Question about gamer fanfics, light novels etc

[Traab]

In case you dont know, the term talks about isekai stories where the main character basically gets to live his new life like a video game character, ie he can level up, increase stats, sometimes can run personalized dungeons, has hit points rather than taking injuries, etc. My question was, am I crazy? Or do they almost all seem to work along rules where the mc never actually admits to whats going on? Like, I cant even count how many gamer fanfics ive read, I love em, but its a running theme that they will come up with any excuse for how they do what they do without admitting they have a gamer system. And I never once read a story where they were forbidden to talk about it. Its like its just accepted not to admit you have a gamer system. Now, there are a couple where the mc tells people about it, The Games We Play being one of the more well known ones, but is there some sort of hold over from the earliest stories of this type where for narrative reasons they had to hide it, even in high magic worlds where they would be believed and ever since then its just been an accepted trope of the genre? Like, in Only I Level Up it makes sense to hide it, nobody else has anything like that ability and it breaks all sorts of rules everyone else lives by, but most of the time, they are in a world with gods demons magic and strange powers where one more isnt going to break anything.

[Lord Raziere]

I guess its because it'd be weird and risky to talk about to other people?

like imagine talking to a fantasy person who has no idea what a videogame is and that your powers run on this videogame system. you don't know how knowledgeable they are (namely how pseudo-modern their education system is), and you don't know how much you can assume about the world's knowledge. you might be able to lie to them about how its just a blessing from the gods or something if the worldview is more spiritual and religious, but that might not work if their fantasy education is pseudo-modern enough to point out how nonsensical that is because a divine blessing actually works X, Y and Z ways in that world. or if you be honest, they might conversely see it as evil magic for some reason you don't understand because not all magic is good magic or safe magic; necromancy, demon-summoning and other stuff are still things that can potentially be A Thing, and you don't know how those things manifest or what the signs are.

so you might end up a world so DnD-like that its completely understanding of some anomalous math-based leveling system of magic that empowers only you for some reason, but you might equally end up in a world that isn't understanding of it at all. you can't assume acceptance of strangeness as a given or take it for granted, given that what world you end up in is a big gamble.

and by the time your established in whatever world you end up in and know more, its often easier to just say your real good at stuff and just that awesome and people will most likely believe you because prodigies and celebrities who are incredibly skilled at things are a thing and unless you do something truly out of place for this world's magic system that people can't really reconcile with normal magic, no one is going to be the wiser. after all these gamer systems only really affect you, don't really show up for anyone else and work on improving things that probably already exist in the world they arrive in. In all probability while powerful your probably not going to be anything truly unbelievable or setting breaking, so people have no reason to think you have some secret power source thats exceptional, and why give people ammunition to think your crazy?

[KillianHawkeye]

Do you mean that the character doesn't discuss the video game rules with other characters, or that they somehow don't even admit it internally to the reader? I thought the point of most isekai/game stories is the main character applies their gamer knowledge to the game world they find themselves in, so it seems weird if they don't talk about it?

I'll admit I haven't read many of these types of stories, and the main one I do remember reading (Harry Potter and the Natural 20) had a main character who quite explicitly told several others about how his D&D game rules differed from their regular Harry Potter rules.

I agree that if the fantasy world is set up such that people don't know they're in a video game world, then talking about video game rules and using a bunch of video game jargon will get a lot of people thinking you're crazy, so that seems like a good reason not to do that. At least, not until they establish a trusting relationship or do something that can prove their wild claims. Otherwise, you end up in an insane asylum like your late-90s fantasy/sci-fi TV series was all happening in your head.

[Traab]

Im sorry for not responding to my own thread, its kinda dumb of me. But here is what I mean. Here in The Game Must Go On (eventual nsfw portions) Our main character gets isekaied into the Highschool DxD universe and quickly rises to power. At no point does he admit, to anyone, that he has Gamer abilities. Instead he proclaims that his patron is death herself to somehow justify the fact that he is yoinking people into this world from all over the multiverse, can change into various races, has all sorts of abilities they cant explain, etc etc etc. In this setting the movers and shakers are pretty much all high loyalty supporters of him and would easily accept that he has gamer powers because he can absolutely prove it. Instead he wont even tell his own peerage the full truth. There is absolutely no part of the story that says "I am not allowed to say" or "There are consequences if I admit it" I could post another 5 or so stories set in the same universe by different authors, some with very different gamer setups, but the one thing they all share is, even when they are so powerful that, in one case, the character becomes a literal divinity who could crush 99.9% of the setting, they never, EVER admit they have gamer abilities and find some other excuse to explain why they show up and in 3-6 months go from scrub to god.

