Anyone else bored of there being no real consequences?

Yes, unless to the genre part - I'm saying it doesn't have to be science fiction or fantasy.
I've never read Ranger's Apprentice, but I know that books can be fantasy without being all about elves and dragons and magic, that isn't my point.

My point is that something like Call of Duty, set in WW2, with historic battles, with no magic and no monsters, with no fantasy or science fiction elements at all in anyway, could still have LitRPG elements and be LitRPG.

Or something based on Grand Theft Auto - a crime and car-driving storyline in a modern city with no fantasy or science fiction elements at all in anyway, could still have LitRPG elements and be LitRPG.

I'm not saying something like Ranger's Apprentice isn't fantasy.

 

Life in the north maybe? Post apacolyptic earth

 

For it to be like COD it has to have some SciFi elements people dont regenerate that quickly irl I can somewhat see your point but everything unnatural has to be explained by something either magic or SciFi.

If you want to have the hud elements you would need to explain it somehow like createing an app that does it sure its close to life but I would argue basicaly everything you would have to change would make it SciFi or fantasy for example Watch dogs while there is definitely an argument for it being something else I would still consider it modern SciFi as while most things have real life analogs there world is fantastical by nature

 

Sci-fi can basically be defined as "if science" - it's an examination of scenarios that are based, no matter how loosely, on concepts and theories that exist in today's science. Things like energy weapons, for example. We already have those today, but they're bulky, short ranged, and require capacitors and generators the size of the cargo deck on a C-130 Hercules. Science has progressed as far as we can for now, but the sticking point is miniaturization of essential elements.

So in science fiction, it examines a world where we've solved that problem, thus, laser rifles are a thing that exist.

In that sense/definition, all litRPG novels are sci-fi. Even the ones based on a fantasy game, because we're taking existing technology (VR/haptic feedback/brain-machine interface/etc) and examining a future version of it. That, to me, is what differentiates litRPG from standard portal fantasy.

And I, for one, really LIKE it when we get a storyline in the players lives, not just their player characters. I want to get to know the people when they're outside their pods, which is why one of my favorite series is Continue Online.

 

I would say that you want to read stories that features a developed character. You're interested in reading about the character even when they are doing boring stuff because you want to get to know them. I enjoy those kinds of stories as well. You've made me want to try Continue Online. I'll look it up.

 

It does a lot of things well, and the game interacts with reality to a fair extent. It has its flaws though, too, but man it hit me right in the feels.

 

I just bought it. Thanks.

 

It's not on KU anymore?

 

It is. I wanted the Audible version.

 

I wish LitRPG would just divorce portal world stories with Game Elements from its genre definition, but because people accept it, and enjoy it, they aren't going anywhere. So I ended up looking into those stories and chalking them up to "Meta Themed Games" if anyone ever actually played one. Defining LitRPG would be a lot easier without the Portal World stories & Alternate Earths in the mix, but I do think they qualify as LitRPG after some review. Which makes your observation in line with "Pure" LitRPG stories all being partially Sci-Fi until someday they might be Historical Fiction related to Games.

The problem then is what the hell do you call the rest of LitRPG novels that aren't purely game stories, and I've just gone with "LitRPG Lore" which just means they are either Game Stories that could be the basis for an actual Game World and therefore they are Meta Themed (due to a flow of game features into a "real" world, and because the only way someone could play within that exact world with its portal world theme would be to play the game as a player roleplaying as a world traveler), or they are literal adaptations faithful to the Game source material and with more features of the game present and carried over than are really necessary to tell a more stream-lined fantasy story. So I end up with actual Fantasy stories like Is It Okay To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? beneath the straight up "Lore" definition without need of being described as a Meta-Theme, as all of the "Game" features of IIOTPUGIAD? are covered by the Lore of the God gifted back tats and aren't totally arbitrary game features present in the other Meta Themed titles.

