"Gamer" fanfiction.

[Traab]

Has anyone run into these? I stumbled over one or two awhile back and recently found several more. For those not aware, the basic gist is, the main character, who can either be a self insert or any protagonist you want, wakes up at a new game menu. They find that they are about to become an rpg character basically. They get to learn skills, go on quests, gain power through all sorts of video game exploits, things like that. The most common version seems to be self inserts where they get to crib from all sorts of anime, games, or films, and give themselves all sorts of interesting skills and gear to play with while they, for example, run through high school of the dead, or harry potter, or rwby. Basically its a power fantasy story where "you" (the author) get to be the fancy magic blasting sword master champion of everything and solve all of the problems of whatever world you are in. So its easy to do right, but just as easy to make incredibly lame.

Its an interesting setup but it has at least one major issue. Balancing stats and skill tracking with keeping the story from grinding to a halt. Its neat to keep track of how strong the main character is getting, but its easy to basically start creating massive walls of text as 90 skills and your stat list get posted three times a chapter or more as you get stronger. On the one hand, these skills and such are what makes this genre its own thing, so you have to have them. On the other hand, doing too much will make a readers eyes glaze over and they will lose track of what the character can do. And on top of that, it keeps the story from getting anywhere chapter to chapter. Ive seen examples of it being done right and wrong. Some authors try to do too much at once. "Im going to level up 5 sword skills, my passive regeneration abilities, my spells, and my stats all at once." Then you get the long wall of text and nothing makes much sense. If I had to give any advice to someone writing these it would be to keep it simple. Dont have too many open ended limitless skills so we have to deal with "HP Regen Lvl 9876976907308 now grants 90870689750873067830598370% more hp per minute!" Skills that can be maxxed out then put aside to focus on new ones is ideal imo. Take the hp regen example, have it max out at level 100, then unlock the next skill which is ADVANCED hp regen. Something like that. Also, post the template of the character once per chapter. Like at the end of each chapter to show what the new totals are while during the chapter you only list the skills currently being worked on. That would cut down on the clutter a lot and allow the story to progress better I think. I dont need to see your full character sheet every time your sword mastery skill goes up a level.

Went on a bit of a rant there. I think one of the more enjoyable tropes in this genre is the snarky interface. What do I mean? I mean things like [Walked and Chewed Bubblegum!] "You have shown the ability to not trip over your own feet! +1 to dexterity!" I love it when the main character has a bit of an adversarial relationship with his UI because of stuff like that. Humiliating achievement names, descriptions that make you seem stupid. [That Wall Is Real!] "Congratulations! You have just discovered that things exist by walking into a wall. +1 to perception!" I like the power fantasy stories too, but the ones where harry has to relive his school years but as a gamer this time while dealing with a pita help menu are just a lot of fun. Anyone else like these? or want to share their favorites? I honestly feel like the biggest problem is these seem to be finished so rarely. They almost all are either still in progress or abandoned long ago.

[Vinyadan]

Would DM of the Rings count?

[Forum Explorer]

Would DM of the Rings count?

No, that's the story being told as if it was being played as a game by normal people. Completely different thing.


Anyways, I've read one or two of these, and than just sort of labeled them as 'power fantasy' and have pretty much ignored them from that point on. And while Power Fantasy stories can be fun in small doses, I find I need them to actually be small doses, and be quick stories. While Gamer stories drag on, and just become incredibly boring. So yeah, not a fan.

[Traab]

Would DM of the Rings count?

No, because thats a D&D campaign, these are people who are actually placed in that universe and have to figure out how the new rules work as they go. Think of it like an isekai anime. Our normal salaryman from japan gets hit by a truck and wakes up in a new world where he has to go through a character selection screen, get quests, and try to survive the storyline of whatever world he has been placed in. The main difference being he isnt restricted to just what is available in that setting. So if he woke up in naruto he isnt restricted to only being able to learn nin/gen/tai jutsu. Maybe he could get lucky and pick up skills from fate/stay night. Or learn harry potter style magic. Or get gear/skills from shield hero.

[tomandtish]

Don't know about fanfiction, but if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription there are literally hundreds of them available.

[The Glyphstone]

Don't know about fanfiction, but if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription there are literally hundreds of them available.

Yeah. The 'official' name for this subgenre is "LitRPG", 'literary RPG". It's almost always a sub-sub-genre of Isekai, but I've read at least one series where it takes place in the real world instead. But the unifying theme is a main character or characters learning that they have abilities/powers/magic that functions just like an RPG video game, with levels and stats, etc.

And Kindle Unlimited does, indeed, have hundreds of them. The average quality is exactly what you expect, and that's excluding the ones that are actually harem erotica in a cheap rubber mask.

[Traab]

Yeah. The 'official' name for this subgenre is "LitRPG", 'literary RPG". It's almost always a sub-sub-genre of Isekai, but I've read at least one series where it takes place in the real world instead. But the unifying theme is a main character or characters learning that they have abilities/powers/magic that functions just like an RPG video game, with levels and stats, etc.

And Kindle Unlimited does, indeed, have hundreds of them. The average quality is exactly what you expect, and that's excluding the ones that are actually harem erotica in a cheap rubber mask.

Is there any way to sort through them for the better quality options? I have a kindle, never used kindle unlimited.

[The Glyphstone]

Is there any way to sort through them for the better quality options? I have a kindle, never used kindle unlimited.

Ratings, maybe? I've only read a few, and they ranged from mediocre guilty pleasure to one series I nicknamed Wish Fulfillment Fantasy Train Wreck Theater.

[Traab]

Ratings, maybe? I've only read a few, and they ranged from mediocre guilty pleasure to one series I nicknamed Wish Fulfillment Fantasy Train Wreck Theater.

Heh I read a story series like that once. It was basically a self insert version of harry potter who quickly becomes a reality hopping literal sex god jumping from movie/game/book universe to universe sleeping with everything female and roflstomping the storyline with his amazing amazingness. I read it because I honestly found it hilarious how over the top terrible it was. There was a sfw version that erased all the smut, it was like half the length of the original. It had all the tropes, sex master, dozens of women who want him and dont mind sharing, he has no flaws as a character, and solves every problem with such ease he even handicaps himself to make it more interesting when he still walks all over the opposition. Oh yeah, and soul bonds. He is soul bonded to over 100 women by the end of the series. At least if you count the multiple versions of the same person. :smalltongue: Sometimes you find a book thats just a glorious version of a b movie where its so terrible its entertaining.

[warty goblin]

I feel like my clumsy mud-brain is missing something here, but what does this offer that just playing an RPG doesn't?

[Traab]

I feel like my clumsy mud-brain is missing something here, but what does this offer that just playing an RPG doesn't?

Well the ones I read are fanfiction stories, so its like playing the harry potter books like an rpg. One where the player has all sorts of random abilities they can learn. Being fanfic they can use all these licensed properties without legal issue which an actual rpg wouldnt be able to do. Especially not when its a universe hopping game that goes through multiple fiction universes and draws skills and items from several more. As an example, the story im currently reading has a new player pop up in the high school of the dead anime. He managed to get the byakugan from naruto which combined with another skill he got called The End is letting him passively learn tons of random skills by watching what everyone else is doing in a wide radius. He just looted a couple of the weapons from RWBY due to the gatcha system thats in the story. You arent going to play an actual game like that. :p

[Lethologica]

The Gamer, Solo Leveling, and So I'm A Spider, So What? are the only such stories that have kept me entertained. The first one took a while to make the protagonist OP, the second one has great art and a nicely antagonistic game system, and the third one is wacky enough to avoid boredom.

I haven't even tried reading a fanfiction in the genre. Winning one lottery at a time is hard enough.

[Rynjin]

LitRPG and Xianxia/Cultivation tales are two genres that sadly squander their potential more often than not.

The Wandering Inn is a good example of the former, and Forge of Destiny is a good example of the latter, if anyone's taking suggestions.

[druid91]

I feel like my clumsy mud-brain is missing something here, but what does this offer that just playing an RPG doesn't?

Well, the ones I've read have features that no real RPG could match. The two I've followed were....

Awaken Online by Travis Bagwell.

Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko.

The first is interesting to begin with but IMO loses out on quality quickly. With the main character being a person who joins a big VR MMO and finds an alternate character creation path that lets him play a villain rather than a Hero.

The latter has still kept it's steam IMO, and has a similar VR MMO concept to the first, but instead basically follows a guild of friends as they accidentally make it big and turn into a massive guild with a full on town under their control.

In both cases crafting is waaaay more versatile than it could be in any actual game, even to the point where the few times I've tried to come up with a system to emulate it it gets too complicated even for tabletop games.

[Xyril]

Well, the ones I've read have features that no real RPG could match. The two I've followed were....


I think that's an advantage for a lot of fiction (even some professional series) uses to excellent effect. The idea of either playing some game, or entering a game world, can be a great narrative device that can be exploited without having to flesh out everything that doesn't appear on screen. Erfworld for example did a pretty decent job of making the explicitly revealed ruleset consistent and interesting, but if anyone actually attempted to build up a coherent system to fill in everything that was left out then it would be a monumental, if not impossible task. Still, it told a decent story, and audiences had to vicarious experience of (kind of) playing the tabletop wargame you wish existed.

[GloatingSwine]

There are about four hundred squillion of them, most of them are in Japanese, none of them are original since they keep copying each other and very slightly changing the waifu/slave waifu character, and they're basically all terrible in exactly the same way.

Except Bofuri.

Read/watch Bofuri

[BeerMug Paladin]

The only one I ever read like these was a comic. Called "The Gamer (https://the-gamer-manga.com/manga/the-gamer-chapter-1/)" I haven't checked on it in years, so I don't know if it's complete or not. But I do remember being entertained by it pretty adequately as far along as it was translated at the time I found it originally.

[Traab]

There are about four hundred squillion of them, most of them are in Japanese, none of them are original since they keep copying each other and very slightly changing the waifu/slave waifu character, and they're basically all terrible in exactly the same way.

