41 KiB
Are there any well done The Gamer stories?
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Author: u/SkyTroupe *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/9ktay1/are_there_any_well_done_the_gamer_stories/
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Score: 60
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Created: 2018-10-02T18:37:28
Post:
I'd love a list of stories where someone has powers like the protagonist of the Manwhua The Gamer/RPG style gaming. I feel like I've read so many potentially good stories that just kind of fall flat. Whether that be from a writing failure, a tendency towards power creep, ect.
It doesn't necessarily have to be rational/rationalist, I'd have asked elsewhere but I feel like the people on this sub have higher standards for fiction.
Also, I am currently reading Worth the Candle and The Daily Grind so recommendations outside of those two would be nice.
Comments:
u/redrach [+21] (6 hours later)
I'm going to recommend Erfworld. It's the story of a gamer who suddenly finds himself in a strange, cartoon-y world and is forced to quickly learn the rules in order to survive.
u/FunkyFunker [+10] (9 hours later)
I would recommend The Last Turn, an Erfworld fanfic by the writer of The Wandering Inn. It's a game world, not a single-person power, but it might be what you're looking for. It's short (for the genre) and I enjoyed it much more than Erfworld itself. Munchkinnery at its finest.
u/MilesSand [+1] (9 days later)
It's so much better than the original I've been treating it as canon
u/theibbster [+1] (a month later)
Never read any Erfworld but just binged this and enjoyed it. Cheers for the recommendation!
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (3 days later)
How is Erfworld? I remember loving the first book, but didn't really keep up with it after that. Worth a binge? Worth reading every update as they come out?
u/redrach [+2] (3 days later)
I tend to binge it every few months myself. I think it's quite excellent, especially how the characters have been developing.
They've also released a prequel book (each chapter is a block of text with a single illustration each) that really goes into detail about a lot of the character's pasts (particularly Wanda and Jillian).
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (3 days later)
It's still pretty good and consistent, but the pace goes waaay down.
By now it's the kind of pace where the story has an entire book (twice as long as Book 1 so far) dedicated to the "multiple characters are stranded from their base and their faction is in mortal peril as long as they are" arc.
It's enjoyable to read, mind you, (I'm still reading) but the pace has really taken a hit. The fact that half of the updates are text pages going into the details of each character's backstory and how it informs their decisions doesn't help.
("eg Did I ever tell you about that game I played 10 years ago when I was in a completely different faction? Here's how that game works. The situation I'm in has some stark similarities with that game.")
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (5 days later)
Been following Erfworld since Day 1. Currently not worth the updates, pace too slow, story too complex to get after a week of waiting, lots of text updates that are not suited well to pacing. Much better to binge.
u/MilesSand [+1] (9 days later)
It's gone through a shift or two in terms of the type of conflict. Rather than just exploiting the game mechanics it shifted to exploiting the metagame, and then to exploiting the game mechanics in ways that change the metagame to make it more exploitable.
u/cabforpitt [+14] (9 hours later)
Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is sort of the inverse, with a game character dropped into the real (well, harry potter real) world. It's very funny, especially if you know anything about 3.5 D&D.
u/lsparrish [+11] (19 hours later)
Here are some I've been reading:
- Greg Veder vs The World Good character development, classic take on The Gamer in the Worm universe.
- Shinobi: The RPG Uses the Fallout stats system which apparently you can't upgrade until late in the game. MC screws himself over by treating charisma as a dump stat, then realizes to his horror that he has to interact with actual people this way.
- The Wandering Inn There's no explicit XP numbers in this story (that we're told about), rather the levelups and associated skill gains seem to be in some way connected to character growth. Fantastic writing style.
- Dungeon Heart Almost no character growth, but there's an in-story reason: The protagonist is a very old dwarf with a well defined and stubborn personality.
u/Green0Photon [+3] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (2 days later)
I actually really liked Shinobi The RPG. It was kind of shit until he got his team, but then it got a lot better. It is a pretty weird twist on The Gamer, which was amazing, but it disguises itself as being a shitty cliche story first. The ending of Act 1 was amazing, and I actually cried at the climax just before hand, which happens very very rarely. I definitely recommend this it.
