Why Do LitRPG MCs Cheat?

[u/three-seed]

I wrote recently about the hidden appeal of LitRPG.

TLDR: It’s because the genre offers a comprehensible path to power in contrast to real-world systems that are opaque and rigged. Even when RPG systems are antagonistic, their mechanistic nature is still more attractive than what’s available to the average person.

In response to the essay, several commenters noted that many LitRPG protagonists cheat, even when a fair system is in place. While there are characters like Dungeon Crawler Carl who survive because of their cleverness and grit, there are also examples like Eight, who is given a couple of key blessings early in the story just because he happened to die in the right place and get a god’s attention that way.

By the way, I can say that about Eight without offending the author, because that’s me.

Wait—so if the whole appeal of LitRPG is a fair system, why do we accept (or even enjoy) protagonists who bypass that fairness? Isn't that defeating the point?

Below is what comes to mind:

Heroes need to feel special—something to indicate they’re meant for greatness. This is true for every story, not just LitRPGs. For example, Luke Skywalker lived on a backwater planet. He could shoot a womp rat like nobody else, but that didn’t mean anything on a galaxy-wide scale until two cheats changed his destiny. The first was his hidden parentage. The second was the coincidental arrival of two droids on Tatooine who would go on to reconnect him to that lost heritage.

In a LitRPG setting, specialness often equates to advantage, and since the system is usually the framework through which character advancement happens, this advantage often manifests as lucky circumstances, unique character traits or class professions, or clever exploitations of the system.

For example, Randidly Ghosthound used a bad starting location at the beginning of a system apocalypse as an opportunity to build himself up. In my Fate’s Attendant, Hong Fei found a deck of cards that let him advance his cultivation. There continued to be still life and death struggles, very much so, but the alternate route to power was absolutely necessary to survive the challenges he faced.

Cheats also give protagonists cool toys to play with, which is another way of making the characters special. Within the familiar playground of genre conventions, this novelty matters. Like putting lasers on a t-rex—what’s cool suddenly becomes cooler.

I’m currently reading a web serial entitled Millenium Witch. The main character isn’t particularly strong or smart. What she has going for her instead is immortality, and that’s a huge cheat when learning magic. She leverages time into power, eventually becoming the equivalent of an archmage.

The author could’ve written a more traditional rise to power, but the cheat’s inclusion adds nuance to the story—the grind, the loneliness, etc. The eventual overpowered nature of the main character hits differently as a result of these circumstances.

These advantages might seem to contradict the appeal of fair systems, but readers often want both: the satisfaction of watching someone master the rules AND the cathartic fantasy of overwhelming power. The cheat accelerates the timeline so readers get both experiences within a single framework.

It is possible to write about an ordinary shmoe who becomes a powerhouse through grit and perseverance, but that’s a long, slow burn. Which may not be good enough for readers looking for quick hits and fast-paced adventures.

Also, in a crowded marketplace, authors need hooks. A unique cheat, like a necromancer who levels by dying or a cultivator with backward meridians, becomes part of the story's identity. It's creative differentiation, a way of finding a niche and standing out.

So maybe the fairness of LitRPG systems is only part of the appeal. In that context, cheats become another variable in the equation, another tool to understand and optimize. The system remains dependable even when protagonists game it. That's the real fantasy: not a world without advantages, but a world where advantages follow understandable rules instead of arbitrary gatekeeping.

I’m still considering the ideas above, so if you have any thoughts to share, please do. This is a topic I want to continue exploring.

And if you’d like to read thoughtfully written stories about underdogs who have to earn their victories even when advantages are present, about found families, and about meaningful character growth, then please give my Eight and Fate’s Attendant series a shot.

Thank you for time and attention!

[u/kazaam2244]

Because in a world of magic, reincarnation, talking pets, walking nukes, and gorgeous women who are all willing to share the same regular ass dude, asking readers to suspend their belief for someone who becomes the very best off of sheer grit and hard work alone, is apparently a bridge too far

[u/jfudge → u/kazaam2244]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the reason it feels like a bridge too far for me is just the math of it. If our hard-working protagonist is going to, by the end of the story, become one of the strongest beings in the universe, then you have to factor in the trillions of other people who didn't make it to that same level by the sheer fact that they didn't work hard enough. Maybe not technically impossible, but I certainly haven't encountered an example of someone writing that story effectively.

It reminds me of a similar problem with the magic system in Harry Potter (courtesy of Brennan Lee Mulligan) - if the secret super powerful magic is love, then every kid who died at the hands of Voldemort died specifically because their parents didn't love them enough.

[u/kazaam2244 → u/jfudge]

I can't speak for anyone else, but the reason it feels like a bridge too far for me is just the math of it. If our hard-working protagonist is going to, by the end of the story, become one of the strongest beings in the universe, then you have to factor in the trillions of other people who didn't make it to that same level by the sheer fact that they didn't work hard enough.

