Didn't love Red Mage. It's alright, but really a meh story.

I remember liking Tao Wong's Life in the North series, but it gets bogged down in the later books (It's pretty generic, but I liked it more than Red Mage). His other novel, A Thousand Li is a xianxia novel that's pretty decent.

Towers of Heaven by Cameron Milan is a pretty good one.

Reborn: Apocalypse by L M Kerr I remember liking quite a bit. The audiobook narrator was annoying with some of the voices though, but mostly okay.

The Land series by Aleron Kong is one that people like, but I kind of hate.

Cradle by Will Wight isn't LitRPG, but hits the same progression fantasy vibes from the genre.


Most of what I've read for this genre is like an action movie that you can have on in the background while you do other things. It's not incredible, but it's entertaining. Like if you're listening to the audiobook, and you miss some stuff because you're doing something else, it's not hard to get sucked back in and not miss much.

 

I hated Life in the North. I remember the MC feeling like he was written by a teenage angst monster. I got like to the second book, and from memory he was just constantly raging and showing no character growth. I peaced out there.

 

@Ched
Here are a couple of the best of the litrpg novels I've come across:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33827079-catharsis

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25342750-survival-quest

In the middle of something atm so can't leave an extended review, but they're readable 3/5 fodder for the most part

 

Feels odd to me that someone could like one and hate the other as I found that they're both pretty similar lol, but to each their own. I think I just liked the level up system more in Life of the North. I didn't like the spell interweaving in Red Mage as much. It got confusing to me.

None of the published ones are amazing, which is why I hope Cxjenious was being truthful on the last page haha.

 

Whether I like a story or not hinges entirely on the protagonist. Like, ninety percent of it is that.

I read books, especially litRPGs, for escapism. The second I stop vibing with the protagonist, I'm out. It's almost like I start to de-sync with the character in the book and everything starts falling apart. I start to cringe and turn on the character to the point where I just have to drop the book, that's what happened with me in LitN.

The mechanics of the litRPG mean very little to me as long as they're sensible and written by a person who's actually played a video game before.

I didn't really go into this though because the OP specifically mentioned designing a litRPG system.

Protagonist > Dialogue > World > Supporting Cast > Story > Mechanics, in that order, for me.

 

levelup.pub has a page explaining LitRPG/GameLit, how to write a litRPG and an example story. There is also an 'all time best' for each category but that's ridiculously subjective especially for this genre.

Also, I noticed there isn't a LitRPG recommendation thread. Am I the only one hesitating in its creation because its going to be full of crap?

 

I think you can tie a lot of it back into these authors wanting to get over the 'boring' bits, not realizing their destination becomes all the more unfulfilling if you skip the journey.

Like I said earlier, I am very much a proponent of Less is More. Someone should write a story where the main character has Frostbolt (insert any other standard spell/skill you so choose), and that's it. Work around how such a 'character' would be able to survive and win. Get creative, have fun with it.

Too many authors rush for the endorphin highs of LOOT and SKILL GAINS that they forget to full explore and enjoy the ones they already have. I mentioned it earlier, it's what triggers me about 'blink strike' in so many of these stories - you don't NEED more than that one ability to make a fascinating story, and instead they add on ten more because it's 'cool.'

Ultimately that's what I find the biggest problem in this genre. Too many of these authors feel like they've come straight from their DnD campaigns, or watching anime, and just write what they think sounds cool in their heads without thinking it through - some sounds like they've even come straight from being ganked in WoW hilariously, given how they react to PKers (who calls it that?!).

As I said, none of these are masterworks. Not even close. I'm still addicted to them though.

The bard one is more to my tastes. A local, contained mystery, a limited set of bardic skills and an interesting 'profession' in Lorekeeper (or something to that effect) where the main character is compelled to explore the mysteries of the hamlet around him by both experience gains and just simple curiosity.

The second one was a bit shit, unfortunately.

It often feels like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to LitRPG (often might be an understatement). It has been getting a lot more popular though. I'm biding my time until the good shit comes.

Maybe I'll even pull my finger out one day and give it a go myself... @Jon and I certainly talk about it enough...

 

This will be a longn', but should be fun!

For Body, I think I've mentioned before that Dex =/= Agility, and I feel the latter is more important of a stat than the former. I'm not sure how much you want to bloat that category, but:

• Strength (obvious what it represents, but could also roll damage resistance into it. Logically speaking, it's one's strength IRL that dictates how much you're hurt by physical damage)
• Endurance (stamina, how long you can run for etc)
• Agility (how nimble and in control of your body you are. Dancing, acrobatics, parkour etc)
• Dexterity (how skillful you are with your hands. Archery, Jewelcrafting, musician etc)

I'm not sure you need a 'recovery' stat. I'd even go as far as to nerf it into the ground to put a higher emphasis on healers and healing abilities.

Mind is one that's always troubled me because I inherently cringe at a number representing someone's IQ/Intellect. How do you even quantify that? What does it even mean? Even if you were to simplify it, how does it work? Can you learn as much as you want, but find yourself up against an artificial wall when someone tries to teach you something new because your Int isn't high enough? Maybe if your Int isn't high enough, you'll just randomly forget things and not even know what you've forgotten a la Neville?

I don't mind Mind stats increasing your 'connection' with the systems, if you get what I mean. You've already set out a system for it to be linked. Skills. Maybe a higher Intellect stat allows for you to slot more skills, and maybe magic based classes need more skills to be effective, thus their reliance on the stat?

Maybe Intelligence can increase the number of skills you can 'slot' and Wisdom increases their effectiveness? (all classes should benefit from Int and Wisdom to some extent, so this ticks that box too).

Obviously, this is only if you mind -like I do - quantifying intellectual stats. I read a book recently where the character started with 0 Int and, while he was mentally able to articulate like normal, he could only communicate like an infant. It felt wrong and forced to me.

