Can someone explain the attraction of LitRpg novels to me? - Page 2 - OG Myth-Weavers

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Can someone explain the attraction of LitRpg novels to me?

   
When I want to play an RPG, I play an RPG. When I want to read books, I tend to read...books.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raistlinmc View Post
When I want to play an RPG, I play an RPG. When I want to read books, I tend to read...books.
That's the thing though, despite the silly trapping it's just a book. Some good and some bad. Good ones will have characters you care about doing plots that matter to them.

It seems like it's mostly just a tool. A rather low-end tool that is extremely easy to misuse, intentionally or not, and end up using it as a narrative crutch. Now, I haven't really read any of the books that would fall under the umbrella, but SAO is a good example of it being used to the detriment of the story.

So, like any other literary tool, it can be used well or poorly.

I forgot to point out that Jumanji 2 was basically the same type of story only in movie instead of novel.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raveled View Post
In SAO the characters exist in an MMO, right? Like, not just in the fictional setting of Warcraft but actually in the video game World of Warcraft. So to me it makes sense that they hit a goblin and 140 in red numbers pops up over the creature's head.
My understanding of LitRPG is that that is pretty much the definition. Every article I can find seems to pretty much agree that the entire point is that these really are characters in an MMO. In some cases, there may be sequences set outside the MMO in the real world (or even in other MMO's), but the idea that this is the story of someone playing a game is key.

Now, does it have to be someone playing a game or can it be someone in a game-like world?
IE, Swordart is "real" in a video game vs. Konosuba where it's the "real world" but people carry around literal character sheets that are magical.

Good question. I've not actually watched or read any of it (yet) but I'm aware of it. It looks like at least some fans consider Konosuba to be part of the genre, though it definitely bends the convention a bit. To be fair, the main character is from the "real world" and the "game world" is his Afterlife. So he's not going back or anything, but it's not a world he was born into and it's fair to question its "reality". My understanding is that it's something of a parody of the isekai genre of which LitRPG is effectively a subgenre (Western fantasy fans might be more familiar with the term "portal fantasy", basically the same thing).

I hear you, Ben. I guess I just meant that when I want to read a book, I want literature, not something that is trying to be the video game I just finished playing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raistlinmc View Post
When I want to play an RPG, I play an RPG. When I want to read books, I tend to read...books.
I raise you Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy as classic examples of both.

Ok, fair enough, Chaos. I guess I meant, like, literature. Mark Twain. Zora Neale Hurston. Alice Walker. Margaret Atwood. Tom Wolfe. Mary Shelley. George Orwell. Kazuo Ishiguro. Barbara Kingsolver.

I meant stuff like that.




 

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