LitRPG (meaning "literary roleplaying game") is a genre of fiction (including novels, comics, etc– not specifically games; usually a subgenre of fantasy) in which the characters have literal RPG-style stats and abilities that they are explicitly aware of in-universe. For example, a character might say, "She's level 80 and I'm only level 10!" or refer to a dice roll without it being meta, breaking the fourth wall, or seeming out of place– it's how the world works in-universe.
What is your general opinion of the "LitRPG" fiction genre?
Never heard of it, sounds cool
Never heard of it, I don't think I would like that
I've heard of this and I'm interested, but haven't tried any yet
I've heard of this and I don't think I would like them, so I haven't tried
I love LitRPGs
I like MOST LitRPGs, but not all
I like SOME LitRPGs, but I dislike/don't enjoy most of them
I've tried reading/etc some LitRPGs and disliked all the ones I tried
I don't like fantasy in general, so I have no opinion about specifically LitRPGs
Other nuanced POSITIVE feelings
Other nuanced NEGATIVE feelings
Voting ended onMay 23, 2025
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you should read 1 Over X if you like horror/really strong prose/strong themes/general high quality writing. bavitz is an author who's almost never gone wrong for me and this is a straight banger already---get on the train while its still going
it's about X the everything app, and also about schizophrenia, and about horror (the genre), and about horror (the feeling), and about alchemy, and pumpkins
it's one of the most claustrophobic things i can remember reading and the character dynamics are as strong as theyve ever been in a work by bavitz.
bavitz loves to create mirrors and foils, characters with an absurd amount of parallels to each other, positioning everything in these thin rickety structures and then tapping at their bases until they all fall down and blend together; he likes to look at you as an author and ask you to think about the work. rare is the didactic bavitz work
1 Over X works this theme of mirrors parallels symmetries into the work itself; 1 Over X is about 1 Over X (the book inside the book) but it is also about 1 Over X by Bavitz himself. ive had genuine moments where ive questioned what is actually part of the work, on what level its reality is 'real;' the mixing of reality and fantasy common to Bavitz's pieces takes on a different and altogether more horrific hue in this light as you suddenly become never quite sure what is actually real, what is happening; it is about itself in such a very interesting way and i think everyone who's a fan of good stuff in general should take a look (at it or at the rest of his catalogue)
IT'S LIVE. Tenebrist: The Cut is up on Royal Road.
His magic charges him for every cast, and only half of it shows up on the sheet.
Corin Hale is a Tenebrist, which isn't a rare gift so much as a filing problem. His darkness reaches, closes, and drinks whatever it finds: warmth, light, and then the rest of it. Other mages watch him work once and afterward stand a little further away. The guild pays him eight silver a day to kill vermin in stairwells and doesn't pretend that's a career.
He'd take it forever if the job were the problem. It isn't. The man who raised him and taught him to cast is on record at floor fifty-one, and fifty-one sits behind a rank he won't legally hold for sixty years of the only work anyone will hire him for.
So he grinds. Contracts by depth, not by pay. Costs down, level up, one number at a time, with three people who should know better walking beside him.
The numbers are going up. Something else is going down, and nobody's counting it.
Floor-based mega dungeon, crunchy LitRPG systems, a found family that actually earns its dynamics, and a slow burn queer romance simmering underneath a story that owes more to Frieren and Dungeon Meshi than to your average tower climb. Not isekai. Just a guy trying to grind his way to the one place that might have answers, in a world that keeps telling him no.
Read it here:
His magic charges him for every cast, and only half of it shows up on the sheet.
Corin Hale is a Tenebrist, which isn't a rare gift so much
this is your reminder that book 2 of Stardust, my sci-fi-horror web serial, has finally begun—with a stunning new cover by @saturnine-saturneight
⚠️ contains mature/triggering content
⚠️ uses color-coded text that may not be fully screenreader-accessible
🔗 full trigger warnings on the front page of readstardust.com
In a near-future, post-alien-invasion United States, July—a psychotic bisexual soldier—and Cas—a sardonic, pretentious tactician—have spent their youth underground, raised by a conservative paramilitary group in the barricaded ruins of NYC’s subway tunnels.
When a spaceship crashes in Jersey, they cross paths with Aston and Sage—key players in the Dusty invasion—and join forces in a doomed attempt to assassinate President Remus Taner.
