National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is coming up soon. I have participated for a decade now, and most years I try to experiment. There are many genres that rise and fall throughout the years, so NaNo is one of the rare chances for me to give them a try in a longer format, a novelette.
This year I’m going to try LitRPG. For those of you who don’t know what LitRPG is, I’ve had it described to me as ‘Western Isekai’. For some of you, that is still going to confuse you, so let me break down what an Isekai is.
In Manga and Anime, as well as Visual Novels, there is an extremely popular genre known as Isekai. It supposedly means ‘Another World’, and like that description the stories are about a character being transported to some other world. But it isn’t quite that simple. Every story about someone going to a different world than their own doesn’t count as Isekai.
In my experience, the common themes of Isekai include: Going to a fantasy world, that works on video game rules, without the ability to get back home, usually because the main character died and was reincarnated in this new world. This isn’t 100%. Sword Art Online, SAO is a story of players getting stuck in a virtual fantasy MMO, unable to log out. SAO had a heavy influence on the Isekai genre, but isn’t considered Isekai by the creator. The main character doesn’t have to die to go to the new world, and eventually can go back to the normal world whenever they want, so I would generally agree with them. But it is still a good blueprint for the format.
In Isekai, characters become accustomed to video game rules being part of their normal life. Factors like stats, health, special abilities, magic, enemy mobs, boss monsters, dungeons, leveling up, all become matters of life and death instead of something that can be avoided by just logging out of the game. Often, having a powerful rare ability that cheats the rules of the game is an important element as well.
For instance, in Konosuba the main character is classless, so that makes it so he can learn the abilities from any class. There is a recent Isekai where the main character has access to an Amazon-like market and can order items from the normal world. In another, the character can absorb skills from enemies. All together, Isekai presents the player fantasy of video games, but attaches a literary plot to them overcoming video game challenges. Even as a kid I thought of stories about people trying to deal with video game issues and how it could be used in a literary plot, but I didn’t see the Isekai genre coming, or just how huge it would be.
So huge that while I was distracted, the LitRPG genre exploded into the indie writing scene. I found out I had friends reading books in this genre I never heard of, and that the trappings of the genre sounded eerily similar. LitRPG novels include characters transported to RPG worlds, and suffering the rules of those universes. Often, or so I’m told, LitRPG characters will have a cheat skill like Isekai characters.
My main experience with the genre has been ‘He Who Fights With Monsters’, by Shirtaloon. I still haven’t’ finished it, but it has taught me the extent that the LitRPG genre is willing to accept story elements I would have considered garish. The story lays out game mechanics, rules, stat layouts, page after page. My every instinct says that no one would want to read me laying out how many strength points a character needs to unlock their 3rd level of fighter abilities, but evidently that is all the rage right now.
So far, I enjoy the book. Part of that is the fun writing, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. But I am a sucker for fantasy, and for the concept of someone trying to take a hard look at the mechanics around them. So why not, why shouldn’t I do LitRPG?
The rest of this month, I’m going to prepare myself for National Novel Writing Month, and layout some of the details of my NaNo setting here. I have made a fair bit of progress, and I know that a central part is that the world isn’t just an RPG, it is a Strategy RPG, like one of my favorite RPGs of all time: Ogre battle 64.
But for now, I’ll leave you with the closest to LitRPG I’ve ever written. This is an excerpt from a story about characters waking up as monsters in an MMO. They just hear an ominous voice in their heads saying:
This is your life now. No do-overs, no respawns. See what you can make of yourself…
There was another sound in the room. Gonil had to listen past Golin’s tearful sobs, but someone was groaning in pain. It wasn’t coming from the room they were in, everyone there had either run away or was gone, dead. So that left Gonil to wonder who was still hanging around.
“I hear someone,” Gonil said, “they’re in one of the other caves.”
Golin wasn’t listening. They continued to cry onto Nogli. The still body of the other Gobbin was oddly static, it was like the world no longer thought about moving them. Gonil was sure they could force the body to move, if they wanted to, but otherwise it was more scenery than anything.
Gonil walked the cave room to try to track the sound. Other Gobbin lay scattered across the floor, often single bodies but sometimes in pairs right in front of each other. One of the paths seemed familiar, despite seeming to lead to a dark path like any of the others. But this one felt like Gonil had travelled down it before, it was their path. Together with Golin and Nogli, they walked that trail.
