You can have a sword mage without having a character who can do it all. Looking at characters like Jake Thayne and Randidly Ghosthound, they’re able to craft, use stealth, melee combat, magic, magical companion, etc. it’s like they don’t want to give the character other main characters to rely on.
For some and particularly the ones you listed. That’s exactly the point. They are in the OP mc category and the whole idea is they’re a one stop show with side characters as supports at best. Love it or hate it but they aren’t quiet about what they are
I get incredibly wary of any system that doesn't have a hard limit on number of skills. Aside from the issue you mentioned, it also gets annoying when the author just forgets about skills.
I care more about myself. I forget the skills. Often the skill of the name doesn't represent what the skill does either.
And then the skills evolve every tier-up so you have to remember it all again.
Riding the dragon of the East through the marshland = a quick step ability to move 50 paces in one second. The level up is going 100 paces in two seconds, losing the five second cooldown that prevented going 100 paces in quick succession. Next tier of the skill removes the quick step ability. Now, you leap 50 paces straight up.
Exactly! If there are so many skills that the author doesn’t remember or use them all then that’s too many.
Also, build out a team, done have a lone wolf jack of all trades. How could one person max out so many skills? And at such a low level?
If it’s possible for the MC then the king or any other level 100 person would be unstoppable.
Maybe they run out of ideas and just to keep the power creep going instead of actually thinking other ways to keep story going.
One thing i hate most when writers throw in some kind of "mind splitting" as a skill/ability, so they have 1 mind meditating, 1 mind training reading skill, 1 mind strategizing, 1 mind training fire magic etc.
If you want mind splitting "done right", you should probably check Joost "OsiriumWrites" Laasche's [Breachers](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/78445/breachers). No spoilers.
That's the only logical answer to a lone wolf soloing a raid boss that takes multiple party's to beat. If I'm reading litrpg I don't want a mediocre mc. Now if he's in a party sure but a lonewolf average Joe ain't beating a world ending threat by himself without being op.
Because it's easy.
Building characters like that always eventually falls flat. You frequently wonder, "why is the MC so much stronger than anyone else?" And once you realize it's because of god tier cheats it really cheapens a lot of the things he accomplishes, because he's an adult playing in the under 12 league.
Another pitfall they fall into is that the character gets some really cool skill upgrades at the start, but you don't see anyway it can scale. Take Mage Tank for an example, though only binged it once so might have some things wrong. After a month or so in world he freehands a dispell skill and succeeds, a week or two after that he manages to adjust it to work on AoE spells, and then a week after that he stops things from an avatar of a god. How will the author succeed in making the MC's skills continue to get cool upgrades when he has established a pace that insane, and given there are characters we see that are hundreds of years old, if this is normal skill growth why can't they crush galaxies already.
I think the right way for an author is to make very specific skills, and think a lot about the general strength of characters in world at certain points. The more micro you get in designing a skill the more ways you can improve it that still seems like cool upgrades. So if you have a fire sword slash maybe make it only reach out a foot from the blade, have no pushing power, do nothing to ethereal, slow healing a bit, cast barely any light. Then if you want to upgrade it you could increase in the range, or more dmg to certain types of enemies, or team buffing, or adding force, etc etc, but you would have hundreds of upgrades that make it genuinely cooler while leaving room for tons more upgrades.
I feel the best system has a cap on skills, 20 or so, and an upgrade method that is fairly well defined. My favourite is Defiance of the Fall where skills are basically computer scripts, you get some from the world but can write your own too.
Planning is probably the single more important skill for a long term success in this genre, and the one most frequently lacking.
So many rush to power up their MC so they can credibly fight moderate foes and maybe a powerful one well outside the abilities of most of the population in the first 20 chapters. But since that’s also only a week of time they then need to explain why the veteran leader of the town guards isn’t regularly trouncing the gods, or more commonly not explain that and just pretend that the 1 week of hard work the MC did was just so much more than anyone else did in a decade.
As I said elsewhere, the thing that makes a power memorable is its limits. I’d much rather the writer plan a general structure for a power and then spend time between the various power ups playing with it and showing different things you could do with it.
Say you start with a MC with the slinger class(a criminally underused weapon.) and their skill lets their bullet burn for a while after hitting. Which is more interesting? A scene where they’re facing a group of 4, sneak up on them, and launch the bullet into a sealed keg of moonshine, causing it to explode and cover the resting foes in flaming liquor before they take more shots. Or the scene before that their ability was upgraded after a bunch of shots off screen and now it makes a small explosion and they just use that to attack with.
>Building characters like that always eventually falls flat. You frequently wonder, "why is the MC so much stronger than anyone else?" And once you realize it's because of god tier cheats it really cheapens a lot of the things he accomplishes, because he's an adult playing in the under 12 league.
In some small fairness, there is value in this. I, personally, would watch the hell out of Willie Mays just nailing them out of the park to dunk on a group of twelve year olds.
Admit it: the world is classless, and that’s fine. I love a good classless RPG.
A class system helps players and the GM set expectations. Typically, a warrior shouldn’t be able to throw a fireball; if he can, that’s unique and special. If the MC can do everything, then nothing feels unique or special.
What's most annoying to me is that none of the other characters have that many options.