I haven't read the others.
u/lsparrish [+1] (2 days later)
Yes, it was definitely the kind of fic where I started out expecting one thing and ended up getting another (in a good way).
The same author also has a Young Justice SI in progress, Pyroclasm, which might be considered rational. YJ SI's tend to take inspiration from With This Ring, but in this case the protagonist starts as an infant with no powers and makes his own >!with the help of some friendly AI he created!<.
u/kaukamieli [+2] (4 days later)
Thanks! I read through Shinobi and I'm reading Greg now. I'm actually liking Greg a lot.
edit: Greg was pretty great actually, for the most parts.
Opened up the Dungeon Heart and saw word "cultivation". Oh boy...
u/edwardkmett [+33] (3 minutes later)
The Erogamer on QQ is probably the best story in that genre that I've read.
Something that borrows some of the elements is Threadbare, by Andrew Seiple, which was first posted as a web serial on SV. Not exactly rationalist, but still a fun read.
u/SkyTroupe [+5] (3 hours later)
What is it about? The Erogamer sounds a bit too explicitly lewd for my tastes
u/edwardkmett [+16] (3 hours later)
It is what it says its about. Protagonist finds herself with erogamer stats. I only started reading it because I found it linked here, but I feel like the time was well spent. It may not float your boat, but it does have at least one explicitly rationalist background character and a bunch of characters intelligently dealing with the fact that they've found themselves thrust into an eroge as support characters.
Threadbare is basically all sorts of cuddly awesome though.
u/CopperZirconium [+6] (3 hours later)
Threadbare follows a little teddy bear golem as he grows in power and helps topple the antagonistic demon-guided kingdom. The world has recently been transformed from a classical fantasy world into a quirky fantasy RPG, and the inhabitants have had to figure out the new mechanics on their own.
u/Sonderjye [+15] (3 hours later)
Threadbare seemed to me like a typical litrpg, with the usual utter lack of character growth. I enjoy the rise to power story but this was a mediocre example.
u/CopperZirconium [+19] (4 hours later)
I agree. It was fun and easy to read, but characters hardly changed except for getting more power. Conflicts were resolved mostly by one side overpowering the other, or upon discovering a misunderstanding. I can't think of one instance where any main character actually changed their minds, let alone their values.
It's appeal is its quirky setting and fun situations. For example, the first dungeon Threadbear enters is cat and death themed with the "Nekomancer" as the final boss.
u/None [+8] (6 hours later)
What was annoying to me was that it's answer to the grim and practical anti-villains is that you can totally have morally good means and ends, the anti-villains just gave up on being good too soon.
u/xachariah [+23] (5 hours later)
Woah, litrpgs have tons of character growth, you can tell because their stats go up!
u/DahWazard [+5] (a day later)
I fucking love all the Worm references in Erogamer.
u/immute [+2] Secretly Awesome (5 days later)
You work for MIRI now? How did that happen? I live in an actual crossover universe.
u/edwardkmett [+2] (5 days later)
Their executive director, Nate Soares, came out to Boston last September and made a very compelling case. I was able to wrap things up with Digital Asset at the start of August and we made it happen. He can be quite persuasive.
I just spent much of ICFP introducing his people to my people as it were.
u/immute [+1] Secretly Awesome (5 days later)
Yes but how do you know him, etc? Ok maybe this is too much prying. But it's really strange to have followed you on r/haskell, and then r/wormfanfic, and now here, and then MIRI. (Also this is my headcanon.) Too weird, but awesome still.
(Is MIRI a good place to level up as a beginning Haskeller, intermediate FPer?)
And yes the Erogamer is fabulous, and one of the best things I've read in the past year. Glad to hear you're enjoying it too!
u/edwardkmett [+2] (5 days later)
Yes but how do you know him, etc?
As for how I met Nate, it was a cold call on his part back last September asking to grab dinner!
