In today’s episode, I discuss and explore the LitRPG genre with author Matthew Kent.
LitRPG is short for literary Role-Playing Game, and is a genre that incorporates game aspects in story form. Please enjoy the discussion! You can check out Matthew Kent’s books at:
https://peregrineepress.wordpress.com/ https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B01N26PQ3H
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A full auto-generated transcript follows below:
Don Bishop: [00:00:00]
All right. Well, um, if you’re ready, I think we can. Jump in. So welcome to the grand hill Chronicles podcast. Today is October 27th, 2023. As we record this. And today I would like to welcome our guest author, Matthew Kent. Uh, now. Should I call you Mr. Ken, should I call you Matthew?
Matthew Kent: Matthew is fine. When I hear Mr. Ken, I think of My father.
Don Bishop: Okay. I reminds me
Matthew Kent: most of. us do.
Don Bishop: reminds me of crash on a. Finding Nemo.
But, uh, okay. So. Uh, Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Um, your background. And if you want, if you’d like, like tell us what you studied or. I
Matthew Kent: Oh, I’ve studied quite a bit. Um, I went to college. Uh, with a, for a bachelor’s in fine arts with a minor in education.
Don Bishop: So
Matthew Kent: for a few years, [00:01:00] I was an art teacher. But I put myself through school as a real estate appraiser, which is what I currently do. I live northwest of Atlanta. With my family. I have three kids. My daughters, are going to turn five on Halloween. And then my son he’s six and he’ll be seven. in February. So
Don Bishop: so these, these daughters are the twins alluded to in your, your author page, your Amazon author page.
Matthew Kent: yes, Uh, they were born. at 28 weeks On Halloween.
Um, I swear to God, I think that, uh, they were going look. You’re saying we can’t be born on Christmas, Halloween. will do. So they obviously wanted a holiday.
Um, was very interesting. uh, they were in the NICU for four months. Um, One of my daughters is named Victoria, which is [00:02:00] going to be. The name, Victoria is a character in a book. that I’m been working on for the past few years. I just haven’t gotten it right, So I haven’t really released it. Uh, for general distribution. So still working on it. But we wound up using, uh, Victoria as one of the names for our daughters.
Don Bishop: Okay.
Cool. Um, Yeah, we, uh, we have three kids ourselves. Uh, my wife and I, and. Our oldest. Um, Now I’m trying to remember. We’ve w my. My writing and preparing to publish has some commonalities with. With our kids’ names as well. Um, Where we have, one of our kids is, is rose, you know, and, and. My website is thorne.link. Uh, and it’s it’s from that common ground. So, [00:03:00] but you said you, you were an art teacher.
Matthew Kent: Mm hmm.
Don Bishop: Um, so do you paint, do you illustrate.
Matthew Kent: I paint. Uh, I do watercolors oils and a little bit of acrylic. Uh, because I was an art teacher. I was a… Got a very general, and broad background in the arts. I’ve done sculpture photography. Currently, what I’m doing is a little bit of woodworking. Uh, doing Epoxy river. charcuterie boards, and I’m eventually going to make an Epoxy river table. Or desk for
Don Bishop: me. Yeah. I, I like the way those things look like to watch the videos, people making them.
Matthew Kent: Fantastic. I’ve got, uh, the wood that I’m going to use eventually. It’s just I’m trying to get the skill so that I can do it
Don Bishop: well.
Matthew Kent: Um, it comes from being an artist. Artists don’t. Generally like to waste materials because they don’t know it’s going to work out
Don Bishop: with. Yeah. You probably have, um, Some crowded area of your house. [00:04:00] I hold on to stuff too.
Matthew Kent: Yes. We’ve actually uh, tried to uh, get rid of stuff, but art supplies is one thing that you can never really force yourself to get. rid of because You’re always
Don Bishop: going in.
Matthew Kent: I’m going to use
Don Bishop: that?
Matthew Kent: And you probably will. 10. 15 years down the road, but you’re going to use it.
Don Bishop: My, my wife is standing over there right now. And she’s, she’s chuckling. Like, yep. Yep. We know, we know how that goes.
Matthew Kent: And it’s also one of the reasons right now, my kids are one of the reasons I don’t do a lot of art. because I like to leave my supplies out so that when I’m inspired or ready to go work, I can go work.
Don Bishop: But.
Matthew Kent: Art supplies and kids don’t really mix well, it’s kind of like oil paints and cats.
Don Bishop: Well, it’s, it’s more like art supplies and kids and the carpet don’t mix. Well,
Matthew Kent: That’s true too.
Don Bishop: Yeah. We actually, so in our, um, And our [00:05:00] house, we have a craft room. I in our, in our old house we had. The, the main area of the room. Covered. Because we had small kids and they’d get in there and they’d help themselves to things that they weren’t supposed to. And.
Matthew Kent: Yeah,
Don Bishop: the carpet from the spills.
Matthew Kent: Have a storage cabinet that we try and keep locked.
Not as always successful as we would like to be.
Don Bishop: But
Matthew Kent: I told my wife long ago. No glitter.
