Live Action D&D Television Series in the Works.

[Eldan]

Are you thinking particularly of television here, and not theatrical motion pictures? Or opera? (What kind of fantasy does The Magic Flute fit under anyway?)

The Magic Flute is pretty straight fantasy, yeah. Maybe fairy tale-ish?

I mean, there's a few good fantasy movies, but not that many either. More if we count superheroes and space opera. But yeah, I mostly meant TV series. There's a lot of decent fantasy anime, but basically no good live action fantasy.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Eldan
You could do something similar in fantasy. But they won't, it would be too experimental and not what people would expect.

Very much agreed, as far as a movie or a series would go.

But what you're describing from Altered Carbon is a culture that could also develop in a fantasy world where resurrection operates according to D&D mechanics. It would completely reshape the setting, but this doesn't seem to have been taken into account in any game world I'm familiar with.

[warty goblin]

I mean, there's a few good fantasy movies, but not that many either. More if we count superheroes and space opera. But yeah, I mostly meant TV series. There's a lot of decent fantasy anime, but basically no good live action fantasy.

Xena is brilliant, and yes I will die on this hill.

[Xyril]

Xena is brilliant, and yes I will die on this hill.

I was a big fan of Hercules and Xena, but they were great in a very self-aware, meta-campy sort of way.

[Kantaki]

I was a big fan of Hercules and Xena, but they were great in a very self-aware, meta-campy sort of way.

Wouldn't that be a good thing for a D&D series?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Depends entirely on what the suits want, and if the audience approves of that.

[Darth Credence]

The Magic Flute is pretty straight fantasy, yeah. Maybe fairy tale-ish?

I mean, there's a few good fantasy movies, but not that many either. More if we count superheroes and space opera. But yeah, I mostly meant TV series. There's a lot of decent fantasy anime, but basically no good live action fantasy.

The Magicians, Penny Dreadful, Carnival Row, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, Merlin, Good Omens, the Librarians, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Charmed, Lucifer.

Not all of those are my cup of tea, but those are what I can think of off the top of my head that fit fantasy that were at least somewhat popular.

[dancrilis]

I don't think resurrection is a problem really.

Just make it clear that is rare and expansive - out of the reach of normal people, and make it clear that souls exist.

A brief overview of the whole souls afterlife thing could be given by a cleric when the party goes up against the undead, and resurrection could be explained to be within the power of more powerful members of the clergy (although even then the ritual is costly in terms of resources).

[warty goblin]

Or just don't get into resurrection at all. It's not a great mechanic for telling a story by and large, which is why I suspect the novels pretty much all leave it out. It's a great mechanic for letting players keep playing their favorite character, but in a TV show nobody's spent 18 months leveling up their half-orc and will mope if he isn't brought back to life. It's not like they're going to get through every spell in the Player's Handbook anyway, since I imagine the point is to have an actually watchable and entertaining show. Just leave resurrection out, tell a decent story, and stick in the bits of D&D that work well for telling a televised story.

[No brains]

I always hear all this smack talked about resurrection in D&D and I can't back it because life after death is a pillar of the game's mythological tone and can be useful for tackling themes of mythological proportions.

On a simple level, death can be used metaphorically for some kind of major change. Death and rebirth could be used as a metaphor for shedding some kind of emotional baggage or picking up way more. It can even be played as cheap as someone saying 'I died' in response to a joke. Growing from experiences good and bad can be made more fun and less depressing by somehow involving angels, phoenixes, or vampires.

On a more complex level, undeath and resurrection can fuel a narrative that explores the futility of violence as a solution. Fighting will only ever beget more fighting when the most powerful fighters can will themselves back from the dead. The heroes must either strategically remove their enemies from having the resources to continue fighting or attempt to wield the arms of reconciliation to defeat an implacable foe. Yes, it would be hypocritical for D&D to try to talk about that, but admitting that violence is meaningless allows D&D stories to get away with the number of battles they have.

Going even further, the idea that death doesn't matter can be used to talk about the meaning of life. Making strong connections matters a lot to a mortal who wishes to have a healthy society, but when someone can come back, leaving a sane legacy will matter even more. If heroes from bygone ages could return and see what grew from their works, would they be pleased? Would their progeny give a damn what these fossils think of what was accomplished while they went off to go play in paradise? Would the gods they had the chance to speak to have some perspective on this? It's said you should never meet your heroes, but resurrection lets us say 'OK Boomer' to King Arthur.

