Sherwood Smith’s Reviews > Warmaster 2: Winter's Peril > Status Update

Isekai don't have to involve leveling up, and cultivation stories don't have to involve the character being transported to another world.

Beth wrote: "Isekai don't have to involve leveling up, and cultivation stories don't have to involve the character being transported to another world."

I'm beginning to see how the terms are evolving, though the types of stories have been around for a looooong time.

Isekai is portal fantasy where an Earth person is zapped into another world. I'm hazier on "cultivation" and can only go on the books I've read that had the feature of meditation and/or internal mana/ki network development for growth. Stories can easily be both. Warmaster isn't a cultivation story, IMO. It is a "progression fantasy" which is a common LitRPG feature where people get stronger over time by developing skills and/or class levels.

Jacob wrote: "Isekai is portal fantasy where an Earth person is zapped into another world. I'm hazier on "cultivation" and can only go on the books I've read that had the feature of meditation and/or internal ma..."

Thanks, Jacob! I admit to a totally selfish reason for wanting to suss out how new terms are shaking out for various story forms, as I wonder if I'm mis-labeling my Phoenix Feather books. I'd thought of them as cultivation novels. I might be way off.

Cultivation tends to equate to xianxia - where people use Qi to refine their bodies into immortals and ascend to another world. Wuxia is more martial arts allows you to use internal force to do more spectacular martial arts, but without the more fairytale structure of immortals that is found in xianxia (which tends to feature a lot of demons, devils, demon cultivators, animals that have started cultivating, hidden realms, etc).

I’m very familiar with those as visual media (having been heavily addicted to C and K dramas for many years)—it’s these new forms of written work, like isekei and LitRPG that I’m trying to wrap my head around!

Sherwood wrote: "I’m very familiar with those as visual media (having been heavily addicted to C and K dramas for many years)—it’s these new forms of written work, like isekei and LitRPG that I’m trying to wrap my ..."

Also: I found a terrific book on the history of Wuxia, a few years back. I still need to write it up, but my reviewing is sooooooo behind....

Isekai is a new term for an old thing - they're all portal fantasies. Narnia is a prime example of isekai.

Quag Keep is early LitRPG (and also isekai) where D&D players get transported into their game world and are caught up in gamified structures (there's a gamemaster, for instance). But LitRPG isn't always going to be portal fantasy, since another common LitRPG is the system apocalypse, where the gamified structure is imposed on our world.

Some separate these stories into GameLit and LitRPG, where the former is a broad term for stories linked to a game (say, Jumanji), while the latter is a sub-genre with more visible game mechanics, like health bars.

I wouldn't call cultivation stories LitRPG (or GameLit) because (while there is certainly progression), the progression isn't tied to gameification. [Unless, of course, someone goes into a xianxia game.]

Ah thanks! All these new forms of game stries are new for me!