The Gamer Discussion, Fic Ideas, and Recommendation Thread

[EdroGrimshell]

Onto the actual system, stats like INT and WIS that affect the character's behavior are something I'm growing uncertain about. So does anyone else have any ideas about what the stats regarding magic should do, and what they should be called?

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I have an alternate system called the aspects of self.

Blood, Bone, Flesh, Guts, Nerve, and Spirit. Just take out the mental aspects of each stat listed and you still have a decent list. It's not perfect, but it generally works since it represents aspects of the physical for everything (except for spirit which represents more metaphysical stuff) so it can do what you're looking for. I'm using this for a Re:Monster fanfic that's going fairly slow ATM.

Spoiler

Blood: A measure of fluidity. Determines Health Regeneration and contributes to Health Pool and Mana Regeneration. Represents a person's Grace, Coordination, Agility, Mental Flexibility/Lateral Thinking, Creativity, and Speed.

Bone: A measure of rigidity. Determines Health Pool and contributes to Health Regeneration and Stamina Regeneration. Represents a person's Physical Resilience, Vitality, Immunity/Tolerance, Emotional Stability, and Mental Structure.

Flesh: A measure of effort. Determines Stamina and contributes to Health Pool and Stamina Regeneration. Represents a person's Strength, Speed, Fortitude, and their ability to Push their Limits.

Guts: A measure of will. Determines Stamina Regeneration and contributes to Mana Pool and Stamina Pool. Represents a person's Willpower, Mental Force, Resilience, Emotional Strength, Determination, and Kamina-ness.

Nerve: A measure of the mind. Determines Mana Pool and contributes to Mana Regeneration and Health Regeneration. Represents a person's Intelligence, Magical Ability/Potential, Skill, Memorization, Mental Capacity, and Reaction Time.

Spirit: A measure of the soul. Determines Mana Regeneration and contributes to Mana Pool and Stamina Regeneration. Represents a person's Luck, Intuition, Wisdom, Force of Personality, Charisma, and Self Awareness.

 

[ltmauve]

First, I don't know that much of the plot, but possibilities for the person to use her ability would be that the spells provided by the ability are seen as either useful or necessary enough to try to go through the downsides. I don't have enough details to suggest anything about the not trusting the person, but maybe find some other ways for the protagonist to get information about the plot and such?

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Well, she could decide to tough it playing through as a suffering character in order to get power, because she doesn't trust her companion.

But as for "finding out about the plot," it's less that and more that if Sarah (the MC) decides to ditch Mari (the duotagonist), there isn't a plot. Basically: Sarah got collateral-damaged by Mari, so Mari resurrected her... after getting completely lost in the multiverse in order to ditch an enemy she couldn't fight. So Sarah could in theory just leave at the next okay world, and spend the rest of her immortal life doing not much of consequence. But that's boring.

As for Intelligence and Wisdom. First, stats should have a reason to help magic. In other words, it would make sense for Intelligence to help magic in MGLN, where magic happens by some sort of math, but not in a setting like RWBY or Dresden Files. Also, if in the settings magic potential is a different thing from intelligence, like MGLN, then have a different stat for MP pool or have it determined by another stat or Level.

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Yeah, the system I'm thinking of now is as follows:
First, the caster takes some mana inside their body and manipulates to form the basis of the spell. Then they release some other mana and use that to enact the actual spell.
So there would be two stats for it. One for inside the body, one for outside.

I have an alternate system called the aspects of self.

Blood, Bone, Flesh, Guts, Nerve, and Spirit. Just take out the mental aspects of each stat listed and you still have a decent list. It's not perfect, but it generally works since it represents aspects of the physical for everything (except for spirit which represents more metaphysical stuff) so it can do what you're looking for. I'm using this for a Re:Monster fanfic that's going fairly slow ATM.

Spoiler

Blood: A measure of fluidity. Determines Health Regeneration and contributes to Health Pool and Mana Regeneration. Represents a person's Grace, Coordination, Agility, Mental Flexibility/Lateral Thinking, Creativity, and Speed.

