On the ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ Movie: A Theory

 (originally posted 25th May, 2017)

Warning: This may possibly be the Nerdiest Thing You'll Read... Possibly Ever. Many, MANY years ago now, I saw a movie... at the Cinema... based on the ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ tabletop role-playing game. Initially, my thought was that it was, simultaneously, the worst, and yet, also the most hilarious thing I’d ever seen. But then my brane did that thing where it started to make weird fizzing noises, and I hatched a weird theory about a fictional situation, which led to a fictional session of D&D, which led to an ACTUAL movie. Because my brane is an ornery fucker and will get hung up on shit like that. So, if the idea of hearing me rabbit on about the real life (but fictional) events behind the scenes of an utterly fantastical (but real) movie fills you with a cold, clammy dread, here’s your chance to bail out now. Nobody will think any less of you. 
So just the masochists and hardcore nerds left, then, eh? Okie doke. Let's start with the GM. The GM is a frustrated actress (she thinks she's a genius, but she's a bit of a ham and an attention hog) who role-plays mainly to hone her (limited) acting skills. She's recently been kicked out of her gaming group basically for being a control freak and trying to undermine the GM's authority at every turn.
She usually plays one of the White Wolf games because she believes that style of game is TRUE 'role-playing' and looks down on D&D as mindless hack-and-slash 'roll-playing'. In the wake of being kicked out of her gaming group, the GM's been mopey and bitter. Rather than continue to hear about how mean and small-minded they were, our Hero suggests getting his D&D gaming group together. In order to convince his girlfriend to give D&D a try, he agrees to let her run the game (he's the usual GM) the way she'd prefer to do so. This means that (a) this is an opportunity to introduce more 'proper role-playing' into D&D, and (b) she can invite her best friend (who's also been kicked out of the White Wolf group) to play too. More on the best friend in a bit.

The main character in the film, The Thief, is the GM's boyfriend. This explains why he's a better fighter than the fighter, a better thief than his pal, the thief and better at deciphering ancient scrolls than the magic-user. It explains why he has to face the maze alone, why he gets the magic sword from Tom Baker, can walk through the magic forcefield when nobody else can, and wield the magic red plastic 'wand'. Basically, he's the chosen one. It's a case of "Oh, you've made your saving throw AGAIN, sweetie! Isn't that LUCKY?" and we've all had that.

The GM's best friend, who's playing the Mage in the movie, is an enormous gaming nerd whose attitude to gaming is similar to her friend re: 'role-playing' vs 'roll-playing'. She believes that role-playing is all about 'playing your character' and 'getting into your role', but because she's a godsawful role-player, it basically means she interprets this as picking endless fights amongst the other PC's, pointless in-character bickering, and dragging out every minor plot point with a cavalcade of interminable nitpicking. Like the GM, her previous gaming group has had enough of her and kicked her out.

The other thief, played by Marlon Wayans, is the Hero's best pal. While he played a LOT at University, since he's been working, he hasn't had as much time for gaming, so he's not a regular gamer. Basically, the GM's boyfriend (the Thief) has lured him in saying, "Hey, it'll be like old days, have a bit of a laugh, drink some beers and nerd it up for the evening." However, ulterior motives are afoot. The GM has had the idea to try and set up her best friend, who's playing the Mage, with the Hero's Friend, the Wayans. The Wayans is not up for this for two reasons, (1) he thinks the GM's friend is a weird, uptight princess and is REALLY not keen, and (2) he's a casual, 'fun' gamer, and thinks that people who take RPG's seriously are missing the point. About halfway through the story, once he realizes what's going on, he 'accidentally' fails a saving throw, allowing his character to die, so that he can make an excuse to bail early. ("Gotta work in the morning!") Then, he flees.

The Dwarf is another casual gamer. He has a shitty job, and he likes RPGs for the fighting. Basically, when he hears dice rattle, he heads on over and gets into the fight. Otherwise, he's quite happy to check out what's in the fridge or peruse the DVD shelves for stuff he might wanna borrow. That's why the only time he ever seems to do anything is during the fight scenes.

The Elf is another matter. She's a regular member of the gaming group, but she really doesn't get on with the GM and her friend. So as soon as she heard the GM was running this session, she made an excuse and bailed. You can tell she's being run as an NPC because she doesn't really do anything.

Because the GM is a big acting nerd, she populates her story with NPC's who all 'look like' famous actors - Tom Baker, Jeremy Irons, the guy who played Riff-Raff in 'Rocky Horror', that girl from 'American Beauty'. However, because she doesn't give a shit about D&D, she's made all her 'dungeons' three rooms or less, and hasn't really looked at monster stats in the Monster Manual ("Stats Stifle Creativity!") and just picked them at random based on the pictures, which is why the Beholder is so shit.

Basically, they pretty much got the whole thing spot-on. For all those who think it wasn't very much like a real D&D session, I'd say it was EXACTLY like a real gaming session. Not a GOOD gaming session... but certainly the sort that isn’t terribly uncommon. And we've ALL had them! 

(P.S. For the sake of transparency, this thing originally appeared back in my livejournal - remember those? - way, waaay back in late 2009. ) (P.P.S. They did a follow up movie, which was simultaneously better and worse. Better in that it wasn’t as shit, but worse in that instead of being ‘hilariously inept’, it was just the regular kind of bad film. The GOOD news is they did a third film, and it’s really fun. It’s got that excellent cheesy 80’s ‘Hawk the Slayer’ / ’Krull’ / ‘Ladyhawke’ kind of thing going on. Well worth checking out!)