Maybe it's just the kind I read, but it feels like every one of these books I read is about consuming the enemies essence into powering themselves. Not like XP or such as that's expected, but like. Beastborne, Ultimate Level 1, and Unbound just to name a Few. They're good, and different enough to make them separate from eachother, but it's a weird trend I've caught. also the unmentionable trend of "opposing enemies leagues above them but SOMEHOW barely coming out alive". can't we get a regular ole nobody working their way up in entirely believable ways?

Wowza. Love all 3! How exciting!

Wassup to everybody reading this post! I’m a new writer working through my first draft and posting to royal road in hopes of building an audience for my story. My inspirations range from Stormlight archive to Solo leveling to Berserk and I aim to be a writer that tells action packed yet character driven stories.

Blurb:

When dimensional vortexes first tore through our reality, humanity's awakened defenders—the Radiants—stood as beacons of hope against the waves of darkness that came from beyond. But after five years of endless combat, those beacons have begun to dim. In Atlanta, Jelani Von watches powerlessly as rogue Radiants carve up his city's streets, their unchecked mystical powers reducing whole neighborhoods to battlegrounds.

With each passing day, the line between protectors and oppressors blur further, and Jelani's chances of survival grow slimmer. So when an otherworldly entity offers him the chance to seize power beyond imagination, Jelani faces the question that's haunted him since his brother's murder: in a world where power corrupts absolutely, can the right person with the right intentions change everything—or is he just the next tyrant in training?

The first 7 chapters are posted and I’d really appreciate any constructive criticism!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/97049/rise-of-the-warlock

I am looking for a story primarily about a merchant that sells stuff. Kinda like some of DM Rhodes stuff. It would be really cool of there was something similar to commerce emperor. Please and thank you!

Hi all.

I've been LitRPG-curious for a few years now but never really found a route in beyond reading Ready Player One and having One Word Kill perpetually on my to-read list. I think I have some (probably unfair) preconceptions that put me off diving into the genre.

My likes:

• Print or audio format
• Oldschool MMO culture
• Female-led stories, particularly angry young women fighting the system
• Mark Lawrence

My dislikes:

• Male power fantasies
• Most alt-universe isekai

Would ready appreciate a couple of recommendations along those lines. Thanks! :)

Thinking about adding the “defiance of the fall” audible book series to my library, but I’d like some review before I commit? Lay it on me, the good and the bad please.

For reference my current library contains; Expeditionary force series Dungeon crawler Carl series The expanse series Heretical fishing series Buymort series

Hey, recently played final fantasy 16 and it awoke something within me for op monsters lol.

Just to clarify, im talking about MC who can transform into a monster, not become one.

Preferably male MC, but if the story is cool enough I dont really care. No gay MC plz, gay side/support characters are fine tho (nothing against LGBTQs irl, just makes me uncomfortable in stories as MCs).

That is all, thx for any recs🙏

Spoilers for book 4

So what predictions do you all have? Let’s beat these up

• Micheal will have to either become (basically second timeline version) or partner with the Vile King
• Vile King will save Shen from Jay Sol Agent (titled deity coming for him) because Micheal will fail or be unable to help him
• Micheal and Serena will flirt for a long time before getting together and he’ll be super angsty about it
• Sophie is still going to end up as demon fairy, but Shen will pull her back from the brink
• Michael will get a few more Traits and it’ll be like 10 books before he gets a Title. Hard to guess what at this time maybe something as simple as ‘Hero’ where he can summon any human to fight with him, even those that have died (kinda like his life orbs)

What all do you think?

I'm deep into the Litrpg Genre with over 1000 owed titles and thousands of hours on Audible and Kindle Unlimited. Recently, within the last year, I've been running into a completion problem ( not that type of problem ;).

I've listen to several series recently where I get to book 3 or 4 and I lose interest in the story. There are some series that I don't have this problem with, but it seems that with the majority of series I suffer from this problem. I can name a bunch:

• Shields of Strathmar
• Welcome to the Multiverse
• Mistrunner
• Speedrunning the Multiverse
• Arise
• Grand Game
• Noobtown
• Tower Apocalypse
• Rise of the Devourer
• Slumrat Rising
• Beastborne
• Awakening the Angel System

There many more. Part of the issue is getting into the grove again after waiting for the next book in the series to publish. I forget what happens and when I start a series I get into a listening grove that's easy to continue, but hard to restart. Part of the issue is boredom.

I'm not sure what to do. Some will say that it's perfectly normal to get bored with series and drop them. Some will suggest that I write stuff down ( I will not be consistent with that). Some will say that I should do a book fast so that I get excited for them in general which will carry over to a particular series.

