LitRPG tags: feedback thread #2 - MC's class/role, story elements, genre, theme and tone

This is the tags feedback thread for our second set of categories: MC's class/role, story elements, genre, theme and tone

The original discussion can be found in this thread (where you are still very welcome to participate in!) I'm now trying to finalize each category, so I'm asking for feedback to see what the larger community thinks of these tags.

Mission statement (or what we're doing):
- Define 'tags' in order to eventually create a filterable LitRPG database so that users can easily find stories they want to read
- Tags will be based on the different 'types', 'flavors', or 'story element' that affect reader enjoyment, taking into consideration subjective personal taste. For example, technically, if a story is well-written, it shouldn't matter if the MC is male or female, but a lot of readers specify male or female MCs when they ask for recommendations, so there will be a tag for the MC's gender.

This thread (or what we try to do in this thread):
- Ask for general thoughts on the first three tag categories: world type, trappings, and main activities
- Readers: do you have a preference for either? Can you think of any LitRPG story that doesn't fit?
- Authors: do your books fit into these categories? What tags are we missing?
- The full list of what tags we have so far is in the second post.


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Category #4: MC's class/role

MC class/role: [MAGIC] [UNARMED COMBAT] [SWORD] [SPELLSWORD] [GUN] [ARCHER] [BARD] [ROGUE] [PET MASTER] [SUMMONER] [HOLY MAGIC] [DARK MAGIC] [ELEMENTAL MAGIC] [NATURE MAGIC] [SHAPE-SHIFTER] [MULTI-CLASS] [DAMAGE] [MELEE] [HEALER] [SUPPORT] [TANK] [CRAFTER] [DUNGEON CORE] [NPC] [MONSTER]

A lot of readers ask for specific classes/roles for the MC. For stories with multiple POVs, we would encourage authors to pick only those that fit the main POVs. These tags should be decently self-explanatory. Let me know if I'm missing anything!
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Category #5: Story elements

Story elements: [TRAPPED IN GAME] [PORTAL] [REAL WORLD GAINS STATS] [ONLY MC SEES STATS] [SENTIENT AI] [ROGUE AI] [REAL-WORLD PLOT] [LOW-STAKE DEATH] [PERMADEATH] [IN-GAME DEATH EQUALS REAL DEATH] [PET/FAMILIAR] [HAREM] [NON-HUMAN PARTNERS] [SOLO PLAY] [GROUP PLAY] [FACTION LEADER] [UNIQUE CLASS/ABILITIES] [REALISTIC COMBAT] [SLOW LEVELING] [OP MC] [MORAL MC]

[Trapped in game]: can't log out
[Portal]: characters get transported to a new world with stats
[Real world gains stats]: game comes to the real world via magic, alien technology, unexplained reasons, etc.
[Only MC sees stats]: it's only a game for the MC, but not anyone else
[Sentient AI]: AI becomes self-aware and suddenly has its own mind on how to run things
[Rogue AI]: rogue AI might not be sentient -- they might just be a runaway process wrecking havoc
[Real-world plot]: there's a major story line going on in the real world as well
[Low-stake death]: infinite respawn with only minor penalties
[Permadeath]: your game character has one life
[In-game death equals real death]: (might need a shorter term for this!) if you die in the game, you also die in real life!
[Pet/familiar]: MC has a pet/familiar/AI helper
[Harem]: self-explanatory (Maybe if the genre has one filterable tag, it should be this one)
[Non-human partners]: harem contains non-human members
[Solo play]: MC goes solo most of the time and interacts mainly with NPCs
[Group play]: the story focus is also on the group of players surrounding the MC
[Faction leader]: MC is the leader of a village/town/guild/faction/city
[Unique class/abilities]: MC has something no one else does
[Realistic combat]: as opposed to 'video-game combat' or 'tabletop combat', so usually no concepts like HP and critical hits
[Slow leveling]: MC takes their time in the lower levels, as opposed to getting straight to endgame in the first few chapters
[OP MC]: the MC is overpowered compared to everyone else, either through having unique classes/skills or being a genius
[Moral MC]: the MC is a good, trustworthy, upstanding person (or at least tries very hard) When they make mistakes, they feel terribly guilty and beat themselves up about it