People die, but ideas can outlast them. When a character can be used as an idea, forestalling or reversing the death of that idea can make a useful story for real people.

You can call me a sad emo kid for how much I think about the themes of death, but I'll just blast Linkin Park so loud, you'll literally feel it Crawling in (your) Skin.

[Rynjin]

You know all this talk about people not being able to buy resurrection is cheap in a fantasy series need to take a quick think about how in a lot of fantasy, even urban fantasy, this is always the case...and audiences just roll with it. See: all the memes about Sam and Dean from Supernatural, or the cast of Dragonball dying repeatedly.

[Mechalich]

Or just don't get into resurrection at all. It's not a great mechanic for telling a story by and large, which is why I suspect the novels pretty much all leave it out. It's a great mechanic for letting players keep playing their favorite character, but in a TV show nobody's spent 18 months leveling up their half-orc and will mope if he isn't brought back to life. It's not like they're going to get through every spell in the Player's Handbook anyway, since I imagine the point is to have an actually watchable and entertaining show. Just leave resurrection out, tell a decent story, and stick in the bits of D&D that work well for telling a televised story.

Most non-game D&D media largely ignore resurrection as thing already. In D&D media, in order to come back from the dead you basically have to be a high-level spellcaster, and even then it's not especially common. FR has a few characters who've been notably resurrected, but it's rare, and it's often a case of a character who's operating on a sort of non-lichdom resurrection cycle like Manshoon - a character who could easily become a lich, but choses to play with clones instead for personal reasons.

You know all this talk about people not being able to buy resurrection is cheap in a fantasy series need to take a quick think about how in a lot of fantasy, even urban fantasy, this is always the case...and audiences just roll with it. See: all the memes about Sam and Dean from Supernatural, or the cast of Dragonball dying repeatedly.

Urban fantasy series operate primarily via the rules of soaps (because that's in many ways what they actually are, in the same sense as CW 'superhero' shows are still mostly teen soaps) - and it's an established trope that no one ever truly dies in a soap. Dragonball is a screwball action comedy that has become progressively campier overtime. By contrast, if your show has any aspirations to dramatic heft at all, you have to be much more careful about how you play around with bringing characters back from the dead.

Now, a D&D show will probably still be pretty lowbrow - the target zone is probably something like 'PG-13 Witcher' - so its surely plausible to bring favorite characters back from the dead occasionally, but it shouldn't be a major part of the show's verse.

[Rynjin]

If a D&D tv series tries to take itself any more seriously than one of those CW shows, or a million other tv series with resurrection as something available on an as-needed basis (Stargate SG-1 is another that springs to mind, and it's not even fantasy...) it's doomed to failure in the first place. There's no way it can pull off the other extreme (the almost comedic edginess of The Magicians) and the middle ground would probably leave it in the realm of the so-bad-it's-bad Shanarra Chronicles series.

[Kitten Champion]

You know all this talk about people not being able to buy resurrection is cheap in a fantasy series need to take a quick think about how in a lot of fantasy, even urban fantasy, this is always the case...and audiences just roll with it. See: all the memes about Sam and Dean from Supernatural, or the cast of Dragonball dying repeatedly.

I'm willing to accept it in Dragonball because it's a pretty lighthearted series where the characters facing permadeath wouldn't really benefit it, you want to see the fights and the cool power-ups primarily.

Supernatural though? It was actually kind of dark and gritty at first. I would say that was a large part of its charm, the characters weren't superheroes and any hunt could kill them... or that was the tone they were establishing. Losing that, well, it's just repetitive.

I think resurrection is fine, for the record. Like any power given to the characters it depends on how its used in the story and whether it's applied consistently.

I'll point to a series I quite love, the manga Dungeon Meshi. The main plot begins with an adventurer party getting wiped out and one its members being swallowed whole by a dragon, if this dragon is slain and her corpse collected they can bring her back to life but they have a time limit to where this is possible. The story is the main characters forming a new party to kill said dragon and save her, but since they can't recruit and resupply properly with the time they have they're delving the dungeon with minimal resources and thus the premise of the series -- they eat the monsters there instead, thus becoming a culinary adventure as well.

Having a story-line where a character dies and they have to jump through hoops to bring them back can be cool, not everything has to be Game of Thrones.

To take a very recent D&D example, the premise of Baldur's Gate III is you're infected with Mindflayer spawn and need to find a healer to remove it. That's not something the main party can do themselves, so it becomes a quest that ties them together in common interest. That someone in the universe can potentially do this isn't an issue, it's not really any different than any other other motivation you could devise for characters to undertake a harrowing adventure.

