The Dungeon Masters is a 2008 documentary film directed by Keven McAlester. Originally intended to be about the history of Dungeons & Dragons, the film shifted focus and ended up being released as more of a "human interest" documentary. It takes a look into the lives of three people who are all D&D Game Masters: Elizabeth Reesman, Scott Corum, and Richard Meeks.
This film provides examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: To varying degrees of “bitter” and “sweet” for the three documentary subjects. Elizabeth has moved, is excited about her new job, and has a new boyfriend. Richard has gotten fed up with DMing for his regular group and quit, and seems to be thinking about making gaming a smaller part of his life, but his religious conversion might bring him the sense of belonging he’s been missing his entire life. Scott’s ending is the biggest downer, with his hopes for getting his book published dashed and the fate of his local TV show (which he only created in hopes of gaining notoriety to promote his book) uncertain.
- Book Ends: The documentary begins and concludes at GenCon 2008, perhaps an artifact of the original intent to make a film about the history of D&D.
- Bully Magnet: All three subjects seem to have been this to some extent as kids, although Scott goes into the most detail about it, relating with chagrin the abuse he received after he tried to get his classmates to call him “Sherlock.” On the positive side, he seems to look back on it all with fairly good humor.
- Does Not Like Men: Elizabeth gives this vibe, citing the Drow’s matriarchal society where men can be executed for the slightest disrespect toward women as one of the main things that led her to role-play as the DND dark elves. Later in the documentary, when she relates her experiences with an abusive ex-husband and being sexually harassed at a previous job, her attitude becomes more understandable.
- Heroic BSoD: Scott has one after his book is rejected. He says he’ll probably always want to be a writer, but at the moment he “doesn’t want to be anything.” The very loose narrative structure of the documentary means we don’t really see him overcome it, although he does seem to be in better spirits when he gathers with family and friends to watch the first episode of his cable access show.
- Hope Spot: For most of the middle of the film, it seems like Scott has a real shot at getting his book published.
- LARP: Elizabeth participates in LARP events, both as a player and as a "monster marshal."
- Manipulative Editing: Maybe. Elizabeth (or at least a reddit user claiming to be her) specifically accused the filmmakers of this, saying that they used clips of her speaking out of context and generally portrayed her in an inaccurate way.
- Married Too Young: Elizabeth eloped at 19 because she was pregnant and didn't think she could raise a child on her own. She suffered a miscarriage the next day, and later got a divorce.
- Satanic Panic: Elizabeth mentions she had to deal with this when she started gaming as a kid. On the other hand, Scott is a devout (no denomination specified) Christian who helps put on religiously-themed puppet shows for kids, and Richard is a former Lutheran who is in the process of converting to Judaism, and neither sees any conflict between their faiths and their hobbies.
- Shameless Self-Promoter: Scott's literary agent tells him that publishers want authors to essentially be this, as they can spend less on marketing new books if the authors do the work of cultivating a following themselves. Scott's idea is to try to get exposure by doing a local cable access TV show.
- Supervillain: The main character of Scott's local access TV show Uncle Drak's Magical Clubhouse is one of these, played by Scott himself.
- Total Party Kill: Richard seems to take some glee in relating a story about when he was the DM for a group of his friends while living in Florida and ended a long campaign (and possibly the friendship) by wiping out the party with a nasty trap involving a Sphere of Annihilation. He insists a TPK isn't a goal he sets out to achieve as a DM, though.