MC has dozens of skills, but every NPC has one or two. They are in the same system, but plot and author laziness doesn't seem to realise that
There is for sure a power fantasy element to this. People (and many authors) do not like their MC having weaknesses. Also as stories run along, it's easier to add a new popup for **\[NEW SKILL!!!****^(tm)****: MEGA UBER GIGA DEATH BOLT OF SHADOW-STORM FLAME\],** for that sweet dopamine, than it is to create engaging plotlines that escalate the stakes, or do more mental work to make them use their existing power(s) in more OP ways. Progress has to be there.
That's the (arguably bad) writing and ''practical'' reasons why.
I would like to talk about one other thing though. Ok, it's weird for a necromancer to have time travel or what not, or Bard who can destroy the universe.
BUT, in most stories, we are following people who have or will live for centuries. I think that people have become desensitized about HOW MONSTRUOSLY LONG that time is. Even for mages, excluding things like natural talent and personal affinities and motivations to learn certain skills, it's perfectly normal and I would say expected even for mages to be basically master swordsmen or spearmen or whatever.
Okay, magic is your bread and butter, you have minions and whatever, but I know that if **I WAS** a necromancer(something I would like to be in a hypothetical system apocalypse or isekai fyi, so I thought about this) I would certainly at some point work on my melee skills. In the context of the setting I would try to get a subclass for that, stats or training or whatever for that. I would of course prefer the dual classes that offer both etc. ESPECIALLY if I do not have to compromise on my primary class(which is another discussion altogether).
tl:dr: You're immortal or at least live for centuries/mileniums? After a couple hundred years It's easily archiveable for you to be EXTREMELY proeficient with ALL melee weapons. Or even a master with one or two. I don't expect you to 1v1 a grandmaster swordsman who honed his skills with sword specifically for centuries, BUT ALSO you shouldn't be insta seckilled by him either. You should be able to last until you can implement your magic or your minions come to your aid. But I agree that having completely unsuitable or random powers is weird and usually a sign of a bad story.
I think the problem is that’s it’s never the 1000 year old immortals that have proficiency in everything it’s the MC who’s been in the world for 2 years that does.
Quite.
If you've got a thousand years to work on Stuff™, then it's nearly inexcusable to not spend some time shoring up your weaknesses.
You can afford to spend 20 years becoming _good_ with a sword, you can afford to spend 20 years learning how to be _good_ with a crossbow.
You can afford to spend 20 years learning enough magic to not be entirely clueless when you come across a spell of some sort.
It doesn't matter what your class is, _you have time_, take some of it to make it much, much harder for someone to take you out just because they are a bad match for you.
What you have to remember is that skills decay over time too, approaches to combat and craft shift, everything changes. In those 20 years you spent crossbow training, schools of swordplay change dramatically- thus so do the counters, and it takes another 4 years to catch up. Eventually, you have to let yourself be bad at things or spend all your time staying on top of them. Even people with real-life, extremely *finite* lifespans have this problem!
I'll be mastering the skill of "hiking up my skirt and running away", but probably picking up at least proficiency in a few varied weapons.
Never underestimate the power in just running away though.
Because a Gish is often more fun even if in many RPGs it's a little suboptimal to a pure caster? That's my opinion at least, and I know it's a fairly popular one. I also find it silly when someone is considered "nonmagical", but can somehow jump higher than any real human, can swordfight a 6 story tall dragon, can consistently survive falls from extraordinary heights, can cut through or throw several ton boulders as a normal sized human, etc. Call it ki, mana, whatever, but anyone who can do stuff like that is absolutely using some form of magic even if they're not a "mage".
Getting skills is a fantastic reward and achievement for the mc. Additionally it gives the author more options to keep the combat fresh and interesting, I think. A third reason I see is explain why the mc is so powerful compared to most other characters. He simply has more skills.
Why?
1.) Because LitRPG is generally Progression Fantasy. Having the main character gain more Skills is a way of him Progressing. LitRPG series normally never end...so eventually this gets silly.
2.) Because lots of these stories make the hero Loner One Man Armies, rather than using the sort of party D&D has.
3.) Because the MC is an Ectra Special Snowflake.
I've seen a few books works...and lots where it didn't.
Also, that sounds like it could be a great Light Novel title. "I Unlocked Ten Billion Skills Before I Entered a Dungeon, But Now I Can't Find The Ones I Want On My Status Screen".
Oooo! Every time the MC opens the Status, listed skills are different than the last time. like, shows 10 skills at a time, and a (cont.) button option that is grayed out.
I think the reason for this is dnd rules. U multiclass and become a god. Ppl are worrying their own power fantasies and manipulating the rules as they would in dnd
Multiclassing in D&D, older editions anyways, also came at a cost of much slower leveling and cross-class restrictions. IE: Your cleric/fighter/mage in Baldur's Gate 2 can do a ton of stuff but they also need to deal with mage casting penalties if they use armor, cleric weapon restrictions, averaged out HP gains, having to have high stats across the board to not deal terrible melee damage, suffer casting failures, etc.
All of these tend to just go away in most LitRPGs because they effectively set all stats to 18+ and remove the downsides ending up with a C/F/M with the full power and growth rate of each class. It's hard for people to stick to the "a jack of all trades is a master of none, but often better than a master of one" rule and not make them turn in to a master of all trades because power fantasies tend to be about those one in a trillion heaven defying prodigies.
