Is the Fast and the Furious Franchise, Dungeons and Dragons?

Part One

As more and more Fast and Furious movies release, the crazier and more outlandish the stunts seem to be. For many different fans, the movies have “jumped the shark” in different movies. Maybe it was Fast 5 during the bank heist, when the crew dragged a 10-ton steel vault through the city of Rio, or maybe when Tej and Roman went into space. Who can say!

But, think for a minute though. What if the Fast and the Furious movies were just adventures in a campaign of the tabletop game, Dungeons and Dragons?

Hear me out and I’ll break it down.

1. The Fast and the Furious

Level 1

We have our main characters, the Toretto crew and the new guy, Brian O’Connor, making their debut and jumping into their first adventure.

Brian starts out as the solo protagonist but later joins forces with the rag tag Toretto team to take down the true antagonist, Johnny Tran.

In the beginning of an adventure or campaign for DND, the players can’t be too aggressive or too risky. The players actions are more bound to a more realistic approach, even if the world is of a fantasy setting. The players themselves are just learning the world and learning what they can and cannot do.

2. 2 Fast 2 Furious

Level 2

So, the Toretto crew is split and gone their separate ways. The focus on the next movie is on Brian O’Connor. Now a criminal, Brian has to work for the US Customs to wipe his record clean and not have to look behind his shoulder everyday. Brian teams up with a friend from his past, Roman Pierce. Together they go undercover as drivers, of course, to work for Carter Verone, a drug-lord.

After the first adventure, our players now have a little more understanding of what is going on and have more comfort in their characters, so they might want to try something a bit more riskier.

So, either the characters can proceed on or slowly release backstories on an individual basis.

3. Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift

Level 3

Now, this movie veers away from the continuity for a bit. We still have the main hero Sean, a troubled kid sent to Tokyo to live with his dad so that he stays out of jail in the States. There he meets more protagonists characters, Twinkie, Han, and Neela, and then meets the antagonist Takashi the D.K, Drift King. D.K is the nephew to the head of the yakuza.

It isn’t until the end of the movie that we find out about the connection between Han and the Toretto crew.

In DND fashion, we may discover a characters past or could be the beginning of a new character who joins the main players. Still this is early in the campaign so the characters aren’t necessarily making too many risks or too crazy actions, but the players should now be comfortable with the world and where they are in the world.

4. Fast and Furious

Level 4

So, this is where the timeline gets confusing and begins to backtrack. This movie actually takes place before 3, mainly before Han was supposedly killed.

We discover that Letty was killed while she was working undercover for Brian O’Connor, who is now working at the FBI. Letty was tasked with infiltrating a Mexican drug lords, Arturo Braga, smuggling heroin into the U.S.

Dom Toretto and Brian O’Connor manage to infiltrate Braga’s drug running as racers, with the intention of capturing Braga.

Now it’s getting interesting for the DND players. The players, depending on class, are getting more and more tricks to use as well as a deeper story. The consequences the players must face are going to get even more challenging.

5. Fast 5

Level 5

This is one of my favorite movies in the franchise. Dom, Brian, and Mia are now on the run and make their way to Rio. There they have a plan to take down the drug lord, Hernan Reyes, who has his hands in all everyone including the police.

Unfortunately, the three are blamed for the murder of DEA agents are then hunted down by a Special Ops group led by Luke Hobbs. Things don’t go Hobbs way and he looses all his other men to Reyes’ henchmen, which leads to Hobbs joining the Toretto crew to take down Reyes.

This leads to one the wilder stunts pulled so far, the bank vault heist. Dom and Brian end up pulling a multi-ton bank vault throughout the city, destroying a good part of it along the way.

In DND, this is the level where there it’s almost like an evolution. Most classes receive huge benefits, extra attacks, or enhanced abilities. This is also a great spot to really amp up the combat encounters. The story can also be brought in new directions with greater threats or new threats.

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As the movies go on and on throughout the years, the moves and stunts in the Fast and Furious franchise get more and more ridiculous. But if you imagine it in a more fantasy DND type of development, then it makes some sense.

DND is all about choices and rolls of dice that determine the odds of success. Think of it when Brian street raced for the first time and his car malfunctioned, well that was a bad roll and his car took some damage.

Or in Tokyo Drift when Han died, he rolled a natural 1, which is the worst roll and encompasses some sort of punishment. Even if a character dies, in the world of DND that doesn’t mean permanent death. Someone could always come back.