Once the assassination fails, all four are plunged into a hellish nightmare where the line between reality and dreaming blurs to the point of no return, politics intertwine with what can only be described as magic, and the stardust that chokes their atmosphere seems to have more significance than they knew.
At the center of it all is June—July’s twin sister, presumed dead, now reappearing under the guardianship of the Secretary of State. She wants her sister back. By any means necessary.
you might like Stardust if:
you like complex narratives, metafiction, and color-coding such as in Homestuck;
you liked Ender's Game and Battlestar Galactica, but feel weird about that because of how pro-military they are;
your brain chemistry was changed by the dream logic, emotional surrealism, and gendered anxieties that make up Revolutionary Girl Utena;
you really liked the first season of Arcane but are very mad about the second;
you are a trans person who's into the whole "sisterkissing" trend.
it's free. it's weird. it's extremely uncomfortable. there's an intense fixation on holes. everyone is trans. there's spaceships made of meat. a lesbian commits atrocities. multiple lesbians, to be honest, and multiple atrocities.
give it a try. what's the worst that could happen? :)
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The arrival of their latest customer was marked by the chime of the door bell and the sudden whiff of whiskey underneath the other, manufactured scents. Warm oils, clean fabric, soft resin and something crisp that was absolutely stuck in her oversensitive nose. She turned from her barstool behind the checkout counter to look at Reggie, but he was already getting up. The ol’ bag of bones put his book down, patted his name tag back on, and shuffled off down one of the aisles and towards the door.
The sound of Reggie’s goofy, “Welcome to General Oddities, always leave with what you need,” and another man’s voice filled her ears as she tried to ignore them, concentrating on her new… distraction. She looked down at the small gadget in her hands and the cute, tiny monsters on the screen and tried to focus on them. It felt odd, holding something considered taboo back home, but she was having fun. If only she could figure out why the image behind the glass kept turning black. She squinted at the reflection her crimson eyes made on the “screen”, or whatever it was called.
The creak of Reggie’s joints drew closer as she tried again. Go little lizard, go! Eventually, she heard the customer say, “Look, buddy, your getup’s cool and all but Halloween ain’t even close.” Carmi did her best not to snort at the thought of someone calling Reggie’s body a costume. The guy continued, “I just need… something to help me sleep, alright?” He doubled down, “I’ve slept like garbage the past week. A few pills tonight and I’ll be good as new.”
The words came out thick and heavy, like he and his tongue weren’t quite in sync. His wrinkled white shirt had a light brown stain and navy patches with golden stripes on the shoulders. The shirt was untucked, his hair disheveled, and it looked like he’d gotten in a fight with his tie and just barely won. Carmi idly wondered why Reggie didn’t just take this fool to the medication aisle and get him out of here, but said nothing. Drunkards rarely lived long where she came from.
She watched Reggie put his hands up. “I know for a fact we don’t have any. Fresh out, sold to the last customer before you.” He was either fibbing or the store had actually magicked the aisle away. Probably the latter; she’d yet to hear Reggie actually lie. He continued, “I’m sure we can find you something more… comforting, but help me help you. What’s going on?”
The man's shoulders dropped, like he'd been waiting for someone to ask. Then he hesitated, jaw working like the words might cost him something to say. He swallowed and pushed through it. Apparently, he flew a lot for work, so his wife was alone often. And whenever he went home, he'd noticed signs that his best friend had been there. A forgotten jacket, a fixed sink. Stuff like that. Last time, he had noticed boxers that weren't his. Carmi was still stuck on how he could fly; was he a wizard? She didn’t have time to dwell on it further, because he continued, "And now, I'm pretty sure they're cheating! My wife! With my best friend!"
He sniffled as Reggie patted him on the back. Carmi tried not to look at him, focusing on her game. Imagine having the luxury of being so upset about something you don’t even know for sure. Just go talk to her already, idiot.
Clearly, Reggie was on the same page, albeit a more gentle revision. “It sounds like you need to talk to your wife.”
The man scoffed. “How often do cheaters just up and confess when you confront them?”
Reggie paused for a moment, as if weighing something in his mind. “What about if I could guarantee you only heard real things?”
“Huh?”
“Use our store phone. It’s a Phone of Truth: you'll never hear a lie through this baby.” That was news to her, not that she’d ever answered the phone before. Reggie bobbed his head up and down as if this was the obvious course of action.