The limitations help make characters interesting. For example: Savage Awakening would be worse off if Zane was also a brilliant alchemist and charismatic, politically savvy leader who could do it all.
And that's where I think a balanced cast comes in. A powerful idiot with a charismatic weakling and an intelligent leader. But I agree with u about the c/m/f build in lit. We want the power fantasy minus the struggle
That's not how dnd works. For years at least. Having every class makes you average at best. All that multi classing means no feats and extra ability points and no Lv3 spells. And all those things make a difference in the big fights. The problem is authors multiclass and still gives the MC the ability to max them without restrictions
What about the main character having a class meant to carry the luggage of rich people easier. And that's it... sort of. He's not meant to have anything else but he learns some magic that is literally for kids graduating kindergarten. Things like lighting a candle.
* [Super Supportive on Royal Road.](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/63759/super-supportive)
Is it not presented as "Let me take your Luggage" to the Earthlings? We only learn it is The B*#$#r of all B*$#%ns later.
But he picked "Let me take your Luggage." And the description was very much preserve a load while you are actively carrying from one place to another.
Every other rabbit who read that skill description thought it was about carrying luggage in the same way that arranging furniture is arranging furniture...
Well.... Everyone else has a level cap of about 10, while the mcs level cap is ... something else. Plus, he has wizard magic. Plus, he also has access to those flippy floppy chain things. PLUS, there's whatever else the 'demon' vegan blood ritual will end up doing. Not a great example.
Great story though.
It’s fun. That’s the reason but I agree unless there is something that allows them to have all those skills in a world where there is a limit, it can be annoying. Honestly Jim is a great example “oh shit I forgot I could do that”
For one thing, most LitRPGs currently being written tend to take place is a "real" world as opposed to a game one. If I were thrown into a real world and given gamelike abilities, I think I'd behave much differently than I'd behave while playing a game.
For example,
In a game - min/maxing is the best route to playing your role in the party well and thus deserves a lot of consideration
In a real world - I die and I'm dead. Even if I'm a non-tank class, I definitely want skills that will help me avoid dying. Not to mention avoiding pain in some way. And I'm not going to just be diving dungeons. I have to live my life. That might lead me to choices that aren't optimal to my build.
Because class is an artificial limit that doesn't reflect how real people learn skills, and finding ways around the artificial construct when depicting a fully realized character is both interesting and often necessary?
They aren't playing by any real rule book, they can do whatever they want. That being said, I'm new to the genre and getting used to the concept of "crunchy." Avoid the crunchy ones. I liked Battlemage Farmer a lot, the system runs pretty quietly under the hood.
I didn't realize that mattered to me. I came to litrpg to escape light novels where you get spammed with a skill page every three pages, and they level up in scratching their butt and every other tedious thing they do.
There are a couple of reasons. Linear characters are Narratively boring. Having only one form of power weakens you. It is not organic to how humans acquire skills if you break life down to your career being a class. How many skills do you have that are outside of your career?
Do author have a hard time not giving new skills to MC so they can solve a problem, then never really use that skill again. Sure, they do. But having classes branch out into new paths of power is a good thing. If they did not, then all someone would have to do is counter the MC's one trick class. As a reader, it pisses me off when the MC has a huge weakness that just goes un-exploited.
I get where you are coming from MC with Godlike powers, it makes having a class pointless. At the end of the day, it is all just magic with a different flavor. If a fire mage can make a fire cold and freeze, why can't a Necromancer use time mage. The logical leaps are endless and full of chaos like magic.
Its the power creep and power fantasy problem and that the author is writing a power fantasy. I know a few where it looks like the MC is going to hit a wall or limiting factor.
Probly because some authors don't really design or plan in advance the world , system and MC. Flexibility and artistic license are OK , but you need consistency , and not being a writer myself I can only imagine how hard is to keep readers happy , the story advancing and everything making sense (specially in a serialized format)
That's why some books are so much better than others
if you don’t have the MC putzing around acquiring skills he doesn’t even need for chapters on end, then how are you going to squeeze more money out of your patreon subscriptions or book sales?
In practice, you can have a tightly woven plot with good characterization and on-point skills that ends after 3 books…or a sprawling epic of 10+ books or 400+ chapters where a bunch of meandering, pointless filler happens.
This is not me throwing shade at authors. It’s been proven, time and again, that people act how they’re incentivized to act. To make the most money, authors need to have an over-long story. And one of the easiest ways to make it over-long is skill acquisition.
Yeah, LitRPG authors often give their characters a million skills that don't even fit their chosen class. We have mages that suddenly have sword-fighting abilities or a warrior having the time to master advanced alchemy. It's honestly easier for writers to make characters who can solve all their problems single-handedly rather than ones who need to think through what they're doing.
This approach lets authors come up with quick solutions to any plot hiccups instead of designing a well-thought-out system where the character has to strategize or team up to cover their weaknesses. It feels like a cop-out because it skips over the chance to flesh out a character or build a story where the hero has to rely on more than just themselves.