I was curious what your strategies were for coping with Series fatigue. This community has been so great. and I trust your judgment. I really want to get excited again for a new book in a series I love.

Thanks!

just something that is really damn good, good story, good power system, ect. but might not be the main topic of conversation alot in this subreddit or anywhere else. so im not talking about hwfwm, dungeon crawler carl, wandering inn, ect. i wanna read more but most of the ones i find i've already read/listened to, or are just really bad

One question I've had for a long time, why do various Systems only care about the beings in them, and not what they built? Like, plop down half a dozen houses somewhere and have a bunch of people move in, and the system goes "Congraulations! Level 1 town founded! Please elect a mayor." And then the mayor gets a new interface, and they can use it to designate a place for a mill to be built. Once the mill is built, they can assign a Miller role to someone who gets system enhanced milling abilities based on the town's level and stats, as long as they work as a Miller in that town. Build up your town enough with guardhouses and stuff and everyone with the Town Guard role effectively is level 10 or something as long as they are acting like a proper town guard. (If they are a higher level in an appropriate class then the role gives a buff rather than levels.) The guard captain is stronger than the guards because he is the guard captain, he's not the captain because he's stronger than the guards, yanno?

Have town, county, kingdom, heck even empire perks and abilities (chosen by the current ruler) so a knight working for a long standing kingdom is more potent than a random wanderer.

PS. If you feel like you wanna use this in your story in some way, please tell me about it, I wanna read it.

I am looking for mage focus story and this one got my attention, but in its cover i saw a sword and that made hesitate to start. There is a lot of novels that i started to read and thought it was a mage focus story, but in battles they use a fisical weapon.

Sorry for my english.

Does the protagonist ever properly defend himself against people trying to kill or will he continue running throughout the whole series? Started reading this for "OP MC" but dude hasn't fought anything but monsters and when he does butt heads with other humans he is always on the losing side. Real tired of that shit. He the type of person to get stabbed then forgive his attacker 2 min laters. Does this continue in book 3? Pretty sure he could kill people by luring monster to them when outside the city so "he is a healer" is just a stupid excuse.

Man, someone recommended Hollow by Travis Bagwell, but I can’t stand the narrators upward inflections and all around speaking style. It’s driving me insane. Did anyone else listen to the book? Is it worth pushing through on audible?

In alot of series the system is this ancient thing that never changes. Defiance of the Fall and Monroe are the only ones that have the system update it self. Is there any more?

If I am clicking on an image advertisement, because it looks like a potentially interesting setting, I have no knowledge of your story yet.

Please do not dump me in Chapter 1. Let me read the story summary first, on the landing page.

If you could select any 3 starter skills for a new MC in a typical sword/sorcery world, what would they be?

Restrictions

• All skills start off as the lowest rank and are thus the weakest version
• Each skill can do only one thing (i.e. Strength or Durability, not both in one)
• Each skill must be Active or Passive in use
  • Active skills are limited use via stamina or mana resource depletion
  • Passive skills are weaker in effect than active skills of the same rank

Guarantee

• All Skills are Growth Skills that rank-up over time through use
• The MC may obtain new Skills later, but new Skills will not be Growth Skills
• The MC may obtain knowledge and abilities that are not Skill related

Ranking Progression: F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, and SSS

What skills would you select? Would the skill be active or passive? Why do you feel it fits what you feel an F rank skill should be and how would the MC take advantage of these skills if that isn't glaringly obvious?

Assume the MC can make his own destiny. He can go a combat heavy route, become a craftsman, merchant, explorer, scholar or anything else. Skill selection will determine what type of life the MC enjoys rather than future problems dictating skill selection.

This page is aimed to help users find new litrpg content on a month-to-month basis by constructing a list of new releases. This post will be updated based on multiple sources, like reddit, discord and other locations. This page is not meant to replace promotional posts like on reddit but to make it easier for users to find them.

The title should bring you to the relevant Reddit posting (if any) for comments, while the link column should bring you to the relevant content.

This page contains exclusively litRPG, or adjacent content. Progression fantasy or cultivation without any gamelit elements are not included.

Promoted Webseries are included only once every five months. If your Webseries does not include a significant number of chapters or pages at the time of promotion, I might delay inclusion until it does.

If you missed all the content from October that was added at the last moment, there were 83 ebook releases, 58 audiobooks, 3 promoted webseries, 7 novella-sized releases and 9 omnibus releases of series.

Note: Some entries for October may have been noticed later, in which case they are included on top of this month's list.

