Welcome to the information page.
-The novel have been released starting on October 15th, now at the rate of one chapter a week (about 3k word each). It's a non-professional early draft, so thanks for your understanding.
-This novel will be heavily inspired by D&D and especially Baldur's Gate 3, with springles of Pathfinder and other popular tabletop games. Except there will be no dices. Or statistics. And classes and multiclassing have been heavily modified.
-The MC is going to be a strong female lead, emotion-driven, teenager, former sport professional forced into a really early retirement.
-Co-op and team-building are going to be central theme, with emphasis on relationships and character growth over combat, though combat is definitely going to take more and more place as the story progress.
-The story is going to focus almost exclusively on the MC point of view with only ponctual and consise exceptions.
-The MC will be confronted with difficult choices of which she might sometimes take the obviously wrong ones, out of desperation, lack of information or sheer bout of emotional-driven stupidity. Be warned: This MC is not a genius although she has her moment and a lot of redeeming qualities.
-And a bonus for anyone who read this instead of clicking next immediately (always read the full document before commiting to anything ;) ) : there is going to be a subversion of the faustian bargain. I think this one of the subplot which is going to grow really strong as the story goes on.
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About Themes
I'm trying to build my themes as question to be answered. But I find it hard to articulate those questions in say that would make sense out of context.
What are the limits of cooperation? How far would you go for survival? What line would you not cross, even if it pragmatically means suicide?
Here are my themes that articulate around cooperation, personal ethic and personality.
Cause in DnD, most players are cooperating unquestionably and in BG3, they are doing it for survival with the constant looming threat of ceremorphosis. And I'm also a huge fan of hellapagos, frostpunk and similar games which are all kind of asking the same questions.
So knowing the limitations of my writing skills, I choose to write this novel from the point of view of one character, which biases made her perfect as an unreliable narrator to match my own flaws as a writer. It's not perfect. But it kinda work. And Sophia is also perfect to answer those themes questions for many reasons:
At the start of the novel, she is superficial, pragmatic and cynical in her approach to cooperation. She is also playing tough and confident yet fear-driven. And she has a pretty malleable ethic, bending rather than breaking... until she doesn't, I guess?
That's about it with my themes. I wish I knew how to formulate it better... but I can't.
Author Notes
So I received my first review as I'm writing this and so, I was feeling like updating my author notes with an answer to this review.
This novel was qualified as unique which is unapologetically true. You won't find a novel like this one anywhere because it is mostly experimental writing. This novel doesn't follow any writing convention which the industry love because it's familiar and reliable for merchandising. I doubt this novel would ever know success even on a 100% noncommercial strategy.
My characters were described as 'shallow' at first and getting 'layers' as the story progress. That's also a storytelling choice, based on my source material: D&D. Think of my characters as players which are incarnating shallow nondescript characters at first who are getting layers as the players are getting invested in their characters and starting to give them a personality and background.
It might sound odds to some readers but I can guarantee you: this story is character-driven and the majority of the book is characters interactions, team-building and problem-solving things as a team. What this novel does not have however is built up tension and epic fight. Despite its grimdark theme, I think the writing style is rather light and feel good. Every conflict solved in the novel is set up well in advance and feel earned. But it's more about the journey and less about conflicts. And yet, it's not a peaceful slice of life either.
Which make me circle back to this novel being described as unique. Yes, for better or worse, this novel is an alien. The only long term goal driving the plot: survive, clear and escape the tutorial. Everything else is about how they get there as a team and how that experience is changing them. My only rules is that nothing I'm writing is gratuitous and every chekhov's gun, no matter how subtle, is gonna go unfire. My writing is minimalistic because every details counts, so when I'm introducing something, you can be pretty sure it's gonna be used, eventually.
I hope that help you figure out what this story is and what this story obviously isn't.
If you like playing DnD (and especially BG3) and are curious about a book written as a campaign, with the sort of creative shenanigans the players would definitely pull on their DM to make the campaign truly theirs... You are in the right place. Each floors of the tutorial is going to have unique themes, iconic monsters sprinkled here and there, and each characters are going to get their time in the spotlight, although the main character is still obviously going to get the lion's share.
It's truly a D&D-like team-building gamelit. Emphasis on team-building as we are chapter 35 as I'm writing this and still building up.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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Novel information:
As I'm writing this, I'm trying to keep things on schedule, about one chapter every week, so scheduled chapters (if any) would be release on Saturdays at the same hour: 8:00 PM (UTC+1).
((( A peak efficiency and precision worthy of Mechanus and its perfected clockwork madness. )))
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Community information:
I do not handle well Keyboard Warriors so unless you goal is to shut down this novel, just don't.
I'm willing to take into consideration any fair criticism and I'm very favorable to a community driven novel or else, I would publish elsewhere. I will however report any toxic behavior and I will definitely migrate this story elsewhere if I have to. I writing this for fun. Have your fun reading this, or don't. But please don't go out of your way to ruin this for others.
I otherwise intend to keep this novel on RoyalRoad, now and forever, entirely for free!
That's about it: Be fair! Be nice! Enjoy this novel for free!
Don't have a good day, have a GREAT day.
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SPOILER - About system design (which is pretty central to any game-lit/litrpg stories)
I think that the litrpg trope happened at the crossing of Sanderson theories about hard magic system with gaming culture. As Sanderson idea is very simple: "your reader is feeling as engage in your magic system as its ability to understand the rules." And litrpg provide that in the form of very explicit very progressive and even quantifiable evolution in the protagonist capabilities.