I'm nearly caught up to Ramon's LitRPG podcast (#64+ still to listen to) and it was funny because he brought up a story that didn't take place within the game world most of the time, I think he said less than 15% of the story took place in the game, but the people when they were outside of the game constantly talked about it. It tied into a point I had made about the limitations of the LitRPG "Standard" that constantly requires "Game Prompts" from Game Menus / Combat Logs etc, where I argued that people sitting around a campfire not present in the game at all, and just bullshitting about the game, would still qualify as LitRPG. Not sure how exactly it would be done, but if it was done well, or transitioned into a flashback with a story teller narrator, there is no reason it wouldn't work. But you'd have to ask yourself whether or not people listening to the recounting of a VR playthrough would want to hear about the UI interface used to execute some sort of in game action.

"I saw the vampires charging in on my mini-map. So then I opened up my character sheet window and willed the "seal" on my gauntlets to release, and my hands became like flame katars for the next 5 minutes! The vamps even didn't take that long to handle."
VS
"I knew the vampires were coming because my arm hair was rising and it was night time in vampire territory, so I scrapped the tibetan spirit seals that were pasted to the back of my gauntlets off as quick as I could. Then five seconds later the Flame Exorcism buff I'd paid to have imbued into them by the Tibetan Vampire Hunters turned into 1 foot long fire blades! The vamps shit their pants. They shouldn't have f**ked with a buddhist pilgrim. Best 15 gold I ever spent for a 5 minute weapon enchant."

I would be just as willing to read the camp fire / coffee house story as I would an actual LitRPG novel that only takes place in the game.

Plus, even recordings of game play can be fun. I love the way Asian LitRPGs handle their "Game Celebs", where they broadcast their gameplay as streamers, and people tune in and watch; and we, the audience, get the audience reaction from the LitRPG story's regular MMO fans about the protagonist and their crew. Which is usually a rehash of events we've already experienced with the main characters POV, but edited for Broadcast Television / streaming TV... to audience reactions very different or maybe exactly the same as ours. Its a fun detour when the MC is eccentric or just using the usual "oh hey I found super l33t strat no one else uses and that no one else can reproduce" trope of the genre. Its hammy but the whole "Oh my god was that for real!?" aspect is just fun, like a watered down "Hunter VS World" WoW solo video series. But with way more people that tuned in to watch.

100% of the time constant OP Main Protagonist party time adventures of awesome, with no boring real life stuff!
VS
95% of the time super hardcore Main Protagonist that is pathologically obsessed about beating content that should be impossible, that also streams his gameplay for fans and does stuff in real life!

What happens more often? The Author who is Judge, Jury, and Executioner, has sentenced the Main Protagonist to life as a LitRPG Game Denizen, their social life is over and they won't be seeing sunlight for a long time. Whats worse, is its often not voluntary, so we get to watch as a character goes through all the stages of Stockholm Syndrome and "learns to love the bomb" while settling into their new forced life as a game player.

 

But then your calling great books like delvers LLC not LitRPG(as well as technically some others like alter world) which i think it is wrong my view is portal LitRPG (where no vr game is actually being played) is different form portal fantasy based on source material for example Tolkien fantasy is fantasy that uses Tolkien races just like portal LitRPG is portal fantasy that uses games and LitRPG as a source rather then normal fantasy another thing to note is that portal fantasy and portal LitRPG read differently sure theres portal fantasy that sits on the edges but edge cases go with what there closest to for example you dont call Sci Fi where the MC gets abducted by aliens and lives with them portal fantasy its Sci Fi.

