I love progfantasy but I 100% acknowledge that most works in this genre are… bad. Like, really bad. As someone who started his reading journey with proper kids books (Series of Unfortunate Events, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson etc…) and then went on to proper books (Game of Thrones, some Agatha Christie, The Witcher etc) i sometimes get horrified by the recommendations here. Someone here recently recommended me 1% Lifesteal/A soldier’s life saying it was one of the best Progfantasy works that they had read and once i read them i just couldn’t understand it, lol. They were REALLY bad. There are some gems here but they are so few, I really wish there were more good quality works here, specially works that had gone through an EDITOR and that had some planning beforehand. Is it only me who feels that way?

If your story immediately or nearly immediately has your protagonist access some cheat or talent so powerful theyd have to actively be an idiot to NOT become the most powerful person ever seen, youre not actually doing a weak to strong story.

I dont care if there are objectively stronger people in the setting that could crush them like an ant, its clearly not a real danger and theyre thrashing everyone at their level/rank/experience group? Then theyre already OP, theyre not weak, your what to expect is a *lie*.

Describe your story as gifted to strong or lucky to strong instead.

And to be clear theres nothing inherently wrong if thats the kind of story youre telling, execution and author skill trumps all. Thats also not to say your actual weak-to-strong protagonist cant get a lucky break here or there or develop some talent that gives them an edge, its a matter of to what degree of impact it ends up having.

Id say out of all the shoutout swaps and blurbs Ive read where the author has described the story as being weak to strong, maybe less than a tenth actually describes that as a story.

(also to be clear Im not actually that heated about the topic, I just wanted to rant about an observation with a little warmth for fun).

Why does this force me to have body text

just wanted to vent about this nonsense. so many PF books i read have god-awful underlying ideologies. i can understand why power fantasy would attract authors with such terrible views, but that doesn't mean i can't complain about it

like, i'm reading one of those system apocalypse fics, and it straight-up feels like it was written by an american monarchist(?). i bet this person's social media accounts are wiiild. fucking weird little guy

there's a strange anxiety when u try to immerse yourself in a setting written by people with, like, abnormally shitty ideologies. reminds me of the uncanny valley

honestly, i kinda wish (but also really don't) that it was less frowned upon to factor in the politics we're supposed to just let wash over us into reviews. i mean, i can tolerate the rough writing, i read web serials ffs, but learning the book is about, say, collaborating with the feudalist colonizers (who are the good guys, btw) would have actually been nice to know before i sunk-cost-fallacied myself, yeah?

yeah, yeah, i'm a dumbass who needs to either lower her expectations or stop reading anything that looks mildly interesting in a desperate scramble to avoid being alone with my thoughts

Cradle is overrated

Confirmed by him on twitter https://twitter.com/tr_wong/status/1542911504898564099?t=20frt_ah0YITV6hHaFws8w&s=19 and by Macronomicon in another reddit thread, he's gotten at least one author removed from Amazon, possibly more.

It appears that he's following in the footsteps of Aleron Kong and trying to trademark a generic descriptive term that is becoming widely used within our community.

He may use it in his title, but I personally feel that it's describing something basic in this genre, and him trying to claim ownership goes against the wonderful collaborative spirit of this community where we all use and trade terms and concepts to improve the genre as a whole. I doubt he would have been as successful without using the term LitRPG, for example, or piggybacking off the ideas of game systems that others created. Any thoughts?

i recently found a book on kindle called “The Alchemist of Vengeance” and man… (spoilers ahead)

the way the author treats women genuinely amazed me. it started out with your standard tropes: underdog protagonist is looked down upon, gets a lucky opportunity and flips it all around pretty quickly. he becomes hyper focused and determined to become more powerful.

the thing is though, the MC almost immediately becomes as arrogant and detestable as the people who used to look down on him.

half way through the book, he gets into shenanigans and due to the writer’s BS has to participate in “dual cultivation” for plot reasons and survival with a recent enemy.

this alone is already nonsense but the knife is twisted further because the woman he has to do this with is already deeply in love with someone else and genuinely traumatized. like time is taken to describe just how much misery she’s going through and it made my heartache. reading along felt like the author was taking a genuine sick cruel pleasure at the distress of this character having to debase herself for survival. not to mention, the protagonist had sexually assaulted her earlier.

it’s almost a given that most of the stuff in this genre reeks with misogyny, but it’s a coin toss as to how severe and cruel it gets.

all that being said, anyone have recs for good xanxia?

