The D&D movie captures one of the best parts of RPGs

About halfway Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Michelle Rodriguez’s character, Holga the Barbarian, visits her ex’s house to end their relationship. The scene is acted out fairly directly, with Holga and Marlamin (played by Bradley Cooper) heart to heart about where their marriage went wrong. But it’s one of the funniest scenes in the movie, as the two actors have this deep, emotional conversation while one of them is a tiny, handsome man in a normal-sized chair and the other is a gruff, axe-wielding, fur-clad barbarian who’s watching a beat up whole team of guards.

This sequence particularly tickled me because I think it’s such a fun mechanic to incorporate a floating ex into an RPG. It’s a reminder that even in this fantastical world of dungeons and dragons, the characters still mean something to each other. This goes beyond past romantic dalliances and backstories – I just love having personal one-on-one interactions within the game settings because it makes the characters feel real, as if they exist in this world beyond their quests and adventures. They have an impact on other people beyond killing monsters and grabbing loot.

Image: Paramount Pictures

There can be both mechanical and personal benefits. One of my current D&D characters has a long list of ex-boyfriends that I wove into his backstory. Only one of them has appeared in our game so far (with friendlier interactions than Holga and Marlamine), but my character constantly references his long line of exes. It’s a revealing detail about his history, but I’ve also used it to make the case for knowledge of certain languages ​​and historical details because of all the things he took from his multitude of previous relationships.

I’ve written here at Polygon many, many, many times about my love for downtime filler episodes, so it’s probably not a huge surprise that I love video games where one of the core mechanics is just hanging out with other characters. Fire Emblem: Three Houses and his tea party system owns all my heart, but I also adore it Marvel’s Midnight Suns, which not only builds in player-initiated hangouts, but also adds extracurricular activities, despite not even being a school environment. The best crowd effect DLC is the one where you go on a light-hearted prankster mission, then throw a party and hang out with your friends. That scene inside Dragon Age: Inquisition where renegade storyteller Varric gets everyone involved in a card game? Great. (And yes, I’ve been told to play the Persona games; they’re in my ever-growing backlog).

Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts via Polygon

I’m the kind of person who likes to stop and talk to every NPC. When a game acknowledges this and builds it into gameplay, I’m really excited. I like that my player character has an impact on the world around them! I like that people have opinions about them and want to hang out!

It makes sense that when I first got into tabletop gaming, I still loved downtime and role-playing, the ability to interact not just with puzzles or combat, but with other people as well. At first it was a bit daunting not to have any preset dialogue options, but now I realize that tabletop RPGs have everything I loved about video games but with more freedom. I’ve been fortunate to have DMs who indulge this fondness, from developing a guard schedule for character interaction to organizing an entire gathering where player characters and NPCs alike brought dishes for a potluck lunch.

Don’t get me wrong – I still enjoy good fights in my games. But there’s something particularly satisfying about a memorable RPG interaction that always gives me a burst of creative energy. It’s part socializing with friends and part joy of creating something together, even if the audience is just us.

Image: Paramount Pictures

And the film Dungeons & Dragons captures that surprisingly well. Between the action sequences and heists, the main adventure party Fun together. Since this is a movie and not a long TV show, there are no designated episodes of fullness where they all go to the beach or play a drunken card game. But within the framework of the film, the filmmakers managed to incorporate enough social scenes and personal interactions to really emphasize that these characters get along and interact outside of what we see on screen, which is all too rare in big genre action films these days is.

The characters might bicker. They might have trouble adjusting to magic items and get crap for their insecurities. They might have awkward conversations with their exes. But afterwards, when Holga sadly mounts her horse and rides away, her good pal Edgin the Bard (Chris Pine) sings a song to cheer her up. It doesn’t take long for a smile to spread across her face and they both sing along together. That’s the kind of shit I’m here for!

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is now in cinemas.