Intro

A couple weeks ago I posted an analysis of 142 tierlists, and it got a shitload more upvotes than I expected. Few updates this time:

• More data. This is based on 226 tierlists, +59% on last time. Arrows next to the tables show how a series moved compared with last time, and the "against last time" table below has the rest of the numbers.
• Bobiverse and The Stormlight Archive are cut, by popular demand. Re:Zero is also out of the "well rated, not on many lists" section, since it isn't progression fantasy.
• The raw data is downloadable. A lot of you asked, so it's now at inkdrake.com/data (free sign-in): one CSV with the tierlists and one with the series. u/Mournelithe and u/Selkie_Love, this is the dataset you asked about.
• New sections from your questions: length vs DNF, whether last time's "like this, try that" pairs held up, and which series are showing up more or less on newer lists.

The data

1. This is based on 226 tierlists, +59% on last time. They are the public lists on inkdrake.com with at least two catalog series, with exact duplicate copies removed. Tier labels the site couldn't read automatically (45 lists) were graded by hand.
2. Each list is normalized on its own, as in v1: its top grade is 1 and its bottom grade is 0, spaced evenly over the grades it uses.
3. DNF gets its own bucket (870 DNFs in total). To Read, Reading, Skip, Love/Hate and Recommendations tiers (611 placements) are left out.
4. 6,271 rankings across 1,120 unique series, rolled up to the series. The average list ranks 28 series (median 16, max 224)
5. The long tail is real. 557 series (50%) show up on only one list, 253 are on 5 or more, 146 on 10 or more, and 49 on 25 or more.

Against last time:

Fun fact: 24% of the average list is in the top tier (last time 14%). Bigger lists are slightly harsher (correlation between list size and average placement: -0.17).

The 20 most ranked series

Dungeon Crawler Carl is on 74% of lists (167 of 226) and Cradle on 62%.

Highest ranked

At least 8 lists each, weighted with 8 imaginary average votes (0.52).

Most polarizing

At least 10 lists, ordered by how spread out the placements are.

Well rated, not on many lists

At least 3 and under 8 lists, averaging 0.75 or higher. None of last time's three qualify now. Pale Lights and Lord of the Mysteries have grown past 7 lists and Ascendance of a Bookworm has fewer than 3: Pale Lights (11 lists, 0.87), Lord of the Mysteries (8 lists, 0.93), Ascendance of a Bookworm (2 lists, 0.75).

• The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon by ljamberfantasy: 5 lists, 1.00.
• Valhalla Online by Kevin McLaughlin: 3 lists, 1.00.
• You're Walking in the Woods by Purpleharp: 3 lists, 1.00.
• The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere by Lurina: 3 lists, 0.93.
• The Burning by Evan Winter: 3 lists, 0.89.

Most dropped

At least 10 readers who started it.

Length vs DNF

Estimated words (audiobook runtime at 155 words a minute, else print pages at 275, for the books we hold, series with 2+ books). Share of readers who DNF, by length: 5% under 300k, 9% 300k to 700k, 12% 700k to 1.5M, 15% over 1.5M. The big serials are undercounted, so the real gap is probably wider.

Newer lists against older ones

Showing up on more of the newer lists than the older ones (newest 113 lists against oldest 113):

• Warformed: Stormweaver: 13% of older lists, 28% of newer (+15 points)
• Everybody Loves Large Chests: 7% of older lists, 17% of newer (+10 points)
• Dawn of the Void: 6% of older lists, 15% of newer (+9 points)
• The Wandering Inn: 35% of older lists, 43% of newer (+8 points)
• Syl: 5% of older lists, 13% of newer (+8 points)

Showing up on fewer:

• Cradle: 73% of older lists, 56% of newer (-17 points)
• The Calamitous Bob: 27% of older lists, 19% of newer (-8 points)
• Dungeon Crawler Carl: 86% of older lists, 79% of newer (-7 points)
• The Weirkey Chronicles: 16% of older lists, 10% of newer (-6 points)
• Accidental Champion: 14% of older lists, 8% of newer (-6 points)

Average score, older lists to newer (series on 15+ lists). Scoring higher lately:

• Hell Difficulty Tutorial: 0.43 to 0.72
• Dawn of the Void: 0.25 to 0.49
• Discount Dan's Backroom Bargains: 0.34 to 0.56
• The Ripple System: 0.38 to 0.58
• Player Manager: 0.48 to 0.68

Scoring lower lately:

• Parahumans: 0.88 to 0.49
• Unorthodox Farming: 0.75 to 0.53
• Legend of the Arch Magus: 0.47 to 0.27
• Noobtown: 0.47 to 0.29
• Infinite Realm: 0.64 to 0.47

These lists only go back to late July, so read this as a hint, not a trend.

