D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Pedantic]

The best gamelit/progression fantasy does away with the isekai premise. It's mostly a vestigial framing device, and primarily allows the author to get away with making up new systems late in the game on the basis the protagonist didn't know about them yet.

Then they have to figure out what percentage fantasy technical manual to story they want to be. It's a genre defining feature that you're expected and encouraged to do elaborate, detailed system exposition; at the extreme end you have something Andrew Rowe's recent Edge of the Woods, which I'd put at about 10% plot to 90% fantasy science textbook. That's very much a selling point for the book's audience.

 

[James Gasik]

Way I'd fix that: kill Mystic Arcanum and all 6-9 level spells from Warlock class list, allow Pact Magic to scale up to 9th for Warlock spells only with extra slots at 2/6/10/14/18, and then give them Paladin/Ranger spellcasting on top.

I think I was one of five people who was actually excited for the half-caster Warlock with Invocation options for higher level spell slots.

 

[tetrasodium]

Everyone thinks every character from every isekai is Kirito.

some of thme are delightful tiny children that just want books, or horrible spider creatures, or vending machines.

Not all of them, but the one dimensional self insert isekai/gamelit MC is practically a standard trope for the genre with good reason. For every myne or rudeus there are countless entirely replaceable cardboard cutouts stapled to a power set. I named like a dozen modern fantasy spellcasters with multiple best selling books to their adventures who bare no resemblance to the 5e mages, surely ther le must be some that do.

Fwiw myne very much doesn't fit at all and rudeus still doesn't really fit

 

[overgeeked]

Not all of them, but the one dimensional self insert isekai/gamelit MC is practically a standard trope for the genre with good reason. For every myne or rudeus there are countless entirely replaceable cardboard cutouts stapled to a power set. I named like a dozen modern fantasy spellcasters with multiple best selling books to their adventures who bare no resemblance to the 5e mages, surely ther le must be some that do.

Fwiw myne very much doesn't fit at all and rudeus still doesn't really fit

I'm reading the Mushoku Tensei light novels now and they're fantastic. I'd love to have that magic system ported over to an RPG.

 

[James Gasik]

Nothing new about isekai characters influencing D&D. John Carter is right in the 1e DMG's Appendix N.

 

[Pedantic]

Not all of them, but the one dimensional self insert isekai/gamelit MC is practically a standard trope for the genre with good reason. For every myne or rudeus there are countless entirely replaceable cardboard cutouts stapled to a power set. I named like a dozen modern fantasy spellcasters with multiple best selling books to their adventures who bare no resemblance to the 5e mages, surely ther le must be some that do.

Fwiw myne very much doesn't fit at all and rudeus still doesn't really fit

There's a bunch of D&D influenced/derived gamelit out there, if that's what you're talking about. An example that's pretty readable (not at all guaranteed in that largely self-published genre), I'd look at Mark of the Fool, which is pretty clearly wearing its influences on its sleeve.

 

[overgeeked]

Nothing new about isekai characters influencing D&D. John Carter is right in the 1e DMG's Appendix N.

I would argue that isekai is a very particular subgenre of portal fantasy. John Carter definitely is not an isekai character. Isekai is exclusively Japanese otaku protagonists from the modern day that are sucked into a secondary fantasy world where their nerdiness is effectively a superpower, they are wildly OP compared to the native population, and they almost always form a harem. Only one of those points (wildly OP) even remotely applies to John Carter.

 

[TwoSix]

The best gamelit/progression fantasy does away with the isekai premise. It's mostly a vestigial framing device, and primarily allows the author to get away with making up new systems late in the game on the basis the protagonist didn't know about them yet.

Then they have to figure out what percentage fantasy technical manual to story they want to be. It's a genre defining feature that you're expected and encouraged to do elaborate, detailed system exposition; at the extreme end you have something Andrew Rowe's recent Edge of the Woods, which I'd put at about 10% plot to 90% fantasy science textbook. That's very much a selling point for the book's audience.

Some do it better than others. The Wandering Inn, for example, has hundreds of isekai'ed characters, but slowly explains the root cause of their summoning as well as the transformation that modern-day Earth knowledge has on a (very detailed) fantasy world. And its gamelit basis is only a minor factor in the overall story.

Granted, Wandering Inn is also approaching 11 million words, so even its minor features have a lot of page count.

 

[James Gasik]

I would argue that isekai is a very particular subgenre of portal fantasy. John Carter definitely is not an isekai character. Isekai is exclusively Japanese otaku protagonists from the modern day that are sucked into a secondary fantasy world where their nerdiness is effectively a superpower, they are wildly OP compared to the native population, and they almost always form a harem. Only one of those points (wildly OP) even remotely applies to John Carter.

So "everyman hero from another world who gains strange powers" doesn't describe Isekai? I'm really confused, because I was certain anime like El Hazard took direct inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This is starting to sound like a debate about musical subgenres, lol.

 

[TwoSix]

I would argue that isekai is a very particular subgenre of portal fantasy. John Carter definitely is not an isekai character. Isekai is exclusively Japanese otaku protagonists from the modern day that are sucked into a secondary fantasy world where their nerdiness is effectively a superpower, they are wildly OP compared to the native population, and they almost always form a harem. Only one of those points (wildly OP) even remotely applies to John Carter.

That might have been the original intention, but I've generally seen its usage expand to mean any sort of "Earth character gets pulled into a fantasy (or virtual fantasy) world".

Sort of like how the usage of "gish" expanded from being a githyanki fighter-mage to being any sort of martial-caster hybrid, generally favoring melee attacks.