As an actor, TV/movie developer, player of D&D, and DM of D&D, I’m extremely happy this movie did a fantastic job of overcoming all the challenges that might have sunk an amazing opportunity.
As an actor I’m stoked on how truthful everyone played the world and their own storylines. With high fantasy, I’ve seen many actors go too big, maybe to match how big the world seems. This didn’t happen here. It felt like real humans/tieflings/elves living in a world with different rules.
As a TV/movie developer, I’m impressed with their ability to translate the experience and source material into a tone appropriate adventure that feels plucked out of a campaign book, without getting lost in the weeds of rules/abilities that might have slowed it down. Everything was in service of the story, as it should be for a movie or TV experience.
As a player, I’m excited to see something reflect the fun of what playing is like. Some, if not many of the creators, must have played, or at least listened to the experience of what it’s like to play the game. Or at least they did such a good job of imagining what it would be like they might as well have played.
As a DM, I’m gonna be plucking some of the content from this and retooling it for my own nefarious purposes. Also, the runner of Jarnathan was a great touch - just because as a DM, you prepare a whole campaign, elaborate with details, thinking you’ve prepped for every main route the party might take. But more often than not, the players focus on one NPC for some reason, wanting to know his name and backstory - so you come up with one on the spot, sometimes resulting in a very stupid name like Jarnathan. Now all of a sudden Jarnathan is an essential aspect of your players’ plan, and saying Jarnathan out loud becomes the running joke that keeps on giving. Jarnathan.
I’m hoping this strike ends soon so that in the DND TV series, Rawson Marshall Thurber can write me a recurring role as a Ranger who speaks almost exclusively in seemingly stupid riddles that mean nonsense at the time, but turn out to be surprisingly apropos later on. Basically Minsc but with a beard.