How do you decide how much “crunch” to include—when do stat sheets and skill descriptions enhance the story versus slow it down?
The level of crunch in a story all comes down to the personal preference of a reader, like the amount of violence or the level of spiciness in a romance. I personally look at the stats and try to gauge how much of the information is immediately relevant and if it will allow the reader to engage in the story in new ways. I find stats and crunch slow things down most when it is a lot of repeated information, or it takes so long to read that I lose track of the scene. So when the stats are the POINT of the scene, it’s fine to have a full character sheet. Less so in the middle of combat.
What’s your approach to designing your system? Do you start with a complete ruleset or develop it as the story demands?
It varies from system to system. For the New Eternity series, there were two things. First, when the readers set down the book, I wanted their heads overflowing with ideas. “How would I have handled that situation?” “What themes and abilities would I have gotten?” “What unique class and play style would I have uncovered?” Second, I wanted a system that reacted to the choices the characters made. So I did my best to build a system that took their actions and methods into account to develop a self-reinforcing class and play style. Everything else grew from there.
How do you make level-ups and power progression feel earned rather than arbitrary?
This was one of the easier parts of the system. Progression in this system comes from “Character Milestones” rather than simple experience. So, as authors, Michael and I got to look at the plot and ask “where do we feel Topha made real progress toward her goals or as a person?” That’s where the milestone advancements went. That said, we did some flexing to control when Topha went through the advancements in order to keep up tension and tried to fit it into natural breaks.
What games—tabletop, video, or otherwise—most influenced your system design and why?
This LitRPG system was heavily influenced by He Who Fights With Monsters and the City of Mist tabletop RPG. They had the kind of concept-driven character design I wanted to achieve. I also took inspiration from the tabletop RPG Open Legend and the video game Divinity: Original Sin 2 for some of the attribute setups and mechanical aspects of the system. I could go on about this, but then we’d be here for a while.
LitRPG readers are notorious number-crunchers. How do you handle it when readers find exploits or inconsistencies in your system?
This is a great question and I have a Game Master answer and a Writer answer. As a writer, I might admit to the mistake and talk about everything we did to try to prevent the inconsistencies. If there are exploits the characters didn’t see, I’ll talk about “player knowledge” vs “character knowledge” because it’s likely the character didn’t see it even if the reader did. If I’m feeling cheeky or in GM mode, I’ll often smile and say “you sure could do that,” or “that is an inconsistency, if that thing were normal,” and give them my most infuriating, knowing smile.
How do you balance your protagonist’s power growth against keeping stakes meaningful? At what point does strength become a narrative problem?
A lot of this comes down to starting with the end in mind, matching challenge/stakes to their weaknesses, and making exploits situation-specific.
If you know what the end of the power scale is for your system/world, then you can pace yourself and your characters so they don’t outmatch the ending before they get there. Showing the end power level at the beginning will also help it feel planned and less like you’re moving the goal posts just to extend the series. Then there are the weaknesses. If your character is an unkillable god of war, then give them challenges and stakes they can’t simply chop their way through. Or maybe they could but aren’t allowed to or need someone else to fight for them. If they’re too strong in one area, challenge them in another. Now let’s talk about the exploits and power loops. If you’re not careful, they can break the tension and conflict in the story. Fortunately, you can adjust the exploit so it only applies in very specific situations. So this loophole works, but only worked against one bad guy while the protagonist is suffering from a specific debuff. Useful when it works, but hard to set up and inconsistent in replication.
All of this goes out the window if you want to write a power fantasy with an overpowered protagonist. In that case, have at it!
What’s your philosophy on the System’s origin—do readers need to understand why the world has game mechanics, or is it furniture?
I don’t think readers need to know the origin of the system, or any story element, really. Whether it’s magic, tech, monsters, or LitRPG, it’s more about clear context than clear origins or history. If you’re writing LitRPG on in our world, then you need to provide the context as to why and how the characters are interacting with this gamified structure. Is it a video game? An implanted AI system? A new reality forced on top of our own (system apocalypse does this often)? Any of these answers can work. If it’s a whole new world and universe, simply saying “that’s just how this world works” can be enough context for the readers to let go and start engaging with the story.
How do you write compelling characters when progression systems risk reducing people to optimized builds?
We, as real people, are more than just our resumes, achievements, and skills. So too should our LitRPG characters be more than their character sheet. To keep the complex, compelling characters, we simple need to focus on making them characters and not just character build. So they’re obsessed with optimizing their class? Why? Why do they feel the need to? What internal urge does it satisfy? What dangers and threats, internal and external, are they facing that demand this level of power and perfection? The RPG elements are a new way to reveal the other aspects of your character, not the characters themselves. Focus on that, and you should be fine.
The genre has evolved rapidly from its web serial roots. What conventions do you think have become stale, and where do you see innovation happening?
The power fantasy style of litRPG has grown stale for me personally. If you look for just a moment at the TTRPG industry, you will see games for a huge variety of player types. Every one of those players could be a LitRPG reader… if there was a LitRPG story that “played” the game the way they want to play games. My biggest frustration is the eternal series. Some of the most popular LitRPG stories have literally millions of words written into the story so far. I have no doubt the authors have grown since they started on chapter one, but I don’t have the time to read through a million words before their writing starts to solidify. If they ever start a new series, I’m ready to give them a try. Until then, those starting chapters just keep bouncing me off.
What’s the most creative skill, class, or system mechanic you’ve designed that you’re particularly proud of?
Tough question. I absolutely love how the theme system worked out. But honestly, my favorite part might be the respawn and Karama system. Making sure death has stakes for people who are effectively immortal is a challenge. Because Karma is required to respawn, that means the Externals (player characters) can respawn… until they can’t. Since Karma is a hidden resource, there’s no way to tell how close you are to that edge. I also designed it so that if you don’t have the karma needed, you can accept a “delayed respawn” where the world keeps turning while you slowly accrue the karma you need. It doesn’t come up in the trilogy, but I thought it was a fun way to explain how a big villain could be defeated only to return a thousand years later!
I could go on and talk about how respawn connects with starting new lives, karma during character creation, and so on, but this isn’t supposed to be an essay. I’ll just say that I’m proud of the Karma system, even if its many mechanics aren’t on display.