Bone: A measure of rigidity. Determines Health Pool and contributes to Health Regeneration and Stamina Regeneration. Represents a person's Physical Resilience, Vitality, Immunity/Tolerance, Emotional Stability, and Mental Structure.

Flesh: A measure of effort. Determines Stamina and contributes to Health Pool and Stamina Regeneration. Represents a person's Strength, Speed, Fortitude, and their ability to Push their Limits.

Guts: A measure of will. Determines Stamina Regeneration and contributes to Mana Pool and Stamina Pool. Represents a person's Willpower, Mental Force, Resilience, Emotional Strength, Determination, and Kamina-ness.

Nerve: A measure of the mind. Determines Mana Pool and contributes to Mana Regeneration and Health Regeneration. Represents a person's Intelligence, Magical Ability/Potential, Skill, Memorization, Mental Capacity, and Reaction Time.

Spirit: A measure of the soul. Determines Mana Regeneration and contributes to Mana Pool and Stamina Regeneration. Represents a person's Luck, Intuition, Wisdom, Force of Personality, Charisma, and Self Awareness.

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Not what I'm looking for, but thanks anyway.

So the stats would be

Spoiler: 5 stat system

Structure: (SRCT) The ability to continue existing. Determines health pool and health regen. Skills that are affected by SRCT are usually damage-absorbing and object-creation abilities.

Movement: (MOVE) The ability to alter position. Affects body coordination, speed, finesse of movement. Determines stamina regen. Skills that are affected by MOVE are usually movement abilities.

Force: (FORC) The ability to mechanically affect the world. Affects strength, speed. Determines stamina pool and mechanical damage dealt. Skills that are affected by FORC are usually spells that produce simple, mechanical effects.

Internal: (INRL) The ability to manipulate mana inside the body. Determines mana regen, casting speed, mana reserved for spells, direct magic resistance. Skills that are affected by INRL are usually duration spells.

External: (EXRL) The ability to manipulate mana outside the body. Determines mana pool, spell range, resistance to area-of-affect magic. Skills that are affected by EXRL are usually instant or perception-based.

 

[heosphoros]

I wish people were more conservative when writing gamer-like fanfics. Most of the time it gets bloated with numerous skills that never get anywhere, stats with little grounding of what they are supposed to represent (how strong is someone with 50 of strength? And no, stronger than 40 is not a real answer) and overall, having too much of a number boner.

Honestly, the fewer the numbers the better to me. I like gamer-like stuff for being a cheap power-up that still requires hard work and gives a quantified result for said work, making it slightly less cheap. But when an author is more interested in showing his excel worksheet of game stats and calculations instead of telling a story my interest goes down the drain.

@EdroGrimshell. I liked your stats. Good concept – not as samey as the majority – but some of their descriptions are a bit unintuitive and somewhat heterogeneous – most stats govern a broad spectrum of physical and mental characteristics, many unrelated but for a theme.

For instance, before reading the spoiler, I thought that Blood would deal heavily with Stamina (due red blood cells) and HP regeneration plus disease resistance (due platelets and white blood cells). I was half right, but I would have never guessed most of the other stuff, and if I were to read your fic I would have to constantly go back to check what each stat does every time they were mentioned (particularly Blood, Flesh, Bones and Guts).

And since people are posting their stat systems:

Body: strength, toughness, health, endurance, longevity, regeneration, disease/poison resistance.
Control: motor control, agility, flexibility, speed (limited by Body), balance, proprioception, hand eye coordination.
Mind: memory, perception, analytical ability, learning speed, brainy smarty stuff.
Spirit: willpower, emotional intelligence and control, self-awareness, intuition, mystic mumbo jumbo.

I'm not satisfied with Control as a name, a bit too broad, if someone can suggest a similar word that is also short (so it matches the others) I would be grateful.

I like not having Wisdom and Charisma (though Spirit is a bit related), I think these two are troublesome to write, decision making and social interaction are the spine of both story and character and it feels off relegating it to a quantified factor. Like turning what is meant as a person playing a game character into an actual game character, if you get my meaning. Also, as a person who is not the wisest nor the most charismatic, it would be tricky trying to portray someone that is, perhaps, super-humanly so. And the less said about the Stat-That-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned the better.

