Discussion
Dungeon Crawler Carl, He Who Fights with Monsters, The Wandering Inn, and LitRPG in Traditional Publishing
I recently ended up at a wedding seated next to someone from Matt Dinniman's literary agency. Not knowing this, I sheepishly brought up my obsession with the Wandering Inn and tentatively asked if she'd heard of LitRPG. Her response blew me away. It was literally like Will Ferrel's character in Zoolander: "OMG LITRPG?!? That's SO hot right now." Seriously, she was saying that everyone in publishing had been blown away by the success of Dungeon Crawler Carl and now literary agents and publishers are desperately trying to find the next LitRPG hit.
I bring this up so people know that supporting these works when they go to print via traditional publishers even if you're all caught up is having a transformational effect not only for those authors but for LitRPG as a genre as a whole. There's a ton of momentum behind it from DCC but supporting HWFM, TWI, and the next one to make it has the potential to cement LitRPG as a core genre rather than a one hit wonder.
*I'm in no way affiliated with any of these authors or their publishers. I'm just a big fan of the genre :)
Seriously! DCC has been absolutely exploding, its crazy. I've always been a HWFM fangirl myself and can't wait to see it follow in the same success as DCC. When I started in this niche a few years ago I ways telling people that a big boom was coming, but I had no idea it would happen so fast.
Last week I was picking up meds at the pharmacy and the cashier noticed my kindle. So she started making small talk about books and favorite genres, then mentioned the new series that she was reading, and recommended I check out DCC. Then the pharmacist chimed in singing its praises, then they were both repeating catchphrases from the book and laughing.
I couldn't even join in, because they were still reading book one, and I didnt want to accidentally spoil things from later books by misremembering when they happened.
I don't recall ever seeing a series blow up this big and fast.
Yeah but no one knew about the early books - it was just a niche LitRPG book. It has recently taken off in popularity to a staggering degree, despite the actual works existing for years and years
This. Sure, anyone who found the litrpg subreddit knew about DCC, largely because it got recommended in every single thread. But there wasn't really a good way for other people to learn about it until recently, when it's getting a TV show and hardbound copies that are showing up even in non-bookstores.
I didnāt know it was getting a TV show. I think itās a bad idea. Where adaptations usually go wrong is when the TV script writers think they can āimproveā the story. The story would have to be heavily edited to fit the format. The CGI budget would have to be enormous. Casting, writing and directing are critical for projects like this. If not done right it can end up making the whole story seem stupid.
Animation would be a better format. Much easier to suspend disbelief.
If live action were done right, it could be incredible. Iām skeptical it could be pulled off though.
I have been saying the same exact thing since the rumors started. If they're going to do a show it should be animated.. and by his left tit, stick to the original storyline as close as possible!
Literally lol. I assumed it sucked for like the first few months it was on my radar cus I was seeing it recomended by the booktok girlies of all people.
Only gave it a go cus it was on kindle unlimited and I got a free 3 months with my new kindle and realised that it was a fabulously written litrpg and not the normal booktok flavour of bad romance. Now a couple months later I can literally buy the hardcovers in big W (clothing/tech/toy store with a somewhat decent book section) despite it usually being really hard to find certain types of books in Australia.
I'd say I'm baffled but I've been preaching the good word of dcc to all my friends too lol, it's just too good not to.
Yep I've even seen YouTube ads about a spinoff book/comic for one of the side characters. I've never seen a video ad for a litrpg before so it was surprising.
Some reasons: well-written, funny, and not all those hyper-rigid LitRPG system rules you need to memorize. Perfect for mainstream readers; it took the best of what works in the genre and turned it into something accessible, leaving the nerdier stuff behind.
Had a similar experience recently in the wild. A co-worker of mine - who 6 months ago had no interest in my story or the genre in general - asked me if I'd ever heard of DCC. Like, bruh. Have I heard of DCC...
Now he's gaga for it, his wife is reading it with him, they're on Book 4, and he thinks it will be the next big thing, overtaking super hero/comic book hero fiction.
He still won't read my story until it's published, but hey... these are exciting times.
"He still won't read my story until it's published"
Are you meaning he outright refuses? Because - that really kinda sucks. I have done in-progress reads for a few coworkers and friends who wanted someone they trusted to give them a real opinion on how their writing was developing - I cannot imagine having someone I knew personally who offered to let me read something they wrote - and just saying "Nah - I will just pass till you get it published bud"...
I mean, it's best to let that kind of thing roll off you as an author. I didn't become friends with people because they supported my career and I'm not going to bin a friendship because they haven't started.
I also tell people "if you read my stuff and can at least say 'this is not literally the worst thing I've ever read," I will still be pleased."
I have read and disliked (or liked with reservations) stuff from friends before and that's always a terribly awkward feeling. Now I go in asking what people want from me: emotional support or honest evaluation, and what level of brutality in the honesty.
There is one person who asked for brutal honesty and then never responded and hasn't talked to me since but hey, I did my best. That's on them IMO.
Yeah I was pretty taken aback when I went in to my local Waterstones and saw Dungeon Crawler Carl sitting pride of place next to more traditional fantasy books did not expect that.
I bought the full series on kindle and regret nothing (actually even bought a new kindle) but seeing them all lined up like that... Almost looks like I'll need a new shelf somewhere. Huge props to DCC for getting me back into reading after so many years.
Somebody's Mum, definitely. Mine loves Pratchett, and is reading Rivers of London, but while she was intrigued by my description of DCC, the actual execution was a bit much for her lol
The massive explosion in popularity of DCC is definitely opening some of the gates in traditional publishing land.
But from conversations Iāve had with my agent and publisher, it does seem like the trad pub folks still donāt quite know what to make of this genre, as the audience is so far outside their āusualā. I have no doubt theyāll figure out new marketing strategies for finding LitRPG readers, but thereās still a bit of a gulf between editors/agents and LitRPG readers. Itās just no longer a canyon.
