Ralen Wrote:

TheKingofKirby Wrote:

Smuts Wrote: I know this is satire, but there are people who claim themselves to be professional critics. What absolute clowns, imo.

Well, we've got people that put a paragraph into a machine that call themselves "artists." Par for the course for 2022/2023.

And we've got people that splatter paint on a canvas haphazardly and call it art. Also all the random BS people do as "performance art." Art is what it is to different people. You're certainly free to not enjoy all art that exists, but if you try and set limitations on what art can be then I'd say you're not a very pleasant person.

Someone who melts crayons on a sidewalk is more of an artist than an AI bro. I'm not saying one is or isn't art. I'm saying that asking a computer to make something for you doesn't make you an artist. 

The same way going to a restaurant and ordering filet mignon doesn't make you a chef. If you're going to throw all definitions out of the window, therefore making all words virtually meaningless then I'd say you're not a very pleasant person. 

BB Wrote:

TheKingofKirby Wrote: The same way going to a restaurant and ordering filet mignon doesn't make you a chef.

Are you saying that going to the store and buying a filet mignon and following directions in a book somehow does?
False standards. End results matter. There are 'artists' who defile a statue of the virgin mary with excrement and are lauded as visionaries.
Did they create the statue themselves? No. Did they create the poop themselves? Only abstractly.

I use AI art in my book covers because Artists are just as greedy as the rest of us, and I cannot afford the 1500 dollars it will cost to get a decent picture 'licensed'. I don't hate artists for it, I am more than happy to get paid for my work, and because people pay for 'commercial licenses' from common-as-dirt artists, it's a seller's market.

But AI art is almost NEVER the end. I use AI art, and spent over eighty hours compositing and altering, repairing and filtering, and even creating custom backgrounds, building the right font filters, hand-curving some of the lettering.

Saying that someone that uses AI art as a component is 'not artistic' is like saying someone isn't a chef because they don't cut off the cow's head themselves, butcher it, grow all the spices in their own garden, and mix in their own feces as compost.

You're an image editor, not an artist. Sure, what you did took time, effort and dedication but you still didn't do the art itself. You edited it. The same way an editor doesn't write the book they were given to edit. Heating up a frozen meal or leftovers someone else made does not make you a chef. 

Now, if by "artist," you want to use the vague, catch-all definition of someone who does anything "artistic," then technically you are an "artist." But someone who uses an AI prompt is not an illustrator. Not the same as someone who does the individual strokes and composition of traditional pieces. 

BB Wrote:

TheKingofKirby Wrote: You're an image editor, not an artist. Sure, what you did took time, effort and dedication but you still didn't do the art itself. You edited it. The same way an editor doesn't write the book they were given to edit. Heating up a frozen meal or leftovers someone else made does not make you a chef.

In that case, there's no such thing as an artist. After all, using a tool like 'image editing' software and a tablet does not make you an artist, and if you use tools like layers, brushes, filters, or fills, you are technically using someone else's creations to create your art. And of course, photographers are not artists, plot writers that have ever read someone else's books are not artists, hell, even the entire English language was created by other people... So no one who uses all that 'pre designed' language stuff to write are definitely not artists. They are just ripping off other people's work.

You don't get to define the 'acceptable standards' of artists (and I never claimed to be an artist, I am a craftsman. I worked for my skills, I didn't magically get them through 'talent')

Which is, I might add, a very fortunate thing, since your standards seem to focus around 'hatred of a technique' rather than 'results'.

Did you read the second part of my comment? If you want to go with the broad, catch-all term for "artist," then anyone who creates something can be an artist.

But in regards to someone who creates illustrations, a person that puts a prompt into a generator is the same as someone who commissions an illustrator. Someone (or something else) did all the heavy lifting. If you think you're as talented (in regards to illustrating) as the illustrator who actually created the images that the AI you used learned from, then I don't know what to say lol

Khajata Wrote: I do not read LitRPG, so I was curious what all this blue box business meant. I looked at a few popular LitRPGs, but I did not notice any blue boxes.

Could someone provide an example? I am really curious about this bluish menace.

That's because the most popular litRPGs arent litRPGs. They just add the tag to bait readers into a regular novel.

