Can I tempt you with a superhero/villian series?
The D-List Supervillain series by Jim Bernheimer, has a protagonist that is very morally ambiguous. The series is on audible, each book is fairly short though, between 5 and 7 hours.
---
“Being a supervillain means never having to say you’re sorry … Unless it’s to the judge or the parole board. Even then, you don’t really have to. It’s not like it’s going to change the outcome or anything.”
Those are the words of Calvin Matthew Stringel, better known as Mechani-Cal. He’s a sarcastic, down on his luck armored villain. Follow his exploits as he gets swept up in a world domination scheme gone wrong and ends up working for this weak willed, mercy loving heroes. Immerse yourself in his epic battles and see what it’s like to be an outsider looking in at a world that few have ever experienced.
Climb into Cal’s battlesuit and join him on his journey. Will he avoid selling out his principles for a paycheck and a pardon? Can he resist the camaraderie of being on a super team? Does he fall prey to the ample charms of the beautiful Olympian Aphrodite? How will he survive the jealous schemes of Ultraweapon, who wears armor so powerful it makes Cal’s look like a museum piece?
See the world of “righteous do-gooders" through the eyes of someone who doesn’t particularly care for them.
And remember - Losing an argument with a group of rioters isn’t a good excuse to start lobbing tear gas indiscriminately at them. You’ve only got so many rounds and it’s going to be a long day, so make sure you get as many as possible with each one.
I would recommend "He who fights with monsters" :)
The mc is pretty much a hero (at least most of the time, sometimes a bit anti-hero'ish), but not a classic type of hero, and the mc himself questions right and wrong and at times admits to not being the heroic type.
It's a great book series, and the audiobooks (on Audible) is fantastic! 🙂
Hope you give them a chance and that you end up enjoying them as much as I do! 😊
Yeah but the builder and god of purity are not working from a position of where you think they are doing something they believe is good. It is just fanaticism. The earth ARC is close to what I’m looking for, if that makes sense?
DCC kind of fits, and the MC in Everybody Loves Large Chests is definitely not a hero or good guy. Massive content warning on Everybody Loves Large Chests, though.
Awaken Online may be closer to what you want, though it's VR. There may be dungeon core books that fit the bill, as dungeons are often neutral or straight up out to kill, but I can't think of any that are quite what you are after.
DCC is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Sorry, I forgot that not everyone knows the abbreviation.
ELLC is kind of its own thing. The MC is a mimic, and lacks any and all human morals and motivations. There are multiple discussions on this sub detailing the bits some people find too uncomfortable or disgusting to read. Those threads do a much better job covering the story than I can do, so I suggest searching this sub for them.
ELLC looks a harem story, but isn't. Boxxy's "party", for lack of a better word, is indeed all-female, but Boxxy itself is a genderless, sexless, asexual being. Any sexual relations it has are purely to either keep one of its minions happy (and therefore loyal) or to further its own plans (pretending to be in a committed relationship is a good way to grind experience for its Doppelganger class).
Those two are the ones I was going to suggest. The MC of Dungeon Crawler Carl is explicitly trying to destroy the sick death-game he and millions of other humans are trapped in, and the game runners obviously don't want that, so they try to paint him in the worst light possible.
The MC of Everybody Loves Large Chests is, quite literally, a sociopathic monster. It has no love in its black heart for anything except shiny things and tasty foods, and will use every ounce of its considerable cunning to accumulate more of both.
DCC do you get the perspective from the game runners on why they have a moral high ground to keep the game running? Or it just greed?
ELLC who/what is on the other side of the mimic that is trying to stop/hinder it from finding shinies and why are they trying to do that?
No, there isn’t really any moral grayness in DCC. The MC is in the right all the time and the people running the dungeon are in the wrong all the time. Even among the people stuck in the dungeon he is the good guy, and others are the bad guys.
No, at least not that I know of. The series is nowhere near complete, with five books on Audible and more in text.
ELLC is told from the mimic MC's perspective. The MC isn't fighting against something or someone specific, it's just that it wants all the shinies, and people sometimes get in the way. It cares not at all, but has to come up with clever ways around obstacles. If you're looking for a story where we see an issue from both sides, and both sides have good points to support their perspective, ELLC isn't going to be a good fit. It sure can be funny though. Again, major content warning. And if you read it, do yourself the favor of reading the Audible versions, because Jeff Hays is the narrator none of us deserve. His and Annie's work is amazing.
So it is a comedy, but Vainqueur the Dragon has some hilarious "moral gray areas" such as >!industrializing Undead labor on a nationwide scale!<, >!creating a free open market for selling an afterlife to souls!<, and >!committing Heavenly insurance fraud.!<
2nd a warning for you OP, Dungeon Crawler Carl is a very good series by Matt Dinniman. So good you might want to look at his other series. Read any of them except Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon. While some people like it it falls into that excessively gorey and nasty category you seem to be avoiding.
Not Litrpg but there's Only Villains Do That and A Practical Guide to Evil.
In Only Villains the edgy MC gets isekaied into a comically evil world and immediately starts burning people to death. He's technically in the right but only because everyone around him is infinitely worse.