 

I'm not sure what you mean with "just like portal LitRPG is portal fantasy that uses games and LitRPG as a source rather than normal fantasy"

I'm of the opinion that LitRPG that is game like that doesn't have a single interface option, but that does have strict rules and methods of navigating the worlds "game features" that act as lore based and immersive game elements, is LitRPG. So by that definition you're using, my LitRPG would just be fantasy if it was mashed up with a portal world story, even though its a very realistic game setting. What I meant by "Meta Themed Games" was that the exact setting from a portal world setting with game features, ported to an actual game platform, would still work. But with very different stakes that aren't life and death, or permanent castaway status in another universe with game features. The Meta Theme also deals with the strange (to me) transfer of game elements from todays games to the games of the future. Features that with some creativity can be made to accomodate almost every feature of MMO games, which make sense to carry over, but with a steeper learning curve and the need to memorize and know how the game world works rather than getting relevant information from pop up windows.

So LitRPG can be indiscernable from real fantasy: except for the fact that players are aware that they are players and often behave like regular joes. When the actual, or real, "Game World" denizens are aware of the game like features that they use and how they work, even though they may have no Lore based explanation for their working, is that LitRPG Fantasy? The stories with arbitrary game features are labeled as "LitRPG", but by my definition they don't qualify as LitRPG Fantasy because their game features are scatter shot and non-sensical meant for real humans navigating a UI with a mouse in games that use formulas for offense and defense that are informed by Character Stats. Regardless both LitRPG Fantasy and LitRPG Portal World stories would end up as LitRPG Lore, but they would be LitRPG for very different reasons.

The Portal world fantasy stories that use "games and LitRPG" are effectively no different at this point because there are few LitRPG stories, that are accepted as LitRPG, which do choose to forego the Game Features that are totally arbitrary and meant to make a players time in the world easier. There are stories that can be considered actual LitRPG Fantasy, like Is It Okay To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?, and I do consider those to fall under the umbrella of LitRPG Lore in the "purest" way, because its a world people would totally love to play their own characters within. So IIOTPUGIAD? is a Lore Story for a potential game title, in the same way that a Meta Themed game version of West World or one of those series that you mentioned with real stakes, could also be a LitRPG game world, but with simulated rather than real stakes. Unless the stakes in the simulated meta themed game also became deadly: in which case cue the Inception fog horns and twisty skyscraper exteriors.

So perspective is the big key for Portal World stories, and the alien abduction / take over angle which introduces Game Elements then falls under the "Alternate Earth" example that I put forth, so I'm not sure how I really messed that up, but I didn't quite understand your apples to oranges argument: as I'm of the opinion if it takes place in a game world or has game features that are arbitrary but with explanation or arbitrary with no lore reasoning, it can be LitRPG. Are you thinking that "Partially sci-fi" in "Pure" LitRPG stories discounts the non-Pure LitRPG? My classification set up doesn't work that way, its "Pure" LitRPG and LitRPG Lore - Lore covers games with real stakes and game set ups unlikely to exist outside of black markets operated by the Cenobites from Hell Raiser, as well as the LitRPG Fantasy titles which could be ported to "Pure" LitRPG game stories but with a player perspective or NPC view points that are either meta-aware (within the constraints of the game system and not as a sci-fi AI revolution story line) or audience reliant perspectives.

LitRPG Fantasy comes down to whether or not the author claims it as LitRPG or Fantasy. If a story has obvious game elements with no explanation, but isn't a game or a story type where someone with a modern perspective is somehow brought to another world (reincarnation, transported, wormhole, whatever), then I say that it should fall under LitRPG Lore, and that Fantasy wouldn't really be a good fit because of what are clearly modern video game interfaces within them, video being technology, and tech being more sci-fi. LitRPG Fantasy-Game stories are something I cover in the book, but I think they don't really make sense in the way that IIOTPUAGIAD? does as potentially LitRPG, a story that was done without any UI in sight, and a single (divine) Character Sheet to go along with its Dungeons and Potions in a RPG setting.

 

Getting transported to a game world would count as isekai in my book. I think litRPG and isekai both are sub genres of portal fantasy. The difference between the two is that one, the character is aware they're in a game, and two, they have some sort of meta knowledge that allows them to take advantage of the mechanics whether they're clearly explained or not.

