Hi, everybody. It's me.
Katie sores. And yes.
Hi. Hello, it's me.
Hey, go. Do you do?
You went right into it? There's no banter was.
You do like a welcome back to season 3 season 3, our season
break is over. We welcome to season three of em
fin Quest podcast. We forgot to tell you that we
were ending season 2 but and also taking a break.
We forgot we listened back to the last podcast.
We went, oh, we forgot when you forgot to tell him, John Oliver
always has the and he's like a welcome back.
I'm like, July 28th and we didn't do that part.
We made a note, there's a post, it post it existed, but we
didn't read the poster. Did you not see the post it?
Everybody can cannot everybody see, not see the Post-its on my
desktop monitor. So that was where we well there
was a lot A lot has happened. A lot has happened.
There was in order, there was covid.
There was a covid-19, during 00 case of Covid or letters or was
going back, two years ago, like you got covid.
And then unfortunately, I had a friend passed away and then I
have some medical things going on.
I'm not going to say what they think it is because everybody's
going to freak out if I say it out loud.
But I have some things going on. And then my mom got covid and
it's just been a whole thing. Yeah, but by process of
elimination, the last few people.
I know who got covid were Eric and my mom.
So put two and two together. Are did you make out with?
Oh I did not think that would ever be said, I'm sorry.
I was sort of as we've been out of power.
I was like for I was like free free thinking.
I was like Eric and then everything got weird.
I'm sorry. We can really know.
That's not think, you know your way, appreciate that.
Yeah. And then your your, your, when
what they are manager people, I don't know.
We're like, hey, you both should take two weeks off a tick tock
just so you can like cool down. Down reset reset and not like,
you know, stress yourselves out. A friend of mine once said to me
like the best, the best way to do, like, the best Pace to take
is the one that you can maintain, and I think we were
like, going hard for a while and so, yeah, your team was like,
right, just take two weeks, just forget to talk exists, do other
stuff. I'm really hurt.
And so, we did, and then that, now, it's podcasting with a dog
and the other than the week after, that was the week before
Quest. Craft season 2, baby, shout
across Crafters. Launch.
So, I spent the whole week getting set up for lunch.
So now this is the fourth week of being off Tick-Tock and it's
like I got to get back into it too long.
And we took this, he's ready for the podcast.
So I'm glad for I feel took like a mental health break, and a
season break, and a covid break and a convention break.
There was, it was a long. It was a lot of rot, but I feel
good about things. Let me too.
I feel like we're in a new era. Yes, we are.
There's a new light in the thing.
The era of always having to duck him in the office, when we're
making a podcast, who will always choose the loudest toy,
right? When we start recording?
Yeah, she really does. How you doing Bales you good.
Good. Good.
I'm glad, but, yeah. So Quest Craft is up.
I spent last week setting everything up.
For those of you don't know, Quest Craft is the infinite
Quest, Minecraft server. If you would like to join it is
whitelisted. So we don't just let everybody
and but if you would like to join, please feel free to email
us at a skit and request podcast.com And you know,
perhaps you can be on the all server Reno, maybe play some
Minecraft with I would say me and Eric but the real truth is I
don't really play Minecraft so much as I just wander around in
like a direction. And then I hoard my diamonds,
like an angry like Smog. And I get the really mad if I
have to use them for anything and then that's how I play
Minecraft. It's very healthy.
I think it's pretty good, but it's really fun.
I think just seeing everybody's different play Styles because
like Just one of those games where it doesn't tell you what
the goal is. It's not like there's an enemy
over there. Go kill them.
It's like, gotta find myself. Spending like, two hours.
Being like, I need sand. I need all of this.
And I need every sand, and it's like a lot of sand it by my
base, but also, I set up so close to spawn.
I'm a little bit embarrassed, it'll be fun.
I feel like I was like, the little kitty, like, didn't want
to like, like fly away too far away from home.
Like a little baby bird. So I just, I took like a really
close Island and now I'm embarrassed about it.
It's okay. And we'll do you know, who makes
the rules on the server? Is it?
