This is D&D we’re talking about! The ultimate nerd fantasy generator. A cultural touchstone. A game with five decades of lore, a multi-generational fanbase, a cinematic universe’s worth of monsters and classes, and enough narrative flexibility to stretch from silly to Shakespearean. It should be a slam dunk. Grab a lizardfolk barbarian, an elf druid, a dwarf fighter, a human wizard, and a Khajiit-style thief (okay, technically not in D&D but let’s not split hairs), send them on a small side quest while a big bad looms in the background—boom. Hit show. Nerds rejoice. Dice sales go through the roof.
And yet... nothing.
Yes, there was that Dungeons & Dragons movie last year, and honestly, it was fun! But it was also a one-off. We’re talking about a TV series here—episodic storytelling. The perfect medium for a game built on sessions. You'd think with the popularity of Critical Role, Dimension 20, and The Adventure Zone, Hollywood would be tripping over itself to bring D&D to life on the small screen. But instead, all we got was a cancelled Paramount+ series that got quietly scrapped last year.
So again: why is it so hard?
I dove into a Quora thread on this very question, and the answers are surprisingly insightful. Some folks blame the lore. D&D isn’t a story—it’s a system for making stories. And when everything is customizable—from the gods to the goblins—it becomes really hard to pin down a “canonical” version that pleases everyone. Is it Forgotten Realms? Eberron? Ravenloft? Do you stick with familiar monsters and tropes, or lean into weird, niche stuff like Mind Flayers and Beholders? It’s like trying to make a definitive version of improv.
Others point to the problem of tone. D&D is famous for being a chaotic mix of comedy and drama. One minute your party is in a tense negotiation with a warlock overlord, and the next, your rogue is trying to seduce a gelatinous cube. Try translating that to screen and keeping it tonally consistent without losing the charm or confusing the audience.
Then there’s the biggest issue: what do you do with the dice?
Every D&D campaign is driven by dice rolls. Success or failure isn’t decided by plot but by chance—and sometimes that randomness is what makes the story fun. A critical fail can derail an entire session in the most hilarious way. But on TV, if a character fails to pick a lock and sets off a trap, viewers don’t see it as “bad roll.” They see it as bad writing. The element that makes D&D exciting in real time is almost impossible to adapt without feeling… clunky.
But here’s the thing. I don’t think any of these problems are unsolvable. In fact, we’ve seen adaptations that basically are D&D shows in disguise.
The Mandalorian is a D&D campaign in space. It’s episodic, it’s got a party (Din, Grogu, various recurring NPCs), it’s full of side quests, and it builds toward a larger goal.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is practically a high-level campaign, complete with character progression, elemental magic, and boss battles.
Even Buffy the Vampire Slayer had the format: a "monster of the week" structure with an overarching big bad each season. Swap vampires for bugbears and Sunnydale for Neverwinter and you’re basically there.
What I’m saying is: we’ve seen the formula work. We just haven’t called it D&D. Studios get skittish when something has an existing fandom with very specific expectations. And with D&D fans? You’re trying to please both the guys who played in the '80s basement with graph paper and the new crowd raised on Baldur’s Gate 3 and Critical Role.
But still—just imagine it.
A real-deal, unapologetic D&D series. Characters that fail their perception check. Side quests that go horribly\wonderfully wrong. An overconfident bard, a morally confused warlock, a dungeon master voiced by Matt Mercer. Give us eight-episode seasons, a solid campaign arc, and lots of room for chaotic nonsense.
The audience is there. The love is there. The fantasy genre has never been hotter. All we need now is a network or streaming service with the courage (and budget) to roll a natural 20.
Until then, I’ll keep rewatching the owl bear scene from Honor Among Thieves and pretending that’s good enough.
But come on.
You have dragons. You have dungeons!!!
How hard can it be?
