Most of us know what a role-playing game is. The name says it all.
RPGs are games that have you play the protagonist who is hell-bent on saving the universe and must defy impossible odds to do so.
While playing the protagonist, you also get to meet a lot of interesting characters and fight gnarly monsters while learning new abilities and skills.
While it all sounds like the prologue of an epic story waiting to unfold, this describes many different types of RPG genres.
Yes, you have heard of RPG video games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy Series. You might even be one of the chosen few who have experienced table-top RPGs like Fiasco, FATE, and D&D…
…but have you heard of RPG books?
What are RPG Books?
Most of us grew up playing legendary video games, and some even managed to pull all-nighters just so they could taste the satisfaction of completing its storyline.
However, there were also some of us who didn’t have the time, motivation, or skills to commit to games that require 100+ hours of unfaltering focus.
Still, you couldn’t say no to the rush of those video games and dreamed about living out those games.
If this somewhat describes how you feel, then RPG books are the way to go.
Also known as LitRPG or Literary Role Playing Games, these books are a relatively new genre of fictional books.
They combine everything that you loved about video games with an exciting storyline.
How RPG Books Came into Being
Somewhere around the 1980s, when personal computers had started to become common, a few multiplayer games like MUD had already appeared and were widely accepted.
A decade later, people had decent internet speeds and lower phone bills.
This was also when people started playing better games where they could visually navigate their avatar around the screen.
Towards the end of the decade, children and adults alike were playing online RPGs, which had more intricate 2D graphics like Doom.
Shortly after, in 1997, 3D graphics were introduced with a game called Ultima Online.
This is also where Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) started gaining widespread popularity.
Of course, nowadays, these games are played on a global scale with almost lifelike visuals and millions of players competing simultaneously.
Despite all of their popularity and pleasures, modern games have one huge flaw.
It is never in the interest of video game developers to create scenarios in their games that can be beaten easily.
Naturally, they don’t want gamers to skim through the experience and finish their game quickly.
As a result, MMORPGs are made using massive time sinks, which are designed to make players grind-on for hours just so they can progress to the next challenge.
Also, if you aren’t part of a gaming organization or are outstandingly competitive, the challenges brought forward by games can become impossible to overcome.
This very flaw in video games is the reason behind the emergence of RPG books.
LitRPG is a genre that is very appealing to gamers and anyone who spends enough time reading them.
One defining characteristic of these books is that they portray a character who enters and progresses through a game or a game-like world.
While reading these books, you can experience RPG in a quite similar way, as you may have experienced in an actual video game.
For instance, your character gets to engage with well-thought-out encounters while notifying you that your character has leveled up.
The Origin of RPG Stories
Ever since MMORPGs were a huge success, writers have been cooking up new plots that could be used by game developers.
An early example of such works includes the Otherland series, which was written by Tad William in 1996.
Willams wrote a story where characters could fully immerse themselves in virtual reality.
Since they could do so, the writer also imagined characters reinventing themselves in order to question their identity.
Among the central characters of the story was someone who appears to be an all-powerful warrior in the game, but this muscular character was actually being played by someone else.
In reality, the character was Orlando Gardiner; s a young boy who had progeria and whose real body needed constant medical care.
In the Far East, such role-playing games had also led to an introduction to RPG books.
These books were inspired purely based on the idea that action within a game would lead to the survival of the real world. In 2004, Yu Wo, a writer in Taiwan, had also begun writing the first addition to a series of nine RPG books called the ½ Prince.
Similarly, in Japan, Reki Kawaraha wrote and published a series called Sword Art Online in 2009.
While these were some early examples of books that had a plot centered around MMORPGs, they had not been grouped together as a genre.
However, this changed in 2013 when EKSMO, the biggest publishing house in Russia, began publishing a series of books that were titled ‘LitRPG’. From this day, this initiative by EKSMO had christened RPG books with a name that will be used all over the world.
Of course, if it had been an English-speaking country, they would have named the genre RPGLit, but it doesn’t quite have a ring to it.
