D&D General What *is* D&D? (mild movie spoilers)

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's just sad. What's life for if not for learning new things?

Note that not being interested in learning a particular new thing (watching a soccer movie) doesn't mean you're not learning other new things (what your wife's day was like, how to improve your business, which stance Greek hoplites took when spear fighting). Time is just finite.

I mean, there's a reason you're not currently reading the following list of reasons to run your D&D games using the Dungeon Fantasy RPG ruleset, right? 31 reasons why you want to pick up Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game (and fast!) | Games Diner

 

[Remathilis]

I just realized that none of the party in the movie are the staple classes.

Fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue.

We get bard, barbarian, sorcerer, druid, paladin.

Since those older classes have been copied so much in video games and the like, maybe they are too common to read as distinctly D&D.

Or maybe the story just called for the classes they have. Certainly Bard makes the most sense to base a movie around. That is essentially what Starlord was too.

And it is good to avoid ranger due to LotR.

Simon had the feel of a wizard so a little strange they went sorcerer for him.

Simon's power was innate, a product of his lineage, and inhibited by his lack of confidence (Charisma) and apparent wild magic. Sorcerer feels appropriate, especially since he didn't seem the kind to study books and instead winged it by natural talent.

 

[DarkCrisis]

This thread is such interesting culture shock to me, I haven't gotten out to see the movie yet but my impression of high magic is radically different because it involves magic that infuses literally everything at all time in showy ways, martials that move like anime characters, rapidfire spellcasting combinations, casual use of magic for social amenities like running water, caster PCs are relatively unremarkable as adventurers go, and outside of adventurers plenty of people have less combat oriented examples of the same level of magic, magic item shops are at least a few to a city if not more, and the campaign will probably end with the players fighting god if they get high enough level.

Depends on the world you play in. Faerun has a lot of fantastical stuff but its rare. Magic Shoppes are likely found in major cities, not in podunk farm village.

Most people will go through their whole lives and never see actual magic or a Beholder or a Dragon or a Mimic etc.

Those who live in a major city will of course see more stuff. Even the peasants because that's where all the action is. People who live in New York or Los Angeles probably see celebrities more often than those who live in Smalltown USA.

As for every class being infused with magic, well that's 5E i guess. Even a fighter has to be near-magical in someway.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Depends on the world you play in. Faerun has a lot of fantastical stuff but its rare. Magic Shoppes are likely found in major cities, not in podunk farm village.

Most people will go through their whole lives and never see actual magic or a Beholder or a Dragon or a Mimic etc.

Those who live in a major city will of course see more stuff. Even the peasants because that's where all the action is. People who live in New York or Los Angeles probably see celebrities more often than those who live in Smalltown USA.

As for every class being infused with magic, well that's 5E i guess. Even a fighter has to be near-magical in someway.

Yeah, interestingly I wouldn't consider Faerun to be high magic... its like... mid magic? With settings like Westeros and Middle Earth being distinctly or even extremely low magic, Faerun has real casters but magic as a whole is still somewhat rare, powerful magic is even rarer. There's things that push back on that a bit (like Drow racial magic is noticeably a higher magic conceit, and that really extends to a lot of what we see of Drow society, maybe because Drow in the game were slightly higher level foes-- even Drizzt is noticeably more acrobatic than you'd necessarily expect) but the overall vibe is still "a Wizard isn't that weird but otherwise most people are living mundane, pseudo-medieval, lives."

 

[OB1]

1. It's not a boiling pot of Tolkien, Vance, Howard, Leiber, and all the other Appendix-N influences any more
2. not including orcs and goblins and ogres and trolls
3. The monsters in the arena are all iconic D&D-specific monsters.
4. The adventuring party isn't the traditional elf, dwarf, halfling, and human.
5. The non-human NPCs are dragonborn and aaracokra and tabaxi.
6. The world itself isn't medieval or dark ages, it's a bright, colourful fantasy rennaisance with giant skyscraping supermax prisons and magical arenas with shifting mazes and hot air balloons.

@DND_Reborn I'm quoting you because this almost perfectly sums up what I loved about the movie and how I like to play D&D (other than not including trolls, those are excellent monsters). I've always been drawn to the more gonzo elements of D&D (dating back to '88) and am personally happy with the direction of the brand. Not trying to change your opinion, nor would I want to! There is too little time in the day to engage with content you don't enjoy (which is why I stopped watching HoD after 3 episodes, it made me miserable).

 

[ilgatto]

(...)

