Dungeon Crawler Carl: A LitRPG/Gamelit Adventure

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Metaphorically True: The description of the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook isn't exactly lying when it claims that, "Each recipe is accompanied by a hilarious tale by the anonymous author, recounting some of the zany and madcap misadventures they experienced gathering these mouth-watering recipes." It's just that unlike what it implies, the recipes are less about making food, and more about Loophole Abuse— both inside the dungeon and outside.

Magical Barefooter: The AI pushes Carl into this, giving him a pedicure set that makes his feet Nigh-Invulnerable but requires him to wear no shoes. It's worth the trade-off — so long as he doesn't forget to reapply it daily. Even Evil Has Standards: One of the few things that is actually banned from the crawls is using "collected" children or pregnant women as NPCs. (Although considering what's still allowed, that restriction seems a bit arbitrary.) Mentor in Sour Armor: Mordecai is fairly grumpy, and specifically unhappy about becoming Donut's manager, which is delaying his retirement, but is very knowledgeable and does prove to be quite helpful. How much of that is because he actually cares about them, vs how much is because he gets financial incentives to help them get as far as possible, is hard to say.But, I honestly believe that this one is one of the only stories, which are done right. Litrpg turned it all into a loveable mess. The characters are great, progression never stops, and the plot is cathcing.

The Borant admin who gives patch notes ends every broadcast with "Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!" Zev says the same thing after being (seemingly) brainwashed. Power Perversion Potential: The changelings in "Hump Town" are all prostitutes who are willing to use their powers to put on a show. Louis and Firas quite appreciate forms like Slave Leia, for example. The characters are well developed and human enough to make me feel a wide range of emotions. I enjoy how Donut grew as a character and became one of my favorites after starting out as someone I would have been fine without. Same with Katia.Carl is a gruff man who has a strong sense of right and wrong. He also has "grit", refusing to let the system break him. While not charismatic, he is the sort who will assume leadership if nobody else steps up. He is a loyal and trustworthy crawler, willing to take risks if he can help others, which engenders a great deal of loyalty from other crawlers. Many describe him as "crazy" due to the risks he takes and the creative, albeit half-baked, plans he hatches. In book five it is revealed that the “river” Carl feels within his mind was a trait his mother also had, alluding that she too had a streak of mental illness. It is also revealed throughout the books that Carl was physically and emotionally abused by his father. His mother, in an attempt to free Carl from their shared misery attempted to kill both herself and his father and only succeeded in committing suicide, all on Carl’s birthday. He thought he was getting a bike. It is never going to happen, but the novel would benefit enormously from a rewrite down the way. The third floor can be improved massively.The fourth floor, is just a desaster not only for the crawlers. Fifth floor can be made much more interesting. The author knows the problem and tries to improve on it, but with moderate success. The problem is, or better are - other crawlers. Vernon: A map of the entire Tangle? Ain't no such thing. Way too complicated. There are hundreds of lines, maybe thousands, and they all twist around each other.

After that we have the mess with the dozens of feral gods who trash the level, and the fight with the guy who was the only one to get a celestial box. Hooker with a Heart of Gold: "Juice Box" the changeling cares a lot about her brothers and sisters, and is very helpful to the Royal Court in exchange for protecting them. She goes to the ninth floor to rally the surviving NPCs, in exchange for Carl's promise to bring the other changelings with him instead of leaving them to die in the floor collapse. (Carl doesn't make use of her professional services, although several other crawlers do.)Miriam Dom got one, too, for entering the dungeon with a dozen goats. Her Legendary Pet Box made her goat Prepotente a crawler just like Donut. Plot Armor: In-Universe. Elite mobs are part of scripted shows, entertainment programs that take place inside the dungeon. Mordecai warns that the writers and producers behind these shows don't like crawlers messing with their planned plots, and they can edit an elite's mind at will and shift their abilities to a limited degree. So in addition to elites being extremely powerful, they are also liable to turn on a crawler despite all logic, suddenly have extra uses of their overpowered spells, and have allies pop up out of nowhere. Mordecai recommends staying far away from them.

We Work Well Together: A recurring motif is Carl gathering a group of people around himself because he can't bear to leave anyone to die and succeeding against all the odds. Dinniman is no Douglas Adams (*The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) but he is in much the same vein. Instead of Earth being destroyed for a “superhighway,” here it is being “mined” for its entertainment value as millions of humans (and a few “others”) are put through a multi-level dungeon for the entertainment of galactic citizens and corporations who can: watch; cheer; and participate in various ways from betting to sending “gift boxes” to specific “dungeon crawlers.”Without warning, in an instant, every man-made structure collapses, and the planet is seized by the interstellar Syndicate to be mined of all valuable resources. The few surviving humans are offered a choice: eke out a living somehow from what remains, or enter the World Dungeon, where a live audience will watch as they battle through eighteen floors to reclaim their planet. Too bad no one ever wins! The buildings and all the people inside have 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. Roswell Greys are apparently a species of aliens known as "nulls", whom other species dislike. Roswell happened because they weren't careful enough — but they take their widespread depiction in Earth culture as evidence that humans hate them too. Reforged into a Minion: The eighth floor allows squads to collect up to six more "recruits" by beating monsters nearly to the point of death and then marking them with special flags that convert them into summoning cards.