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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[Celebrim]

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.

I'm sure he read it: as an adult, while researching his book. I'm just not sure he really understands what he read or really has any emotional attachment to it.

 

[Bradley Hindman]

I'm sure he read it: as an adult, while researching his book. I'm just not sure he really understands what he read or really has any emotional attachment to it.

or perhaps he fully understands what he read (either as a child or an adult) but decided to take a little creative license to enhance the story told in the book.

 

[Celebrim]

or perhaps he fully understands what he read (either as a child or an adult) but decided to take a little creative license to enhance the story told in the book.

That's always a really weak thin excuse. Before that holds any water at all, you have to be able to show that in fact the creative license enhanced the story rather than subtracted from it. Usually in fact what it does is remove depth from the story, so that it is no more or less enjoyable for someone who doesn't intellectually engage with the text, but it is less enjoyable for someone that does.

But fortunately, we don't have to engage in that silly argument with respect to this particular text, because this particular text eliminates that as a possibility simply by virtue of the overriding themes of the story. This is literally a story that celebrates the seemingly excessive attention to detail that nerd fandoms have. This is a story that equates moral goodness with the ability to recall the most seemingly trivial of facts with respect to its celebrated fandoms. It is a marker by which in the story you can distinguish protagonists who are on the side of good and right, from the characters like I-Roc which are in fact morally deficient poseurs. The act of obsessively memorizing details and getting them right is a sort of discipline that proves the worth of the person. In the story, the characters are tested in their ability to recite the scriptures of fandom as a way of separating the worthy from the unworthy, as a sieve designed by its creator as a means of determining who cared enough to be worthy to inherit the world.

At no point does the story judge obsessive attention to detail as pathetic and pedantic. Rather, in the story itself to be pedantic is to be heroic. All those trivial facts that you memorized as an obsessive fan help you save the world. It's the members of that culture who share that as a commonality, and who can recognize each other from those common markers, and who are part of the potlatch culture of amateur fandom who rally together to defeat evil.

So in that context, it's natural to suppose that the story itself will be one that thrives on obsessive attention to detail so that it's (supposed) intended target audience, the very culture that it is celebrating, the very culture it's author claims to be a part of, will see themselves in the text.

And the problem I have is that it's rather clear that I'm not the target audience precisely because the story doesn't survive that sort of attention to detail, either from a technical sense or in terms of the intellectual property (like D&D) it's supposedly celebrating. Rather than give us details to see ourselves in, the vast majority of the text just name drops long lists of nerd stuff - usually some of the most obvious nerd stuff. But the story itself is rarely about the actual experience of those things, it's just rattling off things that there exists some sort of fandom for.

To me it becomes a very fair question. Is the author actually his self-projection into the story of Parcival, the uber-nerd who really gets all this stuff deep down and has done the hard work to earn it, or is the author actually I-Roc, the poseur that he scorns?

To me, the answer that he has Acererak in place of the second false lich in the chamber of pillars speaks for itself. To me, the fact that it is a critical plot point of the setting that not only did no one in the game ever build a Tomb of Horrors instance except the creator (as if Tomb of Horrors wasn't one of the first mods someone builds for any extensible game), but that the protagonist uses a image scanning algorithm to find that one instance using an obsolete laptop and no one but himself and the love interest has attempted that in the years that the Easter Egg hunt has been on speaks for itself. Anyone that acts like that image scanning can't be handled by a well behaved divide and conquer algorithm is not the nerd he's pretending to be. And all of these objections could be easily handled without harming the story, because to a non-nerd it's all just gobbly-gook and techno-babble anyway. But if you are going to write for a nerd audience celebrating a nerd culture in a story where the nerd pension for pendantry is a heroic virtue, it does bloody well matter whether you get that jargon somewhat correct.

 

[Bradley Hindman]

That's always a really weak thin excuse. Before that holds any water at all, you have to be able to show that in fact the creative license enhanced the story rather than subtracted from it.

