The Dice Man, George Cockroft
The Game, Neil Strauss
Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon, Cyrano de Bergerac
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
Snowblind, Robert Sabbag
The Nowhere Men, Michael Calvin
Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose
Add your own.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBlood Meridian with orcs is, like, teenage D&D.
ReplyDeleteEl Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
ReplyDeleteInvisibles (Grant Morrison)
Gangs of New York (the non-fictional one by Herbert Asbury) or The Corner/Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (David Simon)
Yes yes yes! Invisibles is a great work of art and would be fine basis for a RPG (all those conspiracies!)
DeleteBattle Circle (actually a trilogy, usually found in a single volume) by Piers Anthony. Great world. Great setting. Killer characters. Lots of potential for deep dives into role playing and conspiracy.
ReplyDeleteEl Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
ReplyDeleteInvisibles (Grant Morrison)
Gangs of New York (the non-fictional one by Herbert Asbury) or The Corner/Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (David Simon)
Blood Meridian is such a good read. What a great writer. How about a Cormac McCarthy rpg world where the organized savagery of Blood Meridian develops a decade or so after the world catastrophe presented in The Road. So PCs start as isolated individuals just trying to survive and by say 7th lvl they will be swept into one evolving group of cutthroats or other.
ReplyDeleteStephen King's Dark Tower books
ReplyDeleteInvisible Cities by Italo Calvino
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities
One of my favourite books. Hmm, it would make a pretty weird (or disturbed) RPG, don´t you think? But that´s a game I´d love to see : )
DeletePhil Pullman's Dark Materials books (The Golden Compass, etc.). I've always thought the setting material would be fantastic with a Chaosium-style BRP system.
ReplyDeleteAlso would love seeing Jennifer Roberson's Cheysuli Saga worked up as an RPG (with a setting-specific system...maybe something Dragon Quest-y).
MZB's Darkover series would be interesting, though you could probably do it easy by adapting the Hillfolk system (Pelgrane Press).
: )
Viriconium
ReplyDeleteYes, absolutely. Viriconium is one of the greatest fantasy series ever. It´s lyrical and doesn´t give a shit about any epic plot or anything. No elves, no dragons, just people.
DeleteP.S. I love your RPG blog and your stuff. Vornheim was really magnificent and I´m having so much fun with the Maze of the Blue Medusa (I just steal the best pieces for my own campaign: ) )
The Bible
ReplyDeleteI have long had an idea to do a game based on the Book of Judges.
DeleteThe Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
ReplyDeleteLud in the Mist by Hope Mirrlees
ReplyDeleteLathe of Heaven by Ursula Leguin could be amazing if cleverly developed.
The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson could be great too.
Lyonesse
ReplyDeleteMichael Shea's Nifft the Lean stories probably owe a debt to Vance, but are criminally under-appreciated. Some of them (such as The Pearls of the Vampire Queen) read like a brilliant BRP or OSR adventure with the players and GM firing on all cylinders.
ReplyDeleteThe Shadow of the Ship, by Robert Wilfred Franson
ReplyDelete(ISBN 0-345-30688-0)
A series of planets, with technology ranging from the renaissance to pre-industrial. They're connected by a 2 dimensional hyperspace, which can only be entered with the aid of psychic mammoths. The mammoths will only follow "trails", glowing road-like things in the hyperspace that occasionally also pass through the world. The resulting technology is railroad-like caravans, pulled by the mammoths, lit by gas lamps but with vacuum technology.