Your headcanon isn't terribly far off. I've been sort of rationalist-adjacent for a long while. I've read a lot of rationalist fiction over the years (and stuff in the general neighborhood like Worm, Unsong, Vinge, etc.), because I tend to get sick of the standard Hollywood narrative that any sort of progress is inherently bad.
I've read a lot of the same source material, e.g. I stumbled on Less Wrong when working on some MCMC stuff and looking for material for trying to explain it to folks, collected a degree in AI during my binge through academia. I use lots of adaptive dynamic programming / Q-learning style tricks when working on compilers and the like, MCMC for graphics, etc. This means I've had to pick up a lot of the same tools but for use in rather more "pragmatic" short-term goals. I also try to be a good little Bayesian in my day to day life, though maybe not to the same degree as the typical MIRI-ite, as evidenced by the fact that my wife feels a need to apply a correction factor whenever I tell her my odds for things. ;)
If we're going to have some form of AI it'd be nice if it was something we could reason about. My main emphasis currently is on the idea that if the kind of AI we do know how to reason about is made up of functional programming and logic programming bits, it'd be really nice if that sort of approach could scale to the levels of data we can feed to deep piles of neural networks, and if it could run on the same sort of hardware, lest it be relegated to a form of irrelevance purely for a lack of computing resources. Going slow to go fast by trying to get our foundations right works to a point, but now there are 10,000x more folks working on the other side of the equation.
(Is MIRI a good place to level up as a beginning Haskeller, intermediate FPer?)
I'm not sure I can speak to that. They do have a bunch of functional programmers on board and are actively recruiting in FP circles for both interns and regular employees. I also know Nate and at least one of their interns were doing a lot of work in Lean recently and also seem to have a lot of internship positions to fill and comparatively few applicants, so for folks looking to do an internship, at least, that seems very viable. I'm also around the office now and again and have been spending my time there relentlessly braindumping FP, math and category theory on folks.
u/Hidden-50 [+9] (24 minutes later)
I'd recommend Fairy Dance of Death. It sets the death game of Sword art online in the more pvp centric world of Alfheim Online, where players are less incentivized to work together, and adds a layer of politics.
It's currently unfinished. I think the author is struggling to find time, but their recent profile update says they're still working on it.
u/SkyTroupe [+2] (3 hours later)
I hated SAO but will give this a shot
u/ProfessorPhi [+11] (5 hours later)
Did you like the abridged version? Because that was fantastic and I couldn't stand the source.
u/SkyTroupe [+5] (a day later)
SAO Abridged gave incredible depth and genuine moments in which I could empathize with the protagonist. I just have a knee jerk reaction to SAO but I will definitely put this on my to read list if you feel so strongly about it.
u/None [+1] (7 days later)
[deleted]
u/ProfessorPhi [+1] (8 days later)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6kJKxvbgZ0
This is the one, first episode is a bit slow, but it definitely gets better once they get into the swing of things.
u/causalchain [+1] (a day later)
I'm reading it now and this one is so close to being properly rational. The only major problem I have is in how it strawmans the villains. Other than this, it ticks all my requirements.
u/GeeJo [+23] Custom Flair (an hour later)
I'll second the recommendation for The Erogamer.
If you're familiar with Worm, A Bad Name and The Paragamer are enjoyable enough crosses; the first more than the second.
u/None [+14] (4 hours later)
Seconding A Bad Name, the character development in this is better than most Worm fanfics I've read so far.
The protagonist doesn't start out as a very smart person, but he makes decisions that make logical sense given his experiences and the situations he finds himself in. And as the story goes, he does gain a lot of agency and makes more intelligent decisions.Have to warn though, full spoilers for Worm.
u/CopperZirconium [+3] (a day later)
Thanks! I just read A Bad Name because of this recommendation. It's pretty good! I hope it continues.
u/SkyTroupe [+2] (3 hours later)
I love Worm and its many fanfictions so I will definitely hop on those two right away!
u/Kuratius [+16] (58 minutes later)
The Snake Report and Ryuugis The Games We Play. TGWP gets a bit dull towards the end though.
u/SimonSim211 [+9] (2 hours later)
Totally agree, https://old.reddit.com/r/TheSnakeReport/ is epic, though less logic driven more fear driven in a fun way
u/edwardkmett [+6] (7 hours later)
The first book of The Snake Report is excellent. The quality took a sharp drop with the start of the second, though.
u/SeekingImmortality [+2] The Eldest, Apparently (19 hours later)
It is at least climbing solidly back in the direction of the first, with the later portion of the second book.
u/edwardkmett [+5] (a day later)
After your comment, I went back and finished it. It does get better. I understand now a bit why the author was trying to change things, but the jump felt abrupt and under-explained.