Except Bofuri.

Read/watch Bofuri

Thats the "I didnt want to get hurt so put all my points in defense" story right? Ive been meaning to look into light novels for that

[Anonymouswizard]

Oh, this genre. Out of roughly two squillion published stories I've seen maybe four good ideas, none of which seemed to be carried out efficiently.

Honestly, for most of them they'd likely have been improved by dropping the RPG elements, and the ones that wouldn't generally have them intrude as much as they do in OotS (and so you would have to determine the MC's sheet via deduction). Sword Art Online, which seems to have been one catalyst for the popularity explosion of the 'genre', IIRC went this way and occasionally mentioned levels and skill ranks but never full character sheets and ability lists.

[GloatingSwine]

Thats the "I didnt want to get hurt so put all my points in defense" story right? Ive been meaning to look into light novels for that

Yeah, the things that make it work are that it's actually just people playing a videogame, and the main character is charmingly clueless because it's her first time playing any game at all, and she does things that the experienced players don't think of because she doesn't expect that they won't work (or by just going afk because she fell asleep in real life) and they work because the game is basically about as well balanced as Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077 drunk at a party.

[Forum Explorer]

If we're now just talking about stories with game-like elements in them, then I recommend Konosuba. The standard Isekai sort of plot except everyone is useless and more interested in relaxing and having fun than actually achieving anything.

[druid91]

Honestly, the two I read, Ascend is blatantly cribbing notes from Awaken, but also genereally does it better. while not falling into the the latter's.... Personal Drama thing? Ascend is more about telling awesome fantasy stories with a thinnish veneer of RPG over the top. Both show full character sheets, but where Awaken shows them almost every time the character updates it, Ascend shows it once or twice per book, if that. The MC of Awaken is an angsty teenager and his friends, and the MC's of Ascend are a bunch of 20-something college graduates who are jobless and decide to become youtubers for the VR game.

It gives the whole thing a very different tone in both books.

[Brother Oni]

If we're now just talking about stories with game-like elements in them, then I recommend Konosuba. The standard Isekai sort of plot except everyone is useless and more interested in relaxing and having fun than actually achieving anything.

There's also very entertaining plot twists that elevate it from your standard Isekai. My favourite:

The mage character has plenty of power but very little control, so the protagonist gets her to practice blasting a distant abandoned castle as many times a day as she can cast her spells.

Later on in the series, there's a monster invasion, led by a massive evil skeleton knight. The protagonist, in an effort to stave off a massive fight, asks him what the knight wants in return for him and his army not to attack this village - it turns out that the the villain is nocturnal and sleeps during the day but recently, he keeps on getting woken up and disturbed by somebody who's been using his castle for target practice. It's been going on for days now and all he wants is some peace and quiet for a decent day's sleep.

I know I've got some details wrong, but that was the gist of it.

[GrayDeath]

The by FAR best I ahve read of this genre is The Games We Play. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12119784/1/The-Games-We-Play-By-Ryuugi
Absolutely fantastic. Its a RWBY Crossover to boot. ^^


Although you could probably look at Mother of Learning as a similar one just without the (often jarring) Things like menus etc. https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/1/Mother-of-Learning


Sadly for me, I read The Games we Play FIRST.
So all the others?

Garbage to me, Genre is more or less dead to me enjoymentwise. :(

[Traab]

I really liked this story. The Adventures of Harry Potter the Video Game Exploited (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9708318/2/The-Adventures-Of-Harry-Potter-the-Video-Game-Exploited) It had a lot of what I liked that I mentioned. It had the rpg elements that make this a gamer fic, it doesnt go over the top on spamming his character sheet or a dozen+ skills being worked on at the same time. I find the "tutorial" messages entertaining, and the way harry is slowly figuring out how to exploit the system for fun and profit is perfect. Its just too bad that, like so many others in this genre, it basically got abandoned. Also, it isnt really going for god harry, he gets his butt kicked on a regular basis, then has to figure out how to adapt and overcome. As an example, at one point he has to fight "Two Weak Teenager Goons" And the first time he attacks them he manages to get the initiative and land some critical hits wiping them out easy. He then realizes he can farm them for exp and loot. When they reset they beat the ever loving heck out of him and he realizes he NEEDS that opening initiative round and some special attacks to trigger to win against them. So he works on making it happen, then is slowly able to gear up and grow tough enough to handle them that he no longer needs special tricks to do it.

[JDMSJR]

Ok, since I have been reading stories like these recently, I will throw is some that I have enjoyed. First I would like to agree with Traab about "The Adventures of Harry Potter the Video Game Exploited". This was the first "Gamer" fanfic that I read and I thought it was very funny and entertaining. Too bad the author doesn't seem to be updating it, but it is at about 100,000 words, so at least you have that much.

The first recommendation is from Naruto. "SHINOBI: The RPG - Act 1" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12433631/1/SHINOBI-The-RPG-Act-1 . It is complete and has a sequel. It clocks in at 70 chapters and 375,000 words. It is a self-insert as an original character who starts as a baby. In a twist he ends up screwing himself right at the beginning with his stat allocation because he is thinking of it as a game and doesn't consider how using Charisma as a dump stat will effect him in real life situations. I enjoyed this story and thought it was well written.

My second recommendation is from Worm called "Kill Them All" https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/kill-them-all-worm-gamer.830187/ and has just been finished. It is very long and very well done. It's thread on Space Battles is 1155 pages . It ends up going multi-universal and to my surprise, handled it very well. Basically Taylor has the Gamer power, which in addition to letting her have an Inventory space, etc., also gives her a weaker version of the powers of whoever she defeats and gets a sample of their blood. She can then level those powers up and make them stronger. I highly enjoyed this fic.

My third recommendation is also from the Wormverse called A Bad Name https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-bad-name-worm-oc-the-gamer.500626/ which is unfortunately unfinished, however, it is about 77 chapters long and the Space Battles thread about it clocks in at 410 pages. It has an OC who is an early 20's homeless person in Brockton Bay who is shot (and seemingly dies) and wakes up with the Gamer abilities.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Sturgeon's Law definitely applies to Gamer fics, but you can find the occasional diamond.


JDMSJR

[CharonsHelper]

I randomly stumbled upon one pretty decent one when I was playing with a Kindle Unlimited free trial to get some reading material for international flights. I didn't want to read something too deep on the plane, and the name (Dungeon Lord) reminded me of D&D actually.

I tried a few others, and they were all terrible. So - I stopped looking. Though I still kinda follow The Dungeon Lord series (The MC doesn't really have cheat powers - the fantasy-ish world he's transported to works with skills/talents for everybody.).


Don't know about fanfiction, but if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription there are literally hundreds of them available.

I can see why - it's a stupidly easy premise to let you justify an OP main character and jump straight into the action with no build-up. Neither of which actually make for interesting stories - just easy premises.

[GeoffWatson]

Here's a fanfic with a similar idea:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20

A D&D Wizard ends up the Harry Potter setting.

[JDMSJR]

I'll second that. I don't think "Harry Potter and the Natural 20" falls into the "Gamer" fic stories this thread is talking about, but it is extremely entertaining and fun to read.

JDMSJR

[GrayDeath]

I'll second that. I don't think "Harry Potter and the Natural 20" falls into the "Gamer" fic stories this thread is talking about, but it is extremely entertaining and fun to read.

JDMSJR

Thirded, forgot to mention that one.

To sum it up, regarding fics where "§there is a Game logic in play" is an important part but not ALL thats going on, I remain at this top 3:

The Games we Play (best overall)
HP and the Nat 20 (most humorous)
A Bad Name (best written/"real" Main Character and very different)

If you read no other Gamer fics, read these 3.

If you still dont like them, you wont like any in the Genre, methinks.

[inespie]

Has anyone run into these? I stumbled over one or two awhile back and recently found several more. For those not aware, the basic gist is, the main character, who can either be a self insert or any protagonist you want, wakes up at a new game menu. They find that they are about to become an rpg character basically.

Isn't the whole "isekai" genra of anime that ? Normal guy get into mmo/fantasy universe, sometime with tropes so clear that they have a character sheat ?
Seem that this genre is now one of the most dominant one in manga/anime.

[Forum Explorer]

Isn't the whole "isekai" genra of anime that ? Normal guy get into mmo/fantasy universe, sometime with tropes so clear that they have a character sheat ?
Seem that this genre is now one of the most dominant one in manga/anime.

Sometimes, but not always. Usually with the RPG Isekais the entire world runs on those rules. In most Gamer fanfiction, it's the protaganist and sometimes their allies who can operate under RPG rules, while everyone else is stuck using real world rules. Or you know, fictional world rules.

In the former, anyone can powerlevel and become powerful through repeatedly beating up monsters. In the latter, only the protaganist gets to do that.

[Traab]

Sometimes, but not always. Usually with the RPG Isekais the entire world runs on those rules. In most Gamer fanfiction, it's the protaganist and sometimes their allies who can operate under RPG rules, while everyone else is stuck using real world rules. Or you know, fictional world rules.

In the former, anyone can powerlevel and become powerful through repeatedly beating up monsters. In the latter, only the protaganist gets to do that.

Exactly. There are often a lot of parallels between them as both frequently involve being dropped in another world and having to figure things out, and yes often the main character in both is hilariously overpowered for some reason, but yeah, the main difference is the main character, and possibly his party, are using explicitly video game rules that dont fit the way the world works for everyone else. This can be video game versions of the rules this world fits under, or be a giant crossover thing where the player can learn skills and such from a wide variety of settings that totally throws the challenge rating out the window. The shinobi rpg story I got linked was an excellent example of the first one, as we got to see just how his existence doesnt really fit in with the rest of the shinobi world such as, so long as he has 1hp left, he can still fight, even when half his body is blasted apart. actual training does little to nothing for him, he only improves through leveling up and assigning skill points which drives everyone nuts as he keeps improving in surges and general exercise is useless to him. The only skills he was learning were naruto universe related ones, so he wasnt going to say, spontaneously develop devil fruit powers, or get edward elrics skill in alchemy.

