Role-Playing Game 'Verse in specific seems like it's subject to a lot of misuse because it seems to view the whole "A world straight out of a Role Playing Game, without actually being an RPG itself" thing as a fully subjective qualifier, and runs with it for anything that they think arbitrarily fits what feels like an RPG ("The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is an Unbuilt Trope"??? What?!) It definitely needs some attention just on that alone.
That said, I do think there can be a worthy distinction between the two tropes as is. As summarized: RPG Mechanics 'Verse is a world where people are actively aware that they're in a game, whereas Role-Playing Game 'Verse (according to its description) is a world that can loosely belong to a game, but isn't strictly defined by programmed rules and stats and is instead based more on the lore and analogous worldbuilding. That distinction is important because a RPG Mechanics 'Verse could be like, a setting for a "sucked into a video game" isekai where the technical game mechanics are actively seen as diagetic factors of existence, whereas a Role-Playing Game 'Verse is merely a construct for some out-of-universe game, such as something for a campaign book from a tabletop RPG, or perhaps the setting of an Actual Play series.
These tropes probably should have better names though, and again, many examples of Role-Playing Game 'Verse have been misapplied pretty badly.
EDIT: Actually hold up, so these tropes came out around 2007-2008, but now I'm finding a new trope from 2021 called LitRPG, and this one does confuse me as to what exactly distinguishes itself from the Role-Playing Game 'Verse. It seems to be "media that takes place in a world based on a video/tabletop RPG, in a way that may or may not overlap with mechanical awareness like a RPG Mechanics 'Verse ", while completely ignoring Role-Playing Game 'Verse as well. So basically it seems like it's trying to double-dip both of these tropes. Oy.
Edited by number9robotic on Oct 31st 2023 at 11:40:30 AM
Thanks for playing King's Quest V!Role-Playing Game 'Verse seems fairly problematic to me as it stands:
- Fairly vague description
- General examples that just chain ZCEs together
- Examples that more or less say that a fantasy setting means that it's RPG inspired
- Several works whose only context is 'based on a video game', including one example that's literally an RPG so I don't see how that counts.
To me this feels like High Fantasy (sometimes a related genre/setting) but viewed under an RPG lens since that's how most people consume the genre nowadays.
LitRPG reads like a Super-Trope that's trying to be independent by having InternalSubtropes that heavily overlap with existing tropes (most of which are linked in the description).
LitRPG stands for Literary RPG. It's a rather recent genre, coined in 2013. Typically, the main character in a LitRPG novel is consciously interacting with the game or game-like world and attempting to progress within it. Perhaps we could merge all of the tropes mentioned under the umbrella of LitRPG.
Just my 2 cents.
Edited by Diamondeye218 on Nov 1st 2023 at 12:11:15 PM
This deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.Wow, so the problem is even more serious than I had thought.
I should note that while the term LitRPG was only coined in 2013, the Wikipedia article about the concept notes that there examples of it dating as far back as 1978, shortly after the birth of Dungeons & Dragons and around the time tabletop RPGs were first popularized to the point of giving rise to an actual industry around them, so the genre isn't really that "recent" in the history of modern RPGs. It's like saying that Tsundere only existed when Japan coined the term in the 20th century, despite clear evidence that prototypical forms of the trope are as old as ancient Mesopotamia.
Edited by MarqFJA on Nov 1st 2023 at 5:37:07 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Well, your suggestion ![]()
![]()
seems to be reasonable. Role-Playing Game 'Verse as described by itself seems to broadly map to LitRPG's Meta category, while RPG Mechanics 'Verse maps to the RPGVerse category, despite how the former trope is potholed in the RPGVerse entry.
Tangentially related, the categories of LitRPG really ought to be separated; the latter two are clearly about how the RPG aspect of the setting manifests, while the first three are more typical/common categories of plot for such a setting.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.![]()
That is the main reason why I think merging under LitRPG isn't the best idea. Some categories are plot oriented while some are setting oriented, which to me means they should be separated. Additionally, LitRPG is a genre not a trope (and supposed to be specific to books when the tropes have plenty of non book examples), so I don't know if that changes things.
Looking at the Wikipedia page
, it seems like RPG mechanics are central to the genre, while works that are just set in a video game don't qualify. Also note the page specifically says that a game's tie in novel / adaptation doesn't count as LitRPG, which would disqualify a ton of examples.
Role-Playing Game 'Verse (works that may get inspiration from RPGs but only inherit the setting and not the mechanics) are something else entirely, and to be honest I'm not sure it's even a trope. A Role-Playing Game is defined by statistical abstraction, and not by the particular setting or plot. A work that's simply set in a Medieval European Fantasy with no mention of game mechanics isn't really related at all. To me Role-Playing Game 'Verse should just be disambiguated between a list of common RPG settings and all the pages we've mentioned so far (to catch misuse).
