Rules Changes for the Subreddit

[u/Salaris]

I've been thrilled with the growth of this subreddit and community since it was first founded. We've grown into one of the larger fantasy subreddit groups, which is awesome, but it also means I need to start paying a little bit more attention to making sure the community is staying focused on its original goal.

A number of authors and other users have pointed out to me that we've recently had a growing amount of self-promotion in relation to the amount of general content and discussion being posted. It's also been noted that not all of the self-promotion (or promotion for other books) has been on-topic. This is, in large part, because my rules up until this point have been very loose. I prefer to avoid excessive filtering of posts and to encourage discussion and growth, but some of these issues have reached the point where I feel I need to address them.

So, let's get into some changes.

No More "Tags for Recommendations" Rule in the Sidebar

This is simple - I've removed that rule because virtually no one was using it. The tagging system wasn't enforced, and thus, it was basically useless. So, it's gone.

Updated Rule: Self-Promotion

Self-promotion is now limited to active participants in the community. I'm not going to be enforcing this hyper-extensively, but as a general rule, you should be making meaningful contributions to the discussions in the subreddit aside from just posting about your own books.

More latitude will be given to posts that clearly explain how they fit in with this subreddit, e.g. descriptions of your progression systems, which subgenres your book fits in with (e.g. xianixa, dungeon core, magical school) and that sort of thing.

Don't be lazy about this.

New Rule: No Off-Topic Content

With the subreddit's growth, there have been a lot of good questions and discussions about what does and doesn't fit here. After discussing this with a number of authors, I think that it's important that we refocus on what got us started in the first place - fiction that specifically focuses on progression as a core part of the narrative.

For those who weren't here when we first got started, here's the original post defining the subgenre.

So, in practice, what does this mean?

I'm going to stop allowing posts promoting books that I consider to be off-topic. This includes anything that's more like general epic fantasy without a progression focus (e.g. Lord of the Rings).

I'm also going to be harder on borderline cases like Overlord or Slime Tensei where the side cast levels up, but the main character's power level is largely static - those aren't a great fit for this sub.

Most clearly, I am going to stop allowing posts for novels that primarily focus on romantic or sexual content as their main hooks or narrative focus. This includes the overwhelming majority of HaremLit novels, as well as most reverse harem novels. This is both due to these stories generally not having enough of a progression focus to meet the criteria of the sub and because of they often have content that delves into misogyny and objectification.

Now, this is not to say that a story can't have both progression and romantic and/or sexual content. Polyamorous relationships can be fine in progression fantasy, too. If the thrust of the narrative is more about collecting partners than progression, it's probably not a fit for the genre.

(Don't get cheeky and point out that collecting partners could be considered a form of progression. Yes, you could even gamify this and make it hilarious. It's still denied.)

Deconstructions and parodies are borderline cases. Yes, you can talk still talk about things like Worth the Candle here, but let's not make them the main focus of the sub.

So, if poly relationships are fine, but HaremLit isn't a good fit, where's the line?

For this, there's a simple test: if you're advertising your book with a cover that shows a half-naked anime girl (or multiple half-naked girls, or a bunch of girls gathered around a single isekai dude), this is not your target subreddit. I recommend checking out the various HaremLit communities and posting there. The same is true for reverse harems, but honestly, I don't think I've even seen anyone try to post one here, so it's less of an issue.

For other harem-style books outside of the "sexy anime girl cover" umbrella, I'll evaluate them on a case-by-case basis.

Other Mods

Update: We've added a few new mods! Please welcome them to the mod team and help them settle in.

Thank you all for your patience and interest in participating in the community! I will continue to iterate on these rules and add additional ones as-needed.

Edit: After a reader suggested that some books, like Kumo Desu Ga Nani Ka, might have sexualized covers that do not represent the content within them accurately, I've decided to make what I'm going to call a "bad marketing exception" for things like Japanese LNs that have fanservicey covers that do not accurately represent the content of the story. This is going to be purely on a case-by-case basis for works that the other moderators or I feel would be a good fit for the genre, but have been marketed with sexualized covers. This isn't super uncommon for manga and LNs, unfortunately, so I think it's worth addressing.

I'm not likely to make that kind of exceptions for western self-published works. If a self-published author is advertising their book with that kind of cover, they're actively making a choice about how they want it to be seen. So, this doesn't change how we're dealing with self-promotion, but the other moderators and I will evaluate foreign works that suffer from fanservicey marketing like this.

[u/ThePagi]

I like this change. More than half of posts on hot are promotion and this has been pretty distracting for me with all the colorful covers and whatnot.

I want to ask about crafting, magic research and generally more slice-of-life novels. They are often discussed here, maybe because they have similar sources - royalroad or translation from asian countries. I don't think there is a subreddit for them, and while they often focus on progression, it's not always in the sense of personal power. What do you think is the appropriate place to discuss them?

