Merriam-Webster defines role-playing game as “an adventure game in which players advance through a series of battles or quests to gain experience, strength, and skill as part of a progressive narrative arc usually depicting the hero’s journey.” Lit RPG is short for literary role-playing game and is a term that has been around since 2013. Russian publishing house EKSMO coined the term when it developed a series of books inspired by massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). The fiction genre blends traditional storytelling with gameplaying mechanics: specifically, characters acquire skills, and the author tracks their statistics throughout the story. Often, these stories also fall under the isekai subgenre, in which characters are suddenly transported to another world (in Japanese, isekai means “another world”). Lit RPGs are often set in fantasy worlds, but they can also be set in science-fiction worlds like cyberpunk environments (worlds in which information is power, and usually disadvantaged protagonists must fight evil mega corporations to obtain this power).

Key Components of Lit RPGs

Lit RPGs feature several key components. Some of these are:

• A Game-Like System: a structured system with rules often displayed through character statistics, skill trees, or level progression; often, these rules  are visible to the character
• Progression as a Theme: characters become stronger in quantifiable ways as they gain new skills and their levels increase
• Game System as Character: the game system is integral to the plot, as the game mechanics (such as gaining skills and going on quests) shape the narrative; additionally, the story’s environments conform to in-game lore and game mechanics, further enhancing the aesthetic of an RPG
• Detailed Numerical Aspects: whether extensive or light statistic blocks and detailed mechanical explanations
• A Loot System: in which characters find or earn items throughout the story
• “Character Within a Character”: the protagonist often completes a quest as an avatar in a virtual RPG

Examples of Popular Lit RPG Subgenres

Within the Lit RPG genre, there are also several subgenres. They include:

• Dungeon Crawler: characters navigate dungeons filled with treasures, traps, and monsters; sometimes, even the dungeon is a character with its own progression system
• Tower Climber: characters ascend levels of increasing difficulty; tower climber stories often feature distinct settings on each floor
• Empire/Town Building: characters construct infrastructure, establish settlements, and manage resources
• Apocalypse: the game system appears during or after world-ending events, where before these events, there was no such system
• Deckbuilding: characters collect, trade, and battle with card decks, combining the strategy of collectible card games with RPG mechanics
• Crafting: characters create objects (such as magical items, weaponry, and spells) to influence character progression, and this activity is central to the story

Why Readers Love Lit RPGs

Why do readers love LitRPGs? These stories often feature concrete character development, especially when taking into account the role-playing game elements of character type and skills. The stories also feature streamlined worldbuilding that reduces exposition, which appeals to readers who prefer fast-paced narratives. Lit RPGs appeal to readers’ desire for wish fulfillment—becoming powerful through strategy and hard work rather than birthright or destiny. Related to this idea, the stories explore the challenges and responsibilities that accompany obtaining great power. Ultimately, though, readers simply enjoy the experience of playing a video game within a literary narrative, without having to battle for hours just to reach the next level (since the stories’ authors frequently write the main character as being able to quickly progress through levels). Lit RPG authors often prioritize the fun aspects of storytelling, through strange premises and pulse-pounding, propulsive action.

Creating Your Own Lit RPG

In order to create your own Lit RPG, you will first need to create your story’s world. As in any story, this world should feature unique cultures and geography. Next, you will create your story’s protagonist. Examples of a character archetypes include the everyman/woman, necromancer/mage (or other magic wielder), monster (such as zombies or vampires), student at a magic school, or a rogue (pirate or similar adventurer). Because this is a Lit RPG, it is vital for you to create your story’s  game system, including what character statistics to include (for example, luck, stamina, or dexterity) and how they affect the story. You must also detail how characters earn experience points and when these experience points level up a character; whether skills evolve and what impact they have on a character; what items are important for the quest; what sidequests (if any) further the character’s goals; whether and how a character has access to a quest interface; and what happens when a character dies during a quest—do they lose items, go down a level, or have to start from the very beginning?

Once you have established all story elements and are prepared to write the story, you should create a main quest that provides an effective opening to the story universe, serves as a common thread connecting all future events, and offers a clear understanding of the characters’ problems and other concerns (if your story is set in a virtual world, the story introduction must also explain the relationship between the real and virtual worlds: how do these disparate realities coexist, and how do characters travel between these realities?). Throughout the story, you should seamlessly weave in the Lit RPG elements so they feel intrinsic to the story rather than shoehorned in.

Examples of Lit RPG Books

Below are a few examples of Lit RPG books. Aside from the first, they are not necessarily the most popular but are ones that feature intriguing premises that might hook disparate types of readers.

• Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: This is the Lit RPG novel that has recently exploded the genre. It follows the titular character as he must escape an 18-level labyrinth with the help of his cat Donut.
• The Defiance of the Fall series by TheFirstDefier: In this book series, main character Zac must fight beasts, demons, and other enemies with only a hatchet to become stronger and survive long enough to find his family.
• Stray Cat Strut series by RavensDagger: This series follows orphaned protagonist Cat Leblanc as she fights aliens within a corporation-run, cyberpunk dystopia.

And if you need help editing your own Lit RPG novel, please reach out to one of our experienced and talented editors at Technica Editorial Services.

By Matt Wade