Discussion Novels with worlds that would make great RPG/Adventure games

What are some novels that you'd like to see made into RPG/Adventure games? Something with good world building and interesting mechanics?

Thinking of making something for fun.

 

Almost any descent novel will do, but personally I wouldn’t want to be in most novels because there is no room for two MC. So I’m not sure

 

Lord of the Mystery i guess?, The progression is clear and i always want to try becoming cosmic horror

 

The tutorial is too hard
But as the person above said, most novels would be pretty cool as games

 

Supremacy Games would be nice. There's even a PVP mode for solo, teams and clans. There's a huge world to be discovered. Wide selection of evolutionary trees.

 

I kind of feel that is not the case. most novels do not have worlds fleshed out enough, and have horrible elements that only the protagonists plot protection and/or being OP protects them from.
The quality of the world design is what would be important, but that does not corelate as directly with the quality of the story, and to many stories have worlds designed around the MC.

I think the world of "Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?", but only if set before the story there started. to much goes to hell in the story itself.

One VRMMO series I kind of liked the mechanics of (even though the majority of the "players" in the book are idiots, I mean a game about (dungeon) exploration and no one bothered to learn how to climb walls/cliffs, until it was pointed out that there is a cave at the top of that cliff face, that and everyone "elite" in it forgets that devs are going to make balance adjustments between the beta and going live, and tend to not like making useless options) is Only Sense Online, I just liked how abilities worked there, and that it seemed that it was a setting where synergies mattered more then the individual skills power.

Though I am also kind of satisfied with Faerûn, Athas and the Domains of Dread.

 

Personally, a decent novel would have a good background. The mechanics of magic, sword, technology, politics, economy, religion and any number of other bases. Need to be at least understandable. There are exceptions to any rule, but those are rarity you’d find on a blue moon. Most time people get into a novel and are willing to put up with a lot, but at a certain point. It’s like moving through molasses with a hangover. After a certain put the world is to irritating to continue reading. That’s why most decent reads have a well thought out and balanced world. At least that’s what I believe

 

I guess it depends on if there are realistic choices the MC can make to arrive at a different ending or if the story only has one progression. A game is only fun if the player's input actually matters, otherwise it might as well just be a movie or just read the novel.

Something like star wars or star trek can have a lot of interesting games because the world has so many rules and mechanics that are well flushed out besides the primary path.

Usually is the mechanics that makes the game, not the lore, so I think having very clear and balanced rules in the novel is a good prereq. A lot of web novels I've read, the MC has such thick plot armor/luck that choices doesn't seem to matter or there's no real choices besides one.

I'll check out the the novels mentioned here to see how they look.

 

There are plenty of games out there that have linear story lines and are both fun and loved.
Looks at FF4 and FF6...
Heck most MMORPGs player choice matters for little as the games story line has to go the same way regardless of what the player chooses.

Really, game play is important yes, but sub-par lore will hurt a game much more then sub-par mechanics will. Heck if the lore and story are good enough it can make games with bad mechanics very playable, mechanics does not really do that for a bad lore game.

 

Yea, I guess there's different reasons people enjoy games. I personally never really got linear stories type games unless something about the mechanics was fun in itself. I remember something like Devil May Cry where I didn't really care about the progression, it was more about the combat + puzzle solving.

I guess there are groups of people that enjoy games more for the story than the gameplay. But at that point, why would it be better in game form? Why not just a movie? I mean, if there are no alternate ending, and the game play is subpar?

Also going back on FF, never played it myself, but isn't the gameplay pretty good with combat and party management?

Well, I guess this is just highly subjective now that I think about it. But I do feel most novels wouldn't make good games, while most novels would translate to movies fairly easily except for some exceptions.

 

That kinda makes me think of VRMMO novels... and none of them would make good games because they're all stupidly imbalanced. It's very weird how these authors think just because a game is amazing to people's senses that it'd be able to retain popularity even when it's blatantly imbalanced and people can spend millions of dollars of irl money to crush you like an ant.

 

Most MMORPG novels I have read have it as the only real one on the market. Which handles a lot of the problems. no competitions means more things get to slide by.

As to money and Pay to Win, as much as certain groups like to complain about it, to many games have proven that it works...

 

should be those long martial arts plus fantasy plus etc novel.

 

Hello. Excuse me, my English is not very good. I am not a native English speaker.

I can suggest the novel "The owner of the divine dragon" ("신룡의 주인", 11 volumes, josei, bromance, magical academy, world in a dream, post-apocalyptic, a print edition, 2011) by the author Bak Taeseon, but this novel has not been translated. This novel has received a manhwa adaptation in South Korea ("[리메이크] 신룡의 주인"; Korean: "The owner of the divine dragon: Remake", 2012) and manhwa adaptation in Japan ("神竜の主: The Dragon Master"; Japanese: "The owner of the divine dragon: The Dragon Master", 2014) and almost got an anime adaptation in Japan (2015) and a video game adaptation in Japan (2015) (these anime and video game were canceled).