But the sound wasn’t coming from there. Gonil backed away from it, knife still out, and headed to another pathway. Eventually they found a path where a distant light made the dark interior of the cave turn to a soft bark brown. The groaning was lighter now, barely audible even while Gonil was close. So Gonil headed back to Golin, and tapped them on the shoulder.
Golin looked up, their eyes first filled with rage, then fading to sadness. Their ears twitched, and they stood up from Nogli’s body.
“What?” Golin asked, looking Gonil right in the eyes.
Gonil looked toward the path with the sound. Their teeth clicked, and they pointed with the knife. “We have to go, Golin. That way, someone may be alive.” When Gonil looked back, Golin was giving them an investigative stare. There was something Gonil needed to say.
Gonil squeezed their dagger tight. “I was a gobbed fool.”
Golin pulled up their knife, “and?”
Gonil looked down at Nogli. “So it should have been me. That right?”
There was an awkward moment. It felt right to say, but Gonil didn’t know why. They were in character, but they didn’t know what other character they would be. Whoever they were before, whatever, it was gone. They couldn’t remember right now. So there was only this life, this character. That was terrifying, Gonil didn’t know if they liked being a Gobbin, but they didn’t know if they didn’t like it either. This was a dangerous life, it seemed.
Golin spat on the floor. “Moggin right. You owe Nogli, clever up or get dead!”
Gonil’s ears waggled, and Golin accepted that as an answer.
“Where are we going?” Golin asked.
Gonil pointed again, and then lead the way toward the cave with the sound. They hesitated at the entrance. The sound was gone now, no groaning, quiet or otherwise. So Gonil headed in. A short way down the path there was a large wooden barricade. It was cracked open, as if someone had broken it inward with a ram. Light was coming from inside, a flickering red-orange of torchlight. Gonil peaked their head in, and saw a mound of scrap metal objects. Cups, plates, guard caps, many bent out of shape or so dirty they looked like clay. They were piled up to a high backed throne at the top. The seat was lined by a brownish red linen that had clear signs of being stabbed through many times, and blood stains on the material. In front of the throne was a large Gobbin, laid out among the scraps, dead.
“The Throne of the Gobbin King…” Gonil whispered.
Golin poked their head in, and their ears twitched.
They knew this place, or they should have.
“The king…” Golin whispered, “are they alive? Did they change as well? They had to, right?”
Gonil’s ears waggled.
If the king was alive, maybe they would know what to do. If they were dead then… what did that mean for Gobbins? Without their king, what were they?
Gonil didn’t know why a king defined them so much, but knew for sure that one did. That rank, that power, was important. Important enough that Gonil stepped into the room. They were going to find the king. That was their goal from the start, protect the Gobbin king, right? Gonil remembered that much, that was why they patrolled, why they lived in the cave. Was that the role they played, did they enjoy that? They didn’t know, but it was a start.
Gonil was yanked to a stop. Golin was holding them back, gripping to their cloak with a tight furry grip.
“What?” Gonil hissed.
“Wait wait wait,” Golin said. They looked around, unsure about the cave room. But they didn’t say more, just peered back and forth.
“Come on,” Gonil said, “we go in together, we can make it out. Two Gobbin can’t Gobb it up, no?”
“Or we Gobb-Gobb it, twice as Gobbed.”
Gonil grabbed Golin’s wrist and pulled them into the cavern.
Golin teetered and almost fell, but managed to stand in time to pretend they were never going to hide. Their ears tweaked up and down, alternating, then settled to a neutral position.
“Yeah?” Gonil asked.
Golin’s ears waggled.
So they turned and headed for the throne.
Gonil could hear Golin’s panic. It was in their breathing, that slight squeak with every exhale. They didn’t want to be here, but they didn’t turn away from it. The space was ominous, a mountain of treasure and the only sound was the occasional clinking sound of metal slipping down the hill. The gobbin there in the room was another gobbin enforcer, not the gobbin king. They were dead, and there was no sign who did it.
Golin stopped Gonil again, another tug of the cloak. When Gonil looked over, Golin looked them square in the eyes, and then looked over toward the pin-cushioned throne.
