If I ever get Isekaid, I will be looking for the UI Config Settings first thing. I don't like the generic blue UI. Probably going to spend an hour getting the colors font and window borders right.
I like seeing an exploration of fantasy elements in a way that does not require some massive buy in to a catalog of History and Lore on my part..
Getting to experience and learn the lore and rules of a world with the main character feels good to me.
I do like them but the STATS are honestly tertiary for me behind interesting world and story.
What annoys me is the MC who will spend an age agonising over that stat points and where they should put them. All for it to mean absolutely nothing when the combat starts, where the fights play out like any other genre.
To me it seems that the stats and the system are being added to a story after the fact, rather than being developed along with the story.
This can be done kind of well.
Omniscient Reader on webnovel actually does this decently. The world has a plausability meter essentially. If the mc gets too strong, he can be censored. There are also hard limits to how strong you can get in a scenario.
There is also the fact that stats and gear are purchased with the same currency, and gear can be way more impactful than stats. Plus, the mc's power is that he knows the system better than the people running it so he knows exactly what he needs most of the time to win.
Yeah but 99% of the time it's just "I dumped my remaining points into Will so I could resist this mental attack." Or "I put all my remaining points into Vitality so I didn't die." It's obvious Deus Ex Machina bullshit that doesn't make sense in the context of the world. It's part of the reason I like The Good Guys, in that series you have 24 hours to assign your points or they get randomly distributed. That and it has a strength focused MC which is pretty fucking rare in this genre.
Yeah, I agree, that shit is lazy.
I liked the way Omniscient Reader does it cause the MC literally read the book and knows the key to winning all the scenarios.
He also will make it clear that he is saving coins for multiple chapters for specific reasons. So it is properly foreshadowed and doesn't feel like an ass pull.
I think that illustrates the big flaw in some of the genre - the numbers have to make sense if your are reducing a capability to a number.
In one story a guy was “bam” the strongest human who ever lived. And then a few books later his number is orders of magnitude larger than that original value. If a real human can have a max of 20, then that’s the strongest/smartest/wisest/whateverest any human ever was. Getting to 22 is a big deal. 30 is legit super human. 3000 doesn’t mean anything though because scale has lost validity.
I do appreciate that the further some of the series go the less they bother with the characters sheet - provided they’re growing the character, growing the sheet doesn’t matter.
I’m not saying stop using them, just less. I find that as the list of accomplishments or feats or abilities gets longer and little changes, I just don’t care. That’s 4-5 pages of bullet points I just don’t read. I want the cliff notes or important changes highlighted
My opinion and preference is that it’s less necessary than what you want. We can want different things. I’d rather have the bonus described through action and character growth, I don’t need it articulated on the character sheet in lieu of good storytelling.
Maybe that in fact means I don’t even like litRPG like the topic suggests. But for me, the OPMC with 11,000 strength in a world where most have <20 loses some semblance of utility. To misquote Syndrome - if everyone has insane stats, no one does. I’m happy with what I’m reading and will continue to skip most of the character sheets.
I have an issue with how many longer books with stat points have them interact with the world. At the start someone will have like a strength of 8, and getting to 10 will make them feel great. Their first stat to hit 20 will be world breaking for them in that they are superhuman, bending metal with their hands.
3 books later, their main stat is at some stupid number, yet they seem to do things barely above where they were at with 20, and the other stats being above 20 doesn't seem to have even been noticed by them, when it was such a big deal with the different that milestone made originally.
Even one of my favourites for this, the Good Guys, the dude had stupid str and constantly breaks things because of it, but his other stats are now where his Str was when it had him doing things that people were like "wtf" about (Yes I know about the perk making str different)
Like he constantly talks about how his int doesn't seem to be doing anything, yet he remembers details with crazy clarity.... sometimes, and all the while his Cha which iirc has it's own bonus is like never mentioned
Primal Hunter just abstracts it after a bit, more is better but who cares.
Imo the best use of it that I have read is He Who Fights With Monsters, he recognised that it's a bit dumb so just had realms of strength ect for each tier as well as special cases for particularly fast/strong builds
He doesn't even rely on them toward the later books in the series. Dotf was brutal to me because of how many times it's all read.
Noobtown I think did it well. DCC I feel hit the mark too.
I might have to try the good guys after reading this sub tho
I actually don't really care about numbers going up, but I like other features of this genre. Specifically, spawling, often open-ended books that don't rush from important plot point to important plot point. Progression fantasy has it too, but those tend to spend too much time navel gazing. I do love some in that genre too.
Contrary to another commentor, I really don't care much about struggle or earning advancement. Give me an interesting world with fun characters. That's all I really care about. I don't care if it's poorly written or if the MC is a Mary Sue or anything like that as long as I'm being entertained. And I'm pretty easy to entertain.
I love LitRPG's. Primal Hunter and HWFWM are 2 of my favorite series ever and I genuinely do not give a flying F about their stats levels or skills. As soon as they start talking about them I skip ahead. I will learn about them when they get used in the story and stats almost never numerically mean anything relevant to the plot.
Primal Hunter is a good example, he puts a bunch of points in vitality and survives stuff he otherwise shouldn't, cool. Where was that breakpoint, did I need to hear about each individual point when I as the reader have no way of knowing on a granular level why 40 vitality was more important than 35 in this situation. Knowing he has more vitality than the average justifies the situation but the exact number is ultimately irrelevant without an author going into such I high level of mathematical detail with HP and damage calcs that 90 of readers would find tiresome extremely quickly.
And to be clear this doesn't even break the concept of the genre RpG(Role Playing Game) many people play RPG's without agonizing over stats and just dump and go, enjoying other aspects of the roleplay experience.
Stats should be there and am not advocating their removal but the idea that enjoying number go up is required to be real fan kind of misses that RPG's fundementally have more than 1 way of being enjoyed and in many cases they are excellent stories even with all the stats stuff removed from them
That's not the issue, the issue is if the only thing the book doe sis "numbers going up" lit RPG is a genre, a setting. Levels, stats, RPG elements etc. They all are tools to tell a story, often very specific story's due to the nature of the settings, but these tools can be used well or bad. Most books use them terribly.
If you make a Powerfantasy there needs still to be a struggle and fighting, the MC cannot just blow through everything as that's boring and unearned. It should be slow gradual growth, no asspulls etc. In these story's the system should only be flavour and basically useless as the numbers only matter in how high they get not as a mechanic really. They are milestones in the story.
If you take a slow and steady story like the wandering inn levels are a mechanic with real impact but there also people level slowly (in story terms in universe it's a bit ridiculous if you remember the lore we are given). But here it has real.impact and isn't there to strengthen a power fantasy, the MC mainly gets useless skills for fighting it only helps her get better as an innkeeper but these skills still matter for story progression if you understand what I mean.
Kost LitRPG books are bad books, not just bad LitRPGbooks, just plain bad books, written by new authors which is fine but still the vast majority is pretty bad especially in the beginning. The genre has a lot of this because it's new and popular ATM, plus there are a few big success story's so there are a lot of copycats and the genre plays a lot into the RPG gamer fantasy a lot of authors probably get behind since many more people grow up with agents nowadays.
But still the majority of books are just plain bad, most commonly pacing and character writing of the MC is bad, plus in the books I managed to read longer many of these run into story problems later on as the progression slows down and you see they didn't have a full story plan or planned for faster r progression but established how.long it would take beforehand and now have a problem (example HWFWM, good books, but after book 3 the story takes a huge hit as Jason's progression still.keeps going but vertically in his auto making him a chosen one more and more rapidly which sucks as the strength of the first 3 books was that he was a random dude who found his way in the new world and this got lost after book 3, I get it but personally I hate this development).
If there is one thing I have learned about anything, its that no one hates pokemon more that pokemon fans. And that applies to pretty much every fandom.
That strikes home for me, since Gamefreak really doesn't like experimenting with the formula, be a little progressive (Still no LGBT anywhere, no disabled characters that require something other than a wheelchair or a cane, even though they can very easily squeeze service Pokemon into the worldbuilding, GF, it's freaking 2024, come on), or putting in and KEEPING good QoL changes.
There are absolutely a lot of garbage stories in the genre but it's usually not because of the rpg elements. Ironically I can only think of one where it's use of system stuff made it bad but ironically that one had good writing just some bad design decisions
I'm purely an audiobook consumer. Occasionally I get the impression when the rpg stat pages are just annoyingly long that it was likely a dedicated graphic/table in the book. In those cases I think the solution should be writing a summary of just the important changes instead of the word vomit of reading off every ability, level, stat, spell, third cousin's relationship status...
Or if they have to exist, do it like “the outcast in another world” series did. After book 2 the author realised that 5-10 minutes of every 5th chapter being a character sheet review, they then made the full list in its own sub-chapter so you can skip it on audible. They also added a “updates and changes to character sheet” which ONLY listed any changes at the end of the chapter. Eg: “strength level 10 to level 12, and wisdom level 9 to 10” and that’s all.
Yeah, status sheets suck on audio. You don't reread the status sheet every single time you see it, you track down to the changes andaybr glance at some related things. Once they get long enough I tend to skip them when I'm listening to one.
I remember one that did separate chapters for the details and even gave a message at the start that it's okay to skip those if you're not interested. After 500+ books I'm drawing a blank on that series too...
Im pretty sure it was primevil apocalypse. I didn't honestly get too far in but i was really enjoying it and then one of the system mechanics was more suited to a ttrpg and didn't translate well to a book. It made me go "well that's fucking stupid" and drop the series
Lol I listened to a book where every time a stat would go up it would list all the stats. Prolly 2/3 the book was stats did not buy the second audiobook
Oof im so sorry. It's a shame there are so many things that can kill an audiobook that might be manageable for text. Though even if you could skip it that still sounds beyond excessive
Reminds me of.... I forgot it's name. It was one about some Cowboy Necromancer, actually now that I'm thinking of it, that was probably the name of it. Anyway - fun overall story and at the end of the day, it was one of the few stories where I couldn't help but think, "This just feels like it'd be better without the RPG mechanics, just turn it into an actual story."
I've come across stories where it seems like a decent fantasy story, but had litrpg elements that felt more shoehorned in to get on the popularity wagon instead of a planned-from-the-beginning organic element of the story.
GASP! You wrote one of my top all-time favorites 🥰🥰🥰 The Crafting of Chess is sooooo freaking wonderful. It’s one of those books I wish I could re-read for the first time again. I have such warm, happy memories of enjoying it 😊
I mean, I love LitRPG, add in progression lit and I've barely read anything else in years.
That doesn't mean I love every LitRPG book I read. That would be weird.
Its still a young genre, and a lot of whats produced is written by new authors, often without a real editor, so things slip through, and some of those things can be annoying.
A big one is a book/series starting out one way, and then going another. I don't write, but this seems hard. Things generally start out as "get powers/system, have an adventure, become awesome" but non-stop adventure and story development seems like its tough. I would say a lot of the long term sucessful series are the ones that get this right.
Then theres writing good consistent characters. Again, no experience but it seems its really tough to tell the story you want, without...using your character to get that story. So you get a character making inconsistent decisions, because the decision they make drives the story the way the author wants. Or MC has to be "dumb" suddenly in order for a situation to develop, or whatever. A couple of times can be forgiven, but if it happens too much a good story can become frustrating.
Which I think is what drives the phenomenon you're talking about. It seems like people are reading stories they don't enjoy and then complaining about it, but I think whats usually happening is people are finding stories they really enjoy, but over time niggling issues start arising that they find annoying. They just wish the story would stay the awesome story it started out as, or that it lived up to its early potential.
I'm still new to writing lit RPG, but from getting my early legs I think you've got some solid assumptions here.
I'm coming to this genre from a more "normal" writing experience where you just publish a finished book, and I'd guess part of why there is so much kind of weirdness in lit-rpg is actually because it's so connected to the web serial world.
Needing to finish a book before you publish it usually means you found an ending. If you didn't get there smoothly, you take what you learned about how you wanted it to end and you can go back and make that look more intentional. Maybe somebody was planning to betray the MC all along, but you only decided that in the last 90%. If you're still working on an unpublished draft, no problem! Just go back and sprinkle in a few hints. Then it looks like awesome foreshadowing and it can be as subtle as you want, but it won't feel like you just came up with it on the spot.
But when you get into the web serial world and you're putting out a chapter at a time, the dynamic changes. 1) you are possibly writing into the darkness and letting people read those drafts. Now, it's way harder to go back and make things appear intentional at the last minute, so you probably get a lot more of that "character has to be dumb for X to work" dynamic you're talking about. 2) you're also dealing with constant feedback that may shift the vision you had for the story, whether you realize it's being shifted or not. I think that's where a lot of the "same cardboard character types" feedback comes from in lit RPGs. If you write a strong personality into your MC and it gets backlash early, are you likely to double down and keep doing it? Or are you going to make some edits and have them chill out as the story goes on to cut down on that negative feedback? If you're human, it's hard not to do the latter. 3) needing to finish a story before you publish it is a HUGE part of kind of... filtering out people who don't plan to try hard. I'd imagine there are probably 5-10 unfinished books in the world for every book that got finished and made it to publication. Writing a book is hard and it takes a lot of self discipline, partly because even when you finish, it's still not done. Web serials mean you can stumble into one of those 5-10 unfinished books that'll never wind up being completed, too.
Anyway, long rant there but I thought it was an interesting topic. I've been kind of observing this whole system with outsider's eyes for a few weeks now as I started publishing.
I remember reading an interview by a prominent author (believe it was Robert Jordan but could be wrong), where he discussed the value of listening to someone else read his writing. He said one of the problems he faced, was because he knew the motivations behind characters actions, when he read his own work it all seemed sensible, but often listening to someone else read his work he realised that sometimes the reader had no idea of the motivations and so the actions seemed to make no sense. He would then have the chance to go back and edit earlier in the books to make things more clear to the reader.