If I were to write yet another Gamer fic the average stat would be 10 and peak human being 20, and raising a single point would take a good amount of training and effort to gain (no "you made a plan that is not completely idiotic, here, have 20 points of wisdom. Leveling up would likely give, say, 10 points to spend buying traits and stats at a variable price (the higher the stat the more expensive, good trait being something like 30 points) and traits would be required to break through 20 stats. And the skills would cap at 10, easier to get a notion of scale, makes earning points more impacting like the stat raise.

 

[ltmauve]

I'm not satisfied with Control as a name, a bit too broad, if someone can suggest a similar word that is also short (so it matches the others) I would be grateful. If I were to write yet another Gamer fic the average stat would be 10 and peak human being 20, and raising a single point would take a good amount of training and effort to gain (no "you made a plan that is not completely idiotic, here, have 20 points of wisdom. Leveling up would likely give, say, 10 points to spend buying traits and stats at a variable price (the higher the stat the more expensive, good trait being something like 30 points) and traits would be required to break through 20 stats. And the skills would cap at 10, easier to get a notion of scale, makes earning points more impacting like the stat raise.

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Finesse?

Also, I see we're going in opposite directions for stats - you're capping them, and I'm planning to have most experienced fighters have insane stats (fortunately there are aura fodder monsters and beasts for her to practice on.) And then there would be the occasional monster that even the relatively good party member goes "just run" and stuff even above that.

 

[EdroGrimshell]

I wish people were more conservative when writing gamer-like fanfics. Most of the time it gets bloated with numerous skills that never get anywhere, stats with little grounding of what they are supposed to represent (how strong is someone with 50 of strength? And no, stronger than 40 is not a real answer) and overall, having too much of a number boner.

Honestly, the fewer the numbers the better to me. I like gamer-like stuff for being a cheap power-up that still requires hard work and gives a quantified result for said work, making it slightly less cheap. But when an author is more interested in showing his excel worksheet of game stats and calculations instead of telling a story my interest goes down the drain.

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Personally I agree with this, to a degree. I do believe that it should be possible to push. But, I don't like hyper acceleration of ability. My style only gives out two points every level that can be spent on your stats or your skills or to gain a perk, and you can train anything, but it takes time and focus.

@EdroGrimshell. I liked your stats. Good concept – not as samey as the majority – but some of their descriptions are a bit unintuitive and somewhat heterogeneous – most stats govern a broad spectrum of physical and mental characteristics, many unrelated but for a theme.

For instance, before reading the spoiler, I thought that Blood would deal heavily with Stamina (due red blood cells) and HP regeneration plus disease resistance (due platelets and white blood cells). I was half right, but I would have never guessed most of the other stuff, and if I were to read your fic I would have to constantly go back to check what each stat does every time they were mentioned (particularly Blood, Flesh, Bones and Guts).

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Yea, it's a little unintuitive. Could just use the initial descriptors (Fluidity, Rigidity, Effort, Will, Mind, and Soul) and have that work, possibly leave Spirit as is since Spirit and Soul are essentially the same thing and spirit sounds better. Seems like it could work. I just used the names I did because it was originally for an undead.

And since people are posting their stat systems:

Body: strength, toughness, health, endurance, longevity, regeneration, disease/poison resistance.
Control: motor control, agility, flexibility, speed (limited by Body), balance, proprioception, hand eye coordination.
Mind: memory, perception, analytical ability, learning speed, brainy smarty stuff.
Spirit: willpower, emotional intelligence and control, self-awareness, intuition, mystic mumbo jumbo.

I'm not satisfied with Control as a name, a bit too broad, if someone can suggest a similar word that is also short (so it matches the others) I would be grateful.

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I don't know, honestly, I can only think of using one of mine in this case (Nerve), and I don't know if it'd fit in as well since that's more a representation than a descriptor like yours seems to be. Maybe just call it Body (Skill) and pair it with Body (Condition), skill for the coordination and speed stuff, with Condition being for things like strength and muscle? I don't know.

