The next D&D movie...

[Tacticslion]

Gotcha! :)

[Thomas Seitz]

phantom1592 wrote:

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Olive was fine. She just didn't stand out as much as Dragonbait.

I love Dragonbait. :p

I really don't see how a dinosaur knight who communicated through scent would translate to a movie.

I didn't think it worked well in prose, let alone on the screen O.O

I thought it worked fine for me. As for on screen, hey that's what scratch and sniff stickers are for! :p :)

Besides Dragonbait is pretty cool simply because he's not your typical guy in platemail running around like you see in other fantasy things.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Dragonbait. I've always really hated that name.

[SmiloDan]

phantom1592 wrote:

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Olive was fine. She just didn't stand out as much as Dragonbait.

I love Dragonbait. :p

I really don't see how a dinosaur knight who communicated through scent would translate to a movie.

I didn't think it worked well in prose, let alone on the screen O.O

Scratch-N-Sniff handouts! With a cue on when to scratch and/or sniff.

[Thomas Seitz]

Purple,

It's not his real name I'd imagine. Just what Alias calls him.

Smilo,

EXACTLY. :)

[SmiloDan]

Purple,

His name doesn't translate well into the Common tongue, but it is

Dragonbait's not-so-secret identity:

Champion

.

[Thomas Seitz]

Smilo,

Which if we ever got WotC to use draconic, might be kind of cool sounding.

[John Napier 698]

phantom1592 wrote:

Thomas Seitz wrote:

Olive was fine. She just didn't stand out as much as Dragonbait.

I love Dragonbait. :p

I really don't see how a dinosaur knight who communicated through scent would translate to a movie.

I didn't think it worked well in prose, let alone on the screen O.O

Actually, scents were an adjunct to the "spoken language" of chirps and whistles. Scents were mainly to convey emotional state.

Olive Ruskettle in the Finder's Stone wrote:

"Nothing smells like baking bread than an angry Saurial." or similar wording

The movie could do the chirps and whistles, and do subtitles as translations.

And Tongues could translate Saurial into common, as the Saurial Wizard Grypht demonstrated.

[Quark Blast]

Norman Osborne wrote:

Quark Blast wrote:

Posted by SKR wrote:

<here>

Given the prominence of Tomb of Horrors in the novel Ready Player One, and the upcoming movie adaption of the same name, smart money says we'll see a 5e version at about the same time the movie comes out (March 2018).
October 10, 2016 at 5:06 AM

I'd also like to point out a couple of errors about this quote. There is absolutely nothing to confirm that the Sean involved in that conversation is SKR. Secondly, the quoted post was not even made by Sean, it was made by an anonymous poster.

I'll not take those lumps. Sean is the blogger and his name is linked via the hyperlink in the comment poster's name. See Sean for his profile description. Looks like SKR to me.

However, and I'm almost too embarrassed to admit it, the discussion there on that blog was about what a future WotC D&D 5E book publication will be. The speculation there being is it will tie in with the Tomb of Horrors because it would get a boost from the Ready Player One movie release - assuming the movie holds close to the book it's adapted from.

I was hoping my post would spur useful discussion or that someone would dig up something from elsewhere on the Internet to enlighten us.

OTOH it bothers me that in the summer of 2015 there was significant hype about what the next movie will be and it's been dead air space since.

When they make it, if they make it, I cannot imagine it will be Star Wars or Lord of the Rings good. How could it be? Hopefully it will be better than the last Warcraft movie plot wise.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

The problems with the Warcraft movie had nothing to do with the plot as all around subpar acting and/or direction.

[SmiloDan]

Azure Bonds has a fun plot...

spoilers:

"How do I get rid of these tattoos? I gotta fight a dra-whaaaaat? The avatar of the evil god is NOT the most challenging enemy??? You have HOW many mouths???

***beats dead horse***

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

The next movie is an automatic failure if it is sold, written, conceived of, or titled "Dungeons and Dragons".

Game Titled Movies of even more mainstream genres have not done well.

Clue is the exception that proves the rule, because it surmounted it's limits with an all-star cast that did some of their best work.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Clue was also a pretty cleverly-written movie. I wouldn't just credit the actors for it.

[Quark Blast]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

The next movie is an automatic failure if it is sold, written, conceived of, or titled "Dungeons and Dragons".

Game Titled Movies of even more mainstream genres have not done well.

Clue is the exception that proves the rule, because it surmounted it's limits with an all-star cast that did some of their best work.

I agree that "Dungeons and Dragons" would be perhaps the worst possible choice for a title.

And Google agrees with you regarding game titled movies. Most of them totally suck and even the ones that made money (Resident Evil seemingly since yet another one is coming out) aren't exactly game changers.

[Hama]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

The problems with the Warcraft movie had nothing to do with the plot as all around subpar acting and/or direction.