Don Bishop: No
Matthew Kent: glitter.
Don Bishop: So, um, You said you, you got a degree in, in what was it? And
Matthew Kent: Uh, fine arts,
Don Bishop: fine arts. Okay.
Matthew Kent: With a minor in education.
Don Bishop: Okay. Yeah. Aye. Majored in music, education myself.
Matthew Kent: Okay.
Don Bishop: Yeah,
Matthew Kent: I taught for four years. Um, I love the teaching. but I wasn’t really OCD enough [00:06:00] to make a great teacher.
Don Bishop: Um,
yeah. Like yeah. Cause you have to be really prepared every day and.
Matthew Kent: Everything has to have its place and it has to go right back there.
Don Bishop: And.
Matthew Kent: Most artists. I know aren’t OCD enough.
Don Bishop: Yeah. And it’s like, it’s it’s good enough. It’s. It’s over there. I can get it. When I need it.
Matthew Kent: I know where it is.
Don Bishop: Yeah.
Yeah. Um, So now you’re here. Um, because this, this podcast has to do with. With writing. So what, tell us about what you write. Um,
Matthew Kent: the genre I write in generally is called game lit.
Don Bishop: Uh,
Matthew Kent: and more specifically I write in what’s called lit RPG, which is a sub genre. And it’s with game worlds and game, world mechanics that you’re talking about. With characters. [00:07:00]
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: the first series I’ve got out right now. Is, uh, Arabella online. And the first book is the apprentice of Arabella and the main character. Uh, it’s kind of in the future a little bit dystopian. He’s trying to figure out how he can proceed in his life. After having everything he’s worked for taken away from him. And he’s Finds a way to proceed. and he starts playing a game where he thinks he can make money. To get kind of out and away from everything.
Don Bishop: Hmm.
Matthew Kent: Um, and as he’s progressing in the game, he figures out that he can use what skills he has as an artist. And to make money and make items that will sell. But in doing so he also runs afoul of, an AI. that’s, that’s hunting him down. The second book [00:08:00] is he figures out that he has inadvertently gotten players caught. By the AI and they’re trapped, and he has to go and try and save them.
Don Bishop: So this is, um, is this air Bella? You’re talking about. The apprentice. So a variable, the prisoner Verbella.
Matthew Kent: Mm hmm.
Don Bishop: Okay.
Matthew Kent: And then I’ve got a third one that I’m working on originally. I had it nearly finished and then I lost my hard drive.
Don Bishop: Oh,
Matthew Kent: can be a little bit Devastating. But So, I’m actually reworking the story. I’ve got a couple of things that occurred to me that I think will be really good. to Include.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: The second part of the story ends as they go back in time. And this is where you really start to realize why the main character is hated by
Don Bishop: the AI
Matthew Kent: the AI and why it’s been hunting him down.
Don Bishop: Okay.
Matthew Kent: Um, So we’ve got them back in time, but they’re electronically [00:09:00] inside a computer. That’s being run by the government.
Don Bishop: Hmm. So.
Matthew Kent: From there it’s going to proceed more into the future and tell a little bit more of the story going on. Um, I’m also working on another story right now called, uh, the. The sources of San Antonio.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: I usually tend to start my stories with the names. And they can be very evocative. of the feeling. So she starts out. And it’s her birthday, her 16th birthday. She was born on a leap year. So on her birthday at 16. She gets a message that she’s being introduced into the system. And she has no idea what’s going on. So she comes to find out that she is descended from people who have been fighting for the system.
Don Bishop: To
Matthew Kent: fight monsters that are killing humans across the globe. [00:10:00] And It’s a semi secret thing. that The government knows about. But they don’t really acknowledge so much. And it’s in the background. And she’s going, why me and she comes to find out that she was an adopted embryo. Now do you know what that is?
Don Bishop: Um, like growing fruit, grown in a test tube and then later placed in a home. No.
Matthew Kent: Um, and they actually have an adopted embryo program for embryos of people that were taking fertility treatments. that have donated them to couples. that can’t have children on their own.
Don Bishop: Oh, okay.
Matthew Kent: So that kind of struck me because my wife and I with our kids. We had to do in vitro fertilization. And there’s one embryo sitting out there and we’re both going. What do we do? And it’s kind of, well,
Don Bishop: is it
Matthew Kent: alive? Is it not alive? You know, We could donate to science or we can let somebody [00:11:00] adopt the embryo.
Don Bishop: Okay.
Matthew Kent: And we’re still struggling with that
Don Bishop: thought. Yeah. Nope. That’s interesting. I, I. Wasn’t aware of that people did that night. I, I did know that, um, Fertility clinics would often, uh, They’ll often. You know, cause you’re dealing with such tiny cells, you know, and. So since it’s really difficult to, to produce just one. Let’s do like a batch and.
Matthew Kent: They do.
Don Bishop: and no. But when I heard about this, this was like way back in the nineties. And so like, they would, they would do batches of perhaps thousands.
