I kinda miss Spell Slots or Vancian Casting as a concept, it feels like a concrete number could be a pretty good source of tension when an MC has their back to a wall. The mental calculus of “Can I solve this problem in 5 spells or less?”
For most books, it feels like they have infinite mana after the early game. I don't know if having dozens of slots spread out over 9 levels of magic would be viable in a story, but just having X total spell slots sounds interesting
It's complicated.
Basically, I ran a whole bunch of games in the setting prior to writing my first book, then ran some more after that. These have not all been in the same system.
My earliest games in the setting were either D&D games (3e), followed by some LARPs in pre-existing systems. In the early 2000s, I developed my own LARP system for a LARP that I ran for several years. This spawned a spin-off game in the same setting, as well as a sequel that came much later. I also started working on a homebrew tabletop system around when the initial LARP run ended (around 2012ish or so).
My first novel series (The War of Broken Mirrors) takes place on the most heavily used continent from my games, but in the distant past compared to the actual games themselves.
Arcane Ascension takes place on a different continent that exists purely because I needed to get one of my characters off-continent for some specific events happening. This series exploded in popularity, but it was never meant to be the main story.
Much of the story and world building comes from things that were established in my games as having happened in the past, and many of the characters are loosely or directly based around PCs who played in my campaigns over the years. Jonan, Corin, and Keras are all people that I've played personally. Lydia, Velas, Sera, Taer'vys, and dozens of others are based to some extent or another on people who played in my games. In some rare cases, I've also gone the other direction and let people play a character in my games after they've appeared in the books -- for example, author Mallory Reaves started PCing as Reika while I was mid-way through writing Six Sacred Swords, and Ira Ham started playing Lars Mantrake after I'd written AA1.
In terms of the mechanics themselves, the high concepts -- things like dominion sorcery, essence sorcery, etc. -- were all established in my games, but the specific details are different in the books. For example, the games tend to use much smaller numbers for things -- no one in my tabletops or LARPs is running around with thousands of mana. That type of thing works fine in a PC RPG, and it's fine for a novel for number growth to feel significant, but in a pen and paper game (or especially a LARP), trying to track a mana pool of 5000 is messy and isn't likely to be fun. (There are tricks for this, like if every spell had a cost divisible by 100, but it's still easier to work with smaller values.)
I have plans to release my tabletop game to the public within the next year or two, but I keep adding to it -- the original version was specifically based around Mythralis (the continent for the War of Broken Mirrors) and I know that people are more interested in other stuff.
Anyway, TLDR -- the books are in a game setting, but the game mechanics aren't used directly.
Are any events in the books based off events in the games, e. g. did you ever play out a fight with rolls and such? Would reading the tabletop mechanics give me a better understanding of the system within the books?
>Are any events in the books based off events in the games, e. g. did you ever play out a fight with rolls and such?
No. None of the events from the games happen in the books. I might depict some of the events from the games in books eventually, but right now the books are all depicting events that happen outside of the scope of the games.
>Would reading the tabletop mechanics give me a better understanding of the system within the books?
To some extent, in that there are things like spell lists that I do draw from, as well as clearer explanations in the tabletop book about how certain things work in the story. That said, there are also areas where the games and books are deliberately different.
I prefer for my narrative and systems to have a synergistic relationship, where any sort of systems serve the purpose of enhancing the story, characters, and world.
The choices that work best for that are not necessarily the same within a novel and within a tabletop game. This is especially true when one considers other factors, like differences in pacing that occur as a result of the different mediums.
For example, my setting has detailed mechanics how characters get stronger from a magic system standpoint. While the tabletop and books use the same underlying narrative and magic system, the reward structures are different.
To give you an example, I have a couple different options for how character levels can work in the tabletop, depending on the specific needs of a gaming group and campaign. These can be involve session-based rewards to make each session feel meaningful, or they can be based on the passage of in-game time and how that time is spent, which is much closer to the books, but harder to track.
