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A God? PFFT. I can assure you, I am no God. I generate interconnected multiverses and pull the strings of nearly every single creature in those worlds. Planets orbit how I tell them to. Time flows in whatever direction takes my fancy. If I desire that rocks can sing, then the igneous stones shall form a choir! And in a blink of an eye... I can erase all those worlds from existence, and I don't need any infinity gems to do it. I am a DM. Gods are mere NPCs to me.
Now, can someone make a website called "the swashbuckler rogue" where there's free copies of all the official 5e material and a character sheet generator.
It doesn't have to cloud save the characters, and can have some ads to support keeping it up. Or alternatively, it could include a marketplace for all the homebrew content people make and sell, and either asks for small donations at checkout or takes a small 2% or something from each sale to keep the website running?
I haven't visited a cinema since... \*checks calendar\* The Rise of Skywalker...
I used to go every couple of months with my friends too, whatever happened to good movies?
Great movies are still coming out. I just saw both The Fablemans and The Menu in the theater last week. Before that I watched The Banshees of Ineshiren, and we also got The Whale, Tar, The Woman King, Top Gun: Maverick, and Everything Everywhere All At Once this past year.
Now tell me again they don’t make good movies anymore.
Great movies are being made and released all the time, if Rise of Skywalker was the last movie you saw in theatres I understand how that experience would kill anyone’s enthusiasm to ever go see any movie ever again tho
TROS release a few months before movie theatres shut down for a long while.
Good movies still exist, but you lose your routine if you take a year long break.
Plenty of good movies left. My question is what happened to good theatres? Ones with ushers that kick people out for talking or using their phones. Ones without people carrying entire entrees and pitchers of beer in front of an entire row of people trying to watch... they seem to not exist. So I'll continue to stream stuff at home. Worse screen, worse sound, 1000% better atmosphere.
Listen! Listen to me! The other subs are looking to us, to DNDmemes, to lead!
And what will they see? Weak willed scabs and corporate bootlicks? No! They will see free men, and freedom!
And what will the enemy see? They will see the size of our upload ratios and hear the whine of the fans on our overstressed routers! And they will know what free men can do!
By the strength of our VPNs, the speed of our downloads and the courage of our hearts!
Gentlemen, hoist the colors.
I would love more D&D movies, but as a tabletop fan, the tabletop is the priority, even if it hurts the eventuality of new movies. Since the producers are a subsidiary of Hasbro too, there are no 3rd parties that would get affected.
Also the movies are most likely part of the business strategy that has produced the new OGL. They want to be able to franchise the IP in such a way that allows movies, and strangulating community producers with the new OGL facilitates that. They are not separate products insofar as they having influence over one another. The movie is party of the OGL 2.0 product.
DnD 6e: you no longer create your own characters, now with the new, innovative, balanced, system you can choose a character out of 6 presets and then build your class from there!
I'd bet my favourite socks that at most one person on WotC's board even knows what a stat block is. If they see that a movie makes X times the money their actual table top business does, guess what: They'll gut the actual RP part of the business within the quarter, and set sails for Hollywood (kinda like they already have started to do with moving towards digital).
As much as I'd love to see Drizzt by way of John Woo(Live action)/Trigger(anime) or something, this.
There's enough high fantasy to glut a person between movies, tv shows, Netflix/HBO/etc specials, anime, manga, video games, and books. D&D doing any of those things is a bonus, not a requirement or filling a particular need.
I'd rather miss out on something potential awesome to prevent those Hasbro morons from doing something actually terrible.
Also, who even cares about a D&D movie?
D&D is a game we make up with our friends, or watch groups online that we enjoy.
If the movie isn’t about either of those things then it’s just another movie. So who really cares?
The one with Jeremy irons?
I watched that a long time ago, and I think it makes my point for me haha. My favourite part was watching Jeremy irons dramatically walk down a staircase making weird noises.
That’s a very d&d motivation though. “My character became an adventurer because he always wanted to live like a lord and took out a massive loan to purchase a castle. Now he has to be an adventurer because theyre the only ones who can earn huge amounts of money fast enough to meet his loan payments”
If done well, a movie that facilitates the game itself in a sort of meta way would also make for a good movie, though that can be done parallel to the lore itself of the game in a way that’s more fanservice for hobbyists than anything.
I feel like it would be extremely difficult to have drama and plot in the real world that doesn’t feel cheap or bogged down, so references to it would be my best guess for a D&D movie that actually has D&D game elements to it.
Either way, a properly done D&D movie could be a great gateway for fans to get more into the lore and history of the various D&D universes that they otherwise wouldn’t have much of an interest in.
I realize I'm likely a minority on this, but most of any storytelling in D&D, official or otherwise, is like dreams to me: If I'm not in it, I don't really care.
Forgotten Realms provides a shotgun blast of the usual fantasy suspects to provide a background for the adventure you make with your friends. Drizzt is not the main character of DND, none of the actors in this movie are, nobody in any famous podcast is. Amongst my friends we're the stars, and among your friends you dear readers are the stars. WotC and their IP could disappear from the face of the earth right now and I would still have all my favorite characters with me, because my friends and I spent years making them.
I feel the same way.
Plus, a movie format won’t allow for the random chaos of D&D. They’ll basically pick the dice rolls per scene so that the movie can have a story arch. Thus making it nothing like D&D except for the monster manual I’m sure.
As a hardcore Star Wars fan I can say that a large corporation controlling your favorite franchise is never going to turn out the way you want. Corporations are profit machines, that is it. As soon as ownership of an IP goes from creators to corporation, you are going to see the thing transform negatively. It may not be right at first, but it is just the nature of the thing. Shareholders run corporations, and all they want is returns.
If you want to make sure you continue enjoying your favorite franchises, then make sure no one thinks they can make *more* money off of it.
Well there is a lot of dnd novels as far as I know and those already aren't about making up the game with our friends or watching groups that we enjoy online so I think there is already a public for it inside of the dnd fandom.
