Wyrmworks Publishing Do you ever find yourself in an awkward social situation? What if you don't have the mental tools to navigate that? How can role playing games help? Welcome to Gaining Advantage. Wyrmworks Publishing Welcome to Gaining Advantage. Wyrmworks Publishing is all about using role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons to make other people's lives better. If you haven't yet, this is a great opportunity to grab some of our free resources right now. You can go to the DMs Guild or to our website, WyrmworksPublishing.com, and get our Accessible Adventure of the Week, our disabled NPC of the Week. Or you can go to our website and sign up for our newsletter to get notifications of all the new resources that we're creating. In fact, speaking of that, we have a special adventure coming out on Monday September 27 called The Price of Success. It's a halloween horror adventure that teaches about child abuse, its warning signs, and related issues, And it was edited and consulted by Naomi Hazlett, who is the occupational therapist that you're going to meet in today's interview. She was a huge help to enable producing a truly unique and beneficial adventure, but taking into consideration the subject matter which may be too difficult for your players, but it has a section to help you discuss it with your players. So it's free on the DMs Guild. You can go check it out, sign up for our newsletter to get that link when it launches, because if you're watching or listening to this before Monday, it will not be available yet. And so that said, let's get right to our interview. Wyrmworks Publishing This world can be challenging and unforgiving for people on the autism spectrum, as they try to navigate the complex social rules that each culture requires. What if there were a way to help them adapt and develop these skills in a safe and comfortable environment…with dice? Today we're happy to have Daniel Kwan and Naomi Hazlett of Level Up Gaming, where they're actually doing that. Welcome Naomi and Daniel. Daniel Kwan Hey Naomi Hazlett Thanks Daniel Kwan Thanks for having us. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright so what would each of you like us to know about you personally specifically speaking to the tabletop role playing game crowd? Daniel Kwan Naomi, do you wanna go first. Naomi Hazlett Sure. Yeah, so I started, I feel like I'm a bit of a late comer, but it's all relative. I mean, I started with video games that were based on role playing mechanics, when I was a kid, and fell in love with them, found that you know some of the things that I'm seeing now, as a facilitator of tabletop games resonated with me in the same way even when I was young, and I'm sure we'll get into all of those things but you know just kind of having the freedom to take on different identities and trying things in a safe space and, you know, learning about myself along the way. And then, you know, later on I started to find gaming communities myself, and along, I guess along the way, it was working on my career at the same time and became an occupational therapist, met Daniel, met Christian Blake, I believe both of them are the co-founders of Level Up gaming, and I was signed on pretty recently, I think about a year ago, and again, now I've got the chance to put together the things that I experienced for myself with some of the skills that I've learned along the way in terms of being an occupational therapist. I still can't believe that I get to do this, this is an it's an incredible organization and it's an incredible thing that we do and just very grateful that we got the chance to talk about it with you today. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, Dan? Daniel Kwan Yeah, I guess, who am I? I'm Daniel Kwan, I'm, I guess I'm a former educator and archaeologist. I work in, you know, the tech world now, and I moonlight as a, you know tabletop RPG podcaster and game designer. I'm one of the cohosts and the showrunner of the ENnie award winning Asians Represent podcast and publishing, I guess I've done a lot in the tabletop world. Most recently I published Candlekeep Mysteries with Wizards of the Coast. I authored one of the adventures there the Book of Inner Alchemy, I've worked for other companies like, you know, Dimension 20, Paizo, Darker Hue Studios, and a couple others. Right now I'm publicly working on I guess what is public, I'm one of the mechanical designers for Into the Motherlands, which is a science fiction RPG that's supposed to be published next year. Wyrmworks Publishing Right. Daniel Kwan And I guess you knew Level Up Gaming. Wyrmworks Publishing Which leads us to the next question: Tell us about your work, how does Level Up Gaming work? Daniel Kwan Why don't you take it Daniel Kwan It has evolved, like not only in the past year, but since we started. So, Level Up was founded by myself, Christian Blake, and Kelsey McKeever who's who's a spec ed teacher in 2016. We called ourselves Roleplay TO and then we found out that another organization or another group had that name so we switched it up to Level Up Gaming. And initially we, we started running everything in person, and we still work with an occupational therapy collective called Dreamweavers, and they kind of help run the administrative side of Level Up. We started doing, you know, in person games, playing a variety of, you know TTRPGs, and not just D&D. We've done things like Coriolis, Pugmire, Urban Shadows, and like even some like smaller ones like Wildlings and things like that. And we would always have one person who's a GM and another person who was an occupational therapist, and the occupational therapist was often there to do things like make observations and help other folks out with goals and, and, you know, and group norms. And then obviously the pandemic hit and things kind of changed. We had to adapt and what ended up, you know, coalescing out of this strange situation that the world has found itself in is this new virtual model that Naomi has been a part of. Naomi actually came Naomi actually came to visit our group on like the final session of our last ever in person group. Not saying that there's a curse. No, but Naomi joined Daniel Kwan I don't think we can blame her for COVID Daniel Kwan No, not at all. But Naomi came on the last day and immediately I was like oh this person is super cool. And you know, when the pandemic hit everybody's you know, availability changed and Naomi and I started running it, and we made a, we decided to kind of really commit to one change that we had been starting to make in our in person groups, and it was having the occupational therapist not only play the role of, you know, like, almost like a behavioral moderator or like an an, or like a passive sort of observer, but also an active role in the story as a character, to model sort of like group norms and the kind of behavior that we were all working on, and so Naomi, not only serves as a, as like one of the protagonists in all of our stories, but then takes on that role of the occupational therapist, whereas I take on the role of the GM and you know, adapting the story to you know the specific needs of the players, we do everything now through basically a couple of different tools: we use Zoom for our, our video and our chat, because it allows us