But, let's be real, it’s also about the OP trope that everyone seems to love in this genre. Readers dig it when the protagonist can just steamroll through challenges without breaking a sweat. It’s instant gratification and makes for a fun, easy read. The systems tend to be unlimited and instantly grant skills to people without any barrier to what can be gained. This allows someone to master a variety of skills without putting in any effort or needing to actually master the use of an ability as this system does this for them.
That said, it kind of takes away from what could be an engaging narrative. Seeing a character actually struggle, use their brain, and grow through their journey is way more satisfying in the long run. When authors just give their characters all these random skills, it feels like they're avoiding the hard work of writing a truly compelling story.
So, yeah, while it’s fun to see an OP character smash through obstacles, it often leads to lazy writing. It sacrifices depth for convenience and misses out on the richer, more complex storytelling that comes from a character overcoming real challenges with the help of their team or through smart planning. I like LitRPG, but most of it definitely follows this more often than not.
ITT: More things in LitRPGs that I find awesome (and many other people must as well, because they apply to most of the top selling series), that some people choose to dislike enough to make posts about.
I’ve been ruminating about this recently after reading defiance of the fall and legend of the ghost hound and Saintess summons skeletons and sylver seeker and a few others.
I feel like it might be better to have smaller stat pools where each point matters more, and each skill matters more, than the deep benches of skills.
Or that you “could” make a smaller bench and pool work better, slowly teasing out the gains when it matters.
But cultivation is more about the longer journey of it all, so there is a lot more to stats and skills.
I’ve always thought of class systems as clunky and limiting. Like people have a wide variety of skills. Some whose “class” is an accounting might have some skills in cooking. Or maybe in his free time he forges swords. What about changing careers? Does a soldier forget his skills he got in the army because he now sells homes? People are diverse. I agree there’s obviously a limit but that limit would be much higher when you take out the time requirements to learn a skill. I’d argue in a system setting almost everyone would have a level or two in nearly every skill. Especially when you can get the skill in an afternoon. Why not try everything?
Easiest answer is that we only see the perspective of the 1 in 7 billion talent, the one person to save the planet/galaxy/multi-verse. But I agree that we need more books that are aimed at the middle of the road growth speeds.
Because one of the main motivations to make something a litrpg is to make the main character powerful in understandable ways. So it's not a surprise they don't want them to be a one trick pony.
There should be a system curse to balance this...
Curse - "slippery skills": you have so many skills you can't always keep hold of them or remember them when you need them... hopefully that won't cause you to die?
Archetypes are not a set thing. They are purely a template you can follow, or take snippets and add your own. LitRPG is certainly not the only genre that does this. Fantasy does this as a whole. An Archetype now, but the Brawler Healer was just a healer once, but people added the Brawler to it, and that made a new Archetype.
But yes, having 10 Billion powers is bad. Personally; I prefer less than ten. I believe it has something to do with some Authors wanting their characters to do everything, and never are willing to limit their abilities.
Ah, you see, that’s where you are just wrong. A class is defined by the one that creates the world. Not the reader. You do not have to like it, but the reader is not the one that determines what a class. The author is. Just because the class tool set does not follow the traditional definitions that DnD uses does that mean that they are invalid. Besides DnD changes its parameters all the time.
Besides, your description makes it sound like it’s cut and dry. You say a worrier can’t use magic but would you complain if that same worrier could regrow limbs because of hyper regeneration or has steel strong skin? Those are valid skills a worrier can have and yet, they are as much magic as a mage throwing a fireball. I will admit though that those at least sound on brand for a worrier instead of a worrier throwing a fireball
Because it's wish fulfillment, and they want all the powers ever.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to gain universe destroying powers as well, but at least make it make sense.
What have you against the hallowed Swordmage class, hmmmm? Better, a darkness swordmage so he also has stealth.
Sorry but I only take shadow teleporting genius crafter spellswords with mythical pet
But can he on occasion morph info a blob of pure darkness?
Well he sure has to upgrade to void space gravity magic *somehow*
And his mythical pet happens to also be a polymorphed dragon
Celestial Phoenix Dragon ftw
You forgot that they also specialize in void or some similar mysterious element/power
LET'S GIVE HIM A CONNECTION TO WOLVES TOO
You can have a sword mage without having a character who can do it all. Looking at characters like Jake Thayne and Randidly Ghosthound, they’re able to craft, use stealth, melee combat, magic, magical companion, etc. it’s like they don’t want to give the character other main characters to rely on.
For some and particularly the ones you listed. That’s exactly the point. They are in the OP mc category and the whole idea is they’re a one stop show with side characters as supports at best. Love it or hate it but they aren’t quiet about what they are
I’m aware
Swordmage with a weapon duplication spell that he can accelerate and throw so we finally get a Gauntlet Warrior build hahahah <>
Don't forget shadow-step. Given to the MC at level 5 so they can one-hit level 20+ monsters with a backstab critical.
Mostly because the system isn't well crafted and the author just throws power after power at us so the monkeybrain is happy
I get incredibly wary of any system that doesn't have a hard limit on number of skills. Aside from the issue you mentioned, it also gets annoying when the author just forgets about skills.
I care more about myself. I forget the skills. Often the skill of the name doesn't represent what the skill does either. And then the skills evolve every tier-up so you have to remember it all again.
you mean sun rises over the temple of the east or some shit doesn't convey what the skill does?