I just wanted to know if there was some history behind the gamer genre where it was established to be powers you couldnt tell anyone about, and over time it was just "the way things are done" so they dont even bother to add a blurb of the gamer AI going "Oh btw, dont tell anyone you have this or else *bad things inserted here*" Because it honestly has never come up. I havent read a single story where he is told to not reveal the source of his abilities and yet they are almost always desperate to keep it hidden even while gladly sharing their full list of abilities with their friends and such.

[Lord Raziere]

.....Yeah I think thats probably it?

the problem its not clear where that isekai trope came from? the kind of isekai your talking about where a Gamer ability is mentioned actually takes cues from something thats technically NOT an Isekai: Sword Art Online, because many of them take cues from that because it was popular.

so at some point, it became a trope but there are isekai where the opposite is true: where reincarnators are a known thing, are revealed or even are enshrined as a cultural hero of prophecy to save them from something or as threats, such as Rise of the Shield Hero, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, or The Executioner and Her way of Life (the last of which is actually about a girl who kills reincarnators to keep her world safe as apart of their church due to the powers inevitably make reincarnators go mad from using them)

so its not as if the trope is a sure thing. I'm guessing perhaps its a isekai FANFIC thing where fans either copied something that did it, but forgot why it was done in the first place and now just repeat the trope because "thats the isekai genre experience" and thus mindlessly follow every trope to make it an isekai because they can't conceive an isekai without checking off the boxes that they think is there. much like how some Naruto fanfics became sort of formulaic after a while with alternate universe/time travel fics? Naruto would inevitably get taught to not wear orange, use his abilities in ways beyond what the show did to be more competent, get more romance with Hinata earlier, go to Wave, save Zabusa and Haku, do the Chuunin Exams, no matter what the actual original change was from canon. apparently in Naruto fanfic multiverse, canon is the only universe where Naruto keeps being dumb, goes from Genin to hokage without any positions in between and never saves Haku and so on. so I could believe that a similar phenomenon is happening with this: fanfics have their own tropes and cliches and this just became a cliche for whatever reason, repeatedly mindlessly without understanding why it was there in the first place.

[Traab]

Ah so its all a bit of a confused muddle and there really isnt a progenitor to point to that explains the why behind some of the tropes? Ah well. I have to admit, i really do enjoy the general genre. I especially love how it branches off into alternates. Ive read a few stories where the gamer is setup through D&D rules, rolling for stats and such, and has a gamer store they can use for everything from buying levels, stats, feats, alternate classes, etc. I just was curious if there was something I was missing that explained the secrecy. Its been an odd thing bugging me for awhile.

[Lord Raziere]

okay I googled "Isekai genre history" and got this:

From Wikipedia:

A popular isekai light novel and anime series in the 2000s was The Familiar of Zero (2004 debut), where the male lead Saito is from modern Japan and is summoned to a fantasy world by the female lead Louise.[19] The Familiar of Zero popularized the isekai genre in web novel and light novel media, along with the website Shōsetsuka ni Narō ("Let's Become Novelists"), known as Narō for short. The Familiar of Zero fan fiction became popular on Narō during the late 2000s, eventually spawning a genre of isekai novels on the site, which became known as Narō novels. The Familiar of Zero fan fiction writers eventually began writing original isekai novels, such as Tappei Nagatsuki who went on to create Re:Zero (2012 debut). The 2012 anime adaptation of Sword Art Online popularized the isekai genre in anime, which led to more isekai web novels being published on Narō and a number of Narō novels being adapted into anime. It was around this time that the term "isekai" was coined.[20]

Later titles such as Knight's & Magic and The Saga of Tanya the Evil (both 2010 debut) involved their protagonists dying and being reincarnated in a different world.[12][21] The most influential isekai novel in that regard was Mushoku Tensei (2012 debut), which began as a Narō novel and popularized the reincarnation sub-genre of isekai while establishing a number of common isekai tropes. Mushoku Tensei was the most popular Narō novel for a number of years, and thus served as a point of reference for numerous isekai writers that followed.[20]

so apparently the influential isekai your looking for is "Mushoku Tensei".

