What is LitRPG?

A story built around role-playing game mechanics. A literary RPG. Imagine a novel that reads like you’re watching someone playing Final Fantasy, D&D, or any other RPG. You still get all the fun of scoring +1 to Strength and "I cast Fireball!", but you also get the dramatic elements, deep worldbuilding, and soaring heroic moments of a traditional Fantasy novel. It’s the best of all worlds!

Some LitRPGs are about a person from our world getting trapped in a video game while others are grand disasters where a higher power has imposed a system on mankind and now we must level up to survive. It's a huge genre that's currently a Wild West of ideas, which is why Travis and I love it! The LitRPG space is bursting with all sorts of cool new story concepts we've never seen before. Of course we had to come be part of the fun!

Do I need to know Dungeons & Dragons to read Death Has Joined the Party?

Not at all. While knowing D&D might make a few of the jokes funnier, all important game mechanics are explained in the text as they happen. It’s the same step-by-step, learn-as-we-go process I use to unfold the magical systems in all my novels, just with a few more numbers.

My goal was to write a story that’s better because of the game mechanics, not merely good in spite of them. If you're curious as to how that works, I invite you to give the free sample of Death Has Joined the Party a try. Seeing is believing, after all, and we believe in this book a lot. Give it a read and I’m sure you’ll feel the same!

Is Mana Runners like Forever Fantasy Online?

Sort of. FFO was a dark fantasy series that technically falls more under GamerLit or Portal Fantasy since the characters are sucked into the game from our world. Mana Runners, by contrast, is about characters who grew up in the stat-and-level-filled Fantasy world of the story. It’s also not nearly as dark with far more levity and character antics. It's practically a comedy at many points, though both novels share our love of hardcore combat and sky-high stakes. If you love a good dramatic sword fight, by the gods, have we got some books for you!

If you liked FFO for its brutal realism and traumatized characters, then I’m sorry, but there’s not much of that in Mana Runners. However, if you liked FFO’s tactical rules-driven combat, character-driven narrative, and deep world-building, you’re in luck! Mana Runners has plenty of all of that plus gamer jokes, meddling gods, and adorably murderous mimics.

It really is just a difference in flavor. We love both our LitRPG babies, and we hope you will as well!

Is Mana Runners like Dungeon Crawler Carl?

They’re both funny LitRPGs about people engaged in reality TV dungeoneeering, though we don't have a talking cat. (Hope that’s not a critical misstep on our part!)

Princess Doughnut aside, we’ve got more similarities than differences. Carl is largely based on videogame humor like achievements while Mana Runners is based on tabletop RPG humor with D&D jokes galore, but both books are action comedies filled with all the best nerdy goodness. Our flavor isn’t as grindhouse as Carl’s (no foot-fetish jokes here), but we’ve still got comedic necromancy and a talking mimic who absolutely cross-her-heart swears she won’t eat you even though you look reeeealy tasty.

Personally, I think Carl fans will love Mana Runners because I’m a Carl fan and I love Mana Runners. Obviously, YMMV, but if a funny, action-packed story full of LitRPG mechanics, gamer humor, and fighting your way through a sentient dungeon that is either trying to destroy the world or save it sounds like a good time to you, you’re probably going to like this book.

What is Travis Bach's role on this project?

Travis is my husband, editor, collaborator, and amazingly skilled DM. He’s worked with me on my books since before Eli, so there's some of him in everything I write. Just like Ilona Andrews is actually Ilona and Andrew Gorden, we’re a writing team. Or a writing two-headed ogre, depending on the day.

For Death Has Joined the Party, Travis has helped me beyond his usual plotting, story planning, and editing roles. Since this is a series based on table-top-gaming, and Travis has been running 1-2 weekly TTRPGs since 1993, I tasked him with creating all of the Mana Runners encounters. This was partially to ensure they’re all rules-accurate, but mostly because Travis is the most fun, deviously dramatic DM I’ve ever had the pleasure of gaming with, and everyone knows that once you get an amazing DM, you never let them go!

I know all of that might make the story sound overly gamified, but don't worry. We’re both writers first, foremost, and forever, which is actually what makes Travis’ combat so good. He knows how to tell a great story through mechanics, which is why I wanted him as my co-writer on this project. I wanted to give all of you the chance to experience the awesomeness that is a Travis Bach DM’ed game.

In addition to making sure my fights were top notch, Travis also spent hours exhaustively checking the story for compliance with the free ruleset the novels are based on. That was no mean feat, let me tell you. Thank you, Travis, for your sacrifice. No one deserves to have their name on this book more.

And speaking of which...

Is Mana Runners an official Dungeons & Dragons product?

NO.

Let me be super-clear on this. The entire Mana Runners series, including Death Has Joined the Party, is based on the free-for-use rules for 5th Edition which were published under the Creative Commons license.

This is not official D&D content and we've worked hard to avoid using any copyright IP owned by Wizards of the Coast LLC other than what’s already been granted for use via the free rules.

Please see below for the formal legal information on this score.