Also, the interaction between game laws and real life drives him nuts sometimes as he gets messages like "Perception check failed 5 of 7" Which means he knows he DID miss something, and sometimes can even guess WHAT he missed, but he still cant spot the thing he got a message about. Or how his low charisma stat means he is socially inept, he KNOWS he is socially inept, and yet nothing he can do can change that as even trying his hardest to think about what he is saying and doing he still messes everything up because he literally cant stop it or even notice it while its happening. Only afterwards or when its been spelled out for him. As an example, he can often tell that some action is impolite, but he cant seem to recognize the difference in rudeness between say, not responding when someone says hello, and spitting on someone's face. He registers both acts as "rude" but he cant tell if its something minor or major, so he causes major issues without meaning to or understanding why until, again, someone laboriously drags him through the process of understanding it.

I like it because of that stuff the most. Trying to fit a video game set of rules into "real life" and seeing what issues develop. The downside to the genre is its real easy to go off the deep end of power fantasy. One I read, Gamer of Blades, does this. He pops up in high school of the dead universe (with some tweaks he learns of later) And gets a bunch of skills right off the bat that make it easy for him to roflstomp his way through the setting and gain more and more power. Namely the byakugan, weapon skills from Fate Stay Night and Shield Hero, job classes that give him further abilities, a loot box system that grants random items from beef jerky to one of the excaliber swords from high school D&D, etc. And it all goes up from there. Its still a fun story but its running into the power creep and a few other turn offs for this type of story for me so I may not finish it if it gets worse. Meanwhile Bhaalson Remodel is an interesting story where harry potter gets sucked into a baldurs gate game and has to be the main character in it. There are SOME shenanigans, but so far its mostly just game skills and learning how to play it.

[Pronounceable]

Superman is %100 isekai. Remembering that will teach you to differentiate "gamer fanfiction" (defined here) and "other world story" (isekai).

[GloatingSwine]

Superman is %100 isekai.

No it isn't.

Isekai is a portal fantasy, and part of the meaning of portal fantasy is that the person transported takes their context and expecations from their primary world to the new secondary world. Because Superman had no context or expectations from his primary world it is not an isekai.

The Wizard of Oz is Isekai. The He-Man live action movie is Isekai. The Chronicles of Narnia is Isekai. Superman is not.

The reason most Isekai is also gamelike is because Sword Art Online was very popular and most of the people who write isekai web fiction/light novels are as unoriginal as they are horny.

And by god are they horny.

[Traab]

No it isn't.

Isekai is a portal fantasy, and part of the meaning of portal fantasy is that the person transported takes their context and expecations from their primary world to the new secondary world. Because Superman had no context or expectations from his primary world it is not an isekai.

The Wizard of Oz is Isekai. The He-Man live action movie is Isekai. The Chronicles of Narnia is Isekai. Superman is not.

The reason most Isekai is also gamelike is because Sword Art Online was very popular and most of the people who write isekai web fiction/light novels are as unoriginal as they are horny.

And by god are they horny.

Thats a bit unfair, its not like its restricted to isekai for the writers to be unbearably horny. :smallbiggrin: Its like writers are obsessed with taking every setting and writing up the most depraved amounts of sex they can contemplate, for either the main character, or a thinly veiled at best self insert. Im sure there is excessive research done on why everything turns to porn dealing with instinctive desires and driving urges and such.

[Forum Explorer]

No it isn't.

Isekai is a portal fantasy, and part of the meaning of portal fantasy is that the person transported takes their context and expecations from their primary world to the new secondary world. Because Superman had no context or expectations from his primary world it is not an isekai.

The Wizard of Oz is Isekai. The He-Man live action movie is Isekai. The Chronicles of Narnia is Isekai. Superman is not.

The reason most Isekai is also gamelike is because Sword Art Online was very popular and most of the people who write isekai web fiction/light novels are as unoriginal as they are horny.

And by god are they horny.

I'm actually curious to see how many are gamelike in comparison to the total. As you've pointed out Isekai stuff has existed for a while, longer than video games have. So a lot of the new stuff is gamelike, particularly Japanese Isekai, but I wonder about the older Isekai stuff.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm actually curious to see how many are gamelike in comparison to the total. As you've pointed out Isekai stuff has existed for a while, longer than video games have. So a lot of the new stuff is gamelike, particularly Japanese Isekai, but I wonder about the older Isekai stuff.

The turning point was about 2011/2012 when Log Horizon, SAO, and Overlord came out all quite close to each other and spawned a vast legion of imitators because light novel and manga publishers started trawling web novel sites looking for new cheap deals to find the "next SAO".

So there is now a vast quantity of gamelike isekai, all of it is terrible and because none of it is original it is almost always terrible in the exact same ways. (Almost inevitably the protagonist has some sort of special unique power that means they never encounter even the slightest challenge and 100% of all female characters will immediately drench the floor in their presence).

Like if you compare it to all portal fantasy ever written it's probably not a large proportion, but of portal fantasies published in the last decade it's almost all of it.

[Mechalich]

Gamelike isekai is also extremely common because it simplifies worldbuilding. Game worlds are inherently simplified, therefore building a fictional game world is significantly easier and allows you to get away with story simplifying mechanical contrivances in a way that building a fictional world that is intended to maintain actual verisimilitude. This has become even easier over time as a larger and larger portion of the potential audience has acquired extensive familiarity with existing game tropes.

This is also an effective method because a large portion of gamelike isekai scenarios aren't about the fictional world or any sort of struggle to save it at all (which one of the reasons they are so often so OP, because it means this issue can be safely ignored) and are actually harem fantasy light comedies. The ability to safely leave out all of the nasty aspects of pre-modern life - rampant disease, certain social conventions, general lack of cleanliness, etc. - in your game-based pre-modern reality also helps to preserve the light tone.



I'm actually curious to see how many are gamelike in comparison to the total. As you've pointed out Isekai stuff has existed for a while, longer than video games have. So a lot of the new stuff is gamelike, particularly Japanese Isekai, but I wonder about the older Isekai stuff.

A number of pre-2010 Japanese portal fantasies were very clearly not isekai. The Familiar of Zero is a good example because it is a light comedy harem fantasy in the same way as the game-based scenarios are (and terrible in the same ways) but it utilizes traditional manga magic academy tropes rather than game tropes.

[asda fasda]

I would say that the reason for Gamelike isekai popularity is mostly that it's exactly what games are. When you play game you're transferred from your boring/normal live to world where you are the protagonist. And with internet & MMO starting in to reign as well as immersions of games like Morrowind and first VR sets and Cyberpunk of 1990 transferring to a game become ultimate dream. Moreover in 2010 people who were teenagers in 1990, become young artists and probable some worked at publicist also and games is what the new, what they liked and this kind of story-telling came natural. At this same time it was novel and a way to be somehow different. Additionally as games included many simplification it was interesting way to explore absurdity of those or in case of Log Horizon how they could work (which was amazing)

And to be honest similar storytelling was done much earlier "Never-ending story" is pretty much this same but instead of transferring to game-world you transfer yourself to book-world. I'm wondering when they will do first Hollywood movie in this style, that could be interesting.

Oh and interesting question would be which light-novel mange was the first in this genre, GloatingSwine referred to Log Horizon, SAO, and Overlord starting a boom, but those were surely inspired by .hack// franchise, and themselves one of hundreds similar light-novels, just those were really good : )

[Traab]

Gamelike isekai is also extremely common because it simplifies worldbuilding. Game worlds are inherently simplified, therefore building a fictional game world is significantly easier and allows you to get away with story simplifying mechanical contrivances in a way that building a fictional world that is intended to maintain actual verisimilitude. This has become even easier over time as a larger and larger portion of the potential audience has acquired extensive familiarity with existing game tropes.

This is also an effective method because a large portion of gamelike isekai scenarios aren't about the fictional world or any sort of struggle to save it at all (which one of the reasons they are so often so OP, because it means this issue can be safely ignored) and are actually harem fantasy light comedies. The ability to safely leave out all of the nasty aspects of pre-modern life - rampant disease, certain social conventions, general lack of cleanliness, etc. - in your game-based pre-modern reality also helps to preserve the light tone.




A number of pre-2010 Japanese portal fantasies were very clearly not isekai. The Familiar of Zero is a good example because it is a light comedy harem fantasy in the same way as the game-based scenarios are (and terrible in the same ways) but it utilizes traditional manga magic academy tropes rather than game tropes.

I actually disagree a bit with it being simpler, because you not only need the regular world building, you also have to come up with a set of gamer rules that interact with the world the character is set in, and make sense. I suppose if you really dont care much and just want the power fantasy harem setup you can just ignore it all and say, "Now our hero does 50 bazillion damage, is immune to anything less than 50 bazillion damage, and has such a high charisma all the ladies want m- HIM! I said him!" But that goes for literally any fanfiction setup. I cant count how many stories ive read where harry one day decides he is going to win at life and suddenly the evil master manipulator dumbledoore with a literal century of scheming and plotting behind him is utterly powerless against the 15 year old harry who learns he is the heir of merlin, has a phoenix animagus form, super magic, and has superlative planning skills thanks to the help of the 15 girls he is contracted to marry who all fall in love with him instantly because he is awesome like that. Or naruto fics where naruto manages to reach elite jounin status or greater before he graduates the academy and has been able to hide it from literally everyone in a village full of professional spies. Also, he and hinata not only hook up but she is eager to see him get with as many women as possible because "Shadow clones /faint" makes it ok.

