I want to use a 'ranking' system in my fictional world.

[Naruzeldamaster]

What are some ways I can use it, besides the typical 'oh my god, you are an A rank evil villain of the weak, how will the D rank protagonist ever win' type plot threads?

In the lore of the world, the system exists basically as a short hand version of what you can do.
For example: instead of saying: "This adventure is really good at fire magic, he can shoot dragon flames and summon meteors and shit" and other lengthily descriptions about how dangerous they are in a wanted poster, the adventurer's guild can just say "This character is an A class fire mage with devastating long range combat capabilities, lower ranks should be wary of their might range but not be discouraged to challenge them if they feel strong enough"

I should also note that there are 'stats' in this world (like you would see in a video game or a dungeons and dragons campaign) and the characters are aware of / can see these stats, but once again, the stats are literally just there as a shorthand version of their capabilities. Someone might have say 50 Strength, and fight a 99 Strength foe, surely the 99 strength foe would cream them. But if the 50 strength adventurer has like 90 in dexterity and speed, they can outwit the 99 strength foe and overcome them.

I will be using the whole 'you are x rank, why are you this strong' hubris for a couple of bad guys, but I don't want to over rely on it so I'm trying to think of ways to subvert this.

Like one of my Characters has 200 Vigor (Basically it measures how much life/energy you have, personality and otherwise) which is insanely high for her species, but outwardly? She's super lazy and seems to have zero interest in other people. When something DOES catch her interest, that's when the extrovert part of her kicks in, and she's absolutely way more energetic than the rest of her species.

I do think part of my plot is going to be driving home how nonsensical a system like this is for judging a characters strength. But other than that I'm not sure on the finer details.

 

[SirenSon117]

What are some ways I can use it, besides the typical 'oh my god, you are an A rank evil villain of the weak, how will the D rank protagonist ever win' type plot threads?

In the lore of the world, the system exists basically as a short hand version of what you can do.
For example: instead of saying: "This adventure is really good at fire magic, he can shoot dragon flames and summon meteors and shit" and other lengthily descriptions about how dangerous they are in a wanted poster, the adventurer's guild can just say "This character is an A class fire mage with devastating long range combat capabilities, lower ranks should be wary of their might range but not be discouraged to challenge them if they feel strong enough"

I should also note that there are 'stats' in this world (like you would see in a video game or a dungeons and dragons campaign) and the characters are aware of / can see these stats, but once again, the stats are literally just there as a shorthand version of their capabilities. Someone might have say 50 Strength, and fight a 99 Strength foe, surely the 99 strength foe would cream them. But if the 50 strength adventurer has like 90 in dexterity and speed, they can outwit the 99 strength foe and overcome them.

I will be using the whole 'you are x rank, why are you this strong' hubris for a couple of bad guys, but I don't want to over rely on it so I'm trying to think of ways to subvert this.

Like one of my Characters has 200 Vigor (Basically it measures how much life/energy you have, personality and otherwise) which is insanely high for her species, but outwardly? She's super lazy and seems to have zero interest in other people. When something DOES catch her interest, that's when the extrovert part of her kicks in, and she's absolutely way more energetic than the rest of her species.

I do think part of my plot is going to be driving home how nonsensical a system like this is for judging a characters strength. But other than that I'm not sure on the finer details.

I would take inspiration from the earlier portions of Fairy Tail. They have standard wizards and "s-class" wizards who stand leagues above the rest. One of the goals of the MC in the early portions of FT is to reach S-Class. Taking inspiration from some of the better Isekai stories would be good education too, since all Isekai essentially gamify Fantasy like what you're doing. The Adventurer's Guild is is a multiversal constant in my personal work, and they use a system of letter ranks from A to Z. AAA is the weakest Quest while ZZZ is the toughest and most elite. I also use Stats for my characters, but only in my Databooks and they're vague by design. If your characters power level is too predictable, it leads to boring fights. People already expect the hero to win, you're just making it more obvious who comes out on top. The fun with power levels lies within arguing about who can kick whose behind. If you don't give audiences ambiguity, it's no fun because you've spelled everything out. Also, are you writing novels or manga?

 

[Queshire]

Jujutsu Kaisen has one of my favorite twists when it comes to a ranking systems. The ranks that sorcerers recieve there is based off of the level of cursed spirit that they can reliably beat with at most minor injuries. A B rank sorcerer should always be able to beat a B rank cursed spirit (since, like, that's their job and if you can avoid it you probably shouldn't make a habit of sending agents out on missions where they have a coin flip of getting seriously injured.) The rank doesn't reflect their full power if they're going all out or risk their life in a fight. Basically it's a built in way to subvert the ranking system that makes sense in universe.

