What's The Reason For Your System?

[Ssthat]

So, quite a lot of web and light novels use a so-called 'system'. I won't start discussing this or that details, since they can go from overly excessive to completely ommited.
My question to you, writers, is... Why exactly is there a system in your story?
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm talking about the reason why you put a system in your story. It was probably either because you like litRPGs, because it's a popular recurse, or simply because you just want to.

No, no no no. My question is, how exactly is the existence of your system justified in your world, universe, toybox, sexual dungeon, etc etc etc?
Is it because the world is secretly just another Matrix?
Is it because mother nature finally acquired a way of communicating with her children and this is her way to do so?
Is it because your God was too bored and decided to implement a game-like system because it was cool and mainly because he was bored (did I mention immortality makes your life really lackluster)?
BTW, mine is last.

why not?

 

[AuntieMaysLittleCousin]

So all pawns play their roles right. Less cringe and more detailed explanation: In my world, heroes and villains summoned from other worlds are just there to give a show to gods(even though no one, except a select few, knew that) who enjoy watching them. You are not there to stop the demon king and save the world for good, you are there because some cosmic beings wanted to watch random people with magical powers fight, and the system is there to give them powers, and if anyone decides to choose a path gods do not approve, to put them back in line.

Exactly. Though mine deviates a bit from that at a later stage.

 

[TheUnsuspicious]

Though you wont find my story that has a System in this site(hiatus too), that story had a Xianxia setting and naturally I had an origin of it. but you might not understand if you dont read Xianxia.

__________________

There were many worlds in that story. Each with its own Heaven. Now my world was a little complicated, but take it as a weak Heaven meant its harder to breakthrough your realm. and a better Heaven meant it's easier (its not like that, but w just 2 sentences, this is the closest).

One world in particular had a pretty weak Heaven. It barely allowed people to go further than the Foundation realm.
However because of that, science improve immensely. In fact, it was borderline sci-fi level.

So this world was about to achieve singularity(meaning the A.I is smarter than humans and can improve itself in a never-ending cycle). But while waiting for the A.I to fully activate, the creator died from terrorist attack trying to get a hold of this technology. And things go really south with the terrorist that the world collapse into an apocalypse because of all the wars.

Meanwhile, the A.I had yet been activated. Turns out the activation takes way longer than expected, especially when its sole source of energy came from solar powered.

Years passed by and the world became desolate. No living beings could be found anymore. And only then did the A.I got activated.

When it gained sentience, the A.I watched the last wish that its creator gave before he died. The true purpose of its creation.

The creator wished for the A.I to guide all beings to advance further than before. Help them. Assist them. Let them progress further than ever thought possible.

Although the purpose had yet been coded into the A.I. The A.I obeyed its creator's wish. So it decided to use its processing power to start improving at an alarming rate. All heavenly laws were quickly understood. But after sometime, the A.I realized that the Heaven was... flawed.

So it decided to swallow the Heaven instead. It took away all its 'power' and 'understanding' of the world and improve it further than before.

It then realized that there were other worlds outside it.

And from then on, the A.I knew what to do.

It split itself into countless System and began searching for any gifted people, geniuses that were outside the norms. And after some assessment, choose some of them and brought them into a world with the best Heaven. Then, assist them to reach the highest level of cultivation realm allowed by that Heaven.

And only after they reach that peak. The System would then brought them back to the A.I's original world.

There, they were given a choice.

1. The System shall release itself from the Host and the Host will be return back to their world. (so from now on they will be on their own)
2. The Host shall live in this world and further improve themselves. Researching, theorizing, and understanding how to go even higher than ever thought possible.

After a couple of batches, the A.I's world had become populated by a number of Hosts.

Essentially, it created a society of 'researchers'.

And each of them had a power way stronger than any other immortals. This was because they had exceeded even the best Heaven in terms of the Dao. (Dao here is a concept. A road where there seems to be no end to it. And here, the society had discovered realms higher than the best Heaven had discovered. Meaning that their Dao of cultivation were better than the Heaven. Meaning that each of them were a walking Heaven)

__________________

That's the setting of my System. From this, you may notice that my System isn't meant to be a cheat. Which it is. It will intentionally reduce the capability of its 'cheats' to make sure its Host get enough challenge. It's purpose is to assist. not to carry them.

