Wyrmworks Publishing How do you make your game space more accessible? Not just allowing people, you know, to make it into the building but making them feel welcome once they're there. Welcome to Gaining Advantage. Wyrmworks Publishing Welcome to Gaining Advantage. We're using role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons to help you make lives better. Now before we get into our announcements like we usually do, I just want to take a moment. There's been a lot of stuff going on right now with everything that's going on on Twitter. And so this is specifically for those of you who are Dungeons and Dragons creators: writers, artists, publishing, anyone like that. You know, I've learned a few things in the past couple years that I've been working in the industry and this includes talking to a lot of people that have been in a whole lot longer than I have. And, I know that with everything that's happening on Twitter right now, there's a lot of concern about what does this mean for the industry as far as creators and and especially someone who's just starting out and is worried that Twitter is just going to get worse. They're not gonna want to go there, and how are they going to make connections and market their products and things like that? And so I just want to share a little bit of information with you. Maybe calm some fears and even offer some advice that may actually help you regardless, what happens on what I like to call the Angry Birds app. All right, so Twitter is a good place to connect with people. It's a terrible place for marketing. We've done a lot of studies. I've talked to a lot of people and If you're trying to sell or promote stuff, you're not really gonna get a whole lot. You a little bit but not much. It's really not worth a lot of effort, all right? But it is a good place to make connections to get to know other people in the industry. however, if you want to use it for that, and actually get your name out there as someone who wants to make money in the industry by writing, by creating artwork, by editing or by publishing, you can do it there and a lot of people do. But it's a lot of work and there are easier, more effective ways to do it. And so, I want to talk a little bit about that. Right. When you're on Twitter. You're trying to make connections but it's kind of an awkward place. A lot of times, the stuff that you talk about or the comments and The things you do. They just kind of get buried and nobody sees them. Even when people do see them, it's a flash in the pan and it's gone, almost instantly. and even some of my more popular tweets, you know, I might get 1% of the people that like it or turn into followers. I mean, it's not much and so it's a very slow difficult climb to try to make those connections. All right? So let me offer an alternative right and that alternative is Discord. All right, you get on Discord. The best place to start. Well, two things, number one, Get on on Discord, and join the DriveThruRPG Discord. All right, there's also a private one for DMs Guild creators. And if you talk to any DMs Guild creator, you can find somebody that can help you get on there or send me a note and I'd be happy to help you out if you seem to be honest and legit about what you're hoping to do. They keep it private to keep the bots and things off. But it's open to just about anybody that is interested in the process, right? And so, that's the one thing: get on those Discords. And start getting to know the other people in the field. All right, they will help you out. They'll be able to answer questions for you. You also get a chance to get to know people and, and figure out who you want to work with because this is the just as Dungeons & Dragons is a cooperative game, so, this industry is a very cooperative industry, it's very unique that way really, the most important thing when it comes to marketing, or just success overall, and in all kinds of ways is cooperation with other people in the industry, other creators. And, and not so much competing, which is beautiful and something I really love about the industry. All right. Now while you're doing that and getting to know, people also get some stuff out there, all right, there's a class that you can take, that's very affordable. And in fact, there's also scholarships to be able to take it for free called Write Your First Adventure. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Take that class, I highly recommend it. Even if you have experience in writing, it tells you a lot about how to write adventures, specifically for role-playing games. And there's a couple different versions of it. If you want to write specifically fifth edition stuff for DMs Guild or whatever and see, check that out. All right, not only will you learn some tips on there, you'll also get access to a lot of resources and just things that are really helpful to let you know what you need to keep going. All right. It's also how I found out about the DMs Guild Discord. Once you do that. start writing. Start creating. Create some stuff. And post it. Now, next question is, Where do you post it? Before you answer that question, you need to make a decision. If you just think you'll be fine to collaborate with some other creators and, you know, create some kind of themed, you