From an exchange on reddit, something that's been on my mind: whether or not there is a solid business plan for the game to exist (or, at least, a plan the company developing the game thinks it's solid). This would probably be a sub-sub tag (pure portal fiction doesn't even need a game, let alone a Developing Company), but progressively I find it's one aspect that interests me a lot, so I suspect others may care: is the game being deloped for commercial reasons (like Awaken Online), or is it there for other reasons (like Paul's Tower of Gates)? (Don't think this would be a scale, but rather a yes/no sub-tag in cases where there is indeed a Dev company)
Good point! But... maybe... based on your definition of the kind of 'game-y' you're looking for... you're after something where it really feels like "people playing a game because it's a game" rather than "this game will determine the fate of humanity"? I have a hunch it has something to do with the concept of 'stakes' as well? <--- 'just a game' ------------------------------------------------ 'game to decide the fate of the universe' ---> Can it, then, be mapped onto something these updated stakes sub-scales: Stakes [MC's focus] <--- survive ---------------------------------------- prosper ---> [Scope of MC's actions] <--- personal ---------------------------------------- universe ---> [World] <--- hostile ------------------------------------------ friendly ---> A commercial game will be more toward the "personal" [scope] and a "friendly" [world]? 'Friendly' in general meaning 'fair, feels good to play' (so it will not involve things like permadeath, or it will have PVP-free 'safe' zones or measures put in place to prevent PVP -- which will translate into it being a viable 'commercial' game?) I guess what I'm asking is... do you think Awaken Online fits your bill as a viable commercial game? I mean, in the story, it's commercial, but personally I feel like a design like that will not really work since it's rather unfair? Ascend Online feels a bit more 'fair' and less MC-centric, and would make for a better 'commercial game'. And 'commercial games' actually exclude all portal fantasies and 'real world becomes a game' stories, right? Or are there stories like that that still manage to feel like it's going to be commercially viable as a game? OR... Are you looking for 'human devs', as opposed to 'AI devs'? Like, how sensibly human the resulting game is? In Awaken Online, the AI has gone rogue, so the ultimate game lacks that 'human' feel, while in Ascend Online, even with unique quests and all, the devs kinda intend it that way to simulate realistic player interactions in a real society (where not everyone is equal and some rise to positions of power)?
I'll comment later on your other thread about game-i-ness (lots of interesting stuff to ponder on your exchange with Wyvern! =), but in this case it's more: <---Commercial Game-----------------------------------------------Some Other Reason---> ... and the above as a sub-genre of "This is a game, in the sense of a piece of software that exists as a portion of the 'real world', rather than a world in and of itself". I.e., the left would be "software that somebody developed with a commercial reason in mind", while the right would be "software that somebody developed for some other reason"; Paul's Tower of Gates would be on the right here, same as (as I've seen on reddit) a game designed to entertain the frozen travellers in a century-long trip to colonize a faraway star. That means that the right side is pretty open ended, but (in my mind at least) means that, at the core, that the right-most games can have some (or a lot) of features that most normal folks would be unwillng to pay for. Quotefest below, just to try to check which boxes would comply with this: Yyyyyep!! =D For the life of me, I cannot think how a commercial MMO could have, by design, permadeath. I've said it elsewhere, and I guess I'll sort of hammer it everywhere I find it (it's sort of my pet peeve, please bear with me): the huge majority of folks nowadays HATE permadeath in MMOs (they even hate looting, even with no permadeath!), so I cannot see that happening in the future. For clarity's sake: if it's other genre rather than MMOs (Roguelikes would be the prime example) they yep, since permadeath is at the core of those games' design. Another example would be some Battle Royale game (like PUB or Fortnight), permadeath can work there, no problem. And if it's an MMO that the Devs designed without permadeath, and then somehow somebody turned that around... yeah, I may buy it. Also if there is some bigger plan (somebody in these forums mentioned the game actually being a part of a Reality Show), yeah, could work. But, back-tracking one step, I guess the scale would be: <---Game as software in the real world-------------------------------------World with Game rules---> And, only in cases that fall on the left, then the previous scale (Commercial <--> Other reasons) would apply. (There's a summary of this at the end of the post, by the way! =) No doubt in my mind that it's portrayed as commercial. Very poorly executed in that aspect, IMHO (that's my gripe with that book; most of the rest I think it's pretty well done, but as a commerical game IMHO it fails from the design point of view, as you note, to how human Devs are portrayed), but yeah, leaving execution aside, it's at the left of the commercial scale (a bit of software, developed for commercial reasons). One interesting detail is that one of the characters (the antagonist's father) actually sees the game as having other benefits, besides a commercial enterprise (he hopes the game will cure his son); if the