you know to create a password and have a waiting room but also private chats. That way Naomi and I can kind of converse in private on the same platform or Naomi or myself can message a participant in private to either you know check in on them or offer a suggestion if we, if we find that they might be stuck. We use D&D Beyond to manage character sheets. Since D&D Beyond is super accessible and not only lets us build characters like we would have in person, but it also allows us to you know have visibility of everyone else's character sheets—it's got the built in dice roller, tells you what the spells and all the attacks and abilities do, so it creates a lower barrier of entry to folks who have never played before. And then for our virtual tabletop we use something called Owlbear Rodeo. Since it's got a very minimalistic user interface. So it's not so distracting and it's very freeform and egalitarian. Naomi, did I miss anything? Naomi Hazlett I don't think so, yeah, I mean it's interesting to kind of trace the history and the evolution of the program and now how I came in and we, as soon as we were transitioning to the virtual platform and it was just interesting to see how, I mean, we had to shift our norms, a little bit on the one hand, but it also created opportunities like you said, to make the game more accessible and help support the players as best we can. So, yeah, it's been a very interesting journey so far. Daniel Kwan Yeah I honestly think you joining Level Up was like a breath of fresh air, because like you came in as someone with a lot of D&D experience, so you can, you know the nuances of the game, and it's really, it's really great having that. And then, you know, doing the virtual tool is so great because you're also a gamer like you said, so that that sort of digital etiquette is really something that you're familiar with, and you have that sort of digital literacy that allows you to basically focus on the people, without having to worry about the digital tools. I've got ideas for the next program too. Wyrmworks Publishing Did you ever imagined that that would, you know be something you'd put on a resume? Daniel Kwan I, Naomi? I definitely didn't. Naomi Hazlett I definitely not either. I mean, there's always ways of sneakily putting it in right, like group facilitation skills or ability, Daniel Kwan Oh I straight up put what I do on my resume. It's there on my resume, it's on my resume, it's on my LinkedIn. I don't hide that. Naomi Hazlett No, I mean, I don't hide it, it's not like I'm hiding it anymore. Maybe I feel like Level Up was like well, I mean, this is obviously a legitimate thing that you can do as a professional. It's hard sometimes to explain it to some people but honestly don't care anymore and I mean this is proof that people are interested in learning what it is and I'm seeing… I'm sure there's just being like tabletop games are just getting more and more and more mainstream, and I think the next step is for people to really recognize that they're not just a, not to say they're just a leisure activity but leisure isn't just about having fun—t's so much more than that. So all it is to say is, yeah, it's on my resume too. And, yeah, I'm happy I'm happy it's there. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, so how do people on the autism spectrum benefit from your work? Daniel Kwan This is a you thing, Naomi. Naomi Hazlett If you say so. I think it's it's a team effort, but, I mean, the best person to talk about this I think is are the players but since the players aren't here I'll try my best to reflect some of the feedback or comments or experiences that I've witnessed in the game. Autistic people sometimes, well, have a little bit of trouble with unstructured social situations, or I guess another way of putting that is, you know, neurotypical people may not gravitate towards more structured social interactions. But all that is to say is, I think that generally speaking, role playing games have such a cool blend of freedom and structure. So, you know, with D&D, You're going, you walk into an inn. And, you know, when I walk into an inn in real life it's like I could do 3…thousands of different things, and that's kind of overwhelming right? And so, if I walk into an inn in D&D, I have a limited amount of skills, right, I have a list of skills that I can do: I can persuade somebody, I can intimidate somebody. And that means, like I said it may seem limiting but it's absolutely not. I tell… I tell people when we're you know at Level Up when I'm GMing myself, If you don't know what to do, just tell me what you want to do, and then I'll tell you what skill might best match that. So if you want, I think when you're kind of starting in situations in D&D, you can really follow along with the rules, and then as you get the hang of the rules, you can kind of get to a point where you're feeling more comfortable experimenting with what you want to do and testing the rules, and all of this takes place in a, in a situation where it's a step away from you, you know, so if your character makes this social error, does something that makes other people uncomfortable, you get the feedback but you don't, it doesn't, you know, if we're doing it right, affect you or reflect on your own character as a person. And so what that does is give you the space to try a different, a bunch of different things, you have your, your social sandbox. And then what people have, I've heard from people I've heard from participants and I do research as well into TTRPGs what I've heard from research participants and just informally is it gives people the confidence to try different things now in the real world. So in a nutshell I mean that's, I think the one of the best things that we can offer at Level Up, but we know there's also other skills that just kind of happen organically within the world just like they happen in our world. So, um, you know, I think we've done a lot of work around time… other than social skills right collaboration and communication, like we've been focusing a lot on time management, right, so you know we can do everything you can do anything you want, but you only have a day, and here's the situation that's unfolding, and so we have to make choices difficult choices about what we want to do, so you can kind of integrate… or money management, you know ok you want to buy that, but do you have the money? And so it's really, the possibilities are kind of… there's a lot of there's a lot of possibilities I think Daniel Kwan Or if you'd like, or if you like don't have the money well somebody could definitely share or lend right that happened in our last session when somebody wanted to buy…was it like a guinea pig? Naomi Hazlett Yeah, and my character lent lent him all my money Daniel Kwan That came back multiple times, came back multiple times throughout the story that your character helped them out. I mean like another thing we've definitely seen especially in the past year is, is sort of experimenting with with gender identity. That's, that's one that we've definitely seen and respecting people's pronouns and kind of normalizing that is one thing that is very, that remote sort of D&D has been really good at helping us do especially with, you know, the virtual tabletop has your name, your character's pronouns