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Oooh, okay. It turns out isekai is even creepier when it doesn't have the excuse of being literal fanfiction where you try to keep Yamcha relevant into Dragon Ball Z, or just get a harem of fantasy women who are inexplicably attracted to you and you're too socially inept to actually gently caress.
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Feb 1, 2021 10:36
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At least isekai focuses on the world and the characters you meet (the interesting part of RPGs) and the intersections of the real world and the game world. This guy just focuses on the most boring part of any RPG and monomanically drones on for how many chapters? All the tediousness of "number go up" without the dopamine hit. Like a trainspotter who doesn't even go out to see the trains, just spends time drawing up maintenance logs.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:38
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There's a problem I've seen with a lot of amateur, even teenage writing not really understanding the whole 'narrative' and 'story' concept, and often struggling with 'character' that isn't just transparent author-insert as well. Doesn't usually get published, but genre fiction can be willing to put out absolutely anything that ticks the right boxes.
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Feb 1, 2021 13:46
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nonathlon posted:That's a good way to describe it. I always figured one of the defining qualities of fan fiction is that the world and characters were already assumed, so the author could skip the set up and world building, moving immediately on to their story of how Picard romancing Harry Potter. That's how fan fiction works in an ideal world, but to me it seems like a lot of this litrpg-tier amateur fiction just doesn't have the "Picard romancing Harry Potter"-part either. The author skips all the setup, or blasts through the setup in the most convoluted way possible (how about a tutorial fairy as a character?), to get to the "meat" of their work which is about the vague smell of a character after it rains interacting with The System in completely uninteresting and obvious ways. What little story there is only exists as a framing device to so the author can funnel midbosses/silkpants at the protagonist so they can show off the cool new skill combination that the author just thought of. Though sometimes you just get a tournament arc where the potato joins a yearly single-elimination tournament with 32 rounds of 1v1, possibly hinting that the story takes place in a xianxia-scaled universe or that the author is not too great with numbers either.
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Feb 1, 2021 15:00
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My favorite part of those is the author writing the mv figuring out ‘never before seen clever uses’ of skills that are so incredibly obvious that it renders their whole world full of idiots. I’ll just use my Examine skill to figure out an enemy’s weakness! Nobody’s ever thought to do that despite every character having it from level 1 onwards!
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Feb 1, 2021 16:21
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I've lost the plot of this conversation, are we talking about bad books or video games?
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Feb 1, 2021 17:01
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Serephina posted:I've lost the plot of this conversation, are we talking about bad books or video games? They have combined into a single thing now. LitRPG is almost all about people gaining powers or going to world's that run on Videogame rules usually complete with loving popups and status screens they can access that the author will lovingly detail every few sentences. There's also an obsession with grinding. Like just detailing how their character spends 19 hours a day optimizing killing slimes as they respawn for maximizing their EXP and money
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Feb 1, 2021 17:07
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Serephina posted:I've lost the plot of this conversation, are we talking about bad books or video games? Yes.
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Feb 1, 2021 17:08
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Naksu posted:That's how fan fiction works in an ideal world, but to me it seems like a lot of this litrpg-tier amateur fiction just doesn't have the "Picard romancing Harry Potter"-part either. The author skips all the setup, or blasts through the setup in the most convoluted way possible (how about a tutorial fairy as a character?), to get to the "meat" of their work which is about the vague smell of a character after it rains interacting with The System in completely uninteresting and obvious ways. What little story there is only exists as a framing device to so the author can funnel midbosses/silkpants at the protagonist so they can show off the cool new skill combination that the author just thought of. It's still fan fiction, but it's fanfic of game mechanics, bizarre though that is to contemplate.
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Feb 1, 2021 17:29
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Zore posted:They have combined into a single thing now. Man I remember reading The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters years back and thinking It'll never catch on! 