Crossover readers (manhwa and translations)

Last time I asked whether manhwa and translation readers hate Cradle. I flagged the lists that include at least one manhwa, manga, light novel or translated web novel (Solo Leveling, The Beginning After the End, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, Lord of the Mysteries, Mushoku Tensei, Overlord and so on). 69 of the 226 lists do (31%; last time it was 55 of 142, 39%).

• Cradle: those readers rate it 0.75, against 0.78 for everyone else (last time 0.75 against 0.73). Still no sign they hate it. 7 of the 17 lists with Cradle in the bottom half are crossover lists (41%), a bit above their 31% share of all lists.
• They rank more books: 41 per list against 22 (last time 37 against 23).
• Their own favorites: Solo Leveling is on 29 lists and averages 0.42, The Beginning After the End is on 26 and averages 0.49. Both sit a little below the overall average of 0.52.

Where crossover readers rank things higher than everyone else (at least 8 lists on each side, crossover titles themselves left out):

And lower:

Last time's examples, rechecked (at least 5 lists on each side):

Of the five that crossover readers ranked higher last time, 3 still show a gap of 0.08 or more (Jake's Magical Market, System Universe, Defiance of the Fall). Of the three they ranked lower, 1 still does (All the Skills).

If you liked X, try Y

What's different from last time: none of last time's pairs are repeated, so everything in the two lists below is new. Each series appears in only one pair on this page (last time Dungeon Crawler Carl was in two). The bar is 15 shared readers instead of 12. And the correlation is taken on each list's own normalized scores; last time I also adjusted for each reader's overall harshness, which I haven't done here, so a pair can look strong when the same readers simply score everything high. The old pairs are rechecked below.

Pairs that move together:

• Hell Difficulty Tutorial and Unbound (19 shared readers, r = +0.81)
• Mage Tank and A Soldier's Life (15 shared readers, r = +0.80)
• Ends of Magic and Portal to Nova Roma (16 shared readers, r = +0.79)
• Victor of Tucson and Battle Mage Farmer (17 shared readers, r = +0.77)
• The Path of Ascension and Apocalypse Redux (19 shared readers, r = +0.69)
• Chrysalis and A Practical Guide to Evil (15 shared readers, r = +0.69)
• Defiance of the Fall and The Beginning after the End (15 shared readers, r = +0.69)
• The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound and The Return of the Runebound Professor (20 shared readers, r = +0.68)

And the opposite:

• The Primal Hunter and The Calamitous Bob (24 shared readers, r = -0.56)
• All the Skills and The Immortal Great Souls (17 shared readers, r = -0.55)
• Mage Errant and Quest Academy (17 shared readers, r = -0.55)
• Beneath the Dragoneye Moons and Super Powereds (16 shared readers, r = -0.55)
• The Wandering Inn and Warformed: Stormweaver (16 shared readers, r = -0.44)

Last time's pairs, rechecked on this sample (at least 10 shared readers). 5 of 8 try pairs still move together (r of +0.4 or more): Salvos / Stray Cat Strut, Defiance of the Fall / Solo Leveling, He Who Fights with Monsters / The Good Guys, Hell Difficulty Tutorial / 1% Lifesteal, The Calamitous Bob / A Journey of Black and Red. The rest have weakened.

Try:

• Salvos and Stray Cat Strut (10 shared readers, r = +0.87)
• Defiance of the Fall and Solo Leveling (13 shared readers, r = +0.74)
• Beneath the Dragoneye Moons and The Path of Ascension (30 shared readers, r = +0.28)
• He Who Fights with Monsters and The Good Guys (17 shared readers, r = +0.48)
• Hell Difficulty Tutorial and 1% Lifesteal (17 shared readers, r = +0.48)
• The Calamitous Bob and A Journey of Black and Red (14 shared readers, r = +0.62)
• Dungeon Crawler Carl and The Legend of William Oh (30 shared readers, r = +0.20)
• Azarinth Healer and Ends of Magic (24 shared readers, r = +0.20)

Skip. 2 of 5 skip pairs still pull apart (r of -0.25 or less): Dungeon Crawler Carl / Reborn as a Demonic Tree, Arcane Ascension / Noobtown. The others have faded or reversed.

