TRANSCRIPT: On Dragon Talk with Greg Tito and Shelly Mazzanoble: RPG Research's Founder Hawke Robinson and Co-Founder John Welker
Transcript of RPG Research's Founder, Hawke Robinson, and Co-Founder, John Welker, On Wizards of the Cost Dragon Talk Show with Shelly Mazzanoble and Greg Tito.
0:21 up I'm right into it I know but you're not really going in real life it's true it's true that's it's mostly from you
0:26 know this is this is pure Jolt Cola that I've been drink I know it's like a just
0:32 like dragon tax right I'm Greg Tito in case you didn't know who we were talking
0:37
about who is the crazy manic crazy person interrupted you are interrupter
0:43
the interrupter Shelly Mazen oval we're excited about that because we are talking to two folks from RPG research
0:50
so excited I have been looking forward to this interview for a very long time it's true exactly we've always like in a
0:55
passive week that's right so we have hawk Robinson and John Welker who just
1:00
real quick you guys go around in and and well yeah once you do it real quick what is RPG research our quick blurb our big
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research is a non-profit research and community services organization we study the effects of all RPG formats tabletop
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live-action computer-based and soul adventure books and modules started research 1983 and shared online since
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2004 we work with populations including at-risk youth autism spectrum ADHD
1:24
traumatic brain injury PTSD depression drug rehab transition inpatient outpatient and much more awesome that's
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that a little bit like a drug commercial at the end the side effects include but
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then you also have a trailer we'll get to all the real interview but you got us brought trailer here which was pretty cool to say I the mobile gaming facility
1:47
that's wheelchair accessible yeah all over the so far the North West but around the country I love all that everything you've talked about it's
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super exciting I have tons of follow-up questions but we promise we'll get to it let's get to the news in a second yes so
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I know right we got it right we have a co-host if we ever need to good radio
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for a few years as well and a good name for it thank you very
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cool Robinson so what's going on in the dungeons dragons world we're asking me I
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am it's a rhetorical question really you tell me so one thing I want to make sure everyone knows about it super cool is
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people who have been following the unearthed Arcana articles that Mike
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morals and Jeremy crown fer to put out there some of it has played test material things like that it's hotly
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anticipated by some members of the community like to find out about new stuff that might be coming down the pipe that is now available in D&D beyond the
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week after it is published on our site you can download if it's like a sub class or a different kind of race or
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something mechanical that you can try out in character building you can now try that out in D&D beyond that which is
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cool yeah it's pretty amazing now are you trying it out I let the intention of giving feedback on it still or yes okay
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yeah that's a whole yeah that was it was when we talked about this we're like well we don't want people to think it's official yeah material and get confused
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but as long as it's flagged and it's unofficial the real benefit for the team here in this building is to be able to
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get that feedback public play-doh yes exactly people get to play with it tell us what doesn't work and we don't want to put up any more roadblocks to
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that we want people to use it as well and there in D&D beyond making characters why not just make a test character why not if you can play out
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now I kind of want to redo my character it's right yeah you can make that what was the the circle of spores was a
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subclass for the druid that they just released in the most recent thing so lucky boy yeah right under dark right if
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you're if you're playing as a Micah mid or you really like the thes I get my wedding as Shelly really did that piece
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of art that we did it is great yeah was my favorite moment of the game that I played that in out of us too that was
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one of my favorite moments as well her wedding your wedding yeah being able to describe as she's walking down with Oliver and people and person hem things
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they're crazy I keep saying crazy I don't I don't mean to but they are yes
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exactly that's the word yeah what else is going on in Dungeons and Dragons what about having a lot handy how many fun
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things well I mean yes there's a fun thing that we haven't talked about yet there's lots of fun things we haven't
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talked about yet for Avalon hell well though we've kind of talked about it but I'm not gonna tell you when and where man surely you are the lady of mystery
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but we can't talk about betrayal legacy do you guys like board games yes I demo betrayal on the hill at the games - I
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work at oh really you work at a game sir as well as all the other things you do yeah I do
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organize play there and I demos for many of their games the betrayal on the house in the hill
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and as well as the betrayal baldur's gate yeah we'd love to play that one the whole Inland Empire he's doing the
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organized play over there he's a representative of Shelley's language thanks for all know we're making a
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betrayal legacy game that sounds like a awesome is it gonna be Baldur's Gate or is it gonna be back to the house again
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going back to the house okay yeah if you've ever wondered what is up with this house you can find out that's Lily