know, the collection of adventures or whatever it is, you can do that. And so it's a great way to get to know people and establish yourself and then as you get involved in some of these collaborative projects, you get to know other people in the industry. What happens is you're building that resume, you're building those connections and it's so much easier and more personal than it is on Twitter. And there's a much better chance that when you say something that people are actually going to see it. and so, then, as you continue to grow through that, number one, you're gonna get better at what you're doing. Because you're practicing, you're learning. You're learning from other people that have more experience than you, all right, that have learned from their own mistakes and are happy to share. What they've learned. They are happy to answer your questions or happy to look at your stuff and offer you advice and things like that. And so once you do that, you build that rapport, you build that catalog, then as time goes on. If you're interested in connecting with larger publishing Then you can go to them and say, Hey I'm interested in working for you, being considered as a writer for a future project. Now understand that the bigger the publisher, the further out they're working and so it might be, you know, two years or more Before they even consider anything that you or anything you've submitted because they already have staff lined up. I mean, I have people lined up for most of what I'm doing through the end of next year. We'll still be looking for some artists especially but otherwise we're pretty much set but there will be future projects and so I'm always looking for more people and once in a while someone has to drop out of a project or something like that, something comes up and we need to fill that slot. And yeah, so I'm always looking for people who are interested in working with us. But you know others they get, they get so many people that are interested that you know they're not quite as open but once you, the more you establish yourself, the better chance you have of connecting with those larger publishers. Which by the way also tend to pay more and so, if you look at that with Twitter, you might get discovered. Right. But at the same time, it's kind of like buying a lottery ticket every time you tweet. Maybe you know and maybe you're not spending money on it but you're spending your time on it and it's time that you could be spending writing or creating artwork or whatever it is that you've you like to do. And so instead of spending that time on Twitter and and buying those, those lottery tickets of time and emotional investment that and, and yeah, the more you do, it's sort of like buying extra lottery tickets. You have a better chance of winning, but not a really big chance. You know, somebody wins every once in a while, but the chances of hitting some big opportunity…. Most people, when that happens to them, they've been at it for years and they've invested a lot of time. And so, you know, there's always exceptions but on the other hand, if you follow that Discord path and get involved in the creation, you have a much better chance, it's just gonna go faster for you. And if you have quality stuff and you're a decent human being, all right? Because personality matters, not that you have to be really outgoing or anything. But just kind and compassionate. If, if that's the kind of person you are, I mean, you're almost guaranteed to do well, to do at least, get your name on projects, and start making a little bit of money. Making a lot of money in this industry is really hard. All right, but to be able to and very very few people actually get that far. But if you want to follow that path, all right? You want to set up a Twitter account? Post a tweet like once a week. Once a month or something like that. Go in. Get to know people and that's fine. All right. But Discord tends to be a lot healthier when it comes to just mental health because it doesn't have an algorithm that feeds on rage. And, and it's just, it's just easier to actually get to know people on a, on a more personal level to understand what people are about and actually have conversations. Twitter is just not good for that. And so that's my two cents and I would love your feedback. Feel free to leave a comment, Send us an email or whatever. I'd really appreciate any feedback on that. All right. So all that said, let's get into announcements. On first of all Limitless Heroics - Including Characters with Disabilities, Mental Illness, and Neurodivergence in Fifth Edition, by the time you read or hear or see this, it may or may not be out. It's, it's right there, we're just putting the last touches on it, and it may be coming out in the next day or two or so. We've there's been just some edits last minute kinds of that It's that we've been making and And things like that accessibility issues that we've been clearing up just to make it as good as it would possibly can before putting out there. And and so if it's not out yet, then I just invite you to join the Dragon's Hoard, our email list, because we treasure you, to find out when it's available or and also we'll have some discounts available with the release and it’ll be available through our email list also announcing