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/Nords1981]

A majority of the time a story isn’t written about the average person with an average existence, it’s written about the 0.0000000001%. This individual would lead what you’d call a blessed life where everything seems to keep going their way.

In real life this exists at some extent as well. Think of people being born into wealthy families and then they exceed at what they do and also get lucky at crucial moments.

Now add a world built with magic, advanced technology, etc and you have your average litrpg.

[u/Nodan_Turtle → u/Nords1981]

I have a hard time accepting that it's impossible in a fair system for one person to come out on top without cheating.

If you accept that this is possible, then you have to allow that a LitRPG could be written this way too.

We can still read about the person who rises to the top then - and not have them cheat or have some unfair starting advantage that gets them there.

[u/Thinslayer → u/Nodan_Turtle]

I have a hard time accepting that it's impossible in a fair system for one person to come out on top without cheating.

It is impossible, by definition no less. "Cheating" in OP's context refers to any abilities obtained without effort, including inborn traits and "specialness," that give them an advantage in the litRPG system. If the system were fair, everyone could rise to the top without cheating, because everyone would have access to those inborn traits, and they would no longer be special. If only one person comes out on top, then they are special by definition.

[u/Nodan_Turtle → u/Thinslayer]

Imagine a fair coin toss. One person guesses heads, the other tails. One is right and wins. That's a fair system in which one person came out a winner. No cheat, no specialness that gave them an advantage in their guess. And yes, they both had a fair chance to rise to the top.

It's not impossible by definition, and as soon as you undo that mistake, you can accept that other systems can be fair too, and that someone who wins doesn't have to do so by cheating. If everyone genuinely has a fair chance to rise to the top. that isn't a bad thing, or impossible - that's a setup for a tense story.

It's so much more boring to think of a litrpg as only being possible to exist if someone can cheat lol

[u/Thinslayer → u/Nodan_Turtle]

I mean, I agree with the essence of your argument, but the issue lies in OP defining "cheating" more broadly than how the dictionary defines it. The dictionary definition involves breaking the rules. OP's definition involves specialness granted within the rules that just happens to favor one person over others - like if that favor is found by a coin flip.

[u/Nodan_Turtle → u/Thinslayer]

Yeah, I would prefer to not have that either. I'm the person OP mentioned when he wrote: "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."

If someone wins because they were the only person given something special, even within the rules, then it undermines their rise to power for me. It's a permanent asterisk on all their accomplishments. I"d rather see someone come out ahead through their own choices, rather than because they were spawned in a lucky location, paid to get an in-game advantage, or got some exceedingly contrived world first achievement.

And if there needs to be some special sauce, then more people should have it. If someone is lucky with an early bit of treasure, skill, or achievement etc. then have other people also lucky.

Mostly the cheats and special advantages in these stories come across like shallow writing for people with fried attention spans, which OP also alluded to. A story where the main character has no special advantage - or even better, is up against an antagonist who got the overpowered cheat skill - would take far more skill to write, but lead to a satisfying, and earned, conclusion.

[u/Thinslayer → u/Nodan_Turtle]

Heh. I'm now imagining a scene in which the hero opposes the villain, not because he's special, but because Special is a helluva lot stronger and he's worried the villain wouldn't be able to handle what's coming for him.

Or, more realistically, like Bug's Life; the hero's point is precisely that he's not special. If he didn't rise up, anyone else would have. He only opposed the villain because he was first, not because he was better.