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“Critical Failures II: Fail Harder” and “Critical Failures III: A Storm of S-Swords” by Robert Bevan
With the apparent death of the GM, the cast of Critical Failures set off to find another way home from the rpg world they’re trapped in. Along the way they meet the other folks who have been trapped there and get in way over their heads as one of their own goes native. The third book then follows their seeming success in getting home, which turns out to be not what they wanted at all. Also: Poop, fart, vomit, erection, erectile dysfunction, giant dildo, boobies, your mother, homophobia, urine, accidental castration, more poop, drunkenness, stoners, threat of rape, ugly naked dudes masturbating and deus ex machina.
The over-arching idea is clever. The characters become vaguely more likable (which wasn’t terribly difficult). The twists at the climax of each book (that Cooper had a bladder full of holy water; that Mordred was too stupid to realize his dice would bring the horsemen back as “normal”) are cute when you read them but severely subject to fridge logic: If the world of the game follows the game rules even in defiance of physics, then the holy water shouldn’t retain any holy properties after becoming urine, because no game rule allows for that. And Mordred supposedly had brought the middle-schoolers back and forth at least once before, so he should know that they come back “normal”; and by the time they reach epic levels near the endgame, they should be able to teleport themselves rather than rely on his dice, anyway. (The latter point is excused by everyone involved being a self-absorbed moron, but still.)
Similarly, the vampire Halfling shouldn’t be such a problem, because as long as the master vampire (Kat) is alive, he should be in thrall to her and only do what she commands. The characters should gain significantly more than a single level for beating the vampire, as he was clearly an out-of-depth encounter for them. If the horsemen were able to gain levels by killing sleeping dragons, the rest of the stranded PCs have no excuse for staying so low-level: Use spells and missile weapons, strike from ambushes, find spells that distract and debilitate foes and minimize risk while fighting. The game (like D&D) clearly relies on listed “challenge rating” for monsters to determine XP, not the actual danger to the PCs.
Also, I feel like the series as a whole suffers from not using the gimmick of the game world and real world overlapping enough. The characters use very little knowledge from the real world (of the game or otherwise) while they’re inside the game; and despite some game rules/powers/physics still applying to them when they teleport to the real world, which ones are in effect at any given time are very nebulous. Spells still work…sort of? Magic missile should never miss and does nothing to inanimate targets, but it blows out the windshield of Mordred’s car rather than hitting him. If the game rules/powers are “reinterpreted” for the real world, then that deserves some attention paid to it. (Also, the gang seems to completely forget the possibility of checking their character sheets in the third book.)
Overall: The book series remains “not particularly recommended”, though there were a couple of points in the latter two books where I actively laughed. (If they weren’t free via Amazon Unlimited, I wouldn’t have gone looking for them.) But again, it got my brain going, so hey!
The over-arching idea is clever. The characters become vaguely more likable (which wasn’t terribly difficult). The twists at the climax of each book (that Cooper had a bladder full of holy water; that Mordred was too stupid to realize his dice would bring the horsemen back as “normal”) are cute when you read them but severely subject to fridge logic: If the world of the game follows the game rules even in defiance of physics, then the holy water shouldn’t retain any holy properties after becoming urine, because no game rule allows for that. And Mordred supposedly had brought the middle-schoolers back and forth at least once before, so he should know that they come back “normal”; and by the time they reach epic levels near the endgame, they should be able to teleport themselves rather than rely on his dice, anyway. (The latter point is excused by everyone involved being a self-absorbed moron, but still.)
Similarly, the vampire Halfling shouldn’t be such a problem, because as long as the master vampire (Kat) is alive, he should be in thrall to her and only do what she commands. The characters should gain significantly more than a single level for beating the vampire, as he was clearly an out-of-depth encounter for them. If the horsemen were able to gain levels by killing sleeping dragons, the rest of the stranded PCs have no excuse for staying so low-level: Use spells and missile weapons, strike from ambushes, find spells that distract and debilitate foes and minimize risk while fighting. The game (like D&D) clearly relies on listed “challenge rating” for monsters to determine XP, not the actual danger to the PCs.
Also, I feel like the series as a whole suffers from not using the gimmick of the game world and real world overlapping enough. The characters use very little knowledge from the real world (of the game or otherwise) while they’re inside the game; and despite some game rules/powers/physics still applying to them when they teleport to the real world, which ones are in effect at any given time are very nebulous. Spells still work…sort of? Magic missile should never miss and does nothing to inanimate targets, but it blows out the windshield of Mordred’s car rather than hitting him. If the game rules/powers are “reinterpreted” for the real world, then that deserves some attention paid to it. (Also, the gang seems to completely forget the possibility of checking their character sheets in the third book.)
Overall: The book series remains “not particularly recommended”, though there were a couple of points in the latter two books where I actively laughed. (If they weren’t free via Amazon Unlimited, I wouldn’t have gone looking for them.) But again, it got my brain going, so hey!