How does the system decide?

[cristigon]

In most litrpg stories there’s a system that (generally) shows personal information such as race, name, level, stats, etc. But how does it measure any of that?

What does it mean to have a strength of 1? Were the numbers pulled out of the authors some gods asscrack? Do all creatures have the same numbers, or does it differ by race? If the former, do all dragons start with 1 million to each stat right from the egg?

In worlds with more than one race, how does the system discriminate between them? The system knows the difference between humans, elves and dragons, but how? Can the system differentiate between E. Coli and salmonella? How about Elves and half-elves? Especially since if the system is too lax with this then donkeys, horses and mules are all the same race since they can breed and have offspring (probably infertile, but offspring none the less). On one extreme, rabbits and horses are the same, and on the other extreme, a freckled child is a different species from their parents.

to;dr: Where does the system get all its information and by what mechanism.

TL;DR (just in case the last one was still too long): System has numbers. How numbers? System know different race. Racial discrimination?

 

[ThrillingHuman]

In most litrpg stories there’s a system that (generally) shows personal information such as race, name, level, stats, etc. But how does it measure any of that?

What does it mean to have a strength of 1? Were the numbers pulled out of the authors some gods asscrack? Do all creatures have the same numbers, or does it differ by race? If the former, do all dragons start with 1 million to each stat right from the egg?

In worlds with more than one race, how does the system discriminate between them? The system knows the difference between humans, elves and dragons, but how? Can the system differentiate between E. Coli and salmonella? How about Elves and half-elves? Especially since if the system is too lax with this then donkeys, horses and mules are all the same race since they can breed and have offspring (probably infertile, but offspring none the less). On one extreme, rabbits and horses are the same, and on the other extreme, a freckled child is a different species from their parents.

to;dr: Where does the system get all its information and by what mechanism.

TL;DR (just in case the last one was still too long): System has numbers. How numbers? System know different race. Racial discrimination?

System magic. System omnipresent and omniscient. Monkey think too much.

 

[cristigon]

ALL HAIL THE SYSTEM AND ITS MYSTERIOUS WAYS!!

 

[Tyranomaster]

In most litrpg stories there’s a system that (generally) shows personal information such as race, name, level, stats, etc. But how does it measure any of that?

What does it mean to have a strength of 1? Were the numbers pulled out of the authors some gods asscrack? Do all creatures have the same numbers, or does it differ by race? If the former, do all dragons start with 1 million to each stat right from the egg?

In worlds with more than one race, how does the system discriminate between them? The system knows the difference between humans, elves and dragons, but how? Can the system differentiate between E. Coli and salmonella? How about Elves and half-elves? Especially since if the system is too lax with this then donkeys, horses and mules are all the same race since they can breed and have offspring (probably infertile, but offspring none the less). On one extreme, rabbits and horses are the same, and on the other extreme, a freckled child is a different species from their parents.

to;dr: Where does the system get all its information and by what mechanism.

TL;DR (just in case the last one was still too long): System has numbers. How numbers? System know different race. Racial discrimination?

Spoilers for things that aren't yet written in my story, so if you're reading that, then don't spoil yourself (very unlikely).

Spoiler

Your own mental interpretation of the magical sense of self is how you view your system window.

Less intelligent creatures just have a sense of their own HP, Mana, and any special abilities they have. How do they get this info? Certain information carrying particles which can both carry small packets of information and be converted into either mass or energy. Early life on the planet evolved the certain proteins that allow the usage of these particles to convey self aware information similar to how you sense pain or heat.
All magic actually works on variations of this in my world.

As an intelligent species, when you can put numbers to values, your brain then helps interpret that as numerical values. Similar to how humans now can train themselves to tell you a pretty good approximation of the numerical value of temperature just by sense.

 

[LunaSoltaer]

first question is system specific, but usually 10 or 1000 or whatever is a baseline and then the system is usually linear but sometimes you can have nonlinear stats (quadratic, logarithmic, etc)

Example: D&D's INT stat is supposed to scale to 10×IQ.

As for how the system can differentiate between races, how do we? Think about it and realize the system does it better. (or be a boring Doylist and say the system is just a human behind the scenes)

Also any self respecting system will call a mule a half-ass. And I'm not even pulling out of my ass: they LITERALLY did EXACTLY THIS with half elf, half orc, etc.

But as with us humans, right? A system will catrgorize and select its scale according to what's relevant. You dont need to know about CCSDs, inactive Y chromosomes, embryonic transformations occuring despite no Y chromosome, or even that chromosomes exist when youre looking at a man and assigning your mental model of masculine checkboxes to assay him against. Neither does System.

 

[Asthael]

The system just sees all and can tell things like we can tell it's raining because there's water coming from the sky. But unless the author is super numbers crunchy, I'd say there's a fair amount of numbers coming from the rear end, lol.

Now I want to see a story where the system's info is consistently, verifiably wrong for some reason.

 

[Syringe]

It really, really depends on what System the author uses because there's no such thing as the System or an encompassing one across all stories.

It could be reading the soul. It could be explained with magic. It could be an AI that collects information and stores them as one major database/compendium of knowledge. In this version of a System you can probably think of it like an active version of the internet. A magical google search engine.

Maybe the System can measure things like strength the same way we can quantify mass and our own strength. We can measure it precisely in a numerical form. For example - Strength = able to exert a certain amount of force/grip strength/etc, or a combination of all of this (and likely more). intelligence could be IQ? And so on.

 

[cristigon]

Spoilers for things that aren't yet written in my story, so if you're reading that, then don't spoil yourself (very unlikely).

Spoiler

Your own mental interpretation of the magical sense of self is how you view your system window.