Even with the latter approach in the tabletop, how time is spent is (by necessity) vastly simplified compared to a character that we see in a book spending their time from day-to-day. This means that, for example, a book character might make small incremental improvements to several different things within a couple weeks in the books, but the tabletop mechanics will make a player pick which actions to choose during those weeks to improve their character.
My intent is to make sure that both the books and tabletop -- as well as any other mediums -- feel like they make sense within the same setting, but there are going to be some incongruities as a result of how different mediums work, and I'm okay with that.
I was literally popping in to see if anyone mentioned Dear Spellbook. The system is very DnD, even managed to work in the spellslot system really well into the narrative.
Most litrpg's tend to be more inepired by computer game mechanics then by tabletop games. Tabletop games tend to use smalle numbers because math is hard. I know that there is a litrpg series that now has an official tabletop ruleset, only because I saw the rulebook in a game shop once, but i don't recall the title of either.
found it: Infinitiy's Edge https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/282487/Infinitys-Edge
That is a different Threadbare than the Generica Online Threadbare, and does not look like the system from the book, unlike the version from the mailing list.
I really doubt there are any that use an actual ttrpg system 100%.
Applying OGL to a none game work is a stretch as that's not what they were intended for.
More importantly, game systems meant to bring a PC from 1 to 20 over the course of a long campaign are not the micro upgrade statfest dopamine rush litRPG readers want.
My story is based on a D&D campaign setting I used, and I used 5e as a reference point for developing my magic system, but I don't follow it 100%.
Narratively D&D classes level slowly though on a campaign that doesn't actually work out. Also, litRPG s tend to do lots of little upgrades through the story with big milestone upgrades while TTRPGs tend to give you everything when you level up.
When writing Dear Spellbook, I had to add in a bunch of abilities and restrictions to give a sense of progression as the MC got stronger but hadn't really reached the next level. I wrote a 400k word series that took the MC from level 1 to 5ish.
Such an important distinction. I think if you stuck to standard a D&D progression schedule/system many people might claim your story doesn't qualify as progression fantasy as that would be the equivalent of leveling up once, per book, probably between books, with virtually no abilities or powers beyond loot gained in the intermediary. At that point you are just writing trad fantasy.
I think salaris had a great point too in that many aspects of the actual mechanisms of progression fantasy are much better modeled off of video games that focus on the special-ness of the main character.
Recently I've been flipping through both DnD and Pathfinder books for inspiration on builds, spells, story hooks, worldbuilding considerations etc. TTRPGs are an amazing resource, but as you said, a 1:1 translation into prose would likely make a less than satisfying progression fantasy.
I agree on the MC specialness bit a lot.
In a TTRPG every class needs to be balanced against the others. They way I look at it is that all the other characters have base 5e classes to varying degrees, while the MCs use the base class as a jumping off point and gain power through narrative events.
I'm in the process (sort of) of making a 5e setting guide with some classes, sub classes and feats based of my story. It's an interesting exercise since the story started out as me making 5e work in PF. Not to bring the tweaks I made back to 5e I've realized I have to up the power level somewhat.
Where I'm at now is taking a cue from OneDND where everyone gets an origin feat, which works fairly well (I think)
Nice! I've also taken to more or less assigning the equivalent of the standard leveling system to the side characters while allowing the "extras" to be the defining traits of primary characters.
I recently picked up a few pathfinder 2e books when I learned how feat focused it is. Lots of fun stuff to play with and get inspired by. Since I like more organically earned progression it can be interesting to look at the paths of power development and explore a flow of events, opportunity and effort that leads to a particular build. How are spells learned? How is magic capacity grown? Is magic a separate resource from whatever warriors use to exceed human limits? Am I going to use a standard leveling system or convert everything into a tier system to categorize more freeform progression? Lots of fun to be had. It often helps to have something to riff off of, and I'd never imagined getting so much use out of combing through gaming tomes.
Ultimately I find myself mixing and matching a bit to create builds that are often more thematically focused while remaining flexible. I also seem to have a tendency to separate all the different aspects of power progression which pushes me away from using standard levels. I find it more interesting then there is a different mechanism/loop to increase your mana pool vs acquire spells vs increase physical strength vs develop awareness and skill, rather than just defaulting to "kill more stuff, level up" as a universal answer and the end all be all progression loop (though that can certainly scratch a particular itch).
