Dungeons and Dragons (2022)

[Anonymouswizard]

They need to include LGBT characters in this new D&D movie.

Eh. Unless the movie is heavy on the romance (and it likely isn't) it doesn't need explicit LGBT characters. A scene where the fighter is distracted by another man? Sure. The Bard flirting with every sapient over the age of majority? It's a big enough D&D meme that I'd honestly expect it. The Cleric being shown in the barmaid's room, neither of them wearing clothes? Sure, all great stuff (we are assuming for the moment that the Fighter is male and the Cleric is female). Heck, I'd love them to play with stereotypes, throw an explicitly ace bard in there or something.

But there's various reason they won't make it that explicit, which is annoying. But then again, I'm the person who's still pissed off by the fact that some places censored Rocketman (and let's leave it at that).

[Tom Kalbfus]

They need to include LGBT characters in this new D&D movie.

Why? Well actually in Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Caramon did dress as a woman to get past a senile old red dragon. The cartoon was still poorly made, that is why there was no Dragons of Winter Night or Dragons of Spring Dawning cartoons to continue the series.

My main criterion is that they make an excellent D&D movie, that means pulling out all the stops, no cutting corners to have cheesy special effects, and no fighters with blue lipstick.

[Rodin]

Besides, having the D&D IP to work with hardly seems like the clarion call to push for gritty realism anyways. That works far better with serialized television and with properties that don't have giant space hamsters.

Damnit, now I want a movie where the Big Bad summons a giant space hamster for the final battle. And no CGI either - they must use a real hamster badly edited in.

Yes, I would throw away a popular D&D movie for a cheap laugh. Does that make me a bad person?

[Rakaydos]

Although it does raise a point on how armour should work in a movie - getting hit by a weapon but ignoring it due to AC is fine for DnD the game, but in a movie that audience would expect people to react to strong swings that connect with their armour even if it did no damage. This could be a matter of showing how the heavily armoured fighter is kindof like a tank, or have non-damaging strikes show as glancing etc - I am just not sure that any of that would look particularly good in live action.
As such minimising fights could be the way to go and only really have them shown against main enemies, but then should a DnD movie try to show a lot of wading through hordes of monsters/people while crawling through a dungeon before you meet the dragon (or the like).

My preference is that battles should result in battle damage to armor and weapons... and then explicitly have heros use Mending in the downtime between events, as onscreen magic. You know the paladin is about to go down because he looks like he's about to go down, but after camping for the night he's back to perfect condition.

[PraetorDragoon]

Damnit, now I want a movie where the Big Bad summons a giant space hamster for the final battle. And no CGI either - they must use a real hamster badly edited in.

Yes, I would throw away a popular D&D movie for a cheap laugh. Does that make me a bad person?

No, he summons a Miniature Giant Space Hamster. He missed the first part. Still a vicious creature that goes for the eyes though.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Then what's wrong with LGBT characters in a new D&D movie?

That didn't seem like it was Lvl 2 Expert's point - rather they were pointing out that your one liners thrown out with no additional rational some of which were likely to generate non-DnD relevant discussion (the same discussion could occur with an moive at all) were not helping discussion of a DnD movie.

You seem to have a gift for inciting discussions Bartman. With a single line, be it in your own topics or someone else's, you can launch pages of discussion. That's a good thing on a forum, we need discussions. Yet at the same time it sort of half to fully jokingly frustrates me that the discussion you started has all of us hopping around a minefield of social topics that could fall badly with other forum goers and politically charged subjects that could cause the mods to swoop down on us (even if they seem happy to discuss topics like forced diversity themselves for the moment), and then your next contribution is not some kind of extra thought on the subject you started us on, but rather it's another oneliner that makes me feel like "here we go again".

To be fair, the whole LGBT thing is an aspect of diversity we were mostly totally missing. So in all fairness you were pushing the discussion along more then my last paragraph gives you credit for. In that sense it's a brilliant followup, and a good use of your gift. It just... how to say this... sometimes your commenting style reminds me just a little bit of Maximum77, who started dozens of topics with good food for deep scientific discussions, but ones the discussion started to reach some sort of a conclusion Maximum77 himself would drop back in and go "Actually, I'm interested in something else entirely now, now help me with that". It's an anticlimax. Instead of the person who brought the topic up trying to contribute, round up the opinions, thank people for replying or whatever in the spirit of the discussion they just start doing something else.