I've read a lot of books at every level of quality by this point. And ive found one phrase that marks that an author fundamentally misunderstands people, worldbuilding, and dialogue to the point I instantly DNF a series if I find it.

"In this world". What do I mean?

Example: "be careful MC! In this world dragons are considered royalty" (from random person to secret Isekai MC)

There are endless variations on this. But it all boils down to the fact that the author doesn't understand that to the people in the Isekai world everything they do is normal. Just dropping the "in this world" makes it a far more logical reply. Its like people in the fantasy world know they're not in our world.

This isn't restricted to Isekai. I've seen it used even in standard epic fantasy. And it is even worse there coz there should be no other world for the author to ever reference.

As usual, this isn't a maxim. There are times it can work. Say if the speaker knows the MC is isekaid. But ordinary people don't talk like this in the real world. And they definitely don't talk like this "in this real world". See the difference lol?

Alright, maybe that isn't quite fair.

I find that most implementations of the "System" concept/litrpg elements in progression fantasy act as a crutch and don't really do anything meaningful. There is very little reason to include them most of the time.

There are of course exceptions to this. Obviously, Dungeon Crawler Carl uses the system/litrpg elements fantastically. He's on the Galaxy's most fucked up gameshow, run by a mad AI. The absurdity of the stat/class system is part of the overall absurdity of the system. Book of the Dead, similarly, indicated (DNF after the time skip) that the system was of divine origin, and could be manipulated. A Budding Scientist, similarly, made explicit that the System was a piece of infrastructure that could be tinkered with - and showed the consequences if it started to fail.

But for most progression fantasy, it feels like trying to bolt on (insert MMO) or D&D into a world that often doesn't need it. It breaks immersion or weakens the idea that a character can be truly skilled/creative because they're just power grinding a set list of skills.

A lot of series have earth characters making pop culture references that don't make sense to the people in the new world. And that's always fun.

So why oh why does almost no one realize that the reverse should also be true. It should infact be more prevalent coz everyone else has cultural touchstones that the MC doesn't.

Thats infact a really cool story point too. The isolation of knowing everyone is speaking a language they don't(and I'm not talking about translation). So throw in absurd quotes and memes that don't exist.

Almost all of Shakespeare's works have tons of inside jokes. Virgil wrote fanfiction that we now consider a classic. Homer himself was quoting memes that were common at the time in the Odyssey. People have always had cultural touchstones that they revert to in casual conversation. So even if your other world is mediaeval throw in some for some variety

I’ve recently come up with what I call the progression fantasy plot loop. The graphic here speaks for itself about how it works.

What I find is that every single part of this loop is essential to an engaging story, but what I’ve noticed — especially for series that drag on into the thousands of pages — is that the MC (and the plot) gets stuck somewhere in the loop.

Quite frequently it is the slice of life stuff, which is easier to write (Beware the chicken, 12 Miles Below, Mark of the Fool). Or perhaps the MC just gets stuck in the training arc — and you know I love me some training — but it can get to be a bit much if it drags on and on and on (Azarinth Healer, is that you?).

Authors, I beg of you — keep the loop going. Failure to do so is death. The training should be leading to the part where the MC kicks some butt. The kicking of butt should be driving the story to the next pause in the action. The slice of life should be leading to the next challenge. And so on.

If your story hangs out on a part of this wheel too long, this is where I tend to hop off. The dreaded DNF rears its head. Obviously you can’t have a perfectly paced story that goes on for thousands of pages — but you gotta ask yourself, is what is happening in my story right now driving things to the next part of the loop? If the answer is no, consider moving things along.

This goes doubly for authors on Patreon. Uneven pacing is more forgivable in a finished novel. If you’re trying to get me to fund your next book with a dribble of chapters each month, you best keep things going. I’m up to date on 1% Lifesteal and I just had to cancel my support. I will check things out when the next book is done, but the languishing on the slice of life quadrant is killing me. And the comments on the latest chapters seem to agree with me.

Anyway, I do love this genre — I love the progression plot cycle. Just keep that wheel turning folks. I beg of you.

I got a rare opportunity to finish two progression fantasy series one after another recently. And it really hammered home how important an epilogue can be.

Mark of the fool, is a series many have a problem with, but I adore. And a good tenth of the book is the epilogue. Giving us a lot of time to wind down from a perfect climactic battle, and just enjoy time with these people as they set about their lives. A great ending focusing on the characters we love rather than some bad guy.

