How To Write A OP Fantasy MC Story

[SilvCrimBlac]

As the title says, I love reading stories with OP MC's, but how to keep it interesting if I wanted to write one myself?

My usual style, would be to make the MC OP'er than everyone else initially, but gradually introduce villains that can either rival, or give him a run for his money. But still, that can't be the only trick to the trade that is, OP MC's.

So, can peeps here help me out and give some tips, tricks, tactics and what not in writing MC's that are OP in fantasy genre?

 

[MissPaige36]

As the title says, I love reading stories with OP MC's, but how to keep it interesting if I wanted to write one myself?

My usual style, would be to make the MC OP'er than everyone else initially, but gradually introduce villains that can either rival, or give him a run for his money. But still, that can't be the only trick to the trade that is, OP MC's.

So, can peeps here help me out and give some tips, tricks, tactics and what not in writing MC's that are OP in fantasy genre?

Read a Chinese novel and you’ll learn what the word OP means in a whole new meaning. Honestly though, if you want to learn how to write an op protagonist, just read and study on it with your favorite novels, yeah?

 

[Lorelliad]

Just because he's OP doesn't mean he will never lose. Give a bit of spice by making the seemingly undefeatable MC go, "Oh, it's just another weakling, I'll handle this easily." to a "I never expected him to be this strong!" Make him lose, and rub it all over his face to make sure he knows he's not the strongest.

Include somewhat strong friends. If you're not going the Solo Leveling route, introduce some party members that can actually fight alongside the MC, and not just be deadweight and have to be carried by him. They don't have to be as broken as him.

That aside, there are a ton of OP mc novels/manga/manhwa/manhua that have this kinda thing. Solo Leveling, The Beginning After The End (Especially this one. MC is NOT the strongest although he might seem like it.), One Punch Man (Although this one is mostly a joke), That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime. Take your pick.

 

[Layenlml]

My problem with most OP mc is that almost every event feels meaningless since the MC can just end it in one swift strike.

I remember one where the MC had some problem with someone influential and he went through so much when he could kill the guy and the reason why he didn't was 'not getting caught' when he could do it without a problem during the night.


You need to set morals or just some other important reason to keep conflicts going around the MC and make them inportant.

This feels like the hardest part to keep the reader entretained.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Make sure to give a reason why strong villains won't kill him in chapter 50, e.g. CN often uses realms.

Make sure to give other stakes to the story, e.g. relationships, the fate of loved ones, a goal to reach in time, etc. A lot of stories suffer from missing stakes when the first hype dies down.

Find a way to make fights entertaining. Either through tactics that can harm the MC in some way or through changing styles and descriptions.


In short: OP-MC is part of the setting like isekai or magic or... but OP shouldn't be the core of your story.
Imho the best MCs are only temporary OP in the situation but still have to grow. They just learn faster, have a better teacher, a secret knowledge, etc...

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

Make sure to give a reason why strong villains won't kill him in chapter 50, e.g. CN often uses realms.

Explain this realms thing. I recognize it as a Xianxia term but I'm not especially familiar with Xianxia's. I've read a few and couldn't stay interested.

 

[Sothethingis]

Explain this realms thing. I recognize it as a Xianxia term but I'm not especially familiar with Xianxia's. I've read a few and couldn't stay interested.

It's like the levels in a LitRPG, where each realm has a "level", and once you reach the "max level" of the realm you "level up" and "prestige" into a new realm. Edit: Probably not the best explanation

 

[Jemini]

There are plenty of very good stories out there with incredibly OP protagonists. The ones that work all have 1 thing in common. They introduce an abundance of scenarios that the MC cannot punch their way out of.

That is what almost all of them do. There's another thing that is also very common, but this one is down to around just over half instead of nearly all. Another thing the good OP protagonist stories do is they either do a soft or hard switch over to the POV of another more normal character, and have them react to the OP state of your main character.

Bottom line, if the MC is way overpowered, then your focus cannot be on combat. It can be a combat heavy world, but there has to be a huge focus on the social interaction or the brain puzzles, or possibly the occasional political quagmire as people try to influence your overpowered MC. The physical power aspect can no longer create narrative tension for the MC, so you have to swap the focus into creating narrative tension with other sources of conflict.

