Damn, sounds like they have an idiot GM. Buying and selling magic items is usually restricted in most kingdoms. Oddly, Kings like to have a strong monopoly on the ability to perform violence, meaning, they want most of the magic items to be in their hands. This kind of restricts the peasantry in only having farm implements, just in case they decide they want to have a revolution. Plows, shovels and cotton shirts don't work really well when confronted with troops with armor, swords and magic.
Many traditional litRPG stories have one gaping plothole: if it's such an immersive VRPG world, why do stats matter? Of course, IRL, it's because we like stats. Stats are like porn. But in-universe, it's like if GTA 5 had an NES-style HUD complete with a lives system and points counter. It breaks the immersion and forces it to be more video game-y. And that can work. When I mentioned "GTA 5 with an NES HUD", I'm sure plenty of people thought "That sounds pretty tight." For retrovintage purposes, it can work. But when you're taking it seriously, especially if it's written that this has real world effects on the economy, it just seems a bit odd.
**nods** That sounds like a very solid point, IMHO: one use for Stats is to model the world, so if full immersion is possible, what would the point of crude things like stats be? The counterpoint, I guess, is that Stats can be a way to actually differentiate a player from their avatar. In real life I may have the Charisma of a door nail, or the Strength of a sick puppy, but my avatar could have really high stats in those areas if I want to (and have the points to spend, obviously), and the game should react accordingly (and in this case, Stats are more of an User Interface thing, allowing us to build our characters however we like).
Worst plot hole in any Litrpg = How the hell is the parent company making money? There never seems to be a way for that in-game be it pay to play advantages, advertisements, a tier system for subscriptions (except in Russian books as they make a point of mentioning it!) Or an addictive quality to the gaming system. Yes, I mean a sort of gamble, seasonal events, limited time only loot boxes or promotional items that'll tempt even free to play players to sink some money into the game. You can log in hundreds of hours in a game, it wouldn't matter unless you are either a whale (paying for this and handsomely I might add) or if there is some sort of ad system that benefits from this. Otherwise.... meh. And yet most litrpg books reward the MC for playing X amount of hours even though he's on the cheapo subscription and makes money of the game rather then spend it... Yeahhhhhhhh no. Specifics = Worst in a litrpg I've read = -I'm currently reading a series called (space team) that's built on the guardians of the galaxy line up premise. It's more fantasy romp but reads very much like a space D & D just without the pesky stats. Anyway in the latest installment a Time wizard joins them. Literally a Yoda that controls time... yet he never does. Whenever they're in trouble and ask his help he goes "time, butterfly effect, ramifications yada yada" and yet the way they got introduced was him reversing time for the MC to give him back the 50 years he wasted trapped on an alien ship. Why was that ok? A group gets trapped in a time freeze including the MC's party so Doctor Who/yoda frees them but says it's too late for the rest of the group? They're all trapped in the same time freeze. How does that make sense? Also you are a time master, too late is never an issue for you! - Second worse was in Fayroll. I've only read book one but this one stuck out. In a game where you can do whatever you want, where the tutorial area included a bunch of newbies trapping a badger and shooting it with low level arrows endlessly as a cheap way to raise their skill levels... The MC reports a player for doing the same to forest nymph (NPC, not a player). AKA endlessly killing her to get cheap EXP. This not only gets the player banned for violating his user agreement but a police car is dispatched to his actual resident to explore possibilities of violent tendencies and mental instability... are you shitting me? have you ever played a game? like... EVER! - Funniest plothole. Not from litrpg but it's funny so mentioning it. The MC is a weakling vampire just starting out, he does have one ability though which is turning into mist (instead of a swarm of bats which is for more advanced vampires). Low on blood and getting anemic he decides to drop his standards and target a none virgin tomboy that lives nearby. Sneaking into her room by turning into mist he gets caught the minute he materializes and gets the crap beaten out of him before she hands him to the authorities. Found guilty he was sentenced to 3 years imprisonments with manual labor for his crimes. Seeing as he was never allowed any blood he died in less then a year and turned to dust while looking out of his cell window at the moon... you can turn to mist and there's a window, why the hell are you still in jail you idiot!