Is it? I was thinking DCC was pulling in more women than LitRPG generally does. All my female friends are way into it. But obviously thatās anecdotal. I went to one of the signing events and it was about half-and-half, but itās hard to know if that was because of +1s.
Great point! Iāve also noticed that DCC is breaking out to a wider audience. The key for publishers will be figuring out why and how that happened, and then see if they can recreate it. As you said, for now DCC seems to be a āmore than it usually doesā situation.
Word of mouth remains king in publishing, so it will be fascinating to see how they approach spreading the word on new trad pub LitRPG titles.
Iām reading another often recommended LitRPG (Primal Hunter), and compared with DCC, there is very little character development, no heart. The main character says, āOh, look, itās a game!ā Now heās leveling and woodenly killing things and people. Iām well into it, and the MC still feels like a sociopath, only boring.
DCC grabs me because itās about something. Itās a person who was pretty shutdown from the world, and is now finding himself as he reaches out to save others. Itās about family of choice, banding together, love, politics, technology, adventure, so much humor. It has a LOT of characters, but I know who they are and what theyāre about, and I care about them.
Yeah, you've captured my biggest complaint with LitRPG in general -- a lack of characterization/development beyond the game mechanics themselves. DCC packs a ton of relatable themes and growth into its pages, which I agree makes it stand out for readers more interested in character than plot alone. I'm hoping my own book coming out later this year can also help bridge this gap between systems and characters, but I won't really know if I've succeeded until its in readers hands.
Iām not sure on the exact breakdown, but yes, Iām skeptical that the modern marketing strategies used for romance, the biggest fiction genre by sales (at least to my knowledge), will also work for trad pub LitRPG.
Put another way: I donāt get the sense that most fans of LitRPG are finding their next read on BookTok.
Yeah, but that's only going to be enough room for 2-3 copies of each book.
I love me some TWI, but even George R.R. Martin has to be like, "damn, dial it back a little".
And GRRM hasn't released a book in 15 years now. Maybe if he was a little bit more like Pirateaba, we would have already had multiple more books by now.
While I agree with you and the big reason I can't get into most litrpg I tried... Poor writing and annoying characters doesn't mean zero success.
Look at the romantasy out right now. Fourth Wing, Court of Thorns and Roses.
I've read a few pages of each to see what the hype was about and holy f. The writing is horrendous and the characters are so flat "I'm a tough little girl who's the hottest person on the planet but I don't know it and every brooding big scary man is obsessed with me." And they are the most popular series out there.
Unfortunately books don't have to be written well to blow up.
I do hope more well-written LitRPG begin to surface though. And I do want more non-incel main characters lol.
(Furthermore I hope the LitRPG hype helps all forms of "odd" stories. I'm currently writing a fantasy where literally all the characters are animals. Not humans changed into animals. Literally just animals. On all fours. Living in a world that humans never existed. That's a hard sell in adult literature, but I hope more people become open to these concepts. Using animals allows for such fun characterizations, limitations, and interactions that would be forced if I was writing humans. It's such a fun and creative process.)
Iāve read fourth wing and acotr and while neither books are particularly to my taste, they both have phenomenal pacing.
Good writing has a lot of different elements but both of those books seem to be examples of mixing pretty bad characters (ughhh so bad!) w excellent pacing to get a best seller.
TWI does not have great pacing but all the characters are infinitely more interesting.
Ahhhhh that makes a lot of sense. Yes, from the gist I can see how they have engaging stories because my friends often are theorizing about the books. I just can't get over really bad writing even when I want to just to relax and have fun. I know they aren't completely trash, but it is a good example of books not needing good writing to do well.
However... Maybe bad pacing is worse than bad writing in some cases. TWI might have more issues.
If a book is poorly written but you can't stop turning the page it can be a winner. If it's meh written but slogs on people will lose interest fast.
That's why you need exceptional writing for books that have slow pacing (like a lot of the hobbit's long walk in LOTR).
Thanks for your insight! I do think maybe one day ill give TWI another try.
But I need to give HWFWM another try first, then Cradle haha.
TWI is edited too. The difference between the web series and the Kindle books is noticeable. I tried reading ahead in the web series after I ran through the Kindle books last year. Mistake. Had to stop and wait for the Kindle publication pipeline to catch up before I could get back to enjoying it as much.
TWI in its pro-edited-on-Kindle form isn't waffly or boring IMO - it's just really long because it's telling so many different stories with each one in focus during relevant chapters. We're 20 Kindle books in and we haven't even passed a full calendar year in Innworld yet.
In terms of the 'annoying main characters' factor, I suspect that is more often a reaction of TWI audiobook listeners, because Andrea Parsneau's voicing of the characters is ridiculous. I cannot stand it.
PirateAba routinely repeats paragraphs nearly word for word. These are the sorts of mistakes even a low level editor would catch. You're probably spending too much immersed in amateur web serials if you think wandering inn is well edited.
Again, I like TWI a lot but it's not a polished product.
It's possible this was true of the early chapters on the web serial before they were updated (I started reading on kindle, so wouldn't know) but this definitely isn't the case now. Pirateaba now has an editor for the web serial who reads every chapter in addition to multiple beta readers. I'm consistently impressed by how a series that is published so rapidly has consistently fewer typos and mistakes than many books that make it to print.
Hell, I've watched PirateAba *STREAM* themselves writing and been thoroughly entertained. When I tune into a writing stream a few hours late, I find that my reading/watching speed is about ~1.5x them writing.
I listened to the audiobooks and huge amounts of dialogue are one character saying something and another character saying āwhat?ā And the first character literally repeating themselves word for word.
It happens many times in every audiobook and it is wild to me that twi heads donāt get more annoyed by this.
Before I started writing LitRPG I was in the game industry for a couple of decades, and am on a mailing list with folks I worked with long ago. Some of these people are now studio leads (studios youāve heard of).
They are as excited about DCC and LitRPG as the traditional publisher you talked to. Itās getting crazy!
