Hollywood Directors become Dungeon Masters!

[fusangite]

Well, my nominees:

1. The Jonze/Kaufman team behind Being John Malkovich
2. Peter Greenaway

Of course, my current campaign is directed by Joss Whedon; two years of a cheesy Buffy adaptation and still going strong. In my view, Whedon is actually the most easily adapted to D&D with his treatment of NPCs, themes and good old fashioned battles with the undead.

For a few years, I tried to run campaigns that were close to the Jonze/Kaufman thing -- semi-modern surrealism based around a complex interleaved metatext.

The director I wish I could emulate is Greenaway; my campaigns lack the kind of rich, visual carnality and peculiar sense of causality that I admire in Greenaway, attributes he shares with Lynch.

How are your players handling a Lynchian treatment of cause and effect? It must be quite an adjustment for them!

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Re: Re: Hollywood Directors become Dungeon Masters!

Outside of that... I dunno, anyone but George Lucas I guess.

I completely disagree. My best Star Wars games have been the ones that felt like they popped out of his movies- for example, the time that our party of Jedi had to penetrate a network of flying cities on the planet Indra II to battle the forces of Darth Samsarath and rescue the Empress Avalokiteshvara from the Sith's arrakith-vaadi Death Guard... my players are still talking about that one, and how it felt like it came right out of one of the movies...

Back when I ran Planescape games, I often thought, in light of the "reality is what you can get away with" aspect of the setting, of, not a film director, but of novelist Robert Anton Wilson (of Illuminatus! Trilogy fame). It worked, to say the least.

 

[Wormwood]

I'll second Fincher, since he's adept at moving a story forward while simultanously conveying a *lot* of information. His sense of timing and attention to detail would make him a fine DM. Any game he ran would probably focus on negotiating your way through a rich, textured world filled with memorable and vital NPC's. I don't think you'd pick up dice all night, nor would you want to.

In terms of just plain fun, I'd like to propse Guillermo del Toro. His work in Blade 2 showcases his ability to handle frenetic energy with style and inventiveness. Del Toro's action scenes are so well choreographed that they seem to explode from the confines of the screen. I imagine that any combat run in his game would be fast-paced, fairly liberal with the rules, and highly memorable. I can see him just chucking the battle-mat, leaning forward with his creepy grin and saying, "FIGHT!"

If I were stuck in a dungeon, I would like Andrzej Sekula to lead me out. Tarantino's old cinematographer, he directed Hypercube: Cube 2 and really impressed me with his work. While I still think the original Cube (directed by Vincenzo Natali) was the superior film, Sekula really took hold of the sequel and made it his own (IMHO). I think his game would be claustrophobic and tense, and he would take great delight in pitting the party against itself, until we begged for mercy.

 

[Gargoyle]

I picture a 5 DM team:

- Sam Raimi for dramatic pacing, over the top action, enthusiasm, and exciting descriptions.
- Joss Whedon for character development, fresh dialogue, and plot twists.
- George Lucas (but only as an adventure writer, not a director/DM) for inspiring settings and epic events. And maybe he'll bring John Williams along for the soundtrack.
- Kevin Smith for seamlessly going from deep serious drama to dirty jokes then back, and to keep the above folks from becoming pretentious.
- Piratecat so I'll have someone to blame everything on.

 

[haiiro]

Neat idea.

Fincher seems like he'd make an interesting DM, as has been mentioned (he's certainly one of my favorite directors).

Based not only on his original work (Akira, Domu, etc.), but also on the one take on others' work I've seen him do (his Batman tale in Batman: Black and White), I think Otomo Katsuhiro would take things in deeply absorbing and unexpected directions as a DM.

I'd love to see what Christopher Walken would bring to the table -- if nothing else, his NPCs would be amazing.

...and on the Totally Unrealistic Fantasy Wishlist, having H.P. Lovecraft run Call of Cthulhu (or D&D) would rock.

(Edit: typo.)

 

[Wormwood]

I picture a 5 DM team:

- Sam Raimi for dramatic pacing, over the top action, enthusiasm, and exciting descriptions.
- Joss Whedon for character development, fresh dialogue, and plot twists.
- George Lucas (but only as an adventure writer, not a director/DM) for inspiring settings and epic events. And maybe he'll bring John Williams along for the soundtrack.
- Kevin Smith for seamlessly going from deep serious drama to dirty jokes then back, and to keep the above folks from becoming pretentious.
- Piratecat so I'll have someone to blame everything on.

You can't go wrong with Raimi!

But Joss Whedon? I like Buffy as much as the next guy, but I suspect he would constantly be trying to foist 'sympathetic antagonists' upon the party ("I don't care if the Vampire has a soul or not, Joss. We stake it"). Plus he plays too fast and loose with the setting and rulebook for my taste.

And I'm not singing.

I would only let Lucas DM a game if he threw away his cute & cuddly 'Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones' playbook and picked up his 'American Grafitti' one. We may not get a lot of action, but it would be nice to have him actually *care* about a setting once in a while.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I would only let Lucas DM a game if he threw away his cute & cuddly 'Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones' playbook and picked up his 'American Grafitti' one. We may not get a lot of action, but it would be nice to have him actually *care* about a setting once in a while.

Ugh...here it comes, the Lucas bashing again. Has anyone seen A New Hope??? Gah. Don't want to get into this anyway, just something that really annoys me these days.
As for the topic...wouldn't Tarintino(I can't spell names or words tonight...) be fun? A D&D Pulp Fiction/Resviour Dogs(...again..can't spell for some reason...) would be so fun.

 

[Mercule]

How about a session with Quentin Tarantino? Lots and lots of talking about essentially nothing but the mundane with short bursts of violent combat where half the main characters are killed.

Sounds like the RtToEE game I'm currently playing in.

Note I clipped the second paragraph that involved still being around and being cool.

 

[Wormwood]

...and on the Totally Unrealistic Fantasy Wishlist, having H.P. Lovecraft run Call of Cthulhu (or D&D) would rock.

I'd rather Lovecraft *played* rather than DM. No offense to Ech-Pi-El, but I imagine that his 'adjectivitis' would really slow the game down. And I also don;t think I'd want to slog three weeks through one of his adventures only to find out that the BBEG is 'unimaginable' and 'indescribable'. Dont wimp out on us now, Howard. *Describe it* already!

No, the better DM (Keeper?) would be Robert Bloch. The same love of the genre, but with a better facility for moving the plot along. And a real creepy old man in his own right.

 

[Gargoyle]

You can't go wrong with Raimi!

But Joss Whedon? I like Buffy as much as the next guy, but I suspect he would constantly be trying to foist 'sympathetic antagonists' upon the party ("I don't care if the Vampire has a soul or not, Joss. We stake it"). Plus he plays too fast and loose with the setting and rulebook for my taste.

And I'm not singing.

Yeah, Joss is a bit on the angst-filled storytelling side, but that's what I've got Kevin Smith there for, to keep them all in line.

And Raimi's the head honcho, no doubt. Just framed my Evil Dead movie posters, and I'm trying to figure out how I can hang them so I can see them while I'm working and while I'm DMing.

I would only let Lucas DM a game if he threw away his cute & cuddly 'Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones' playbook and picked up his 'American Grafitti' one. We may not get a lot of action, but it would be nice to have him actually *care* about a setting once in a while. [/B]

No DMing for Lucas in my game either. I prefer the first two movies, where he did not direct. But you gotta admit, he writes some killer stuff. He just needs more people on his staff that will stand up to him and tell him when he's screwing up, or to pay more attention to those people. That's why Kevin Smith is there. I'll make Kevin into George's editor/boss.