The guy looked skeptical, to say the least. Her senior offered to prove it; Reggie took a small device from the man and called the store, gesturing for the man to pick it up. He then walked away, towards the door, as he said, “You’re in a store named ‘General Oddities’ right now,” into the thing that was, apparently, also a phone. Everything here was a phone. Reggie covered one end of it and shouted back, “You got that, right?”
The man nodded before Reggie walked out of sight, towards the front window. She heard through the machine the man was holding, “The color of the sky is today and full of .”
The man answered back, “Wait, what? I couldn’t hear the color or what it’s full of.” There was a continuous, annoying, buzzing noise coming from the receiver now. He put it back on its resting place as Reggie came back to the front desk and said, “Exactly. I said it was green, and full of meatballs. You didn’t hear the lies.”
Their customer nodded again, standing up straight as he squared his shoulders and hovered his hand over the phone once more. He glanced at Carmi before his gaze lingered on Reggie. “May I?”
She watched her coworker tilt his skull and wait. The man dialed, and after just two or three rings, someone picked up. It was a little awkward listening to the single side of the conversation and she really did try at first to mind her own business. But being stuck inside the shop all the time meant that this was the most interesting thing that had happened all shift. Reggie was nice and all, but could be pretty quiet. Carmi tuned in again at the good part, just as the man asked, “How are things between you and Brodie? He came over last time I was away to fix the sink, right?"
What his wife said, she couldn’t hear it. Dumb machine should have had a speaker in it or something. But the man looked a little… hurt? He replied, "I know... I know, I have been gone a lot. Too much. And I understand you can get lonely; I'm sorry." Nope, he feels bad.
He paused for a moment, holding his breath before he added, “I just… Sometimes I worry. About the way he, you know, looks at you.”
This time, Carmi could hear a laugh like a wind chime on the other end. Color returned to the man’s face as he gave a small smile. “Yeah, yeah. I know he’s like a brother to you. I guess I just miss you is all.”
She stopped listening; the rest of it was boring, older couple missing each other and catching up stuff. A strand of her black hair, refusing to stay tucked behind her ear, was frankly more interesting than the end of that.
Eventually, the guy grabbed an iced coffee, paid more than enough for it, and left looking much better than when he’d come in. He thanked them on the way out and even told her, “Nice contacts, by the way. Very sharp.” What’s a contact, she hadn’t touched him, had she? And why did she have more than one?
Carmi sat there pondering how odd their customers could be for a few moments. Invariably, her mind wandered back to the thought that life was too simple here. Too easy. And did she even deserve that? Before she came here, she would have killed for something as mundane as a marital problem. To have someone in her life who cared about her like that at all. She sat with that thought for another moment before she shuddered, realizing what she had thought. Maimed. Just maimed. Never killed.
It felt like he’d only been gone for ten minutes, not that she could tell for sure with their dumb clock with no numbers on it. The shop started to shift under her feet; this part, she was still getting used to. It was hard to describe what was happening; it was like some mix of it spinning or spiraling or maybe even folding in on itself? However it worked, it still made her a bit queasy. Reggie assured her she’d get used to it.
It had been nighttime outside when the man had left, but when she looked out the side window that had just appeared, it was clearly the middle of a day. No sooner had her stomach settled than she heard the sound of the door bell once more. The soft scent of cherry blossoms filled the air.
She felt a bony elbow gently nudge her side. Carmi groaned as Reggie said, “Your turn. Go get ‘em, tiger.”
I just posted a new original webnovel, two chapters in. Please consider reading and adding to your subscribe list!
I Will Find You - Evan Taylor has been in foster care most of his life. A few years ago he was separated from the person who meant the most to him. Ciaran Quinn was taken back by the man who had abandoned him to the system when his mother first died in the car accident where Ciaran got a brain injury, and Evan hasn't been able to talk to him since he went into Julien's custody. What's more, Ciaran is being paraded around on TV along with all of Julien's other sports stars and Evan can tell something is seriously wrong. Evan is determined to get to the bottom of what the hell has happened to his best friend, and get him to safety no matter the cost.
This story will involve some heavy child abuse as themes. The majority of the story will be set in college though. Ciaran has some lingering issues resulting from the brain injury, including predominantly using sign language!
