad guy with new powers and a new agenda and so on and so forth until the sun dies. It's Naruto. It's My Hero. It's Dragon Ball Z. It's very specifically Dragon Ball Z. 2.) Nerds love numbers. They love puzzles that can be solved, they love clear hierarchies, they love subversions and twists that rely on ingenuity and a clever protagonist. Akira Toriyama only introduced power levels with Raditz, and dropped them halfway through Freeza--but there were still whole-rear end websites dedicated to gauging and charting every power level in the series forever. There's STILL dorks arguing about power levels. They provide a clear, concise, videogamey method of gauging who is the strongest and who is garbage... and cute ways of loving with that hierarchy. New forms and transformations, abilities that boost your stats, fusions, absorption, entirely new forms of ki, magic, whatever--power levels make rules so the rules can be broken. It keeps the progression escalating. It keeps things fresh and interesting on an episode to episode basis. It drags that loving plot out so your patreon people don't bail. You can keep writing the same poo poo while having it be meaningfully different poo poo--it's still a bunch of fighting and powering up, sure, but now it's THIIIIIS big instead of thaaat big. This is also one of the places where I break away from conventional litRPGs--I don't like hard numbers. I don't like saying a character is level 35 or they have 3000 AGI. That's limiting to me as a writer, and how Toriyama wrote himself into more than a few corners. I watched DBZ, and I learned to keep poo poo vague. "Oh no he punches harder than anyone I've ever fought" is much, much more flexible than "oh no his power level is like a billion." I also personally don't want to get trapped writing a fight that's nothing but numbers flying around, I want poo poo blowing up and things happening and that's easier if I don't have to put a number on EVERYTHING. 3.) Tangible progression is a form of escapism, which a lot of these webfic type stories are (the isekai, the harems, all of it). I've been drawing my whole life and I'm still not very good at it. I have shaky hands and an anxious brain that I can't stop from rushing the lineart. In real life I can work out for months and months and months and still have a gut, because I'm just kind of built that way. In real life I can sweat and bleed for a job, work my rear end off, lick every boot and grasp for every brass ring and never become successful, or even get promoted. That poo poo all sucks. Being able to kill 10 goblins and instantly become 2% better in a clear, tangible, reproducible way would be loving incredible. For a lot of people (dweebs, specifically) the idea of CONSISTENT GAINS is god drat nirvana. They told me if I did X, Y would happen, so I did and it did. Mindblowing. loving unheard of. It's a sick, broken kind of escapism, but it's escapism. The fantasy is small, simple, but it's a fantasy nonetheless. "If I do thing hard enough I will get better at thing" is demonstrably untrue for a lot of people at a lot of things, and even those capable of really, genuinely improving will hit some kind of cap eventually. In the magical world of webfiction I can draw and draw until I am the best drawer in the universe and can outdraw God and there's a certain appeal in that. There's other forms of escapism in there you can check on or off at your leisure--like being able to reincarnate or respawn after death, being able to develop full blown gently caress-off magic with a little time invested, being STRONGEST MAN ALIVE and all that encompasses, doing hosed up poo poo you can't do in real life and all that jazz because, again, nerds. If you want to really read some dark brain things into it, there's also a certain appeal for dweebs being able to become invincible gods simply owing to how smart they are, or how well they know how to vidjagame. Ready Player One was pretty explicit about that mindset. 4.) Adding to the above--about escapism, and fantasy--it is very much about the dopamine. Not just for the readers, if I were to really wildly speculate. Progress feels good. Numbers feel good. Writing feels good. Serialized, episodic stories that stretch on forever means you as a writer get to keep writing, every day or every week or every month and your readers get to keep consuming, and you get to keep getting feedback, and you drag that poo poo out and they keep eating and you keep feeding them and you keep feeling good because even if what you're writing isn't amazing, YOU GET TO WRITE. And then, ideally, you start getting paid to write, so you can quit your job AND KEEP WRITING. WRITE FOREVER. There's a clear line in my brain where writing absolute garbage is harder than not writing at all, but if I could flip that switch off I'd do it in a heartbeat and just write McDonald's cheeseburger stories for mass consumption 24/7. There's a tiny artist in my brain keeping me from going full Boy Hit By A Bus Reincarnates In Fantasy World To Become An Overlord With A Harem And There's Numbers To Everything, but there's also a