Here's what the new month brings you!

Ebooks:

Audiobooks:

Pre-orders:

This week, we interview the fantastic X-RHODEN-X from The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop, and recommend brand new stories that are taking off.

Weekly Recommendations - FALL into these stories

Interview with X-RHODEN-X from The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop

X-RHODEN-X’s The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop is an absolutely top-notch, addictive time loop LitRPG following Orodan, who starts as a simple hardworking militia member for his country, and ascends to greatness with the most important power of them all, willpower. This story has caused me to lose sleep for the past week. I literally cannot sing it’s praises enough, and if you are unsure about reading a time loop story, give this one a try. Fair warning, you won’t be able to stop reading once you start. I’d recommend having some food on hand like pizza or tenders. Thankfully, I had thanksgiving leftovers (Canadian Thanksgiving, I am not a time traveler), because all I did in my free time was read this story. Link here.

Hello Rhoden! Really appreciate you agreeing to this interview. Obviously I’ve been enjoying the heck out of your story. Just to get the gears going, can you tell me how you planned out your story, and how it came to be? Did you make a conscious effort to write an addictive story? Long chapters but they still kept me reading and reading. It’s a great mashup of some of the main genres in the space, and I would love to know your thought process when planning. As far as I can tell, this is your first story on Royal Road. How did you stumble onto LitRPG and Royal Road and what prompted you to start publishing there? Have you written in a professional capacity before? Can you tell me a bit about your writing process? What’s your schedule like?

Heyo! Thanks for having me! And I’m flattered to hear you stayed up that long reading my work! Boy, where to start? I suppose I can talk a little bit about how I came up with the idea of ‘The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop’.

I’ve always liked the concept of time loop stories especially since reading Mother of Learning. Not from Royal Road mind you, but the older days when it was being released chapter by chapter on FictionPress. From that time, I had the idea in mind that I wanted to do a time loop story myself, but alas, I was a kid in high school who didn’t have the time. Over the years I watched films about time loops, read other fantastic time loop stories like the Perfect Run and watched anime like Re: Zero. But something was missing… there was a void in my heart. The parts of Mother of Learning that I really liked were when Zorian was focusing on mastering his basic magic missile spell to the absolute limit until it finally became an invisible projectile due to his masterful shaping skills. Or when he honed his mind magic to limits no other human mind mage had reached.

What I really craved, was power progression. And while there’ve been some excellent time loop protagonists in recent years, I felt that there was a void yet to be filled. The issue was that people in a time loop often fall victim to fatigue, mental stress and the gradual accrual of trauma over the horrible things that happen to them. The question I sought to answer then was a simple one. What if, instead of a normal, even talented, person… we instead threw a madman with no sense of self-preservation into a time loop?

A character who in a regular adventure would be the first reckless soldier to die charging the enemy army himself. A person who had an obsession with fighting bordering on unhealthy. A warrior who simply ignored the notions of trauma, stress and fatigue? From there, came the concept of Orodan Wainwright; the militia man from humble beginnings who finds himself in a time loop.

When it comes to consciously trying to make it addicting, I honestly try not to focus on that too much. Rather, I have a basic tenet I follow, which is: the story should be what’s advertised on the tin. When people read ‘The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop’ they aren’t about to read a romance novel. Consequently, I naturally tend to gravitate towards the sort of epic writing and crunchy number gains that people might like to see. Not because I’m consciously trying to make it addicting, but because I try to keep the story and its direction focused and faithful to Orodan, this stubborn man in a time loop who enjoys grinding skills.

In terms of planning, I started writing as a hobby, and the early chapters experienced a little less planning and foresight than the later chapters now do. Particularly since I wasn’t expecting for it to gain the popularity that it did. Still, nowadays the release frequency has slowed down a bit, mainly because a decent portion of my writing time consists of charting skill level increases, plot points, character arcs and world building while deciding how they should all fit into scenes which are part of a narrative.

As for myself, I got introduced to LitRPG by reading stories on Royal Road such as the Arcane Emperor (by Aternus) and The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound by puddles4263 (aka Noret Flood). I actually posted my very first chapters to Scribble Hub! Royal Road came after once I had roughly 80,000 words written and took a gamble wondering if a larger audience would like my stuff. As I’ve come to learn, people did like it, much to my astonishment. Especially since I’ve never written in a professional capacity before. Before this, the most I had were a few poorly written fanfictions… and the less we speak of those the better!

