“We thought that was gonna be the fight of our lives,” 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Beadle & Grimm's co-founder Bill Rehor says of the name of his and Matthew Lillards’ new D&D show, Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!. “We think the show has a sort of irreverent Kitschy aesthetic and [namin🎃g it after the movie Faster, ꧑Pussycat! Kill! Kill!] seemed like a funny reference. We wanted something that immediately signalled that this was going to be a show different from a normal D&D series.”
Different is an understatem𝔉ent. Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! is a Whose Line Is It Anyway-inspired anthology of D&D adventures with a rotating cast and DM, with t♑he only common thread being that everyone dies at the end. That means you can jump into any episode and enjoy it without having to catch up on countless others.
“Our pitch to everyone was, ‘It’s gonna be an hour, i﷽t’s gonna be super fun, it’s gonna be super fast, and you’re gonna have a blast,’” Lillard tells me. “To their credit, I think all but two or three people passed. We tried to cast a really diverse collection of people. We have a bunch of actors, recognisable faces, people who have never pl🔯ayed before, icons in the D&D space, and a lot of diversity. And one of the things we’re really proud of is that we went out and tried to capture the tapestry of the TTRPG community.”
The premise makes the show far more accessible for viewers, as there’s no commitment to keep up or tune into every single episode as there is for other Actual Play series like Dimension 20 or Critiꦓcal Role. But it’s also a boon for casting, as Lillard and Rehoꦿr didn’t have to convince players to sign on for lengthy recording sessions spanning potentially hundreds of hours of episodes.
“You go to somebody and say, ‘Hey, do you want to play D&D?’ They immediately think, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be three hours, I have to know a lot of rules, it’s gonna be intensive.’ But we say, ‘No, you’re going to play a first-level character and, before you know it, 🐬you’re going to be dead,’” Rehor says. “And they go, ‘Oh, all right. Well I can handle that.’”
For a DM, it’s a unique experience. You’re not planning a season-long story, but a tighter, linear, one-shot adventure t🎉hat can only have one possible ending. Rehor host♓s each and every episode while Lillard joins some as a player, but he also tried his hand at DMing one of the games.
“There’s a liberating element because you know that no matter what happens, you’re building to a big boss fight,” Lillard tells me. “Normally the DM will allow players to dictate where we’re going. I’ll have a sense of where I want to be. But all of a sudden, players come up with something off the beaten path. 168澳洲幸运5ꦓ开奖网:You sort of ‘Yes and’ them and allow the story to follow that journey.
I had onꦺe concern though, how does the DM handle a player dying before the hou♍r is up? By just turning the episode into a talk show.
“Put your feet up and get comfortable,” Rehor says, mentioning one episode where everybody died in the first ten minuꦬtes. “We had to adjust for that, but I’m over there at the bar [where Rehor stands to the side during the game]. They can come hang out with me, help host for the rest of the show. We’ll figure it out.&rdq𓂃uo;
Rehor’s role as the host is just as important, serving as the connective tissue between eꦦach episod꧃e.
“My job is to set everybo♔dy else at the table up for success, which means there’s not a lot of personal pressure on me,” Rehor says. “Nobody’s coming onto the show and saying, ‘Hey, I wonder what the host is going to do today.’ I’m there to facilitate and let other people look great.”
“It is the one true constant in the show that gives it a strength,” Lillard adds. “Bill has such a steady hand about it. Every time you sit down, you feel like you’re in good hands and it’s something we thought would work in execution and then it worked incredibly well. It’s a remarkable achievement because I do think he’s pitchܫ-perfect throughout the entire show and it makes a huge difference in the success of the overall campaign.”
Throughout the interview, their 30-year-long friendship could be felt in their admiration for one another. The two founded a company together, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:have spent decades playing D&D, gone to each other’s weddings, lived through the biggest moments in one anothe꧃r’s lives, and are now running a TV show together. But interestingly, this is the first time they’ve paired up for a show or movie in 23 years.
“That’s a deep cut,” Lillard says. “Nobody puts ꩲthat together. Bill wrote a play called Cannibals that he translated into a movie called…” he waits for one of us to finish his sentence.
“Spanish Judges,” Rehor chimes in. &🍬ldquo;Changed name like five times in grand Hollywood tradition.”
“It stars Vincent D’Onofrio, Matthew Lillard, Valeria Golino, and it’s like🔜 an incredible three-hander that we shot in 14 days back in LA,” Lillard finishes.
For the two, it’s not a reunion, but a culmination of their decades of friendship. “A lot of shows or movies in Hollywood, you’re putting together teams that are working together for the first time, or may have worked together for like five or six years,” Lillard says. “Four of the five of us [at Beadle & Grimm's] have been together for 30 years.
“We are dear friends, we raised our families together, and traveled together. There is this shorthand and confidence that comes with that which is unparalleled. And I just put that t♍ogether, which I think is bananas. For 30 years, we’ve been making things. I mean, we started as a theatre company and we all went to school together. The four of us started producing plays in New York when we were 20 years old.”
Being an improv show, 💞Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! is filmed in front of a live audience, meaning that the cast gets to play off the reactions of fans in real-time. This is something the pair tell me is “validating” and “powerful”.
“Every show, Bill and I come out and warm up the audience,” Lillard says. “We say, ‘Faster, Purple Worm!’ ♛and then the audience screams, ‘Kill! Kill!’ It’s amazing how that gets your juices flowing, it really gets you fired up. I think what happens for us, and for every player that comes on, is you look out there and get laughs and that immediate energy feeds you. We’re constantly asking people to engage, asking for people to cheer back and be active and to hiss and do all these things. Everyone on stage has something to play against.”
With the show being so easy to get into due to its much tighter format, the pair are hopeful that iꦡt will also get people into Dungeons & Dragonsౠ, reaching a new audience of people who maybe haven’t considered trying tabletop RPGs before.
Lillard tells me that the show is a “love letter” to the game, with 20 episodes and 20 collections of people playing it in all different ways, highlighting just how different every D&D campaign can be. But also, how easy to play it is. The rules, levels,🌄 and character building might seem daunting, but so many newcomers tried😼 their hand in Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! and, despite dying, had a blast. He hopes that the audience will find it similarly inviting, offering a hand to those tepid about tabletop games to try it for themselves.
“I’m an actor and I’ve been in lots of movies and being the guy from that movie was super fun for a while. The reality is I get way more joy from being associated with a game that is at the cornerstone of my life. Father’s Day, we played D&D, my birthday, we played D&D, when we go away as Beadle & Grimm's, a collection of my best friends, we are committed every single time to playing games. So being somebody that can introduce people to this incredible experience and incredible way to spend life is humbling, and couldn’t be more gratifying. If some kid finds this game and they have the amount of joy I’ve had in my life, that’s better than any Scooby Doo reference.”
The Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures channel is now live and t🐎he rollout schedule is as follows:
- Heroes’ Feast – Mondays & Wednesdays at 9PM Eastern & Pacific
- Encounter Party – Tuesdays & Fridays at 9PM Eastern & Pacific
- Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! – Thursdays & Saturdays at 9PM Eastern & Pacific