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Category #6: Genre

Genre: [ACTION] [ADVENTURE] [EXPERIMENT] [COMEDY] [HORROR] [SATIRE] [SLICE-OF-LIFE] [REVENGE] [INTRIGUE] [MYSTERY] [CONSPIRACY] [ROMANCE] [EROTICA] [WISH-FULFILLMENT]

[Action]: lots of combat, fight scenes, etc.
[Adventure]: characters go places and discover new things
[Experiment]: I'm not sure what to use for this, actually -- since 'dungeon core' stories are about upgrading/trying out new things, and putting them to the test. Not sure what to call that kind of story.
[Comedy]: for the laughs
[Horror]: for the scares
[Parody/Satire]:
[Slice-of-life]: characters just living their lives, usually indicates no overarching plot (or low-urgency overarching plot)
[Revenge]: not sure if this is actually a genre, but it gives a kind of specific feeling
[Intrigue]: faction politics
[Mystery]: what happened to the world? where is my loved one?
[Conspiracy]: again, I'm not sure if this is a real genre, but it also gives a specific kind of feeling
[Romance]:love stories
[Erotica]: sex stories
[Wish-fulfillment]: I think this should really be a tag -- indicates 'feel-good-ness'


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Category #7: Theme

Theme: [HERO'S JOURNEY] [INCIDENTAL HERO] [COMING-OF-AGE] [TRANSHUMANISM] [HUMAN BONDS] [LOVE] [DISCOVERY] [SOCIAL COMMENTARY] [INTERNAL STRUGGLE] [MORALITY]

[Hero's Journey]: start weak, gain power, save the world -- I think most LitRPGs will fall into this category (?)
[Incidental Hero]: ordinary person finds themselves in situations where they have to stop bad things from happening
[Coming-of-age]: young-ish character learns about the world and its joys and sorrows and grows up (learning to take responsibility, etc.)
[Transhumanism]: speculative scenarios where technology allows humans to evolve beyond their current limitations
[Human Bonds]: the power of friendship -- stories that focus on interpersonal relationships, people looking out for each other, etc.
[Love]: stories that focus on romantic love as one of the main driving forces
[Discovery]: story gives heavy focus to the exploration/discovery of the game world
[Social Commentary]: I'll put this one in for stories that aim to reflect/comment on social issues
[Internal Struggle]: for stories that deal heavily with personal issues, like dealing with their own death, or loss of loved ones
[Morality]: stories that raises questions regarding the nature of good and evil


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Category #8: Tone

Tone: [LIGHT] [CHEERFUL] [SERIOUS] [HEAVY] [DARK] [SOMBER] [EMOTIONAL] [PENSIVE] [INFORMAL] [LITERARY] [SELF-AWARE]

Just a few tags to help readers find the kind of mood they're looking for. I'm not even sure these are what we need... but I think at the very least [Light] should be a tag. Readers looking for something happy can go for [Light] and if they're looking for something darker they can filter out [Light].

I know this category is very ill-defined, but I think we can safely go by 'feel' to give readers a heads-up what they're getting.

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I'm sure I'm missing a lot! Please feel free to suggest changes to any of these terms as well

 

This is the full list of what we have so far:

Spoiler: Current Tags: Version 1.6

TAGS (version 1.6)