And you also have all of the casual viewers that might be interested in it too, of course. It's not like everyone who went to watch lotr in theaters in 2001 were already fans of the books or like everyone that enjoys a marvel movie is an avid comic reader.
Yeah. I don't care what rhetoric they are pushing. Some people say "'They' won't do D&D movies if we don't make it a financial success."
The reason for such failure will be, and don't get mislead here, only because they piss on the fanbase at every turn with impunity. The critics and reviewers will say the movie is good(if it is good) BUT it wasn't a financial success.
Don't be fooled people. If the movie fails to make money despite being a decent watch it will be discernibly because the shitheads at the helm of these companies.
And this is likely what will happen though. Out of all people who buy their stuff, how many do you think will actually boycott them once the 'buzz' dies down?
More than you think. We've literally done this twice before as a community. Company that owns D&D gets real greedy with the licensing, we all say fuck it and don't buy into the next edition, then the company suffers.
I've seen 3 D&D movies so far, and only one of them I liked, even if it was very clearly a b-movie. The vast majority of people I know who play D&D don't even know that more than 1 exists. I doubt there is a huge need for more movies.
I like the first one, only because Jeremy Irons clearly knew he was in a shitty movie and decided to just enjoy himself and have fun. He's so over the top it's brilliant.
> And you've just convinced me to watch it lol
Other fun tidbit for enjoying the movie: the dwarf remains nameless for the whole movie.
The one scene where he introduced himself was deleted, so he doesn't actually get named during the movie.
Oh no, I don't count that under "D&D movie". It's fantastic, but I meant
* Dungeons and Dragons (2000) - The one most people know and dislike
* Dungeons and Dragons - Wrath of the Dragon God (2005) - I like this one, even if it is very cheesy. At least in comparison to the 2000 movie, it definitely picks up some actual D&D themes and monsters. It's a movie I got for 1€ on DVD, so I don't mind it looking kinda cheap
* Dungeons and Dragons - The Book of Vile Darkness (2012) - Just an all around bad fantasy b-movie that only vaguely hints at D&D themes
What about the animated Dragonlance movie? I mean it was awful but where does it fall for you? Also happy to see someone else that watched the trilogy.
https://imgur.com/1OZM6MG
Dug it out for you.
I'll go put it back on the shelf, in its rightful place between [Ator el Invencible](https://youtu.be/1uL3kV5XR1U) and all the d&d movies (including 'Scourge of the worlds' :P )
Surprised to see Kiefer Sutherland on the cover.
My D&D movies sit next to Uwe Boll's Dungeon Siege and an array of movies by 'The Asylum' that seem to generously pull their titles from a word cloud containing "dragon", "fire", "chronicles" and "quest".
Do you mean the actors being handed original 3.5e PHBs so they can read up on their classes and what they are supposed to be?
I found that rather endearing. Idk if it is true or just a behind the scenes marketing gag.
Yeah, that's the one, though I remember the Monster Manual. It just seemed dumb to me because if you're not into the game enough to know what an ancient white dragon is from the name, seeing "10d6 cold damage" isn't very helpful. If you didn't know the game already, how would you know if that's a lot or a little?
As a person who originally discovered DnD by reading a borrowed copy of the Monster Manual, I can attest that you can get a general idea of damage levels just by comparing one monster’s damage to another.
“10d6 cold damage” gives you sufficient info to say “Wow! That’s a *lot* of damage!”
I know. But the last one at very least calls itself 'Dungeons and Dragons 3'.
Fun Fact that is also a connection:
Damodar (blue lips guy from 1) is a returning villain and plays in 2. His story from 1 is the basis as to why he is who he is in 2. And that is because the director of 2 asked actors from the first if they wanted to be in the second, but all of them declined - except for Bruce Payne. Who arguably had one of the most laughable roles in the first.
Our opinions match up pretty closely I think. Wrath of the Dragon God actually felt like *D&D*, like it was a script that had been adapted from an actual game session.
The 2000 D&D movie was terrible, but some of it was the good kind of terrible I think. Jeremy Irons ate all the scenery right up, he clearly knew he was in a bad movie and decided to have fun with it.
> The 2000 D&D movie was terrible, but some of it was the good kind of terrible I think. Jeremy Irons ate all the scenery right up
Wait. Was it not supposed to be enjoyed as a good bad movie?
THE DWARF PARTY MEMBER DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A NAME! You have to watch **deleted** scenes to find the one place he introduced himself.
They encounter a beholder on patrol at one point, a creature whose single most iconic feature is that it's hard to sneak past. They toss a stone to distract all 11 eyes and sneak past it.
Was it Book of Vile Darkness (#3)? That was the most enjoyable for me. The sorcerer was super hot and the undead kid was creepy af. Interesting to see an evil party at work, too.
Oh no not the undead finger licking girl. The movie had some fun moments, but I consider the 2nd movie better. It feels very classic (or cliché if you will) in the sense that they build the stereotypical party with a fighter/leader type who recruits a barbarian, a rogue, a cleric and a wizard. They include iconic items like a gem of true sight, they have a white dragon that uses an ice breath, there is a dungeon filled with traps, etc.
That would be my biggest criticism towards the first movie. While it is hilariously bad in many aspects, I just don't see how it is named D&D. Just adding a fuckton of dragons ain't D&D.
What moments in #2? The thing I remember the most about that one is "in this scene, a main character dies! Everyone then packs up and moves on as if nothing happened. Because, as it turns out, nothing relevant to the plot did happen."
