Speaker 1: Hello, Jason and I am dear Old Rosier.
Speaker 2: Tonight from the World.
Speaker 1: Of Ancients and Dragons and welcome back to Answer vision
Speaker 1: of the podcast where we dive deep to your favorite shows, movies,
Speaker 1: comics of pop culture. Company from our podcast where we
Speaker 1: are bringing you three action pack episodes a week plus news.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we're doing a little Airlock time capsule
Speaker 3: mash up. We rewatched the very underrated Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 3: Honor among Thieves movie, very exceptionally charming movie with a
Speaker 3: delightful cast, which, in case you missed it in theaters
Speaker 3: as many people did, is now available on Netflix to stream.
Speaker 3: So we're gonna be talking about that. We're gonna roll
Speaker 3: for initiative. Was this movie successful and feeling like an
Speaker 3: actual game of D and D. We will be tapping
Speaker 3: in super producer and D and D DM Aaron, and
Speaker 3: we got a little quick facts about the movie. We
Speaker 3: got a delightful omnibus coming background on D and D.
Speaker 2: So basically, you guys asked us for D and D.
Speaker 3: We did the listener service and guess what we're D
Speaker 3: and D delivering.
Speaker 1: Let's go, okay, let's talk about this movie. We open
Speaker 1: D and d Hat with Edgin Darvas played by Chris
Speaker 1: Pines parole hearing, he and we get and in this
Speaker 1: parole hearing, which is wonderfully structured, we get the entire
Speaker 1: download of how the rascal Edgin Darvis managed to end
Speaker 1: up in this prison. He was once a Harper, which
Speaker 1: is kind of like the Magic Cia, but like with Country.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 3: Though when I was, I was like, you were just
Speaker 3: an You were like a little informant, huh, okay.
Speaker 1: A little bit.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: The Harpers are a secretive network of like very learned people, spies, scholars,
Speaker 1: and folks who do good. They go across the land
Speaker 1: fighting corruption and tyranny across Farren, which is like the
Speaker 1: the main setting of Dungeons and Dragons the world, uh
Speaker 1: and they and specifically a lot of this takes place
Speaker 1: in an area called the Forgotten Realms. Edgin is a
Speaker 1: good guy. He spied on a lot of people. As
Speaker 1: Rosie mentioned, he informed on a lot of people.
Speaker 2: In the context of the movie, they were bad. Okay,
Speaker 2: they were bad guys.
Speaker 1: They were bad. He lived an honorable life, and he
Speaker 1: had a beautiful wife and a wonderful baby daughter. And
Speaker 1: he lived according to a very strict moral code. But
Speaker 1: then he steals like a cursed thing from the Red
Speaker 1: Wizards of Theay and he didn't understand that they could
Speaker 1: track it wherever it went, and he brought it home
Speaker 1: and that ended up with his wife getting murdered in retaliation.
Speaker 1: He blames himself for this. He gets very very depressed,
Speaker 1: and he ends up in a life of crime, which
Speaker 1: is how he meets Holga played by Michelle Rodriguez, who
Speaker 1: is our barbarian. She gets exiled from her tribe because
Speaker 1: she falls in love with an outsider. She carries a
Speaker 1: very heavy axe, and she knows a lot about axes.
Speaker 1: She is emotionally distant, and they immediately become fast friends.
Speaker 1: Crucially and one of the things I love about this movie,
Speaker 1: not romantically, another film, another story in more hacky hands,
Speaker 1: would have been like, we need a love We need
Speaker 1: a love story between Holgan and Gano. They are just
Speaker 1: very very good friends, patonically great friends. It's wonderful. So
Speaker 1: Holga helps Edgin raised Kira, his daughter, and you know,
Speaker 1: they go around robin Hood stuff they steal from the rich,
Speaker 1: and they steal a lot and they're getting away with
Speaker 1: it for the most part. Until they get involved with
Speaker 1: the hest that goes wrong. Fairly simple job. It seems
Speaker 1: like infiltrate a high security.
Speaker 3: Going to be that lost job the classic of course,
Speaker 3: classic classic, I mean the last job.
Speaker 1: Infiltrate a high security magic vault to steal the tablet
Speaker 1: of Reawakening, which is a magical item that can resurrect
Speaker 1: the dead. And of course Edgin wants this to bring
Speaker 1: his wife back so his daughter can have a mother
Speaker 1: and his Their team includes Simon.
Speaker 2: I love him, Justice Smith like.
Speaker 1: A magic guy, a magician with you know confidence, yes,
Speaker 1: so Fina who is a red wizard who why did
Speaker 1: they trust her? I don't know? And Forge Fitzwilliam played
Speaker 1: by Hugh Grant, who is the charming rogue who you
Speaker 1: know you should not try. I guess them as a
Speaker 1: con man.
Speaker 2: So it's like they knew what they were getting into. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also is the bread rige. Was she in the crew
Speaker 3: or was she the one who hired them to steal it?
Speaker 2: Unclear? But it's not going well for them basically.
Speaker 1: So the high school sideways. So Fina turns on them,
Speaker 1: reveals that she's an necromancer and very very evil. Forge
Speaker 1: turns on them as well, and when Edgin hands him
Speaker 1: the tablet, Forge says, I'll find a way to save
Speaker 1: you all. I'll return and get you back. And he turns,
Speaker 1: runs out of the trap and is fucking never seen. Nope,
Speaker 1: he double crossed them. Just like that, Edgen and Holg
Speaker 1: are arrested, tried, sentenced to a number of year in
Speaker 1: Revel's and the maximum security prison in the frozen Wastelands
Speaker 1: that they are currently in having their parole hearing. And
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 3: We have to talk about the plan because this is
Speaker 3: one of the funniest things about the movie is like
Speaker 3: he keeps talking about this one guy, Jonathan.
Speaker 1: Jonathan, Jonathan.
Speaker 2: He knows Jonathan. Where is he?
Speaker 1: He's supposed to be on the parole board.
Speaker 3: I feel like Jonathan would really be vibing with my
Speaker 3: sad origin story. Now I have to say, the funniest
Speaker 3: thing is that Jonathan does turn up and they jump
Speaker 3: out of a window using him to fly just as
Speaker 3: the parole board says, we approved your parole.
Speaker 2: They didn't need to do it.
Speaker 3: But Jonathan, he survived even though they used him like
Speaker 3: a giant, you know, kite. And now they're back in
Speaker 3: never Winter. What an opening.