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (12 hours later)
Seems cool but no Kindle Unlimited :(
u/vallar57 [+23] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)
I cannot recommend TGWP. The protagonist's, erm, macro decisions are irrational at best and just plain stupid at worst. The fact that they end well does not absolve him, it's merely plot armor.
u/causalchain [+8] (10 hours later)
My take on it: Jaune does a lot of thinking, and it does help him (it at least looks like a rational fic), but he's not spending that thinking time effectively so it seems more rambly than rational. Jaune has a lot of abilities which he can choose between but he makes his decision by thinking about it instead of taking measurements and making calculations. Eg. he chooses to split his stat points between intelligence and wisdom but:
- Stat points can be increased by training them, so he is encouraged to put his points into already high-level stats to maximise their payoff (ie. focus on one stat)
- Intelligence and Wisdom stats work together very well, but in the late game, each 50-stat step gains even more benefits to the last. So while 250-250 was very powerful, 0-500 would have been absurd.
It's like the rational equivalent of a chinese xianxia: a large quantity of (relatively) cheap writing that is enough to tickle all my requirements.
u/vallar57 [+4] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (10 hours later)
One day, I will write an actual rational xianxia fic :)
u/rumblestiltsken [+11] (3 hours later)
Saying Jaune has plot armour is like saying Cat has plot armour. Yeah, it is true, but it is literally a foundational rule of the world.
His decisions make sense given who he is, they achieve his goals given his values.
u/None [+5] (an hour later)
[deleted]
u/vallar57 [+3] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (4 hours later)
Which team to join, which quests to follow and which not to, when use violence and when not - that sort of thing.
u/None [+4] (7 hours later)
I disagree. Jaune makes the best decisions he can given the information available to him at the time. The fact that his decisions aren't perfectly rational or intelligent doesn't make the story bad.
u/Dragonheart91 [+17] (an hour later)
I’m a spider so what? Is one of my favorites but there aren’t great translations and it turns into a different genre mostly towards the later parts and got unfun for me.
I’m currently reading Everybody Loves Large Chests and it’s been really fun and funny although not terrible rational. It is also quite pornographic intermittently which might turn some people away.
u/dinoseen [+3] (10 hours later)
Yup. I was loving Large Chests, and then it turned into vore every chapter. Haven't read it since.
u/Dragonheart91 [+3] (17 hours later)
Hmm, not sure when that happens. Main character is a man eating monster throughout. One main character does talk about wanting to be eaten by the main character a lot but it doesn’t happen in detail “on screen” very often. I hear the amazon books version toned down the sex so maybe that would be more to your liking?
u/dinoseen [+9] (20 hours later)
The bit where the succubus character is getting painfully eaten alive and getting off to it all the time.
u/Dragonheart91 [+4] (22 hours later)
Oh yeah. It is never that graphic again but that continues to happen for literally the rest of the story.
u/dinoseen [+8] (23 hours later)
Thank you for providing me satisfaction in my decision.
u/Dragonheart91 [+6] (a day later)
Yeah no problem. Also just as a minor clarification, her fetish isn’t vore but rather masochism. She doesn’t always get eaten and is often tortured in other painful ways instead. Not that it is any better.
u/None [+8] (4 days later)
I can't tell if this is kink shaming or just the usual modern "eww, secks" American values leaking through.