Bottom line, it being easy to write a really terrible version of it doesnt make it much of a draw because you can write a really terrible version of anything just as easily. I do agree with asda as to the draw of isekai gamer stories though. Its literally self insert power fantasy and thats really popular. Its why so often the main character on a heroes journey is fairly bland in films. Because it makes it easier to place yourself in their shoes and imagine how you would handle it. On a side note, I love Overlord. Its a lot of fun, and imo does the overpowered main character trope right. Its also a lot of fun because up until a certain point it is enjoyable to argue relative morals because the whole good and evil thing is a matter of debate depending on which side of the story you look from. Is ainz evil for taking over the kingdom? Is he good because he protects everything he controls and strives to help them learn and grow and be better than they were before he showed up? He killed a LOT of lizardmen, but then you realize the lizardmen were a couple years from another self genociding war to keep their population low enough to feed, and now they are a united tribe, with greatly increased ability to feed themselves, protect themselves, and in general live far superior lives. Sure that wasnt his original intent, but it was the end result. So its pretty grey imo.

[Traab]

So ive now read a number of these fics and have started to put together the aspects that I like and dont like. I will reference specific fanfics to illustrate.

1) I liked a couple aspects of SHINOBI: The RPG - Act 1 I liked that it had real consequences for his stat dump, and thus showed us how being a gamer in a "real" world setting, can cause issues both good and bad. Good, he is able to fight so long as he has a single hp, bad, even KNOWING what the problem is, even KNOWING how to fix it, his stat allotment makes it impossible for him to do anything about it except for using an in game method. For example, wearing gear that increases his charisma, and of course, unlocking a perk that would bump it up to just short of max.

The other thing I liked is the stats, skills, perks, etc, were not overbearing on the story. In that we didnt get 6 paragraphs of his entire setup several times a chapter. Gamer of Blades is an excellent example of way too many stats and skills and complications at the same time. In SHINOBI the stats and skills were there but they were never intruding on the story in such a way that I felt my eyes glaze over trying to read them all or follow what had happened.

2) Even though I just knocked it, Gamer of Blades had some really nice ideas in it. For one I really liked how it incorporated a lot of stuff from all sorts of anime and manga. I also felt the author did a decent job in balancing it all together. He is powerful yes, but it doesnt feel like he is god mode powerful like happened in the followup to shinobi. Im sorry if that changes but I coudlnt get too far past the marriage before giving up as it felt silly to me. Maybe its the knowledge that yes he may be overpowered for the world he is in, but there are other gamers out there who can stomp a mudhole in him and walk it dry.

I liked the concept of grinding skills and such in the little mini dungeons he could create. My complaint was the sheer number of skills he was grinding all at once. Every chapter would include a massive spread of loot, exp, stat boosts and like 20 skill ups, including the very odd and complicated setup for how his blades leveled up. Even though the author intentionally combines similar skills to simplify some things, there was just way too many of them. I also liked the quests, both regular and challenge and even the existence of secret quests you only find out about when you complete them. :p

3) Bhaalson Remodel is a story thats very short currently but it already has some aspects I like. For one, he is more stuck in a video game than being in a "real" world while he functions on video game logic. So like there was a tutorial section where harry got to repeat as often as he liked till he got everything he wanted out of it. Every night he went to sleep, then woke up and it was groundhog day. The other people he talked to were a mix of very basic npcs that he couldnt hold a conversation with, and more complicated ones that were more like real people. Since leaving the tutorial though, its gotten less video game and more "real" world with interacting with other people, but the skills they are using are the same ones available to the other characters, for the most part, so he doesnt stand out as much as he might. Its an interesting blend to me. The other interesting thing is, i dont think he is going to become overpowered for the setting because the game rules he is operating under are the ones meant for this game. So he can only be "overpowered" in the same way that any player of D&D could get overpowered. By selecting the right mix of skills and abilities and getting to max level. As far as I can tell there wont be any moment where he suddenly loots a fat boy launcher from fallout and nukes waterdeep.

[GloatingSwine]

Ladies, gentlemen, in-between and none of the above I believe I have found the exception to the "gamelike isekai are all rubbish" rule.

It is "So I'm a Spider, So what?"

As you have already guessed from the title, it is an isekai where the main character has been reincarnated in a mk. 1 standard isekai game world but as a small crap spider monster.

It has a few traits which will, hopefully, stop it turning into ultra-horny male fantasy wish fulfilment:

1. Female protagonist. This usually takes some of the horn off.
2. The protagonist is a spider. And not one of the ones with a naked lady on top. (Those are more common than you'd expect). Just a spider.
3. The protagonist is actually having to work for things. As a newborn spider literally everything tries to eat or kill her, including her new spider-parent. Because that's how spiders roll. Also it is a bit of a genre parody, the protagonist has seen an isekai or two and knows that you always pick the Appraise skill to cheat. But it's **** at level 1, it can tell you a rock is a rock, and that's it.

(That last one is the most important, really, because the real core problem of the genre is "protagonist-kun is handed or always just kinda had ultimate power within the gamelike world")

(And if you thought being recarnated as a spider wasn't sufficiently humiliating, all of her classmates and teacher also got reincarnated as various nobles and princes).

[Traab]

I actually just heard about that one. I will be honest, I just started buying that time I got reincarnated as a slime so ive got a lot of reading to do before I can start buying the spider light novels. And there is a decent isekai/gamer mix in slime. With skills, what amounts to a tutorial/help menu in the great sage and so on. I also just finished The Games We Play. That one was an excellent gamer fic for about half its length, then it turned into something slightly different but still really enjoyable while keeping a lot of the aesthetic. Too bad about the sequel. The Gamer Hero, Deku is another one thats a lot of fun and still in progress. Im not entirely sure if it will stay a lot of fun because there was some rather sizeable power boosts recently that might unbalance it, but its still interesting. My only complaint is that it feels unrealistic how everyone is reacting to him. There seems to be little to no jealousy as he constantly gets stronger and stronger and more and more "special" Though at least part of it may be because he is famous for making it possible for everyone else to get stronger to an extent as well. Either way, a nice read so far.

[GloatingSwine]

Afaict Spider-Isekai is what Slime-Isekai would have been if the main character had to put in effort to win and didn't just get infinite power and victory handed to him over and over again.

[Forum Explorer]

Ladies, gentlemen, in-between and none of the above I believe I have found the exception to the "gamelike isekai are all rubbish" rule.

It is "So I'm a Spider, So what?"

As you have already guessed from the title, it is an isekai where the main character has been reincarnated in a mk. 1 standard isekai game world but as a small crap spider monster.

It has a few traits which will, hopefully, stop it turning into ultra-horny male fantasy wish fulfilment:

1. Female protagonist. This usually takes some of the horn off.
2. The protagonist is a spider. And not one of the ones with a naked lady on top. (Those are more common than you'd expect). Just a spider.
3. The protagonist is actually having to work for things. As a newborn spider literally everything tries to eat or kill her, including her new spider-parent. Because that's how spiders roll. Also it is a bit of a genre parody, the protagonist has seen an isekai or two and knows that you always pick the Appraise skill to cheat. But it's **** at level 1, it can tell you a rock is a rock, and that's it.

(That last one is the most important, really, because the real core problem of the genre is "protagonist-kun is handed or always just kinda had ultimate power within the gamelike world")

(And if you thought being recarnated as a spider wasn't sufficiently humiliating, all of her classmates and teacher also got reincarnated as various nobles and princes).

So I'm a Spider is really good. I haven't read all that's available, but it's genuinly funny with the character's inner monologues being quite the delight. My only problem is it does drag on with too much grinding and not enough actually looking to interact with stuff.


I actually just heard about that one. I will be honest, I just started buying that time I got reincarnated as a slime so ive got a lot of reading to do before I can start buying the spider light novels. And there is a decent isekai/gamer mix in slime. With skills, what amounts to a tutorial/help menu in the great sage and so on. I also just finished The Games We Play. That one was an excellent gamer fic for about half its length, then it turned into something slightly different but still really enjoyable while keeping a lot of the aesthetic. Too bad about the sequel. The Gamer Hero, Deku is another one thats a lot of fun and still in progress. Im not entirely sure if it will stay a lot of fun because there was some rather sizeable power boosts recently that might unbalance it, but its still interesting. My only complaint is that it feels unrealistic how everyone is reacting to him. There seems to be little to no jealousy as he constantly gets stronger and stronger and more and more "special" Though at least part of it may be because he is famous for making it possible for everyone else to get stronger to an extent as well. Either way, a nice read so far.

Reincarnated as a Slime isn't nearly as good. It's alright, but I lose a lot of interest as the main character really quickly becomes incredibly OP.

[GrayDeath]

Ladies, gentlemen, in-between and none of the above I believe I have found the exception to the "gamelike isekai are all rubbish" rule.

It is "So I'm a Spider, So what?"

As you have already guessed from the title, it is an isekai where the main character has been reincarnated in a mk. 1 standard isekai game world but as a small crap spider monster.

It has a few traits which will, hopefully, stop it turning into ultra-horny male fantasy wish fulfilment:

1. Female protagonist. This usually takes some of the horn off.
2. The protagonist is a spider. And not one of the ones with a naked lady on top. (Those are more common than you'd expect). Just a spider.
3. The protagonist is actually having to work for things. As a newborn spider literally everything tries to eat or kill her, including her new spider-parent. Because that's how spiders roll. Also it is a bit of a genre parody, the protagonist has seen an isekai or two and knows that you always pick the Appraise skill to cheat. But it's **** at level 1, it can tell you a rock is a rock, and that's it.

(That last one is the most important, really, because the real core problem of the genre is "protagonist-kun is handed or always just kinda had ultimate power within the gamelike world")

(And if you thought being recarnated as a spider wasn't sufficiently humiliating, all of her classmates and teacher also got reincarnated as various nobles and princes).



If orgot that one as I stumbled upon it in its webcomic form, so it didnt even register when the OP asked ... but yes. Its (if you likethe humor) extremel good.

But, again, give The Games We Play a go.
While it IS fanfiction, lets be honest so are almost all premises of the "Isekai" Genre (be it they use well known mosnters, as with the SPider, the SLime or the Goblin, or serial numbers filed off worlds or 3 of them ^^), and since it manages to make the background Excplanations BETTER than the Original, focusses on totally underutilized Characters (sans the Hero) AND does all of that well, ....did I mention I loved it? ^^0

Thje Lockdown and health problems allowed me to do a full reread a few weeks ago, and aside from of ciourse no longer having the "WHAT??!!?" Moments, it is still a very good read.