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on the box right Joey from fuller houses
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there was a lot to catchphrases we were watching some fuller house over the weekend oh wait it was a full house it
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was blossom oh yeah that's right that's what I was what he had a saying what was
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this thing caller are you there can you tell us the saying from talking of other
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things that we watched this weekend I went to go see a play called don't split the party halter here in Seattle and it
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was very interesting and I loved it it was accurate for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons which I thought was admirable
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and you know just they did their research they were definitely players
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they were people who did it and it was back and forth this is the theater you talked about that your production last
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you were talking about this is the theater that you talked about your production the audience was just a
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different theater no it's a different thing because there's one here by the it was actually right by the stadiums here
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in Seattle oh so it was like a small black box there which was kind of cool is like kind of like this room where it was black ball you know maybe three
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times four times this size and they had a game room set up and it was like shelves in the background the set was also because I was like oh yeah I know
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that I know that game and it wasn't about it was about a group of uh you know adult
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25 to 30 who had played weekly D&D for a long time and something happened in
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their last session three months ago and the dungeon master kind of tricks everyone to show up at his house and
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he's like we're not leaving until we resolve the issue that came up I find
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out what this issue was and then they go through the steps to try to resolve right within the game with both both
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within the game and outside the game so it was a lot of back-and-forth but it was admirable in that they had like
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there was you know there was definitely 20 minutes where they're just playing D&D and it didn't really feel like a
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play it felt very much like oh that's a live play session like we would do on I mean on the channel here right yeah so there was a lot of that and but there
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was also a lot there was like a new person who had never played before in the group and so there was a lot of oh we're told that person the rules so they
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know the rules of D&D which was which was interesting I think was necessary if you're gonna take this play and put it
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on like broader bear something like that but for me I was like I don't need to hear about the rules I want to know what's happening what the drama was I
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was the representation of the players were they dysfunctional or average joe's because that's been a big problem in
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media's that so many of the representations are dysfunctional players they were all functional people
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that was part of it was that they were growing up you know relationships were changing there was a one of the
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characters had just recently gotten married and she was the new person who was coming in and there was also you
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know there's two women players there was and I think the dungeon master might have been on the spectrum kind of on
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based on how he was acting which I designed those stereotypes of I'm looting my mom's basement nobody work and completely emotionally we have to
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watch so many videos documentaries mockumentary that's part of our research so we had to wade through so many awful
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movies right but they're released and they get awards at film festivals and things like that and they're horrible
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representations of gamers or like only only representing a very small percentage of very yeah well a
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stereotype you're not floaty and in there and they're very painful to watch and I do it because of the research but
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so it's nice to that and then there's a local group here in Seattle Zombie Orpheus entertainment and dead gentlemen
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if you've ever heard of them they do the gamers and journey quest right they've probably some of the best
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representations of all of that you know more functional but still entertaining and humorous and much more positive
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representation of gamers than a lot of the other media I really liked that it was not that way because it was I mean
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they felt like me they felt like my people that I my peer group was people that I hang out with and what they were talking about was very apropos to what's
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happening in the world right now - right right which I also really like yeah so unfortunately no it's no longer playing but I hope it gets picked up and more
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people want to do it it was a really great experience called don't split the party I want to get the play right a shout out his name was Nathan Kessler
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Jeffrey and yeah it was good player oh yeah exactly
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I wonder what if this was based on his something own group
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based on his bio it says that his wife actually introduced him to D&D and you could tell there was definitely some
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some you know art imitating life going on there but you know it seemed to be
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the springboard for it more than anything else yeah it was cool it was cool I hope more people do it and I hope