I mean, the whole premise is already absurd. A succubus (magic sex-based demon) that undergoes a weird mind break and develops a masochism fetish as a coping mechanism for dealing with the pain of being a contracted demon to a retarded and voracious omnivorous chest that spends hours summoning her only to eat her alive (because it's too stupid to understand that it can't get full from dissolving mana bodies, and it won't gain mana from eating its own conjured critters) isn't nearly the strangest thing that happens in the story.
u/None [+0] (3 years later)
what the hell happened here
u/dinoseen [+1] (3 years later)
what are you talking about?
u/None [+0] (3 years later)
"yup. I was loving Large Chests, and then it turned into vore every chapter"
what the fuck is this
u/dinoseen [+1] (3 years later)
Clarify your question. What is Large Chests? The story "Everybody Loves Large Chests". What is vore? A weirdo cannibalism kink.
u/None [+1] (3 years later)
no i mean what the fuck happened in everybody loves large chests for it to be vore every chapter
u/dinoseen [+1] (3 years later)
Probably not literally every chapter, but the chest gets a succubus party member/snack that can regenerate and survive getting eaten alive. It starts arousing her, and things go downhill. I stopped reading shortly thereafter.
u/None [+1] (3 years later)
understandable
u/SkyTroupe [+2] (3 hours later)
Do you have links for either?
I love the title of that first recommendation.
u/LordGoldenroot [+15] (3 hours later)
For kumo https://www.novelupdates.com/series/kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka/?pg=2 Start with the blastron translations and then switch over when they stop. Sorry it is not more straight forward but there were a number of different translations of various qualities who worked on this one.
For ELLC there is the e-book here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076NSQ6JT/ref=series_dp_rw_ca_1 which is a more polished version of the content with a few new additions and less nsfw content but you have to pay for it or here https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/8894/everybody-loves-large-chests which is less polished but free. Only somewhere between 1/10 to 1/5 has been published though so you will have to switch over anyway if you want to keep reading.
u/Dragonheart91 [+2] (6 hours later)
You are the real MVP. Nice to see someone with similar taste and links on hand.
u/SkyTroupe [+1] (27 days later)
Hi, sorry for the delayed response, been working through the lists. Why do you say start with the blastron scans? I've been flipping through the pages on mobile and cannot find them.
u/LordGoldenroot [+2] (27 days later)
The other translation is a really crappy machine translation, while blastron at least reads like a professional translator worked on it(can't verify the accuracy though).
u/SkyTroupe [+1] (27 days later)
Thanks!
u/fassina2 [+2] Progressive Overload (3 hours later)
Check out the manga for the spider one, it's great.
u/lsparrish [+1] (4 days later)
You might enjoy this silly slice-of-life LitRPG about a 30 year old girl who becomes a slime in a dungeon. Who Says This OL Can't Become A Splendid Slime!?
u/Dragonheart91 [+2] (5 days later)
I’m not into ongoing stories with so little content released. I like finished stories or failing that at least stories with enough meat to keep me going for a while.
u/lillarty [+7] (5 hours later)
Dungeon Defense is solid and has has a fairly clever protagonist. The description, copied directly from the series' wiki, is:
After renouncing his inheritance of his late father, a young man decides to spend the remaining years of his life without working. One day, he received an email from the company that created『Dungeon Attack』, a standard dungeon-capturing RPG that was boasted as the absolute hardest strategy game. After answering a suspicious survey for the next expansion, he now finds himself in the game as the weakest Demon Lord,「Dantalian」.
With only his eloquent tongue and memories of conquest as the hero of the game, in order to survive as Dantalian, he decides to tear this new world apart.
Dantalian is normally defeated in the tutorial mission in the game he finds himself transported into, so he needs to use his intelligence to succeed instead. It's not the greatest story ever written, but in my opinion it's written well-enough and is thoroughly enjoyable.