[CharonsHelper]

Now, a D&D show will probably still be pretty lowbrow - the target zone is probably something like 'PG-13 Witcher' - so its surely plausible to bring favorite characters back from the dead occasionally, but it shouldn't be a major part of the show's verse.

If they can pull of a PG-13 Witcher, I'd be on board. Frankly - the bulk of the sex stuff was mostly just gratuitous and didn't add anything to the show. The gore fit the world's vibe of violence being an ugly thing, since they went with it being slightly over-the-top realism as opposed to super over-the-top Tarantino levels of gore. But that wouldn't really fit D&D anyway.

A solid five-man-band style adventuring party taking on episodic adventurers with an overarching plot could be fun if they try for the cadence of The Witcher. (Just drop the super goofy timeline bouncing. It wasn't cute. I mostly got what was going on because I read the books - but it was confusing - not clever.)

I do agree that they shouldn't have resurrection be a thing. Maybe have legends/rumors about it (though I'm not sure why they'd need to come up in the show) but certainly not something that even someone assassinating a king really needs to worry about.

Which of course might be one reason to avoid The Forgotten Realms as the setting - as it is probably the highest power D&D setting, seemingly with level 10+ casters around ever corner. While it might be the most iconic setting, it's largely generic fantasy. (Though to be fair; it helped DEFINE what generic fantasy is.)

I like Eberron, but it might be a bit too out there. Plus, while it's lower powered in terms of characters, Eberron would probably need a higher special effects budget due to warforged and all the magitech stuff. Eberron is the setting where there is a lot more low-level magic, but a lot less high-level magic. I remember the original Eberron book (back in 3.5) talked about how level 5+ characters would be known by their reputation, and level 10+ would basically be legends in their own time.

[Mechalich]

If they can pull of a PG-13 Witcher, I'd be on board. Frankly - the bulk of the sex stuff was mostly just gratuitous and didn't add anything to the show. The gore fit the world's vibe of violence being an ugly thing, since they went with it being slightly over-the-top realism as opposed to super over-the-top Tarantino levels of gore. But that wouldn't really fit D&D anyway.

Witcher hits an R on language alone - Cavil often seems like he's trying to get through an entire episode purely through grunts and expletives - so that's something you'd need to dial back on for D&D. Gore is manageable because you can basically drop a lot of blood effects and still have awesome sword fights its just a matter of have people fall over with the right timing.

A solid five-man-band style adventuring party taking on episodic adventurers with an overarching plot could be fun if they try for the cadence of The Witcher. (Just drop the super goofy timeline bouncing. It wasn't cute. I mostly got what was going on because I read the books - but it was confusing - not clever.)

This is roughly it. Witcher's a good example because it mostly nails the look of the sort of adventure-friendly quasi-medieval world you want to focus a D&D series around. Just gritty and fantastical enough to have cool monsters, great swordfights, and both muddy peasants and glamorous ballrooms. Five characters might actually be too many, you probably want your party to have three core characters and a slot for a guest/intermittent character, but just the idea of a gang that wanders around, mostly fights monsters, and occasionally intervenes in ongoing political events seems workable. It also leans into one of D&D's real strengths: it's massive and highly recognizable monster catalogue (mostly public domain, but the visual iconography owes a lot to D&D art over the years).

[Anonymouswizard]

and it's an established trope that no one ever truly dies in a soap.

That varies, it's very much not the rule in British soaps.


Anyway, as the person who first brought it up, I never said that resurrection should be common like in many SF series. It's just something I associate so strongly with D&D that I'd like to see it in there, and hey we can up the drama by b killing the narrator's younger self. You'd want to establish that it's very expensive and up to the whim of the gods (and the soul in question), but I don't see a reason to leave it out entirely.

[Hopeless]

Maybe for example establish the setting then introduce the characters maybe not all at once unless you want flashbacks explaining their past?