Overlord, One Punch Man, and Mob Psycho 100 are the classic examples of OP done right, but now we actually have a VERY prominent contender to add to the list in recent years in the form of "The World's Greatest Assassin Reborn as an Aristocrat."

The anime adaptation of "World's Greatest Assassin" has not made enough progress into the story to truly showcase what I'm talking about, but trust me, if you read the source material then you will very much see what I'm talking about with the social and political situations that can make a story great even with a completely OP main character. The MC in that story is incredibly OP, but the narrative tension still manages to almost always be dead center in the engaging zone, and it even manages to ratchet up with each passing volume of the story. The recent 4th volume that is in progress actually managed to dial the narrative tension up to 11 by...

Spoiler

by adding 2 new women to the previously 3 woman harem of all things. It's a freaking miracle! It spikes the tension through the freaking roof simply by taking a mature view on sexuality, and having the women act in a manner you would expect real women to react in a harem situation rather than just having them all easily go along with it.

Just by having the women act like real women, having 2 powerful women come in and try to lay claim to the MC over the original 3 in the harem with far lower social positions creates a scenario where, in any other harem story, you'd think you might kill to be in this guy's shoes. Because they sold the relationship angle so well though, the audience immediately goes pale when these women start exercising their social influence on the MC to force him into a marriage and just has a huge moment of "Oh freaking shit! This is bad!"

And it's all just because of a little mixture of honestly handled relationships and realistically handled politics, and the perfectly normal and realistic reaction you might think people would have to the competence the MC has shown up until this point. The ground-work for this scenario had even been laid since book 2, was built upon in book 3, and then they finally sprung the scenario in book 4. And yet, it still felt like a big nasty slap in the face.

 

[NonReal]

Make the thing that he wants, his ambition, dream, aspiration, or whatever; not something achievable purely through strength.

 

[Zirrboy]

Explain this realms thing. I recognize it as a Xianxia term but I'm not especially familiar with Xianxia's. I've read a few and couldn't stay interested.

I think in this case it's referring to a more usual concept of realm. Like regions in MMOs, they have a general power level in resources and cultivation. So a mob in an endgame region could crush the supreme rulers of the one the MC starts out in. Which they don't since the most guarded treasures here are weaker than roadside pebbles in their home region.

But as for the topic: Another method is nurturing. Strongest assassin also has this. The MC's allies in this case are rarely outstanding by when they meet(often the opposite for increased impact), but made to shine by the MC and their superior insights. Usually they are later made out to have possessed some hidden potential from the start, so it's something of a chosen one development but with the MC as the mentor.

 

[lnv]

The true key to making an OP MC work, and I mean a true OP MC, not one OP for their level. Is focusing more on the side characters and the story of the world.

Not to mention, power doesn't always solve everything.

 

[Vnator]

A lot of good suggestions here! I recommend having the mc have a specific character other than generic shounen mc. And show their reactions to different scenarios based on their character.

Also, introduce challenges that strong arming won't help with. Find the hidden assassin or rebel? Cant just kill everyone in town and call it a day, mc will have to use their brain, and only after that beat them up. Or maybe it's politics, or teaching, or anything else mundane that their op ness only helps tangentially. Mix it up with these to keep things from being predictable, but at the same time keep showing the mcs character through their actions and reactions to these scenarios!

 

[RaizarP]

MC that will move on a whim could be a good example.

Make the MC didn't care about anything other than the world around him (as in his home, his loved one, or someone else)

Don't forget to add depressing past that make him can't or won't use his power unless necessary would be a good example too.

There are lots of way to make OP MC story, you only need to get the MC to visit the problem, not the other way around

 

[greyblob]

The key difference for OP MCs is that their struggle is almost entirely an internal one. It all depends where you take it from here. You can compare most of them to a really rich guy. He has so much money that he doesn't know what to do with, and has pretty much tried everything there is. So, he goes around helping/harming others, looking for entertainment, starts taking extremely risky ventures, tries to become an average joe, buys a whole country and tries to rule, etc.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Like almost everyone above said: Turn the OP-ness (O-penis, huehuehue) into a plot device and let the plot be either about situations where using the O-penis would worsen the situation, let the plot be about the main and side characters instead of OP protag being OP or give them enough inner conflict to carry you through the power trip to make it interesting enough.