I've found it similarly baffling, in that it seems like such a roundabout way to tell a story. It feels very derivative, endless copying without asking the question of "why?". The reason that Dungeons & Dragons and then video based role playing games incorporate the stat sheets is abstraction - rolling dice or pressing a button on a controller can't give you a very clear idea of what kind of strength, intelligence, etc your character has - and this is an important thing for you to know at all times, because you are the one making decisions.

LitRPG however, I just find so odd in this. You are not controlling the character. You do not need to constantly be reminded that they are very smart, or be told that their Strength skill went up by +1 because they practiced sword fighting. In a way, I find it a bit insulting to the intelligence of the reader. Further, I have a hard time understanding how you can find any immersion in this. Why do we need to be constantly reminded this fantasy world is actually a video game? Why can't we just enjoy a fantasy world?

If you are intent on it being a game, why not incorporate that fact more? Why not explore how the game was made with significant padding to the progression, where our character is forced to fight endless hordes of small enemies? What if our characters find a design flaw in the game, and exploit it to handily solve their problems? Does this story have commentary on tropes in video games or on their place in our culture?

I am left only with the perception that I suppose it's that people like the dopamine hit of seeing numbers go up, just like they get in games. Even then, I am not sure. The genre is just such an enigma to me, because it is a permutation off of permutations. Rather than digging for inspiration, finding history or real life experience to inspire stories, I feel like so many people, not just here and on other writing sites, but just in general, are writing stuff in a certain way because that's how everyone else is writing.

It is impossible to be completely original, but I feel like the genres of isekai and its sibling litrpg have become so boxed in as to stifle much change.

I am happy for people that find enjoyment in this genre, but it just stuns me to no end.

BB Wrote: You could say "Illustrator" instead of 'artist'.

I think that giving a word like "Illustrator" to someone getting image prompts gives way too much credit. If someone illustrates a book, they are often making exquisite renditions of the characters, giving the world and story described color and atmosphere. It feels tailor made, making intentional use of style and medium to evoke a specific kind of tone. 

You can of course have AI generated imagery in a book, and you may call such things illustrations, but I think that calling yourself an illustrator because you typed in prompts is rather grandiose - you basically took the role of a boss overlooking a human artist's work, and giving feedback on what you wanted. In that instance, you had involvement in the creation, but you were not the artist - and thus it is with AI, only the AI is not really an artist either.

BB Wrote:

TheKingofKirby Wrote: But in regards to someone who creates illustrations, a person that puts a prompt into a generator is the same as someone who commissions an illustrator. Someone (or something else) did all the heavy lifting. If you think you're as talented (in regards to illustrating) as the illustrator who actually created the images that the AI you used learned from, then I don't know what to say lol

You could say "Illustrator" instead of 'artist'. 
It's not that hard, you just did it.
Of course, it's not as critical of people who use techniques you vehemently disapprove of, so I imagine claiming they are 'not artists' was more emotionally satisfying, if less accurate.

No one is arguing that text to image ai is not illustrating, but to be fair, if you have ever tried it you would actually realize that filtering through thousands of terms, and thousands of disturbingly maimed images, each taking 5 minutes or more to produce is every bit as labor and time-intensive as drawing a sketch. I would unhesitatingly consider those who use ai to create images as deserving the term 'artist' if not 'painter' or 'illustrator'.

Accurate terminology matters, as anyone producing ai-art could attest.

I'm not against AI art. I've used them for a couple of covers as well as generating an environment to help with descriptions.

But picking one image and claiming that you created it is disingenuous, much like saying someone is an artist scrolling through hundreds google image results and picking a picture for a profile pic.

However, I do agree that it does take time and skill to merge results and fix oddities. So yes, I will say that there is talent required to turn AI art into something presentable like human art. I've seen how time consuming some pieces turn out to be. 

But simply picking an image from a batch and slapping it on as a cover does not make one an artist.

Smuts Wrote:

TheKingofKirby Wrote:

Smuts Wrote: I know this is satire, but there are people who claim themselves to be professional critics. What absolute clowns, imo.

Well, we've got people that put a paragraph into a machine that call themselves "artists." Par for the course for 2022/2023.

Lmao not gonna open that pandora's box again.

Well, I feel like this is a good time as any to mention the source of this post:

BB Wrote: it literally creates a new sort of genre with both magic and a set of rules beneath it to appeal to the logically minded.

