Sina Entertainment News Beijing time on January 29th, according to foreign media reports, the well-known game adaptation movie “Dungeons and Dragons” released a new trailer, Humans and Monsters Smash Bros., which will be released in North America on March 31st.
Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Reggie-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant, Jonathan Goldstein & John Directed & written by Francis Daly (“Game Night,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming”).
A charming thief and a team of misfit adventurers embark on an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously wrong when they run afoul of the wrong people.
The game is known for its war games, treasure hunts, campaigns, friendships, and reversals of fortune, all taking place in an environment that combines humans, elves, orcs, and wizards, overseen by a character called the Dungeon Master, through the use of faceted dice to guide development.
“Dungeons and Dragons” is the world‘s first commercial tabletop role-playing game. The game was created in Wisconsin, USA in 1974 by Gary Gygax, an insurance salesman, and his friend David Arnesson, and was originally published by TSR. After Wizards of the Coast acquired TSR in 1997, it was released by the company. Gary Gygax died at his home on March 4, 2008 at the age of 69, followed by David Arnesson on April 7, 2009.
The game was born out of the war chess game Chain Armor. It is generally believed that Dungeons and Dragons is the ancestor of modern tabletop role-playing games, and it has a very profound influence on various games of later generations, especially role-playing games.
In 2006, global statistics showed that about 20 million people had played Dungeons and Dragons, creating more than 100 million US dollars in business opportunities. It was the most famous and best-selling game of its kind at the time.
In addition to board games, the game also has various derivative products such as novels, comics, war chess, video games, and card games.
Dungeons and Dragons is an RPG with structure but an open ending. There is no clear limit on the number of participants in the game, usually there are 3-5 players, and a host, called the Dungeon Master. Most of the games are played indoors, and the participants will sit around the table, so it is called “tabletop role-playing game”.
A player often only plays one character, and the character lives in a virtual world setting. Player characters, generally called adventurers, will form a team, and each member will use their own abilities to achieve their goals. During the game, each player decides how their character will act and interact with other characters. The so-called character interaction is mostly presented by the player in the form of oral expression or writing. In addition, the logical ability, basic arithmetic and imagination of the participants are also used from time to time. The time to complete a game is variable. Finishing a story is called an “adventure”. Completing an adventure usually requires multiple gatherings of players. A long event consisting of a series of adventures is called a “campaign”.
The results of various choices made by players in the game and the direction of the entire game story line are determined by the dungeon master according to the rules of the game and their interpretation of the rules. The DM is responsible for determining and describing the actions of the NPCs, what the party encounters during the adventure, the context in which the interactions take place, and the consequences of the player’s actions. Encounters often take the form of fighting “monsters.” In Dungeons and Dragons, “monster” is a generic term used to refer to any possible enemy, such as animals, deformed creatures, and mythical creatures. Dungeons and Dragons has a large number of rules to help the DM judge. These rules cover many topics, such as: social interaction, use of magic, combat, and the impact of the environment on the player character. DM can also not completely follow the established official rules, but modify or rewrite the rules according to individual needs. This approach is usually called “family rules/house rules”.
In recent versions of Dungeons and Dragons, the main game rules are contained in three core rulebooks: Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook, Dungeons and Dragons Master’s Guide, and Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. These three books are collectively called “Three Treasure Books” by Chinese players.
The only props needed to play Dungeons and Dragons are the Three Treasure Book, a piece of character paper for each player character, a few multi-sided dice and a pen. Others such as miniatures, tokens, map paper, cards, expanded rulebooks, well-designed adventure modules, and various campaign setting books can add to the fun of the game, but these are not essential.
The biggest difference from other table games is that the theme of Dungeons and Dragons is not a competition between the host and participating players, but a game in which all participants work together to create a story, so there is no clear “win” Or “lose”, even if all the player’s characters are killed by monsters, as long as all players can enjoy the process, it is still considered a “win”. Based on the open nature of the game itself, the DM can set the player to manipulate a group of new adventurers to avenge the previous dead companions, or set a new story direction, and the game can still continue.
Alignment represents a creature’s moral outlook and values. The camp is changeable, and as the game progresses, the player’s behavior may cause the character camp to change.
Version 4 reduced the alignments to five: lawful good, good, unaligned, evil, and chaotic evil. The fifth edition reverted to the nine major camps, and classified creatures who were unable to make rational thinking and distinguish moral and ethical choices into no camp.
In some versions, the alignment and occupation must match, for example, the paladin must be lawful good, the monk must be lawful, the druid must be neutral, and the barbarian and bard belong to the chaotic alignment. If the camp changes, it may cause the character to lose the special ability of the profession.
The magic system used in Dungeons and Dragons is called Wanxian, which features “cast it and forget it”. Players must record in advance which spells the character has memorized that day. Once cast, the spell will be erased from the character’s memory. Unless another identical spell is prepared in advance, it cannot be cast again. This system is derived from the novel Dying Earth by the science fiction writer Jack Vance. The fourth edition once canceled Wan Xi’an, and unified the special abilities of all occupations, which is called the power system. But in the fifth edition, it returned to a spell-casting mechanism similar to Wan Xi’an.
There are many computer role-playing games based on the D&D rules. In the early days, there were games produced after the signing of SSI and TSR – the Golden Box series. In the 1990s, the most well-known arcade video games released by CAPCOM were Tower of Doom and Hell Dragon. The most famous ones in the 2000s are BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, and Black Isle Studio’s Exotic Requiem and Icewind Dale series.
(Meng Qing)
(Editor in charge: Camus)