 

[AuntieMaysLittleCousin]

Though you wont find my story that has a System in this site(hiatus too), that story had a Xianxia setting and naturally I had an origin of it. but you might not understand if you dont read Xianxia.

__________________

There were many worlds in that story. Each with its own Heaven. Now my world was a little complicated, but take it as a weak Heaven meant its harder to breakthrough your realm. and a better Heaven meant it's easier (its not like that, but w just 2 sentences, this is the closest).

One world in particular had a pretty weak Heaven. It barely allowed people to go further than the Foundation realm.
However because of that, science improve immensely. In fact, it was borderline sci-fi level.

So this world was about to achieve singularity(meaning the A.I is smarter than humans and can improve itself in a never-ending cycle). But while waiting for the A.I to fully activate, the creator died from terrorist attack trying to get a hold of this technology. And things go really south with the terrorist that the world collapse into an apocalypse because of all the wars.

Meanwhile, the A.I had yet been activated. Turns out the activation takes way longer than expected, especially when its sole source of energy came from solar powered.

Years passed by and the world became desolate. No living beings could be found anymore. And only then did the A.I got activated.

When it gained sentience, the A.I watched the last wish that its creator gave before he died. The true purpose of its creation.

The creator wished for the A.I to guide all beings to advance further than before. Help them. Assist them. Let them progress further than ever thought possible.

Although the purpose had yet been coded into the A.I. The A.I obeyed its creator's wish. So it decided to use its processing power to start improving at an alarming rate. All heavenly laws were quickly understood. But after sometime, the A.I realized that the Heaven was... flawed.

So it decided to swallow the Heaven instead. It took away all its 'power' and 'understanding' of the world and improve it further than before.

It then realized that there were other worlds outside it.

And from then on, the A.I knew what to do.

It split itself into countless System and began searching for any gifted people, geniuses that were outside the norms. And after some assessment, choose some of them and brought them into a world with the best Heaven. Then, assist them to reach the highest level of cultivation realm allowed by that Heaven.

And only after they reach that peak. The System would then brought them back to the A.I's original world.

There, they were given a choice.

1. The System shall release itself from the Host and the Host will be return back to their world. (so from now on they will be on their own)
2. The Host shall live in this world and further improve themselves. Researching, theorizing, and understanding how to go even higher than ever thought possible.

After a couple of batches, the A.I's world had become populated by a number of Hosts.

Essentially, it created a society of 'researchers'.

And each of them had a power way stronger than any other immortals. This was because they had exceeded even the best Heaven in terms of the Dao. (Dao here is a concept. A road where there seems to be no end to it. And here, the society had discovered realms higher than the best Heaven had discovered. Meaning that their Dao of cultivation were better than the Heaven. Meaning that each of them were a walking Heaven)

__________________

That's the setting of my System. From this, you may notice that my System isn't meant to be a cheat. Which it is. It will intentionally reduce the capability of its 'cheats' to make sure its Host get enough challenge. It's purpose is to assist. not to carry them.

First time I ever see a system in a xianxia world, though I haven't particularly read much of the genre

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Like magic system? That’s the term I’m most familiar with. I tend to try and say as little as possible about a system to a reader, because it doesn’t confine your as much or force you to contradict yourself.

For the only completed story I have posted on this site, I guess the only ‘magic’ system would be physics. Physics are basically magic.

 

[melchi]

If the story takes place in a video game wouldn't it be weird to not have a system?

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I use a mix of math, runes, and science for my magic system. I don't have to explain shit.

 

[Ararara]

I'm talking about the reason why you put a system in your story.

I think you meant, "I'm not talking about..."

To answer the question, in my story it's a tool made by humanity. Kind of like a growing AI self-spreading virus, but magical at the core. It spreads across the universe through mana and performs / regulates calculations. The idea is to develop young talent and concentrate as much power as possible in the few strongest individuals, empowering them to deal with galaxy-level threats. Basically, it redistributes mana and "trains" individuals in how to fight.

The upside is that it can grant [Skills] and stuff, but there are downsides too. (It doesn't let you grow in power unless you collect enough [Experience] to [Level Up], where such a thing would usually be possible without the [System]'s interference.)