Isn't that literally just a fantasy novel with a hard magic system? xD  Like, you can explain the rules of a magic system in a narrative without using a blue box, or stats at all. 

Something I'll also say, is that I think you are somewhat misplaced in calling the young people on here "millennials" when I think you are more thinking of zoomers. I am sadly branded as one of these (despite being called a millennial my whole life until I went into college) and I grew up both with playing with sticks and with playing video games.

I just fail to understand litrpg on a basic level - of why you can't simply communicate this with text. It is very hard me to not see it as a crutch, in which the writer doesn't need to try nearly so hard to effectively communicate their plot, characters, and world. Just like in many modern video games, which try to streamline user interface and impede the main gameplay experience as much as possible, I don't think it demonstrates great skill to do the same in writing.

I don't think litrpg has a monopoly on this. Making a massive ten page long infodump at the start of your story, imagining that you're as amazing as Mr Tolkien is in my mind, just as flawed.

Space Wrote:

Khajata Wrote: I do not read LitRPG, so I was curious what all this blue box business meant. I looked at a few popular LitRPGs, but I did not notice any blue boxes.

Could someone provide an example? I am really curious about this bluish menace.

That's because the most popular litRPGs arent litRPGs. They just add the tag to bait readers into a regular novel.

That's not true at all. All of the most popular litRPGs on the site and in the wide world are litRPGs in the truest sense. Being a litRPG has nothing to do with blue boxes. Blue boxes is just a common term when referencing litRPGs. They all still list out stats and skills. They just don't format them in a blue box.

Morning,

Most of the fics with the tag "LitRPG" are in my opinion in fact GameLit. Pressing button X for instant fireball isn't RPG but PC Gaming. My view is perhaps a bit skewed by the fact, that when I grew up, "gaming" meant a bunch of folks sitting around a table and rolling dice, not staring at pixels on a screen. A good gamer was someone who could play the role he chose well, not clicking the fastest.
But, well, I'm from the 70's (barely), and time moves on...

As for blue boxes, a lot of it is just there to inflate the word count. I do remember an instance, where a MC checked his character sheet three times in one (not overly long) chapter. Maybe I'm the outlier here, but when gaming (tabletop or PC), I don't check my character sheet every other minute. Once per Level is mostly enough, or if there is a problem, where the exact Skill Level is important. Stats one should know by heart.

Yes, there is a time and place for blue boxes and system prompts, but not every other sentence. I, as a reader, am not interested in the exact mathematical formula for damage dealt or skill check failed, and if I were isekaied (still waiting, btw) I wouldn't interested in it either. I would want to know certain thresholds for doing x and y and z with a chance to succeed, but not the minute details of a fight I just survived. Same with system prompts. The Level-up notification is good to have, but the system informing me, I just successfully took a dump of epic proportions... Not so much. I think, I would realize it by myself...

That links us back to LitRPG vs GameLit. A PC Game has to inform you about every last detail, since it's the easiest way and folks probably not noticing even the obvious (khmmm... health and mana bars... khmmmm). In an RPG, your character wouldn't know every last detail of the enemy in real time.

(khmmm... Self-advertising... In my fic, I haven't put any character sheets in the flowing text (except for that one not-a-chapter), and even the "System prompts" are rare and not intrusive. Let's go on with the story, without mathematical formulae and blue boxes so the readers could scroll past. It's still LitRPG, but old-school LitRPG)

[Level 42] Wrote: As a lover of high brow literature, I can't help but scoff at the ubiquitous blue boxes of the litRPG genre. How could we possibly survive without them? They add such a vital layer of immersion to the already mind-blowing experience of reading about someone else playing a video game.

Oh, good. A LitRPG bashing thread.

I'm jumping on this train.

LitRPG is for mega nerds. I don't even like writing hard magic because it makes the story into pseudo science, and it's boring to write and to read.

BB Wrote: Yeah, it's just a shame it's popular as hell, right?

To each their own.

But from a consumer's perspective, I just don't understand this fascination with rules-based magic. It's not magic. And it's dull as dish water for me. Magic should be mystical--something from the gods. Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson and his pseudo science he calls magic is making millions. Pulled off the largest kickstarter in history. I think I need to kill him off in one of my stories or something--pull a George RR Martin.