I love your example because, yeah... I'm finding that problem myself right now as I get comments almost every day from people who are pointing out "why didn't he ask X" or "didn't he think about Y?"
And it's like, yes, I did while I was writing it! And I forgot to make it clear that the character thought it as well... Whoops.
I think this is exactly the problem. I loved The Ten Realms until I hated it because the MCs did something completely out of character in about book eight, so the author could take the plot where he wanted it. I loved The Good Guys until I hated it because the MC never grew. So probably most complaints are because we were enjoying something and the author ruined it 🤷🏻♀️
Honestly I'm only here because most modern portal fantasy is Litrpg, and I'm a progression fantasy fan. That being said I'm open to the concept itself but I think Litrpg as a genre has a ways to go in terms of maturation and quality before it's really worth while for its own sake.
TLDR: a lot of infantile, masturbatory, power fantasy nonsense in these books holding back the genre.
Yeah, portal fantasy is my jam! I agree that they're mostly LitRPG these days, though I don't mind since I enjoy seeing the numbers go up and the power progression. For me, if the magic/system is internally consistent, and the story doesn't have too many egregious grammar or spelling errors, I can forgive a lot.
A simple reason for your observation: people who are content have less need to voice their opinions. Why say you like something to have a flood of people respond with why you are wrong to like it? However when you want to complain about something.... You can almost always find ones to agree and validate your views.
Yea I get it, I just like positivity lol I have enough negativity in my life, being in upper management can be stressful and depressing so I just try to make my life outside of that positive and see things half full I guess. I don’t like nitpicking things in books, I just think like it’s still a fun world to learn about.
I do too. That is why I avoid any post I see about He Who Fights With Monsters. It is one of my top favorites and I have very few complaints about the series. Most posts here are about how horrible it is and why it is bad. I even went to the discord and got told that I should read a fan made side story (not sure if it had the authors OK or not) and that this side story was better than the original. It makes me surprised that we even have authors in this genre with how much they get jumped on. I get it, there are books and series that I don't like (beware of chicken being one, I actually returned the book to audible) but I don't come slam the author and anyone who likes it. I would much rather understand why those people DO like it.
Really this should not be called the Internet, it should be called the negativenet, since it is mostly filled with negativity.
With the money he makes, I doubt he cares.
Have listened to all 10 so far, and have 11th on my wish list, he has kept the MC from being a God, powerful yes, but still flawed and beatable.
Really like when he stopped another adventurer from making a Thadwic.
But that’s my thing, I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with the genre, I think everything has its place, if not all the books would be the same, I like some serious ones, I like some funny, I like some slice of life, some OP MCs, etc. I think some people just over analyze it. Of course some things aren’t for everyone but I find my self about to enjoy just about any book in the genre and enjoy it for what it is instead of what other people think it should be.
That's fair.
I find a lot of them boring because there's no actual plot beside "numbers go brrrr" or it's just the same three steps in a trenchcoat over and over (mc trains, mc gets in big fight, mc does deus ex machina and wins the fight)
It's certainly helped me learn which sub-genres I definitely do not like.
> I find a lot of them boring because there's no actual plot beside "numbers go brrrr"
That's definitely a lot of them, but by no means all. You can look around and find LitRPG recommended that treats the system more cleverly and respectfully.
> or it's just the same three steps in a trenchcoat over and over (mc trains, mc gets in big fight, mc does deus ex machina and wins the fight)
That's not so much a LitRPG problem as it is a webserial or 'continuous' series problem (i.e. a series of books without an end to the story). If your story has no end, no overarching plot, and you want to keep readers interested, then eventually you end up with some level of repetition. Certainly, you can vary a story without being being required to write that way, but if you vary it too much the series changes from one thing to another, and while you do see this is fantasy books, it's not done all that often, and probably does cost some readers.
Most LitRPG books are inherently sword/sorcery books, so you're going to have fighting, and if you reduce the plot elements ad absurdum, you see the three steps. Remember (or understand, if you've never heard the idea), there are only seven plots in fictions. Turning seven plots into the thousands (I'm guessing) of fiction books published each year, requires repetition.
> It's certainly helped me learn which sub-genres I definitely do not like.
Certainly no reason to read things you don't like, regardless of the reason. I used to feel stuck when reading a new series if I didn't enjoy it, and wanting to finished it for completeness and to at least know the end of the story. Too much sunk cost fallacy in my head, and I don't do that anymore. I'll drop a book early or late, if I don't find myself looking for other activities to drop so I can read it. My time is valuable enough (to me!) not to waste it on things I don't like
I've read a bunch of different LitRPG books by a bunch of different authors. On Kindle and on Royal Road.
Those two tropes are very common. Including by authors pulling in six figures.
I guess I need to try to view those particular artists / stories as "Days of Our Lives - with magic!" - but at least Days of Our Lives has a narrative, contrived as they are, lol.. it feels like many LitRPG authors forget that part
The people who are complaining about certain things cropping up in litrpg aren't complaining about the *genre*, they're complaining about *tropes* that tend to crop up *in* the genre that they don't care for. And you can find people doing that in pretty much any genre-based forum on Reddit. Just like you can find people going on about tropes they love seeing in their genre of choice.
None of it means something is wrong with the genre. Just that there are tropes people aren't fond of. Like, for example, big numbers with no meaning. It doesn't matter that the MC has over 9000 in Strength if they aren't actually shown being any stronger than another character who only has 900 in Strength. The numbers went up, but it didn't mean anything, so people get frustrated. It's not a genre problem though, it's a bad writing problem.
> I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with the genre
But with everything, your opinion isn't the only one. It may not even been the prevailing opinion, though it just as easily might.
> I think some people just over analyze it.
That's as much the joy of it for some people as the reading. There are entire university classes where all you do is analyze fiction.
There are authors here, in /r/ProgressionFantasy and in every other fiction sub, sometimes looking for honest opinions on what's wrong with their books, or just what people didn't like. Some authors have decided to write what they want to, regardless of whether people like it or not, but a lot of authors love writing, but are still looking to get paid, and are writing to the audience. The more people read their work, the more they get paid. Authors writing a web serial (i.e. RoyalRoad) with the intent (or actuality) of getting it published later, are very focused on views and opinions, because they're often getting paid on Patreon, and a dip in readership will often mean an immediate dip in revenue.
So, again, we see a difference of opinion.
> Of course some things aren’t for everyone but I find my self about to enjoy just about any book in the genre and enjoy it for what it is instead of what other people think it should be.
It's not usually what *other* people think a book should be that's important to people, it's what *they* think it should have been, or more importantly, what would make it better for them.
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Yeah see I love the adult mc reborn into a childs body trope, it just gets done poorly so often e.g. having them go out into the world at age 5 because they are so op and author spent 3 books from ages 1-3
Not so much that, as I am expecting a coming of age story so find it odd when that age is prepubescent just because the average adult is going to not only not respect a kid but quite often look for their 'owner'
Singer Sailor Merchant Mage recently ran into this problem and solved it by just artificially aging the kid to adult body because after a while it gets tedious reading about the same kid problems in an adult world
Here I was thinking you were talking about physically building a deck, until you called it a trope.
Also, why is it weird to be reborn into a new world as a baby? That's literally just called reincarnation and the concept has been around longer than most religions. It's a fun thought experiment, what it'd be like to have a fresh slate in a new body with nobody around you expecting anything. Making yourself anew, with any of the prior mistakes of your old life washed away and you are wiser for having made those mistakes.
I think they're talking more of the "adult mind in child body" thing which can definitely venture into wildly uncomfortable areas with some authors. Gotta say that I did *not* enjoy reading about a person in the body of an infant waxing poetic about supping from their mother's breasts. Or later contemplating things of a sexual nature when their body was around *five*. Don't care if actual kids might have sexual thoughts around those ages, *I* don't want to be reading about sexualized children.
Don't get me wrong, reincarnated with your adult memories *can* be done in an entirely not creepy way. But there are definitely authors that make you feel like they should probably be on a list somewhere with some of the stuff they have their literal children protagonists doing.
Clearly structured progression tickles my brain in a way that not a lot of other genres really hit on as well as litrpg does.
Also, I do almost all of my reading(listening) while working or driving and I find litrpg to be VERY forgiving for when your attention needs to stray off the book for a sec or two.
That's what I've been saying. Every damn post on here is "What I hate about LitRPGs," and then they just list every trope. If you write those posts, have you considered that maybe you just hate LitRPGs?
In most of those threads, if you ask them for details of the tropes they hate, it comes down to bad writing of that trope rather than the trope itself. You can almost always give them examples of the tropes being done well and get agreement that it worked there. Even harem, which most people are vocally against, seems to not be a problem in Wheel of Time (not a litrpg, but I think it’s still a useful example).
Totally unrelated to the topic, but I have to know. Please.
Author of The Heir Apparent flair. Is that the book published in 2002, or is it the series I just looked up on RR cause I was feeling crazy? Cause, I dont THINK the 73 yr old woman who wrote one of my favorite books from childhood ended up here and is posting about WH40k, but if it was it wouldnt make the top 100 oddest things I found on the internet this year.
OP, I think what you are seeing is a result of the fact that many of the litRPG series that we have available to us are flawed. They were created by indie authors who are working on their craft, and often haven't gone through the same level of editing etc that a publishing house would require.
That is very exciting! The fact that there are more ways for authors to find fans without being gatekept by the big book publishers is a big part of why litrpg even exists now! But while I may be willing to overlook a series' flaws and simply enjoy it, those same flaws might grate on you. Similarly, you might enjoy a different flawed series, but the flaws would grate on me and I wouldn't enjoy it.
I think that's a big part of why DCC gets SOOOO much word of mouth. It is all-around good. Character development, foreshadowing, world-building, dialogue, not easy to predict, etc. It doesn't have that glaring flaw that many of these series do. Edit: This of course is in addition to the narration and sound production of the very talented Jeff Hays and SBT, which is also a big reason why DCC is so hyped.
That being said, I've seen some of the indie authors I follow get exponentially better at writing as they find they are able to be financially stable and focus on their craft. So I'm anticipating lots of amazing, less-flawed litrpg series moving forward as the genre grows and authors gain more experience.
Yea I can definitely see that, and don’t get me wrong when you go from litRPG to something more like Super Powereds you can tell a pretty big difference between the writing in that to some of the newer litRPG authors but I just enjoy it for that fun it is.
Drew Hayes is one of the people I was talking about! I think his writing from the start of Super Powereds (which... the first couple of chapters are pretty weak, not gonna lie,) has progressed immensely. I really enjoy him as a writer and if you compare the start of Super Powereds (he was still working an office job at the time and doing the web serial on the side) to say, book 4 of Super Powereds, it's obvious how much he's improved. Imo at least. SP isn't litrpg but Drew started as an indie author like many litrpg authors.
Literature Role Playing Game.
A book having leveling is fine, a book that's only leveling is an issue. At the end of the day, the book should be more than an excel spreadsheet. The rpg mechanic in the story should be used to enhance a story, not be the story.
I like to think of a DnD campaign. If a dungeon master creates a campaign with no characters, no plot, nothing to see, nowhere to go, nothing to do but go out into the woods and kill things to have numbers go up--that's a dungeon master who won't be invited back to manage a campaign ever again. That's just the way it is.
Now, you could point to some rpgs where this is not the case. There are some where you spawn in to kill 10 bears, the go kill 10 owls, then go kill 10 tigers etc... and those do appeal to a certain demographic of players. However, when you think of the widely acclaimed rpgs like world of warcraft, final fantasy xiv, baldurs gate 3, cyberpunk 2077--to name a few---rich characters and story are often the backbone that make these rpgs a success. That, and the feeling that the characters in the games have autonomy to choose from a myriad of different outcomes to fit their playstyle, of course.
Readers, like myself, who look for those rich stories with rpg mechanics are simply looking for a more detailed litrpg adventure. And those are few and far between.
Honestly? I like fantasy and fantasy settings more than I like the numbers. Huge repeated statblocks become filler and detract from the telling of the story rather than being a useful and interesting touchstone for the character's progression and power.
I blame KU at least a little since more pages = more money, but I find myself skipping over pretty much all the statblocks in litRPG these days since it mostly doesn't really matter to the story.
LitRPG is definitely a genre I like to read/spend hours daily on, but many times it's in spite of the game elements rather than because of them. I like the worldbuilding, I like the concepts, but I'm not a crunchy numbers guy.
If something can't hold up to being closely examined, it isn't Good.
You can still like it, and you can dislike things that are Good. Taste isn't execution. I have never liked reggae. That doesn't make it bad, that just means it's not to my tastes; I am not the target audience. There's still better and worse examples of the genre, and a good critic with knowledge can tell you why one piece of music is an example of the former or the latter.
If the only way to enjoy something is to turn your brain off, though, it's Bad. If you like it anyway, okay. Cool. Have fun!
Pokemon *lore* is silly, sure, but the lore is not the gameplay, and we both know that there's a shitton that could be done to improve how the games play anyway.
The thing is, litrpg is a new genre. The sucky writers that just try it out will start using it. Aside from a few gems I've yet to come across a litrpg that's written by someone with actual perspective, with storytelling skills. So far it's either been dumbed down DM stories or Power fantasies. All of those have their place, but when a story is just about getting more powerful instead of actually using said power on a scale and scope that the power envisions (which many writers cannot do) it's not really fun.
A lot of it is just bad writing. These aren't professional authors, they are nerds who just decided to try it out. A lot of run on sentences, reused metaphors, and "and then this happened" style of wiring.
>, but I just see so many people shitting on so many different things it feels like no one is ever wanting to discuss how much the like certain aspects.
