My first time watching the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves! This movie was such a great ride, I really hope we get a sequel! _____________ 0:00 Intro 2:21 Reaction 47:05 Review ______________
So much of this movie is very representative of playing D&D. Goofy prison escape plan, tragic backstories, the bridge puzzle that the players fuck up and the DM decides, "fuck it, that walking stick you got earlier is actually a portal staff", the players then using that portal staff at every opportunity to get around future problems. You've very quickly become my favorite reactor on this site. If you get the chance to play D&D please do, I think you'll have a blast if you find a good group of people to play with.
The council member you asked about is a Dragonborn, one of the playable races in D&D. The Cat people in D&D are known as Tabaxi, also a Playable race. The black Dragon that spit Acid was very well done. In season 2 of Vox Machina you'll get to see their take on a Black Dragon.
This is an unexpected and welcome reaction! I could wax lyrical about this movie for a while, and I'm gutted that it didn't do as well at the box office as it should have. They made so many smart choices when making this, and all the characters were fun and watchable, and it really captures the feeling and fun of playing DnD without getting bogged down in the minutiae.
“I already love the design of this prison it’s really creative.” To promote the movie, D&D put out a free adventure that was a prison break/heist taking place in this very prison. It’s called Revel’s End and it’s in the frozen wasteland of Icewind Dale far to the north of Neverwinter. There was a map for this place with guard patrol routes for the DM and everything. I ran that adventure for my partner, sister and friends and it was so much fun.
ahhhh I'm so glad you watched this! The thing I love about this movie is how accessible they made it for people who have never played D&D but also put everything in it that players will recognize and so much lore from their own Forgotten Realms setting. Bc basically you can use the rules and mechanics of the game in a world that you make up yourself or you can use settings and adventures published by WOTC (the D&D company) or any number of 3rd party publishers. Like Vox Machina uses D&D rules, but the world of Exandria (where the continent of Tal'Dorei is) is Matt's creation. There are published campaign setting books now so you can play a game there, too, if you want. Forgotten Realms is the most stereotypical/Lord of the Ringsy setting WOTC makes. In general, a player would notice all the creatures: owlbear, gelatinous cube, displacer beast (the smart kitties in the maze), intellect devourers, axe beak birds (kinda looked like ostriches), rust monsters in the bg.... and so on. A dragon's breath weapons are based on the kind of dragon they are: black = acid, green = poison, red = fire, white = cold, blue = electricity (like the one Vox Machina fought in eps 1-2). The chromatic dragons are typically evil. There are metallic dragons which are typically good aligned: copper = acid, brass/gold = fire, silver = cold, bronze = lightning. There are more, but that's the basics. Most players will also recognize coming up with crazy plans that almost always fall apart so you chaos improv thru it. ALSO, that final battle that you enjoyed them ganging up on the red wizard is like... a live action simulation of game combat. When you're playing, you take turns (everyone roll for initiative to see what order). Functionally, it takes quite a while to get thru everyone's turn as people describe their actions and roll for success/failure. When it gets back to the top, that's 1 round of combat. In game, no matter how long that all took to say out loud, 1 round of combat = 6 seconds. This was the most effective representation of that I have ever seen. Specifically, if you've played in Forgotten Realms you recognize all the places: Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate (yeh BG3 is basically 5th edition D&D turned into a video game), The Underdark, the prison in Icewind Dale is called Revel's End. The chonky red dragon, Themberchaud is canonical to FR. The lore about the red wizards ot Thay and Szass Tam (the dark lord palpatine hahaha). And so on... But the best part is you need absolutely none of that in order to enjoy the movie, which is the best way to do it. It's there for the people it means something to, but for anyone who doesn't play there was a fun story with charismatic likable and hatable characters, humor and heart, an engaging adventure, and cool action. All the ingredients for a good time. tl:dr I love that it is multilayered enjoyment and nobody is left out. So well done. Also, if you like MMOs you could probably have fun with ttrpgs. Some games lean more dungeon crawly and some are more rp/story, just about finding the right group, in game and out lol.