And I say above that I said this half to fully jokingly. I meant that. I don't think your remark is actually bad, and I don't actually need to discuss studded leather armor (although thanks for your thoughts on it dancrilis), it's just a feeling thing. I already got one warning out of this topic for arguing against something I thought would be bad in the movie, I successfully danced my way through a discussion on both race and gender, and just when I feel like we're on safe ground again, bam, the gay bomb dromps. In all seriousness I don't think we should avoid socially charged topics. If anything recent events have shown us we need to talk about them more. But they're also intense discussions to have. It takes focus, willpower and maybe a spell slot or two to have these discussions well, to contribute with a well thought out opinion. So half to fully jokingly, yeah, I feel a little had when someone manages to make me write lots of complicated text with a single line they don't intend to follow up on in any way.

It's complicated. It's also not personal. But this is still an internet forum about a stick figure comic that mostly falls in the comedy genre, and as such I reserve the right to sometimes just let loose and say what enters my mind or what I think would make for the funniest comment rather than thinking about things the hardest and most serious I can.

[Tom Kalbfus]

I just want a great D&D movie this time, that is all I want, the other D&D movies were terrible. An LGTBQ character will not make a terrible movie great.

I want a good story, I want realism, we need not be distracted by other issues in pursuing this goal. We need the characters that best serve the story to make this movie great. If you say we need to include such-in-such a character, you need to tell me why and how it will help the story. I would say the story should be written first and then we get the characters we need for that story, too many movies got it backwards.

[Kantaki]

I just want a great D&D movie this time, that is all I want, the other D&D movies were terrible. An LGTBQ character will not make a terrible movie great.

I want a good story, I want realism, we need not be distracted by other issues in pursuing this goal. We need the characters that best serve the story to make this movie great. If you say we need to include such-in-such a character, you need to tell me why and how it will help the story. I would say the story should be written first and then we get the characters we need for that story, too many movies got it backwards.

Doesn't make a great movie terrible either.
And the characters definitely should have more… character than just what "helps the story". They're supposed to be people, not props

I mean yeah, it shouldn't necessarily be a mayor part of the movie- unless that's what the movie is about -but the party-member flirting with a barmaid being female or a male one being on the run for seducing a noble's son?
I wouldn't see a problem with that, even if it doesn't have a effect on the plot. (Beyond maybe the noble sending thugs after the heroes or similar motivational stuff)

[Keltest]

Calling for realism in a D&D movie seems... misguided. Its not a history textbook, it doesn't necessarily need to match to reality in every aspect. Whats important is that the differences it does have are believable. Verisimilitude, not realism.

[Anonymouswizard]

I want realism

Last time I checked D&D had wizards and dragons, and I don't know about you, but the last dragon I met wasn't real.

In a world where people can throw fire realism is impossible. So what we want is an internally consistent and believable setting (so I've got no clue why they're using the FR). So yes, I'm using 'but dragons', but my point is that we should let fantastic elements affect our worldbuilding, otherwise it breaks suspension of disbelief.

Take the original D&D movie, it's setting's political system is a limited democracy where the key qualification is getting a vote is not hereditary land ownership or commanding troops in wars, but going to university. However because going to university gives vast personal power which is demonstrated several times in the film* it's believable that mages might take over the political class (it's one of the few things that film does legitimately well, setting up that political system and justifying it).

* I don't think a fighter ever actually beats a mage able to use magic, even Damodar (just) loses to love interest woman when she's able to cast.

[t209]

Take the original D&D movie, it's setting's political system is a limited democracy where the key qualification is getting a vote is not hereditary land ownership or commanding troops in wars, but going to university. However because going to university gives vast personal power which is demonstrated several times in the film* it's believable that mages might take over the political class (it's one of the few things that film does legitimately well, setting up that political system and justifying it).

* I don't think a fighter ever actually beats a mage able to use magic, even Damodar (just) loses to love interest woman when she's able to cast.

