Fan-pilled on Faerûn

On episode 31 of the Rascal Radio Hour, Chase is joined by writer and television critic Joshua Rivera to discuss what we should expect from HBO's upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 television series. The pair discuss showrunner Craig Mazin's history with both Dungeons & Dragons and adaptation, including his journeyman work ethic and unlikely professional origins. They also cover how the series may diverge from The Last of Us in both broad structure and approach to genre storytelling. Finally, what does it mean for the D&D property to take another stab at going transmedia?

Later, Chase runs down some of the bigger news pieces and essays on Rascal along with what he's been playing recently. He also gives a little preview of our State of the Rascal article coming towards the end of the month, which will not only reflect on what we did (and didn't accomplish) in year two, but also lay out some big goals for year three.

Speaking of, you can still subscribe during our anniversary pledge drive with a 20% discount on the first six months by following this link. Thank you for making two years of Rascal possible, and here's to another two. (or five, or even ten??)

You can find Rascal Radio Hour on Apple, Spotify, and all the other various podcatchers. Leaving a five-star review helps new listeners find our show and website. Since we eschew traditional advertising, these reviews and any word-of-mouth are genuinely a massive help — thank you!

Here's an excerpt:

Chase: I think it is important to like look at Mazin's trajectory that lands up here. This isn't exactly a blank check project, but it does seem like he has, like you said, gained enough clout, enough notoriety, and enough trust with HBO to do this sort of thing. And it hits at the same time that Hasbro is really looking for some sort of capitalization on the Baldur's Gate license because Larian, the studio that made Baldur's Gate 3, has said that they're not going to do another game. This is finally Hasbro capitalizing on the license in a big way.

It is going to come after the events of the game, which I think is smart, and is going to have characters "both old and new." Does that mean that they're going to bring Astarion and Karlaak and Shadowheart?

Joshua: Or is it going to be, like, Elminster?

Chase: Exactly! Names that Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have been able to trademark for D&D as a brand, as an IP property.

Joshua: I think that last part I think is probably where it'll be, right? Asterion's gonna show up. I think Mazin is fan-pillied enough to be like, I can't do this show and not have Asterion, right? But I also think that he will be probably strongly encouraged to make hits out of characters that have been sitting on the shelf for a while. Drizzt — he's a Forgotten Realms guy, right? Time to introduce a whole new wave of fans to that guy. It's kind of funny that this is probably the fastest way they could have capitalized on Baldur's Gate 3. It's definitely several years out, but it will take less time than making Baldur's Gate 4, you know?

Chase: My worry when I first heard the news, before I read the Deadline article, was that Baldur's Gate 3 [the television series] would be like The Last of Us. It would be an adaptive property, right? It is going to take the events of a story that everyone knows well, and it's just going to put it in a different mode. And I... it's not that adaptations aren't interesting. In fact, I think great adaptations are very interesting. It's just that after reading about and watching the first season of The Last of Us, that's not what Mazin really does. Like you said at the beginning, he is doggedly faithful, at least in The Last of Us. And I don't know that would make for compelling television, especially because a video game like Baldur's Gate 3, where character choice is important

We've explored so little of the outside edges of the map, of the here there be dragons portions of Faerûn. There's a large amount of like imaginary that can be captured. If we have to treat the Forgotten Realms like an IP, to produce content out of (and I'm saying those words very cynically), I would at least like to see new stories, new characters, new settings; something that takes this fantastical realm and does something interesting with it. An adaptation wouldn't have really done that for me.

Joshua: And I suspect Mazin kind of feels the same wa. The guy has just spent, what, five years? He's coming off of five years of making this faithful adaptation. Even if you don't have a generous read of his career and you don't think he has that much to offer, I mean, he is a writer, and he's probably a little bored of sticking to someone else's script for so long.

So I'm skeptically optimistic. I think the fact that it is a Dungeons & Dragons property means there are a lot of strict lines already drawn, right? And it's gonna be curious to see how much leeway he has to explore because Hasbro is involved. I'm also curious about what HBO wants from this show, right? Because to some people, it can just look like more Game of Thrones. And they have two Game of Thrones shows right now: House of the Dragon and A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. And there's more on the way. They're talking about doing more all the time. So, I am most curious to see how this will distinguish itself. And it will probably do that by leaning into the weirder parts of Faerûn that also don't involve dragons, unfortunately, because those are expensive.