Is LitRPG a type of progression fantasy?

Usually, yes. Many readers treat LitRPG as a branch of progression fantasy in which the growth is shown through game rules such as levels and stats. Others call the two cousins instead, because a LitRPG can be set inside a game without much focus on the hero getting stronger.

Who came up with the term progression fantasy?

The author Andrew Rowe introduced the name in a blog post in February 2019. He wrote that Jess Richards suggested it after he and Will Wight, the author of Cradle, had struggled to describe their books. The kind of story it describes is older than the label.

Does progression fantasy need a game system?

No. A game system with levels and stat screens is what makes a story LitRPG. Many progression fantasy books show growth through training, study, ranked stages or a magic system with clear costs, and never show a number to the reader.

Is Cradle progression fantasy or cultivation?

Both, in a sense. Will Wight’s Cradle is a Western progression fantasy series that borrows heavily from Chinese cultivation novels, including clans, schools and named stages of advancement. It has no game screens, so it is not LitRPG.

Is progression fantasy the same as power fantasy?

Not quite. A power fantasy is about the pleasure of being strong. Progression fantasy is about becoming strong, so the story spends its time on training, setbacks and costs. Many progression books are also power fantasies once the hero gets there.

Is there progression fantasy with romance?

Yes, though romance is usually a subplot. Many readers who want it look for a slow burn, where trust between the two characters grows at about the same pace as the hero’s power.

What is progression fantasy? (And how it differs from LitRPG and cultivation)

Progression fantasy is fantasy in which a character’s growing power is the main story. The hero starts weak and climbs, one visible step at a time, through training, risk and hard choices, and the reader can track every gain. LitRPG shows that growth as game numbers. Cultivation novels frame it as stages toward immortality.

Updated November 9, 2026

What is progression fantasy? The meaning of the genre

Progression fantasy is a fantasy subgenre built around a character getting stronger over time, where the growth itself drives the plot. Power follows rules, has limits and usually costs something, and each gain is earned on the page. Readers keep turning pages to see the next step as much as to see who wins.

The name is young. In a blog post dated February 26, 2019, the author Andrew Rowe defined it as fiction that focuses on characters increasing in power and skill over time. He credited Jess Richards with suggesting the term to him and his fellow author Will Wight.

The kind of story is older than the label. Rowe’s own examples included Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive and Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball, and he noted that the genre overlaps heavily with LitRPG and with xianxia.

What progression fantasy books have in common

A clear power system, explained well enough that the reader can predict what the next step will take.
A weak start. The hero is often the least gifted person in the room.
Training on the page, given the attention other books give to battles.
Long series, because the climb takes many books.

Progression fantasy vs LitRPG: what is the difference?

LitRPG is usually counted as a kind of progression fantasy in which the world runs on visible game rules. Characters see levels, stats, skills and system messages, often set off in boxes, and the story treats those numbers as real. Progression fantasy is the wider family, and its power can grow with no game interface at all.

The word stands for “literary role-playing game.” By the account usually given, it was coined in Russia in late 2013, in a brainstorming session between the writer Vasily Mahanenko, the science fiction editor Dmitry Malkin of the publisher EKSMO, and the editor and author Alex Bobl. EKSMO launched a LitRPG book series that year. A related label, GameLit, covers stories set in a game world that do not necessarily involve leveling up.

Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl (2020) is a well-known LitRPG. After Earth is torn apart, Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, fight down through a dungeon run as an alien game show, and the book shows their stats and loot as they go.

Full guide: what is LitRPG?

Progression fantasy vs cultivation: what is the difference?

Cultivation is the Chinese branch of the same idea. In cultivation novels (xiuzhen, the core of what English readers call xianxia), the hero refines qi through a ladder of named realms in the hope of becoming an immortal, a structure drawn loosely from Daoist internal alchemy. Progression fantasy keeps the climb without requiring qi, sects or immortality.

Western progression fantasy owes a clear debt to cultivation fiction. Before the new name existed, Rowe wrote, he and Wight had tried describing their books as “Almost LitRPG” and “Inspired by Xianxia.” Will Wight’s Cradle series, which begins with Unsouled (2016), follows Lindon, a boy branded Unsouled and forbidden to learn his clan’s sacred arts, and it uses clans, schools and named stages of advancement much as a cultivation novel would. Coiling Dragon by I Eat Tomatoes is a Chinese xuanhuan novel in which Linley Baruch climbs ranked levels of magic and martial power in a European-style world.

For a full explanation of qi, the dantian and the realm ladder, read what is cultivation? For the Chinese roots of the genre, read wuxia vs xianxia: what’s the difference?

Progression fantasy vs epic fantasy and power fantasy

Epic fantasy is about the fate of a world, and the hero’s strength serves that larger story. Progression fantasy is about the climb itself. A power fantasy is about the pleasure of being strong. Progression fantasy often delivers that pleasure too, but the better books make every gain cost effort, time or something the hero cannot get back.