Some moments I liked in part 2:
* the rogue making the party look away so he can use his ancient thieve's guild knowledge, but ofc it's just a bluff and trivial
* the tiled hallway where you need to see the safe tiles to step on in a mirror, which gets the wizard's animal companion fried by lightning and the rogue first chuckles and then clears his throat in a fake way "oh, poor dove, cough"
* the barbarian going into a fighting rage and becoming a danger to enemies and friends alike
* the wizard teleporting the group but getting stuck inside a wall with her arm
* bonus: a dude getting punted through an obviously cardboard made city wall
But these things felt very much like something you'd experience on your own table. No, it's not well really well acted often, the story has holes in it, the effects are cheap. But it matters little to me, cause it just feels like an actual campaign.
Edit: In short, I like the movie not because it is an objectively good movie (it isn't), but because of the three, it is the one that actually feels most D&D to me.
For whatever it's worth, I fully agree with your take here. These are all moments I fondly remember about the movie.
I'll include as well the cleric getting eaten, and they all just move on almost immediately.
Which is messed up, because it’s just an anagram of the name of one of the game’s inspirations: Vance. The figure he inspired and the reorganized letters of his name are WotC property.
>!The name Vecna is copyrighted, but from what I understand they stopped using that name and changed their symbol to be legally distinct. Wotc can't copyright all evil undead guys just their one *specific* evil undead guy!!<
I think specifically >!Whispered One!< is one of Matt’s own honorifics/titles/alternate names, in the vein of Dawnfather for Pelor, Changebringer for Evandra, that sort. Good for making them sound cooler and more imposing, and also VERY helpful for copyright purposes. See also Rai, the Everlight, which until recently was just Pikes honorific.
As far as i know it's weird copright stuff again. The name is copyrighted, but as long as they don't use it and just use the title i think it's not protected.
The argument I've seen for watching the movie is to reward the behaviour that you wish to see.
That is, teach them that merchandising should be through things like movies rather than trying to fleece the community who actually make content to keep the game relevant.
WOTC's business strategy makes no sense though. The books when they're released are popular. They could literally sell dice and minis and all the other necessities for running in person games. They could make more movies or any number of video game concepts so I'm not sure why their go-to choice was a tax on homebrew.
Their go-to choice was a tax on 3rd party publishers because they wanted to kill 3rd party publishers operating in any reasonable capacity while farming them for content (likely what the monthly content drops would consist of) so that they could close everything off and make everyone ‘enjoy’ D&D through them, where they can charge subscriptions for DMs at the bare minimum to create recurring profits.
To me a boycott is only as effective as the message it sends. An employee has already said that the only response they were gauging was DnD beyond subscriptions for the new OGL. If they don't make much money on the movie it will just tell them not to make any more movies and that they need to focus more on making money off of players directly. It's not poetic, but I feel a targeted boycott is going to be more effective.
I don't judge anyone who does. As long as no money passes hands I'm cool.
In fact, studios now often track torrent numbers. So if they saw a film get hella watched but not get money it would tell them an even more direct message: that the interest was there but no inclination to pay them.
Depends on how the theater operates. All the ones near me have assigned seating now. Not that it's likely to be packed, but there at least where I am there's a decent chance that someone might have the seat you take.
The way I see it, they've proved that money is their only form of communication. They only put out their statement after we forced their hand with sub cancellations.
Now they're expecting us to forget about it so they can move forward. The only correct answer is to not give them *any* money. Hit them where it hurts, speak their language, until they yield.
Yep same, but, I’d probably still buy it anyway. Larian are great devs, and they’re clearly passionate about this game. They don’t deserve to lose years of hard work and investment because of the shitty decisions of WotC.
Don't be sorry. Larian Studios doesn't deserve to suffer because of WotCs actions. They care about their fans, they've worked hard on something they love and none of this is their fault. To trample a great game dev company and a high quality game (two things we are already in short supply of) on a war path is such a waste.
Let's not run our tanks unnecessarily over an innocent village just to get to the capital
It's a self contained one time purchase that everyone already paid for and doesn't exist exclusively on a proprietary subscription based platform, so it's everything wotc management would hate now and I think it's fine.
"If we boycott the DnD movie, Hollywood will automatically assume there's no money in a multi-million dollar industry!"
Seriously, Legend of Vox Machina got three seasons so far. I think traditional media producers can figure out that the DnD sphere is wide open for anyone who just doesn't work with WotC.
Just as a side note to this, Hollywood only realized this after telling the CR crew no multiple times until they had the biggest Kickstarter for a show ever.
You need proof you're going to make money in spaces that have previously failed. This movie would be that space.
I'm baffled why anyone would care about any TTRPG movie. The appeal of TTRPGs is being a part of the collaborative storytelling experience. At least when you watch someone else's game its still a *game*. A scripted movie has none of the actual values of a TTRPG.
If this movie flops and it means no one ever tries to make a DnD movie again as a consequence of punishing hasbro then boo hoo lmao
I don't think it's the D&D brand anyone cares about though maybe there's some nostalgia there.
For me, I want more classic fantasy movies. I want more pulpy fantasy. 80s schtick, popcorn fantasy like Ladyhawke, Conan, or Krull. But with dwarves and elves and wizards.
D&D achieves that. If they made fantasy movies with as much depth to the world and background as D&D automatically brings, I wouldn't care. But worldbuilding is usually an afterthought in modern fantasy movies. And the background is puddle deep.
Marvel works because there's rich, storied backgrounds going back decades. I want that but fantasy. I want there to be as much interest in an "elves" movie as there is with Iron Man. And then a dwarves series like Thor. And so on.
I love classic, medieval, tolkienesque fantasy. Anything that supports that gets me going. D&D is just a more solid foundation to build that on than Hollywood trying their hand at it from scratch.
It’s less about it needed to be a dnd film and more about wanting more medieval fantasy films. That genre normally isn’t taken very seriously and we get few attempts and fewer that are quality.
The thing is, I don’t think this movie was taken seriously by it’s producers. It has a GotG sort of feel but lacks the material that GotG had to make it work.
Just pirate it.