You is me? So it's okay, you're fine.
But I really love seeing everybody's different play
Styles because like the game is whatever it is, you want it to
be. So like some people are very
technical players who like investing a lot of time and
energy and resources. Bailey, do you just like Billy
found sandakan guns away? That is loud in this room.
She did while she's really on one.
I'm gonna put her in the hall, okay?
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo dog: handled, gentle parent, my dog
you do is we're gonna have a lot of people judge me.
I think for that but it's I think I like to think it makes
difference. I think it does.
I think it really does. She's got a strong bond with
you. Strong bond, just follow me
around. But I really like seeing
people's Don't play Styles like come together, but not just
that, but also see how they interact because in a server
where you can literally do anything, like you can build
anything, you can take anything, you can do whatever having, you
know, 80 neurodivergent people all doing their thing.
It's really cool to see sort of like the playstyle ecosystems
emerge. We're like, for example, like
pool shoes, I would pull shoe. Hello, their faction.
They've split it up. So she's got what she calls,
like the Dig rats, which I think is hilarious, which are the
people who like mining. So like they are the people who
like dig down and they just mine resources, all the time.
She has like the adventurers who just like go out and find like,
weird stuff that they, otherwise wouldn't have gotten.
You know, she's got the builders.
She's got the farmers who just like their whole thing is just
food, making sure it was food for the faction which is like,
she has, like, 20 people under faction.
So it's like, Such a beautiful way of like, integrating all
these different play Styles into one thing.
Would you don't have to do? But I know like every time I
think because we only had one season, of course, craft so far,
I didn't, you know, one isn't enough to recognize a trend.
But like after the set, the start of the second season, I'm
realizing, like one of my favorite things about it is
watching those ecosystems emerge in watching those playstyles
interact. I know.
And then it got me thinking about life.
Katie did it. But how we all have our
different processes and stuff like that?
But I think Gaming brings that out of us in a very immediate
way which I think is very gratifying to watch, I really
enjoy that. You're like yeah I only post you
as like an entire faction and I was like I caught two fish.
I did. I caught two fish and I was
going to try and make the fish. Make more fish but I don't know
how to do that - you should join.
My fact, I've been tazed factions join Shadow today.
I already told Dave that I would join his faction but I can't
find it. I don't know where it is, you
shouldn't. Well you just you You won.
You should do it every why? But it's long house in a
mushroom and I don't want to leave, because it's, I like it
there, it's cozy. Okay.
That's fine. Before you can be our little,
you could be our adventure. Who like doesn't finds weird
stuff? Yeah, that's yeah, I could do
that. I could be, I just like, I just
need. I need some food.
I'm about to, I have half a heart.
I'm going to starve to death. I gotta join a faction.
I know I have fish, have a bucket.
It's great dude. The bucket where do you get a
bucket? I made it.
You got our nice solid but it's interesting.
That you talked about different play Styles because I learned
something. Fucking fascinating about TT
RPGs the other day. Was that is that it stands for
tabletop role-playing. What justjust in case there's a
listener hears. No TT RPG stands for it.
Stands for tabletop role-playing task stood for terribly Tuesday,
Ronald Paul Green. I don't I don't even know what
that was. I'm sorry I didn't have anything
but I feel like fall green, a real person or I don't know if
your name is Ron Paul Green, please send the film so it But
get stuck up. Um, somebody has to know.
So Ron Paul Green, Ron Paul Green.
Somebody has to maybe this like the the least popular green
brother. Yeah.
It was just one shot at Rock wasn't if like Hank married?
A surprisingly conservative, Senator?
Yeah, and it could be and he would be Ron.
Paul Green balls. Not a senator hankering is too
good to do that gross. What did you learn about doing
so for project? Sorry.
Okay, so this is a thing. Okay, so you know how we have
been talking a lot about Like neurodivergent inclusivity and
like accessibility and play, which is like a thing where like
we like I know that I'm telling you but I'm like contextualizing
this for the people who might know we're around play.
Do you mean like play like the gameplay?
