The 31st Piece Turns the Tables Chapter 251 Discussion

Pretty niche novel. As others say, the novel takes a dungeons and dragons (dnd) tabletop rpg approach on the Korean tower type novels. Instead of a strict tower, the earthlings are transported to another world where they have simultaneousish adventures that can last short or long, but regardless must complete one after every 30 rest days (if not ended early).

Before going into why the rating is 3 star, let's state why this novel is good. The unique mechanic setting is definitely high up there, but the novels other biggest strength is the character developments. You can feel the growth of every single significant character, from both physical to mental growth. The author also did a overall good job on how the plot is flowing, the over reaching world/main plot and arc connections are almost always done phenomenonally. These are what made me stay and somewhat love it.

The unique setting again is truly one of a kind so far on NU at least that I know of (rated 900 something novels). Like tabletop rpg games, there are some dice rolls. And these can determine the results, making a unique experience. However, the dice rolls are too unrealistically forced, and very improbable results.

Now for the reason why my ratings 3 stars despite how deep I am into the novel and my fondness of the story. Theres 4 main problems.

The firstmost is that the story is filled to the brim with filler. This filler consists of all the stats, skills, titles; essentially all system stuff info dumping. This is particularly awful whenever the arc ends and it reaches its resolution. Your guaranteed a full chapter (and chapters are long) of meaningless system info filler and thoughts related to that info.

This is also the second main problem. Almost all of the actual system, skills, titles, et cetera; are completely meaningless. These stats don't actually do anything in the story nor battles. They are really just cosmetics other than some skills (some which you dont even know what they are if u didn't memorize it, especially on what items give what). Skills which we don't really know thr exact details later but get the general gist like it's an attack or block. The MC full stat sheet / info is never put up in later chapters too. Probably because even the author doesn't know how much stuff he added to the MC.

This comes to the third main problem. There are often times mechanics, system stuff, and characters that become quickly redundant or forgotten. Though the overall character development is one of the best out there in my opinion, equally as much stuff are never mentioned again.

One example being the points leaderboard completely disappearing, and even the spectator stream comments for dozens of chapters after the most recent arc. Things which we thought would have a significant or relevant role quickly fade or blatantly not mentioned again like those he added to his small friend list. Not just minor side characters, but the most significant side characters: his summons, such as Karen who was always next to the MC also end up not really being mentioned at all and disappear.

Another example is how the whole setup arc setting on the adventures was blatantly thrown out. It was meant and setup as a tower type novel, but after his first rest, this was never forcibly done again as it was done before, and it became a free roam choose adventure with MC's knowledge. There are other times like this too. Such as the dice rolls for rest location changes changing from 1-20 (?) to a six sided die.

The last problem are of course some huge plotholes on the world settings. One notable one being the spectator beings donating madness being literal earthlings with how they are commenting earth culture stuff in the chat, and yet the players doing the same in their own forums. Another with how Spoiler

some of the MC's old pieces reference and hint of knowing they have a god influencing them, while others are completely oblivious. It is very confusing as it has nothing to do with power levels nor really class either. Though bigger spoiler below

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Spoiler

the religious class monk fighter one knew of the god, the others with no class relation sometimes knew something too.

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Another big plothole being the lack of actual information spread on the MC, as somehow his deeds are always spread but not his actual name, face, etc when the later he gets in the story the more often he just mentions his name.

Those 4 were the biggest problems. And again, I do say this is a niche novel. If you are a fan of tower type Korean novels and of dnd type things, you'll probably enjoy reading this. If you aren't, especially on the dnd tabletop type setting, such as the very unrealistic unstatistic dice roll results, yet indefinitely intriguing, then you won't enjoy the novel due to the detriments.

There is also a manhwa version of this which I really liked. In the manhwa some of the negatives (filler basically) is mostly fixed, but in turn you are sacrificing the deeper plotlines and character developments, so I suggest reading both if you enjoyed.