LitRPG

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slippery

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velk said:
It's also written by what is, I am pretty sure, the most prolific author ever to walk the earth*, so you aren't going to run out of content any time soon.
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Not LitRPG, but this dude puts out a ton of fucking books, and bonus points that you can get multiple different like 80 hour listens for a single credit on audible. I enjoy his Black Ocean stuff. Twinborn is pretty good too

J.S. Morin's Books -
 
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DirkDonkeyroot

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Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Publisher's Summary
The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game - with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

It sounds silly, but it gets dark in a hurry with some decent funnies in there. Also the narrator is great.
 
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BrysB

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I do not get this praise for the Wandering Inn. I tried it on audible and the MC is insufferable. A whole chapter about her complaining about getting her period? Really? That's as far as I made it before deciding it's not for me.
 
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slippery

slippery

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BrysB said:
I do not get this praise for the Wandering Inn. I tried it on audible and the MC is insufferable. A whole chapter about her complaining about getting her period? Really? That's as far as I made it before deciding it's not for me.
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I think I made it like 10 minutes and I just could not pay attention to the narrator. Someday I'll give it a go
 
Ritley

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BrysB said:
I do not get this praise for the Wandering Inn. I tried it on audible and the MC is insufferable. A whole chapter about her complaining about getting her period? Really? That's as far as I made it before deciding it's not for me.
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Can’t speak to the audio book, but the first book is by far the worst. It takes until between book 2 and book 3 to really hit its stride with the characters and plot lines. And Erin is kind of an insufferable character, but it’s somewhat intentional (at least it’s noted by some other characters so it’s not something the author is unaware of).
 
Void

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Ritley said:
Can’t speak to the audio book, but the first book is by far the worst. It takes until between book 2 and book 3 to really hit its stride with the characters and plot lines. And Erin is kind of an insufferable character, but it’s somewhat intentional (at least it’s noted by some other characters so it’s not something the author is unaware of).
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I forget where I quit, but it was somewhere in book 2 I think when I'd finally had too much of that motherfucking cunt barefoot runner chick that was somehow better than literally everyone else in the entire world at everything that I literally despised with every fiber of my being. Like, if I were granted the power to make her a real person, I would, just so that I could murder her for being such a giant cunt.

I appreciated parts of what I read, and even though I'm almost certain it is a chick writer (could be supersimp trans I suppose) I was ok with MOST of her woke bullshit (there was some crap about building walls around Trump time, among other things) and pushing of a clearly feminine agenda, but way way too many of the characters just pissed me off. And then I realized I was reading something I actively had to push myself on, so I said fuck it and found something I didn't actually hate instead.
 
Tuco

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DirkDonkeyroot said:
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Publisher's Summary
The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game - with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

It sounds silly, but it gets dark in a hurry with some decent funnies in there. Also the narrator is great.
Click to expand...
almost done with the first book of this series, love it so far.

It feels a little shallow because it's literally just a couple levels in a dungeon, so it's like diablo vs a full MMO, but I figure that'll ramp up in subsequent books. Or not, we'll see!
 
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Void

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BrysB said:
He who fights with montsers, series by Shirtaloon is good. There is 3 books out and book 4 is supposed to come out at the end of the year. Book 3 just came out in September, he seems to be cranking them out every 3-4 months.
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Just read the 5 Kindle books available of these, and really liked them...while still hating many parts of it! So hard for me to put into words, and I tried to my best friend because we read a lot of the same books. After reading them I checked out a bunch of reviews on Goodreads, and the ones that disliked the books mainly disliked the main character, which I share for the most part (although he makes me laugh at times too), but a lot of them complained about all the other characters being one-dimensional and only existing to further the main character. Maybe true, but the side characters are the ones I like best, so maybe I'm just one-dimensional.