Had to do with plot as well.

[Quark Blast]

Hama wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

The problems with the Warcraft movie had nothing to do with the plot as all around subpar acting and/or direction.

Had to do with plot as well.

If the plot was trying to tie in with the MMO, then, yeah.

[KahnyaGnorc]

Dungeons & Dragons is not a story or a movie. It isn't even a game in the more traditional sense. It is a toolbox by which a DM and players create a game and a story. I could see "Return to Undermountain: A Dungeons & Dragons Story" or "Dungeons & Dragons: Azure Bonds" or better yet, just "Legend of Drizzt: Homeland" with the D&D logo in the opening sequence, like the Marvel logo in the MCU.

*movie titles were just examples.

[Set]

So, if a 'D&D movie' was based on some old-school adventures, which would you choose?

Keep on the Borderlands

Tomb of Horrors

Descent into the Depths of the Earth/Vault of the Drow (I'd want to skip the whole bit about the Kuo-Toa, as it veers from the theme, IMO)

Against the Slave Lords

Against the Giants (doesn't flow well, from Hill to Frost to Fire Giants, IMO)

Desert of Desolation

Expedition to Barrier Peaks (maybe too gonzo for a first offering)

Age of Worms, Shackled City or Savage Tide

Temple of Elemental Evil

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

Isle of Dread

Red Hand of Doom

[ulgulanoth]

temple of elemental evil

[SmiloDan]

Isle of Dread or Red Hand of Doom SOUND like fun movie titles.

[thejeff]

Honestly, I don't think that's the right approach to take and I think that leads into a trap that would keep it from being any good.

Any of those could be the frame for a good movie, but the heart and soul are the characters and what their motivations are. Starting by focusing on the trappings of the adventure just makes it harder to have the story develop properly from the characters. They're just tacked on to an existing plot.
Or into an existing layout, since at least some of those don't really have a plot or even really a villain. Just a place, with a bunch of monsters to kill.

[SmiloDan]

Yeah, characters and their motivations are probably the most important aspect of movies.

I forget which movie it was, but I recently saw a movie that was just a bunch of set-piece action sequences strung together. The plot made no sense, and even the movement from location to location made no sense.

I think it was one of the newer Transformers movies....

[Raven Moon]

I would love to see something done in Forgotten Realms be it in Waterdeep or even Cormyr. While I wouldnt mind an original story but I would like to have a quick trip into The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. That was a classic low level dungeon. Ten Towns would be an almost necessary setting as well as Silverymoon.

[Tacticslion]

Set wrote:

So, if a 'D&D movie' was based on some questionably old-school adventures, which would you choose?

OOC added by me

I've said it before, but Sons of Gruumsh makes an excellent frame for a potential story. It has politics, armies, danger, magic rituals, human sacrifice, significant (plot-based) magic items and locations for each kind of character to shine; it has a city, a wilderness, a ruins, and a themed "bad guys" of a kind that (thanks to Lord of the Rings and Warcraft) everyone is more or less familiar with - but though it paints them clearly as villains, it also shows off that they have the potential for culture and greatness and motivations that are beyond, "Murder, death, pillage" (even if that's what they've mostly been reduced to in the present day).

The NPCs are integrated and often powerful, and there are plenty of places to expand upon (or reduce) their relative "screen time" - similarly, the overland hazards can easily be reduced or increased based on the needs of the film.

Backups would be things like Shadowdale: Scouring of the Land* (or whatever it's called - they couldn't make up their mind at the time, either), Barrow of the Forgotten King**, or Whispers of the Vampire's Blade^; or even something Fallen Angel or Steel Shadows (or other short adventures) could make a solid film (or even series).

While I would love to see Mysteries of the Moonsea, City of the Spider Queen, or Red Hand of Doom made into film, I strongly suspect that any of those would simply be too large for a single film.

* Technically part of a series of adventures, but of the three, I think this is best one, because it is both the "least weird" and thus most comprehensible and relatable to general audience in terms of villains and plot motivations, and it can function as a more-or-less standalone adventure. It's weakened as an entry, though, I'll admit, because of that. The problem is the first one starts by <PLOT SPOILER FOR HALF WAY THROUGH> - that's going to be a very weird thing for most people, and the adventure just kind of hinges on that.

** Similar to Shadowdale', this is part of a series, but unlike that entry, it's the first in the series, and the weirdness slowly amps up entry by entry. That said, I find it weak because it's a kind of "sloggy" adventure - it'll need some serious reworking to be a solid film's framework. I do think the vague plot outline is solid for that, though.

^ Technically part of a series, but entirely viable as a stand-alone, especially if the (rather needless) "B-plot" linking the other adventures is scrubbed. This could lead to later adventures linked to this one that don't actually hinge on said B-plot - considering said B-plot is kind of dropped early on. That said, starting with The Forgotten Forge and Shadows of the Last War could be solid - either having them as stand-alones, or linking them to Whispers' works; the problem is that they're kind of grind-y, despite some excellent cinematic moments.

thejeff wrote:

Honestly, I don't think that's the right approach to take and I think that leads into a trap that would keep it from being any good.

