The Gamers is what Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie should have been. No really. Andrew Rilstone pointed out in his review of the D&D film that it could have been a classic. Just add a scene at the end with the main characters of the story being real-world roleplayers.

A movie about roleplaying

The Dead Gentlemen take this idea to the logical conclusion. The Gamers is a movie about a bunch of roleplayers playing some kind of D&D-like game. In it we alternately see the gamers and their characters. The gamers sit in a small room in their dormitory, shot in harsh, real-world colours. Meanwhile their characters roam the fictional fantasy setting of Fartherall, where the colours are warmer and more vivid. The party is fairly standard: a thief, an Elven archer, a barbarian warrior and an aloof wizard... And Mark the berserker, whose player is often absent and as a result is constantly forgotten.

The difference between the players and their characters immediately reflects one of the reasons people might be roleplaying: playing in a fantasy world where your character is cooler and more heroic than you would ever be in real life. The wizard character is the prime example here: the player is a socially inept nerd with glasses the size of a book — his character is an aloof but suave handsome wizard with great eldritch powers.

...with a twist

This would be a pretty dull movie. Yay, a movie about people playing an RPG... The Gamers goes beyond this and presents sheer comedy in the portrayal of both the players and their characters; and the insightful jokes targeting roleplaying clichés. For example, when a character is killed his body is buried because that will earn them "Piety points", not because it would be good immersion. "That'll totally make up for that orphanage we burned!" Or the scene where the thief tries to sneak past some traps and repeatedly fails and dies. In the end the party just orders the barbarian to set off the traps and soak up the damage.

The jokes aren't subtle, sure, but anybody who's ever played a (fantasy) roleplaying game will get a good laugh out of them. You've probably made some of the same 'mistakes' and you'll recognize the stereotypes. The ruleslawyer, the GM who gets annoyed with the ruleslawyer but can't find a rule against a particular explanation, the player in it just for the fights. This familiarity makes the film very accessible to roleplayers.

It makes up for the actual plot which is rather weak. The scenario the gamers are going through is a run-of-the-mill defeat-the-villain-and-rescue-the-princess affair. The 'great plot twist' at the end of the movie is rather predictable and works only once. It's very clear that the plot should be seen as a framework for the jokes.

The movie runs for a little more than 47 minutes. On one hand, some of my friends and me easily thought of loads more roleplaying clichés that could have been portrayed. On the other hand, I doubt whether the plot, weak as it is, could have supported a longer arc.

Style

Dead Gentlemen Productions began as an amateur group of filmmakers and is slowly growing into a proper professional company. The Gamers was made, so Ben Dobyns (Director of Development at Dead Gentlemen Productions) tells me, when the company was making that transition. As a result, it combines both amateur filmmaking and rather professional post-production. The shots are shaky, the film is often grainy and the sets are very sparse. The actors sometimes could've benefited from some additional acting classes, and the timing of some jokes is just slightly off. On the other hand, the actors' clothing is actually pretty cool, mostly being costumes from friendly live-action roleplayers and re-enactment groups.

Post-production was a bit more professional. Many of the lines were overdubbed, the colours were enhanced and the format was changed to wide-screen. Unfortunately, most of the lines of the GM character are still hard to understand. Apparently, he had a case of the flu during shooting and his dubs are also rather hard to follow. Some of the cuts of the special features are also rather rough. There are several occasions where the commentary is cut off in mid-sentences.

The menus are adequately designed and navigate well. They're nothing fancy, but they get the job done.

Extra features

The DVD contains many extra features. The movie itself can be seen with subtitles in six languages: English (for the hearing impaired), Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Latin. I'm only fluent in English so I won't comment on the other subtitles. The English subtitles were okay, although I would've liked an additional subtitle track with English subtitles without the 'hearing impaired' directions. Minor quibble there. The other special features are:

• The Making Of The Gamers: a candid 10-minute documentary that provides some insight in the troubles of making a movie.
• 9 Featurettes of about a minute that discuss specific scenes or tricks. Some of these are a bit boring in their technicality and only relevant for hard-core fans.
• A Music Workshop in which you can mix four of the sound themes from the movie to create new ones. The idea here is cute; the execution is very crude and makes the program totally useless.
• On the same note, the Go Exploring feature is basically a picture of the map of the world of Fartherall. Nothing impressive. Addendum: if you look around a bit you can find some Easter eggs. Fun stuff.
• The Outtakes have a duration of four-and-a-half minute and are guaranteed to make you laugh. Fun was had during the making of The Gamers and it shows in the movie, but the outtakes top that silliness by far.