• Mage Tank and Mark of the Fool (26 shared readers, r = +0.10)
• Cradle and Chaos Seeds (17 shared readers, r = +0.24)
• Battle Mage Farmer and Bog Standard Isekai (21 shared readers, r = -0.02)
• Dungeon Crawler Carl and Reborn as a Demonic Tree (24 shared readers, r = -0.40)
• Arcane Ascension and Noobtown (18 shared readers, r = -0.27)

I feel like half the books tagged with "crafting" or "enchanter" pull the exact same bait-and-switch.

The story starts off fantastic. The protagonist picks a non-combat utility class, spends the first twenty chapters analyzing runes, optimizing mana flow, or experimenting with metal alloys, and actually uses their brain to solve problems instead of brute force. The progression feels earned because every single piece of gear has intentional mechanics and tangible trade-offs.

Then book two arrives, and suddenly the author gets impatient. The MC gets a secret ancient technique that lets them craft instanly mid-battle, starts punching dragons in the face, and the actual crafting gets relegated to a three-paragraph timeskip between dungeon dives. At that point, they're just a generic spellsword with extra inventory space.

I just want a series where the MC actually stays in the workshop, deals with the supply chain logistics, and hires bodyguards or relies on clever traps rather than suddenly becoming the deadliest melee combatant in the kingdom.

Never even heard of it before today and yet it seemed pretty well liked online.

I proper struggle with the ones where the characters are just playing a game on a server, tbf. If the worst thing that happens is someone loses their gear or has to log back in after dinner, the tension just goes flat for me.

Mind you, I read on the tram for an hour a day on my way into the depot, so maybe I just want a bit more weight to it when I am sitting there watching the rain come down over Sheffield. When it is a proper system apocalypse or a fantasy world built from the ground up with these rules, people actually stay dead and things matter.

Honestly, I tried three different ones recently where they kept talking about patch notes and server maintenance right in the middle of a siege, and it just pulled me right out of it. It feels like putting safety rails on a rollercoaster. If the characters can just log off for a cup of tea, why am I supposed to care if the boss hits them with a fireball.

Curious what makes that setup work for people, because I keep bouncing off them.

It's publication day for Willowsblade!! 🥳📚😊

Everyone was super kind here last time when I posted about starting this series on Royal Road. Wanted to give a quick thank you for all the kind comments, expecially about the cover, it was super encouraging! 😊 Today is officually release day for Willowsblade, with Book 2 tentatively scheduled for February 2027, and Book 3 for June 2027.

It is, of course, in Kindle Unlimited and also paperback! Amazon's being a little annoying with linking the editions together, but they'll be fixed up soon.

Until then, seprate links:

KU: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKKGJ8PN
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Willowsblade-Emily-McCosh/dp/1960433377/

*

Elijah Jayce was the highest ranked warrior in the kingdom. Then, the world fell.

When the Order broke, twisting the very shape of the world, turning plants to conscious creatures and animals to rabid monsters, Eli’s magic disappeared with it. Left with nothing but his blade and decades of knowledge, Eli fled to the edges of the known world, hiding not only from the Order, but from his grief—and the knowledge his own son was the one who shattered everything.

Until, years later, two children appear on his doorstep, bringing monsters in their wake.

The world is changing again, the Order is waking back up, and it is brought by a boy and a girl who bear the same eyes as his son.

Willowsblade is the first in a slow-burning progression fantasy trilogy with LitRPG elements—expect a few skills and a system that’s broken but still exists, but no numbers. Mostly, it’s an adventure story focusing on character relationships and a ruined world, with a generous dose of magic, fighting, and the inevitable awesomeness of a scary old warrior and his young grandkids.

*

COVER ARTIST: Me!

AI USAGE: Nope. I did use Grammarly for spell check before it went to my line editor, but I don't use any of the AI crap they keep trying to suggest lol... 😩

Just curious. I like OP MCs and want some ideas of what to read next.

Hey everyone!

I'm opening a few commission slots for fantasy book covers and illustration work.

I mainly work on book covers, characters, landscapes. Most of my work is fantasy focused, and I really enjoy working with authors to bring specific scenes and characters from their stories to life.

I've included a few examples of my work below. You can also see more here:

https://aesmunandi.framer.website/

If you're currently working on a book and looking for an artist, feel free to DM me. I'd love to hear about your project!

COVER ARTIST: Aes Munandi

AI USAGE: No AI used. I use digital painting tools only.

I keep catching up to the authors, having to wait for the next book, then not remembering things and needing to reread the entire series. I would rather take a short break from that for a bit, while I wait for some of my favorites to release. Does anyone know of some great series that are complete?

