There’s a book I read as a middle-schooler about a boy who used to play this game with his friends. It turned out the avatars they created from the game all exist in a different universe or planet. It has a D&D-like style to it. I remember something about creatures that looked like octopuses or squids. I can’t remember exactly what happens; I just know the universe needs this kid to come help.
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Without knowing when you were at Middle school this is quite difficult, but one possibility is Drew Hayes' Spells, Swords and Stealth series that starts with NPCs published in 2014.
The series is currently at five books and is incomplete.
The story basically runs two parallel narratives. Games Master Russell is running a Spells, Swords and Stealth session for a group of friends that ends quickly with the hero/player characters dying after mixing mushrooms with beer to accidentally poison themselves.
The action then switches to the town of Maplebark, where four friends lead by the Gnome Thistle, have to take on the role of the dead adventurers in order to prevent the local King exacting terrible retribution on their village.
In the town of Maplebark, four such NPCs settle in for a night of actively ignoring the adventurers drinking in the tavern when things go quickly and fatally awry. Once the dust settles, these four find themselves faced with an impossible choice: pretend to be adventurers undertaking a task of near-certain death or see their town and loved ones destroyed. Armed only with salvaged equipment, second-hand knowledge, and a secret that could get them killed, it will take all manner of miracles if they hope to pull off their charade.
In book one, the real world actions act more as bookends of the story, but it is clear the actions of the Roll players are taking place inside the world Maplebark resides in.
As the series progresses the balance of the action starts to shift more evenly between the two linked storylines.
I don't recall an octopus or squid present in the story, although there is a fight with a demon about halfway thought the story that is described as having
tentacle-like arms