[Mechalich]

Ah so its all a bit of a confused muddle and there really isnt a progenitor to point to that explains the why behind some of the tropes? Ah well. I have to admit, i really do enjoy the general genre. I especially love how it branches off into alternates. Ive read a few stories where the gamer is setup through D&D rules, rolling for stats and such, and has a gamer store they can use for everything from buying levels, stats, feats, alternate classes, etc. I just was curious if there was something I was missing that explained the secrecy. Its been an odd thing bugging me for awhile.

There's a lot of cross pollination, especially since manga is no longer as overwhelmingly dominant in the genre and there's an increasing influence of manhua (China) and manhwa (Korea), both of whose industries are if anything even more prone to copy-cat trends than the Japanese manga/light novel industry. For example, the hero hides his 'gamer-system' style powers in the the manhwa Solo Leveling because he doesn't want the existing supers industry to figure out why his strength has suddenly exploded and use him as a lab test subject and consequently pretty much every one of Solo Leveling's ten million clone series does the same thing whether or not it makes sense in-universe.

[Forum Explorer]

In case you dont know, the term talks about isekai stories where the main character basically gets to live his new life like a video game character, ie he can level up, increase stats, sometimes can run personalized dungeons, has hit points rather than taking injuries, etc. My question was, am I crazy? Or do they almost all seem to work along rules where the mc never actually admits to whats going on? Like, I cant even count how many gamer fanfics ive read, I love em, but its a running theme that they will come up with any excuse for how they do what they do without admitting they have a gamer system. And I never once read a story where they were forbidden to talk about it. Its like its just accepted not to admit you have a gamer system. Now, there are a couple where the mc tells people about it, The Games We Play being one of the more well known ones, but is there some sort of hold over from the earliest stories of this type where for narrative reasons they had to hide it, even in high magic worlds where they would be believed and ever since then its just been an accepted trope of the genre? Like, in Only I Level Up it makes sense to hide it, nobody else has anything like that ability and it breaks all sorts of rules everyone else lives by, but most of the time, they are in a world with gods demons magic and strange powers where one more isnt going to break anything.

That is weird, considering most Gamer stories that aren't fanfics have the character be relatively open about it, or it's literally baked into the world and everyone is like that.

[GloatingSwine]

There's a lot of cross pollination, especially since manga is no longer as overwhelmingly dominant in the genre and there's an increasing influence of manhua (China) and manhwa (Korea), both of whose industries are if anything even more prone to copy-cat trends than the Japanese manga/light novel industry. For example, the hero hides his 'gamer-system' style powers in the the manhwa Solo Leveling because he doesn't want the existing supers industry to figure out why his strength has suddenly exploded and use him as a lab test subject and consequently pretty much every one of Solo Leveling's ten million clone series does the same thing whether or not it makes sense in-universe.

Psst: None of those are "dominant". Modern Isekai/game-system-fantasy is a web fiction thing. Pretty much every one you can name started life as self published web fiction, they might get adapted to other media (in Japan that's most commonly light novels not manga), but they're web fiction at heart. (Because most of the Korean ones are the spawn of Solo Levelling they're not usually isekai, usually the gamelike elements are part of the real world or are imposed on it).

so apparently the influential isekai your looking for is "Mushoku Tensei".

I don't think Mushoku Tensei has a strictly gamelike world, I think it's looser than that. It was certainly an influential part of the big wave of 2010s Isekai (MT, Overlord, and Log Horizon all started around the same time), but it's not where the game systems come from. Those are more likely SAO into Log Horizon and Overlord (the two big "reincarnated into your favourite MMO" stories). Subsequent stories just dropped the real world game and directly had gamelike worlds because they were written by and for teenagers who get 99% of their understanding of the world from videogames.

[Traab]

Id like to argue with that last part, but considering like 95% of the gamer stories I read seem to end rather abruptly because the main character, despite being setup to hop the multiverse having adventures messing with various game and book storylines, manages to become too powerful for the majority of settings to make sense anymore, you are probably right. Like, if you are able to hang with the top 10 strongest beings in DxD, you arent exactly going to be challenged by harry potter. But even then, you are a long way from surviving all but the very start of settings like dragonball where they get to moonbusting feats rapidly and only get crazier from there.