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more plays and videos and movies pick up that part of what's happening with the
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Dungeons & Dragons fandom now so it's not quite so stereotypical right as you said and we'll we'll talk about this I
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promise when we get to the interview because I beastly brought you guys here so you could convince my mom that it's
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okay to play under the dragon still try and it's drill pulling meanwhile my mom was like oh I wish I knew about Dungeons
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& Dragons when you were little it would have been perfect it would have been perfect speaker which I actually played I played with Edmund Fiona no way yeah I
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played with my girls they're six and four and I had a bag of dice in just
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around like was I'm on the desk and my four wheels kept asking me like what is this what if someone gets dice you play D&D with that I've told you
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that before and she's like can we play D&D I'm like yeah sure I didn't know I mean she kept asking and asking and asking eventually yeah let's play let's
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do it all right let's go so what do you do I just did a real simple like you're you know I don't even worry about numbers or anything they had characters
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but I just asked like what do you wanna do you might be a hunter and she's like yeah I want to be a hunter like okay you're a huntress you work for
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this elf company or this elf Kingdom and I had Fiona first and didn't want to
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play and then that's surprised I know right and then so we'd best basically we're like all right you wanna there's and I
11:01
played the the Lord Chamberlain was like the the quest giver essentially was like you have a job you're the hunter so you
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got to go out and actually I was like oh so what did you do and she I was and just randomly she says like well my
11:12
first mission I did this and my second mission I did this and the third mission I did this and I was furiously writing
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notes because they were happening so fast but she basically had like four or five plot hooks that she gave me I know
11:28
I wish I had that I had which I had the notes with me right now because they were all super detailed they were all like okay so there was a undeath or like
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the the nature wasn't working and so I shot the spell book with the missile and
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then that broke the spell and everything was okay after that I was like whoa okay that's super I was like what's the name of the wizard and was his name was
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so-and-so I forget but I wrote that down because I'm like okay he's gonna be a like a villain in the future is like oh
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this wizard that did this awful thing and she gave me like five plot hooks to use in the future it was amazing yeah
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let me play for like an hour and then kind of an hour yeah they kind of spun off after that big you know they they
12:06
actually came up with a lot of like non-combat ways - there was like wolves that they were attacking and they were like supposed to take out the wolves
12:12
they didn't shoot it they actually just like befriended the wolf enter like right now I have this magic I have this magic bottle that feeds feeds creatures
12:20
and she rolled to 20 I'd never rolled the 20 diplomacy because this wolf was like charging at the number and dudes
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day we're actually having them roll to see if they were a little bit a little bit yeah not like tons but like if it was okay
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you try something roll that dice tell me what you get yeah I didn't really worry too much about like modifiers or adding
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or anything I was like that was high so you did it all right yeah you got a 19 great your wolf is your friend now
12:42
what's his name it's now your your animal companion because I know Edna loves animal companions so she's latched
12:47
on we've done as young as two and a half years old two and a half neurologically normal and like autism spectrum and such with
12:53
live-action and tabletop modified version state where you don't worry about getting but we use like big foam
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is to roll and such so they can play with though they have a lot of fun and it's more physical moving around because
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of the age but two and half years old quite well that's cool yeah they respond to just having stuff right and it for
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them it's automatic and natural we as adults like poopoo gameplay and let's
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pretend and all of that they're already pretending they're already there exactly very cool so we
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have a dragon plus happening tomorrow Tuesday at 2 p.m. here on the channel
13:29
Barker will be talking to duck Davison from fantasy grounds which I'm excited because I think that sports things like
13:35
oh let's teach me how to play this and he's gonna he's gonna have Doug talk about fantasy grounds and how to work it
13:41
then I and he also has an interview with the artist for the most recent cover of dragon plus and I'm blanking on his name
13:47
but he is going to be also playing that interview before I do Oh Dean dnews you
13:53
were to do that interview yeah so that'll be happening to and then I'll do DNA news tomorrow and then we have dice
13:59
camera action at 4:00 p.m. with Rachel Celia is going to be joining again her
14:05
character did not die we're so good for her she's gonna be returning guest you
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never know chris has a bad a habit of killing yes except for the last couple
14:17
you know baggy nails and everything is already good to go and so that'll be excited that's episode number 78 again
14:24
Rachel you might know her as Moira from girls guts glory it's exciting to see her on the channel playing she'll be
14:31
playing a different characters that's a Greek goddess of fate or something like that yes it must be yes
14:36
Moira it's more of an Irish brogue kind of thing to it so it's a it's an Irish goddess of fate brass yeah and then
14:46
we've got misclick Steen D risen happening at 4:00 p.m. on that's the
14:51
last I think episode of that on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. and then Furies fate there's also happening there a
14:56
season finale at 6:00 p.m. that night as well so lots of cool stuff happening and
