The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

As a work of LitRPG (Literary Role-Playing Game), The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook integrates video game mechanics directly into its narrative structure. This subgenre, which draws heavily from tabletop RPG games like Dungeons & Dragons and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft, makes elements such as character statistics, levels, and skill trees explicit parts of the story. The text is filled with system notifications that announce achievements, such as “New achievement! I’m on a train!” (1), and character choices that directly reference game terminology, like Donut selecting the Football Hooligan class. This integration of game language is a hallmark of the genre.

The novel also reflects the real-world phenomenon of “gamification,” the application of game-design principles in non-game contexts to increase engagement. For example, language-learning apps like Duolingo use experience points and achievement streaks to motivate users, while fitness trackers turn exercise into a competitive game of metrics. Dinniman uses these conventions to drive character development, as characters must strategize based on quantifiable attributes like Katia’s constitution, which is “double what it normally is” (4). The LitRPG framework thus provides a structure for the plot while satirizing a contemporary cultural trend toward measuring life, survival, and progress through data.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series first gained popularity as a web serial on the platform Royal Road, where it became one of the site’s most successful stories before being published traditionally. Dinniman’s work is known for blending dark humor, intense action, and sharp satire of online streaming culture and corporate greed. The series has developed a large and dedicated fanbase, and its success is part of a growing trend of web fiction, particularly in the LitRPG and progression fantasy genres, finding mainstream commercial success.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series is set in a universe where Earth has been destroyed so that the Syndicate, an intergalactic governing body, can mine it for rare and precious materials. After the Syndicate destroys nearly all life on Earth, the dungeon is constructed for the survivors to compete in as a way to make money and provide entertainment for all the citizens of the Syndicate across the galaxy. On this galactic reality TV show, human survivors are conscripted as contestants in a lethal, live-streamed spectacle where they must descend through a multileveled dungeon filled with monsters. This premise serves as a dark satire of modern entertainment, particularly reality television and online streaming culture, as the crawlers must survive brutal physical challenges while cultivating a persona that appeals to a vast alien audience.

In the first book of the series, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Carl and his girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, escape the collapse of every structure on Earth because Carl is outside chasing Donut, who has jumped out the apartment window in the middle of the night, when it occurs. When they enter the dungeon, after being given the choice between that or trying to survive on the earth, post-apocalypse, Donut is given crawler status like Carl, and, after eating an enchanted pet biscuit, is given a voice. Together, they survive the first book with the help of their manager, Mordecai, a crawler from a previous dungeon who is now a part of the game. Over the course of the first book, they acquire enemies, but they also acquire Mongo, Donut’s pet velociraptor.

They work their way through the first two levels and, in the second book, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, they descend to the third level, where they choose their classes. Donut chooses Former Child Actor as her class, which allows her to choose a new race on each level, while Carl chooses the Compensated Anarchist class, which focuses on skills he has already demonstrated, like trap-building and bomb-making. Later, Katia joins their party, and her Doppelganger class proves an asset as they make their way through the dungeon. After several close calls, the team successfully finds the stairwell and descends to the fourth floor, where their adventures pick up in The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.