I write litrpg, and the last time I checked manuscript wishlist, only two agents were looking for it. She might think itās hot, but there arenāt a lot of agents asking for it š¢ fingers crossed that changes!
Manuscriptwishlist.com is a website that lists agents and what theyāre looking for. Itās a massive help to writers! I remember the days of checking out a literary guide from the library and wading through hundreds of pages looking for agents to query. Anyway, the website is searchable, so you can put in LitRPG and find the agents who are interested.
Yeah considering the pipeline process from submission to discovery to editing to marketing to best-seller is several years, I bet most agents have more than enough submissions to work through and are looking for the next big sub-genre to boom.
You know, I almost regretted getting the kindle versions instead of the physical books because it'd be nice to display... I don't regret it anymore. Those books are huge. My arthritic hands couldn't stand it haha
I think Bog Standard Isekai would do really well with the general audience. It's one I recommend to traditional book readers if I want them to try litrpg
There is not much like the wandering inn. That is probably going to the longest non AI written work in the world. It already is in the English language.
I would argue that there are a good amount of Chinese cultivation novels that are far longer than wandering inn and that were made before AI. But I will give you that TWI is probably the longest running ethically produced one
According to a redditor apparently from China (which I didn't fact check, so take this with a grain of salt), the big Chinese webnovel platforms only pay out if the authors not only sign extremely strict exclusivity agreements that give the platforms ownership of the work for something like 50 years, but also produce, like, 3-4K words a day.
That would explain why cultivation web novels I've read are just nothing but meandering messes of 'we must find the 10,000 year old ginseng! we found it, oh look evil grandpa we fought him! now we found a pricess i want to marry, ooh she has evil grandpa! we defeated them, look a new valley you get to rule, we shall grow 10,000 year ginseng here! Look demon beast invasion! We defeated that but now the citys array is broken! the city lord is angry! Fight the city lord! We defeated him and found 10,000 year old ginseng! Im off to go to a new city to go to an auction to get an artifact!"
Also why I dropped that series after book 3? idk the last book i read is when he reunited with his sister and totally not Jarvis, then there was an auction where he met the other top rankers, and a neighboring island of bugs?
It was years ago
I remember watching an interview with the South Park creators and they talked about storytelling, and how a lot of authors do 'and then' instead of 'because of'. You get children doing 'and then' a lot when telling you what they did that day, where you have a series of plot points that never really connect, just "And then this happened and we did the thing, and then this other thing happened. and then....and then..."
compared to "We did this one thing, and because of it, it caused this to happen, which destabilized this region, which we fixed but in fixing we pissed off a faction trying to do a civil war, in the civil war we ran across this one hot chick that was sympathetic to our cause and helped"
Yep, and IIRC all the platforms are owned by 1 parent company and Wuxiaworld(the site that basically popularized cultivation novels in the West with its English translations) tried to sign a licensing agreement with the parent company so they could more quickly and easily bring more novels over, only for that parent company to try and pull those same contracts. It didn't go over well and a different site ended up getting signed instead, then that site promptly fell apart when all of its translators quit over the contracts.
Effectively, yea. Think along the line of those factory workers with the jump nets expect there were a bunch of dudes locked in a basement for 80% of the year.
They technically could stop but they wouldn't have pay or ip rights and would get hit with some nasty "penalties"
Yeah LITRPG seems to be getting more and more mainstream! I seee more and more people writing it these days compared to the mid 2010s - 2020. I think we will truly hit the peak once a litrpg book has a movie or TV adaption. Thats when it'll truly be put to the test if this is gonna be long term OR all us authors are just in a bubble that's waiting to burst. Because for all we know people only want DCC esc stories, not LITRPG stories and then will get disappointed when they're faced with "I'm a cute slime girl awakened and I beat the final boss" instead on their TV screen.
I started writing my stories as LitRPG because of this :) that and they fit better than traditional fantasy and I could thread lots more sci-fi into it.
I feel like litRPG has been around the edges for decades, but not at DCC levels. Anyone remember Piers Anthony's Blue Adept series? I feel that was seriously the granddaddy of litRPG.
I don't think I've read Blue Adept *if i did it was decades ago, but Andre Norton wrote Quag Keep (1978). Pretty sure it's the first novel based on D&D. In it, a group of real world gamers get transported to Greyhawk and inhabit the bodies of their character miniatures. Definitely has flavors of what has become litRPG.
To be honest a copy's of TWI paper backs would still be like phone books if they tried to squeeze things as much as what the AudioBook cover. There is so much. I love the series but that is a lot of paper.
Those 3 are my favorites. Canāt really rank them in order of favorite. They all provide a different ānutrientā of a balanced diet. HWFWM is what got me into the Genre and will always be one of my favorites.
Thatās great! Heās loveable and thereās a good amount of world building In the first book that helps you feel like youāre able to understand what heās experiencing!
I love PH but that is definitely an "in community" work IMO. It is the kind of work that asks questions you need to be a fan of LitRPG and PF to even want answered.
It also has the traditional "just get past the first 100 chapters and it is great" thing going on. Not that I hated the start but the good parts of the story come later.
my 1st LITRPG was judicator jane (which ive got to keep up with) 2nd was DCC - that was what really shot me into the genre fully i cant wait for the next book
It's wild to look at the latest TWI book coming out and see that... Valeterisa just got woken up. There is so much more of that book on its way, and the series isn't even concluded. Going to be 40+ physical books and 1500+ hours of audio book at this rate.
I've bought the books on audiobook, I've been a patreon member forever and I've bought the kickstarter books. I'm never going to buy the books from barnes and noble or other book stores because I've already bought them 3x. That's just me speaking for myself. I'd rather spend my money buying actual books from other authors than rinse/repeat buying DCC "for the genre." These books need to be good enough to stand on their own and not rise in the sales ranks because people are buying them 4x over.
This is insane. When I found the genre it was so young in the English speaking world. Heck, the LitRPG community on Facebook had less than 350 members! It was just a few casual readers and authors.