Speaker 2: I think the opening to this movie is like one
Speaker 2: of the.
Speaker 3: Best, wonderful, great does the you know, Jason, you know
Speaker 3: this as storytellers, I always remember Karen Gillen years and
Speaker 3: years ago on Twitter being like, never do.
Speaker 2: The how did I get here?
Speaker 3: Like rewind kind of you know, a media as opening.
Speaker 3: But this is a great way to do that kind
Speaker 3: of exposition without it feeling like tired or doing like
Speaker 3: a rewind, like here's how I got here. It's so fun.
Speaker 3: I love the Jonathan jokes. Chris Pines, It just absolutely
Speaker 3: the delivery is so good. He's like, oh and then
Speaker 3: my wife died and they're like, wow, that's so sad,
Speaker 3: and he's like, you know, I would find it really sad.
Speaker 2: Jonathan. Where's Jonathan?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he is so good in this role, and
Speaker 3: I just the whole cast is honestly fantastic.
Speaker 2: So they escape, good for them, and Jonathan's still alive.
Speaker 1: So they end up back in never Winter and they
Speaker 1: eventually discover you know what Forge has been up to
Speaker 1: since he betrayed them. He is now running never Winter
Speaker 1: as the Lord of never Winter. Is basically it's like
Speaker 1: petty dictator, although everybody loves him for whatever reason, because
Speaker 1: he's just he is a very charming guy. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in these years he has been raising Kira as his
Speaker 1: own daughter, who he apparently has very strong feelings for,
Speaker 1: like he loves her in his version of what love is.
Speaker 3: For all his issues. One thing you cannot say. This
Speaker 3: man looked after the door when Chris Pines was not there.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you her she was raised. But we
Speaker 3: also learn that he has been lying to her and
Speaker 3: claimed midtime that you know, they ran away because they
Speaker 3: wanted riches, even though we know that it was for
Speaker 3: the tablet to bring back her dead mum, which again
Speaker 3: not a good idea. We've all lived that kind of
Speaker 3: monkey's poor story many at times. But Borge is also
Speaker 3: revealed to be in cahoots with the Red Wizards, and
Speaker 3: Sophina just like lives with him. She's like his personal magician,
Speaker 3: personal wizard.
Speaker 1: Bodyguard, right hand person, although she, as will be revealed,
Speaker 1: has her own plot.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you grow.
Speaker 1: So now it's very personal of course, between Edgin Forge
Speaker 1: and Hulga. Edgan wants the tablet to bring his wife back,
Speaker 1: he wants his daughter back, he wants his entire life back,
Speaker 1: and so in order to do that and bring down Forge.
Speaker 1: He needs to assemble a team capable of doing all
Speaker 1: those things. So we get Simon. He's back the self
Speaker 1: deprecating sorcerer with serious self esteem issues, serious imposter syndrome issues,
Speaker 1: and like a magical heirloom that he is scared that
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the skill or power to use.
Speaker 2: We meet Doric.
Speaker 1: Played by Sophia Lillis.
Speaker 3: Wonderful costing you want to cost Jean Gray incredible, so excited.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be.
Speaker 3: Enough.
Speaker 2: But maybe she's young, Jean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Doric.
Speaker 3: Yeah that it says that's kill a costing, And I
Speaker 3: feel like, as somebody who is not well versed in
Speaker 3: D and D, I've I've dipped my toes and I
Speaker 3: have lots of friends who are I have a friend
Speaker 3: who's helping me DM a game called Jewels. He's amazing.
Speaker 3: But I felt like once Doric is introduced, I really
Speaker 3: felt like we were in D and D. Now you
Speaker 3: know the kind of transformation teefling really good stuff.
Speaker 1: So Doric is a teefling Druid. Teeflings are part human,
Speaker 1: part infernal. They have horns, they have tails, they have
Speaker 1: magical ancestry. And they can shape shift. Doric is also
Speaker 1: a resistance fighter and she is working to protect the
Speaker 1: forest and forest communities from the industrial sprawl in the region.
Speaker 1: She does not like humans, and they are various plans,
Speaker 1: but she decides to sign on. So the entire the
Speaker 1: job that they take on is relatively straightforward. Break into
Speaker 1: the vault, get the tablet, escape, clear Edgan's name on
Speaker 1: Edgin's side, get Kure back, and bring his wife back
Speaker 1: to life. Okay, but this is D and D and
Speaker 1: it just goes immensely sideways ways. So the first thing
Speaker 1: they need is some sort of magical item in order
Speaker 1: to bypass the vault. This turns out to be the
Speaker 1: Helm of Disjunction. In order to get it, they go
Speaker 1: to Holga's ex flame, ex husband Marlman Bradley Cooper, who
Speaker 1: shows up for a really, really fun and sincere and
Speaker 1: heartfelt five minutes of this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's absolutely wild how every single diversion feels like
Speaker 3: it is necessary to the emotional plot of the movie,
Speaker 3: even though it absolutely is the kind of nonsense diversions
Speaker 3: that you go on when your DM's like what do
Speaker 3: you want to do and you're like, well, actually I
Speaker 3: need to go back and talk to my lover who's
Speaker 3: half my size, so I can't go on this shid like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: He leads them to a bunch of dead guys who
Speaker 1: died in a battle who our friends need to talk
Speaker 1: to to tell them where the helm ended up at
Speaker 1: and that really fun talking to the dead guys. Sequence
Speaker 1: leads them to leads them to Zenc Yendar played by
Speaker 1: Reggae John Page of Bridgertren fame. He is a human paladin,
Speaker 1: basically a holy warrior with uh divine stuff going on.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Zenk is from Thay. He's one of these stadans, but
Speaker 1: he's like a nice guy, an honorable guy, not an
Speaker 1: evil Red Wizard. He does not lie, he does not
Speaker 1: cross his morals or any kind of ethical lines. He
Speaker 1: is like the most sincere good guy. Imagine that he's sick.