LitRPG-specific tags
World type: [COMMERCIAL GAME] [GAME GONE WRONG] [GAMIFIED DIGITAL REALM] [REAL WORLD WITH GAME RULES]
Trappings: [FANTASY] [MEDIEVAL] [SCI-FI] [SPACE] [MILITARY] [MODERN DAY] [SUPERHERO] [CYBERPUNK] [STEAMPUNK] [DIESELPUNK] [HISTORICAL] [OTHER CULTURES] [POST-APOCALYPSE] [ZOMBIES] [MULTI-WORLD]
Main activities: [OPEN-WORLD PVE] [OPEN-WORLD PVP] [ARENA/TOURNAMENT] [QUESTING] [DUNGEON] [LEVEL-CLEARING] [ZONE CONQUEST] [RAID] [WAR] [CRAFTING] [GEAR-CRAFTING] [SPELL-CRAFTING] [SETTLEMENT-BUILDING] [DUNGEON DESIGN] [TOWER DEFENSE] [GROUP-BUILDING] [EVOLUTION] [PUZZLES]
MC class/role: [MAGIC] [UNARMED COMBAT] [SWORD] [SPELLSWORD] [GUN] [ARCHER] [BARD] [ROGUE] [PET MASTER] [SUMMONER] [HOLY MAGIC] [DARK MAGIC] [ELEMENTAL MAGIC] [NATURE MAGIC] [SHAPE-SHIFTER] [MULTI-CLASS] [DAMAGE] [MELEE] [HEALER] [SUPPORT] [TANK] [CRAFTER] [DUNGEON CORE] [NPC] [MONSTER]
Story elements: [TRAPPED IN GAME] [PORTAL] [REAL WORLD GAINS STATS] [SENTIENT AI] [OFFLINE SCENES] [LOW-STAKE DEATH] [PERMADEATH] [DEATH GAME] [FAMILIAR] [HAREM] [NON-HUMAN PARTNERS] [SOLO PLAY] [GROUP PLAY] [FACTION LEADER] [UNIQUE CLASS/ABILITIES] [REALISTIC COMBAT] [SLOW LEVELING] [OP MC] [MORAL MC]
Genre: [ACTION] [ADVENTURE] [EXPERIMENT] [COMEDY] [HORROR] [SATIRE] [SLICE-OF-LIFE] [REVENGE] [INTRIGUE] [MYSTERY] [CONSPIRACY] [ROMANCE] [EROTICA] [WISH-FULFILLMENT]
Theme: [HERO'S JOURNEY] [INCIDENTAL HERO] [COMING-OF-AGE] [TRANSHUMANISM] [HUMAN BONDS] [LOVE] [DISCOVERY] [SOCIAL COMMENTARY] [INTERNAL STRUGGLE] [MORALITY]
Tone: [LIGHT] [SERIOUS] [HEAVY] [EMOTIONAL] [LITERARY] [SELF-AWARE]
Game type: [MMORPG] [OPEN-WORLD RPG] [TABLETOP] [ROGUELIKE] [RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT] [MOBA] [FPS] [RTS] [OTHER]
Game text: [NONE] [LIGHT] [MEDIUM] [HEAVY]

Literature & book tags
POV: [MALE] [FEMALE] [OTHER] [GENDER BENDER] [SINGLE] [MULTIPLE] [1st PERSON] [3rd PERSON] [TEENAGE] [NON-HUMAN MC]
Series status: [SERIES] [ONGOING] [COMPLETE] [FIRST BOOK] [BOOK IN A SERIES] [STAND-ALONE] [SIDE STORY]
Availability: [WEB SERIAL] [E-BOOK] [KU] [PRINT] [AUDIO]
Content warning: [EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT] [SUGGESTIVE SEXUAL CONTENT] [NUDITY] [STRONG LANGUAGE] [MILD LANGUAGE] [GRAPHIC VIOLENCE] [AMORAL TONE]

Spoiler: DEFINITIONS

World type:

• Commercial game
  Includes games that are 'seemingly' commercial at first, even when there's actually some secret evil intent behind them that characters discover as the plot progresses, and also includes games where only the MC is trapped (like they die when they're connected to the VR and now their consciousness is trapped). The premise of this category is that the game still functions like a commercial game.
• Commercial game gone wrong
  AI-gone-rogue, or glitch-kills-people, or hacker-traps-everybody. The premise is that there's something seriously wrong with the core game code that puts the characters in that situation.
• Digital realm that exists for some other purpose
  Gamified digital realms that exist for... military training, prison, education, be an afterlife, etc.
• Real world with game rules
  Includes all portal fantasy, or when the world suddenly gains stats for any reason, or when the MC dies and is reincarnated as a character in a world just like the game he happens to be playing before death (but which is no longer a 'videogame')