and your pronouns. So that's been really great or, you know people correcting others about their pronouns in a way that isn't, like, you know, doing that and practicing how to talk about that with other people in a really low risk environment like Naomi mentioned stakes are something that you know you could certainly talk about like what's at stake here? How much time do we have? But at the same time D&D gives you effectively an infinite amount of time to make these decisions. And it also kind of gives you this sense of safety because failure is always interesting in D&D. Because you're you're able to, you know, make a mistake and learn from it and adapt to it, but also mistake is never the end of whatever you're trying to do, it's always a, you know, a minor obstacle, and it kind of helps folks, develop that resilience when it comes to actually going and trying something new, and doing something that they might not feel confident to do in real life, and play around with it and try it in D&D to the point where and maybe they'll try that in real life, maybe they'll try, say, you know, asking for something that they've never asked for before or maybe they'll try, you know, calling up a friend and asking them how they're doing, or, you know, maybe they'll go and offer to help somebody do something. Right. I think it certainly helps with confidence as well. In that sense, Naomi Hazlett To add on to that I think just a quick note about failure, I feel like sometimes when the stakes are higher, you feel a lot of social anxiety, or, you know, you're feeling not very confident. A social, you know failure might seem like the end of the world and what, what D&D does is show you the story is not done the story keeps going, and you keep finding different, you know, You're gonna keep rolling and find different ways to continue to solve your problem or to make, you know, different choices. And I think, you know, I think it's interesting to show people that they can, like you said be resilient and recover from failure and that I think instills confidence and that curiosity to continue to explore. Daniel Kwan Yeah, for sure. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, so how can people outside of the Toronto area benefit from your work? Unknown Speaker I mean, now that we're remote, it's, I think it's just a timezone thing. I mean right now I think we're currently only serving Canadians. But given that we're remote, we can, we have the ability to now serve people outside of the GTA. Right now we have the, the difficult problem of having a lot of demand, and just the two of us. So, you know, in the future, Naomi and I are looking to expand, you know, have another GM, have another OT, but you know, maintain a sense of, you know this this connectedness between the groups. Naomi and I have been talking a lot, we have a lot of big ideas about how we want to have multiple groups going in separate adventures but with an interwoven plot that can eventually connect and stuff like that. So we have big plans and, you know, being remote allows us to not only do these really grand things and have these breakout rooms in Zoom or all these different virtual tabletops, but also again serve people outside of Toronto, where we couldn't before. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, no, I've heard that a lot. Where where COVID has pushed. While, on the one hand it's it's it's never as good as being in person and being able to sit around a table, it really has expanded reach. So, Daniel Kwan Definitely. Wyrmworks Publishing Yep. So how have you seen lives changed because of your work? Naomi Hazlett Daniel? Daniel Kwan Like like in like every way we talked about previously, I mean in our last session we had, we had folks who were like, hey I'm gonna go to college, like, go to college, like in September or like, "I'm gonna play D&D with, with a club at the college, I won't be able to go to Level Up." Like that's wild in like all the best ways, or like, "Oh, I just got a job!" That was a big one, remember Naomi? It was like, "Hey I got a job interview," and then like a week later is like, "I got the job." Like that's super cool that's like really awesome to see. Or you know, we see folks, if you feel comfortable about, about their themselves and their, their pronouns to say like, "Hey these are my pronouns." I would say those are like the big ones like people feel comfortable talking about like relationships, or even mentoring new people, that's something we saw in our latest program as well our latest program was just like a really big deal for both of us. Naomi Hazlett Mm hmm. It was both a challenge but then a huge feeling of success. That's one example I think the most recent one that really came to mind, where I, you know Daniel you've been working with some of the participants for longer than me. Daniel Kwan five years Naomi Hazlett Right. But, yeah, and I mean, so I've been in the group and seeing the same people for about a year, but I'm still I'm starting to feel, you know, more comfortable and they're probably starting to feel more comfortable with me and I'm starting to get to know people. And then we have a younger participant come in, and to see, I saw things that I hadn't ever seen from the participants before mainly that, you know, we were wondering, you know this this younger person was, you know, bringing a different energy into the group, whereas you know maybe sharing memes—no one had shared memes before or maybe just getting a sense of maybe just getting to know how D&D works in the in the kind of group culture that we'd established. But everyone just took this participant under their wing and it was just wonderful to see a mentorship piece of all so not only people aren't in this, not only for themselves but now they're in it to support other people, and it just made me feel very, that it was very gratifying and I felt very grateful, and that was like a theory, I think that's one of the biggest reasons we were so happy about how this most recent session went, Daniel Kwan Yeah I would say it helps people not only in game but in real life. Naomi Hazlett Mm hmm. Daniel Kwan Yeah, I would, yeah, definitely, yeah this session was, was, was huge for us, just we saw this like explosion of progress. Naomi Hazlett They leveled up, you could say Daniel Kwan Yeah, literally leveled up. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, you just rescued a djinn from the hands of an efreet, and it offers you three wishes to achieve Level Up Gaming's goals. What do you wish for? Naomi Hazlett I thought about this one. Daniel Kwan I've been thinking about this, too. Yeah. I mean, I mean, go ahead, Naomi. Naomi Hazlett Oh yeah, I mean, the three that I, the biggest things when really thinking about it is, I think the number one challenge is we work with people who are have challenges around being socially isolated, right, and so I always wonder, how do we, you know, are we do people know about us? Do we know where to look? And so if I could just wish you know, I wish that anyone who was interested in playing D&D and who, you know, struggles with sort of the things that we work on would be able to know about us, was kind of the one thing that I wanted to was the number one thing. And I think the second one is it's on its way. I think that having accessible tools that are mainstream would be great. I mean we we make the game accessible, and Daniel makes the game accessible in a lot of different ways. But you know, just, I think you know like we also, I don't know if we talked about Owlbear Rodeo is a very accessible. What's the word for like a tabletop emulator? Daniel Kwan It's a VTT, a virtual tabletop. Naomi Hazlett Yeah, it's a great VTT. We really what we really like is that you can. People can zoom or, you know, zoom in and out on their own, unlike Zoom you know you kind of have to go along with whatever the person's screen sharing, they can do their own tokens, there's audio but you can mute it or turn it up and down. There is a dice roller so if you don't, you know we have a participant who doesn't like to switch between too many tasks. So the dice rolling can happen in the engine, but on the other hand, sometimes for example character sheets are a little overwhelming, or sometimes the our abilities are hidden kind of near the bottom and so I just wish I could find, you know I oh efreet please or djinn please give us more and more tools in the future to make the game even more accessible. And then I guess my third wish is one day for us to be able to have an option to play in person again so hopefully they've, they've heard me. Daniel Kwan Yeah, I think, I mean my first one will also be in person I would honestly I would if I had one wish it would be if we had a dedicated space. When we were doing it in person, I used to carry…I used to bike around the city, with four Players Handbooks, a Dungeon Master's Guide, a Monster Manual, a laptop, and have 60-70 dice miniatures, food, all of it for myself on this, this big backpack and I used to bike around the city. And like I got really strong from it but also pretty sure I have some long term stuff going on here. So I would love to have like you know like a dedicated space where we could have huge terrain setups. But what I think is really neat about doing in person is that in remotely I've learned about tools that can make in person, gaming, accessible to folks who aren't even there. There's a really cool tool that is not yet valuable to us at Level Up called Vorpal Board, and it actually allows you to set up remote cameras through like your phone or something that a participant can actually remotely enter with a dice roller, and a webcam, and they can actually click from their screen like on Google Hangouts or Zoom or something, it'll look like it was through their own proprietary platform, and they can actually click on the terrain and the GM can actually see where they're pointing and can move the mini remotely. Or they can a player who's remote can identify where they want to go on a physical setup. So this would allow us to not only have folks who want the in person experience there, but also engage folks who are not there in a meaningful way that doesn't feel like they are a secondary participant. So I would love to do in person, but I would love to leverage other tools like, "Dwarven Forge send me all of the stuff! I would love it!" But it's also heavy, so I, I would I would I would love space. Number two for me would be expansion. I would love to give GMs an opportunity to use their skills to impact you know their local communities, and I would love for OTs, to do a typical work, because that's how you know, different industries, you know, evolve, right, they, they, they use case studies, you know, to prove that this kind of work is meaningful and matters, so I would love to have expansion in that I think it provides opportunities for those who are running it and those who are participating. I think it creates, you know great connections in local communities, so I would love to see other folks running it in a way where we can ensure that you know the exact same quality that we provide is being provided to other people, whether it be through like written adventures or meetings or big huge zoom calls, who knows. But I would love to do something like that. And then my third one would be, and I, I was in talks with a big company about this before the pandemic. But I would love to provide opportunities to Level Up Gaming participants to go to a convention, because you know conventions are overwhelming spaces. And I would love to collaborate with a convention, and we were doing this but then you know the pandemic kind of happened. I would love to collaborate with a convention to create a more accessible space where folks who are on the spectrum can come and not feel overwhelmed by the crowds and the noise of a convention and still participate and be there. I would love if you know, over time, we could actually create a fund to bring people to gaming conventions to do that sort of stuff as kind of an extension of what we do because I feel like that, that is a natural next step in learning the game, learning how to interact with others, and then interacting with the wider gaming community and seeing that kind of acceptance. We have a local convention here in Toronto that was the perfect candidate for it called Breakout Con. It's smaller, it's, they have an emphasis on you know inclusion and accessibility. So, that that is a future goal of mine. There you go, Naomi, now you know one of my goals. Wyrmworks Publishing Wow, that's great, if you, you develop that stuff, you know kind of how that would work and stuff and what would need to be done, that would be worth, you talk about letting people know what resources are available. Yeah, then making those resources available to other conventions or to, I mean, you know, I'd be happy to talk to my local convention operators here in the Twin Cities and in the sort of Midwest and stuff to try to make that happen, that would be amazing. Daniel Kwan Yeah, I, I sit on the advisory board for a nonprofit here in Toronto, called Path of Play. It's another one for the autism community. My, my pal, Mike Primeau runs it. His his son is on the spectrum, and what he does is he provides gaming opportunities for schools and folks on the spectrum. Before COVID, he actually has his house, he'd actually invite families over so they could socialize and play pinball, because he found that through his son, it's a great way for folks to stim. And so, they do all sorts of events, and I was gonna collaborate with, with Mike on a tabletop one, but obviously the pandemic changed things. So we I do have a prospective partner to kind of develop this with and kind of leverage their resources and their community you know with our resources in our experience, so it's definitely something that can happen and I'd love to, you know, with with Naomi test it out in Toronto, and then see if we could provide a case study or a framework for other conventions. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, that'd be wonderful. Alright so what one message would you like to give gamers who are on the autism spectrum. Daniel Kwan Games are for you. Like, if, if you want to play it, go and play it. Really tabletop games are meant to be for everyone, and they're, they're designed in that way. One thing that can be scary for people is that there are all these rules. The thing is, like, if you're looking at Dungeons & Dragons, it's not truly a game. Dungeons & Dragons is a it's like a toolbox for you to tell a story, and you can use whatever tools you want out of that toolbox to tell the story that you want. Right. It's also only one kind of toolbox. So, if you find one that's a theme that you'd like, pick up that toolbox and and see what things in there you like. And if you're you know if you're a parent, same thing, right, give it a shot. Naomi Hazlett Yeah it's well said, I think what I yeah I totally agree with you, Daniel in terms of like the game is for you, just like it's for anybody else. And you can make it what you want it to be, you know, I think I've had experiences where people have maybe said you know this is how the game is supposed to be played or this is you know how, what makes it fun and really there is no one way to play; there's no one way that makes it fun. And there is a group out there for you as, you know, there are you know tables that are, you know, the best tables are inclusive and welcoming and respect different approaches to game play, you know, I think we had a conversation in group, actually, between myself and another participant where I was, you know saying for me, I really enjoyed the narrative part, and you know mechanics are important to me, but they're not as important as telling a story, and then I think another player in the game, you know, acknowledged that said yeah, you know, it seems like he really liked the story, and rather than, you know the mechanics and this you know this participant I think might have been a little more interested in the mechanics of the game or combat and so just to acknowledge that and make sure we're making space for everybody to highlight what everybody likes about it, include that. And that's possible. So, you know, don't be discouraged if that's not something you find right away. And maybe in the future you can always GM, and then you know you can bring that community together yourself as well which is really exciting. And just never be ashamed of what you like. Some, you know, I, you know that that maybe it's, I don't feel like even in 2021 I think that's worth saying. Although ttrpgs are becoming more mainstream, I think they're still pretty. Yeah, there can be a bit of a, not a stigma, I mean people just, you know, people ask me all the time, "What are you doing?" like "What are you playing?" so I don't really get the, "Oh that's not, you know, a real," actually I did recently get that. I had a I had somebody, yeah I had someone who was going in applying for the Occupational Therapy Program reached out to me and asked for opportunities to volunteer or shadow my work and I talked about D&D, and they said well that's not really real occupational therapy so I don't think I'm interested in that, and that's fine if they're not interested, but clearly the other part I was kind of like stormier on my part. Daniel Kwan It's real. Naomi Hazlett Yeah, no it's totally real. And so, again, the message to players is that don't ever be, you don't ever have to justify or explain or defend your hobby. D&D is awesome, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Daniel Kwan I mean if even for the occupational therapy side it's like to say that, you know, a tool that you know to say that one thing isn't real occupational therapy is to basically say, "Well, I don't see the potential in here," like what if you get a client who's tabletop RPGs are their thing. Are you going to say that that's not valid, or the way in which they express themselves is invalid? No, I mean it's a different toolkit, right? Unknown Speaker Mm hmm. I think it's all great like different things work for different people, traditional, I don't even know traditional OT is. You're asking the wrong person but, you know, it's, uh, you know, there's the the rehabilitation, the physical, you know, the idea of, you know, engaging in everyday activity. And yeah, so, but but yeah I mean, therapy, geez, I think that I'm very interested, rather than having somebody in a clinic, you know, doing things that are not, you know necessarily as well matched to the things that you know they're not it's not happening in their own environment, it's not using the games or the tools or the things that they do. I prefer just to get in there and say, "Well, what, what do you like to do, let's actually do the thing." And, you know, I think the results speak for themselves. So, that's all. Sorry about that. Daniel Kwan Yeah, I definitely think so too. Wyrmworks Publishing Yep. Yeah, no, you know, here's the thing: there's anytime you sort of work outside the box I found that you run into there's a certain… people kind of raise their eyebrows at you and "I don't know about you know about that." And, you know, I've run into that too, even after seeing massive success with with when I was doing with with various things and, and people just sort of still scoffing at it and just completely ignoring the success, because it doesn't fit with their idea of how things should be done. It's kind of, more, more focused on the process than on the, the needs of the person that you're working with. So, alright so what one message would you like to give gamers who are not on the autism spectrum? Daniel Kwan I mean that's easy, right. Everybody should be welcome at your table, right? If you if you, I mean, a lot of people out there, you know, want their games to be more diverse. They want their games to reflect, you know the, what is amazing in the world around them. That means you have to include everyone at your table, right, and I mean some of the best stories of the best moments that, that I've had at a table are, you know, with folks who are not like me. Right, like if I mean your story would be so boring if everyone was just like you or approached, you know, obstacles or challenges the same way you did. Right. You want to be a better person, you need to tell stories and work with people who are not like you. Naomi Hazlett Mhmm. I mean, I think the first thing, I mean, in addition to all what Daniel said, is just listen, you know, just get to know somebody and ask you know how do you like to play the game, what makes you feel comfortable? Safety tools are super helpful, I think, especially if you're, you know, getting into a situation where you're gaming with people that you don't know or that are different, that seem different than you in different ways, right. But, I mean, any everything that I've learned from Level Up like the things that we do in Level Up or the tools that we use, they work, you know, I found that I can use them in different settings, and they make the game more accessible for everybody, so if you invite someone into your table who is neurodiverse and maybe this is the first time, please listen and recognize that you may be playing it a little bit different, and that may feel uncomfortable at first, but ultimately I feel like there's so much to be learned that would benefit future players as well. Daniel Kwan Yeah. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, boy. We have a very diverse group that I play with, and I found as a GM that on the one hand it's challenging, challenging as a GM not because of, you know abilities or anything like that, but because when you pull a whole bunch of very different people together, you never know what's going to happen. Daniel Kwan Yep, it's absolutely true. Wyrmworks Publishing And so, you know, people talk about games that are sandbox versus railroaded, and I say I have an I have an off road campaign. It's, you know, I lay out a nicely paved road for them, and they never stay on it, but it makes for great stories, and everyone has a great time with it, so it's like, "Well okay. Wow, I never would have imagined that but, well done." Daniel Kwan That's usually how it works. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright so, Naomi Hazlett I love the to be open to what people are throwing at you. This is a, not necessarily story from Level Up but a story from another nonprofit I ran a game with, and I'll try to tell it you know how D&D you're like 30 sessions deep I don't even start to explain but the long and the short of it is I, during a combat round I asked the barbarian what they'd like to do and they said I want to go fishing. It's like, Daniel Kwan Yeah. Naomi Hazlett Oh, okay, and that turns out the barbarian waded into the river that was secretly a time traveling river and disappeared into time and the rest of the group had to find them and it made the story really interesting, so that's definitely that moment of, "Oh my gosh what am I gonna do, what am I gonna do with this," but "yes and" it and fold it into the story, it's such a cool moment when that happens and it makes the story feel alive, for sure. Wyrmworks Publishing So, any other projects, Daniel mentioned you mentioned some, any other project, either of you are working on right now? Daniel Kwan I have stuff that I can't talk about yeah. Wyrmworks Publishing Of course. Daniel Kwan But, I, I'm excited to hopefully run it with our group, because I think what I'm designing is going to work really well for Level Up. Secrets. Naomi Hazlett Stay tuned, Daniel Kwan Yeah, stay tuned I can't can't say anything yet, but I think, Level Up Gaming in 2022 is going to see us make a big step, I think we're going to try to, you know, get another GM in OT by by guess our winter slash spring of 2022, we'll have hopefully have another one. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, Naomi, anything you're working on? Naomi Hazlett Well, in the TTRPG space, I guess I'm doing research, we're collecting data just for, believe it or not, there's been no study done on how playing TTRPGs affects people's engagements in everyday activities, so it seemed like a great place to start in terms of trying to figure out, you know, I'm practicing OT and D&D & TTRPGs, you know, and I can see the effects, but you know explaining or communicating this to a larger audience, it's getting to, you know, you don't sit there and interview participants, right, to just sit there and talk to people about do they feel like the game has connected them or make it easier or more difficult, who knows, to do other activities? So we're working on that right now. As I mentioned,the story I just told of being, you know, kind of starting to work with other organizations, so my first job as an OT was with a nonprofit called Balance for blind adults in Toronto, and so, you know, after the pandemic, I think I mentioned you know that I'd love to run a game of D&D, and then after the pandemic, I finally got to the pitch finally landed. I said, "You don't even need a computer. You can call in. You can still participate, you know, anybody can play. It's something different from trivia," and I'm happy to say, you know, several sessions later that that's going very well, and in terms of Level Up, like I said, we want to build capacity, because there are only 2 of us. There are only so many evenings in a week, and we have other jobs and other things going on, so I think that bringing other people onboard is going to be a real focus for the next little while in terms of where the work is. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, so we will have all your contact information in the show notes, but where is the 1 best place where you would like people to learn more about you or contact you? Daniel Kwan You can just reach out to me on Twitter @DanielHKwan. You can find basically everything about me there. Naomi Hazlett Yeah, I'm also into Twitter. It's my #1 social media. I think it's @naomi_hazlett, and I have a website, NaomiHazlett.com. It will probably direct you to Twitter or the other social media pieces, but I'm just adding pieces of my portfolio, and it'll be a way for you to you know, but the best way to contact me would be Twitter, but you could proabbly get ahold of me on there, too, so yeah, looking forward to keeping the conversation going. Daniel Kwan Yeah, absolutely. Wyrmworks Publishing Thanks for coming on the show & everyone, check out those links in show notes. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay. Before we begin the next section. Here's a Content Trigger Warning, we're going to be talking about breathing difficulties. So if that's problematic for you, thanks so much for sticking with us and being part of the solution. Hit the Like, subscribe and share buttons, and we'll see you next episode. For everyone else, welcome to Playing the Other: how to play a disabled, mentally ill, or neurodivergent character, whether PC or NPC that properly represents symptoms so as to represent those real life people in your game, and give them depth as characters, while avoiding harmful stereotypes and tropes. Today to help us with that, we are joined by Nico Meyering. Welcome Nico. Nico Meyering Hi Dale. Thank you for having me. Wyrmworks Publishing So what would you like us to know about you as a person and as a gamer? Nico Meyering Sure. Hi everyone, my name is Nico, I use he, him pronouns. For those of you who might be listening in and have vision impairments or difficulties, I'm a blonde man wearing spectacles, and I'm wearing a long sleeve kind of beige shirt, against a computer generated background that shows mountains, I think. I live with a ultra rare breathing disorder called Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome or CCHS. Ultimately, I find that our lives are stories that we're constantly telling, and we are constantly writing. And the most important thing to remember for disabled people like myself, and for people in general, is that we have a right to tell our own stories. The collaborative storytelling aspect of Dungeons and Dragons is what draws me to the game. Of course I love the mechanics, but what keeps me coming back to the table, time and time again for years now, is each character's individual story, how they contribute to the overall campaign, and the narrative story there, and how those stories interact with each other. Dungeons and Dragons shares another characteristic with the disability experience, and that is that we're only as strong as our supports: a solo adventure is not going to get very far. A party of adventurers will get much farther. The disabled activist and writer, Alice Wong, once wrote in her book, "The narrative trajectory of a disabled person's life is necessarily webbed. We are often only as strong as our friends and family make us, only as strong as our community, only as strong as the resources and privileges, we have." So I rely upon my medical care team the same way that a Goliath barbarian might rely upon a lizardfolk cleric. Wyrmworks Publishing Oh, that, that's so