[Traab]

I finished reading the games we play and put my review of it in a previous post. Right now im reading that Kill Them All worm/gamer story. i think im getting close to the end of it and im enjoying it a lot. Its hilariously absurd and overpowered and yet somehow not. I do enjoy how so far it seems like the shinobi one where the guy dumped cha and suffers for it, but in this case its wisdom thats causing a lot of problems, along with the gamer ability itself. Curious to see if that will ever get addressed or fixed by the end of the story I was hoping with her gaining levels after killing the endbringers and the other quests she finished she would finally be able to put stat points into wisdom but for some reason she doesnt seem to get those anymore. Ah well, she seems to be doing better anyways, at least she got a couple more points from random conclusions she has reached. But yeah, anyways, im loving most of the stories that have been suggested, though too be fair ive been sticking to fanfiction mostly.

*EDIT* Finished it The author never did address the wisdom issue, or even the gamer issue, it just kinda... vanished. Still, an awesome story, well worth reading. It had the gamer stuff I liked, with skills, stats, resistances, and all taken mostly in the background instead of flooding the story. Despite the VAST power creep there was always a threat that she had to deal with without casual ease. The final battle was the perfect escalation with the threat that was looming over her head from early on making its appearance in a way I didnt expect, and I liked how the story itself finally ended.

[GrayDeath]

Ah sorry, overlooked that, as you tended to make visible poinbts for your other reviews. ^^

And yeah, well, he WAS in a corner via a Seuquel given where it ended, yet I still would like another large similar fic from the author, he obviosuly has skillz.

[Traab]

After the spider isekai I cant help but wonder what sort of crazy will happen next.

Next on the Isekai parade "I Was A Good Guy So Why Am I An Imp?!" Watch as a young man who died early finds himself spawning as an imp in the outskirts of the abyssal plane. How will he adapt to his new circumstances? In what way shall he evolve? Can he survive the threats from higher powered demons? Will they learn he doesnt belong there? Why wont this drunken angel leave him alone if she cant get him out of here?!

[Traab]

So I just started reading a new gamer fic My Hero Playthrough (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13243522/1/My-Hero-Playthrough) Its a My Hero Academia gamer fic and its got some interesting changes. For starters, the stats seem to work a bit different and there are more of them. Secondly, when he went to his mom about training she had him invite her into the party so she could keep an eye on him and make sure he wasnt pushing himself too far. Third, he teams up with one other cast member early on then the three of them start doing dungeon runs which are basically Disgaea setups where they go into an item to raise its quality but do a generic number of mobs plus boss to clear. So far that hasnt seemed to do a lot to the items though but that might come into it later as right now they are mainly running basic pencil dungeons because they are safer. :smallbiggrin: I also like the direction the author is going with the main characters personality. I wont spoil that as its fairly important. I will say he does not have One For All yet nor any obvious reason to get it soon. Its all his gamer skills.

[Traab]

Ladies, gentlemen, in-between and none of the above I believe I have found the exception to the "gamelike isekai are all rubbish" rule.

It is "So I'm a Spider, So what?"

As you have already guessed from the title, it is an isekai where the main character has been reincarnated in a mk. 1 standard isekai game world but as a small crap spider monster.

It has a few traits which will, hopefully, stop it turning into ultra-horny male fantasy wish fulfilment:

1. Female protagonist. This usually takes some of the horn off.
2. The protagonist is a spider. And not one of the ones with a naked lady on top. (Those are more common than you'd expect). Just a spider.
3. The protagonist is actually having to work for things. As a newborn spider literally everything tries to eat or kill her, including her new spider-parent. Because that's how spiders roll. Also it is a bit of a genre parody, the protagonist has seen an isekai or two and knows that you always pick the Appraise skill to cheat. But it's **** at level 1, it can tell you a rock is a rock, and that's it.

(That last one is the most important, really, because the real core problem of the genre is "protagonist-kun is handed or always just kinda had ultimate power within the gamelike world")

(And if you thought being recarnated as a spider wasn't sufficiently humiliating, all of her classmates and teacher also got reincarnated as various nobles and princes).


So ive started reading these books, finished the first two. Im going to spoiler the talk for those who havent read it. Ok, first things first? The first book is AMAZING. its basically exactly what im after with a gamer fic. Learning how the new world works, struggling to survive, gaining new skills, and at no point is she actually super powered as everything can and will kill her, its her ambush tactics and intelligent use of skills that have let her defeat creatures that should treat her as a snack. I will add in one caveat to my quoted persons post. Not EVERYONE is a noble. One of the classmates is also a monster, but in his case is a super powerful dragon monster. or at least has the chance to become one. Our main character is a spider, even if they survive and evolve and grow big and strong, they have terrible stats compared to basically any other monster. Like, a basic level 10 spider of her type would have 32 hp, a basic level 10 earth dragon would have 10x as much, and similar to other stats. And that ratio never really closes.

Now, book 2. It starts off as more of the same, desperate spider trying hard to survive. But unfortunately, things are changing. She has unlocked these mysterious skills that are super unbalanced and powerful, but also are very ominous in name and potential downsides. She is discovering there is something very odd going on in this world, including what seems like her managing to hear from game admins. The foreshadowing seems to imply that she is about to become a demon lord of some sort. Im kind of curious because I can see the story taking a bit of a swerve away from gamer style into a more standard isekai anime adventure as aside from grinding levels to eventually evolve into a arachnae or drider type of spider creature so she can talk to humans so sorry about that aspect being proven wrong Gloating. It hasnt happened yet, but its currently her goal because she wants to talk to people and thinks telepathy is a waste of skill points as she is still in survival mindset.

I bought book 3 and will be reading that tonight, but so far I am enjoying the story, and will wait to see the direction it takes before I commit to it fully. I do like the aspect thats been brought up in story a few times now. Where they mention that the main thing that keeps monsters from killing everyone is the lack of intelligence at grinding skills, and we are seeing that happen now. Already she is probably one of the deadliest spiders in the labyrinth. Mainly because she has been grinding stat boosting abilities that multiply her stat increases every time she levels and practicing her skills to max them out. Her spider poison is apparently absurdly powerful, capable of quickly murdering the heck out of even high level creatures in seconds. On top of that, she has unlocked several stat cursing evil eye abilities and is intending to use them all at once. She is like a spider beholder monster able to apply every nasty ability you can think of at once. Iirc paralyze, curse which drops stats, petrify, charm, fear, sleep, I think there is an evil eye rot spell that might as well be disintegrate for the damage she seems to dish out with it.

Anyways, if you want to bring in more spoilers, please remember to include what books you are spoiling so i dont accidentally ruin a future novel for myself. Im also still looking for more fanfiction gamer stories if you have them. Ive enjoyed most of the ones already mentioned here.

[Traab]

So I read books 3 and 4. First off, i guessed the twist of the time difference. I wasnt certain but I was pretty sure the spiders activities were set earlier in the storyline fromt he way things switched back and forth. It was confirmed in these books. Im still working on why she is the new demon lord but im sure that will come up soon in the next book or two. As for the events of the story. Wow. First off, I love the constantly evolving strategy she enacts on her opponents. Teleporting to the middle stratum to take down higher level more flammable spiders is brilliant. I love the twist about Momma and the ongoing mental war between them. The existence of this original spider is terrifying. Her evolution into an undead and immortal spider was a great twist, though imo it kind of reduces the stakes for her. In the first couple books, she couldnt get hit or else it would kill or cripple her until she leveled up. Then she got the auto hp regen which meant at least she wasnt STUCK crippled after a fight until she levels. Now, we havent seen the actual limit of her ability but she was blown into little itty bitty pieces and eventually woke up a floating head in the ocean. Short of being devoured, or maybe dropped in magma, its hard to say if anything would actually finish her off. But the grand game of cat and mouse with the momma and the originator is more or less over. She took out most of those puppet spiders for big boosts, then managed to claim a HUGE stat boost from her mental warfare with momma before finishing her off. Thats absurd and im shocked she didnt evolve after that.

As for the whole big reveal of the evil god and the admins using peoples deaths to gain power. Im not sure what to think about all this. First off, i dont trust the official story told by the elves and the reincarnations former teacher. There has to be more to it than that otherwise there is literally no point in fighting. It doesnt matter if they die strong or weak, every death makes the admins stronger anyways. So at best keeping the reincarnations from getting strong is just making sure the admins dont get AS GOOD of a meal from their eventual deaths. big fat hairy deal. Unless we learn the elves have a way to fight the admins and want to restrict their growth as much as possible till they are ready, the situation as stated doesnt make much sense. Also, the dislike the reincarnations have for their former teacher, im curious to see how justified that is. She seems to honestly be wanting to help them, but its possible she is being forced to do things she doesnt want to that hurt them because the other option the elves will take is worse. Im very curious to see how things go.

Im looking forward to learning what the big brain plan is here from our spider demon lord to justify this huge war. Im sure there is something going on here, I just dont know what. Is our main character being corrupted? Does she learn something that justifies this war? Are the elves the secret bad guys this whole time while the demons are just misunderstood? Tine in next time! Though, again, with a near 10 year time span for our main character to get through, there is going to be a LOT of things going on before we catch up to current times.

[JDMSJR]

Since you like "So I'm a Spider, So What?" I present to you https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/so-im-a-spider-flat-what-worm-kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka.732418/ a crossover with Worm. Taylor triggers and instead of bug control powers, she becomes a very small spider. The story is currently on hiatus, but is sitting around 130,000 words at present. The author really seems to capture the humor from "So I'm a Spider, So What?" and I thought it was very humorous.

