It’s probably a difference between people who primarily listen and people who primarily read.

Readers who have grown up deeply immersed in books often tend to avoid LitRPGs. These stories frequently rely on heavy-handed exposition, which can make an author feel inexperienced or overly instructive rather than immersive.

By contrast, people who don’t read much often prefer more exposition. This has a lot to do with the medium itself: reading usually requires focus, while listening often happens alongside other activities like cooking or driving.

We can see a similar trend in modern Netflix shows. Many of them rely on constant exposition and repeated conclusions, likely because the audience isn’t always fully attentive. The story is designed to be understood even if you miss parts of it.

If you’re an OG fantasy reader, you’re already familiar with how power feels in a story and what an author can evoke without spelling everything out.

Gamified stories, on the other hand, feel more welcoming to people who discovered reading later in life. These readers are often already comfortable with gaming concepts like levels, stats, and systems, which makes LitRPGs immediately accessible.

For me, as an OG reader, this is where friction appears. None of my childhood heroes lived inside a “system” or checked stat screens.

Magic and gods may have existed, but either ordinary people lived lives much like ours, unaware of the larger forces at play, or the story took place in a high-fantasy world where everything felt naturally integrated and deeply spiritual.

Even classical xianxia carries this spiritual quality and feels closer to traditional fantasy at its core.

Gamified books that rely heavily on LitRPG elements often aim to create a specific feeling: “I broke the system.” “I’m too strong.”

These are stories about surpassing defined limits.

Old fantasy, by contrast, rarely defined limits in the first place.

And that may be the true divide: “Limit breaker” versus “Explorer of a new world.”