Moving on, I think Perception is a good third Mind stat. Maybe this manifests and you being more likely to pick up on environmental/ social queues and maybe the system aids you if you have a high stat by highlighting things. Tracks being highlighted, a feeling of 'wrongness' if you're being lied to that increases in severity the higher the stat etc.

Spirit is a bit easier to nail down I think. Will is a good one. Resisting mind altering effects and the like etc.

I think the stat that governs Mana regeneration probably belongs here? (hard to say without knowing how magic works in your world). Could call it Soul or Energy?

If you wanna fuck with alignments, you could do a Karma stat that can go in the negative that can affect how you're received by the correspondingly aligned factions.

Something like 'Faith' could also be a stat here that governs your relationship with 'Gods' if they're a thing, The higher this stat, the more divine power your god gives you etc.

Skills
I really like what you've lined out here. Not much more to add, honestly. You can have a lot of fun coming up with ways to unlock these skills, and even more fun with finding out ways your characters can create some unique (OP, because you know damn well that's what we'd all do) combinations to free up more slots. I think this system is actually fun enough to do a lot of the heavy lifting systems wise. Great idea!

Perks are a funny idea but will probably get a little difficult to keep track of and manage, lol. You could probably use this as comic relief to be honest. I'm sure every teenager (and writer) would have the Habitual Procrastinator perk.


This is a good solid start. Interesting to see where you take it.

 

I like the premise - it sounds like a setting wide system, and one that people who live in have an actual plan for dealing with, which is always nice.

So a bunch of thoughts on this. Not necessarily questions for you to answer in thread, but things to think about for writing it.

Stats:

I like symmetry in stats, or some form of mechanic to abstract them as a venn diagram. Splitting into Body (meat vehicle), Mind (Meat-based driver), Soul (non-Meat-based driver) works for this, and giving each of them three stats works for this, but consider if there's a way to have the 'same' stat across the three regions.

Alternatively, you could have seven - a Body, Mind, Soul, Body/Mind, Body/Soul, Mind/Soul, All. I don't know what you'd want them to be, but it gives a starting place.

Exalted (White Wolf RPG system) has
Physical: Strength, Dexterity, Stamina
Social: Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance
Mental: Perception, Intelligence, Wits

They can be vaguely broken down into "the one you attack with", "how well you attack with it", and "base defence"; although it doesn't work quite as well in practice, and they only line up because the designers forced them to.

I really like that you get semi-free points. It avoids people doing a massive single stat, but it still ends up with lopsided builds based on quests.

Skills:

Why six? This doesn't seem linked to the number of stats, or the number of categories. Having it be "3, 6, 9" sort of works, but at the same point, doesn't seem like a massively intuitive reason.

I'm assuming you can't overwrite a skill? Does this mean that you would automatically reject offers of a seventh skill, or just not get them? Because that will have an impact on whether people take the sixth skill, and thus still get perks, or don't, and never get perks again. In which case, there might be a stigma in accepting six skills before ~25, as it implies usage of the skills is needed, giving rise to a class system, and not in a fighter/wizard way.

How many skills can you combine? At once? Was it designed to maximise consolidation, or not?
If one person has 'Sprint', 'Jog', and 'Rowing' as three of their skills (for whatever reason), do they combine Spring and Jog into '2-Running', or any two into '2-Cardio'? Could they combine all three into '3-Cardio' which would be better?

If one person has '2-Cardio' from Sprint and Jog, and then gains 'Swimming', could they combine this to "level up" 2-Cardio into 3-Cardio; or would it become '3-Athelete'?

Could '2-Cardio' be combined with '2-Strength' to form '4-Athlete'? Would this be better or worse than combining '3-Cardio' with 'Football' to form '4-Athlete'?



How well recorded are the skills, timetables, and skill trees? Do people deliberately go and join the swimming team for six months to get a perk for holding their breath, or the skill, and then tend to leave? Is there a 'Ministry of the Statsheet' that helps people pick which skills to consolidate and refine, and find work to pick up anything else they might want to round themselves off?

Is there a reward system put in place by the government/local nobles/village head, for providing info on skill combine/declines, or is the ruling class okay with the status quo, and publishes 'self-help' documentation on how to get the best skills (in a similar manner to Xianxia Cultivation Manuals, where some might be trained in an easy, albeit not massively powerful, skill tree)? You mention people plan around getting the six skills through known combinations, so I'm assuming there's at least some form of information being spread, but how wide is it?


Can you combine perks? If you get 'reluctant runner' and 'reluctant swimmer', can they be combined into 'reluctant cardio', or is that too good? Is there a limit to the number of perks you can get? Can they overlap - if I get a perk to make me a better runner, and a perk to improve my breathing (I dunno), do the perks interact with each other?

 

I'm assuming the one aspect you want feedback on is the names for the three modifier characteristics in each category.

I'd say forget trying to label each modifier until you get a more defined idea of its use in story. The modifiers name shouldn't matter to much as its usage in story will give much more clarification then what any single word can do. Also, don't be afraid of adding your own spin to a characteristic as that can add novelty to an otherwise generic LitRPG.

As for your skills/perk system I haven't seen that twist used (declining skills ='s Perks), so you already have +1 to the novelty score there.

 

I have to ask, as having no interest in reading a LitRPG, what is the appeal? What makes a LitRPG an interesting read?

 

For me, the same joys I get out of playing an RPG, but vicariously living it through the protagonist.

LitRPG are becoming less of a 'genre' for me though, and more of a style or perspective. They're just fantasy books to me now, where there's a problem introduced, and I enjoy 'gaming' the solution to it with the protagonists.

Pure escapism.

 

You both make it sound like the reader has a say in the character's progression. Is that the case?