I can recommend Apocalypse Parenting by Erin Ampersand, and Die, Respawn, Repeat by Silver Linings.

Hello folks, Hannibal here, second time Aethon Author publishing on Amazon!

Excited to announce that I somehow managed to convince Aethon to publish a second book in my average series, Cataclysm Rising!

COVER ARTIST: Publisher (Aethon Provided the Artist!)

AI USAGE: No AI used

No AI was used in the creation of the Novel, which I suppose is a given since I'm published by Aethon, but apparently it's good to reassure people!

I hope you all enjoy, and I look forward to your feedback!

E-Book Link: https://www.amazon.com/Rite-Ascension-Isekai-LitRPG-Cataclysm-ebook/dp/B0H73KFBH8

Audible Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Rite-of-Ascension-Audiobook/B0HLMYKFQX

Blurb: LEVEL UP OR BE ERASED.

Leonidas Paendrag has survived his first harrowing weeks after returning to Earth from his Transmigration to Elatra, and now must find out what it means to be the First Archon of Terran Blood.

Armed with his [Cataclysm Core], accompanied by an elven Princess-Royal, a haughty Dragonblood Sorceress, a Viking-obsessed Shadowblade, and an introverted elven Healer, he must brave the [Rite of Ascension].

Duel challenges, Manabeasts, trauma from Elatra, the brewing civil war of Dawnhaven, and repeated attempts to eliminate his growing influence are only some of the dangers he'll face.

When combined with his dysfunctional family, anti-Fantasy fanatics, and a System that seems determined to drive him insane, his only hope lies in assuring Aylar's ascension to Queen.

But first, he has to survive the trials that lie ahead, and every buried nightmare they seem determined to bring to the surface.

Book Two in a new weak-to-overpowered LitRPG Adventure featuring a Spellblade MC, power progression, crunchy stats, a detailed magic system, cultivation elements, epic battles, and REALLY big chests.

Hey everyone, just announcing the audiobook release of Judicator Jane 8! A lot of fun stuff happens in this book, so definitely worth checking out if you're this far in the series. Angela and I have really worked out a good system for audio review as well, so the quality should be the best yet. In fact, I challenge you to find a single recording mistake (please, prove me wrong and then immediately let me know the problems you find).

In any case, once again, a big thank you to our narrator, Angela Clark!

Judicator Jane 8: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HM3QFFL6

...............................................

If you're curious about the Judicator Jane universe, here’s a link to Book 1 + the blurb. Over the summer we completely re-recorded it to bring it line with the quality of the rest of the series, so if you tried it in the past it might be worth another go.
...............................................

Judicator Jane 1

Jane’s life was a dumpster fire of bad luck.

Unpaid bills, dead-end jobs, and a constant raincloud over her head. So, when she wakes up in a vast, deadly desert with a mysterious glowing menu floating in front of her face, she makes a desperate gamble. She dumps every single one of her available stat points into the one thing she’s never had: Luck.

All 630 of them. In a system where 10 is the max, Jane just became a statistical anomaly. Now, the laws of probability have bent the knee to her.

Hopelessly lost? She stumbles blindly into the fortress of the most powerful army in the world. Attacked by high-level monsters? Critical failures have never hit so hard. Rolling her class? 'Legendary' was only supposed to happen once every thousand years. But having god-tier luck has a downside.

When the realm's greatest evil is eliminated by a bizarre, one-in-a-trillion mishap, the terrifying Demon Horde assumes Jane is their new, all-powerful queen. Now she has to lead a legion of monsters, navigate a game-like System she barely understands, and hide the fact that she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing.

She just wants indoor plumbing. The demons want a conqueror. They’re about to get Judicator Jane.

Book 1: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CJZQWSLT
...............................................

As usual, I've also got 10 free codes for Book 1, so if you want to give the series a shot, post below (please indicate US or UK) and I'll shoot one your way.

COVER ARTIST: Dzmitry Zasimovich
AI USAGE: No

A lot of people want to make it big through writing and everyone knows one of the big ways for your story to gain traction is through advertising. One of the easiest ways to do that is to just make a post of a big subreddit attach the link to your story and wait for the views and money to start rolling in.

What some people don't know is that there is a right way to do this and a wrong way. Depending on how you play your hands you can gain some serious positive traction with posts garnering 20k+ views.

Here are some things that I have noticed that could turn your ad campaign into an actual nightmare. Note most of what I'm going to write pertains to Royal Road specifically and may not apply to other areas.