game's main objective had been "cure mental ailments", then it would be on the right side of the scale (that would be a cool, if scary as hell, premise, I would think!). (Nit-picking my own idea: taking Paul's Tower of Gates, I guess you could say that it's technically on the left on grounds that there's a company behind it, that actually wants to make money by selling the government a virtual prison. And, if a company were to create a game to cure mental illnesses, then I guess it would be correct to say they do have a very commercial reason to do so; so I guess by "commercial game" I'm actually aiming at "game's main revenue source are willing players paying for entertainment." If that makes no sense, let me know! =) Absolutely the former. "Portal" would be, methinks, on the right of the: <--Piece of software----------------World with game rules--> scale. (With "commercial"//"other reasons" being only applicable to the "software" side) Nope; that would be a different sub-tag/category, although it would also only apply to the "software" side of things. (as said before, but since we've said a ton of things, which I'd like to stress is something I've been enjoying immensely, I do think the Human Devs // AI Devs is a very, very important tag, but a different one!) To summarize: As one of the main scales: <--Piece of software-------------------World with Game Rules--> Sub-scales, for those on the left (software) <--Human Devs-----Humans with AI-based tools----AI Devs--> ("AI gone rogue" would be something 75% to the right, I guess?) Game's Business Model <--Commercial (Dev goal = profit from players)----------------Other objective--> (as said above, even in "Other objective" there may be folks doing things for money; a virtual prison is a perfect example, since the programmers would definitely be doing it for commercial purposes (coding the prison to earn a buck), but the game's objective itself is non-commercial in nature, i.e. it's not designed with the main goal of willing players opening their wallets in order to play) -
I like this! It looks really clean. (And thank you for playing this game with me ) Questions/points/thought snippets/ramblings/something like that: - What will be in the middle of the <--Piece of software-------------------World with Game Rules--> scale? I guess 'augmented reality'? Why I'm asking is because I'm wondering if they can be 'tags' rather than a sliding scale? - I'm really glad you put the human/AI devs scale there, because I feel like there's a real difference between the two, but I can't really put my finger on what exactly is different. Human devs are more... well, 'human', of course. AI devs often feel like fantasy gods, for some reason. - Game's Business Model: I really like this. So... let's say Ascend Online is on the left, and The Way of the Shaman's Barilona is somewhere in the middle (commercial AND used for prisoners), and Tower of Gates is on the right -- something like that? - Trapped-ness is on a different set of scales entirely, right? So, if something starts as a commercial game, then the MC gets trapped in it. Is it still a commercial game? Or does it 'become the real world'? I guess the question is whether the NPCs then become sentient or not -- at which point it becomes a portal fantasy. --- Here's one other thing that I've been thinking about: an 'element' that I've seen people specifically ask for or not: "Where they're just playing a game". A surprising number of readers really don't want this, because they feel like the story lacks real stakes, especially if it's a commercial game, where there are 'safety rules' in place. So to up the stakes, writers put in 'real world danger', like dying relatives, financial ruin, conspiracies, real death, and all those things. Some readers even go as far as stating that they hate it when characters remind them that "it's just a video game", since it "takes them out of the story". This really surprised me. This is actually one of the key issues that inspired me to think about tags in the first place, and reading your post has made it clearer to me what it actually is. I suspect that there are actually two camps of readers: the "video-game-y" camp (who likes the aesthetics of people playing video games) and the "escapist" camp (who likes the aesthetics of being somewhere else and becoming someone else) The "escapist" camp also tends to like wuxia/xianxia as well, because they give the same kind of aesthetics, which is why these often come up in LitRPG suggestions. The "escapist" camp will also gravitate towards portal fantasy or real-world-suddenly-has-stats stories. This camp will be more forgiving of 'games that don't work as games!' and unbalanced games. Now, some readers are in both camps. Sometimes I might be in the "escapist" camp, too, but that's when I'm in a different mood. Personally, when I come to LitRPG, I come for the "video games", because it's the only place where I can get video games. And now that I've thought about this, I'm starting to agree with someone that dungeon core stories are an entirely different beast altogether. So what I'm saying is, if we unpack what gets lumped under 'LitRPG', we'll find a lot of different things underneath, and the reason why people can't give good recommendations is because everything is super blurry at the moment. Or, in other words, 'LitRPG' is less well-defined and is a rather confusing category, because it tries to define 'surface elements'. Like, if someone makes a category of "Sword-wielding MC"; technically Kill Bill would fit. Or of someone makes a category of "Spellsword MC" -- I'd claim that Star Wars has a lot of that aesthetics, even when it's lightsabers and the force.