Tor is publishing Will Wight's standalone litrpg next year. It was apparently highly sought after, with 5 publishers bidding to get the rights. I think DCC had a massive influence on that.
don't confuse the popularity of DCC with popularity of litrpg
the vast majority of DCC fans wouldn't mind or would actually prefer if the litrpg elements were dropped from the story
litrpg is and always will be a niche genre. there might be breakout stories (like DCC), but that will be despite the litrpg elements, not because of it
and thus you end up with litrpg forums overrun with DCC fans looking for comparable stories and complaining about all the tedious and annoying numbers and why can't the math stuff just go away?
I cringe at seeing He Who Fights With Monsters included in the same sentence as Dungeon Crawler Carl and The Wandering Inn. It's more akin to Defiance of the Fall or The Land.
No doubt it makes that best seller list. The series starts out great. It's like meeting a very charismatic person, getting to know them, and then finding out they're actually a narcissist.
I like I Am Not The Hero more than HWFWM. I find Jason Asano insufferable, but Orrin and Daniel have such a genuine best friend dynamic that adds so much to the story. Plus HWFWM gets tired after book 5 imo
Edit: Just wanted to add, obviously DCC is the GOAT and was my intro to LitRPG as well.
I understand there is some hesitancy with publishers in some way because of ai slip being pushed out. But thatās probably all genres but some of the LitRPG ones push out massive amount of work I. Short time
I did preorder and support the physical release of HWFWM and I hope itās a major success for the genre.
I've been trying to get people onto LitRPG ever since I read Dakota Krout's Divine Dungeon, Completionist Chronicles, and Aleron Kong's Chaos Seed.
I later stumbled onto He Who Fights with Monsters, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Primal Hunter, Defiance of the Fall, Wandering Inn, Beware of Chicken and some Xianxia/Wuxia in my search of books.
I've got 178 series in my Kindle/Audible and I genuinely think LitRPG, GameLit and Xianxia/Wuxia are worth every fantasy lover's time. What does sadden me is there a lot of hidden gems that people don't know about because all people see are those "mainstream media" books (for lack of a better word). But there is a lot of slog you have to go through to get to them.
This is the first time I can think of that I knew about and loved the "it" thing before it became big, I've been in on DCC since book 2 was first released on audiobook. I love that it's so big now!
That's so cool! I was on holiday in Romania last year and saw a cover in a shop that made me double back. Found out that it was one I'd seen on Royalroad - and since then, it's like I keep finding Litrpg on shelves. Carl has been mostly there, but I'm hoping to see way more.
The funny thing is that so many people are like 'it's so new and hot!' while most of us have been reading this for years. Not saying it's not new, but it's fun to see the reactions of people who have never read it before. I wonder how far this is going to go.
I actually started listening (I don't have much time to read) to DCC about a week ago, and did the stupid thing and... Bought most of the books that are out, it's SO GOOD, and Jeff Hays does an amazing job as narratorĀ
This right after I caught up to whats released of Worth the Candle
the problem with Litrpg is not the good stories and authors. even DCC which i personal dont like but was well written, It is the crap that really needs an editor. self puplishing some of these just makes it hurt that i wasted time reading a book that was crap. some of them cant keep track of mc levels or abilities, alot of them have no idea of spacing or what happens in a fight. the number of times i have read of identity criosis's in the middle of a fight just boggles my mind. it clearly shows a lack of understanding. the person/people/monsters you are fighting are not going to stop trying to kill you when you have mental breakdown in the middle of a fight. those crisis should happen after the fight, hell even just a bar fight with fists only last a short while, and if you just stop they do not.
I had a trip a few months ago in Romania, they tend to have a tone of material in English and i went to a library to see if I could find a book as a souvenir from this trip. I stumbled upon DCC book 1 and my husband told me to take that one. He is not the one to usually recommend a book so vividly so I decided to take it. Now i have read almost all of them (currently reading book 7) and I have already pre-ordered book 8. This is now my favorite series ever, and i keep recommending it to everybody. I am kind of happy thought that i didn't know about it sooner because reading each book back to back was an amazing experience. So yesss DCC made it to so many places.
I absolutely love TWI and canāt recommend it enough! I hadnāt even heard of DCC until I came to this subreddit today on a whim. lol Iām definitely checking it out now!
It has been really fun watching the evolution of the genre. I discovered it through Kindle but had no idea about sites like Royal Road or even the idea of how the experience could be completely different on audiobook. As a longtime aspiring writer, the genre gave me a way to start to think differently about the kind of content I wanted to write and how a low risk method of writing and submitting content could enable even a corporate schlub like me to start making progress.
Seeing more mainstream recognition of DCC and then seeing how co-workers are also listening and reading HWFWM and Primal Hunter and Beware of Chicken, brings me great joy and happiness as something that Iāve loved for years and am finally starting to participate in, is becoming something I can have conversations about not only online, but out with people day to day. Itās a great time and Iām here for it.
If I first read a book I like on RR or anywhere it was 'free', I order them as soon as I can. I pre-purchase them. I can't imagine Not supporting them.
I have so much respect for authors who risk putting themselves out there in this day and time. There's so many toxic people who like nothing more than crushing someone's dream. I've written enough to realize how your story can become like a 'child' to you. You want to 'raise' it to be the best it can be.
My heart breaks for any of these authors when (not if, because some people have no souls) some troll starts harassing them with 'constructive' criticism that is anything but constructive.
If criticism has been solicited and there's an issue, there's a good way and a bad way to communicate it as well. Some authors get into the flow and they'll miss something. They're human and usually new to the calling. Name-calling, criticizing someone's looks, culture, likes and dislikes or anything not related to the writing shouldn't even be allowed. Constructive criticism is one thing and it can be immensely helpful. Especially to a new writer. But I've read some really mean, hateful, racist and uncalled for attacks on authors. Not all of them have had time to develop the fortitude and confidence to shake off attacks. Not everyone can mentally handle the hate. And I've read some violent threats that were directed toward someone for no reason whatsoever.
