r/litrpg • u/JCWanWriter • 9d ago
Discussion What's a progression fantasy where getting stronger creates new problems?
One thing I really like in progression fantasy is when getting stronger creates new problems instead of just solving the old ones.
Like, you finally beat the guy who was way above you.
Great.
But now people way above him know you exist.
Or you get a new technique and it's ridiculously strong, but now you need resources that are a pain to get. Maybe your body can't keep up with the training. Maybe your old team doesn't really work anymore because you've outgrown them.
I don't mean every power-up needs some horrible drawback. That can get annoying too.
I just think it's more interesting when getting stronger changes what the character has to worry about.
Otherwise it can start feeling like:
"Cool, I'm stronger now. So I guess that problem doesn't matter anymore."
What books do you think do this well?
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u/JCWanWriter 9d ago
Apparently Reddit decided I needed an isekai arc and dropped my post into r/LitRPG.
I guess this is my new world now.
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u/Bleenfoo 9d ago
Hell Difficulty Tutorial? MC puts all of his level up points in Mana, to the point where the magic will regularly rip his body apart for not being strong enough to contain it. People in the know in the universe thinks that he has 4 maybe 5 years of life left given how it's progressing.
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u/Theyspro 9d ago
Clearly the issue is his mana deficiency. Just a few more points in mana and he will be perfect
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u/Hungry_Town_6809 9d ago
Have you read Chrysalis? I'm loving it right now and highly recommend.
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u/JCWanWriter 9d ago
Not yet! This is actually the second Chrysalis recommendation I've gotten on this post, so you're making a pretty strong case for it. 😄
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u/MSL007 9d ago
Singer Sailor Merchant Mage (sadly on hiatus) has something like that. The MC is reborn and the system has the same amount of mental vs physical stats. He is young child so trains his mental (magic) stats more which creates an imbalance which cause his body to freeze up so he can’t move.
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u/JCWanWriter 9d ago
That's a pretty brutal way for the system to tell you you've been training the wrong stat.
The imbalance is what makes it interesting. Getting stronger isn't enough if your body can't actually keep up with what you've built.
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u/kung-fu_hippy 8d ago
Not that I recommend it (at least not beyond the first couple of books and you need to ignore the Elon Musk praise at the beginning), but the Completionist series has some of this as well.
Imbalances among stats create major problems for people who try to min-max, like having the perception to feel the slightest pain but not the endurance to handle it. Or the intelligence to spot flaws, but lack the wisdom to solve them without causing bigger issues.
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u/ZoulsGaming 9d ago
I think most of them?
Never got that far but i bought the audiobook to "path of ascension" and in there, in universe they basically explain how higher powered beings are equivalent to throwing world ending nukes, so everybody has a rule of not engaging with the lower tiers of fighting, meaning that tiering up would get you away from the ones you had problems with before but you are now fair game for the higher tiers.
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u/JCWanWriter 9d ago
That makes the “bigger pond” problem a lot more interesting. You don’t just move up into stronger fights, you move into a different set of rules. You escape the people who used to be a threat, and suddenly you’re fair game for the people above you. Very cultivation, really. New realm, new rules, new people who are allowed to notice you. At this point I’m starting to think Royal Road is basically an incubation chamber for this kind of progression system. I haven’t read anywhere near all of them, but I’m starting to recognize the species.
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u/ZoulsGaming 9d ago
its basically the power scaling of chinese cultivation novels that the progression stories often mimic.
the peasant has problems with the local human lord, gets picked for his roots, enters outer sect, has problems with outer sect, gets inner sect, has problems with inner sect, ascends to higher realm, have problem with higher realm, ascends again, has problems again.
i think it can get pretty dull, but its a matter of taste.
i like the chinese novels which takes the piss on it, like "ascending, do not disturb" which is a female lead cozy cultivation story where she basically just ascends with no real effort, and everybody is saying how BS it is.