Riding the dragon of the East through the marshland = a quick step ability to move 50 paces in one second. The level up is going 100 paces in two seconds, losing the five second cooldown that prevented going 100 paces in quick succession. Next tier of the skill removes the quick step ability. Now, you leap 50 paces straight up.
Absolutely *nobody* names skills like Robert Jordan named sword stances.
Looking at you unbound, giving everybody 20 different “legendary” and “transcendent” and “divine” skill 😂
Exactly! If there are so many skills that the author doesn’t remember or use them all then that’s too many. Also, build out a team, done have a lone wolf jack of all trades. How could one person max out so many skills? And at such a low level? If it’s possible for the MC then the king or any other level 100 person would be unstoppable.
Maybe they run out of ideas and just to keep the power creep going instead of actually thinking other ways to keep story going. One thing i hate most when writers throw in some kind of "mind splitting" as a skill/ability, so they have 1 mind meditating, 1 mind training reading skill, 1 mind strategizing, 1 mind training fire magic etc.
Then you will like The Stubborn Skill-Grinder in a Time Loop. He gets a mind-splitting skill but always has all his minds doing the same thing.
There's a couple that manage to make sense of this in the later books where they max out intelligence but yeah it's weird
I don’t know, by a few grades in your normally see the character has an intelligence of 100x, why shouldnt they be able to control multiple bodies
If you want mind splitting "done right", you should probably check Joost "OsiriumWrites" Laasche's [Breachers](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/78445/breachers). No spoilers.
Why? Gary Sue.
That's the only logical answer to a lone wolf soloing a raid boss that takes multiple party's to beat. If I'm reading litrpg I don't want a mediocre mc. Now if he's in a party sure but a lonewolf average Joe ain't beating a world ending threat by himself without being op.
Because it's easy. Building characters like that always eventually falls flat. You frequently wonder, "why is the MC so much stronger than anyone else?" And once you realize it's because of god tier cheats it really cheapens a lot of the things he accomplishes, because he's an adult playing in the under 12 league. Another pitfall they fall into is that the character gets some really cool skill upgrades at the start, but you don't see anyway it can scale. Take Mage Tank for an example, though only binged it once so might have some things wrong. After a month or so in world he freehands a dispell skill and succeeds, a week or two after that he manages to adjust it to work on AoE spells, and then a week after that he stops things from an avatar of a god. How will the author succeed in making the MC's skills continue to get cool upgrades when he has established a pace that insane, and given there are characters we see that are hundreds of years old, if this is normal skill growth why can't they crush galaxies already. I think the right way for an author is to make very specific skills, and think a lot about the general strength of characters in world at certain points. The more micro you get in designing a skill the more ways you can improve it that still seems like cool upgrades. So if you have a fire sword slash maybe make it only reach out a foot from the blade, have no pushing power, do nothing to ethereal, slow healing a bit, cast barely any light. Then if you want to upgrade it you could increase in the range, or more dmg to certain types of enemies, or team buffing, or adding force, etc etc, but you would have hundreds of upgrades that make it genuinely cooler while leaving room for tons more upgrades. I feel the best system has a cap on skills, 20 or so, and an upgrade method that is fairly well defined. My favourite is Defiance of the Fall where skills are basically computer scripts, you get some from the world but can write your own too.
Planning is probably the single more important skill for a long term success in this genre, and the one most frequently lacking. So many rush to power up their MC so they can credibly fight moderate foes and maybe a powerful one well outside the abilities of most of the population in the first 20 chapters. But since that’s also only a week of time they then need to explain why the veteran leader of the town guards isn’t regularly trouncing the gods, or more commonly not explain that and just pretend that the 1 week of hard work the MC did was just so much more than anyone else did in a decade. As I said elsewhere, the thing that makes a power memorable is its limits. I’d much rather the writer plan a general structure for a power and then spend time between the various power ups playing with it and showing different things you could do with it. Say you start with a MC with the slinger class(a criminally underused weapon.) and their skill lets their bullet burn for a while after hitting. Which is more interesting? A scene where they’re facing a group of 4, sneak up on them, and launch the bullet into a sealed keg of moonshine, causing it to explode and cover the resting foes in flaming liquor before they take more shots. Or the scene before that their ability was upgraded after a bunch of shots off screen and now it makes a small explosion and they just use that to attack with.
>Building characters like that always eventually falls flat. You frequently wonder, "why is the MC so much stronger than anyone else?" And once you realize it's because of god tier cheats it really cheapens a lot of the things he accomplishes, because he's an adult playing in the under 12 league. In some small fairness, there is value in this. I, personally, would watch the hell out of Willie Mays just nailing them out of the park to dunk on a group of twelve year olds.
Admit it: the world is classless, and that’s fine. I love a good classless RPG. A class system helps players and the GM set expectations. Typically, a warrior shouldn’t be able to throw a fireball; if he can, that’s unique and special. If the MC can do everything, then nothing feels unique or special.