Any of those could be the frame for a good movie, but the heart and soul are the characters and what their motivations are. Starting by focusing on the trappings of the adventure just makes it harder to have the story develop properly from the characters. They're just tacked on to an existing plot.
Or into an existing layout, since at least some of those don't really have a plot or even really a villain. Just a place, with a bunch of monsters to kill.

I don't think that it would by default, but rather that it could lead to such a problem, if people relied on the adventure. The key, in this case, is to have an adventure as a framework for the plot, not as the most important part of the film.

Effectively, have the framework, but build the characters and their motivations as the most important elements. Get solid actors, and then let the plot fill out the rest.

But it can be tempting to leave it at having the adventure - if you have no one to go through it (or the people you have are boring or uninteresting to watch), you have just entered the problem that many groups have. :)

[Norman Osborne]

Quark Blast wrote:

I'll not take those lumps. Sean is the blogger and his name is linked via the hyperlink in the comment poster's name. See Sean for his profile description. Looks like SKR to me.

I'm sorry, but I don't really see anything in that profile to suggest SKR. Is it possible? Sure. But other than the fact that he likes D&D and is named Sean, I don't see anything to suggest it. My name is Benjamin Franklin, but I didn't "discover" electricity.

[GreyWolfLord]

Set wrote:

So, if a 'D&D movie' was based on some old-school adventures, which would you choose?

Keep on the Borderlands

Tomb of Horrors

Descent into the Depths of the Earth/Vault of the Drow (I'd want to skip the whole bit about the Kuo-Toa, as it veers from the theme, IMO)

Against the Slave Lords

Against the Giants (doesn't flow well, from Hill to Frost to Fire Giants, IMO)

Desert of Desolation

Expedition to Barrier Peaks (maybe too gonzo for a first offering)

Age of Worms, Shackled City or Savage Tide

Temple of Elemental Evil

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

Isle of Dread

Red Hand of Doom

Temple of Elemental Evil...

But only if they make it out like a Horror Movie.

That could be cool... a bunch of teen adventurers get killed in the movie...

Ends like a LOT of adventurers in that adventure probably did...dead.

It does NOT have a happy ending...afterall...need to make it horror enough to actually be horror.

[John Napier 698]

Set wrote:

So, if a 'D&D movie' was based on some old-school adventures, which would you choose?

Keep on the Borderlands

Tomb of Horrors

Descent into the Depths of the Earth/Vault of the Drow (I'd want to skip the whole bit about the Kuo-Toa, as it veers from the theme, IMO)

Against the Slave Lords

Against the Giants (doesn't flow well, from Hill to Frost to Fire Giants, IMO)

Desert of Desolation

Expedition to Barrier Peaks (maybe too gonzo for a first offering)

Age of Worms, Shackled City or Savage Tide

Temple of Elemental Evil

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

Isle of Dread

Red Hand of Doom

Red Hand of Doom, definitely. It is sort of a war story, after all.

[Thomas Seitz]

Age of Worms! I love Kyuss! :D

[Werthead]

Certainly the plan is to make D&D a shared universe like Marvel, DC, Star Wars and the planned movies based on Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere. To be fair, D&D is uniquely suited to the idea. So we can have movies set in the Forgotten Realms (multiple movies, made simultaneously set in different time periods, even), a Mad Max-influenced Dark Sun movie, a crazy-weird Planescape film and a Dragonlance trilogy.

However, it does sound like, right now, they're not even looking at the novels or game materials. They're making an original story up front, although it sounds like it might involve Undermountain to some extent.

[Thomas Seitz]

Still want Age of Worms the Movie...

[Quark Blast]

Red Hand of Doom seems the most adaptable. I have a copy. It's like a mini setting with narrative that doesn't focus on the dungeon-crawl aspect of the game.

Against the Giants as a trilogy of movies maybe.

The Drizzt story could work. I think I've only read Homeland upon recommendation and getting handed a free copy at the same time. I'm not a Drizzt fan but it could work.

Desert of Desolation. I've only seen the "super module" but there are too many disconnected elements in that to make a good movie out of. Like Eberron, it just wouldn't work for a theater film release.

As for the actual movie we get, if we get one; based on the discussion so far here and around the Net, it looks to me like five new characters based out of Waterdeep or perhaps Shadowdale. It'll almost certainly have a FR setting. Everything else 5E does.

Tangential comment follows.

Sometimes I think I know way too much trivia about TTRPGs and then I read a post like Tacticslion's and realize I'm so ignorant it hurts.

