Renegade Games secures tabletop game rights to Dungeon Crawler Carl, promising an RPG and board games

Renegade Game Studios announced on July 29  via a press release that they had secured the rights to Dungeon Crawler Carl. They will not only be creating a tabletop roleplaying game for the explosively popular LitRPG phenomenon but also plan to develop a board game and a deckbuilding game. 

Dungeon Crawler Carl burst onto the literary scene in 2020 when author Matt Dinniman began to publish chapters on Royal Road, a site for serial fiction. He moved the series to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing later in the year, and, after continued success, his books were purchased by Penguin Random House and traditionally published in Fall 2024. Dinniman said in an interview with Grimdark Magazine that the seven books benefited from Penguin Random House’s rigorous editing, declaring there was “a horrifically brutal comma apocalypse” but “they had it coming”. He still releases chapters digitally first via his Patreon before they eventually make their way into the print world as books. 

If you don’t know what litRPG is, that might be because the scene has existed slightly underground for the past 10-to-15 years, especially for Western audiences. There’s a ton of Japanese anime, light novels, and web comics out there that have plots such as “I’ve spawned into a video game!” or “My superpower has distinct levels that I must master!” While often intersecting with isekai, they’re separate strains within the genre. LitRPG typically contains elements directly inspired by video games  such as levels, experience points, native help screens, and unique combat systems. It’s not a video game novelization, necessarily, because characters — often the protagonists — know (or learn!) they are in a game or a game-like world.

LitRPG has been primarily a genre at the fringes of traditional publishing, but it enjoys an absolutely massive audience outside of those walled gardens, such as the previously mentioned Royal Road, but also on Patreon, WebToon, and Wattpad. Matt Dinniman has used his massive fanbase to leverage litRPGs into the realm of traditional publishing and begun carving a path for his peers. In January of 2025, Orbit published its first litRPG book, Level: Unknown by David Dalglish.

The plot of Dungeon Crawler Carl focuses on a young veteran named Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut. Aliens have come to earth and destroyed most of the population, and survivors opt into a Hunger Games-style gladiatorial death dungeon for the entertainment of aliens. It’s out there, for sure, but the premise will lend itself easily to gamifying the brutal, gorey levels of Dungeon Crawler World into a modern tabletop RPG. From the press release: “Players will step into the boxers of contestants battling for survival in an ever-shifting dungeon filled with deadly traps, absurd loot, and relentless entertainment.”

(As an explanation Carl wears an item called “Enchanted Big Boi Boxers,” white with red hearts. So, you get the joke now.)

Purchasing the tabletop rights is an interesting move for Renegade, which has a few original RPGs in their catalog but are probably best known for publishing  titles in the World of Darkness line under license from Paradox Interactive (a partnership that ended with the resurrection of White Wolf). The company has a track record of adapting popular brands into games — its Essence 20 system forms the mechanical bases for their official Transformers, Power Rangers, and G.I. Joe tabletop games. So far, it’s unclear whether or not they will use their in-house E20 system for this project, as well.

Renegade stated that the tabletop RPG is expected to launch in 2026, but no further details are currently available. Rascal has reached out to Renegade for comment and will update this story if we get any more information.