Character Sheets

Last week I talked about the portal fantasy and some of the issues and solutions to said issues. This week I’m moving on to the other genre I mentioned in that episode: LitRPG.

To start with a bit of a gripe, LitRPG is a really dumb name. Expanded it would be Literary Role Playing Game. Literary is the only term I don’t have much of a gripe with. Although I’m sure others could argue that a good number of the works in the LitRPG genre don’t qualify for the label. I don’t have that issue. Now the RPG, the Role Playing Game portion, is the other side of the coin. It comes down to three questions: What Role are they in? How are they Playing it? and Where is the Game? If in the LitRPG there is no role for the character, it fails. If the characters aren’t playing said role, it fails. If the characters aren’t in a game it fails. For those who want a single question: Is there an in game and out of game plot?

Most LitRPGs that I’ve perused fail that test. Some, will fail successfully; ie they mention the real world outside of the game, and there is clearly in and out of game, yet they don’t explore it as the plot is all in game. Technically that is a pass, even if I don’t like it. The Role and Playing portions can be fudged a lot easier and I’ll give them more wiggle room since if there’s a game there’s probably a role that can be prescribed to each character even if it isn’t mechanically there. Generally this requires the premise of a videogame, although it’s not always the case. The topic of fictional videogames in fictional worlds will be saved for a later installment. Regardless that is one of the easiest, and most common, ways of generating a proper LitRPG. The improper ones can fall into Ex-RPGs and “Worlds with RPG Mechanics”. In the case of Ex-RPGs these are generally summarized as “The video game is now real”. I am a bit of a sucker for these kinds of stories. The idea of waking up in a videogame, generally one that would pass the proper LitRPG test, and all the complexities that revolve around that are enticing. Some with the different options depending on where exactly things fall. Worlds with RPG Mechanics, should be fairly self explanatory. These are worlds which for one reason or another have RPG elements or videogame mechanics.

I will delve into Ex-RPGs in depth with the fictional videogames article, as they tend to work in the same way the video games do. Until they don’t. If one is writing a LitRPG within that premise I’d recommend looking into how video game mechanics could manifest into real life. For example if crafting can be done via a menu, or by hand is there a difference? Are the limits of the game still there or are there new ones? Not to mention what or how do the NPCs function in this new reality? These are the kinds of things that need to be taken into account with the video game turned reality.

The Worlds with RPG Mechanics seem to be fairly common as well. I’ll split this into two further layers: Video game, and Tabletop. Hopefully these are fairly self evident in the differences, which set of rules does the world follow closer?

Videogame RPGs are generally strongly classed, or classless. It’s a binary, due to the nature of videogame RPGs. Often the number of classes is in the dozens, with each permutation being a whole separate class. I see three families of reasonable paths for worlds looking to integrate this kind of framework, Specialization Paths, Combat & Job, and Activity Levels.

Specialization Paths works as drilling down into a specific class though specializations. For example at character creation there would be a selection screen that has Martial, Magic, and Divine, the player picks Martial as hitting things with swords is cool. They are then given another choice, Melee, Ranged, Versatile. Again hitting things with swords, so they pick Melee. Then they are given their final class options of Barbarian, Knight, and Commander. They like the idea of the Knight and select that. This while uncommon in IRL video games is often seen in the fake ones that have more classes than one knows what to do with. The example here would end up with 27, assuming there are three choices, and three layers. This is done in the fake video game to well cluster like minded classes together and give a focus and finally a specialization. Meaning there is generally an Offence Focused, Defense Focused, and Utility Focused variant after choosing usually I will call an aesthetic and focus. I use the term aesthetic and focus because that’s how they are generally used in the LitRPG world. More generic terms would be Archetype and Style, although your terms are likely just as useful.

This system can work rather well when moving it into a real world as children can pick the first level, teens pick the second and then adults end up choosing the third. Which means that characters of different ages can have different choices which in turn leads to a ‘growing up’ that can translate well to the audience. If there’s a point where a character can change aesthetic, or focus, before locking them in it provides a chance for there to be indecision. There is the question of universality, does everyone need to choose or is choosing to participate it’s own choice. I think mandating it is the more interesting case, although that is a choice left to the worldbuilder.

Combat & Job is a fairly common draw from the MMORPG world. Which says every character has a combat class and a job/profession the two terms are often used interchangeably. Others do exist the point being this is how the character would make money outside of combat loot. These may or may not be clustered, and a character may have one to three depending on system. This is rather popular as it is the structure used by World of Warcraft. In this system the final class above will be either a sub-class, specialization, or focus. While each is different, the end result is the same a more generic class gets to specialize into an aspect of the class.

I find this format of videogame translates rather poorly into a ‘real world’ as generally the NPCs don’t have classes nor jobs. Meaning that if everyone in the world ends up with this set up the question: What class is Farmer Joe? becomes not only relevant but convoluted. The other glaring issue is the matter of gear. In these styles of games gear is either class or/and job specific. Meaning that a Wizard who weaves cloth physically can’t use a shovel, or a sword. While this restriction makes sense in a video game, and is easy enough for the players to ignore; I find it becomes a bit far fetched when it becomes reality. These restrictions often counteracted by dialing up the abilities, powers, and potency up to eleven, maybe twelve. All in all I find this works the best when it’s Gamers now in a real world, as it is the most realistic game set up, but for those wishing to layer the mechanics into what is presented as a normal world, I would recommend against it.

