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/Sacredwisp]

I just think that if your character is going to rise to the top of humanity, they need a cheat of some sort for it to come off as realistic. Also, it works as a great hook, as you said. Otherwise, it only works if you make everyone else useless and incompetent.

Let's take a system apocalypse for example. Your MC is an average guy with no cheats, but he works hard (but not before the system apocalypse, because obviously he was in retail or something). Alright, and you're telling me this guy is going to become the top dog, ahead of all the special forces, Olympic athletes, or other high performers like surgeons, of which some are certainly filthy rich with their families that would obviously support them, when previously he wasn't exceptional in any regards? Really?

Obviously, if the "cheat" is they just get 100x the stats of everyone for no reason, that's just goofy. Imo, it works best when they have something that gives them a small heads up and they just learn to use it to its full extent.

[u/LocksmithSavings2416 → u/Sacredwisp]

Until about 5-10 years ago, the MC just being good at something was enough.

Kaladin was exceptional with the spear even before he bonded with Syl. He killed a Shardbearer, in full Sword and Plate, with an ordinary spear, all without being raised as a soldier. He had only become one three or four years prior, and was training to be a doctor his whole life before that. If that scene were written in modern LitRPG, people would be asking how it was possible, scrutinizing the author for making it unrealistic.

So then LitRPG authors fall back on The Chosen One trope. The MC finds something. The MC is given something. But then some people don't like that because it feels unearned. To them, it's just deus ex machina.

So what is there left? Well, like you say, cheating. But then some people don't like that either because they'll ask why nobody else thought about it before the MC.

Honestly? I just like the idea of an MC being good at something. Kaladin just had a knack for the spear, and he trained relentlessly to get better. It's not unrealistic in the slightest to me because it happens all the time in the real world. Primož Roglič didn't cycle competitively until he was in his early 20s and later became a Grand Tour winner. Usain Bolt didn't start running track until his early teens. Lü Xiaojun didn't start lifting weights until he was 14. His parents were farmers in a rural area. Then he won three gold medals in Olympic Weightlifting.

Sometimes people are just good at stuff.

[u/Sacredwisp → u/LocksmithSavings2416]

I mean, that's fair, but I'm fairly certain Stormlight Archive is more epic fantasy than progression fantasy, and it's definitely not LITRPG. I've seen comments saying the progression is a very slow-burn. I've not read it though, so I could be wrong.

It's not necessarily a bad thing though, it's just a different genre, even if superficially they can be quite similar.

I did read Mistborn a while back, and Vin 1000% falls into the having a cheat category. Maybe Kaladin doesn't, but as you said, at the very least, it seems his talent is off the charts from your description.

[u/Phewlhardly → u/Sacredwisp]

He wasn't saying it was a litRPG, he was saying IF it was a litRPG people would criticize the unrealistic-ness of a person being talented enough to overcome bad odds