Yeah, like TT RPGs. Watch a play means two different
things and depending on which the audience we're doing, but I
mean, it's still the same thing because, yeah, fair play is
Play. It's just sometimes you like
board games and sometimes you're playing dungeon master but look.
Okay, so serious is thing. So one of the things that I've
really been struggling with is that I get a lot of questions
about role playing in tabletop role-playing games.
Hmm. I just realized you made that
joke and then I made my joke and I was like now there's a lot of
similar language. Yeah, there's a lot of similar
language, sorry, enough to it's okay.
It's fine. But anyway, okay, so there are a
lot of the questions I get are about role playing and like, in
my brain, I was like well, His role playing, will you just play
the role you role play? It turns out.
Eric that there are two very specific factions schools of
thought on role play in tabletop role-playing games.
And I think this is like one of the most goddamn interesting
things that I've ever heard. So faction one are, like the
role players, right? You've got like your actors.
You've got the like, I'm coming to the table with my back.
Story. And I know what my character is
wearing and like you know what I'm going to do like a voice in
like an accent or like whatever right faction to is like the
gamers the people who are like this is like a structured like
mechanic by which like we can defeat the dragon or like win
the game or even to a certain extent and like for the for the
purposes of this conversation. Like for neurodivergent people
like have a structured way of Eating in a structured way of
like, having character-based discussions.
But there's not like acting there's not like a voice or a
back story. It's just we're going to dungeon
and my character does this, right?
It's baffles me, it's very cool. It's been, well, I mean, and one
of the thing is, I think you'd like it made a lot of things
make sense, because, like, a lot of the questions that I get
about roleplay. I admittedly, very sort of like
incorrectly always just took to be like, kind of acting
questions, right? Like, struggling with roleplay
is struggling with acting. I was wrong and I'm willing to
completely admit that I was wrong, but it's because I only
hang out with role players, like I only hang out with people who
are like doing the like, taking the role playing part of the
game, very seriously. But there is apparently, a lot
of tension, there's like a lot of tension and a lot of division
between the acting faction and the like mechanic faction.
And I think That is a fascinating allegory for
communicating as a neurodivergent person.
Like whether or not you look at his like the nerd.
Like I'm not saying it's like a neurotypicals versus like
neurodiverse titular neurodivergent situation but I
think it's really, really interesting because what happens
is you are a role player. You're here with your tragic
backstory in your, you know, binder full of notes, and your,
you know, costume or whatever. And you rock up to Table of
mechanics players, who are the just there to, like, have fun,
and roll dice, and play this game.
And you, and everybody has a bad time or the mechanic person
comes to a table full of role players and feels like very
awkward and like they're not as good of a player and they're
like not fitting in and I was like that's a really good.
I think I know I said it already but like allegory for like
neurodivergent. See where it's like everybody at
the table can be playing the same game, but if you just
understand the game differently than the people around you, that
is really going to impact like how you communicate and how you
delve into things and like what you focus on, what you don't
focus on in. Like the things that are
important to you and what are not important to you.
That's so interesting. I guess the question that begs
is, what do you then do, if you have a single table with a lot
of those different types of players.
I mean, I imagine The first thing is understanding where
each player is coming from. Because if you're assuming that
a role-playing character, if you know, if you're a mechanical
player and you're assuming that another player at the table is
or every other player, at the table, is also a mechanical
player, but really like half of them are role-playing
characters. Then you're just going to be
like confused and frustrated the whole time.
Yeah. Whereas if you understood like
Oh I'm a mechanical player. You know, that guy's a
mechanical player, she's role-playing character, you
know, like it would, you know, you would at least have a place
to start? Yeah.
You know, so I guess the question is, how do you sit down
at a table and then play together effectively and by
effectively? I mean such that everybody has a
good time. Yeah, well, I think that
ultimately, I mean that's like a much larger conversation that
sort of like breaks the allegory because what it then becomes
this. Like well the DM is responsible
for a lot of it. You know.
It's true like the, you know, like but unfortunately, well, I
mean some of us have GM's. I brought it back around.
Thank you. You're welcome, you're welcome.