Actually I don't need to show anything of the like. But for a different reason than you mention later in your post. The quality of the author's "enhancement" is completely subjective and somewhat irrelevant. If the author changed facts and thought that by doing so he enhanced the story, then that should be enough to satisfy. Not all creativity must be "better" for all readers. Further, when a story is ported to a different media, changes usually need to made. Movies can't tell the same story as books and books can't tell the same story that an interactive roleplaying module does. Personally, I think the joust duel with Acererak was great. If Cline had followed the module without modification that ending would not have been possible.

As to the rest of your post, I only have one thing to say. Your nerd fu is clearly strong.

 

[Zarithar]

So... no one can confirm that there's anything other than the Green Devil Face we all know and love on the back of the van? Is Acererak and the Tomb in the film or no? Also, I don't care about spoilers. Bring em' on!

 

[Brodie]

Actually I don't need to show anything of the like. But for a different reason than you mention later in your post. The quality of the author's "enhancement" is completely subjective and somewhat irrelevant. If the author changed facts and thought that by doing so he enhanced the story, then that should be enough to satisfy. Not all creativity must be "better" for all readers. Further, when a story is ported to a different media, changes usually need to made. Movies can't tell the same story as books and books can't tell the same story that an interactive roleplaying module does. Personally, I think the joust duel with Acererak was great. If Cline had followed the module without modification that ending would not have been possible.

As to the rest of your post, I only have one thing to say. Your nerd fu is clearly strong.

Yes, this. Let's also not forget the liberties Stranger Things has taken with D&D.

Going by what I remember of the book, Halliday was about the same age (maybe a few years older) than the kids in Stranger Things. Those kids were clearly learning and playing the game on their own, using what they could understand and making up ruling for what they couldn't. The same logic could be applied to Halliday. Sure, as he got older he probably understood that initial concept of things was flawed and inaccurate, but who here among us can say that we easily shook off childhood perceptions?

As for whether or not Tomb of Horrors is in the movie... I don't know in the slightest. What I do know is that it's pretty integral to the plot and basically sets the rest of the story (for Wade, that is) in motion.

I know I'm going to lose some street cred here for saying this, but I honestly don't know the difference between a lich and demi-lich, either.

 

[Morrus]

I know I'm going to lose some street cred here for saying this, but I honestly don't know the difference between a lich and demi-lich, either.

A demilich is a floating skull. A lich is a humanoid undead wizard.

 

[Deset Gled]

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.

This is literally a story that celebrates the seemingly excessive attention to detail that nerd fandoms have. ...

And the problem I have is that it's rather clear that I'm not the target audience precisely because the story doesn't survive that sort of attention to detail, either from a technical sense or in terms of the intellectual property (like D&D) it's supposedly celebrating. ...

To me it becomes a very fair question. Is the author actually his self-projection into the story of Parcival, the uber-nerd who really gets all this stuff deep down and has done the hard work to earn it, or is the author actually I-Roc, the poseur that he scorns?

I think you're close to the answer here, just a little off at the end. Ready Player One is a total Mary Sue story. Possibly the ultimate one. And any true Mary Sue is idealized to a point of ridiculous perfection.

But that creates a problem. An author who creates a character that's the world's best poet is in trouble when forced to write examples of that poetry. A TV show about the world's best singer eventually has to show the singing, and it's supposed to be Grammy worthy. Ernest Cline is undoubtedly a fan of the 80s culture he writes about, but he's not the ultimate Mary Sue level fan he writes about. So the depiction falters a bit.

The end result is that his representation of the ultimate Mary Sue is portrayed by the sheer volume of references and obscure-ness of trivia rather than emotional depth. That may come off as a little shallow (and/or possibly somewhere on the autism spectrum), but it works for me. It's like listening to Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis or I've Been Everywhere by Hank Snow in a bar so you can shout then name of your home town when it comes up. I am unashamed of my smile when RPO made minor references to TMBG or Krull just because I like those things, not because they got the same love I have for them.

To that end, I'm okay if the D+D references in an 80s tribute movie gets the water-down treatment to make it palatable to general audiences. What I'm not okay with is an 80s tribute movie that gets dominated by a robot from 1999.

