Progression Fantasy

merrit k: “Video games have cooked your brains”

Quoting Reddit:

u/ddaonica: “I’m loving this genre tag, I hadn’t quite realised how cathartic it is being able to quantify someone’s progression in a book. But the more I think on it, the more I realise that of the last few years if there’s a clear progression system in a book, I have been enthralled.”

u/cpark2005: “Seeing this description was like an almost instant epiphany for me. The obvious connections to coming-of-age stories are probably why I like this type of book so much. But over the past year, having read a lot of what we can now term progression fantasy, it’s nice to have a way to describe it other than, ‘um… litRPG, but now with games and um… yeah.’”

u/CF_Welburn: “Greetings! Until this morning I’d never heard of progression fantasy, but it turns out I’ve written 5 books in it! How’d that happen? Will be interesting to see what others did within the confines of said genre! btw… the series is The Ashen Levels… and uses rpg mechanics as its magic/levelling system.”

no user shown: “Progression Fantasy is a fantasy subgenre term for the purpose of describing a category of fiction that focuses on characters increasing in power and skill over time. I suggested this general concept to fellow fantasy author Will Wight as a way of identifying our works, which never quite fit in with any other established subgenres. The term itself was suggested to me by Jess Richards, after which I talked to Will and we agreed on it. These are stories where characters are often seen training to learn new techniques, finding ways to improve their existing skills, analyzing the skills of opponents, and/or gaining literal or figurative ‘levels’ of power. Progression in the subgenre title specifically refers to character power progression, not other types of progression (e.g. increasing wealth, noble rank, etc.) that occur in stories.”

v buckenham: “this is so interesting, tho! progression fantasy comes out of cultivation fantasy & isekai, which in turn is then,yes, heavily cooked by video game culture. I think I ought to hate this, but actually when I was bedbound I watched like two seasons of “reincarnated as a slime” and I admit I enjoyed it”