Tinker

/sign

Kindle FTW

I'm a year late but I'm replying anyways.  I've read bad LitRPG and good LitRPG and plenty in between.  The "RPG" part is generally because some game-like mechanics are present in the story, e.g. the main character knows he has a Hero/Character screen which lists his level, skills, etc... and he knows how to gain experience points to increase those things.   Most of the time LitRPG takes place in some kind of game and usually feature a player (who knows he's playing a game) or an npc (who **usually** isn't aware he is in a game).  Personally, I favor LitRPG that make NPC's the main characters because players tend to know more than they should and be more powerful than .

The difference between good and bad and mediocre LitRPG is simply the storytelling skill of the author.  Its still about making you suspend disbelief and drawing you into the world the author makes, seeing it through the eyes of that world's creatures, and belief/disbelief then occurs from that world's context.  And then, the author takes believable characters, puts them in believable situations, and makes their lives unbelievably difficult and you don't know just how they are going to get themselves out of it all, but you want to see them do it.

If you enjoy reading Sci Fi or Fantasy stories you might enjoy a LitRPG story as well.

Andrew Seiple has a couple of good LitRPG series.  Small Medium: Big Trouble is worth the read.   Its very classic LitRPG

These next series has some elements of LitRPG but I don't think they fully qualify as such (good reads anyways)

NPC's (Spells, Swords, & Stealth series) by Drew Hayes (always a great author) is also worth it. 

Orconomics by Zachary Pike

I'm reading Nomad Core by Andrew Seiple which is the sequel to Bunker Core.  Andrew Seiple does a lot of LitRPG stuff and can do it really well (see his Small Medium: Big Trouble series) and this has aspects of that genre.  Don't be fooled by the cover of the first book (Bunker Core) it is not a fantasy RPG but takes place on a post-apocalyptic earth ravaged by nukes and  nanobots gone haywire.