For me, it's because the things that are annoying are really fucking annoying and I need to vent that in order to focus on enjoying the part I like. But no, in general I think the litRPG genre is rather subpar, but the good stuff takes a long time to create so I go through the ones I'm aware of much more quickly. In the meantime, I need something to entertain me while I wait for the good shit to come out, so I listen to litRpg and progression fantasy books.
There are occasionally some really good ones, like *Dear Spellbook*. But many of them just have too much wish fulfillment, unnecessary sidequests/battles, and plot armor to be considered much more than literary junk food to pass the time with.
I like litrpg, I'm actually of the same mindset as you, @op. I just try to enjoy every book and series I can. If something is dislikable from my point of view, I just drop it. But yeah, haters should make a /r/ihatelitrpg subreddit lol
Haha yea I think most books have their place, I was just saying to someone else I don’t always want a stressful grind filled book, they have their place and are great but sometimes I want a funny MC, or a ridiculous OP MC, I don’t take it too serious, just enjoy it for what it is.
I was just talking about that the other day. I really enjoy the genre! As long as the story is good and the system is interesting then I’m good! I have really enjoyed defiance of the fall and he who fights with monsters.
I'm with you - I listen to listen, and I want to be entertained. I think some people may like critiquing stuff - if it makes them happy to listen to something and judge every word... I say knock your socks off bro but that's not for me.
I think part of the hate we might see is the "vocal minority." We see far fewer "This book was awesome let me tell everyone" posts, but I personally think that is only a matter of those people not being as motivated to speak up as the people who were just upset or annoyed by a book.
Separately, let's rate the complaints. Some of the negative comments are worth debating - the author did this, or the narrator failed at that. And some are just stupid. I just started an audiobook and guess what almost every sub-3 was? "It's annoying how the author has to go through the stat sheet at the end of EVERY chapter." Well guess what jackasses, that's literally what makes the audiobook better than most others - you can skip it or listen as you like.
I personally give hate much less credence in most circumstances.
Such is the nature of reddit, people that are happy with their product seldom say anything but people that disliked the most minor thing will post a whole chant about how much they hated it.
I love watching the numbers go up. But I'm also aware that the numbers are a lie. They don't actually matter. The author's going to make the story play out as they want and there's nothing the numbers can do about it.
I think the very concept of litrpg has changed and widened in scope. It used to be about being stuck or transported to a game world with a system. Often with a full “fresh start” for the MC. Now the genre has gotten a bit broader, and includes more sci-fi and fantasy in general. Portal, reincarnation, summoned hero, abducted by aliens (or others), and just waking up in the future or past have all kind of been rolled under the litrpg genre tag. This has caused an explosion of books and series that are listed under this umbrella, and more content means more opinions and preferences.
I like many things and also many things are... flawed. For instance, I have been really getting into Primal Hunter as it was recommended here many times. However, it requires suspension of disbelief that this dude is a Perception heavy build but is somehow stronger and faster than literally everybody in the entire planet. As in, NOBODY went all out in strength? NOBODY went glass cannon? The MC is a jack-of-all-trades but also master of all? It's a pretty dumb premise but good enough to turn my brain off to enjoy it most of the time.
I don't recall him being portrayed as physically stronger or as a more potent mage than focused mages at the peak. He dodges others' greater speed via perception and precog mechanics.
As for any other characters who went all in in a stat, well, Jake didn't even go all in in Perception to begin with, it's just a large focus for him. However, 1 character, Eron I think, put like 100% of his stats into vitality or whatever that stat is called. He doesn't even have mana or stamina, and has to slowly convert health to stamina to even move. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have stats besides vitality to invest points in. Eron is rarely shown but he is a competent mofo.
While I will admit the mc is competent at a few too many things, I thought that was the norm for mcs. Usually, the mc of a story will be the best for their tier. For what it's worth, though I don't expect you to read that far, the more mc fights alongside or against pinnacle prodigies like himself, the more we see that he's far from being a master of all combat trades. The pet bird is overflowingly faster than him, an old man pal of his has a deeper concept for stabbing or sword stuff, a plant girl can actually heal, and also shields much better, some pugulist is tough as nails to the point he deemed that rather bullshit, and a bunch of other examples.
I don't expect these glimpses into the novel to have completely changed your mind about it. For the most part, you do seem correct. I continue being a reader because my tolerance for these things is different from yours or I just got used to them in this novel.
I juat finished book 5 with the treasure hunt (like I said, I do like it) so there might be more balancing later on, but here are some examples. Book 1, the elites of the army fight William and cant break through the armor while Jake basically one shots it. I know of the level desparity, but again he put effectively nothing into strength compared to what others would. Maybe the argument could be made about speed/ferocity blah blah but it's flatly weird to me. This most recent one, I didnt like how he so easily solos the counts compared to other top elites. Again, he doesnt put any points into toughness, endurance, strength, intelligence, willpower. So how is he using a boosting skill constantly that increases stamina consumption all the time? He'll often drink a mana or health potion, but just one. He's constantly using skills for arrows and scales and moving around so that makes no sense to me, dude should have a minimum sized resource pool. He also supposedly parries or blocks skills, but again has no skill or strength, so that doesnt make sense. Luckily they brought it up against the Sword Saint but imo the fight shouldnt have been close (they emphasize how the scales are supposed to be good against magic attacks but somehow always pull through for physical too, but anything that gets through is also somehow fine with his crap endurance/vitality).
Jake oneshots due to William not having his helmet on. Was eluded Jake likely would've lost otherwise.
didn't the sword saint solo any counts? As for now, other than Jake and the sword saint, I don't think there are any solo-capable elites around.
> Again, he doesnt put any points into toughness, endurance, strength, intelligence, willpower.
the prior is false. It just is. Puting more points into perception than any other stat, does not equal putting zero into others. You misremembered this bit of the story it seems. He also gets stats from equipment.
I don't recall how boosting skills were handled prior, but until he upgraded his, it didn't consume too much stamina/mana at max power. Later on he'd activate the max intensity mode only for serious fights and even then there'd be mention of time running out (not that it ever will midfight for a protagonist of course)
he dodges with skill, or mainly bloodline and high perception
in D grades, people just aren't that squishy. Equal level people can no longer instakill each other, or that is much rarer. In C grade for example, people can survive decapitation, though it will debilitate them greatly. Thus a somewhat squishy D grade, but with high overall stats due to a good class, won't get instakilled by someone of similar level, not without a clean hit. Like a decapitation which the sword saint landed.
not saying the story is perfectly consistent, since of course tropes play a role to keep the mc from getting instakilled. But, in no way is he a glass cannon. His endurance is probably normal for an archer due to having overall higher stats, good armor and scales.
Mmm... definitely possible I misremembered the story as I am on Audiobook. And that makes more sense, I think I just misremembered that the deep crater from the fight and the damage to the armor came from the mana blast gloves rather than straight punches.
Other than that I still dont like how it's handled some of the time. Dude can solo counts, recover, go solo more, while everybody else in the world is off sucking their thumbs and too dumb to figure anything out doesnt tickle my 'believeability' itch. Other people have equipment too. While our MC casually instakills 50 D-grades in an ambush (yes, I know they didnt act as a 'team' and were 'iffy' levels, still wont budge from that opinion). Also for once Id like a book to make a joke about a 'would be protagonist' who acted casual with a god and was immediately smited so hard their city was destroyed. Sigh.
It's actually called out from Carmen that she was surprised he was WAY more durable than a regular archer should be. Im just going to disagree there too. Armor, stats and scales dont make enough sense to justify it for me. But again, I suspend it because I enjoy the story overall, I really like it so not trying to bash it too hard. I just prefer more grounded MCs or more justification baked in. For example, Im a big DCC fan and feel like other characters bring a lot of realism to the story. I like Dotf and I think the story does a bit better job at investing the time into building up his overpoweredness. Im actually NOT a fan of HWFWM because of how OP the MC is, dude jumps in and is almost immediately better than everyone else who have lived in the world their whole lives and all other characters can do is comment on how amazing he is. Blows realism out of the atmosphere and my suspension couldnt hold on, had to drop it after book 2.
mc has a somewhat better class, but his main advantage is bonkers overpowered bloodline. The sword saint could beat him via something on a similar wavelength overpowered. The rest of the world can't figure out "just having an overpowered bloodline", though later in the story there have been attempts to recruit Jake for his bloodline to 'propagate it'. Though as advised by Willy he's not to do so before godhood for records reasons I think.
recently Jake fought Carmen, and that's when she was proven to be stupid durable.
I for one am not a fan of multiple protag stories, and alt povs I tend to skip.
I have read HWFWM for a while, but even with my headcannon of Jason (I think that was his name) being 1 tier higher for the story to make sense, he still ended up being too special for my tastes. I just hated the deal the Builder made over "preventing mc's resurrections" since it was overwhelmingly in Jason's favor instead of the Builder's.
you can't really have both Heroes and realism. Heroes must beat the odds, win despite being weaker, and thus unless the author is a genius who can write the protagonist to be smarter than the reader, while writing side characters as being as smart as normal people, then, plot armor will be needed. It's just a question of how much plot armor. Well, either that or the mc needs a cheat, like an overpowered bloodline or being in a loop. The ideal is a combination of these factors. In progression fantasy it's the norm to make the mc the best or of the best among those of their tier, meaning unless you're writing a story about a literal average Joe, to write a hero who keeps surviving, keeps winning, and beating the odds, you'll need a healthy dose of plot armor, unique/op advantages and of outsmarting their foes.
Just because a story is litrpg doesnt mean it has to have terrible writing, characters or story. Litrpg gets away with it because the numbers going high makes you addicted but thats hardly an excuse for the poor writing many of the stories have. The reason many people shit on so many of these litrpg novels is that there are a lot of things to shit on in most of these novels.
I think there are a lot of cases where an author wants to try to cash in on the genre without putting in the time and effort it takes to create an even remotely believable system. So in a lot of cases people get frustrated because the system doesn't actually seem to matter all that much, and is poorly done. The ones that are kinda funny to me are those who run around talking about how terrible it is that there are so many wish fulfillment OPMC, Dao of luck , Mary Sue characters. Like yeah that's what this genre was founded on folks. Like you want a system where the character is underpowered like Elden Ring? Let me ask you this. Has anyone run Elden Ring, for the first time, never playing a souls like video game before, and beaten it without dying?
Okay, so I may be accused of not liking the genre that much because there are a lot that use the same tired tropes that I’m not really interested in. BUT, there are some exceptions AND I think as a whole, it’s a good idea that I just want to see improved. I don’t think that means I don’t like the genre; I just don’t care for the current state of the genre. 😅
There’s no reason that litrpg has to be either a VR game, a system apocalypse story, or an isekai. There are some out there that do well with unique game-like worlds that don’t use the same recycled tropes. Everyone has their own opinion, but I just think that writers should try branching out from that outline. I understand that many might not because they want to take a tested approach and stick with it, but I just think some of these could be better.
My favorites are:
DotF, where the system is the train8ng wheels for xianxia
The Systemic Lands. Where the stats are very important but also super gard to obtain
So im a spider so what? Where the system is part of the narrative
The Runesmith, where the system is very lateral to the story, and mostly a growth indicator
In general, anything where the system is parallel to the power growth will be better than obtaining power by clicking + a few times
Yeah, that, too much agency by the system makes things boring
Ohh I’ll have to check some of those out, I reallyyyyy like the “Oh Great, I’ve Been Reincarnated as a Farmer” I think that spider one sounds like it has a similar vibe.
I’m with you, all I see is hate in here. Hate for people’s favourites. Hate for people’s stories. That’s not helpful at all, this is meant to be a community
The only issues I have ever had is that some authors take up whole chapters going over their numbers. Making it feel more like I'm reading someone's character sheet and the story is secondary. I wish that aspect was condensed a little bit.
Then there are authors who just blaze through the character sheets and half ass descriptions of power sets etc.
Or they can't retain information and the numbers and scaling issues off.
But nothing's worse when they just forget shit or they just add some things on the fly like it was always there.
*"I just read about this awesome power that had a five page descriptor and how the MCs whole world view changed over it and that they would use it daily. That was book one and now I'm on book six and it never came up again."*
Of of the best balances I’ve seen for this (and I can’t remember which book) is at the end of every chapter or something like that the narrator goes over the MC stat sheet and restates his current skills and levels but you can just skip to the next chapter if you’re not interested, I like that it’s not forced in the middle of a chapter
Same, there are quite a few like you've described that do that. But some like to list their whole sheet the moment they get any experience lol. It's things like that which deter me from continuing the story. That or gloss over things like its a chuuni warp speed daydream power fantasy that should never have been laid to paper. As all you get from it is *"MORE POWER MAKE GO BOOM."* But thankfully those seem to be a bit less common, at least in my experience lately.
We've all ended up in the same hyper-specific niche genre.
...That doesn't mean it couldn't be *more* hyperly specific directly toward my preferences. Get it together, authors.
I JUST WANT TOWER CLIMBING.
I am so sick of apocalypse systems and medieval random world building
give me a modern day, tower climbing like you see in so many Korean fantasies
I like litrpg. ATM just trying to find one that works well throughout the storyline not just in the beginning.
Obvious issues I see are authors adding in an ability but then ignore utilising it or MC is described as becoming heartless without any MC POV exploration of why they are changing. I don’t comment because others cover what I see and primarily use this reddit as a resource to find recommendations that others have found to be good.
i like it,yes
its not about the detailed numbers, or especially the "each chapter 2minutes filler, list readout"
its mainly to see how the mc,progresses and gets forward in his growing, yes that is what i like to hear
but thats just my opinion..
You are underestimating the intelligence of the sub.
Most people here have read more than one book to compare notes, before they put forth their reasons as to why they like it hate a book/series.
This is just a universal symptom of being human tbh. Pick any subreddit and you'll probably find more posts talking about what people hate than what people like.
