5 LitRPG Books That Could Actually Work as TV Shows

Published Sep 9, 2026, 8:54 AM EDT Charlie Ridgely is a writer from Maryland, currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee. He may be new to Collider, but he's been writing, editing, conducting interviews, and podcasting around the industry for 10 years. From 2016 to the start of 2026, Charlie was a full time writer and critic at ComicBook.com. A lifelong movie fan, avid reader, and renowned (fictional) dungeon explorer/dragonslayer, Charlie is a jack-of-all-trades throughout the fandom multiverse and has covered everything under the sun. After taking over the world of books, Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl saga is about to dominate the realm of television. The behemoth novel series is being adapted into a TV show on Peacock, with Seth MacFarlane bringing it to life as an executive producer. The creative team is hard at work preparing the highly anticipated adaptation, and fans are gearing up for what could be one of the biggest shows on TV. With all the hype surrounding not just the upcoming show, but also the Dungeon Crawler Carl books themselves, one has to start wondering which book series in the popular LitRPG genre is going to be next in line. If you're not familiar, LitRPG is a genre that explores the role-playing dynamics of video and tabletop gaming, and applies it to literary stories. Characters in these books acquire skills, level themselves up, and progress through more difficult opponents and missions. It blends the best parts of reading and gaming for a unique kind of storytelling, and it has only been getting more popular in recent years. Dungeon Crawler Carl has become the "face" of the genre, serving as a gateway into more LitRPG stories for hordes of new fans. As the Dungeon Crawler Carl TV show looms, and more readers discover other LitRPG titles, it won't be long before we hear about another title in the genre getting made into some kind of television project. It's going to happen sooner, rather than later, but it's hard to tell which other LitRPG titles are going to follow the path laid out by DCC. There are countless LitRPG series out there, and a ton of them are worth investing your time in, but here are five that should be easy contenders for adaptations. 5 'Dominion of Blades' by Matt Dinniman Image via Matt Dinniman While Dinniman is obviously best known for Dungeon Crawler Carl, it's not the only LitRPG series of his worth reading. Prior to bringing Carl to life, the author wrote Dominion of Blades, as well as its sequel, The Hobgoblin Riot. Those two books will soon be joined by a third, as Dinniman has already promised that another entry is arriving in the near future. Dominion of Blades is actually quite a departure from Dungeon Crawler Carl, even though it still contains Dinniman's signature blend of humor and high stakes. This series shifts the focus from an intergalactic game show to an actual video game. After a wildly popular online game is banned because of the real-life violence it caused, a player named Jonah wakes up inside the game itself, with no memory of how he got there. The series adopts the same leveling and evolution concepts that are pillars of the LitRPG genre, but leans much more into fantasy than science fiction. The dragons and goblins filling this fantasy world may make Dominion of Blades a little more expensive when it comes to putting together a TV show, but we've seen high fantasy work well enough on television that it is certainly doable. 4 'Apocalypse Parenting' by Erin Ampersand Image via Amazon Erin Ampersand's amalgamation of parenting and alien game shows is probably one of the most accessible LitRPG tales when it comes to connecting them to a broader television audience. The Apocalypse Parenting saga is ultra-relatable in more ways than one. Its main character is a mom with a sense of humor just trying to do her best in impossible circumstances — something that's all-too-familiar to many of us. Apocalypse Parenting is also set on Earth, which not only makes it an easier sell for folks who aren't die-hard genre readers, but it also helps keep the budget manageable for a TV adaptation. There aren't fantastical new worlds that need to be built for this series — at least not early on. It's set in a rural Alabama neighborhood, complete with a playground and white picket fences. Once you add in the few aliens featured Time to Play (Book 1), along with a talking stuffed turtle, you're pretty much set as far as the majority of the special effects needed to craft a debut season. 3 'Discount Dan' by James A. Hunter Image via Shadow Alley Press Discount Dan's Backroom Bargains is probably the closest LitRPG to Dungeon Crawler Carl, at least when it comes to style, tone, and sense of humor. Now, James Hunter's saga has done more than enough to separate from Dinniman's work and stand out on its own, but it's still an easy jump from one to the other. If the Dungeon Crawler Carl series is a hit —which feels like a pretty sure thing at this point — Discount Dan should be an incredibly easy sell to a network or streamer. It's got that same dark and vulgar comedy to it that people love about DCC, while also constantly delivering new story possibilities through the different floors of the Backrooms. From a '90s era shopping mall to a deadly Christmas tundra, Discount Dan has hordes of settings that can keep a tale fresh. This is also the one series that it feels most necessary to push the animation angle. All of these shows could be great if they were animated (something Dungeon Crawler Carl fans have brought up plenty of times regarding that adaptation). Discount Dan almost needs the freedom that animation would offer. One of the main characters is a mimic dog made out of blue Croc rubber. Dan, the lead character, utilizes ranged spell magic almost constantly, as opposed to Carl's fighter build. There are monsters with toilets for heads and necromantic horrors built with spare parts that appear in just about every fight scene after the first book. The point here is, Discount Dan is absolutely wild, and an animated series in the style of a show like Archer would be the best way to give it life on TV. 2 'He Who Fights with Monsters' by Shirtaloon Image via Simon & Schuster Travis Deverell, writing under the pen name Shirtaloon, has put together what is arguably the second-most popular LitRPG series out there, behind only Dungeon Crawler Carl. He Who Fights with Monsters is vastly different from Dinniman's series, and it remains divisive amongst big LitRPG readers, but it's got the kind of name recognition behind it that most other titles in the genre don't. He Who Fights with Monsters is an isekai story, meaning that it follows a main character who suddenly finds themselves in a magical new world, with no recollection of how they got there. In this series, an entirely-too-laid-back Australian office worker named Jason wakes up in a dangerous realm he's never heard of, and must figure out a way to level himself up in order to survive. There are currently 12 books in the He Who Fights with Monsters series, and a 13th installment is expected to arrive in the near future. That makes it the longest series on this list by quite a wide margin, and it would take some creativity to adapt the story for TV. A book-per-season isn't going to work in this case, but that doesn't need to stop an adaptation from happening. 1 'I'm Not the Hero' by Tommy Kerper Image via Amazon Unlike the other LitRPG series mentioned here, I'm Not the Hero actually explores a duo of protagonists, creating a rather unique experience for the genre. The series follows a pair of lifelong best friends, Daniel and Orrin, who are ripped away from their normal lives and stuck in a fantasy world. They at least have each other, though the fresh start in this new world challenges the dynamic the duo have always shared. That dynamic is what makes I'm Not the Hero stand out, and it's what makes the story great for television. The fish-out-of-water trope that dominates LitRPG is still on full display here, but there's a history with these two characters that provides an extra pull for audiences. Their relationship stretches far beyond their current circumstances, making all of their decisions feel even heavier and more important. Plus, good buddies going through something crazy always makes for good TV. Network Peacock Writers Chris Yost