Last I heard, the writer was going through the process of writing the isekai elements out of the series, because in general it functions better as a fantasy story than as an isekai.
u/major_fox_pass [+13] (5 hours later)
Here's a link to Dungeon Defense, since it's hard to find it immediately through Google:
https://shalvationtranslations.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/dungeon-defence-volume-1-prologue/
u/FordEngineerman [+4] (8 days later)
I read this after your recommendation and stopped in Volume 3. I didn't like it. We as the readers aren't let in on what is happening or why most of the time and then the problems get solved because "Oh yeah, the main character knew this thing from the game so it all works out." I would be down with the main character abusing known game info basically be prophetic but the readers are never let in on it until the exact moment when it becomes relevant and makes the main character win out of nowhere. That makes it seem like deus ex machina and not good planning. Also the main character is a pretty insufferable Gary Stu. "I'll just start reciting the complete works of William Shakespear (Which of course I have memorized) at this random bar and now everyone is in love with me because they have never heard a good story before."
The other big reason I stopped reading was because the main character just casually threw away one of his core convictions in Volume 3. It makes no sense for his personality to take such a huge turn.
u/Teulisch [+12] Space Tech Support (an hour later)
i would recommend the wandering inn which has levels and classes and skills, but does switch characters over so often. premise is humans sumoned to another world. overall its good, but some of the shifts to other viewpoints feel lacking because of how many there are now.
i would not call it rational. it does have regular updates.
u/Laborbuch [+9] (an hour later)
Its also ridiculously long. As in, 2–3 >8k word updates / week, >2 million words long.
But at the same time the author structured the narrative into books (currently on book 5, with book 1 being available on kindle) and did a decent job in generally formulating narrative arcs in such a way that they end (or find some measure of close) towards the end of a book.
That said, it’s not rational or rationalist by any means, but it has some good world-building.
u/GuyWithLag [+4] (30 minutes later)
Search for The Magineer, it just completed the first arc. The name of the general genre that you're looking for is GameLit and / or LitRPG, depending on who you ask.
u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)
LitRPG is a much larger genre that just TG-like stories tho.
u/SkyTroupe [+2] (3 hours later)
Hi, I love your flair
u/vallar57 [+5] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (4 hours later)
Why thank you.
Although not the Gamer style, but still with a lot of min-maxing is "Harry Potter and Natural 20". Highly advisable to read.
u/SkyTroupe [+9] (6 hours later)
"Wait, did you say you could describe him with three adjectives?
He's definitely an important character"
u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (7 hours later)
Exactly. Such a shame it gets updated so rarely now.
u/Vielfras8 [+4] (12 hours later)
Gaming the System
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/13807/gaming-the-systemA really good story that is unfortunately discontinued.
Still, I highly recommend reading it.
The family dinner where he reveals his new Gamer powers to his family is hilarious and the whole story tries to be as realistic and munchkin like as possible.
u/MaIakai [+6] (28 minutes later)
Incomplete but a great read with lots of comedy
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9708318/1/The-Adventures-Of-Harry-Potter-the-Video-Game-Exploited
Mr. Tibbles <3
u/SkyTroupe [+1] (6 days later)
Got any more like this?
u/Law_Student [+8] (an hour later)
Worth The Candle is AMAZING, quite long already and still being written. It's about a Dungeons and Dragons DM who finds himself transported into a world that's a conglomerate of all the worlds he created for his campaigns, and he has a game layer that lets him spend points on skills and attributes and level up by gaining experience, in addition to giving him quests.
Here's where it starts:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/25740126
u/SkyTroupe [+21] (3 hours later)
Also, I am currently reading Worth the Candle and The Daily Grind so recommendations outside of those two would be nice.
u/kaukamieli [+3] (2 days later)
I could classify Mother of Learning somewhat of a gamerfic. It's not as blatant as most as it has no floating screens, as it's obviously not a game, but the grinding character growth and somewhat numbered power levels are there, as we know stuff like how many magic missiles people can cast.
u/Jokey665 [+2] Worth the Candle (2 days later)
It also has terrible writing, at least in my opinion. I don't think I've ever seen anybody else mention it, though, somehow.
u/kaukamieli [+5] (2 days later)
MoL? I don't think so. Wanna explain what you mean?