And someone on reddit has noted it again, by asking if the genre minds how "real" the world is: the difference between someone "playing a game" and "being transported to a different world" -- so I'm sure there' something there that really affects 'preference' And ultimately... if we steer readers to the correct things, we will get happier readers, which leads to better reviews, which leads to more exposure, which leads to more readers -- and newcomers to the genre will stay.
Someone just posted this on reddit and I was like -- yes, let's talk about it! So I'm pasting this here so I can find it again:
Well, you did mention liking game-i-ness in another thread, so let's play! (and apologies for the delayed answer; stuff, as in 'stuff happens' =) For this one in particular, looks like an on-off switch, rather than a scale (other categories do seem scale-y, like "trappedness"). I mean, I guess what I sense behind that scale is whether or not there is "Intelligent Design", to put a very loaded term. Or perhaps an intention; a piecer of software always has some intention behind it (even if some Super AI coded it; alien as it may seem to us humans, there is some objecive the AI wants that bit of software to fulfill). At least at first glance, AR would still be "piece of software": somebody coded it for some reason, and the piece of software exist in the world at large. Well... sometimes there's a blurry line between the AI as DEVS, and AIs as NPCs. I mean, games nowadays have NPCs controlled by some very rudimentary proto-AIs, so to speak; in a few (or a handful) of years those NPCs could be really advanced, while the software at large still be under control of human Devs. It's true that, from what I've read, there seems to be a trend in which AIs are Devs, and then they also communicate directly with players (as in-game Gods). But it's perfectly possible, IMHO, for an AI Dev never to show up in-game (exactly like Human Devs nowadays, which can but as a rule don't show up in-game, except for some special event and such). Yyyep!! For redundancy's sake (I just looove redudancy, I must confess! ), methinks the main issue is whether or not it's designed for willing, paying customers. If yes, IMHO things like permadeth become a huge no-no (as long as the piece of software still goes for its original purpose, and has not been corrupted), simply based on actual evidence (players at large don't like permadeath, only a niche does). Methinks Trapped-ness is indeed a scale (as in, how trapped the character is). If somebody gets trapped in a commercial game, I'd say something is not working as intended (either there's a bug, or the game got corrupted somehow by the usual suspects: hacker, suddenly-sentient-AI, etc), but the rest of the game should still work as a commercial game (always IMHO! =). Basically saying: I cannot buy, for the life of me, that all of a sudden the game has permadeath (or any other non-commercial feature) if it was not designed that way from scratch (that wouldn't be a bug, or a hack; that would be a MASSIVE bug that would never pass QA, or a MASSIVE code change). Methinks you are onto something here. I'll need to rumminate on this a bit more, but at least for me, being (or not being) forgiving with "games that don't work as games" is all about logic: portal stories can have any rules the author wishes (I'd only judge the work by the internal coherence of those rules), while "piece of software" stories need, for me, to be coherent with the Designer's intent. Sounds like a genre in its infancy to me!! =) (and I agree, by the way!) Just to add more blurriness into the mix: I'd say you can plot a somewhat similar difference between "hardcore" and "casual" gamers: those that like to play the game in "hard" mode (and may like things like permadeath and full looting, and higher stakes overall), and those that want a more relaxed, laid-back experience. Then again both hardcore and casual gamers could be said to be engaged in escapism, so I don't know...
Okay, this makes sense! So it's a question of whether someone designed it for a purpose or the world's just how it is (and happens to have game rules), right? Or does it have to be 'software'? For example, let's just rip off The Deathgate Cycle (which is not LitRPG) and have a premise where a whole race is defeated in war and locked up in a 'prison-like realm'. Using the same premise, whether a story checks the box for 'Intelligent Design' will depend on whether the 'jailers' actually designed the game. So these two scenarios will be different: A) The jailers just want the prison realm to be hell, so they throw in their prisoners and a bunch of nasty monsters, then leave. Because of how magic works in the world, prisoners realize that when they kill monsters, they absorb some of their strength/powers, and they 'level up', so a bunch of them start to work together to escape the prison. This will not check the box for Intelligent Design. B) The jailers want the prison realm to rehabilitate, so they design a bunch of quests and challenges where only those that opt for peace/self-sacrifice will gain real power, and through a series of quests, only people with the correct 'mindset' as deemed by the jailers, will eventually become powerful leaders of their race. Characters solve problems and win encounters by guessing the intent of the developers. This will check the box for Intelligent Design. Right? So, all commercial games will automatically check the box for Intelligent Design. Most portal fantasy stories won't. However, an evil overlord kidnapping people and making them fight each other to the death in a game he designed for his own entertainment checks the box. Again, or does it have to be software? Sorry, I'm trying to get to the 'core aesthetics' of it. Personally, in my Deathgate Cycle example, I have a feeling that the two scenarios aren't that different (at least not to me) because they will both feel like "the real world" to the characters. The only difference is whether the purpose of the 'god' is apparent. On the other hand, if it's more sci-fi rather than magic and the jailers put the prisoner race in a permanent freeze sleep and hook them up to "Hell VR" to have them suffer forever -- it kinda feels video-game-y to me, and very different than the 'prison realm' thing, which feels simply fantasy. And then what about "Aliens turn Earth into a world with game rules and humans need to make it to the top 10 galactic list or they will be deemed a useless race and exterminated"? Okay... I'm now confusing myself. I'll have a think and come back for the rest.