Matthew Kent: Well, no. Not thousands but usually about, they will try and start with about. 10 to 20. And some of the, uh, embryos are more viable than others. We started out with a batch of eight, uh, eggs. And we wound up with three viable embryos. [00:12:00] Um, we intended to have two children. We started out with our son and we were both going, okay. This is working out pretty well. Then we decided to go for one more. And, uh, the embryo split. So we had identical twins.
Don Bishop: Oh, Okay.
Matthew Kent: And my wife. Uh, the day of the first ultrasound, the ultrasound tech, just very casually waves, her wand, and she goes, okay. Are you ready to find out about babies? And my wife goes, wait, what? No, no, no, no, no. There’s one. She goes, no, there’s two They split. And my wife looks at me and I look at her and. We’re going.
Don Bishop: Oh,
Matthew Kent: no. So, yeah, surprise. And uh, everybody has asked, well, you’ve got one more are you going to have another, And I’m like going no, No, no, no, no. The first one. We had one. The second we had two. Third would not be our charm. Uh, [00:13:00]
You know, but. We’re older parents. Uh, three is more than enough right now.
Don Bishop: Twins can be fun though.
Matthew Kent: It is, it is. Uh, we’re very lucky. We have a twins group in the area. So my wife is able to talk to people that also have twins or triplets. Sometimes quadruplets.
Um, but it’s
Don Bishop: out there. There’s. Somewhere out there in the internet, there is a video of. I think it’s quintuplets. And they’re sitting around a table that was apparently special made for them because they’re their babies. And so this table was made to. To have them come and, and eat at the same time at the same table. But they’re laughing. And. There they, you know, one laughs and the others laugh. And then. There’s all kinds of. Uh, the laughing balances [00:14:00] around the table and it’s, it’s really cute. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, we’ve, we’ve had some fun thinking about twins, but we haven’t, we don’t have any twins of our own. Um,
Matthew Kent: Most people do. And then they’re like, going. oh, that would be great. That would be cute. And it’s like, yeah, it is up until about 3 a. m. when they’re both wanting to be fed.
Don Bishop: Uh, huh. Well, that’s, I mean, that, that is arguably better than one of them wanting to be fed. And then as soon as that twin has done, the other one wants to be fed because then.
Matthew Kent: Well, that’s actually how it usually worked out with us. because we were in the NICU for so long, they came home and they were on schedules And their schedules were slightly offset, which made it a little bit better, but there would be times they both want to be fed at the same time.
Don Bishop: Okay. But
Matthew Kent: you know, that’s why it takes two to be parents.
Don Bishop: Yeah.
Matthew Kent: I can’t imagine trying to be just one parent taking care of twins.
Don Bishop: what is your day job?
Matthew Kent: I’m a real estate appraiser. Um, I’ve been an [00:15:00] appraiser since 94 and held my license that long. I was a teacher for four years during the middle of that. And I still appraised a little bit while I was teaching.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: So I’ve got a little bit of experience with that as a residential appraiser in the Metro Atlanta area.
Don Bishop: Okay. And, um, Are you. And we can, we can skip over this if you want, but are you, are you generating good income from your books so far? Uh, is that
Matthew Kent: Not as much as I would like. Uh, the past few months have picked up quite a bit. Uh, part of it is I only have a few books out, uh, as you can tell from my uh, page. I’m a little bit eclectic as far as what I write. Um, I had a couple friends that they wanted to, um, They were asking me for different recipes that I used because they liked them. So I’m like, okay, well, why don’t I just put out a recipe book for busy dads of things that are really [00:16:00] quick and easy that we can do? Cause a lot of times moms are like, You’re a guy you can’t cook. It’s like anybody can cook. Just do we do it well. Uh,
Don Bishop: yes. It’s just like on a movie Ratatouille.
Matthew Kent: Yeah,
Don Bishop: anyone can cook. Not anyone can be great necessarily, but.
Matthew Kent: Well, it’s like anybody can write, but not everybody should.
Don Bishop: Um, But
Matthew Kent: I’ve got that, uh, I’m into 3d printing, as you can see, I did a book about that several years ago when it was just starting out.
Don Bishop: I actually, I have a 3d printer. Behind me I’ll show the. The view. Oh, Nope. Nope. I can’t bring it into. That’s all right. It’s it’s over there.
Matthew Kent: Yeah. And what’s. Funny is that, uh, I got into it about 2010 ish, So 13 years ago, And I talked about it to my brothers and I told ’em how great it was and how cool it [00:17:00] was. And they go. Look.
Don Bishop: 3d
Matthew Kent: printing is a fad.
Don Bishop: There’s
Matthew Kent: not gonna go anywhere nobody’s gonna be interested now. They both have three D
Don Bishop: printers. Well, and I have. These, these instruments I have on the wall. There’s a clarinet and there’s a. That’s an iwi. It’s an electronic wind instrument. Um, but both of those are mounted to the wall with mounts that I. I drafted in 3d printed. Okay.
Matthew Kent: Well, you know,
Don Bishop: practical.
Matthew Kent: It’s practical. That’s one of the practical aspects of it. But there’s so much more that can be done. Uh, I’ve seen people making guitar bases with it. I’ve seen people making instruments with it. It’s just what you’re willing to try. And what you’re willing to do it’s just an absolutely amazing technology.