You're welcome. Yeah, I guess cuz you know, if I
want to stick with the analogy like which I do, you know, we're
all on. Let's just get real heavy with.
It was Zoom way out like if we're all here on Earth ask
people, you know, if you go out in the world assuming, you know,
that everybody thinks of exactly the way that you do, you're
going to be confused and frustrated all the time.
But if you understand like oh there are many different ways of
thinking about all sorts of stuff than you at least have a
place to start. I think, I guess the difference
is that There's not really like a DM in the real world.
I mean, yeah, you know, believe in God but you can't like get
it. Let you know, like call a rule
into question and get an answer immediately, you know, like you
can't. Okay that's your me out what if
you called the pope and you were like it's true, excuse me, Pope
I just want some clarification, okay?
When you're casting Fireball, it says a 60-foot sphere but my
character only cast and Errors, I want that to happen.
So does really I want someone to call the pope and clarify a
Dungeons, and Dragons role in pretty funny.
Just to see what the Pope says. I mean.
Yeah. And plus, you know, the you have
the Pope's phone number. Please email us and ask it and
then Quest podcast.com, I think everybody is the pose.
That's, that's the whole point. You just kind of like close your
eyes and call the home and pray. And, you know, well no, that's
talking to God and God. Yeah, I hope that.
Yeah, you gotta call like Francis, dog.
It's just, I don't honestly know.
I've been out of the game for a long time but no, I mean, I
think like the real truth though is like, there's like a really
interesting. I think perspective to be had of
like there is a different understanding in the tabletop
role-playing game community of like what even is role-playing
and that's so interesting to me because like a And like, I am
fully willing to admit that I was wrong.
But like my understanding of what role playing and is has
always sort of like informed how I navigated through games you
know. And so it's like, but if
somebody is like no no no, I don't want to do the voice, I
don't want to do the acting or whatever like they have just as
much right to be there and just as much right to have a good,
you know, time at the table. So yeah.
So the answer that is like how do you facilitate it?
And I think my answer is twofold.
I think one is I hate compromise because compromise always feels
like somebody is ultimately losing like everybody's giving
up something, you know, which sucks.
But I think that like There's also something to be said about
like sort of like, finding your people and finding your table,
you know, because like I don't think I would have a very good
time with a, with a table full of like, mechanics players,
like, I want the opportunity to, like, do the, you know,
character voice and like do the, the big monologue, or whatever.
But if everybody's just going to kind of look at me and be like,
your monologue has no bearing on whether or not we defeat this
Dragon. Like this is just sort of like
spice on the on the top I think I would be sad because I would
feel I was losing something from my experience.
And so I think a big part of the answer has to do with finding
your community and finding people who sort of, except
you're, you know, if you're doing the direct sort of analogy
of neurodivergent, see to role-playing, you know?
But like it's like understand and can facilitate your specific
brand of role-playing, which is why I think that Commute will.
I know that I just said Community is important?
I completely forgot us. Oh, no.
I know I was going to say, I was like, I was thinking about how
we haven't done a podcast in a really long time, but then also
you have your blue light on and your tools are glowing really
funny. And I was looking at that and
thinking about that and also trying to make food at the same
time. It's fine anyway.
What I was trying to say is that I think Things like having a
community things like Tick-Tock things like twitch, things like
The Gaming Community itself, things like conventions, those
are really important because it helps us not only find our
people, but also be exposed to people who are different than
us, who look at role-playing or neurodivergent, see or whatever
in a very different way. And I think that's fascinating
because it's like, you might have a completely different
perspective. Doesn't mean either of you are
right or either of you is wrong but what it does mean is that
you have the opportunity to maybe understand or try to do
something in a way that you might not have done before and
that's neat. It is.
Yeah I think I mean I think I think seeking seeking to
understand as a goal in itself. Like have you ever been doing a
thing or like at the beginning of having a couple of guests and
making sure we're liking, you know, you show up at a party or
you go on a date? Or you just do a thing that has
some duration and right at the beginning you're like this is
going to be the worst fucking thing ever happened.