important. You know, I, I've come to understand that the whole concept of independence is a myth. No matter who you are, no matter what your abilities are or anything like that, we all depend on each other. And, and, in different ways depending who you are, depending on what your circumstances, your needs, all of that, but you don't have to be disabled for that to be the case. It's it's true of everyone. Nico Meyering That's true, yes. Wyrmworks Publishing So what would you like people to know about your symptoms, how you experience them, how you adapt to them, and what is and isn't helpful? Unknown Speaker Sure, thank you so much for this question. So like I said, Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome, or CCHS is a super rare genetic nervous system disorder where, most dramatically, the body's impulse to breathe automatically is majorly suppressed or entirely absent. And this is important because breathing is the most essential life function, more than getting nutrients, more than staying hydrated. We all need to breathe. Our bodies can send signals that our brains don't always receive. With under 2000 cases worldwide, CCHS is what's called an orphan disease. There is no cure for CCHS; there is very little research being done. Um, there is not a lot of, shall we say profit incentive for pharmaceutical companies to make a pill or for medical equipment companies to come up with more and newer models of life sustaining equipment. Our only treatment is mechanical ventilation when we're asleep and when we're sick. This is often done through Tracheotomies and mechanical ventilation, which we usually see in young kids with CCHS — right babies fall asleep like at the drop of a hat, there is no set wakefulness or sleeping schedule for the first few years of infancy. So we often find that 24/7 ventilation is the most useful way to live your life, then as you're able to stay off… stay awake longer and longer, as you develop your own sleep schedule, then we can begin sprinting and sprinting is called is what we call being off event during wakefulness hours. I myself had a tracheotomy until age six or seven, and then I transitioned to a face mask, which kind of fits around my nose and mouth. And then I just hook that up at night when I go to sleep. It's a lot like a sleep apnea machine. I recently upgraded my machine to a model that has an internal battery and doesn't just rely upon a power cord, so that was a huge upgrade for me and it was a long time coming. People with CCHS also tend to have vision issues, so I have glasses as I mentioned, weight gain issues. So I eat quite a bit actually, but I've like been stuck at about 150 pounds my entire adult life, and I'm like 5'10", 5'11", so relatively tall, and relatively thin, regardless of like how much I intake. I'm also experiencing cardiac issues, so I have cardiac causes that present themselves. In my case this started around college age 18 to 20. We'd also see this in young kids with CCHS, um, so I do have a cardiac pacemaker implanted and now thankfully there's good monitoring available, and medical guidelines suggest that, if we see a cardiac pause of three seconds or longer on a heart monitor test, or in a loop recorder, um, medical guidelines then suggest implanting a pacer right away, so it's good that that's addressed. We also have issues with temperature control, so being out in the heat of the summer day is not useful for us, that can be dangerous, very quickly. It's not uncommon for me also to like feel cold physically, but then still be sweating. So there is some disconnect there. Ultimately, I am my own best advocate. Ultimately, disabled people are their own best advocates, like I said earlier, we tell our own stories. And people in my life can best support me, and I feel that people can best support their disabled friends and family and peers, by listening to their needs and listening to their experiences. I love being an advocate for disabled people, and especially people with rare disabilities. Being a disabled man is not all of my identity, but it is a core part of my identity, and I've chosen to find a lot of life purpose and passion in volunteering a lot in this area of disability advocacy. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright. So I, I resonate with that — I have children with rare disabilities too, and, and, like you said there's not…there's not a lot of incentive for research on on stuff like that, you say, "Oh we're work, we're working on this!" "On what? What is…" Nico Meyering Yeah. Wyrmworks Publishing "Why don't you put your effort on, you know where it's gonna affect more people, you know," so yeah that's the reality. Nico Meyering Yeah, if you listen to teams of doctors or if you go to medical conferences or you spend time on Google Scholar, you start to realize that there's no real aha moment in medical research. On every study, every effort just kind of moves the ball a little bit further, and that underscores the need for collaboration, communication, and just to keep going for consistency. Wyrmworks Publishing Right so if someone's including a PC or an NPC in their game with symptoms like yours, how would you like the character played, and how can the other party members help? Nico Meyering Sure. I actually took some time before this interview to like study up on my spell lists. Um, probably the best way to mimic the symptoms of CCHS in D&D gameplay is to consider the uses of the third level spell feign death, which is available to clerics, bards, druids, I think wizards too? The spell text reads, "You touch a willing creature, and put it into a cataleptic state that is indistinguishable from death. For the spells duration, one hour or until you use an action to touch the target and dismiss this spell, the target appears dead to all outward inspection and the spell is used to determine the target's status. The target is blinded and incapacitated, and its speed drops to zero." Much like if I'm knocked out by playing contact sports then I'm, you know, not breathing. I am not moving, I'm not coherent or cognizant. Going back to this spell text. "The target has resistance to all damage except psychic damage. If the target is diseased or poisoned when you cast the spell or becomes diseased or poisoned, while under the spell's effect, the disease and poison have no effect until the spell ends." One thing that I'm grappling with, like, as a player and as a DM myself, is the knowledge that you know, humans sleep, what, 7-8 hours per night, ideally, and that spell duration for feign death is only one hour, so you have to keep expending a third level spell slot to cast it. As a player, I usually play clerics. I love playing clerics, however, a player character, PC, or non player character, NPC, with CCHS might reasonably be like an artificer — an artificer uses their class ability to make magical items, like a, like goggles or goggles of night that enhance your vision, enable you to have good darkvision or darkvision all. And that artificers also access some wizard spells, which they can use to perhaps mitigate CCHS symptoms. So far in my playing career, I haven't really seen a lot of groups — I haven't played in a lot of groups or run games from any groups that make frequent use of a short rest mechanic. But if we're thinking about it realistically, um, people will CCHS who become adventurers, in this game set would definitely benefit from using short rests, um, probably numerous times a day. And honestly, if we were D&D characters ourselves like realistically we might use short rests quite often as well. So I even have a couch pillow that I got off Etsy, that says, "I need a short rest." And like when is this not true? When do we not need to roll our own hit dice and stay hydrated, take a quick nap, put our feet up and prioritize physical and mental self care? Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, boy, absolutely. In a culture that glorifies busyness Nico Meyering yeah Wyrmworks Publishing it's it's really not healthy. So, Nico Meyering Yes, that's true. I should also point out that you know disability is not a monolithic experience. There is not any one culture or experience to disability. There are many cultures and many experiences. I do find that like, making the disability community more welcoming and more empowered through projects like these are a big part of my self care, even though it does expend my energy and time. I love feeling accomplished. I love helping to achieve things. I love collaborating with others to make the world a better place. So self care is not just taking a bath with a bath bomb or eating and drinking enough, it's also getting the vital work done and engaging in your hobbies, even if they sometimes do expend your energy. Wyrmworks Publishing Yep. All right. Do you have any online projects or social media profiles that you'd like to share? Nico Meyering I do. I have a PowerPoint slide up here I'm going to try and share my screen. You should be seeing a slide that says Nico on the net, with an image of me on the left, and then some bullet points to the right. Can you see that? Wyrmworks Publishing I can see it — I don't know whether it'll show up in the recording or not, hopefully it will. Nico Meyering Okay, so I'll just talk about what's going on here on Twitter and Instagram. I am @namestartswithn, and on LinkedIn you can find me under NicolasMeyering N-i-c-o-l-a-s-M-e-y-e-r-i-n-g. I began my disability volunteering experience and disability volunteering career serving as a board member for the CCHS family network. I served in that capacity for six years, and you can find us online at CCHSnetwork.org (.ORG). Um, so for them, I helped welcome new families, I helped manage online presence, a bit and I remain active in helping new families find their footing when they have a child with a CCHS diagnosis, or when suddenly CCHS is trying to find their way in the world, gain employment live independently, just live as normal and healthy a life as possible. Um, since March 2021 I've been more actively involved in the wider disability community. I am honored to have been inducted into the National Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame, and that's run by the National Disability Mentoring Coalition, you can find them @ ndmc.pyd.org. So the National Disability Mentoring Coalition is a nonprofit organization that tries to enhance mentoring experiences and opportunities for and among disabled people. Um, it's incredibly important for successful disabled adults to help the next generation of disabled people. My own personal goal within that realm is to make sure that my achievement ceiling becomes the next generation's achievement floor. I would be massively honored and impressed if the next generation could dwarf my accomplishments. I'm also part of the diverseability leadership collective, and that's that diverseability.mn.co. Diverseability is kind of a disability rights advocacy United Nations, where a disability advocates from all different corners of the world and all different corners of the disabled experience come together to push forward on common causes, and common projects. Right now, I'm most interested in, and I stopped sharing my screen by the way. Right now I'm most interested in driving up the percentage of disabled people who are engaged in the US workforce. Census data recently came out. And that data tells us that for disabled people who are working age, so age 18 to 64, wide range, under 20% of those people are actively engaged in the workforce. And that's a very low number. Of course there are some barriers to this, there's some level of discrimination, there's less access to educational opportunities and to workforce and skill enhancement capabilities. Um, there's less and fewer vocational opportunities out there for disabled people to gain employability skills, but what I'm trying to do through my efforts is to drive that number up. In November, I'll be leading a workshop for the Diversityability Leadership Collective on how to find job and job finding resources, how to market yourself through resumes and cover letters and interview processes, and then just generally how to advocate for yourself as a disabled person. We are our own best advocates, and we'll have to advocate for ourselves to our doctors, to our friends, our teachers, eventually to our partners as we grow into adulthood. So that advocacy never stops. And then I think after Labor Day, I'm taking part in a program run by both an organization called Elevate Mentoring, and Chronically Capable, which is a six week program. Once one hour every week, I'll be working one on one with other disabled people to get a good cover letter going, work on intern skills, write an impressive resume, advocate for themselves, just generally being able to put your best foot forward, and generally being able to access workforce enhancement skills and opportunities will lead to further engagement in the workforce for disabled people. So, that's kind of my next push. Wyrmworks Publishing Wow, that's great, and longtime viewers of this show will know that I'm a hardcore fan of mentoring in of all different kinds. And so, just really always happy to hear when people talk about that. Alright, so as Nico already mentioned, everyone's experience is different. So note that what you heard today doesn't represent everyone with similar symptoms or diagnoses. This is just one example. If you would like to come on the show and help people understand your symptoms so they can have more accurate representation in their games, go to WyrmworksPublishing.com and contact me there. Nico, thank you for sharing yourself with us so that we can bring reality into fantasy, and thus make that fantasy world a reality. Nico Meyering Thank you for all that you do, and thanks for listening. Wyrmworks Publishing So just reminder if you are not signed up for our newsletter yet, you can go do that right now. No, seriously. Right now, go. Why are you still here? Oh, you already signed up. Cool. That's great. Otherwise WyrmworksPublishing.com, go get our free newsletter. If you see this being helpful, hit the like button, and if you'd like to see more, hit the subscribe button, and if you know people that need to hear this, please pass it on to them. And if you, like me, think that everyone needs to hear this, pass it on to your social media friends, and don't forget those podcast ratings—that makes a huge difference to spread the word by increasing our ranking in their algorithms. And so, we close with this question: How have role playing games helped you socially?