What are the main differences between books and games?
Should I read the books so I can better understand the games?
Or can I skip straight to the games?
Do the games change the narrative described in the books too much?

>>24457502 (OP)
If your Slav, read books.
If your Ameri, play games before books or your imagination will paint you 18th century New England instead of what Sapkowski had in mind.

>>24457511
>instead of what Sapkowski had in mind.
but what exactly did he have in mind?

>>24457515
1980's Polish countryside.

>>24457521
C'mon

bump

>>24457502 (OP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LCfI8sLW7s

anwser my thread, faggots

>>24457705
Even this video misses a bunch of stuff, like a lot, and I think it gets some things wrong, but it's been awhile since I read the books so take that last part with a grain of salt. The main thing that's missing from the games that was in the books is just how much of the story follows Ciri, and Geralt's hanza (party), the group that helps him find Ciri.
>>24457502 (OP)
>Should I read the books so I can better understand the games?
No playing the games is all you need to understand the games. Reading the books help with background information, some world building, and being able to flex canonical knowledge from the books that's not included in the games.
>Do the games change the narrative described in the books too much?
Not enough that it matters. Some characters become more prominent and some more minor but generally the changes made in the game neither harm nor improve the story. They work for the games and don't really compete for space or affection in your head if you experience both books and games.

Read the books because they are good all on their own.
Play the games because they're fun games.
Together they make one of the better examples, possibly the best example, of how to do a good adaptation. Quite literally the only other work that's as good of an adaptation is No Country for Old Men. The movie is as good as the book, with very, very, small changes and the changes that are made improved the story for the screen.

>>24458033
Thanks, anon.

>>24457502 (OP)
The Witcher sucks. Only the short story collections were decent, the rest is painfully mediocre.
There are better fantasy series.

>>24457502 (OP)
just read the first 2. the 2 short story collections.
i read like 4 more after that and i wish i didn't.

>>24458042
No problem. The Witcher 4 will be interesting because this will be CDPR finally breaking away from the books and telling a more original story with Ciri as an adult. The books follow her as a kid/teen and the games barely touch on that time period, so I suspect that CDPR will borrow some of her adventures from the books but no too much because they simply missed the appropriate time period, a lot of it was supposed to have happened in The Witcher 3. CDPR does make references and introduced character's from Ciri's story line in the standalone Gwent though.

>>24457502 (OP)
I disliked the books, Sapkowski has some good ideas but they're rolled into a strange and uninteresting story arc with a lot of questionable beats. Perhaps fantasy isn't my genre but it stunk of the same issues I have with GRRM - rule of cool except the cool is from the perspective of a socially inept DnD enthusiast, interpersonal dynamics that only make sense in the author's head, a lot of subversion and shock for the sake of subversion and shock, and an underage female protagonist fucking and fighting. Plus I read the English translation, on top of all the other issues the writing seemed stilted a lot of the time.

If fantasyslop is your thing you'll probably enjoy them, and even though I played the games first I found myself retroactively understanding why certain things were so. Why exactly Ciri and Yennefer are so important to Geralt, for instance, even if video game Geralt is altered from his book counterpart. The book Geralt is more dour and a lot less skilled. Everyone is less pretty than the Californian supermodels of the games, too, especially Yen.

Oh, and Geralt is a literal cuckold. So, you know...

>>24458074
>Oh, and Geralt is a literal cuckold. So, you know...
You guys gotta learn what a cuck is. Geralt is not a cuck, he stole Yennefer from two different men. Eventually she had to make a decision and they all, understandably and obviously, got caught up in the drama of it all.

>>24457502 (OP)
i started with The Witcher 3. was real psyched on it, bought all the books. enjoyed the first 2. lost interest after 3 more. played The Witcher 1 (somewhat recently. still held up for me). started The Witcher 2 - lost interest again during that. i intended to read all the books then play through all the games in order, ending with replaying TW3 - which might be my favorite game ever. they came out with the show somewhere during this too, which i was into until they got rid of Cavill.

ideally i would have read all the books and then played through the 3 games in order. i probably won't ever get around to finishing that anymore. BUT if i hadn't started with TW3, i would have never fallen in love enough to care to do any of that stuff to begin with.

so if you're into games, start with TW3. if you're into books, read the first 2. i wouldn't start with the show. otherwise it might not ever grab you.

>>24458084
>tried to kill himself after learning about her affair
>yennefer admits (at the time) she loved the other man more
>yennefer leaves both men instead of picking geralt
>geralt takes her back when they meet again later
he's a cuck anon

>>24458454
No. Geralt is just fucking stupid, but not a cuck. He wished for them to be together in the fight with the genie. He knew absolutely nothing about Yennefer, found her in the bed of another man, and didn't know that she was engaged to one other guy, he just liked what he saw and wanted (to save) her.
Cuckolds have their women taken by other men, and they get stuck raising another man's child. Geralt doesn't fit into the definition. He literally stole her with magic from two of her long term lovers. And gets her forever in the end. They even raise an adopted daughter together. He's the bull, a stupid one though.