Well, I think there were many “Self Autonomous communes” in Forgotten Realms, which the author insisted is not based on Monty Python.
To be fair, not many people know about feudal administration besides “king, knights, and commoners”.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Doesn't make a great movie terrible either.
And the characters definitely should have more… character than just what "helps the story". They're supposed to be people, not props

I mean yeah, it shouldn't necessarily be a mayor part of the movie- unless that's what the movie is about -but the party-member flirting with a barmaid being female or a male one being on the run for seducing a noble's son?
I wouldn't see a problem with that, even if it doesn't have a effect on the plot. (Beyond maybe the noble sending thugs after the heroes or similar motivational stuff)

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[Anonymouswizard]

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Put them in feathered hats and I'm all up for Dungeons & Dragons: Fifty Shades of Bard.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Doesn't make a great movie terrible either.
And the characters definitely should have more… character than just what "helps the story". They're supposed to be people, not props

I mean yeah, it shouldn't necessarily be a mayor part of the movie- unless that's what the movie is about -but the party-member flirting with a barmaid being female or a male one being on the run for seducing a noble's son?
I wouldn't see a problem with that, even if it doesn't have a effect on the plot. (Beyond maybe the noble sending thugs after the heroes or similar motivational stuff)

Calling for realism in a D&D movie seems... misguided. Its not a history textbook, it doesn't necessarily need to match to reality in every aspect. Whats important is that the differences it does have are believable. Verisimilitude, not realism.

The parts that are real, should be portrayed realistically, where there is sword fighting, it should be realistic sword fighting, magic is something extra, but that is no excuse for unreal sword fighting.

One of the ways swordfighting goes wrong is when you have one protagonist fighting a whole bunch of bad guys and each bad guy takes his turn fighting with the protagonist in a one on one battle, the other bad guys just stand around and watch while the current bad guy is fighting him, and when he is defeated another bad guy jumps in to take his place, instead of all the bad guys rushing in to take on the hero, or someone firing arrows at him while the other two are doing melee combat.

The other thing is to have the hero doing spinning, twirling and backflips while swinging his sword at the bad guys. Real sword fighting would be much less Errol Flynn.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Put them in feathered hats and I'm all up for Dungeons & Dragons: Fifty Shades of Bard.

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[Kantaki]

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Also, what has any of that to do with them being men?
Make one (or more) of them a woman and it's still not a D&D movie.
But I guess if they're hetero it's alright?
I mean, If I got what I want there would be no romance at all, but since that seems impossible why not a non "Standard" couple?
At least the reactions might be funny.

[Anonymouswizard]

The parts that are real, should be portrayed realistically, where there is sword fighting, it should be realistic sword fighting, magic is something extra, but that is no excuse for unreal sword fighting.

One of the ways swordfighting goes wrong is when you have one protagonist fighting a whole bunch of bad guys and each bad guy takes his turn fighting with the protagonist in a one on one battle, the other bad guys just stand around and watch while the current bad guy is fighting him, and when he is defeated another bad guy jumps in to take his place, instead of all the bad guys rushing in to take on the hero, or someone firing arrows at him while the other two are doing melee combat.

The other thing is to have the hero doing spinning, twirling and backflips while swinging his sword at the bad guys. Real sword fighting would be much less Errol Flynn.

I hope for unrealistic fighting, I like Wuxia.

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Sorry, but you seem to be actively dismissing the idea of an LGBTQ+ romance D&D film, when LGBTQ+ fantasy is a growing genre. While it might not be as potentially massive a hit as D&D: Quest for the McGuffin, but if it's well produced and kept within a sensible budget it might be a more certain modest hit.

Like seriously, what would be so wrong with a D&D themed gay romance? I'm not saying it should be their big self titled return to cinemas, but I did say I'd watch it.

Part of the problem I have is that you seem to be anti-inclusion because it'll be against the story, but as practically every film seems to have to have a romantic subplot thrown in is it really so wrong if Ridley is smooching with Elwood instead of Marina?

Here's the thing, it's like a pink Darth Vader. I didn't want two hours of hot gay love, just a scene where Dave the Bard flirts with Jeff the armourer, but now you've told me I can't have the two hour love story between a prince and his squire I want my two hour long gay love epic.

[Hopeless]

So where do you think the next movie will go?

A new world or an existing one?

Probably a bit early to ask if it would be any good as we can only go by the previous ones where so far the best parts of 1 & 2 is the villains despite them losing and of course the rogue from Wrath of the Dragon God!

Not a fan of the book of vile darkness, but that's just me.

I wonder how they fare against Krull or Willow?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Put them in feathered hats and I'm all up for Dungeons & Dragons: Fifty Shades of Bard.

Good, evil... I'm a bard, I go both ways.

[Tom Kalbfus]

I hope for unrealistic fighting, I like Wuxia.



Sorry, but you seem to be actively dismissing the idea of an LGBTQ+ romance D&D film, when LGBTQ+ fantasy is a growing genre. While it might not be as potentially massive a hit as D&D: Quest for the McGuffin, but if it's well produced and kept within a sensible budget it might be a more certain modest hit.