Speaker 1: He is a very good fighter, and he agrees to
Speaker 1: help the team access the under Dark in order to
Speaker 1: retrieve the helm because again, he's a right and he
Speaker 1: believes in the honor of their quest. Meanwhile, Sofina, what's
Speaker 1: her plan? What's the Red Wizard's plan? They they have
Speaker 1: a much larger plan. So the Red Wizards are of
Speaker 1: They are bad, they are necroanswers, they are sickos. They're
Speaker 1: like if the sith ran an entire magical region, and
Speaker 1: Forge is relatively simple. He wants money and power and
Speaker 1: then really that's it. But Sofina is using Forge's political
Speaker 1: ascendancy to unleash a Red Wizard plot. She wants to
Speaker 1: cast this like death spell over a packed colisseum and
Speaker 1: in never Winter and turn all the civilians there into
Speaker 1: like a magical zombie army. And so the vaultice turns
Speaker 1: into like a basically a save the world mission, from
Speaker 1: like a very personal like found Family mission into like
Speaker 1: something much more important. The final heist is classic D
Speaker 1: and D. It is overplanned, none of the plans work,
Speaker 1: and it's full of improvisation. So the plan is to
Speaker 1: use the High Sun Games, which is like a gladiator
Speaker 1: style festival hosted by Forge, to distract the masses as
Speaker 1: cover for the heist. While the crowd is watching you know,
Speaker 1: basically death games happening in front of their eyes, the
Speaker 1: team will sneak into the vault using Simon's freshly met
Speaker 1: mastered magic and the helmet of Disjunction, but Forges rigged
Speaker 1: it he's aware that this might happen. He moved the treasure,
Speaker 1: and he set the vault as a trap, so instead
Speaker 1: of breaking in, the crew walks into a magical prison
Speaker 1: and it looks like game over until Edgin the barred pivots.
Speaker 1: They escape by exploiting a portal painting Simon created earlier,
Speaker 1: which they attach to a moving cart of fish and
Speaker 1: it's a whole wonderful set piece. And as they are
Speaker 1: doing this, they use it to the portal to transfer
Speaker 1: Forger's stolen treasure directly into the colisseum. The crowd turns
Speaker 1: on Forge. Forge loses the people and he decides to
Speaker 1: flee with as much treasure as he can carry. He
Speaker 1: makes for the docks. He snatches Kira. He's like loading
Speaker 1: a boat with all the loot in the fucking gold.
Speaker 1: But then Edgin and the crew get there and they
Speaker 1: stemy him in humiliating fashion, and eventually he will end
Speaker 1: up in the very same prison that Holga and Edgin
Speaker 1: escape from. So Fina then makes her move. She reveals
Speaker 1: herself as a necromancer. Zomba Fies begins to zombafi the
Speaker 1: arena and hear what's so wonderful about the structure of
Speaker 1: this movie, in the climax in particular, is like much
Speaker 1: like what makes Marvel's The Avengers work is you have
Speaker 1: a lot of characters here, but all their emotional arc
Speaker 1: pretty much they all pay off. So Simon is like
Speaker 1: now confident in his magic, he you know, locks into
Speaker 1: his power and gets into a spell duel with a
Speaker 1: red wizard where he holds his own. Doric is no
Speaker 1: longer like turning into animals to run from the fight.
Speaker 1: She's turning into like her full owl bear form in
Speaker 1: order to get into the fight, and she like rag dolls.
Speaker 1: Sofina at one pint Holga basically sacrifice a strong one,
Speaker 1: sacrifices herself to protect Kira, takes a fatal wound and dies,
Speaker 1: and Edgin basically for the first time in the course
Speaker 1: of the movie. He had realized this earlier before he
Speaker 1: lost his family, but now he's discovering it, realizes that
Speaker 1: it's about this. It's about this found family is more
Speaker 1: important than any personal goal that he has. So they
Speaker 1: defeat Sophina through trust and teamwork, and they're leveled up abilities. Uh,
Speaker 1: the treasure falls, the curse breaks, our heroes win and
Speaker 1: now Edge in his face with this terrible choice. What
Speaker 1: to do with the tablet. He can bring his wife back,
Speaker 1: which he's been planning to do this whole time, but
Speaker 1: of course instead he brings Holga back and she's like,
Speaker 1: why did you do this? But we know why he
Speaker 1: did it because, like this found family is so important.
Speaker 3: And also, let's be real, bringing back somebody who's been
Speaker 3: dead for like five years, it's never gonna go well,
Speaker 3: that basically gonna be a big goog.
Speaker 2: Just just bringing her back. It's like alone, nap, It's
Speaker 2: a slight hiccup.
Speaker 1: She'd been dead ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Fine, she hasn't started like blessing yet.
Speaker 1: So our heroes succeed. They get statues, Kira knows the truth,
Speaker 1: she loves her dad, they have a relationship again. Zinc
Speaker 1: Uh you know, wanders off into the into paletin legend
Speaker 1: and our heroes walk off into the next campaign. A
Speaker 1: wonderful movie. All in all, Forge ends up back in prison.
Speaker 1: He tries to escape with a very similar scheme that
Speaker 1: our friends used and let's just say it goes poorly.
Speaker 1: That wonderful movie, let's talk about it, Rosie, your thoughts,
Speaker 1: your feeling.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love this movie.
Speaker 3: D and D Hat Hat D and D hat give
Speaker 3: me the hat, I will wear it.
Speaker 2: I love this movie.
Speaker 3: I think it's super charming, so many good fantastic creature effects,
Speaker 3: practical effects, creature designs. Even as someone who doesn't play
Speaker 3: a lot of D and D but wants to get
Speaker 3: into it more, I've read a lot of module books,
Speaker 3: and I've read a lot of like fan versions and
Speaker 3: homebrews and Star Wars ttpg's and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I just loved this movie. I could watch like
Speaker 2: twenty of these films.
Speaker 3: It kind of reminds me how I felt when I
Speaker 3: first watched the Toby maguire Spider Man movie in the
Speaker 3: movie theater, and I literally turned around to my friends
Speaker 3: and was like, I could watch a hundred of these.
Speaker 3: You could just make this every year with a new villain,
Speaker 3: a new quest, and.
Speaker 2: I would watch it.
Speaker 3: And obviously I spoke that into existence, and now we
Speaker 3: watch one Spider Man movie every year, and I'm blessed.
Speaker 3: But in this case, I loved it. Fantastical world building,
Speaker 3: incredible cast. I don't think there's a week link in
Speaker 3: the movie. It doesn't have bad CGI. It's not even
Speaker 3: a week two minutes a week.
Speaker 2: Like this is so watchable.
Speaker 3: I've watched it since it came on Netflix, even before
Speaker 3: the show, and yeah, I just I think it's a
Speaker 3: brilliant movie. I'm really happy we're getting to talk about it. Also,
Speaker 3: one of my biggest takeaways though from watching it for
Speaker 3: the pod this time, I had not played Diablo for
Speaker 3: when this had come out originally, so I'm watching it
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yeah, go for it, guys, you can
Speaker 3: stop the evil Necromancer. But this time I was like, guys,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe she needs to necromance those zombies, Like maybe
Speaker 3: she needs.