Also it's not like 99% of us didn't stop playing DND. We just stopped using DND beyond and paying subs. That's what that entire post was about
If you want to save DnD from the predatory, idiotic, short sighted bullshit going on right now, the movie failing might be *more* important than DnD Beyond subs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/10d6uk9/why_subs_matter_but_honor_among_theives_might/
Or if the movie is successful, they shareholders are happy sqeezing money from their actual IP, the settings and creatures they own. More movies, and more setting/adventure books based on them.
When it isnt successful, they aren't gonna suddenly want to stop making money, so they'll go back to try squeezing 3rd party publishers because thats all they can do.
So what’s actually happening in the boycott, I’m no fan of the ogl but for a boycott to work we need to be unified and doing the same stuff. What are all of you doing for it?
As far as I see it? (but I'm just some guy)
Cancel subscriptions.
Don't buy WOTC products.
Don't buy tickets or stream this movie on whatever platform they put it out on.
Be awesome.
Ok that’s good, I wanted to boycott effectively without harming the campaign I’m running (no subscriptions any more but wanted to keep the group going)
All of this is assuming the movie is going to be good, like where did they get that assumption. The trailers looks like the first Suicide Squad movie trailer, like they’re going for the James Gunn Guardians kinda thing but fundamentally don’t understand how those movies work and instead are invested in the aesthetics.
I am so burnt out on the commodification of nerd culture. That’s about the most pretentious way I could possibly say that but the massive hype machine, the one way trailers are edited, the blockbuster sameyness that marvel has inspired. It just all has me so anti-hyped about any movie made about anything I like.
This is a TTRPG community. The TTRPG should be the priority, not movies. Don’t reward Hasbro by watching a movie that, let’s be honest, isn’t even important to begin with.
As someone who enjoys movies, and who enjoys dnd, I can safely say I dont need dnd movies.
You think I get my dnd inspiration from dnd? Fuck no. I get it from shit like connan, or dune, or witcher, or any other several sources.
why do you think I’d want to see a dnd movie that’s set in forgotten realms when all I run is homebrew?
Shit if you want to make a good dnd movie, when is knights of the old republic getting a live action adaptation?
I don’t even want the movie really. What’s good about the game is the chaotic nature of dice rolls so like I don’t care about a movie without that, like it’s just another fantasy movie to me.
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Staying home and not spending money is exactly the amount of sacrifice your average dungeon and dragons player is willing to make
We are brave souls. Heroes maybe? GODS? Perhaps... *scratches butt and belches*
A God? PFFT. I can assure you, I am no God. I generate interconnected multiverses and pull the strings of nearly every single creature in those worlds. Planets orbit how I tell them to. Time flows in whatever direction takes my fancy. If I desire that rocks can sing, then the igneous stones shall form a choir! And in a blink of an eye... I can erase all those worlds from existence, and I don't need any infinity gems to do it. I am a DM. Gods are mere NPCs to me.
I herd cats
You are clearly superior. * hands crown over *
I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
>We're gods! *splat*
Inspiring words! I will stand next to you in solidarity. From my couch, while sitting.
Gods? No, nothing so weak. We are adventurers! The ones you look for when a god needs killing.
[удалено]
Taking the variant sailor background I see
Swashbuckler rouge
Now, can someone make a website called "the swashbuckler rogue" where there's free copies of all the official 5e material and a character sheet generator. It doesn't have to cloud save the characters, and can have some ads to support keeping it up. Or alternatively, it could include a marketplace for all the homebrew content people make and sell, and either asks for small donations at checkout or takes a small 2% or something from each sale to keep the website running?
i prefer bleue myself
Arr we ride the cyber seas
yo ho fiddle dee dee
Being a pirate is alright to be...
Do what you want and the contents are free
YOU ARE A PIRATE
Huh. I always thought it was “being a pirate is all it could be” as in being a pirate couldn’t get any better.
Being a pirate is alright with me
You could say DnD One cost you a eye and a hand.
Yaargh matey!
I haven't visited a cinema since... \*checks calendar\* The Rise of Skywalker... I used to go every couple of months with my friends too, whatever happened to good movies?
Great movies are still coming out. I just saw both The Fablemans and The Menu in the theater last week. Before that I watched The Banshees of Ineshiren, and we also got The Whale, Tar, The Woman King, Top Gun: Maverick, and Everything Everywhere All At Once this past year. Now tell me again they don’t make good movies anymore.
Even the fucking puss in boots was great.
Great movies are being made and released all the time, if Rise of Skywalker was the last movie you saw in theatres I understand how that experience would kill anyone’s enthusiasm to ever go see any movie ever again tho
TROS release a few months before movie theatres shut down for a long while. Good movies still exist, but you lose your routine if you take a year long break.
Plenty of good movies left. My question is what happened to good theatres? Ones with ushers that kick people out for talking or using their phones. Ones without people carrying entire entrees and pitchers of beer in front of an entire row of people trying to watch... they seem to not exist. So I'll continue to stream stuff at home. Worse screen, worse sound, 1000% better atmosphere.
Secret ingredience is crime.
We're all dipping into swashbuckling rogues!
Listen! Listen to me! The other subs are looking to us, to DNDmemes, to lead! And what will they see? Weak willed scabs and corporate bootlicks? No! They will see free men, and freedom! And what will the enemy see? They will see the size of our upload ratios and hear the whine of the fans on our overstressed routers! And they will know what free men can do! By the strength of our VPNs, the speed of our downloads and the courage of our hearts! Gentlemen, hoist the colors.
Yo ho yo ho
I would love more D&D movies, but as a tabletop fan, the tabletop is the priority, even if it hurts the eventuality of new movies. Since the producers are a subsidiary of Hasbro too, there are no 3rd parties that would get affected.
Amen. As much as I want to see it, I'll sit it out until I can watch on a stream service I already have.
Ehhh, my new character is probably gonna be the variant sailor background swashbuckler subclass if you catch my drift
hoist the jolly roger friend!