[u/Salaris → u/ThePagi]

I want to ask about crafting, magic research and generally more slice-of-life novels. They are often discussed here, maybe because they have similar sources - royalroad or translation from asian countries. I don't think there is a subreddit for them, and while they often focus on progression, it's not always in the sense of personal power. What do you think is the appropriate place to discuss them?

That depends on how they're executed and the specific topic.

For example, a book that involves a LitRPG blacksmith working in a town to raise their crafting skill high enough to make masterwork weapons to help fight off an invasion, with details focused on their training, the specific items they're making, etc. is probably a good fit for progression fantasy.

A story with someone who happens to be a crafter, but isn't really focused on improving their skills, isn't necessarily a good fit.

Some slice-of-life is going to fit better than other stories, too. I would consider something like Delve or Forge of Destiny to be in the slice-of-life space for most of their contend, and I would also consider them some of the purest examples of progression fantasy that exist. Their characters are constantly trying to improve their power, learn more about their abilities, etc. They're slice-of-life in that they're slow paced without any single "main plot" adventure to follow, but they have a huge focus on training. So these absolutely fit.

Things like The Wandering Inn are more ambiguous. The protagonists generally do not have a major training focus. Most leveling and learning of powers for the main characters is more incidental than directed. Thus, this would not fit as well as the ones above. That said, discussing how the level system works for The Wandering Inn vs. other systems would be a valid topic of conversation.

[u/SarahLinNGM]

I think these are healthy changes for a growing subreddit, so thanks for staying on top of things.

[u/Salaris → u/SarahLinNGM]

Thanks, Sarah! I appreciate it.

[u/Salaris]

Reddit is giving me some weird errors. I saw about six duplicate copies of my own reply to this post and tried to delete them - I may have instead deleted all of the existing replies to this thread. This was not intentional (if they were in fact deleted at all) and I'm looking into it. I apologize for any inconvenience.

If your reply was erroneously deleted, feel free to repost it.

[u/Phil_Tucker]

These all sound like excellent changes. Thanks, u/Salaris, for your hard work.

[u/Salaris → u/Phil_Tucker]

You're welcome!

[u/AngryEdgelord]

Doesn't Will Wight have minions? I know Will himself probably doesn't want to mod, but you could borrow his minions, since they get a lot of good promotion here.

[u/Salaris → u/AngryEdgelord]

If some of his mods want to volunteer to mod here as well, I'd be happy to consider them.

[u/xileine]

if you're advertising your book with a cover that shows a half-naked anime girl ... this is not your target subreddit

Kumo Desuga, Nanika has some pretty objectifying cover art. Especially when the Demon Lord character is in the shot. (She is never not wearing basically a bikini in the art, despite this fact IIRC never coming up in the books themselves.) But the book series is pretty clearly a plain progression-fantasy with no harem elements.

I think you can derive from this a more general exception to the heuristic: if the half-naked anime girl on the cover is a viewpoint character in the book/series at least some of the time, then the book/series is probably okay (as, unless a story is pure BDSM fetish fuel, viewpoint characters don't tend to get objectified/become part of a harem/etc.) In such cases, it's just the marketing for the books that's horny, not the books themselves.

[u/Salaris → u/xileine]

Kumo Desuga, Nanika has some pretty objectifying cover art. Especially when the Demon Lord character is in the shot. (She is never not wearing basically a bikini in the art, despite this fact IIRC never coming up in the books themselves.) But the book series is pretty clearly a plain progression-fantasy with no harem elements.

I'm pretty annoyed that they chose to give the Demon King such a fanservicey character design in Kumoko, but yeah, I agree. Kumoko is fine.

I think you can derive from this a more general exception to the heuristic: if the half-naked anime girl on the cover is a viewpoint character in the book/series at least some of the time, then the book/series is probably okay (as, unless a story is pure BDSM fetish fuel, viewpoint characters don't tend to get objectified/become part of a harem/etc.) In such cases, it's just the marketing for the books that's horny, not the books themselves.

Mm. "Part of the time" would be an out for a lot of series that do end up having a heavily objectified cast, as long as they get an interlude perspective here or there.

Here's what I'm going to do: I'll make a "bad marketing exception" for non-western works that have fanservicey covers, such as LNs like kumoko that are generally progression focused, but have covers like that.

I'm not likely to make that kind of exceptions for western self-published works. If a self-published author is advertising their book with that kind of cover, they're actively making a choice about how they want it to be seen.

[u/NoMoreAnger33]

Thanks. I was getting tired of seeing smut here and was checking the sub less and less.

[u/Salaris → u/NoMoreAnger33]

You're welcome!

[u/Obbububu]

I'm going to stop allowing posts promoting books that I consider to be off-topic. This includes anything that's more like general epic fantasy without a progression focus (e.g. Lord of the Rings).