Hum! Now that's an interesting question, the software part. Personally (but that's probably just subjective taste, rather than a bona-fide potential category) I find I'm mostly interested in LitRPG that features a commercial videogame, and what happens in that case; so, in that vein, I'd say yeah, it's always gonna be software, since videogames are software. To your examples: I think you'd be conflating two categories here: I.D., and game. A prison (I mean a real-life prison) is without a doubt someting that has been designed with a very specific purpose (whether or not it serves it, and whether or not it's a good purpose, that's a whole different can of worms of course! =), but we'd have to stretch the definition of "game" too much to see a real-life prison as a game. Therefore, in my opinion: Well, as said before "Intelligent Design" is a very loaded term (since, in real life, it involves an all-knowing, all-powerful God that makes no mistakes), so, technically speaking, this would not be it of course. But the prison is certainly designed by sentient creatures with a specific purpose in mind; so, in that sense, I'd say it's been intelligently designed, therefore it does check that box... ... it just so happens to have some flaws that the designers didn't see coming. I actually think that the perfect example of this is Jurassic Park: that's something that is designed by a bunch of humans, that put a LOT of thought in their design, and with a very specific purpose (which also happens to be commercial), but, alas, the design is flawed in some point and all hell breaks lose. So I'd say the above quoted example is: > Intelligent design (in the sense of "sentient entities design it for a reason") > It's not a game (because it was not designed with that purpose) > The design has flaws > Using your definition of game-i-ness, the protagonists are able to exploit the design flaws to "game the system" > Depending how much those flaws make things work like a videogame, I guess it could feel video-game-y (again basing the word loosely on our exchange in your other thread), but there's something in it not being a game from the start that would, for me, prevent it from achieving "true video-game-i-ness" (even if it could be an awesome piece of work regardless!! =) Intelligent design no doubt, methinks (by the loose definition of "designed by sentient creatures", and not the "created by an all-powerful God" real-life meaning when related to topics such as Natural Selection) I guess this would be a prison, and a gamified prison at that (whether or not gamification makes something a game is YET ANOTHER huge can of worms! =) Yyyep!! Aye; but it would probably fail at other categories and thus not be LitRPG. For example, gladiators in ancient Rome: no doubt designed by sentient creatures, arguably seen as a game by the onlookers (different gladiators had different weapons specifically since they were considered to be balanced in pretty much the exact same way we use "balanced" to denote that a videogame has well thought-out class/race combos that make all fights roughly fair), but certainly not LitRPG. (which can still be a kick-ass story, I stress this again to avoid giving the impression that I'm saying that complying with some tags is objectively better! =) I guess the question would be: are the Hunger Games LitRPG? My hunch is that nobody would say "yes" to that, even when there's a game prominently featured; that's why in your other thread I was splitting hairs between game-i-ness and video-game-i-ness. My feeling is that there's something about the aestethics of videgames as they exist right now that LitRPG tries to capture, while other genres don't, and that's the difference. I guess that's why both Portal and Trapped-in-Commercial-Game-Gone-Wrong are lumped together in the same LitRPG genre, as you noted in other post: while, when looking from the point of view of internal logic, both scenarios have nothing to do with each other (arguably one is pure Fantasy, the other could very well be hard-core Sci-Fi if the author wants to go that way), they both share the same elusive this-feels-like-I'm-playing-a-videogame (emphasis again on video). (As a tangent, perhaps it could be said: whatever does not make Hunger Games LitRPG is, methinks, what we are trying to capture as the essence of LitRPG??) Aye; this is where the "piece of software" angle comes into play, I think. As noted above, I think you raise a very interesting (potentially fun! =) question in whether or not a game featured in LitRPG needs to be a piece of software; but, on the other hand, I guess that being trapped in a piece of software is almost a sure way for the story to be GameLit (and then it's a matter of the specifics of the rules, and the level of crunchiness, if it is RPG or not) I'd classify this as Portal, broadly speaking; probably on the Fantasy end of the spectrum where we put everything with such advanced tech that it looks like magic! =)
Thanks for clarifying! I have the same feeling of how the 'videogame feel' is unique and completely different from the 'portal feel' and I'm glad you kinda sense the same thing here. I really like how you pointed out "commercial game gone wrong" -- which I think really captures the feeling of some stories very well (like SAO) So, after thinking about it, if not a scale, we just have several tags. And I propose these ones to start with: 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') Does this cover everything? Okay, I see what you mean now about the distinction between the game-i-ness and videogame-i-ness. (And my game-i-ness actually means something else, to make matters worse! Since Hunger Games doesn't feel very game-y to me, even with that bit of 'gaming the reality-tv mentality' where 'If you don't let both of us live, we'll both die!' -- which kinda makes no sense -- well, the Hunger Games world makes no sense, but that's a different topic) But, yeah, you've got a very good point that Hunger Games doesn't even feel GameLit. And, you're right that the concept of gladiator games doesn't feel GameLit. Ender's Game also doesn't feel GameLit. So I'll think more about this. I think you nailed it on the head with your tangent question (which I've enlarged and bolded, because I think it's a very good question) -- you're really onto something here. I'll come back with more thoughts.