JDMSJR

[Traab]

Since you like "So I'm a Spider, So What?" I present to you https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/so-im-a-spider-flat-what-worm-kumo-desu-ga-nani-ka.732418/ a crossover with Worm. Taylor triggers and instead of bug control powers, she becomes a very small spider. The story is currently on hiatus, but is sitting around 130,000 words at present. The author really seems to capture the humor from "So I'm a Spider, So What?" and I thought it was very humorous.

JDMSJR

So I read it and wow are you ever absolutely right. Excellent story, sucks it stopped right when the mystery was getting good. But yeah, it did a great job of grabbing the humor of so im a spider. Along with the roller coaster that never ends of "I am AMAZING! Oh no, half my body is gone!"

[JDMSJR]

Ok, HOW do you read things this fast? It's been less than 24 hours since I posted that, and that is only if you saw it right when I posted it rather than 5 or 6 hours later seeing as I posted it around 2:00am or so. Teach me your speed reading ways!

(also, now whenever I am about to hop off something I hear a little voice in my head yelling "parkour")

JDMSJR

[Rynjin]

Ok, HOW do you read things this fast? It's been less than 24 hours since I posted that, and that is only if you saw it right when I posted it rather than 5 or 6 hours later seeing as I posted it around 2:00am or so. Teach me your speed reading ways!

(also, now whenever I am about to hop off something I hear a little voice in my head yelling "parkour")

JDMSJR

130k words doesn't take all THAT long to read. Maybe 6 hours or so based on my own habits. Less fi I get really sucked in.

It's part of the reason I'm so addicted to web novels; buying real novels became a financially unsustainable hobby because I could read about one a day before bed.

[Lord Raziere]

130k words doesn't take all THAT long to read. Maybe 6 hours or so based on my own habits. Less fi I get really sucked in.

It's part of the reason I'm so addicted to web novels; buying real novels became a financially unsustainable hobby because I could read about one a day before bed.

I mean I can binge read offline books to that level, but somewhere along the way my ability to do that online got a little on a fritz. My attention just keeps shifting between streams, lets plays, videogames, my roleplays and what I want to read, I really need to stop so I can really deeply focus and complete stuff rather than flitting back and forth between this and that.

[Traab]

130k words doesn't take all THAT long to read. Maybe 6 hours or so based on my own habits. Less fi I get really sucked in.

It's part of the reason I'm so addicted to web novels; buying real novels became a financially unsustainable hobby because I could read about one a day before bed.

Basically this. I mean, i also reread my stories a LOT to try and stretch out my budget. When I was younger I was curious about my reading speed as it seemed fast so I took a new book, read for an hour, then tested myself on the details, primarily by having my mom open to random pages I had read and ask me questions. I found I could read over 100 pages an hour if I focus and retain basically all of it. I have a bad habit when it comes to books of not stopping till im done. Thats why i was posting two books of so im a spider at once. Its absurdly tempting for me to read one, then go straight to the next to find out whats going on when a series grabs me. I have to force myself to take breaks or else I burn out on a series.

[JDMSJR]

Well, here is some more grist for the mill. "The Paragamer" https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-paragamer-book-i-worm-the-gamer-w-ocs-complete.496126/ . It is at around 300,000 words and the author has completed Book 1, but has not started posting Book 2 yet. It is set in Worm, but the main character is an original character and the story only moves to Brockton Bay towards the end of Book 1. It looks like Book 2 when it begins will take place in Brockton Bay. It starts the main character off slowly and it takes a while for him to start to gain some power. He tries to join the PRT at first, but since he only really has his "Inspect" then and it is at low levels, they sort of blow him off thinking he just has a very weak Thinker ability. I hope you like it.

Did you ever read "A Bad Name" https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...-gamer.500626/ or "The Adventures of Harry Potter the Video Game Exploited" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9708318/1/The-Adventures-Of-Harry-Potter-the-Video-Game-Exploited ? I mentioned those in my first post.

JDMSJR

[Traab]

Well, here is some more grist for the mill. "The Paragamer" https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-paragamer-book-i-worm-the-gamer-w-ocs-complete.496126/ . It is at around 300,000 words and the author has completed Book 1, but has not started posting Book 2 yet. It is set in Worm, but the main character is an original character and the story only moves to Brockton Bay towards the end of Book 1. It looks like Book 2 when it begins will take place in Brockton Bay. It starts the main character off slowly and it takes a while for him to start to gain some power. He tries to join the PRT at first, but since he only really has his "Inspect" then and it is at low levels, they sort of blow him off thinking he just has a very weak Thinker ability. I hope you like it.

Did you ever read "A Bad Name" https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...-gamer.500626/ or "The Adventures of Harry Potter the Video Game Exploited" https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9708318/1/The-Adventures-Of-Harry-Potter-the-Video-Game-Exploited ? I mentioned those in my first post.

JDMSJR

Ive read the harry potter video game one. Too bad its not being updated. I think I will give paragamer a shot next. The one downside is I swear the spacebattle site gives me eyestrain.

[Forum Explorer]

Ive read the harry potter video game one. Too bad its not being updated. I think I will give paragamer a shot next. The one downside is I swear the spacebattle site gives me eyestrain.

No, I get that too sometimes. Check Fanfiction.net or Archiveofourown.org. Often a story will be reposted there and I find those sites much better for reading, and subscribing to the story in question.

[Traab]

So im reading paragamer and wow yeah, slow advancing story. So far his only power, aside from gamer shenanigans like camera control, are the clay golems which are at least somewhat useful, but he REALLY needs to get his hands on stonework As for where im at in the story exactly He just got into a fight with the border militia rednecks and got swarmed by cops and capes. He just decided to give a few stat points into luc a try to see if it will help get bus tickets. As an aside, I love how this type of story treats luck. Its either a godly awesome stat or a totally worthless one that the hero doesnt ever put points into after not seeing a return on investment like getting more hp/mp/whatever does.

[GloatingSwine]

As for the whole big reveal of the evil god and the admins using peoples deaths to gain power. Im not sure what to think about all this. First off, i dont trust the official story told by the elves and the reincarnations former teacher. There has to be more to it than that otherwise there is literally no point in fighting. It doesnt matter if they die strong or weak, every death makes the admins stronger anyways.

The energy the Administrators take from those who die comes from the skills and titles they had acquired in life. someone who dies without developing any skills doesn't contribute.

That said, the Elves are not in possession of all the facts.

[Traab]

The energy the Administrators take from those who die comes from the skills and titles they had acquired in life. someone who dies without developing any skills doesn't contribute.

That said, the Elves are not in possession of all the facts.

Yeah but what I mean is, Everyone else NOT a reincarnation is earning titles and skills and such so the best they are accomplishing is denying them a larger than usual meal. The admins are already godlike beings presumably far beyond the elves, so denying them a big meal is at best a slight help because all its doing is lessening the power they will eventually absorb. They are still constantly absorbing power and getting stronger. Had the issue been explained like, "You know how as your skills rise in level they become harder to improve and you have to fight tougher and tougher battles to gain points? The admins are like that. As things stand they rarely if ever gain anything meaningful anymore from normal people or even most hero types dying. but the reincarnations are potentially the best chance they have to continue to grow even further. And if they grow even more powerful than they already are, our secret plan to defeat them will be sure to fail." Then that would have been a logical bit of exposition for both the readers and the characters to understand and be likely to accept. But the way it was phrased seemed DESIGNED to make the characters suspicious. Ive taken a short break from reading further to avoid burnout so I havent finished book 5 yet. Im sure more will be revealed as I go on.

[JDMSJR]

In Paragamer, once he takes his bus trip things start to speed up a little.

[Traab]

So I finished The Paragamer. Here are my thoughts. For a gamer story its very low power. Im honestly surprised he got that far without getting much stronger. basically everything that let him live was luck and clever last second plans. I spent the entire story wishing he would get the chance to work with stone, but it never happened. I want to see him create some real brute golems, maybe raise his art ability high enough to make them look good. And aside from smart use (abuse) of inventory, thats basically his only real "super" power and its mainly only good for swarming goons and brief distractions where he has it now. Even his stats are barely past regular human for the most part. His only saving grace is his resistances to various types of damage and the avatar gamer body that lets him take awful injuries and not be crippled for the most part. If a second story ever gets done, I would probably want to wait a year before even trying to read it just because it honestly tends to take a significant length of time to get anywhere. Over all, I liked it. The fact that it WAS low power was a new and unique twist on the genre for me.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah but what I mean is, Everyone else NOT a reincarnation is earning titles and skills and such so the best they are accomplishing is denying them a larger than usual meal. The admins are already godlike beings presumably far beyond the elves, so denying them a big meal is at best a slight help because all its doing is lessening the power they will eventually absorb. They are still constantly absorbing power and getting stronger. Had the issue been explained like, "You know how as your skills rise in level they become harder to improve and you have to fight tougher and tougher battles to gain points? The admins are like that. As things stand they rarely if ever gain anything meaningful anymore from normal people or even most hero types dying. but the reincarnations are potentially the best chance they have to continue to grow even further. And if they grow even more powerful than they already are, our secret plan to defeat them will be sure to fail." Then that would have been a logical bit of exposition for both the readers and the characters to understand and be likely to accept. But the way it was phrased seemed DESIGNED to make the characters suspicious. Ive taken a short break from reading further to avoid burnout so I havent finished book 5 yet. Im sure more will be revealed as I go on.

Yeah. But then also consider what a low opinion the Elves in general and their leader in particular, from whom this information proximately comes, has of basically everyone and especially humans. They're not lying well because he doesn't think the people he's lying to are worth any better.

Even the "hero". When they're planning the battle at the start of book 5 they completely dismiss anything the humans say as irrelevant because how could any human help the obviously superior-in-every-way elves.

Plus there's quite a lot of emphasis in the world on skills and what people's relationship with them should be. The World of God church is all about getting skills to hear the voice of god and there's the sect in Sariella that Shun had just passed through who are all about sacrificing their skills. So the world is sort of primed for this sort of expectation to be acceptable, even if Shun doesn't quite trust it that's mostly because of other actions of the messenger (what he now understands Oka to have been doing) not the actual message.