Less intelligent creatures just have a sense of their own HP, Mana, and any special abilities they have. How do they get this info? Certain information carrying particles which can both carry small packets of information and be converted into either mass or energy. Early life on the planet evolved the certain proteins that allow the usage of these particles to convey self aware information similar to how you sense pain or heat.
All magic actually works on variations of this in my world.

As an intelligent species, when you can put numbers to values, your brain then helps interpret that as numerical values. Similar to how humans now can train themselves to tell you a pretty good approximation of the numerical value of temperature just by sense.

I read the spoiler then checked out your story. Unfortunately this seems like exactly the kind of story I like reading, oops .

Spoiler

How would this work with someone delusional? eg. They think they are are god on earth but they’re just a normal guy. Does the system reflect reality, or their warped worldview?

first question is system specific, but usually 10 or 1000 or whatever is a baseline and then the system is usually linear but sometimes you can have nonlinear stats (quadratic, logarithmic, etc)

Example: D&D's INT stat is supposed to scale to 10×IQ.

As for how the system can differentiate between races, how do we? Think about it and realize the system does it better. (or be a boring Doylist and say the system is just a human behind the scenes)

Also any self respecting system will call a mule a half-ass. And I'm not even pulling out of my ass: they LITERALLY did EXACTLY THIS with half elf, half orc, etc.

But as with us humans, right? A system will catrgorize and select its scale according to what's relevant. You dont need to know about CCSDs, inactive Y chromosomes, embryonic transformations occuring despite no Y chromosome, or even that chromosomes exist when youre looking at a man and assigning your mental model of masculine checkboxes to assay him against. Neither does System.

I think this depends on the deeper mechanics of a system. If the system is sentient in its own right then all of this is true. But if the system is an inanimate program of some origin, the question once again becomes how. Of course it could just be something like a magic AI image recognition model though.

As for how the system can differentiate between races, how do we? Think about it and realize the system does it better. (or be a boring Doylist and say the system is just a human behind the scenes)

We do it by sight, but can the system see the way we do? If it can, then how? Can it be fooled by the old trick of an elf putting a hat over their ears? If it sees with some kind of mana sense or in story equivalent, then can the system be jammed or manipulated?

It really, really depends on what System the author uses because there's no such thing as the System or an encompassing one across all stories.

It could be reading the soul. It could be explained with magic. It could be an AI that collects information and stores them as one major database/compendium of knowledge. In this version of a System you can probably think of it like an active version of the internet. A magical google search engine.

Maybe the System can measure things like strength the same way we can quantify mass and our own strength. We can measure it precisely in a numerical form. For example - Strength = able to exert a certain amount of force/grip strength/etc, or a combination of all of this (and likely more). intelligence could be IQ? And so on.

While I understand that every writer’s system will be different, the question is mainly asking how a specific system works according to world building.

On your point about measuring grip strength, IQ, etc. Who decided the conversion rate from 1 point of IQ to 1 point of intelligence, or X kgs of grip strength to X points of strength

The system just sees all and can tell things like we can tell it's raining because there's water coming from the sky. But unless the author is super numbers crunchy, I'd say there's a fair amount of numbers coming from the rear end, lol.

Now I want to see a story where the system's info is consistently, verifiably wrong for some reason.

In a story the author’s rear end is the most reliable source of information.

 

[Tyranomaster]

How would this work with someone delusional? eg. They think they are are god on earth but they’re just a normal guy. Does the system reflect reality, or their warped worldview?

Spoiler

I guess, like anyone with a mental illness in our world, they'd have massive numbers, and false info in their system window. However, they'd be just as mortal as normal. So they'd be just as delusional as someone on earth who thinks they're immune to bullets.

 

[Dieter]

When Authors create their Systems, they quantify qualities based on their sense of plausibility and taste—which is nominal and does not reflect the reality of nature. The question you're asking is meaningless because its based on false assumptions—which is that quantities can be converted into qualities in the first place. What's the numerical value of your life's happiness? It's the same sort of question based on the same sort of mistake.

That said, one's quantifiers can be accurate enough to reflect nature's underlying reality so that nature reacts as if these quantifiers were True. Meaning, that reality reacts as if an orc has an ATK power of 90 relative to a human's, who has a measly 10 ATK power. It doesn't mean there is actually such a thing as ATK power in reality, but that the world and its laws react as if such a thing did. These are convenient constructs, fictive, whose validity lies in them being empirically accurate.

As for how a System would go about doing such a thing? I have no idea.

 

[cristigon]

When Authors create their Systems, they quantify qualities based on their sense of plausibility and taste—which is nominal and does not reflect the reality of nature. The question you're asking is meaningless because its based on false assumptions—which is that quantities can be converted into qualities in the first place. What's the numerical value of your life's happiness? It's the same sort of question based on the same sort of mistake.

That said, one's quantifiers can be accurate enough to reflect nature's underlying reality so that nature reacts as if these quantifiers were True. Meaning, that reality reacts as if an orc has an ATK power of 90 relative to a human's, who has a measly 10 ATK power. It doesn't mean there is actually such a thing as ATK power in reality, but that the world and its laws react as if such a thing did. These are convenient constructs, fictive, whose validity lies in them being empirically accurate.

As for how a System would go about doing such a thing? I have no idea.

Guess that’s just how every attempt to model reality is. Quantum physics and all the math behind it probably isn’t how the universe works, but it’s close enough to be useful.

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

It's all just derived from the notes of higher-dimensional versions of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, whose feverish Wisconsinite mental patterns spread inexorably through all realities in the LitRPG quadrant of the hyperverse. Gygax, master of traps, represents the system's desire to structure and control all that is experienced within it. Arneson, the trickster, represents the ever-present possibility of subverting or overturning the system to gain greater and greater power.

This is a true story.

 

[georgelee5786]

Magic, don't question it

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Carefully