And just a random thought --- to me, Ready Player One actually doesn't feel LitRPG, or even GameLit. It feels... sci-fi-y, and it's kinda got the same feel as Ender's Game. Again, that doesn't mean they're inferior in any way. In fact... even one of my favorites, Sicora Online (which is kinda a 'better Hunger Games' IMO), feels more sci-fi-y than LitRPG, even when the story is "we're getting people to test a (will-eventually-become-)commercial game".
I think Hunger Games doesn't feel LitRPG because although there is a game involved, it doesn't have any of the tropes associated with it. Something like Stephen King's The Running Man - about a tv show where death row prisoners escape professional hit men, which not only predated reality tv but probably inspired a good chunk of Hunger Games - is similar. The bulk of the novel follows the hero playing a game, but it's in a realistic world, that is, one that functions exactly like ours does. The point of the story, like HG, is not really the game itself but commenting and social satire on our culture. Something like Pier Anthony's Proton/Phase novels comes closer to LitRPG. The novels involve two mirrored dimensions, one based on tech and the other on magic. On Proton, almost the entire population are "serfs" who willingly work for a Citizen who controls their entire life until retirement. Serfs can get ahead in life by participating against each other in The Game, a competition which covers everything from sports to intellectual challenges to hopscotch, with Citizens betting vast sums on them. Top ranked players have a chance to participate in a tourney and become Citizens. The main character is just such a top-ranked player and the novel details several games; once he goes to the magical alternate world he relies heavily on his gaming skills to survive. This is definitely teetering on the edge of true LitRPG because of how integral the game is to the plot, and how the world's rules are gamelike.
Very good point! Hmmmm... I was thinking whether one of the tropes you talk about are actually the presence of "arbitrary rules". For example, if Hunger Games suddenly adds a rule that says -- once every 24 hours, players can yell "ITEM!" and the people controlling the game will spin a wheel and give them a random item, it starts to feel a bit more video-game-y? So... just thinking out loud here... maybe the actual core tropes that give the LitRPG feel are: - Progress (with some degree of explicitness) - Consistent cause-effect relationship between winning an encounter and reward, where the reward feeds back directly into progress Stories that don't do this don't feel very LitRPG. Ready Player One doesn't really feel that much like your normal LitRPG, because the 'reward' for solving each puzzle doesn't directly help increase the character's 'level' -- yes, it gets them closer to the treasure, but has nothing to do with the character's power.
Yeah, and I would ad in books like Wiz Biz and Blue Crescent, which are both portal to a magical realm fantasies with MCs who are computer programmers that figure out magic works like a program. The fantasy world isn't a game in the sense of, say, Warcraft or Skyrim, but there is a deity that acts as a creator/programmer/AI/dungeonmaster, and the world runs by gamelike logic rather than real-world logic; the system can be understood by the characters and manipulated to advance their power.