Speaker 2: Them to help her.
Speaker 3: Because I am always a necromancer and Diablo. I've played
Speaker 3: as different things, but I always go back to necromancer.
Speaker 3: So I was definitely having some Sophina empathy where I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, you know.
Speaker 2: What, maybe she just really needs her zombies guys.
Speaker 3: Like I've been there, I've turned people into zombies, like
Speaker 3: I need an army of skeletons. I know.
Speaker 2: It was very fun. I love it.
Speaker 3: It's also fun like watching it again understanding more. For example,
Speaker 3: there's a boulders Gate name drop in here, and just
Speaker 3: some of the little Easter eggs that have transcended the
Speaker 3: pop culture kind of realm that even I understand, which
Speaker 3: is kind of I guess how other people feel watching.
Speaker 2: MCU movies and getting one of the more obvious easter eggs,
Speaker 2: because I'm always.
Speaker 3: Like ten layers deep making it up in my head
Speaker 3: that I think it relates to. But this was just
Speaker 3: so much fun and yeah, I'm really excited to talk
Speaker 3: more about it and to tap in super producer Aaron,
Speaker 3: who will join us after this break where we will
Speaker 3: roll Natural twenties and then to be doing vicious mockery
Speaker 3: or something on our sponsors.
Speaker 1: And we're back. We'd like to welcome now our super
Speaker 1: producer Aaron to tell us how this movie is actually
Speaker 1: structured like an actual run of D and D.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think I loved your recap, Jason. I
Speaker 4: think one of the things you said in there was
Speaker 4: perfect for why this movie really does capture Dungeon and
Speaker 4: Dragons experience like playing the game, because it is all
Speaker 4: about overplanning and all of those plans going horribly wrong
Speaker 4: and then you creatively figure out what to do next.
Speaker 4: That the Dungeons and Dragons is cooperative storytelling with your
Speaker 4: friends that you're sitting around the table with and then
Speaker 4: you get to play some elaborate and exaggerated character, and
Speaker 4: you as a group exhibit absolutely horrible problem solving throughout
Speaker 4: the entire experience, and.
Speaker 3: Every choice is like the wrong choice or like a
Speaker 3: choice that's just a bit too late.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, and you sit there with your group of
Speaker 4: friends talking through what the possible solution. One of my
Speaker 4: favorite scenes in this is the bridge scene where they
Speaker 4: have to get across the bridge. There's a very elaborate
Speaker 4: set of steps you need to make. It's every fifth stone,
Speaker 4: and then you go laterally until you meet the middle,
Speaker 4: and then it's every third stone you go laterally the
Speaker 4: other direction, And while he's giving this explanation, Simon just
Speaker 4: absent mindedly puts his foot on the wrong stone. The
Speaker 4: bridge collapses, and the party now has to figure out
Speaker 4: how do they get across this chasm? Yeap, And this
Speaker 4: is like a perfect example of something that will happen
Speaker 4: in a D and D game where you are presented
Speaker 4: with an obstacle. The DM dungeon master has probably come
Speaker 4: up with a pretty easy way for you to figure
Speaker 4: it out, and without knowing, your party just messes it
Speaker 4: up someway and you have to figure out something new
Speaker 4: and so In this scene where the party's trying to
Speaker 4: figure out how to get across, Houlgas suggests tying a
Speaker 4: rope to her axe and throwing it across the chasm
Speaker 4: to the floating platform and everyone climbing across her makeshift
Speaker 4: hook shot. Basically, and this, this kind of solution to
Speaker 4: me is the Bob Dylan or Boondock Saints poster that
Speaker 4: every college male had on their wall and the late Oughts,
Speaker 4: where like every D and D group at some point
Speaker 4: has found a rope in their inventory and tried to
Speaker 4: use it in some creative way to climb up or
Speaker 4: across something and it doesn't ever work. But it's just
Speaker 4: that process of like everyone looking at their character sheet
Speaker 4: and saying, well, I've got this, can we use this?
Speaker 4: I have this spell, I can make us, I can
Speaker 4: make things smell like fresh cut grass. Does that help
Speaker 4: in any way with our distraction tactics? And then of course,
Speaker 4: like Zenk as a character feels very much like the
Speaker 4: dungeon master's playable character who's just there to help them
Speaker 4: and usher them along and along those lines, oftentimes a
Speaker 4: DM will like provide some solution to you if you
Speaker 4: if you guys are stuck. And in this I really
Speaker 4: feel like the hither thither staff just happens to be
Speaker 4: something that Holga has and Simon happens to recognize it,
Speaker 4: and it's the perfect way for them to get across.
Speaker 4: Cool great use of magic like that is a real
Speaker 4: spell that you can use. And in fact, a lot
Speaker 4: of the items from the movie Wizards of the Coast
Speaker 4: introduced like a free item pack, So if you are
Speaker 4: interested in playing D and D and you want to
Speaker 4: use these characters or these items, all of it is
Speaker 4: available for free, fun way to just jump in and
Speaker 4: get like some of these familiar things. But I mean
Speaker 4: it's not just that, like the fact that as a
Speaker 4: DM you can come up and pre plan all these
Speaker 4: things and you can like put together an elaborate discussion
Speaker 4: tree that you expect to happen with this really important
Speaker 4: character and then the party ignores them, or the party
Speaker 4: he does something and they die, and then it's like, well,
Speaker 4: now I have to completely come up with some other
Speaker 4: thing on fly And that's one of the most fun things.
Speaker 4: And like one of the groups that I DM for
Speaker 4: involves a boo who was one of our producers, and
Speaker 4: to be fair, I think he actually may have missed
Speaker 4: this session. But we were running a a like a
Speaker 4: scene in a town, and I had a bunch of
Speaker 4: goblins that were disguised magically as little kids. So there's
Speaker 4: all these little kids running around the town and I
Speaker 4: wanted they all looked very suspicious. They were all wearing red,
Speaker 4: and I wanted our party to like investigate who these
Speaker 4: little kids were. And one of the players rolled really poorly,
Speaker 4: and he happened to be like investigating the kid that
Speaker 4: was standing next to the well, and I was like,
Speaker 4: you rolled a one that is like that's a natural failure,
Speaker 4: critical failure. I have to punish you. And so his
Speaker 4: punishment was that he went to investigate this child and
Speaker 4: accidentally bumped into them and they fell down the well.