I work a full-time day job that I quite enjoy, so this tends to take up a decent chunk of my time. Even then, I try to write for at least three hours a day, and on my days off I’ll spend upwards of twelve hours writing. The process mainly involves two separate windows open. One with the Status and skills, the other with the chapter-in-progress, with perhaps a third window containing plot points and worldbuilding if I forget anything.

One thing I’ve really appreciated about your story is the magic system. It starts off and remains easy to follow, while allowing for a ton of flavor and growth as you get deeper into the story. What went into your magic system? When you were planning it out, did you want to keep things straightforward, and allow for the scales of power to be introduced with the plot? What are some of the magic systems in other stories that you’ve enjoyed? Do you have any recommendations for Authors in creating their own?

Honestly, I like to follow the philosophy of keeping things simple and expanding from familiar ground. When I started Stubborn Skill-Grinder, the idea was to have a world where power and success are categorized by skill levels, their rarity and tiers at certain thresholds. Stats and dungeons felt a little bloated to me, and they begin to get meaningless or introduce contradictions as time goes on. To that end, the simple focus on skill levels makes life and my writing a lot easier. I’ve always wanted to start slow, retain that basic perspective of the low levels and then slowly introduce the readers to more as time goes on. As an example: people in Ogdenborough, Orodan’s home town, treat even those with a skill level of 50 (Adepts) as walking gods. Most of the common citizenry have never seen people with power beyond that, and neither has Orodan. As a result, the reader is slowly introduced to things from his point of view. We start small, but then get to gradually learn more.

I really enjoyed the LitRPG System in the Arcane Emperor! It’s rather basic but it works. I don’t really feel qualified to give anyone advice, but one thing I’ve learned is that beginning from simplicity is a safe and reliable formula when it comes to magic systems. Introducing too many elements at one time can cause reader fatigue.

Another thing I’ve really enjoyed is that under the power fantasy, there is a lot of great themes being explored here with your characters. The recurring characters in the loops are full of depth and life. Orodan himself remains true to himself but develops fantastically. How do you go about crafting your characters? Do you give each of them their own backstory in your notes? What’s that process look like? Do you like sticking to archetypes, or are you going with the flow with each chapter? Did you purposefully put themes of choice and power structures in there, or am I reading into this too much?

The characters are an entire topic for sure. When creating them, I always like to focus on some important questions. What’s their natural personality? What do they want? What point in their lives are they at? What’s their current goal? Orodan himself seems rather one-dimensional at first; bull-headed, stubborn, prone to seeking out battle. Yet, as the story goes on these things aren’t just brushed off, but recognized by other characters. His stubborn nature and battle-lust are real character traits that influence any situation he’s in. He begins by utterly detesting magic as not befitting a warrior, yet as time goes on he grows to adapt and learn.

Similarly, when crafting new characters, I keep a few notes and like to have their personalities fleshed out before I even begin writing them. Partly because it helps me write, but also because it’s a time loop story and we’ll be seeing many of these characters again. Everyone has their own motivations, secrets, problems and things that they value. I like to detail these things ahead of time and then bring them in through small ways over the loops. I definitely enjoy going with the flow and sometimes leaning into archetypes, but archetypes aren’t necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. Sometimes, they can be a good tool to avoid throwing too much new information at readers. And one can still expand in new and unexpected ways from there, even if a character looks to be an archetype at first.

The themes of choice and power structure are definitely intentional. What does one do with power? What’s power meant for? In and of itself? Or to do things and live life the way people want? Different characters have different takes on that question. Some in line with our protagonist, some not so much.

You are a pretty popular author on Royal Road, and I think I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about what that must feel like. I hope you bask in the glory of growing numbers and the grind that writing can be. Because your story is one of the more followed ones, do you feel like there’s more pressure? How do you handle the popularity and the demands of vocal readers? Does the popularity impact your creative process at all? How do you handle criticism and non-critical interactions with readers? Do you have any advice for authors who are growing rapidly themselves and questioning how they are supposed to interact with readers?

I definitely felt pressured at first! Especially when it blew up and there were Reddit comments every other day. It went from me having started writing as a hobby with a story I thought was a fun idea, to me now suddenly feeling rather exposed to a spotlight. My wife definitely helped by being an advisor and shoulder to lean on, as did the fact that I enjoy my full-time job and couldn’t care less if I make money from writing or not. It also helped that I don’t have any advance chapters on Patreon. I have one, but it’s just a tip jar for anyone that wants to support me, which I really appreciate. My latest chapters are always posted to Royal Road, and I don’t have to feel guilty about potentially ripping people off by giving them poor quality in return for their money. A free product means I’m rather relaxed when I’m writing, and this helps take the pressure off and lets me get more creative.