and and we'll have discount available for a coloring book. We're going to we're taking the art from Limitless Heroics and we are creating a coloring book. They’re a great gift for kids or adults. I like that kind of thing for if I'm doing something like if I'm playing D&D, especially if I’m playing as a player, which I'm a forever DM, but in other situations where I want to pay attention, but I need to do something with my hands because of my ADHD, coloring books are great for that. All right. For kids just to give them because coloring books are fun or just for adults because coloring books are fun. Working in coloring books and it features a lot of the artwork and characters from Limitless Heroics, which means that it's all about disability representation and so, besides just the because coloring books are great, if you put this book in the hands of a child, alright, and they're growing up coloring in this book, what are you doing? You instantly normalized disabled heroes in their life. All right, so then someone comes along later and says, No disabled person can't be, you know, a D&D character or just, you know, a capable hero in general. Right there, you know. Mmm, no that That's not, that's not how I see the world. And so this is just a phenomenal way to, to connect to communicate in a fun way with kids to, to help them to just consider a disabled hero to just be like any other hero. And so we are releasing that next week, probably Monday. and the book also has quotes from a whole bunch of people that have submitted quotes to us, that are coming from disabled, neurodiverse, mentally and chronically ill backgrounds, and, and speaking, whether it's about their experiences or just things that have helped them in through their experiences, but it's all expressing their experiences and perspectives. And so, because we really care about hearing from people, representation is all about letting those who you're representing communicate their experiences. And so we want to make sure to do that with this coloring book too. And so I've got a whole bunch of submitted quotes that are in there and just spread throughout the coloring book along with the pictures and so I invite you to check that out. Again, jump on our email list, the Dragon's Hoard, and you just go to our website and you'll find the sign up forms on every page in order to do that. And you'll get a discount so, now all that said, Onto the interview. Wyrmworks Publishing Inclusion is more than offering large print captions and ramps. It's a view of the world and how you think about the infinite variety of people and experiences. Given that variety, making your gamespace inclusive can be daunting or seemingly impossible, but we can help each other make that possible. Today we welcome Caleb Valorozo-Jones to help with that. Welcome Caleb. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Hi. Thanks for having me. Wyrmworks Publishing So what would you like us know about you? Personally, specifically speaking to the RPG crowd. Unknown Speaker So I don't I I guess I kind of want to preface but I don't consider myself a subject matter expert necessarily in TTRPGs or RPGs in general. But I think coming from a design and like research perspective, it's like a different way of looking at it. I mean, I love them. I'm not just kind of like an anthropological outsider like looking in. I love them, but I always kind of view myself more as a player and a fan, first than I do of an expert or someone who could get into the nitty gritty about the game design rules, but and obviously preaching to the choir, but I guess what I want people to know about RPGs is that there are a lot more powerful, transformative tools and people realize and that it's a lot of opportunities for growth, and world building and world imagining and we can translate those skills from within roleplay games. If we want to go outside of the games and into the real world. Wyrmworks Publishing So tell us about your work in inclusive design. Unknown Speaker Yeah, so I have a Master's in Inclusive Design from OCAD University which is a art design school in Canada. And I kind of went more into inclusive design as doing user experience design, and user experience research, which is a lot more app focused. And I became very passionate about design because digital products are not very often designed for a plethora of people. But in their the program, I became a lot more passionate and aware and kind of start going through my own journey about my own differences and disabilities, like I'm neurodivergent I'm autistic and I have ADHD. It started kind of meaningfully exploring that and looking at the tools and things. That's how I got into the RPG side of inclusive design, like outside of that it's kind of more boring technical stuff about web content that I do. But RPGs is the fun part where you're looking, not just how the game and the content is delivered, but also how you can play the game and alter games and I hate to use the word homebrew but I feel like it's it's the closest analogy that we have. Because a lot of time when people talk about homebrewing something I'm like, You didn't homebrew, like you just designed something like that's that's what design is, like, you're a designer! "I'm not a designer. I just made