Speaker 4: And it was just like that was not the plan
Speaker 4: at all, but you did so poorly, something had to happen.
Speaker 4: So there are so many great things where you're reacting
Speaker 4: and you come up with all these plans, things don't
Speaker 4: work out as a group, you figure out something new
Speaker 4: and you move on, and so in that way it
Speaker 4: does really the movie to me felt so much like
Speaker 4: playing a game with your friends and everyone has these
Speaker 4: like I said, exaggerated character traits, you know, like Simon
Speaker 4: is so unsure of himself and Poulga is so like
Speaker 4: cut and dry. Zenke is like Drax where he doesn't
Speaker 4: understand any sort of sarcasm or anything.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: And then the other thing is like they use magic
Speaker 4: really well in this and and it's very good representation
Speaker 4: of playing it in the game in particular, like you
Speaker 4: see little uses of spells, Rosie, like you're talking about
Speaker 4: like these easter eggs that maybe you wouldn't notice, like
Speaker 4: Sophina uses frost touch to chill Hugh Grant's tea where
Speaker 4: she her finger becomes iced and she just sticks it.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're what I was going to say, Aaron,
Speaker 3: another thing that I really that bring true to me
Speaker 3: about this and I haven't. This is really just such
Speaker 3: a silly thing. But it was one of those things
Speaker 3: that you can't plan for where when our DM Jewles
Speaker 3: was DM in this mini game with me and Nick
Speaker 3: and Jewles was playing and dming, I had written that
Speaker 3: my worst you know, your secret enemy, I had written
Speaker 3: that his name was Larry, And then when we finally
Speaker 3: got to play, Nick's character was called Larry completely coincidental,
Speaker 3: and then we had to essentially like write in a
Speaker 3: storyline about why I hated him and he was my nemesis,
Speaker 3: and it was just because we both chose the same name.
Speaker 3: So I do think that there's this kind of chaotic
Speaker 3: collaborative nature of D and D that I really love,
Speaker 3: because there is an aspect to it where you can
Speaker 3: really never.
Speaker 2: Know what people are going to do.
Speaker 4: And speaking of names, whether or not they did this intentionally,
Speaker 4: Jarnathan is the exact kind of name that people come
Speaker 4: up with in the midst of the game when they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: who's my character, It's JARNI. I don't know that's such
Speaker 4: a name that someone would come up with in the
Speaker 4: middle of.
Speaker 1: The game trying to think of something.
Speaker 4: And one other like really cool Easter egg with the
Speaker 4: magic I thought was a lot of spells and dungeon
Speaker 4: and dragons require concentration, so when you cast something, you
Speaker 4: can only concentrate on one spell, and if your concentration
Speaker 4: is broken, the spell ends. Not every spell requires this,
Speaker 4: but a lot of the really powerful ones do, and
Speaker 4: so for instance, Sophia in the beginning of the fight
Speaker 4: at the end casts animate objects on I think it's
Speaker 4: the statue in the fountain and that comes to life
Speaker 4: and it's attacking everyone, and then Doric uses like a
Speaker 4: thing of garlic or whatever and just slingshots it at
Speaker 4: Sophia and it hits her. She loses concentration and the
Speaker 4: animate object ends. So it's a nice like example of
Speaker 4: how that works in game, where you don't have to
Speaker 4: do something super damaging, but if you can just knock
Speaker 4: them out of concentration, you can end their spell, which
Speaker 4: is a really fun way of interacting in battle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jason, you have some You did some really good
Speaker 3: fun facts with this, and I think a great one
Speaker 3: of why we're even having this conversation is the fact that,
Speaker 3: like the directors are like massive nuts.
Speaker 1: That's true. More on that in fun facts, Aaron, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Let's go to quick
Speaker 1: let's go to fun facts quip facting. Yeah, okay, first up,
Speaker 1: fun facts. Box office for this movie Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: hat ninety three million domestic, one hundred and eleven international,
Speaker 1: two hundred million worldwide. This is working off a budget
Speaker 1: of a reported hundred and fifty millions. Are you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, three hundred something million? It was not a hit,
Speaker 1: not a flop. But if you're wondering why we haven't
Speaker 1: seen Dungeons and Dragon two, it's because it didn't make any.
Speaker 3: It didn't make half a million dollars, which is what
Speaker 3: they always want a movie to make. And yeah, as
Speaker 3: we were kind of hinting at in the half a billion, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And so as we were talking about, the film is
Speaker 3: co directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daily, who
Speaker 3: is sad and if I'm not mistaken, that is the same.
Speaker 3: They're the same to people who wrote Spider Man Homecoming,
Speaker 3: I believe when so like they are banger writers. I
Speaker 3: think that that's a big part. They obviously love games
Speaker 3: and gaming. Game Night held another hilarious movie, and I
Speaker 3: would say like, yeah, this this film kind of has
Speaker 3: that emc unice to it, but complimentary because I do
Speaker 3: think when this first came out the trailer, people were like, Oh,
Speaker 3: it's trying to be like the MCU, it's trying to
Speaker 3: be quippy. But I actually think it's much more of
Speaker 3: like a princess bride type situation.
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, I think you're right. I think
Speaker 1: they establish basically I think Goldstend and daily their voice
Speaker 1: in Game Night, which is lots of heists, lots of action, comedy,
Speaker 1: really fun story set pieces, and always a collection of
Speaker 1: emotionally wounded weirdos. Chris Pine. In this movie, Chris Pine
Speaker 1: took the role of Edg and the Bard because he
Speaker 1: wanted to make a fantasy movie that his kids could watch.
Speaker 1: And he's described the tone of this movie as quote,
Speaker 1: Rosie's your point, the Princess Bride meets Monty Python meets
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I like it, And also aesthetically I understand
Speaker 3: what he means. It's like, what if there was a
Speaker 3: PG thirteen version of Game of Ferns that you could
Speaker 3: watch with your kids, even though we all know kids
Speaker 3: watch Game of Ferns.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: Oh, this was another one you pulled out that I
Speaker 3: absolutely loved that I did not know, but obviously as
Speaker 3: the number one little guy lover, I was impressed by
Speaker 3: the fat dragon. I love the comically overweight dragon. I
Speaker 3: love that he's just eaten it up having a good time.
