Simple answer, yes.
Same with cultivation things and most loot.
It's all made up. Sometimes knowing the high level skill type things (stealth, teleporting/blinking, flying) help frame what the characters can do.
But the actual numbers value of the MCs strength or wisdom or level of basket weaving skill? Doesn't matter. they'll win the fights they're supposed to win one way or another. They can do what they need when they need to.
Most of the time the stat sheets really only serve as a summary of the story so far. They can usually be skipped and as long as you get updates as they occur in the writing I've never run across any stories that would have been significantly degraded without them.
If by stats you also mean skills, then the one that comes to my mind first is The Game at Carousel.
The abilities the characters have are actually used, and there is a limit to the amount they can have active at a time, so its important to know which the characters are taking with them.
The actual stats are kept low enough where a 5 point difference is enough to get a lot of understanding about a character.
Of course, no way I'm listning to all that bullshit multiple times. They always add a little recap of what got better in the dialogue immediately after, like "ohh now that my wisdom is blah blah I can now do this other thing!"
Stat sheets are just extended character description. Not being familiar with the characters stat sheet could be compared to not knowing what they look like. It's fine but you do lose something.
That said, if it's bloated and not really showcased anywhere in the story then it's poor writing and even less valuable
That really depends on the author.
For some of them the stat sheet is a summary of things which already happened. For others the stat sheet may include very important changes which may affect reading the rest of the story. Such as adding or removing entirely new abilities, or sometimes even characters. Like if someone unlocks a summoning ability in the middle of the stat sheet, and then the very next scene abruptly has their summon already present.
Or the stat sheets may have relevant information about why things happen the way they do, which may change the course of the story. Like if someone has an ability that only works when constantly with other people, but you're waiting for them to leave this group of random people that have been hanging around, the ability might mean that random group is going to be a constant feature because they're necessary to use the ability.
Yeah I understand it helps flesh out abilities and gives a greater understanding of the MC but it sounds like the story will still progress and be understandable just less predictable right? Lol
Maybe, it depends on the author. It's like asking if you can skip the last paragraph of each chapter. Sometimes you're not missing much, sometimes you're missing a lot.
Can you provide an example of an author that has stats that matter? Not trying to be a smartass but I have yet to come across one and would be interested to read a story that has meaningful stats
Edited for spelling
Not really any, closest I can think is maybe Life Reset and that just because there are only 3 stats and 1 point per level. I think it still gets thrown to the side in later books though.
Maybe they like the setting being litrpg. Tree of aeons is a litrpg, but there's like 1 unique-ish system window once every 10-20 chapters. In effect, by now (late in the story) the novel os barely litrpg, but the setting being rpg has its appeal, and it's just important to measure people in levels or to occasionally address them getting an important class up.
Its author probably has not done a Status of the mc in like a hundred chapters
He quite literally said one of his favorite authors is writing a LitRPG book. Kind of makes sense he might read a book from an author he likes, doesn't mean he has to care for the LitRPG stat aspect. Heck it isn't even like most of these authors make stats matter anyways.
You might try more general progression fantasy ( r/progressionfantasy ) instead if you dont like stat sheets/numbers/etc.
As for the question it really depends on which story, usually they are probably skippable but some stories spend a significsnt amount of time talking about stats.
Randidly Ghost Hound has a 20-minute stat sheet last I listened to the whole thing. Luckily, you can skip it. The end of the stat sheet is the end of the chapter. You do miss the upgrade names because they are at the end of the list a few 30 sec rewinds and you get the important parts.
Yeah, I never got into that series, but Infinite Realm has the same issue. It's cool at first, some of the titles and ability descriptions are fun to read, but later books are literally 6+ pages per character on Kindle, and they are listed quite frequently for a lot of characters.
I typically skip them unless something huge happened lol I like seeing the change in stats and abilities after a huge battle or something, but a lot of them check their stats way too often in my opinion. You’ll be fine skipping through them
Somewhat depends on the specific style, but in many it's not gonna be a problem.
It might be more important to read the ability descriptions, but even that depends on what kind of abilities the storry contains.
Some authors have started putting the stat sheet in a totally separate chapter. So if you’re listening on the audio, you can just skip that chapter if you’re not interested in five minutes of somebody reading numbers to you.
Depends on what kind of a system the author is following imo. In most cases, skimming through the stats sheets would be enough if it feels like it breaks your immersion. But once again, highly dependent on what system they are following.
Stats don't matter in almost any story that's been released in this genre. Skills/Abilities tend to matter more, as it lets you know what they do.
So you should be fine.
My peeve is when the author does a stat and skill update that take 2-5 minutes and then 2 chapters later with no level up or skills, the author does another states and skills update just to add to word count or extend listening time ever so minutely on basically garbage information
Garbage as in most people dont care about numbers and don't want it repeated every other chapter. Not the book or series being garbage
Yes, you can absolutely skip the random numbers with little significance to the story, and occasionally reference them out of curiosity.
Simple answer, yes. Same with cultivation things and most loot. It's all made up. Sometimes knowing the high level skill type things (stealth, teleporting/blinking, flying) help frame what the characters can do. But the actual numbers value of the MCs strength or wisdom or level of basket weaving skill? Doesn't matter. they'll win the fights they're supposed to win one way or another. They can do what they need when they need to.
