other literary RPGs?

[Guang]

Some RPGs are written by people who are true students of a centuries-old classic literary work of art, and make the rules and gameplay as close a match for the source material as possible.

King Arthur Pendragon RPG, based on the literature surrounding King Arthur.

True20 Tales of the Caliphate Nights, based on the stories of the One Thousand and One (Arabian) Nights.

Inferno RPG, based on Dante's works. (yet to read through)

Charles Dickens novels would make a great RPG - Has nobody made one yet? I also have my eye on Heroes of the Mythic Americas, hoping it will closely follow the stories it's based on. I'm interested in finding out more about RPGs based on any great literary or oral traditions from around the world. Surely there are other RPGs that also explore their source novels or legends and try to faithfully and exhaustively represent the spirit and the details of the work? Do you have any leads for my search?

Edit: I just finished looking at Sina Una. Richly described, based on pre-colonial oral stories of the Phillipines, but changed when a lot of d&d (and some modern sensibilities, but not much) was shoehorned in. Not really what I'm looking for - but it could have been! The writing team loved and respected the source material, but it's very mixed with standard d&d 5e.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I know I have seen someone mention a Jane Austin inspired game in the past that I think uses OSR style rules. Anyone remember the name?

Of course I may have just dreamed this after eating too much cheese in which case ignore this post and carry on with your lives.

EDIT: apparently there are two. The one I was thinking of is Good Society but there is also a 5e supplement/adventure called An Unexpected Wedding Invitation which is a similar thing.

 

[aramis erak]

There are a couple that referenced Dickens; don't recall titles, but we're talking late 1990s to early 00's, and I didn't buy them.
One that's vaguely Dickensian but not actually Dickens directly is Ghosts of Albion. GURPS Gremlins likewise has dickensian notes.

Legend of the Five Rings is strongly inspired by a particular genre: the Japanese Pillow Books - a form of adventure fiction popular amongst the Samurai at certain periods of Japan. As is Blood and Honor. John Wick wrote 1E of L5R, and wrote B&H.

 

[Blue Orange]

Chaosium kind of specializes in this, having done Lovecraft (Call of Cthulhu), Moorcock (Stormbringer), Pendragon (King Arthur), and now Paladin (Song of Roland). They actually just did Call of Cthulhu meets Jane Austen (Regency Cthulhu).

A quick search produces a few Jane Austen RPGs, none of which seem clearly OSR-inspired:

Miss Austen! - VioletGames | DriveThruRPG.com

Miss Austen! - Miss Austen! is a Regency Romance genre tabletop RPG system, in which the players take on the roles of debutantes seeki

www.drivethrurpg.com

Jane Austen's "Emma" - Malcolm Harbrow | DriveThruRPG.com

Jane Austen's "Emma" - Mr Knightly is throwing a garden party at Donwell Abbey! He has invited all the local gentry — the Woodhouses, the Wes

www.drivethrurpg.com

Jane Austen's Matchmaker - Warm Acre | DriveThruRPG.com

Jane Austen's Matchmaker - A card game featuring characters from all six Jane Austen novels. Make happy marriages in a world of social one-upmanshi

www.drivethrurpg.com

Drama and Dancing - Shiny Thing Games | DriveThruRPG.com

Drama and Dancing - “Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.”Jane Austen This 5 hour LARP recreates a Jane Austen

www.drivethrurpg.com

OSR wouldn't be my top choice for Austen anyway; not enough focus on socializing.

That said, since Austen writes about women competing for husbands (a rival 'good' unless you are significantly changing the setting), it lends itself to gamification well.

 

[aramis erak]

I know I have seen someone mention a Jane Austin inspired game in the past that I think uses OSR style rules. Anyone remember the name?

Of course I may have just dreamed this after eating too much cheese in which case ignore this post and carry on with your lives.

There was one, but I can't recall the name, either.

One of the major licensed game families is Literary in origin: Tolkien's Middle Earth.
We have ICE's MERP, Decipher's Lord of the Rings RPG, Cubicle 7's The One Ring, and Fria Ligan's The One Ring 2E, plus the Cubicle 7 Adventures in Middle Earth, Plus a handful of unlicensed fan games, including MEAG... and pre-6th printing D&D OE...

 

[jdrakeh]

Wuthering Heights Roleplay is, perhaps, one of the best RPGs I've ever read when it comes to mirroring the themes in the fiction.

[Edit: Some content may be objectionable.]

 

[Morrus]

There’s that recently announced Stokerverse game.

There’s stuff like Conan, The One Ring. Lots of Lovercraft stuff. Is there a Sherlock Holmes game? There should be!

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Is there a Sherlock Holmes game? There should be!

The last of the A.C. Doyle Sherlock books enters the public domain this year. Seems like a good candidate for a Gumshoe variant!

 

[aramis erak]

There are several games directly inspired by Tales of the Dying Earth... Including The Dying Earth RPG. I find it a bit too rules lite and fortune heavy to bring to table.
Monte Cook's Numenera is about as sharp a tribute as I have seen.

Of course, there are a bunch of Conan licensed RPGs over the years... TSR's AD&D modules, TSR's color table variant core game, Mongoose's Conan d20, Modiphius' Conan 2d20. There was also GURPS: Conan.
Conan also inspires Barbarians of Lemuria and gets riffed in a few others, such as Astonishing Sworsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea...

The John Carter Series has both Space: 1889 from GDW and now published by some other company, and the official John Carter of Mars 2d20.

GURPS has a few other licensed literary settings: G: Commonwealth (Allan Dean Foster's Flinx of the Commonwealth series), G: Uplift (Brynn's Uplift series), Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game (Bujold's Vorkosiverse), G: Lensman (E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman Series), G: Horseclans (Robert Adams' Horseclans series).

One of the staple sales items for two of the three main universal engines (strategy for GURPS and BRP, but not for Hero). The most notable BRP ones being ElfQuest, Stormbringer/Elric, and Ringworld, but they've done others.

The various GURPS and BRP adaptations are of widely varied opinion - GURPS tends to bend the settings a little; BRP tries to bend the system to the setting with adapted cores into the 90s, but in the 00's, switches to the unified core and worldbooks model of GURPS.

Note that Pendragon is one of those BRP adapted cores... switching the d100 for d20, and monthly/per adventure experience checks for annual.

R Talsorian Games' Mekton II and Mekton Zeta are inspired as much by mecha manga as mecha anime, and indirectly, by the Gundam novels.

OSR wouldn't be my top choice for Austen anyway; not enough focus on socializing.

That depends upon the users; a significant portion of OSR fans are in the "Ignore the rules most of the time" so mechanicalization would be ignored in that portion of the OSR fanbase. Another portion basically use it as the underlying framework for Frei-Kriegspiel Revival style RP.

That said, since Austen writes about women competing for husbands (a rival 'good' unless you are significantly changing the setting), it lends itself to gamification well.

Agreed, but a lot of those interested in Austen's P&P as a setting may not be interested in the mechanicalizing of relationships, seeing instead the opportunity to handle it all in RP.

No, I'm not one of those - participating in dialogue RP of romantic relationships makes my skin crawl - but it's something of which I know people who would prefer to simply RP instead of my preference for abstracting to mechanics.

 

[pemerton]

Does Prince Valiant count?

I'll also second Wuthering Heights as a fun game for overwrought 19th century literary-ish RPGing.