Like oh no. But you're in and you're like
alright here we are what I always fall back to on is just
to try to like explore the situation like poke at it and
project try to like understand how it works and stuff like
that. So to like, if I'm ever I've
only ever played like A couple DND sessions where I thought it
was bad because the characters or the players were just so much
Matt mismatched and where they're very different reasons.
And in those, in during those sessions, I immediately, just
fall back on. Like, all right, try to
understand what that other player.
Why are they doing that? What do you think they get out
of it? Like what?
Yeah, how were they thinking of these things?
Like, you know, if you have like a really technical player who
You know, let's say you need a key from a bartender, at a
Tavern or something like that, one player might try to charm
them one player might try to intimidate them, one player
might just try to kill them and take it, you know?
But the person making it whether or not they do the big flowery
speech or whatever by deciding, which Avenue they're going to
take their still role-playing like internally.
They're still thinking, okay, what would my character do in
their inhabiting that space, perhaps?
And I think I have a real appreciation for that because
ultimately I understand the the urge to make things efficient.
So like if I'm going to try to intimidate the bartender to get
the key, I could do a whole speech But ultimately I'm just
going to roll And I might succeed or fail.
So I get the urge to like, cut out all the fluff to just to
just, you know, be line. And I also understand that, that
could be a form of role-playing for that person to just
internally thinking about what would my my character do.
And so now, when I see a person play that way, that's what I
think of, I don't think of like, oh, that sucked.
I would hate that. I think about how the status,
where are they drawing satisfaction from.
So anyways, whenever I fall into those situations where I'm like
Like just missed matched with other players, and I mean that
literally like in a gaming sense, but also like just in
life, I just try to understand like what's going on in there.
You know, why are you making the decisions that you're making?
What are you getting out of this?
What I do the same thing. If I was a person like you, I'll
never know because I'm not a person like you, but it's fun to
think about, you know. Well, I don't have a role
playing in itself. I also think like theirs,
There's something really familiar about like being the
only neurodivergent person at the table, right?
Or like but like you know, the only neurodivergent person at
the office or the only neurodivergent person in book
club or the only neurodivergent person at the play group or like
whatever. And so I think that in those
moments to like if we think of it like a game not to like
trivialize it but just sort of like to continue the I keep
saying allegory and that's it's a knowledge word, the analogy, I
don't know what hey, you know, whatever it's fine.
But I think like one of the big things that we talk about a lot
is just communication like honest and vulnerable
communication. And I think that is like, that's
one of those places where no matter how you're playing you as
the player. Have like a really powerful
opportunity to be like, hey, these are my needs.
These are my wants. This is what I need to like, be
successful here, like whatever. And I think when you, when you
really start thinking about, I don't know.
The kind of thinking about it as a game, like almost makes it
easier because it's like, okay well like how do I Get the key
from the bartender but it's, you know, get the permission slip
signed in the most efficient way without having to have an
uncomfortable conversation with the, you know, super cringey
parents that. I don't have a conversation
with, you know, like that kind of thing.
Yeah. And I like, I don't know, but
I'm just like, I'm just so fascinated with this idea of
like and I know I'm doing a really bad job of trying to
communicate about communication, which I think is very definitely
ironic. But like, one thing Zouk is the
point is to at least try. Yeah.
But like, I'm just fascinated by this, like idea of like
communication both as like, in like TT Refugee spaces as like
player and character, but then also like Communication in, you
know, just like normal life spaces, like neurodivergent
person and then just like person existing because like our
neurodivergent see is like always part of us, like our, you
know whatever your particular diagnosis is dear.
Listener. You know, like it's always part
of you but you're still a person in the world, you know?
And so I was like, I don't know, I have no idea.
I just have like a lot of big brain energy right now, like
know where to put it. So I'm just throwing it at you
and I've no idea what I'm talking about.
Know your I think one of the best tools, a person can have a
person of any stripe can have is the ability to decide to find
something interesting. Be interested be interested is
the ability to decide to. Something interesting, even
though you don't know how you're going to find it interesting to
start, like I think I like sports, I grew up around a lot
of sports and I just don't give a shit about sports but I would
end up watching a lot of football, just because it was
around. And so, my best option was to
figure out how to find football, interesting.
