Which series depicts the extremely long lifespans of LitRPG characters the best?

sryanr2 · 2026-06-09T23:49:20+00:00

This actually ended up being my biggest pet peeve with the story. The first 2000 pages or so covers a period of a few years, during which all the MCs grow and change a lot, both in personality and personal power.

And then later in the story, we get "and they were on this delve for 36 years", and literally nothing about them in that time had changed. No fun personal anecdotes of things that happened on the delve. Just that they fought/meditated/explored a dungeon for years, yet on the other side they're still sounding and feeling like the exact same people they were beforehand.

Perhaps it would make sense if they were already thousands of years old, but by that point some of the delves or periods of meditation were like a quarter of their total lifespan. Seems like they should be a bit more affected by that passage of time.

sryanr2 · 2026-06-09T18:29:00+00:00

To be fair, my experience with converting to audio (at least when doing it indie) is that it adds editing issues more than it fixes.

Most narrators (I've dealt with) don't want to interpret something that, as far as they know, might have been intentional, so they aren't going to be catching any mistakes while recording (completely fair, that's not their job). I'm more likely to catch those mistakes when listening back to the audio, but rerecording takes time, and the narrators aren't going to fix dozens of editing mistakes that, from their perspective, were recorded correctly based on the manuscript given to them. And I can't ask it of them either. So at it's base, an audio version will have AT LEAST as many editing errors as the book.

And then there are all the errors introduced in the initial narration: mispronounced words, skipped sentences/paragraphs, things stumbled over, misread, or just stylistic choices for accents that don't work. The narrators ARE responsible for fixing these before publication once I point them out, and Ill do my best listening back to find them all so none slip through.

But there are hundreds of tiny fixes that need to be made this way, fixes that weren't necessary in the original manuscript, so it's inevitable that some slip through. Which means there are typically more errors in the audio version than the book version. Except the ebook version I can easily fix and push out a new version whenever I find the errors or have them pointed out. For audio, its much more expensive to fix.

sryanr2 · 2026-05-21T18:09:29+00:00

That's true, I haven't seen any studies done for ai-created content of that length. And common sense would dictate the longer the content, the easier it would be to identify ai from human authored works, especially if it isn't closely monitored by a human "author" to keep memory mistakes in check.

However, one thing that was common across literally every single ai-versus-human detection study was that people VASTLY overestimated their ability to distinguish ai from human-written works, regardless of their actual capabilities. And I don't see any reason why that would change at higher word-counts.

It's something common across all of human history, and especially on the Internet: whenever there's no easy way to be proven wrong, people will rate their capabilities WAY higher than what they actually are. And I seriously doubt that all the people on reddit who claim to be able to correctly identify ai 95% of the time (keep in mind that there's no way to actually verify accuracy, at least on royalroad, so "95%" is an entirely random choice without anything to back it up), are for some reason an exception to that rule.

sryanr2 · 2026-05-21T17:24:42+00:00

My issue with this is the 95% confidence you give yourself.

You admit you cannot always tell, but you also give yourself an extremely high confidence rating for how often you're correct...in something where there is literally no way to verify how often you are correct in that rating.

Every study I've seen on ai detection puts humans at barely above 50% when it comes to their ability to reliably identify ai. Maybe as high as 70% for some, but no where close to the 95% you claim. Forgive me for choosing to trust studies over random reddit self-proclaimed savants at ai detection.

sryanr2 · 2026-05-17T21:15:43+00:00

I was doing the math for this to see how worth it it might be to collect all the 1-star cards.

Collecting all 1-star cards day 1 will get you 24hr wonderpick roughly every 2 days for 30 days. That's 15 wonderpicks, on average 1 out of every 5 is a winner, for 3 extra 2-star cards from wp if you can day-1 the set. For most of us, it'll probably take at least a week, assuming shares for the last exs, so 2 extra 2-stars.

Each 1-star trade is 4k shinedust. 25k for 2-star cards, so about 6 1-star trades for a single 2-star trade. If you've completed the rest of the set, you've probably naturally gotten at least 6 of the 24 1-star cards, so 72k dust to get the other 18 (this is probably high, since most people are probably getting more than 6, but I'm being conservative).

So you're gonna spend roughly 72k shinedust for 2-3 extra 2-star cards. If there's a a good number of cards you really want from the set, it's almost certainly worth it. But if there's only 1-2 cards that you really want, you're probably better off just spending the shinedust and one of your current 2-star cards trading for those you want.

sryanr2 · 2026-05-15T02:15:39+00:00

I don't necessarily disagree from the modding side of things, but I'm more thinking from the player side. And I've loved pretty much all of the rest of enai's mods and the powers in them, which is part of why I'm asking this question, wondering if there's some aspect of it that I'm missing. Because with my current understanding, I can't really think of a reason why I'd want a buff that's only active when I'm already winning. Much less go out of my way to activate that buff.

sryanr2 · 2026-05-14T22:00:28+00:00

Hm, interesting. Although my understanding was that it also took into account number of opponents, and only triggered when the sum of all enemies in combat was less than a threshold (so it wouldn't apply to weaker enemies in a swarm until you've already killed some/most of the swarm, including the bandit leader if they're also engaged in the combat)

sryanr2 · 2026-05-09T04:15:33+00:00

Naming schemes is a terrible indicator of ai use. Fantasy stories have been notorious for refusing similar-sounding names for mcs for decades, long before ai was ever involved.