So lets say we have an apprentice wizard goaded into ascending a tower that was previously locked by a dwarven servant.
They don't think anything about this until they reach the top room and find a pedestal with a crown atop of it.
Too curious for their own good they pick it up and its possesses them shifting the scene downstairs revealing a grinning dwarf who eyes turn a different color as the scene shifts outside revealing the tower is located within a metropolis and as we watch we see fires and screaming as the entire city is beset by something terrible.
Scene goes black as a heading appears, "Five years later" and the scene opens on a rag tag caravan of refugees fleeing the coast where we can see clouds of smoke indicating fires and possibly fighting still going on.
The scene then focuses on a wagon sitting atop of it is your standard wizard an old man with a full beard who looks very weary.
Beside him a well groomed shorter man playing with a dagger lounging almost without a care.
Riding alongside the wagon are two horses one ridden by a knight in full armor and on the opposite side a woman clad in similar garb but a mace at her side.
The wagon they're riding stops as looking forward they see the remains of a battle indicating another wagon that was ahead of them fell to raiders.
Carefully stepping out of the wagon the knight approaches the scene on horse back whilst the cleric stays next to the wagon keeping a careful eye.

Speaking of which if they did the starter set as a tv series would you watch that?

[Prime32]

With regards to resurrection magic, D&D has also had lower-level resuscitation magic. Since it can look somewhat similar to "CPR, but glowing" and has similar limitations (it's not going to work if the target is missing half their body, or more than a few minutes has passed since their death) it's a good deal less removed from real life.

[CharonsHelper]

Maybe for example establish the setting then introduce the characters maybe not all at once unless you want flashbacks explaining their past?

That was one reason I said further up the chain that Baldur's Gate's story (especially the first game) could make for a pretty good show.

It has one primary MC, and then Imoen shows up as the secondary lead pretty quick. The rest of the companions introduced over time - if it were up to me (obviously not) would be Jaheira/Khalid, Minsc, and Viconia. That combo would fit reasonably well in the classic five-man-band trope, albeit with six members (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand), with Jaheira, Khalid, and Imoen sort of splitting "The Smart Guy" and "The Chick" between them - with Imoen being clever, but Jaheira/Khalid being worldly and have Harper contacts. (Hard to tell exactly where Khalid would fit since BG1 didn't have much characterization, but he always felt secondary to Jaheira anyway. Minsc obviously as "The Big Guy", and Viconia as "The Lancer" and love interest.

[The Glyphstone]

Considering Khalid was cut (up) entirely in BG2 at no loss to the story, you could just remove him entirely really.

[CharonsHelper]

Considering Khalid was cut (up) entirely in BG2 at no loss to the story, you could just remove him entirely really.

Maybe - but he's definitely a part of Jaheira's story. And again, in BG1 alone most of the characters are pretty forgettable aside from Minc and his battle cries about his hamster - it wasn't until BG2 that they did much characterization.

Plus, if they make him likeable enough, it would really be a punch in the gut and show how evil Irenicus is.

[Dargaron]

I do agree that they shouldn't have resurrection be a thing. Maybe have legends/rumors about it (though I'm not sure why they'd need to come up in the show) but certainly not something that even someone assassinating a king really needs to worry about.

Which of course might be one reason to avoid The Forgotten Realms as the setting - as it is probably the highest power D&D setting, seemingly with level 10+ casters around ever corner. While it might be the most iconic setting, it's largely generic fantasy. (Though to be fair; it helped DEFINE what generic fantasy is.)

I'm not sure this is a good reason to avoid the Realms. Over close to two-dozen Drizzt books, I don't think a single character has actually been casually resurrected with a Cleric's Resurrection or Raise Dead spell. The theoretical presence of Resurrection Magic didn't make Captain Deudermont's tragic death any less tragic, for example. The whole Cleric Quintet took place at a monastery crawling with mid-high level clerics, but characters still feared death. While folks might complain about the Drizzt novels, I don't think anyone would say they're anything but quintessential Forgotten Realms, and they demonstrate that you can tell high-fantasy action stories in Forgotten Realms without worrying about Resurrection cheapening character death.

EDIT: Admittedly, I stopped reading after after Neverwinter, so I don't know if resurrection has been used since then.

[Mechalich]

I'm not sure this is a good reason to avoid the Realms. Over close to two-dozen Drizzt books, I don't think a single character has actually been casually resurrected with a Cleric's Resurrection or Raise Dead spell. The theoretical presence of Resurrection Magic didn't make Captain Deudermont's tragic death any less tragic, for example. The whole Cleric Quintet took place at a monastery crawling with mid-high level clerics, but characters still feared death. While folks might complain about the Drizzt novels, I don't think anyone would say they're anything but quintessential Forgotten Realms, and they demonstrate that you can tell high-fantasy action stories in Forgotten Realms without worrying about Resurrection cheapening character death.