In October 2013, the mobile tactical RPG "신수의 주인: The Summon Masters" (Korean: "The owner of the divine beast: The Summon Masters" ) (based on Taeseon's novels "환수의 주인" (Korean: "The owner of the phantom beast", 2010), "신룡의 주인" (Korean: "The owner of the divine dragon", 2011) and "신수의 주인" (Korean: "The owner of the divine beast", 2013)) was released in South Korea. In February 2014, a remake of this game was made, the mobile action RPG "신수의 주인" (Korean: "The owner of the divine beast"; the scriptwriters are Taeseon and Seong Sangyeong). But both games were canceled. (Taeseon began writing the novel "The owner of the divine beast" in 2013, but the official publication of this novel began in 2016.)

In the novels "The owner of the phantom beast", "The owner of the divine dragon" and "The owner of the divine beast" the events take place in the country Imperia on the planet Atreia. Atreia is the planet Earth in a parallel world, so these planets have some similarities, for example, Atreia also has a Moon.

The Empire is a fantasy country that is vaguely similar to England in the 19th century, during the time of Sherlock Holmes. Horses and dragons are used as transport. The mana (magic energy) that dragons' bodies create is used instead of electricity. There are a lot of dragons in this country, including huge mountain-sized dragons and small cat-sized dragons. All dragons are immortal, but they can be killed with the sword "Altelion's sword". There are approximately 10 swords "Altelion's sword", and all of these swords were created by a legendary female smith named Kai Altelion.

Kai also created other legendary swords, such as the sword "Rain Cutter". "Rain Cutter" is a sword that can stop time: if you cut a cup of water with this sword, the water will remain in the cup, and will not flow down. "Rain Cutter" is the best weapon on the planet because this sword can control space and time, and therefore this sword can be used to travel through time and travel to parallel worlds. This sword belongs to Kai Altelion, but she rarely uses it, because the gods punish her when she uses this sword, because this sword violates the laws of the universe. Sometimes Kai uses this sword to visit her descendants in different eras.

In the novel "The owner of the divine dragon", the emperor in the Empire is a depraved man who spends his days having fun with his harem of concubines, which consists of beautiful women. Since the emperor is of no use, the country is ruled by several wealthy aristocratic families who fight each other for power over the country and from time to time enter into small battles so that one family can capture some city or region that belongs to another family. But these rich families prefer to buy cities and regions from each other rather than engage in battles, so in general the country lives almost peacefully and calmly, and there are almost no battles. However, most of the ordinary people are starving, so from time to time there are small popular riots, during which the population demands "Give freedom to the oppressed!".

The emperor is a seasoned warrior who has surrounded himself with experienced advisors and guards who are loyal to him. The Empire has an experienced army, because the Empire has repeatedly fought with neighboring countries, and this experienced army is also loyal to the emperor, because the emperor has made the military leaders of those people whom he trusts. Therefore, no one can kill the emperor and take his throne.

Basically, the novel "The owner of the divine dragon" tells about the friendship and enmity between several powerful aristocratic families that have been in conflict with each other for several centuries.

The Altelions are legendary swordsmen with great physical strength, who save the world from the end of the world every 100-300 years, because the founder of this family made an agreement with an ancient god and the blood of this god flows in the bodies of representatives of this family.

The Landsknes are mad scientists who use black magic to perform sinister scientific experiments (revive dead people and turn them into vampires, revive mechanical dolls and infuse human souls into them, etc.).

The Etakars are psychopaths who suffer from various hereditary mental illnesses and periodically try to kill each other on the principle of "only one person must remain alive so that he can continue the race." Some of them have hereditary superpowers, for example, some Etakars can predict the future and find lost things and disappeared people.

The Meyerhearts are the richest family in the country (they have more money than the emperor and his family). They are obsessed with luxury, and usually when they get wounded in battle, they worry about their luxurious clothes getting dirty, not because of the wounds. In addition, due to hereditary mental illness, the Meyerhearts are bad at recognizing people's faces, and therefore they may mistake men for women.

The Baskervilles are territorial mages who constantly expand their lands to increase their magic. And if they lose all the lands, they will lose all their magic.

The Alfados are the mafia (the richest mafia organization in the Empire), which is engaged in loansharking, gambling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, etc.

Children from these families (Shine "Shan" Altelion, Yulkess Landskne, Tiss Etakar, Chrom Meyerheart, Giselle Baskerville and Dantes Alfado) study at the elite academy of magicians and warriors "Dragon School" (where the same strange teachers work as in "Hogwarts") and, in parallel, they investigate the terrible secrets of their relatives.

The protagonist is a 12 year old boy, Shine "Shan" Altelion, who is a distant descendant of Kai Altelion. Shan's father is Reines Altelion, the best swordsman on the planet, and he gave Shan one of the swords "Altelion's sword".

Yulkess, Tiss, Chrom and Dantes are 16-19 year old heterosexual bishounens, and Giselle is a 16-19 year old fujoshi girl.

 

I think this post would be a necro. Maybe this should be made into a pick up request? It sounds like a neat novel.