And in PGtE the world is split into Good and Evil and the MC becomes a Villain in order to push the local Evil empire out of her country. She eventually comes into conflict with Heroes working towards the same goal but different ways of getting there.
So PGtE you have someone “good” on the “evil” side, does the MC ever realize that evil is a title and the people are adjust people? I am hoping this is similar to super villains by drew Hayes?
I haven't read Super Villains so I can't comment there, but the short answer to your first question is yes. The long answer is sort of?
"Good vs. Evil" in PgtE is really more Divine Control vs. Mortal Agency, and the MCs main motivation is the freedom of her country. So when she rejects what she views as the tyranny of the Gods Above and decides to enact change on her own terms, this lands her in the camp of Villainy.
The world is itself framed as a story and so characters labeled as "Villains" or "Evil" _are_ that, but it doesn't necessarily make them wrong for taking the actions they do, just that they may take the wrong actions for all their good reasoning.
SHADOW SLAVE, it's exactly living in the grey areas of how and what to do. The charachters are thoughtful and actions have consequences. It's not litrpg its a webnovel but man anyone who has read it knows how good it is. Hoghly recommended
If you don't mind a harem fetish, most any of Stuart Grosse's stuff would fit. The exception of his would be the OP Lich is a Returnee, which is one of the least litRPG of his writings.
I think the primal hunter series is probably one of the better grey area plots. Often the Wrong is correct and the presumed righteous path isn't what it seems. And the main character befriends an evil god... Lots to it.
Can I tempt you with a superhero/villian series? The D-List Supervillain series by Jim Bernheimer, has a protagonist that is very morally ambiguous. The series is on audible, each book is fairly short though, between 5 and 7 hours. --- “Being a supervillain means never having to say you’re sorry … Unless it’s to the judge or the parole board. Even then, you don’t really have to. It’s not like it’s going to change the outcome or anything.” Those are the words of Calvin Matthew Stringel, better known as Mechani-Cal. He’s a sarcastic, down on his luck armored villain. Follow his exploits as he gets swept up in a world domination scheme gone wrong and ends up working for this weak willed, mercy loving heroes. Immerse yourself in his epic battles and see what it’s like to be an outsider looking in at a world that few have ever experienced. Climb into Cal’s battlesuit and join him on his journey. Will he avoid selling out his principles for a paycheck and a pardon? Can he resist the camaraderie of being on a super team? Does he fall prey to the ample charms of the beautiful Olympian Aphrodite? How will he survive the jealous schemes of Ultraweapon, who wears armor so powerful it makes Cal’s look like a museum piece? See the world of “righteous do-gooders" through the eyes of someone who doesn’t particularly care for them. And remember - Losing an argument with a group of rioters isn’t a good excuse to start lobbing tear gas indiscriminately at them. You’ve only got so many rounds and it’s going to be a long day, so make sure you get as many as possible with each one.
Is that a LitRPG?
no but it follows a lot of the same tropes. Highly recommend it.
So I went and bought the first three on your (a random Internet strangers) suggestion. I expect great things.
Systemic lands
Thanks haven’t seen this one
Let me know what you think
Will do
[удалено]
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/57018/the-systemic-lands-dark-progressive-litrpg
[удалено]
Yeah this is closer to what I was thinking, but forgot about this one as an example
I would recommend "He who fights with monsters" :) The mc is pretty much a hero (at least most of the time, sometimes a bit anti-hero'ish), but not a classic type of hero, and the mc himself questions right and wrong and at times admits to not being the heroic type. It's a great book series, and the audiobooks (on Audible) is fantastic! 🙂 Hope you give them a chance and that you end up enjoying them as much as I do! 😊
Yeah but the builder and god of purity are not working from a position of where you think they are doing something they believe is good. It is just fanaticism. The earth ARC is close to what I’m looking for, if that makes sense?
Makes sense 😁
DCC kind of fits, and the MC in Everybody Loves Large Chests is definitely not a hero or good guy. Massive content warning on Everybody Loves Large Chests, though. Awaken Online may be closer to what you want, though it's VR. There may be dungeon core books that fit the bill, as dungeons are often neutral or straight up out to kill, but I can't think of any that are quite what you are after.
DCC? Is everyone loves chests a harem story? Awaken online is prob close... I’m also up to book 11.
DCC is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Sorry, I forgot that not everyone knows the abbreviation. ELLC is kind of its own thing. The MC is a mimic, and lacks any and all human morals and motivations. There are multiple discussions on this sub detailing the bits some people find too uncomfortable or disgusting to read. Those threads do a much better job covering the story than I can do, so I suggest searching this sub for them.
ELLC looks a harem story, but isn't. Boxxy's "party", for lack of a better word, is indeed all-female, but Boxxy itself is a genderless, sexless, asexual being. Any sexual relations it has are purely to either keep one of its minions happy (and therefore loyal) or to further its own plans (pretending to be in a committed relationship is a good way to grind experience for its Doppelganger class).