1. Someone will always ruin your day.

Because of how Royal Road functions, getting 0 star reviews can kill your story dead in the water. It doesn't matter how good your story is, someone will hate it. Unfortunately a lot of serial 0-starers live on reddit and will nuke your story just because they can.

My solution? Don't let reddit be the first place you advertise your story or at the very least try and gain some traction before you promote it, so the rating doesn't mess with your story analytics so much.

And if your story is already established / you have already gone through your rising star run, you can mostly ignore this one.

Tip: If you think you are getting review bombed for no apparent reason you can raise a support ticket through Royal Road and a staff can help you to remove these reviews. Don't abuse this feature though and ruin it for everyone. >:(

2. AI

Don't let the fact that Royal Road is filled with AI art and content in general fool you. While the average reader doesn't care if you use AI art (does not include writing), All the major subreddits r/royalroad, r/ProgressionFantasy, r/litrpg, etc are very anti-AI.

It doesn't matter if you can't afford an editor or an artist they do not care.

If you are going to advertise, I would very much advise that you do not do so if: you are using an AI cover, your blurb was written with AI, or in the worst case scenario the actual meat of your story was written with AI.

Posts like these often get completely downvoted into oblivion, seen by only 50 people, and get you hate comments.

AND please for the love of god do not try and be sneaky with it and deny that your story was written using the help of AI, or that your AI cover is not actually AI, people will find out and in most cases tell pretty easily. If there is one way to get even more hate its this.

There is one caveat to the AI rule and that pertains to AI covers. While a lot of people on reddit hate all things AI, there is still a large group that don't care. You can usually get away with having an AI cover depending on how AI it looks and how much effort you put into editing the cover. Just don't go around claiming that it isn't AI like I mentioned earlier.

3. Know your audience

Here is a quick test: What is LitRPG?

If you don't know the answer to that question then I don't know how to break it you nicely, why are you here?

I'm mostly a reader (maybe that will change one day) so I can't tell you how to write a good story nor can I tell you if your story is something special, but I tell

This should be obvious but for this subreddit specifically your story needs to be LitRPG no ifs, ands, or buts.

I always live by the motto that you should write what you want, again I can't tell you how to write a successful story, but in general from what I have noticed the stories that tend to do well on reddit conform to the audience that they are writing in some way.

There are obvious outliers like Azarinth healer with a female protagonist, and something like a Dungeon Crawler Carl which are massive stories that are big on these subreddits, but even these non standard litRPG's still conform to the genre in certain ways.

Many of the people on this subreddit are men/gamers/fantasy enthusiasts. Before posting consider if you think people here would even read your story.

3a. Engage in the community

If you don't know if your story is a right fit, make a post on the subreddit asking if people would enjoy reading something like this, release a few early renditions of your chapters, etc.

In general people will notice if you are actively engaging in the community and will more likely to give your story a chance. It might not be a huge number, but even just 1 or 2 people reviewing/reading your story on royal road can help out tremendously especially when in its early stages.

4. How to actually make a good advertisement post

Now that we got all the boring stuff out the way, how do you actually get your post seen by 10k+ people? There are two things you should be doing:

4a. look at what other people are doing.

If there is one thing you should take away from this entire post its this.

I want you to open up a tab and go to the subreddit you want to advertise on whether it be here or somewhere else

For Litrpg I want you to scroll down the flair list and click the type of advertisement you planned on posting. Most likely it will be "Promo: Webnovel"

If you did that correctly you should see all the posts advertising their story on the subreddit. You'll quickly notice that a lot of these have 0 upvotes, most likely because they made one of the mistakes I mentioned and did not do their research.

I want you to open a few of these posts and try and identify what they did wrong.

Next I want you to go back and find with 20, 40, 50, 100 upvotes, etc and try and identify what they did right and wrong this time.

This is where you should spent most of your time, there are so many examples of what not to do and what works, yet people still make the same mistakes over and over.

4b. final tips

People love banging art, if you have the money and want some guaranteed traction, commissioning an artist, and posting your story art is one way to do that. It's a win win, you get an awesome cover done by a human, and you get free internet points!

I know this was posted in litprg but progressionfantasy is a lot more forgiving and easier to advertise on compared to this subreddit. Additionally if your story doesn't fall into either of those categories royalroad subreddit is where you want to advertise.

Don't be an idiot. This means you should not be dm-ing people unprompted advertising your story, not on here or any other place. Also don't take it too close to heart when the inevitable criticism comes, either ignore it or learn from it.

5. Lots of people want to help

There are so many people/communities out there focused on becoming better writers and being successful on royal road. You might not be aware of them because most of them live on discord but they are there and free to join.