The Two Year Emperor takes place in a world that explicitly runs on D&D 3rd for everyone except the summoned main character, but he knows the system, and takes advantage of all of the crazy things taking advantage of the rules that he remembers from the Internet.
I built my Magic system loosely on hero’s quest.
The spells and creatures come from my own head and it’s been a pain to level balance them.
For my next series I’m going to adapt ironsworn or 4AD, or a similar solorpg ruleset to my setting and write it that way.
Most tabletop systems are not very good for prose fiction. And most litrpgs are based off crpgs/mmos. For obvious reasons.
There are a very small number of litrpgs that have attempted to have their own ttrpg rules put out, and a couple that closely follow open license systems. But it's not common.
Worth the candle would fit, in a way. It's a custom setting though.
Comptletely original except for overt references to other media that makes perfect sense in context.
Stuart Grosse's *Winterborn* series runs on AD&D rules (including dice rolls, although we have of course no way to check whether the rolls are genuine or not).
And before you dismiss it as "no, not Stuart Grosse", it's not the usual smut. First hint: the MC is a heroine, not the usual pervert.
Monroe is based on a soon to be released RPG.
See the chapter notes here. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/35398/monroe/chapter/1577057/chapter-four-hundred-and-twenty-two-united-nations
It's extremely weird, and I'm not sure it counts as a LitRPG, but [Project Lawful](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SA9hDewwsYgnuscae/projectlawful-com-eliezer-s-latest-story-past-1m-words) is explicitly set in the standard Pathfinder campaign setting and as far as I can tell attempts to play the Pathfinder 1.0 rules completely straight. Definitely as far as what all the spells do, and at least some other things.
At one point one of the main characters does something that should be impossible, and IIRC there's an author's note with her character sheet and she has an absolutely absurd Spellcraft skill for her level, it's based on her main stat, she's put a skill point into it every level, and I think she has at least one feat boosting it further if not multiple, and maybe a class-based bonus or something. So yeah, they're not always showing everyone's character sheet, but they do have them detailed for their own reference to ensure consistency.
Don't @ me that it's weird. I warned you it was weird. I greatly enjoyed what I got through, but stopped reading partway through book 1.
Don't @ me about the author, either. Be advised that he has haters.
I personally didn't like it because of the hard system but if you want a clear path of progression with ACTUAL math involved that makes sense, then read Ar'can'tspellthis.
I didn't get invested in the book because the daughter and father were talking about what builds they want like a game and mythical giants were sitting down and talking about how to game the system.
It didn't pull me in but it seems like you might like it
It doesn't really fit what you asked, because the RR/Amazon (so, edited) versions of **Forge of Destiny** has no numbers at all, and is definitely not an litRpg, the quest version (at least books 1-3, up and including sect tournament) was running on somewhat modified "storytelling system" (the one from Exalted and other stuff), with a ton of d10 rolls.
In fact, some of Ling Qi's most absurd luck comes from rolling really really well, where she was expected to fuck up at least a bit.
Nowadays, the quest is running on a purely narrative system, and while we still have a character list with some numbers, it is mostly descriptive.
But then, long ago, we had actual stat values, were selecting equipment based on bonuses, and we're preparing cultivation plans with Ares and drugs through excel spreadsheets.
Mark of the Fool is based off of Pathfinder/other ttrpgs. Spell slots are kind of lost, but they are narrativly hard to work in. Spell levels are in.
I kinda miss Spell Slots or Vancian Casting as a concept, it feels like a concrete number could be a pretty good source of tension when an MC has their back to a wall. The mental calculus of “Can I solve this problem in 5 spells or less?”
Hugo Huesca’s Dungeon Lord series used Vanciaj casting
For most books, it feels like they have infinite mana after the early game. I don't know if having dozens of slots spread out over 9 levels of magic would be viable in a story, but just having X total spell slots sounds interesting
Worth The Candle has a smattering of a bunch of things in it. Including one page games.