That being said, there are a few surprising ones setup. Another story im currently reading, Game of Monsters, is very much so a slow burn and it has all sorts of mysteries like, we learn early on that despite being a huge fan of anime and such, something is blocking him from recognizing the setting he is in. His memory only gets unlocked fairly deep into events while his leveling up path is slow. He basically has to grind his abilities the hard way with no instant dungeons, no relationship modifiers, no gatcha tokens for random powerful stuff etc. He also doesnt really level up as such, his skills increase by letter grade increments and that also seems to effect how good he thinks he is because starting at an F- and working your way up to C you might think "Finally, I have become average!" he doesnt realize he is a freaking prodigy and actually really strong in his skills. Basically he lacks reference points to compare himself to.

But honestly, I wish there were more gamer stories that were meant to world hop, that also keep control of the overwhelming power. Best done by starting in a low power universe where you can absolutely wreck the setting by the time its done, but get moved to something like, I dunno, ranma 1/2 and you are getting hammered by half the nerima district until you get your skills up some more. THEN go to high school dxd and have to grow in power even more. Rather than starting as bog standard human then reaching high class devil inside a month. This gives you more time to play with the story, and avoids the "I AM GOD! KNEEL BEFORE ME!" moments until the end of the story instead of the end of the first act. The gamer stories where say naruto wakes up and has gamer powers, or midoriya from MHA are a different beast. I also love those but they tend to do a far better job of balancing itself because its literally all about this one setting and working to accomplish your goals there. It isnt "this is your tutorial world, get strong, move on"

[tyckspoon]

I just wanted to know if there was some history behind the gamer genre where it was established to be powers you couldnt tell anyone about, and over time it was just "the way things are done" so they dont even bother to add a blurb of the gamer AI going "Oh btw, dont tell anyone you have this or else *bad things inserted here*" Because it honestly has never come up. I havent read a single story where he is told to not reveal the source of his abilities and yet they are almost always desperate to keep it hidden even while gladly sharing their full list of abilities with their friends and such.

In the actual trope codifying series (at least it is to the best of my knowledge ) the titular Gamer is advised to try to keep the exact source and functioning of his powers secret, because the Secret Magical World in that universe is a bloody dog-eat-dog society of mercenaries and assassins - letting the broader world know that he is something special and unique will result in many of its factions trying to kill, control, recruit, or just collect him. So his best friend that he originally reveals his powers to councils him to try to keep it to himself until he can train up to a sufficient power level to resist those demands and make his own choices. As mentioned many of these stories are written up as templates, so 'there's a character, he has game-like powers that are unique, and he should try not to let the wider world know about that' enters the basic setup without necessarily having the author examine if that still makes sense within their version of the world.

..of course that original Gamer is also kind of bad at keeping secrets, although I don't think it gets to the extremes of some of the fic I've come across where it's crossed with a harem romance or Relationship Collector story and the Gamer-powered lead character inevitably shares his secret with a baker's dozen of close friends, mentor figures, and potential romantic interests.

(Worth noting, I think, that a 'Gamer story' and 'the world itself operates under game-like rules' aren't the same thing - in a Gamer story specifically, it is usually just the one designated Gamer that works that way, and game-isms like 'a good nights sleep fully restores your HP and MP', 'you never suffer actual injuries, you just lose HP', and 'you can operate at full capacity no matter how badly you're getting beat up as long as you still have HP' are in-universe Really Weird and will draw a lot of interest from people who want to know how that works and if they can get that power too.)

[Traab]

I agree, I generally consider the gamer fics to be ones where the person is unique as you said. Though I dont exclude the ones that are a literal gamelike world such as reincarnated as a spider. And yeah, the list of abilities the gamer might have to draw on are the sort of thing that would draw attention. Though most can be hand waved away depending on the setting. Like, bluffing with the body showing no damage thing as just you being really tough, hence no bruise. Even as mentally you are going, "Oh dear god that took me to 10% life, please let them buy this and back down!"

[Prime32]

Though I dont exclude the ones that are a literal gamelike world such as reincarnated as a spider.

