Wizards of the Coast - WotC Surrenders

[Darkheart]

@Stingray
I liked the second trailer better than the first one and found the dialogs acceptable (although, I am not a native speaker).
What I don't really get is that these D&D films kinda always have to have funny chars in the lead. They also constantly seem to make fun of the setting. Dunno why a serious film seems out of their focus. Because kids most likely...

 

[Silver]

@Stingray
What I don't really get is that these D&D films kinda always have to have funny chars in the lead. They also constantly seem to make fun of the setting. Dunno why a serious film seems out of their focus. Because kids most likely...

Definitely this. Either treat the fantasy seriously or don't bother.

 

[bjon045]

Definitely this. Either treat the fantasy seriously or don't bother.

I think they are trying to follow the Marvel template. The thing is, when I read through the modules that I have nearly all of them have a serious tone. They might have a funny character here and there i.e. Descent into Avernus but overall it is serious like you said. Comics have one-liners. D&D module's typically do not.

Now, when it comes to how they actually play often the tabletop experience is full of humour so I'm guessing the movie could be trying to replicate that but it's doomed to failure in my opinion. Banter between players is very different than banter between characters in a movie.

I'm guessing we will get this movie and possibly a sequel before the formula gets stale and shelved. Let's face it D&D ain't the LotR.

 

[Gwydden]

What I don't really get is that these D&D films kinda always have to have funny chars in the lead. They also constantly seem to make fun of the setting. Dunno why a serious film seems out of their focus. Because kids most likely...

I'd argue D&D is a very silly game with a very silly (implied) setting and that this is how most people play it.

Note that I'm not saying tabletop RPGs are silly, just that D&D is.

 

[Hastar]

I would say having your brain sucked out by a Mind Flayer would make the movie rated R on the spot. D&D can be incredibly dark if that's what you want. Nothing silly about David Trampier's art.

 

[Gwydden]

I would say having your brain sucked out by a Mind Flayer would make the movie rated R on the spot. D&D can be incredibly dark if that's what you want. Nothing silly about David Trampier's art.

I don't know who that is, but I googled him and among the first images that popped up were a brain with legs, a giant lobster, and a tiger smoking a pipe. I stand by my earlier point. A darker aesthetic doesn't preclude a lighter tone. B-movie horror can be (and usually is) both extremely gruesome and extremely silly. Same goes for something like Warhammer 40k, or the sword and sorcery stories that were D&D's primary inspiration.

D&D is a game about killing wacky monsters with twee names like "owlbear" and "gelatinous cube" to get treasure that makes you better at killing those same monsters, all of which traditionally takes place in the extremely artificial environment of a "dungeon." Even before the more modern superheroics creeped in, nothing about the premise or setting invites gravitas. Like, Vampire: The Masquerade is corny as well but at least it can play off the whole Anne Rice "I am a sexy monster!" melodrama. Even at its darkest, all D&D's got is adventurers dying gruesomely in a death trap of a dungeon—so basically Dragon's Lair.

Nothing wrong with cheese, by the way, but personally I find D&D type settings that take themselves too seriously to be suffering from an identity crisis. It's disconcerting to see, say, Pillars of Eternity be so dour when its setting isn't meaningfully different from the Forgotten Realms (yeah, yeah, I know about the metaphysics stuff, but everyone who runs D&D has their own slightly different but totally revolutionary twist on the Standard Fantasy Setting).

 

[bjon045]

I don't know who that is, but I googled him and among the first images that popped up were a brain with legs, a giant lobster, and a tiger smoking a pipe. I stand by my earlier point. A darker aesthetic doesn't preclude a lighter tone. B-movie horror can be (and usually is) both extremely gruesome and extremely silly. Same goes for something like Warhammer 40k, or the sword and sorcery stories that were D&D's primary inspiration.

D&D is a game about killing wacky monsters with twee names like "owlbear" and "gelatinous cube" to get treasure that makes you better at killing those same monsters, all of which traditionally takes place in the extremely artificial environment of a "dungeon." Even before the more modern superheroics creeped in, nothing about the premise or setting invites gravitas. Like, Vampire: The Masquerade is corny as well but at least it can play off the whole Anne Rice "I am a sexy monster!" melodrama. Even at its darkest, all D&D's got is adventurers dying gruesomely in a death trap of a dungeon—so basically Dragon's Lair.

