D&D In Ready Player One? (SPOILERS)

If you've read the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, you'll know that amongst all the many 80s pop culture references featured therein, there is a big tribute to Dungeons & Dragons in the form of a virtual recreation of the Tomb of Horrors and the demi-lich Acererak. It hasn't been clear whether this will appear in the upcoming movie, however (or if it is, I've missed it!) That said, a press release has gone out listing all the companies which Spielberg was able to get permission from, and Dungeons & Dragons is on that list.

A scene from Warner Bros. Pictures', Amblin Entertainment's and Village Roadshow Pictures' action adventure "READY PLAYER ONE," a Warner Bros. Pictures release.​

You can see the list over at Comic Book Movies. Right at the bottom there, it says "Dungeons & Dragons courtesy of Wizards of the Coast". Of course, this doesn't mean the full Tomb of Horrors / Acererak scene is in the movie; it might just be a passing reference to D&D or an Easter Egg of some kind.

David Flor over on Twitter pointed out to me that the sphere of annihilation mural from Tomb of Horrors is on the back of the ambulance in the trailer:

• Atari Properties courtesy of Atari Interactive, Inc.
• Courtesy of Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. and Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc. Courtesy of Bethesda Softworks LLC
• Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
• Courtesy of Capcom U.S.A., Inc./Capcom Co., Ltd.
• Courtesy of CBS Television Studios
• Courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.
• Courtesy of Electronic Arts
• Courtesy of Gearbox Software
• Courtesy of Hasbro, Inc.
• Courtesy of The Jim Henson Company, Inc.
• Courtesy of Kodansha Ltd.
• Courtesy of Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
• Courtesy of Mattel, Inc.
• Courtesy of MGM Media Licensing
• Courtesy of Microsoft Corporation
• The Estate of Toshiro Mifune and Mifune Productions
• Courtesy of Mojang AB
• Courtesy of Nickelodeon & Viacom Media Networks
• “War of the Worlds” courtesy of Paramount Pictures
• Courtesy of Rare Ltd.
• Courtesy of Sanrio Company, Ltd.
• Sonic the Hedgehog courtesy of SEGA Holdings Co., Ltd.
• Courtesy of Sesame Workshop
• Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment and Columbia Pictures
• Courtesy of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.
• Courtesy of Sunrise, Inc.
• Robot B9 from “Lost in Space” appears courtesy of Legend Pictures, LLC Licensed by Synthesis Entertainment Courtesy of Tatsunoko Production
• Mechagodzilla licensed by Toho Company Limited
• Courtesy of The Topps Company, Inc.
• Serenity, Dropship, and other Fox Properties courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC
• Courtesy of Valve Corporation
• Courtesy of WEP LLC
• Dungeons & Dragons courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

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[delericho]

The danger of including too much D&D in RPO is if it is done well then people might expect good things from the actual D&D movie.

More seriously, while I'm glad D&D gets at least some mention, I'm actually more relieved to see that Serenity is on the list. But, equally, dismayed that Star Wars won't even be getting a mention.

 

[darjr]

Permission from Disney covers Star Wars, doesn’t it?

 

[Nostalgia Ward]

The scene in the book is long and detailed. It would be pretty cool to (spoiler) see Acererak match Parzival in Joust at the end of the tomb, but I don't think that's going to happen. I'm excited to see how the movie handles most of the gates.

 

[Morrus]

I saw an interview with Spielberg yesterday and he confirmed that R2D2 and an X-Wing are in there.

 

[delericho]

Ah, guess I was working off old data - seems they've managed to find space for them since Friday.

 

[Nostalgia Ward]

I saw an interview with Spielberg yesterday and he confirmed that R2D2 and an X-Wing are in there.

That's great. There's a scene in the book where R2D2 is a DJ in a cyberpunk club. I hope that scene is included. I saw they replaced Ultraman and some of the other obscure anime robots from the final gate with the Iron Giant and more well-known giant robots. I'm still looking forward to the film.

 

[Celebrim]

The scene in the book is long and detailed.

I deducted a star from the book because the scene wasn't detailed enough for my geek self.

In particular, there are several rooms in the Tomb which would require an extremely imaginative solution to do solo without even so much as a potion even if you had full knowledge of the trap. One example is the room of green and brown curtains. For the life of me, I can't think of an obvious solution for a single low level PC to get by the room by themselves without using magic, and unlike the author's assertion that the tomb contains everything you need to get through it, that's only partially true. For example, it does have the magic ring you need to sacrifice and it does have a trueseeing item that lets you find the well hidden secret door, and the gems you need to get them, and in many cases you imagine a plan to get them as a low level character, there are still moments where a potion of flying is really welcome and you just don't have one to use.

Everyone that has really been through the Tomb has stories about it. Any real geek would want to share those stories. But the author of 'Ready Player One' brushes by these difficulties as unimportant to the story, when I would think anyone actually familiar with the Tomb could care less that it appears in the story, but rather considers how the tomb was traversed to be the really good part that would prove the geek cred of the character and the author.

It was one of the many elements of the story that made me feel the author wasn't really part of the community he was claiming and that the character was a shallow Marty Stu that hadn't earned their geek points.

Then again, I'm a guy that is jarred out of emersion when a game of D&D set in 1983 uses a miniature that Ral Partha didn't release until 1984, and has the player rolling 'to hit' with a fireball, or a game of Dig-Dug in 1984 using a six character high score name rather than the three character which would have been available at that time.

 

[Nostalgia Ward]

I deducted a star from the book because the scene wasn't detailed enough for my geek self.

In particular, there are several rooms in the Tomb which would require an extremely imaginative solution to do solo without even so much as a potion even if you had full knowledge of the trap. One example is the room of green and brown curtains. For the life of me, I can't think of an obvious solution for a single low level PC to get by the room by themselves without using magic, and unlike the author's assertion that the tomb contains everything you need to get through it, that's only partially true. For example, it does have the magic ring you need to sacrifice and it does have a trueseeing item that lets you find the well hidden secret door, and the gems you need to get them, and in many cases you imagine a plan to get them as a low level character, there are still moments where a potion of flying is really welcome and you just don't have one to use.

Everyone that has really been through the Tomb has stories about it. Any real geek would want to share those stories. But the author of 'Ready Player One' brushes by these difficulties as unimportant to the story, when I would think anyone actually familiar with the Tomb could care less that it appears in the story, but rather considers how the tomb was traversed to be the really good part that would prove the geek cred of the character and the author.

It was one of the many elements of the story that made me feel the author wasn't really part of the community he was claiming and that the character was a shallow Marty Stu that hadn't earned their geek points.

Then again, I'm a guy that is jarred out of emersion when a game of D&D set in 1983 uses a miniature that Ral Partha didn't release until 1984, and has the player rolling 'to hit' with a fireball, or a game of Dig-Dug in 1984 using a six character high score name rather than the three character which would have been available at that time.

I wasn't as familiar with the original Tomb of Horrors when I first read the book in 2011. I just re-read the passage applying your notes and...there are definitely a few areas where that avatar would have been killed instantly. I enjoyed your take on this.

 

[talien]

I deducted a star from the book because the scene wasn't detailed enough for my geek self.

Or the part where the book treats a demi-lich like a lich. Acererak's not walking around, he's more ghost than person, but the book treats him as if he's a lich because I'm not convinced Ernest Cline knows the difference, or actually played through the adventure or even read it.