From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd



The new one, I mean. The one that came out in 2023. "Honor Amongst
Thieves". That one.

I saw it a few years ago, back when it was new. I didn't like it much
then, but I decided it deserved a second chance. So many people have
come out and said it was a good movie. Maybe I was just in a mood when
I saw it the first time, I thought. I might like it more this time.

And, I'll admit, I appreciated it a /bit/ more. There was a certain
bit of heart to the story, sure... and the speak-with-dead scene was
fun. But the rest? It's not my Dungeons & Dragons.

Which may be the problem. I started playing D&D back when it was all
grungy fantasy; Ffahrd and Conan and Frodo. It was all dirty and
low-magic, and death-and-blood were constant companions. It wasn't light-hearted comedy and magic so common nobody blinks an eye when a
dragon appears. It wasn't a game about the feels, it was about
survival. Which, you know, as a player character wasn't very likely.

But that --at least if I'm to go by how people play on YouTube-- isn't
how people play the game these days. There's little world-building,
little interest in realism, little grime. Wizards are a dime-a-dozen,
and dragons are an inconvenience. Nobody tries to justify the
dungeons, the world is rife with modernisms, and the heroes wander
through it without a care in the world.

Which, look... it's fine, if that's the way you want to play. I'm not
saying the tone of old-school D&D is how it's supposed to be. I just
don't personally like this new style. Others do... and I think the D&D
movie reflects this. Which explains why I don't like the movies based
on the modern game.

But still... I'd really like to see a D&D movie with a proper
old-school, takes-itself-seriously story, built around a world with
lore and only minimal comedic elements. There's just so much work and
lore put into WOTC's gameworlds (even Forgotten Realms) and the movies
either ignore it (except for a few hahaha-did-you-see fan-service
moments) or try to create a half-assed replica. It just seems a waste
not to use it.

But I guess modern D&D players don't really care about that stuff, so
its no wonder the producers didn't bother. The few old-school
grognards like myself just aren't a big enough market to cater too. I
get it. I just don't like it. I could still appreciate the movie for
what it was, and I guess for some light-hearted commercial fantasy it
wasn't too bad.


But it didn't help when the movie ended with the tag-line
"based on Hasbro's Dungeons & Dragons". I vomited a little bit in my
mouth when I saw that. Fat dragons and cities floating over lava I can
stomach, but that was a bit much.








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