‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ directors explain how to capture a campaign on film

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has finally graced cinemas with its presence, and anyone who’s had the pleasure of catching a showing can tell you just how uniquely it lives up to the hype. Indeed, Honor Among Thieves has pulled off the very rare task of not only understanding that it isn’t groundbreaking in the realm of storytelling, but still embraces such a position to maximum effect.

Many folks may love Honor Among Thieves for what it isn’t as a result, but don’t let that distract you from its more palpable merits, either. Specifically, its perfect translation of a D&D campaign to the big screen. With every beat, tonal shift, and at least most of the dialogue, directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have served up a masterclass in adapting a tabletop RPG session for film.

While Goldstein and Daley all but intended to go down this route, it didn’t come without its challenges. In an interview with SlashFilm, Daley remarked how the unique tone of D&D sessions is what drew them to the job in the first place, making the aforementioned end-goal a must right from the get-go.

“It was the tone that had been originated from the inception of D&D that is so unique and is what hooked us into the prospect of doing this film. It’s one of a kind, and you’re allowed to have fun. That, to me, is what makes for a fun film.”

Both directors later chimed in regarding the difficulties that came with such an end-goal, noting that the nature of adaptations changes depending on what’s being adapted into what, with a tabletop RPG being a unique customer in that regard.

“Well, like you say, the demands of a film that you want to be around two hours have certain structural requirements. It’s very different from a month- or year-long game you do once a week, so it had to have a narrative drive that would propel you through, and that required certain story beats and certain things to happen so that it didn’t just feel episodic — you felt like you were really on a quest.

But I think there is something uniquely chaotic about the narrative of a campaign that we alluded to in this film where the plans that you think, as an audience, our characters are carrying out, when they go wrong and they have to pivot many times over, that’s not necessarily what you would expect from a normal story structure.”

One thing is for sure, the duo have succeeded in making many a viewer want to pick up a d20 of their own, and while the real experience may not be as smooth as Honor Among Thieves, they’ll just as quickly discover that, bumpy or smooth, that chaotic fun factor is an ever-present force in D&D.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is now playing in theaters.