Dungeon Crawler Carl is coming to life in a television series! This news sparked joy among fans of the books who are looking forward to the next installment of this adventure later this year. If you’re one of them and wanting to get your next LitRPG fix, then you’re in luck. LitRPG, while fairly new to the traditional publishing industry, is a long-established genre with thousands of books to its name. There are many different directions to go when you begin your exploration of more books like Dungeon Crawler Carl, but we recommend these seven books specifically.
He Who Fights With Monsters (He Who Fights With Monsters #1)
If you enjoyed Dungeon Crawler Carl, the next series on your list should be He Who Fights With Monsters. This list is in no particular order, except for this one—He Who Fights With Monsters is definitely #1. Jason Asano is an unremarkable middle-manager at an office supply store, but his life is turned upside down when he wakes up in a new world, naked (and hairless?) as the day he was born. Jason faces everything from hamsters to cannibal cultists as he fails upwards, towards adventure, glory, and a decent character build. Hopefully.
He Who Fights with Monsters has a tone similar to Dungeon Crawler Carl. But Jason is his own man. The humor is substantially cleaner, and he lacks some of Carl’s grit, subbed out for an adorable and relatable ‘aw shucks’ness. Grab your “I WENT TO A MAGICAL ALTERNATE UNIVERSE AND ALL I GOT WAS VAST COSMIC POWER” shirts and your star-studded cloaks, because Jason and company are eleven books into their grand quest. AND there’s a cat! Though Gary is a bit bigger than Donut…
Something (Full Murderhobo #1)
In the world of Full Murderhobo, once you gain your class, you are tossed in a time dilation portal to train for a decade in your chosen class, by an expert (or experts) of said class. This is due to the Royal Decree. At seventeen, all teens must be tested for something called “potential.” Andre, Taylor, and Zed all test high—their fourth, Luke, barely ranks. Still, they’re all sent to train and given mentors.
Except Luke. Luke gets no mentors, and instead he gets forty years in Murder World. Follow him as he does the only thing he really can do: go full murderhobo.
There is a sense of humor in this series, but it also handles its serious moments quite well. While the title is a joke of sorts (a reference to a ‘murderhobo’ style of D&D player, basically they just kill everyone they come in contact with, possibly including their own party), there’s plenty of dark and bloody action to go around in this trilogy’s introduction.
Catharsis (Awaken: Online #1)
Now we head more in the direction of sci-fi and the near future, with a large helping of fantasy splattered over everything—an excellent combination for a LitRPG! Awaken: Online has been praised for its frenetic pace and knife’s edge suspense that keeps readers coming back for more. For twelve volumes, in fact!
Jason (another one!) is an isolated, bullied young man who finds his escape in video games. In the year 2076, a new VR game—the first of its kind—hits the market, and Jason may have found his greatest escape of all.
Sufficiently Advanced Magic (Arcane Ascension #1)
If you like your LitRPGs to focus heavily on a unique magic system, and then exploit and manipulate that system to the point of breaking it (but not quite), then you’ll like the Arcane Ascension series. Sufficiently Advanced Magic mixes standard LitRPG tropes with some of my favorite magic school tropes to form a vivid, almost anime-like world. It feels somewhere between Final Fantasy and HunterxHunter.
The book follows Corin Cadence of House Cadence, and his attempt to learn magic so that he may follow in the footsteps of his brother Tristan, who was lost to the Serpent Spire five years prior. Lost—but not confirmed to be dead. Corin makes it his mission to conquer the towering dungeon and find his older brother, no matter the cost.
Cat Core (Cat Core #1)
Imagine the most faux-Christian, judgmental, insufferable, Southern old lady you’ve ever met. Now imagine she has one redeeming quality: she loves cats. Maybe she loves them too much, considering there is eighteen of them. That’s a decent picture of Ms. Florence Valentine, a cat-lady and widow in her 80s. Florence dies in the opening pages of Cat Core, and is reconstituted in the ‘afterlife’ as a dungeon core, a magic floating gem that controls the realm of their dungeon, typically using mana.
‘Dungeoncore’ is a distinct subgenre of LitRPGs. Rather than following an adventurer, they focus on the dungeons themselves. If you’re a fan of sapient places, this is the perfect flavor of LitRPG for you. Florence, assisted by her alien preceptor ‘Doug’, begins to construct her dungeon. Doug quickly realizes that Florence will not listen to him no matter what he says, as she spends all of her mana on remaking her old furniture and creating new kitties for her dungeon. But don’t worry folks—these kitties can kill. And, more importantly, these kitties can respawn.
Mage Tank (Mage Tank #1)
Would you like to remain dead, or respawn?
- Life sucks, let me die.
- Respawn
Many readers who start with Dungeon Crawler Carl will find their way next to Mage Tank, a series chronicling the second life of Arlo. A bike accident sends our protag straight to the afterlife where he can choose to fade into oblivion, or respawn in a new “zone.” Being a protagonist, Arlo of course chooses to respawn and shenanigans ensue. This one has a very similar sense of humor and tone as DCC—Arlo mentions dicks in the first few paragraphs. You’ll feel right at home in this potty-mouthed slow-burn progression fantasy.
Ritualist (The Completionist Chronicles, Book #1)
And rounding out the list, we have another series written by the ever-prolific Dakota Krout. The Completionist Chronicles follow the tale of Joe, an ex-chopper medic who was paralyzed in the line of duty. Once rendered a quadriplegic, Joe chooses to have his consciousness uploaded into a hyper advanced video game. While his character isn’t what he would have picked for himself, he soon discovers a secret class, The Ritualist. It has the potential to make or break his second chance at life.
It doesn’t reach the depths of sadness of Dungeon Crawler Carl, but compels in a similar way. Just ignore the weird opening with Elon Musk, and you should have a chill, good time with this read.
Where Can I Find LitRPG Stories Like Dungeon Crawler Carl?
There’s a LitRPG out there for everyone. If you’d like to explore everything the genre has to offer, there’s no place better to start than Royal Road, where many of the now-famous LitRPG authors got their start. And, with the genre gaining more traction than ever in the wake of Dungeon Crawler Carl, keep an eye on the shelves of your local bookstore. You never know what adventure might be just right around the corner.
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