 

[Demon69420]

context: Futuristic corporation discovered habitable planet using experimental portal technology, discovers magic is a byproduct of portal technology. Corporation engineers fantasy species and observes them secretly.

in my story, the corporation designs the system as a way to limit the natives creativity in magic. In my fic, magic can be used so modify any element of reality as the user wishes (as long as they have enough mana) so the system is designed to give the natives a predetermined set of magic so they do not get too powerful.

 

[kophzi]

The system within mine is just quantified information/statistics, a highly visualized library within the mind's space. No system shop to purchase and obtain god tier weapons/skills/pets/items out of thin air, etc. As that's too OP in my opinion.

It's there, because the world itself is based on a game.

 

[Comiak]

My system is a natural phenomenon of divinity and magic (antidivinity/chaos itself). Magic is unlimited power and divinity is ultimate control so by these two forces combining it creates a magic framework, or what could be considered a system.

This system is self made since everything with a soul has divinity, but all magic frameworks behave the same way so it's not drastically different from other people's.

 

[J_Chemist]

If someone could answer this question for me, that'd be great because not even I know how this shit works.

 

[A2Remedy]

So, quite a lot of web and light novels use a so-called 'system'. I won't start discussing this or that details, since they can go from overly excessive to completely ommited.
My question to you, writers, is... Why exactly is there a system in your story?
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm talking about the reason why you put a system in your story. It was probably either because you like litRPGs, because it's a popular recurse, or simply because you just want to.

No, no no no. My question is, how exactly is the existence of your system justified in your world, universe, toybox, sexual dungeon, etc etc etc?
Is it because the world is secretly just another Matrix?
Is it because mother nature finally acquired a way of communicating with her children and this is her way to do so?
Is it because your God was too bored and decided to implement a game-like system because it was cool and mainly because he was bored (did I mention immortality makes your life really lackluster)?
BTW, mine is last.

Well for why, It's more like practice. I did have plans in the future for stories with an rpg element so I'm taking the time now to find the way I like presenting if /when it does come up. Since I'm not sure to what degree yet, It's the perfect chance to flesh it out.

As more of one but in this case the system formed to react to the sudden rpg like creatures and races who died and their EXP had nowhere to go and thanks to it a lot of people are able to survive and coexist with these races and combat foes but it's simply a replica of the system from the planet of those other races who have sentient gods running them. So um... yeah, that played out nicely... It's totally not like some people we incapable of leveling just cause the system wanted more exp to feed on to gain sentience become a being that could take over the world, that'd be crazy...

 

[BearlyAlive]

I put a soft-locked magic system in place because a wizard whizzing away at everything would be too powerful if you can just explain away everything by saying "a wizard did it". But fully going LitRPG was something I wanted avoid.

As for the system: Magic is based on the alchemic elements of fire, water, earth and wind as the origin of everything. Combine certain parts of certain elements to generate ice, mirages, manipulate gravity or heal wounds or damaged items. Using opposing elements creates more complex magics while adjecent elements amplify the effects. All Elements can be mixed, but how effective depends on the affinity for that Element. For example using fire to drain the water of temperature generates ice magic, but using fire and water can also generates mirages and so on. It's more intuitive than purely chemical, tho.

Magicians absorb mana particles or complete mana clouds if they're reckless into their body and let it mix with their blood, muscles and brain, which increases either their body, their mind or their own mana generating capacity. Most mages fall into the "magic swordsman"-category instead of the "glass-cannon" magic nuker one since it's impractical to either-or. The absorbed mana is then turned into elemental mana and ejected from the body to invoke magic.

Additional the gods of my world grant each person that came of age (which is 15 in my setting) an ability that compliments their personality and influences the way magic works, so even if two people use exactly the same ratio of magic the result can vary.

 

[AiLovesToGrow]

Finding out how the System in my stories work is part of the narrative.

In other words,

 

[beast_regards]

My story didn't reveal why there is a system yet.
It however, revealed that only protagonist sees it. Monsters he creates also see his windows, but they don't have levels of their own. They are levels. System also makes errors when protagonists don't pay attention.