15:02
a couple of stories ending but we got stuff coming back including and counter role play on Saturday at 3 p.m. will
15:09
Jones and the crew will be back teaching how to Dungeon Master at least give you some
15:15
some pointers on how to Dungeon Master that's one of the conceits of that show they'll play for a little while and then he will take put on his cone of silence
15:21
and talk to the audience more about what his choices were and why he did what he did that's a reference for for all you
15:31
get smart fans out there ah all right soon soon you will learn white Get Smart
15:37
is cool alright so we're gonna take a little break so much as get to a segment yeah
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finally and then we can actually talk to you in more dive like again five more follow-up questions for both you guys about all the research that you do but
15:50
we will now have used to have the thing from me where I knew exactly what they're gonna be talking about this I
15:57
know I'm pretty sure this is encounter building with Jeremy Crawford but I could be right lying and Ryan might just
16:03
have to edit it out and won't have to deal with it so we'll have this segment going Ryan Lee right about now Bing bong
16:35
do you think that was a really good segment you guys I really enjoyed all of
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the lore and or sage advice that we learned in that yeah good talkers those yeah yeah yeah those guys are great
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that's great so uh speaking of a great interview we're gonna have another one right now we are so excited to talk to
16:56
Hawk Robinson and John Welker from RPG research so you gave the the quick bit
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of what you guys do but what does that really mean what do you want to get down to what's your day-to-day like how does it yeah so we we have so there's a
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couple different branches and so there's a lot to cover RPG research is the pure research and
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community services nonprofit organization then there's RPG therapeutics which is the for-profit
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that does professional services educational services professional training certification programs we're
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developing the just prepackaged professional materials you know at a
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billable rate RPG research here all the community stuff and especially the
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research and initially it started as studying the effects of role-playing games just in general and noticing that
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like back in 2004 2006 they're only about 60 research studies on the effects of role-playing games most of them are
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correlative which means it's said that well gamers do they commit suicide more
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or less than the general population because this is a big thing the 80s that still continues on and so you look at
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the gamers and and you find out what the suicide rate is for gamers versus non gamers you correlate all that data and
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now you've you've made a correlation it doesn't prove causality it doesn't prove higher low whether gaming causes more
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suicide it just says gamers have a higher or lower suicide rate well the research shows that gamers have anywhere
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from 1 v to 120th the suicide rate of non-gamers of their peers really so there happens way way less right yeah
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why yeah correlative doesn't tell you why it just problem solving is it the
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social network thing you build a support group that you know there's so many
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different theories as to why and there are therapists now for decades psychiatrists psychologists and other
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therapists who have been using role-playing games to treat depression including suicidal level depression to
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help have a safe environment a safe space if you will to work through anger
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feelings of learned helplessness meaninglessness all these different issues and use role-playing game as an
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outlet and safe means play therapy which is separate from recreation therapy and
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I'm a Washington state registered recreational therapist John jester as well I'm not registering yeah play
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therapy is for pre verbal communicators so usually up to about nine ten eleven
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years old they observe a kid in play they try to not interfere as much as possible and take notes as they play in
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a playroom and there's very specific stuff put in the playroom and they observe and because children because
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they can't verbalize what they feel express it through their play that's later ghostbusters - where Egan is doing
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that thing in the play you think like what how is this all working and they're observing what's happening yes that's about yeah yes yes yes I think he was
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trying to prove whether or not the temperature in the room would rise right so basically you're trying to like so
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you took all the the stereotypes about negativity about gaming and we're like well what is that actually going to do
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and ended when you start Lear I didn't do all that research I've found a lot of the research already done but do you think a lot of those studies happened in
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the 80s and hours where late 80s 90s onwards but up to about 2004 2006 or
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only 60 studies done not that many is that below for this type of thing that is very low for any particular area of
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study mostly there's hundreds and hundreds of studies why do you think that is because it would be well no the inculcated attitude that gaming is a bad
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thing from the 80s and so just gonna accept that I'm not gonna and what you're saying is that it's not even not
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true it's des monstrously the optimist so study about meaninglessness and so
