Big. Green. Barbaric. Who says a troll can’t be the hero?
You are what you choose to be. And after years of online trolling, Chad has become just that.
A troll. A rager. An entertaining asshat.
When his online persona finally catches up to him, he’s sentenced to thirty days of full-immersion therapy designed to improve his anger issues.
In order to experience what it’s like on the other side, … experience what it’s like on the other side, he’s forced to play as a forest troll, a long-hated race in Isle of Mythos.
To make matters worse, there are other “heroes” sent to rid the world of evil, each one on their own path of twisted redemption.
As Chad embraces the mantle of Chod the Barbarian Forest Troll, he quickly discovers that there’s more to troll society than meets the eye, and his rage might be all that stands between them and extinction.
Trolling is easy, but being a hero…
more
I enjoyed the heck out of book 1 Sentenced to Troll by S.L. Rowland. A slightly different start from most LitRPG’s, (not a bad thing) with the right blend of game mechanics, great story and characters. I wish the book had been longer and am very much looking forward to the further adventures of Trolls with imps. I found this ebook for free and it is a great way for the author to lure you into the series. I definitely recommend this book if you like LitRPG, and/or fantasy in general.
Chad is a gamer, not a great one but a decent one with a following. Most of his following is because he becomes too harsh while gaming. He tells one of his teammates (in nice terms) that they were worthless. The Judge had a child kill themselves due to cyber bullying so she sentences Chad to 30 days virtual gaming as the my hated type of character in the game, a troll.
As a troll, he is not trusted by the tribe of trolls that he finds and when anyone else sees him, he is attacked. He later finds out that the other players are felons in an experimental program as well. Some play nice, and some don’t. He has to level and prove his loyalty to the trolls.
Great world building and character creation. Lots of action and adventure and the future possibilities appear endless. I did not put it down until I finished and I’ll be adding future books to my queue.
The whole idea of being punished by having to play a troll for being a troll immediately grabbed my interest and the story definitely didn’t disappoint. The world building was fairly traditional with a forest and trolls who live in there in buildings shaped by trees. But the extra attention to character development is where the story really shines. Not only do we get to watch the main character struggle with his own issues which led to his bad behavior in the first place, we get side characters with their own dreams, goals, and personalities.
The basic plot was guided by the character’s choices. At first he stumbles around like a true newbie. Then he shakes it off and starts learning the game. His first choices are made from lack of any in game knowledge and are pretty much what he’d do normally. Except he’s a troll now. That takes a bit to sink in as you might expect. But eventually he embraces his troll nature. He also begins the game taking quests for the possible reward like a typical gamer. But at the end of the story, he takes on tasks because he wants to save the troll village and his new NPC friends.
I think my only complaint was the dungeons were too short! Or maybe that’s just me lamenting the amount of trash in WoW dungeons and raids. Seriously, though, I was surprised at how few battles there were in each dungeon, especially for the amount of loot at the end.
The other thing to be aware of is that this is not as numbers in your face as other LitRPG, which I don’t mind at all. You do get the rundown of percentage health during battles and get to see the character debating over which skills to take and stats to raise after he levels up. And while some skills are pretty standard berserker class skills, the other stuff had some fun twists. I also loved the way the main character came up with interesting solutions to tough battles by using his existing skills in unusual ways.
Overall, I was quite happy with the story and didn’t feel bored at any point. I was invested in the characters and rooted for them to succeed. This was a fun romp in a new world and had a decent conclusion while still leaving plenty of open opportunities to explore in future books. I can’t wait for book 2.