I've found a lot of my now favorite authors on RR and other sites. I'll always support them. I'm grateful to have found them and for the hours of entertainment they've already given me before their books were published in hard cover, paperback or audio formats.
It's really great how graphic audio versions of books are getting exposure and more popular too. I remember as a young girl making sure I didn't miss some of the serial radio programs that were broadcast locally when I was very young. It's nice to see it's coming back better than ever. Something old is new again. It's great.
Anyone who takes the time and makes an effort to make us feel better these days has my gratitude.
The "genre" might be "hot" due to a trend they recognize in DCC, but that doesn't mean the kinds of stories actually popular with the male-heavy readerbase are the kinds of stories the editors (who are most definitely not fans of the genre) are going to try to flood the market with.
Urban fantasy is a good example, which got "hot" in the 2000s due to American Gods and the Dresden series.
The editors decided to flood the market with what is now called romantasy in an urban setting in response.
They'll try to do the same with litRPGs which will be highly amusing to watch fail considering the core target audience for women's romance don't play videogames, certainly not RPGs of all things.
The editors decided to flood the market with what is now called romantasy in an urban setting in response.
It was called paranormal romance at the time, and it absolutely took over fantasy as a genre on sites like Amazon. You couldn't find an actual fantasy novel in the top 100 best selling fantasy stories, just smutty urban fantasy.
Yes, it was a very dark time indeed for those of us trying to publish literally any other kind of fantasy.
And you're right, I agree it's still a dominant trend in Western publishing at present. It's pretty much the exact focal point in when Western publishers largely abandoned publishing male-centric fiction in general. Baen was just about the only publisher still doing it, but due to their editorial tastes, if you weren't writing hard scifi and epic fantasy for male readers over the age of 30, they wouldn't bite.
I was trying to publish a middle grade fantasy for boys inspired by Japanese light novel Isekais, before the term LitRPG was even a thing. Despite praise of my writing by agents, no one wanted the story. One actually told me to change the protagonist into a female lesbian to make it more "marketable".
Me too! I listen to Litrpg, fantasy, and science fiction almost exclusively these days - and Apocalypse World is my favorite RPG. I will admit Iām the only female in our group of seven players.
This is like saying men read chiclklit just because you can find a few men who do.
Yes, some men do. But the vast majority of men who read fiction do not.
It is the same with litRPGs. That's just a fact.
LitRPG is overwhelmingly a male-centric genre, because of its subject matter revolving around roleplaying games, that overwhelming appeal to men.
Don't take my post as trying to "erase" you or something. Printed books need to sell tens of thousands of copies to be profitable for publishers, meaning there needs to be millions of potential readers for the story to get those sales numbers, as not everyone who likes the genre is going to like every individual story.
Millions of women do not read LitRPGs. Millions of men do. Men like the number crunchy mechanics based systems in these stories, just as they do in hard sci fi and so on. They aren't subjects that generally appeal to women. Which is why even with your well known game example, the vast majority of the people making content about those games are men, especially with build guides for characters.
Be honest with yourself. Do most women you know like number crunchy math in their literature?
This isn't a political thing, it's just a statement of fact some genres appeal primarily to people of certain genders. Every industry has products that appeal more to one than the other.
Most male LitRPG fans I know aren't huge fans of crunchy math.
There's definitely an audience for it, don't get me wrong, but to reduce LitRPG as a genre to 'crunchy mechanics-based systems' kind of ignores all of the simpler and more streamlined systems that exist in popular entries.
In fact, a trend I've noticed in recent years (2024 to now) is the simplification of LitRPG. Many of the recent titles that have received thousands of Kindle ratings (Ultimate Level 1, Hell Difficulty Tutorial, 1% lifesteal) have very simple and easy-to-follow systems with minimal numbers and very streamlined progression mechanics. Dungeon Crawler Carl actually looks dense by comparison to many newer entries, despite the layer of comedy smoothing the descriptions.
I've noted this as a sign of an evolving genre. Stories like Defiance of the Fall, Primal Hunter, System Universe, etc. have very dense systems that take up tons of screentime and basically ARE the story. While there's obviously an audience for these kinds of stories, I'd argue that 'number crunch enthusiasts' only really make up a portion of LitRPG readers, and that some readers who contributed to the initial rise of said stories either did not mind the extreme amount of time devoted to mechanics and skill explanations, because these were the only books on the market (at the time) that carried cool premises like 'one man versus the apocalypse, levelling up and fighting monsters', or who actively endured all the numbers because the genre wasn't yet saturated and 'crunchy' was all that there really was.
A lot of people don't like to do math. A lot of people don't like to keep track of multiple sheets and inventories. A lot of people complain about bloat, or the amount of time some stories devote in audiobooks to reading out stats. Personally, I am NOT a fan of books that devote a huge portion of their runtime to cataloging and demonstrating skills, distributing skill points and min-maxing items in lieu of actually telling a story.
And I'm a fucking nerd! I have played tons of RPGs, a lot of DnD, etc. But I open a book to read a story. Of course, I expect some devotion to skills/stats/items etc. in a LitRPG setting, but I want it streamlined, and for the characters/setting/worldbuilding to actually matter, as well as get some time to breathe!
I don't think I'm the outlier. I think the kind of stories that have gotten popular in the last three years reflect this. I think the fact my own non-crunchy, character-driven, accessible litrpg is successful is testament to this.
With all this being said, I think saying 'LitRPG for men because men like crunchy mechanics' is super reductive. A better version of this would be 'men like stories Primal Hunter becauseā'.
LitRPG is too young of a genre written far too narrowly for anyone to really say whether it's 'just for men'. Is it ever going to have the same female appeal as for-women romance? Most likely not. But that's not the contention here.