full-sized me here sitting at my desk who's bad at advertising and struggling to pay bills who would love to murder that tiny artist. Meeting the serial consumers halfway is a tall task because if it smells TOO different, they won't touch it. They want that Mickey Ds. The escapism and the dopamine and the numbers getting bigger are very, very much THE appeal. It's not reading for plot, or to make you feel or to make you think--it's reading for the sake of reading. Reading to escape. Reading to not be here, but there, where the laws of physics are a video game. Again, this is from the perspective of someone who doesn't entirely get it myself, and also I have a lot of personal/professional/mental health issues that are going to put a thin layer of INCREDIBLY loving BITTER on my assessment... but that's my smoky take on it all. Grain of salt, I'm biased and some kind of goblin IRL. Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 22:25
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Notahippie posted:How do you think that format helps the story? Not sarcasm, genuine question. quote:I was thinking about this and I realized that Kieran Gillan's "Die" comic probably counts as a litrpg - it's got the trope of "a group of gamers get sucked into a game and have to deal with the in-game rules" as its basic setting. In that case, I can point to specifically what Gillan is doing with that framing - the series has a theme of be careful what you wish for/fantasy meets reality where the characters all have to deal with the disconnect between their power fantasies as they're idealized in the game versus what that actually means in real life and how incredibly lovely it is to actually live out murderhobo fantasies. quote:In that case, I can point to a specific reason for using the litrpg framing - it's a jumping-off point for grimdark pulp, and an explicit critique of rpg culture while also generating some fun ideas when he tries to figure out how classic rpg tropes like mage-kings or whatever would actually work in real life. I don't know if Gillan could tell the same story without the litrpg framing. edit: also I agree with everything Lunatic Sledge said. Typical LitRPG's, or other forms of progression fantasy, are very comfort food-y for nerds. They're not gonna make you think very hard at all, but they can be a fun, mostly mindless ride. The best ones tend to not rely so hard on charts or numbers and still tell a decent story with their plot and characters (e.g. Cradle), the worse ones pump up their Kindle Unlimited numbers with endless charts. Cicero fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 22:50
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While I'm here, though: if you DO want to read a story that meets litRPG foundations halfway while trying to be its own unique thing with an actual plot, and you're not put off by an author practically living up his own rear end, and you're kind of into the idea of audience participation/choose-your-own-adventure/interactive fiction type poo poo, and you want to see a story that combines all these elements with two different artstyles, and you like sci-fi-as-magic gods-as-aliens stories that delve hard into cryptocreatures, genetic engineering, the collective unconscious and all kinds of other goofy bullshit, I'd like to recommend My Delirium Alcazar, and the story what came before it, Blood is Mine. You don't have to read BiM to understand MDA, though they are definitely connected thematically and take place in the same universe. BiM is a story about hearts both physical and otherwise, MDA is a story about brains and I wrote a significant chunk of it while having a mental breakdown. It's a story about stories, art about art, fiction about how reality is shaped by fiction but also how reality is breaking the gently caress down. Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Sep 14, 2021 |
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Sep 14, 2021 22:56
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Sham bam bamina! posted:And there it is. To be fair, virtually every story on that listing was being boosted by bots and/or by the admins of the site itself. If there's one thing I came away from my few years writing a web serial and trying to create a space for stuff that isn't LitRPG "junk food" it's how utterly bizarre the whole place is behind the scenes.
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Sep 15, 2021 03:08
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:To be fair, virtually every story on that listing was being boosted by bots and/or by the admins of the site itself. Wait they've been caught doing this? An entire site been an algorithmic hellscape dominated by whoever manages to sneak the most robots in without getting caught; well, that's just every FAANG company. It's like gravity that their is corruption going on behind the algorithmic scenes, but its usually hidden behind a veil of capital and NDA's. What's been going on?
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Sep 15, 2021 08:12
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