Gamer Zero: Interest Poll (Patreon)

Trickster’s Song was not the first serialised fantasy concept I had. Before I tried my hand at it, I had outlined and was working on a story called ‘Gamer Zero.’ This was before I even discovered what LitRPGs or GameLit was. I’m considering picking it back up as a companion piece to Trickster’s Song. Of course, I don’t want to commit to another long form piece given my schedule right now, so I thought I’d do some testing first.

Please read the below, vote in the poll (for multiple options if you’d like!), and comment with your thoughts!

Gamer Zero: A Slow Apocalypse LitRPG

General Summary: Slowly, gamers across the world are waking up…different. It’s slow at first. New knowledge, odd abilities, maybe even a spell or two begins to work. But it starts picking up speed. Bodies begin to change. People shift into different races, species, genders. Gamers are becoming their favourite characters! How will Earth, calm, mostly-rational Earth, react when people begin to discover that not only is magic real, all manner of magical systems are valid, and all manner of pseudo- and super-science suddenly begins to work as well!?

Now, I have a whole bunch of characters in my original notes file. I picked three of the most interesting to focus on, though each has a different degree of compatibility with LitRPG stylistics, and each is a slightly different kind of story. I’ll briefly summarise the three main ones and provide a one line description for some of the others.

Gamer Zero: The Fey Rise

William “Pawn” Rapp is the star of this take on the story. Pawn is William’s favourite tabletop character, a changeling (human abducted by the Lords and Ladies of Faerie and changed into a fey creature by his time in service there). This story takes inspiration from Changeling: the Dreaming, Changeling: the Lost, Dark Ages: Fae, and other fairy-inspired table-top RPGs.

The power set involved in this story premise is the closest I come to the idea of cultivation. The main character’s powers come from the connections her forges to “concepts” or “aspects” of reality. There will be a lot of collected favours, clever fey bargains, and the like. One aspect of reality that the character draws power from is ”Gaming Systems”.

There would be a strong urban fantasy element to this story in particular. Expect a focus on trying to hide from mundanes as a key plot element for at least the first third of the whole narrative (if this option is picked up for an ongoing serial).

This story has the most “traditional” LitRPG elements and system stuff. There is a moderate and consistently paced increase in power levels as the narrative progresses.

Gamer Zero: Trapped in Amethyst

This story draws its inspirations from systems like Amber Diceless, Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, Nobilis, and other similar systems. As a consequence, the protagonist (Dieran) starts off with a relatively quite high level of power.  He would probably be considered OP by several gamers/readers, as a starting level character in most of the systems like this has above-mortal rankings in all attributes (Strength, Intelligence, etc) for free, plus crazy reality warping powers.

This story will offer more options for “big picture” actions and reading about a character trying to influence the direction this gaming apocalypse is taking. Because the character has a lot more inherent power, there is a lot more he can do to impact events. It’s not the ultimate power fantasy, but it will definitely appeal to fans of narratives with main characters that kick a disproportionate amount of butt.

The LitRPG elements here would be noticeably lighter, probably the least strong of the first three ideas/options. Expect crazy fights, a small amount of sorcery, and lots of parallel dimension shenanigans.

Gamer Zero: Running With Shadows

This story draws its inspiration from Cyberpunk 2020, ShadowRun, Carbon 2185, and other cyberpunk games. The protagonist will have access to magitech, and a HUD system that keys in with the LitRPG elements.

Most of the stories here will be in the heist, hacker, and espionage vein. Because the LitRPG elements won’t be “top down” from world-shaking levels of power, and instead be something the character has programmed to help them interact with the world, the system elements will be much less granular. Power levels will be addressed more generally, similar to how very dangerous enemies in some MMOs are coded with an orange or red color scheme on their aura or name, while easy foes are green or grey, etc.

Gamer Zero: Demigod Style

The protagonist here is the son of a god/dess. Think someone who plays games like Scion. Or the Percy Jackson novels.

Gamer Zero: Taste of Blood

The protagonist becomes a vampire. Think Vampire: the Masquerade or the Underworld film franchise.

Gamer Zero: Fireballer

Getting classic D&D abilities in the real world. ‘Nuff said.

Gamer Zero: Other

Got another system you’d like to see? A superhero system? Star Wars? Cthulhu? Let me know int he comments!

Edited to Add: Not Interested!

And if you’re not interested at all, please let me know in the comments! (I had it as a poll option, but that didn’t populate for some reason)