Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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bookworm
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Post by bookworm »

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Catspaw
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Post by Catspaw »

I would like to see this movie eventually. I like Chris Pine (the love started with Princess Diaries 2 and never ended) :inlove: and this looks kind of funny. I was seeing that they did lots of practical effects, which I think is cool. It's nice when things that can be done for real are done that way instead of relying on CGI for everything. I really don't care about Dungeons and Dragons as a game or entity, but it looks like this movie could still be fun regardless.
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Post by bookworm »

I've never played D&D myself, but I'm moderately knowledgeable about it. Regarding the gameplay anyway not really the lore. I heard this was an entertaining fantasy adventure movie whether you were familiar with anything or not, that it had references for those who could catch them but worked fine on its own too, so I decided to see it.

I was curious if there was going to be any indication of what level of meta this story was happening at, by that I mean if it was going to show that there were regular modern day people playing a D&D game and portraying these characters, along the lines of the new Jumanji movies, or if it would be presented as just something all happening in-world. Turned out to be a sort of mix.

Although on the surface the movie presents everything straight and doesn't give any direct indication that there's anything more going on than just what we see, it was pretty clear to me that we were in fact watching people play out a campaign behind the scenes and the movie just didn't explicitly establish that so if someone in the audience didn't read in that meta level and just wanted to take the movie at face value they could also do that.

It's okay to just take the movie for what it directly shows, it still works, but recognizing that other level does help the viewer accept some things that otherwise might make them roll their eyes a bit if they were treating it as just a standard adventure movie without greater context.

For example, what would usually come off as awkward exposition dumps are less jarring when realizing those are the players giving their character backstory or the DM explaining the world building. Also the many coincidences or things that would be just too convinient in a regular movie didn't feel cheap in this case because since this is a campaign playing out everything is supposed to be connected and come together as the players need it to. Things like Holga just happening to know where to find the helmet they needed to get, and taking that staff on a whim which ended up actually being a critical item to have later on. That's how a D&D game works so in this movie they made sense, where in a different movie they would be seen as lazy writing.


Some of the game mechanics and play dynamics references I noticed:

Forgot to check for traps in the treasure room!

A spell being prevented by covering the caster's mouth because it was one with a verbal component.

The paladin making them promise to give the loot to the poor before helping them because he was lawful good alignment.

The players going 'Can't you stay?' when the powerful NPC leaves the group after helping with the part they were needed for.

Simon's illusion failing when he stopped maintaining concentration.

The arena floor being the movement squares of a battle map.


Also, some great portrayals of classic D&D problem solving:

The really clever use of the portal spell and wild shape to get in and out of the wagon. That whole scene was great.

Doric figuring out how to escape the gelatinous cube, by snaking through the space left when she shrunk down before it closed back up, and the movie briefly showing that she had made sure to poke her finger through to the outside first so there was a path all the way through, so the audience could put together what was happening there.
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Post by Catspaw »

I watched this movie yesterday. I noticed that it was added to Netflix and had time to watch. It was quite fun! It was a good action/adventure story. I called a few parts or lines, so that was fun. I assume they probably will make more (both because sequels are such a thing these days and also because it has a subtitle for no apparent reason) and I would definitely watch more.

Bookworm, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm only familiar with the game to the extent it's popular enough to be referenced in assorted shows etc. so I appreciated you explaining some of the references.
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