Or do you mean gamerfics in general? There I would definitely agree.
u/Jokey665 [+3] Worth the Candle (3 days later)
I mean MoL specifically. I think I mostly managed to ignore it when I binged the first 70 or something chapters, but ever since it's been annoying me more and more so I ended up dropping it a few chapters ago. It's hard to point out specifically what's wrong with it, I guess, but the one criticism that sticks in my mind is that nobody feels like they have a unique "voice". Take any line of dialogue and, unless it's dealing with information or something that only specific characters know or a similar situation, it sounds like virtually any character could have said it.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (3 days later)
It gets mentioned from time to time, and there was some discussion in either the last chapter update or the update before it. The author is (IIRC) Croatian, which I'm sure it part of it. It's just not a thing that people are going to point out every chapter, and if they like it, then it's probably either a bullet they bit, or something that doesn't bother them.
u/Jokey665 [+1] Worth the Candle (3 days later)
Ah, okay. I read it for a while, but the writing started to really bother me so I gave up somewhere in the last couple of chapters. I'm too spoiled from reading stuff like Worm and WtC, I guess.
u/thrawnca [+2] Carbon-based biped (4 days later)
That's funny, because I love MoL much more than the other two. I read about half of Worm before finally giving up, and I wouldn't have read as far as that if it weren't so widely recommended, because it was too grey for my tastes. Worth the Candle is... Ok. I'm still reading it, but I don't rush to catch it as soon as it updates. But I'm always waiting for the next MoL chapter.
I'd say that half of the appeal is the level of world building (it was a fantasy world building project before it was a story), and the other half is the level of opposition. Zorian has a time loop, but he starts off so vastly overmatched that he just keeps getting killed. And when he makes progress in solving the mystery of what's happened to him, it's in tiny increments, gradually piling up clues until he can put the picture together. And whenever it seems like he's getting too powerful and there are no more plausible challenges, the world finds a new way to kick him in the gut.
u/tjhance [+2] (3 days later)
I don't think it's that bad. There are definitely a couple of systemic issues (he overuses ellipses I think, and maybe exclamation points as well) but I also think it has some funny, well-crafted sentences.
u/SkyTroupe [+1] (2 days later)
I actually started reading MoL a few minutes before I made this post. I've only read the first two chapters so I won't be able to give a proper review yet.
u/kaukamieli [+3] (2 days later)
It is one of my favorites. Original world, and the, uhh... well can't talk about some things because of spoilers.
u/CthulhuLies [+1] (6 hours later)
I liked Randidly Ghosthound but it isn't really rationalist.
u/FunkyFunker [+12] (9 hours later)
Kinda fun at the start, but loses its lustre by the time you realise that no, the name is not ironic (it is the main characters name). Really devolves into edgeville powertrip territory past chapter... 60? And that's out of ~300 right now.
u/CthulhuLies [+1] (9 hours later)
Yeah he grows out of the edgelord power trip though.
u/FunkyFunker [+2] (12 hours later)
does he? around what chapter does he do that? I stopped reading around ~130.
u/CthulhuLies [+3] (12 hours later)
Much much further not really sure how much further, for sure by about 600 tho lol. It just recently in the story he starts doing things that isn't about just get strong and hit people. This is kinda a spoiler but he creates a steel factory just because he likes making steel in a recent chapter.
u/ngocnv371 [+2] Chaos Legion (a day later)
The MC doesn't seem to have any motivation beside the basic "going with the flow" and "help whatever in front of my eyes".
There was some enjoyment to just go along with it, but what set me off was this: Hey, there's this ancient witch who is known to be extremely dangerous and manipulative, you know what i'm gonna do? I will SHOVE her into my SOUL, and forget about her. Obviously that's a genius move.
u/CthulhuLies [+1] (a day later)
I mean there is context behind it, a much larger threat at the time.
u/generalamitt [+1] (a day later)
How can anyone find that mess readable is beyond me
u/PreFollower [+1] (10 hours later)
There is a direct fanfic to The Gamer called "На Изнанку" (which is wordplay on "To the Other Side/Inside Out"), but as you can imagine it is Russian.
u/CouteauBleu [-4] We are the Empire. (2 hours later)
I think that the fact that this thread gathered over 10 recommendations in less than 2 hours says something a little embarrassing about this community :P
u/SkyTroupe [+23] (3 hours later)
Why is it embarrassing to enjoy a specific genre of literature?