Speaker 3: And his name in the law is Thember Child. What
Speaker 3: a name, Okay, And he's a real monster in D
Speaker 3: and D Law, known for guarding the dwarf and City
Speaker 3: of Gratsluff and for being well, large and unmotivated, reliable.
Speaker 3: He's basically like the Garfield of the Dungeons and Dragon universe,
Speaker 3: which you know I'm always supporting.
Speaker 1: This is a film in Hugh Grant's villain era, maybe
Speaker 1: his best errors. He would describe it his freak show era.
Speaker 1: In the last decade, Hugh Grant has pivoted from his
Speaker 1: early kind of rom com sweetheart roles to a bunch
Speaker 1: of roles in which he is a scene stealing scoundrel.
Speaker 1: He's played a fraudster in Paddington II, he has played
Speaker 1: a sleazy pi and the gentleman, a sociopathic husband in
Speaker 1: The Undoing I love that, and now the double crossing
Speaker 1: con man and jungeones and dragons. Quote. This is what
Speaker 1: I get offered these days, Hugh Grant said during the
Speaker 1: press run for Willie Walker. Quote, I'm in the freak
Speaker 1: show phase of my career. I do baddies, psychopaths, weirdos,
Speaker 1: perverts and now believe we hope it continues.
Speaker 2: Never media trained this man. You cannot media train this fan.
Speaker 3: He never allow And it's very interesting because obviously also
Speaker 3: most recently he took that to a new level with Heretic,
Speaker 3: where he was kind of, you know, the true true
Speaker 3: villain rather than these.
Speaker 2: Kind of like odd maybe you root for them villains.
Speaker 3: I think this is one of his best villain era
Speaker 3: performances because he plays the con man so well. Speaking
Speaker 3: of people playing parts well, Reggae John Page in this
Speaker 3: What Happened.
Speaker 2: He's playing lawful good. He should have been a hero
Speaker 2: after Bridgeton made him a global star.
Speaker 3: He left the show after season one, which is why
Speaker 3: we have never seen him again. Very sad because it
Speaker 3: probably would have just been a cameo. But also I
Speaker 3: understand that breaking through in a show like that, you
Speaker 3: might worry about getting pigeonholed. So he left the show
Speaker 3: aiming for leading man status. But Jason, let's talk about it,
Speaker 3: because he was in the gray man flop from the
Speaker 3: Russo Brothers. Dungeons and Dragons wonderful but did not get
Speaker 3: him to kill me to break yeah, and Dungeons and
Speaker 3: Dragons like it did not.
Speaker 2: Break him out. He's not a main character.
Speaker 3: He is kind of your perfect straight man, this kind
Speaker 3: of dead pan hilarity and as we kind of we
Speaker 3: talked about this in prepro but the buzz on Regge
Speaker 3: has noticeably called He's still circling major projects like the
Speaker 3: Saint reboot interesting and Butch Cassidy series of Dot's Very
Speaker 3: Interesting is going nowhere right now.
Speaker 2: But also I just.
Speaker 3: Think my theory that I have that I've talked to
Speaker 3: many people about, and I mentioned it in the discord,
Speaker 3: I think at one point I'm pretty sure he was
Speaker 3: announced as being like a potential cast member and an
Speaker 3: MCU thing, but they didn't.
Speaker 2: Say who, and then that was kind of pulled.
Speaker 3: I think that they should have cost him as read Richards,
Speaker 3: though we got Pedro Pascals.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling happy about that.
Speaker 3: But I also do think that for a time they
Speaker 3: were probably considering him for the Casper Cole version of
Speaker 3: Black Panther, who's like a cop, an African American cop,
Speaker 3: and he took over the mantle for a little while.
Speaker 3: Was not particularly beloved, So I think it makes sense
Speaker 3: that they didn't go in that direction.
Speaker 2: But this movie reminds you reggae. He could be a
Speaker 2: movie star.
Speaker 3: He could have been he could have been a star,
Speaker 3: He could have been somebody we got a note of, sir.
Speaker 2: All you had to do was.
Speaker 3: Just show up once every season in Bridgeton and keep
Speaker 3: that money going, keep your face on those posters in
Speaker 3: that Netflix smart.
Speaker 2: Category that everybody loves so much. But you know what,
Speaker 2: good for him?
Speaker 3: I feel like he every time I watch him in
Speaker 3: something great like Dungeons and Dragons, I'll be all the
Speaker 3: first season of Ridgeton. I'm like, sir, you can do this.
Speaker 3: You got a You know, he probably could have been
Speaker 3: in Gladia It too. I think he has that kind
Speaker 3: of juice.
Speaker 1: Instead, he was in the Great Man flop Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragon's Hat. Good movie, but a cameo and a and
Speaker 1: a ad for Audi cars.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, get together? Who is your agent? Get
Speaker 2: a new agent? So you're very fantastical. You can do it.
Speaker 1: Oh listen if you want to hear some Hollywood scuttle
Speaker 1: but rumors. I apparently like his team was in turmoil
Speaker 1: about this decision to lead Bridgerton, and there was It
Speaker 1: was not like a unified team decision. Like one part
Speaker 1: was like, don't do it, another part was like do
Speaker 1: it and we see the results next up. The magic
Speaker 1: and the effects in Dungeons and Dragons hat mostly practical.
Speaker 1: Over eighty creatures were built with practical effects by Legacy Effects,
Speaker 1: the same team behind The Mandalorian and Iron Man and
Speaker 1: other films including The Tobacxi. The Cat People were practical
Speaker 1: actual costume Jonathan actual costume, the Dragon Guard animatronic head.
Speaker 1: We love practical effects, as you know here at Extra Vision.
Speaker 2: So this is all. I think.
Speaker 3: You can see it in every single shot where there
Speaker 3: is some brilliant creature work. I just think it's such
Speaker 3: a high point of this movie, and I think it
Speaker 3: will continue to be a part of why this film
Speaker 3: is gaining that cult kind of following. It's interesting because
Speaker 3: we've talked about this a lot on the podcast. But
Speaker 3: you know, in the olden days, when me and Jason
Speaker 3: were young, you could make a movie like Scott Pilgrim
Speaker 3: that did not hit at all on in the theaters.
Speaker 3: It did not make the money back, but it made
Speaker 3: a ton of money on home video. Now, of course,
Speaker 3: the streaming version of that is you put it on
Speaker 3: Netflix and it gets a certain amount of views, but
Speaker 3: that does not necessarily give the creators or cost any
Speaker 3: extra money.