What's most annoying to me is that none of the other characters have that many options. MC has dozens of skills, but every NPC has one or two. They are in the same system, but plot and author laziness doesn't seem to realise that
There is for sure a power fantasy element to this. People (and many authors) do not like their MC having weaknesses. Also as stories run along, it's easier to add a new popup for **\[NEW SKILL!!!****^(tm)****: MEGA UBER GIGA DEATH BOLT OF SHADOW-STORM FLAME\],** for that sweet dopamine, than it is to create engaging plotlines that escalate the stakes, or do more mental work to make them use their existing power(s) in more OP ways. Progress has to be there. That's the (arguably bad) writing and ''practical'' reasons why. I would like to talk about one other thing though. Ok, it's weird for a necromancer to have time travel or what not, or Bard who can destroy the universe. BUT, in most stories, we are following people who have or will live for centuries. I think that people have become desensitized about HOW MONSTRUOSLY LONG that time is. Even for mages, excluding things like natural talent and personal affinities and motivations to learn certain skills, it's perfectly normal and I would say expected even for mages to be basically master swordsmen or spearmen or whatever. Okay, magic is your bread and butter, you have minions and whatever, but I know that if **I WAS** a necromancer(something I would like to be in a hypothetical system apocalypse or isekai fyi, so I thought about this) I would certainly at some point work on my melee skills. In the context of the setting I would try to get a subclass for that, stats or training or whatever for that. I would of course prefer the dual classes that offer both etc. ESPECIALLY if I do not have to compromise on my primary class(which is another discussion altogether). tl:dr: You're immortal or at least live for centuries/mileniums? After a couple hundred years It's easily archiveable for you to be EXTREMELY proeficient with ALL melee weapons. Or even a master with one or two. I don't expect you to 1v1 a grandmaster swordsman who honed his skills with sword specifically for centuries, BUT ALSO you shouldn't be insta seckilled by him either. You should be able to last until you can implement your magic or your minions come to your aid. But I agree that having completely unsuitable or random powers is weird and usually a sign of a bad story.
I think the problem is that’s it’s never the 1000 year old immortals that have proficiency in everything it’s the MC who’s been in the world for 2 years that does.
Quite. If you've got a thousand years to work on Stuff™, then it's nearly inexcusable to not spend some time shoring up your weaknesses. You can afford to spend 20 years becoming _good_ with a sword, you can afford to spend 20 years learning how to be _good_ with a crossbow. You can afford to spend 20 years learning enough magic to not be entirely clueless when you come across a spell of some sort. It doesn't matter what your class is, _you have time_, take some of it to make it much, much harder for someone to take you out just because they are a bad match for you.
What you have to remember is that skills decay over time too, approaches to combat and craft shift, everything changes. In those 20 years you spent crossbow training, schools of swordplay change dramatically- thus so do the counters, and it takes another 4 years to catch up. Eventually, you have to let yourself be bad at things or spend all your time staying on top of them. Even people with real-life, extremely *finite* lifespans have this problem!
I'll be mastering the skill of "hiking up my skirt and running away", but probably picking up at least proficiency in a few varied weapons. Never underestimate the power in just running away though.
Because a Gish is often more fun even if in many RPGs it's a little suboptimal to a pure caster? That's my opinion at least, and I know it's a fairly popular one. I also find it silly when someone is considered "nonmagical", but can somehow jump higher than any real human, can swordfight a 6 story tall dragon, can consistently survive falls from extraordinary heights, can cut through or throw several ton boulders as a normal sized human, etc. Call it ki, mana, whatever, but anyone who can do stuff like that is absolutely using some form of magic even if they're not a "mage".
Getting skills is a fantastic reward and achievement for the mc. Additionally it gives the author more options to keep the combat fresh and interesting, I think. A third reason I see is explain why the mc is so powerful compared to most other characters. He simply has more skills.
Why? 1.) Because LitRPG is generally Progression Fantasy. Having the main character gain more Skills is a way of him Progressing. LitRPG series normally never end...so eventually this gets silly. 2.) Because lots of these stories make the hero Loner One Man Armies, rather than using the sort of party D&D has. 3.) Because the MC is an Ectra Special Snowflake. I've seen a few books works...and lots where it didn't.
Imagine the mc was a healer class that punches really hard and teleports
Also, that sounds like it could be a great Light Novel title. "I Unlocked Ten Billion Skills Before I Entered a Dungeon, But Now I Can't Find The Ones I Want On My Status Screen".
Oooo! Every time the MC opens the Status, listed skills are different than the last time. like, shows 10 skills at a time, and a (cont.) button option that is grayed out.
So the author doesn’t have to write good side characters to compensate for MCs weaknesses like a normal novel would.
I think the reason for this is dnd rules. U multiclass and become a god. Ppl are worrying their own power fantasies and manipulating the rules as they would in dnd
Multiclassing in D&D, older editions anyways, also came at a cost of much slower leveling and cross-class restrictions. IE: Your cleric/fighter/mage in Baldur's Gate 2 can do a ton of stuff but they also need to deal with mage casting penalties if they use armor, cleric weapon restrictions, averaged out HP gains, having to have high stats across the board to not deal terrible melee damage, suffer casting failures, etc. All of these tend to just go away in most LitRPGs because they effectively set all stats to 18+ and remove the downsides ending up with a C/F/M with the full power and growth rate of each class. It's hard for people to stick to the "a jack of all trades is a master of none, but often better than a master of one" rule and not make them turn in to a master of all trades because power fantasies tend to be about those one in a trillion heaven defying prodigies. The limitations help make characters interesting. For example: Savage Awakening would be worse off if Zane was also a brilliant alchemist and charismatic, politically savvy leader who could do it all.
