LitRPG is very exciting to me. It's a genuinely new genre of fiction writing and that's such a rare thing. LitRPGs by their nature have a toolset of storytelling devices that no other genre has, which is incredible. Things like HP, mana, and skill progression were invented as practicalities of gaming, but they've been shown to have tremendous potential as story tools.
Yet, the genre hasn't had its big, defining work yet. There's no LitRPG that people who don't read LitRPGs know about. There's no masterpiece, yet. I have some opinions on why.
Royal Road
LitRPG lives on Royal Road and Royal Road rewards grind. If you want to get noticed there, you have to absolutely churn words. This makes editing difficult. No one writing on Royal Road is doing seven drafts of their story, not when one arc/novel is 100,000+ words and they put out one or two a year. That's Stephen King levels of prolific and his bibliography is real hit or miss. (Not to mention that his early career was fueled by a serious cocaine habit.)
The genre is still waiting for a crafted novel, the kind of book that takes a couple years to write. Something where all of these unique tools get center stage and come together to tell a sincere and emotionally resonant story.
Isekai
Up top, I'm not going to throw shade on the isekai genre. Plenty of isekai books have found their place in the literary canon, including foundational works like 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. However, the thing that makes an isekai work is the wonder of the world. The Oz books have two pages of world-building for every page of plot and the joy of reading them is in wishing you were there.
That's the exact reason that I think isekai holds LitRPGs back. LitRPGs and their predecessor, cultivation fiction, have their heart in character growth. Narnia is pretty light on character arcs. Eustace Scrubb's entire journey happens over two chapters. Lewis gets away with that because Eustace is literally transformed by Jesus.
Great character stories have a character who is firmly rooted in their world. We know who a person is by their context as much as their inner life. The deeper your sense of the character at the beginning, the more their change matters. Characters who get dumped in an unfamiliar world right off the bat are difficult to get a strong sense for. It's why Bilbo Baggins is so much more beloved than any of the Pevensies.
Epics Everywhere
By the time a LitRPG breaks out of the Royal Road audience, it tends to be about the length of the Lord of the Rings. That's daunting as fuck. It's like trying to get into reading X-Men, but without the soft reboot every four to five years. Marvel and DC are experts at onboarding new readers because their business model has demanded it for 70+ years, now.
There isn't a LitRPG that people can read to dip their toes in. If you want to get into fantasy, you can read just 'The Hobbit'. It's all there, one-and-done, if you like. Yes, the core following of most genres prefer series, but the defining works for a genre tend to be standalone or semi-so.
Hard sci-fi has 'Contact'. Dystopia has '1984' and 'Brave New World'. Fantasy has 'The Hobbit'. Cyberpunk has 'Neuromancer'. Books you can read without feeling like you should go to the next one. Look at the discussions around 'Dune'; a lot of movie fans are hesitant to read the book because the series is six books long and the very first thing anyone will tell you about those books is that they get very weird, very fast.
The same is true of 'Ender's Game'. In fact, a lot of series go into places that the first book could not prepare you for or, just as divisively, taper off in quality as they go. Series intimidate casual readers and casual readers are the difference between a nascent genre and a full-fledged genre.
LitRPG needs some standalone books; stories where the character only gains three levels and still accomplishes the thing; stories that aren't asking for a sequel.
Video Game vs TTRPG
Every LitRPG that I've read significantly has its roots very clearly in video game RPGs. That jives cleanly with isekai, as starting a video game is kind of like being transported into a new world, but video games tend to have a tutorial section that is rarely much fun. Also, you tend to learn the mechanics by repeating sections of story.
Neither of those is an option in a novel.
On the surface, TTRPGs don't seem much better. There's a textbook you're supposed to read before you start playing. However, every single dungeon master on the planet can tell you that players who read the book are a rarity. Great DMs know how to teach the mechanics while telling the story. Go watch Matt Mercer run a one-shot for Stephen Colbert or Brennan Lee Mulligan run a game for four drag queens.
That balance of story and mechanics is what LitRPG frequently lacks. Too many LitRPG writers are gamers, not dungeon masters.
