The board game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is one of the most popular franchises in the history of gaming. The D&D community is a global network of enthusiasts who have celebrated their love for the franchise across every kind of medium from paintings and books to music and live-action role-playing. Over the years, D&D has gone from being an obscure game to a legitimate worldwide cultural phenomenon.

And yet the success of the series has failed to translate to the big screen. Hollywood has tried again and again to mine the appeal of Dungeons and Dragons, the latest effort being a star-studded live-action film titled Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which hopes to bring general audiences into theaters along with hardcore D&D fans. Let’s take a look at why it is so difficult to make a successful movie based on Dungeons and Dragons.

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D&D Is the OG RPG

     NBC

Role-playing board games were a highly niche activity back when Dungeons and Dragons first launched in 1974. The general public was familiar with classic board games involving throwing dice. But D&D was a whole different beast. The game requires the presence of a Dungeon Master who controls the narrative of an epic magical quest that the rest of the participants embark upon.

The other players carry information regarding the details of their characters in the game, from their physical skill level to their magical ability, strategic expertise, etc. Once the characters are assembled, the Dungeon Master sends them on their quest, using the throw of the die to direct the actions of the other players based on their capabilities.

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This simple premise creates unlimited possibilities for how the story of a D&D session can go. The adventures that players embark upon are limited only by their imagination. Over the decades the D&D community has pulled inspiration from practically every famous fantasy story ever told, from King Arthur to The Lord of the Rings. All those inspirations are folded within the lore of the D&D universe in extensive guidebooks a Dungeon Master can use to plan the next epic quest.

Not Very Original

     Paramount Pictures

Unfortunately, the fact that D&D pulls from so many famous fantasy stories also means the series has very little original content to call its own. Every hero, villain, or monster character from D&D can feel like a knock-off version of more famous literary characters, and that is because they are. Part of what makes for a good D&D character in a game is not originality, but the player getting to grow and evolve the character’s power stats across multiple adventures.

Unfortunately, this does not translate well for cinema, where Dungeons and Dragons movies all too often feel like plagiarized fantasy stories where all the characters and settings are wholly unoriginal. Instead of crafting a unique fantasy experience like Game of Thrones or Harry Potter, D&D movies end up feeling like B-movie fare cribbing from far superior stories that came before.

The Missing Feeling of Community

     Netflix

Movie watching is a solo experience. Ideally, the audience is supposed to be so receptive to the film that they forget the people sitting around them in the theater. A good fantasy movie is judged on the basis of being able to completely hook the viewer to the extent that they lose themselves completely in the story and forget the world around them.

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Unfortunately, this is the opposite of what a good game of Dungeons and Dragons is supposed to do. The whole point of D&D is players working together as a team to overcome the odds and finish the quest successfully. The game requires active participation with each other among the players, and the best part of a lively D&D session is holding animated discussions with your fellow players over how to move forward in the quest and the strategies that need to be employed to take down the enemies.

It is much less satisfying to sit back and watch others play D&D without being able to contribute to the success of the mission. This is essentially what the movies ask audiences to do, and it is a lot harder to care about whether the characters succeed in the quest when you have no personal decisions to make in the proceedings.

A Dungeons and Dragons Movie Lacks Stakes

Role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons are hugely popular across the world. Players often have a deep attachment to their character in the game, because RPGs require you to use the same character across different missions. With each new mission, your character gains points in terms of strength, charm, charisma, intelligence, magical artifacts etc., giving players a sense of accomplishment after years of playing the game.

This feeling is impossible to experience when you are simply watching a movie based on the game. Sure, the characters look and act similar to how your character would look and act in the game, but the personal connection is missing, as is the urgency of feeling that your character must succeed in the quest to get a boost in ratings. Shorn of the things that make D&D gaming sessions so compelling, the movies will have to depend on creating original and compelling settings and characters that audiences would want to watch, despite having no personal stakes in completing the quest. It’s a tall task indeed.