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story identification - Name of book series where RPG players become their player characters




I read a series of books 20+ years ago in which the players of an RPG were transported to inhabit their characters while in the campaign they were playing.


There was a paraplegic or quadriplegic who was a mighty dwarf fighter, an abused teen girl who was a healer, a wizard named Andrea, a thief who only had one hand and was killed off early.


The handicapped guy who was the dwarf and the healer liked being in the player's universe because they had abilities they otherwise could not have.


I remember the series was at least 5 books geared toward the Young Adult reader.



Answer



This is the "Guardians of the Flame" series of books by Joel Rosenberg.



It began as just another evening of fantasy gaming, with James, Karl, Andrea, and the rest ready to assume their various roles as wizard, cleric, warrior, or thief. But sorcerous gamemaster Professor Deighton had something else planned for this unsuspecting group of college students. And the "game" soon became a matter of life and death as the seven adventurers found themselves transported to an alternate world and into the bodies of the actual characters they had been pretending to be.






Per wikipedia (warning, don't click unless you want mega spoilers!)



Andrea Andropolous Cullinane is one of the students. She became an amateur wizard in transition, eventually becoming a pretty powerful wizard.



and



James Michael Finnegan (a.k.a. Ahira) is one of the students. He is one of the few of them that originally preferred it in the new world (in our world, he was crippled with muscular dystrophy, while there he is a powerful dwarf berserker).



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