Anyway, I've said (repeatedly) that for people who want to see the movie and enjoy it, that's good for them. But the points laid out in the OP easily represent reasons why I know it won't appeal to me, namely:

1. It's not a boiling pot of Tolkien, Vance, Howard, Leiber, and all the other Appendix-N influences any more
2. not including orcs and goblins and ogres and trolls
3. The monsters in the arena are all iconic D&D-specific monsters.
4. The adventuring party isn't the traditional elf, dwarf, halfling, and human.
5. The non-human NPCs are dragonborn and aaracokra and tabaxi.
6. The world itself isn't medieval or dark ages, it's a bright, colourful fantasy rennaisance with giant skyscraping supermax prisons and magical arenas with shifting mazes and hot air balloons.

None of these things appeal to me at all, and I find them patently anti-D&D.

I was wandering through this thread without caring much one way or the other until I came to this post, when I realized that @DND_Reborn is actually right. This move isn't about D&D at all.

However, for what it's worth, I've heard it's a blast and I'm going to see it anyway.

If anything, I may well find out what D&D has become.

 

[ilgatto]

Rings of Power was pretty good, though hardly perfect. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still my favorite D&D movie, as much as I also like the new one.

. Very well put!

Of course, technically speaking, The Rings of Power isn't an LOTR television series.

 

[Micah Sweet]

. Very well put!

Of course, technically speaking, The Rings of Power isn't an LOTR television series.

I meant the new D&D movie, not tRoP. The Rings of Power deserves to be evaluated on its own merits or lack thereof. It has its good and bad points to be sure.

 

[Remathilis]

. Very well put!

Of course, technically speaking, The Rings of Power isn't an LOTR television series.

Ignoring the debate regarding if RoP is actually Tolkien, it's certainly Tolkienish. Low magic. Medieval tech, classic races (dwarf, elf, orc, hobbit) in their traditional roles. You could, with enough adjustments, make a D&D movie using those exact elements. Personally, I'm glad they went the opposite and embraced the more gonzo elements and made it feel different than something like RoP.

 

[ilgatto]

I meant the new D&D movie, not tRoP.

Of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Perhaps I saw a joke when there wasn't one?

The Rings of Power deserves to be evaluated on its own merits or lack thereof. It has its good and bad points to be sure.

Anyway. I found TRoP to be quite entertaining and actually rather well written - if not at all how I envisaged it should be. As far as I'm concerned, the main thing that is wrong with it is that someone decided to name the main protagonists after numerous figures from Tolkien legend.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Note that not being interested in learning a particular new thing (watching a soccer movie) doesn't mean you're not learning other new things

Very true*, but the posts I was responding to expressed an aversion to trying new things in general, not just one in particular.


*I did decline to join my partner on a hot air balloon ride.

 

[ilgatto]

Ignoring the debate regarding if RoP is actually Tolkien, it's certainly Tolkienish. Low magic. Medieval tech, classic races (dwarf, elf, orc, hobbit) in their traditional roles. You could, with enough adjustments, make a D&D movie using those exact elements.

Heh. I was going to argue that TRoP is actually more like what one could expect from a high-fantasy movie - and therefore, perhaps even a D&D movie - but I thought better of it for many reasons.

Personally, I'm glad they went the opposite and embraced the more gonzo elements and made it feel different than something like RoP.

I've wondered what a "D&D movie" should look like and I can't really come to a conclusion. I mean, there's so many things one can consider D&D that the whole thing is probably a matter of taste. I suppose one could even argue that the first D&D movie is actually very much D&D because of its attempt to tell a heroic and fantastic story ... and then failing.

As far as the D&D movie is concerned, I've always thought it was gonna be a Marvel-esque collection of video clips one after the other, with some clever dialogue and monsters and things D&D in it instead of superheroes. Hollywood and the streamers have become quite good at this these days and that, combined with the CGI of today, made me hope that it would be an enjoyable experience. Judging by what I've heard and read so far, it seems that the movie is quite good at what it does, so I'm quite looking forward to seeing it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@DND_Reborn I'm quoting you because this almost perfectly sums up what I loved about the movie and how I like to play D&D (other than not including trolls, those are excellent monsters). I've always been drawn to the more gonzo elements of D&D (dating back to '88) and am personally happy with the direction of the brand. Not trying to change your opinion, nor would I want to! There is too little time in the day to engage with content you don't enjoy (which is why I stopped watching HoD after 3 episodes, it made me miserable).

