Questions about ‘Global’ Trope

[Arch9CivilReactor]

I’m new to the trope that is called ‘Global’ where everyone on Earth goes through transmigration or reincarnated at once. I’ve not heard good things despite deciding that I was going to use this trope, and wanted to know what to look out for. What are common mistakes using this trope?

So far I’ve only heard that side characters become irrelevant and their MCs are way too overpowered (which is normal in Webnovels) and was wondering if there is a problem when conveying this trope itself, or in common usage.

Since I’ve never read a story with a ‘Global’ trope I’m unsure…


As a side note: The way I’m intending to use this trope is by making people from an apocalyptic supernatural world be transported into a Xianxia world. They struggle to be a secret society in a world that would rip them apart for being aliens who don’t follow the standard systems.

You know how ancient China cultivators wouldn’t exactly be the friendliest when seeing people who need help and have treasures on them. Out of the pan and into the pot kind of deal.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

First time hearing about this trope.

 

[Empress_Omnii]

I have read things with it, but I can't remember problematic with the concept. Though, I've never seen it called that or even referred to as a trope.

 

[ArtBusterBeeze]

One thing you may want to avoid is if you are doing litrpg with the trope. Filling a chapter with nothing but stat sheets can potentially cause a lost of interest since only stats are shown and not much else.

 

[PancakesWitch]

It's mostly a chinese shit that some authors from the west are copying mostly because the translations are mildly popular on webnovel.com. Although I kind of like the concept, the execution for its potential to be properly squeezed would be monumental, therefore all these novels with this "genre" end up being terribly subpar or outright bad. I've only seen a few authors being capable of actually making a good novel. One of them is a western author named Hideousgrain. The rest? they're all kind of shit

 

[LilRora]

One extremely common mistake is bending the world around the main cast. If you make the mc stand out across all the people without a really good reason, it will look unrealistic at best. Remember that when you have billions of people, even if your main character is unmatched across the population, their actions will be just a small part compared to the cumulative effort of many thousands or millions weaker individuals (unless they're completely outside the scale, but again, then you need a really good explanation for that).

 

[ArlindoFrancisco]

One thing you may want to avoid is if you are doing litrpg with the trope. Filling a chapter with nothing but stat sheets can potentially cause a lost of interest since only stats are shown and not much else.

This... look out of this, that is why even if i find the litrpg thing really cool, i can't keep up with all of these stats bro.

But in my opinion, you kind of need to make a lot of characters as capable as the MC. Simple as that, he can't be the only one that is really good; it's just imersion-breaking if the thing is just global with no regression on top of something like that and even with regression, I think there need to be some characters that are as capable as the MC.

Like MC needs to be a regressor to even be on par with these characters. Villains, or supports.

 

[LesserCodex]

I actually know a good story in this genre called "Digging to Survive I Can See Hints" on Ranobes it's no longer being translated to my knowledge. Its early chapters were good, though it suffered from giving the MC too much power, which made sense as he could see hints, the idea of everyone being whisked away and starting in an unknown world of infinite survival always interested me. But the story suffered from ignored plots, flat characters and overall forgetful writing.

From what I remember the staple of this genre is one called Road to Survival I have a hint system. I also remember there was one here on scribble hub but the author removed it. There are two I've come across with a similar theme.

1- Apocalypse Island by Mattman, stopped after three chapters but there's a detailed review of wanting to like the story and this type of genre.
2-Floating Islands: SSS Gacha System [Kingdom Building LitRPG] by Galanteo and it reads like the Chinese story but as a decent translation though it's not, or at least I hope not. This gives a bit of background as to why this survival exists and what not but I stopped reading after a while. The main reason is because of the gacha system(I hate gacha without a reason or purpose).

There isn't a tag for it and I dont think there ever will be as it's not that big of a genre but it can easily captivate people. If you plan on writing one like this go ahead, hell I had plans for one and its covering dust in digital space.