this." I'm like, no like it's the great equalizer. You just homebrew the whole set of rules. That's, that's what design is and a lot of people are homebrewing or designing their own inclusion tools, which is really awesome. And then kind of through doing my research, I got connected with different groups and different folks like like Naomi Hazlett, who I met through doing my thesis, and Naomi was a godsend and really helped with it. Wyrmworks Publishing So tell me more about your thesis. Unknown Speaker Yeah, so I say thesis because it's actually a major research project but it's essentially a thesis. It's a semantic…academic semantic. And so basically, I kind of walked into it with this theory that like through RPGs you could help develop certain skills as a neurodivergent person. Which would, you know, improve your quality of life, so to speak. I'm not sure how familiar people are with ABA, but that's the like, prototypical treatment for autistic people, which is quite controversial to the the autistic community because it's, it's kind of teaching you to suppress your own needs instead of advocating for them. So there's been a lot of push, well, instead of teaching autistic people to appear less autistic, or neurodivergent people to appear less neurodivergent, to make other people more comfortable. Why don't we teach them how to advocate for themselves and their needs. And I recognize a lot of overlap with RPG because you're basically just roleplaying scenarios. And like roleplay is I mean, it's still used in school when you are trying to learn something whether you're doing nursing or or what have you, you're roleplaying different scenarios. And so it kind of grew from there into not just could you develop these skills, but realizing through some of the reading that I was doing that through mine being specifically on Dungeons and Dragons, that all these facets of our world are represented in games, but disability is not explicitly. Like people have things like the combat wheelchair or they might say my character is blind or deaf, but there's not like a meaningful mechanic that's necessarily associated with that. And then a game where the most impact is through mechanics. I thought well disability should exist just as much as there's things you can't do. There are enhanced abilities. From differences that you can do. It's all circumstantial, which is kind of the Inclusive Design lens. People are more familiar with universal design, which is designing like one thing for everybody and there's eight principles about it, but inclusive design is bringing in the community to help design and also realizing that there's going to be conflicting needs for access and addressing that and trying to make a product that can meet multiple different people, including perhaps not being one product, but being adaptable products, so to speak. And so with that, so Okay, that was a lot of background, so the actual thesis itself, so I got five neurodivergent adults, whether they were diagnosed or self identified, and we played a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons sessions. But before that, we did a codesign session, where they designed a neurodiversity mechanic based on their own experiences. So there's ones about having special interests and like you could stay up all night and learn everything about a certain topic, but you would have exhaustion points or people having anxiety and panic attacks or having to roll for a wisdom saving throw if they had to be in a very large public space like things representing their real world experiences. And then they played five sessions went through the game had certain experiences which I write about, and then had a really great time and they're actually still playing so they they kept it going which is really exciting. Wyrmworks Publishing That's great. That's a good that's a good sign. That means that it's the that there's practical application, and it's actually helping to make that connection and it's not just theory. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Yeah. And it was really interesting. So like the impactful thing about it was some people really enjoyed it because they're like, well, it made me change how I thought about roleplaying so that was just more fun in general. Because like, you might say, you know, my my character is really anxious and you roleplay that but how does that manifest in other parts of the game? So actually saying like, Oh, like I have an anxiety mechanic, where if, for instance, in a social situation, I'm going to be on disadvantage because of charisma but if it's like a high pressure intense fight, my anxiety kicks in and I'm really good at like a high stress situation. I'll have advantage and it made them think about it so people enjoy the roleplay aspect, but then other people really liked that. It made them think about themselves differently and kind of give some grace and some space to be like, you know, it's very easy to kind of have like this internalized ableism about there's something wrong with me. My, my, you know, like, we heard about like bad brain days. It's like well, I'm not a bad person because this I just need extra space and like, you know, with TTRPGs and RPGs, usually, like you kind of have a team makeup to balance each other out. And then life, it's kind of taking that space to realize that oh, today like my constitution isn't so great. I need someone in my circle to like, step up and and help me. And so there was like some really interesting like realizations that that people had. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, it's funny, oftentimes I think that if the the more popular D&D gets, the more we can just start using mechanics language in our regular conversations and say, Yeah, I need a short rest right now because Caleb Valorozo-Jones Literally! Wyrmworks Publishing I'm out of spell points and Unknown Speaker Yeah, and that was the funniest thing is that it becomes kind of a, an easy shorthand for talking about yourself, and like one of the things that I thought was really funny. Not with with D&D, like with the alignment chart, not that it's like necessarily a hardcore rule, but one of the things I thought was very funny what they always talked about, you know, this like introvert extrovert binary, whether you subscribe to it or not, but like, some days having more introvert days, sometimes having the more extrovert days, sometimes having an ambivert. And like, it's so hard to explain to people who don't get it. And one of them just made up a alignment chart for introversion. So they're like, oh, today I'm a functioning extrovert. And it was just like, the funniest thing that they kind of like took it and made their own. Did the inverse of taking D&D language out but using it as a framework to describe their experiences and taking that into it? Wyrmworks Publishing I love that and I want to design our planes based on that. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Right, I was like that's like the best way to put it be like today I'm a quiet extrovert, but like I'm feeling extrovert and I don't need a long rest. Wyrmworks Publishing Oh, yes, sorry. I've just I'm just imagining because I'm pretty solid introvert. That um I'm imagining the sort of plane of extraversion, which would that would be like my abyss. Unknown Speaker And it just be like the extra extra like hard final boss like level area, Wyrmworks Publishing which is like everyone's in your face all the time and stuff and and it's all small talk. There's like no, no, no conversations of substance at all. And I'm gonna have nightmares. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Everyone only talks about the weather. And the big game you don't know what the big game is. Right? Wyrmworks Publishing That you're completely unfamiliar with. Alright, um, what else can you tell us about your project? Unknown Speaker Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot there's kind of like the, the core parts of it are this idea of like three major kind of tenets that hold it up, the first one being bleed, which people are familiar with. But emancipatory bleed, which is this theory about how bleed can also help with, like liberation and self advocacy skills. Like I mentioned, it's a theory from Jonaya Kemper who is an RPG anthropologist, but basically about when you're navigating in-game oppression, or in-game systems, and situations like that you might actually deal with in the real world, you're developing practicing those skills and also experiencing a catharsis to take that outside. So that was a really interesting theory and then also actually seeing it again, like with one player talking about the opportunity to be vulnerable. And like having these situations being highly introverted and having anxiety is so the character having this moment where someone was short with them, it wasn't a big deal, but like actually that would have hurt and they would have thought they did something wrong. And instead of just brushing it off in real life, and just getting over it, giving the space and having that cathartic moment, to be vulnerable and be like it's okay to feel this way. It's not a bad thing. You didn't do anything wrong, but you're still allowed to feel some type of way about it. And then, the other big thing is a lot about safety tools. And their importance to to make games more accessible to people. And like there are specific safety tools, but it was also kind of just the notion of safety tools as a practice and as a continuing tool and dialogue to to make people feel comfortable about advocating for their needs. Because we did a safety to exercise before the game, the one page tool, which I really like and it had a lot of questions like, Okay, your character wants to turn evil. When should this happen? It should never happen. It should only happen after we've all discussed it. It should only happen if the DM allows it the DM would decide how would we handle an in-game death? So to get people's comfort level and so the sense of psychological safety that was developed by talking about it and so like one of the really big impactful moments for me in the in the thesis was setting the stage for safety tools and psychological safety that players came forward and said, the way we're playing is kind of confusing and making me anxious, can we modify it? Because I kind of need to talk to understand what other people are thinking. Because it wasn't even so much like an actual, you know, we think of access we think of like you said wheelchair ramps, screen readers, which are important but this was just about their communication and he came to the group they talked about it and then they role played it in the game as well in their characters being like Oh, like I'm really stressed out over fighting you guys keep going in guns blazing so to speak. And, and I don't know what's going on, it stresses me out. And then they talked through it and had like a really beautiful moment and then modified how they played. And so I think the big takeaway from that was about like you said, inclusion being a mindset at the start. And I don't know like people are very into like rules as written or like, the game book is the Bible, but if that's how you want to play, you're going to alienate a lot of awesome players. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, yeah. I feel to to paraphrase, "The book was made for the group, not the group for the book." Unknown Speaker Yes, that's that's totally it because the same safety tools are not and like communication techniques are not going to work between groups because I play you know, with other groups whether I DM for them or not. And it's so different and even if you rewrite the book, so to speak, to make it work for a group it's it's not made for that group. The group was made differently. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, no, absolutely. It's so much of that. And I keep seeing this over and over just just the whole the culture of, of open communication of of the kind of the idea that your feelings, your, your needs matter. And, and so it's important that the environment be such that you can communicate those needs because I see so often, I'll see online posts where people say, I'm having this problem with the player, I'm having this problem with the DM or whatever and like, what do I do? And the answer every time is talk to them. But that's not always, you know, usually if they're coming, you know, to some online forum somewhere where they're asking this question, it means that communication has broken down somewhere, or maybe was never, you know, there in the first place. And and so, yes, the answer is talk to them. But it's before that, you know, that sort of step back, their session negative one is to to have a culture in the first place where people can talk about it and feel comfortable with that and not feel like like there's going to be some kind of backlash or or that they're not important or something like that. Unknown Speaker Yeah. That's like a huge a huge thing to overcome like I mean, obviously, communication is like, probably one of the most important skills people develop and also the hardest thing that people mess up somehow. But it was like, I don't know because it'd be it'd be so interesting to the exact same like, projects that I did with it might not work like it's so much about the people themselves. And I always say all research is only ever about the people that you you're doing it on. So you can't extrapolate it to all people. Whether that's a small study of five people or a big study of 500 people, it can tell you some things that you could learn from it and some possibilities of things that you observe, but I feel like if you can overcome that fear of being vulnerable, so to speak, to discuss your, your needs in a game as a player or as a DM, that it can help a lot. Because that was the thing that in the group, they said it was a lot easy going into the space, a lot easier, because they knew everyone in the group was neurodivergent. So they were going to be a little different so to speak, because like I don't know, I think there obviously is a huge overlap in RPG gamers and neurodivergent community, in my experience, at least, and but they kind of knew going in it wasn't going to be a certain type of negative experience they had before in previous games, with people being ableist or other system isms. So there was a sense of comfort there but not only knowing that they were neurodivergent but talking about it because there was some like probing group questions in our codesign session about Dungeons and Dragons like we did what's called a rose, bud, thorn, which is like a codesign activity which arose or something good or bad, something that could be improved in the thorn. And I expected it to be a lot more stuff about the game and the rules itself. Which there was but a lot of it was like their interpersonal experiences. And not like feeling accepted into a group. But talking through that and being like, Well, I was with this DM and he was really sexist and that made it a really bad experience or, or whatever, talking about it and experiences they had they were negative and feeling misunderstood. They really bonded and were able to be vulnerable in their future. So it was I think really impactful to the process of fostering those conferences. It's like It's like setting a foundation as a group. I know some people just want to have a game and go and not interact, which is fine, but I think it's a lot easier when there is some underlying trust built. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, absolutely. Because then you when you can trust the players, then it's easier to trust the characters you know, you your your your characters are gonna bond better when the players bond better and when the when the you know, you don't when you don't have to worry about okay, well what if my character makes this move? You know, what's going to happen or how are people going to react to it and, and what if I, you know, whatever mess that we had…we were playing one time, and there was a giant spider and the sort of tour guide the commoner there was right by it and that giant spider is going after the commoner and, and so, one of the guys goes um, I Thunderwave the spider. While that took care of the spider but it also killed the commoner that he was trying to rescue. He felt terrible about it, you know, but, you know, we just we kind of, we dealt with it, you know, in the story and stuff and, you know, and worked through it and that but it was like, Yeah, oops, but you know, like, well, things happen and, and sometimes actions have unintended consequences. But, you know, we still everyone supports each other and, and, and so we just keep going and it's all right. And, and no one's gonna get on your case about it or anything and and, and so, yeah, when you when you have an environment where you are, you know, that okay, you're, you're, you know, valued here for who you are and and, and we're just going to accept you wherever you're at, then. It just, it changes the dynamic of the game Caleb Valorozo-Jones And the safety to fail. Like my new in general with RPGs like there's a safety to fail because there's not like, you know, you're not going to kill a commoner in real life and get 25 to life. There's a safety to fail, but when you have that safety to fail with your group. It's a whole other other difference. I know one of the things that came up a lot in the codesign, and the session was the talk of metagaming which people really don't like for, you know, people have different preferences, but I think as as the group kind of got more comfortable, like, I know, there wasn't like necessarily metagaming there was like a little bit of degree, but as they got more comfortable and have that safety to fail, that it was it's okay to make a mistake, and they didn't have to feel like they were letting down their party, so to speak. Since Sorry, I'm like struggling to find this train of thought. Wyrmworks Publishing No, it's a game. But yeah, it comes down to it. It's a game. It's about having fun, it's that, you know, you have a goal and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, you're there to have fun. You're not there to you know, solve the world's problems. And, you know, in the in the midst of it, you may learn something that helps you make the world better. But at the same time, it's it's not you know, at the end of the day, you can say well, okay, that didn't work out you know, let's do a different adventure or even hey, let's do this adventure again and, you know, make different choices. This time. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Yeah. Wyrmworks Publishing You can do that! Wyrmworks Publishing Well, that's the thing I think about the soft skills so to speak that you develop in D&D are so important, because obviously there's like math because dice and other like hard skills, but talking about how to solve a problem is ultimately going to be like, more beneficial than whatever problem or puzzle or monster you solve or defeat. And like you said, try again next time. It's not it might be the end of a world a fictional world, but it's not the end of the world. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright so you just rescued a djinni from the hands of an efreeti, and it offers you three wishes to achieve your goals to make the world better. What do you wish for? Caleb Valorozo-Jones I guess the hardest question my my first instinct is to say like well like all the prejudice, isms are gone. Caleb Valorozo-Jones But I feel like that is like a very baseline. I think there's like very actionable things I could wish for, like international universal basic income and universal health care as well as the isms prejudice isms as being not all the phobias and then I feel like, lastly, like I just feel everyone should have just a really good hobby. It can change. But I feel a lot of people don't necessarily get enough of a chance to explore hobbies, obviously, because they don't necessarily have enough health care and universal basic income. But I like personally, one of the very transformative things about doing my thesis was realizing how much I wasn't making space for hobbies. And so let us hear when you know your your homework is to sit in on a d&d session, every week for a month, but when you realize like, Oh, if I never do a hobby, until I'm done my work well, there's always gonna be more work. So I think taking time to like meaningfully do a hobby or or whether it's a game or or carpentry or crochet. Everyone gets time and funds to do hobbies. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah. Oh, that's so important. And the reality is that I feel really called out right now. And ironically, because my work is, you know, D&D, that it's easy to turn, you know, what a hobby to turn into a job to, to make it not a hobby, and Caleb Valorozo-Jones Hugely Wyrmworks Publishing So it's this one of those things that you can be, even if you love whatever your sort of, your job, your career or whatever, that you need downtime. And you know, and I'm, I know I'm terrible at the whole self care thing. Thankfully, in my case, my wife will say, hey, spend some time with me. And, and like, that's my favorite thing in the world. So, so it's like, Oh, okay. Yeah, it's like, Well, I gotta get this. Okay, but yeah, all right. But you wouldn't think that you know, it would take that much convincing, but, you know, Caleb Valorozo-Jones Sometimes it does. I'm, I'm the same way. My my husband's also the same way. So we're kind of like taking turns being like, we need to spend some time together. Stop working so much. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah. All right. So what one message would you like to give to neurodiverse gamers? Caleb Valorozo-Jones I like I want to say Rules are made to be broken. Even though it's such a cliche, and I like I kind of like threw up a little bit while saying but like, Screw all the rules or conventions about how you are supposed to play any RPG. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Create a table where rules are meant to be broken and change the rules so that they work for you and your brain on any given day. Because you know, neurodivergence is not… it's going to fluctuate about how you're feeling and how how you can do certain activities and it's okay to change the rules on a session to session basis. If everyone's having fun. Do safety tools. Break this like convention of like you have to play in a specific way all the time. And I guess it's like 10 things I'm saying. Rules are meant to be broken and break them consensually. Wyrmworks Publishing Oh I like that break them consensually. Yeah. All right. So what one message would you like to give to neurotypical gamers? Caleb Valorozo-Jones I guess the flip side of that would be like help people break rules. I find even myself, whether it's in an RPG or another setting. It's so scary to ask people to do things differently than they have and especially when you couch it in the language of accommodations, people hate accommodations. But people love things that are technically accommodations. People love glasses. That is an accommodation for a disability but people don't like to think of it that way because disabilities are the bad word, quote, quote. It's not, but help people break rules. And help people think of how to break rules. Whether that just changing something, I think that's the best thing is that neurotypical and able bodied gamers, not just in games, but also in the gaming community for conventions and, and events and everything, really need to like show up and and help people break rules and modify our little microcosms of society and our game tables. to then translate that to the wider world. Yeah, Wyrmworks Publishing That's so beautiful. So yeah, obviously you're you're working on this, this big project, that anything else that you're working on right now that you want to talk about? Caleb Valorozo-Jones Nothing huge. Like right now. I'm kind of taking a little like break after finishing my Master's and kind of figuring out the next step. I do kind of want to do a follow up and a part two and a living… I want it to kind of be a living document of like where neurodivergent people could come in and, and add their tools and they could have like a million appendices. But it's nothing in the works. It's kind of just like it's ruminating in my brain to to do that. So nothing. I think it's like the twinkle in my eye of a project. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, so we will have all your contact information in our show notes, but where's the one best place that you'd like people to start to learn more about you or to contact you? Caleb Valorozo-Jones Probably Twitter. I'm queer nerd without vowels, so QRNRD on Twitter and I have my like, link in my bio to all my other stuff and I link to my thesis there and and talk about podcasts or games or things that I'm guesting on there. So I'm everywhere you can find queers and nerds on the internet. Twitter is probably my central locale. Wyrmworks Publishing Caleb, thanks so much for coming on the show. Everyone, check out those links in the show notes. Caleb Valorozo-Jones Thank you so much for having me. Wyrmworks Publishing Just want a big shout out to all of our patrons that help us on a monthly basis to do what we do. And want to let you know that everyone who even backs us at the $3/month level gets access to the Dragon's Lair, which gives you access to almost all of the content that we create. And in a modular format that makes it really easy to work with to use and so invite you to check that out. And we have a link to the Dragon's Lair in the show notes. And so this month, a big shout out to John. Thank you so much for coming and supporting us. So, if you see the show being helpful, If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the Like button. If you like to see more, subscribe. If you know people that need to hear this, pass it on to them, and if you, like me, think that everybody needs to hear this, pass it on to your social media friends, and don't forget those podcast ratings. Thanks so much for joining us to make lives better with D&D. And so we close with this question: What do you do to make your party as diverse as possible?