Examples:
Portal fantasy: Chronicles of Narnia
LitRPG: Dark Herbalist
Isekai: The Luckless
Weird hybrid standard fantasy with RPG elements: DanMachi (IIWTPUGIAD)

 

Damnit I wonder how long I've been translating "Wrong" from that title as "Okay"...

Anyways! I see that story (Dan Machi) as being more of the direction deeply immersive games will go, but with the vast majority of "funny business" being what takes place with a characters avatar to let them do more of what a game has to offer. I didn't bother to develop lore based around automated player crafting that a player could at best sit and watch their avatar perform if they lacked the skill themselves, but thats because the "condition" of the players compared to the normal citizens is already so far out there. NPCs seeing a player not watching at all while his or her character makes a rug, when the player is keeping up a conversation with someone across the room and doesn't make a single mistake, would then say to themselves, "Yeah, thats just another immortal thing." I've got a bunch of different (meaningless) player character titles for humanoid characters who can ressurrect, dependent on area and the race of the NPC referring to the player. Popping back up from the dead in a fixed place is a new thing, but strange amnesiac adventurers that are legendary heroes or villains have wandered about forever getting taken advantage of by the people that meet them.

That lore of course changes for the NPCs when millions of players show up on Day One, as after Launch Day the the pitiable wandering amnesiacs don't just vanish into history, but reappear after death at inns / public places to continue on with their adventuring. Some of the races have different lore from that exact set up, but with the sudden appearance from Day One being the first cross-cultural experience for the races. I also have player character races that have always had that form of resurrection available (with huge penalties), so that mixes with some of the other unique features of the game; like retroactive retconning of a players history to give them "deep cover" spy quests, like a player that joins a bandit group at first and then does good deeds to outweigh the bad, they could trigger a Donnie Brasco-style story line. The rewards could be unique class opportunities, a fast tracked "spy" quest line to build loyalty with the most important figures within a faction while the rank and file NPCs despise the spy/assassin as dishonorable, and so on. Giving solo players (and forced to group soloists put together by their chosen playstyle) a path to the best rewards a Kingdom / Faction has to offer, coinciding with whole alliances of guilds that brute force similar esteem accruing quests meant for large forces.

So in my world instead of going the isekai / resurrection in a game-like fantasy world setting, the players have to role play along with the game to get certain rewards, role-playing as the amnesiacs or reappeared amnesiac that use to aid a particular individual. That or avoid NPC companions who will ditch them if they keep talking crazy, crazy being "out of character" for the player. Or in the case of one main character whose actions and deeds outweigh his "crazy" by a large margin, NPCs just call that guy crazy to his face and laugh off his insistence that they are game characters and that his previous knowledge from "a past life" was also earned in games where he played as an Assassin. Past lives that were also game lives being especially crazy to NPCs when its suggested there are other realms that are like theirs but different, so when the character says he played all the versions of the game "they're simulated in" since the first game title's release, they translate that as past lives because game makes no sense to them. Except maybe in a "Mongo only pawn in game of life," philosophical sense. The dudes just considered a lethal functioning schizophrenic/head injury case who has got a good heart... deep, deep, deep, deeeeeep down.

Part of the fun is in forcing players to role play (which is hardly ever a requirement), and forcing the audience to keep up with what they are trying to achieve from their role playing. Unfortunately the majority of content I have planned that shows the alternative paths (and points them out) is six books out when I am at zero Books close to completion. So I'm going to do What is LitRPG? and keep putting my ideas out there, and hope someone gets inspired and makes their own stories.

The only reason I think Hybrid DanMachi should be "LitRPG Fantasy" that can be classified as LitRPG Lore, is because thats what my world would be if I set my story before the appearance of (poorly) role playing characters. The whole massive army of immortal thing is a non issue before Day One. Before the events of "Day One" there is a world of equally magical and arbitrary lore with explanation (Gods / Elemental Planes), and its all very game like and life and death. The "old" Lore shows up after Day One as well; in the form of magical fixed echoes of the past.