 

[Cipiteca396]

I think ordinary mass transference stories like Hell Difficulty Tutorial or Ryn of Avonside might be a good reference for this kinda thing, at least on a small scale.

So far I’ve only heard that side characters become irrelevant

My general rule of thumb is that the audience can only remember seven people. If you have more than that, they'll struggle to remember all the characters, if only because they're probably reading half a dozen other books at the same time.

In a Global (Or a Kingdom Building) story, the way to get around this is to have communities, instead of characters. A community can be represented by a memorable character, and suddenly you turn a thousand side characters into that one eccentric guy who hands out real neat treasures.

Make sure to summarize community actions and conflicts briefly if they're irrelevant to the main plot. It's a little info dumpy, but a meaningless subplot given excessive detail will just bore (some) readers.

was wondering if there is a problem when conveying this trope itself, or in common usage.

Tbh, the biggest problem I had was trying to convey dozens of different perspectives at once. It's really, really hard to predict what a large number of people are going to do in any given circumstance. That's why most of these stories aren't actually 'global' but just a school, or a city, or the players of a specific game.

I guess the other issue is that an entire world can't just settle in place on arrival. They're used to relying on specific resources at specific locations, and such. Just dropping them on a new world will instantly collapse the population and all the logistics and support they need. That said-

The way I’m intending to use this trope is by making people from an apocalyptic supernatural world be transported into a Xianxia world. They struggle to be a secret society in a world that would rip them apart for being aliens who don’t follow the standard systems.

An apocalyptic population probably wouldn't have any infrastructure anyways. It's definitely better than nothing.

Since they have such a horrific start, they're probably all going to be highly competent. Those who weren't, already died. And since Xianxia people tend to he horribly incompetent, I expect this to end poorly for the Xianxa folk.

I feel like you're going to want to lean into a lot of contrasting traits like that. The cultivators take everything for granted, they're arrogant and cruel. The supes cry when they eat sweetened food, they roll around in the grass because it's soft and doesn't cut them to pieces, and if someone causes trouble they get the hell out of the way- until its clear they can't escape, at which point they end things instantly.

 

[Placeholder]

> What are common mistakes using this trope?

1. That everyone in the new world is unsophisticated.

2. That no one in the new world has ever mixed wood ash, water, and fats to make soap. Or bathes.

3. That no one in the new world uses visualization or basic science to learn magic.

 

[Gray_Mann]

What pisses me off about this, is bringing modern morals into a world that is OBVIOUSLY not modern, and then the MC getting that self-righteous attitude bullshit where they must "edumacate and enlighten these backwards primitives."

I also hate it when they do that bullshit subplot of ending slavery. This isn't the only example, but its one that everyone here can relate to.

Dude.....if you show up in a medieval/ancient era where slavery is a normal practice, you WILL NOT end it without uprooting the ENTIRE ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE of the kingdom/empire which at least in the short-term, even in best-case scenarios, will be CATASTROPHIC for EVERYONE involved. You don't just say, "stop it, it's wrong," and then everyone agrees and the world is better off for it. No. It doesn't work that way.

Also, even if you become the strongest being in that kingdom/empire, you still would NOT just get to wave your hand and be obeyed, and slavery vanishes. No. You have to IMMEDIATELY introduce economic alternatives. Ultimately, VERY EXPENSIVE economic alternatives....which a SHIT-TON OF MONEY will need to be accumulated to support. IMMEDIATELY. Need I say it again? IMMEDIATELY INTRODUCE THESE SHIT-TON EXPENSIVE economic alternatives. You don't just get rid of, for example, slave labor, and then tell the former slave owners they now have to pay their former slaves a wage for their labor now. They'll look at you like you're a lunatic and then say...."and where is this extra money going to be coming from?"