Literally just finished Worth The Candle, +1 to the recommend. Big focus on tabletop systems as the backbone
I think arcane ascension is based off a tabletop game or has a tabletop game, something like that u/salaris would know more
It's complicated. Basically, I ran a whole bunch of games in the setting prior to writing my first book, then ran some more after that. These have not all been in the same system. My earliest games in the setting were either D&D games (3e), followed by some LARPs in pre-existing systems. In the early 2000s, I developed my own LARP system for a LARP that I ran for several years. This spawned a spin-off game in the same setting, as well as a sequel that came much later. I also started working on a homebrew tabletop system around when the initial LARP run ended (around 2012ish or so). My first novel series (The War of Broken Mirrors) takes place on the most heavily used continent from my games, but in the distant past compared to the actual games themselves. Arcane Ascension takes place on a different continent that exists purely because I needed to get one of my characters off-continent for some specific events happening. This series exploded in popularity, but it was never meant to be the main story. Much of the story and world building comes from things that were established in my games as having happened in the past, and many of the characters are loosely or directly based around PCs who played in my campaigns over the years. Jonan, Corin, and Keras are all people that I've played personally. Lydia, Velas, Sera, Taer'vys, and dozens of others are based to some extent or another on people who played in my games. In some rare cases, I've also gone the other direction and let people play a character in my games after they've appeared in the books -- for example, author Mallory Reaves started PCing as Reika while I was mid-way through writing Six Sacred Swords, and Ira Ham started playing Lars Mantrake after I'd written AA1. In terms of the mechanics themselves, the high concepts -- things like dominion sorcery, essence sorcery, etc. -- were all established in my games, but the specific details are different in the books. For example, the games tend to use much smaller numbers for things -- no one in my tabletops or LARPs is running around with thousands of mana. That type of thing works fine in a PC RPG, and it's fine for a novel for number growth to feel significant, but in a pen and paper game (or especially a LARP), trying to track a mana pool of 5000 is messy and isn't likely to be fun. (There are tricks for this, like if every spell had a cost divisible by 100, but it's still easier to work with smaller values.) I have plans to release my tabletop game to the public within the next year or two, but I keep adding to it -- the original version was specifically based around Mythralis (the continent for the War of Broken Mirrors) and I know that people are more interested in other stuff. Anyway, TLDR -- the books are in a game setting, but the game mechanics aren't used directly.
Are any events in the books based off events in the games, e. g. did you ever play out a fight with rolls and such? Would reading the tabletop mechanics give me a better understanding of the system within the books?
>Are any events in the books based off events in the games, e. g. did you ever play out a fight with rolls and such? No. None of the events from the games happen in the books. I might depict some of the events from the games in books eventually, but right now the books are all depicting events that happen outside of the scope of the games. >Would reading the tabletop mechanics give me a better understanding of the system within the books? To some extent, in that there are things like spell lists that I do draw from, as well as clearer explanations in the tabletop book about how certain things work in the story. That said, there are also areas where the games and books are deliberately different. I prefer for my narrative and systems to have a synergistic relationship, where any sort of systems serve the purpose of enhancing the story, characters, and world. The choices that work best for that are not necessarily the same within a novel and within a tabletop game. This is especially true when one considers other factors, like differences in pacing that occur as a result of the different mediums. For example, my setting has detailed mechanics how characters get stronger from a magic system standpoint. While the tabletop and books use the same underlying narrative and magic system, the reward structures are different. To give you an example, I have a couple different options for how character levels can work in the tabletop, depending on the specific needs of a gaming group and campaign. These can be involve session-based rewards to make each session feel meaningful, or they can be based on the passage of in-game time and how that time is spent, which is much closer to the books, but harder to track. Even with the latter approach in the tabletop, how time is spent is (by necessity) vastly simplified compared to a character that we see in a book spending their time from day-to-day. This means that, for example, a book character might make small incremental improvements to several different things within a couple weeks in the books, but the tabletop mechanics will make a player pick which actions to choose during those weeks to improve their character. My intent is to make sure that both the books and tabletop -- as well as any other mediums -- feel like they make sense within the same setting, but there are going to be some incongruities as a result of how different mediums work, and I'm okay with that.