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Frodo never trains his way to victory. The story is about endurance and the fate of Middle-earth. The labels can overlap, though: Rowe counted Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, an epic fantasy, as progression fantasy because its knights advance through ranks that bring new powers.

Progression fantasy vs LitRPG vs cultivation vs epic fantasy at a glance

The quickest test is to ask what the reader watches grow, and how the book shows it.

	Progression fantasy	LitRPG	Cultivation / xianxia	Epic fantasy
What grows	The hero’s power and skill	Levels, stats and skills	Qi, body and spirit, toward immortality	The conflict and the world’s stakes
How power is shown	Through training, rules and costs in the prose	On the page as numbers, screens and system messages	Named realms and breakthroughs	Through deeds, mostly without a measured scale
Typical structure	Long series, one clear step up per book or arc	Dungeon floors, quests and level-ups	Sect life, tournaments, closed-door training, breakthrough	A quest or war across many viewpoints
Example	Cradle, Will Wight	Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman	I Shall Seal the Heavens, Er Gen	The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien

Progression fantasy with romance: can it work?

Yes. Romance in progression fantasy is usually a subplot, and it works best when it moves at the pace of the climb. A good romance subplot gives the love interest goals of their own, ties the relationship to the power system or its costs, and lets trust be earned over many chapters.

Readers who ask for “progression fantasy with good romance” often mean a slow burn, where the payoff is held back long enough to matter.

One example is The Hollow Crown, a novel by LUCOB. Kael Veyran, an unranked miner, has an outlawed power that costs him a memory with every big draw. The romance with Seren Valcrest, an auditor from the capital, is a slow burn: no kiss in Book One, and no stat screens.

Progression fantasy recommendations: where to start

Start with the kind of growth you enjoy. If you like clear numbers, try a LitRPG such as Dungeon Crawler Carl. If you want a ladder of advancement without game screens, try Cradle. If you like magic learned through study and patience, try Mother of Learning. For the Chinese source tradition, try a translated cultivation novel.

Cradle by Will Wight, starting with Unsouled.
Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaić: Zorian, a student mage, is caught in a month-long time loop and grows by study across each repeat.
Arcane Ascension by Andrew Rowe, starting with Sufficiently Advanced Magic: Corin Cadence enters a dangerous magical tower, hoping to find the brother who vanished there.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: LitRPG with full stat screens and a dark sense of humor.
I Shall Seal the Heavens by Er Gen: a translated xianxia novel following the cultivator Meng Hao.

Questions

Is LitRPG a type of progression fantasy?: Usually, yes. Many readers treat LitRPG as a branch of progression fantasy in which the growth is shown through game rules such as levels and stats. Others call the two cousins instead, because a LitRPG can be set inside a game without much focus on the hero getting stronger.
Who came up with the term progression fantasy?: The author Andrew Rowe introduced the name in a blog post in February 2019. He wrote that Jess Richards suggested it after he and Will Wight, the author of Cradle, had struggled to describe their books. The kind of story it describes is older than the label.
Does progression fantasy need a game system?: No. A game system with levels and stat screens is what makes a story LitRPG. Many progression fantasy books show growth through training, study, ranked stages or a magic system with clear costs, and never show a number to the reader.
Is Cradle progression fantasy or cultivation?: Both, in a sense. Will Wight’s Cradle is a Western progression fantasy series that borrows heavily from Chinese cultivation novels, including clans, schools and named stages of advancement. It has no game screens, so it is not LitRPG.
Is progression fantasy the same as power fantasy?: Not quite. A power fantasy is about the pleasure of being strong. Progression fantasy is about becoming strong, so the story spends its time on training, setbacks and costs. Many progression books are also power fantasies once the hero gets there.
Is there progression fantasy with romance?: Yes, though romance is usually a subplot. Many readers who want it look for a slow burn, where trust between the two characters grows at about the same pace as the hero’s power.

Read it as a story

If you want a progression fantasy where power has a price you can count, try The Hollow Crown. The first 10 chapters of Book One are free to read on Comicwell.

More guides: wuxia vs xianxia and wuxia novels in English: where to start.

Sources

Andrew Rowe, “Progression Fantasy: A New Subgenre Concept,” 26 February 2019. andrewkrowe.wordpress.com
Zhange Ni, “Xiuzhen (Immortality Cultivation) Fantasy: Science, Religion, and the Novels of Magic/Superstition in Contemporary China,” Religions 11, no. 1 (2020): 25. doi.org/10.3390/rel11010025
Wikipedia (pointer): LitRPG, for the 2013 origin of the term (as reported there), EKSMO’s LitRPG series, GameLit, and LitRPG’s relation to progression fantasy.