Last of the videogame systems is the Activity Levels. This is when every activity has a level related to it. How many boils down to flavor. Some have many specific ones, while others have lesser more generic ones. For example in a high count system there may be five melee combat skills: unarmed, single handed, double handed, two weapon, and weapon and shield, while the low count counterpart may have: Unarmed Melee, and Armed Melee. This pattern would hold true for everything, leading to the high count systems ending with hundreds, if not thousands of total levels across the various activities. The low count systems may have a few dozens at most. For the pedantic there is the possibility of a medium count, where the number of buckets deemed necessary is close to a hundred, I ignore this as the total count is irrelevant the philosophy behind how the activities are determined is the more important part.

I don’t dislike this system when applied to an independent world. It can lead to some rather complicated character sheets, which is the only real downside I can think of. I would suggest keeping the divisions on the more generic side, for example swords, spears, axes, war hammers, and maces may use different levels if they are in one hand, two hands, one hand and a shield or two at the same time, rather than giving each one it’s own level. Not to say one couldn’t, I’m sure someone has at some point. Outside of possibly overly complicating the stats that get applied to a character sheet there are a few downsides. If there are so many levels keeping them all straight can be complicated for both author and audience, knowing when one applies over another, or do both apply and how does that work. Consistency aside, there’s also the question of in world knowledge. Do the people of the world know the full list? Can they see it or can they see only what is ‘trained’ or ‘leveled’ meaning if no one has ever gained a level in over water book binding no one knows it exists. Sometimes stories where the main character discovers a new thing to level and that changes everything are interesting, if predictable.

In the other bucket, the Tabletop bucket, things are different. From a rules of the world position they work a lot better than the video game set. This comes from the simple fact that at the Tabletop there needs to be an answer for when the barbarian decides to swing a wand around or when the wizard throws a punch. Organizing the game of pretend with dice does have some upsides after all. When it comes to translating to a real world there is a question: do we care about classes, stats, or skills?

If we care about classes, then it’s likely that class level and abilities will be a focus. Often there is a class → subclass relationship where after a while classes can specialize into some aspect of the class. It could be a school of magic, it could be an aspect of combat, depends on the specific class in question. These generally strongly classed systems often focus more on the stats and such the character sheet may focus on Class, Subclass, and Stats of the character. Things such as skills may or may not matter. I think that a class heavy world isn’t as strong from a worldbuilding angle. Presuming that classes are mandatory it leads to the questions: Are classes assigned at birth? Does a person get to choose a class? If classes aren’t mandatory, what do the classless do? I will leave the answers to those questions for the perspective worldbuilder. The important part is how the world answers those questions. Since that will determine how the world feels. If not everyone can earn a class does that mean not everyone can gain that kind of power? If people choose their classes what are the reasons for picking one over the others? If they can’t how are they assigned? If one doesn’t have a good answer to these questions it will weaken the world. All in all the class first is a good way to do it, presuming one can answer all of those questions well.

If we care about stats, the world can feel the most real. Functionally providing numbers for how strong, smart, or charismatic people are. This can provide a fairly ‘RPG-lite’ experience as the abilities, skills, classes, the likes often fall to the wayside. Generally it’s straight forward as bigger number is better. That simplicity can lead to it feeling less like a RPG and more like a tool to help contextualize the world for the audience. It can sometimes work with a list of abilities one gains for reaching a certain level in a stat, helps to give a bit more of a RPG feeling. Even if that pulls more from the videogame side of things. A stat forward process can work well when coupled with skills. I personally like this kind of system, even if for most it may drift too far from the RPG to still count as litRPG.

If skills are the leader, generally drawing from stat + skill games like Cyberpunk, is the LitRPG setup know the best. Mechanically speaking there’s a set of stats which are the base and then skills have levels. Skills can be whatever one desires. Generally they follow the activity leveling system of videogames ideology. Either there are many very specific skills or fewer more generic skills. When it is just skill levels it often ends up less tabletop and much more video game, see the activity levels above. Sometimes, there’s an ‘archetype’ or ‘class’ which lines very well with Cyberpunk’s mechanics. With or without the archetype or class I find this is one of the strongest bases for a litRPG. I find it strikes a balance between too crunchy, and not enough flavor. Plus it is the cleanest when it comes to worldbuilding a stock world. The lack of a class means questions around classes don’t happen. Skills can be a mess although that follows the be intelligent about it. Which is why it is my recommendation for any litRPG worldbuilding project. Get your stats, get a list of skills and have at it.

My recommendation aside, any of the systems can make for a good world, when used properly. As I’ve gone though these you’ve probably noticed a few universal question threads: Do these systems apply for everyone or are they opt in? How do these systems affect society?

Now the well read will ask: What about the rest of the RPG systems? Which, I will split off into next week’s system.