Don Bishop: I have, um, I have printed a few clarinet parts. Um, really just the second piece of the clarinet, the barrel. [00:18:00] Um,
Um,
it doesn’t look anything special in it’s. It’s not, but. It’s just as good as the regular barrel. Yeah. Um, and yeah, if I’ve not with this one, but I have. I’ve played in concerts with a 3d printed barrel.
Yeah.
Matthew Kent: It’s a fascinating technology. that Can change things tremendously. Um, Well, one of the things I’ve recently heard. Is that a lot of newer HUD homes. Are being sold. With 3d printers so that they can print. Electrical white plates. And some of the things in the house that might get broken, they’re able to actually make their own replacement parts right there.
Don Bishop: Hmm.
Okay. Well, um,
As interesting as this. Is, I want to get into, uh, the, the [00:19:00] topic that we had slated, like, and that is, um, Lit RPG. As a genre or as a sub genre. Of, um, okay. Well, I guess it’s, it’s usually considered a sub genre of fantasy, but it sounds like you’re talking a future dystopia. That would probably be more Saifai.
Matthew Kent: Well, it can be a lot of different things. Uh, Gameland is the overall, um, Top uh, overall genre. But it has sub genres. There’s , Isekai, which is uh, where
Don Bishop: of the
Matthew Kent: dies and is Transported to a new world. There’s portal. Where somebody goes through a portal to another world or comes from. a portal into this world. there’s uh, game lit. There’s cultivation.
Don Bishop: Here’s the
Matthew Kent: harem lit.
Don Bishop: Which. Kind of
Matthew Kent: self explanatory, Uh,
Don Bishop: but
Matthew Kent: it all really got started. Uh, and people think that the, it all got started with ready player one. [00:20:00] it actually predates that. By about 20 years here in the United States. Uh, I think it was Dragons of the Flame. Where players were playing. A role playing game. and They got sucked into the game world.
Don Bishop: Uh, huh.
Matthew Kent: Uh, And then some of them wound up staying in the game world. And it had gaming mechanics.
Don Bishop: Well, I suppose there’s. We could, we can trace it back to Tron, right?
Matthew Kent: While we could, Tron is a very good example of, uh, the lit RPG or the game lit. Because it didn’t really have the statistics, but it did have the gaming aspect to it. Um, main character human gets sucked into the game. And he’s there for a specific reason. Uh, to gather information. Now he doesn’t realize that at the time. But so.
Don Bishop: There is that,
Matthew Kent: um, and it’s really grown from other areas around the world. One of the main places that really [00:21:00] got started was in Russia.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: Very different sensibilities though. Um, I know that you had mentioned that you try and keep the language on your show. Clean.
Don Bishop: Russia.
Matthew Kent: Not so much. Um,
Racism misogynistic, very… Very not good for kids. More adult themed oriented. But it also got started over there and it’s been very, very popular in Russia. And then it spread into Europe and then it spread back. into The United States.
Um, and it’s gotten very big in the United States. One of the big titles right now is dungeon crawler. Carl.
Don Bishop: Carl.
Matthew Kent: Uh, by Matt Deniman, And he is on book six right now. Uh, about to go to book seven. Uh, he just book uh, six, just came out. And it was [00:22:00] competing on the New York times bestseller charts. Um, which is absolutely amazing. Then you’ve got other authors. Um, he Who fights with monsters. by Sherda Loon. A lot of them use, um, pen names. Then, uh, Sean Oswald, is another very good one. Um, Charles Dean, um, his work actually, he uses a lot of things. From Shakespeare. And kind of borrows things from them
Don Bishop: for his own works.
Matthew Kent: Uh, one of his, uh, Uh, my favorite that he has right now.
Don Bishop: Is,
Matthew Kent: um,
Let’s see, it’s uh, death’s favorite warlock and he is on the fourth book right now that he’s working on for that. And. Very interesting character He’s dealing with. A lot of the [00:23:00] aspects of what’s called cultivation.
Don Bishop: Where.
Matthew Kent: If you’ve ever read a cultivation novel or a light novel.
Don Bishop: The.
Matthew Kent: Asian influence is that. Um, might makes right.
Don Bishop: Uh, huh.
Matthew Kent: And so.
Don Bishop: Uh, we lost you there for.
Matthew Kent: you, because
Don Bishop: We lost you for a second. We lost you for a second. I heard you say that, um, the Asian influence there is, might makes right.
Matthew Kent: Right. Might makes right. And that you’re expected. If you’re strong to oppress the weak around you.
Don Bishop: Hmm. Um,
Matthew Kent: You know, he’s writing the tropes that are expected in that he doesn’t necessarily agree with them. I know him as an author. He’s a very good guy. But, uh, it’s a very interesting way of dealing with things. Another very good series that’s actually been completed is the cradle [00:24:00] series.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: Which does deals with cultivation? And the character starts very weak. And grows very, very strong and it deals with his progression. of becoming a stronger character. Which, that’s also one of the parts. under Gamelit, is progression fantasy, where the character is
Don Bishop: Yeah. Progressing. Um, yeah, I was, I was actually going to mention that. I think we should also mention for any listeners who are. And I’m not terribly familiar with lit RPG. Um, I’m just kind of on the outside of it, but. For anybody less familiar than I lit RPG is a literature role-playing game. Uh, we’re role-playing game. Um, That you could either trace that to tabletop like Dungeons and dragons, which I’ve never played. But, um, you can also trace it to the video game console.
