"SYSTEMS", Floating Sceens, Skills and levels, YAY or NAY

[Generic.Archdemon]

What are your thoughts on narratives that have a game like "System"?
That includes all variants of this trope even if it's a subversion.

 

[georgelee5786]

Nay

 

[prognastat]

I read them, I write them. Reading them is more fun than writing them, keeping track of character stats and experience progress as a writer is a pain in the ass.

 

[Cipiteca396]

It's certainly a thing. Neither good, nor bad. Useful sometimes, tedious at other times.

 

[NotaNuffian]

It is only fun when it is MC abusing his system against others.

It is not so fun to read as it is though, because the immense amount of suspense and the fistful of salt one must have in order not to yell "that's bullshit" every time the blue table pops up.

 

[Dieter]

It's only good when it's a means to an end. To show or project status, power, reputation, etc. But when litrpg devolves into absurdity, what's the point of even seeing numbers go up when your story is so generic it means literally nothing (or anything)? when 'I got faster from that level up' would not only suffice, but would be better. Most of the time I just skip it. I don't care, and I don't even miss out on the story—at all.

 

[BlackKnightX]

Love them. As a writer, it's a good way to show progress. As a reader, it's like a dream ability. Imagine having a system aiding you in real life. Leveling things up would be a whole lot easier. I could already tell right away when I did something wrong or hit a plateau. Not being able to measure your progress can be quite discouraging.

There's a bit of a caveat, though. I don't like pointless systems. Meaning, systems that exist just to.. well, exist. I love when you keep it simple or make it unique somehow. You can actually play a lot with it.

 

[SailusGebel]

Nay.

 

[Pixytokisaki14]

What are your thoughts on narratives that have a game like "System"?
That includes all variants of this trope even if it's a subversion.

Overused.

 

[LORD_SHAXX]

I see it as a narrative tool to show progression and to explain elements of the story.

However I do tend to tone it down during fight scenes instead of a box showing X did 50 dmg to Y I just write it like a regular fight scene. I find that it's too distracting for me and the reader to have the fight interrupted like that.

All in all I have no problem reading or quoting them after awhile you just tune out the numbers. As long as the progression feels logical I don't think many people will care

 

[BigBadBoi]

I dislike them. If the system is just a glorified status window then I'm all for it. Having the ability to gain stats and levels just by murderhoboing is boring as fuck especially since it just results in the status window being one long spreadsheet. I swear to god one of these days one of the authors will just give up writing a table for stats and just link a download for an excel spreadsheet.

 

[MouseDestruction]

I like systems, its a good place to put spells and skills etc. A summation of things so you can see what the character has.

What I don't see much use for is stat numbers like strength and intelligence. Everyone just ends up being described in words anyway. Even levels is a bit iffy as you could just have class evolutions or adventure guild rank or something.

 

[LORD_SHAXX]

I dislike them. If the system is just a glorified status window then I'm all for it. Having the ability to gain stats and levels just by murderhoboing is boring as fuck especially since it just results in the status window being one long spreadsheet. I swear to god one of these days one of the authors will just give up writing a table for stats and just link a download for an excel spreadsheet.

Challenge excepted

 

[2wordsperminute]

it's good if there's a reason for it (eg so I'm a spider so what or omniscient reader) but otherwise it's only good to put another tag on the story (is there a system tag? idk)

 

[SsemouyOnan]

For me systems are an all or nothing type of deal. You either fully play into it or just don't use it. Either build your world around it(Budding Scientist) or make it a game world and embrace the wacky game mechanics(that one novel where the MC is an "NPC" companion for a Player, and the player keeps on abusing glitches)

If the system is just there cause numbers go brrr... well, homie you just made a glorified cultivation system.
That said, it doesn't stop me from reading them. But I would read the junk food all the same even if there weren't blue boxes :/

 

[l8rose]

I haven't written anything with a system (might try that for something different soon tho) but I've read plenty with it. I think my favorite was a story with an unreliable narrator who regressed after death and got a "status" system. It let them read everyone's surface thoughts and "affection points" on the second go around. The story only focused on their PoV and the utter confusion the character went through after learning things weren't what they seemed.

 

[Sagacious_Punk]

Hard 'Nay'.

"Systems", LitRPG, or whatever you want to call it, is either one of the laziest or most noobish plot devices ever conceived in my opinion. They are a low-effort type of shortcut to good storytelling, and devalue any plot by way of their absurd contrivances, no matter how well they are hand-waved. Also, they are kind of paranoia fuel a la "The Thirteenth Floor" if you think about them in existential terms.