The level of magic available in the Realms varies wildly by both geographic location, and by author. Salvatore keeps his low, to the point that when different authors play with some of the same setting elements - as in the War of the Spider Queen novels - the magic level jumps significantly (something that can be seen with particular clarity with regard to characters like Quenthel and Gromph who appear in both). Ed Greenwood, by contrast, runs the magic level sky high (though still far, far lower than an sort of even moderately optimized high-level 3e play) and has high-level wizards running around all over the place blasting away. Other authors like Troy Denning or Richard Lee Byers are somewhere in the middle. Resurrection remains fairly rare overall, but that's mostly a consequence of FR being a setting defined primarily by arcane casters, not divine ones.

[dancrilis]

Considering Khalid was cut (up) entirely in BG2 at no loss to the story, you could just remove him entirely really.

And again, in BG1 alone most of the characters are pretty forgettable aside from Minc and his battle cries about his hamster - it wasn't until BG2 that they did much characterization.

Xzar was awesome.

Spoiler: BG2

Show

The greatest annoyance from BG2 was that I couldn't resurrect him - Kangaxx ending romance paths would likely be a runner up)

[CharonsHelper]

Xzar was awesome.

Curious - what did Xzar do? I never kept him in the group long even when I played evil because Imoen already covered the thief slot and he's tied to Montaron, and I wanted to keep her in the party. (partly because I played BGII before BGI and I knew how she was linked to the MC). Plus - even on my evil run my MC was LE, and Xzar is full-on CE.

[Clertar]

That was one reason I said further up the chain that Baldur's Gate's story (especially the first game) could make for a pretty good show.

It has one primary MC, and then Imoen shows up as the secondary lead pretty quick. The rest of the companions introduced over time - if it were up to me (obviously not) would be Jaheira/Khalid, Minsc, and Viconia. That combo would fit reasonably well in the classic five-man-band trope, albeit with six members (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand), with Jaheira, Khalid, and Imoen sort of splitting "The Smart Guy" and "The Chick" between them - with Imoen being clever, but Jaheira/Khalid being worldly and have Harper contacts. (Hard to tell exactly where Khalid would fit since BG1 didn't have much characterization, but he always felt secondary to Jaheira anyway. Minsc obviously as "The Big Guy", and Viconia as "The Lancer" and love interest.

It would have to be really streamlined, otherwise it would have no audience. No fantasy travelogue, just cutting out most of the side quest fat and focusing on the Bhaalspawn trying to find Gorion's murderer and ending up tied up in Sarevok's plot, while slowly figuring out their own heritage. Pseudo-medieval fantasy with noir elements. BG1 is season 1, BG2 is season 2, and ToB is season 3. Maybe with the final act playing out in a BBC-style very condensed season 4.

[Hopeless]

Or make it a mystery where you think the main characters are on a quest to defeat an ancient evil only to discover their target is an adolescent child whose actually the main threat to the true villain. And some of your main cast are actually part of the villains side instead of their stated goal to thwart the villain's goal of taking over the country completely...

From what i recall of those BG games that was part of the problem with those characters since if you stood up to those evil characters they'd turn on your party anyway?

[CharonsHelper]

It would have to be really streamlined, otherwise it would have no audience. No fantasy travelogue, just cutting out most of the side quest fat and focusing on the Bhaalspawn trying to find Gorion's murderer and ending up tied up in Sarevok's plot, while slowly figuring out their own heritage. Pseudo-medieval fantasy with noir elements. BG1 is season 1, BG2 is season 2, and ToB is season 3. Maybe with the final act playing out in a BBC-style very condensed season 4.

I actually disagree entirely - that'd be way too fast. I think that BG1 alone could easily be 3-5 longish seasons. The first couple seasons would be mostly semi-episodic side-quests (wouldn't have to stick to the game's) with hinting at the overarching iron shortage and maybe an assassin or two coming after the MC/Imoen - plus a couple weird foreshadowing dream sequences. They would introduce the setting, characters, have character development as the MC/Imoen slowly become badass (Jaheira/Khalid playing mentor characters), and set up the politics etc. Maybe have Nashkel mines be the finale of season 1, but don't dive directly into the main plot for season 2 either.

Plus, unlike a game which generally is entirely from the player's perspective, when the cast discover some hint, it could flash to short scenes showing what Sarevok is doing etc.

[Eldan]

I'm not sure that would fly. Modern TV series are all about the big arc, you can't do much monster of the week anymore. See The Witcher, where they combined the main plot from the later books, while also simultaneously doing the disconnected short stories that came out first, which lead to the weird nonlinear time of the episodes. Because you need to have an epic story in fantasy.