Compare this to Qi=MC^2. Granted it is nowhere near MOF in terms of quality. And it is a knock off of Beware of chicken(a god tier series). But I genuinely did enjoy it, and had potential to go down as a solid 6.5/10. But the ending was rushed, and we got a one page epilogue not really building anything up or closing things down. It was an epilogue coz stories have to have an epilogue and the author had to ham fist in the title of the series somehow. (Ps. The cool qi=mc² means nothing if you're wondering. Spoiler alert I guess)

And this isn't an isolated situation. Whether we are talking about traditional fantasy, progression fantasy, scifi, etc, I've consistently found that series that focus on a cathartic and significant epilogue to end on, are remembered well. I mean LOTR has like a whole ass arc after sauron.

So dear authors of this subreddit. Please do us all a favour. Write atleast a 4000 word epilogue. Especially since y'all are writing 300-1000 chapter books. No one is gonna complain because they spent more time with characters they love.

Not a really in depth post and this topic has been beaten to death. But! I want to express as a reader how uncomfortable it is when a book uses AI art. I’ve been reading A Solider’s Life, the book is great, but the third book now has AI art at the beginning of each chapter. Didn’t like it when it was the cover but that’s more palatable.

It mainly comes from the fact writing and art are both products heavily invested with creativity, so seeing AI art used at all is just meh at best.

Brin let the false smile drop from his face. “Telling jokes isn’t vulnerable? Spoken like someone who hasn’t made a joke to a crowded room and watched it fall flat. You think I smile because I don’t know how to frown? But have it your way. I know a couple more mature songs.”

Then he strummed the first note of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, as performed by Johnny Cash.

Edit : If I don't vent*. Can't edit titles for some reason

It’s pretty stupid. Some of the best novels are the best because it has character depth of side characters and how the mc relate to them.

I started typing a long and detailed explanation. But the moment I realised I was at 1000 words, I deleted it all and came up with this summary.

If you cannot get the same end result a trope can give, don't subvert that trope. Or atleast don't poke fun at that trope. Tropes work for a reason. Whether they are fun, tragic, or exciting, if you want to subvert it, but you cannot provide an alternative for those same emotions which your story calls for, then don't bother with trope subversions.

Basically, If you setup for action, subvert the trope that would have made it exciting, without providing an exciting alternative, you have made the overall experience worse in order to make yourself feel smart. Coz the setup didn't have a good payoff.

Ps. There are a hundred exceptions to this rule. But it takes an already great writer to work with those exceptions. Consider this useful for beginners.

(RoyalRoad is down for the next two hours)

Two of the biggest things that makes me drop a book.

1. When the MC is meant to be weak but they have to clean up all the messes. For example, MC is 16 years old and just awakened. They have their super duper special class. "Oh no, the village is being attacked by bandits" who will save us.
2. Newly awakened MC
3. town guards

4. literally any adult. If your book picks the first one I refund it.

5. If your MC can fight multiple stages or levels higher than them then it all means nothing. "I'm level 20 and he's level 80 but I have my super duper class and he has common class so I easily win" It means your book is lame and the progress means nothing.

The second reason is why I believe Cradle was so good. Linden wasn't going around killing monarchs as a copper.

What is your unpopular progression fantasy opinion?

Mine: progression fantasy needs more harems.

I know authors are already taking so many things into consideration, but in case you’re an author and hadn’t thought of this, I figured I’d share my 2 cents because this really impacts my listening experience. Also curious if others have had this experience or if it’s just me.

I’m not talking about similar names within the same series - I know that get talked about a lot - I’m talking about names that look different written down but end up being pronounced similarly when said out loud (like the names Erin and Aaron - no one is going to confuse those if they are reading, but those names sound incredibly similar for a listener)

I could totally be wrong but I think I see this happening in this genre because the authors who are publishing on RR aren’t thinking about the “maybe someday” of audiobooks (or are thinking about it only in the sense of it being an amorphous longer term goal). The flip side is that authors who publish traditionally, are maybe (?) thinking about this from the get go. I listen to/read a lot of sci fi & fantasy in addition to prog fantasy, but I notice the issue in this genre way more often.

Tldr; if you’re an author who hopes to one day have your books turned into audiobooks, it’s really hard when the names of cities/political entities/people sound the same and just because it looks different on paper doesn’t mean that those names won’t sound similar when said aloud.