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Feb 1, 2021 17:36
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Zore posted:They have combined into a single thing now. LitRPG is almost all about people gaining powers or going to world's that run on Videogame rules usually complete with loving popups and status screens they can access that the author will lovingly detail every few sentences. It is wide spread enough that there was a series that made fun of the premise. The "Overly Cautious Hero" light novel/anime series is about a guy who gets isekai'd to a world that works off of videogame stats and spends all his time grinding and training but the series makes fun of him for doing so.
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Feb 1, 2021 17:41
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I still think the weirdest part about LitRPGs is that they all function on almost identical mechanics (mostly because people cargo cult the poo poo out of it). Mechanics which, largely, do not and have never existed in any video game ever but sort of seem like they might if you've never played an MMO or RPG.
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Feb 1, 2021 17:42
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Some of my favorite stories started off as some nerd's roleplaying group, but they at least had the good graces to lop off the hours of rules lawyering behind every six-second action
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Feb 1, 2021 17:45
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Zore posted:I still think the weirdest part about LitRPGs is that they all function on almost identical mechanics (mostly because people cargo cult the poo poo out of it). Mechanics which, largely, do not and have never existed in any video game ever but sort of seem like they might if you've never played an MMO or RPG. Like with a lot of bad fanfiction, probably because they all rip off each other and become an incestuous ouroborous of tedium and obsession. I imagine they're generally written by people who find that kind of narrative bizarrely compelling or comforting, or just easy to write. That and video games at least try to have a story and some variety, which means you have to actually come up with ideas, and mechanics that aren't easy to come up with 'exploits' that are just obvious, clearly intended applications of mechanics.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:13
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Brawnfire posted:Some of my favorite stories started off as some nerd's roleplaying group, but they at least had the good graces to lop off the hours of rules lawyering behind every six-second action Didn’t The Expanse start that way?
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Feb 1, 2021 18:22
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Didn’t The Expanse start that way? If recall what I read properly, it was supposed to be an MMORPG but didn't make it, so ended up being played as a forum RPG, then that became the novels. And yeah, that was the main example I was thinking of, and there's lots of moments that are VERY CLEARLY roleplaying moments but they don't fuckin' like, say it.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:27
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Didn’t The Expanse start that way? Brawnfire posted:If recall what I read properly, it was supposed to be an MMORPG but didn't make it, so ended up being played as a forum RPG, then that became the novels. And yeah, that was the main example I was thinking of, and there's lots of moments that are VERY CLEARLY roleplaying moments but they don't fuckin' like, say it. Also, the forum RPG content only covered the first book or two.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:32
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NoneMoreNegative posted:Man I remember reading The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters years back and thinking It'll never catch on! Also, that one feels different from the standard LitRPG stuff that comes up in this thread. It’s more outsider art by someone whose brain is clearly not working the same way as most of humanity. It’s super fascinating even if it’s hard to read because it’s “my sister did that thing where she acted like she was putting her hair in a ponytail but didn’t” expanded to novel form.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:39
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Japanese Western-style sword and sorcery fantasy fiction has always been heavily inspired by games. Record of Lodoss War (one of the most influential early fantasy series) was a novelisation of the author's Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and two of the most iconic fantasy IPs in the country are Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (the former of which started life as an unofficial Dungeons and Dragons video game, and the latter of which was inspired by Ultima and Wizardry). This isn't to say that all Japanese sword and sorcery fiction is game-literature, but it's got more frequent and obvious game DNA in it than British and American fantasy on average.
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Feb 1, 2021 20:53
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Unlike western fantasy, of course, which never draws from Dungeons and Dragons.
