The Two Year Emperor

David Storrs

3.34 · Rating details · 61 ratings · 3 reviews

An interdimensionally kidnapped 'hero', a world that runs on very strict Rules As Written D&D, an overwhelmingly powerful invading army, and a smartass fire elemental who moonlights as a water heater. Yep, it's time for a whole lot of aspirin and some *serious* Munchkining.

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ebook, 1144 pages

Published September 8th 2013 by Fanfiction.net (first published January 1st 2013)

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Nov 15, 2014 Facedeer rated it liked it

Shelves: dungeons-and-dragons, fanfic

This book will appeal to a very particular fan base, and anyone not in it is likely to simply be baffled.

It's a work of "rationalist" fiction, a genre in which a particular fictional setting's details are dissected by the author and an attempt is made to figure out what would "really" happen. These sorts of stories typically focus on a protagonist who's very clever at figuring out exploits and workarounds for the rules he's operating under. This particular one focuses on third-editio This book will appeal to a very particular fan base, and anyone not in it is likely to simply be baffled.

It's a work of "rationalist" fiction, a genre in which a particular fictional setting's details are dissected by the author and an attempt is made to figure out what would "really" happen. These sorts of stories typically focus on a protagonist who's very clever at figuring out exploits and workarounds for the rules he's operating under. This particular one focuses on third-edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Dungeons and Dragons is well known for having sometimes rather arbitrary and obscure rules, and also for having players that do their darndest to exploit those rules, so this could sort of be seen as a regular Dungeons and Dragons campaign in which the Dungeon Master isn't allowed to say "no" to the ridiculous exploits the player comes up with - though he is allowed to have the NPCs occasionally come up with exploits of their own. If you're not familiar with the rules of third edition D&D this story will pretty much go over your head.

The story starts out with a pretty basic and standard plot (a fact that the protagonist himself remarks upon): the protagonist is a scientifically-minded engineer and roleplaying nerd named Jake who is ripped from our "real world" and set upon the throne of a kingdom in D&D Land (or "Stupidworld", as the protagonist comes to refer to it internally). By the laws of the land he is absolute ruler for the next two years, after which he will be rewarded for his service and released. Unfortunately, he is brought there in a time of crisis; the kingdom is being invaded by a powerful foreign nation.

It doesn't stay "standard" for very long, though. Over the course of the book the nature and identity of the bad guys and the conflict the protagonist is having with them takes an abrupt 90 degree turn on multiple occasions as revelations come out about what's really going on. New exploits and tactics are developed in a steady escalation of brokenly overpowered tricks, both by the protagonist and by some of the entities he's up against. For example, one of the very earliest ticks he comes up with is an "infinite money" exploit based on the fact that firewood costs 1 silver piece, quarterstaves are free, and merchants have no limits on how much of either of those that they can buy and sell. From that point forward money is literally no object and anything in the equipment list can be had for free.

So, was it good? Kind of a tricky question, as evidenced by my mixed star rating. I found the characters hard to empathize with (this had plot significance in one case but for most of them they were just kind of flat and one-dimensional. Perhaps appropriate to the setting, but not so fun to read about). The exploits sometimes got a little bit too silly; I can't say they broke suspension of disbelief (because that's really not applicable here) but they did sometimes make things harder to care about when it seemed like anything could happen. Occasionally a literal god would have to step in and tell Jake "no, even though that's allowed by the book, it's just too broken and I'll smite you if you do it." Got so bad one of the gods left a full-time consultant with Jake so he could check if what he was doing was a smiteable offense before trying it. But there were a couple of exploits that were such amazing gems of absurdity that I can forgive the excesses.

The absolute best one was when Jake mercilessly exploited the grappling rules (widely recognized as the most arcane and twisted section of rules in third edition D&D) to produce something he called the "meatball of doom." I'm not going to spoil it, if this is at all your style of book it's something you need to see for yourself. The city of Gryfhamr was also a marvel of broken-rule-based architecture that I really need to rip off for a setting of my own someday.

One thing that I didn't excuse so easily, unfortunately, was the meddling of the gods beyond the occasional smackdown-for-the-sake-of-sanity. The gods get heavily involved in the plot, leading to literal deus ex machina outcomes. By the end it's kind of hard figuring out what Jake accomplished on his own and what was simply spoon-fed to him in secret.

It also ends surprisingly abruptly, and then has a lengthy epilogue that was a small story in its own right (the author labels it as "Book II" though it's much shorter than the bulk of "Book I"). It was weirdly depressing and dire. Everything ultimately works out but I'm not sure that epilogue was really necessary. Left me kind of unsteady, not able to get the feel for the structure of the story any more.

Anyway, overall it was an enjoyable experience for the D&D nerd in me, but not so much as an actual story. ...more

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Nov 02, 2019 cultureulterior - rated it liked it

Good, except for the abuse bits

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Feb 24, 2017 Bryan rated it did not like it

A protagonist transported from our universe to one governed by other stable and sensible rules, who learns to cleverly exploit those different rules to solve problems, can be a solid framework for a smart and intriguing story. This attempt falls short for several reasons.

First, the many game-breaking exploits in this version of Dungeons and Dragons, going by the "rules as written," are (view spoiler) ...more

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