Like seriously, what would be so wrong with a D&D themed gay romance? I'm not saying it should be their big self titled return to cinemas, but I did say I'd watch it.

Part of the problem I have is that you seem to be anti-inclusion because it'll be against the story, but as practically every film seems to have to have a romantic subplot thrown in is it really so wrong if Ridley is smooching with Elwood instead of Marina?

Here's the thing, it's like a pink Darth Vader. I didn't want two hours of hot gay love, just a scene where Dave the Bard flirts with Jeff the armourer, but now you've told me I can't have the two hour love story between a prince and his squire I want my two hour long gay love epic.

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[Kantaki]

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You're the one who made this about a "gay romance D&D movie" in the first place.

But honestly? Drop the gay part and I'd be inclined to agree.
No romance in my D&D movie please.
But since that won't happen before the Plane of Fire freezes over…
I really couldn't care less who or what which party member Ends up snogging.

Hel, a D&D movie ideally should have an ensemble cast anyway, so there should be enough characters to tick off everyone representation wise.

[Peelee]

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Movies with cis people are virtually never just a man and a woman kissing and making love with each other for two hours. In fact, there is a very specific subset of film in which that is the case. So I have to say I have absolutely no idea why you seem to think that "a gay character is in the movie" by necessity means "the movie will be a porn movie." Certainly no media I can remember with LGBT representation fits that, so I think your expectations are... off.

[Dargaron]

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You also are not a medieval person, but that hasn't stopped you from insisting that the movie should attempt to replicate a medieval world as much as possible (although apparently minus any uncomfortably homoerotic parts, I guess?). You are not an elf, but will you likewise refuse to watch a movie where elves get above a certain amount of screentime? Will you leave the theatre when elves start kissing each other, because you "can't relate to a romance between people with freakishly-deformed ears"?

You claim that " D&D is all about action, you want to appeal to the broadest audience possible." and yet, specifically want to restrict the potential audience by doing the following:

"A D&D movie should be rated R because to actually show the violence, with the special effects we have available, it's not going to be roll to hit and then deduct the hit points if you do. You are going to see wounds, spilt blood and guts, this will be cgi, but if it's done properly, it's going to look very real!"

Heck, even ignoring people who simply don't want to watch movies with gratuitous gore, the level of violence you suggested would make this D&D movie literally illegal to show to minors in Australia, narrowing the potential audience to a non-trivial degree.

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[Hopeless]

Easiest way and example is that Double Trouble character from the new She Ra series.
A literal changeling.

[Bartmanhomer]

Eh. Unless the movie is heavy on the romance (and it likely isn't) it doesn't need explicit LGBT characters. A scene where the fighter is distracted by another man? Sure. The Bard flirting with every sapient over the age of majority? It's a big enough D&D meme that I'd honestly expect it. The Cleric being shown in the barmaid's room, neither of them wearing clothes? Sure, all great stuff (we are assuming for the moment that the Fighter is male and the Cleric is female). Heck, I'd love them to play with stereotypes, throw an explicitly ace bard in there or something.

But there's various reason they won't make it that explicit, which is annoying. But then again, I'm the person who's still pissed off by the fact that some places censored Rocketman (and let's leave it at that).

It needs diversity which means including LGBT characters.

Why? Well actually in Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Caramon did dress as a woman to get past a senile old red dragon. The cartoon was still poorly made, that is why there was no Dragons of Winter Night or Dragons of Spring Dawning cartoons to continue the series.

My main criterion is that they make an excellent D&D movie, that means pulling out all the stops, no cutting corners to have cheesy special effects, and no fighters with blue lipstick.

Why not? It will be great to include LGBT characters to the mix.

[Rogar Demonblud]

So where do you think the next movie will go?

A new world or an existing one?

The Realms. They've been quite clear that every movie will be set in the Realms for the rest of forever, and given how D&D is slowly but consistently losing market share to the rest of the industry (or more accurately, the growth in the hobby is going to the rest of the industry), this may well be the last try at a D&D movie.

That kind of depends on how common casters are, and how gaining casting ability can be achieved.
PCs can do it sure - but you normally don't have a lot of them, and just because one wants to teach some commoner magic doesn't mean they will pick it up or be able to teach others.