Nothing wrong with cheese, by the way, but personally I find D&D type settings that take themselves too seriously to be suffering from an identity crisis. It's disconcerting to see, say, Pillars of Eternity be so dour when its setting isn't meaningfully different from the Forgotten Realms (yeah, yeah, I know about the metaphysics stuff, but everyone who runs D&D has their own slightly different but totally revolutionary twist on the Standard Fantasy Setting).

Would you care to give some concrete examples? I own 8 modules from 5e (as well as a vast array from earlier editions) and none of them are particulary cheesy or take themselves lightly like you describe. Yes, there are the odd moment here and there but I Would say 99% of it doesn't. In fact I would describe some of them as being downright grim i.e. Call of the Netherdeep, Rime, Storm king's Thunder etc. Strixhaven and The Wild beyond the Witchlight would be the most light hearted of the modules in my opinion.

The humour has always come from the players and their interaction with each other and the DM - not the source material.

 

[Hastar]

Tiger smoking a pipe, you're funny. Should maybe do a little research on that monster. It's based on mythology from India.

 

[Ripper]

Back when I used to be into D&D, we played it pretty straight. There were some winks in the material to the essential absurdity of it all, but not as the dominant tone.

A comic fantasy setting, something Pratchett-esque, would be fun. But I like my D&D fairly dry.

With that movie trailer, it's that knowing, quippy, 'meta', tone of it all that puts me off. When I see D&D approached that way, it leaves me cold.

 

[Gwydden]

Would you care to give some concrete examples? I own 8 modules from 5e (as well as a vast array from earlier editions) and none of them are particulary cheesy or take themselves lightly like you describe. Yes, there are the odd moment here and there but I Would say 99% of it doesn't. In fact I would describe some of them as being downright grim i.e. Call of the Netherdeep, Rime, Storm king's Thunder etc. Strixhaven and The Wild beyond the Witchlight would be the most light hearted of the modules in my opinion.

The humour has always come from the players and their interaction with each other and the DM - not the source material.

Back when I used to be into D&D, we played it pretty straight. There were some winks in the material to the essential absurdity of it all, but not as the dominant tone.

A comic fantasy setting, something Pratchett-esque, would be fun. But I like my D&D fairly dry.

With that movie trailer, it's that knowing, quippy, 'meta', tone of it all that puts me off. When I see D&D approached that way, it leaves me cold.

Specific adventures is not so much what I had in mind as the overall tone of the game and the culture surrounding it, but you made me realize that the terms "silly" and "cheesy" may be too loaded for what I'm trying to convey. Perhaps it's better to say that D&D strikes me as quintessentially pulpy with not a little bit of exuberant camp, which again makes it much like the kind of short stories that inspired it.

I agree there's a difference between that and quippy, Whedon/Marvel-esque meta humor, which appears to have become more popular with 5E. Maybe the flipside of geek stuff becoming more mainstream is that folks are still self-conscious about liking superheroes and elves, and the only way they can engage with them openly is with their tongues firmly planted on their cheeks. To illustrate my point, a board game review channel I follow recently made a couple videos on RPGs, and in one of them the host says there is "an inherent problem with D&D," namely: "Who on the face of the planet isn't going to be embarrassed earnestly pretending to be a dwarf." While I'm sure he was being hyperbolic for effect, that's quite the generalization.

 

[Couchpotato]

In my experience playing tabletop D&D can be as silly or serious as the DM wants to be. So lets just say both of you are correct about the setting/rules and call it a day.

 

[Morrandir]

To illustrate my point, a board game review channel I follow recently made a couple videos on RPGs, and in one of them the host says there is "an inherent problem with D&D," namely: "Who on the face of the planet isn't going to be embarrassed earnestly pretending to be a dwarf." While I'm sure he was being hyperbolic for effect, that's quite the generalization.

It's also a stupid quote. In roleplaying you don't pretend to be someone. You play someone. You play a role.
That's not much different than a actor playing a role in a movie. Perhaps we should ask John Rhys-Davies if he was embarrassed "pretending" to be Gimli.

 

[Ripper]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that type of humour (when done well), and it has its place. It's just a case of liking pineapple in my fruit salad, but not on my pizza.

With the superhero example, I personally find that genre inherently a bit silly - people gallavanting around in capes and tights in the real world, as part of a drama to be taken seriously. So I find the strongly tongue-in-cheek approach can work quite well there, though I'm sure many fans would disagree.

I think one problem is that if you're trying to get people invested in a dramatic fantasy, that kind of humour which injects a contemporary, ironically-detached manner of speaking into that setting invites us to remain one step removed; to be aware of observing things in a meta way. To me that's a bit of a killer for immersion, if hoping for a fantasy story to get into.