I like not having Wisdom and Charisma (though Spirit is a bit related), I think these two are troublesome to write, decision making and social interaction are the spine of both story and character and it feels off relegating it to a quantified factor. Like turning what is meant as a person playing a game character into an actual game character, if you get my meaning. Also, as a person who is not the wisest nor the most charismatic, it would be tricky trying to portray someone that is, perhaps, super-humanly so. And the less said about the Stat-That-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned the better.

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Yea, Wis and Cha are kinda annoying to deal with in most cases, and if the Stat-That-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned is the stat I think it is, I think it needs to be defined by game statistics rather than by what it could mean (loot drops rather than probability manipulation).

Personally, I use Luk (sorry for naming it) for my characters, but, I never go too far with it. It's a minor modifier with its real benefit being in Loot. Always. I never have it as a type of "improbable shit happens when you raise this high enough" kind of deal. And when it does? It's a chance hit at a sensitive point (a critical hit) or a lack of such on yourself (your opponent missing what would otherwise be a critical hit). It is the perfect stat for crafters, which is my favorite type of Gamer despite their being so few out there that focus on crafting as a way to gain power.

I want to see a gamer that makes stuff to close the gap, their main way to close the gap even. Items that, fed a steady supply of mana, buff them up! A decent Wis score or a skill to boost their Mana Regeneration and they can use a relatively small mana pool that regenerates quickly to just act as fuel for their magical power armor and weapons because it'd be sooo fun! That's just me though, I love the idea and I don't honestly know how well it'd translate. If anyone does this, please let me know! I have been looking for ages and NEED to see one that isn't Crack!

If I were to write yet another Gamer fic the average stat would be 10 and peak human being 20, and raising a single point would take a good amount of training and effort to gain (no "you made a plan that is not completely idiotic, here, have 20 points of wisdom. Leveling up would likely give, say, 10 points to spend buying traits and stats at a variable price (the higher the stat the more expensive, good trait being something like 30 points) and traits would be required to break through 20 stats. And the skills would cap at 10, easier to get a notion of scale, makes earning points more impacting like the stat raise.

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Eh, I start my fics with every stat at 5 and giving the character 15 stat points at the start to customize their stats a bit, requiring they spend at least 10 points. Then again, most of the time I go for teenage characters that aren't fully developed, so it makes sense for them to have somewhat lower stats.

I personally use 100, but have it so that skills upgrade every 5 levels rather than every level (like the weapon masteries in The Gamer do) so it's really 20 levels with 5 benchmarks to pass through. It also makes it so you can't just use the points you get every level to power through the levels of a skill. You can use it to speed it up, or to break through when you're right there, but not just go "okay, I have five skill points, let's put them all in this high ranking skill to make it really powerful" it's a case of resource management (my favorite kind of game alongside crafting games, which often share aspects of each other).

 

[heosphoros]

Personally, I use Luk (sorry for naming it) for my characters, but, I never go too far with it. It's a minor modifier with its real benefit being in Loot. Always. I never have it as a type of "improbable shit happens when you raise this high enough" kind of deal. And when it does? It's a chance hit at a sensitive point (a critical hit) or a lack of such on yourself (your opponent missing what would otherwise be a critical hit). It is the perfect stat for crafters, which is my favorite type of Gamer despite their being so few out there that focus on crafting as a way to gain power.

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One of the many problems with the thing as a stat is how to give the reader a perspective, as I mentioned, I like to know what certain value mean, in a grounded manner as opposed of number size, after all, telling me that 50 strength result in 1000 damage only tells me that numbers rise when they increase. And Luck is very hard to give that sense of scale, how lucky is 7 of luck? What is the luck of someone who was born with a golden spoon and is happy and successful for decades? What if that person suddenly suffer a tragedy that ruins their entire life? Does that mean that their luck went down, or was low all along but he had being paradoxically lucky most his life? If it's the former luck is variable and meaningless as a stat, if it is the latter it doesn't tell you anything. If one must include luck as a subtle force (because as being overt is a recipe for either a very boring fic or very short crack), I suggest having it as a trait, you make a single investment for a wide affecting but unreliable benefit, no numbers required.