I take it you never bothered with domain play back in the day? Because one of the first steps was to comb through your peasantry for anybody who had the INT or WIS for casting and having your pals school them in the basics. Because a handful of first level casters doing some work for you as their feudal dues made sure you'd survive and thrive. A few extra clerics of the farm deity means no crop failures and healthy animals, plus an end to peasants getting hurt and needing to quit working until they heal up. A low level wizard is a bit more dependent on what spells you let them copy into their book, but detection spells always rock and abjurations ward off other nascent problems, not to mention lighting your entire castle with continual flame or even continual light. And casting spells granted XP back in 1E and 2E, so they'd slowly get better (and selling their extra spells also helped you, because they'd level faster).

And of course your soldiers are equipped with all those +1 and +2 weapons you found cleaning out dungeons, and have magic armor too.

[Bartmanhomer]

You seem to have a gift for inciting discussions Bartman. With a single line, be it in your own topics or someone else's, you can launch pages of discussion. That's a good thing on a forum, we need discussions. Yet at the same time it sort of half to fully jokingly frustrates me that the discussion you started has all of us hopping around a minefield of social topics that could fall badly with other forum goers and politically charged subjects that could cause the mods to swoop down on us (even if they seem happy to discuss topics like forced diversity themselves for the moment), and then your next contribution is not some kind of extra thought on the subject you started us on, but rather it's another oneliner that makes me feel like "here we go again".

To be fair, the whole LGBT thing is an aspect of diversity we were mostly totally missing. So in all fairness you were pushing the discussion along more then my last paragraph gives you credit for. In that sense it's a brilliant followup, and a good use of your gift. It just... how to say this... sometimes your commenting style reminds me just a little bit of Maximum77, who started dozens of topics with good food for deep scientific discussions, but ones the discussion started to reach some sort of a conclusion Maximum77 himself would drop back in and go "Actually, I'm interested in something else entirely now, now help me with that". It's an anticlimax. Instead of the person who brought the topic up trying to contribute, round up the opinions, thank people for replying or whatever in the spirit of the discussion they just start doing something else.

And I say above that I said this half to fully jokingly. I meant that. I don't think your remark is actually bad, and I don't actually need to discuss studded leather armor (although thanks for your thoughts on it dancrilis), it's just a feeling thing. I already got one warning out of this topic for arguing against something I thought would be bad in the movie, I successfully danced my way through a discussion on both race and gender, and just when I feel like we're on safe ground again, bam, the gay bomb dromps. In all seriousness I don't think we should avoid socially charged topics. If anything recent events have shown us we need to talk about them more. But they're also intense discussions to have. It takes focus, willpower and maybe a spell slot or two to have these discussions well, to contribute with a well thought out opinion. So half to fully jokingly, yeah, I feel a little had when someone manages to make me write lots of complicated text with a single line they don't intend to follow up on in any way.

It's complicated. It's also not personal. But this is still an internet forum about a stick figure comic that mostly falls in the comedy genre, and as such I reserve the right to sometimes just let loose and say what enters my mind or what I think would make for the funniest comment rather than thinking about things the hardest and most serious I can.

Thank you. I tried to have a constructive discussion.

[Anonymouswizard]

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First off, I'm not into gay women, but I still thoroughly enjoyed The Handmaiden due to it's strong plot.

Also Brokeback Mountain isn't a 'gay movie'. Bisexual maybe, and I haven't got around to watching it yet (got other things to do), but reducing a love story to 'ick men have sex' seems very reductive.

What, are you refusing to watch Rocketman because Sir Elton is gay?

Why do we need 'straight movies' and 'gay movies', especially as your implication seems to be if it has two men kissing it's gay, otherwise it's straight? Maybe they should just make the entire film about Changelings with no gender identity, so people can't slot it into their meat little boxes.

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I honestly don't get why you think an LGBTQ+ movie will do worse, especially because you've jumped to the absolute most extreme form as your support. But LGBTQ+ films appeal to straight people as well, just look at Pride (which admittedly isn't a romance, but is very much reliant on a large portion of it's cast being gay).

Then again, I also very much disagree that they should be seeking as wife an audience as possible. I think they should be making a medium budget film aimed at a specific audience, because I think their more likely to make their money back that way. That doesn't have to mean existing D&D players, but it should be somebody.

[dancrilis]

<cut to save space>

A single kiss between women in a scene of celebtration does not make a movie a gay sex movie.

It however does mean that they movie spent time filming a scene which will need to be cut for many international audiences and thereby be completely meaningless to the overall movie - and direct resources towards a scene which will be cut over polishing scenes which will remain.

It needs diversity which means including LGBT characters.