Another thing to consider is what kind of stuff would be needed to be good at what they're being ranked for.

If all an Adventurer needs to do is to go place X and kill Y then there's not a problem with ranking them based off of pure combat ability. However if a quest involves finding a magic flower that only blooms once every 100 years in the middle of a giant forest or dealing with a cursed plague affecting a village then, yeah, combat ability is good but you'll also want investigative ability.

Of course you could go in the complete opposite direction and have high ranks as a sign of prestige. Investigative ability might not be as important if high ranked individuals are basically treated as celebrities.

 

[pmmg]

Well, if I was writing it, I would have the top ranked people getting whacked by things that one would not think could beat them, and have it start shaking the confidence of the other ranked people--but I suspect that is not what you are going for.

One thing that might be fun, is a highly ranked wizard, who has lost a few steps over the years, and could not do what his reputation suggests, but because he has such a ranking, people still treat him like he can. Most are too scared to challenge him.

 

[SirenSon117]

Well, if I was writing it, I would have the top ranked people getting whacked by things that one would not think could beat them, and have it start shaking the confidence of the other ranked people--but I suspect that is not what you are going for.

One thing that might be fun, is a highly ranked wizard, who has lost a few steps over the years, and could not do what his reputation suggests, but because he has such a ranking, people still treat him like he can. Most are too scared to challenge him.

Ah yes, King from One Punch Man. Seriously though I like this character concept go for it!

 

[Prince of Spires]

Depends on how explicit you want to make it and how much the ranking system impacts the story. I mentioned elsewhere that a there's a fairly new fantasy sub-genre called Progression Fantasy. Which leans very heavily into ranking systems and moving through them and what that means for the characters. In such a setting you could very easily have someone mention "That's a level A character, there's no way we'll stop him." Or "He's only 4th level, he's beneath me."

The Cradle series by Will Wight does this wonderfully. At some point they even mention having a whole city where everyone is ranked according to their powerlevel, and it makes complete sense in world.

The trick is that you have to follow through on all the social aspects of how this would influence a culture. In a place where powerlevels are that explicit, they will impact social standing. A lot. For a small idea of how it would play out, look at how we treat top atlethes vs the ones below that. The Messi's and Michael Jordan's of the world are elevated in the public eye above everyone else. Now imagine that being the case for everyone in the world.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Well, if I was writing it, I would have the top ranked people getting whacked by things that one would not think could beat them, and have it start shaking the confidence of the other ranked people--but I suspect that is not what you are going for.

One thing that might be fun, is a highly ranked wizard, who has lost a few steps over the years, and could not do what his reputation suggests, but because he has such a ranking, people still treat him like he can. Most are too scared to challenge him.

I actually was thinking of stuff like the second suggestion (not explicitly that, but I could work with that idea, can I use it?)
It's just hard to subvert the classic tropes whenever ranking systems are involved. I do plan on using some of the 'clichés' of the ranking systems, but only when it makes sense for the villain in question. Like if a villain is smart enough to not underestimate a foe, he won't go 'oh my god you are D rank how are you winning' like a meat head who focuses way too much on stats would.

I have a character who went out of her way to be 'average' in every stat, for the soul purpose that the guild would give her decently paying jobs but less dangerous work compared to the 'stronger' guild members. (In other words, she's sort of super lazy, BUT when she's actually motivated she can do good stuff) She can absolutely throw down with the stronger mages if she absolutely has to (she can use most forms of magic decently well) but most of the time she wins is because she is actually decent at some of the things those stronger mages would fail at/are weak to. One of the things that she's actually good at (which isn't measured in the stat system) is the ability to adapt to and take advantage of her environment in a fight.

There's also this country gal type girl who's absurdly strong but her outward personality is so timid most of the time, if you didn't have the tools that the academy uses to grade mages/adventurers you'd never know how insanely powerful she was until you made her mad. (The grading technology isn't super wide spread, except to proper adventurers)

 

[SirenSon117]

I actually was thinking of stuff like the second suggestion (not explicitly that, but I could work with that idea, can I use it?)
It's just hard to subvert the classic tropes whenever ranking systems are involved. I do plan on using some of the 'clichés' of the ranking systems, but only when it makes sense for the villain in question. Like if a villain is smart enough to not underestimate a foe, he won't go 'oh my god you are D rank how are you winning' like a meat head who focuses way too much on stats would.

