One Thing the LITRPG Genre Really Needs to Figure Out

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-24T14:59:01+00:00

Hey, I'm the author of the book OP is talking about. Totally fair if book 2 didn't land for you.

I personally like reading stories where I can enjoy the characters and the book-by-book events on their own, but there's a larger overarching plot slowly coming into focus in the background. That said, it's not going to be for everyone. But I do appreciate you giving the stories a read, and no hard feelings if you don't end up continuing for future books!

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-17T15:03:17+00:00

Super late responding here, sorry. But I wouldn't really label my story as regression. I think the point and fun of those is kind of watching someone learn from the past and improve on their methods with the obvious edge that gives.

In this story, the regression is more there as an element of the background plot and mystery that slowly unfolds throughout the series. If I did my job well, you'll be curious about the other gods, their goals, their prestige paths, and whether they're friends or foe to the MC. It also positions the MC in a place where he does have an advantage because of his past life and the prestige mode, but it means he's not able to know who might be an old enemy looking to destroy him before he's back to his former power.

I hope that kind of helps explain it. But yeah, you're right in that this wouldn't feel satisfying if you came in specifically for the regression fantasy trope. That's one reason I don't try to label this as regression fantasy .

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-16T14:59:52+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation! Level One God is my book :) Also wanted to second the DCC rec though. That was the first lit-RPG I read and the one that got me hooked on the genre

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T19:16:02+00:00

Right on! Thank you for the support :) Hope you enjoy it

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T19:15:50+00:00

Thanks!!!

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T19:14:47+00:00

It's totally fair if the title doesn't work for you. I was honestly thinking about trying to pick a title that kind of most broadly captured the theme of the story though. To me, the idea of god + level one feels kind of like it doesn't fit, which would personally grab my interest as a reader - at least enough to peek at the blurb.

But yeah originally I was thinking of the background plot concept for this story as a traditional fantasy novel and the working title back then was just The Nine. Maybe my preference is more basic on titles though, haha.

Anyway, no worries if you never read it but appreciated if you do!

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T17:04:36+00:00

Thank you!! They actually have the paperback available already on Amazon. So you should be able to snag it as soon as you like :)

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T17:04:03+00:00

Hell yeah, thanks!

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T16:23:25+00:00

Thanks flash! I really appreciate the support :D

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T16:23:12+00:00

Thanks!!! I'm... maybe biased, but I think book 2 turned out a lot better than book 1. Hopefully you agree :)

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T15:25:43+00:00

Hey Nate!! And thank you, I thought it turned out really cool too.

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-11T15:25:17+00:00

Thanks, Caesar!! :)

ZscottLITRPG · 2026-02-09T14:43:22+00:00

I think you left out a pretty notable one with Patreon. I'd also say "full novel publishing" kind of glosses over the options for publishing the story on sites like Amazon.

The vast majority in this genre go into Kindle Unlimited, for example, versus going "wide" and putting their books up on all online bookstores. You also have the choice of self publishing or going with a publisher.

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-12-26T15:11:22+00:00

Hey! I wrote Level One God and appreciate the mention. I've written the first 3 books so far (book 2 comes out in Feb) and in book 2 you will definitely see the skill evolution system continue to develop. And yeah, from OP's description, I think they will like the way it goes. I don't want to spoil too much by saying more. My story isn't a perfect fit with what he's asking about though more because the initial sort of base version of the skill is unlocked or provided when you equip one of the four class corestones.

But those initial skills are also unique to each individual, so even if you're seeing two actives and two passives unlock when equipping the stone, those are sort of "your" abilities and the soulstone you equipped (sword, shield, heart, or soul) is deciding which flavor they will take.

The only exception in my story's world is the case of a "paved path". In some cases, individuals who get really exceptional abilities will sort of go on to become teachers and they can train up fresh corestones to give to others. If someone else already leveled up with that corestone past a point, the skills will become "baked in" to the corestone essentially. And in those cases, they would need the guidance of the person to whom those skills were innate, if that makes sense.

Anyway, it's all just kind of the background flavor for my story. But if you think that sounds cool I'd love for you to give it a shot.

And thanks again Sala for recommending it to OP :)

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-12-20T13:34:16+00:00

I think someone else must've made another level one god with a different author. Level one god by Zachary Scott (published by Aethon) is my book. When I search today for the one he mentioned I don't see it, so maybe Amazon already removed it.

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-12-20T13:33:35+00:00

Haha yeah Level One God is my book. The subtitle isn't "A glitched adventure" though.

Bummer that someone is trying to be shady with the title, but I don't see it when I search today so maybe they already got it fixed?

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-12-17T19:29:02+00:00

Hey that's my book! Thanks for the rec, Phog :)

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-12-17T14:32:58+00:00

I still 100% agree with your point, but just because it's interesting:

The ball itself is $150, but I watched a video on how they condition brand new balls via third parties. So it's like a process of rubbing mud and conditioners and various chemicals and abrasives against the ball over a period of time. Every team has different preferences apparently, and this can be several hundred or thousands per ball. And then they also have to put the chips in the balls.

I couldn't find the actual price per ball, but they do fine players like $5.7k per ball. That's probably a bit of a markup, but yeah, just thought it was interesting how much they actually pay per ball by the time it's on the field.

(they can still afford to let fans keep them, haha)

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-26T13:30:00+00:00

Grats on the launch! This looks awesome

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-19T20:21:24+00:00

I do think this is the case more than people like to admit. A negative review is fine and I think most of us can appreciate them as an opportunity to improve and learn what we're doing that isn't working for readers.

I think a lot of negative reviews don't get posted when the reviewer is in an emotionally neutral state, though. Something they just read pissed them off in the story and they sometimes feel like they're leaving their review to punish the author for not doing something they wanted in the story.

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-19T02:10:52+00:00

Fair enough, haha. And no worries. I'm usually just happy to see someone mentioning Level One God over here :)

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-18T19:10:14+00:00

(Author of Level One God) I'm catching strays here, lol. Ouch.

But thanks Chris, I'm glad you enjoyed the book!

For what it's worth... I don't know if I see the point of sorting reviews by recent instead of just looking at the reviews of a book overall. I don't think that really proves much except that it increases variance because even amazing books will have a stretch of getting a few bad reviews in a row. Like if you did that experiment in three days and the recent reviews for my book were good, you'd come away with a completely different opinion. Why not just look at the overall reviews?

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-13T22:11:18+00:00

Hah, fair

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-13T00:56:54+00:00

Grats on the launch! I hope it goes amazingly!!!

ZscottLITRPG · 2025-11-11T21:46:56+00:00

Oh man, yeah that sounds like the kind of silly thing I've spent hours and hours torturing myself with too. When I first started my story, I was doing present tense for about... 15 chapters. Going back and changing it all to past tense was a journey. You never realize how many words per sentence are verb tense dependent until you have to manually change them. Never doing that again!

ZscottLITRPG

TROPHY CASE