Saving the world vs just surviving?

[ThisAdamGuy]

Without going too deep into it, the litrpg I'm writing is about the world being remade into an RPG system. 99% of the population is turned into NPCs who can only act and speak according to the "script" that's programmed into their brains. The last 1% are "Heroes" and they have to continuously do quests, kill monsters, and run dungeons to earn XP, or else they'll turn into NPCs too. Some of them find a way to cheat the system and pass XP to other people without them having to actually earn it themselves, and set up little communities by waking up their friends and families and trying to give them as normal and peaceful a life as they can. The main struggle is trying to earn enough XP to keep everyone awake and sentient even after splitting it between 200-300 people.

Originally, I was going to make the story about the main character and his party grinding to become strong enough to take on the god who remade the world and put things back to normal, but now I'm wondering if I'm missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. What if, instead of trying to save the world, they just accept that this is how the world is now and do their best to survive in it? Then the story could focus on the parts that I feel really make this concept unique: waking up NPCs, building and preserving their communities, and the MC and his friends essentially becoming a crack team of dungeon runners and quest...doers in order to supply everyone with XP. Occasionally they'd have to contend with evil "Heroes" who are wreaking havoc on NPCs who can't fight back, and things like that.

What do you guys think? Will readers be satisfied with a smaller plot like that, or should I stick with the bigger "save the world" story like I originally had planned?

 

[Fairemont]

It'd be a fresh take. I think it could definitely work, especially if they start getting attached to NPCs and such and they dont see any particular benefit by "winning" the game.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I would do the NPC PoV

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

I would do the NPC PoV

The what?

 

[Fairemont]

Envy is suggesting the PoV for the story be from an NPC.

While it could work, I suspect it'd be extremely challenging.

 

[Deleted member 128077]

story about the main character and his party grinding to become strong enough to take on the god who remade the world

Personally, I've always thought the idea of trying to fight a God with the very powers said God gave you is dumb. Like, can't the God just... take the powers away.

Anyway, I think your other idea is better. Focusing the story on, more or less, rebuilding the world and trying to wake people back up sounds like a very interesting story to read.

 

[Nathaniel_Wren]

Envy is suggesting the PoV for the story be from an NPC.

While it could work, I suspect it'd be extremely challenging.

I’ve been playing with this idea for a while and can confirm that it’s challenging to write a story from an NPC point of view to what is the Hero’s journey.

From what @ThisAdamGuy said about his idea, a NPC would have restrictions upon them that will make it harder to use them as the Main character that pushes the story forward. Unless there is a lot of twists by abusing hidden mechanics or exploitating bugs of a World turned RPG Game… I’m not too sure how to plan a story around that without it getting repetitive.

I myself decided to take another route by making my story not serious, but more of a comedy and carefree read. I personally have no goals besides writing the NPC’s perspective of the Hero who can do whatever whenever, so I’m not sure how to offer any advice on this topic if the story has a more serious tone to it.

•This also reminds me of Log Horizon. It has a few instances of showing how the NPC’s see players. [Just a footnote though to share].

But the idea of having those who are aware of how the world has changed labeled as “Awake”. And these awakened people trying to wake others up who are stuck with acting in a script written by a new God is, without a doubt, an interesting story.

 

[Plantorsomething]

Without going too deep into it, the litrpg I'm writing is about the world being remade into an RPG system. 99% of the population is turned into NPCs who can only act and speak according to the "script" that's programmed into their brains. The last 1% are "Heroes" and they have to continuously do quests, kill monsters, and run dungeons to earn XP, or else they'll turn into NPCs too. Some of them find a way to cheat the system and pass XP to other people without them having to actually earn it themselves, and set up little communities by waking up their friends and families and trying to give them as normal and peaceful a life as they can. The main struggle is trying to earn enough XP to keep everyone awake and sentient even after splitting it between 200-300 people.