Trappings:

• Fantasy
• Medieval (to differentiate between finer shades of fantasy)
• Sci-fi (laser guns, scanning goggles and stuff)
• Space (spaceships, different planets!)
• Military
• Cyberpunk
• Steampunk
• Modern Day (real world gains game stats)
• Historical (Regency LitRPG? Victorian LitRPG?)
• Other cultures
• Post-apocalypse (something bad has happened to the world)
• Zombies!
• Multi-world

Main Activities: (Can pick more than one)

• Open-world PVE
  Wandering around killing monsters, saving villages, fetching stuff for NPCs, etc.
• Open-world PVP
  Faction politics, clan wars
• Arena/tournament
  Basically PVP games
• Questing
  Quest-driven plot, where people get quests, complete quests, leading to quests getting more and more complicated and difficult
• Dungeon
  Find cave, enter cave, kill trash mobs, kill boss, loot!
• Crafting
  Gathering stuff, making stuff
• Equipment-crafting
  Lots of focus given to upgrading sword/magic armor/etc.
• Settlement-building
  Here's your village/city/town/castle -- develop it
• Dungeon design
  This is pretty much self-explanatory
• Tower defense
  Stop waves of NPCs from invading your home
• Group-building
  Main character(s) meet(s) and collect(s) group members and they go adventuring. Technically, harem-building will kinda fall into this category?

Story elements: (Can pick more than one)

• Trapped
  Players cannot leave game / playing against their will
• Sentient AI
  Self-explanatory, I think
• Log-out Scenes
  'Y' when a story features a significant real life story line, 'N' when offline scenes are not shown, are only alluded to, or if it's just one long play-through
• Permadeath
  In-game character can die permanently
• Death Game
  Die in-game, die in real life, or if the penalty for losing results in real-life death
• Harem
  MC is disproportionately surrounded by side characters who are attracted to them
• Romance
  Significant focus on love/relationship
• Erotica
  Significant focus on sexual encounters
• Solo Play
  MC is solo most of the time
• Group Play
  Focus on group dynamics
• Unique Class/Abilities
  MC gets a rare/hidden/unique build
• Realistic Combat
  Laws of physics apply as in real life, no HP system
• Young Adult
  (Not sure what qualifies...)

All tags can be clicked on to filter only stories tagged with those tags, or clicked on twice to exclude stories tagged with those tags.

 

I'm adding [Informal] to the 'Tone' category, which describes a certain kind of writing style... like in The Hero of Thera.

When I took literature classes, I really liked the use of [Conversational] when describing writing styles as well... I think it's a kind of quality, and some LitRPGs are 'chattier' than others... but I don't think anyone would understand what it's supposed to mean. Basically it's narration that goes like this:

"Sure." She shrugged. It wasn't as if she didn't have anything better to do, but she had made a promise to the goblin after all. Emily had always had a thing for tiny monsters, you see. When she was five she had once owned a green alien stuff toy. It had been her brother's, which he had gotten from a claw machine. It was a cartoon character he never watched, and so he never cared for it. When Emily came home that day, she had found it abandoned under the sofa, facedown on the dusty rug, and she had loved it every since for being one of the first broken things she had rescued.

That's like on the high end of conversational.

 

I was wondering if any author would actually tag their book with [Wish-fulfillment]

Personally I think they should, since a lot of people are looking for that. Or maybe there should be a negative tag instead for [Not Wish-fulfillment]

 

I think that would depend on the self-awareness of the author. I know a lot of authors who clearly make self-inserts who truly don't think they are. Normally their response to this being brought up is "No, it's not. I did xyz because it's awesome" basically. They don't see their main character as a self-insert or "their darling"; they consider what them to be amazing and cool and everything a hero should be. Which, of course, is very much wish fulfillment, but because that has a negative connotation many authors avoid that label like the Black Death.