Speaker 2: It's not the same as DVD.
Speaker 3: Sales and home video sales, which you know Matt Damon
Speaker 3: and Ben Affleck have kind of spoken quite extensively about
Speaker 3: being the reason they were able to make a living
Speaker 3: in Hollywood because their movies would do really great on
Speaker 3: home video. I hope that the popularity of this on
Speaker 3: Netflix and the conversation it is garnering means we will
Speaker 3: get more D and D storytelling, and that is our
Speaker 3: final fun fact is as of now, there's no official sequel,
Speaker 3: though there was talk of a TV spin off.
Speaker 2: But Chris Pine is he the best Chris. I don't know.
Speaker 2: We got a lot of Chriss, but he's doing. He's up.
Speaker 2: He's one of our great chris Is.
Speaker 3: And he was in an interview with games Radar he
Speaker 3: was basically like, I don't know anything, but I feel
Speaker 3: pretty confident that it may happen, and asked if he
Speaker 3: would be happy to return. He replied absolutely, because he's
Speaker 3: smart and he can know a good thing when he
Speaker 3: sees it.
Speaker 1: Next up the Omnibus, and now the Omnibus where Laura
Speaker 1: and Understanding come together. Let's talk about dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 1: as a as a piece of culture, and I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the original dungeon Dragons. The Blueprins change, whether you
Speaker 1: know it or not, the kind of ore text for
Speaker 1: many video games, many styles of story. It's many comic books,
Speaker 1: any kind of tale that begins with you enter a tavern,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Owes itself to D and D
Speaker 1: is a game, but it is also, you know, an
Speaker 1: incredible cultural institution and also a generator of both joy
Speaker 1: and also significant panic in the culture. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the origins. Game was born in the early nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin and was created by the legendary Gary Geax,
Speaker 1: who was doing like the nerdiest pre computer thing that
Speaker 1: you could do, which is designing a designing tabletop war
Speaker 1: games in his basement. He meets a guy named Dave Arnison,
Speaker 1: another gamer from me Minnesota, and together they create this thing.
Speaker 1: What if instead of commanding armies as table tabletop games
Speaker 1: were doing at the time, stuff like that. Yes, players
Speaker 1: controlled a single character in a fantasy world, collaborating with
Speaker 1: other characters on quests, and that idea individual character, characters,
Speaker 1: collaborative storytelling, party based adventures was a big bang for
Speaker 1: so many other things. In nineteen seventy four, they released
Speaker 1: the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, three little rule
Speaker 1: books in a white box. It cost ten bucks you know,
Speaker 1: it had very low production value, like it looked it's
Speaker 1: like giving.
Speaker 3: Nothing teenage may Ninja thous issue one where it was
Speaker 3: just like something. It looks like the home made it
Speaker 3: and then sent like five hundred compets at the comic shops.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's giving like small town accountant spreadsheet vibes. But
Speaker 1: it was the beginning of a genre, and it quickly
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire through hobbyist circles, through college dorms, high
Speaker 1: school kids. And this was a time when you know,
Speaker 1: fantasy fiction was starting to find its second era legs.
Speaker 1: You know, Tolkien and others had started the movement some
Speaker 1: forty years earlier now at this point. But because of
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Rings paperbacks, because of the Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings animated very weird animated movie, because of
Speaker 1: other cultural references like led Zeppelin dropping multiple Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings references in multiple songs, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you have this generation of post hippie era kids who
Speaker 1: are smoking weed.
Speaker 2: They in that mom's bayfield. That's what you need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't feel like they fit into the kind
Speaker 1: of like jock business suit hierarchy. They're weirder and they're
Speaker 1: looking for something much weirder, but also that brings a
Speaker 1: community together, and then you have the explosion of D
Speaker 1: and D through the seventies and eighties, new campaigns, new rules.
Speaker 1: Kids are creating entire worlds and binders drawing maps in
Speaker 1: math class. If you watch a Strange Stranger Things, then
Speaker 1: you've gotten a whiff of this.
Speaker 3: No, so you Stranger Things is so deeply, deeply inspired
Speaker 3: by dungeons and dragons.
Speaker 1: So you know, this little kind of lark that Geegax
Speaker 1: and Anderson started begins to make millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: And that is where the fear sets in. We go
Speaker 1: to the eighties, it's Reagan's America, meaning very conservative, very moralistic.
Speaker 1: We're worried about outsider threats, including the devil Satan.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's there, and it's stage.
Speaker 3: It absolutely sucks, destroys America for a long time.
Speaker 1: Across the country, this wave of moral panics starts to
Speaker 1: set in, and the fear is basically, okay, what if
Speaker 1: Satan is reaching our kids through culture through heavy metal music,
Speaker 1: through rock music, dungeons, through.
Speaker 2: Dungeons and dragon called dungeons.
Speaker 3: It's obviously ebol that prisoners should be in there, so.
Speaker 1: Wild claims begin to circulate that D and D was
Speaker 1: tied to suicide, that it was tied to mental illness,
Speaker 1: that it was a gateway to devil worship, and this
Speaker 1: panic kind of crested with a real life tragedy. James
Speaker 1: Dallas Egbert, who is a college student, disappeared in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine. The rumors that circulated said he's got lost
Speaker 1: in the university's steam tunnels because he was involved in
Speaker 1: a D and D like LARPing event, when in reality,
Speaker 1: he was like a kid who was struggling with depression
Speaker 1: and D and D had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: But the stories about his death kind of stuck. Then
Speaker 1: came Mazes and Months made for TV movie starring Yeah
Speaker 1: Young Tom Hanks, where D and D style gaming literally
Speaker 1: drives one of the characters insane. In the real world,
Speaker 1: groups like badd bothered about Dungeons and Dragons sprang up
Speaker 1: to fight what they saw as like satanic indoctrination for
Speaker 1: the youth, with various activists making wild claims, including that
Speaker 1: like spells, these spells in the game were real and
Speaker 1: that could like actually turn your kid. Your kid could
Speaker 1: be unleashing actual email like satanic yea through the magic.
Speaker 1: It just absolutely bizarre stuff, but it was enough for
Speaker 1: sixty minutes ye to do an episode on it like
Speaker 1: this was this was a real moment in American history.
