I used to read some "urban fantasy" books by Charles de Lint, if I recall correctly a lot of the characters were into gaming of various kinds (computer, RPG, etc). Urban Fantasy titles tend to be set in "modern" times, so there are a lot of current references. Unfortunately I can't recall a specific title that stood out...even while I enjoyed them, there is just so much to read...

Futurama - Bender's game

Well if you need something outside of novels, there's the Gamers movies.

Gamers

Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising

Gamers 3: Hands of Fate

Of course, Gamers 3 leans heavier on the CCG and the world surrounding that, but there's still heavy RPG elements.

and from the same people who did Gamers 3, there's the farcical Dark Dungeons series, based off the old comic by Jack Chick.

Die (as in a die you roll) is a comic series about friends who mysteriously vanished while playing a homebrew RPG and show up years later. Any more than that might give away stuff so I'll just say the art is fantastic and the premise is even more interesting than that.

The Darths and Droids webcomic series is about a group of gamers playing through the plots of the Star Wars movies. The premise is that the movies never existed, so all the content is created by the GM who spends most of his time trying to keep the players from going too far off the rails. It's really entertaining to read and, last I checked, they were playing through Rogue One. It's been going on for years now.

I recommend Game Night by Jonny Nexus. I really enjoyed it. It's classic-ish fantasy adventure, but the players are a group of dysfunctional gods and the heroes are their characters.

And looking it up I discovered that there is a prequel book so now I'm going to have to get it.

Larry Niven's "Dream Park" novel series.

There's a more recent novel by a different author on a similar theme, but I can't remember title/author. If I can track it down then I'll add it to this post.

Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" novel series.

Also - but not quite what you're asking for - the "Jumanji" film series is about a boardgame that comes to life.

On 10/14/2019 at 1:09 AM, edwardavern said:

Hi all

Slightly off-topic post, but figured you folks know your way around the world of RPGs as well as anyone on the internet.

I'm looking for any novels and/or short stories that are specifically about roleplayers, i.e. where the main characters are gamers, and the game is an element of the story. There's plenty of stuff at the moment that references game culture ( Ready Player One being the most obvious example), but I haven't found anything where roleplaying games are a key aspect of the characters. The only thing that comes close that I can think of is on TV, which is Stranger Things . Or, actually, the other thing you see on TV which is arguably a bit closer to what I'm after are those sitcom episodes (I'm thinking of Community and Big Bang Theory here) where the characters all play a game for an episode. Just wondered if anyone had come across any stories that come close to this, at all?

Thanks in advance.

If you want examples of video games and their players, then you should check out the LitRPG genre of novels. Basically VR games, but the player and how they interact with it is a part of the story.

BUUUUT. If you want the best, and I mean THE BEST book series about gamers, and the game they are playing. Check out the Spells, Swords and Stealth novel series by Drew Hayes. First book is called NPCs.

They are ******* amazing for dedicated roleplayers. He also hosts a podcast called Authors and Dragons, where he DMs several other fantasy/scifi/etc authors, through a game of Pathfinder rules (I think it's pathfinder), and it's equally hilarious.

But yeah, seriously, go get NPCs right now, I'll wait.............

................................................................

I KNOW RIGHT?!?! Wasn't that awesome!? And there's 3 more books in the series at this point! And it's still ongoing!!

Slightly off topic: Kings of the Wyld and the sequel are both excellent novels that are heavily inspired by the music culture of various decades: with the first book being focused on a bunch of old timers getting back together for one more time. It's a really neat (and metal war) of tying the DnDesk style fantasy together with the rock and roll sensibilities of a bygone era, aside from Redshirts, I don't think I've ever read a novel that took such a simple concept and blew my mind on it.

So yeah, not based on a video game, but it's based on bands of warriors preforming gigs for bookies. I'm stealing the terminology for my setting I'm slowly putting together.

Redshirts is also a fantastic novel. I literally had to sit down and ponder my life a good hour or so afterwards. Good stuff.

@edwardavern To clarify, the book series by Drew Hayes is very much about tabletop roleplaying. The book progresses from 2 story angles, from the table being played at, and from the perspective of the world inside. So it's very much like the Gamers films mentioned above....with a bit of a twist. I don't want to spoil it, though it's not something that lasts beyond chapter 2 basically, but let's just say, that the story gets very interesting very quickly.