So pretty much it would depend on the author if the author is labeling. And if someone else labels it, the author or their fans may or may not take offense to that.

Note: I'm not knocking people who enjoy wish fulfillment books or characters or anything. I'm just saying that it can sometimes be regarded as a negative label and thus one that a lot of authors try to avoid.

 

You're right. I guess it depends on whether it's the authors or readers doing the tagging. My initial thought is that the authors themselves tag the books -- but if enough readers 'vote' on a tag, it gets tagged as such. (Of course this would be a complete nightmare to implement!). Another idea is that the authors do their own tagging, but with each book, there's a section on "tag disagreement", which just compiles comments from readers regarding whether the tags are appropriate, so website users can judge for themselves.

Hmmm... maybe I should start another discussion about the website itself. (Since I really want this to happen!)

 

Self-tagging can be a tricky business for accuracy. Plus some things are so subjective. An author might consider their own writing cheerful when someone else might think it's informal, for example.

Maybe it could be something similar to how Steam reviews go? Basically, there's a "recommend" or "do not recommend" option and they can list the tags they feel fit the book along with their personal review?

 

I've thought about this some more and I think you're right, because actually I have no idea what tags are appropriate for my own story.

The Steam idea is really cool -- I'll think about it some more. Maybe there should be author tags / community tags (which will have the side effect of working as a johari window for authors) Okay, I'm probably getting carried away now... but that would be totally cool.

Each entry starts out with 'authors tags'. Once it has 10+ reviews/tags then community tags kick in.

Actually, the more higher-rated a review profile is (via 'helpful' votes), the more weight it carries when star-rating and tags are calculated. Wheeeee..... (And now our filtered list is going to be super slow because all the calculations needed...

Okay, I'd better stop now

 

Something else to worry about is someone trying to mess with the system and just tagging their book as everything so it shows up in every search. It would be nice if people were always honest, but if there's a way to promote their book, someone's going to try and take as much advantage as they can. It's just human nature.

So a limit to how many tags a book can have in each category might be a good idea.

 

Would wish-fulfillment be similar to the HEA/HFN (happily ever after / happily for now) romance novels, where it's more of an assurance to the reader that everything ends well for the main character?

 

You're right. I keep forgetting how self-serving people can sometimes be. Maybe we can limit a number of "total" tags? So if they sacrifice 'tags' in a certain category, they can tag more in another category.

Oooh, good question... I'd personally put HEA/HFN in something like [Feel Good]. So maybe [Feel Good] will be a better tag, since it comes with no baggage?

 

Or maybe a system where only the first 3 tags in a category show on searches? That way if they feel the story fits more than one tag, they can use more but not all of them?

I know it was mentioned early that a story fit all the tags but one, but maybe a recommendation of choosing the more prevalent theme/tag/whatever in each category?

For example, say in the story, the character is mostly solo but does go with groups a few times and it's a bad experience so they go back to soloing. In theory, someone could say "well, it's solo play and group play since the MC does both!" but really the strong theme is the solo play. So Solo Play would be the correct tag, in my opinion. Group Play implies to me, not just being in a group but the group play being an important part of the story.

 

Exactly! This is a very good point. Thanks for all the thoughtful comments, as always!

Hmmm.. so I'm starting to agree that we should allow a max number of tags per category (depending on which one), but maybe unlimited for categories like "story elements", since these elements might be what people want to filter either on or off, so it would be in an author's interest to tag their stories as accurately as possible.

Also, maybe have it be so that the more tags a story has, the more 'diluted' the value of each tag becomes, and that affects search ranks... (but if we only have, say, 100 titles in total, this will be way too over-complicated for so few entries )

I'm also wondering if ultimately there should be a Review Panel who has the last word -- or just someone sensible who owns the site/search tool who is not a secretly evil money-grabbing (some word). Because honestly when you let programs do all the work, things are bound to go awry.

 

[Feel Good]
[Power Fantasy]
[Wish Fulfillment]

I still think wish fulfillment just kinda hits it on the spot, and maybe readers should have the power to tag this one...