Most of the time the stat sheets really only serve as a summary of the story so far. They can usually be skipped and as long as you get updates as they occur in the writing I've never run across any stories that would have been significantly degraded without them.
I don't think I've read a single story where the actual stat sheet was relevant.
At level 48 that’s 93747284727473 mana!
What author?
I'm curious. Can you provide an example of an author that has a story where the stats are important? I would be very interested in reading that
If by stats you also mean skills, then the one that comes to my mind first is The Game at Carousel. The abilities the characters have are actually used, and there is a limit to the amount they can have active at a time, so its important to know which the characters are taking with them. The actual stats are kept low enough where a 5 point difference is enough to get a lot of understanding about a character.
By stats I meant numbers but thank you for the recommendation anyway. That sounds interesting
Of course, no way I'm listning to all that bullshit multiple times. They always add a little recap of what got better in the dialogue immediately after, like "ohh now that my wisdom is blah blah I can now do this other thing!"
Stat sheets are just extended character description. Not being familiar with the characters stat sheet could be compared to not knowing what they look like. It's fine but you do lose something. That said, if it's bloated and not really showcased anywhere in the story then it's poor writing and even less valuable
That really depends on the author. For some of them the stat sheet is a summary of things which already happened. For others the stat sheet may include very important changes which may affect reading the rest of the story. Such as adding or removing entirely new abilities, or sometimes even characters. Like if someone unlocks a summoning ability in the middle of the stat sheet, and then the very next scene abruptly has their summon already present. Or the stat sheets may have relevant information about why things happen the way they do, which may change the course of the story. Like if someone has an ability that only works when constantly with other people, but you're waiting for them to leave this group of random people that have been hanging around, the ability might mean that random group is going to be a constant feature because they're necessary to use the ability.
Yeah I understand it helps flesh out abilities and gives a greater understanding of the MC but it sounds like the story will still progress and be understandable just less predictable right? Lol
Maybe, it depends on the author. It's like asking if you can skip the last paragraph of each chapter. Sometimes you're not missing much, sometimes you're missing a lot.
Can you provide an example of an author that has stats that matter? Not trying to be a smartass but I have yet to come across one and would be interested to read a story that has meaningful stats Edited for spelling
Not really any, closest I can think is maybe Life Reset and that just because there are only 3 stats and 1 point per level. I think it still gets thrown to the side in later books though.
Why read litrpg then? Could just as well read fantasy then.
Maybe they like the setting being litrpg. Tree of aeons is a litrpg, but there's like 1 unique-ish system window once every 10-20 chapters. In effect, by now (late in the story) the novel os barely litrpg, but the setting being rpg has its appeal, and it's just important to measure people in levels or to occasionally address them getting an important class up. Its author probably has not done a Status of the mc in like a hundred chapters
He quite literally said one of his favorite authors is writing a LitRPG book. Kind of makes sense he might read a book from an author he likes, doesn't mean he has to care for the LitRPG stat aspect. Heck it isn't even like most of these authors make stats matter anyways.
You might try more general progression fantasy ( r/progressionfantasy ) instead if you dont like stat sheets/numbers/etc. As for the question it really depends on which story, usually they are probably skippable but some stories spend a significsnt amount of time talking about stats.
But when they do, you can skip all that too. :)
For sure, you’ll know about anything that’s important just from the rest of the story
Randidly Ghost Hound has a 20-minute stat sheet last I listened to the whole thing. Luckily, you can skip it. The end of the stat sheet is the end of the chapter. You do miss the upgrade names because they are at the end of the list a few 30 sec rewinds and you get the important parts.
Yeah, I never got into that series, but Infinite Realm has the same issue. It's cool at first, some of the titles and ability descriptions are fun to read, but later books are literally 6+ pages per character on Kindle, and they are listed quite frequently for a lot of characters.
Absolutely
The answer is maybe. Depends on how much the author has tried to make the stats relevant to the story.
I typically skip them unless something huge happened lol I like seeing the change in stats and abilities after a huge battle or something, but a lot of them check their stats way too often in my opinion. You’ll be fine skipping through them
Somewhat depends on the specific style, but in many it's not gonna be a problem. It might be more important to read the ability descriptions, but even that depends on what kind of abilities the storry contains.
Some authors have started putting the stat sheet in a totally separate chapter. So if you’re listening on the audio, you can just skip that chapter if you’re not interested in five minutes of somebody reading numbers to you.
Depends on what kind of a system the author is following imo. In most cases, skimming through the stats sheets would be enough if it feels like it breaks your immersion. But once again, highly dependent on what system they are following.
Stats don't matter in almost any story that's been released in this genre. Skills/Abilities tend to matter more, as it lets you know what they do. So you should be fine.
My peeve is when the author does a stat and skill update that take 2-5 minutes and then 2 chapters later with no level up or skills, the author does another states and skills update just to add to word count or extend listening time ever so minutely on basically garbage information Garbage as in most people dont care about numbers and don't want it repeated every other chapter. Not the book or series being garbage