Superb. As in, gotta implant me a third thumb to give it a three thumbs up superb. Yeah!! (And, damn, "Digital Realm" sums a lot of things up; very useful term, methinks) Ah, there you go! That's the perfect example: something that has "Game" on the title, that is absolutely no doubt about a game (even if it is about other things too), that the characters are all the time thinking about how to beat their opponents and usually do so by thinking out of the box... ... yet there's absolutely no doubt it's not GameLit. My hunch is that all the reasons for why a great story about kids playing a game is not GameLit is why are/were splitting hairs in your other thread about game-y versus video-game-y (and I hasten to add, hair splitting being a favourite game of mine! ) Boldly going to where no tangent has gone before!! But, yup, it's that elusive feeling of feelslikeplayingavideogame-i-ness that, I think, some readers (like myself) will automatically latch onto game-i-ness whenever it's used in the context of LitRPG. (while, as noted above, I'm fairly certain that I would have understood game-i-ness as "strategic and usually creative use of the game rules" if I had read the term while talking about Ender's Game) Naaahhh... ... I use twitter for that!! Oooh yeah!! =) For extra-super-clarity: not trying to start building fences and borders and custom offices trying to determine exactly what is and what is not LitRPG, just wondering (and rambling) about what ingredients the secret sauce of LitRPG may include; but while Ender's Game is about a game, and RPO is about a videogame, they don't convey that video-game-i-ness that LitRPG conveys (and I doubt anybody will consider Ender's Game to be a lesser work than most LitRPG) Humm... not sure about this. I get a feeling this is a bit too broad? A lot of stories have progress; the Hero's Journey is specifically about progress (and some setbacks), along with rewards for overcoming obstacles and such. On the other hand, the "consisten cause-effect" part rings true, a lot. As Viergatch says: Yyyep! Can't put my finger on it, but there's definitely something here, I think. Videogames are a lot about understanding a clear set of rules (even if part of them are obfuscated, i.e. we may not know exactly how the loot table looks like, the chances of certain item dropping, etc). In a sense, videogames (and games in general) actually need a clear set of rules. While we can apply game-like problem-solving to real life (and, arguably, games teach us how to do so), life is inherently messy, complex, and difficult. In short, life has no Manual, whereas (video)games do. Not sure exactly how, but my hunch is that part of the video-game-i-ness feel that LitRPG conveys has a lot to do with that: MCs sort of "grokking" the game's Manual, so to speak (discovering how the game works), and then using game-y strategic thinking to gain whatever goal it is they are pursuing. (and then you have the asthetics, like gaining levels and such)
Awesome! Okay, so now let's work from this bit. Setting: Commercial game Commercial game gone wrong Gamified digital realm (that exists for some other reason) Real world with game rules This kinda eliminates the need for my first scales I was playing around with, and I like how it's rather clean and to-the-point, and has a bit of the built-in inherent stake level as well... For example, even if the MC is playing a commercial game for money, the stakes are somehow automatically lower, and 'can't pay medical bills for loved one' isn't on the same level as 'permadeath' in terms of the feeling it gives the readers. So 'commercial games' kinda inherently involve lower stakes and real-world danger, in a way. So let's test it out... Can anyone think of a LitRPG story that doesn't fit any of these? ------------------ Yeah, Ender's Game has a decent amount of game-i-ness in the games he plays. I think if "GAME-I-NESS" is a circle and "VIDEOGAME-I-NESS" is another circle, I'm looking for LitRPGs that fall in the intersection. What's surprising is that a lot of LitRPGs fall in neither circle! Most actually feel like 'fantasy-with-stats' (not that there's anything wrong with that). So if we go with the four tags above, I feel like there's a nice inherent scale, and videogame-i-ness automatically declines as we go down the list. A commercial game will be the most video-game-y, and commercial games gone wrong will still be video-game-y, but will have elements that are more 'real life' -- in that it's no longer just a game. When the real world has stats, it might still look like a videogame, but feels more fantasy. ----------------------------- Not sure how to quote properly, but something about these: You're right. I agree that simply explicit character progress + cause-effect relationship between encounter and reward is way too broad, but there are a lot of stories that seem to be in the peripherals that readers have noted that feel kinda-LitRPG, like The Dresden Files, or the stories @Viergacht mentioned. I haven't read any of these books, so I don't know exactly what that 'LitRPG feeling' is, but there must be something there. How about we add a clear set of rules, like you said? The more a story ticks these boxes, the more 'LitRPG' it feels. (These are still very draft-y, foggy, haven't-bought-the-ingredients-so-can't-even-start-baking ideas) But I guess this is what I'm trying to do: if there's a list where the more we go down, (like if a story checks boxes further and further down, the more 'LitRPG' -- or something), so RPO can sit at the top 'the entry', and the crunchiest of the crunch will be down the bottom... I'm aware that LitRPG isn't even the correct term for this, so I don't even know where to start, and, like you said, we don't want to build fences. I'm looking for some better terms that will capture the different feelings, like 