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the again we're correlative versus causality we still haven't proven that gaming caused this but we're at least disproving the stereotypes about gamers
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which is important because there's a lot of Native stereotypes and we have a list on the website of all the stereotypes
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and so our piece of research calm of all the different stereotypes and what the facts say about the stereotypes
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yeah so another one is a lot of people say well gamers don't have any purpose in life they don't know they live in
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their mother's basement whatever their army purpose so study was done research college students which are the most over
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research group but I have to do it just one yeah you get credit and everything
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so it's easy to get them but they did a peer group of college students and their levels of meaninglessness so how much in
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theirs and it's their own questionnaire and it's a study that was accepted back in the fifties and sixties whatever of what meaninglessness means that's crazy
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that there's a yes/no and standard definition of meaningless right and and you can always debate about which
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studies we use better tools and we won't get the medicine right audience for that but let's go that the numbers said
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forty-seven percent of the college students had high score high on meaninglessness gay only 17% of gamers
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did that's a statistically significant Wow variance in population yeah there's they
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have more being they find more purpose whether it's because again we could theorize left and right so again doesn't
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prove causality but it discounts these stereotypes criminality the criminal
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records when these studies were done in the early 90s the both self-reported and otherwise reported and there's multiple
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studies on this because they'd say well role-playing game will make you more violent commit more crimes well let's see if that's true
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correlative data says no for some reason role-playing gamers seem to have a much lower criminal rate than their same age
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peers the fewer incidents involving law the less violence different types of
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crimes theft all those different types just lower levels why well we could theorize but that again shoots down the
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stereotypes yeah violence the same thing with with violent behavior the
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personality types of gamers actually generally and we're talking mostly tabletop here for most of this research
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there's a little bit on live action there's been a big boom in computer-based computer-based
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is nuanced in other ways and I can talk about that but we're going to focus on tabletop because we're here on the
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website there's two sections you'll get our community button or our research button if you go the research button we
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have more than a thousand different content items that you can wade through by topic to drill down to the topics or
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there's a search button box in the top right hand corner yeah use the search light reading this is a
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bit divergent but now I want to play in a game in which your dungeon mastering because you're able to paint the picture of the website I know what the website
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looks like yes has to be like oh this box here you press well my computer
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science background helps with UI design as well so the same thing with violent
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behavior they tend to have less violent personality types so there's this is
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important for all types whether it's video games live-action or computer-based a more recent study and again there's debate not you have to
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retest and reprove so please scientists out there don't lambaste me because I list one example we only have so much
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time if you want to see my presentations I've got them online and I go into a lot more detail for the more scientifically
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minded but I'm giving examples shorthand so they have about trait hostility which
24:07
means that they score high for being easily activated to being aggressive and argumentative what they found is and
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this was a video game study but you could apply it to any setting that those who scored high on trait hostility gamer
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or not didn't matter who then played a violent video game then were more likely to in later testing show an effect from
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the video game of being more aggressive and hostile shortly after the video game and a few hours after however those who scored low in that hostility trait did
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not show a significant effect after the video game so this is a nuanced important thing when they say video
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games cause violent behavior or role-playing games because you're fighting cause violent behavior it depends right if you were already
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inclined to you if you're already amped up you're more type-a if one of these really outdated terminology let's say
24:54
you're type a aggressive personality you're more likely to get more amped up from it and that will show up but you're
25:00
already kind of that way exactly the type B is going like yeah I had a fun I killed the orcs but I'm not going to be
25:05
more aggressive out here interesting so these are important distinctions which are important to go it's it's rarely yes
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and no right alright with any kind of research like but everybody very hard there is like it is this way role-playing gaming makes you this way
25:19
and it was it was I mean in in the even now a lot of people who will who will default to that pat robertson is
25:27