 

[Celebrim]

I think you're close to the answer here, just a little off at the end. Ready Player One is a total Mary Sue story. Possibly the ultimate one. And any true Mary Sue is idealized to a point of ridiculous perfection.

Male self projection into an idealized character is usually called Marty Stu, but generally I agree.

But that creates a problem. An author who creates a character that's the world's best poet is in trouble when forced to write examples of that poetry. A TV show about the world's best singer eventually has to show the singing, and it's supposed to be Grammy worthy. Ernest Cline is undoubtedly a fan of the 80s culture he writes about, but he's not the ultimate Mary Sue level fan he writes about. So the depiction falters a bit.

The end result is that his representation of the ultimate Mary Sue is portrayed by the sheer volume of references and obscure-ness of trivia rather than emotional depth. That may come off as a little shallow...

Let me make a comparison with this level of tribute that I think worked. In Kevin Smith's "Clerks", the two friends engage in a impassioned nerd argument about a minor point of Star Wars lore. The reason it worked is that not only could I see myself in that argument, the actual point that is being argued is original, interesting, and relevant. The only way you could come up with that argument is if you were so deep in the fandom, that you'd actually had that conversation yourself. And the real world contractor who then enters into the conversation, has a very interesting perspective on the topic. That scene earns more nerd points for me than all the "I've Been Everywhere" name drops in a Hank Snow song (or Johnny Cash cover), because you know that the author isn't just rattling off names.

For me, one of the several reason it was an OK book rather than a favorite book, is the book itself felt like a watered down treatment to make it palatable to general audiences, written by someone who was largely mining 80s nostalgia for useful material rather than recalling their own experiences with nostalgia. I mean, there are I think a few exceptions to that. I don't think anyone just doing research would have featured "Black Tiger" centrally to the story. But that's a video game from right at the end of the 80's, where as most of the rest of the material strikes me as stuff the author encountered in the '90s and knows mostly second hand. He does not strike me as someone that say the original theatrical release of Star Wars 5 times in the theater, really was a 12 year old DM to a band of geeks on bicycles, tried to write video games on his C64 (peek and poke anyone?), and got his soul sucked out in the Tomb of Horrors when it was run by an older cousin of the group. Heck, he doesn't strike me as someone who has the slightest technical background at all. His economics sucks. His understanding of computers is negligible. The OASIS game design would have been considered obsolete by the late 1990's, and his Easter Egg would have been uncovered in 5 days by an army of geeks considering how trivial most of the elements are.

I liked parts of the story, but I'm not the audience any more than I'm the audience for 'Big Bang Theory'. There are geek consultants on that show, but the humor is mostly of the, "Look how weird nerds are" variety. Future young geeks aren't going to be nostalgic for "Big Bang Theory". They are going to remember "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog", and "Standupmaths" and/or probably a bunch of nerdy things I don't really know about because I'm too old and have my own geek world already. What are the young geeks doing these days? (Hopefully, they've moved on from 'Star Wars'.)

(and/or possibly somewhere on the autism spectrum)

Senator, I know autism spectrum. I live with autism spectrum. The austism spectrum is a friend of mine. And Senator, he is no where on the autism spectrum.

 

[Deset Gled]

That scene earns more nerd points for me than all the "I've Been Everywhere" name drops in a Hank Snow song (or Johnny Cash cover), because you know that the author isn't just rattling off names.

I'm not going to deny that your opinion is valid. But I can enjoy both for what they are.

Senator, I know autism spectrum. I live with autism spectrum. The austism spectrum is a friend of mine. And Senator, he is no where on the autism spectrum.

Reading my post again, I realize that I might have accidentally equated "autistic" with "shallow" there. Apologies, that came out wrong. I was trying to reference the way that some of the recitation aspects of RPO have been equated to some autistic memory patterns. IIRC, there are even some references in RPO to Haliday possibly being autistic. It will be interesting to see how his character comes across in the movie.