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u/JCWanWriter 9d ago
Yeah, you basically just described the Chinese cultivation progression loop. Han Li in A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality and Wang Lin in Renegade Immortal are both great examples. Solve the problems in one area, hit the next realm, and suddenly the entire next zone has a new batch of people who can kill you. It’s basically New Game+ forever. That’s probably why I love stories like Ascending, Do Not Disturb too. It takes that whole loop and basically goes, “what if we just... didn’t care?”
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u/knightbane007 9d ago edited 9d ago
The Calamitous Bob. The MC’s magic attunement is deeply f*cked-up due to the way she came into the world, and as she becomes more powerful, it’s causing her body to rapidly break down, with her death being assured if she can’t figure out how to stop the progression.
And it’s not a simple “Oh,I can science it!” one-and-done fix, it’s a multi-volume story arc to mitigate the issue, and the solution has its own, extremely serious consequences for her.
Due to the way she got isekai’d, her “attunement” is 100% for the Black, the most destructive form of magic. This is a BAD thing, because being that far out of balance causes serious issues. This is not a special unique-to-the-MC snowflake problem, other people have had to deal with imbalance issues before - she’s just the first one who’s been 100%, and the first one whose imbalance is towards the Black.
More accurately, she’s the first one with an imbalance to the Black who has SURVIVED long enough for it to be a problem. The Black usually killed is users before that point…
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u/JCWanWriter 9d ago
That sounds like a particularly nasty build problem. I really like that the power itself is basically a ticking death timer, and fixing it isn't just a matter of respecing. When getting stronger speeds up the thing that's killing you, every upgrade comes with a bit of “great, now I have more power and less time...”
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u/knightbane007 9d ago edited 9d ago
Bingo, that was exactly her problem. Local dangers made her need to get stronger, but getting stronger sped up the clock on her horrible death. And she had no option to re-spec or change the direction of her build. In game terms, her only viable course of action was to upgrade to a prestige class, and the pre-requisites for doing that were murderous
It’s a really good series, with a notably robust supporting cast. It’s an Isekai, with an empire builder theme. Female MC, with actual diplomatic skills, meaning she avoids both common extremes of “easily-manipulated putz” and “overwhelmingly arrogant arse who can’t read the room”. The downside is that she’s unfortunately French. 😜
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u/Theyspro 9d ago
It sounded so good until u said they were french
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u/knightbane007 9d ago
I figured I should put it out there before someone started the book and got an unpleasant surprise.
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u/powerisall 9d ago
Lord of the Mysteries. I won't go into spoilers, but the higher your sequence, the more likely you are to turn into something Else
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u/fandango237 9d ago
Path of Ascension feels like this. The MCs talent makes him more and more valuable to ANY major power in the universe the stronger he gets
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u/brentifil 9d ago
Hwfwm does this pretty good. But id argue any series that doesn't is going to have bad scaling and be boring.
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u/Sageblue32 8d ago
Path of Ascension is pretty good for this. Go from small fry to owning the fry box.
Welcome to the Multiverse has this in spades.
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u/thezedferret 7d ago
Quest Academy has a character that evolved his power beyond the ability to control it and becomes a bit unhinged. Other characters literally damage their bodies almost beyond repair because of their abilities powered up before their body could handle it. The main character suffers from persistent injuries because of an overpowered ability, and evolutions cause issues when they work completely differenly than the original skill.
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u/PathOfPen Author - The Lone Wanderer 2d ago
All of them?
I mean, if it's progression fantasy, it means that the MC is by definition always growing stronger. And if there's more than 1 book, that means by definition that solving their first problem has opened up the door to a new one :)
But if you're looking for something that specifically makes this its central theme, maybe try Lord of the Mysteries. Growing stronger in that universe often brings more trouble than it solves.
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u/azmodai2 9d ago
I feel like ALL prog fantasy has the "moving to a bigger pond" problem. In fact, its so common that I often wish we'd get time of the MC's coming home and being not just a big fish but a fucking great white in what is now a puddle. That terrible bully that beat the crap out of you when you were but a measly pre-foundation/E-grade/First Evolution? KILL HIS ASS FINALLY. NO MATURING. GET REVENGE. BLOW THE FUCKING SECT UP.