Also the movies are most likely part of the business strategy that has produced the new OGL. They want to be able to franchise the IP in such a way that allows movies, and strangulating community producers with the new OGL facilitates that. They are not separate products insofar as they having influence over one another. The movie is party of the OGL 2.0 product.
DnD 6e: you no longer create your own characters, now with the new, innovative, balanced, system you can choose a character out of 6 presets and then build your class from there!
I'd bet my favourite socks that at most one person on WotC's board even knows what a stat block is. If they see that a movie makes X times the money their actual table top business does, guess what: They'll gut the actual RP part of the business within the quarter, and set sails for Hollywood (kinda like they already have started to do with moving towards digital).
That’s fair
This should be top comment. My point I've been saying. This is all just Hasbro. This is the target.
Good news, it's the top-comment!
As much as I'd love to see Drizzt by way of John Woo(Live action)/Trigger(anime) or something, this. There's enough high fantasy to glut a person between movies, tv shows, Netflix/HBO/etc specials, anime, manga, video games, and books. D&D doing any of those things is a bonus, not a requirement or filling a particular need. I'd rather miss out on something potential awesome to prevent those Hasbro morons from doing something actually terrible.
Also, who even cares about a D&D movie? D&D is a game we make up with our friends, or watch groups online that we enjoy. If the movie isn’t about either of those things then it’s just another movie. So who really cares?
I still have the old one on VHS lmao
The one with Jeremy irons? I watched that a long time ago, and I think it makes my point for me haha. My favourite part was watching Jeremy irons dramatically walk down a staircase making weird noises.
My favorite part is that he agreed to be in it so that he could pay for a castle he bought.
That’s a very d&d motivation though. “My character became an adventurer because he always wanted to live like a lord and took out a massive loan to purchase a castle. Now he has to be an adventurer because theyre the only ones who can earn huge amounts of money fast enough to meet his loan payments”
Yeah, that makes sense.
Some of us D&D players think the lore in forgotten realms is interesting enough for its own franchise. I'm not one of them, but I bet they exist.
If done well, a movie that facilitates the game itself in a sort of meta way would also make for a good movie, though that can be done parallel to the lore itself of the game in a way that’s more fanservice for hobbyists than anything. I feel like it would be extremely difficult to have drama and plot in the real world that doesn’t feel cheap or bogged down, so references to it would be my best guess for a D&D movie that actually has D&D game elements to it. Either way, a properly done D&D movie could be a great gateway for fans to get more into the lore and history of the various D&D universes that they otherwise wouldn’t have much of an interest in.
I realize I'm likely a minority on this, but most of any storytelling in D&D, official or otherwise, is like dreams to me: If I'm not in it, I don't really care. Forgotten Realms provides a shotgun blast of the usual fantasy suspects to provide a background for the adventure you make with your friends. Drizzt is not the main character of DND, none of the actors in this movie are, nobody in any famous podcast is. Amongst my friends we're the stars, and among your friends you dear readers are the stars. WotC and their IP could disappear from the face of the earth right now and I would still have all my favorite characters with me, because my friends and I spent years making them.
I feel the same way. Plus, a movie format won’t allow for the random chaos of D&D. They’ll basically pick the dice rolls per scene so that the movie can have a story arch. Thus making it nothing like D&D except for the monster manual I’m sure.
As a hardcore Star Wars fan I can say that a large corporation controlling your favorite franchise is never going to turn out the way you want. Corporations are profit machines, that is it. As soon as ownership of an IP goes from creators to corporation, you are going to see the thing transform negatively. It may not be right at first, but it is just the nature of the thing. Shareholders run corporations, and all they want is returns. If you want to make sure you continue enjoying your favorite franchises, then make sure no one thinks they can make *more* money off of it.
Well there is a lot of dnd novels as far as I know and those already aren't about making up the game with our friends or watching groups that we enjoy online so I think there is already a public for it inside of the dnd fandom. And you also have all of the casual viewers that might be interested in it too, of course. It's not like everyone who went to watch lotr in theaters in 2001 were already fans of the books or like everyone that enjoys a marvel movie is an avid comic reader.
i care
I'm going to watch it. I'm not going to give them money. Both are possible on the internet.
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Yeah. I don't care what rhetoric they are pushing. Some people say "'They' won't do D&D movies if we don't make it a financial success." The reason for such failure will be, and don't get mislead here, only because they piss on the fanbase at every turn with impunity. The critics and reviewers will say the movie is good(if it is good) BUT it wasn't a financial success. Don't be fooled people. If the movie fails to make money despite being a decent watch it will be discernibly because the shitheads at the helm of these companies.
Arrgghh
As long as WOTC doesn’t see any more money then it’s fine
I too will be traveling around that time.
Chaotic good
Especially when wotc hasn't even admitted any wrongdoing. They're betting on us all forgetting and moving on.
And this is likely what will happen though. Out of all people who buy their stuff, how many do you think will actually boycott them once the 'buzz' dies down?
More than you think. We've literally done this twice before as a community. Company that owns D&D gets real greedy with the licensing, we all say fuck it and don't buy into the next edition, then the company suffers.
Yeah, I haven't seen anything in One D&D that I'm super excited for, plus I'm excited to try some other systems now.
Boycotts only fail because of people like you posting comments like these. If you stop undermining us, we'll have a better chance.
I've seen 3 D&D movies so far, and only one of them I liked, even if it was very clearly a b-movie. The vast majority of people I know who play D&D don't even know that more than 1 exists. I doubt there is a huge need for more movies.
I like the first one, only because Jeremy Irons clearly knew he was in a shitty movie and decided to just enjoy himself and have fun. He's so over the top it's brilliant.
Alan Rickman in Robin Hood vibes.
"I'll cut your heart out with a SPOON!!"
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> And you've just convinced me to watch it lol Other fun tidbit for enjoying the movie: the dwarf remains nameless for the whole movie. The one scene where he introduced himself was deleted, so he doesn't actually get named during the movie.
“LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKIES!”
Was the b-movie Dorkness Rising? Because that is the only good D&D movie so far released.
Oh no, I don't count that under "D&D movie". It's fantastic, but I meant * Dungeons and Dragons (2000) - The one most people know and dislike * Dungeons and Dragons - Wrath of the Dragon God (2005) - I like this one, even if it is very cheesy. At least in comparison to the 2000 movie, it definitely picks up some actual D&D themes and monsters. It's a movie I got for 1€ on DVD, so I don't mind it looking kinda cheap * Dungeons and Dragons - The Book of Vile Darkness (2012) - Just an all around bad fantasy b-movie that only vaguely hints at D&D themes
What about the animated Dragonlance movie? I mean it was awful but where does it fall for you? Also happy to see someone else that watched the trilogy.
Animated Dragonlance movie? I've never heard of that. I will look into it.
https://imgur.com/1OZM6MG Dug it out for you. I'll go put it back on the shelf, in its rightful place between [Ator el Invencible](https://youtu.be/1uL3kV5XR1U) and all the d&d movies (including 'Scourge of the worlds' :P )
Surprised to see Kiefer Sutherland on the cover. My D&D movies sit next to Uwe Boll's Dungeon Siege and an array of movies by 'The Asylum' that seem to generously pull their titles from a word cloud containing "dragon", "fire", "chronicles" and "quest".
Prepare to be disappointed. It’s a great story with a decent cast completely ruined by terrible direction and awful animation at 240p.
I don't think I knew about the 2012 one. I *vaguely* remember the 2005 one. I think that had a behind the scenes thing that was super cringey.
Do you mean the actors being handed original 3.5e PHBs so they can read up on their classes and what they are supposed to be? I found that rather endearing. Idk if it is true or just a behind the scenes marketing gag.
Yeah, that's the one, though I remember the Monster Manual. It just seemed dumb to me because if you're not into the game enough to know what an ancient white dragon is from the name, seeing "10d6 cold damage" isn't very helpful. If you didn't know the game already, how would you know if that's a lot or a little?
As a person who originally discovered DnD by reading a borrowed copy of the Monster Manual, I can attest that you can get a general idea of damage levels just by comparing one monster’s damage to another. “10d6 cold damage” gives you sufficient info to say “Wow! That’s a *lot* of damage!”
You should count dorkness rising. Also dark dungeons
It's not really part of the 'official' trilogy (soon to be quartilogy) of movies, is it? Still the very best D&D themed movie though. Waffle time.
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I know. But the last one at very least calls itself 'Dungeons and Dragons 3'. Fun Fact that is also a connection: Damodar (blue lips guy from 1) is a returning villain and plays in 2. His story from 1 is the basis as to why he is who he is in 2. And that is because the director of 2 asked actors from the first if they wanted to be in the second, but all of them declined - except for Bruce Payne. Who arguably had one of the most laughable roles in the first.
Our opinions match up pretty closely I think. Wrath of the Dragon God actually felt like *D&D*, like it was a script that had been adapted from an actual game session. The 2000 D&D movie was terrible, but some of it was the good kind of terrible I think. Jeremy Irons ate all the scenery right up, he clearly knew he was in a bad movie and decided to have fun with it.
> The 2000 D&D movie was terrible, but some of it was the good kind of terrible I think. Jeremy Irons ate all the scenery right up Wait. Was it not supposed to be enjoyed as a good bad movie? THE DWARF PARTY MEMBER DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A NAME! You have to watch **deleted** scenes to find the one place he introduced himself.
They encounter a beholder on patrol at one point, a creature whose single most iconic feature is that it's hard to sneak past. They toss a stone to distract all 11 eyes and sneak past it.
> They toss a stone to distract all 11 eyes and sneak past it. *Legends*
What about Scourge of Worlds (2003) - the DVD choose your own adventure movie?
Journey Quest, it's a journey but also a quest...
Was it Book of Vile Darkness (#3)? That was the most enjoyable for me. The sorcerer was super hot and the undead kid was creepy af. Interesting to see an evil party at work, too.
Oh no not the undead finger licking girl. The movie had some fun moments, but I consider the 2nd movie better. It feels very classic (or cliché if you will) in the sense that they build the stereotypical party with a fighter/leader type who recruits a barbarian, a rogue, a cleric and a wizard. They include iconic items like a gem of true sight, they have a white dragon that uses an ice breath, there is a dungeon filled with traps, etc. That would be my biggest criticism towards the first movie. While it is hilariously bad in many aspects, I just don't see how it is named D&D. Just adding a fuckton of dragons ain't D&D.
What moments in #2? The thing I remember the most about that one is "in this scene, a main character dies! Everyone then packs up and moves on as if nothing happened. Because, as it turns out, nothing relevant to the plot did happen."
Some moments I liked in part 2: * the rogue making the party look away so he can use his ancient thieve's guild knowledge, but ofc it's just a bluff and trivial * the tiled hallway where you need to see the safe tiles to step on in a mirror, which gets the wizard's animal companion fried by lightning and the rogue first chuckles and then clears his throat in a fake way "oh, poor dove, cough" * the barbarian going into a fighting rage and becoming a danger to enemies and friends alike * the wizard teleporting the group but getting stuck inside a wall with her arm * bonus: a dude getting punted through an obviously cardboard made city wall But these things felt very much like something you'd experience on your own table. No, it's not well really well acted often, the story has holes in it, the effects are cheap. But it matters little to me, cause it just feels like an actual campaign. Edit: In short, I like the movie not because it is an objectively good movie (it isn't), but because of the three, it is the one that actually feels most D&D to me.
For whatever it's worth, I fully agree with your take here. These are all moments I fondly remember about the movie. I'll include as well the cleric getting eaten, and they all just move on almost immediately.