I know people will now say, paying these freed slaves a wage will now make them work harder, increase productivity, and thus the former slave owner, now boss, will make even greater profits to offset the expenses he accrues in paying wages. Yeah no, that's a BEST-CASE SCENARIO ONLY. It isn't the way it always goes. I don't know what gave people the idea that it is ALWAYS this way. It's not. It's pretty close to 50/50 actually.

That kind of hand-waving nonsense isn't realistic.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

What pisses me off about this, is bringing modern morals into a world that is OBVIOUSLY not modern, and then the MC getting that self-righteous attitude bullshit where they must "edumacate and enlighten these backwards primitives."

I also hate it when they do that bullshit subplot of ending slavery. This isn't the only example, but its one that everyone here can relate to.

Dude.....if you show up in a medieval/ancient era where slavery is a normal practice, you WILL NOT end it without uprooting the ENTIRE ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE of the kingdom/empire which at least in the short-term, even in best-case scenarios, will be CATASTROPHIC for EVERYONE involved. You don't just say, "stop it, it's wrong," and then everyone agrees and the world is better off for it. No. It doesn't work that way.

Also, even if you become the strongest being in that kingdom/empire, you still would NOT just get to wave your hand and be obeyed, and slavery vanishes. No. You have to IMMEDIATELY introduce economic alternatives. Ultimately, VERY EXPENSIVE economic alternatives....which a SHIT-TON OF MONEY will need to be accumulated to support. IMMEDIATELY. Need I say it again? IMMEDIATELY INTRODUCE THESE SHIT-TON EXPENSIVE economic alternatives. You don't just get rid of, for example, slave labor, and then tell the former slave owners they now have to pay their slaves a wage for their labor now. They'll look at you like you're a lunatic and then say...."and where is this extra money going to be coming from?"

I know people will now say, paying these freed slaves a wage will now make them work harder, increase productivity, and thus the former slave owner, now boss, will make even greater profits to offset the expenses he accrues in paying wages. Yeah no, that's a BEST-CASE SCENARIO ONLY. It isn't the way it always goes. I don't know what gave people the idea that it is ALWAYS this way. It's not. It's pretty close to 50/50 actually.

That kind of hand-waving nonsense isn't realistic.

The Conrad Stargaard novels by Leo Frantkowski did a good job with this - by introducing some subtle elements of industrialization slowly (also playboy clubs and a bunch of other stuff). One neat point was, he tried to bring a decimal coin system to medieval Poland and was met with resistance; when he finally talked to the merchants, they thought it was silly because you could only split a coin into 1, 2 or 5 parts; a base twelve system made much more sense, as it could break into 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 parts.

 

[Gray_Mann]

when he finally talked to the merchants, they thought it was silly because you could only split a coin into 1, 2 or 5 parts; a base twelve system made much more sense, as it could break into 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 parts.

Makes you wonder why most of the world operates on a decimal coin system then, rather than a twelve system. I'm not much of a numismatist so I couldn't tell you, but it is an interesting question.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

One thing to acknowledge about this type of setting is that the worldbuilding can be hard to sell, and readers may struggle to become invested in the new setting. Having the old world so suddenly depopulated can lend a sense of impermanence to the new one too, and plot may feel disconnected from the setting as a result.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Makes you wonder why most of the world operates on a decimal coin system then, rather than a twelve system. I'm not much of a numismatist so I couldn't tell you, but it is an interesting question.

Laziness. It's easier to tick things off in units of ten because we have five fingers per hand, 2 hands each in most cases. If six fingers were a dominant, rather than rare recessive, genetic trait, we probably WOULD operate under base 12 most of the time...

 

[Puji-Maki]

I've heard about it but never tried to read it. But if there's a problem I can think of, it's probably about too much characters. A Global transmigration, seems like there are tons of people who has the potential to become MCs.

 

[JayMark]

I thought of this trope independently and wanted to write something like that. I thought it was an original idea, lol. If the global transmigration becomes more of a backdrop / setting then it's fine. Nobody can write 8 billion characters, but we can write worlds and societies.