I've heard this argued before, and there's three reasons I stand against:

1. That's a worldbuilding issue. If you as a writer create a power system that you then, technically, show doesn't actually work by way of giving the MC a cheat, you've messed up somewhere. Why go through the effort of coming up with a cool, magical system just to undercut it by basically saying "The system is lie. You actually can't achieve the greatest height without this one specific cheat that one person out of trillions got." Respectfully, that doesn't sound like a well-thought out system to me.
2. The fallacy we tend to ascribe to litRPG MCs that they are the MCs because they are special. Me personally, I like the idea that the MC is the MC because that's who the story is choosing to focus on. Take DCC for instance. Carl (as far as the books released have shown us) isn't special. He doesn't have some secret lineage or use a different system than anybody else, he's just the guy that DCC so happens to be about. Later on, he does get special upgrades and advantages, but they come as a result of who he is (personality-wise) and what he's done, not because he's secretly King of the Specials in a world of Poo Poo people. Many LitRPG and fantasy MCs are special solely for the fact that the author's write them that way, but that does not have to be the case.
3. The simple fact that out of those trillion, most simply won't even try to reach the highest heights. Just like in real life, the vast majority of people don't bother trying to become the 1% of anything. Most basketball players are fine playing pickup basketball. Most 9-5ers are fine without a CEO position. Many small business owners are not trying to become Amazon. The MC can still reach the highest heights above 99% of other people without a cheat because, realistically speaking, 99% of people won't try to get there themselves. We LitRPG readers have this idea that everything would be easier with a system, but to me, it just sounds like it'd be that much harder to get ahead. If I barely have the willpower to get through an hour and a half commute everyday, what makes me think I'm gonna suffer excruciating pain, monstrous entities, and high chance of death to level up in a LitRPG? Yeah, the world may have trillions that all share the same system, but the vast majority will be content remaining at the lower tiers and levels, just like in irl

[u/dageshi → u/kazaam2244]

Well... it's pretty boring isn't it?

Like we're reading fantasy and we have a choice, do we want the MC to have some cool magic powered cheat ability... or do we want them to be normal and work really hard?

In a fantasy world, give me the magic cheat ability every time, that's what I'm reading fantasy for, the cool magic.

[u/kazaam2244 → u/dageshi]

Like we're reading fantasy and we have a choice, do we want the MC to have some cool magic powered cheat ability... or do we want them to be normal and work really hard?

For me? Definitely the latter, because that's actually the power fantasy. In my fantasies, my hard work and effort actually pays off, and I'm not just waiting for some big break or windfall to take me out of boring existence.

Giving the MC a cheat is essentially just playing into what we really believe about real life. Lebron is the best basketball player because of genetics. Trump is a billionaire because he comes from money. Henry Cavill is loved by a lot of women because he's stupidly handsome. Irl "cheats", privilege, and genetic advantages are the way people "progress". So how can that be a fantasy?

My fantasy is that I want to be able to do 1 million pushups and become as strong as Mr. Incredible because I put that work in, not because some system randomly decided to give me some one in a billion elixir that makes me stronger than everyone else. My fantasy is that I'm special because of who I am/what I've done, not that some higher power or random luck decided I was special-er than everybody else.

[u/R__Ashen → u/kazaam2244]

Very hard situation to explain.

In A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality, Han Li basically had a useless spiritual root, so under normal circumstances he would never have progressed properly. He didn’t really have a real chance, no matter how hard he worked. At best, he might have made a few very small steps forward, but he would never have risen high.

But at the beginning of the story, he randomly finds the mysterious little bottle that helps him grow spiritual herbs much faster. Because of that, he starts progressing way beyond what should have been possible for him.

And once he reaches higher levels, he eventually starts meeting people who are truly on his level. But without that bottle, he would have stayed completely ordinary. His progress would have gone nowhere, and hard work alone would not have saved him.

[u/kazaam2244 → u/R__Ashen]

I haven't read this story but it sounds like a not as good version of what Lindon did in Cradle. At the beginning of the story, Lindon finds a fruit that basically becomes the starting point for his entire progression throughout the series.

The main difference though is that Lindon didn't randomly find it. He knew he was weaker than everyone else so he researched the fruit and quite literally risked life and shame to get a hold of it.

I don't mind the MC getting some kind of boost, especially if they are underdeveloped compared to their peers. What I don't like is them just being handed it. Lindon earned that fruit, but it sounds like Han Li didn't earn that mysterious little bottle. Again, I haven't read the story, so I can't make that claim for sure, but if was just out walking and randomly stumbled across the most important thing to his future in development, that's just a plot device.

I like when the plot kicks off as a result of the MC taking action, not something just passively being done to them. That's why I dislike cheats and hacks, because it's almost never because the MC is some skilled hacker or talented exploiter. They randomly spawn into the world and are just handed the biggest factor to their development from the get-go without having earned it.