Movies to Binge Watch for Tabletop RPG Players July 1, 2020

Posted by Maniac in Editorials.
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It’s Independence Day Weekend, and with venues all over the country still closed due to ongoing safety concerns, many RPG players who play their games on tabletops with pencil and paper will be stuck home unable to resume the games they’ve been playing with their games. So, to kill some time, I’ve been combing through several of the various online streaming services for some films I’ve enjoyed about the subject over the years. I’m going to include a little bit of something for everyone here. Some of these are fictional, some of them are non fictional. None of them, as far as I know, received a major theatrical release.

Just a few notes here. A lot of these movies are made with low budgets, but in my opinion that kind of adds a layer of sincerity to them. All synopsis will include a trailer and a tip as to what online service might be offering it. Honestly this is not a complete list and if there’s any movies you’d like to see in this list post a comment below and I’ll check it out.

Of Dice and Men

This was probably the first fictional film I ever saw that was about Tabletop RPG players so I wanted to talk about it first. This is the story of a DM who has to pull together his players after life and politics causes turning point in their lives. From what I heard, it was based on a play that was originally written for PAX and was adapted to a film. You can find it on Amazon Prime.

Zero Charisma

This was the first RPG-inspired film I had ever heard about but since it had been off certain streaming services for a while. I wasn’t able to watch it myself until recently. This is about people who keep their lives the same for as long as they can. Just a heads up about this one, it has a lead that’s hard to love but a lot of people can relate to him. You can find this on Tubi or Amazon Prime (I’ve also been recently informed it’s on Crackle).

Monster Camp

I have mentioned this documentary a few times when I’ve talked about Live Action Role Playing (LARP) so this is a little something for the LARPer crowd. This documentary goes into great detail about everything that goes into creating a fun LARP, what the players are expected to do, and what kinds of characters end up running it. You can find this on Amazon Prime.

The Dungeon Masters

I first saw this on Hulu many years ago and it’s been floating around streaming services for quite some time. This is more a reality show type documentary about specific gamers and how they deal with their desires to play, and how the game effects their lives. You can watch it on Tubi.

The Dwarvenaut

This is a documentary about the life of artist and businessman Stefan Pokorny of the Dwarven Forge. Stefan’s plan is to start a kickstarter for an all-new expansion set. He needs to generate several million dollars to to release the expansion, can he make it? Sadly, this is not a film you can find on any streaming service right now but it’s so good I could not ignore mentioning it. After it got pulled from Netflix in my region I haven’t seen it return to any other service. If you want to check it out, try seeking out a home video release.