The other benefit of drawing from the TTRPG tradition is that this solves the isekai problem. A good TTRPG character is created as part of the world, not a stranger who needs a grand tour. There's also a party. Instead of one main character and some side characters who may or may not stick around, you have four-to-six major characters who are all on the journey. These characters playing off each other and growing together further supports the character-driven aspect that I believe is central to great LitRPGs.
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Yes, I know some people will argue that 'Dungeon Crawler Carl' is the breakthrough masterpiece that my premise claims does not exist yet. My argument against that is how DCC feels almost like a parody of the genre.
It's like if your first exposure to superheroes was Deadpool instead of Superman. DCC, like Deadpool, is not a foundational work. Imagine seeing 'Deadpool' and wanting more superheroes, so you watch 'Batman Begins'. That's a jarring shift in stories.
Whatever the first masterpiece of LitRPG is going to be, I think it needs to be sincere and relatively grounded. DCC belongs with Discworld and 'Snow Crash', stories that couldn't exist without a body of literature to support them.
In conclusion
I'm excited for LitRPGs to come into their own. It's so cool to be here watching a new toolbox get opened and played with. It took a few centuries for novels to get going, though, and I'm just hoping that I'm still around to see LitRPG move out of the pulp space and into a place of its own.
by LoveAndViscera
15 Comments
I’m not really sure what ‘litRPG’ is even from reading this.
How is it different from fantasy?
DCC is starting to be that breakout work, with it being picked up for mainstream publishing, the TV series being optioned, articles in genre blogs, coverage in YouTube videos, etc.
Other than that, what holds them back is the generally average quality of writing and editing, especially in a genre that primarily exists as a web serial.
Feels like you are saying that LitRPG needs to be sanitized all of its fundamental characteristics in order to have a mainstream hit. (Even though DCC is already objectively that mainstream hit)
IMO the reasons it doesn’t reach mainstream are also the reasons it’s popular. People enjoy the episodic power fantasy that takes time to have fun instead of focus on a tight narrative that would fit a trad published book.
Admittedly, I’ve never read or even heard of a litRPG, but I’ve played a fair number of video game and tabletop RPGs, and have read a lot of books.
It frankly sounds to me like it takes away the best part of books – subtlety, nuance, engineered uncertainty, metaphor, etc., and replaces them with clunky mechanics like HP and XP counters, and tech tree progression.
Maybe I’m just not the target audience, but color me uninterested.
>Things like HP, mana, and skill progression were invented as practicalities of gaming, but they’ve been shown to have tremendous potential as story tools.
No… they haven’t. Some small # of people really want to read about game mechanics but that is a niche, niche crew.
I find the idea of reading about someone playing a game to be impossibly boring. It sort of exposes how silly the whole concept of fiction is by setting the stakes at “man wins a video game” which is just not a stake I can ever care about.
It’s the first time in my life that I read about LitRPGs.
DCC is not a parody of the genre; litRPGs are just inherently silly and unserious. It’s a video game book. You can’t really escape it and, if you do, your book just ends up corny or way too edgy.
DCC is a masterpiece and the absolute pinnacle of the genre for a reason. There will never be a better litRPG. It did it.
Peak reddit
What is about churning out a bunch of mediocre content based on videogame mechanics that leads you to believe a masterpiece is in the works?
Man its not for most people. I tried dungeon crawler carl series, found it too childish with all the points system even though i like rpg games somewhat. Most of us just to keep lit and rpg separate and not to mix up the two
Nothing. Absolutely nothing is holding it back. Your view is askew.
I will never understand the appeal of this genre, and I’ve read a lot of fantasy schlock.
You mean choose your own adventure books?
The thing I’ve found in most LitRPG is that the authors rely too heavily on the RPG mechanics at the expense of storytelling.
Sci-fi and fantasy have largely grown out of using genre as a crutch to prop up bad fiction, but it still has a bad reputation for it in some circles. The reputation why you get people asking for ‘anything but fantasy’ book recommendations.
LitRPG has potential, but except for breakout hits like DCC it’s not ready for mass appeal.
The reason Dungeon Crawler Carl has broken through is because it’s more accessible and less niche. Many sci fi/fantasy readers are never going to be interested in stat heavy game mechanics as part of their reading experience. As someone who actually enjoys TTRPGs, *I* don’t want it in my reading.