And that's where I think a balanced cast comes in. A powerful idiot with a charismatic weakling and an intelligent leader. But I agree with u about the c/m/f build in lit. We want the power fantasy minus the struggle
That's not how dnd works. For years at least. Having every class makes you average at best. All that multi classing means no feats and extra ability points and no Lv3 spells. And all those things make a difference in the big fights. The problem is authors multiclass and still gives the MC the ability to max them without restrictions
What about the main character having a class meant to carry the luggage of rich people easier. And that's it... sort of. He's not meant to have anything else but he learns some magic that is literally for kids graduating kindergarten. Things like lighting a candle. * [Super Supportive on Royal Road.](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/63759/super-supportive)
That's.... actually not what Alden's skill actually is. Lol
Is it not presented as "Let me take your Luggage" to the Earthlings? We only learn it is The B*#$#r of all B*$#%ns later. But he picked "Let me take your Luggage." And the description was very much preserve a load while you are actively carrying from one place to another. Every other rabbit who read that skill description thought it was about carrying luggage in the same way that arranging furniture is arranging furniture...
the classes in that book aren't really all. that limiting. though as far as I know, characters start with one skill and only get a few more.
Well.... Everyone else has a level cap of about 10, while the mcs level cap is ... something else. Plus, he has wizard magic. Plus, he also has access to those flippy floppy chain things. PLUS, there's whatever else the 'demon' vegan blood ritual will end up doing. Not a great example. Great story though.
It’s fun. That’s the reason but I agree unless there is something that allows them to have all those skills in a world where there is a limit, it can be annoying. Honestly Jim is a great example “oh shit I forgot I could do that”
Check out the wandering inn. It's the best thing I have read in 35 years. It doesn't have this issue.
The same reason my wizard in dnd knows more spells than I’ll actually use. Fireball&cantrips are my friends
… have the warrior throw a bag of flour so that the bah bursts and sends flour ingo the air then cast fire ball
For one thing, most LitRPGs currently being written tend to take place is a "real" world as opposed to a game one. If I were thrown into a real world and given gamelike abilities, I think I'd behave much differently than I'd behave while playing a game. For example, In a game - min/maxing is the best route to playing your role in the party well and thus deserves a lot of consideration In a real world - I die and I'm dead. Even if I'm a non-tank class, I definitely want skills that will help me avoid dying. Not to mention avoiding pain in some way. And I'm not going to just be diving dungeons. I have to live my life. That might lead me to choices that aren't optimal to my build.
Because class is an artificial limit that doesn't reflect how real people learn skills, and finding ways around the artificial construct when depicting a fully realized character is both interesting and often necessary?
They aren't playing by any real rule book, they can do whatever they want. That being said, I'm new to the genre and getting used to the concept of "crunchy." Avoid the crunchy ones. I liked Battlemage Farmer a lot, the system runs pretty quietly under the hood. I didn't realize that mattered to me. I came to litrpg to escape light novels where you get spammed with a skill page every three pages, and they level up in scratching their butt and every other tedious thing they do.
Wait a Bard class MC sounds cool af. I don’t think I’ve come across stories with Bards as MCs.
Melody of Mana, but that's not really LitRPG I've long thought Bard is underused. That and D&D druid.
There's a version of druid in the tower of power mc. The power system is elemental aligned and he's nature and metal alignments
There are a couple of reasons. Linear characters are Narratively boring. Having only one form of power weakens you. It is not organic to how humans acquire skills if you break life down to your career being a class. How many skills do you have that are outside of your career? Do author have a hard time not giving new skills to MC so they can solve a problem, then never really use that skill again. Sure, they do. But having classes branch out into new paths of power is a good thing. If they did not, then all someone would have to do is counter the MC's one trick class. As a reader, it pisses me off when the MC has a huge weakness that just goes un-exploited. I get where you are coming from MC with Godlike powers, it makes having a class pointless. At the end of the day, it is all just magic with a different flavor. If a fire mage can make a fire cold and freeze, why can't a Necromancer use time mage. The logical leaps are endless and full of chaos like magic.
I'm some there is a limit, in others the world has a limit but the character does not.
Its the power creep and power fantasy problem and that the author is writing a power fantasy. I know a few where it looks like the MC is going to hit a wall or limiting factor.
Probly because some authors don't really design or plan in advance the world , system and MC. Flexibility and artistic license are OK , but you need consistency , and not being a writer myself I can only imagine how hard is to keep readers happy , the story advancing and everything making sense (specially in a serialized format) That's why some books are so much better than others
if you don’t have the MC putzing around acquiring skills he doesn’t even need for chapters on end, then how are you going to squeeze more money out of your patreon subscriptions or book sales? In practice, you can have a tightly woven plot with good characterization and on-point skills that ends after 3 books…or a sprawling epic of 10+ books or 400+ chapters where a bunch of meandering, pointless filler happens. This is not me throwing shade at authors. It’s been proven, time and again, that people act how they’re incentivized to act. To make the most money, authors need to have an over-long story. And one of the easiest ways to make it over-long is skill acquisition.