Spoiler about character deaths etc. so don't click if you haven't read yet.
I was actually pretty pissed about Farrah dying. It did occur to me at the time that it seemed ripe for a return, so I'm glad that actually came to pass. True, she doesn't always do a lot, but I just like her. I'm extra glad that she (currently at least) has no interest in Jason romantically, as it would likely ruin my affection for her character if she ever did.

The deaths at the mid-end of Book 5 (gold rank exploding the helicopter) were pretty shitty and telegraphed, so that bugged me. Not that all the characters were throw-aways, but they almost were except for the few chapters he spent giving them some face time before killing them. Asya and Greg were almost blatant "look, they are important now!" before dropping the hammer. Pretty rustled about the way that was handled/set up.

Still looking forward to the next books. I know they are available on Royal Road and Patreon, but I prefer the Kindle format and sync amongst devices. Unless the current chapters are downloadable somewhere I guess. Maybe I'll look around.
 
slippery

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I think that kind of sums up LitRPG as a whole anyways. Not the greatest writing, but enjoyable enough reading.
 
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velk

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Void said:
I was actually pretty pissed about Farrah dying. It did occur to me at the time that it seemed ripe for a return, so I'm glad that actually came to pass. True, she doesn't always do a lot, but I just like her. I'm extra glad that she (currently at least) has no interest in Jason romantically, as it would likely ruin my affection for her character if she ever did.

The deaths at the mid-end of Book 5 (gold rank exploding the helicopter) were pretty shitty and telegraphed, so that bugged me. Not that all the characters were throw-aways, but they almost were except for the few chapters he spent giving them some face time before killing them. Asya and Greg were almost blatant "look, they are important now!" before dropping the hammer. Pretty rustled about the way that was handled/set up.
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I am about 80% sure that the author got sick of that story arc and just went 'fuck it, let's wrap this up quick'.

Probably for the best, for a storyline with so much potential it was disappointing and wasn't really going anywhere - grimdark emo was never the series' strength.
 
Ukerric

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velk said:
I am about 80% sure that the author got sick of that story arc and just went 'fuck it, let's wrap this up quick'.
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That's the usual problem with litrpg, and notably with webseries: too many authors don't have a specific story arc to tell, and so they fill it with stuff.

There's a good summary on reddit (I know, I know) of completed LitRPG series, and unsurprisingly, complete RR series (like from where Shirtaloon's came) are rare:
 
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slippery

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TJT said:
Amazon product ASIN B08GPP5KN1
I generally like Dakota Krout and this one he started is pretty excellent.. Its a play on the DND murderhobo trope as our titular hero in this case has a specific set of abilities that make murderhoboing very ideal for adventuring. As he absorbs all weapons, armor, and so on into himself in order to always have them available.
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Just finished the first book, enjoyed it. Cool world idea as well
 
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Ukerric

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slippery said:
Just finished the first book, enjoyed it. Cool world idea as well
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The second book is still entertaining, but less so. The real good stuff is
When the Murderhobo gets into the zone with My Little Ponies. Slaughtering MLPs has to feel good.
Specially given how good - and expensive - powdered MLP horn is.
 
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Void

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Just read He Who Fights With Monsters book 6. Complete waste of fucking time. I could summarize it in a paragraph or two and you wouldn't be missing anything. At least things look to be "getting back to normal" in the next book. Hopefully that's not a complete shitfest too.

Halfway through Dungeon Crawler Carl 5, and it is light years better. Even stupid shit like how Donut always types in all caps, or constantly says "Carl" like she's reprimanding him, or deflects and says that "you're scaring Mongo" when she's really scared make it a thousand times better.
 
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Ukerric

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Void said:
Just read He Who Fights With Monsters book 6. Complete waste of fucking time. I could summarize it in a paragraph or two and you wouldn't be missing anything. At least things look to be "getting back to normal" in the next book. Hopefully that's not a complete shitfest too.
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Everybody was getting tired of the Earth Arc on RR too. People got excited for him getting back to Pallimustus and the obligatory team reunion as well, but, let's say, it petered out quickly. I ended up dropping the RR version around the end of what is intended to be the start of book 8.


