D&D is possibly the perfect intellectual property to make movies from. Name recognition without any real lore/story for a toxic fandom to force you to adhere to as it is generally all made up by...
D&D is possibly the perfect intellectual property to make movies from. Name recognition without any real lore/story for a toxic fandom to force you to adhere to as it is generally all made up by each individual group of players.
What will happen is the inevitable surge in popularity for D&D, new players entering the fray, the gatekeeping by some, pushback by people that are welcoming, some people only experiencing the toxicity of the gatekeepers and never returning, and others that continue on or find a welcoming group and the overall playerbase is enlarged.
Oh, and Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin is terribly overused in trailers, they could have done better there.
I could be wrong but I get the impression that you don't spend a lot of time in the D&D fandom if you think that there's no lore in this trailer for folks to get toxic about. It hasn't been that...
I could be wrong but I get the impression that you don't spend a lot of time in the D&D fandom if you think that there's no lore in this trailer for folks to get toxic about. It hasn't been that bad (yet), but there have already been some folks blowing up about the Tiefling Druid not looking exactly like the Tiefling description in the PHB (I disagree, but she doesn't fit the current fashion for showing Tiefling with really obvious non-human skintones and huge horns) and the fact that the Druid apparently wildshapes into an Owlbear (Druids can only Wildshape into Beasts, and the Owlbear is a Monstrosity (I know that Circle of the Moon can wildshape into Elementals at high level, it's not relevant to this discussion)). It's mostly been good natured, but not entirely. Plus, the movie seems to be set in the Forgotten Realms which has a lot (a LOOOOOOT) of lore that people get very nitpicky about. I have definitely seen the D&D fandom get really toxic about things in the not too recent past, and that's not even mentioning the edition wars during 4e. It was really unpleasant to try and discuss anything about D&D online for years because as soon as you did people would immediately jump into the thread to shit all over 4th Edition even when it was completely irrelevant to the discussion. The gatekeeping was immense. I think the explosive growth of the hobby over the last few years has helped a lot of push the worst part of the fandom off into their own little corners of the online space (hi there OSR), and even some of those spaces seem to be getting more inclusive in the past few years, but I still wouldn't call the D&D fandom non-toxic, and I shudder to think of the grognards poring over this movie for things that don't fit RAW (rules-as-written) or especially established Forgotten Realms lore.
Edit: I should say - I don't really disagree with what you're saying. I think D&D could be a really good IP for movies and other media. Some of the settings have some cool lore, and there's lots of fun adventures and monsters to adapt. Plus the lore tends to be a lot more vague in some places, and flexible, to allow DMs and players to fit their game into the setting and lore. I just thought it was funny that you would say the D&D fandom was non-toxic, because I've seen lots of toxicity in TTRPG communities over the years, even though it is generally getting better.
D&D is possibly the perfect intellectual property to make movies from. Name recognition without any real lore/story for a toxic fandom to force you to adhere to as it is generally all made up by each individual group of players.
What will happen is the inevitable surge in popularity for D&D, new players entering the fray, the gatekeeping by some, pushback by people that are welcoming, some people only experiencing the toxicity of the gatekeepers and never returning, and others that continue on or find a welcoming group and the overall playerbase is enlarged.
Oh, and Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin is terribly overused in trailers, they could have done better there.
I could be wrong but I get the impression that you don't spend a lot of time in the D&D fandom if you think that there's no lore in this trailer for folks to get toxic about. It hasn't been that bad (yet), but there have already been some folks blowing up about the Tiefling Druid not looking exactly like the Tiefling description in the PHB (I disagree, but she doesn't fit the current fashion for showing Tiefling with really obvious non-human skintones and huge horns) and the fact that the Druid apparently wildshapes into an Owlbear (Druids can only Wildshape into Beasts, and the Owlbear is a Monstrosity (I know that Circle of the Moon can wildshape into Elementals at high level, it's not relevant to this discussion)). It's mostly been good natured, but not entirely. Plus, the movie seems to be set in the Forgotten Realms which has a lot (a LOOOOOOT) of lore that people get very nitpicky about. I have definitely seen the D&D fandom get really toxic about things in the not too recent past, and that's not even mentioning the edition wars during 4e. It was really unpleasant to try and discuss anything about D&D online for years because as soon as you did people would immediately jump into the thread to shit all over 4th Edition even when it was completely irrelevant to the discussion. The gatekeeping was immense. I think the explosive growth of the hobby over the last few years has helped a lot of push the worst part of the fandom off into their own little corners of the online space (hi there OSR), and even some of those spaces seem to be getting more inclusive in the past few years, but I still wouldn't call the D&D fandom non-toxic, and I shudder to think of the grognards poring over this movie for things that don't fit RAW (rules-as-written) or especially established Forgotten Realms lore.
Edit: I should say - I don't really disagree with what you're saying. I think D&D could be a really good IP for movies and other media. Some of the settings have some cool lore, and there's lots of fun adventures and monsters to adapt. Plus the lore tends to be a lot more vague in some places, and flexible, to allow DMs and players to fit their game into the setting and lore. I just thought it was funny that you would say the D&D fandom was non-toxic, because I've seen lots of toxicity in TTRPG communities over the years, even though it is generally getting better.