Think way less malicious versions of "The Mist" where players are stuck for the duration of the event once they're in. There are a bunch of other rules and possibilities surrounding each individual "instance" or echo, but they are exploitable hubs of "Game Tech" or Game Lore that open up options for players. All are hidden except for one though, and the one that is possible to use has a rather short duration. For the players wishing to fully exploit all of its possibilities which have time constraints due to the short window, which they must work around. Suggesting to them that there is a way to beat the deadline, or that another echo of the same place exists where they will have more time, or access to the means in that particular "instance" to get what they need for the quest/crafted item/lore information.

I already have so much of this world figured out, even while having written so little of it as a story, that I know it qualifies as LitRPG over any Sci-Fi setting. My problem now is that the material I do have written reads more like a Splatbook (word I just learned) for a full immersion VR game than a story. Except Splatbook isn't quite right, as I've got "Old" Lore fully developed and made relevant in instances / echoes, Monster Difficulty Progression by area: Dungeon / Outdoors / Continent, Ocean Travel with commercial fishing and trade by "Game Eras", Quest Types for VR with retroactive features; the only reason I'm even writing now is because the story is the only thing I have left to develop in this world other than aesthetics. (Modern Medieval with Asian influences btw)



I'm now looking at high heels and trying to figure out how to make them into plated-pumps as part of a unisex faux Tuxedo suit of dwarf crafted plate armor for a late-game Werewolf Rodeo Ball. I either go gender fluid at this point and move to San Francisco to knit designer scarves, or I just f**cking write and retcon any details that aren't to my satisfaction later. I'm just so damn sick of 'Thats not LitRPG" when it should just be "The story sucked and used zero elements of the genres it melded to create a well crafted story in spite of all the f**cking potential available." Which is not a criticism unique to LitRPG. Because of the potential (and plotholes that I'm still encountering and shoring up) from combining full blown game systems with full blown epic stories, I can't half ass and wing my story like people who focus on a single character class from the perspective of a single player who use cribbed WoW character builds. When it comes to stakes, I have to actually make people care, and thats a hell of a challenge as this is my first story world that I can't shake off.

Before LitRPG, I never cared that I was the only one on the planet to enjoy some story in my head. Now I do.

 

Yo @Matthew James, I hereby demand a TL;DR after each post.

 

That made me LOL. @Paul Bellow needs to throw gold at you for that one.

 

Uhhh

Hear hear! Ten thousand percent agree.

 

A nemesis has appeared...

TLDR: Everythings LitRPG that takes place in a game world and that the author claims as LitRPG. I've been developing a VR Game world and the Universe its based in since 2011ish early 2012 so... any mother fucker comes at me with "THAT AINT LITRPG" I'm going NWA on their ass.



TLDR2: I may be playing barbie dress up with female characters in my story. It has me feeling confused.

TLDR3: I'm totally not gonna do TLDRs when covering a bunch of topics, because, believe it or not, I'm lazy about writing.

TLDR4: When you type so much that any amount of writing under 3k words would qualify as a TLDR, you can do a lot of TLDR.

TLDR5: My feelings are super hurt so this is just a spiteful TLDR, I hope you've all learned your lesson. If not the long posts will continue regardless... so I have no carrot here, its all stick. I am ashamed of my negotiating skills... pray for me.

 

ok yes I was confused about the difference what I was essentially saying is we are talking about a subgenre of LitRPG that i would call portal LitRPG as it dosent rely on the world being a game and instead transports them into a real world in which there are game like mechanics skipping any of the IS THIS NPC real drama that I personally find annoying

 

I actually like that, "Am I bad person for killing the Fallout traveling merchants and their Brahmin in fully immersive VR" angle, because its a thought that doesn't cross my mind at all when I'm killing innocent civilians for their shinies in most game formats.