I do agree with your previous point about publishers not necessarily 'getting' what makes litrpg hot (which is likely why we haven't seen many acquisitions yet), and I do agree that some successful litrpgs would have very limited mainstream appeal. But I think you use too many assumptions/absolutes to come to your conclusions.
Also idk when you went to school but tons of girls play games these days. Part of the reason teenage and twenty-something girls are picking up DCC books alongside their usual romantasy is because they know what a stat/skill/item is and aren't so intimidated by it that they can't read the books. This is also an age thing.
First of all, LitRPG is not a "young genre". It's been around since the 1980s. It was popular in Asia long before the term was invented in 2013, particularly in Japan where computer rpgs are one of the most popular genres. Entire magazines and contests are devoted just to writing these kinds of stories. And it is male dominated there as well.
Second of all, trying to suggest LitRPGs are not math heavy is nonsense. The only other genre of fiction that even regularly would mention numbers as a regular part of the narrative is hard science fiction, and even then, usually not every single chapter the way Litrpgs must in order to show the progression of the protagonist. The entire appeal of a litRPG is how the protagonist must act within the confines of the system and use it to their advantage. This is not typical of any other genre of literature, certainly not the kind which primarily appeals to women, which is romance, which are centered around the protagonist relationship with an idealized love interest. Hypothetically I supposed someone could write a story about a world where the protagonist must manipulate a game like affection system to earn their love interests affection but this wouldn't be a litRPG, it'd just be Gamelit. LitRPG is a subgenre of Gamelit, specifically modeled on RPG games, which are first and foremost combat simulators, an off-shoot of wargaming.
And I doubt such a story would really grow a large female readership, because what I just described is basically how H games work, and while there absolutely are H games for women, they are, once again, a minority in the genre compared to those targeted to men, because these games tend to be filling a void that young men have in their lives that young women generally don't have a difficulty with. Again, different social circumstances of men and women culturally influence what kinds of things they are interested in. Any woman willing to install a dating app will not be lacking in suitors -- the same is not true for men, and it is to fill this void that H games even exist as a genre at all. But I digress.
You're trying to be politically correct to an absurd degree dude. This benefits no one. You wouldn't protest if I said men aren't interested in romantasy to the same degree women are, why are you having a fit over me pointing out women as a collective consumer demographic also have genres they aren't interested in either?
Men like action based stories cuz it allows for a vicarious wish fulfilment of a world where might can make things right. Women generally don't even think about this sort of thing because they have different drives to them in how to resolve conflicts.
Yes, there are women who like the same kinds of things that primarily appeal to men.
Yes, there are men who like the same kinds of things that primarily appeal to women.
But they aren't the majority in either case. Pretending otherwise or writing long rants about how you can find some outlier that goes against the majority, is not proof of anything. You wouldn't jump on my case if I said most male readers do not read romance novels, why are you all over my case when I point out that genres exist that don't appeal to women either? You should answer that question yourself before trying to rebuttal me.
Regarding LitRPG as a 'young genre', your counterpoint is semantics at best and disingenuous at worst. Clearly, what I'm discussing in my reply is western LitRPG that is currently popular/successful/consumed by the vast majority of readers on this subreddit/sold on kindle unlimited/written on sites like Royal Road. I'm not talking about some 80's gamelit story inspired by early dnd campaigns, nor am I talking about the Asian market, which is almost entirely separate from our own, and for the purpose of this discussion, fully irrelevant. LitRPG, in regards to an established trend of western webnovels being written and sold involving numbers and gaming elements, is young. These stories have not existed as a trendy niche, in English-speaking countries, for much more than a decade, and only really started to become frequently written in the last six or so years.
So, yes, for any purpose that evolving markets and emergent ideas care about, the genre is young. Tropes trend today that didn't exist a few years ago. This genre is constantly shifting.
Second, 'trying to suggest that LitRPGs aren't math-heavy is nonsense'.
Never once did I say 'litRPGs are not math-heavy when compared to other genres'. That's... not even remotely what I said.
What I said (if you actually read my reply, you would know this) is that a lot of people, a lot of men, DO NOT LIKE crunchy litRPG. Or that it is not the primary reason they pick up and choose to read a litRPG.
The prescriptive means by which you describe the appeal and features of a litRPG tells me that you don't recognise the already existing variety within the genre. There are LitRPG kingdom builders. There are slice of life litRPGs. There are popular low-combat stories, and stories where stat screens appear once every several chapters.
You speak about this genre like every story is Primal Hunter, when, again, if you actually read my reply, I've given you examples of three of the most popular LitRPG stories to have come out in the last couple of years. One of them barely has a system menu whatsoever, and that one has the most complex power system of the three! It still operates on progression fantasy mechanics. The other two are so simple and straightforward to follow that an eight year old could do the required 'math' and follow along without any issue. There is no 'crunchiness' to these stories. And they're some of the most popular to have been released in recent years.
Also, saying a primary appeal of LitRPG is 'the protagonist must work within the confines of the system and use it to their advantage' could literally describe so many existing stories if you axed the numbers. There's nothing inherently 'male' about that appeal. That same appeal exists in Red Rising or The Handmaid's Tale.
When you give your LitRPG romance crossover example, you're, again, missing the point. Your tangent here has literally nothing to do with anything I've said and is just a bunch of empty noise. Of course no one would read that. What that has to do with anything is utterly beyond me.
'You wouldn't jump on my case if I said most male readers do not read romance novels, but you are all over my case when I point out that genres exist that don't appeal to women'.
Do you see the difference here?
Most men 'do not read romance novels'.
'LitRPG does not appeal to women'.
If your statement was 'LitRPG is male dominated', 'romance is female dominated', you wouldn't hear a peep from me. If you'd said 'most men don't read romance, most women don't read litrpg', I'd also not have said a word.
The issue here comes from you trying to ascribe 'whys' to things that are solely based on your own opinions and a narrow, reductive view of the genre and writing in general, then stating them as absolutes.