Interesting part there is that the world "naturally" works similar to Earth. Stuff like HP + attack spells are basically an elaborate form of laser tag instituted by the gods to reduce planetary mana consumption - Gamer powers for everyone. The super-dangerous forbidden magic is the kind that doesn't go through the RPG mechanics, meaning that its attacks are entirely real - if you blast someone in the head with it then they'll die even if the system says they have full HP.

[GloatingSwine]

But honestly, I wish there were more gamer stories that were meant to world hop, that also keep control of the overwhelming power. Best done by starting in a low power universe where you can absolutely wreck the setting by the time its done, but get moved to something like, I dunno, ranma 1/2 and you are getting hammered by half the nerima district until you get your skills up some more. THEN go to high school dxd and have to grow in power even more. Rather than starting as bog standard human then reaching high class devil inside a month. This gives you more time to play with the story, and avoids the "I AM GOD! KNEEL BEFORE ME!" moments until the end of the story instead of the end of the first act. The gamer stories where say naruto wakes up and has gamer powers, or midoriya from MHA are a different beast. I also love those but they tend to do a far better job of balancing itself because its literally all about this one setting and working to accomplish your goals there. It isnt "this is your tutorial world, get strong, move on"

I can think of at least one story that does that, Martial Peak, but it's not a gameworld story it's a cultivation story (which, y'know, the terms are different but they kinda run the same).

It mostly makes it long and repetitive, but occasionally the protag has some Jojo energy and that makes it sort of work. (It is very long).

[Traab]

I can think of at least one story that does that, Martial Peak, but it's not a gameworld story it's a cultivation story (which, y'know, the terms are different but they kinda run the same).

It mostly makes it long and repetitive, but occasionally the protag has some Jojo energy and that makes it sort of work. (It is very long).

I think I might have seen that one listed on the Dao Novel site that I read a few korean web novels along these lines. only i level up, the hidden dungeon only I can enter (that one is both dirty and weird, I place the strange down to cultural differences on what is considered sexy) Legendary mechanic was an interesting story that isnt quite the same as most gamer fics in that he basically gets to be inside the game before it goes live and exploit all the future patches he knows are coming to make himself super powerful. That was actually pretty cool. I liked as an odd variation of a gamer story, Infinite Survival I Can Plunder Passive Skills. Towards the end the power creep kinda exploded but the basic idea was pretty fascinating.

[Mechalich]

I can think of at least one story that does that, Martial Peak, but it's not a gameworld story it's a cultivation story (which, y'know, the terms are different but they kinda run the same).

The sort of 'ascend to a new stage' process found in Martial Peak is actually bog standard for cultivation stories and especially in the current Chinese web novel market that for some reason favors stories of truly stupefying length. Since cultivator stories have a power treadmill built in the MC will always eventually surpass all rivals in whatever realm they currently occupy and have to go to some bigger one full of more powerful people.

[Anteros]

The sort of 'ascend to a new stage' process found in Martial Peak is actually bog standard for cultivation stories and especially in the current Chinese web novel market that for some reason favors stories of truly stupefying length. Since cultivator stories have a power treadmill built in the MC will always eventually surpass all rivals in whatever realm they currently occupy and have to go to some bigger one full of more powerful people.

Eh...sorta. At they're core these are power fantasy stories, right? Most of them never actually have the MC face anything that can actually challenge them. Sure, there might be people present in the setting who are on a higher level than the MC, but they won't play a role in the story until it's time for the MC to effortlessly crush them and move on to the next fake challenge. At most you might get a few throw away lines about some challenge they'll face later, but they won't exist as a meaningful threat until it's their turn as a punching bag. The MC might technically ascend to a new level or whatever, but it rarely actually meaningfully impacts anything.

I really want to like cultivation stories, but they're just absolutely rife with Mary Sue protagonists who are never challenged and are adored by everyone, but are also somehow simultaneously terrible people that never get called out for their behavior because the author doesn't even realize that they've written a completely unlikable sociopath. Also harem stories are awful and should die in a fire. I suppose a lot of this can be chalked up to cultural differences, but if anyone here knows any cultivation stories with non Mary-Sue protagonists that actually aren't evil I'd like to hear it. The only one I know of is the Cradle series, and that was actually written to be a western take on cultivation stories.

