Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among thieves.

Well said, Ragitsu.

+1

I'd even wager most PnP groups play their campaigns as serious rather than comical/silly. Granted, that doesn't preclude their sessions from having comedic and hilarious moments, but their general tone is serious.

You know, I expected it. I watched the trailer and thought, "Here we go again. Why can't they create a fricking good D&D movie? It looks like a Sci Fi channel original, tbh. I'll probably still watch it, but I have very very low expectations. It looks like the same quality as the 2000 one with Jeremy Irons and Wynan.

I'd love to see something like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 brought to the big screen... Or Crystal Shard... Or maybe Pool of Radiance...

Ah! Imagine it. A band of heroes enters Old Phlan to try to figure out why there are so many monsters busting at the walls to try to get at the citizens of the new city. The dark streets, the stench, the trolls... Only to face the bronze dragon at the end... Classic.

On the plus side: I liked the black dragon, the Owlbear moments and the tiefling... Oh, and the displacer beast.

Agreed. Every game I have been a part of, whether tabletop or LARP has been generally serious with some funny moments. One game ages ago (VtM) we had one person who constantly tried to make a joke out of everything and eventually they realised it made things awkward and didn't come back.

As for this movie, I will pass. I rarely watch movies anyway and this one does not look like it will be at all my type.

You can perceive it however you want, but I'm not mischaracterizing anything. I never said the campaign had to be humorous. I said playing D&D, with a bunch of friends around a table, was always very humor-filled for me. The humor comes from how players choose to play their characters, and from how players react to events and outcomes in the game.

And I'd wager the exact opposite.

Playing D&D is about having fun with your friends, and if that is not what's happening in your game then you're doing it wrong.

Players laughing and/or having fun =/= a game system being fundamentally comedic.


At least "Dungeons & Dragons (2000)" is "so bad, it's good"; this attempt looks to be "so derivative, it's immediately forgettable".

Gotta remember trailers can often be deceptive and will often overly highlight elements for marketing reasons..

They went hard on the "misfit team" element because misfit team movies sell. The tone is also a lot like what you'd find and any given table, the face bard who tries to make plans, the paladin trying to go for those glorious kills, the to the point but generally chill barb. I bet the studio is hoping for grass roots advertisement from a lot of fans excited to see their table on the sliver screen.

Not entirely on topic, but since it's so prominently displayed at end of the trailer... the current D&D logo/font looks super weak to me there. I don't think I've liked any iteration since like 1999 when they ditched the AD&D font and went back to all caps, but seeing it flash across the screen in the trailer just reminded me. Maybe it's the serifs? I don't know, but the new Amp too, with the grayscale gradient since 2014 definitely isn't doing it for me either. Looks a bit better when they keep it all in crimson like at the top of this page, but even there the rest of the text is meh. I get that they were trying to recapture the spirit of Chainmail and First Edition, but they kind of missed the mark completely when they just went with that boring ass flat bold typeset. They've had 3 logo change misses in a row now, like two decades worth of bland. Of course the movie couldn't be anything but camp comedy with Sci-Fi channel caliber CGI heheh

The OG logo had such style and such charm, you know, like an actual human being was behind it. I can saddle up for the AD&D 2nd edition blue, cause that's my era for sure, but I think the last one I actually enjoyed was this one...

Everything since has been pretty downhill

Give me half hour of that wonderful cute fluffy (?) Owlbear and i will be totally satisfied with my my pira... ehm, i mean totally legaly buyed copy!

This is it exactly. And the vast majority of the millions of people worldwide currently playing D&D will surely see it that way: "This is *my* tabletop D&D game up on the silverscreen. How cool is *that*!"

And I would wholeheartedly agree with them. It is D&D movies that should be about and leave you with a feel of TT D&D, and NOT a D&D cRPG.

Yeah. I have to disagree. Here's why: No single D&D movie has done well (at least that I know of). They all flop. Why? No one takes them seriously because those who create them don't create them to be a serious fantasy movie. They create D&D movies to be campy, (I don't know how else to put this) and cheesy. The story lines are lacking. The acting is usually not good, even from famous actors, the directing usually sucks, and I usually cringe the entire time I watch them.

If D&D wants people to actually pay to see their movies, and they want to make good money on them and make more, they need to stop goofing around with them. They need to make a high quality Lord of the Rings style fantasy story that captures people's attentions. Honestly, the Harry Potter series was made for children, and it was still full of goofy moments, but it captured the hearts and minds of adults as well. Why? It had depth and wasn't some cheesy story. It was serious enough to grab people's hearts and minds.

I know I'm pre-judging this movie. It could wind up being VERY good. I'm going to see it. I just have very low expectations based on D&D 2000, Warcraft movie, and others like them. Thus far, I see nothing that makes me think this movie won't be just like them - very cheesy and nothing like the serious fantasy stories D&D CAN and OFTEN is.

I'm just saying. Why don't they ever create movies based on stories like Demon Stone, Crystal Shard, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (imagine Irenicus on the big screen - wait. Nevermind. Video games never make good movies), Pool of Radiance, Dragonlance, the Ravenloft series, The Moonshae series... SOMEthing more serious and deep.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: "Dungeons & Dragons is goofy - because, uh, we say so - so let's not take this proposed Dungeons & Dragons film seriously."


Don't mind them; between all of the officially published settings and their accompanying novels, it is certainly possible to create at least one good Dungeons & Dragons film. By the way...given how much modern day consumers love grimdark, a pay-per-view television series based on the War of the Spider Queen books could really rake in the bucks.

You know what I blame? I blame the big YouTube D&D productions (Critical Role in particular is big offender).

I'm not sure why, most D&D series I've watched on youtube all take themselves very seriously, with few instances of wacky hijinks. The exception being Dimension 20 D&D shows, which are short form campaigns made by comedians specifically.

I think people here are in danger of confusing a "beer and chips" style game, which is more focused on having an adventurous fun romp (Princess Bride style, not too serious, and relatively low risk, but still an adventure), with a deliberately comedic wacky hijinks game like Dungeon and Daddies.

Humperdinck! HUMPERDINCK!

Humor doesn't nessisarily make things campy or cheesy, hell even gritty GoT in the good seasons had its humor.

From what we've seen of the adaptation it has proper graphical fidelity and has proper care put into world and costume design

I'm not saying humor means campy and cheesy. I'm saying that from what I can see based on the trailer, it looks campy and cheesy, like they are focusing more on making yet another campy and cheesy D&D 2000 movie than a serious Lord of the Rings style epic story. To me, it looks like a Sci Fi original of the same caliper as Warcraft, and even Harry Potter was a more serious fantasy than this one appears, at first glance, to be.

I'm not pumped. I'm more disappointed. I'm more interested in the Rings of Power than this movie, and that's kinda saying something. I don't have a lot of faith in Rings of Power either.

Also keep in mind that whatever the movie will end up being like, the trailer will make it look like the most MCU-iest MC that ever U'd

Is it any wonder you stick to fan-fiction?