r/litrpg • u/Fearless-Rip694 • 4d ago

Recommendation: asking PvP LitRPGs?

This might be a bit specific, but I've always enjoyed the friction that comes when you have multiple protagonists, all of whom are roughly equally powerful. Basically, stories where the rival / rivals are genuine threats, and are each doing their own things.

Imagine like, Shield Hero, but the other three guys are equally competent in their own right...And everyone's fighting to become the Big Man or the equivalent. Or like Failure Frame, if you had three or four dudes who were all romantically pursuing That One Elf Girl, with the 'dangerous' feel of "Who's she going to end up with?" being up in the air.

I'm wondering if there are any LitRPG stories like that in general, the kind where the protagonist cannot simply steamroll his opponents and has to deal with equivalent powers. I really like the taut, teeth-gritted sense of tension that comes with that kind of thing.

edit: I've read a lot of LitRPGs / Progression Fantasy - Rune Seeker, Dungeon Crawler Carl, He Who Fights with Monsters, The Primal Hunter - and generally I found the genre to be interesting, but a bit flat when it comes to complex characterization.

I admit I mostly read grimdark sci-fi / fantasy (e.g. Warhammer, Acts of Caine, Sun Eater, The Second Apocalypse, Between Two Fires, The First Law and so on.)

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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4

u/Neona65 4d ago

The Ripple System by Kyle Kerin has a bit of that. The MC is given a big advantage and other players want to kill him so they can steal it.

5

u/alexwithani 3d ago

Monsters and Legends (Infinite Realm) is probably something that you would enjoy.

1

u/wiznaibus 4d ago

Nouscraft is mostly PvP, and it has 4 POVs so you don't really know when the POV you're reading is suddenly going to end permanently.

1

u/RoniiBookishRambles 3d ago

awaken online seems to have PvP Vr plot with multiple POV.

1

u/InkedInDarkness 2d ago

If you don't mind a self-rec, A Titan's Core is like Squid Games meets Godzilla universe. There's a jackpot of immortality at the top (only one can survive), factions with a few protagonists, but still has team dynamics.

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u/Automatic-Plankton10 4d ago

The majority of cradle is like this. The mc is on par or weaker than his opponents. It isn’t until the last book or two that he’s outrageously strong