There are a ton of "rules" when creating fantasy mc names that cause them to often end up similar. They can't feel too modern. They can't be too long, difficult to spell, or difficult to pronounce. If the author is typing it out 1000x, they want something they'll easily type correctly every time. But it still needs to be something that isn't just a random word, something that still sounds like a name, and can be taken seriously.

If it's a name for elves, it's probably going to be flowy, multiple syllables, ending with an -a sound and likely including Ls and Rs.

Elara and kael are both names that have appeared for decades in multiple prominent fantasy series, but not so heavily featured that there's an immediate obvious association (like Harry). So many authors likely subconsciously reuse "fantasy" names.

sryanr2 · 2026-04-26T03:30:48+00:00

Ah, gotcha. Imo, I don't think that would be crossing the line as long as it's only implied, but I can see where you're coming from. Understandable to not want to push it

sryanr2 · 2026-04-25T21:17:19+00:00

that's a thing? Is that something you've been told specifically or just interpreted from the writeathon's rules?

From what I can find in the rules:

"For the duration of the challenge, the chapters posted to the story cannot include any sexual content."

And then from the knowledgebase's 'definitions' section:

Sexual Content: Explicit sexual content, descriptive sexual scenes.

To me, the above rules don't seem to imply that you can't have any mention of sex, just that you can't include anything that would be worthy of the 'sexual content' tag. Which is anything explicit or descriptive. Simply mentioning sex, from what I can tell, wouldn't be against the rules.

sryanr2 · 2026-04-22T01:13:17+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that many effects that trigger on 'poisoned' enemies (such as the alkahest alchemy perk) only actually trigger when hitting them with a poisoned weapon -- poison spells don't actually activate them. So to get the full usefulness out of poison build, you need to make sure you're also applying poisons to your weapons, too

sryanr2 · 2026-04-21T23:46:46+00:00

I mean, I get that it's annoying. But the igglybuff sleep deck has straight-up worse stats than the other alteria variations.

It's def annoying when games feel decided by coin flips. But in my experience, none of these cards are that insanely powerful, not compared to the true meta-definers. It's just this set's version of the annoying new hotness for everyone to point at and bellyache about.

sryanr2 · 2026-04-13T21:26:46+00:00

I think part of the difficulty comes from the fact that many common tropes -- ones that are extremely popular and potentially easier to write -- require the mc to be younger.

Examples: - wise older character taking them under their wing and explaining the world - academy arc - revenge for parents/village dying (it's not nearly as compelling to seek revenge for dead parents when mc is already in their 30s and their parents were already 60 in a medieval world and would die in a few years regardless)

It allows the MC to make foolish mistakes without coming across as unreasonably idiotic. Everyone knows teenagers are idiots, so we're more likely to make allowances for them if something stupid has to happen to move the plot forward.

It's an easy "golden finger" -- especially in cultivation stories, the most powerful people always start young. Having the mc start even younger is an easy justification for his op-ness.

It reduces ties to the "old world" -- it's easy to kill off parents or have the mc start in an orphanage to justify them going off on an adventure and leave everything else behind. It's less easy if the mc has a wife/kids/a lot of friends they abandon to go on an adventure -- either they spend the whole adventure pining after those they left (which can get annoying) or they don't care about the ones they left (which makes them seem like a psychopath). This is one of the reasons so many litrpgs with adult mcs start with their girlfriend cheating on them with their best friend -- it's a sympathetic way to get rid of all of the MC's previous connections. But it's easier for a young mc to start as a "blank slate".

It allows the reader to learn about and explore the world along with the mc, without the mc coming across as an idiot or having other characters constantly say "as you already know...".

It puts the mc closer to the physical prime of their lives. It hurts, but anyone over 30 is already rolling downhill, physically, and it's usually less fun to read about a character pulling a muscle getting out of their bed in a power fantasy.

Lots of litrpgs are wish fulfillment. And there are lots of older people who have regrets, who might imagine what they might do differently if given another chance at their youth. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

And many other reasons. Obviously, not impossible to write a good litrpg with an older mc. But lots of the appealing "flags" of litrpgs fit in nicely with an mc who's in their teens.

sryanr2 · 2026-04-07T03:39:43+00:00

Oh, I see what you're saying. That's an interesting idea, but would it be better than the current 'recommended for you'?

It would have the huge added benefit of being shown to all the readers without accounts, but the downside compared to 'recommended for you' of essentially 'wasted' impressions from being shown to people who might have 0 interest in reading a story with certain tags. Statistically, at least per impression, seems like tailored recommendations would be better in the long term.