u/causalchain [+6] (10 hours later)
Clearly our rational fiction fanbase is correlated with people who like this genre. I can see a couple hypotheses why:
- The intersection of between rational and science fiction/fantasy is large (larger than other rational fiction types)
- Rational speculative fiction is easy to write -> more quantity
- Rational speculative fiction is effective within speculative fiction, so they recieve more visibility- The kinds of people who like rational fiction also like speculative fiction
- Similar excitement is gained from rational fiction and speculative fiction, so the combination is even better- Our community has become self-reinforcing for speculative fiction in particular
I think downvoters should take into account that u/CouteauBleu raises a good point if we consider this last hypothesis. This can be seen as a call to action, where we should do something to improve our sub's inclusivity.
u/CouteauBleu [+6] We are the Empire. (19 hours later)
"The Gamer" is a little more specific than science fiction. It's a subgenre that focuses specifically on munchkinry and (arguably) wish-fulfillment.
Otherwise, your hypotheses are pretty spot-on.
u/kaukamieli [+2] (2 days later)
I do read "The Gamer" manga, but it annoys me a lot because it's so dumb. :D
I don't think it's about scifi at all.
It's sadly a lot about wish-fulfillment and gaining stupid amounts of unfair power by "munchkinry", which is not even munckinry in non ratfics.
Maybe I'll try to write a good one. One that wouldn't be about becoming a literal god and trouncing everything with your uberpowers, but would still use somewhat of a gamerlike system. I have been thinking about this for a while and have some specifics of the world set up already in a doc. Probably ends up being shit anyway.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (2 days later)
Probably ends up being shit anyway.
Seems kind of likely, if the only thing you're interested in is figuring out the gamerlike system. You'd need some other themes / messages / emotions to convey through that story.
u/kaukamieli [+3] (2 days later)
The thing is, I don't think I'm a good writer, so I don't hold many delusions about the end result.
It's not about figuring out the gamerlike system. It would obviously be about telling a story, instead of just masturbating with the game system and absurd power levels.
u/vallar57 [+15] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (4 hours later)
Why not? This sub enjoys munchkinism greatly, and this genre probably has more munchkinism per word count than any other.
u/CouteauBleu [+7] We are the Empire. (19 hours later)
I guess I see munchkinism-oriented subgenres (eg: The Gamers, Self Inserts, Fix-Fics, "Character goes back in time and fixes everything that went wrong") as more of a "guilty pleasure" kind of fic.
I'm not judging anyone for liking those, mind you.
u/Fresh_C [+2] (a day later)
I think when the munchkining comes at the cost of pacing, plot, and chracterization it's not worth much. But when an author is able to make it work with the story in a way that adds flavor (instead of taking over) then it can be quite enjoyable.
It would only be a guilty pleasure to me when the plot basically boils down to "Main character is really smart and figures out how to game the system and beat everyone showing how smart they are... The End". And admittedly some stories in the genre are like that, but I generally stop reading those fast.
u/ulyssessword [+10] (6 hours later)
It's only embarrassing if you're embarrassed.
u/None [+6] (18 hours later)
...it's embarassing the subreddit is performing its intended function quickly?
Rational fanfiction isn't sex, mate.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Rational communities really don't like being nerd-shamed.
u/lolbifrons [+2] Fifteenth Legion of Terror (3 days later)
Who likes being nerd shamed?
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (3 days later)
Some people hate it more than others.
u/lolbifrons [+2] Fifteenth Legion of Terror (4 days later)
Are you attempting to justify being shitty by saying your targets could hate what you're doing less?
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (4 days later)
No, I was answering whywhisperwhy's question, then yours.
I don't think that I did anything especially shitty, or that I engaged in cyberbullying, honestly. I get why it upset people, but I meant it as a light joke.
u/kaukamieli [+1] (2 days later)
Especially the namesake The Gamer, where MC just farts new abilities all the time. It's not surprising that the genre it spawned is full of that.
I'm not sure why I read it and I do feel a bit embarrassed about it.