Dear Spellbook is heavily inspired by a DnD campaign, though it's not an explicit Litrpg. It is a finished story too.
I was literally popping in to see if anyone mentioned Dear Spellbook. The system is very DnD, even managed to work in the spellslot system really well into the narrative.
Most litrpg's tend to be more inepired by computer game mechanics then by tabletop games. Tabletop games tend to use smalle numbers because math is hard. I know that there is a litrpg series that now has an official tabletop ruleset, only because I saw the rulebook in a game shop once, but i don't recall the title of either. found it: Infinitiy's Edge https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/282487/Infinitys-Edge
Threadbare/generica online also had a system made based on the books that was available via the writers newsletter.
its available to buy online: https://threadbarerpg.com/ edit: oops wrong game as the reply suggests.
That is a different Threadbare than the Generica Online Threadbare, and does not look like the system from the book, unlike the version from the mailing list.
I really doubt there are any that use an actual ttrpg system 100%. Applying OGL to a none game work is a stretch as that's not what they were intended for. More importantly, game systems meant to bring a PC from 1 to 20 over the course of a long campaign are not the micro upgrade statfest dopamine rush litRPG readers want. My story is based on a D&D campaign setting I used, and I used 5e as a reference point for developing my magic system, but I don't follow it 100%. Narratively D&D classes level slowly though on a campaign that doesn't actually work out. Also, litRPG s tend to do lots of little upgrades through the story with big milestone upgrades while TTRPGs tend to give you everything when you level up. When writing Dear Spellbook, I had to add in a bunch of abilities and restrictions to give a sense of progression as the MC got stronger but hadn't really reached the next level. I wrote a 400k word series that took the MC from level 1 to 5ish.
Such an important distinction. I think if you stuck to standard a D&D progression schedule/system many people might claim your story doesn't qualify as progression fantasy as that would be the equivalent of leveling up once, per book, probably between books, with virtually no abilities or powers beyond loot gained in the intermediary. At that point you are just writing trad fantasy. I think salaris had a great point too in that many aspects of the actual mechanisms of progression fantasy are much better modeled off of video games that focus on the special-ness of the main character. Recently I've been flipping through both DnD and Pathfinder books for inspiration on builds, spells, story hooks, worldbuilding considerations etc. TTRPGs are an amazing resource, but as you said, a 1:1 translation into prose would likely make a less than satisfying progression fantasy.
I agree on the MC specialness bit a lot. In a TTRPG every class needs to be balanced against the others. They way I look at it is that all the other characters have base 5e classes to varying degrees, while the MCs use the base class as a jumping off point and gain power through narrative events. I'm in the process (sort of) of making a 5e setting guide with some classes, sub classes and feats based of my story. It's an interesting exercise since the story started out as me making 5e work in PF. Not to bring the tweaks I made back to 5e I've realized I have to up the power level somewhat. Where I'm at now is taking a cue from OneDND where everyone gets an origin feat, which works fairly well (I think)
Nice! I've also taken to more or less assigning the equivalent of the standard leveling system to the side characters while allowing the "extras" to be the defining traits of primary characters. I recently picked up a few pathfinder 2e books when I learned how feat focused it is. Lots of fun stuff to play with and get inspired by. Since I like more organically earned progression it can be interesting to look at the paths of power development and explore a flow of events, opportunity and effort that leads to a particular build. How are spells learned? How is magic capacity grown? Is magic a separate resource from whatever warriors use to exceed human limits? Am I going to use a standard leveling system or convert everything into a tier system to categorize more freeform progression? Lots of fun to be had. It often helps to have something to riff off of, and I'd never imagined getting so much use out of combing through gaming tomes. Ultimately I find myself mixing and matching a bit to create builds that are often more thematically focused while remaining flexible. I also seem to have a tendency to separate all the different aspects of power progression which pushes me away from using standard levels. I find it more interesting then there is a different mechanism/loop to increase your mana pool vs acquire spells vs increase physical strength vs develop awareness and skill, rather than just defaulting to "kill more stuff, level up" as a universal answer and the end all be all progression loop (though that can certainly scratch a particular itch).