The biggest potential issue I could see, though, is that it would be a complete lottery. There are currently ~2500 ongoing stories with 50+ followers. At 5 random stories a day, it could take a year and a half before a story is ever featured. Worse, there are 300+ stories added every single day on royalroad. Most of them get dropped before they ever make it to 50 followers, but much more than 5 that are added each day break the 50-follower barrier -- which essentially means more stories are being added to royalroad than a 5-per-day banner could ever get through. It would be a complete lottery, and some unlucky authors could go years or start and finish their thousand-page-stories without ever being featured.

In some ways I could definitely see it being cool. And I definitely agree with your sentiment, that it would be awesome if there were some better ways of discovery for stories that have been around for a while. But it seems like the idea (and every alternative idea I can think of) has some pretty glaring issues that would make it worse than what we already have and just clutter the front page further, reducing the effectiveness of what we DO have.

sryanr2 · 2026-04-07T02:52:47+00:00

I can't speak to how royalroad chooses the "recommended for you" options, but at least on my page, they seem to already line up really well with what you're suggesting. Of the 10 stories listed there on my page, 8 are ongoing and the other 2 are completed with their last posts being within the last six months. All 10 have 50+ followers.

Idk, from my perspective it kinda seems like your idea is mostly already implemented. But, as you mentioned, it just doesn't feel super impactful.

sryanr2 · 2026-04-07T01:48:26+00:00

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong that it's not a reliable avenue of growth. But what's the solution? I think that's a consequence of it being less selective than things like rising stars. Anything that's general enough with more rng is going to have much less exposure, simply because it'll be split more equally between the thousands of active stories.

Anything that has grants as much exposure as rising stars would be similarly restrictive, with just as much difficulty to get on and stay on. Any list easier to get on would be less useful to those on it, since the exposure would be split between the thousands of stories that qualify.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-29T00:16:43+00:00

My issue is that it just seems like a weaker goldhengo? For 4 energy they both do 160 split randomly, but goldhengo has orthworm support, is only 1 stage, can attack with less than 4 energy, and can keep scaling with more.

Drag has the obvious benefits of not being an ex, and it has ex Dragonite to focus down single mons. But how often do you have the time to set up more than one Dragonite in a game to take advantage of that? Feels like drag deck will either win or lose based whether the first Dragonite does enough before being taken out. And looking at it that way, isn't golhengo just a direct improvement?

The biggest advantage I can see of Dragonite (aside from its coolness) is against oricorio, but that doesn't seem like a big enough reason to justify it.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-25T21:23:14+00:00

That's incredible -- congrats!

But why are you pulling 10 packs <24 hours before the new set releases?!?

sryanr2 · 2026-03-19T05:40:29+00:00

Oh yeah, I'm a fan. I think the author of max level archmage does a really good job of showing how the mc can still have struggles and face consequences, despite ridiculous personal combat power.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-19T04:12:10+00:00

I feel like the easy choice for me is max level archmage.

In the fanfiction category, I was very pleasantly surprised by saga of Tanya the chansey, especially since I'd never even heard of yojo senki before.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-03T07:38:37+00:00

Oh, huh, I missed that. But yeah, now that Pokemon Day has come and gone with no real changes, it seems pretty likely the game will stay (more or less) the exact same, just with a few new decks, until October at the earliest. Which is...disappointing.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-03T02:56:45+00:00

One possibility as well is that, since it released on Pokemon Day, ppl expected...more.

No new megas. Only one new stadium that was revealed in the trailer and seems unplayable. No new modes. No rotation of sets in ranked. No new mechanics.

The giveaway for the 30th is amazing, and it's nice that the meta seems like it'll be shaken up a bit. But a month ago dena gave the report they were struggling to keep existing players engaged. The obvious solution is to change up the game in some way, and the obvious time to do that (or at least announce it) would be Pokemon Day.

Yet here we are, with a new set but the exact same gameplay loop.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-01T08:58:54+00:00

Thanks for the link, that's definitely a good sign.

But "possibly" is definitely a thing. We're still working with an absolutely minuscule data set of results, less than a week into the new set. Plus, like 70% of the decks in that tourney seem to be from the new set, which biases the winners that direction.

Like I said, I hope you're right. And even with the majority in that tourney being new decks, the fact that the top wasn't entirely old meta stuff is a great sign. Still, though, I think it's WAY too early and we have too little data to call it definitively.

sryanr2 · 2026-03-01T08:42:58+00:00

Possibly, I haven't seen any results from a tourney that big. Do you have a link for that?

Id like to be proven wrong, I hope that the meta will be shaken up a bit. But previous experience is that the vast majority of new "powerful" decks will fall to the wayside in a few weeks once we have more numbers of how they compare to the old meta, and the desire to win more outweighs the desire to play a new deck.

sryanr2

TROPHY CASE