>>24457502 (OP)
Only the short story books (the first two) are worth reading. The rest are just a slog but I blame that on the translation as it's supposed to be better in Polish. You can go straight to the games which are mostly better anyway but there's a good in game codex that sums up what you've missed.

>>24457502 (OP)
The games are actually entertaining

>>24458033
This, except for this part here:
>Read the books because they are good all on their own.
That is a blatant lie.

>>24458700
>they get stuck raising another man's child
>They even raise an adopted daughter together
Anon, I...

>>24458795
Anon, he stole Ciri too, with the intentions of raising her to be a fucking monster slayer, but she turned out to be a super magical Elvin blooded key to saving the world and ruling a kingdom, again Geralt is just stupid and does not think these things out.

>>24457502 (OP)
>main differences between books and games?
The game plays after the events in the books
I played 3: Wild Hunt before reading the books, i'd say you'd like it more if you read the books first then play the games, but it doesn't really matter

>>24458797
That's besides the fact that she's another man's child, whom he ended up raising.

But I don't dunk on TW for cuck elements (present in both Geralt and Yennifer), I dunk on it for being terribly written even for pulp fantasy. The OG short stories at least had a comedic quality that made it less relevant, but the novels suddenly start taking themselves awfully seriously, while still being trashy pulp written by a dyslexic snownigger.

>>24458795
>raising another man's child
Ciri was Geralt's child by the law of surprise

>>24458804
Bro, please...

>>24458809
>Geralt saves Ciri's dad
>Duny asks what Geralt wants as a reward for saving him
>Geralt says to give him that which he doesn't know he has
>Pavetta is discovered to be preggers
>Geralt now has a rightful claim to Ciri

>>24458802
There are no cuck elements, cuckolds are unwittingly being made into cucks. Geralt intentionally steals women and children. But you obviously don't like the books so there's no convincing you.

>>24458067
I don’t know; honestly, I think it was a bad idea to choose Ciri for the games. The audience that enjoyed the Witcher games got used to Geralt’s dynamic of killing monsters and melting ladies’ hearts while cracking sarcastic remarks. I’m not sure Ciri on her own will be able to carry the story forward.

>>24458847
That's another reason to read the books, the games don't really get into Ciri's story. Ciri is literally just female Geralt, same personality slightly more talkative. All she wants to do is fight people, kill monsters, talk shit, and fuck bitches because she's bisexual. The game will be fine.

>>24457502 (OP)
Do both, they're both decent. For games start at W3 unless you like old games and the SoiStation 2. The first two books are the short story ones, NOT the books in your pic which are numbered 1,2,3,4,5. Fucking threw me that I wasn't supposed to start at "1".
Series books get stronger as they go (4 and 5 are the peak I reckon) but the earlier ones go slow. 1 was a little slow. 2 heated up but some say it's slow too. 3 is a bunch of retards wandering through a forest.
Game/book order? Who fucking cares. Do Witcher 3 first or look at screenshots first if only because it shows the book characters' appearances pretty accurately.
The netflix show is hot garbage, ignore it.

>>24458089
First 3 series books are a bit of a slog but 4 and 5 picked up for me. Except that stupid "lady of the lake" BS from 200 years in the future. "Hmm..." said Staple Cow Ski, "what if I introduced a boring framing device for no reason at all?"

>>24458847
Ciri carries books 4 and 5. I agree she feels pretty scant if you're only looking at W3. (Does she even appear in the other games?)

>>24458949
i'm not sure the last 1 1/2 books being good is a strong enough reason to read through a 5 book series

>>24457502 (OP)
Games are loosely based of Geralt's story. Books have much more structured tale, some different side-adventures and so on. Either possess the elements the other lacks.
>Should I read the books so I can better
understand the games?
The games are standard RPGs enough that you won't need books to understand them. You may miss a bit of lore and "why are things the way they are" though. Like with most games based off books, there's just a bit less of narrative and depth for the sake of more gameplay.
>Do the games change the narrative described in the books too much?
Somewhat. Tied to what I wrote above, the games offer certain plot elements books don't and provide a few choices allowing player to take the story in various directions. It's awesome that they do from the standpoint of the gameplay, it's just that depending on how the player plays the character and what choices they make, it may be something completely different than what the "default" character would do.

>game geralt
>absolute chad, funny, charismatic, determined, powerful

>book geralt
>whiny, mopey, insecure manwhore, and somehow a huge moralfag to boot, jobs in almost all of his fights

I read the books after playing the games and they were such a huge disappointment

>>24457502 (OP)
These books got me into reading consistently so I'll always have a soft spot for them despite their flaws.

Blood of Elves is slow paced and a weak first book. Time of Contempt is extremely good imo. Baptism of Fire is another book with slower pacing but I like this much better than Blood of Elves. Tower of Swallows is my favorite book in the series and Lady of the Lake is a solid conclusion even if it was odd at times.

The short stories probably have the best writing in the series.

>>24457502 (OP)

First anthology of Witcher stories has Ciri's origin where Geralt makes her a child of destiny and she has to become a Witcher.

>>24457502 (OP)
There's a very noticeable quality drop after the two short story books (perhaps it's not a coincidence that Ciri is much more heavily focused on as a character following them)

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