Published Apr 28, 2026, 2:01 PM EDT

LitRPG is all the rage, but these books take a slightly different approach to the tabletop experience

4 books that offer a twist on Dungeon Crawler Carl and the LitRPG craze

Image: Harcourt Childrens Books, Tor, and HarperCollins

While Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl has arguably popularized LitRPGs — a blend of fiction and RPG mechanics that features characters who level up like you would while playing a game — there are plenty of books out there that have taken an entirely different approach to porting the experience of role-playing games to the fictional realm.

The following four novels, which range from heartwarming romance to bone-chilling horror (and two of which hit shelves this year), all feature characters who play RPGs (tabletop or otherwise) over the course of their story.

Two to read right now...

4 Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

Image: Harcourt Childrens Books

Published in 2004, Vivian Vande Velde’s young adult sci-fi novel might have flown…