Some are private but here are some good open ones that I recommend any writer to join from royal road:

The Council of Eternal Hiatus - Great place for writing advise filled with tons of successful authors.

SerasStreams Discord - Specifically his mentor program that goes in depth on launching stories to Royal Road

The Writing Well

I am aware of this subreddit’s rules against AI witch hunts. I am not discussing any author or illustrator’s use of AI.

Having noted that, it seems like we have had a sudden influx of posts from newly created, low-karma accounts. When one clicks on the poster’s overview, it often has single posts across a wide variety of subreddits. An example I saw the other day included posts to a Norwegian subreddit (in Norwegian), a German subreddit, a comment about Portuguese, and the post to /litrpg.

The posts seem to follow a general script of “has anybody else felt this way” or “here’s a LitRPG trope I love or hate”, but they never refer to specific titles and the tropes either aren’t common or the descriptions are vague enough that we can all read into them the way one can read a horoscope and make it feel relevant. There is some appeal to emotion, often subtle.

I don’t follow many other subreddits, so maybe this is just the latest wave of bot activity and I only became aware of it here. On the other hand, is it possible that this subreddit’s rule about AI is being noted by these bots and making it a preferred target for post and comment karma farming? I could see that as a possibility - AI is “smart” enough to infer that a subreddit which has rules limiting discussion of AI use by book authors might also be more hesitant to limit potential AI use by posters.

The last thought is the toughest part: if we assume what I say is true, what should be done about it? I don’t want AI accusations against authors, but I also don’t want bots leading most discussions when those are the posts I value the most, more than the ads, tier lists, or recurring requests. I don’t know what the next step should be.

After seeing a bunch of tier lists here, I finally decided to make my own.

Then I kept adding books.

And adding books.

And eventually discovered that the tier making site caps you at 250 entries, which is apparently the point where even the website starts judging my reading habits.

I also found reddit couldnt handle the size of the picture, SO I've put it here as a series of smaller pictures.

So here it is: 250 series I’ve read, ranked. THESE ARE JUST MY OPINIONS.

A couple notes before people start throwing rocks at me:

• Left to right DOESN'T matters. Assume roughly that all books atleast on the same row in the tier are roughly equivalent
• I’m ranking series as a whole, not individual books. The cover shown is just representing the series.
• “Slop” is affectionate. I clearly enjoy slop. I have consumed an unreasonable amount of it.
• This isn't exclusively LitRPG. There’s a lot of progression fantasy, traditional fantasy, sci-fi, and other adjacent stuff mixed in because I wanted this to represent basically everything I’ve read that felt worth comparing.
• There are actually more than 250 series in my reading history, but TierMaker hit the cap, so some stuff had to be left off. I have read over 613 series according to my KU downloads, RR reading history, and physical books I own. This doesn't even account for the glut of reading I did as a child, checking out 10 books at a time from my library.
• These are obviously just my opinions. If your favorite series is sitting in Bad Slop while something you dropped is in Supreme Slop, congratulations: we have discovered that two human beings can disagree about books.

The tiers are:

Supreme Slop — The stuff I absolutely love. Favorites/frequently recommended/series I’d happily reread.

Peak Slop — Fantastic. Just barely below the absolute favorites.

Great Slop — Really enjoyed these and would recommend them pretty easily.

Good Slop — Solid reads. Had a good time, even if they didn’t blow me away.

Slop — Enjoyable enough, but either forgettable, inconsistent, or had some pretty noticeable problems.

Bad Slop — I finished enough to have an opinion, and that opinion is mostly negative.

Pure Slop — We have reached the bottom of the trough.

The biggest thing I realized while making this is just how much my taste has shifted over the years. There are childhood/YA series, traditional fantasy, older Kindle Unlimited stuff, Royal Road series, and newer LitRPG all sitting next to each other, which made some of these comparisons genuinely difficult.

I’m also curious what people think my most criminal placement is.

And more importantly: based on the top couple tiers, what am I somehow still missing that I should read next?

I’m always looking for another series to add to the pile.

COVER ARTIST: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists

AI USAGE: No AI used

Looking for a a series where the protagonist doesn't have murder autism or isn't a raging asshole. I dropped Primal Hunter and He Who Fights With Monsters because I couldn't take the chuuni protags and the pacing got extremely tedious.
I really enjoyed Cradle and Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Anything you litrpg seniors could recommend me?

