I try to look at these stories from the author’s point of view sometimes.
Imagine you have a character, let’s call him Jake. And Jake is overpowered. You could write a story covering Jake’s ascension from Level 1 to Level 500 over the course of several books. But that might get boring to write and get boring to read.
Example: Jake encounters a monster that’s a higher level than him. Against all odds, Jake slays the monster. Jake earns tons of levels. Later, Jake encounters another monster that’s a much higher level than him… Rinse and repeat.
So the author adds “side quests” to the story, to add some color and flavor and make it a bit less predictable. Jake encounters a dungeon that he must complete. The objectives are not just killing monsters, but collecting loot and earning some other achievements. He can also meet other intelligent creatures on the world, and befriend them. Maybe he just needs to find a way out.
This is all normal and expected for the LitRPG genre.
But what happens when Jake is inside a dungeon, and he finds another side-quest mid way. He goes off and completes some other quest (say, rescue the princess), and then returns back to the dungeon so that he can continue. But on the way to rescue the princess, he encounters another quest that must be completed before he can do that. And when he finally finishes all of that, we get a couple of chapters that advance the story and he stumbles across another dungeon…
You get the picture. Progression slows down, and the reader finds themselves wondering, “why doesn’t he just walk PAST this dungeon. Don’t stop. Keep going. You were going to the store to buy milk. Don’t get distracted!”
Endless side-quests can be done well. When it’s done well, I guess I don’t notice. But when this is not done well, the reader starts pleading (in their head) for the author to get back to the main story.
I guess the crux of this is that this genre (LitRPG) revolves around the concept of progression. That’s why this blog is called Progression Fantasy. The characters are on a journey, and there needs to be some slow and steady progression. Can be fast or can be slow.
I’ll give some examples of this, from memory.
- In System Universe, Derek agrees to join a party with almost all of the powerful fighters from a particular city, that will cut him off communication from his friends for years. Of course, bad things happen to his friends while he is off playing inside the dungeon. In fact, Derek is sitting around doing nothing for a long period of time while other members of his party are doing the dungeon inside the dungeon. A lot of it was completely pointless. Why did he even agree to go? I would have said no.
- In Rune Seeker, Hiral left his floating island to go visit another floating island. To rescue a little girl, he went from the second floating island to a third floating island. To rescue a missing adventure group, he went from the third floating island to the surface. To avoid the environmental attacks, he went from the surface into the dungeon. Inside the dungeon, he went from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon, exploring… I guess he’s desperate to unlock his magic powers, but it does seem like the fighting is endless and the story never advances.
- In The Primal Hunter, one of my favorite series, the author brings characters into a dungeon (Nevermore), and that dungeon has itself side-quests that can take weeks, months or years to complete. The entire dungeon lasts 50 years in real time. And it all seems pointless. Or at least, I’ve forgotten why someone would devote 50 YEARS of their life away from their family and friends. They could continue living on their home world, or travelling to other worlds, and level faster.
I do like some of these books, but the lengths the characters have to veer away from the main stories pushes the limits sometimes. As best that I can tell, the purpose is to keep the books interesting. That’s not a bad purpose. But having the characters speed run a labyrynth that there is zero doubt they will fail doesn’t make the story better.