But I settled for a thousand people getting transmigrated instead, then promptly killed just over half of them.

 

[DarkDuck09]

First time hearing about this trope.

There's a scifi isekai where an entire regiment of Union soldiers in the US Civil War gets isekai'd to an alien planet where the aliens rampage through city states of human beings from through out history and use them as slaves and the Regiment is like "Oh, they're keeping you as slaves? Bet." and then take it to the aliens.

That's about as cool as any kind isekai gets, to be honest.

 

[Placeholder]

Laziness. It's easier to tick things off in units of ten because we have five fingers per hand, 2 hands each in most cases. If six fingers were a dominant, rather than rare recessive, genetic trait, we probably WOULD operate under base 12 most of the time...

When people count by twelves, they would use a thumb and the finger knucles of that hand.

Source: some dude on youtube.

 

[3guanoff]

I rather liked "Everyone Else is a Returnee". One of the few harem novels where I liked the harem.

The example may be a little dated by internet standards, but the author did not use the "global" theme as a mere starting point. It is easy to forget about the rest of Earth when your protagonists are smashing through higher realms. Don't.
If you decide to use it, go all the way.

What pisses me off about this, is bringing modern morals into a world that is OBVIOUSLY not modern, and then the MC getting that self-righteous attitude bullshit where they must "edumacate and enlighten these backwards primitives."

I also hate it when they do that bullshit subplot of ending slavery. This isn't the only example, but its one that everyone here can relate to.

Dude.....if you show up in a medieval/ancient era where slavery is a normal practice, you WILL NOT end it without uprooting the ENTIRE ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE of the kingdom/empire which at least in the short-term, even in best-case scenarios, will be CATASTROPHIC for EVERYONE involved. You don't just say, "stop it, it's wrong," and then everyone agrees and the world is better off for it. No. It doesn't work that way.

Also, even if you become the strongest being in that kingdom/empire, you still would NOT just get to wave your hand and be obeyed, and slavery vanishes. No. You have to IMMEDIATELY introduce economic alternatives. Ultimately, VERY EXPENSIVE economic alternatives....which a SHIT-TON OF MONEY will need to be accumulated to support. IMMEDIATELY. Need I say it again? IMMEDIATELY INTRODUCE THESE SHIT-TON EXPENSIVE economic alternatives. You don't just get rid of, for example, slave labor, and then tell the former slave owners they now have to pay their former slaves a wage for their labor now. They'll look at you like you're a lunatic and then say...."and where is this extra money going to be coming from?"

I know people will now say, paying these freed slaves a wage will now make them work harder, increase productivity, and thus the former slave owner, now boss, will make even greater profits to offset the expenses he accrues in paying wages. Yeah no, that's a BEST-CASE SCENARIO ONLY. It isn't the way it always goes. I don't know what gave people the idea that it is ALWAYS this way. It's not. It's pretty close to 50/50 actually.

That kind of hand-waving nonsense isn't realistic.

I am also disappointed that the only kind of slavery modern authors can come up with is the "you are not a human being, I will eat your sons' brains and work you to death" kind.

A lot of historic "slavery" was not too different from modern realities. Debt slavery, indentured servants, bondservants, criminal slavery,...
An ancient Chinese punishment for some crimes was being made a slave wall-builder or grain pounder; depending on the time period, this was for life.

Sure, most countries do not allow employers to whip their employees. But we live in a time period where criminals are not mutilated, parents beating their children is debated, husbands do not beat their wifes, few people are mauled by wild animals, and where death and violence are generally much less common.

Authors' ideas of money also seem very... modern. In many of their fantasy worlds, there are merchant families and clans. These are big households, not companies. People are not generally "paid" for every task they complete. They are provided food, shelter, and status. Depending on their position, they are given an allowance or a share of the communal luxury goods.

Our modern way of life is possible due to our great technological advances. It always frustrates me how people treat economics like they treat their magic systems: "Chill mate, it's a fantasy world."