Eh, I start my fics with every stat at 5 and giving the character 15 stat points at the start to customize their stats a bit, requiring they spend at least 10 points. Then again, most of the time I go for teenage characters that aren't fully developed, so it makes sense for them to have somewhat lower stats.

I personally use 100, but have it so that skills upgrade every 5 levels rather than every level (like the weapon masteries in The Gamer do) so it's really 20 levels with 5 benchmarks to pass through. It also makes it so you can't just use the points you get every level to power through the levels of a skill. You can use it to speed it up, or to break through when you're right there, but not just go "okay, I have five skill points, let's put them all in this high ranking skill to make it really powerful" it's a case of resource management (my favorite kind of game alongside crafting games, which often share aspects of each other).

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It's almost a requirement for the character to be some form of an average everydude, accompanying the growth of the character from little newbie to grandmaster pro-gamer is part of the fun, and if he is competent from start you have to translate all his abilities to game stuff, which is a bit of a bitch. Your alternative for skill levels if pretty good, though it appears that you want low numbers but are ashamed of it . I choose mine because my mindset became streamline everything, make raising any number a challenge and a tiny victory.

Personally I agree with this, to a degree. I do believe that it should be possible to push. But, I don't like hyper acceleration of ability. My style only gives out two points every level that can be spent on your stats or your skills or to gain a perk, and you can train anything, but it takes time and focus.

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Gaining 2 points per level and having skills going to 100 makes the option of spending points on them kinda useless to me, unless I'm missing something. Would fit my 10 point skills more.

Edit:

Didn't see you there.

Finesse?

Also, I see we're going in opposite directions for stats - you're capping them, and I'm planning to have most experienced fighters have insane stats (fortunately there are aura fodder monsters and beasts for her to practice on.) And then there would be the occasional monster that even the relatively good party member goes "just run" and stuff even above that.

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I considered, but Finesse seems too narrow to me, always thought of it as dainty fine motor skills than representative of the the entire spectrum of human movement.

It's more of a soft cap, a good chunk of my system came from a Worm crossover where Taylor would unlock traits and skills from the parahumans she defeated. So if she did the cliche thing and defeated Lung she would gain the skills Fire Aura and Dragonscale Armor and the trait Brute I, that allowed her to raise her Body stat another 20 points or so. Unlocking Brute II would add more and so on, it kept her from grinding stats forever, a motive to seek conflict.

 

[Jackercracks]

Everything else? It's a minor modifier at best. And only at 0 or negative luck (debuffs and the lick) will you have issues with bad luck happening more often. At least, that's my way of going about it.

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And that I fully support. When people use Luck as world-wide reality warping that effects everyone out there that will interact with the MC in order to change literally everything, that's what I have a problem with.

 

[Dameg]

There is one actually! It's on Twisting the Hellmouth, and although I don't think there is any direct lewds in it, there is some definite hints so I am cautious to link it, but go to Twisting the Hellmouth and search gamer. It will be the longest one. (It's 100,000+ words) It has them purchase a few things through the Abyss auction.

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Whats the name?

 

[Obloquy]

Other biggest offender? Luck. Giving a character a luck stat without some very specific caveats is like shooting yourself in the foot with an infected arrow. Sooner or later, it's going to start to smell, and rot, and you're probably going to have to either ignore it as it gets worse and worse, or amputate. Because a character with low luck looks exactly like a character whom the world conspires to hurt in cartoonish and badly written ways. All the authority figures are unrealistic assholes and everything goes wrong for no good reason. A character with high luck looks like a mary sue who can do no wrong, everything works out just fine and dandy for no good reason. It reduces the answer to every interesting question about the world to essentially "luck did it". There's a reason Contessa isn't a PoV character, and that's because that is a terrible way to set up a story. Third option, protagonist notices they have a luck stat and ignores it, they look like an idiot. It's a no-win.

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When I write out Gamer possibility ideas, I don't use Luck as a Stat.
The 6 stats I prefer to use are: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intellect, Wisdom, Charisma.