'degrees of video-game-i-ness' or something, but that's not even it. ---------------------- So... let's go about it a slightly different way I'm just gonna start tossing thoughts around and see if any of it makes sense. Personally I've noticed a few 'flavors' and these are very much influenced by what kinds of games the author has based the story on: - MMORPG -- aesthetics: balanced or at-least-should-be-balanced classes and skills, and therefore stricter classes - Elder Scrolls -- aesthetics: non-linear, lends itself to more open-ended story-telling and the ability for the MC to learn a billion skills - Tabletop -- emphasis on party, open-ended story-telling - Roguelike - Arena/Tournament - Resource-management games - Other kinds of games Then you add in elements like: - The amount of god/GM/AI-meddling - Mystery (something's going on with this game/realm -- let's find out) - Slice-of-life-ness - Treasure hunt - Condition: do this or find the your way out within 30 days or you die/ are stuck forever / the world ends For example, Tower of Gates might be set in a 'digital realm' that's a VRMMORPG, but the flavor it gives is very much 'tabletop campaign'. The Way of the Shaman, is set in a 'commercial game*' (the * might denote an extra condition, like, in this case, a special zone/set of conditions for prisoner players), and feels very much MMORPG. The Hero of Thera is a portal fantasy, but feels... I'm not really sure. It doesn't feel MMORPG, and I haven't played any of the Elder Scrolls, but I've played other single-player RPGs, which just feel ... fantasy. The Land -- at least the first book -- also feels straight fantasy. Sicora Online is a self-declared commercial-game roguelike, but feels... just sci-fi. Hmmmm... I'd actually group Sicora Online together with Ready Player One and Ender's Game: maybe something like "sci-fi with emphasis on a digital realm", because they all share this element of 1) real-world world-building and 2) the 'dual emphasis' of existing in the digital realm and the real world and the relationship between the two. ----------------------- And on a completely separate (but slightly related note): Rough ideas for other 'tags': Trappings: Fantasy Sci-fi Military Cyberpunk Steampunk Historical (based on other cultures/civilizations -- like there was a Mayan one recently?) Multi-world Core 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 ?? (I heard this mentioned somewhere, but I have no idea how it works, but if it's something along the line of Plant VS Zombies, then I'd say it's actually dungeon-design, but by players?) 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? ----------------------- (Feel free to prod me if I fail to respond to any point you're interested in! My thoughts jump around a lot and sometimes I confuse myself) >_<
I've been thinking about 'stakes', but I have a feeling that the four 'setting' types kinda take care of that, and stakes is a very difficult thing to define anyway. For example, for me, psychological stakes are huge, and... losing a companion pet? Noooo! Unacceptable! Animal cruelty! So a plot that revolves around saving a companion pet will feel high-stake to me, but might not to other people. And... it also depends very much on the tone of the writing. If an MC feels things intensely -- I'll feel that, too. Leaving a place forever can be high-stakes. Saving the universe can feel low-stakes (like in Marvel movies -- does anyone ever think they're going to fail?) So, as for now, I'm leaning towards the idea that 'stakes' isn't even a workable concept when defining a story. Which brings in... "scope" and "drive" and "tone". Scope: (The focus of the story) <--- Personal ---- Group ---- Society ---- World ---> (But what if it's a character-driven story where the MC is trying to save the universe, but the journey is very much personal?) I don't think this is a very important category, but some stories are just more personal than others, and some 'bigger'. And then there's this problem between "real world" and "game world". Like, what Jason does in Awaken Online is huge in terms of the game world, but has very little impact on the real world. (uh oh... gotta run... will continue later)
Nothing comes to mind that I've read, and from a theoretical point of view, I cannot think of any other combination; AR may stretch things a bit, but I'd say most examples would fall into the above four. (As an aside, though, for data-gathering purposes: perhaps it may be worth throwing that exact same question in a different thread in these forums, or maybe in reddit? I mean, not being ironic or snarky or joking here: IMHO not many will brave this deep into this thread, so for collecting data, it may be worth asking the question from scratch elsewhere and see what we find, even if we continue our ramblings here? I can perfectly do so myself, of course, but, you know, this being the Internet and all, don't wanna be seen as I'm trying to steal the ball and take it elsewhere, so to speak! =) d I'd argue here that, while Game-i-ness can more or less be defined (even if broadly), the feeling-of-videogame-i-ness (maybe we should have this conversation in German? It's a great language for making single, hugely long words for complex subjects! ) (*), being a feeling or sensation, it's gonna be impossible to define succinctly (let alone normatively, even if that was a good idea, which IMHO it's not), and may vary widely. (*) (Just google-translated it, and it would be VideospielGefühl; I think I may grab it! =) For example, I've seen in reddit folks saying they like (at least in some cases) seeing long lists of items, following the videogame aesthetics of "lots of junk, then one cool piece of gear". I absolutely understand (and share!) that feeling when I'm playing a videogame myself, but I cannot feel anything video-game-y about it