Way back [00:25:00] to the first final fantasy and, uh, Probably final fantasy, more so than the legend of Zelda.
Matthew Kent: Well, you can, um, If you really want to get into it, it could go all the way back to the first computers. Uh, like the temple of Apsai was a game that they had for the TRS 80 model 3. And it was actually uh, somewhat text based, But you could only play it. And if your character died. It would reset everything. So you didn’t know what the dungeon was going to be, that your character was playing in.
So…
Don Bishop: I think it’s. Yeah. Wow. I just realized does the text-based games, um, They’re there digital. Choose your own adventure stories, right.
Matthew Kent: That’s right.
Don Bishop: Uh, and, you know, choose your own adventure books. Never really caught on. They [00:26:00] they’ve. They’ve had some. Some spurts and starts. Uh,
Matthew Kent: They have. Um, they were very big when I was a kid in the 1980s.
Don Bishop: Uh, huh.
Matthew Kent: Uh, then they kind of fell by the way. after about five or six years. But, um, yeah, the choose your own adventures. And again, this is kind of what it is. You’re the writer telling about the character, choosing its own adventure. Choosing how it’s going to develop. And the statistics are often used as a way to show how it’s going to progress and how it develops. And. As part of it. Those statistics have an effect on the rest of the story.
Don Bishop: So
Matthew Kent: if somebody gets very, very strong. You have to find a way to show how that strength
Don Bishop: It is
Matthew Kent: affects them in the game and affects everything around them.
Don Bishop: And it’s, you can kind of see. Uh, and how to train [00:27:00] your dragon. There’s there’s one character he’s, he’s kind of geeky. And in the second movie. He sees the giant dragon. Uh, that, uh, that obeys. The bad guy and. He’s he kinda geeks out. He’s like, oh, level. A little five, little six behemoth. And. Kind of speculating on yeah. Like he’s assigning levels to it. Um, which is something that we don’t usually do in the real world, like, oh yeah. I’m a, I’m a level 20 powerlifter. You would you instead say, I, I can, I can lift. Two 50 or three 50, you know, you, you would assign, you’d say that the amount of weight that you can lift. But.
Matthew Kent: You wouldn’t, You wouldn’t go, oh, he’s a level five doctor. He can take care of you. No. It’s like, you don’t have levels to tell somebody how good you are. You know, you just have to kind of show that in the real [00:28:00] world. But in a game you would have the level differentiation. And it would be telling somebody how good at something you were supposed to be.
Don Bishop: Would you, would you, uh, equate. Do you think it’s fair to apply this concept of leveled characters? And say that. Pokemon is that. The Pokemon falls into that category because we see Pokemon evolution.
Matthew Kent: Yeah, Pokemon could fall into that. Uh, kind of, there are actually a series of stories out. Where card decks take part in the story. Um, whether it’s a card that somebody internalizes so they can use that power. Or if it’s a card deck that they use to pull monsters and fight. In fact, the latest Matt Deniman book has that as an aspect of the current game, where they have to collect the cards. And then they have to use the cards in battles.
Don Bishop: So, um, [00:29:00]
Just kind of exploring around the.
To see where the. This genre. Begins and ends. If I were to write, say a progression fan, well, progression is. Not the same thing as lit RPG. And I see a lot of crossover.
Matthew Kent: Yeah, there is a lot of crossover all over the board. Um, The main thing progression is that you have to show that the character is increasing in skill and ability as he’s going through. Now LiveRPG Tends to show more that more. By showing the increasing skills. And breaking it down as numbers. You have hard out RPG. Where it shows all the numbers with the character sheet. And breaks it down. and It shows the level of damage that they’re doing. Where soft, lit RPG.
Don Bishop: Kind of
Matthew Kent: show. Talks more about how they’re [00:30:00] progressing and the build of the character. But it doesn’t necessarily show a character sheet.
Don Bishop: What, um, Are you familiar with the wheel of time? Did you read that? Would you consider the wheel of time to be progression or is it not. I mean.
Matthew Kent: Wheel of time is actually really its own kind of thing. It could be considered progression, I guess. But really, um, it doesn’t take that into account. You do see the characters advance and become more skillful. But it doesn’t really talk about how they’ve progressed or how it affects the characters.
Don Bishop: Okay. Now in, um,
Lit RPG. Where. Will you, your, your. Applying numbers to things. Um, How likely or impossible would it be for a. Uh, if, I mean, you let me back up. [00:31:00] So you’re talking about applying numbers to things. Do you have like a level 10 swordsman who might go up against a level 15 swordsman? And then what are his chances of winning that fight? Like none or maybe.