Because talking with people, making good/bad impressions, acting and disguising yourself are all important things even if you don't include illusions or mental influence spells as falling under CHA. And the ability to collect allies into your party is important, and in Gamer situations where the character interacts with real people Charisma should be incredibly important.

I do sort of have a Luck equivalent in one or two of my outlines, though. But to be honest I kludged it from the FATE tabletop RPG system for Stunts and Refresh and rewrote it to work for the 6 video game stats.

But basically, if you want a character with low INT but high MP, you can buy a title/trait that might give them a total or per level MP boost without affecting INT. Or if you want to Min-Max a character even more, you can buy something that will add 10% to INT, or STR, or DEX...

But doing so gives you a penalty to the equivalent of Luck. You're more vulnerable to critical damage and fails, more likely to run into an enemy that's super effective or has an annoying trait of its own, and the RNG gets tipped a little more against you.

Conversely, if you want to balance it out, you can buy Traits with a negative that raise your Luck equivalent, like a Kryptonite Factor, or Phobia, an annoying enemy who hunts you down, a set of two or three skills that you risk automatically failing at despite your proficiency...

 

[Seras]

Whats the name?

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Scooby Gamers. Like I said it's the longest fic with "Gamer" on the site, you can just search Gamer, and it's one of the first links. Slightly NSFW as a warning.

 

[ltmauve]

Because talking with people, making good/bad impressions, acting and disguising yourself are all important things even if you don't include illusions or mental influence spells as falling under CHA. And the ability to collect allies into your party is important, and in Gamer situations where the character interacts with real people Charisma should be incredibly important.

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Except then you run into the problem that the stats affect how the character acts, unless CHA controls a passive mindrape aura. And do you know how to write a high-CHA character?

I considered, but Finesse seems too narrow to me, always thought of it as dainty fine motor skills than representative of the the entire spectrum of human movement.

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Grace, Flex(ibility), motion

It's more of a soft cap, a good chunk of my system came from a Worm crossover where Taylor would unlock traits and skills from the parahumans she defeated. So if she did the cliche thing and defeated Lung she would gain the skills Fire Aura and Dragonscale Armor and the trait Brute I, that allowed her to raise her Body stat another 20 points or so. Unlocking Brute II would add more and so on, it kept her from grinding stats forever, a motive to seek conflict.

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Ah. So like normal humans in my version - there's a limit to how good a human can be (stats capped at 25) but there are processes that let them bypass human limits. Which results in humans with strength of 50 men, 15 times the speed of a human, and 10 times as tough (everyone wears armor, so it's not as important)

 

[aattss]

So, on the topic of new mechanics to implement, I was thinking about the prestige system. The one in incremental games where you basically reset so that you can do everything faster the second time around. Though, there's only one fic I've seen with the concept, and it only has about three chapters and I wouldn't bet on getting another one. The implementation of this system I'm imagining would overlap a lot with groundhog fics, wherein a character might start out normally, but with each attempts grows more capable and closer to reaching his/her goal, both in terms of being better equipped and making better decisions. Though the premise does have its flaws, considering the typical problems faced by time-loop fics.

 

[Jackercracks]

So, on the topic of new mechanics to implement, I was thinking about the prestige system. The one in incremental games where you basically reset so that you can do everything faster the second time around. Though, there's only one fic I've seen with the concept, and it only has about three chapters and I wouldn't bet on getting another one. The implementation of this system I'm imagining would overlap a lot with groundhog fics, wherein a character might start out normally, but with each attempts grows more capable and closer to reaching his/her goal, both in terms of being better equipped and making better decisions. Though the premise does have its flaws, considering the typical problems faced by time-loop fics.

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I would suggest reading Reincarnator by ALLA to find a good example of such a premise done well. Although it's more multicross than groundhog day.

 

[aattss]

I would suggest reading Reincarnator by ALLA to find a good example of such a premise done well. Although it's more multicross than groundhog day.

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If I'm remembering correctly, wasn't that more of a peggy sue thing? Also, I'd hesitate to use multicross to describe an original fic which only crosses with original settings.

By the way, I sometimes feel like Gamer fics could be more diverse if they looked at how Asian WNs used it differently.

