Quote from: jhkim on November 30, 2020, 03:25:08 PM
I enjoyed The Three-Body Problem a lot. I'm currently reading The Dark Forest, but I'm struggling to keep up interest - though I'm still just in the early parts of it. In general, while the first book is a great novel, I don't think it makes for a good RPG setting. Too much of it is in big reveal, flashback, and commentary.

I found The Dark Forest easier to read, because the game aspects in the Three-Body Problem were such a slog, and so much of the actual plot was packed into the last few pages.

The TBP isn't well suited to becoming an RPG setting because it has a very limited and one-sided conflict, and it's heavily focused on reveals. The latter two books are better, because they develop more of the universe and how it works, though no particular era or place jumps out as the ideal starting point for a band of PCs.

Your problems might be related to the structure of the novels. Most modern novels are character- or action-driven, and hit certain beats. The Remembrance of Earth's Past is idea-driven, so the characters are often thin (with one key exception in the first book) and the action often doesn't follow a predictable set of beats (even the cinematic climax in the TBP feels a bit forced). Which is terrible, if you want identifiable characters and a series of events rising to a triumphant crescendo, but works very well if you're interested in exploring a novel universe.

Quote from: Pat on November 30, 2020, 06:47:13 PM

Quote from: jhkim on November 30, 2020, 03:25:08 PM
I enjoyed The Three-Body Problem a lot. I'm currently reading The Dark Forest, but I'm struggling to keep up interest - though I'm still just in the early parts of it. In general, while the first book is a great novel, I don't think it makes for a good RPG setting. Too much of it is in big reveal, flashback, and commentary.

I found The Dark Forest easier to read, because the game aspects in the Three-Body Problem were such a slog, and so much of the actual plot was packed into the last few pages.

I'm about halfway through The Dark Forest now, and I'm getting into it a lot more after a slow start. I found it a little slower getting into the problems of the fictional future, as opposed to The Three Body Problem that connected more viscerally into the Cultural Revolution that has more of an immediate punch for me. But the plot is great once it gets going.

Nothing new or original the Hobbit followed by Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was able to buy used from a seller the 50th Anniversary editions. I feel so old because that is when they added color to the pages of the book. It's interesting to be reading the book and the edges of the paper having a bright orange yellow color to them.