Speaker 3: The publishers like incredibly sad because, as you said, it
Speaker 3: started as a place where people could be outsiders, but
Speaker 3: then that outsider community was othered in this space. And
Speaker 3: this led not only obviously to like you were saying,
Speaker 3: the kind of story that came out when James Dallas
Speaker 3: Eggbert died, but also this idea of D and D
Speaker 3: and Satanic panic, and it was a key part in
Speaker 3: the West Memphis three being arrested and then imprisoned wrongly
Speaker 3: for you know.
Speaker 2: Two decades, Watch Paradise Lost.
Speaker 3: Those are great documentaries, and also the later documentary that
Speaker 3: was made by none other than Peter Jackson. And I
Speaker 3: think often about how sad it is that and this
Speaker 3: is something the last season of Stranger Things I think
Speaker 3: did get right was how sad it is that this
Speaker 3: can be such a powerful, incredible space for people, but
Speaker 3: then from the outside it just ends up making them
Speaker 3: like more marginalized or seen as a threat.
Speaker 2: And it's really sad because it's just storytelling.
Speaker 3: You know, but the Satanic Panic movement was was really
Speaker 3: real and really dangerous.
Speaker 1: To be to be fair to these freaks who were
Speaker 1: worried about the Satanic Panic. You know, rock bands and
Speaker 1: metal bands of the era were playing with that fristen
Speaker 1: of danger, using satanic imagery, using satanic uh wording and
Speaker 1: references in their lyrics where they actually Satanists. No, nonetheless,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not talking about the the Nordic death
Speaker 1: metal mounded people like, right, right, yeah, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about that. So, you know, these people who are worried
Speaker 1: about this so called Satanic panic, we're seeing things that
Speaker 1: they believed were truly.
Speaker 3: Even being pushed by that pushed that that idea was
Speaker 3: pushed onto them by the media as well.
Speaker 1: That they were sincerely they were sincerely deluded.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Now the publishers at TSR were forced to do damage control.
Speaker 1: Now they removed references to demons, they were references to devils.
Speaker 1: They toned down some of the artwork, renamed monsters. Tried
Speaker 1: to weather the storm, and they did. D and D
Speaker 1: of course survived. The panic eventually burned itself out. Studies
Speaker 1: various studies debunked the claims the movement itself just kind
Speaker 1: of petered out because it once the hearings started, Once
Speaker 1: congressional hearings on music and culture and the influence of
Speaker 1: the Devil actually started in front of people that people
Speaker 1: could watch on TV, it became manifestly ridiculous. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the kids who played D and D are
Speaker 1: now the kids who are moving culture, running culture, and
Speaker 1: D and D went mainstream. Fast forward to now, Dungeons
Speaker 1: and Dragons is just like in a whole different thing.
Speaker 1: It's an institution now, celebrities play it, actors film campaigns
Speaker 1: for Twitter and YouTube. There are podcasts, the various hit
Speaker 1: podcasts that have people playing D and D on it, cartoons,
Speaker 1: merchandise conventions.
Speaker 3: Currently Etway Dungeons and Dragon show twenty sided Tavern that
Speaker 3: I believe is an official Dungeons and Dragons show that
Speaker 3: they bring people in to do different campaigns. Now it's
Speaker 3: part of the cultural lexicon in a way that I
Speaker 3: think no one could have perceived when it was created.
Speaker 1: That's right, and D and D has in fact become
Speaker 1: integral to the way we tell stories and we perceive stories,
Speaker 1: video games, novels, movies, even the way we think about
Speaker 1: like teamwork and assembling teams and making progress and leveling
Speaker 1: up characters. It all bears the stamp of Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 1: and the cultural legacy is enormous. The level up mechanic
Speaker 1: that's baked into any number of things, video games, movies,
Speaker 1: et cetera. In fitness apps comes from D and D.
Speaker 1: The idea of a campaign, a shared, serialized, collaborative narrative
Speaker 1: that unfolds organically over.
Speaker 2: Time, came from DNA D.
Speaker 1: The iconic polyhedral dice set from the from the earliest
Speaker 1: humble D four to the mighty D twenty. It didn't
Speaker 1: just shape tabletop gaming. It rewired how video games are structured,
Speaker 1: how video games structure, chance stats, criticals, character builds. All
Speaker 1: that stuff comes from d D. Why does your elden
Speaker 1: Ring characters damage range have a ceiling and a floor.
Speaker 1: Why do you sometimes miss an attack that you have
Speaker 1: an eighty seven percent chance to hit because your character
Speaker 1: has high accuracy? Thank or blame Dungeons and Dragons for this.
Speaker 1: When early computer games like Ultimar Balder's Gates started adapting
Speaker 1: tabletop mechanics, they brought that dice logic with them. Hit points,
Speaker 1: armor classes, defensive stats, offensive stats, et cetera, and all
Speaker 1: of that has stuck around today. Whether you're specking out
Speaker 1: a character in like Elon Musk Path of Exile, or.
Speaker 2: Or hoping.
Speaker 1: Or hoping your your critical attack lands in Final Fantasy,
Speaker 1: you're basically just doing the virtual version of rolling the
Speaker 1: dice in Dungeons and Dragons. Even the way we relate
Speaker 1: to fiction has changed. D and D trained an entire
Speaker 1: generation to collaborate on stories, to improvise within cis josure.
Speaker 1: I don't think it. I don't think it's an accident
Speaker 1: that a lot of the ascendancy, this, this post eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties ascendancy of Dungeons and Dragons involves people who
Speaker 1: are involved in improv theater and improvisational comedy. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the game has been through it, and it's come through.
Speaker 1: It was banned, but now it's here. It's part of
Speaker 1: a cultural institution, which I think is a hopeful thing.
Speaker 1: Look at it, look at look at Dungeons and Dragons.
Speaker 1: It can be attacked, it could be misunderstood, it can
Speaker 1: be almost banned, and it can still be a major
Speaker 1: pillar of our of our culture. We've we did Andrews
Speaker 1: of Dragons here to stay, to.
Speaker 3: Stay, Baby, you can't get rid of it because all
Speaker 3: you need is a friend and a basement and an imagination.
Speaker 3: It's incredibly accessible and that's why it's still here.
Speaker 1: In the next few episodes of X ray Vision, we're
Speaker 1: diving into Daredevil Born Again episode seven, and then Friday
Speaker 1: our reactions to everything that happens in Nintendo Durren that's
Speaker 1: in for this episode. Next You're listening. X ray Vision
Speaker 1: is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 3: Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wax.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and Heidi.
Speaker 2: Our disc called moderate, though