YMMV / The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The film is just as much about the growth of the DM as the players. When the film starts Lodge is visibly high-strung and kind of a jerk himself. He also makes bad decisions, resulting in two TPKs (one of which is stated to have taken place before the film began), and adds a Paladin GMPC to the game, mainly to keep the players on the railroad. As the story progresses he becomes more lenient, allowing the players to get away with some of their more morally questionable actions, letting Cass use a lightsaber and shotgun and taking the powers away from his Paladin who doesn't need to rely on them as much as a Cleric. Note also, that Lodge's entire motive is to make the adventure one that is PUBLISHABLE, which explains his focus on story. If the players break the adventure, he simply can't publish it.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Ninjas delivering pizzas fighting against pirates in the Wizards of the Coast office was awesome, and had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
• Contested Sequel: Opinion if it's better, worse or equal to the original film varies from person to person and often depends on what one is looking for: more jokes about tabletop cliches, or a coherent story to follow.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Gary uses the Flaming Hand of Fiery Doom, a demon-killing spell, on a random peasant NPC just to move on with the plot. After being yelled at by half of the party he takes a short pause, only to ask how much experience he gets for the peasant.
  • And later, when Flynn gets killed yet again, this time by a miscasted spell, we've got a follow-up
  Gary: So... how much experience do I get for the bard?
• Designated Hero: We're supposed to sympathize with Lodge, and yet he does several things that show him to be a terrible DM. He chronically railroads, he arbitrarily takes away player character's powers (something which the DM guide specifically says you should never do), he throws a monster at the party that can mind control characters with a DC so high they can't successfully roll a save without a Nat 20, and he introduces an NPC specifically to babysit the PCs while keeping them on rails (The latter even Joanna criticises him for). Thus some of Cass's actions seem more like the behaviour of a frustrated player trying to take some control over his character than those of a whiny munchkin.
  • Another problem with Lodge's style of running the game is that he insists on doing something 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons was obviously not designed to be or do: running a low-magic, low-fantasy setting. For a 9th level campaign, there are virtually no magical items (in a game that openly requires them to "work" properly), Gary's spell range is just plain inadequate and Lodge insists on removing the kung-fu monk and run the setting as all-human^note The last one is done for purely budgetary reasons, so it's not exactly character's fault.. Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with modern D&D mechanics will tell you this can't feasibly work and leads to nothing, but problems - and ones that only come from rookie DMs. The players are more than correct to call Lodge out on this, because they are aware of where this is heading and them routinely failing to "beat" the campaign comes to no small part from the artificial limitations imposed by Lodge.
• Heartwarming Moments: Gary usually plays The Loonie and derails the story for fun, but when Cass's tantrum over Joanna's roleplaying drives her close to tears, Gary simply moves to the chair next to Joanna and asks Lodge, "So, what happens next?"
• Jerkass Woobie: Poor Cass seems to have some deep-seated control issues.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While the first Gamers was a fun romp based around Dungeons and Dragons, it was also evident that they were doing it on a very limited budget with mixed acting skills for everyone involved. Dorkness Rising, while definitely debated on where you prefer a more coherent story or more tabletop jokes, has noticeably more convincing acting from the cast all around, more diverse characters with more interesting personalities, and more complex setpieces that feels overall better integrated into the film. Or, for that matter, that it can be watched as a film, rather than a series of skits cobbled together.

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