Patreon Blog Takeover: A new story genre?: Get Lit! -- get LitRPG? (Devas) · 11:36pm Jan 31st, 2018
Once again: all remaining blog requests made by sponsors will be posted in February (with one going up tomorrow for Proof Of Blog Life): see today's previous entry for details and apologies. And when dealing with today's second posting...
I'm just gonna paste the whole thing.
This is gonna take some explaining.
LitRPG is the latest new "genre" I've seen in the online fiction community. The base conceit behind it is that the viewpoint character has video/roleplaying game rules applied to them-often in a way that deliberately clashes with the rest of reality, and that all-to often results in the main character becoming overpowered in regards to the rest of the population. Huh, there's an actual wiki article on it. No tv tropes, though.
Almost all of it is drek, above and beyond even Sturgeon's Law. (I consider one of the initiators to the genre, Sword Art Online to be one of those anime's I just won't touch. On the other hand, "Ready Player One" is getting a film adaption? So who knows. Also, in the actual original online webfiction circles I run in, there's a...thing...called "Everybody Loves Large Chests". See, it's a pun because it refers to Treasure Chests. It's still terribad.)
I still managed to find some hidden diamonds:
What do you do when the interface itself says you're just a bum?And some that are even more obscure.
Anyway. Now that the premise is out of the way.
What do you think of this type of story? How would you write one yourself?
Well... I loved this genre the first time I read it. But the published novel through which I discovered it was written in 2002.
The book in question is called Heir Apparent, by Vivian Vande Velde. (Here's the trope page.) The premise is that a terrorist attack leaves a girl trapped in an arcade's VR game -- one where maintaining the state too long will start to destroy her mind. The only way to get the game disengaged is to beat it, whereupon the closing credits roll. And it's a fantasy RPG -- with no save points. Every time you die, you reset to the beginning of the game and have to play the entire thing all over again.
So Giannine is very aware that she's in a video game. She also knows that the world operates on game rules. But she keeps getting tripped up by bad choices, Yet Another Stupid Game Death, and the fact that her own life and personality are leading her towards actions which wouldn't exactly count as effective play. It's a decent read, and it makes the overall genre a little bit older than you think. (The main difference may be that Giannine has no way to access her own stats and doesn't know if she's leveling up.)
But as for the genre itself...
...this is going to be one of those entries where I might wind up feeling like I didn't provide enough word count for the pledge and compensate by spilling half the 'verse's secrets, isn't it?
...when I think about how to write it, the first tag which comes to mind is 'Horror'. Because my instinct in making RPG rules -- in this case, specifically video game ones: tabletop is another horror story entirely -- apply to someone would mean that the world around them also started to operate on some level of those principles.
So imagine you drop by the neighborhood bodega, the one where you pick up a newspaper and a cup of tea every morning. You usually say a few words to the person who runs it. And then the game kicks in. Guess what? He'll still talk to you. But no matter what's happening in the world, he has exactly four things he might tell you. Sometimes the world's RNG will hit a skid and he'll spam the same lame joke eight times in a row. He will never say anything other than those four things. He can't. His entire existence consists of taking your money (and incidentally, never having to make change) while possibly providing the same rumor about the meeting in the alleyway which you heard the last twelve times you were in here. And going into the alleyway? Will bring him down to three things he can say.
But you're still going to keep shopping with him. Why? Because the store five blocks over is charging three times the price. For what, you may ask? For everything. Because the assumption is that in the course of traveling five blocks, you have beaten up, robbed, and killed enough of the local population to get some pocket money, which of course is the purpose for existence in any NPC who doesn't have at least four lines. Everyone knows that the farther you travel from your starting point, the more expensive everything gets. In fact, there's this toll bridge you want to go over because there's a possible job on the other side, but just crossing it is going to bankrupt you -- wait, that's just living in Manhattan. Okay, so there's still a toll bridge, but you're not allowed to cross it until you either reach Level 5 through killing at least 1700 people or drop fifteen emeralds into the basket. Where are you going to get fifteen emeralds? That's your problem. As long as you're killing people anyway, maybe you should try going after a jeweler -- oh, right: all shopkeepers are invulnerable.