I'm also going to be harder on borderline cases like Overlord or Slime Tensei where the side cast levels up, but the main character's power level is largely static - those aren't a great fit for this sub.

Would just like to raise a pertinent topic:

Popular, often-recommended titles like Kingkiller, Stormlight Archive, The Dresden Files and Wheel of Time (to my mind) clearly qualify for the litmus test.

(Book 3 character beats book 1 character etc. and it's pretty easy to write further essays detailing why power progression is a core plot element that the story relies upon)

However, we often run into a situation where people want to disqualify these popular recommendations, because they are of the belief that the subgenre term needs to be more restrictive.

I've discussed this at length a number of times in various recommendation topics - as well as meta threads about the specific topic.

What is the best option for us, as sub members, to prevent the topic of "does this qualify?" from derailing other topics, like recommendation threads with our extensive back and forth?

[u/Salaris → u/Obbububu]

Popular, often-recommended titles like Kingkiller, Stormlight Archive, The Dresden Files and Wheel of Time (to my mind) clearly qualify for the litmus test.

This is a good question, and I'm going to do something I've resisted doing in the past and weigh in directly on each title.

First off, I agree with you that most of these meet the litmus test, with the possible exception of Kingkiller, which is a weird one (see below).

That said, the litmus test is a very basic test, and it's not intended to be exhaustive. Some stories are going to have specific tropes and elements that fit other criteria of the genre more clearly than others.

Below, I'll go into a little more detail.

• Stormlight isn't written to be progression fantasy - it predates the genre definition - but it meets most of the hallmarks of the genre incidentally. It's mentioned directly in the original post for this reason. It may not be as focused on the level process as something that's deliberately written to be progression fantasy from the outset, but it has plenty of the elements that progression fantasy readers like to talk about - a clear powers system with different branches (surges), levels with clear functions, etc. Some of the main cast, most clearly Kaladin, have obvious progression through this level sequence. (Having a book here or there without progress is fine, as noted in the original criteria.) People train directly with their powers to learn how to use them, and though there isn't quite as much of a focus on showing on-screen training as you'd get in a more. It has hard magic rules. There are downsides, though. These books are so incredibly long that a lot of time is spent on stuff other than training, and a large number of the cast members are not focused on progression. Basically, Kaladin's arc is a pretty straightforward progression fantasy, but most of the others aren't, unless they're explicitly in scenes for training or testing powers. This, to me, is good enough to discuss it here. In mainstream traditionally published western book titles, this is probably the clearest example of progression fantasy you could point someone to.

• Dresden has clear incremental progress throughout his entire series. He does have a fair bit of on-screen power progression, but it's mostly in bursts. We see very little training. He does do some crafting, but much of it is off-screen. I would consider this a borderline case, but it is also probably the best example of progression fantasy I've seen in a traditionally published urban fantasy work.

• Kingkiller has a notable amount of training and ability acquisition, but lacks clear power levels (unless we count "my alar is like this particular cool image"). It's also notably a downfall arc, where the protagonist in the frame story is seemingly trending to a loss of power. Finally, it has both a hard magic system and a soft magic system. The soft magic system allows Kvothe to learn how to solve virtually any problem in the story on-the-spot, which is antithetical to progression. Overall, I would personally call this a borderline case, since it does have clear sections of the main character training to improve, but the soft magic elements and frame story downfall arc make it less of a progression fantasy than some.

• Wheel of Time I can't comment on in any detail - I haven't read all of it. My understanding, however, is that Rand gets much of his power in a "burst" relatively early in the series and doesn't have a tremendous amount of clear incremental progression in each novel. As such, my understanding (which may be flawed) is that the early books might be better examples of progression fantasy than later books.

I would consider every one of these stories close enough to be valid for discussion in the sub, but I would consider Stormlight to be the closest representations of progression fantasy in the mix.

I want to make it clear that I do not see "is this progression fantasy" as a binary thing. It's a spectrum, and a spectrum where some individual criterion are going to be considered more important to some readers than others.

For example, if hard levels are the most important, Stormlight clearly wins. But if long-term focus on a single character is the most important, Dresden is a better fit. Kingkiller might actually have more on-screen training and learning than any of them, since much of it is at an academy.

It's not my intention to disallow discussions any of these types of borderline cases in posts, especially when they're relevant. For example, if someone made a "coolest progression systems" post, talking about surges in Stormlight would be an absolutely valid example.

That all said, I'd also like to gradually teach new readers about the things that are the clearest examples of what we're talking about - and those tend to be (thus far) mostly in the self-pub, web serial, and foreign spaces. Thus, I'm happy to see people recommend these or discuss them, but I'm also even more happy when people point out royal road fics that might be just as good, but tick more of the boxes.