In a movie full of hilarious bits, the counsel woman screaming “she’s throwing potatoes!” never fails to kill me 😂 that actress had like 10 lines and she still killed it
8:07 Turkeys actually can fly! Wild ones, at least. They can't fly as long as a duck can, but they can certainly fly further than a human. 12:40: Agreeeeed about female tanks. I love Michelle Rodriguez in this part. She's just so perfect. Also, I love how *scrappy* this fight is. Holga's a barbarian, but she's not a dummy. She has tactics and plans. IDK if the dragonflies are ever explained? But when I was a kid, my mom always told me that dragonflies were the souls of people who've left you, checking in. 20:57 The dragon did not shoot rocks. It shot acid. So much worse. Dragons in DnD can spit out: Fire, Ice, Acid, Toxic gas, and Lightning. Xenk. Just. I think Everyone feels the same about Xenk. Goddamn. What a beautiful man. 25:19 This is a joke about people who run DnD games in a way that's just. Absurdly difficult. It would take a whole history of DnD video to explain in detail but trust me, most people who play DnD have had a situation like this pop up, where the person running the game came up with something absurdly complicated and one person destroyed the whole puzzle on step one. 28:26 okay so this part is ABSOLUTELY hilarious to me because the last time they tried to make a DnD movie, the climax was all about dragons. And it was AWFUL. The dragons were terrible 2004 cgi and looked stupid as hell. So this dragon, which looks pretty darn realistic but is absolutely bumbling, is just like the animators laughing at the last movie. 38:11 These are Displacer Beasts. Their whole thing is that they project an image of themselves that isn't where they really are. I love them dearly. 42:56 Okay so I think one thing that you're not getting (through no fault of your own; it's not well explained here) is that Simon is not the same kind of magic user as the Red Mage. Simon is a Sorcerer. That means that he inherited his magic. It's like... Imagine someone who grew up the child of a great painter and became a painter, rather than growing up in a normal family and learning to paint through trial and error and learning through books. This is opposed to wizards, who are like ... linux hackers. Wizards are the dudes who started out by wanting to paint, but then decided to learn coding because they didn't want to be contained by what Facebook told them they could do. They wanna break the system. Sometimes they break it in ways that makes sense, and sometimes they break it in ways that make the entirety of existence awful for everyone. Actually. If you only watch a single Actual Play DnD game, I am BEGGING you to watch Critical Role: Calamity. It is a story of how magic users pushed the limits of mortality and magic, budging against the realm of the gods, until everything fell apart. It's beautifully acted and DM'ed.
Unimportant lore info for the movie: The prisoner at the beginning who was tossed into their cell was a hobgoblin, and about the first time I ever saw one done in practical makeup. :D Oh, and the human sized dragon-like critters are "Dragonborn", which D&D had before Skyrim did. :D The black dragon in the backstory of the battle for the helmet spat acid, actually (there are dragons in D&D who breath fire, lightning, cold, acid, and poison, and more exotic things). As for the Druid's tail, she used it to anchor herself when she was holding up the sorcerer when they placed the portrait in the wagon. I loved a lot of your reactions, especially your reactions to Xenk the Paladin. :D And yes, you could so easily tell the cast and crew so absolutely loved making this movie.
Glad you enjoyed the film. It didn't get nearly the attention it deserved when it came out, but it's really such a fantastic film. It very perfectly captures the feel of a D&D campaign, as well. You can almost feel the flubbed die rolls. That feeling when you roll a natural 1 on your investigation check and the trap destroys the bridge, and everybody at the table just stares at you while the game master has to figure out how to get the party across the lava now.
one of the other parties in the maze was based on the 1980's D&D cartoon, which I loved. Simon's "grandfather" - Elminster Aumar - is one of the most famous wizards in all of D&D lore. funnily enough - the disgusting hand Sofina creates is the same spell as "Scanlan's Haaaaaand". even as obvious as it was, they did the ending so very well. "I wasn't trying to bring back your mom; I was trying to bring back my wife". Simon never dated Doric - she turned him down due to his poor self esteem, which he really did work on.