Let's talk about scripted events. You pass a corner. A child is about to step into the road. You pull the kid back. Everyone hails you as a hero. The next day, you pass a corner. A child is about to step into the road. You pull the kid back. Here's another child. He lost his balloon. Here's another child. He lost his balloon. Here's the Venom suit. You eat the child and briefly feel better about life.
Of course, it could be worse. You could wander down to the biker bar, where the semi-RPG in question turns out to be Ride To Hell: Retribution. There's a reason to go into that bar, because you will get into a fight. Every time. Then you'll kick the attackers (because there's no need to do anything else) and when you're done, whatever woman is in the bar will have sex with you. Why? Because you hurt people and that is what truly forms the foundation for a one-night-stand relationship. However, given the game which is currently playing you, all sex occurs with your clothes on. Both of you. Completely dressed. Oh, and you're going to be doing this for a while, because the not-fun doesn't end until the cutscene wraps up.
You meet a lot of people. Some of them you only meet once. Others respawn. They wander around the area in what you eventually realize are repeating patterns. Every so often, you encounter a man who's pushed his forehead into a wall and is determined to stroll into and against brick for the rest of his life, which will be eternal until the moment you finally get sick of watching and kill him, because this is an RPG and if he's not providing plot points, his only purpose is to die. But don't worry: his identical twin will be there tomorrow.
Oh... that's something else you've noticed. There are up to eight million procedurally-generated people in this city. There is also a maximum of six skin tones, eighteen faces, and seven ages. You're born, you have your seventh birthday, and then you're in high school. Interesting demographics and lifespan advancement we've got around here.
As long as we're on procedural generation: you decide to go visit a fast-food place. (One close by. Don't want that roaming charge, do you?) As soon as you step inside the door, you find yourself in a maze of corridors filled with people standing in line, drink stations, napkin dispensers, and somewhere way up ahead is the actual order counter. (You have eight possible choices. You have never tasted any of them because the instant you pick up the food, it vanishes, leaving you feeling vaguely full and extremely disappointed.) You have to get through the maze. Maybe you need to kill your way forward. Either way, if you come back tomorrow, there's a new maze. But sometimes the RNG puts a lost hamburger right inside the door, so that's good.
You try to go see a movie. You're not allowed to enter the theater unless you're carrying a bucket of popcorn. Why? You don't know: the ticket-taker's one line doesn't explain. Why isn't the popcorn purchased inside? See previous reason. By the way, the 'movie' consists of a title card. No one on your world's development team had the budget to generate an actual sample film.
Very few people seem to do any work. Why? Because you do all of it. If you find someone who can speak to you with more than four lines, it's probably because they have something they want you to do. Why couldn't they do it themselves, when they're always people who are more powerful than you are? They won't tell you. They tell you to go do something for them, every time. When this happens, you are presented with a choice of answers, which are 'Yes' and, just for variety, 'Yes.' Then you go do things, which generally means killing people. You've lost track of how many people you've killed and unless you do it right in front of a cop, no one has ever tried to arrest you for it. You can murder someone directly behind an officer and nothing will happen. Incidentally, if you do get spotted, just go stand in a shadowed place for twelve seconds and everyone will completely forget anything ever happened, because that's when the body vanishes into nothingness. Maybe that person will respawn tomorrow. Maybe it won't. You're not sure you care any more.
Maybe you need a break. It's time to read your newspaper! It's a fun read. It typically consists of eighty pages spread out over four sections. It also contains up to three stories which have a total of ten paragraphs, all of which will obliquely reference either something you've done or something you'll soon be told to do.
Sometimes when you do something interesting, a box will fall from the sky. If you open it, your clothing changes. This has no effect on anything whatsoever. You're vaguely aware that you can get extra boxes by spending money, but none of the cash you keep getting by offing people on the street so you can pick up that four-digit popcorn bucket is ever accepted in box trade. You don't know why.