Genres are treated as tropes on this site, but otherwise you make good points in that first paragraph.
Role-Playing Game 'Verse seems to implicitly include RPG mechanics as an aspect of the world, by virtue of it referring to in-universe usage of at least some RPG terms as a common/essential trait, and many such terms are inherently tied to RPG mechanics. But yeah, merely being set in a Medieval European Fantasy isn't enough. There has to be a clear indication to the reader/viewer that actual RPG mechanics are at work in the setting, even if they are subtle enough to make things work rather "naturally" rather than make the game-like aspect blatant to the characters (e.g. no floating menus, or drastic jumps in ability from a single level-up).
... Now that I think about it, RPG Mechanics 'Verse would be just an Exaggerated Trope form of what Role-Playing Game 'Verse is trying to be, doesn't it? No point in keeping it separate if the only real difference is being flagrantly blatant about the game-based nature of the world to the point the characters themselves acknowledge it openly.
Edited by MarqFJA on Nov 4th 2023 at 1:04:47 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.See I always thought the difference was supposed to be:
Role-Playing Game 'Verse - a verse that originated either as a roleplaying game's setting (e.g. The Forgotten Realms, Eberron from Dungeons and Dragons or Ivalice from Final Fantasy Tactics and XII) or versions of Earth where the lore originals from roleplaying game of some sort (like the ones from Shadowrun or the Cyberpunk tabletop RPGs and video games). But that might also have spin off media like books, films, animated shows, audio plays and what not. Possibly also universes that started for things like Actual Play, Web Videos and TTPRG Podcasts and books based on people's campaigns that got back adopted (e.g. Krynn from Dragonlance, Exandria from Critical Role, the Warhammer Universe - both Fantasy and 40K) but have branched out into their own 'verses and campaign settings. But none of the characters are actually aware of the mechanics of the universe in-canon (occasional joking by their players in some of the more live play versions of this about mechanics are clearly out of universe).
RPG Mechanics 'Verse - Characters know the mechanics and sometimes even can access tools to show their own stats like in in Konosuba where they have machines that can tell this or some sort of Diegetic Interface with stats and such on it via either sci-fi justification or magic. Characters know about hit ratios and spell casing variance and will come out with lines like "Oo! I just did a critical success!" may or may not be aware they are in a game however.
So there's definitely a difference, but I wonder if Role-Playing Game 'Verse is just a list of campaign settings so more of an index, whereas RPG Mechanics 'Verse is a bit more tropebable.
Edited by GracieLizzy on Nov 5th 2023 at 4:34:19 AM
Pretty much this. For example:
- Role-Playing Game 'Verse: Goblin Slayer wears its D&D inspiration on its sleeve, and there's a running subplot of the characters all being gamepieces in a tabletop RPG played by the gods. However, there's no In-Universe discussion of actual game mechanics aside from the world using a Vancian Magic system.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Any number of Media Transmigration isekais, or Roll Over and Die with explicit discussion of characters having statblocks to which equipment gives or removes bonuses.
Not sure about LitRPG though.
Trust me, I'm an engineer!I would also note that the game mechanics underlying the world Goblin Slayer don't seem obvious in manifestation within the world itself, aside from the Vancian Magic. The denizens largely act like real people operating by relatively realistic rules, such as having to actually train their skills and classes being treated like occupations rather than some sort of supernatural template that magically gives you preset abilities. That is to say, it's like you have an RPG session where the DM and the players heavily emphasize the role-playing aspect; instead of insta-learning skills that a player buys, they come up with a well-devised narrative for the entire process that then gradually unfolds throughout the session (or even across multiple sessions).
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

If I understand correctly, the difference between a Role-Playing Game 'Verse and an RPG Mechanics 'Verse is as follows:
Put another way...
Character Leveling also exists, but is only referred to by abstract and oblique terms like "experience" or "power" in a manner more consistent with our real-life way of thinking, and follows a sufficiently intricate system that can be hardly distinguished from our real-world "mechanics" (e.g. a single level increase doesn't suddenly cause a radical increase in potency to whatever attribute it applies to, and XP gain is applied only to whatever attributes, abilities and/or skills that were actually used).
Am I correct?
Also, is it just me, or are the two tropes' names not really indicative of the distinction between them? In fact, I honestly have long felt that their separation as tropes is rather arbitrary. Hell, why are they limited to role-playing games specifically, when there are quite a few examples in fiction of the same basic idea done with other video game genres?
Edited by MarqFJA on Oct 31st 2023 at 7:10:10 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.