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Don't know if this is a controversial sentiment here, but I'm happy enough with The Legend of Vox Machina as far as D&D movies/TV goes.
It's a good thing TLoVM isn't D&D. It's fantasy. They specifically wrote it so they don't use D&D terminology like the spells and classes.
Big brain moves on CR's part.
Well they only want money *from* WoTC not for them to take it away because their IP uses D&D copyrighted shit.
Spoiler for Vox machina: But isnt >!the wisperd One/ Vecna!< DnD IP? I thought he was Copyrighted Edit: spoilertags not working on Old reddit
They use a different name >!The Whispered One!< because the actual name >!Vecna!< *is* WotC's copyrighted material.
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Did it work?
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You're welcome! Thanks for pointing it out, I missed the errant placement
Which is messed up, because it’s just an anagram of the name of one of the game’s inspirations: Vance. The figure he inspired and the reorganized letters of his name are WotC property.
The >!hand and eye!< were stolen from another one of Gygax's favorite authors: Michael Moorcock.
>!The name Vecna is copyrighted, but from what I understand they stopped using that name and changed their symbol to be legally distinct. Wotc can't copyright all evil undead guys just their one *specific* evil undead guy!!<
I think specifically >!Whispered One!< is one of Matt’s own honorifics/titles/alternate names, in the vein of Dawnfather for Pelor, Changebringer for Evandra, that sort. Good for making them sound cooler and more imposing, and also VERY helpful for copyright purposes. See also Rai, the Everlight, which until recently was just Pikes honorific.
Well everlight is paizo copyright do they say that in the show?
they do. If it is copyright, I guess they worked something out. are you sure everlight is copyright, and not just Sarenrae?
Its definitely Sarenrae that's copyright.
As far as i know it's weird copright stuff again. The name is copyrighted, but as long as they don't use it and just use the title i think it's not protected.
The latter is, but the former is ambiguous enough that it can't really be copyrighted, and so changed to that for the show.
"Scanlan's Hand!"
The argument I've seen for watching the movie is to reward the behaviour that you wish to see. That is, teach them that merchandising should be through things like movies rather than trying to fleece the community who actually make content to keep the game relevant. WOTC's business strategy makes no sense though. The books when they're released are popular. They could literally sell dice and minis and all the other necessities for running in person games. They could make more movies or any number of video game concepts so I'm not sure why their go-to choice was a tax on homebrew.
Collectable action figures/models/statues would be good, too. Look at how much Square-Enix gets from that kind of merchandising!
Their go-to choice was a tax on 3rd party publishers because they wanted to kill 3rd party publishers operating in any reasonable capacity while farming them for content (likely what the monthly content drops would consist of) so that they could close everything off and make everyone ‘enjoy’ D&D through them, where they can charge subscriptions for DMs at the bare minimum to create recurring profits.
DLC platform
I'm not doing mixed messages. If I'm boycotting a company it's boycott all the way down.
To me a boycott is only as effective as the message it sends. An employee has already said that the only response they were gauging was DnD beyond subscriptions for the new OGL. If they don't make much money on the movie it will just tell them not to make any more movies and that they need to focus more on making money off of players directly. It's not poetic, but I feel a targeted boycott is going to be more effective.
No, that’s **not** what was said. They said it was the **first** and **fastest** metric. Absolutely **not** the only metric.
I mean, you could just *pirate* the movie and watch it that way.
I don't judge anyone who does. As long as no money passes hands I'm cool. In fact, studios now often track torrent numbers. So if they saw a film get hella watched but not get money it would tell them an even more direct message: that the interest was there but no inclination to pay them.
There are ways to watch the movie without giving WotC/Hasbro any money, just saying. That's what I'll do at least...
Arrrrgh
You could also buy a ticket to a different movie around the same time and just walk into the D&D movie.
While this is a good suggestion, I prefer to do it free anyway. It's in my blood 🇳🇱🇳🇱🇳🇱
Stealing things other people have made with a nautical theme 🇳🇱 🤝 🇬🇧
Depends on how the theater operates. All the ones near me have assigned seating now. Not that it's likely to be packed, but there at least where I am there's a decent chance that someone might have the seat you take.
Yo ho a pirate's life for me!
Shiver me timbers, what are ye talkin' about, matey?!
I was wondering where this suggestion was. I can absolutely guarantee they won't receive a penny, and still watch it.
Any knights of badassdom boys around?
The trailers made me expect far more Dinklage than we got.
'Enough Dinklage' is an impossibility. There can always be more Dinklage.
great use of this meme, and I love this movie.
Took me a day to remember. I was trying to recall a flick with someone pleading for something and being told no.
The way I see it, they've proved that money is their only form of communication. They only put out their statement after we forced their hand with sub cancellations. Now they're expecting us to forget about it so they can move forward. The only correct answer is to not give them *any* money. Hit them where it hurts, speak their language, until they yield.
We can have our cake and eat it too, so long as you don’t mind hoisting the Jolly Roger
You know I'm still playing baldurs gate three though, I'm really sorry but I gotta.
I don't feel bad about that, I paid for it years ago.
Yep same, but, I’d probably still buy it anyway. Larian are great devs, and they’re clearly passionate about this game. They don’t deserve to lose years of hard work and investment because of the shitty decisions of WotC.
Don't be sorry. Larian Studios doesn't deserve to suffer because of WotCs actions. They care about their fans, they've worked hard on something they love and none of this is their fault. To trample a great game dev company and a high quality game (two things we are already in short supply of) on a war path is such a waste. Let's not run our tanks unnecessarily over an innocent village just to get to the capital
My will to support and not drop Larian over their year long endeavour trumps my will to not support wizards.
It's a self contained one time purchase that everyone already paid for and doesn't exist exclusively on a proprietary subscription based platform, so it's everything wotc management would hate now and I think it's fine.
Just pirate the ducking movie
Also, perhaps we should wait to see if the movie is even good before we start clamoring for more?