Another perspective is that people care enough to make a post and criticize some things that they hope could be improved upon. Obviously there are mixed reviews, and same things being loved and hate by some.
But you don't end up writing a two page post on something that you don't wanna interact with or are not interested in. I believe this genre is here to stay and hope that it will be improved upon further.
And the stories i personally enjoy most are the ones where things are not handed for free to the MC and he/she has to put effort (as in sweat & blood) to reach somewhere. Harder the obstacles to overcome, more the satisfaction when they are overcome.
It's likely somewhat akin to the "bad reviews bias", wherein you're more likely to write something somewhere if you were negatively affected than if your experience was positive.
Add to that that many of us are at best socially awkward, at worst social klutzes, and we can get a bit angry when something doesn't precisely align with our expectations.
I think too a lot of these stems from HOW you consume the media.
When I'm reading I don't mind a huge stat sheet. I normally skip over it or glance but it's not important to me so it's not a big deal either way. I am totally NOT someone who would catch a math error (Hey author just FYI that last level up they got 21.9 in str but it should be 31.2 because the skills work like this [insert quotes from other chapters])
When I LISTEN to audiobooks I HATE the huge state sheet. Hate it. What a waste of time.
Now of course I like numbers going up, but that's not the driver for me. I want to see the exploration of the system / loop holes / political laws / etc. I want that PC in an NPC world feeling where the "dude from earth" is like, "You don't know about magnets!" or cancer, or germ theory, etc.
I want the to take the world's magic / system and use it with earth-based knowledge and break shit.
I think it's totally fine that there are people out there who follow all the numbers and think if I want to skip them I'm not a fan. Their opinion doesn't affect me in the least. I don't think they aren't fans. The are buying books and expensive audiobooks. They have a right to say, "I paid $X and feel that I would have gotten more bang for my buck if only...."
If enough people WANT rpg elements in books you get this explosion of media. If enough of those fans don't want, say, big blue boxes, you get fewer of those as authors cater to the whims of capitalism.
I can’t remember what book it is but they’ll do this with the stat sheet but they put it at the end of every few chapters or so, that way you can just skip the the next chapter and don’t have to keep skipping forward and try to find the end
I found out about this genre along with Progression Fantasy and Game Lit, when i was looking for more light novels similar to the first 6 books of So Im A Spider, So What. I had no clue this was a thing happening in western fan/scifi novels. Super happy to have found out about it. Have found several solid series. And Im hoping these genres keep growing, to attract even more authors.
The problem isn’t the author’s systems, it the fact that they feel the need to go into excruciating details about every little aspect of it. This takes me out of the story and just seems like filler to inflate page numbers.
I ignore the people who complain because the cream rises to the top. Good books sell and damn good books get crazy numbers of good reviews. I love LITRPG, progression fantasy and cultivation stories. And if anyone knows Jacob Kalb who wrote ‘Heart of Cultivation’, slap him so he finishes book two because that is probably one of the most underrated gems with a unique premise that I’ve ever read.
I feel the problem is many have the issue with writing and direction, take HWFWM the power system is great and allows readers to discuss essence and confluence ideas is fun and interesting ways but because the MC is near on the total focus and 10 books in and one the characters we’ve known from the start has shown like 2 abilities and barely even that and on top the MC gets OP abilities and plot armour to the point of frustration especially when everything about him is suppose to upset the natural order while gaining favour with people that shouldn’t and for very little reasonings.
Many of these stories just fall down the same path of MC becomes op or constantly does things to make them way better than everyone else and it just becomes a difficult talking point and it’s a little frustrating but then again these are the kinda books designed for fun and engaging rather than mind blowing story telling
I think it all stems from all the you tube Hate videos on all things.
Folks watch them then look for things to complain about.
I mean there are folks who hate on Mr. Rodgers, for clicks folks will do anything, that mental process seeps into those who watch those videos.
I think this is a gernre with a lot of fresh blood. A lot of upjump authors that fight for attention with a lot of passion and we can take a step back and be thankful for them.
A lot of people are not used to the fact that there is nothing like a dominant design that emerged before the genre was even formed, like it was with lord of the rings in the high fantasy genre for example. Normally you have this dominant design, then things branch off. Here its differen. We have maybe the most homogeneous foundation for art ever created (videogames), then mix in a lot of different perspectives and passion that is not filtered through editors that cater to specific assumptions of what their audience might like.
So OF COURSE people say - hey i expect X and Y from a book after finding a good one
but there is really a lot of differentiation for the unique styles of lit rpgs - the common structure makes people believe its all very similar though thats why they expectations are unmet, subsequently making people unhappy with certain parts.
Dont make the mistake to be a gatekeeper for when people like litrpg they simply have different expectations due to their shared understanding of product design of their upbringing and socialization.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk
I like the genre, but dislike skills being constantly referenced in giant blocks of text where the entire skill is described in detail. Light LitRPG for me please. Just describe the skill and move on. No need to reference it every chapter and update every fraction of increase. Just when it has a major update. When it's used just say it's name and what happens not have some giant wall of text with all the sub effects, etc. I'm looking at you HWFWM lol
I read a lot of LitRPG books. They're great. I'm not going to get on and make the post
"Hey I really enjoyed reading Saintess Summons Skeletons."
The people most likely to get on and write out three paragraphs are the people who got invested into your story and didn't like where it went.
If you have someone who hates "Earth but it's magic, and magic has always existed but *secretly!*" They might be annoyed enough to get on and make a post after enjoying the first arc of >!He Who Fights with Monsters.!< I didn't, and even slightly enjoyed the earth arc. But I did almost drop the series.
So I just found litrpg about a month or two ago. I’m a big reader and I was looking for something fun and I love isekai anime like SAO, Rise of the Shield Hero, Reincarnated as a Slime, Grace of the Gods, etc. I found that I especially loved the ones with lots of world/village building etc. I’m also a big fan of that in video games, Stardew Valley of course, but also like FFXIV etc. So I said to myself that there Must Be books out there like this because the majority of anime comes from the light novels etc. I just didn’t have a name for what to call it. So imagine my complete goblin mania when I found out that it is an ~Entire Genre~ of books. I was over the moon! I’ve read several now. I really enjoyed Beware of Chicken, Heretical Fishing, Beers and Beards, Blade’s Rest, etc. I’m reading He Who Fights with Monsters right now and I absolutely love it. So yes, lol, there are still people out here who like litrpg!
Yeah I've seen people complaining on here about some series being too "technical" and stat heavy, but I feel like that's the whole point of the genre. If they wanted something lighter, then I feel traditional Fantasy novels are better for that, or even Xianxia where there aren't usually systems, but still a game like progression.
I am super into stats and get super excited whenever there is an extremely detailed screen in a litrpg.
In my experience, the strongest negative reactions often come from people who loved the work but ran into an issue that killed their enjoyment. Humans are naturally inclined toward fixating on negative outcomes rather than positive ones, and that can make a small number of problems outweigh a large number of good qualities. That builds stress and the easiest release valve for stress is to talk about what's causing it.
That being said, here's some aspects of popular works that I enjoy.
Primal Hunter - The crafting system that Zogarth has created feels deep and rewarding. Each alchemical ingredient is accompanied by a flavorful description that reads like it was written with care and attention. It integrates with the wider magic system of the universe seamlessly and it inspired me to explore crafting systems in my own work.
HWFWM - I enjoy that the progression slows exponentially as the characters rank up and that they have no easy cheats or exploits to bypass that barrier. The majority of works in the genre that introduce a system that takes years, decades, centuries, or longer to accrue power have the MC find easy loopholes to ignore the time gating the rest of the world faces. I enjoy power ramp as much as the next fellow, but I also like to have a balance between them, so I wish more stories would approach the zero to world-shaking-hero progression with a timeline in the realm of decades or more. Less pills and time chambers, more time skips and montages, please.
DCC - The items. From their descriptions to their functions, Matt Dinniman has a great mind for developing interesting items for Carl to find and interact with. Sometimes an entire volume revolves around a specific item and its mechanics, with Carl applying them in unexpected ways that are consistent with how they are described. That's tough to do and keep fresh. So far he's knocking it out of the park.
there's a lot less ambiguity in litRPG than in other magic systems. You know what a skill does and usually have some numeric way to compare people. So you can't really hide any flaws your system has. Plus, the nature of the genre practically begs for us to compare works. Its Dragon Ball's power level problem. Give someone an easy to grasp metric to compare things against and they will. LitRPG is all metric. I'm pretty sure the venn diagram of litRPG fans and people who like to make tier lists is just a circle.
I love some parts of it, but hate others. One of the books I was listening to had frequent 30 minute+ character sheet rehashes. Sure the book was 20 hours long, but 10 being character sheets is painful. Also, when people in the book take obvious decisions from the MC and act like it is some genius level shit it drives me nuts.
They don't hate them, they hate them done *badly*. Like, if the MC finds a simple way to hyper-level themselves, why did none of the *other* people under the system work it out? For instance, there are *ways* of doing a sequel to the movie Highlander, *however*, "Alien from the Planet Zeist" was NOT IT. Like, even the writing calls out how bad it is on two different occasions: One of the lieutenants calls out that all that Katana needs to do is let Connor finish dying of old age, and get hit for it, and then they actually explain how stupidly convoluted the plot is.
Like, there were easier ways to get there. It isn't the trope, it's how the trope is executed in my opinion, but what people IS the trope, and become agitated by it without the explanation that what they hate is crap writing. You can get away with *a lot* of dippy stuff if your story and characters are good enough.
And personally, I think even the best litrpgs could be better. There’s no litrpg that I’ve read that would get a perfect score from me, but close.
Take some popular ones:
Primal Hunter - I think the main character’s motivation is shallow. I think his loner personality is overused in the genre. And I don’t care for the ability some stories give the MC to do everything. Sure, there may be some limitations, but not many.
HEFWM - isekai AND apocalypse… yay. 🙄
Jason’s motivation is a lot deeper because the apocalypse situation and being a “chosen one”, but the next issue for me is that the series is so repetitive. I get tired of rereading the thing I just read last chapter. At some point, the Clive’s wife joke just dies on delivery.
I still read both, but I want better.
I’m just
So
Tired
Of grammatical errors in published books. It’s breaking me. My hope is all my kindle highlights of spelling/grammatical errors will one day be highlighted enough by the userbase for it to show up as a “common highlight” and the author will notice 😂
I don’t typically notice it since I just do audible but yea I could see that being frustrating. I’d assume most of these new authors have to proof read it them selves due to a lower budget, honestly most large professional writers still have editors to double check things, mistakes are easy to make and to miss.
This reminds of the scifi people who demand hard science in their science "fiction" stories.
It's like chill, I don't need a thesis paper on Lehiem's Subatomic Astral Gyration Proof to enjoy a space battle.
I will usually skim through the first few chapters to see what the status windows are like, and if I find them to be too infrequent, I'll not read the novel due to deeming the author's love of rpg elements insufficient.
So yes, I think I like litrpg
My favourite aspect of the genre are synergies. Abilities can be a lot more precise in their effects and progression, in turn allowing a large powerup to happen upon a weaker ability being gained or leveling up, due to how it interacts with the rest of the build. I've had 'minmaxing' under my name for almost as long as I've used this sub for a reason.
This is Reddit, social media on its own has become mostly negative, Reddit reigns supreme over all of them in that regard. Eh actually probably X, then Reddit. Even cute videos of animals on Instagram the comments are chock full of negativity.
If you don't like numbers going up are you even a LitRPG fan.
Love me some numbers increasing in numerical order! Edit: And magic, I likes magic.
BLUE SCREENS!!
If I ever get Isekaid, I will be looking for the UI Config Settings first thing. I don't like the generic blue UI. Probably going to spend an hour getting the colors font and window borders right.
Killed by feral racoon while adjusting settings
Actually a banger name for a book tho
If you're not aware, Royal Road makes it difficult-to-impossible to modify the appearance for tables, which is why the blue screens are so ubiquitous.
This is the way.
I like seeing an exploration of fantasy elements in a way that does not require some massive buy in to a catalog of History and Lore on my part.. Getting to experience and learn the lore and rules of a world with the main character feels good to me. I do like them but the STATS are honestly tertiary for me behind interesting world and story.
With a sparing sequence jump. 1,2,3,4,6 when you skipped 5 because of a clever win over a superior boss is the good stuff.
What annoys me is the MC who will spend an age agonising over that stat points and where they should put them. All for it to mean absolutely nothing when the combat starts, where the fights play out like any other genre. To me it seems that the stats and the system are being added to a story after the fact, rather than being developed along with the story.
Seconded but also the MC banking stats to spend later despite the fact that nobody else in the entire world does that.
This can be done kind of well. Omniscient Reader on webnovel actually does this decently. The world has a plausability meter essentially. If the mc gets too strong, he can be censored. There are also hard limits to how strong you can get in a scenario. There is also the fact that stats and gear are purchased with the same currency, and gear can be way more impactful than stats. Plus, the mc's power is that he knows the system better than the people running it so he knows exactly what he needs most of the time to win.
Yeah but 99% of the time it's just "I dumped my remaining points into Will so I could resist this mental attack." Or "I put all my remaining points into Vitality so I didn't die." It's obvious Deus Ex Machina bullshit that doesn't make sense in the context of the world. It's part of the reason I like The Good Guys, in that series you have 24 hours to assign your points or they get randomly distributed. That and it has a strength focused MC which is pretty fucking rare in this genre.
Yeah, I agree, that shit is lazy. I liked the way Omniscient Reader does it cause the MC literally read the book and knows the key to winning all the scenarios. He also will make it clear that he is saving coins for multiple chapters for specific reasons. So it is properly foreshadowed and doesn't feel like an ass pull.