However, numbers in games, even in rpg, were supposed to disappear overtime as it emerged as a simulation limitation rather than an intended feature. That's my postulate and answer to the "reality turn into a game" tropes. Numbers are not needed or even desirable (be they effective or percentage), as they start losing sense the most the numbers goes up.
I have played for years with the card gaming system instead, feeling that having to manage your ressources (cards) and try your best with the cards in your hands, adding an element of randomness, perfectly translate how life feels like. Only to realise later that this perspective only work from the omniscient point of view of the author and readers.
And then, I went back to the basics and really considered the thought exercise of how D&D characters (not the players) would think of their world and the system, trying to make the system intuitive for them:
1) The system reward your efforts
A society need more than soldiers and mercenaries (or adventurers). While the elite of medieval society was a martial nobility class, even the most common of commoners wants to see improvement in their lives. So why not give them the tools for that?
Also that experience is awarded (primarily) for killing enemies for levels have two undesirable effects for a working society: murderhobos and excessive grinding. And a quest system, even society-driven, is not working either because who can decide the right amount of experience for one quest? Or what would prevent some corrupted officials to "game" the system for their own advantage?
In the end, I decided that even experiences and levels had to go as they are in the end, merely numbers with gaming properties attached to it. So let's concentrate on the properties themselves. And that's when I profess my love to pathfinder because I love the "everything is a feat"/"à la carte" character building.
And that's about how I came up with boons:
You are a professional Inskeeper who inherited the family business, but your real passion is beekeeping which you are using to make hydromel, honeymead and candles for your business? How about boons that reward your experimentation while also helping you to keep your main breadowner afloat?
That's actually my idea behind boons. They should reward consistent deliberate efforts toward one's goal as people are pouring their very soul into one project. Be it becoming the best lavender in town by improving your dye recipes, training hard to learn a new fighting style or just trying to survive as a poor orphan street rat.
2) Sweet beloved limitations
Just boons are sadly not enough. It give a good sense of progression that's feeling earned. But without limitations, "everything goes" as a boon won't provide the clear, engaging system, with predictable outcome that both the users and the readers should be willingly.
So here come the idea of Archetypes, which are pretty much a class-system, with a twist!
And I call it Archetypes because I want users not only to be allowed to multiclass, but also proactively encouraged to do so.
So the boons are now organised in neat categories, forming boons trees, which can help someone inform what future progresses they might want to achieve. Still, organisation is good but that's hardly a limitation, right?
So I made the primary Archetype rule, which make every boon you get, but especially the first one, a life-defining moment. And so I made eight primary Archetypes with eight corresponding starter boons with the following rules:
-Primary Archetypes are divided between civilians and martials, with four Archetypes each. (This explain a adventurer/commoner dichotomy)
-You can only have one starter boon. This boon is granted by the system for free and is overall better than any equivalent. And after choosing it, it will lock its corresponding Archetype as your Primary Archetype, for life. (This give some gravity to choices ensuring that most people would take them seriously. And also allow people to build expectations based on someone primary class. )
-Whatever you plan to do with your life, you need to invest at least a third of your effort to get boons toward your Primary Archetype. And you cannot invest more in any other Archetype that you invested in your Primary. (This prevent Jack of all Trades and one-man armies, which are both interesting concepts but not in a hard-magic system progression fantasy)
-And, in addition to primary Archetype, there are a lot of secondary Archetypes, some with actual entry requirements, in which someone can specialise.
In my previous example, my inkeeper primary Archetype is a crafter (like everyone making a living by making and selling good and services, here: food and lodging.), which further specialised as a inkeeper, before realising his passion lied elsewhere (dip in Gatherer Archetype > Beekeeping > then back to crafting and inkeeping). Which means this colorful character already have at least four Archetypes and a minimum of five boons.
In comparison, everyone selected by the system to go through the tutorial is immediately locked into martial Archetypes, but get one free boon by completed floor. So once they left the tutorial, they have a minimum of twelve martial boons before they could even take a dip into a civilian Archetype if they so wished. It aligned with the system goal of raising those selected individuals to be the swords and shields of their species. And still from a somewhat medieval-accurate fantasy perspective, it would explain the existence of divine-right martial noble class perpetuate by the system.
3) ... and yet, try to keep it simple and intuitive. ^^
Each individual is offer four choices of a starter boon. Then four choices per Archetype they already acquired every subsequent time they got to choose a free boon (as a special reward). However, most people are simply making the choices by going on with their lives, earning one boon at a time at their own pace.
Sometimes people are "multiclassing" because they are feeling stuck in their Primary, forcing them to broaden their horizon. And some time, people are getting motivated in advancing their primary because they want that extra secondary Archetype boon that is currently out of their reach.
And finally, typical multiclass build:
-33%/33%/33% is extremely popular for min-maxed efficiency to versatility ratio. Best choice for competent workers.
-50%/50% is good for focused passionate with a singular passion in life that their Primary cannot fulfill. Best choice for scholars and experts.
-33%/22%/22%/22% for Jack-of-all-trades wannabe. Still enforce some consistency with a focal point on one's primary while offering maximal versatility. Best choice for survivalists and wanted criminals.
-33%/sum(any%<33)=66% for chaotic system-explorers enthusiasts, walking the path less travelled in hope to find unexpected synergies. Best choice for forerunners and eccentrics.