One day, you found someone else who shared your situation: a real person who spoke to you normally. You started making plans with him to find out what was going on. Then you reached Level 10 and now he doesn't show up in your city any more, because you only get to associate with those within a few ranks of you. But it could be worse. There's a rumor that if he'd joined your party, he would have lost half of his combat effectiveness and all of his free will.
Oh, remember that neighborhood you originally used to live in? You left it early on. Then an invisible wall appeared in front of it, and you've never been back. You're very familiar with that wall. Sometimes it's about as high as your knees and still completely blocks your passage. You're not entirely sure how that works.
There was that time you got so bored that you walked into the street and let a car hit you. It did three points of damage and then the next twelve cars went right through you. This seemed to be less than productive, except for the part where you finally noticed there's only four models of car in the entire city, plus the only shipping service is UPS. And there are five advertising billboards. The same five. Everywhere. However, you are experiencing every commuter's dream, because on the rare times when you pay for fast travel, you have never waited for a taxi or train. You go to the taxi stand, or the train station, and what you need is there. You also have no memory of ever being in a taxi or train, but assume that's because no one used the time to attack you.
It's been a long day. You need to get rid of some stress. So you lightly kick a public trash can. It breaks apart. You receive two rat skins and an apple. No one around you notices or cares. They can't. They never will.
It's been a long day, and so you go home to sleep. Not that you sleep. You lie down on the bed, and then the sun appears outside your window. You only have dreams when they're relevant to the plot, and they repeat themselves a lot because world design budget. Also, if you purchase the $50,000 blankets available on the other side of town, your sleep can improve in effectiveness by fifteen percent. You live in dread of the day when you vaguely see a blue glow above your head and look up to find the stamina meter. And don't ask what happens in the bathroom. Just... don't.
But there's always tomorrow. When you'll hear the same lines, and be told to do things where you have no real choice in the matter, and most of your life consists of killing people who don't seem to care about it. And so you kill yourself.
...it's ten days earlier. You have lost all progress from the world's last autosave point. Restart.
Y'know how in that one story, Twilight's supposed Hero had just gone into the pipe...?
Fun times ahead.
See, I think the LitRPG genre is less "The world is a game" and more "the protagonist is a gamer." I've read one fic of the thing and... yeah. It kinda got too overblown, to a point where it didn't conform to the original setting in anything more than character names. Then again, it seemed to be built on a talent-tree model...
4786467
When it comes to tabletop, 'Protagonist is a gamer' goes way back.
Way, way back.
You might even say they were... displaced.
But yeah, this is one of those blogs where I was worried about having misinterpreted the question.
Would the fanfic Harry Potter and the Natural 20 fall under this category?
Suddenly I see why Monika ended up in the mental state she did.
Huh. Funny thing is, I actually contemplated doing a story along these lines here... but the whole thing collapsed because I had only the vaguest idea of what the story would be. Once playing around with different genres of game mechanics trying and often failing to interface got old, I had to admit it wasn't going to happen.
In any case, truly chilling presentation of the life of a protagonist.
4786502
Milo's world actually conforms to Estee's projections to a frightening degree. Remember the lean-tos made of quarterstaves thatched with holly and mistletoe because no one can afford building supplies at Player's Handbook prices?
i read "hear apparent" and found it quite interesting. it was more realistic than the "kill everything" types of games.
i also read several stories on this site similar to your "game world" description..."twilight: the gamer" and "twilight's life is a game"...but they both fizzled, unfinished.
i also read an amusing online comic called "order of the stick" and a VERY violent one called "goblinscomic.com"...both of which are set in D&D-themed worlds.
oh yeah, and "erfworld" where someone gets yanked into a tabletop-wargame-themed world. (sort of like the original Warhammer)
I've been getting heartily sick of isekai anyway, but this is indeed worse. At least Log Horizon and Grimgar are decent about it.
I'm sensing that you're not a big fan of the genre. I'm almost as good as Celestia at picking up the subtle hints that most folks miss.
Heh. One of my co-workers is absolutely enamoured with the genre. From the way she has described it, the genre hinges upon a self-aware protagonist exploiting literary and video game genre conventions to essentially savescum their way through the story. A bit like what 4786467 said regarding "the protagonist is a gamer".