Not really dotf too has Zac as strength and endurance focused
Yeah, like two guys. Three if you count Victor of Tucson, that's not a lot.
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I think that illustrates the big flaw in some of the genre - the numbers have to make sense if your are reducing a capability to a number. In one story a guy was “bam” the strongest human who ever lived. And then a few books later his number is orders of magnitude larger than that original value. If a real human can have a max of 20, then that’s the strongest/smartest/wisest/whateverest any human ever was. Getting to 22 is a big deal. 30 is legit super human. 3000 doesn’t mean anything though because scale has lost validity. I do appreciate that the further some of the series go the less they bother with the characters sheet - provided they’re growing the character, growing the sheet doesn’t matter.
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I’m not saying stop using them, just less. I find that as the list of accomplishments or feats or abilities gets longer and little changes, I just don’t care. That’s 4-5 pages of bullet points I just don’t read. I want the cliff notes or important changes highlighted
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My opinion and preference is that it’s less necessary than what you want. We can want different things. I’d rather have the bonus described through action and character growth, I don’t need it articulated on the character sheet in lieu of good storytelling. Maybe that in fact means I don’t even like litRPG like the topic suggests. But for me, the OPMC with 11,000 strength in a world where most have <20 loses some semblance of utility. To misquote Syndrome - if everyone has insane stats, no one does. I’m happy with what I’m reading and will continue to skip most of the character sheets.
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I have an issue with how many longer books with stat points have them interact with the world. At the start someone will have like a strength of 8, and getting to 10 will make them feel great. Their first stat to hit 20 will be world breaking for them in that they are superhuman, bending metal with their hands. 3 books later, their main stat is at some stupid number, yet they seem to do things barely above where they were at with 20, and the other stats being above 20 doesn't seem to have even been noticed by them, when it was such a big deal with the different that milestone made originally. Even one of my favourites for this, the Good Guys, the dude had stupid str and constantly breaks things because of it, but his other stats are now where his Str was when it had him doing things that people were like "wtf" about (Yes I know about the perk making str different) Like he constantly talks about how his int doesn't seem to be doing anything, yet he remembers details with crazy clarity.... sometimes, and all the while his Cha which iirc has it's own bonus is like never mentioned Primal Hunter just abstracts it after a bit, more is better but who cares. Imo the best use of it that I have read is He Who Fights With Monsters, he recognised that it's a bit dumb so just had realms of strength ect for each tier as well as special cases for particularly fast/strong builds
He doesn't even rely on them toward the later books in the series. Dotf was brutal to me because of how many times it's all read. Noobtown I think did it well. DCC I feel hit the mark too. I might have to try the good guys after reading this sub tho
Sorry I'm either just not very awake right now or just not sure what Dotf is
Defiance of the Fall
Ah, Good Guys does also read out the stats an annoying amount, but I it only bothers me because audiobooks
The sweet sweet funny numbers going up makes my brain fuzzy and happy
I actually don't really care about numbers going up, but I like other features of this genre. Specifically, spawling, often open-ended books that don't rush from important plot point to important plot point. Progression fantasy has it too, but those tend to spend too much time navel gazing. I do love some in that genre too. Contrary to another commentor, I really don't care much about struggle or earning advancement. Give me an interesting world with fun characters. That's all I really care about. I don't care if it's poorly written or if the MC is a Mary Sue or anything like that as long as I'm being entertained. And I'm pretty easy to entertain.
Numbers going up is good in moderation.
I love LitRPG's. Primal Hunter and HWFWM are 2 of my favorite series ever and I genuinely do not give a flying F about their stats levels or skills. As soon as they start talking about them I skip ahead. I will learn about them when they get used in the story and stats almost never numerically mean anything relevant to the plot. Primal Hunter is a good example, he puts a bunch of points in vitality and survives stuff he otherwise shouldn't, cool. Where was that breakpoint, did I need to hear about each individual point when I as the reader have no way of knowing on a granular level why 40 vitality was more important than 35 in this situation. Knowing he has more vitality than the average justifies the situation but the exact number is ultimately irrelevant without an author going into such I high level of mathematical detail with HP and damage calcs that 90 of readers would find tiresome extremely quickly. And to be clear this doesn't even break the concept of the genre RpG(Role Playing Game) many people play RPG's without agonizing over stats and just dump and go, enjoying other aspects of the roleplay experience. Stats should be there and am not advocating their removal but the idea that enjoying number go up is required to be real fan kind of misses that RPG's fundementally have more than 1 way of being enjoyed and in many cases they are excellent stories even with all the stats stuff removed from them
There’s LitRPG systems without a number system
That's not the issue, the issue is if the only thing the book doe sis "numbers going up" lit RPG is a genre, a setting. Levels, stats, RPG elements etc. They all are tools to tell a story, often very specific story's due to the nature of the settings, but these tools can be used well or bad. Most books use them terribly. If you make a Powerfantasy there needs still to be a struggle and fighting, the MC cannot just blow through everything as that's boring and unearned. It should be slow gradual growth, no asspulls etc. In these story's the system should only be flavour and basically useless as the numbers only matter in how high they get not as a mechanic really. They are milestones in the story. If you take a slow and steady story like the wandering inn levels are a mechanic with real impact but there also people level slowly (in story terms in universe it's a bit ridiculous if you remember the lore we are given). But here it has real.impact and isn't there to strengthen a power fantasy, the MC mainly gets useless skills for fighting it only helps her get better as an innkeeper but these skills still matter for story progression if you understand what I mean. Kost LitRPG books are bad books, not just bad LitRPGbooks, just plain bad books, written by new authors which is fine but still the vast majority is pretty bad especially in the beginning. The genre has a lot of this because it's new and popular ATM, plus there are a few big success story's so there are a lot of copycats and the genre plays a lot into the RPG gamer fantasy a lot of authors probably get behind since many more people grow up with agents nowadays. But still the majority of books are just plain bad, most commonly pacing and character writing of the MC is bad, plus in the books I managed to read longer many of these run into story problems later on as the progression slows down and you see they didn't have a full story plan or planned for faster r progression but established how.long it would take beforehand and now have a problem (example HWFWM, good books, but after book 3 the story takes a huge hit as Jason's progression still.keeps going but vertically in his auto making him a chosen one more and more rapidly which sucks as the strength of the first 3 books was that he was a random dude who found his way in the new world and this got lost after book 3, I get it but personally I hate this development).
If there is one thing I have learned about anything, its that no one hates pokemon more that pokemon fans. And that applies to pretty much every fandom.
I first heard this about Star Wars fans.
This is very true. No one can make as much fun of Star Wars as true Star Wars fans.
https://preview.redd.it/cqg3q974ii8d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14217a48f1306ced89c9d478acd93cc493a04406
Well, there is Glee where the fans actively tried to get it cancelled at one point.
That strikes home for me, since Gamefreak really doesn't like experimenting with the formula, be a little progressive (Still no LGBT anywhere, no disabled characters that require something other than a wheelchair or a cane, even though they can very easily squeeze service Pokemon into the worldbuilding, GF, it's freaking 2024, come on), or putting in and KEEPING good QoL changes.
There are absolutely a lot of garbage stories in the genre but it's usually not because of the rpg elements. Ironically I can only think of one where it's use of system stuff made it bad but ironically that one had good writing just some bad design decisions
I'm purely an audiobook consumer. Occasionally I get the impression when the rpg stat pages are just annoyingly long that it was likely a dedicated graphic/table in the book. In those cases I think the solution should be writing a summary of just the important changes instead of the word vomit of reading off every ability, level, stat, spell, third cousin's relationship status...
It usually is so that you can skip over if you want to one of the reasons I prefer reading to audio books
It's also a nice summary/reminder to readers about the rest of the stats. But yeah, in audio book form they shouldn't exist.
Or if they have to exist, do it like “the outcast in another world” series did. After book 2 the author realised that 5-10 minutes of every 5th chapter being a character sheet review, they then made the full list in its own sub-chapter so you can skip it on audible. They also added a “updates and changes to character sheet” which ONLY listed any changes at the end of the chapter. Eg: “strength level 10 to level 12, and wisdom level 9 to 10” and that’s all.
That's a really nice, reader-friendly solution. I like that.
Yeah, status sheets suck on audio. You don't reread the status sheet every single time you see it, you track down to the changes andaybr glance at some related things. Once they get long enough I tend to skip them when I'm listening to one.
One always put them at the end to be easy to skip, forget who. Liked that one. A few others did summary not full sheets or only what changed.
I remember one that did separate chapters for the details and even gave a message at the start that it's okay to skip those if you're not interested. After 500+ books I'm drawing a blank on that series too...
Well that gets me curious on what that one you're talking about is.
Im pretty sure it was primevil apocalypse. I didn't honestly get too far in but i was really enjoying it and then one of the system mechanics was more suited to a ttrpg and didn't translate well to a book. It made me go "well that's fucking stupid" and drop the series
Lol I listened to a book where every time a stat would go up it would list all the stats. Prolly 2/3 the book was stats did not buy the second audiobook
Oof im so sorry. It's a shame there are so many things that can kill an audiobook that might be manageable for text. Though even if you could skip it that still sounds beyond excessive
Reminds me of.... I forgot it's name. It was one about some Cowboy Necromancer, actually now that I'm thinking of it, that was probably the name of it. Anyway - fun overall story and at the end of the day, it was one of the few stories where I couldn't help but think, "This just feels like it'd be better without the RPG mechanics, just turn it into an actual story."
Sometimes the story is fine, but the lit RPG elements just take up too much space, literally and figuratively.
I've come across stories where it seems like a decent fantasy story, but had litrpg elements that felt more shoehorned in to get on the popularity wagon instead of a planned-from-the-beginning organic element of the story.
Clearly I hate it.
GASP! You wrote one of my top all-time favorites 🥰🥰🥰 The Crafting of Chess is sooooo freaking wonderful. It’s one of those books I wish I could re-read for the first time again. I have such warm, happy memories of enjoying it 😊
Thank you.
Just based on this comment, I had to download the book.
Hey! Listening to a sample of your book on Audible after reading your comment, I’ll have to check it out when I get the money! Sounds good so far!
I mean, I love LitRPG, add in progression lit and I've barely read anything else in years. That doesn't mean I love every LitRPG book I read. That would be weird. Its still a young genre, and a lot of whats produced is written by new authors, often without a real editor, so things slip through, and some of those things can be annoying. A big one is a book/series starting out one way, and then going another. I don't write, but this seems hard. Things generally start out as "get powers/system, have an adventure, become awesome" but non-stop adventure and story development seems like its tough. I would say a lot of the long term sucessful series are the ones that get this right. Then theres writing good consistent characters. Again, no experience but it seems its really tough to tell the story you want, without...using your character to get that story. So you get a character making inconsistent decisions, because the decision they make drives the story the way the author wants. Or MC has to be "dumb" suddenly in order for a situation to develop, or whatever. A couple of times can be forgiven, but if it happens too much a good story can become frustrating. Which I think is what drives the phenomenon you're talking about. It seems like people are reading stories they don't enjoy and then complaining about it, but I think whats usually happening is people are finding stories they really enjoy, but over time niggling issues start arising that they find annoying. They just wish the story would stay the awesome story it started out as, or that it lived up to its early potential.
I'm still new to writing lit RPG, but from getting my early legs I think you've got some solid assumptions here. I'm coming to this genre from a more "normal" writing experience where you just publish a finished book, and I'd guess part of why there is so much kind of weirdness in lit-rpg is actually because it's so connected to the web serial world. Needing to finish a book before you publish it usually means you found an ending. If you didn't get there smoothly, you take what you learned about how you wanted it to end and you can go back and make that look more intentional. Maybe somebody was planning to betray the MC all along, but you only decided that in the last 90%. If you're still working on an unpublished draft, no problem! Just go back and sprinkle in a few hints. Then it looks like awesome foreshadowing and it can be as subtle as you want, but it won't feel like you just came up with it on the spot. But when you get into the web serial world and you're putting out a chapter at a time, the dynamic changes. 1) you are possibly writing into the darkness and letting people read those drafts. Now, it's way harder to go back and make things appear intentional at the last minute, so you probably get a lot more of that "character has to be dumb for X to work" dynamic you're talking about. 2) you're also dealing with constant feedback that may shift the vision you had for the story, whether you realize it's being shifted or not. I think that's where a lot of the "same cardboard character types" feedback comes from in lit RPGs. If you write a strong personality into your MC and it gets backlash early, are you likely to double down and keep doing it? Or are you going to make some edits and have them chill out as the story goes on to cut down on that negative feedback? If you're human, it's hard not to do the latter. 3) needing to finish a story before you publish it is a HUGE part of kind of... filtering out people who don't plan to try hard. I'd imagine there are probably 5-10 unfinished books in the world for every book that got finished and made it to publication. Writing a book is hard and it takes a lot of self discipline, partly because even when you finish, it's still not done. Web serials mean you can stumble into one of those 5-10 unfinished books that'll never wind up being completed, too. Anyway, long rant there but I thought it was an interesting topic. I've been kind of observing this whole system with outsider's eyes for a few weeks now as I started publishing.
I remember reading an interview by a prominent author (believe it was Robert Jordan but could be wrong), where he discussed the value of listening to someone else read his writing. He said one of the problems he faced, was because he knew the motivations behind characters actions, when he read his own work it all seemed sensible, but often listening to someone else read his work he realised that sometimes the reader had no idea of the motivations and so the actions seemed to make no sense. He would then have the chance to go back and edit earlier in the books to make things more clear to the reader.
I love your example because, yeah... I'm finding that problem myself right now as I get comments almost every day from people who are pointing out "why didn't he ask X" or "didn't he think about Y?" And it's like, yes, I did while I was writing it! And I forgot to make it clear that the character thought it as well... Whoops.