There are other, better ways of demonstrating "progress" in characters in terms of raw power, but they require *ahem* better writing skills. If you want a fun and easy case study, go read The Dresden Files and watch carefully how Harry Dresden becomes more powerful (and more "experience"-ed) with basically each book. If you want another (broken) example that's again easy to follow - without any gamification - go and find The Dragon Healer of Tone.

My pet theory why the LitRPG "genre" came into existence at all is because it's a form of optics for the newest generations, who've lived all their lives surrounded by digital realities and "status screens" of one form or another. For one, this definitely models the psyche; and then, when such people haven't read quality literature (high-concept sci-fi, thoughtfully-written fantasies, even a good contemporary thriller), this compounds the situation, which results in taking inspiration from the leftover examples: videogames and their derivatives. And thus a dull abomination is born.

Want to read a "real LitRPG" book? Go read Halting State by Charles Stross. It's not the best example, but it's the one that comes from the top of my head when I think about the "genre".

As for why isekai (aka portal fantasy, its original term) is also insanely popular, that's optics again: it's nothing more than a desire for sheer escapism, realized in the most uninformed and cookie-cutter way.

Want to read a "real isekai"? Go read The Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan, heck, even Harry Potter. Then think about what makes them classics, and analyze that. And then replicate it. There are probably better examples, but this genre isn't my strength, so I cannot offer you anything else other than to go and trawl through TV Tropes (which will have the side benefit of showing you piecemeal how stories work as constructs).

Cheers,
Sagacious

 

[ReadLight]

What are your thoughts on narratives that have a game like "System"?
That includes all variants of this trope even if it's a subversion.

It used to be a neat concept to me. And I see it as one of many types of the generic superpower there can be, like super strength, invisibility, levitation, etc.

However I have issues with systems when they hijack characters motivations.

For example, MC can obtain money/status/power by loving their partner.

Or, MC must confess their feelings to the she-devil, even if there's no romantic feelings to begin with, or else the system will transform the MC into an ant.

Or, ding! By random chance MC just so happens to Gotcha the exact deus ex machina to solve the problem at hand from the system.

Such brute force kind of incentivising feels like lazy writing. Although sometimes they are fun to read in the short term, they'd ultimately leave me feeling the story as being empty or even meaningless. This is especially the case of slice of life stories.

Reading a protagonist who's behavior revolves entirely based on whatever a system arbitrarily commands them to do simply by the system forcing the incentives makes the whole story feels empty.

MC doesn't love their partner because it's their partner; MC love them because the system pays MC to do it.

MC doesn't take on certain mission because "it's the right thing to do" or even because they want to, but simply because the system only rewards MC for doing said mission, or punish if otherwise.

MC goes on to argue with the top professors who graded their nationals exam that the score should be changed from a 100% to a 97% because that's the exact percentage the system gives the reward of infinite school knowledge for the next exam.

With the system, all those motivations of MC technically make sense. But when I take a step back and consider if there were no system, the characters then would appear ridiculous, as in: "what the fuck are any of them doing with their lives?" Kind of ridiculousness.

This is why I write my story with System, but I don't read them.

My story has a system because the story is about reincarnating into videogame world with videogame powers. So I gave the character the game's UI, like the inventory slot and armor slots etc, and call that a system. (Also I feel like Systems are a meme in writing by now)

But I don't read the system stories anymore, mostly because the story of that type popular enough for me to encounter randomly are all of those that use systems to brute force character motivation and plot progression.

It numbs my brain.

 

[LilRora]

I used to write them, but recently I've had too many issues with creating a good system. It's a good tool, but can easily become a bad thing if we don't think it through very well.

 

[Premier]

I drop any fic that uses "System" purely for being so lazy.

I also don't like them, because only the abilities matters. HP/MP/Stats are all basically irrelevant and just waste everyone's time as the MC agonizes over where to put their stats (It doesn't matter; it won't do anything noticeably different)

If the fights actually use HP damage then they're insanely boring to read because you know exactly how much trouble people are in and if they can win or not, bar the enemy just pulling new abilities out their ass.

"Magic Missile - Does 20 points of damage."

Is infinitely more boring than "Magic Missile - Creates three balls of energy that always hit what they're aimed at."

You can be so creative with the second one, using it trigger traps, or abuse their travel time to stagger your hits. The first is just subtracting 20 hitpoints from their HP total.