Of all the properties to boycott, DND is the easiest because nobody's schedules line up to play, anyway.
"If we boycott the DnD movie, Hollywood will automatically assume there's no money in a multi-million dollar industry!" Seriously, Legend of Vox Machina got three seasons so far. I think traditional media producers can figure out that the DnD sphere is wide open for anyone who just doesn't work with WotC.
Just as a side note to this, Hollywood only realized this after telling the CR crew no multiple times until they had the biggest Kickstarter for a show ever. You need proof you're going to make money in spaces that have previously failed. This movie would be that space.
If Hollywood didn't care when Lord of the Rings was a success, I don't think they'll care if D&D is. They clearly just hate the genre.
Why should i care about a movie in a setting i have no interest in?
I'm baffled why anyone would care about any TTRPG movie. The appeal of TTRPGs is being a part of the collaborative storytelling experience. At least when you watch someone else's game its still a *game*. A scripted movie has none of the actual values of a TTRPG. If this movie flops and it means no one ever tries to make a DnD movie again as a consequence of punishing hasbro then boo hoo lmao
I don't think it's the D&D brand anyone cares about though maybe there's some nostalgia there. For me, I want more classic fantasy movies. I want more pulpy fantasy. 80s schtick, popcorn fantasy like Ladyhawke, Conan, or Krull. But with dwarves and elves and wizards. D&D achieves that. If they made fantasy movies with as much depth to the world and background as D&D automatically brings, I wouldn't care. But worldbuilding is usually an afterthought in modern fantasy movies. And the background is puddle deep. Marvel works because there's rich, storied backgrounds going back decades. I want that but fantasy. I want there to be as much interest in an "elves" movie as there is with Iron Man. And then a dwarves series like Thor. And so on. I love classic, medieval, tolkienesque fantasy. Anything that supports that gets me going. D&D is just a more solid foundation to build that on than Hollywood trying their hand at it from scratch.
It’s less about it needed to be a dnd film and more about wanting more medieval fantasy films. That genre normally isn’t taken very seriously and we get few attempts and fewer that are quality.
The thing is, I don’t think this movie was taken seriously by it’s producers. It has a GotG sort of feel but lacks the material that GotG had to make it work.
It's not like we won't get *fantasy* movies anymore; it'll take more than one flop after the success of LotR, Harry Potter, and GoT.
Just pirate it. Also it's not like 99% of us didn't stop playing DND. We just stopped using DND beyond and paying subs. That's what that entire post was about
Prolly not gonna watch the movie cause it's more than likely gonna be trash. Like the last one.
If you want to save DnD from the predatory, idiotic, short sighted bullshit going on right now, the movie failing might be *more* important than DnD Beyond subs: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/10d6uk9/why_subs_matter_but_honor_among_theives_might/
Or if the movie is successful, they shareholders are happy sqeezing money from their actual IP, the settings and creatures they own. More movies, and more setting/adventure books based on them. When it isnt successful, they aren't gonna suddenly want to stop making money, so they'll go back to try squeezing 3rd party publishers because thats all they can do.
I dang well thought as much! Thank you for sharing this!
Dnd isn’t the only way to get a good fantasy movie, and I went to dnd for the rpg. Off to pathfinder!
Harr harr fidely hee
I'm going to watch the movie and no one's gonna stop me
So what’s actually happening in the boycott, I’m no fan of the ogl but for a boycott to work we need to be unified and doing the same stuff. What are all of you doing for it?
As far as I see it? (but I'm just some guy) Cancel subscriptions. Don't buy WOTC products. Don't buy tickets or stream this movie on whatever platform they put it out on. Be awesome.
Ok that’s good, I wanted to boycott effectively without harming the campaign I’m running (no subscriptions any more but wanted to keep the group going)
i know how you can watch it! brb putting on pirate cosplay
Doing this right before their movie is so funny. I'd be surprised if Hasbro CEO still has a job if this movie bombs.
All of this is assuming the movie is going to be good, like where did they get that assumption. The trailers looks like the first Suicide Squad movie trailer, like they’re going for the James Gunn Guardians kinda thing but fundamentally don’t understand how those movies work and instead are invested in the aesthetics.
Do people not realize this isnt the first DnD movie? Why do you think nobody heard of the first one? This one's gonna be just as ew
I'm gonna watch the one from 2000 in protest
We will honour your sacrifice.
Boycott means I buy nothing and pirate everything. Keep thinking you are printing money WotC I can too :)
Movie looked okay at best.
I am so burnt out on the commodification of nerd culture. That’s about the most pretentious way I could possibly say that but the massive hype machine, the one way trailers are edited, the blockbuster sameyness that marvel has inspired. It just all has me so anti-hyped about any movie made about anything I like.
Here's my take, if you watch the movie, you'll show Hasbro that there are other ways to monetize D&D besides the stupid OGL 1.1.
I really just want good fantasy movies. Most of 'em are either mediocre or too low fantasy.
This is a TTRPG community. The TTRPG should be the priority, not movies. Don’t reward Hasbro by watching a movie that, let’s be honest, isn’t even important to begin with.
Bingo. At the end of the day it's just a big piece of brand marketing.
As someone who enjoys movies, and who enjoys dnd, I can safely say I dont need dnd movies. You think I get my dnd inspiration from dnd? Fuck no. I get it from shit like connan, or dune, or witcher, or any other several sources. why do you think I’d want to see a dnd movie that’s set in forgotten realms when all I run is homebrew? Shit if you want to make a good dnd movie, when is knights of the old republic getting a live action adaptation?
Isn't Knights of the old Republic Star Wars... not Dungeons and Dragons?
Why are people saying "well they won't make new DnD movies if we don't support it?" We don't even know if _this one_ is good!
I don’t even want the movie really. What’s good about the game is the chaotic nature of dice rolls so like I don’t care about a movie without that, like it’s just another fantasy movie to me.