I have a character who went out of her way to be 'average' in every stat, for the soul purpose that the guild would give her decently paying jobs but less dangerous work compared to the 'stronger' guild members. (In other words, she's sort of super lazy, BUT when she's actually motivated she can do good stuff) She can absolutely throw down with the stronger mages if she absolutely has to (she can use most forms of magic decently well) but most of the time she wins is because she is actually decent at some of the things those stronger mages would fail at/are weak to. One of the things that she's actually good at (which isn't measured in the stat system) is the ability to adapt to and take advantage of her environment in a fight.

There's also this country gal type girl who's absurdly strong but her outward personality is so timid most of the time, if you didn't have the tools that the academy uses to grade mages/adventurers you'd never know how insanely powerful she was until you made her mad. (The grading technology isn't super wide spread, except to proper adventurers)

I have a potential name for your concept if you haven't named it yet. "Scatter-Score Girl". I like what your doing, it's very Goblin Slayer and more Goblin Slayer is good!

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I have a potential name for your concept if you haven't named it yet. "Scatter-Score Girl". I like what your doing, it's very Goblin Slayer and more Goblin Slayer is good!

Yeah, it's similar to Goblin Slayer and probably closer to Log Horizon in tone (in fact the fact that the stats are an actual thing that matters kind of comes from that) it's only as serious as it 'needs' to be but when serious shit is going down the characters are fairly serious tone wise, even the sillier ones like the god of Wind. I mean, I'll be hard pressed to get people to take the L33T clan seriously, but that's the joke, they aren't meant to be taken seriously. But that doesn't stop them throwing down with much more threatening foes when the chips are down. Even the Lazy girl I mention in my previous post. It's tricky to get her motivated but once she decides to BE motivated, good luck changing her mind.

 

[SirenSon117]

Yeah, it's similar to Goblin Slayer and probably closer to Log Horizon in tone (in fact the fact that the stats are an actual thing that matters kind of comes from that) it's only as serious as it 'needs' to be but when serious shit is going down the characters are fairly serious tone wise, even the sillier ones like the god of Wind. I mean, I'll be hard pressed to get people to take the L33T clan seriously, but that's the joke, they aren't meant to be taken seriously. But that doesn't stop them throwing down with much more threatening foes when the chips are down. Even the Lazy girl I mention in my previous post. It's tricky to get her motivated but once she decides to BE motivated, good luck changing her mind.

Is your God of Wind a Happy Chaos type deity that just likes to screw around? My "God of Chaos" is surprisingly lackadaisical and doesn't tend to mess with people very much. My actual Wind God, who is an interpretation of the Queen of Air and Darkness, has no real "morality" in the sense that she's not a good guy or a bad guy, she's just looking out for her Kingdom and her followers.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Is your God of Wind a Happy Chaos type deity that just likes to screw around? My "God of Chaos" is surprisingly lackadaisical and doesn't tend to mess with people very much. My actual Wind God, who is an interpretation of the Queen of Air and Darkness, has no real "morality" in the sense that she's not a good guy or a bad guy, she's just looking out for her Kingdom and her followers.

Well, she's more the stereotypical wind spirit (The kind that are more just mischievous and don't intend to 'cause' harm with their pranks even if said pranks unintentionally harm/kill someone they accept the consequences.) except she's a little more energetic/impish/chaotic than those. She's still mostly a good person though, deep down she really just wants to make folks laugh. Gallows humor and eyeroller dad jokes and all. (seriously some of her jokes are so bad that even she gives up on them) A person knowledgeable about the subject might assume she has ADHD, even though she absolutely doesn't, that's just how chaotic/impish she is.

Quantum (Darkness, basically, but I want it to have 'space' related elements too for the spells and stuff so quantum makes more sense. Quantum physics are kinda considered 'dark arts/forbidden knowledge' to non scientists so it works on that angle too.) is basically the Loki (more specifically the marvel version, except an actual smart villain and a threat when he wants to be) of the group, he's a hammy little asshole who excels at causing trouble, even among the group of gods, but at the end of the day, he just catches glimpses of the head god's plans (not her younger sister who's currently running the show) and does what needs to be done to move things along. He's more morally gray than the other gods. But when the protagonists (the mortal ones) question his logic, even he admits that it 'comes with the territory' of being basically a god of darkness. He even goes a step further and says that he doesn't expect forgiveness, but that he was doing what he could with the hand he was dealt. (He's the one to reveal that there actually is an actually evil threat in the setting to the mortal protags, and most of his actions have been to draw said being out of hiding)