when I find it in a story. So, while I would personally wouldn't equate "Fantasy with Stats on Top" with LitRPG, I cannot help suspecting those stats may be part of, or even all of that elusive "VideospielGefühl". Specifically: I think you may be conflating the "how we got to this world" with "the feeling of how this world operates." If my fairy god-parent shows up, waves their wand, transport me to a cyberpunk world with MMO rules, the genre of the story as a whole is without a doubt Fantasy (because how I got to that world is pure magic), but I'd argue that for at least some readers it will feel (if done right) very game-y (and cyberpunk-y). I know it's not a good definition (since it's not actioable, and highly subjective), but if while I'm reading it feels like I (the reader!) am living inside a videogame, that's enough to classify it as GameLit, while if it specifically feels like the game I'm living inside is an RPG, it's LitRPG (althoug, to make matters more complex, the genre as a whole will prolly just use one tag). Iiiii dunno... I think I know where you are coming from, I'm just not sure you can put it in a linear spectrum (like top-to-bottom, or left-to-right), with RPO being on one end and whatever happens to be the absolute golden standard of "this is absolutely surely LitRPG" happens to be. To begin with, as you noted elsewhere, and I'm 99.7% sure you are correct, there seems to be at least two types of LitRPG: the "there's actually a real game to be played", and the Portal variety (and, among other things, they differ in that Portal can very easily have things like permadeath, while the "game" variety needs some more convoluted explanations). So I guess it's more like a bunch of on-off switches, and by some odd mechanism we will may not ever be fully aware off, different combinations of them being turned on gives us this feeling we are trying to define? More or less this, basically: I think the flavors route may be the best choice. Like, trying to find out all the icecreams flavors there are out there, then trying to find out what is it that make them all icecream, if that makes any sense! =)
Yyyyep!! I'm not well-read enough (and the genre being so new, so young, and evolving so quickly, let alone with the forefathers being russians whose books may not be very well translated, or even known to non-russian-speakers) to comment on the whole list, but looking at it from the videogame side of things, you've done a very comprehensive list of what you can do in current videogames (from staples of the RPG genre, like quests, to niche games like dungeon builders(*)), and how that's currently extrapolated to the LitRPG I've seen. (*) Crudely put, Tower Defense is a genre of its own, usually on Mobile; Dungeon Builder would be something like the "Dungeon Keeper" series tries to do. They do share the very core design of the player trying to stop waves of NPCs by laying traps, the main difference being the complexity of both what the player can do, and how smart the NPCs are. Interestingly enough... from a technical point of view, I'm dead certain that "Group-building" would be the most advanced of all the features, or in other words the feature that would take the longest to be achieved in real-life to the degree of naturalism we usually see in LitRPG (i.e. if you were writing about a game set in 30 years, and you asked me to bet, from that list, which feature is the least likely to exist in 30 years, my money is on Group-building as it would need the most advanced AI to simulate those NPCs. Which sort of makes Harem be the bleeding edge of LitRPG, but don't quote me on that!! ) Eeehhhh... ... waaait a sec. You mean the objective of the game was about clarity? Damn, I thought we were trying to confuse each other, and unsuspecting readers, as much as possible!!! But isn't that a bit the point why genres are usually defined by components, and not their plot? (even if their components do tend to allow some plots better than others?) Like, sci-fi has some world-altering bit of tech that seems at least remotely possible and has some impact on the society as a whole... but the stakes there can be anything from discovering a crime to the whole world from going bang to have some interesting conversations with robots and aliens. In other words: I think that, at least loosely, we can define if the game as it was designed is high-stakes or low-stakes (we do that very much today, with "hardcore" versus "casual"). My usual argument is that a commercial game will tend to be low-stakes simply because the all-knowing Market wants it so (casual games tend to do better than hardcore games), but that's something that can be defined. Now, what the specific stakes are gonna be for the MC, that's I believe something that cannot be defined, and methinks are particular to each story. Eeeexactly, methinks! =) There's little doubt that, technically speaking, saving the world is higher stakes than saving your pet (because if the world dies, so does your pet!), so that's simply a matter of scale. But, even as Marvel films show, sometimes (usually?) the personal stakes are what matter (the relationship between the heroes, for example). Last but not least: ... methinks, at this point, you are talking about Storytelling as a whole. =) As in (and not trying to be a smart-ass here, just trying to be a sounding board!), of course LitRPG, as literature, will need to have all the trappings that makes literature different from movies; and since literature is a form of storytelling, then it will have to comply with whatever it is that makes storytelling different from sculpture or architecture, and what makes in an artform, etc... just saying that tags & scales & trappings that LitRPG does NOT share with literature at large may be the secret sauce we are after here. As usual, the usual caveat: I guess! =)