Matthew Kent: It’s a, maybe there a lot of the stories. deal with what they call the tyranny of rank. That’s where somebody. that’s of a higher rank if they’re fighting somebody lower rank. Is going to be more powerful and more able to hit. But the person that’s of a lower rank is going to be less likely to be able to hit them or harm them as.
much. So it would be possible. And if you think about it as a real world thing,
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: There’s the story in, Japan. of the courtier who was, uh, made tea for, a noble, But because of the position that he held, he was considered noble. He was challenged to fight a samurai. Well, he. [00:32:00] Of course had to go through with the duel And he was given the advice of before the duel to sit down. And do what he normally did to prepare the tea. And it calmed him down. And made it to where he was able to face the swordsman who seeing how calm and ready he was backed off.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: Now in a real world setting a guy who makes tea versus somebody who is very knowledgeable about a sword. He’s gonna die. But seeing him calm and ready. The swordsman backed down thinking, oh my God, I’m about to die.
Um, and, and that can be the same thing as far as lit RPG.
Don Bishop: Is
Matthew Kent: sometimes a person might be low, skilled. But they might or low level, but they might be highly skilled in one thing. So. it Every story is going to be very different and it’s going to be what the [00:33:00] writer wants to tell.
Don Bishop: Now I know that in, um, In tabletop games. In a Dungeons and dragons. They’ll they’ll have somebody. Attempting to do something. And they, they roll a 20 sided die. And. Whatever number that comes up, determines how likely they are to succeed. And some of those I’ve seen, um, I’ve seen memes and posts in social media about. Uh, something ridiculous happening. Uh, somebody like. Somebody like
Matthew Kent: D games and yeah, it depends on the, uh, GM. Um, one of the things that we had in one of our groups was if you rolled a natural 20 on a D20 That you naturally succeed everything. So we had one guy, uh, and he was fighting. We wound up fighting a dragon. And he goes. I attack its head jumping from the [00:34:00] roof on top of them. And dry my sword and the DM’s like, Okay, whatever. Roll a 20 to hit. And the guy had rolled an actual 20 and he’s going son of a
Don Bishop: and.
Matthew Kent: You know, he hit and he wound up getting critical and killing the dragon. and Everybody’s looking at each other. going did that just
Don Bishop: happen?
Matthew Kent: But if you think about it,
Don Bishop: There’s
Matthew Kent: in real life, we call it the golden BB. You know that
Don Bishop: one, never.
Matthew Kent: a million shot that can take down an airplane or a battleship if. it hits just right.
Don Bishop: Uh, huh? Huh?
Matthew Kent: So you’ve got to have that aspect in. You know, the gaming world and in books too.
Don Bishop: There. So
Matthew Kent: there’s just that one chance
Don Bishop: in a million.
Matthew Kent: And sometimes. It happens.
Don Bishop: So in the, um, And in the book, do you. How do you reflect this? Um, this, this roll of the die. Is it just like, like, do you, do you say. [00:35:00] Um, The. The level 15 swordsman, you know, he’d had a. Uh, rough night. Uh, of indigestion and his ankle was sore from. Uh, along March that he had to do the previous day. And so things were against him and. So the level 10, one. Like
Matthew Kent: That very well could be, or he could just be having a bad day or he didn’t clean his sword. Well, and it broke.
Don Bishop: I mean,
Matthew Kent: there’s all kinds of things that you could throw in there. Um,
to Talk about that.
Don Bishop: Okay. So how, how does, um,
Can you go a little bit more into the mechanics of your world, uh, of, um,
Uh, era Bella and how this.
Matthew Kent: Well with Arabella, I looked at some of the online games that I’ve played in the past. [00:36:00] Um, And tried to figure out the mechanics behind them. You know why the strength was the way it was or why the characteristics were the way they were and how that would apply in the gaming world. So for instance, if you are more dexterous, say you. What is that going to do for your character? Well, it’s going to make it to where you can move better. It can make it to where you move faster. Um, how does wisdom and intelligence. affect you.
Don Bishop: Well,
Matthew Kent: As a player you’re not more wise, it doesn’t make you more wiser.
Don Bishop: Your
Matthew Kent: character more wise. It aids, the progression. uh, And the. Um, your mana, how, how it grows and how it replaces itself. So the more, your more wisdom you have the faster, your mana replenishes. The more intelligent you are, the more mana you have. So in that aspect. [00:37:00] That’s not going to change you as a person. it’s going to change how your character interacts with the world. And that’s really what the statistics are, is how you interact with the world. If for instance, you have a luck stat. The higher your luck, the more things are going to either go your way really well.
Don Bishop: Or
Matthew Kent: go against you really badly. So the higher, your luck is the more extremes you’re going to see. in your luck. for instance.
Don Bishop: The
Matthew Kent: thing about the level 10 swordsman versus the level. 15.
Don Bishop: Well,
Matthew Kent: the level 10 swordsman’s got really high luck. So they’re fighting and the level 15 slips on a nut that just fell from a tree. And loses his footing.
