Books You'd Love To See Adapted Into CRPG's

[aweigh]

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Egan's Orthogonal series
R.A.W.'s Illuminatus! Trilogy
Banks' Culture series
Miéville's Bas-Lag series
Vance's Gaean Reach setting
Asimov's Foundation series
Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and The Night's Dawn Trilogy

 

[Life of the Party]

 

[Covenant]

The Spider World series by Colin Wilson.

I only read the first few books (and only as a young teen) but I think it could work well as some sort of combination of a survival-orientated RPG or roguelike, possibly mixed with a Jagged Alliance style guerilla-warfare tactical game. You'd begin as a small band consisting of a few remaining savage 'free' humans, armed with simple slings and spears, and go from trying to find food and water as you avoid the monstrous mutated insects that rule the wasteland to eventually scavenging advanced weapons and bringing the fight to the psychic spiders who have enslaved humanity.

A bit like XPiratez, I suppose, but more low-tech and focused on giant bugs instead of aliens and zombies.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I agree with TimCain that: “Roger Zelazny's "Lord Of Light" would make a great CRPG.”

The L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt series The Complete Enchanter deserves to be a CRPG and would let you feature a lot of setting hopping.

My personal wish is for more historical RPGs, particularly set in antiquity. Thucydides’ rendition of the Peloponnesian War would make for an awesome game. There are enough blanks in the record to leave room for some local level choice and consequence.

Maybe something ripped from Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars or Tacitus’ Histories: play as an aristocrat or a spy or an army officer and try to get through the reigns of Caligula or Nero or the year of the four Caesars alive. Maybe more of a CYOA style RPG, like AoD but with less far reaching C&C.

 

[Barnabas]

Metamorphosis

 

[Wunderbar]

Stephen King's The Dark Tower.

 

[Cael]

Lone Wolf
Road Warrior

 

[Neanderthal]

Always thought the Chung Kuo novels by David Wingrove would make for a nice, complicated, Cyberpunkish setting.
Still think Donaldson's Land would be fucking brilliant, nice subversion of tropes.
Jordan made a bloody detailed world in Wheel of Time, though obviously ruined later.
What i'd really love though would be adventures served up by H. Rider Haggard, with maybe a bit of Lovecraft thrown in for good measure.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Serious answer:

Gormenghast trilogy (this would, by necessity, have to be more an adaptation of the setting than the plot)
Maugham’s Ashendon stories
Edit: Oh, Lonesome Dove, duh.


Seconding: Moorcock, Verne (although I would suggest Around the World would make a better CYOA RPG than 20,000 Leagues), Exodus, and Ivanhoe.

 

[Sacred82]

Any Druss novel would make for a pretty solid walking simulator.

Some kind of Gigeresque world, where the actual Giger imagery is like a deeper or alternate layer of that world's reality. Think the spirit world in Kult: Heretic Kingdoms. NOT in the Alien universe, that has been done to death.

Dune, in a kind of Quest for Glory style game. First person could work, but it would hardly make for a walking simulator.

 

[abnaxus]

Watership Down.

 

[Covenant]

Some kind of Gigeresque world, where the actual Giger imagery is like a deeper or alternate layer of that world's reality.

You mean like Dark Seed?

Spoiler

That's just begging to be made into a button.

 

[Bladeract]

Consider Phlebas. I want to be a brave bisexual diplomat with teh heugtits.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Bang Poland

 

[Sacred82]

Some kind of Gigeresque world, where the actual Giger imagery is like a deeper or alternate layer of that world's reality.

You mean like Dark Seed?

Spoiler

That's just begging to be made into a button.

interesting, for some reason I always assumed Dark Seed to be some kind of Lovecraftian thing (not having played it)

 

[Daemongar]

Eaters of the Dead - actually was made into a pretty good, underrated movie. Would be a good RPG as it is structured in chapters and a series of adventures.

Elric of Melnibonér - Probably would make a good game. I don't know.

Dune - eh, an RPG with the player able to play as Paul but some C&C along the way OR starting out as a generic player who can select a faction and work from there, maybe a Bene Gesserit but with hair.

Blade Runner - again, play a replicant, play a hunter, but essentially you are looking to save your life or end the lives of others. Fuck the main story, play an RPG in Neo-Tokyo in a distopian future.

 

[Ellef]

Any lovecraft stories. Most derivate attempts just do monster scares and never really capture the feel.

 

[Life of the Party]

By the way, for those wondering about the last image I posted it's Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes by Raphael Ordoñez.

In the counter-earth of paleozoic darkness and daemonic sway, the people of Arras have dwindled, retreating from Urgit and Cormrum-by-the-Sea to clutches of domes in the desert. But still they walk the songlines of the seraphim, preserving their primeval lore.

When Keftu, the rightful-born young phylarch, returns from a journey to find his people poisoned, he sets out to discover the secret of immortality. He is drawn to Enoch, the rust-stained city of stone, mankind's omega. There his plans change as he falls under the power of an urban warlord and falls in love with a mysterious harlot.

Rising from slavery as a slayer in the pits, Keftu ascends on wings of resin and bone to trouble the world-city's oversoul. Will he succeed in scaling the sea-girt, stratospheric Tower of Bel and gaining the Hanging Gardens of Narva? Or will the city devour him before he can find his place in it?

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

planet of the apes

Spoiler

multiplayer would be hilarious

 

[Cael]

Dune - eh, an RPG with the player able to play as Paul but some C&C along the way OR starting out as a generic player who can select a faction and work from there, maybe a Bene Gesserit but with hair.

Dude... Dune

 

[Cael]

planet of the apes

Spoiler

multiplayer would be hilarious

I demand Black Sheep faction!

Baaaaaaa!

 

[Daemongar]

Dune - eh, an RPG with the player able to play as Paul but some C&C along the way OR starting out as a generic player who can select a faction and work from there, maybe a Bene Gesserit but with hair.

Dude... Dune

Dude... Dune II
Actually, I was thinking about a RPG. That is, Dune in a way inspired Morrowind, but maybe a specific RPG based in Frank Herberts universe. Not a RTS or Adventure, but an RPG.

 

[Cael]

Dune - eh, an RPG with the player able to play as Paul but some C&C along the way OR starting out as a generic player who can select a faction and work from there, maybe a Bene Gesserit but with hair.

Dude... Dune

Dude... Dune II
Actually, I was thinking about a RPG. That is, Dune in a way inspired Morrowind, but maybe a specific RPG based in Frank Herberts universe. Not a RTS or Adventure, but an RPG.

Dune II was probably the best of the early RTS games. I am not sure if Dune would be classified a RPG or an Adventure game, to be fair. I never played it, just heard of it.

 

[Great Deceiver]

The first Dune was an adventure game with some light RTS elements (as Paul you fielded some Fremen armies). It had some pretty impressive graphics for its time, and the music especially was great. I still listen to it from time to time.



Adlib version (which is what I played with all those years ago):