 

[Kitsura]

Read stories with them and figure out common plot points.

Here's the thing about OP protagonists you have to draw the line on OP. Are they OP in the sense they are the strongest thing in the world? In that case most of the story will probably be focused on other things that make them an interesting character. For example, making a harem is a pretty common goal., otherwise it's a superman paradox there is no struggle unless it's interpersonal.

The other way is the "mostly" OP character. This is a character who is strong enough to defy human understandings but is not strong enough to compete with the truly best in the world. This plays a fun balance between power fantasy and also progression as the character becomes stronger over time.

The last method is the weak to strong OP. This is where you find the Tensura, Kumo Desu, Healer Redo and many other light novels. Most people like the sensation of being weak and then becoming strong. it's a common human urge to want to prove those who spit in your face wrong. This is sometimes augmented by a revenge plot but I prefer to see it as secret life trope and I tend to enjoy more books that do that. A main character that is so strong it's hard to remain in conspicuous but they can't

Hope this helps. Focusing on how characters arcs are structured will help with writing op characters.

 

[SilvCrimBlac]

So far, I've come to the conclusion that my MC will be OP in the sense that he can contend with the strongest beings of that world, or at least hold his own, but he can't just wreck them and he certainly won't be conquering "the world" anytime soon. I would liken it to being Superman. Yeah Superman is strong as hell in every aspect of the word, but even he gets his ass kicked often enough for everyone to know that while he's one of the strongest, he has worthy rivals who could stomp him into the ground if he gets cocky and overconfident and thus he can still find room for improvement.

As for story, will be going the Overlord approach as mentioned by @Jemini Meaning there will be a large and active cast of side characters, as well as a small group that I would liken to being the MC's whenever the Main MC isn't being used.

Momonga from Overlord who was probably the main POV for like....the first 3 volumes, and then every volume after that, he was just one POV among several, and he didn't even show up at all as a POV in a few of them. Or like Wheel of Time, Rand was the main POV for the first 2 books, and then from Book 3, he was just one among many other POV's, and in at least 4 of the books, he only showed up in 1 or 2 chapters. In one book, only the epilogue. The only book Rand was by far the dominant POV besides the first 2 books was the very last book where his POV took up the entire second half of the book.

I'm not sure which approach I will take, but I'm more likely to go the Overlord way, since side characters were more prominent POV-wise in Overlord than in WoT. Hell, several side characters dominated their own entire arcs, with absolutely no interference from anyone from Nazarick except for perhaps in the background. I don't think it would be Game of Thrones style, since while they had a large cast, most characters tended to have only 1 to 3 chapters apiece per novel except for Jon Snow and Daenerys and I want more active side cast than that.

Also, my story will basically be a rewrite of someone else's story here on SH and RR. They have gotten to busy to write it and I loved it so I decided I would take it over with their permission and do my own spin on it with the greenlight from the original author, @Discount_Blade

 

[muhyumi]

As the title says, I love reading stories with OP MC's, but how to keep it interesting if I wanted to write one myself?

My usual style, would be to make the MC OP'er than everyone else initially, but gradually introduce villains that can either rival, or give him a run for his money. But still, that can't be the only trick to the trade that is, OP MC's.

So, can peeps here help me out and give some tips, tricks, tactics and what not in writing MC's that are OP in fantasy genre?

I am currently writing one and my thing is that the strongest person at the moment before the MC will look at him like they're an ant if they see them. just gradually accumulate the stength to make them OP and adding 'friends' would be great as well but make sure they aren't just there to make MC look good they should be able to carry themselves

 

[gaylolis]

i like OP mcs because they can solve problems in a much different way than others and you're much more liberal in making them as stupidly broken as you want.

you can make them have absolutely ridiculous unique ability like bending reality or shit.

so while others need to punch or kick them, they can just make the enemy grew a third nipple inside his dick.

a good example might be the strongest system. the mc's skills are super strong but really shameless at the same time.

but yea, more than my favorite. i find it more as a crutch since i don't really care how characters usually fight and just want some comedy.