Quote Originally Posted by Lethologica View Post
The term 'litrpg fiction' predates the term isekai by a fair ways. It's not that litrpg is an established sub-genre, rather, isekai came along recently and decided to lay claim to litrpg even though the typical stories in that genre may not feel at all like the stories that gave rise to the isekai designation.
Since from my perspective, the term 'litrpg fiction' was just invented today, I went and looked it up. The earliest examples of the genre are books like Tad Williams' Otherland (which I have read and did not present itself as anything outside of science fiction) and the term itself was made up by a Russion publisher in 2013-2014. Isekai as a term, and the stories it refers to, is definitely the elder. The two concepts are distinct, even if many stories include both. They can be separate as well.

I'd rather use more words to describe the concept than add in extra baggage to an already full definition. Just take the reaction to 'incel' earlier, which now apparently means "bigoted male (white) supermacist" on top of 'person no one wants to have sex with.'