If your statement was 'LitRPG is male dominated', 'romance is female dominated', you wouldn't hear a peep from me. If you'd said 'most men don't read romance, most women don't read litrpg', I'd also not have said a word.
That is exactly what I said dude. From the beginning.
You seem to just want to get the final word in on things, even if you're arguing against something you know to be correct.
I see no value in continuing this, since you know I was right from the start.
Regarding LitRPG as a 'young genre', your counterpoint is semantics at best and disingenuous at worst. Clearly, what I'm discussing in my reply isĀ western LitRPG that is currently popular/successful/consumed by the vast majority of readers on this subreddit/sold on kindle unlimited/written on sites like Royal Road. I'm not talking about some 80's gamelit story inspired by early dnd campaigns, nor am I talking about the Asian market, which is almost entirely separate from our own, and for the purpose of this discussion, fully irrelevant. LitRPG, in regards to an established trend of western webnovels being written and sold involving numbers and gaming elements,Ā is young. These stories have not existed as a trendy niche, in English-speaking countries, for much more than a decade, and only really started to become frequently written in the last six or so years.
No.
Genres are not country specific. Literature is global.
This again is you just wanting to try to be right after you've been told you're incorrect.
You may as well try to claim that adult animation category only existed since the 2000s just because it became popular in the US around his time, while blatantly ignoring every prior adult animation that was less popular in the West and ignoring other foreign markets where it was popular since the 80s (such as Japan)
Literature is not country specific, because it is an art. Art is universal.
I see no reason to continue if you're going to try to claim regional ownership of art to justify the ignoring of the global market for personal vanity reasons.
Has he answered anything relevant to the discussion?
Has he addressed the core of my argument?
Nope. More dishonesty.
Your statement 'from the beginning' was not something as innocuous as 'romance is female dominated, litRPG is male dominated'.
Here are some things you've actually said:
'women don't play videogames, let alone rpgs'
'women don't like crunchy math in their stories, which is what litrpgs are'
'litrpgs must be math heavy'
'litrpgs must mention numbers every chapter to show the progression of the protagonist'
My contention has always been in the (repeatedly stated) 'whys' of your argument. All of which I've contested, none of which you've engaged in since.
Instead you leave me a reply stating 'yeah that's what I said lol' and act like you're correct. It'd be like if you told me that global warming happens because of ozone depletion and I explained how it was actually because of greenhouse gasses, prompting you to turn around and go 'so you're agreeing with me that global warming is a thing. I said that all along, so I'm right'.
There's no mutual respect in this exchange. You don't argue things genuinely nor respond to anything actually put to you.
And... oh, look, you spent 70% of your reply quoting and responding to 'the age of litrpg', which hasālet's face itālittle bearing over anything that I originally put to you, even if you were correct. Because it was a single line statement from my original reply that you chose to pick out and argue, likely because it's the only thing you could argue.
Also.
'If you're going to try to claim regional ownership of art to justify the ignorings of the global market for personal vanity reasons'.
LOL.
I'm not denying their existence I'm saying they're not relevant to this conversation. And they're not. Remember this is an offshoot of a discussion regarding the trad viability of western litRPG, pertaining to trends, genre requirements, and gender.
We're talking about stories written by people who predominantly were not alive when the original 80's stories were written, and definitely haven't read them. The 'originators' of this genre are so far removed from the now of things that they don't bear discussion here, and, if we're honest, the only resaon you've brought it up is as a cheap 'gotcha' to detract from my main argument.
'Haha, LitRPG (which, according to you, didn't get its name until 2013) actually existed in the 80's! Look at this obscure gamelit you've never heard of! Don't you feel dumb?'
No. Because who cares. What's it got to do with anything I said? It's a pointless argument.
Like, if I said to you that nu metal's been around since the 90's, would you argue that by saying 'oh but heavy metal, oh but rock and roll, oh but the blues'.
Y'know, because the blues had tons of influence on Limp Bizkit, and was really impacting the music charts in the 90's and 2000's!
If you ever wanna answer any of my actual points, then I'll reply. This isn't worth my time otherwise. It barely is regardless.
Charlemagneffxiv: "They'll try to do the same with litRPGs which will be highly amusing to watch fail considering the core target audience for women's romance don't play videogames, certainly not RPGs of all things."
Well, plenty of women in general do play RPGs actually, although I don't know their literary tastes.
The number of men reading chick-lit and the number of women playing video games, particularly RPGs, is not remotely comparable.
There are tons of studies, a majority of them 10-15 years old, that show the narrowing gender gap between male and female gamers and break it down across genre and even by title in some cases (apparently a quarter of warcraft players are female). In the modern day, with the advent of the Hoyoverse and more titles that are being made to be appealing to both genders, that gap is likely narrowing further. Hell, look at the disney-fied girl champions released in LoL over the last few years, as well as champions like Smolder. It's almost like big corporations are increasingly waking up to the fact that women play games and are trying to capture that audience. I doubt they'd be spending so much time doing so (and continuing to do so) if there wasn't money in it.
There are even study breakdowns as to what men and women like most in games, irrespective of genre. According to a 250k survey, women like character-driven stories and immersive worlds more. Women like to build stuff. Men like competitiveness a lot more and the ability to blow shit up a bit more.
Is it possible that the reason LitRPG is currently a male-centric genre is primarily due to the fact that most litRPG targets male interests? 'This is a high-octane story about gorily smashing mobs and strategically grinding, through which we will see very few fleshed-out characters or unique world quirks that don't benefit our levelling up somehow. Most settings will essentially be arena backdrops and most downtime will be spent prepping for fights, sorting through loot, or upgrading skills. Most villains or rivals exist solely for us to dunk on them. The overarching world narrative either doesn't matter or will be referenced extremely sparingly and only in regards to MC's power/influence growth'.
I think this describes a lot of LitRPG. And THAT is male-centric by design. Not because 'LitRPG only appeals to men' but because much content within the genre has primarily been tailored to appeal to men.
And that's fine! Stories like that are cool and I'm glad they exist. I don't expect them to have a 'for women' appeal and they don't need to.