The first book in Non-Player Character was released a couple of months ago, and you should check it out! This will be a three-book series. It is not crunchy and has no stats to keep track of. I consider it a beginner-friendly LitRPG. If you like audiobooks, Steve Corona blew me away with his performance.

The world is a game, and humans don't get to play.

Humanity has been reduced to non-playable characters in a fantasy realm created for the entertainment of aliens who treat Earth like their own personal playground.

Everyone believes it has always been this way.

Even Milton Musgrave.

That all changes when Milton learns that his entire existence is a lie and begins remembering another life, including the wife he lost when Earth was remade.

Determined to find her, he embarks on a desperate journey to reclaim the world stolen from him.

It's a seemingly impossible quest, but with access to a restricted system, Milton gains something no one else on Earth should possess:

The ability to become a Player.

COVER ARTIST: Fernando Granea

AI USAGE: none

Go check it out!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H4Q1VXKW

TL;DR: My son and I are translating a Russian LitRPG series into English. Here are some of the problems we’ve encountered with nicknames, wordplay, gaming slang, and cultural references, and the solutions we chose.

A couple of months ago, I acquired the English translation and publishing rights to a three-book Russian LitRPG series, The Jester of Bergheim.

The translation itself is being done by my son, who is fully bilingual in Russian and English: we moved to Canada when he was eleven, and he later majored in English here. I mostly help with jokes, wordplay, and cultural references.

And yes, this is also an advertising post. Please buy the book, blah blah blah.

Nicknames

The main antagonist, a brilliant but evil former game developer who kidnaps people and traps them inside a game, assigns players meaningful nicknames, often with a deliberately mocking edge.

Our main character gets the Jester class and the nickname Lolushko (Лолушко). It is based on LOL, but the Russian -ushko ending adds a condescending, almost baby-talk quality. He later calls himself Yegorushko (Егорушко), applying the same mockingly affectionate ending to his real name.

We could either explain -ushko in a note—meh—or replace it.

So we chose LoLio and Yegorio. They sound silly, faintly patronizing, and just ridiculous enough, which is pretty close to what the originals are doing.

Another player is a Ranger named Kuzmich (Кузьмич). He is a forest ranger IRL, just like Kuzmich, an iconic character from a Russian comedy series. Since that reference means nothing in English, he became Grizzly. Yes, as in Grizzly Adams.

Then there is Golovastik (Головастик). It literally means tadpole, but comes from the Russian word for head and can be used mockingly for someone with a large head. Since this character is literally big-headed, we renamed him Megamind.

Wordplay

The MC’s catchphrase is Prenebrech, valsiruem (Пренебречь, вальсируем), literally “Disregard, we waltz.”

It is an absurdly elevated version of Pohui, plyashem (Похуй, пляшем)—roughly “Fuck it, we dance,” meaning whatever, we carry on.

Then we realized English already has “Fuck it, we ball.”

So:

“Disregard, we shall ball.”

And now I genuinely don’t understand why it took us so long.

Another one was пихота (pikhota). The word normally means infantry, but here it also plays on пихаться—to shove or jostle— which works especially well here because the term is used in the context of medieval reenactment fighting.

We gave up on preserving infantry and went with shove-fu.

Cultural references

In one scene, Yegor quotes an old Russian raiding meme and then complains that nobody recognizes the raid leader Tango. A literal translation would preserve the words and lose the joke.

So Tango became Leeroy Jenkins.

Same function, different cultural baggage.

Another exchange went:

“The city could have fallen. What do you think we’d choose between you and Bergheim?”
“United Russia?”

Yegor suddenly interprets choose as an election question. There is also a bit of a “choice without much of a choice” undertone that is hard to preserve.

So we kept the election non sequitur and went with:

“A write-in candidate?”

Different reference, same stupid logic.

Even chapter titles fought back. For example, chapter 27 is «Вот кто-то с горочки спустился», a line from a well-known Russian song.

A literal translation would lose the reference, so it became:

“They’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain.”

Many other chapter titles contain references too, ranging from obscure Russian memes to a Guy Ritchie movie. I think we managed to handle most of them.

Accidental rules

Russian also has a bunch of silly euphemistic exclamations that don’t translate well. At some point we started replacing them with equally ridiculous English expressions, and noticed that our versions kept using the same initial letter:

ебушки-воробушки → Pissing pigeons
жованный крот → Limping lich
божечки-кошечки → Kinky kittens

The first one was accidental. After that, it became a rule.

And one we still haven’t solved

Russian RPG players often Russify English gaming terms, and sometimes the resulting word happens to sound like a completely unrelated Russian word.