I know such things appeal to a lot of D&D players. But I don't think you can say the movie represents what D&D is, but it certainly is what D&D can be if that is what you want. As I said in my first post, it is one of the most marvelous qualities of the game--it can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

 

[Minato]

Ignoring the debate regarding if RoP is actually Tolkien, it's certainly Tolkienish. Low magic. Medieval tech, classic races (dwarf, elf, orc, hobbit) in their traditional roles. You could, with enough adjustments, make a D&D movie using those exact elements. Personally, I'm glad they went the opposite and embraced the more gonzo elements and made it feel different than something like RoP.

Honestly the special effects of this movie just aren't that high budget. They do have a dwarf, and he is on screen for basically as long as the Tabaxi. The Dragonborn and the Aaracokra are part of longer scenes. None of them look convincing enough that they would have done well as main partymembers. To say nothing of the effect they use for the Halfling, infinitely worse then a movie that was made a full 2 decades prior. The arena puzzle is the kind of special effect they were just capable of doing well, I don't think people should be taking it as such a statement of what D&D ought to be by the creators rather then the moviemakers playing to their strengths.

And does it really matter that Simon is half elf sorcerer rather then full elf wizard? His ears aren't any different from Galadriels.

 

[ad_hoc]

Simon's power was innate, a product of his lineage, and inhibited by his lack of confidence (Charisma) and apparent wild magic. Sorcerer feels appropriate, especially since he didn't seem the kind to study books and instead winged it by natural talent.

Oh yeah I get that they went sorcerer.

They could have done the same arc as a wizard though and he relied heavily on components, items, and knowledge/lore of magic and magic items.

 

[Hussar]

I know such things appeal to a lot of D&D players. But I don't think you can say the movie represents what D&D is, but it certainly is what D&D can be if that is what you want. As I said in my first post, it is one of the most marvelous qualities of the game--it can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

I think what’s getting the most push back is that the DnD movie represents a change in what DnD means. As if in the past DnD was one thing and now it is different.

I really disagree with that. DnD has always been gonzo weird. It didn’t have to be, of course. Any table could do what it wanted. But the gonzo was always there.

But that doesn’t fit with the”kids these days” narrative that gets heavily pushed to resist what is seen as changes in the game. So gonzo weird gets painted as “not really DnD” in order to try to make a particular style of DnD the “true DnD”.

 

[JohnSnow]

I think what’s getting the most push back is that the DnD movie represents a change in what DnD means. As if in the past DnD was one thing and now it is different.

I really disagree with that. DnD has always been gonzo weird. It didn’t have to be, of course. Any table could do what it wanted. But the gonzo was always there.

But that doesn’t fit with the”kids these days” narrative that gets heavily pushed to resist what is seen as changes in the game. So gonzo weird gets painted as “not really DnD” in order to try to make a particular style of DnD the “true DnD”.

And I don't even know that the movie is that gonzo/weird.

The characters mostly travel by horse, there's a balloon but no airships, no long-distance teleportation, very few magic items, and the only flight is due to either the Druid's Wildshape or one highjacked Aarokocra. Like, it's awesome and whacky, but it's not that gonzo.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Perhaps I saw a joke when there wasn't one?

I think you may have interpreted an analogy intended to make a point as if it were a general aversion to learning. I don't think DND_Reborn meant the football analogy as a statement of general principle, just an illustration of how their lack of interest in this movie is not intended as an attack on other people's interest in it.

(FTR: I say "their" because "they" has a centuries-long history as the English pronoun for indeterminate gender, despite what your grade school teacher may have told you, but I am 90% certain DND-Reborn is male.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

snip

Most people will go through their whole lives and never see actual magic or a Beholder or a Dragon or a Mimic etc.

Those who live in a major city will of course see more stuff. Even the peasants because that's where all the action is. Snip

[Tangent]

In gameworlds as I build them, people who live in a major city are by far the LEAST likely to run into deadly monsters like beholders, dragons, vampires, etc. The whole point of the armies of civilization is to keep those things far far away.

The people who are most likely to get eaten by a vampire if they step outside after dark, or turned into a toad by a hag, or eaten by a carnivorous psionic ape--those are the people who live on the frontier. (Which BTW acts as a population sink--most people on the frontier aren't descended primarily from the frontiersmen of 100 years ago but from people who failed economically at city/suburban life in one way or another and were forced to move to the frontier to make ends meet. Third sons, disgraced apprentices, etc. It's good, historically-sound logic AND good gaming backstory.)

P.S. On Earth it went the other way--cities were population sinks due to poor sanitation and disease. But the principle of population flowing "downhill" is sound.

[/Tangent]

 

[cbwjm]

I will say, when I watched the movie last night, it did feel very much DnD. If I hadn't known anything about the movie going in, I think I would have found it instantly recognisable.