 

Perhaps let readers challenge the author's tags?

In systems where there are readers' reviews (like Amazon), sometimes it can backfire for an author to try to tag too broadly (at least from the reader's PoV), as we can see in our genre (folks dishing some book because in their eyes it was good overall, but not LitRPG-ish enough, so they punish it for trying to pass as LitRPG).

So, dunno, just typin' because it ain't gonna be me who even tries to implement this, but perhaps tags would need a certain % to be shown?

(As in: Author tags the book in a certain way; readers may challenge the tagging either by saying some tag is incorrect, and/or another tag is missing; some threshold like 60% of readers thinking the same way may override the tag, or something in that direction?)

 

This is my thought exactly! Again, it will be a nightmare to implement! And I'm really hoping it won't have to be me who has to do it

Maybe there should be a threshold too, like there must be at least 5 taggers before the readers' tags are calculated.

Then... users are rewarded for their participation in tagging/reviewing by a score system: one for "accurate tagging" and one for being a "trusted reviewer".

You've brought up an interesting point, though... there should be something to mark "fringe" LitRPG (like stories that are almost LitRPG but not exactly), so readers can toggle off "fringe" books if they're looking for something more hardcore LitRPG.

 

Well, on this the Crunchy/Soft scale (or tags) should do the trick, I would guess.

(And part of me thinks that, after filtering by tags, folks should do a bit of reading, as in reading the book's blurb and reviews, to make up their minds...

... then again I'm constantly reminded of, and puzzled by, the fact that the most important item for book selection seems to be the cover; like, a sizable chunk of folks do judge books by their cover, rather than reviews...

... but that's a matter for another discussion, methinks. Or maybe a rant, even!! )

Aye, although I wouldn't worry too much about this (speaking seriously, not just 'cos I ain't gonna implement it!); this is the sort of thing that, IMHO, comes up when you are play-testing the system, seeing how it works and such.

I mean, human nature just has to be factored in (trolls, fanbois, etc), but the exact thresholds can only be found by trial and error, I believe. =)

 

Yeah, currently I have 'Game Text' as a broad category, with the tags of [None], [Light], [Medium] and [Heavy]. Pretty vague and sloppy -- but I'm hoping that [None] will automatically cover 'fringe' titles?

Someone needs to start a rant thread! (I saw it on another forum as a place for people to let off steam and get support in letting off steam, and it does wonders for the community!)

I'm actually super-excited to have real users test out the system -- if we can get someone to actually create/host it... (I'm happy to admin the database, and maybe write some codes, but I don't think I'm skilled enough to do the whole thing on my own)

We'd need:
- Someone to host it
- Someone to write the codes (I can do basic javascript/php/mysql -- but someone had better check my work)
- A group of volunteer beta taggers/reviewers (let's aim for 100 'books' in the database to start with -- too ambitious? But maybe not, because we're allowing RRL LitRPGs, and most authors would want to get their books listed, right?)

 

He he he... reminds be of a sub-forum from a looong time ago, for EVE Online-related discussions, that was exclusively for bitching (to the point that constructive discussion was forbidden in that sub-forum)

Then again, the Internet felt different back then, so dunno... =)

Wouldn't know how to go about it myself, but maybe somebody in these forums can bring the idea to the RRL folks? Sort of a joint effort, so to speak? (They may be interested in an in-depth tagging system, and they surely have a large community that may be interested in testing it maybe?)

As usual, the usual caveat: I'm just typin' 'cos, hey, typin' be free! =)

 

I totally support the existence of that kind of thread/sub-forum!
Sometimes... people just need to vent without other people trying to fix their problems. I think it will do good for the society as a whole. My friend actually works for a company where they have a sound-proof "screaming room" where you can go in and start screaming obscenities to relieve work stress... (although that's going a bit too far, IMHO)

I think so. LitRPG kinda grew from RRL as well -- so I think it will be a great place to start!

Now... to get that system up and functional is a completely different matter...