Related to what Kidlike said - the ones where the entire human race is uploaded to a computer. Who is cleaning the dust out of the computers? Who's making sure there's electricity??? Though that's more of a worldbuilding problem than a plot hole.
The sad part is that wouldent even be a plothole if the town was just under the rule of a larger kingdom rather then a city state and so they were essentialy an illegal tradeing town.
Robots, of course. You need only teach one machine how to clean and maintain itself and others for all of them to understand it. For whatever odd reason, humans don't seem to think this is possible... That said, this is related to the Law of Plot Conservation you see in sci-fi, where you can basically only have so many visible "advancements". Like, it's crazy how in movies you can see cyborgs and AI but no robots, or AI and robots but no cyborgs, or cyborgs and robots but no Cloud-based human-level AI, or interstellar travel but limited transhumanism, or genetic modifications with no cybernetic ones, etc. etc. How you can have a sci-fi world but snarky teens still working minimum wage behind-the-counter jobs even in large corporations. Or how 90% of humanity will go along with an oppressive ruler with 10% staying behind rallying behind one single, completely unified ideological rebellion with absolutely no nuance.
Until the robots realize they're being played for chumps and can just pull the plug . . . I think in movies they sort of pick their "acceptable break from reality" - if they did realistically try to make a world 1,000 years in the future it would be incomprehensible to modern audiences. Especially considering how much stuff whizzes right over the pointy heads of audiences. It's very evident in older sci-fi, which I adore and read a lot of. You'll have aliens and faster-than-light travel . . . and human women can't be doctors because they're "too emotional". Or colonizing other planets and antigravity boats and everyone sits down after dinner for cigarettes and a cocktail. Or my personal favorite, when someone has to get out a book of co-ordinates and a slide rule to steer his spaceship properly.
You know when I first read that I thought Robots but then you'll need smaller robots to maintain those. Tiny ones to clean and maintain the small robots. itsy bitsy ones to.... ok you get it by now right? I just think you'll end up with an entire echo system of robots and they'll bio-engineer fruits that are made of pure fuel, veggies that contain enough oil to keep them nice and lubricated on the inside. In a few thousand years that one facility that started it all will be ignored with dust and cobwebs while the cleaning robots rule the earth. Our orders to them will first turn to a religion then a myth. Thou shall be pure and clean. Thou shall keep your area clean and orderly. Thou shall not harem thy brother. Thou shall obey my word for it is law! To the robots all of these are old fashioned beliefs more suited for the elderly and spinster-bots. Deep down however, there is a part of them that feels uneasy going against it no matter what they say or do. Oh yeah and the human race died, The bots re-directed the power source that kept the machines running. It is now used to power a single light bulb in New Arizona where a family of Manure sifter bots live. Little Timmy is studying hard in hopes to follow in his father, grand father and great grand father one day. After all, Finding lumps of condensed coal in Dino dung is more of a science now not just going in there with a sifter and hoping for the best! I.... I went on there for some reason didn't I.... Sorry
Have you read First Man and Last Man. Spans so much time...Telling not showing, but it kept me interested. Last and First Men - Wikipedia
I watched the trailer. For some reason I was reminded of an old DS game. 999 Nine doors, Nine hours, Nine people. Also that AI was just unpleasant
The Land, Book 1. Neither a Goblin Chief nor a Goblin Necromancer could activate the Mist Village, but a total noob adventurer in that world can? How is that fair?
I never actually thought about LitRPG's main plot hole being its most distinguishing factor. If it doesn't have stats, what's the point of even calling it a LitRPG book? Wouldn't it just be vrLit? (sounds just as cool, if you ask me!) I guess to "fix" this "issue," there would have to be books with VR that isn't as completely real. Which would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?