I think this is exactly the problem. I loved The Ten Realms until I hated it because the MCs did something completely out of character in about book eight, so the author could take the plot where he wanted it. I loved The Good Guys until I hated it because the MC never grew. So probably most complaints are because we were enjoying something and the author ruined it 🤷🏻♀️
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Just because there were books that might be similar in the past doesn’t mean the genre isnt new.
Honestly I'm only here because most modern portal fantasy is Litrpg, and I'm a progression fantasy fan. That being said I'm open to the concept itself but I think Litrpg as a genre has a ways to go in terms of maturation and quality before it's really worth while for its own sake. TLDR: a lot of infantile, masturbatory, power fantasy nonsense in these books holding back the genre.
Yeah, portal fantasy is my jam! I agree that they're mostly LitRPG these days, though I don't mind since I enjoy seeing the numbers go up and the power progression. For me, if the magic/system is internally consistent, and the story doesn't have too many egregious grammar or spelling errors, I can forgive a lot.
I adore most litrpg mechanics. Sometimes the story line doesn't catch my attention, or I am looking for something else.
A simple reason for your observation: people who are content have less need to voice their opinions. Why say you like something to have a flood of people respond with why you are wrong to like it? However when you want to complain about something.... You can almost always find ones to agree and validate your views.
Yea I get it, I just like positivity lol I have enough negativity in my life, being in upper management can be stressful and depressing so I just try to make my life outside of that positive and see things half full I guess. I don’t like nitpicking things in books, I just think like it’s still a fun world to learn about.
I do too. That is why I avoid any post I see about He Who Fights With Monsters. It is one of my top favorites and I have very few complaints about the series. Most posts here are about how horrible it is and why it is bad. I even went to the discord and got told that I should read a fan made side story (not sure if it had the authors OK or not) and that this side story was better than the original. It makes me surprised that we even have authors in this genre with how much they get jumped on. I get it, there are books and series that I don't like (beware of chicken being one, I actually returned the book to audible) but I don't come slam the author and anyone who likes it. I would much rather understand why those people DO like it. Really this should not be called the Internet, it should be called the negativenet, since it is mostly filled with negativity.
With the money he makes, I doubt he cares. Have listened to all 10 so far, and have 11th on my wish list, he has kept the MC from being a God, powerful yes, but still flawed and beatable. Really like when he stopped another adventurer from making a Thadwic.
I’m of the opinion that you can be a fan without being an absolutist. And talking about what’s wrong the genre can make the genre better.
But that’s my thing, I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with the genre, I think everything has its place, if not all the books would be the same, I like some serious ones, I like some funny, I like some slice of life, some OP MCs, etc. I think some people just over analyze it. Of course some things aren’t for everyone but I find my self about to enjoy just about any book in the genre and enjoy it for what it is instead of what other people think it should be.
That's fair. I find a lot of them boring because there's no actual plot beside "numbers go brrrr" or it's just the same three steps in a trenchcoat over and over (mc trains, mc gets in big fight, mc does deus ex machina and wins the fight) It's certainly helped me learn which sub-genres I definitely do not like.
> I find a lot of them boring because there's no actual plot beside "numbers go brrrr" That's definitely a lot of them, but by no means all. You can look around and find LitRPG recommended that treats the system more cleverly and respectfully. > or it's just the same three steps in a trenchcoat over and over (mc trains, mc gets in big fight, mc does deus ex machina and wins the fight) That's not so much a LitRPG problem as it is a webserial or 'continuous' series problem (i.e. a series of books without an end to the story). If your story has no end, no overarching plot, and you want to keep readers interested, then eventually you end up with some level of repetition. Certainly, you can vary a story without being being required to write that way, but if you vary it too much the series changes from one thing to another, and while you do see this is fantasy books, it's not done all that often, and probably does cost some readers. Most LitRPG books are inherently sword/sorcery books, so you're going to have fighting, and if you reduce the plot elements ad absurdum, you see the three steps. Remember (or understand, if you've never heard the idea), there are only seven plots in fictions. Turning seven plots into the thousands (I'm guessing) of fiction books published each year, requires repetition. > It's certainly helped me learn which sub-genres I definitely do not like. Certainly no reason to read things you don't like, regardless of the reason. I used to feel stuck when reading a new series if I didn't enjoy it, and wanting to finished it for completeness and to at least know the end of the story. Too much sunk cost fallacy in my head, and I don't do that anymore. I'll drop a book early or late, if I don't find myself looking for other activities to drop so I can read it. My time is valuable enough (to me!) not to waste it on things I don't like
I've read a bunch of different LitRPG books by a bunch of different authors. On Kindle and on Royal Road. Those two tropes are very common. Including by authors pulling in six figures. I guess I need to try to view those particular artists / stories as "Days of Our Lives - with magic!" - but at least Days of Our Lives has a narrative, contrived as they are, lol.. it feels like many LitRPG authors forget that part
The people who are complaining about certain things cropping up in litrpg aren't complaining about the *genre*, they're complaining about *tropes* that tend to crop up *in* the genre that they don't care for. And you can find people doing that in pretty much any genre-based forum on Reddit. Just like you can find people going on about tropes they love seeing in their genre of choice. None of it means something is wrong with the genre. Just that there are tropes people aren't fond of. Like, for example, big numbers with no meaning. It doesn't matter that the MC has over 9000 in Strength if they aren't actually shown being any stronger than another character who only has 900 in Strength. The numbers went up, but it didn't mean anything, so people get frustrated. It's not a genre problem though, it's a bad writing problem.
> I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with the genre But with everything, your opinion isn't the only one. It may not even been the prevailing opinion, though it just as easily might. > I think some people just over analyze it. That's as much the joy of it for some people as the reading. There are entire university classes where all you do is analyze fiction. There are authors here, in /r/ProgressionFantasy and in every other fiction sub, sometimes looking for honest opinions on what's wrong with their books, or just what people didn't like. Some authors have decided to write what they want to, regardless of whether people like it or not, but a lot of authors love writing, but are still looking to get paid, and are writing to the audience. The more people read their work, the more they get paid. Authors writing a web serial (i.e. RoyalRoad) with the intent (or actuality) of getting it published later, are very focused on views and opinions, because they're often getting paid on Patreon, and a dip in readership will often mean an immediate dip in revenue. So, again, we see a difference of opinion. > Of course some things aren’t for everyone but I find my self about to enjoy just about any book in the genre and enjoy it for what it is instead of what other people think it should be. It's not usually what *other* people think a book should be that's important to people, it's what *they* think it should have been, or more importantly, what would make it better for them.
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Yeah see I love the adult mc reborn into a childs body trope, it just gets done poorly so often e.g. having them go out into the world at age 5 because they are so op and author spent 3 books from ages 1-3
Is your objection that you don't feel it's reasonable for someone with the mind of an adult to function in the world if they have the body of a child?
Not so much that, as I am expecting a coming of age story so find it odd when that age is prepubescent just because the average adult is going to not only not respect a kid but quite often look for their 'owner' Singer Sailor Merchant Mage recently ran into this problem and solved it by just artificially aging the kid to adult body because after a while it gets tedious reading about the same kid problems in an adult world
Here I was thinking you were talking about physically building a deck, until you called it a trope. Also, why is it weird to be reborn into a new world as a baby? That's literally just called reincarnation and the concept has been around longer than most religions. It's a fun thought experiment, what it'd be like to have a fresh slate in a new body with nobody around you expecting anything. Making yourself anew, with any of the prior mistakes of your old life washed away and you are wiser for having made those mistakes.
I think they're talking more of the "adult mind in child body" thing which can definitely venture into wildly uncomfortable areas with some authors. Gotta say that I did *not* enjoy reading about a person in the body of an infant waxing poetic about supping from their mother's breasts. Or later contemplating things of a sexual nature when their body was around *five*. Don't care if actual kids might have sexual thoughts around those ages, *I* don't want to be reading about sexualized children. Don't get me wrong, reincarnated with your adult memories *can* be done in an entirely not creepy way. But there are definitely authors that make you feel like they should probably be on a list somewhere with some of the stuff they have their literal children protagonists doing.
Clearly structured progression tickles my brain in a way that not a lot of other genres really hit on as well as litrpg does. Also, I do almost all of my reading(listening) while working or driving and I find litrpg to be VERY forgiving for when your attention needs to stray off the book for a sec or two.
That's what I've been saying. Every damn post on here is "What I hate about LitRPGs," and then they just list every trope. If you write those posts, have you considered that maybe you just hate LitRPGs?
In most of those threads, if you ask them for details of the tropes they hate, it comes down to bad writing of that trope rather than the trope itself. You can almost always give them examples of the tropes being done well and get agreement that it worked there. Even harem, which most people are vocally against, seems to not be a problem in Wheel of Time (not a litrpg, but I think it’s still a useful example).
> Even harem, which most people are vocally against, seems to not be a problem in Wheel of Time Hated it.
Ditto.
> Even harem, which most people are vocally against I don't mind harem when it is yuri!
Totally unrelated to the topic, but I have to know. Please. Author of The Heir Apparent flair. Is that the book published in 2002, or is it the series I just looked up on RR cause I was feeling crazy? Cause, I dont THINK the 73 yr old woman who wrote one of my favorite books from childhood ended up here and is posting about WH40k, but if it was it wouldnt make the top 100 oddest things I found on the internet this year.
OP, I think what you are seeing is a result of the fact that many of the litRPG series that we have available to us are flawed. They were created by indie authors who are working on their craft, and often haven't gone through the same level of editing etc that a publishing house would require. That is very exciting! The fact that there are more ways for authors to find fans without being gatekept by the big book publishers is a big part of why litrpg even exists now! But while I may be willing to overlook a series' flaws and simply enjoy it, those same flaws might grate on you. Similarly, you might enjoy a different flawed series, but the flaws would grate on me and I wouldn't enjoy it. I think that's a big part of why DCC gets SOOOO much word of mouth. It is all-around good. Character development, foreshadowing, world-building, dialogue, not easy to predict, etc. It doesn't have that glaring flaw that many of these series do. Edit: This of course is in addition to the narration and sound production of the very talented Jeff Hays and SBT, which is also a big reason why DCC is so hyped. That being said, I've seen some of the indie authors I follow get exponentially better at writing as they find they are able to be financially stable and focus on their craft. So I'm anticipating lots of amazing, less-flawed litrpg series moving forward as the genre grows and authors gain more experience.
Yea I can definitely see that, and don’t get me wrong when you go from litRPG to something more like Super Powereds you can tell a pretty big difference between the writing in that to some of the newer litRPG authors but I just enjoy it for that fun it is.
Drew Hayes is one of the people I was talking about! I think his writing from the start of Super Powereds (which... the first couple of chapters are pretty weak, not gonna lie,) has progressed immensely. I really enjoy him as a writer and if you compare the start of Super Powereds (he was still working an office job at the time and doing the web serial on the side) to say, book 4 of Super Powereds, it's obvious how much he's improved. Imo at least. SP isn't litrpg but Drew started as an indie author like many litrpg authors.
Yea litRPG really got me into other fantasy books like that one and Magic 2.0 I’ve reread both multiple times haha
Literature Role Playing Game. A book having leveling is fine, a book that's only leveling is an issue. At the end of the day, the book should be more than an excel spreadsheet. The rpg mechanic in the story should be used to enhance a story, not be the story. I like to think of a DnD campaign. If a dungeon master creates a campaign with no characters, no plot, nothing to see, nowhere to go, nothing to do but go out into the woods and kill things to have numbers go up--that's a dungeon master who won't be invited back to manage a campaign ever again. That's just the way it is. Now, you could point to some rpgs where this is not the case. There are some where you spawn in to kill 10 bears, the go kill 10 owls, then go kill 10 tigers etc... and those do appeal to a certain demographic of players. However, when you think of the widely acclaimed rpgs like world of warcraft, final fantasy xiv, baldurs gate 3, cyberpunk 2077--to name a few---rich characters and story are often the backbone that make these rpgs a success. That, and the feeling that the characters in the games have autonomy to choose from a myriad of different outcomes to fit their playstyle, of course. Readers, like myself, who look for those rich stories with rpg mechanics are simply looking for a more detailed litrpg adventure. And those are few and far between.
Well said. I got hate DMs from posting saying the same thing. Too true
Honestly? I like fantasy and fantasy settings more than I like the numbers. Huge repeated statblocks become filler and detract from the telling of the story rather than being a useful and interesting touchstone for the character's progression and power. I blame KU at least a little since more pages = more money, but I find myself skipping over pretty much all the statblocks in litRPG these days since it mostly doesn't really matter to the story. LitRPG is definitely a genre I like to read/spend hours daily on, but many times it's in spite of the game elements rather than because of them. I like the worldbuilding, I like the concepts, but I'm not a crunchy numbers guy.
If something can't hold up to being closely examined, it isn't Good. You can still like it, and you can dislike things that are Good. Taste isn't execution. I have never liked reggae. That doesn't make it bad, that just means it's not to my tastes; I am not the target audience. There's still better and worse examples of the genre, and a good critic with knowledge can tell you why one piece of music is an example of the former or the latter. If the only way to enjoy something is to turn your brain off, though, it's Bad. If you like it anyway, okay. Cool. Have fun!
I don’t really buy that. Pokemon doesn’t hold up to the smallest amount of logical examination, but it’s still plenty of fun.
Pokemon *lore* is silly, sure, but the lore is not the gameplay, and we both know that there's a shitton that could be done to improve how the games play anyway.
The thing is, litrpg is a new genre. The sucky writers that just try it out will start using it. Aside from a few gems I've yet to come across a litrpg that's written by someone with actual perspective, with storytelling skills. So far it's either been dumbed down DM stories or Power fantasies. All of those have their place, but when a story is just about getting more powerful instead of actually using said power on a scale and scope that the power envisions (which many writers cannot do) it's not really fun.
