DC and tabletop fans are getting a brand new addition courtesy of DC Universe‘s new series DC Universe All Star Games, which is now available to stream. The new show gathers a talented cast of players to take on the classic 80s roleplaying game DC Heroes and bring it to life, including Freddie Prinze Jr, who will play alongside Clare Grant, Vanessa Marshall, and WWE’s Xavier Woods. Sam Witwer will be the game master of this new campaign, and the show will be directed by Jon Lee Brody, and together you really never know what to expect from this delightful group of players. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Prinze Jr. all about how the new show came about and what fans can expect, and it all stemmed from the group’s love of the accountability that comes naturally to tabletop gaming.
“So me, Clare Grant and Jon Lee Brody, we created a gaming channel on Twitch and YouTube last year called GEGGHEAD,” Prinze Jr. said. “I love video games, so I don’t want this to sound like I’m trashing video games, because I’ve played them every day, but there’s no accountability in online gaming. You can mute, block, ban. You can get all your followers to tell someone to shut up if they say anything that you don’t like, any criticism, any disagreement, anything in the world, and I think that is a sort of reshaping society. So, I sort of rediscovered tabletop gaming as an adult, and I love the accountability involved at the table. I love that if someone did something stupid, then someone else at the table would say ‘Hey man if you do that, we’re all going to die so I’m not going let that happen’, and they would just get on their case. I love that conflict. Conflict is such a good thing. That’s how every social progression has ever been tamed.”
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That’s when Prinze Jr., Grant, and Brody teamed up with Sam Witwer to take on Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars universe of games, inspired by Critical Role, who Prinze Jr. says “crushed it”. During that process Brody was in Canada and spotted DC Heroes, a game Prinze Jr. had been telling him about a year earlier. He offered to buy it for him and then got on a flight from Vancouver to LA, and during that time the gears starting turning.
“During the time of his travel to the airport, and while he was in the air, I called a friend at Warner Bros and I said, ‘Dude, I just had the weirdest idea. I want to do this 80s RPG, 80s style and I want to make it with you guys because you own the characters.’ He goes, ‘What are you talking about, and what’s an RPG?’ And I was like ‘a roleplaying game’ and I’m trying to break it down for him. He goes ‘Let me introduce you to Paul Malmont over at DC Universe and you can pitch to him,’” Prinze Jr. said.
Prinze Jr. remembers the meeting vividly, where he pitched the idea to Paul and Veronica of DC, and while they were initially silent after he pitched the idea, they started asking questions soon after, and that meant things were going in the right direction towards making this a reality. He said he could produce the show on an incredibly low budget and that he had lots of friends that would just come in and want to play, as well as a GM that would “knock your socks off.”
That’s when Jon landed and texted his friend, who then revealed that the show they had talked about a few hours ago was actually happening, and he needed to direct it. “So Jon lands, he texted me and we were going to go out to dinner and I said ‘Hey, you got to direct this show that I just built.’ He goes, ‘What?’ I go, ‘Yeah, we’re doing DC heroes for the DC universe. And he goes ‘What are you talking about?’ I go ‘They said, yes, we’re greenlit. So you’ve got to be able to make it. You got to make it for this much, which was not big, and he was like, ‘Oh my God’, and so it all happened that quickly.”
Once he assembled the cast and got Witwer to be the GM, it was game on, and as you can see in the first episode, their enthusiasm is infectious.
“We had an absolute blast,” Prinze Jr. said. “I’ve already seen the first episode and I know was like a little schoolboy watching that, already forgetting some of the choices in the game and I was nervous and overwhelmed, but I was also rooting for my character. It was so weird and surreal and it’s just another way for me to try to make this stuff mainstream and accessible. I want people to feel like they can grab onto these characters and then grab onto these games and start playing again.”
So, while it’s DC Heroes this time around, what would possibly come in season 2? It turns out Prinze Jr. already has an idea for it, and he’s hoping it actually happens.
“We want to be with the DC universe for a long time,” Prinze Jr. said. “They were the ones crazy enough to believe in this, so we definitely want to feature games that have their characters. And I’ll be completely honest with you, I already have our next show. If this does well and if they dig it, I have a phenomenal GM, I have a cast that would organically be able to rotate and I think it’s the coolest idea in the world and it wouldn’t be a game that exists, it’s kind of one that has been created and it exists within the rules of D&D. but that’s the only sort of D&D thing about it. I can’t say what it is because I haven’t even pitched it yet, but if they say no, I’ll make it anyway and I’ll put it on my channel (laughs).”
“It’s a phenomenal idea that can exist in the world of DC and it has for sure never been done before in RPGs and I can’t wait to pitch it to them,” Prinze Jr. said. “So, hopefully, people watch this so it does well. Then I can pitch them an even crazier idea and they’ll go ‘That sounds pretty crazy but we’re going to take a shot’, and then we can do even cooler stuff.”
You can check out the first episode of DC Universe’s All-Star Games right here, and you can check out more of our tabletop coverage right here! You can also hit me up on Twitter @MattAguilarCB for all things tabletop!