Don Bishop: So, you know, This is the level 10 score has been Matt coffin. From the Wheeler is the level 10 swordsmen math, Matt Coffman coffin from the wheel of time.
Matthew Kent: Matt From Cawthon, But, uh, Just. It is those things of how [00:38:00] those statistics affect the game world around the character. And that’s how a lot of the lit RPG authors use those. Um, and you try and explain it. Uh, as you go through how it affects things, you don’t want to give a big dump of everything at the beginning of the book. Because that’s really boring. You want to tell it as part of the story. And engage the reader as they’re going, Okay. That makes sense. And just give them a piece at a time so that they’re building up an understanding of what’s going on around them. And around the character in the book.
Don Bishop: Yeah. Yeah. Show don’t tell.
Matthew Kent: Show don’t tell. And that’s, a, that’s really a hard thing to do a lot of the time.
Don Bishop: Yeah,
Matthew Kent: Uh, right now for the book, uh, sources of San Antonio. I am redoing it, uh, her introduction into the world and she’s getting a lot of information. On what’s going on and how she got where she is. [00:39:00] So that’s one of the aspects that you have to be very careful of what you show. But it’s being told to her, but it’s still in a way of showing and I don’t want to make it too long. but I don’t want to make it too short so that the play, Uh, that the. reader can understand what’s going on and how this is going to affect the character.
Don Bishop: Okay. Well, this is all really. Fascinating. And. If I had more time to pick up a book. Uh, I I’d have to.
Yeah, I’d have to pick up some of these. Lynn RPG and progression fantasies.
Matthew Kent: Well, one of the nice things is audiobooks. I do a lot of driving for my job, so I’m able to listen to them as I’m driving.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: It helps. Uh, but, uh, some of them are really good. Uh, right now I recommend, as I said, dungeon crawler, Carl.
Don Bishop: Uh, [00:40:00] I
Matthew Kent: Uh, I also recommend he who fights with monsters. And defier of the defiance of the fall are really good.
Don Bishop: Okay. And where, where can we find you on the web for our listeners?
Matthew Kent: Uh, I, uh, my, you can find me on at Peregrine ePress. Um, there’s a link I’ve provided you. if you’re looking for me on Facebook, you can find me as Matthew Kent. Actually there’s a lot of us on there. But, uh, you can also find me in a lot of the, uh, lit RPG forums.
Don Bishop: So is that a paragraph E press.com? Just all one word. No hyphen.
Matthew Kent: All one word. No hyphens.
Don Bishop: Okay. And, um, I was going to say something else. What was it? It was. Oh, I was thinking about, um, I think you’re in a good spot right now. Like you have what? Three books out.
Matthew Kent: I have three books out in the, uh, [00:41:00] Pernissa, Uh, Arabella online series.
Don Bishop: So you have the apprentice. The Verbella the prisoner Vera, Bella, and the Aribel Chronicles, which has two stories in it.
What’s the relationship of air Bella Chronicles. With the series at large,
Matthew Kent: you’re introduced to in the first book and the second book.
Don Bishop: Say it again.
Matthew Kent: They were two stories that I really just felt I needed to talk, tell about the two characters so that you could understand their motivations a little bit. a
Don Bishop: Okay.
Matthew Kent: Little bit graphic, much more graphic than the other book. Or other books. But, uh, they are fun stories.
Don Bishop: Okay. Um, did you ever read the Animorphs series?
Matthew Kent: I did not.
Don Bishop: Okay.
Matthew Kent: That was actually a little after my time.
Don Bishop: Yeah. Yeah, I, I read them. Um, as far as I know, I read them all. Um, including the one. Alternate morphs. Which was a choose your own [00:42:00] adventure. Book. Okay. But, um, yeah, so the, the Animorphs follows this group of friends. Um, there’s an alien who, who lands while they’re cutting through an old construction site at the say Indian lands. He’s injured. He’s dying. He’s like your world is in danger. Come here. I’m going to give you this power and they’ll put their hands on this. Cube. And he gives them the power to morph into any kind of animal that they can touch for a moment. So they, they touch an animal and absorb its DNA. Um, So this gives them. The ability to do a. Um, espionage, right. As, as there’s. An alien invasion going on. By these alien slugs called year. Cause the crawl into people’s brains and control their bodies. Um, so it’s a, it’s a silent and invisible invasion going on. Uh, but the, the Animorphs, [00:43:00] this group of. Of teenage friends. Um, They spy on the bad guys. They occasionally, for other plans. Like that’s, that’s the. The gist of the series. And it’s a long series. I think there were 54 books in the main series. Wow. Short books though. Like. I’d sit down and read a book in a couple of hours.
Matthew Kent: Well for kids and teenagers, that’s kind of to be expected.
Don Bishop: Yeah. Um,
Matthew Kent: Yeah. LitRPG can be very long. Some of them can be very, very long. Uh, one of the series that I’ve been enjoying is called, um,
Don Bishop: Well, this one bring in.
Matthew Kent: And the first Audio book is 54 hours. I believe.
Don Bishop: Like the Stormlight archives.
Matthew Kent: Yeah.
