D&D General Which Campaign or Adventure Would You Adapt To Prestige Television?

[jdrakeh]

I think that a Call of Cthulhu adventure or campaign would make for an absolutely riveting TV show. Maybe Horror on the Orient Express or Day of the Beast.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Planescape: Torment and it's not even close. As far as I'm concerned it and BG3 are the only pieces of D&D media with actually fleshed out characters, and BG3 is so big it'd take forever to adapt. You can do Planescape-as-Sopranos easily enough.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Just for fun:

You are put in charge of adapting an existing campaign length adventure to prestige television for WotC. It can be any campaign from any edition, but it HAS to be a campaign not just a single adventure (so no Keep on the Borderlands or the orginal Ravenloft. Note that the "short" campaigns and anthologies are okay too. Assume you have a very good TV budget, but not infinite resources, and the requirement is that it is live action. Additonal Difficulty: it cannot be a campaign that also has a novel series, so no Dragonlance or Time of Troubles.

Which campaign do you choose to adapt to prestige television? If you care to do some fan casting, go ahead.

For my part, I would vote Avernus except it would require way too high a budget to do it justice. So instead I would probably go with Dragonheist: it has a cool theme, lots of potential for thrills, but is not so expansive as to blow the budget. I would cast Walter Goggins as the lead, in the form of a down on his luck rogue who owes money to Xanathar.

All of them, in that they all have potentially a pretty good elevator pitch and adventure modules and paths are a pantry of ingredients to make a story not really a premade story. You still have to insert characters, and convert it into 30 or 40 episodic stories that have a connecting arc.
Thinking about it a little more, there are some I would rule out. Princes of the Apocalypse is one that I would rule out, even though I enjoyed running it and my players enjoyed playing it, but each cult is a bit too similar to the other one for tv purposes.
Perhaps a simpler more linear arc would be good, depending on how may seasons one has to tell the story. Tryanny of Dragons perhaps? Also, anything with distinct "Big Bads". Wild Beyond the Witchlight could be good here with 4 distinct arcs (well 3 main ones and a mini one at the beginning).

Candlekeep Mysteries done in the style of Warehouse 13, where a team of elite combat librarians keep the world safe from dangerous tomes and artifacts.

 

[Professor Murder]

Adapting Torment would get my money.

 

[Rainbow Scissors]

Dragonlance seems like the most obvious choice.

Red Hand of Doom from 3rd Edition has potential to be good.

 

[Reynard]

Dragonlance seems like the most obvious choice.

No one reads the OP...

Red Hand of Doom from 3rd Edition has potential to be good.

I considered this, too, but thought it might be too expensive. RHoD is a great module I keep meaning to convert.

 

[DragonLancer]

Shackled City. I've run that campaign so many times and it has been popular with players every time. Perfect mix of urban, wilderness and dungeon, coupled with politics both mortal and planar. 100%

 

[Stormonu]

Despite the clause in the first post, the only one I'd be interested in IS a Dragonlance series that covers the War of the Lance.

 

[Reynard]

Despite the clause in the first post, the only one I'd be interested in IS a Dragonlance series that covers the War of the Lance.

That's not an adaptation of a module though, is it?

 

[Stormonu]

That's not an adaptation of a module though, is it?

Yes, DL1-14.