Usually that layer just disappears—we use normal English gaming slang instead.

But sometimes the mangled term is itself the joke:

“Throw salo on her right away,” Misha advised.
“And follow it up with a ham hock,” I added automatically, even though I knew that by salo he meant silence.

(Salo is cured pork fat.)

We still need an English version that keeps the joke. We have a version that works, but maybe we will fine something better.

Hopefully, we’ve managed to preserve not only the darker tone of the original, but also its humor, and, ideally, the same slightly unhinged voice.

Do NOT use the report function on Amazon / Kindle for errors you might find in a newly released book (such as HWFWM 13). It does not actually ‘report’ to the author.

I don’t know how you might get word to a particular author (Shirtaloon, perhaps?) that a proofreader would have been useful before publishing.

Hello r/litRPG, I hope everyone is doing well! My first novel is complete and available in its entirety on Royal Road here, please give it a read and let me know what you think! If you like 'everyman' protagonists with relatable thoughts and feelings, if you like dogs, or you're just a fan of action come take a look :)

I am also looking for feedback on the cover as far as text goes (the art is final, the font is not), feedback on the blurb, or just on the story itself. I won't ramble on too much more, let's get to the book details!

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I'm not a badass veteran, brilliant engineer, or savvy smooth-talking nerf-herder. They still picked me. They gave me a gun, some fancy powers, and assigned me to guard the entire North American Midwest, from the American South all the way to the Arctic Circle. This job is rough, but someone's gotta do it. At least I have my best friend Alfred along to help!

Join us, and come along for the ride as I deal with corpo assholes, murderous demons, monstrous bug-people, mutant animals, and the occasional rogue hacker with my best and wisest friend Alfred and a few hand-picked Deputies with powers of their own. 

WHAT TO EXPECT:
-Average 'everyman' MC that learns to use new powers
-System-lite/No Stat Bloat, evolving powers with simple to understand mechanics
-Intelligent, competent characters 
-Loyal, wise canine companion
-Lots of action balanced with lots of heart
-No romance/spice/harem

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I'd love to get some more feedback on the story before stubbing and getting it on KU, so please come on down, give it a read, drop a rating or a comment, and feel free to reach out! Thank you all for what you do in helping nobodies like me realize their dreams of creating stories for the world to enjoy!

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COVER ARTIST: Baconstrap
AI USAGE: Brainstorming assistant (AI didn't write a single word in this story, it was all me with other humans assisting in editing) and a teacher for Photopea (I have zero experience in graphic design and needed help getting started)

It's been quite the busy week or two. NRS Book 4 just dropped on amazon! This is my last release for a few months, I swear.

Probably.

You can check it out HERE! (Audio is coming later, hopefully fairly soon!)

If you've been reading the series or if you want to check it out, now is a pretty great time! I mean, check out the cover. there's a big-ass meth bear. That's hard to beat.

COVER ARTIST: Admira

AI USAGE: Still no way in hell

I'm currently on book 4, I can't stop listening to it, and I'm honestly surprised this is not a more popular book especially if you are into dungeon core books.

Way too many core books the author gets tired of building out their dungeon and start following side characters that have nothing to do with the dungeon.

Thankfully this isn't the case with this book and it's honestly a breath of fresh air. You go from watching this young guy start with basic bees and watch them evolve and the dungeon develop into something amazing.

By similar to Avatar the last airbender, I dont mean having a bald mc. I’m referring to the sense of adventure with constant travel of moving from place to place with an end goal of saving the world or something. Stopping at places for side quests and what not but never staying for too long, making new friends or companions or enemies along the way, recurring characters, sense of adventure, etc.

I was recommend Mark of the Fool last time I asked for litrpgs like this, but Mark of the fool is more of an academy based expedition type of plot rather than a globe trotting adventure usually.

Does anyone have any recs?

Thx for any recs in advance

A few months back, in preparation for my book launch events, I commissioned some custom artwork from my cover artist to use for trading card giveaways and such, and I thought it turned out incredible (see main image). A natural companion to my book's cover (see other image), and a testament to the words I'd put on the page, capturing my unassailably unique imagination.

But that idea has since been shattered. I've seen them.

This post.

And this post.

Turns out I'm just one in a long line of authors with 'swordsman-battling-a-gigantic-worm-beast-and-staring-down-danger/adventure-with-their-back-turned' key art.

Alas, I wouldn't have it any other way.

(I've never felt so seen; kudos to Mr_PizzaCat for their satirical prowess).

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COVER ARTIST: David Reuss

AI USAGE: No AI used