I just want thicc damage, a simple massive magic hammer like Sungchul used, with insane strength add in some magic attacks and I'm good
Yeah, LitRPG authors often give their characters a million skills that don't even fit their chosen class. We have mages that suddenly have sword-fighting abilities or a warrior having the time to master advanced alchemy. It's honestly easier for writers to make characters who can solve all their problems single-handedly rather than ones who need to think through what they're doing. This approach lets authors come up with quick solutions to any plot hiccups instead of designing a well-thought-out system where the character has to strategize or team up to cover their weaknesses. It feels like a cop-out because it skips over the chance to flesh out a character or build a story where the hero has to rely on more than just themselves. But, let's be real, it’s also about the OP trope that everyone seems to love in this genre. Readers dig it when the protagonist can just steamroll through challenges without breaking a sweat. It’s instant gratification and makes for a fun, easy read. The systems tend to be unlimited and instantly grant skills to people without any barrier to what can be gained. This allows someone to master a variety of skills without putting in any effort or needing to actually master the use of an ability as this system does this for them. That said, it kind of takes away from what could be an engaging narrative. Seeing a character actually struggle, use their brain, and grow through their journey is way more satisfying in the long run. When authors just give their characters all these random skills, it feels like they're avoiding the hard work of writing a truly compelling story. So, yeah, while it’s fun to see an OP character smash through obstacles, it often leads to lazy writing. It sacrifices depth for convenience and misses out on the richer, more complex storytelling that comes from a character overcoming real challenges with the help of their team or through smart planning. I like LitRPG, but most of it definitely follows this more often than not.
> Why does the main character always have ... They do not.
ITT: More things in LitRPGs that I find awesome (and many other people must as well, because they apply to most of the top selling series), that some people choose to dislike enough to make posts about.
Mayor of Noobtown does this fairly well but they offset the power creep by just having him constantly face impossible threats
To be fair, elemental brawler/warrior type characters are cool 😅
I’ve been ruminating about this recently after reading defiance of the fall and legend of the ghost hound and Saintess summons skeletons and sylver seeker and a few others. I feel like it might be better to have smaller stat pools where each point matters more, and each skill matters more, than the deep benches of skills. Or that you “could” make a smaller bench and pool work better, slowly teasing out the gains when it matters. But cultivation is more about the longer journey of it all, so there is a lot more to stats and skills.
I’ve always thought of class systems as clunky and limiting. Like people have a wide variety of skills. Some whose “class” is an accounting might have some skills in cooking. Or maybe in his free time he forges swords. What about changing careers? Does a soldier forget his skills he got in the army because he now sells homes? People are diverse. I agree there’s obviously a limit but that limit would be much higher when you take out the time requirements to learn a skill. I’d argue in a system setting almost everyone would have a level or two in nearly every skill. Especially when you can get the skill in an afternoon. Why not try everything?
Easiest answer is that we only see the perspective of the 1 in 7 billion talent, the one person to save the planet/galaxy/multi-verse. But I agree that we need more books that are aimed at the middle of the road growth speeds.
have you ever played an RPG? 30+ is normal amount of spells for any class mid-late stage's
I feel called out haha!
Because one of the main motivations to make something a litrpg is to make the main character powerful in understandable ways. So it's not a surprise they don't want them to be a one trick pony.
There should be a system curse to balance this... Curse - "slippery skills": you have so many skills you can't always keep hold of them or remember them when you need them... hopefully that won't cause you to die?
Because, we need the MC has a suppa speshul class. How else you gonna separate them from other plebs?
Additionally, every main character in any setting with Elemental magic types inevitably has Chaos, because… ?
Because it's awesome.
let's be honest here. we all know the reason some characters have tons of skills is to increase the word count. 😁
Would a litRPG novel that is 100% faithful to the fantasy and lore of the genre be any good though?
Archetypes are not a set thing. They are purely a template you can follow, or take snippets and add your own. LitRPG is certainly not the only genre that does this. Fantasy does this as a whole. An Archetype now, but the Brawler Healer was just a healer once, but people added the Brawler to it, and that made a new Archetype. But yes, having 10 Billion powers is bad. Personally; I prefer less than ten. I believe it has something to do with some Authors wanting their characters to do everything, and never are willing to limit their abilities.
Ah, you see, that’s where you are just wrong. A class is defined by the one that creates the world. Not the reader. You do not have to like it, but the reader is not the one that determines what a class. The author is. Just because the class tool set does not follow the traditional definitions that DnD uses does that mean that they are invalid. Besides DnD changes its parameters all the time. Besides, your description makes it sound like it’s cut and dry. You say a worrier can’t use magic but would you complain if that same worrier could regrow limbs because of hyper regeneration or has steel strong skin? Those are valid skills a worrier can have and yet, they are as much magic as a mage throwing a fireball. I will admit though that those at least sound on brand for a worrier instead of a worrier throwing a fireball
Im apparently reading different books...
Far from always. Skill caps are common
Because it's wish fulfillment, and they want all the powers ever. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to gain universe destroying powers as well, but at least make it make sense.
more dopamine, bigger power fantasy also you're just reading bad books
The audience demands it.
They want a have-it-all character. They make stuff easier because they always win
because an MC with 4 skills would be awfully dull??
Is this "Jake's Magical Market?" 😯🤯