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Post by geneweigel on Aug 9, 2016 7:31:41 GMT -5
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 9, 2016 7:40:49 GMT -5
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 9, 2016 8:05:52 GMT -5
I can't say anything about the documentary. But I love Dwarven Forge, and own a few sets. I've always been more of a theater of the mind player, but I still admire the artistry of well done miniatures and terrain. But, about that elusive D&D Movie...
Gene bravely searched the internet for rumors of the true D&D Movie... but it retreated before him like a will-o'-the-wisp, leaving only disappointment.
If you had the rights to make the "D&D Movie" what would you do?
What's the best story to capture the essence of D&D? A series of TPK's, with bones piling up, until some group finally succeeds?
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 9, 2016 9:25:19 GMT -5
A big rubber faced but animated and believable bugbear for starters. Not the shit 3e version either but the bug-eyed ones that symbolize D&D. Dragons being less majestic and untouchable and more stabbable. A devil fights a demon in the beginning discussing chaos vs law while using all their innate powers and gating abilities. A magic-user writes a scroll in an opening scene and then goes over what his soon to be former apprentice who is now an adventurer can use in battle its all obvious magic items that he says that he'll probably find. A cleric talks to an acolyte in the same manner and then goes into the other characters in a montage about "levels" of the universe. "There are many levels in all things" etc., etc., etc., etc.
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 9, 2016 10:58:15 GMT -5
Those are all good images. But what kind of story would you go with? What kind of story would you want to see?
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 9, 2016 11:30:46 GMT -5
Have you guys watched or listened to any of those shows/podcasts where they play D&D? Are they actually entertaining, and if so how much of it has anything to do with the game and how much of it is just the comedian-type players riffing and improvising and being irreverent and meta? I gather that these shows are popular, even (especially?) among people who don't play, but the whole idea seems bizarre to me. I assume they're all using the current versions of the rules (5E or Pathfinder) - do they get into, like, deep rules-based stuff (positioning minis and calculating flanking bonuses and reach attacks and stuff) or is all of that glossed over? I suppose I should just watch/listen to a couple of them to see what they're about but it's easier to ask you guys  |
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 9, 2016 12:12:47 GMT -5
I've listened to the Acquisitions, Inc. podcasts and they are pretty entertaining. They started out more like podcasts of actual play, but evolved to focus on entertaining an audience. It definitely is bizarre. I believe they started out with 4e rules and transitioned over to 5e rules. The DM is Chris Perkins who has a solid understanding of the rules, but the other guys seem more like comedic performers and the goal to entertain clearly takes precedence over everything else. It is often very anachronistic and silly, with the main characters running a corporation named "Acquistions, Incorporated" and new players coming aboard as interns and that kind of stuff, which would be a turn off for people looking for a "real D&D" play podcasts.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 9, 2016 13:58:41 GMT -5
Those are all good images. But what kind of story would you go with? What kind of story would you want to see? It would be people playing and its happening in a real world made of what the game is. One part they breech the wall and pull the players in with their characters and find that while they are separate beings their fates are indelibly linked unless they make them into "NPCs" which they figure out at the end when the meta-artifact relies upon the characters to be one. |
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 9, 2016 16:01:29 GMT -5
The closest thing I can think of is QUAG KEEP (1978) by Andre Norton. The players and characters are separate beings but linked in some way and at the end the characters interact with our world (I think).
A slightly different concept is the idea of people from our world going into the D&D world and 'transitioning' into characters like in Joel Rosenberg's GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME series (1983+) and the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon (1983+).
I've never been fond of the concept of players in one world equating to characters in another world, from a story perspective, but if done very well I could come around.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 9, 2016 16:30:31 GMT -5
I don't think a D&D movie needs that meta element, and is likely to better off without it. At most I'd say it should be an unobtrusive frame: the movie starts with a group of kids straight out of the early 80s gathering around a kitchen table eating pizza, drinking soda, and busting each other's balls; they sit down with their dice and books and the DM starts narrating a scene - cut to the in-game action, spend the next 100 minutes there telling a fantasy adventure story that heavily emphasizes recognizable D&D IP elements (classes, monsters, spells, items), then when that story ends cut back to the players cheering and high-fiving each other, except for the kid whose character died who looks sad. Pan down to the table and we see the location where the final battle occurred drawn on a battle mat and painted figures that look like all the actors from the in-game scenes.
I think something like that would play better than anything that breaks the fourth wall in the story.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 9, 2016 17:14:04 GMT -5
I think the switching between game and reality would give it a verve that would say this is the game but its a delicate thing to pull off.
Yeah it would probably directed by Uwe Boll and star Jaden Smith and Kristen Wiig... CRINGE!!!!
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 10, 2016 10:38:03 GMT -5
It would be people playing and its happening in a real world made of what the game is. One part they breech the wall and pull the players in with their characters and find that while they are separate beings their fates are indelibly linked unless they make them into "NPCs" which they figure out at the end when the meta-artifact relies upon the characters to be one. Some of the concepts you have to play with in this idea are: the alternate Prime Material Planes (remember EGG's discussion of Oerth being an alternate Earth in the beginning of the the serialized "Secret of the Gnome Cache); why there is a link between certain people across the planes, and what/who causes it; what effect it has to sever the link and make NPC's; and why the meta-artifact works the way it does, who built it, why, etc. |
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 10, 2016 10:49:51 GMT -5
I relate to the need for just a plain fantasy to show the stuff we all want to see too.
The D&D movie was so bad that I don't even know if I can watch it again.
As I recall some of the film's weirdness was that it was plain fantasy made from a D&D game which all worked because it was D&D as a tool to make a fantasy come true. Thats why I was including the meta. With the meta you'd have to look at it as it is instead of what it could be for one campaign. However even if the meta film isn't done right it could miss the mark as well but is probably less likely to than the "One Campaign" story.
I'd really hate to see a Forgotten Realms film. There was a Dragonalnce cartoon a few years back and I didn't even want to touch that with a ten foot pole. Did anybody see that?
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 10, 2016 13:08:07 GMT -5
I've only seen parts of the Dragonlance cartoon. It makes use of two different forms of animation that are incompatible -- standard animation and computer generated -- and this makes it unwatchably bad. If they would have stuck with standard animation and improved it a little, it wouldn't have been so terrible, because the voice acting and music doesn't seem so bad.
But just wait until you the Forgotten Realms live action film with Ed Greenwood's cameo as Elminster...
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 10, 2016 15:03:58 GMT -5
But just wait until you the Forgotten Realms live action film with Ed Greenwood's cameo as Elminster... Gene sits in the darkened theater the pounding drums of the soundtrack open a scene of movement down through the mauve glow of a dungeon corridor where powerful magicks are being hammered to life off camera in distance. Closer and closer the camera moves. A booming deep bass profoundly says:  |
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 10, 2016 15:10:17 GMT -5
Had to edit the text on the speech bubble
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