Which author's work would you most like to see turned into a CRPG?

what about Robin hobb's farseer's trilogy? It would translate quite well into a rpg

What about R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden?

In the Forgotten Realms landscape of Faerun, in Icewind Dale.
That would be pretty damn sweet!

George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire would be cool. I played the P&P version of The Game of Thrones and the character creation is very rich. But I doubt it would translate well into a good CRPG though.

Gallifrey said:

Even still, that's not really a Lovecraft story. At best you could have a Lovecraftian setting, one inspired and borrowing from his body of work. But playing it would not convey the essence, the feeling, of a Lovecraft tale.

What you're describing seems more like an adventure game too. Unlocking information, deciphering clues, speaking to characters, all are staples of adventure games.

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Why can't we mix the two, RPG and adventure. Alone in the Dark was more an adventure game but all you need to do was add some stats to upgrade and there you go. You very own Lovecraft RPG/adventure game.

Shadow of the Comet (a total adventure game) also was a great game that had a Lovecraftian setting. Once again add some stats, have an insane meter lol and put some baddies to kill and there you go, fun for the whole family

I know to stay true to Lovecraft you would have to have the main character die or go insane, but for the sake of argument, if you had a normal type of ending with the hero actually winning and living happily ever after, would that be so bad? I know die hard fans of Lovecraft would be appalled but there is so much you could do with this setting that it would be definatly fun to play.

Also you could just adapt the pen and paper lovecraft game into a RPG. Not the Call of Cthulu firstperson nonsense that was fun to play but wasn't really all that it could of been. Call of Cthulu P&P meets Witcher gameplay. Now that is a game I would buy without looking at one screenshot or reading one review.

Edit: I forgot to mention a REAL Evil Dead RPG game would be nice, no more Evil Dead:regeneration type games, PLEASEEEE.....

Benedict said:

Could be interesting, I'd like more victoriana type role playing systems. Does anyone remember a Space 1889 game? Seriously old now . . . I quite like that IP, it was a good one to play. I'd like a Lost World type setting as well (the conan doyle one).

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I got it from the underdogs but never got into the game. The world time seems off (could be due to a much too fast computer) and I found the interface very dated. Interesting setting though.

In all I think the literature-> game transition is a lot like the literature->movie transition. What you want is an interesting setting more than anything else. The literary quality of the original writing is not all that crucial, as most of it will be lost in the translation anyway. Thus some pulp fiction with an interesting setting could turn out very well. Maybe the setting in Peshawar Lancers???

skavenhorde said:

I know to stay true to Lovecraft you would have to have the main character die or go insane, but for the sake of argument, if you had a normal type of ending with the hero actually winning and living happily ever after, would that be so bad? I know die hard fans of Lovecraft would be appalled but there is so much you could do with this setting that it would be definatly fun to play.

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Well, other than such a scenario completely negates the entire point of a Lovecraftian setting.
Now, there's a massive difference between a true Lovecraftian story and a story with weird monsters with tentacles and other nameless horrors. Lovecraft's legacy is too often given the baggage of the Cthulhu mythos and that host of Elder Gods and so on and so forth. It was really August Derleth who codified that whole thing, it wasn't Lovecraft. The core of Lovecraft's work and his literary philosophy was that humanity is irrelevant and meaningless in the great cosmic scheme of things, and there's nothing we can do about it, there are powers far beyond our understanding and comprehension (not in a religious or spiritual sense, actually) so we may as well just accept it.

A game adhering to that outline just wouldn't work so well. There's nothing to strive for.

Now you can certainly make a happy-ending Lovecraft-inspired game, but without the real core to it, it's just another spooky monster game.

Zaleukos said:

I got it from the underdogs but never got into the game. The world time seems off (could be due to a much too fast computer) and I found the interface very dated. Interesting setting though.

In all I think the literature-> game transition is a lot like the literature->movie transition. What you want is an interesting setting more than anything else. The literary quality of the original writing is not all that crucial, as most of it will be lost in the translation anyway. Thus some pulp fiction with an interesting setting could turn out very well. Maybe the setting in Peshawar Lancers???

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Prose style isn't important I agree, the quality and scope of the imagination is key I've not read Peshawar Lancers, what's that like?

I'd like to see a Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) turned into an rpg. I'd just really like to explore that world.

Benedict said:

Prose style isn't important I agree, the quality and scope of the imagination is key I've not read Peshawar Lancers, what's that like?

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I havent read it yet either. From the synopsis it seems like pulp alternate history, with a comet making much of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable in the late 1800s. The victorian era colonial empires are moved south (French to Algeria, English to India) and amalgamate with the native cultures. The main story seems to be a "great game" type struggle between British (curry eating victorians) and Russians (devil worshipping czarists).

woges said:

I'd like to see a Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) turned into an rpg. I'd just really like to explore that world.

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Cyberpunk 2020 might be the game for you. And that's a system, either 2020 or 2013, that I'd love to see turned into a full-fledged cRPG game.

Gallifrey said:

Now you can certainly make a happy-ending Lovecraft-inspired game, but without the real core to it, it's just another spooky monster game.

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I guess your right. You could put in the characters from his stories but not really the overall feel. I seriously have to read his books. My only exposure to Lovecraft's work has been through games, but everytime I've played a game with his characters in it (espcially Cthulhu) it has always been a great game and one that I was glad I bought. Like Shadow of the Comet. I was hooked on that game from the first intro to the endgame. I even learned the chemicals needed to make photographs Call of Cthulhu was fun too, even though the timer quests were a pain. I did enjoy the game. You don't know how hard that was to say I normally hate anything Beth does but not this one.

I would like to see an adaption of Vernor Vinge's "Zones of Thought". Big interesting Universe, and enjoyable stories.

Though, preferably without a "Farmboy from a fallen civilization takes on a powerfull Perversion/Fallen-Transendent" cliche or MMO-Grind up the Zones version :}

Never heard of it, do you have any good links?

wikipdeia has a decent plot summery, and links to a few reviews. And I think there is an audio-podcast or two out there discussing it, but I can't find it in my archives at the moment. The two main stories are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky

A number of short stories are found in various publications, but I'm not to familliar with their names though.

Thanks, I check them out!!

skavenhorde said:

I guess your right. You could put in the characters from his stories but not really the overall feel. I seriously have to read his books. My only exposure to Lovecraft's work has been through games, but everytime I've played a game with his characters in it (espcially Cthulhu) it has always been a great game and one that I was glad I bought. Like Shadow of the Comet. I was hooked on that game from the first intro to the endgame. I even learned the chemicals needed to make photographs Call of Cthulhu was fun too, even though the timer quests were a pain. I did enjoy the game. You don't know how hard that was to say I normally hate anything Beth does but not this one.

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You should check out a couple of anthologies of his stories, there are a number of different collections from different publishers out there, and many can be bought fairly inexpensively. Your library may even have some.
If you read over a good selection of Lovecraft's works, you'll see how different they are from most media depictions and interpretations.

Given there are so many cthulhu fans on here, has anyone seen the Ask Cthulhu agony aunt feature on uncyclopedia? Always amusing.