If only the protagonist have a game element system, does it count as LitRPG?

[blackcrowcrowd]

I was wondering about this question. For example, the protagonist, due to inexplicable reasons have a system that quantifies the entire world's combat power, turning them into statistics, and allows him to upgrade through various system-issued quests. Does this count as LitRPG?

 

[NotaNuffian]

I was wondering about this question. For example, the protagonist, due to inexplicable reasons have a system that quantifies the entire world's combat power, turning them into statistics, and allows him to upgrade through various system-issued quests. Does this count as LitRPG?

I too want to know.

 

[Jerynboe]

Solo leveling’s entire schtick is that only the MC has a game style system, which he proceeds to use to over dramatically flex on everyone and everything while only occasionally having even modest challenges thrown his way past the first chunk when he’s still weak (it’s when I realized this that I decided to bow out, incidentally). The google machine tells me that most consider it to be litrpg.

The Gamer, one of the earliest very popular litrpgs, also had the “many have superpowers but MC’s uniquely op superpower is gameplay mechanics” paradigm.

Ergo, the answer to your question is yes in the only way that matters when discussing genre: do most people who read it agree it fits in the genre. There are plenty of stories where the system is widespread, but frequently the system is a Golden Finger.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Would an autistic (or game nerd) character who quantyfies or labels everything in numbers or stats turn the story into a litrpg if it was from their POV, even if it was just a coping mechanism or a quirk?

Or in cases where tangible numbers actualls matter like sports or economics, does that make them litrpgs?

Is math a litrpg?!? /s

 

[Bimbanana]

I was wondering about this question. For example, the protagonist, due to inexplicable reasons have a system that quantifies the entire world's combat power, turning them into statistics, and allows him to upgrade through various system-issued quests. Does this count as LitRPG?

Yes

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Yep. LitRPG is a fairly wide brush.

You could have a world where everyone has a 'system', such as the LN The Great Cleric, but even then, the MC has a slightly OP version of the system just from a buff given to him by the god that reincarnated him into that world.

SoLev or Re: Monster are much more OP versions of a system, while you can look at LN/Animes like Log Horizon or SAO that involve a Deep Dive VRMMO to have everyone on the same playing field for a LitRPG.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Yep. LitRPG is a fairly wide brush.

You could have a world where everyone has a 'system', such as the LN The Great Cleric, but even then, the MC has a slightly OP version of the system just from a buff given to him by the god that reincarnated him into that world.

SoLev or Re: Monster are much more OP versions of a system, while you can look at LN/Animes like Log Horizon or SAO that involve a Deep Dive VRMMO to have everyone on the same playing field for a LitRPG.

And the very blursed version is a LitRPG Chinese Taoism Cultivation

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

LitRPG only counts if the protagonist have it.

When the protagonist have system, but nobody else have it, we call it the strong OP protagonist with cheat and stuff.

If the protagonist doesn't have it, even tho everyone else have it, it's now the "Me without system, but I'm beating out all the System user" type of story. Which is a commentary against the 'system' of litrpg, and basically just 'normal fantasy', but now were fighting system users.

 

[SirDogeTheFirst]

Yeah, after all those mechanics are part of the story, and since they are main characters, probably one of the main story driving points of it.

I guess it would be more debatable if it were a superhero or similar-type story with a side character having a "System," but in your context, yeah, it should count, in my very sincere, humblest of opinions.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

I wouldn't classify it as one myself, since I'd feel like it's not a litrpg-world, so it wouldn't have the litrpg worldbuilding, whatever that is.

But I'm probably not the target audience of that story so my opinion on the matter is irrelevant.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Gamelit?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Conditional. Not all LitRPGs have systems (though all have mechanics, they may be presented only to the reader and not the characters, or the characters may be aware of them from the outset - or never truly fully aware of them and not all stories with systems are LitRPGs.

For some examples:
1. There's a series of books credited to a David Bischoff (who may be a real author, or a publishing house name, a name used by a writing group) - called "The Gaming Magi" (The Destiny Dice, The Wraith Board and The Unicorn Gambit) that is an early version of GameLit. The characters briefly encounter the players near the end of the series but in a way that only the reader is completely sure what happened there.
2. Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series has the characters literally transferred into the game world, where they know the general mechanics, but have no means of tracking them - no Systems, no Character Sheets, etc. And the person behind it all dies in the second chapter before he can explain what he did and why he did it.
3. You described Solo Leveling and most of the books of the Talen Saga (Level Up Zombie, My Werewolf System, My Dragon System, My Vampire System and at least one more book) in your OP.

So, in general, yes.