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Feb 1, 2021 21:13
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Also, that one feels different from the standard LitRPG stuff that comes up in this thread. It’s more outsider art by someone whose brain is clearly not working the same way as most of humanity. It’s super fascinating even if it’s hard to read because it’s “my sister did that thing where she acted like she was putting her hair in a ponytail but didn’t” expanded to novel form. Yeah, that's always been the distinction I've drawn. Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters is nigh-unreadable, but it's real outsider art: the product of someone with a unique mindset trying to express himself in his own idiom. LitRPG, by contrast, is generic power-fantasy stories dressed up in video-game dress, not as any kind of real artistic expression, but because it's easy and it sells. It's completely derivative. That reminds me: is it clear what the first LitRPG novels were? I know there were anime inspirations and the like, but what started this off? It felt like this nonsense sprung fully-formed into being as a genre with 1000 garbage Kindle Unlimited novels, all of which were already deeply cliche and derivative of one another.
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Feb 1, 2021 22:20
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Antivehicular posted:Yeah, that's always been the distinction I've drawn. Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters is nigh-unreadable, but it's real outsider art: the product of someone with a unique mindset trying to express himself in his own idiom. LitRPG, by contrast, is generic power-fantasy stories dressed up in video-game dress, not as any kind of real artistic expression, but because it's easy and it sells. It's completely derivative. Its been around since the 70s (When Dungeons and Dragons became a thing), so they've been around as long as RPGs have been a thing. It seems like Quag Keep by Andre Nortorn might be the first LitRPG novel.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:01
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Antivehicular posted:That reminds me: is it clear what the first LitRPG novels were? I know there were anime inspirations and the like, but what started this off? It felt like this nonsense sprung fully-formed into being as a genre with 1000 garbage Kindle Unlimited novels, all of which were already deeply cliche and derivative of one another. Edit: IShallRiseAgain posted:Its been around since the 70s (When Dungeons and Dragons became a thing), so they've been around as long as RPGs have been a thing. Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 23:25 on Feb 1, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 23:14
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The whole isekai/litRPG phenomenon is basically just a revamped form of 90's-era mailing list fanfics and late-00's TVTropes animesque works. There's been mostly-walled-off groups of amateur writers who mostly write and consume one particular style of fiction pretty much since the internet began, and they tend to follow the same basic personalities and gimmicks- someone post that guy from the TVTropes forums talking about how he had a crisis over how his plot couldn't possibly work because he did the math and his hero would need four health potions to beat the boss and only had three.Antivehicular posted:That reminds me: is it clear what the first LitRPG novels were? I know there were anime inspirations and the like, but what started this off? It felt like this nonsense sprung fully-formed into being as a genre with 1000 garbage Kindle Unlimited novels, all of which were already deeply cliche and derivative of one another. I don't know if it was patient zero but the manhwa The Gamer is probably the most obvious source of the genre, there's a pretty clear throughput from the comic to its fanfic to people stealing the gimmick for their own to the gimmick becoming a story in itself. It started getting jammed in with the 'trapped in an MMO' plotline afterwards and developed to the modern mostly-isekai format from there.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:35
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Sham bam bamina! posted:The Wikipedia page currently says that it started in Russia, but an earlier revision says, "The genre started out in Korea as a somewhat successful fanfic experiment. From here, a new kind of story (about gamers trapped in VR gaming worlds) gained some popularity in Korea. A few hyper-aware Russians sensing an opportunity started to dabble in this new genre, releasing LitRPG books in Russia." The edit history is pretty great; there's an edit war with Aleron Kong, the guy who managed to trademark the term, melting down over "salty forum posts" in the edit reasons but somehow getting his way in the end and scrubbing his story from the page. I haven't read it myself, but I found multiple people mentioning it actually follows Dungeons and Dragons mechanics, so its not just a book in the dungeon and dragons settings.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:37
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Huh. That is very interesting!
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Feb 1, 2021 23:41
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Djeser posted:Unlike western fantasy, of course, which never draws from Dungeons and Dragons. I mean, D&D was cribbed whole from Tolkein and the like and people cribbing from D&D didn't stop others from cribbing from Tolkein and his imitators instead.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:42
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They were a fanfic community that all decided to publish at the same time because kindle made it free to publish yourself and get paid if people read it.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:52
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yeah there's poo poo like this from the 80s still up http://www.rogermwilcox.com/ADnD/index.html
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Feb 2, 2021 00:17
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There's some stuff which is kinda acceptable, like That Time I Got Re-Incarnated As A Slime.