You haven't made a case for why it needs this, no one is shouting for Star Wars: A New Hope to be redone so that it can have more diversity (frankly they should undo some/all of the changes they already introduced), same for Alien, Jaws, The Terminator, etc.

Because one of the first steps was to comb through your peasantry for anybody who had the INT or WIS for casting and having your pals school them in the basics.

This is why I said 'and how gaining casting ability can be achieved' lets say you comb through your peasantry for someone with an Int/Wis of 11 (fairly average but able to cast 1st level spells) - if this results in you finding 1 person per 100 gold spent on the search (you have to hire people to search, conduct testing etc depending on age they might not have reached 11 yet but have the ability for it at adulthood subject to how the DM handles young character stats) you then need to give them an average of 7 years training (assuming 3.5 used as a base as it seems more robust to cover these things) for their 1st level (transforming them from a basically unstatted npc into a statted npc with a Wizard/Cleric level) - that is going to cost a fortune.
Then you will have drop outs, people who have no interest and despite having the ability score end up failing final exams, etc.

You could spend an enormous amount of gold for very little benefit meanwhile distrupting the lives of your society - and those people with an Int of 10 who you decided it would be to expansive to teach merely for cantrips? They will start to demand access to the systems of education because they likely won't recognise that they only have a 10 rather then an 11 - and you telling them that it is not worth funding them but that they can self fund if they want will likely not go down well.
Depending on setting (and DM) you would likely be better letting individual choice decide - if some Wizard wants to setup a private Wizard School or some Cleric wants to run private Cleric Academy then let them away with it and you can reap the potential rewards without the massive costs or the claims of you interfering with the system.

You could try some eugenics programs to get a CHA casting stat which would cut down a lot of education - but that would have its own expensive problems.

I think they should be making a medium budget film aimed at a specific audience, because I think their more likely to make their money back that way. That doesn't have to mean existing D&D players, but it should be somebody.

This is fair - if you are looking for a niche market you can do things that you wouldn't want to do for a more side spread movie, but you would still likely want a movie that is a breakout movie and so reaches audiences where certain material might be not allowed (so again focusing on making a 'good low budget movie' might be better then focusing on a 'good low budget movie with lots of representation' especially as representation will eat into your already low budget).

[raja]

You seem to have a gift for inciting discussions Bartman. With a single line, be it in your own topics or someone else's, you can launch pages of discussion. That's a good thing on a forum, we need discussions. Yet at the same time it sort of half to fully jokingly frustrates me that the discussion you started has all of us hopping around a minefield of social topics that could fall badly with other forum goers and politically charged subjects that could cause the mods to swoop down on us (even if they seem happy to discuss topics like forced diversity themselves for the moment), and then your next contribution is not some kind of extra thought on the subject you started us on, but rather it's another oneliner that makes me feel like "here we go again".

To be fair, the whole LGBT thing is an aspect of diversity we were mostly totally missing. So in all fairness you were pushing the discussion along more then my last paragraph gives you credit for. In that sense it's a brilliant followup, and a good use of your gift. It just... how to say this... sometimes your commenting style reminds me just a little bit of Maximum77, who started dozens of topics with good food for deep scientific discussions, but ones the discussion started to reach some sort of a conclusion Maximum77 himself would drop back in and go "Actually, I'm interested in something else entirely now, now help me with that". It's an anticlimax. Instead of the person who brought the topic up trying to contribute, round up the opinions, thank people for replying or whatever in the spirit of the discussion they just start doing something else.

And I say above that I said this half to fully jokingly. I meant that. I don't think your remark is actually bad, and I don't actually need to discuss studded leather armor (although thanks for your thoughts on it dancrilis), it's just a feeling thing. I already got one warning out of this topic for arguing against something I thought would be bad in the movie, I successfully danced my way through a discussion on both race and gender, and just when I feel like we're on safe ground again, bam, the gay bomb dromps. In all seriousness I don't think we should avoid socially charged topics. If anything recent events have shown us we need to talk about them more. But they're also intense discussions to have. It takes focus, willpower and maybe a spell slot or two to have these discussions well, to contribute with a well thought out opinion. So half to fully jokingly, yeah, I feel a little had when someone manages to make me write lots of complicated text with a single line they don't intend to follow up on in any way.

It's complicated. It's also not personal. But this is still an internet forum about a stick figure comic that mostly falls in the comedy genre, and as such I reserve the right to sometimes just let loose and say what enters my mind or what I think would make for the funniest comment rather than thinking about things the hardest and most serious I can.

Thank you.