Who wants fantasy television based on RPG's?

[mittean]

Alright, some of you on here know me. Long and short, I'm a producer/ director in the film industry.

I have some colleagues and friends who just finished a feature, and are pitching it as a TV series. WIRED magazine just covered them.

If you'd like to see this or more shows like this support them. :) Like their FB page, support their kickstarter...the success of this brings about more like it!

WIRED article.

FB page. Like and share it!

Kickstarter page! Let's get them funded, and hit 200%!

[Cyd the Arcmagi]

Looks fun I would watch it.

[mittean]

Spread the word. We're trying to get a lot more content like this made, for people like us. :)

[Nymian Harthing]

Personally I feel a bit conflicted about the idea of fantasy TV shows based on RPGs. Part of it is just that I game for different reasons than I watch TV.

TV is less "real" to me than my time around the table. As a player, I recognize the emotional intensity of the game session is up to me and my friends. We can make the interactions feel pretty real emotionally and I know everyone has their vision of what the characters are like, visually.

As a passive observer of a TV show, I just feel slightly detached. No matter how good a TV show or movie is, I can still tell it's just a movie. A very few shows really grab me and shake me from my jaded existence.

That being said, I encourage anyone who wants to donate to a Kickstarter like this to do so. It could be pretty cool to have more choices for fantasy stuff on TV or Hulu or whatnot.

[mittean]

I actually agree with you, Nymian. It's why I still game. We're just looking to bring more, and bring it closer to the experience so many of us feel as adventurers. :)

[Mandisa]

Glad to see a project like this get some notice. I'm an "unfunded producer" and I pretty much would love to do fantasy TV, but my observation in NYC at least is that the "big time" TV industry is just not *psychologically* inclined to take fantasy seriously. I think that one of the big reasons Game of Thrones made it to the screen is that as-portrayed thus far, it's mostly a no-/low-magic, humans-only setting. It's fairly easy for the producers/executives to pitch it as "Like Rome, only with (limited-CG) dragons".

That "sci-fi ghetto" notion that Hollywood clings to still considers things like Game of Thrones or LotR or even comic-book movies to be wildly chaotic and not terribly predictable in terms of success. I've come to the conclusion that good SF/F TV will almost always have to work through the web and direct-networking to fans, and focus more on building the quality of the work than getting a cable/network contract.

Would love to pick your brain though and "talk shop", feel free to shoot me a PM.

[mittean]

Of the top 40 highest grossing films of all time, only 1 (Titanic) is not a sci-fi or fantasy. Americans are very picky, and want only $300M fantasy films, or they poo poo it. They tend to do better foreign.

For TV, fantasy is actually big right now as well. Supernatural, Grimm, Once, Game of thrones, Revolution, Alphas, Heroes, LOST, Fringe, Caprica...

Unfortunately Terra Nova failed. That one would have been a game changer...in a good way...for TV. High fantasy sci-fi, with time-travel and dinosaurs. Higher budget. $14M opening episode, $4M each additional. And the kicker...FOX TV made profits. But not enough. So it got axed.

The "sci-fi ghetto" notion is totally there, but it's more in the consumer than the studio. One of the highest grossing franchises in Film fantasy sci-fi is Resident evil. $65M budget, $295M worldwide on it's fifth film. It's making more profits now than ever.

And yet I dare you to find a young American mle who won't complain about how crappy it is, and how much they dislike the directors vision, or what they did to "their" game.

GoT succeeds because it's writing is brilliant. It could be set in corporate America, and it'd be compelling, because GRRM is a fantastic (and y fav for 15 years now) writer. My WIFE likes GoT, and dislikes fantasy. :)

It is more difficult to make a fantasy film that we like for under 100M...and it's extremely difficult to raise $10M, or get that amount approved in Hollywood for a budget. So it's a tough sell. :)

Thanks for your support, Mandisa. I've been an "unfunded" producer. I know what it feels like. :)

[Mandisa]

No question that fantasy actually does well in both foreign and domestic markets - but as you say, people have developed a taste for high-budget spectacle. The writing & acting on GoT is amazing, but so too are the lush costumes, sets, and locations. Big-budget television is - to my mind, at least - not entirely sustainable unless you have (a) serious executive support combined with management stability (like HBO often enjoys), and (b) corporate deep pockets (Fox, Disney, and of course the juggernaut that is Time Warner).

A friend of mine has been having good success in the UK, where smaller budgets can take you further. I understand it's a similar situation in Canada and Australia. And I personally feel we ought to be doing more projects with the efficient model used in the East Asian and Latin American markets - short series, marketed extensively, and lots of staff re-use/parallel production.

Another important element to consider - again, a personal interest/opinion - is that there is still some significant US industry pushback against having more ethnic diversity in SF/fantasy TV shows (and films, to a lesser degree). Arrow and Grimm are taking some steps in a good direction there, but we'll have to see how they play out over time (I don't know how either series is selling beyond the US/NAm market, for instance).