The hand Simon conjured was either Earthen Grasp or also Bigby's (Scanlan's) Hand. But I like to think it's the same spell, and it shows how much of an effect flavor text has on D&D. Simon, Sofina, and Scanlan are all using the same spell, but they each depict/describe the spell differently in ways that fit their personalities.
D&D has 10 basic dragon types; 5 good and 5 evil. With each of those sets each dragon type has a different breath weapon. For the evil: Red = Fire Blue = Lightning White = Cold Green = Corrosive Gas Black = Acid
Enjoyed your reactions. Glad you enjoyed the movie as much as I did. You should totally watch Puss in boots the last wish, super awesome and amazing movie! Just dont watch spoilers before watching💖
I think you would truly enjoy getting into DnD! (or a different tabletop RPG, there are heaps of them, DnD is just the most well known. The system you use is just the framework, it's the stories that matter really). The humor, the storytelling, they way you appreciate a sidequest :D I can imagine you really having a great time at a table. And if you've played WoW, a lot of the tropes, and even some of the mechanics will feel at least passingly familiar. Truthfully, the hardest part is finding a group to play with, but you probably already know people who would be interested, and it's just never come up in conversation. People who've been curious since they were kids, or who've seen the movie, or just want to hang out and play a game. All it sometimes needs is one person to say "I want to try this, who's in?" and then you all learn together. Running a game as the DM is a little more work than being a player, but honestly, either side of the table is SO much fun. There's nothing else quite like it. And even if those first sessions are chaotic, and nobody really knows what they're doing, it's still a great time. [/ramble] 19:54: and that's why you always bring a bard. :) Honestly I love this moment SO much. It does a lot of work and tells us a lot of things about both characters, PLUS it's a catchy tune. I enjoyed this movie a lot, They really did well making it feel like it could have been lifted from a DnD table, without alienating people unfamiliar with the game. The world is vibrant, everything is interesting to look at, and the choice to use a lot of practical effects really did bring a lot of those peak 80s films to mind, as you say. On the note of the practical effects, the moment when they sink into the floor was completely practical, which is just neat. A pool of sand with air blowing up through it to make them sink into it, and hundreds of tiny individual tiles laid carefully on top. One shot to get the take or it all had to be reset. Stuff liek that makes my little nerd heart happy. I hear you 100% with the storytelling getting lost sometimes in favor of the bigger and better effects. It doesn't matter to me if it's ultra realistic CGI if the characters are as interesting as boiled cabbage. It's BORING. It's one of the reasons I watch a lot of TTRPG live play shows. Critical Role, Dimension 20, Children of Earte, Legacy of Silvercreek, there are SO MANY, full of talented, passionate players who pour their hearts into their characters. Most of it is pure description, "theatre of the mind" as it's often called, with miniatures and scenery during combat perhaps, depending on the show, but it really is closer to theatre or improv than watching a game, or, as you said, like reading a book. You get immersed, it's the roleplay and the storytelling that keeps my ADHD-ass in my seat for hours, when I get bored and distracted during a lot of TV shows and movies. Final, unsolicited suggestion, since you mentioned all of those wonderful 80s classics, I feel like you might enjoy The Last Unicorn. It's a 1982 animated film that doesn't get as much love as it should. It has the whole "story about stories" vibe that things like Neverending Story, and Labyrinth, and all of those others seem to share. It's a little odd, a little shadowy, a little bit about death (like all good fairytales are), and I love with with my whole heart. ANYWAY, this ramble was mostly unrelated to the movie, but this was a great reaction, I'm so glad you had fun with it! tl:dr: Yay reaction! Movie good, DnD fun, Storytelling > CGI.