The Builder invasion is a total bust. Nothing interesting happens, mainly because it's too big to be solved by Jason, and he's still Silver so he can't be expected to solve it anyway.
The reunion with the team is okay-ish.
He gets a new girlfriend, of course, and she leaves him because she's got stuff to do.
It's Dawn, of course, because why not
He does politics Jason style, which is, badly, and everyone lets him get away with it, because he's the MC and they know it.
He's trying to do a reset, with Jason trying to be an ordinary adventurer, except that's no longer really possible, so it falls flat already.

General thought from me: Could have been better if the series had a plan from the start, but since it's a full webseries with "the first idea I have, since I have a deadline of chapters to write for my Patreon" syndrome...
 
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velk

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Nemesis said:
I've enjoyed the Good Guys saga by Eric Ugland on Audible, perfectly narrated by Neil Hellegers.

Very light, lots of humor. Nothing extremely deep, and easy to blow through lots of hours. I've finished book 11.

Eric Ugland's Good Guys books in order

Eric Ugland's Good Guys book series in order, with the latest releases, covers, descriptions and availability.
www.fantasticfiction.com

The same author does the Bad Guys saga, but I haven't checked it out yet.

Eric Ugland's Bad Guys books in order

Eric Ugland's Bad Guys book series in order, with the latest releases, covers, descriptions and availability.
www.fantasticfiction.com
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Got around to reading these - they are pretty fun, nothing too serious but solid entertainment.

The main character of the good guys plays life like I play Skyrim - step 1, cheat inventory constraints, step 2, loot absolutely everything that isn't attached to the ground, and most things that are. Frequently realize that you have exactly the item you need for a given situation in your bags.. a week or so after you needed it.

The main character of the bad guys is clearly deliberately trolling with his attitude to epic loot. It's like the simpson's yard sale - 'Strada-who-vius ?' *tosses aside*.
 
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velk

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Oh yeah, also on the Ugland books - on a litrpg number crunchiness scale, they are about a 2/10 : the few numbers that come up are inconsistent and make no sense, and rarely mean anything to the story ( exception Strength stat for good guys MC ).

Whether this is good or bad depends on your taste in litrpg.
 
Void

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Ukerric said:
Everybody was getting tired of the Earth Arc on RR too. People got excited for him getting back to Pallimustus and the obligatory team reunion as well, but, let's say, it petered out quickly. I ended up dropping the RR version around the end of what is intended to be the start of book 8.


The Builder invasion is a total bust. Nothing interesting happens, mainly because it's too big to be solved by Jason, and he's still Silver so he can't be expected to solve it anyway.
The reunion with the team is okay-ish.
He gets a new girlfriend, of course, and she leaves him because she's got stuff to do.
It's Dawn, of course, because why not
He does politics Jason style, which is, badly, and everyone lets him get away with it, because he's the MC and they know it.
He's trying to do a reset, with Jason trying to be an ordinary adventurer, except that's no longer really possible, so it falls flat already.

General thought from me: Could have been better if the series had a plan from the start, but since it's a full webseries with "the first idea I have, since I have a deadline of chapters to write for my Patreon" syndrome...
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Well now I'm bummed. None of that sounds interesting. I'm sure I'll still read it when it comes out on Kindle, but I am no longer eagerly anticipating it. Not your fault btw, better to know now than to have my hopes crushed later.
 
Ukerric

Ukerric

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Tuco said:
Completionist Chronicles, book 7: Invent is out

Amazon product ASIN B0B347KLTH
Code: 
https://www.amazon.com/Invent-Completionist-Chronicles-Book-7-ebook/dp/B0B347KLTH
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Technically speaking, it's been out for a month - it was an exclusive on the Mountaindale site for July.

Also looks like they've finally sorted the audiobook issues - it wasn't available for the last two days.
 
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