[gomipile]

That is weird, considering most Gamer stories that aren't fanfics have the character be relatively open about it, or it's literally baked into the world and everyone is like that.

This is what I've seen, as well. Konosuba, Shield Hero, Slime 300, DanMachi, Reincarnated as a Slime, Tsukimichi, and more have the RPG elements as open knowledge in the world.

[Traab]

Eh...sorta. At they're core these are power fantasy stories, right? Most of them never actually have the MC face anything that can actually challenge them. Sure, there might be people present in the setting who are on a higher level than the MC, but they won't play a role in the story until it's time for the MC to effortlessly crush them and move on to the next fake challenge. At most you might get a few throw away lines about some challenge they'll face later, but they won't exist as a meaningful threat until it's their turn as a punching bag. The MC might technically ascend to a new level or whatever, but it rarely actually meaningfully impacts anything.

I really want to like cultivation stories, but they're just absolutely rife with Mary Sue protagonists who are never challenged and are adored by everyone, but are also somehow simultaneously terrible people that never get called out for their behavior because the author doesn't even realize that they've written a completely unlikable sociopath. Also harem stories are awful and should die in a fire. I suppose a lot of this can be chalked up to cultural differences, but if anyone here knows any cultivation stories with non Mary-Sue protagonists that actually aren't evil I'd like to hear it. The only one I know of is the Cradle series, and that was actually written to be a western take on cultivation stories.

Heh, the Infinite Survival story I mentioned earlier is interesting in that while yes he wins basically every fight, (sometimes he avoids fights or runs away, not often) at least he gets challenges that require him to fight with strategy and tactics from time to time. But his personality is kind of all over the place. He will go from refusing to work with anyone in a survivor mission, to gladly teaming up with them a half hour later when little to nothing for him has changed. he will save some people while leaving others to die, he will be generous one moment, then gouge another player for millions to get an item from him they want that he has no use for. Thankfully no harem, or relationship at all really. I do agree the harems are out of control, especially in fanfics. The best stories kind of keep them low key, so its easy to ignore or skip over the once every few chapters brief lemon if you want, the worst spend like half of each chapter describing sex scenes with a new combo of characters and kinks and thats just obnoxious.

One of the things that ive been trying to avoid is, a large upsurge in the bad guy protag stories. Those just come off as cheap excuses to write r*pe/noncon stories with mind control slavery etc fetishes. Which kind of sucks because a few had interesting ideas like playing as traditionally evil classes such as necromancers and such and how they have to deal with reactions to that. Or playing a game world such as Overlord (not the anime that just got a 4th season, the computer game) where you are the new lord of evil in the realm and have to find all the stuff missing from the tower, defeat the previous "heroes" who have fallen to corruption, etc etc etc. Its a neat idea playing the bad guy, the problem is the fanfic need for everything female to have sex with the mc who is TOTALLY not a self insert.

[theangelJean]

In the actual trope codifying series (at least it is to the best of my knowledge ) the titular Gamer is advised to try to keep the exact source and functioning of his powers secret, because the Secret Magical World in that universe is a bloody dog-eat-dog society of mercenaries and assassins - letting the broader world know that he is something special and unique will result in many of its factions trying to kill, control, recruit, or just collect him.

Which one would you consider to be the trope codifying series? Asking as an onlooker not familiar with the genre.

[MetroAlien]

I want to bring to your attention two "hipster" entries to this genre you identified. (hipster, because they did it before it was cool)
I think they both fit into this "gaming-based world" shtick you're describing, but they bring interesting twists to the idea, each in a different way.
If I was on TVTropes, I'd say they are deconstructions (shudder)

1. No Game No Life
This is a pretty straightforward isekai, but the conceit is that it's explicitly a gamer world. Not a game world. A gamer world. Playing a game with somebody is like an unbreakable contract (literally enforced by God) and all conflicts (even between countries) are settled with games.

2. Scott Pilgrim Versus The Universe
This Canadian comic is set in "our" universe, but actually it follows gaming rules. When people fight (and they do fight, regularly) they use game-like attack moves and "equipment". People can "die": they explode into coins and get respawned at home, the winner gets XP.
Other than that, the plot follows a regular dude doing regular romcom stuff in regular suburban Canada.
I think there are a few times that characters acknowledge these "game rules", but mostly it's played straight. (pun intended)