Thanks for the moral support :) I've got a doc up on Youtube that reflects some of my feelings about the odd love-hate relationship between geeks and the media. (I'm waiting for some final tweaks from my profs, but NYC has been shaken up a bit recently. *sigh*) Feel free to check it out and offer some tips if you like.

[mittean]

Europe does enjoy more of an indie TV feel. Austrailia as well. We are shooting Wolfenstein up in Canada, likely, and Europe.

NY definetily got smacked...hope all is well.

I agree with the geek thing...:) Growing up one, I am proud to watch us take over industries. I game (Pathfinder and D&D) with execs and actors from big film companies. Jon Favreau started film and storytelling from gaming.

[SuperSlayer]

There is a new Dungeons and Dragons movie on this Saturday on the SYFY channel.

[mittean]

Yes there is. I'll purchase it, but the biggest let down of the series is the writing. Very drab and on-the-nose. :)

[SuperSlayer]

Dungeons & Dragons: Book of Vile Darkness on SYFY this Saturday night.

[LazarX]

Nymian Harthing wrote:

Personally I feel a bit conflicted about the idea of fantasy TV shows based on RPGs. Part of it is just that I game for different reasons than I watch TV.

The reason I'll support this film is that it DOESN'T look like an RPG. RPG's are great recreation for gaming but they are lousy vehicles to chain storytelling as Tracy and Hickman found that the Dragonlance novels got good AFTER they kicked the game system to the curb and stopped referring to it. I find the same thing is true of the published Pathfinder novels, if you try to hold them to the game system, they fall apart. Released from that chain, they come into their own.

Game systems and stats are not stories, they are the pale shadows of story as seen through a narrow lens. They put too much of themselves in the consciousness of the writer and what starts out as story becomes self-conscious dribble.

[Legendarius]

I'd like to see some sort of hybrid show that combines a set of real world characters with realistic personalities, flaws, occupations, families, etc. who happen to all play an RPG together (versus some other activity like all go to the same bar every night ala Cheers or How I Met Your Mother) and then have scenes that depict the action in the game as viewed through the eyes of their game characters. Most of the show in my opinion should be real world drama - but where the main characters, by and large, are geeks. Not a sitcom like Big Bang Theory where all of the main characters are stereotypes but a more serious story.

L

[LazarX]

Legendarius wrote:

I'd like to see some sort of hybrid show that combines a set of real world characters with realistic personalities, flaws, occupations, families, etc. who happen to all play an RPG together (versus some other activity like all go to the same bar every night ala Cheers or How I Met Your Mother) and then have scenes that depict the action in the game as viewed through the eyes of their game characters. Most of the show in my opinion should be real world drama - but where the main characters, by and large, are geeks. Not a sitcom like Big Bang Theory where all of the main characters are stereotypes but a more serious story.

L

Watch the webshow "The Guild". That should be close enough.

[Kthulhu]

Legendarius wrote:

I'd like to see some sort of hybrid show that combines a set of real world characters with realistic personalities, flaws, occupations, families, etc. who happen to all play an RPG together (versus some other activity like all go to the same bar every night ala Cheers or How I Met Your Mother) and then have scenes that depict the action in the game as viewed through the eyes of their game characters. Most of the show in my opinion should be real world drama - but where the main characters, by and large, are geeks. Not a sitcom like Big Bang Theory where all of the main characters are stereotypes but a more serious story.

L

So, pretty much "The Guild" only with a tabletop RPG instead of a MMORPG, and more tilted towards drama than comedy.

[LazarX]

Kthulhu wrote:

Legendarius wrote:

I'd like to see some sort of hybrid show that combines a set of real world characters with realistic personalities, flaws, occupations, families, etc. who happen to all play an RPG together (versus some other activity like all go to the same bar every night ala Cheers or How I Met Your Mother) and then have scenes that depict the action in the game as viewed through the eyes of their game characters. Most of the show in my opinion should be real world drama - but where the main characters, by and large, are geeks. Not a sitcom like Big Bang Theory where all of the main characters are stereotypes but a more serious story.

L

So, pretty much "The Guild" only with a tabletop RPG instead of a MMORPG, and more tilted towards drama than comedy.

A show like that should ONLY be done as comedy as it can't help but look ridiculous. At least in comedy you can milk that as a strength.

[mittean]

I agree, LazarX. The rule system does not lend itself to "story-telling" outside of a ttrpg setting. But to take characters - like Seltiel, Amiri and Merisiel - and immerse them in their own lives, with relationships and troubles and conflicts, with the vehicle of plot and the weather of adventure.

You lose things like leveling up (it's always happening), looting, for the most part, random encounters and the arguments over railroad or sandbox, which gish is best and the psionic magic transparency. You just get story, with occasional throwbacks that will make you smile, both in and out of the game.

Dawn of the dragonslayer was also released today, at local Wal-marts. They did it several years ago, and have improved handily in the intervening time, but it's still quite fun.