A Matter of Meta: An Overview on the Levels of LitRPG

I was not one for books for the longest time. With the exclusion of a few stories, I seldom found any written tale interesting enough to keep reading due to either the complexity of the narrative or simply not being engaging for me personally. This changed, however, when I ran into my now favourite genre of literature, the litRPG! What started as a tentative look at a singular book turned into me following multiple series and even branching out into other genres and classic works, such as The Lord of the Rings and The Lightbringer series. As it is Book Lovers' Day, I decided I'd give an overview of what this genre is and what kind of stories it can offer, complete with some book recommendations for each subsection!

So, first things first. A litRPG, short for literary roleplaying game, is a work of fiction (often sci-fi or fantasy) that incorporates varying levels of mechanics and terms from videogames and TTRPGs. For example, the characters may have levels and skills, monsters may inexplicably drop loot and obey game-esque patterns, or there may simply be an in-world class system and menus. In short, if it feels like the story is based on an actual roleplaying system, but isn't, odds are it's a litRPG! Note, stories actually based on existing systems such as D&D — like the many adventures of Drizzt, or a book set in the Dragon Age universe — are not a part of the genre by default but simply fantasy in a game’s setting.

Sorry Baldur's Gate, you don't count

In addition to feeling like reading about someone playing a game, another feature often present in this type of story is travelling to other worlds. If you have watched anime within the last few years, the term “isekai” should be relatively familiar to you. Loosely translating to “another world”, isekai is a common trope wherein the protagonist is sent to a different world from their own (often with the help of a heavy-duty vehicle) in which they get into all manner of adventure and shenanigans. I bring this up, as the vast majority of my library of litRPG literature follows this same trope, almost always featuring a literal game world for the main cast to explore. However, there are some outliers to this, as well as some variance in how deeply the mechanics are explored. These variances between the literary genre, the aforementioned trope, and the “level” of gamification of a created world resulted in me creating a personal isekai-game scale to help categorise the different styles seen within the genre. It’s not perfect in any sense, but it does give a fair picture of what litRPGs can offer!

A Scale of Game vs Real Life and Our World and Another world

Let’s start off by looking at the extreme edge of the scale, where both isekai and game levels are high! In this case, the story of the book often takes place in another world which is very clearly a game: characters openly check on their status sheets, discuss classes and experience points, and the world itself feels like a game with quests, dungeons, and single-dialogue NPCs. Great examples of this would be the Completionist Chronicles by Dakota Krout, Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko, or even Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw. These stories often feature very clear-cut in-game rules the characters have to follow (or rebel against), with character levels and skills having a large influence on confrontations. As the stories often take place in a game within the fictional world, they may also feature plotlines outside of the confines of the digital. Think Sword Art Online.

If we keep those isekai levels high but lower the game-esque qualities of the setting, however, we get something closer to a fish out of water story with the main character being thrust into a foreign world. It is important to note that even with the lower emphasis on game mechanics, they are still present in one way or another. A good example of this would be The Wandering Inn by pirateaba and Cinnamon Bun by RavensDagger in which a normal person from our reality finds themselves in a world with classes, magic, levels, and user interfaces, except these features are not part of a game but simply part of normal life. It may be a bit hard to grasp, so try imagining pulling out your phone and being able to see your own skills. You could have two levels in woodworking thanks to that evening class you took, but you have a “slow” debuff because it’s pollen season and your allergies are going crazy.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is and... odd example of an isekai.

In a high-isekai low-game setting, the gamified aspects of the world are often more obscure and seemingly random, with characters having odd classes or gaining levels or skills in an odd way. It still feels like a game, but one unrestrained from strict rulesets and more focused on the narrative itself. These stories often revolve around the main character adapting to their new surroundings and either saving or escaping said world.

Ok, but what about the opposite; high gamification, low isekai? Here we get into one of the rarer forms of litRPG, which also happens to be my absolute favourite, the real-world game! Much like the previous section, the main feature here is having very game-esque elements be a part of normal everyday life, except with one noticeable twist: there is no interaction with menus or “the world” and nothing is referred to in-game terms. Now, before you rise up in arms claiming that I’m simply describing generic fantasy, these settings and stories are still very much like listening to a D&D playthrough, just less meta.

A great example of this is the Arcane Ascension series by Andrew Rowe, in which characters go to dungeons — which contain different kinds of encounters and provide magical treasure — to gain divine marks, which provide the receiver with special powers. These Attunements (classes) grow with use, have well-documented uses and evolution paths, and even portray how strong the user is with a visible aura. All of this sounds like something from a Player’s Guide, but the characters and story treat these as natural phenomena instead of mechanics. A magically inclined character has mana points, but they are an in-world calculated estimate of power instead of an exact metre.

The final section in our little example is, regretfully, where this whole analogy breaks down a bit. I don’t doubt there are litRPG tales out there with very low game-esque elements or isekai tropes, but the further away we wander from these values, the more we differ from what litRPG is. However, this is not by any means a bad thing, simply a move toward other genres. A good example could be the Villains’ Code series by Drew Hayes, in which certain classifications and categories of powers and abilities exist, but none are tied down by a strict ruleset or need for gamification. If you feel the game and isekai aspects of the genre are not to your liking, these are definitely worth a look, though I have fewer recommendations to offer.

The point I'm trying to make is that it's more than just literary isekai!

The litRPG genre is a surprisingly vast and varied landscape of stories. Ranging from VR games to mages battling monsters, it offers something to most readers while also conveying interesting ideas in terms of both what a roleplaying system could be and how we may react within them. I hope you have been enlightened by this rambling dive into my new favourite genre and possibly picked up a book or two to browse for yourself!