I know nothing about Dungeons & Dragons except that it (they?) exist and probably have something to do with games on a screen. Or maybe not, but whatever:<\/p>\n
For a certain sort of fan, the crowdfunding pitch was impossible to resist. Here was a chance, it announced, to support a documentary about the immortal saga of the legendary game that all but revolutionized modern life. No pressure.<\/em><\/p>\n Three filmmakers promised nothing less than the origin story of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, \u201ca cautionary tale of an empire built by friends and lost through betrayal, enmity, poor management, hubris and litigation,\u201d they wrote on their Kickstarter page<\/a> in 2012. They planned to chronicle the bitter battle waged by Gary Gygax<\/a> and Dave Arneson<\/a>, the game\u2019s creators, over credit and royalties.<\/em><\/p>\n In other words, they wrote: \u201cImagine \u2018The Social Network<\/a>‘\u200a\u200a\u201d \u2014 the tortuous tale of Facebook\u2019s founding \u2014 \u201cbut no one ends up rich.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n If the filmmakers saw a cautionary tale in the story of their shared passion, they failed to heed its lessons. More than $250,000 in Kickstarter pledges and two years later, there is no documentary, only broken friendships and a lawsuit.<\/em><\/p>\n So reports Vivien Yee in the New York Times<\/a> and whatever the New York Times says must be fact. Although I’m having trouble acknowledging that line about “the legendary game that all but revolutionized modern life.” Since I’ve barely heard of it, it can’t be legendary, and since I’ve barely heard of it, it certainly can’t have revolutionized my<\/em> life, unless I wasn’t paying attention at the time.<\/p>\n But I do like that line, “a cautionary tale of an empire built by friends and lost through betrayal, enmity, poor management, hubris and litigation,” although maybe it contains too many nouns. After three nouns, my attention wanders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know nothing about Dungeons & Dragons except that it (they?) exist and probably have something to do with games on a screen. Or maybe not, but whatever: For a certain sort of fan, the crowdfunding pitch was impossible to … Continue reading