 

[lordchaos99]

Scooby Gamers. Like I said it's the longest fic with "Gamer" on the site, you can just search Gamer, and it's one of the first links. Slightly NSFW as a warning.

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It's also terrible, the rules are bad, characterization is off and the 'best' way of training is literally poledancing.
Also the author couldn't scale properly and went 'nope, no threats can stand this' and dumped the cast into Worm. I stopped reading about there, because I don't read Worm.

 

[ETA50M]

Eh another problem with Gamer fics is when authors try to ignore that it's a literal path to being a God Emperor and try their best to nerf their character constantly. In a setting where it's a death world like RWBY and countless monsters exist right outside the walls and there's a uninhabited continent ripe for conquering why stay in Vale? When there's roaming tribes of bandits with powerful leaders you can kill and subjugate the remaining members into a military force for outlying villages sworn to you why not do so. In a Star Wars setting what's stopping your character from taking over entire planets as a force using juggernaut. I don't know if they exist but it's sad I haven't come across a Gamer story which didn't delve into Empire building.

 

[lordchaos99]

Thanks for the idea ETA. Empire building.
*goes off to write Alexander The Great Gamer*
Hmm but what setting...

 

[OSRFanatic0]

Thanks for the idea ETA. Empire building.
*goes off to write Alexander The Great Gamer*
Hmm but what setting...

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When you post it can you put a link here?

 

[lordchaos99]

Sure.
I'm thinking Digimon, kid gets Gamer Powers on his Digivice. He doesn't have a HUD and his inventory is in the device, but he still gets the traits like HP and XP even if he is parted with it, because soulbond digivice stuff.
He becomes Digimon Emperor like in 02

Alternatively, instead of rewatching a series with hundreds of episodes, Dragonball Z (since I've already got notes on it and written there before)
Either Saiyans are Gamers instead of getting Zenkai, or it's something Trunks develops when training under Gohan to fight Androids. Since Trunks goes Empire Builder in canon anyway post-Cell

 

[ltmauve]

Sorry to cut into the discussion with an off topic question. But if I were to get into making a The Gamer story, is there a guide to the mechanics of The Gamer and how everything works, the skills, etc?

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From the SI thread.
Basically, no. And you'll have to figure out how to make your system work for your story, otherwise your system will take over your story like a cancerous growth. Also, copying the manhwa's system is not only lazy but also leads to your character having powers that don't match the story.

 

[aattss]

From the SI thread.
Basically, no. And you'll have to figure out how to make your system work for your story, otherwise your system will take over your story like a cancerous growth. Also, copying the manhwa's system is not only lazy but also leads to your character having powers that don't match the story.

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You might as well repost your reply in the pet peeves thread.

 

[ltmauve]

You might as well repost your reply in the pet peeves thread.

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Eh, I don't like all the negativity n that thread.
So in the spirit of avoiding that, let's talk about things to do:
Mainly, determine what your Gamer's themes are going to be, and what their limits are. Are there level or stat gates? Can your Gamer not learn certain types of abilities? Can they only have a certain number of abilities available at a time? How are they disadvantaged compared to a normal person from the setting?
And of course, what kind of story are you going to tell? Who is the main character? Who are the secondary characters? Who is the antagonist? What are the motivations on both sides?

 

[devas]

So in the spirit of avoiding that, let's talk about things to d

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Ah, but that sounds like WORK.

Which is why 95%* of all Gamer fics don't do it, and wind up with shit stories as a result

*This statistic freshly pulled from my butt. What I actually mean is "majority"

 

[rettshift]

The Gaming Deku

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Man I really wanted to like this fic. Midoriya with The Gamer power has a lot of potential. But like most bad gamer fics, it leaned too much on The Gamer for mechanics and too much on mechanics for substance.

Now I want to try my hand at doing it better. The question is if I should wait until the current season is done airing, or just read the manga and go off of that.

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

Onto the actual system, stats like INT and WIS that affect the character's behavior are something I'm growing uncertain about. So does anyone else have any ideas about what the stats regarding magic should do, and what they should be called?

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You could just get MaP and MaC. That is, Magical Power and Magical Control.