It's the most progression evident type of story in the Progression Fantasy subgenre. What can I say? I like numbers going up.

 

I don't think I've ever had a more satisfying reader experience than when an author lays out a problem for the protag to overcome (take Ched's example for instance), and the protag then proceeds to power game the solution in the way i was thinking as the problem was being laid out.

It's all about that satisfaction.

 

Well, I'm about to give this a shot. Find a LitRPG/Gamer fiction of ASOIAF from an author who's previous work I enjoyed. Let's see how it goes

 

Anyone have any suggestion of good quality LitRPG? I'm more into the HP, ASOIAF, Marvel Movie-verse genre, but I'm open to new fandom as well.

 

This sums up so much of the genre it's not even funny.

 

I definitely understand not wanting HP. I've been going over in my head for ages what a stab/ shot to the brain is supposed to be in a litrpg, because just doing 'big damage' is stupid.

Maybe your skin becomes harder and lower physical tier beings with shittier weapons don't penetrate (to use your example), but that also gets a bit too close to cultivation stories for me where you might as well not try if they're the next tier up (i also don't like that).

Having said all that, I'm not quite sure you need to eschew MP in the same way. People often try come up with other ways to give magic drawbacks so you just can't spam, but they're often just really inelegant in comparison.

 

That feels a bit arbitrary and maybe too gamey (for my tastes).

Maybe needing reagents to cast spells is a more elegant solution? Serves the same purpose and gets rid of the numbers you want gone.

 

I would get rid of numbers almost completely.

You'd have 6 different stats:
Strength
Agility
Endurance
Magic
Luck
Bloodline Ability - think something like a bloodline from naruto or noble phantasm from fate stay night. Some kind of cheat. And to make it juicy have the protagonist not have one but his enemies would have it. Keep the underdog thing going.

And I'd rank them from F- lowest to E,D,C,B,A and S+ highest. three tiers in each letter F-, F, F+ .This way there is a limit to how strong someone can get. In all gamer fanfics the protagonist levels within a couple of months to a god.

You wouldn't have a level up system. But you would have a quest system in essence. And by quest I mean fighting against strong enemies and overcoming them or solving clues to greater mysteries which the protagonist get's rewarded with skill points(which are rarer!) and artifacts(which are rare).

This would make the protagonist pro active and put him in crazy situations instead of grinding for 90% of the story.

The way the protagonist would level his stats early on is by training really. And not in those stupid game fanfics where they train 5 stats at the same time. But serious workouts with rests training 1 or 2 stats at the same time. Going from F to E would take less time and effort than say going from B to A. The higher he gets the harder and harder and longer it takes. Going from A to S rank would take decades or overcoming crazy odds and achieving enlightment like in a wuxia story .

S+ rank would be the epitome of human. there would be maybe like a handfull of people with multiple stats at S+. And you'd have enemies and century old monsters who are not humans and have reached SS rank or SSS+ rank for instance. This way you keep the power scaling.

With skill points obtained from quests or fighting and winning from dangeorus enmies you can unlock skills that are not easy to attain. This gives them an edge compared to your normal person who has to obtain, study and learn it. And skills can be either passives or abilities. Say a passive like regeneration or waterwalking. Or a ability like fireball or teleportation.

And the skills would also have their own stat tiers on how strong they but they can't be leveled. The only thing that changes is how quicker and less resources it costs to use them if you keep using them.

Say fireball has a cast time and takes 1/2 of your mana pool, if you keep using it and learn the intricaties you may be able to instantly cast it with only using 1/20 of your mana pool.

You would have no HP bars or mana bars.

Powerscale wise F- would be a very frail 12 year old girl. Whereas E+ would be a very fit young woman. D+ would be a very fit young man. And C+ would be the greatest athletes. B rank is where you start going into supernatural terrotory. And A+ is pretty much the best of the best and hitting S- rank can take decades.

Of course you'd have all kinds of shortcuts with artifacts and intrinsic op bloodlines to spice stuff up.

 

I would look at how Burning Wheel handles practice time and skill progression. It's very very slow to practice, but realistic.

 

The tabletop rules.