LambentTyto Wrote: But from a consumer's perspective, I just don't understand this fascination with rules-based magic. It's not magic. And it's dull as dish water for me. Magic should be mystical--something from the gods. Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson and his pseudo science he calls magic is making millions. Pulled off the largest kickstarter in history. I think I need to kill him off in one of my stories or something--pull a George RR Martin.

Rules based magic doesn't need to be boring. How you depict or use it can be boring. The fifty second standard fireball in the chapter is boring from the same person. Aim that many at one person from fifty-two mages, now you have something to worry about. As an old rules lawyer, half the fun of the games was doing impossible things totally within the rules that shouldn't let you do the whatever...unless you do something that had never been done before. Then the story, or the game gets interesting. 

Authors can do that. Many don't just as most gamers don't min-max their characters when they can create their own characters with a fixed number of starting stat points. Being able to pull of something that should have killed you makes for an exciting story. If the way it was done was believable within the book universe, but new, it is even better. 

A sculptor starts with a base material and shapes it into something. Most people call doing that art. What is created varies by the interest and ability of the artist. Is all sculpture art? That depends on your definition of art. 

BB Wrote: Yeah, it's just a shame it's popular as hell, right?

I'm trying to figure out if this is sarcasm or a serious statement because if it's a serious statement it makes you appear pretty much like an a-hole...

The Wrote: People enjoy reading litrpg, and I don't see the problem.

People enjoy writing litrpg, and I don't see the problem.

If you find yourself reading something you don't like, go find something else.

I think what OP is saying is about the the overuse of system boxes rather than relying on the viewer to remember aspects of the MC. i can't tell you how many times I scrolled through paragraphs of nothing but blue boxes repetitive or irrelevant information.

LambentTyto Wrote:

BB Wrote: Yeah, it's just a shame it's popular as hell, right?

To each their own.

But from a consumer's perspective, I just don't understand this fascination with rules-based magic. It's not magic. And it's dull as dish water for me. Magic should be mystical--something from the gods. Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson and his pseudo science he calls magic is making millions. Pulled off the largest kickstarter in history. I think I need to kill him off in one of my stories or something--pull a George RR Martin.

Yes, it seems that magic often takes the place of science, or is even a branch of science, in these types of settings. I like the idea of magic being something that is supernatural and therefore beyond human mastery or understanding, but from what I've seen this isn't really a popular approach in fantasy these days unless you're going into Mythos (I think. I haven't read anything Mythos related for ages). 

I'm also curious as to how much games and gaming systems (not just computer games, but DnD and the like) have influenced this type of preference, if at all. (But it probably did...perhaps there is a generational split here as well?) 

level up spam and stats dumps multiple times for chapter is kind of dumb it should be one at the end of the chapter

this series is good but it's a perfect example of too much level of spam https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/58021/blair-a-litrpg-apocalypse

I personally don't get Litrpg or its appeal.  I even get confused by all the terms around it; progression, cultivation, isekai, etc. It could be because I'm a gen-Xer who has been gaming since the 80s, and would rather play a game than read it.  Or if I wanted a story with stat bocks in it, I'd go with a gamebook, like the old Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger or Lone Wolf.

But it is popular and people enjoy it and that is fine.  I work in a school library and we are happy when people read anything.  A lot of kid won't read anything but graphic novels and manga, and while some people look down on them, the kids enjoy them and that is all that matters.  I like things others don't - I think short fiction is the best but few people read it.

So if people enjoy reading it, let them I say.  I know it is not for me, but it isn't written for me.  It is written for those that do enjoy it.

Qorvus Wrote: I personally don't get Litrpg or its appeal.  I even get confused by all the terms around it; progression, cultivation, isekai, etc. It could be because I'm a gen-Xer who has been gaming since the 80s, and would rather play a game than read it.  Or if I wanted a story with stat bocks in it, I'd go with a gamebook, like the old Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger or Lone Wolf.

But it is popular and people enjoy it and that is fine.  I work in a school library and we are happy when people read anything.  A lot of kid won't read anything but graphic novels and manga, and while some people look down on them, the kids enjoy them and that is all that matters.  I like things others don't - I think short fiction is the best but few people read it.

So if people enjoy reading it, let them I say.  I know it is not for me, but it isn't written for me.  It is written for those that do enjoy it.

the problem for you is multiple genres are fusing together cultivation is its own  genre on this website people like adding genres they like to their stories so you get interesting mixes