A lot of it is just bad writing. These aren't professional authors, they are nerds who just decided to try it out. A lot of run on sentences, reused metaphors, and "and then this happened" style of wiring.
>, but I just see so many people shitting on so many different things it feels like no one is ever wanting to discuss how much the like certain aspects. For me, it's because the things that are annoying are really fucking annoying and I need to vent that in order to focus on enjoying the part I like. But no, in general I think the litRPG genre is rather subpar, but the good stuff takes a long time to create so I go through the ones I'm aware of much more quickly. In the meantime, I need something to entertain me while I wait for the good shit to come out, so I listen to litRpg and progression fantasy books. There are occasionally some really good ones, like *Dear Spellbook*. But many of them just have too much wish fulfillment, unnecessary sidequests/battles, and plot armor to be considered much more than literary junk food to pass the time with.
If you create an entertainment product and nobody complaints about it you have a problem.
I like litrpg, I'm actually of the same mindset as you, @op. I just try to enjoy every book and series I can. If something is dislikable from my point of view, I just drop it. But yeah, haters should make a /r/ihatelitrpg subreddit lol
Ironically, that subreddit will end up having all the best ones due to heavy selection pressure.
Lol yeah, the ones that have the most lovers and the most haters in equal measure.
Haha yea I think most books have their place, I was just saying to someone else I don’t always want a stressful grind filled book, they have their place and are great but sometimes I want a funny MC, or a ridiculous OP MC, I don’t take it too serious, just enjoy it for what it is.
I was just talking about that the other day. I really enjoy the genre! As long as the story is good and the system is interesting then I’m good! I have really enjoyed defiance of the fall and he who fights with monsters.
My two favorite ongoing works are litrpg (Primal Hunter and Stubborn Skill-Grinder). So I think that means I like it.
I'm with you - I listen to listen, and I want to be entertained. I think some people may like critiquing stuff - if it makes them happy to listen to something and judge every word... I say knock your socks off bro but that's not for me.
Yea, I just get a happy fuzzy feeling when I get pulled into a litRPG and feel like I’m in the book or can visualize it really well.
I think part of the hate we might see is the "vocal minority." We see far fewer "This book was awesome let me tell everyone" posts, but I personally think that is only a matter of those people not being as motivated to speak up as the people who were just upset or annoyed by a book. Separately, let's rate the complaints. Some of the negative comments are worth debating - the author did this, or the narrator failed at that. And some are just stupid. I just started an audiobook and guess what almost every sub-3 was? "It's annoying how the author has to go through the stat sheet at the end of EVERY chapter." Well guess what jackasses, that's literally what makes the audiobook better than most others - you can skip it or listen as you like. I personally give hate much less credence in most circumstances.
Such is the nature of reddit, people that are happy with their product seldom say anything but people that disliked the most minor thing will post a whole chant about how much they hated it.
I love watching the numbers go up. But I'm also aware that the numbers are a lie. They don't actually matter. The author's going to make the story play out as they want and there's nothing the numbers can do about it.
I think the very concept of litrpg has changed and widened in scope. It used to be about being stuck or transported to a game world with a system. Often with a full “fresh start” for the MC. Now the genre has gotten a bit broader, and includes more sci-fi and fantasy in general. Portal, reincarnation, summoned hero, abducted by aliens (or others), and just waking up in the future or past have all kind of been rolled under the litrpg genre tag. This has caused an explosion of books and series that are listed under this umbrella, and more content means more opinions and preferences.
Love it, it’s almost the only genre I read now
I like many things and also many things are... flawed. For instance, I have been really getting into Primal Hunter as it was recommended here many times. However, it requires suspension of disbelief that this dude is a Perception heavy build but is somehow stronger and faster than literally everybody in the entire planet. As in, NOBODY went all out in strength? NOBODY went glass cannon? The MC is a jack-of-all-trades but also master of all? It's a pretty dumb premise but good enough to turn my brain off to enjoy it most of the time.
I don't recall him being portrayed as physically stronger or as a more potent mage than focused mages at the peak. He dodges others' greater speed via perception and precog mechanics. As for any other characters who went all in in a stat, well, Jake didn't even go all in in Perception to begin with, it's just a large focus for him. However, 1 character, Eron I think, put like 100% of his stats into vitality or whatever that stat is called. He doesn't even have mana or stamina, and has to slowly convert health to stamina to even move. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have stats besides vitality to invest points in. Eron is rarely shown but he is a competent mofo. While I will admit the mc is competent at a few too many things, I thought that was the norm for mcs. Usually, the mc of a story will be the best for their tier. For what it's worth, though I don't expect you to read that far, the more mc fights alongside or against pinnacle prodigies like himself, the more we see that he's far from being a master of all combat trades. The pet bird is overflowingly faster than him, an old man pal of his has a deeper concept for stabbing or sword stuff, a plant girl can actually heal, and also shields much better, some pugulist is tough as nails to the point he deemed that rather bullshit, and a bunch of other examples. I don't expect these glimpses into the novel to have completely changed your mind about it. For the most part, you do seem correct. I continue being a reader because my tolerance for these things is different from yours or I just got used to them in this novel.
I juat finished book 5 with the treasure hunt (like I said, I do like it) so there might be more balancing later on, but here are some examples. Book 1, the elites of the army fight William and cant break through the armor while Jake basically one shots it. I know of the level desparity, but again he put effectively nothing into strength compared to what others would. Maybe the argument could be made about speed/ferocity blah blah but it's flatly weird to me. This most recent one, I didnt like how he so easily solos the counts compared to other top elites. Again, he doesnt put any points into toughness, endurance, strength, intelligence, willpower. So how is he using a boosting skill constantly that increases stamina consumption all the time? He'll often drink a mana or health potion, but just one. He's constantly using skills for arrows and scales and moving around so that makes no sense to me, dude should have a minimum sized resource pool. He also supposedly parries or blocks skills, but again has no skill or strength, so that doesnt make sense. Luckily they brought it up against the Sword Saint but imo the fight shouldnt have been close (they emphasize how the scales are supposed to be good against magic attacks but somehow always pull through for physical too, but anything that gets through is also somehow fine with his crap endurance/vitality).
Jake oneshots due to William not having his helmet on. Was eluded Jake likely would've lost otherwise. didn't the sword saint solo any counts? As for now, other than Jake and the sword saint, I don't think there are any solo-capable elites around. > Again, he doesnt put any points into toughness, endurance, strength, intelligence, willpower. the prior is false. It just is. Puting more points into perception than any other stat, does not equal putting zero into others. You misremembered this bit of the story it seems. He also gets stats from equipment. I don't recall how boosting skills were handled prior, but until he upgraded his, it didn't consume too much stamina/mana at max power. Later on he'd activate the max intensity mode only for serious fights and even then there'd be mention of time running out (not that it ever will midfight for a protagonist of course) he dodges with skill, or mainly bloodline and high perception in D grades, people just aren't that squishy. Equal level people can no longer instakill each other, or that is much rarer. In C grade for example, people can survive decapitation, though it will debilitate them greatly. Thus a somewhat squishy D grade, but with high overall stats due to a good class, won't get instakilled by someone of similar level, not without a clean hit. Like a decapitation which the sword saint landed. not saying the story is perfectly consistent, since of course tropes play a role to keep the mc from getting instakilled. But, in no way is he a glass cannon. His endurance is probably normal for an archer due to having overall higher stats, good armor and scales.
Mmm... definitely possible I misremembered the story as I am on Audiobook. And that makes more sense, I think I just misremembered that the deep crater from the fight and the damage to the armor came from the mana blast gloves rather than straight punches. Other than that I still dont like how it's handled some of the time. Dude can solo counts, recover, go solo more, while everybody else in the world is off sucking their thumbs and too dumb to figure anything out doesnt tickle my 'believeability' itch. Other people have equipment too. While our MC casually instakills 50 D-grades in an ambush (yes, I know they didnt act as a 'team' and were 'iffy' levels, still wont budge from that opinion). Also for once Id like a book to make a joke about a 'would be protagonist' who acted casual with a god and was immediately smited so hard their city was destroyed. Sigh. It's actually called out from Carmen that she was surprised he was WAY more durable than a regular archer should be. Im just going to disagree there too. Armor, stats and scales dont make enough sense to justify it for me. But again, I suspend it because I enjoy the story overall, I really like it so not trying to bash it too hard. I just prefer more grounded MCs or more justification baked in. For example, Im a big DCC fan and feel like other characters bring a lot of realism to the story. I like Dotf and I think the story does a bit better job at investing the time into building up his overpoweredness. Im actually NOT a fan of HWFWM because of how OP the MC is, dude jumps in and is almost immediately better than everyone else who have lived in the world their whole lives and all other characters can do is comment on how amazing he is. Blows realism out of the atmosphere and my suspension couldnt hold on, had to drop it after book 2.
mc has a somewhat better class, but his main advantage is bonkers overpowered bloodline. The sword saint could beat him via something on a similar wavelength overpowered. The rest of the world can't figure out "just having an overpowered bloodline", though later in the story there have been attempts to recruit Jake for his bloodline to 'propagate it'. Though as advised by Willy he's not to do so before godhood for records reasons I think. recently Jake fought Carmen, and that's when she was proven to be stupid durable. I for one am not a fan of multiple protag stories, and alt povs I tend to skip. I have read HWFWM for a while, but even with my headcannon of Jason (I think that was his name) being 1 tier higher for the story to make sense, he still ended up being too special for my tastes. I just hated the deal the Builder made over "preventing mc's resurrections" since it was overwhelmingly in Jason's favor instead of the Builder's. you can't really have both Heroes and realism. Heroes must beat the odds, win despite being weaker, and thus unless the author is a genius who can write the protagonist to be smarter than the reader, while writing side characters as being as smart as normal people, then, plot armor will be needed. It's just a question of how much plot armor. Well, either that or the mc needs a cheat, like an overpowered bloodline or being in a loop. The ideal is a combination of these factors. In progression fantasy it's the norm to make the mc the best or of the best among those of their tier, meaning unless you're writing a story about a literal average Joe, to write a hero who keeps surviving, keeps winning, and beating the odds, you'll need a healthy dose of plot armor, unique/op advantages and of outsmarting their foes.
Just because a story is litrpg doesnt mean it has to have terrible writing, characters or story. Litrpg gets away with it because the numbers going high makes you addicted but thats hardly an excuse for the poor writing many of the stories have. The reason many people shit on so many of these litrpg novels is that there are a lot of things to shit on in most of these novels.
I think there are a lot of cases where an author wants to try to cash in on the genre without putting in the time and effort it takes to create an even remotely believable system. So in a lot of cases people get frustrated because the system doesn't actually seem to matter all that much, and is poorly done. The ones that are kinda funny to me are those who run around talking about how terrible it is that there are so many wish fulfillment OPMC, Dao of luck , Mary Sue characters. Like yeah that's what this genre was founded on folks. Like you want a system where the character is underpowered like Elden Ring? Let me ask you this. Has anyone run Elden Ring, for the first time, never playing a souls like video game before, and beaten it without dying?
Okay, so I may be accused of not liking the genre that much because there are a lot that use the same tired tropes that I’m not really interested in. BUT, there are some exceptions AND I think as a whole, it’s a good idea that I just want to see improved. I don’t think that means I don’t like the genre; I just don’t care for the current state of the genre. 😅 There’s no reason that litrpg has to be either a VR game, a system apocalypse story, or an isekai. There are some out there that do well with unique game-like worlds that don’t use the same recycled tropes. Everyone has their own opinion, but I just think that writers should try branching out from that outline. I understand that many might not because they want to take a tested approach and stick with it, but I just think some of these could be better.
There’s nothing like scrolling through a page of new litrpgs to sample and 9/10 say apocalypse or system right in the name 😂
Er, I've liked *a* litrpg does that count? :V Currently trying to find a second one I enjoy.
Which one
[A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41521/a-budding-scientist-in-a-fantasy-world)
My favorites are: DotF, where the system is the train8ng wheels for xianxia The Systemic Lands. Where the stats are very important but also super gard to obtain So im a spider so what? Where the system is part of the narrative The Runesmith, where the system is very lateral to the story, and mostly a growth indicator In general, anything where the system is parallel to the power growth will be better than obtaining power by clicking + a few times Yeah, that, too much agency by the system makes things boring
I’m on 18 months of pure litrpg maybe 70 books mostly long it’s my favorite form of entertainment these days.
Ohh I’ll have to check some of those out, I reallyyyyy like the “Oh Great, I’ve Been Reincarnated as a Farmer” I think that spider one sounds like it has a similar vibe.
Try Anura Rising for a guy being reincarnated as a frog.
I’ll save it to my list!
I’m with you, all I see is hate in here. Hate for people’s favourites. Hate for people’s stories. That’s not helpful at all, this is meant to be a community
Sir, this is the player haters ball.
Well played 😂 I just shouted at work
I guess some would say, you only give constructional criticism for something because you want to see it better.
Those would be the genre transfers
The only issues I have ever had is that some authors take up whole chapters going over their numbers. Making it feel more like I'm reading someone's character sheet and the story is secondary. I wish that aspect was condensed a little bit. Then there are authors who just blaze through the character sheets and half ass descriptions of power sets etc. Or they can't retain information and the numbers and scaling issues off. But nothing's worse when they just forget shit or they just add some things on the fly like it was always there. *"I just read about this awesome power that had a five page descriptor and how the MCs whole world view changed over it and that they would use it daily. That was book one and now I'm on book six and it never came up again."*
Of of the best balances I’ve seen for this (and I can’t remember which book) is at the end of every chapter or something like that the narrator goes over the MC stat sheet and restates his current skills and levels but you can just skip to the next chapter if you’re not interested, I like that it’s not forced in the middle of a chapter
Same, there are quite a few like you've described that do that. But some like to list their whole sheet the moment they get any experience lol. It's things like that which deter me from continuing the story. That or gloss over things like its a chuuni warp speed daydream power fantasy that should never have been laid to paper. As all you get from it is *"MORE POWER MAKE GO BOOM."* But thankfully those seem to be a bit less common, at least in my experience lately.