[Tacticslion]

Quark Blast wrote:

Sometimes I think I know way too much trivia about TTRPGs and then I read a post like Tacticslion's and realize I'm so ignorant it hurts.

I, uh... I'm not really sure that I know so much, as that I know about some things about a lot of stuff...

If anything, I'd suspect I'm basically a bard getting lucky on his Lore checks...
(Only I lack the magic, or the skills, or the charisma, or the awesome... I've got the traditional lack of Con, though!)

>.>

*cough*

[KahnyaGnorc]

GreyWolfLord wrote:

Set wrote:

So, if a 'D&D movie' was based on some old-school adventures, which would you choose?

Keep on the Borderlands

Tomb of Horrors

Descent into the Depths of the Earth/Vault of the Drow (I'd want to skip the whole bit about the Kuo-Toa, as it veers from the theme, IMO)

Against the Slave Lords

Against the Giants (doesn't flow well, from Hill to Frost to Fire Giants, IMO)

Desert of Desolation

Expedition to Barrier Peaks (maybe too gonzo for a first offering)

Age of Worms, Shackled City or Savage Tide

Temple of Elemental Evil

Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

Isle of Dread

Red Hand of Doom

Temple of Elemental Evil...

But only if they make it out like a Horror Movie.

That could be cool... a bunch of teen adventurers get killed in the movie...

Ends like a LOT of adventurers in that adventure probably did...dead.

It does NOT have a happy ending...afterall...need to make it horror enough to actually be horror.

You take two rather niche genres and combine them, you make an even MORE niche hybrid genre, not a blockbuster that'll help spawn a franchise. Fantasy movies do well when they broaden their appeal, not turn off fans who don't like the horror genre.*

*Horror movies tend to make me roll my eyes more than I roll my dice, and I roll my dice a lot.

[Thomas Seitz]

Kahnya,

Horror movies do fine. Just ask the Conjuring. Or hell, Supernatural Activity.

[captain yesterday]

The Blair Witch Project did pretty well for itself. :-)

[Thomas Seitz]

The first one or the newly released sequel, Captain?

[captain yesterday]

There was a sequel?

Was it good?

[Thomas Seitz]

Captain,

There was. It was originally titled the Woods and then released as Blair Witch this year.

I have not seen it but it got decent reviews. Good...might be pushing it but it wasn't terrible.

Damning with faint praise I know.

[thejeff]

Horror movies do fine. Fantasy movies do fine. I'm not sure a fantasy horror movie is really where a D&D movie should go. I'm about 99% sure it's not where they'll try to take it, so it's pretty much moot.

(And sorry, I couldn't handle the Blair Witch Project. I spent far too much of the movie (mentally) screaming at the screen: you're lost in the woods in Maryland? Oh look, a river? Follow it downstream to civilization. You'll be home for dinner.)

[captain yesterday]

To be fair though, college students can be pretty f&%+ing stupid.

[Norman Osborne]

Horror is fairly niche.
Science Fiction is fairly niche.

Yet Alien managed to spawn an entire franchise, to include multiple sequels, a shared universe with the Predator films, video games, novels, and comic books.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

Would you fine Paizo fans consider the Last Witch Hunter by Vin Diesel to be fantasy horror? or do you think fantasy horror should be more scary than this? (it's on Netflix by the way)

[Thomas Seitz]

Thank you for that point, Norman. :)

[John Napier 698]

For both Horror and Fantasy: Castle Ravenloft.

[Planpanther]

The big question though is does Hasbro/WB want the film franchise of D&D to be about the horror genre? I think its possible to get a horror themed D&D picture but I think its down the round after more vanilla fantasy.

[Thomas Seitz]

Plan,

Maybe but it's not like they couldn't DO dark Fantasy rather than vanilla thing.

[Purple Dragon Knight]

I think D&D / FR / Hasbro should stick to vanilla sword and sorcery, for all it's worth. Wider appeal and PG rating is where it's at... if your name is Hasbro... considering they're going for tiny raccoon and big tree monst.. err... small gnome and big dragonborn heroes for the next movie! :P

[SmiloDan]

Norman Osborne wrote:

Horror is fairly niche.

Science Fiction is fairly niche.

Yet Alien managed to spawn an entire franchise, to include multiple sequels, a shared universe with the Predator films, video games, novels, and comic books.

It's also part of the Firefly/Serenity 'Verse.

[Thomas Seitz]

Purple,

I think you're confusing Hasbro with better minds at Marvel. Especially since talking trees and racoons with space guns are in the next volume.

Anyways we'll just see when ever it comes out. Hopeful before 2020.

[SmiloDan]

I hope the D&D movie is FUN. I don't want it to be grim dark, I don't want it to be a wannabe GRRM. I want good and inspirational heroes. I want the heroes to win. I want them to be good examples.

I want there to be action and adventure. I want the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose.

And no silly sidekicks.