[Traab]

So I just reached the end of book 5 of im a spider. Well now THAT was interesting. She was almost a spider deity taking care of a town, elves are apparently magitech warriors. Or at least the king is. His style of combat fits in well with his stated stance on opposing the admins. He seems to shut down most skills magic and abilities and relies on tech to fight. The demon lady is infected with our main characters personality to an extent. Looks like only one mind attacking her soul wasnt enough to do the job, just enough to muddle their spirits together a bit. Makes me wonder what would have happened if there had been two minds sent in there. Would she actually think she WAS the demon lady? Is that still a possible issue? It doesnt seem that way. It seems like it was suggested that the blending is complete and the demon lord is still mostly herself, just with some of our main characters personality and memories included. She has found a way to survive being destroyed thats interesting. And has decided to join the demon lady out of self preservation because this demon isnt aware that her ability to come back from soul destruction magic isnt something she can just endlessly repeat. And of course vampire reincarnation and her first minion vamp are tagging along for the ride. I have to admit im curious to see where things go from here.

Humans are apparently abundant mountains of exp for no effort so if she has more evolutions to work through all it will take is another battle or two and there you go. And without that she will still get tons of levels. The fact that she can casually obliterate most humans without even being there due to evil eye abilities is a TERRIFYING amount of strength. Really earns the nightmare title. I cant wait till the space warping evil eye levels up to max. Insta black hole attack with no warning anyone? Seriously though, be anywhere in her territory when she is in a killing mood and enjoy being dead before you realize you are under attack unless you have ABSURD magic resist or nullification abilities. And even then she may be able to get around that with her stat sealing evil eye shutting down your resistance when its at max. You just get to live a little longer is all. Final note, those baby spiders sound like they will be an issue. A whole bunch of "her" not under her command and sounding very much so opposed to her and her demon boss.

[GloatingSwine]

So I just reached the end of book 5 of im a spider. Looks like only one mind attacking her soul wasnt enough to do the job, just enough to muddle their spirits together a bit. Makes me wonder what would have happened if there had been two minds sent in there. Would she actually think she WAS the demon lady?

The link with Ariel was only one way, so nothing travelled back. But if more of the minds had gone across it might have either crippled or killed Ariel or altered her personality more. (And not in a good way, I think, at least the three "main" parallel minds have somewhat different personalities, and the magic minds are a bit colder and more logical than body brain).

That said, the influence of body brain is, I think, one reason the plot goes the way it goes from here. From what we briefly see of Ariel at the end of book 5 it's clear that she's ordinarily extremely risk averse and may not have actually gone through with the plans she does without a little bit of proactiveness from Kumoko.

[Traab]

The link with Ariel was only one way, so nothing travelled back. But if more of the minds had gone across it might have either crippled or killed Ariel or altered her personality more. (And not in a good way, I think, at least the three "main" parallel minds have somewhat different personalities, and the magic minds are a bit colder and more logical than body brain).

That said, the influence of body brain is, I think, one reason the plot goes the way it goes from here. From what we briefly see of Ariel at the end of book 5 it's clear that she's ordinarily extremely risk averse and may not have actually gone through with the plans she does without a little bit of proactiveness from Kumoko.

I phrased it badly, what I meant was, Would demon lady have been overwritten with her mind and personality to the point where she basically believes she is our main character rather than just having her personality change to the extent it did. Or would the parallel minds have actually taken her over, if thats not just splitting semantic hairs. I think more likely what would have happened was the queen taratect situation all over again because multiple parallel minds kept them from blending and focused on draining. In fact, it might have been the reverse. These extra minds would have themselves absorbed a bit of ariels personality while draining and devouring her soul and brought that issue back with them when they eventually rejoined our mc. Causing a more obvious multiple personality split between them than there already was. A couple more coldly rational and risk averse minds added to the gestalt. Iirc that was actually an issue after the queen fight right? She didnt agree with the other minds but was afraid to say anything.

[thethird]

LitRPG and Xianxia/Cultivation tales are two genres that sadly squander their potential more often than not.

The Wandering Inn is a good example of the former, and Forge of Destiny is a good example of the latter, if anyone's taking suggestions.

I am enjoying the legendary mechanic (https://daonovel.com/novel/the-legendary-mechanic/) which is an intersection of the two genres (and isekai, and regression stories, it mixes a lot of stuff).

Related but not really in the genre I really like Overgeared (https://www.wuxiaworld.com/novel/overgeared). Yeah I like crafting.

[GloatingSwine]

I phrased it badly, what I meant was, Would demon lady have been overwritten with her mind and personality to the point where she basically believes she is our main character rather than just having her personality change to the extent it did. Or would the parallel minds have actually taken her over, if thats not just splitting semantic hairs. I think more likely what would have happened was the queen taratect situation all over again because multiple parallel minds kept them from blending and focused on draining. In fact, it might have been the reverse. These extra minds would have themselves absorbed a bit of ariels personality while draining and devouring her soul and brought that issue back with them when they eventually rejoined our mc. Causing a more obvious multiple personality split between them than there already was. A couple more coldly rational and risk averse minds added to the gestalt. Iirc that was actually an issue after the queen fight right? She didnt agree with the other minds but was afraid to say anything.

I doubt Ariel would have been overwritten, her own memories don't appear to have been modified in the process, just her personality and decisionmaking.

If enough of the parallel minds had gone across she might have died, probably taking them with her because they would have no way to escape. They couldn't go back, because the only link was through the Queen who is now dead.

[Traab]

I doubt Ariel would have been overwritten, her own memories don't appear to have been modified in the process, just her personality and decisionmaking.

If enough of the parallel minds had gone across she might have died, probably taking them with her because they would have no way to escape. They couldn't go back, because the only link was through the Queen who is now dead.


Can you imagine what the level up bonus for that would have been at this stage of the story? Assuming she got credit for the kill when it happened. At the very least it probably would have been enough to get her to arachne, or if she was already there at the next evolution, assuming there is one, which i do. Thats like beating an end game raid boss at level 1. Thats a lot of exp! Makes me wonder if it could roll over. She evolves, then gets another couple dozen level up notifications lol. Probably not, it seems to freeze at the point of evolution. She is already an army killer, having that chunk of exp added to where she is now would just make it even scarier. She can literally wipe out armies by LOOKING AT THEM. Assuming she doesnt casually one shot a significant percentage with a single spell like she did in book 5. Can you imagine it? She hangs out on a ridge overlooking the battle and just slowly looks around as everything she wants to die just keels over with no sign of whats happening. Nightmare indeed.

[GloatingSwine]

Can you imagine what the level up bonus for that would have been at this stage of the story? Assuming she got credit for the kill when it happened. At the very least it probably would have been enough to get her to arachne, or if she was already there at the next evolution, assuming there is one, which i do. Thats like beating an end game raid boss at level 1. Thats a lot of exp! Makes me wonder if it could roll over. She evolves, then gets another couple dozen level up notifications lol. Probably not, it seems to freeze at the point of evolution. She is already an army killer, having that chunk of exp added to where she is now would just make it even scarier. She can literally wipe out armies by LOOKING AT THEM. Assuming she doesnt casually one shot a significant percentage with a single spell like she did in book 5. Can you imagine it? She hangs out on a ridge overlooking the battle and just slowly looks around as everything she wants to die just keels over with no sign of whats happening. Nightmare indeed.

Yeah, taking down Ariel would be a massive XP boost with all her skills.

There would have been... consequences to that though...

[Traab]

Yeah, taking down Ariel would be a massive XP boost with all her skills.

There would have been... consequences to that though...

I only just got started on book 6, but im sure there would be. Meanwhile She is such a cute baby puppetmaster! lol Its kind of funny just how much of a social shut in she is. Its early on and she has a hard time even explaining why she is marching an infant around and feeding it poison. Its quite a shocking change from how she acted in the labyrinth. At least this helps make it clear why our vamp progenitor is going to be such a BEAST in the next 10-15 years or so. Grinding those base stats way up before she can even start gaining levels is going to make those level ups super scary. Iirc your stats like hp defense mp, etc, all are raised by a certain amount and increased by multipliers of how high specific skill levels are. So she is going to be getting LOTS of bonus points every time she levels up at this rate. Not even counting whatever other bonuses she might be getting as a vamp progenitor. No need tot ell me if im right or not, I will find out eventually. Btw, on an unrelated note, I have actually read Kill Them All, the worm gamer story several times. I quite greatly enjoy it. I also like that one of the stories I linked earlier, My Hero Playthrough, got a couple new chapter updates. I love the disgaea dungeon setup it has. Being able to spread the benefit out to group members is an awesome addition, and the fact that they already finished the overhaul arc is kinda funny.

[Traab]

I started Solo Leveling yesterday, im up to chapter 78 atm. For those who havent read it, basically its set on earth, there are people called hunters who have to fight inside of what seems to be randomly generated dungeons called gates. Our main character is a south korean man who is infamous for being pretty much the weakest hunter ever. During a strange gate clearing he ends up awakening Gamer powers. He is determined to keep it as quiet as possible as long as he can so he has the peace to grind up skills and levels before anyone realizes because its unusual to get a power boost, but unheard of to continually get stronger. This is an interesting one. What I like is you can feel the cultural difference here with how the main character and everyone else for that matter behaves. Its... different, in many ways that are hard to point out. I am enjoying the fact that its surprisingly low skills so far. He has a few but until he got his class levels he basically relied on pure stats to win fights and it worked fine. Now he has a powerful army of shadow beings to fight for him and its hilarious how this changes things. I bet he doesnt regret not getting an assassin class anymore. Being able to deal with armies of enemies by unleashing your own army is a lot safer than doing sneaky stealth kills and hoping to survive.