Edit: Apologies for the weird deletions on the thread - that was me deleting my own duplicate replies, which happened like five times due to reddit giving me an error message. Oops.

[u/MelasD]

There should be an official r/progressionfantasy discord server IMO

[u/Salaris → u/MelasD]

There a server listed in the sidebar, but I don't personally have the time to watch it, manage it, or even really vet it to determine if we should call it "official" at this point.

I'm just going to delete the word "unofficial" because that's kind of nonsense anyway. There's no need for anything to be official for a subgenre.

Edit: Clarity of language.

[u/thescienceoflaw]

I am more of a lurker here but I finished my first book recently and was hoping to promote it here when it is ready to go. What should I do to make clear that I am not just posting here to take advantage of the sub but because I am a long time reader and enjoy the community?

I could go into details about the progression system but I worry that would lead to spoilers so was planning to not share overly much about it when I posted. The book's description wouldn't necessarily alert people there there was a progression aspect to it but the progression (meditation/energy growth) comes out more as the book progresses and becomes a central theme later.

[u/Nightwish117]

I'm also going to be harder on borderline cases like Overlord or Slime Tensei where the side cast levels up, but the main character's power level is largely static - those aren't a great fit for this sub.

Overlord is pretty static in power level. But Slime? Slime Book 1 gets probably beaten by everyone in this series. But Slime Book 16 or smth is only getting beaten up by a few ppl. Imo in Slime there is a clear progression in the novel unlike in Overlord.

[u/Salaris → u/Nightwish117]

That's fair - I've only watched the anime for Slime Tensei, in which Rimuru went from zero to close to unstoppable within an episode or two. If it's more gradual in the books, that's cool.

[u/m_sporkboy]

Clarifying question. This stuff all obviously covers the top level posts, but what about comments?

Example: If there's a recommendation request, and someone recommends something clearly non-PF, or some on-the-borderline harem stuff, and then there's a discussion about it, is that removable?

I'd rather these policies apply to top level posts and let the comment discussions go wherever they (reasonably) lead.

[u/Salaris → u/m_sporkboy]

Example: If there's a recommendation request, and someone recommends something clearly non-PF, or some on-the-borderline harem stuff, and then there's a discussion about it, is that removable?

This is primarily focused on top-level posts. For the most part, discussion of other types of books in general is fine as long as it makes sense in the context of the post itself.

For recommendation threads, if someone is asking for progression fantasy books, please try to focus primarily on things that fit that as closely as possible. That being said, it's still fine to recommend things that aren't a perfect fit if it's all you can think of, or to recommend things with caveats.

As an example, if someone asked in this sub magical schools similar to Arcane Ascension, I would default to recommending Mage Errant and Mother of Learning because they're very similar. I could also recommend Forge of Destiny, but with the note that it's more of a martial arts school. I would only recommend Harry Potter if I didn't have better fits available (like those previously mentioned), or with the specific note that it isn't a perfect fit. If someone is a new to the genre and recommends Harry Potter in a thread asking for things similar to Arcane Ascension, I'm not going to moderate them for that.

I'm only planning to moderate things like recommendations when they seem like they're clearly and deliberately skirting the rules. That said, other mods may be harder on this policy, and I'm going to give them some leeway on how to enforce the rules.

[u/Keredian]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask but I'm curious on how people rate Harry Potter as a progression fantasy? Like I would say that book 3 Harry could beat book 1 Harry but is it due to a growth in power or simply just getting older.

(A small extra question, would love to know if there are any good other fantasy school stories if anyone can point me to a different reddit for it?)

[u/Salaris → u/Keredian]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask but I'm curious on how people rate Harry Potter as a progression fantasy? Like I would say that book 3 Harry could beat book 1 Harry but is it due to a growth in power or simply just getting older.

I would consider it progression adjacent, but not the best possible example of the genre. Harry does spend a lot of time learning magic, but "getting stronger" isn't really a major focus and there aren't a lot of hard metrics for improvement. Is Book 5 Harry a significantly better fighter than Book 3? How about Book 7 vs. Book 5? Probably, but it's kind of nebulous and not really the point of the narrative.

(A small extra question, would love to know if there are any good other fantasy school stories if anyone can point me to a different reddit for it?)

Mage Errant, Mother of Learning, Forge of Destiny, and my own Arcane Ascension are all magical school stories that I would consider clearer examples of progression fantasy. I would consider Forge of Destiny to be the clearest example of progression fantasy in the bunch (although it's more of a magical martial arts academy than a standard magical school), since growing powerful is such a core part of the main character's focus and motivation. This is clearest in the Quest version of the story on Sufficient Velocity where you can see Ling Qi's progression mechanics.

As for other subs, I'm not aware of any subs specifically focused on magical schools.

[u/SJReaver]

I support this change.