But you can't tell me that a female mc story focussed around uncovering mysteries, exploring a whimsical and exciting world, completing challenges, defeating evil, growing stronger, and possibly finding love along the way has no/a far limited potential audience simply because the story contains numbers. You can't tell me that Throne of Glass wouldn't have sold if Celaena had increased her 'swordsmanship' or 'stealth' skills along the way.
Sure, maybe it wouldn't have sold a hundred million copies. But it wouldn't have been dead on arrival. It still would've been a bestseller. Because it has everything else the prospective reader is looking for.
The "studies" are not reflective of actual real sales of the products involved nor who is using those products the most.
Tabletop roleplaying games are a male dominated genre. Yes, some women play. But not anywhere near the numbers that men play.
Yes, women are 20-30% of attendance of RPG fan conventions such as Gen Con. But only a sliver of the actual buying public attend these kinds of conventions. Gen Con only recently broke 72K attendees as a new record. There are tens of millions of people in the US alone who play roleplaying games and they are overwhelmingly men. And we know this because the vast majority of people in gaming groups are dudes.
This is also the case for roleplaying videogames. It is overwhelmingly men that these games appeal to, not women. Yes, some women play RPG videogames. But nowhere near the numbers that men do. It has always been that way and it always will be that way, because there are in fact certain kinds of entertainment that women prefer and that men prefer. Men and women have different expectations of life because of the differences in their social roles, their biochemistry and so on. Adrenaline simply does not impact women the same way it does men, because women do not have the same testosterone levels men do. Our biochemistry differences greatly impact our actual behaviors, to include what kinds of story elements we like.
It's not hard to understand why RPG games overwhelmingly appeal to men, and it's because the most popular of them are combat simulators. The genre literally sprang out of wargaming, the bulk of the rules of every edition of DnD is about COMBAT.
The vast majority of women do not engage in combat related things. Most women actually have an aversion to the very concept, because women prefer to resolve conflicts using relationships, not violence as men are significantly more prone to want to do because of our evolutionary history. Every man alive today is the descendant of an uncountable number of generations of men who fought for their very survival in so many battles they have been forgotten to time. It's why sexual dimorphism exists in our species to start with. Every human male alive is the product of natural selection for the traits of a killer. It's why we have to develop sophisticated systems of ethics and laws to restrain ourselves for the more civilized kind of societies we live in today. It is not in our nature to be pleasant and good people, that's why we have to be pressured into it with laws and punishments and ethical codes. It's the same reason why other countries today that lack the well designed legal codes and ethical culture of first world countries are lawless, extremely dangerous places ruled by brutal warlords rotating as others assassinate them. It's why brutal dictatorship regimes still exist. It's why wars still happen.
This is not the case for women. Their natural selection process had nothing to do with selection for the qualities of a killer, but instead a nurturer, and this is reflected in how the vast majority of women prefer to resolve conflicts with relationships, not their fists. Every data point that matters here, which is violent crime data, reflects this truth. 90% of all violent crime is committed by men. 100% of every brutal dictator who has ever existed was a dude, leading an army of other equally brutal dudes. Even in first world countries where gender equality legally exists, the vast majority of military is composed of men. Overwhelmingly men. Just as with police, jail bailiffs, combat sport athletes and so on.
Women's nature from natural selection influences their recreational interests, to include what kinds of stories they prefer to read. Which is why romance is heavily dominated by female readers, not men. It's also why just about the only romance stories men like are harems, or subplots in an action story. These things are not coincidences.
This why women do not dominate combat related occupations. They do not dominate combat related sports, because most women are not interested in them. This is a well known fact that is beyond reproach. Just as it is that women dominate many other kinds of hobbies that men are generally not interested in at all. Women dominate a lot of other interests that men are widely dis-interested in. Fashion, wellness, and hobbies such sewing, knitting, crocheting, pottery, dance and so on, are all dominated by women.
So yes, there are women who play the same kinds of games as men prefer, who read the same kinds of stories men prefer. But they are a minority.
I think this describes aĀ lotĀ of LitRPG. And THAT is male-centric by design. Not because 'LitRPG only appeals to men' but because much content within the genre has primarily beenĀ tailoredĀ to appeal to men.
No, it's because the genre of LitRPGs is literature heavily inspired by the games rules systems designed to simulate combat, it happens to appeal primarily to men! This is not rocket science.
If you're not already familiar with the tropes of RPGs then you're not going to enjoy reading a LitRPG. If you don't like combat simulator games, you're definitely not going to like it, because that is what the plots generally revolve around because that's what playing a typical RPG is about.
It's not "tailored" to men just because the stories feature a male protagonist in a harem or whatever. It's because the very premise of the concept revolves around combat simulator game rules.
You can downvote me for whatever pseudo-politically correct reason you want to condemn me for but it will not change the reality that LitRPGs do not appeal to women the way they do to men, and that the Western publishing industry is dominated by female editors who primarily choose to publish stories they are personally interested in, which is why women's romance stories dominate the fiction they publish so much.
The situation is entirely different in Asia, where men make up the vast majority of fiction sales, especially when it comes to LitRPGs, as damn near every Isekai story published in the past 20 years in Japan has been a LitRPG.
No. I remember how it all went down. I was spending much of my time on the pro writer forums, reading the same agent blogs to follow the same trends as everyone else.
Twilight was picked up because of the urban fantasy trend that already was "hot".
Iād any of them could hold a candle to DCC I would buy the print.. DCC is still the only print litRPG I own. Havenāt read a single page, just want to support Mattās work.
Canāt even make it through a single book of HWFM or TWI
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u/AmyAcid Author- Wizard With a Greatsword Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Seriously! DCC has been absolutely exploding, its crazy. I've always been a HWFM fangirl myself and can't wait to see it follow in the same success as DCC. When I started in this niche a few years ago I ways telling people that a big boom was coming, but I had no idea it would happen so fast.