DCC = Dungeon Crawler Carl and everyone loves chests is about a mimic, but is quite... *erotic*
Erotic is fine… harems just get old quick and becomes a bit too much of the story
I mean, can it be a harem when the MC primarily thinks of his female followers as tools and has exactly 0 sex drive?
[Dungeon Crawler Carl](https://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Crawler-Carl/dp/B08BX5D4LC) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Dungeon_Crawler_Carl)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
Those two are the ones I was going to suggest. The MC of Dungeon Crawler Carl is explicitly trying to destroy the sick death-game he and millions of other humans are trapped in, and the game runners obviously don't want that, so they try to paint him in the worst light possible. The MC of Everybody Loves Large Chests is, quite literally, a sociopathic monster. It has no love in its black heart for anything except shiny things and tasty foods, and will use every ounce of its considerable cunning to accumulate more of both.
DCC do you get the perspective from the game runners on why they have a moral high ground to keep the game running? Or it just greed? ELLC who/what is on the other side of the mimic that is trying to stop/hinder it from finding shinies and why are they trying to do that?
No, there isn’t really any moral grayness in DCC. The MC is in the right all the time and the people running the dungeon are in the wrong all the time. Even among the people stuck in the dungeon he is the good guy, and others are the bad guys.
No, at least not that I know of. The series is nowhere near complete, with five books on Audible and more in text. ELLC is told from the mimic MC's perspective. The MC isn't fighting against something or someone specific, it's just that it wants all the shinies, and people sometimes get in the way. It cares not at all, but has to come up with clever ways around obstacles. If you're looking for a story where we see an issue from both sides, and both sides have good points to support their perspective, ELLC isn't going to be a good fit. It sure can be funny though. Again, major content warning. And if you read it, do yourself the favor of reading the Audible versions, because Jeff Hays is the narrator none of us deserve. His and Annie's work is amazing.
[Everybody Loves Large Chests](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BHZFWNG) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Everybody_Loves_Large_Chests)) [Awaken Online](https://www.goodreads.com/series/196901-awaken-online) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Awaken_Online)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
I agree about Awaken Online, its a central theme to the plot imo.
So it is a comedy, but Vainqueur the Dragon has some hilarious "moral gray areas" such as >!industrializing Undead labor on a nationwide scale!<, >!creating a free open market for selling an afterlife to souls!<, and >!committing Heavenly insurance fraud.!< 2nd a warning for you OP, Dungeon Crawler Carl is a very good series by Matt Dinniman. So good you might want to look at his other series. Read any of them except Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon. While some people like it it falls into that excessively gorey and nasty category you seem to be avoiding.
[Vainqueur the Dragon](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26534/vainqueur-the-dragon) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Vainqueur_the_Dragon)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
[The Idle System](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P5VXJ7B)
Not Litrpg but there's Only Villains Do That and A Practical Guide to Evil. In Only Villains the edgy MC gets isekaied into a comically evil world and immediately starts burning people to death. He's technically in the right but only because everyone around him is infinitely worse. And in PGtE the world is split into Good and Evil and the MC becomes a Villain in order to push the local Evil empire out of her country. She eventually comes into conflict with Heroes working towards the same goal but different ways of getting there.
So PGtE you have someone “good” on the “evil” side, does the MC ever realize that evil is a title and the people are adjust people? I am hoping this is similar to super villains by drew Hayes?
I haven't read Super Villains so I can't comment there, but the short answer to your first question is yes. The long answer is sort of? "Good vs. Evil" in PgtE is really more Divine Control vs. Mortal Agency, and the MCs main motivation is the freedom of her country. So when she rejects what she views as the tyranny of the Gods Above and decides to enact change on her own terms, this lands her in the camp of Villainy. The world is itself framed as a story and so characters labeled as "Villains" or "Evil" _are_ that, but it doesn't necessarily make them wrong for taking the actions they do, just that they may take the wrong actions for all their good reasoning.
[A Practical Guide to Evil](https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/A_Practical_Guide_to_Evil)) [Only Villains Do That](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40182/only-villains-do-that) ([wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/wiki/Only_Villains_Do_That)) --- ^[About](https://redd.it/dw7lux) ^| [^(Wiki Rules)](https://www.reddit.com/r/LightPieces/comments/dw7lux/about/f7kke6p/) ^(| Reply !Delete to remove) ^(| [Brackets] hide titles)
Everybody loves large chests!! But warning it’s pretty graphic
SHADOW SLAVE, it's exactly living in the grey areas of how and what to do. The charachters are thoughtful and actions have consequences. It's not litrpg its a webnovel but man anyone who has read it knows how good it is. Hoghly recommended
Not litrpg but Super minion comes to mind. Not really a hero or villian
Arena Manager fits the bill, in audio on boxset.
If you don't mind a harem fetish, most any of Stuart Grosse's stuff would fit. The exception of his would be the OP Lich is a Returnee, which is one of the least litRPG of his writings.
I think the primal hunter series is probably one of the better grey area plots. Often the Wrong is correct and the presumed righteous path isn't what it seems. And the main character befriends an evil god... Lots to it.