Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Dreaddisease said:
Personally, I think the problem here is that D&D-style fantasy (that is, Tolkien-esque fantasy) has become just mainstream enough to be somewhat cliche, but not enough to be understood/appreciated by those that don't actively get involved in it.
Simply put, most people know what an orc is now, and they recognize the somewhat iconic image of a varied-party fighting against them. So it's easy for people to, at a glance, write the show off without even seeing it. The fact that it will be, comparatively, close to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy in what it offers will only make the TV seem more lackluster in what it offers.
Of course, shows that I find appalling and/or unoriginal were on your above list, so maybe I'm wrong.
I see this as being a recipe for failure. Staying away from very esoteric parts of the game is fine (e.g. there's no need to tell us exactly how illithids reproduce through ceremorphosis), but trying to go "middle of the road" in what is offered will only drive people further away - if we go with the very traditional monsters, it will seem to close to LotR for newcomers, and too uninspired for old-hands of D&D.
I'm not saying that we can't have an interesting, great show with just the so-called basics, but there's no reason we can't have a guest villain who is a psion, or a half-dragon, or see an ixitxachitl. Just because some gamers don't use these parts of the game doesn't mean they'll turn the TV off in disgust if they see it on there. Likewise, something new and weird is likely to help dispel the idea among the non-gamers that this show is a Tolkien rip-off.
You start out with some good ideas here, but things get somewhat unwieldy towards the end, I think. While romantic subplots are pretty necessary (since every show you mentioned above had a few), and sticking to the core rules is easy enough to do (there is enough there to go on without, as I mentioned above, looking like an LotR rip...though I still think, say, a psionic villain works fine).
Trying to actively display things like level advancement, skills, and feats, however, seems like a sure-fire way to screw things up. Things like these are so subtle that attempts to deliberately highlight them end up being too brazen, hitting the viewers over the head instead of pleasantly letting them realize what's happening on their own.
The online character sheet seems cool, but might quickly become outdated, and how complicated it seems could, again, scare away non-gamers who visit.
And going in with cheap special effects is somehow better than with better-but-more-expensive ones? A guy in a suit still looks like a guy in a suit, and evokes Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for me more than anything else. Make-up to look like a hobgoblin is one thing...a guy in an owlbear costume is another thing altogether.
How the special effects look determines how seriously a show takes itself, and this is very hard to do when there is no real-life basis to model. Seeing characters attempt to act afraid of what is obviously a camera trick made to look like a magic missile just invites people to make fun of the show. Less is not more here; more is more.
Do NOT reiterate what is going on over and over! Audiences are smarter than people give them credit for, and the ones who like the show will work to understand it better anyway. The more popular shows are the ones where things don't seem to make sense at first, and if the characters spend more time than seems believeable talking about things for purposes of laying it all out, it strips some of the mystery and enjoyment from the show. Let the plot thicken, the audience will cut through it on their own. Nobody likes being spoon-fed.
Just the opposite here; trying to please everyone often ends up pleasing no one. Decide off-hand if you want the show to take itself seriously, like Alias, or make fun of itself somewhat, like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. The latter show had its moments of being dramatic, but had a lot of times when it made fun of itself with anachronisms, situational jokes, etc.
Again, bad idea. This is blatant spoon-feeding the audience, and I talked about that above. The best way to make the plot seem like a single, cohesive whole it to make it a single, cohesive whole. What happens in one episode should be referenced when something from it influences a later episode, but you don't need to give the audience a recap. They'll connect the dots on their own, and even be thrilled at the less-modular style of the episodes. This was a source of strength for Buffy.
Also a bad idea. While a dramatic action show can handle a large cast, seven is pushing it - all the more so since you want them defined by classes, which is what they do versus who they are. While most shows have personality breakdowns (the brainy one, the whiner, the goofy one, etc). Trying to have them be defined by their class (the fighter, the arcane spellcaster, the barbarian) only lessens their characterization on the screen, since that translates too closely into the tabletop game's focus on power advancement. Don't be afraid to multiclass, since that usually has an accompanying question in why the character wants to explore a new path; that's good characterization, since it explored motivation.
As with the monsters, don't feel compelled to stick to the common spells. Just don't make magical effects up out of thin air.
Likewise, you seem to be abandoning your own rule about sticking to what's "core" when you advocate a spell-point system. That'd just tick off D&D players and confuse newcomers. Rather, explain (when necessary) the magic system as it is: sorcerers pull effects from the air (and, over time, learn more and more complex magicks), and wizards have to memorize arcane formula. It can be easy enough to explain that the memorizing process can "lock in" the magic energies in their mind, or something like that. New, complex things like that can hook an audience. It's whats different about a show that defines it, not what's watered down.
Not all programs have, or need, cheesy moments. Alias didn't, Star Trek didn't, etc (though these shows may have had funny moments, humor is not necessarily cheesiness). Fantasy is especially risky with this, as the more overt the fantasy, the easier it is to not take it seriously when it has cheesy moments (Hercules was quite serious starting out, and Xena got more so over time). For example, Buffy was much cheesier than Hercules, but her show was set in the modern world, so it could get away with it. Shows that aren't taken seriously on some level don't develop a cult following, as there beomes too great a shame in having just that much interest in the show's world. If you wanted a D&D-style show that had a dark, edgy plot about uncovering and defeating an illithid plot to blot out the sun, that could be very much lacking in cheesy moments.
Ah, the power of no cheese.
Which is very different from what you said for the monsters. Why wouldn't it hold true there also? Especially since monster have spell-like abilities.
Do not use old English. That makes it very hard to understand, and appreciate. While it's okay to have a guest character or fringe-supporting character talk in "thee"s and "thou"s, this talk is off-putting to an audience. They want to relate to the people on screen, and a language barrier (which is what this is a form of) is greatly inhibitive to that.
Also, I think, a bad idea. Do old fashioned values include having equally-treated adventuring females that you talked about above? Old-fashioned is often equated with "outdated". The protagonists, at the very least, should have something resembling modern values.
Not mentioning that a lot of issues are political, this seems like a no-brainer. But this seems more a warning against sappiness than divisive politics.
As mentioned, it helps that people watch these sorts of shows to indulge in some form of escapism, so don't give them the crap they have to deal with in real-life...give them just enough to relate this to their own lives, that's all.
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