Why do most authors shed their LitRPG elements as the stories go? Is it a genre convention?
In almost all the LitRPG stories I read, the start of the stories is full of system messages, +1 here and there, even damage prompts saying "Goblin hits Hero for -8 HP". Classes, skills, experience points galore.
For those that don't know, LitRPG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LitRPG) - it is a genre more prominent in asian literature, where "transported into or living in a game-like world" kind of stories happen. Not to be confused with "trapped in a game world" like Sword Art Online, that is GameLit.
Then as the story progresses and the characters power growth characteristic of a true RPG creeps in, these elements are blatantly discarded, never to be mentioned again. Gone is the damage message, gone is the skill growth, gone is all but the most superficial elements of the RPG and it becomes just a normal (insert genre) story.
To the point I feel like the LitRPG element becomes just a crutch to get the story kickstarted. One that could be entirely discarded for the sake of brevity. Or sent to the Checkov firing squad.
But almost all authors do it that way. Therefore, is it a genre convention to do it that way?
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I am completely ignorant of LitRPG. It is entirely possible that some reader get pleasure from the insight into these numerical statistics alongside with the plot. The OP question suggests however that most author get tired of providing these numbers. More than a convention it sounds like a sign of maturation in style.
The issue: Don't tell, show it
In my opinion it is mostly an issue of showing vs. telling. You can tell the reader that the character just lost 8 points, or you can show it by letting the reader feel what the character feels. The first may be interesting in an instruction manual, the latter is more suitable for a work of narrative. I have the impression that as the writer progresses with the LitRPG they try to create a work of narrative and hope that the readers forget they have been reading an instruction manual until a few pages earlier.
The second issue: Clickbait into an uninteresting story
Crunch in the first few pages some elements that you believe would attract readers. A reader that is into RPGs may find the reading facilitated if it resembles notes from a gaming session. Unless LitRPG is intended to provide guidelines on how to play a particular RPG, this would suggest that the story is not that interesting to start with, or that it started too early in the timeline.
The awkward points
1. Why not give all the numerical data of the world?
Why limit the numerical representation to characters statistics? Why not providing the change in geographical coordinates for each movement? Or the change in temperature perceived by the character? If the counter-argument is that the numbers should just reflect a particular RPG system, why not switching for a more comprehensive one? Afterall, if someone enjoys all the number-crunching, they may enjoy even more the fact that the entire world is designed with a rigorous numerical mechanics.
2. Filler fluff
In contrast to an actual RPG session in which a character may be defeated and die as a consequence of these numerical contraptions, in a novel there is the concept of plot armour. It is quite unlikely that any major character would die as easily as the fodder that is thrown at them. This is particularly true if you have one MC. In this paradigm, all the numerical evidence about numbers and classes become filler faff as they serve no other purpose than to fill pages: the MC is going to survive and no amount of damage or class growth is going to alter the arc of the story. One could argue that the arc is determined by these numbers, and while that is true for a live session, it is less true for a novel in which the author hopes to engage readers for many and many pages.
3. The tune of ads
Using a particular RPG system and making it obvious in a commercial product is likely motivated by an advertisement campaign. The company selling the action figures, the books, and the RPG game are trying to create an easily identifiable brand. Why would you as an unrelated author imitate it? It is as if the employees of a cleaning company would sing the tune from the detergent ads every time they mop office floors.
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Current practice for attention-calling literary elements --I'm thinking primarily here of things like accents and dialects --is to start out with enough to give the flavor, and then to assume that the reader can extrapolate that those same things are continuing in the background, even if they are no longer being called-out or fully rendered. It's an anti-realist convention intended to make things less tedious and annoying for both the reader and the writer.
A story filled from beginning to end with stats adjustments would be practically unreadable. That doesn't entail that the the gamelike aspects might not still be an important part of the background setting and atmosphere. It may be true in some instances that those conventions could be entirely removed without any loss --and perhaps to the story's overall benefit! --but it sounds like that would migrate the story to a different subgenre.
From the little I know of LitRPG, it's already an anti-realist subgenre --it's founded on artifice and the deliberate suspension of disbelief --so it doesn't surprise me that it has ritual conventions of form.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47308. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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