The crowning features, however, are the four commentary tracks that complement the main movie. That's right, four separate commentaries. To sum up:

• Production, by Matt Vancil (writer and director) and Ben Dobyns (editor, music);
• Cast or at least part of it (Nathan Rice, Emily Olson, Matt Shimkus, Phil M. Price and Evan Shimono);
• Psychological Analysis by Chris Ode (foley artist) and Ben Dobyns;
• A Gamer's Perspective by Monte Cook.

Some of the information learned from these tracks is repeated between them, the Making Of and the Featurettes. It's not a large portion, fortunately, and the information is nice. For example, the cast comments that the final scenes were shot during finals, thus saying that the opening lines "Their endless quest continues... during finals week" are actually true. There is one scene where the gamers roll a natural 20 and everybody cheers. From the cast commentary we learn that during filming, the die just wouldn't come up with a 20. When it finally came up, the 'acted' cheers were quite real. Comments like these make the cast commentary a joy to hear, and it adds something to the movie.

The commentary by the production guys is comparable to that by the cast. They tell a bit more about the technical problems though, and thus add to the whole instead of just repeating stuff. One of the things that comes up in the track is the budget of The Gamers. Apparently, there was no budget when filming started!

A Gamer's Perspective by Monte Cook is a bit different. Monte talks a bit about little things in the movie, guided by Nathan Rice (the actor of the Elven archer). General gist of the talk: the movie is quite believable in some parts, and totally over the top in other areas. Monte for example points out that the villain is obviously really memorable, and that is a sign of a good villain and, consequently, a good GM. He also mentions the clichés the gamers are satirizing at times, thus making the movie a bit more accessible to non-RPG-ers. Most of the actual comments on the GM and the players are rather obvious — you probably could've thought of those yourself if you've played RPGs for a time.

The commentary by Monte is a lot more serious than the one done by Dobyns and Ode with their 'Psychological Analysis'. They take every little movement of the actors, and every little event, to go on long-winded speeches about the supposedly deeper meanings. The big sword of the barbarian is clearly a phallus symbol. The fact that somebody is shot in the mouth with an arrow? Clearly an oral fixation. Fun to hear these kind of things once, and they had me laughing out loud quite often, but that's about it. Two guys making fun of a funny movie.

The DVD also has five trailers of other Dead Gentlemen Productions: apart from the trailer of The Gamers you can look at trailers for Dead Camper Lake I, Dead Camper Lake II, Revamping Doyle and a brief advertisement for Dead Gentlemen Improv.

Almost forgot: the movie also has chapter selection: you can directly skip to one of the twelve 'chapters'. Of course, that's rather standard these days, but it's another detail the Gentlemen thought of.

Technical information

For those who care: the movie runs for a little more than 47 minutes. Colour is done in the NTSC system in Anamorphic Widescreen. The DVD is Region-free (yay!). Its contents are not rated, but parental discretion is advised, as it contains language and comic violence. The bonus material isn't rated either.

Wrapping it up

On the surface there's little reason to buy The Gamers. A (semi-)amateur movie with actors acting persons who act out other characters? 48 minutes for 18 dollars?
Of course, I think you should buy this DVD if you're a RPG-er. It may not have the best acting, or cool special effects, or whatever you've come to expect from a movie. It does, on the other hand, have 48 minutes of comedy goodness. It sometimes shows great insight in roleplayers and could be used to introduce people to RPGs. (They're sure to get a pretty skewed view though...) What's more, the extra features, especially the commentaries, add a lot of extra value. This isn't your typical Hollywood DVD, but if you're anything like me, you may get more mileage out of this one.

Note: this DVD isn't available in the stores (yet). Instead, you can order it directly at the website of Dead Gentlemen Productions or here at the RPGnet Store.