Originally, I was going to make the story about the main character and his party grinding to become strong enough to take on the god who remade the world and put things back to normal, but now I'm wondering if I'm missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. What if, instead of trying to save the world, they just accept that this is how the world is now and do their best to survive in it? Then the story could focus on the parts that I feel really make this concept unique: waking up NPCs, building and preserving their communities, and the MC and his friends essentially becoming a crack team of dungeon runners and quest...doers in order to supply everyone with XP. Occasionally they'd have to contend with evil "Heroes" who are wreaking havoc on NPCs who can't fight back, and things like that.

What do you guys think? Will readers be satisfied with a smaller plot like that, or should I stick with the bigger "save the world" story like I originally had planned?

If you’re struggling with it, I’m sure it would be an interesting in-story struggle too, with different characters having different answers to that question. If you want to compromise directly, maybe your MCs do their dungeon thing and become just one small or medium sized part in the story of some other group who does save the world, I’ve seen that done with some of them. If you want them to be a part of the big final battle you can also have them accomplishing some kind of specific goal or battle that’s seperate from the god slayers, but plays a pivotal role.

 

[vzymmer]

The what?

Get yo mind outta da gutter bro...

I would do the NPC PoV

I was actually talking about you.

 

[Tyranomaster]

I personally don't like the infinite power growth cycle thing. As long as there is *progression* of some kind, and that the characters learn and achieve things, then it should be fine.

Or make it a horrible tragedy, and watch as more and more people become NPCs around them, until they finally succumb as well on the last page, the end.

There is a reason tragedies usually don't sell as well though.

Also, something else I just thought of, but is this a meta commentary on the fact that most people don't realize that the natural state of the world is decay, and that it takes work to maintain something good? The LitRPG angle just puts numbers over what normally are dollars and calories.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I would seriously consider having them START OUT in Survival Mode. Maybe they never get out of it, and just wind up in a constant struggle.
Maybe their explorations lead them to find a way to escape this world (and the moral dilemma of "do we just LEAVE or can we save others... or should we stay and keep fighting anyway"), or maybe they find a way to confront the Power (I'd hesitate to call it a "god") behind it all and maybe force a reckoning or possibly even save everyone. Or maybe not - maybe they find out there was a reason (possibly even a GOOD one, but maybe a silly one) for what this being did, and they have to wrestle with "do we fix the situation and maybe make a later situation worse, or do we beat up this doofus and take its place? Or do we go back to the regular grind, knowing there is a bigger goal at hand?"

 

[JayMark]

What do you guys think? Will readers be satisfied with a smaller plot like that, or should I stick with the bigger "save the world" story like I originally had planned?

Start with the smaller plot, eventually go bigger, grand even. Why? Because you can go into save, heal, restore the world mode at any time you feel it works. And you're set up to do so considering the outline of what you're building.

I have a feeling that eventually someone is going to want to bust the horryfying NPC mind slavery of the world. And they'll be up against evil players who enjoy exploiting NPCs as well as the system itself, which will probably pit the NPCs against them.

 

[Macha]

It's litrpg. The readers just want to see numbers going up. Start with survival. Save the bigger story beats for later or other story.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Slightly off topic but I just had to share this. I posted this thread on the litrpg subreddit too, and was rewarded with one of the most hilariously stupid things I've ever read:

wow, I know a lot of this genre has fascist ideology baked in but this idea goes beyond plus ultra. "99% of people cease being people and to maintain your personhood you must do violence, this is good and noble and in everyone's best interest as power is all that is important. also my revised version of this has them not caring about anyone but themselves."

 

[RainingFish]

I don't know, but here are my thoughts on it.

It's easy to change a survival story into a world-saving story later if you change your mind, but it's more difficult to do it the other way once the readers have expectations.

If you're doing a survival story, what's the ending like? Will it end in tragedy? Will they save everyone somehow, and if so what will the god do about it?

Maybe after you get tired of writing survival-type stories you can have another powerful being come into the story to help them with the game god, and then it can turn into a world-saving story.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

I find the just surviving part of most similar stories to be more interesting. The saving world part usually comes after the characters have learned to thrive in their environment. Sometimes the survival aspect of it can become repetitive so I find it rare for that to be a larger part of the story.