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Feb 2, 2021 00:37
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The Lone Badger posted:There's some stuff which is kinda acceptable, like That Time I Got Re-Incarnated As A Slime. "This specific creepy weird isekai power fantasy thing is okay because I like it."
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Feb 2, 2021 00:40
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Pretty much yeah. It's definitely a power fantasy and contains exactly zero depth, but it's not suicide-inducingly dull like some of the stuff described and the creepy levels are relatively low.
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Feb 2, 2021 00:44
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Well, that's because litRPG is an irredeemable form of writing. The writing really brings to mind Christian Humber Reloaded. Vincent Van Goatse posted:I mean, D&D was cribbed whole from Tolkein and the like and people cribbing from D&D didn't stop others from cribbing from Tolkein and his imitators instead. D&D was cribbed from a lot more than just Tolkein.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:31
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The Lone Badger posted:There's some stuff which is kinda acceptable, like That Time I Got Re-Incarnated As A Slime. That one has the protagonist literally perform a war crime, and the book goes out of its way to justify his actions and act as though they did nothing wrong. The war crime they commit is planning to slaughter an entire army even if they surrender. He then goes and instantly slaughters the army.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:55
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The one thing I know that's actually interesting about litRPG is that it's got some kind of inspiration/symbiosis thing going on with "cultivation" works, which are basically the Chinese/Japanese-language version of the same thing but usually drawing more directly from wuxia and Eastern philosophy. They're also often freely available, I think, or at least the fan translations are usually freely available. The one vibe I get, and this could be wildly off as I'm only tangentially aware of these two as genres at all, is that cultivation stuff tends to be about achieving higher and higher power levels, while litRPG seems to focus more on acting out power fantasies. Like the difference between "I want to be the very best" and "I want to be able to do anything I want". I think all these genres are interesting on some level, the same way most outsider art is interesting, but whether the individual works with in litRPG/cultivation light novels/whatever you want to call it are any good themselves is up for debate. I don't think that the genre as a whole is without merit, but I do think that it's extremely unlikely that this specific community that has emerged around these works will create a work of artistic merit within that genre. Also it all reminds me of a My Little Pony/Fallout crossover fanfic that made both VATS and getting perks on level up part of the universe to the extent that at the end of each chapter the protagonist would earn a perk related to what they'd been doing. I don't like being reminded of that. 
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Feb 2, 2021 03:10
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Djeser posted:
I was about to ask "is that the million-word-long one that's really rapey," but I realized that might not narrow it down
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Feb 2, 2021 03:15
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Antivehicular posted:I was about to ask "is that the million-word-long one that's really rapey," but I realized that might not narrow it down If it's Fallout Equestria, i believe that counts as one of the longest english language works of writing outside of like, Harvey Darger and I hate that i know this. If there's a longer fanfic then please do not tell me, some knowledge is best kept secret.
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Feb 2, 2021 03:34
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Fallout: Equestria has several comparably long spinoff fanfictions of itself.
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Feb 2, 2021 03:40
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The Faraway Paladin is solid isekai. It's a sturdy, wholesome fantasy adventure like you'd get from, say, Diana Wynne Jones, where the reincarnation elements (the protagonist was a salaryman who committed suicide due to severe clinical depression) mainly serve to shape our viewpoint character's philosophy, worldview, and choice of religion (because he's an actual, proper paladin in the 'holy knight' sense). There's no weird harem stuff, just the MC's bromance with an elven bandit he recruits as his sidekick, and it's got a charming melancholy-but-hopeful tone.
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Feb 2, 2021 03:54
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Don Gato posted:If it's Fallout Equestria, i believe that counts as one of the longest english language works of writing outside of like, Harvey Darger and I hate that i know this. Henry Darger. The existence of the band Harvey Danger leads to a lot of this mistake.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:17
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