Huh, LitRPG is a genre

 A friend of mine recommended Dungeon Crawler Carl to me (which I quite enjoyed and will keep reading, thank you) but when I did a bit of research, I found it was part of the genre of LitRPG.

And I went ‘Oh, there’s a name for it.’

LitRPG is media, usually literature or comic strip, where the setting follows the mechanics of a computer RPG. (Sometimes a tabletop RPG but computer RPGs are by far the most common.)

A book of Dragons of Autumn Twilight wouldn’t count because, while the world of Krynn is a literal Dungeons and Dragons setting, the characters don’t look at their stats or discuss actual leveling. They just live there.

In a ‘proper’ LitRPG, the characters are fully aware of the mechanics that run their world. In many of them, characters can pull status and inventory screens. All the nuts and bolts that run the worlds they’re in are clearly visible.

Within that range, definitions can still get kind of fuzzy. For instance, Bofuri (another series I want to read more of) follows the rules a computer RPG because it’s about Kaede flat out playing a video game and driving the developers nuts. And it’s considered LitRPG.

Most of the examples I’ve read, though, have the characters actually living in the setting. Many of them have someone from ‘our’ world entering the new world, usually getting some kind of special power or insight in the process. I feel like a huge chunk of the Isekai works I’ve looked at are also LitRPG.

Because the concept of LitRPG is intrinsically meta, it tends to lend itself to comedy. The idea of characters pulling up a status screen is absurd. When you can measure your health by discrete hit points, things are unreal.

With that being said, there is room for more serious elements.The aforementioned Dungeon Crawler Carl in underpinned by the seriousness of the overall situation and also has some scathing social commentary. LitRPG has some intrinsically escapist elements pretty much baked in but there is clearly room for depth.

According to Wikipedia (a place I discourage students from ever using as a primary source), one of the earliest examples of the genre is Quag Keep by Andre Norton. A story where a player is pulled into a D&D game, it is also the first Dungeons and Dragons novel, even set in Gary Gygax’s Grayhawk.

… Why have I never heard of Quag Keep?

Back to Wikipedia, it says it wasn’t critically well received. And looking at other reviews, it looks like it wasn’t one of Norton’s better books and is more viewed as a historical curiosity than anything else. At some point, I should try and hunt it down and find out what my opinion is. Still wild that I’d never heard of it.

While LitRPG seems to have grown in popularity, it’s been around for decades. I’m also think that line defining it is fuzzy. (Does Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame count?) And it may be one of the most extreme examples of write-what-you-know I have seen. 

I also have no idea where it falls in the spectrum of ‘serious’ literature. I am sure there are academics who are studying it. Regardless, as a genre, LitRPG is entertaining and I think it has as much potential to be meaningful as any other.