There’s been an occasional vocal reader, and some very vocal critics too. And I’ve always responded by agreeing with everything they have to say! It takes a great deal of stress off when I side with them and agree with their valid criticisms! I’m not deluded enough to believe I’m a literary god, and that’s okay. Because for every one critic who says they didn’t like a certain part, there’s typically ten people who did like it very much. And at the end of the day, I like to think that my work is exactly what it says on the tin and geared towards a certain genre. The critics are, more often than not, folks who don’t like the direction the work takes. Which is fair, but what did they expect clicking on something titled ‘The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop’?

I get along very well with my regular readers though. Even if my limited time nowadays means the interactions aren’t as frequent as I’d like. I sometimes like to engage in the comments on Royal Road and even have a Discord server dedicated to the story. Occasionally, I’ll be daring and engage with the Reddit comments too.

As for advice, what helped me was remembering that I’m writing for fun and as a hobby. New authors should try not to lose sight of the fact that writing should be fun, and interactions with readers should encapsulate the excitement of discussing the work. It shouldn’t feel as though you’re talking to your boss or a client, but a fellow fan of something. Having a sense of humor helps, as does retaining perspective.

Recommendations. I am a bottomless pit of content consumption, and I would really appreciate if you could provide me with some media you love! Getting to know what people consume themselves is a great way to get to know them, I think. Could you please give me 5 pieces of media that you think people should check out? It could be movies, tv shows (I’m recommending From the TV show), books, litrpg, heck you can recommend me a blog. They could be works that have inspired you, or things you just really like.

For sure! I’ve mentioned it a few times already, but I think one of the first LitRPGs I read on Royal Road was the Arcane Emperor by Aternus. It’s unfortunately been abandoned, but I still fondly re-read it sometimes. The New World by Monsoon117 is also pretty good. And the Legend of Randidly Ghosthound goes without saying. I also quite enjoyed the Legend of the Arch Magus by Michael Sisa.

And for the final one, the story which actually inspired me to begin writing my own stuff, was ‘Road to Mastery: A LitRPG Apocalypse’ by Valerios. Loved the dopamine hits that story gave and continues to give.

Thank you so much to X-RHODEN-X. You should be reading The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop. This entire paragraph is a link to the story.

Hope you enjoyed this issue!

🧙‍♂️Saga Scribe

Title pretty much sums it up. The Isekai and Cheat systems element simply revolts me in these type of stories. So kindly suggest me any titles you know without Isekai or reincarnation. To give an idea, I'm looking for stories like the elder lands, Viscounts Rise.

Any other story where the mc IS NOT some modern dude crossed over and somehow invents everything (Basically the release that witch types) also is appreciated even if its isekai or reincarnation. Please Help ;-;

Hello everyone,

It's that time of the month again! Without further ado, here are this month's updates:

• I've implemented u/Aruktai feedback: you can now track your progress through either percent or pages in your readlist. If you fill in the percent, the page length will be automatically updated accordingly, and vice versa.

https://preview.redd.it/trxm3htva9yd1.png?width=1278&format=png&auto=webp&s=03387d0eec2760bb67bbb2f8ef5716fd2f4b7484

• Like I said last month, I've added a few stories from Royal Road (333 so far). If you'd like a specific story added, please let me know.

https://preview.redd.it/ywuqcyqya9yd1.png?width=1278&format=png&auto=webp&s=5bf1749d83a10cb81190be4c57fc7b4a4701b8de

• I've added edition information for Royal Road stories: on each story's page, you can now see the length (chapters and pages), and whether it's stubbed or not. I'm doing my best to keep this info as up-to-date as possible.

https://preview.redd.it/1g3s59y1b9yd1.png?width=1278&format=png&auto=webp&s=e87e79a8ca2b32ee7c29ad08db95dd9b453e64fd

• Last but not least, I've added account filters to users' book profile pages. This will allow you to compare your readings to other users. For example, when on another user's book page, you can filter to see only books that you both completed. I've also added filters to every other profile page.

https://preview.redd.it/68qj9lv4b9yd1.png?width=1104&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8ceea1f2b1a85267a447ba8ad7aba0b7f057065

As always, thank you to everyone who gave me feedback, and any new feedback or suggestion is welcomed.

Just need a bad MC title... Getting bored of goodie 2 shoes... Aka good MC plz I don't like harem so nothing to do with harem (1/2 girls/boys is ok)

Plus point for evils gir MC

To clarify, the plot doesn't need to revolve around the erotica stuff. In fact, I'd rather the plot not be just that. But just a generally more erotic litRPG story than the basic fantasy adventure.