I guess a rough FimFic MLP analogue would be those HiE fics where the protagonist uses their knowledge of Earth or whatnot to game the system in Equestria...
(Of course I could be totally off. I am just basing this on second-hand fan-girl knowledge.)
4786537
See, DDLC is an interesting example of this genre done RIGHT.
4786487
Even older: Quag Keep, Andre Norton (1978)
Kinda sounds like Undertale to an extent, in that it is eventually revealed that a lot of the video game conventions are actually happening in universe, such as save points being the result of your character actually dying and rewinding time in order to stay alive.
I've actually been on a LitRPG kick for the past year. It's a guilty pleasure, but I've been actively avoiding MMORPGs my entire adult life so it's a novelty. I've found exactly two series in the genre that I can say are genuinely good as opposed to novelty or entertainingly bad.
You might want to take a look at Log Horizon, Estee. It takes the World is Originally A Game and Now We Are Stuck In It to quite a logical continuation, of how the world works and everything :)
I find it's one of the most fascinating Light Novel I've read (Just take a look at their TVTropes if you don't want to spend time reading the whole 10 LNs, and that still hasn't finished)
On the note of your blog... it's actually really interesting. Considering I read quite a lot of LNs with the premise of Game World, that twist feels very different than what I get used to, and as usual, your way of writing is really cool (Just that this feels so bleak, I guess, otherwise sounds great for one shots)
It sounds like you're describing real life as someone's halfassed Game Design coursework project in Unity. Please tag this blog post as "Dark" and "Horror", accordingly.
Ah, hey, I remember Heir Apparent! I laughed quite a bit the first time I read that. :)
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Lootspheres. That seems to me to be a quintessential Estee take on the LitRPG concept.
I've read more good ones than bad ones by now but that's probably since the only place I get these from is "the single exception to the all litrpg are shit" posts like this one (already knew about threadbare and large chests but the second didn't really appeal).
The main reason this is going big has only partly to do with video game isekai I think and mostly that the plot manages to be exactly the same as a Xianxia light novel but with dragon quest's brand recognition that doesn't require the audience to know anything about chinese alchemy. So suddenly everyone who was previously writing about the bullied nerd suddenly getting magical super martial arts and scoring all the chicks has over night switched to stats sheets and grinding skill points since you know pretending to know martial arts is hard.
This sounds kinda like nightmare River City Ransom.
Excellent blog post.
Can't believe I made a grammar error in the request, though :-P
I kinda forced myself to read this one because it was all based on faulty information and it was hard to read because of that.
Heir Apparent and Sword Art Online are based on real-life people being trapped in a game world, not a person in the real world operating under game rules.
Ready Player One Is about a game being used as a substitute from the real world and it is a plot point that the person outside of the game is often weaker than the character in the game: kill the player the character is no longer a problem. Again, not a person in the real world operating under game rules but a case of the game being the source of income and materials in the real world.
The link behind the "What do you do when the interface itself says you're just a bum?" text is a crossover with what could be considered the start of this sort of thing: The Gamer (caution, TV Tropes link). It is a Naver webcomic that has an English translation. The main character one day wakes up and finds that he, and he alone, operates under Video Game Logic, specifically RPG logic. It is his version of personal "magic", how he gets stronger. The world as a whole still operates as it once did, when you allow for other people each with their own brand of "magic" that is, and outside of his "zones", he has to deal with the same things a normal person does.
I just wanted it to be clear that "Main character works under RPG rules", "Main character is trapped inside of an RPG", and "The world works on RPG logic" are all very differnt base ideas for a story. They can be mixed and matched but do not need each other.
I also want to plug a story called Mother of Learning that does a really good job of having a world that works on a lot of RPG tropes (killing and skining wolves for someone else anyone?) while still being a logical and living world (the wolves are a local problem and the skins are proof of kills) and the basic idea of "trapped in a time loop" explains why it all repeats. There are a lot of window dressings for a game world but the characters very explicitly are not game characters.
The way the question is interpreted radically changes how you would answer it. In this case I don't think it would change much but I feel the distinction is important.