The word LitRPG was cooked up in a brainstorming session between EKSMO’s editor-in-chief, the project’s producer, and one of the founding members of the RPG book genre in Russia.
The Characteristics of RPG Books
Ever since they became popular in the West, many readers and authors of RPG books have enjoyed focusing on books that offered in-game achievements for the characters.
They have also loved the rules that are explicitly narrated to them in order to feel more like a game.
Speaking of constraints, the defining characteristics of LitRPG have also been defined over the years.
Other than the narrative, these books now contain levels, stats, and abilities, among other progressive elements for characters.
Naturally, since these genre-defining characteristics were set, some books would inevitably be cast out of these boundaries.
For instance, GameLit is a larger genre of books that does not focus on heavy stats, game progression, and game mechanics. Instead, they just have a storyline that is similar to a game.
With that said, the best thing about LitRPG is that books don’t really have to announce that they belong to this genre.
It’s not like you can differentiate them by calling them fantasy or science fiction.
Instead, you will see so many books that might be classed as sci-fi, magical realism, or fantasy but will fall under the banner of LitRPG books.
You might even be able to write an RPG book without intending to because you are so interested in RPG games.
There are a few famous works that have been debated over whether they classify as an RPG book.
Among the most well-known examples is Ready Player One. This book does feature a character that enters a game world and navigates around it while you learn more about the game’s structure and rules.
However, some might say that Ready Player One doesn’t qualify as an RPG game because it doesn’t really focus on the mechanics of the game.
By definition, RPG books are different from VR fiction or Video Game fiction books, and here’s how.
Firstly, RPG books need to depict a story that exists in a game world or a world that is exclusively run with game mechanics. This allows for the LitRPG umbrella to include books that are set in an RPG game, VR game, MMORPG, or even a parallel dimension just as long as it follows game mechanics.
When we say game mechanics, we mean notifications for experience points, level-up points, or unlocking game skills.
Some RPG books even go so far as to include mana/health bars and item descriptions along with the narratives.
Of course, it doesn’t matter which of these game mechanics are included in the story.
The only thing that matters is that these mechanics aren’t hidden in the background or left entirely to the reader’s imagination. How much of these mechanics are used is entirely up to the author.
Another distinguishing factor, as decided by the LitRPG community, is that a significant part of the storyline needs to be depicted inside the game.
As a general rule of thumb, at least more than half of the story should be in the game-world. Even though this is the case, it is very easy to come across authors who have completely ignored the real world or destroyed it completely in an apocalyptic event.
In addition, in an RPG book, the time the protagonist spends in a game is supposed to have a significant impact on the story.
In other words, if you remove the entire section spent inside the game and the story still makes complete sense, then the LitRPG community will probably refute your work.
Final Thoughts
So what are RPG books? RPG books or LitRPG is a sub-genre of fictional books that depict the main character intentionally or unintentionally entering a game world.
Upon entering this world, the main character faces all the challenges thrown at him by the game and progresses in terms of experience points or level-ups.
However, LitRPG isn’t something that is limited to one form of media because there are audiobooks and eBooks available on the internet as well.
Either way, it is very rare for LitRPG books to be turned into movies or video games, but the vice versa is pretty common.
RPG books are a genre that is still growing with enthusiastic authors and readers joining its thriving community.
At first, it may seem a little absurd, but the overall experience is actually quite fun.
Also, if you love a good story and enjoy seeing your characters learn new skills, try out new weapons, or even join a strong faction, then you’re already a fan.
If you’re looking for good RPG books to read, here are 10 books you can’t possibly miss out on:
- Survival Quest: The Way of the Shaman
- Catharsis: Awaken Online
- Ascend Online
- More Than a Game: Fayroll
- Alterworld: Play to Live (A LitRPG Series)
- The Crafting of Chess: A LitRPG Adventure
- Advent: Red Mage
- Blood Eye: Land of Dreams
- Crota: The Gods’ Game
- The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds)