r/DungeonsAndDragons • u/Old_Man_Logan_X • 26d ago
Secret Level Episode 1 Suggestion
I highly suggest watching this if you’re able. Great episode 👍
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u/ANoblePirate 26d ago
Yeah it was so cool. I'd watch a full show or movie like that, did a fantastic job on the representation of spells and stuff too. Huge fan.
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u/GrandCTM25 26d ago
I love the Leonund’s tiny hut use
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u/DarthRygar 26d ago
So many details to those watching, it was clear they put good effort into this episode. Absolutely loved it!
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u/ANoblePirate 25d ago
When I watched the initial trailer I saw the monk catch the arrow and throw it back and was instantly sold that it was going to be an awesome watch. My only complaint is that there isn't more!
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u/Lamplorde 26d ago edited 26d ago
The gold dragon reveal was so peak, I didn't think they could top it until Tiamat started breaking through his ribcage.
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u/amatsumegasushi 26d ago
You might want to throw a spoiler filter on the back half of this comment. It is an awesome sequence for sure!
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u/Lamplorde 26d ago edited 26d ago
Thats fair, I just sorta assumed people would guess there'd be spoilers in a discussion thread, but I'll spoiler it just in case!
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u/amatsumegasushi 26d ago
All good.
Your comment was completely reasonable. Was just a thought. The show is pretty new so in my eyes odds are good some people might have missed it, or may not have even been aware it was a thing.
It is an awesome scene and I feel like going into it blind was an amazing experience. And you were under no obligation to follow my suggestion but I appreciate you choosing to do so anyway. Thanks for being kind! 😊
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u/Cow_Surfing 26d ago
If someone has not watched it yet and clicks on this post. It's their fault.
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u/amatsumegasushi 26d ago
Don't you have some obscure coins to collect somewhere? I'll give you a quarter to go crawl back under that mountain of self importance you crawled out from.
As a general rule being kind and empathetic is the gold standard for how to treat people in life. Unless you're like this guy, in which case go kick rocks.
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u/DarthRygar 26d ago
Just gonna play the
devil’s advocatewarlock here, this post was already marked as a spoiler. Not to defend the other guy. Just a warlock putting in hours.4
u/amatsumegasushi 26d ago
Totally fair. Counter point, we're inside of a week of the show releasing. And I myself only happened to learn it was even a thing two days ago. And the show is awesome. Lots of fantastic episodes covering a bunch of amazing IP's
Curiosity gets the better of people and the comment I originally commented on was visible right away on mobile. That's really the factor that made me feel like saying something. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered.
The episode was awesome, and the show as a whole was pretty great. Don't want that sentiment to get lost here. I'm glad I happened across it on Thursday night. Was an awesome watch.
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u/Itsdawsontime 26d ago
Completely agree. Though, while I loved almost everything about the episode, I thought the dialog was incredibly cheesey and seemed very predictable in their words.
Everything else - the animation, pace, facial expressions, voicing, etc was amazing though.
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u/PeacefulKnightmare 26d ago
It felt like the dialogue at some of my tables because it was so cheesy!
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u/Itsdawsontime 26d ago
That’s how I felt. It felt like game talk, that was almost the average stereotype of each class. I get that there was only 12 minutes, but they could have still put more details or references to D&D / features / backgrounds.
It just felt rushed, and had so much more potential. It ended up just being okay/good for me - like a 6.5/10 because of that. Still 10/10 on animation though, unreal.
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u/PeacefulKnightmare 26d ago
Fair enough! For me, that's actually what made it stand out for me because it felt like a tabletop game brought to life rather than something "epic."
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u/Overwelm 26d ago
I was telling me my friend every episode is almost like a tech demo you'd see from a game trying to sell a publisher a title. The short duration + jumping universes don't help the story telling but the production quality is phenomenal.
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u/The_Lost_Jedi DM 26d ago
It was amazing, though I was left wanting more, much more.
It's crazy that we don't get more fiction and shows. The movie was great, but somehow D&D gets blamed for the studio's screwups (the marketing was off, and it was released in an absolutely awful spot sandwiched between John Wick and Mario, for starters). Meanwhile Critical Role's animated series is a huge success, and people are tossing money to squeeze out more sequels from properties like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
But we still can't get D&D ones.
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u/fettpett1 26d ago
Hasbro can't seem to get their heads out of their asses for any animated series not named MLP or Transformers. Magic has been in development hell for almost a decade, even if it's back on track now it should have been out 2 years ago...D&D lore is prefect for animated series even if it's an anthology one...or they do Drangonlance or Forgotten Realms
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u/The_Lost_Jedi DM 26d ago
I think the basic problem is that they've fixated way too much on trying to use media as advertisements to sell the game directly. Which, yes, on some level it's going to be, but when you expressly and openly see it only as that, it tends to fall flat.
Transformers and MLP both have had good stories told via movies/tv/comics etc, and then by the sheer fact that there is merchandise of both, more toys get sold.
WotC/Hasbro really fucked up when they killed their novels division, because that had a ton of impact in getting D&D into the public consciousness. TV/etc would do even more. Get people interested in the worlds, the places, the characters - the sales will follow.
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u/magusjosh 26d ago
I feel compelled, as a Transformers fan, to point out that no mainstream Transformers series (Rescue Bots appears to have dodged this by having big name characters only appear as cameos) - no matter how well it was doing - has lasted more than three seasons in the past 25 years, and were mostly cancelled because Michael Bay didn't want his movies competing with them. And of the last three, two were made as cheaply as possible (one even going so far as to hire only non-union voice "talents"), and the third appears to have been cancelled for...reasons...
So Hasbro can't get their head out of their collective ass for that either. Just in a different way.
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u/DifficultAd7398 25d ago
Joe Magellano was doing a live action show for Dragonlance and they pulled the plug on it. Joe released a statement and you could tell he was mad about it being cancelled
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u/fettpett1 25d ago
Yeah, ik...just shows how incompetent Hasbro is becoming
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u/DifficultAd7398 25d ago
It just sucks they can't seem to do anything good lately. Although the collab with lego has been great the DnD set is great and the DnD collectible minifigure series is awesome. Hopefully it will lead to more sets.
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u/Maduin1986 26d ago
How about a dark sun one?
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u/-DethLok- 26d ago
Or Greyhawk, there's heaps of lore in that setting as well.
But Dark Sun, with slavery and an overall 'everyone is evil' kind of feel? Not terribly mainstream media friendly.
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u/The_Lost_Jedi DM 25d ago
Arguably you could, if the setting was portrayed as something the heroes are fighting against - but WotC/Hasbro seems very hesitant to take even the slightest of risks even in terms of what they publish just as game books.
That said though, I do think they should be focusing first on the more 'mainline' and better known settings, because regular non-fans see whatever and think that's what D&D is all about, etc.
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u/vu1xVad0 17d ago
But Dark Sun, with slavery and an overall 'everyone is evil' kind of feel? Not terribly mainstream media friendly.
You mean like Game of Thrones? :D
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u/fettpett1 26d ago
WotC thinks it's too "problematic"
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u/waawaaaa 26d ago
This and the Warhammer one left me wanting more, both were so good and captured what players love about the franchises.
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u/thegreyknights 26d ago
The fucking pacman one made me want more. The unreal tournament one had me cursing out epic and wanting to play unreal tournament. Its fucking GOOD
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u/BunnyloafDX 26d ago
Yeah, my only complaint is that it was pretty short and a cliffhanger. If the interest is there, it would be nice to see either a full episode or an anthology series with multiple D&D shorts from different worlds.
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u/AaronDM4 26d ago
dood rings of power could actually have been a great show if it was D&D rings of power and left all the lotr shit out.
as D&D a great IP for that as its just a original world/story.
Starwars should a have done the same thing and would be a stronger IP now.
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u/Ok_Entertainment_112 26d ago
It was good.
But that Warhammer episode is epic.
I was also.very surprised how awesome.they made the pacman episode.
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u/DarionHunter 26d ago
Pacman seemed too close to being a sci-fi horror for my taste.
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u/Ok_Entertainment_112 26d ago
Certainly not the Pacman I remember. But I would totally play a new pacman like that.
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u/Jnixxx 26d ago
What is this ?
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u/_b1ack0ut 26d ago
Secret Level
It’s by the love death and robots guys, it’s an anthology show where each episode is set in a different video game world
First season has some bangers like Dungeons and dragons, Warhammer, armoured core, and a surprisingly good pac man episode
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u/squirrely2928 26d ago
Loved it! The new cleric has an awesome backstory
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u/DadFatherson2 25d ago
Mora's speech to Solon made me cry
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u/vu1xVad0 17d ago
I kept thinking "Solon? Is this a reference to the fallen Knight who becomes one of the primary characters in Ravenloft?".
Nope, it's Lord Soth, not Solon. That would be a cool episode though.
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u/RiseofdaOatmeal 26d ago
The amount of people not knowing what this is from goes to show how poorly Amazon marketed this
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u/Bullgrit 25d ago
Yep. I am definitely in the target market for this show, but I saw/heard/knew nothing about it until I saw someone on Reddit mention it a few days ago. With as many totally useless ads I get on YouTube and elsewhere, an ad for this would have made me get at least a month of Amazon just to see it (I already have a sub to Amazon). With all the tracking various companies do of my online activity, why can't I get ads for things I'm actually interested in?
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u/beattyml1 25d ago
I think it’s actually the point I think that a big part of this it to figure out which video game series Amazon does next by evaluating both how effectively communities self market (how many streams each episode gets from external links) and interest when you know about it (how many streams the episode gets overall)
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u/YesterdayAlone2553 26d ago
I'm a sucker for simple name drops, as soon as they mentioned the foe they were up against, I knew what was going down. Just didn't realize how crazy and how fast everything was going to be
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u/whysotired24 26d ago
I saw it briefly while working this week. It looks so good! Where’d you watch it? I need to check it out.
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u/DatonSungold 25d ago
I don't see why they think of Tiamat as such a threat.
In the 80s, she was regularly bested by a gaggle of insufferable tweens.
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u/Wotensgamble 26d ago
Truly excellent. I'm not sold on the ending though. Those characters, as cool as they are, didn't seem to be geared up to take on the final challenge. It broke my immersion a bit to have Big T show up at the last minute for an eternal cliff hanger. Otherwise 10/10 very fun and a great love letter to the game.
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u/Supreme_Moharn 25d ago
I liked this series, but the Love, Death and Robots series had more depth and quality in my eyes. These Secret Level episode all look absolutely amazing and have some nice references to the games they are based upon, but were a bit on the shallow side, story wise.
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u/-DethLok- 26d ago
I was pretty impressed by all of them in part one - very well done indeed!
Minor quibble about the gold dragon having wings, but maybe it does now in 5E? They didn't in 1E, not sure about 2 or 3.5 anymore.
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u/BzrkerBoi 25d ago
They've had wings since 3rd!
And I'm so sorry to do this to you, but that means they've had wings longer than they were wing-less
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u/-DethLok- 24d ago
Ha, well, my knowledge is old school so.... get off my lawn! :)
Now I'm going to go outside and yell at some clouds.
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u/Bale_the_Pale 26d ago
What is this? I have no context at all
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u/Jadelexi84 26d ago
It’s an anthology series on Amazon Prime, with each short episode based on a different game IP. There is Pac-Man, D&D, Warhammer 40k, Unreal tournament and many others.
Part 1 is all available and part 2 in a few days. I really enjoyed them, despite not being familiar with some of the IPs.
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u/Happy-Quantity7728 22d ago
Just finished it 😮Fantastic Episode! It really got me excited for the entire series and what is to come.
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u/Schpitzchopf_Lorenz 19d ago
This, while beeing a wonderful DnD Episode, gave me Diablo as well as LotR Vibes.
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u/No-Hold-8077 8d ago
Okay, is it me or when the 5 headed chromatic dragonsl popped up, you immediately thought, Takhisis?. With joy!!!
And a Paladine...
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u/RangerTursi 26d ago
Probably spoilers to put Tiamat in the post. I mean I know most people probably can tell by the name of the episode but still. It was a really cool scene with the transformation.
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u/taylorpilot 26d ago
An episode where very little happens. Wayyyy too short and too much was characterization.
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