Which is better in a long form wacky lighthearted story, like a romcom, a standard litRPG or a power system where the characters have a hard limit or…

[ElijahRyne]

Full question:
Which is better in a long form wacky lighthearted story, like a romcom, a standard litRPG or a power system where the characters have a hard limit or a steep difficulty curve? Assuming no other part of the story matters outside of what is influenced by the taken path, I hav a gun to your head forcing you to choose and give your reason why, and that the standard litRPG is the typical video game leveling with a DnD character sheet, or something similar, of course.

My opinion: While some authors definitely pull it off, eventually the standard litRPG system seems to nibble away at the believability of what is happening. It ruins your suspension of disbelief. Usually, for these, it is due to power creep(+setting as I will mention). And for the ones that succeed in checking the power creep, they are forced into some authoritarian setting, usually a noble one but sometimes a hyper militaristic setting. Because might makes right and it is hard to have a more peaceful setting when killing is common and all that. But that setting drags down the tone of the story if not properly accounted for. (I know if the author makes it impossible to gain levels from killing then that last position is pretty mute, but that is hardly your standard litRPG.) There are outliers both above and below with this approach, but typically these stories, when well written, start off good but then they become average or are average before becoming bad.

On the other hand you can have a story that avoids that entirely by bypassing the whole standard litRPG thing. Although it is harder to come up with how said power system should work, which may seem as a time sink when it won’t be the main focus of the story. The system can be tailor made for the story and any setting making the entire world of the story seem lived in, think of something like MHA or most non isekai anime in general. Also said story can still be a litRPG, but changed to make it fit the setting of the story. Typically the results of this approach are between either a flop or extremely good. The middle ground is small, but exists.

Reading this I guess you already see my bias, so let me see your thoughts with your own list of pros and cons. This is just a matter of opinion….

Spoiler

Or is it?

 

[DarkeReises]

yes

 

[HelloHound]

fantasy and playing make believe are always more fun when there are rules to prevent that One Kid from summoning an apocalypse Godzilla to ruin all the fun because he wanted to sound cool

 

[tiaf]

I don't even need to read the text to choose limited system. If everything can be 1-up anytime, then it gets so boring.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

If you're playing Romcom or Dating Simulator games, the stat won't be as detailed as RPG Dungeon stat.

Tensei Slime reduce it to just "Yes / No" question to make it easy from Raphael.

 

[Cipiteca396]

You really didn't do a good job explaining the question. To me it looks like, "Do you want 'LitRPG' or 'LitRPG but the one I like'?"

Obviously the one you put effort into is going to be better...

 

[Zirrboy]

This is likewise just personal opinion and impression, but I find hard limited systems and extremely difficult ones to be just as fallible, they just get written less, making them seem like better alternatives to people fed up with the standard variant.


A system with hard limits is a regular system before they are reached. If you set them late I'd be inclined to doubt the nomenclature, while early or halfway through either freezes the setting in this regard or has me ask why you didn't just go for whatever else you use from there (personal skill at using the system powers etc.) from the start instead.

Infinite growth systems need to combat creep, but at least they're given the opportunity to adjust as they go.
A hard limit would in my opinion have an impact so big that - if it should also be low enough to be reached decently quickly by people spending most their time on other things - very little could reasonably be unknown about it early on. More than one final, dramatic reveal about where the limits lie would defeat the purpose in the first place.


Steep difficulty curves pose a dilemma of theory and practice. The less changes the less it matters, the more changes the less it is difficult.
If you show a lot of the process, you shift the focus of the story, and since it has steep difficulty, not much should happen in short intervals.
Implied, but not shown, high effort on the other hand is hard to set apart from low effort in effect.

Many cultivation novels technically fall into this category, requiring the characters to spend months, years or decades on things that at the same relative level took them a few days of training early on. But all that happens in a side note, so the readers take away what the mass of the writing is about: ever growing power wanks.

Plus, if everything is hellishly hard to achieve, the differences between people who have access to handpicked resources and independent upstarts would likely be larger in my mind.

 

[AliceShiki]

There is no "better".

The one you prefer is the one you prefer. Just choose the stuff that fits your taste better~

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

It's really about what game the MC is playing. You don't need to follow typical LitRPG.

Learn to analyze and research by looking at the game you usually play.
Does it have Menu ?
Does it have pause button ? -> if it has, does it transparent/black ?
Does it have exist button ?
What can the character do in that game ?
What feature in that game ?

Most litRPG is using MMORPG like system where there's lots of item in the game and there's lots of chat, albeit the gameplay is rather limited since it barely changed since World Of Warcraft 2004.

Properly based LitRPG is better than Random LitRPG that only relies on system. There's a reason why //Hack.Sign is good.

There's also reason why SAO's premise is very gold at season 1, sure SAO story is very cringy at later season, and there's a lot of JP LN harem sheanigan for fanservice, because that's how big company & big writer milk their story. But if all of those shit is ignored, and focus on the RPG game like system and Kirito's expression, it's still a good isekai story about Lonely boy who tries to survive that finally find his way to make friends in life.

 

[ElijahRyne]

You really didn't do a good job explaining the question. To me it looks like, "Do you want 'LitRPG' or 'LitRPG but the one I like'?"

Obviously the one you put effort into is going to be better...

When a person is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to speak, I doubt their actions are ever rational.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Where's the option "Avoid bullet Matrix style, kick your ass und bullet hell your body"?

Anyway, Limited one, always. Unless you go full comedy and apply reality deleting power levels every time something happens.

What would generate more hype; MC killing everything with his cheat power of Cheat in 3 lines or MC barely making it through a close fight lasting a full chapter, using everything they got?

Unless you're part of a certain crowd *cough, cough, edgy Teenagers, cough, cough* The answer is almost always the second one.

 

[OP1000]

I would prefer it if LitRPG stories were to be featured in stories that have a focus on the action and adventure aspects of a story. Rom-coms and LiatRPG don't usually work well together. Limited system all the way!!!!

 

[georgelee5786]

Limited system. Being able to get endless strength paves the way for Deux Ex Machinas.