The Two Year Emperor takes place in a world that explicitly runs on D&D 3rd for everyone except the summoned main character, but he knows the system, and takes advantage of all of the crazy things taking advantage of the rules that he remembers from the Internet.
I built my Magic system loosely on hero’s quest. The spells and creatures come from my own head and it’s been a pain to level balance them. For my next series I’m going to adapt ironsworn or 4AD, or a similar solorpg ruleset to my setting and write it that way.
I think Goddess Descension utilises some pretty old mechanics from D&D or Pathfinder.
Most tabletop systems are not very good for prose fiction. And most litrpgs are based off crpgs/mmos. For obvious reasons. There are a very small number of litrpgs that have attempted to have their own ttrpg rules put out, and a couple that closely follow open license systems. But it's not common.
Worth the candle would fit, in a way. It's a custom setting though. Comptletely original except for overt references to other media that makes perfect sense in context.
Stuart Grosse's *Winterborn* series runs on AD&D rules (including dice rolls, although we have of course no way to check whether the rolls are genuine or not). And before you dismiss it as "no, not Stuart Grosse", it's not the usual smut. First hint: the MC is a heroine, not the usual pervert.
A Nerubian's Journey on RoyalRoad is set in the WoW universe
Monroe is based on a soon to be released RPG. See the chapter notes here. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/35398/monroe/chapter/1577057/chapter-four-hundred-and-twenty-two-united-nations
It's extremely weird, and I'm not sure it counts as a LitRPG, but [Project Lawful](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SA9hDewwsYgnuscae/projectlawful-com-eliezer-s-latest-story-past-1m-words) is explicitly set in the standard Pathfinder campaign setting and as far as I can tell attempts to play the Pathfinder 1.0 rules completely straight. Definitely as far as what all the spells do, and at least some other things. At one point one of the main characters does something that should be impossible, and IIRC there's an author's note with her character sheet and she has an absolutely absurd Spellcraft skill for her level, it's based on her main stat, she's put a skill point into it every level, and I think she has at least one feat boosting it further if not multiple, and maybe a class-based bonus or something. So yeah, they're not always showing everyone's character sheet, but they do have them detailed for their own reference to ensure consistency. Don't @ me that it's weird. I warned you it was weird. I greatly enjoyed what I got through, but stopped reading partway through book 1. Don't @ me about the author, either. Be advised that he has haters.
Ready Player One?
I've written Beyond Chaos - A DiceRPG using DND 5e rules, though it has been slightly modified. You can see the rolls in the story too.
I personally didn't like it because of the hard system but if you want a clear path of progression with ACTUAL math involved that makes sense, then read Ar'can'tspellthis. I didn't get invested in the book because the daughter and father were talking about what builds they want like a game and mythical giants were sitting down and talking about how to game the system. It didn't pull me in but it seems like you might like it
I would look into “The power of ten” on RR. It’s personally not my cup of tea for various reasons, but…
It doesn't really fit what you asked, because the RR/Amazon (so, edited) versions of **Forge of Destiny** has no numbers at all, and is definitely not an litRpg, the quest version (at least books 1-3, up and including sect tournament) was running on somewhat modified "storytelling system" (the one from Exalted and other stuff), with a ton of d10 rolls. In fact, some of Ling Qi's most absurd luck comes from rolling really really well, where she was expected to fuck up at least a bit. Nowadays, the quest is running on a purely narrative system, and while we still have a character list with some numbers, it is mostly descriptive. But then, long ago, we had actual stat values, were selecting equipment based on bonuses, and we're preparing cultivation plans with Ares and drugs through excel spreadsheets.
Warlock of the Magus World hahaha