Don Bishop: But, um, I was going to say about Animorphs that there’s. This [00:44:00] story that follows this main group of friends, but there’s a couple of offshoots side series. Or, or one-offs like, there’s a book called the Dear Chronicles not tells the background of. An alien race that the bad guys already conquered. Um, there’s the elements Chronicles that tells the backstory of one. Very powerful character that sits in the background. And theirs. Um, Mega morphs. Which are.
Kind of side stories, but it still follows them anyway. So yeah, they’re. There’s these, these backstories and side stories. So I get what you’re saying with the, the Chronicles of our Abella. Um, and getting back to that, like with, with three books out. Um, So. Week after next, I’m going to the conference for. 20 books. Um, are you familiar with that?
Matthew Kent: I am 20 books for 50k. I am familiar with it. [00:45:00] Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to make it this year. Um, but it’s very popular. In fact, I believe there’s going to be a contingent there from the lit RPG groups.
Don Bishop: Yeah. And, and, um, So I’m, I’m going, I went last year. I’m going this year. I, I don’t have any books published. I have one manuscript that I finished a week and a half ago. Um, the F that’s the first draft though, you And these anyway, so I’m, I’m, I’m trying to say that. Uh, One thing that they say. For, for all three was trying to build a following and, and, and readership. Is they, they suggest you get. You publish a series. So people get to know what to expect. And if people like your first book, there’s a much better chance to like your second book. Uh, so you don’t, you don’t write a bunch of one-offs. Because somebody likes, likes your story and then it’s, it’s done. You know, so you write a series. So [00:46:00] they read that first one. They like it. They’re going to look for the second one. They find it. Uh, they’re going to look for another one. Um, So they say. They say. That. You write a series and then once you have three books out in that series, Then. Start advertising the first.
Matthew Kent: Then I’ve heard that too. Um, what I’m wanting to do right now is finish my third book in the overall
Don Bishop: in the main.
Matthew Kent: In the main series. And then I’ll start advertising it more. one of the things for LitRPG is that a lot of the readers. don’t want to start reading a series unless it’s already finished. It’s very counterintuitive because most authors aren’t going to finish a series. If it’s not producing any money.
Don Bishop: Uh,
Matthew Kent: but the lit RPG readers are very voracious. Most of the ones that I know read on [00:47:00] average 10 to 15 books a month.
Don Bishop: Um,
Matthew Kent: so a lot of the authors are producing. Um,
Don Bishop: One
Matthew Kent: two a month. Uh, there’s one writer. I know. his 150,
Don Bishop: average output is
Matthew Kent: 000 words. A. month.
Don Bishop: Wow.
Matthew Kent: I know, right.
Don Bishop: That’s like I had a hard time. Producing a manuscript. Um, trying to keep a word count. You know, what I, what I was doing. I didn’t, I didn’t set a goal to finish. The manuscript by such and such date. Um, I was following a plan to produce 2000 words per day, but I, I interpreted that on a. On a weekly basis. So I. You know, I’m not going to, I don’t want to work on Sundays. That’s how I do. So I’m like, all right, I’ll do 14,000 words per week. And if I can squeeze that Monday through Friday, then I get two days off. [00:48:00] But, um,
Yeah. So I like that. That was a. Hard pace for me to keep up. Um, and I did. 80,000 words in a month and a half. And I was. Tired.
Matthew Kent: Yeah. And let me guess you were also working a full time job at the time too.
Don Bishop: No, I’m actually on an internship right now, which gave me time to write. Okay. So, I mean, even, even like having the time to write. Uh, I’m not totally free. Cause I, I have a lot of things going on in my life. I have. Our old house. Um, I’m letting out rooms on Airbnb and. Uh, I’ve had some. It’s it’s over now, but I’ve had some friction between guests. Uh, staying in different rooms, but in the same house. And so I’ve. For, for a few weeks there, I was going over there to do my writing over there. [00:49:00] And my laptop is old and slow and frustrating. So, you know, it, it reduced my capability. Um, And then other things, just kids getting kids to school and.
Matthew Kent: Trust me, I understand. I drop the kids off in the morning. Then from there, go to do my inspections and come home. And my wife usually picks them up in the afternoon, but sometimes I have to pick them up. And. Trust me. I understand.
Don Bishop: Okay. Well, um, I think, uh, it’s about probably about time to wrap up. All right.
Matthew Kent: right.
Don Bishop: I watched.
Matthew Kent: I appreciate your time today.
Don Bishop: Yeah, thank you. And I want to remind our, our listeners of our fan tasty contest. So whatever, uh, You cook in your kitchen or you grow in your garden. Send us a picture with the hashtag fan tasty. And we’ll send you a gift [00:50:00] certificate in December. Um, I think it was $35. And, you know, I’ll go ahead and stick with that $35. Gift certificate to the restaurant or retailer of your choice. Uh, and you can email it to fan tasty@thorn.link or send it to us via tweet or Insta. But, uh, yeah. Thank you. Uh, that’s Matthew Kent. Thanks for joining us.
Matthew Kent: Thank you. You have a good evening.
Don Bishop: You too. Bye. Bye.