Like not knowing about it. And do you like now I find
football Super interesting, and so if it's ever on, I'm like,
cool, like, let's watch this thing.
So too, I think, when we're in situations in which In which,
you know, play styles are mismatched or again, to continue
the analogy in which you're a nerd of urgency is well,
Divergent from the other people in this situation.
I think being able to decide to find that situation,
interesting. Even even if which is hard to
do, when you're, how do I say? It's just hard to do when you're
a nerd of urgency is being inflamed in one way or another?
Yeah. Like, for example, if I'm in
like It's been a while. But like when I was in school
watching like a lecture and it was just the least ATAC friendly
lecture, like nothing going on. Just a big block of text on the
thing, monotone voice. Like, it's hard to be like, how
the fuck am I supposed to up the stimulus of this situation by
finding it? Interesting.
So it's really hard to do, but I think with practice it's doable.
Yeah, and I think, you know, similarly, if you're with just
another person who is not conducive to your nerd of
urgency being, okay? You know, sort of, In Flames,
you're in order urgency, it's really hard to, to be empathetic
with that person, or at least find them objectively
interesting. But I think I'm convinced that
it's doable. I have faith that it's doable
and we're so I do feel like I need a caveat one thing because
I was like, I was relisting to this episode in my head while
you were talking because I'm a good listener like you do I know
but I was like I just realized though.
When I talk about role playing, I'm talking about like sort of
like a facility or like a microcosm of like communication,
I'm not talking about masking because I think like a lot of
people could look and say like, well roped, like masking is
essentially role-playing like you are role-playing as like, I
don't want to say like a normal person but like a person who is
not overwhelmed at the grocery store or whatever.
I think there can be used for that.
But like, I am a big proponent of, like, I think, Less masking
is sometimes better, but I also know that sometimes like masking
is a absolute social survival, sort of mechanism and everybody
masks to a certain extent. But like I'm talking about like
Specifically communication? Yeah.
Being the person at the table, not hiding who you are being who
you are, that's difference. Yeah, absolutely.
Lisa, honoring who you are, you know, like there A lot of times
when I know I have to behave very differently than how I
would, if I just could have our I want.
But in those moments, I like to acknowledge that it was a
conscious choice to do that, you know, like especially in like I
don't know when I was when I was a cook, we would have liked menu
meetings every day. So like the head chef would sit
down and we'd all sit around the table with our like, clipboards
and take notes on the specials and all that stuff.
And I remember I was kind of frustrated at like how, how much
energy I had to put into making it look like I was paying
attention. Like, because paying attention
isn't enough. You have to look like you're
paying attention, so that the chef isn't nervous all night
because they didn't think you were paying attention and I was
frustrated with that but then I realized like, wait a minute.
I'm deciding to do that though. Like, I'm still the one with
agents here. Yeah, you know, like, I'm decide
deliberately deciding to do that because I know, you know, I
don't have to, it's like I'm gonna get fired if I don't, it's
just, I'm deciding to use this tool in my toolbox and doing
that, or thinking about it. That way really helps me when I
have to, like, deliberately Tamp down.
Like, my more prominent hyperactivity HD symptoms, it's
like, it's kind of cool. It's like, you know, I'm like, a
spy. Hi or something like that.
You know, like I'm deliberately using my training you know, role
playing role-playing exactly by. How do you feel about coming
back to podcast sweetheart? Well, I feel like we crush.
This will see you in six months for season 4 by everybody been
real. This is the best episode we've
ever done, and it totally made sense 100% of the time.
I think it definitely was like, you know, I know what I mean,
but I don't think anybody else is going to do.
I think, I think you were, I think, Like, I'm just really
interested in it. Yeah, I also I also think this
is like, you know, normally we have like a couple days between
episodes, like talk while we've been thinking about and stuff.
Now we have like a month of like stuff we've been thinking about.
So it's all just like,