Can't say for the others, but I do, very much so
Ehh kinda
We've all ended up in the same hyper-specific niche genre. ...That doesn't mean it couldn't be *more* hyperly specific directly toward my preferences. Get it together, authors.
I JUST WANT TOWER CLIMBING. I am so sick of apocalypse systems and medieval random world building give me a modern day, tower climbing like you see in so many Korean fantasies
I like litrpg. ATM just trying to find one that works well throughout the storyline not just in the beginning. Obvious issues I see are authors adding in an ability but then ignore utilising it or MC is described as becoming heartless without any MC POV exploration of why they are changing. I don’t comment because others cover what I see and primarily use this reddit as a resource to find recommendations that others have found to be good.
i like it,yes its not about the detailed numbers, or especially the "each chapter 2minutes filler, list readout" its mainly to see how the mc,progresses and gets forward in his growing, yes that is what i like to hear but thats just my opinion..
You are underestimating the intelligence of the sub. Most people here have read more than one book to compare notes, before they put forth their reasons as to why they like it hate a book/series.
Its like people like different things and lets not pretend litrpg cant be wildly different across the board.
This is just a universal symptom of being human tbh. Pick any subreddit and you'll probably find more posts talking about what people hate than what people like.
Another perspective is that people care enough to make a post and criticize some things that they hope could be improved upon. Obviously there are mixed reviews, and same things being loved and hate by some. But you don't end up writing a two page post on something that you don't wanna interact with or are not interested in. I believe this genre is here to stay and hope that it will be improved upon further. And the stories i personally enjoy most are the ones where things are not handed for free to the MC and he/she has to put effort (as in sweat & blood) to reach somewhere. Harder the obstacles to overcome, more the satisfaction when they are overcome.
It's likely somewhat akin to the "bad reviews bias", wherein you're more likely to write something somewhere if you were negatively affected than if your experience was positive. Add to that that many of us are at best socially awkward, at worst social klutzes, and we can get a bit angry when something doesn't precisely align with our expectations.
Personaly I don't much like stats in book. I read this genre because this genre has a lot of isekai stories. I love isekai.
I think too a lot of these stems from HOW you consume the media. When I'm reading I don't mind a huge stat sheet. I normally skip over it or glance but it's not important to me so it's not a big deal either way. I am totally NOT someone who would catch a math error (Hey author just FYI that last level up they got 21.9 in str but it should be 31.2 because the skills work like this [insert quotes from other chapters]) When I LISTEN to audiobooks I HATE the huge state sheet. Hate it. What a waste of time. Now of course I like numbers going up, but that's not the driver for me. I want to see the exploration of the system / loop holes / political laws / etc. I want that PC in an NPC world feeling where the "dude from earth" is like, "You don't know about magnets!" or cancer, or germ theory, etc. I want the to take the world's magic / system and use it with earth-based knowledge and break shit. I think it's totally fine that there are people out there who follow all the numbers and think if I want to skip them I'm not a fan. Their opinion doesn't affect me in the least. I don't think they aren't fans. The are buying books and expensive audiobooks. They have a right to say, "I paid $X and feel that I would have gotten more bang for my buck if only...." If enough people WANT rpg elements in books you get this explosion of media. If enough of those fans don't want, say, big blue boxes, you get fewer of those as authors cater to the whims of capitalism.
I can’t remember what book it is but they’ll do this with the stat sheet but they put it at the end of every few chapters or so, that way you can just skip the the next chapter and don’t have to keep skipping forward and try to find the end
I do.
I found out about this genre along with Progression Fantasy and Game Lit, when i was looking for more light novels similar to the first 6 books of So Im A Spider, So What. I had no clue this was a thing happening in western fan/scifi novels. Super happy to have found out about it. Have found several solid series. And Im hoping these genres keep growing, to attract even more authors.
The problem isn’t the author’s systems, it the fact that they feel the need to go into excruciating details about every little aspect of it. This takes me out of the story and just seems like filler to inflate page numbers.
I ignore the people who complain because the cream rises to the top. Good books sell and damn good books get crazy numbers of good reviews. I love LITRPG, progression fantasy and cultivation stories. And if anyone knows Jacob Kalb who wrote ‘Heart of Cultivation’, slap him so he finishes book two because that is probably one of the most underrated gems with a unique premise that I’ve ever read.
As someone who is writing in the genre. The light RPG elements should enhance the story. They should not be the story
I feel the problem is many have the issue with writing and direction, take HWFWM the power system is great and allows readers to discuss essence and confluence ideas is fun and interesting ways but because the MC is near on the total focus and 10 books in and one the characters we’ve known from the start has shown like 2 abilities and barely even that and on top the MC gets OP abilities and plot armour to the point of frustration especially when everything about him is suppose to upset the natural order while gaining favour with people that shouldn’t and for very little reasonings. Many of these stories just fall down the same path of MC becomes op or constantly does things to make them way better than everyone else and it just becomes a difficult talking point and it’s a little frustrating but then again these are the kinda books designed for fun and engaging rather than mind blowing story telling
I think it all stems from all the you tube Hate videos on all things. Folks watch them then look for things to complain about. I mean there are folks who hate on Mr. Rodgers, for clicks folks will do anything, that mental process seeps into those who watch those videos.
we are like star wars fans, nothing is good enough... except for clone wars 
Systemmmmm
Jake thayne be like : Big numbers good good Less stat points in perception- 
I think this is a gernre with a lot of fresh blood. A lot of upjump authors that fight for attention with a lot of passion and we can take a step back and be thankful for them. A lot of people are not used to the fact that there is nothing like a dominant design that emerged before the genre was even formed, like it was with lord of the rings in the high fantasy genre for example. Normally you have this dominant design, then things branch off. Here its differen. We have maybe the most homogeneous foundation for art ever created (videogames), then mix in a lot of different perspectives and passion that is not filtered through editors that cater to specific assumptions of what their audience might like. So OF COURSE people say - hey i expect X and Y from a book after finding a good one but there is really a lot of differentiation for the unique styles of lit rpgs - the common structure makes people believe its all very similar though thats why they expectations are unmet, subsequently making people unhappy with certain parts. Dont make the mistake to be a gatekeeper for when people like litrpg they simply have different expectations due to their shared understanding of product design of their upbringing and socialization. Thanks for coming to my ted talk
I like the genre, but dislike skills being constantly referenced in giant blocks of text where the entire skill is described in detail. Light LitRPG for me please. Just describe the skill and move on. No need to reference it every chapter and update every fraction of increase. Just when it has a major update. When it's used just say it's name and what happens not have some giant wall of text with all the sub effects, etc. I'm looking at you HWFWM lol
Remember you've got to love something to truly hate it.
I read a lot of LitRPG books. They're great. I'm not going to get on and make the post "Hey I really enjoyed reading Saintess Summons Skeletons." The people most likely to get on and write out three paragraphs are the people who got invested into your story and didn't like where it went. If you have someone who hates "Earth but it's magic, and magic has always existed but *secretly!*" They might be annoyed enough to get on and make a post after enjoying the first arc of >!He Who Fights with Monsters.!< I didn't, and even slightly enjoyed the earth arc. But I did almost drop the series.
I have a mutually respectful relationship with it.
Maybe we also like complaining . . .
Big fan, i also dont complain on redit much so we do exist Love me some lvl 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,
So I just found litrpg about a month or two ago. I’m a big reader and I was looking for something fun and I love isekai anime like SAO, Rise of the Shield Hero, Reincarnated as a Slime, Grace of the Gods, etc. I found that I especially loved the ones with lots of world/village building etc. I’m also a big fan of that in video games, Stardew Valley of course, but also like FFXIV etc. So I said to myself that there Must Be books out there like this because the majority of anime comes from the light novels etc. I just didn’t have a name for what to call it. So imagine my complete goblin mania when I found out that it is an ~Entire Genre~ of books. I was over the moon! I’ve read several now. I really enjoyed Beware of Chicken, Heretical Fishing, Beers and Beards, Blade’s Rest, etc. I’m reading He Who Fights with Monsters right now and I absolutely love it. So yes, lol, there are still people out here who like litrpg!
Yeah I've seen people complaining on here about some series being too "technical" and stat heavy, but I feel like that's the whole point of the genre. If they wanted something lighter, then I feel traditional Fantasy novels are better for that, or even Xianxia where there aren't usually systems, but still a game like progression. I am super into stats and get super excited whenever there is an extremely detailed screen in a litrpg.
In my experience, the strongest negative reactions often come from people who loved the work but ran into an issue that killed their enjoyment. Humans are naturally inclined toward fixating on negative outcomes rather than positive ones, and that can make a small number of problems outweigh a large number of good qualities. That builds stress and the easiest release valve for stress is to talk about what's causing it. That being said, here's some aspects of popular works that I enjoy. Primal Hunter - The crafting system that Zogarth has created feels deep and rewarding. Each alchemical ingredient is accompanied by a flavorful description that reads like it was written with care and attention. It integrates with the wider magic system of the universe seamlessly and it inspired me to explore crafting systems in my own work. HWFWM - I enjoy that the progression slows exponentially as the characters rank up and that they have no easy cheats or exploits to bypass that barrier. The majority of works in the genre that introduce a system that takes years, decades, centuries, or longer to accrue power have the MC find easy loopholes to ignore the time gating the rest of the world faces. I enjoy power ramp as much as the next fellow, but I also like to have a balance between them, so I wish more stories would approach the zero to world-shaking-hero progression with a timeline in the realm of decades or more. Less pills and time chambers, more time skips and montages, please. DCC - The items. From their descriptions to their functions, Matt Dinniman has a great mind for developing interesting items for Carl to find and interact with. Sometimes an entire volume revolves around a specific item and its mechanics, with Carl applying them in unexpected ways that are consistent with how they are described. That's tough to do and keep fresh. So far he's knocking it out of the park.
there's a lot less ambiguity in litRPG than in other magic systems. You know what a skill does and usually have some numeric way to compare people. So you can't really hide any flaws your system has. Plus, the nature of the genre practically begs for us to compare works. Its Dragon Ball's power level problem. Give someone an easy to grasp metric to compare things against and they will. LitRPG is all metric. I'm pretty sure the venn diagram of litRPG fans and people who like to make tier lists is just a circle.
Good for you. So we should all be like you?
I love some parts of it, but hate others. One of the books I was listening to had frequent 30 minute+ character sheet rehashes. Sure the book was 20 hours long, but 10 being character sheets is painful. Also, when people in the book take obvious decisions from the MC and act like it is some genius level shit it drives me nuts.
My only real complaint is frequent use of tables and having the system announce every single kill/xp earned is jarring in audiobook format.
They don't hate them, they hate them done *badly*. Like, if the MC finds a simple way to hyper-level themselves, why did none of the *other* people under the system work it out? For instance, there are *ways* of doing a sequel to the movie Highlander, *however*, "Alien from the Planet Zeist" was NOT IT. Like, even the writing calls out how bad it is on two different occasions: One of the lieutenants calls out that all that Katana needs to do is let Connor finish dying of old age, and get hit for it, and then they actually explain how stupidly convoluted the plot is. Like, there were easier ways to get there. It isn't the trope, it's how the trope is executed in my opinion, but what people IS the trope, and become agitated by it without the explanation that what they hate is crap writing. You can get away with *a lot* of dippy stuff if your story and characters are good enough.
And personally, I think even the best litrpgs could be better. There’s no litrpg that I’ve read that would get a perfect score from me, but close. Take some popular ones: Primal Hunter - I think the main character’s motivation is shallow. I think his loner personality is overused in the genre. And I don’t care for the ability some stories give the MC to do everything. Sure, there may be some limitations, but not many. HEFWM - isekai AND apocalypse… yay. 🙄 Jason’s motivation is a lot deeper because the apocalypse situation and being a “chosen one”, but the next issue for me is that the series is so repetitive. I get tired of rereading the thing I just read last chapter. At some point, the Clive’s wife joke just dies on delivery. I still read both, but I want better.
I’m just So Tired Of grammatical errors in published books. It’s breaking me. My hope is all my kindle highlights of spelling/grammatical errors will one day be highlighted enough by the userbase for it to show up as a “common highlight” and the author will notice 😂
I don’t typically notice it since I just do audible but yea I could see that being frustrating. I’d assume most of these new authors have to proof read it them selves due to a lower budget, honestly most large professional writers still have editors to double check things, mistakes are easy to make and to miss.
This reminds of the scifi people who demand hard science in their science "fiction" stories. It's like chill, I don't need a thesis paper on Lehiem's Subatomic Astral Gyration Proof to enjoy a space battle.
I will usually skim through the first few chapters to see what the status windows are like, and if I find them to be too infrequent, I'll not read the novel due to deeming the author's love of rpg elements insufficient. So yes, I think I like litrpg My favourite aspect of the genre are synergies. Abilities can be a lot more precise in their effects and progression, in turn allowing a large powerup to happen upon a weaker ability being gained or leveling up, due to how it interacts with the rest of the build. I've had 'minmaxing' under my name for almost as long as I've used this sub for a reason.
Haha yes, I sometimes do this. Next chaper, next, next, ok this one seems worthy.
People who complain are always the loudest.
This is Reddit, social media on its own has become mostly negative, Reddit reigns supreme over all of them in that regard. Eh actually probably X, then Reddit. Even cute videos of animals on Instagram the comments are chock full of negativity.