Im at the part where he just finally went to get his rank reassignment done and the uproar he is blissfully unaware of for the moment. Im still waiting for the other shoe to drop. To see what sort of downside there is for his amazing powers, what big threat there is he may have to deal with, that sort of thing. Im also curious to see what happens once he becomes publicly famous. Dude seems to be slightly oblivious and uncomfortable with attention. I can see him joining a guild with the proviso he be allowed to run A-B ranks solo or something of the sort as he tends to be very much a loner who is able to back it up.

[JDMSJR]

Well I finally got my internet fixed after living for a week as a snowbound caveman, so to celebrate, here is another recommendation. A Gamer in South Blue https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13260401/1/A-Gamer-In-South-Blue . This Gamer story is set in One Piece and has an original character protagonist. It currently has 24 chapters and almost 145,000 words. The author has put it on a temporary hiatus since the submarine he is stationed on has been deployed on a patrol and he will be gone and mostly underwater until around April/May. All in all a good story so far and I am looking forward to the author resuming writing.

[Red Fel]

Well, setting aside the isekais in this genre, I think there are - broadly speaking - two general categories.

One is the more general "my life has been gamified" type - protagonist wakes up to find life has taken on video game aspects, or alternatively protagonist dies and gets a GAME OVER screen and must restart with knowledge that life is a video game. A number of those have been suggested above. I'll throw one in: Naruto: Game of the Year Edition (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4823029/1/Naruto-Game-of-the-Year-Edition). It was one of the first fics I've read in the genre, and one of the better ones. Sadly, like so many others, it is on hiatus.

That's understandable. Writing a video game is hard.

The second category is actually more of a crossover fanfic. Its genesis was linked upthread - The Gamer (https://the-gamer-manga.com/manga/the-gamer-chapter-1/), a Korean webcomic about a protagonist who wakes up to find that his life has been gameified. (By the way, the official translations can be found here (http://www.mangahere.cc/manga/the_gamer/).) That's a bit of a simplification - it's actually about a protagonist who finds that he has awakened to a secret world alongside ours in which people have a special power. Because his interest is games, his special power is to experience everything through game mechanics - so injuries are never debilitating unless they're lethal, exhaustion and hunger don't really work the same way, and skills can be leveled up by reading books.

Well, The Gamer inspired a lot of fanfic - not just of The Gamer itself, as its world kind of lost some depth after awhile, but of other series in which a character receives the power of The Gamer. Someone mentioned The Games We Play upthread, and it's excellent - compelling, dark, well-written. It's a RWBY fanfic in which Jaune receives the power of The Gamer, and promptly considers, "Wisdom is common sense, right? I should put points into that." (As an aside, while the FF.net version was linked upthread, you can find the complete story on Spacebattles here (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-games-we-play-rwby-the-gamer-ryuugi-complete.351105/).)

Another example is Naruto: The Game of Life (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10973590/1/Naruto-The-Game-of-Life) (yes, another Naruto fic, it is the second most popular on FF.net). In this one, Naruto awakens to the power of The Gamer, and it actually fits really well. The canon character is both easily distracted and utterly oblivious, and having a literal game prompt in front of his face reminding him of what he needs to do and informing him of areas in need of improvement really helps to address his canon issues.

I'd offer more, but there's this weird glowing text in front of me that says something about a quest I have to accept. The last time I did this a giant four-foot rat tried to kill me. We'll see.

[Traab]

So now im ticked off at Solo Leveler. Why? Because it just skipped from chapter 90ish to 130. I missed SO MUCH STUFF in the interim. There had been a section before this where that happened, though not to the same extent but this? This is nuts. I hope there arent too many more gaps in the series like this. Its an interesting story and im enjoying it for a variety of reasons large and small, but a 40 chapter gap is pretty freaking terrible.

[thethird]

So now im ticked off at Solo Leveler. Why? Because it just skipped from chapter 90ish to 130. I missed SO MUCH STUFF in the interim. There had been a section before this where that happened, though not to the same extent but this? This is nuts. I hope there arent too many more gaps in the series like this. Its an interesting story and im enjoying it for a variety of reasons large and small, but a 40 chapter gap is pretty freaking terrible.

why did you skip those chapters? Were they missing where you were reading them? Try here (https://daonovel.com/novel/only-i-level-up-novel-solo-leveling-completed-free/)..

[Traab]

why did you skip those chapters? Were they missing where you were reading them? Try here (https://daonovel.com/novel/only-i-level-up-novel-solo-leveling-completed-free/)..

I didnt do it by choice. The site I was reading it on just decided to go "Ehhh, eff this, I dont feel like posting these 40 chapters" I did a quick search to find them but didnt locate the missing chapters, for example one place seemed to be a web comic form. Thanks for the link, this is far superior in quality as the other one i had to manually go back to the index and select the next chapter each time.

[thethird]

I didnt do it by choice. The site I was reading it on just decided to go "Ehhh, eff this, I dont feel like posting these 40 chapters" I did a quick search to find them but didnt locate the missing chapters, for example one place seemed to be a web comic form. Thanks for the link, this is far superior in quality as the other one i had to manually go back to the index and select the next chapter each time.

For what is worth I like the webcomic too, the art is very good. That site is pretty good and useful to read this kind of novels, I tend to have at least two tabs of the site open on my phone at any given time.

[Traab]

So I went back to where it left off and am now all the way up to 153. So far this story is really interesting. I can see there is a big twist coming up, the source of his power, or possibly what his powers are attracting, SOMETHING big is going to happen. To talk more specifically I will spoiler it.

So our intrepid main character is now allowed to run high level dungeons solo. And already its getting hilarious. He is now going from buying all the C ranks to buying as many of the A ranks as he can. Im curious to see where all his skills will go from here. What sort of stupidly powerful shadow warriors he will get, what new abilities his old class skills have now that they are level 2 (I like how the author purposefully left the new skills each one got a mystery) Im also wondering how long it will take for the S rank gate in japan to become something he will go after, and how that will go. yeah he was able to handle the anthill mostly solo but will this be the same? And what will he get from it with his new ability to double the ranks of his army? I imagine filling it up with s rank dungeon level monsters will be a nice boost to his skills, and maybe make that black key dungeon that has a timer on it till he can go more easily handled. Also, the idea of him actually going in to an S rank solo and clearing it will be hilarious to see the world reaction to it. Im pretty sure they will at least grant him that special rank whose name im currently blanking on if he does it again.

[Traab]

Aaaand finished. First of all, I really did suspect it was going a Games We Play route, so that wasnt a very big shock to learn, though the details were very interesting. Secondly, Ant Marshal Beru is best boy. Now and forever. :smallbiggrin: Thirdly, I liked the drawn out epilogue, it was neat, wrapped up a lot of loose ends, gave us a sense for the future, but didnt leave me on a cliff hangar. I give it top marks as it knew when to end itself and spent the right amount of time getting to that point. Im keeping it favorited in case I want to read it again.

On a related note, Gamer of Blades got an update. And.... yeah, its basically gone full bore deluge of classes, skills, stat boosts, powers, relationship levels, to the point where I literally ignore all of that to focus on whatever is left to the chapter thats devoted to story. Solo Leveler did it right, it kept the number of skills low, focused on stats making meaningful improvements, and focused primarily on skill and story elements rather than endless lists of ten thousand abilities getting marginally better.

[Rynjin]

I had the same reaction trying to read Inexorable Chaos, which is inexplicably the top voted story on TopWebFiction ATM.

The amount of EXPOSITION in that series is egregious, with every character telling each other their motivations and current feelings, and that is only broken up by big blue statblocks of worthless info.

To add insult to injury, the class formatting/leveling system is shamelessly (and admittedly!) cribbed from The Wandering Inn, without any of the elements that make that series great.

People on Royal Road have been demonstrated to have absolutely zero taste before, but this is a new level IMO.

[The Glyphstone]

As a semi-tangent to this topic, I've recently run across my first 'Dungeon Core' novel, which seems to be a sub-sub-genre of sorts of the LitRPG sub-genre in itself. Are these common enough to warrant inclusion in the 'gamer fiction' umbrella?

[Corvus]

I'm sure I read actual published novels of this genre back in the 80s - and like a lot of 80s fantasy they were kind of gloriously terrible.

[Kitten Champion]

As a semi-tangent to this topic, I've recently run across my first 'Dungeon Core' novel, which seems to be a sub-sub-genre of sorts of the LitRPG sub-genre in itself. Are these common enough to warrant inclusion in the 'gamer fiction' umbrella?

I assume you mean the "person becomes dungeon" or some concept similar to an RPG dungeon master? I don't see why not, really.

On another note, I read - listened to, technically - a LitRPG that I actually ended up liking. It was the first book of Eric Ugland's The Bad Guys (https://www.goodreads.com/series/268397-the-bad-guys) series.

If I were to describe it, it's relatively standard Isekai kind of stuff. Man, who was living his life as a burglar, decides to save the family in a house he was robbing from a fire, ends up in hospital with heavy burns, gets messaged on his phone to play a RPG, winds up in a another world as the character he created. He decides to be a Robin Hood-esque chivalrous thief, and the story of the first book is him settling into the world and going through the initiation into the local thieves guild.

It avoids a lot of the major pitfalls of LitRPGs, at least thus far. There are no egregious info-dumps, no vapid harem, there aren't loads of characters and details thrown in which aren't used within the story he's actually telling, the main character isn't overpowered and only has a few spells/skills that are described clearly and are used consistently to deal with conflicts, the setting does have some personality to it and there is some effort put in to give the characters some life and the world some verisimilitude, and the main character is usually quite likeable with both flaws and virtues.

The world is very much a cross between The Elder Scrolls and Dungeons & Dragons. There's stamina/mana/HP and he periodically learns skills after practicing them somewhat like TES, but the spells and the magic items are very D&D.

It also does the "snarky interface" thing the OP mentioned, skills and level-ups get announced with some degree of sarcasm thrown in.

It is, I think, ultimately a fun traditional fantasy adventure story where the gamest elements don't overwhelm the narrative. Though I can say nothing about the rest of the series beyond what I've read, obviously.