Did Gonil miss something? It was hard to know, the room wasn’t massive, but it was large enough that someone or something could be hiding out of sight. Gonil accepted the suggestion, their eyes following Golin’s gaze, watching the throne intently. Nothing there, nothing they could see.
Then they heard it, a whimper, followed by another piece of metal clinking downhill somewhere in the cave. But the metal that fell wasn’t anywhere they could see.
Someone was behind the throne!
Gonil pulled their knife, and pointed with their knife to a path along the left of the room. Then they pointed to Golin. Afterwards, Gonil pointed along the right, and pointed to themselves. The plan was simple, come from each end and surround whoever was up there.
Golin’s ears waggled, and they were off.
Gonil took their path, getting low enough to keep to the shadows along the rounded edge of the cave. They kept glancing back to the throne as they rounded it. The mound of scrap metal was so tall that it was hard to see who might be at the top, just the tall back of the throne was visible. The lighting in the room danced and flickered, drawing shadows across the throne and shimmering off of the scrap pile.
Then, as they got past halfway, there they were. Someone was hiding behind the throne, a huddled form using the shadow of the throne to stay invisible. But a throne on top of a giant pile of loose items wasn’t stable, so even as Gonil watched, the shadow slipped and a goblet of bronze came clattering down the hill.
That would make good cover. Gonil knew how to move quietly, maybe all Gobbin did. They were known to be clever and sneaky, but there was no way all of a people could have a skill like that, right? That was a thought for another time. Gonil listened to the goblet fall, and started to move up the loose mound in time. It took time to find stable footing, places that wouldn’t immediately cause another suspicious fall of artifacts, but Gonil managed. They climbed some, but then waited for another piece to be knocked from the top, and used the cascade of other items falling as a cover to move further up and closer to the target. With dagger out, Gonil was ready to do whatever was necessary, was ready to stab another person today in order to protect the Gobbin King…
“Aaaah, Gobbed assassins!”
The person behind the throne, a frail and emaciated gobbin of pale yellow, was the Gobbin King themselves. Their eyes were wide as bucklers and they were clinging to the back of the throne as if it was the only safe haven from the threat of… Gonil.
Gonil put their hands up, knife in the air. “Your Moggliness, we are here to save you from, uhm…”
Golin chimed in from the other side, still out of sight but coming up the mound. “From Gobbed assassins!”
The king looked between them, and Gonil could see the Gobbin king calm down somewhat. Their eyes were only the size of large coins, and their body didn’t quake nearly as much. Gonil continued up the mound until they could see Golin on the other side. They met in front of the king, glances going between them as the Gobbin King shivered in maintained panic. The king’s eyes shot back and forth, looking for threats that weren’t there.
“What did this?” Gonil asked. “Did someone attack-”
“Attack?! Where!?” The King screeched. Their thin chest heaved as they let out panicked wheezes. Their fur was stripped away at parts, revealing reddish skin underneath that was covered in old scars that had healed up.
That’s right. The Gobbin King was king by assassination. When the king grew weak, or failed to protect themselves, or just took too long of a nap around the wrong people, the Gobbin that wanted the crown would strike. That’s how this king got the crown, and how the next would as well. How did that work? Why didn’t Gonil remember a king before this one?
“I don’t see anyone,” The king said, back to the back of the throne. “Are you sure it wasn’t you?”
Gonil furrowed their brow, “certain? Kinda.”
“Maybe…” the king whispered, “it was Guilded…”
The word triggered a memory that Gonil didn’t ask for. The guilded, beings clad in elaborate and often glimmering armor. They came to the caves, that was who they tried to stop from getting to the king. Then the Guilded would… they would…
“No,” the king snapped, bringing Gonil out of their thoughts. “I heard a voice, a weird one, an assassin in my mind! They said something about respawns, and now I think… I think my time has come.”
“What?” Golin asked, “you heard that Moggin voice too? Who was that, how did they change everything? I think, I don’t think anyone is coming back.”
“GODS!” The king screeched, “here to take us all away one by one! One of my guards freed the other, a sword to the stomach, then fled. Now you’re here to kill me, yes?”
“No!” Gonil yelled.
“No,” Golin said, less convincingly.
Both the king and Gonil looked at Golin, whose ears flattened out.
“I mean, no!” Golin said.
Gonil looked back to the king, “we came to check if you are okay. We need a king, now more than ever.”