System

In LitRPG, any mention of “the System” (yes, typically capitalized) refers to the magic system of the world. It is seen as an entity unto itself, collecting numbers and describing spells.

A lot of times the blue boxes that appear are run by a deity or AI program. Sometimes the boxes are themselves an intelligent thing, and everyone in that world gets a slightly different version.

Thing is, when you have a clear idea of “punch thing = gain experience = level up”, eventually someone will ask who or what decides how much experience one punch is worth. Who or what watches the punch to give the puncher numbers? We’ve got descriptions of every spell ever cast: who or what wrote those descriptions?

What's the answer? The System.

A lot of times the System has a neutral “voice”, or personality. It exists in the story to provide numbers and descriptions. It doesn’t care why the hero does what they do, it just keeps track of everything. These stories tend to not focus on it at all; the System is there to let readers know how many lightning bolts the hero can throw at the Demon Lord before the mortal world is screwed.

That’s great. One of the main benefits I mentioned in my post on using GameLit is the familiar magic system, meaning authors can skip explaining it and get to the good stuff. Yes, yes, the hero has enough mana for 12 lightning bolts, wonderful, now let me see the battle!! Oh no, the hero is down to 3HP!! The last lightning bolt unlocked Lightning Torrent upgrade?! That sounds awesome, let’s see what that is! [Demon Lord has been defeated], woooo!!!

See? The System is a tool to let us easily understand what’s happening. Much like a hammer, I don’t need to know its opinions on how hard I’m hitting things. I just need to know the results.

But. When the author gives the System a distinct voice, this allows for a lot of fun things. The System might be overly cheerful, or a straight-up asshole, or have a random foot fetish. It might remove the [No] button when a stubborn hero refuses to accept an incredibly important upgrade. It might offer [YOU GET TO LIVE] as a reward for surviving a particularly dangerous quest.

The point being, in those stories there’s something with opinions behind the blue boxes and lists of numbers. It’s watching the characters as much as the readers are, and enjoying it as much as we are. Sometimes it talks to the characters directly, but usually it communicates through numbers and descriptions.

In either case, the System will always be what quantifies things. It’s what gives out levels and classes and spells and whatnot. It’s what causes the Status Screen to pop up. It’s what decides which Class options to give the characters.

More importantly, seeing it work is what makes LitRPG… LitRPG.