still out there in the 700 club just this year last year again yeah every two years it seemed like you didn't even
25:33
know what it was though so they think it's a fear because that's why and
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that's what we're trying to do is fill it with information so this is the last one is the occult weather role-playing
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game can lead you away from insert your religion and what they found was that
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that so they specifically were looking at satanic devil because of the satanic panic moral panic that yeah yeah so they
25:59
did personality tests and interviews of a bunch of people who were open and
26:04
avowed worshippers of the Church of Satan what-have-you and role-playing gamers and and tried to find tried to
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find they tried really hard to find a court like they were probably barreled by no no link in personality type
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between a role-playing game the only few role-playing gamers they found that were were devil worshipers were devil
26:24
roosters first who then came to gaming later right they they were not able to find it that's the devil worshipping
26:30
community myself usually because they know they're into the blood war they are
26:36
all about fighting back and forth demons and the devils so that's all correlation that disproves all the stereotypes about
26:43
gamers it doesn't prove causality of the game that you have to do more controlled
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research and you have to have control groups and independent dependent variables that you're manipulating you
26:55
know surveys all these different approaches and so we've been doing that since 2004 on the therapeutic side
27:01
educationally much longer I start as I said like in 1983 Wow a child yeah right
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so I feel like I want to talk to you John a little bit more about what well how you got started not necessarily
27:21
with with working with hawk but you know I playing D&D when did you when did you start what was your origin story 1977 10
27:29
years old and my grandmother came from some store and she had the
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like bucks and said I think you'll like this and apparently I did you latched on
27:43
to it immediately was it your birthday or she was just saw it and was like oh this looks like something little Johnny it was just a
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random day it wasn't even my birthday it was like in this middle of the summer so better and I've been playing as a
27:55
dungeon master mostly since then I almost exclusively Dungeon Master just
28:01
once in a while play and since then I've been in the RPG a did live in Greyhawk I
28:08
was a wizard the coast delegate a D&D open judge for Gen Con for a couple
28:14
years I was local area coordinator for the India ventures League in the Spokane
28:21
area nice what it what it is about Dungeon Master was it just because you
28:27
were the one who got the books and so you jumped into that role or do you think that you that is more for your
28:33
personality I think it's more of a personality I find that when I give up
28:39
the control of the game to the DM and even though I'm a good player and I can
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and I can out thank a lot of things I already met in quotes but I prefer to
28:55
have the entire story and tell the story that's that's my gaming style anyways is it's all about the story and I know
29:03
that's why you're playing this and heroes of the Mist yeah because it's the bar yeah so we've got a show coming up
29:08
in March heroes of the Mist and he's decided to play a high off bard in that so that's
29:13
probably why are you the are you gonna be the instigator pushing the story forward because that's when me as a
29:20
player because I liked I think I'm similar to you in that I prefer DMing for for getting it going and you're
29:25
always thinking you're always adapting to what other people are doing so if I'm not the judge of master I gravitate
29:31
toward just being that type of player that's like all right yeah no let's go to the next thing let's go to the next thing let's mix it up let's do something
29:36
silly in order to react to what's going on in the dungeon masters head I might not be the instigator but I probably be
29:44
the one who makes it bigger make the gate bigger it needs a little more
29:49
explode there I like that so how did you get involved with RPG research I was well as
29:57
far as my role-playing game I was introduced by a cousin when I was about eight or nine so late 70s as well and so
30:04
that's how I got into gaming in 83 I wrote an 8 page essay on role-playing
30:11
games that missed in reality and then still have it I wish I did I so wish I
30:17
did I had to read it in front of the entire school why did you was that like because I love
30:26
theater and everything else side on form the paper when I did not perform it was too dry for that but but it was we had
30:32
to do a paper on current events and this is right at the beginning of the anti-gaming movement Andrea sent 83 yeah
30:38
so I what research was available I put into there and and talked about it and
30:43
that helped tone down some of it that was going on at the school didn't help for the neighborhoods on the libraries that were starting the bands and all of
30:49
that they didn't ask you to come and read your paper at every single venue in town 85
30:59
yeah well then in 85 we lost our drama teacher your chance to go to Broadway or something so a plug for the schools
31:06
called realms of incur it's in Utah says wonderful realms of inquiry private private nondenominational school yeah
31:14
right so it was hog where it kind of is we would go on survival trips in the desert in southern Utah Jeff wand yeah
31:20
no of a Swiss Army knife 101 if you wanted gone I made that one and we would
31:28
do like we do like 10 days in desert the last three days we're so low survival I was like that was awesome it's all about building confidence first part is
31:34
working together as groups we're rappelling off a 500 cliffs awesome school awesome school and it's
31:40
still running and it's a non-denominational private school you made your survival checks yes you think is there a world adventure
31:46
doing research also that shows that gifted children are drawn to role-playing games as well it's you know
31:52
that's just going to depend so at this school is we lost a drama teacher they gave the option for study hall I
31:57
talked the headmaster and letting me teach role-playing gaming as a class five days a week
32:03
short a teacher and he let me fill it in for a couple of months until the a new drama teacher and slowly everybody left
32:09
study hall and joined Hawks role-playing game class in the biology lab and we were teaching 18 D first edition middle
32:14
or throw playing call of cthulhu all of that or do a short five-minute lecture yet middle or throw play I guess immersed oh yeah and I'm calling is
32:22
token society founder for from the UK here in Spokane and so talking told and
32:28
he had but it didn't make everybody a gamer it did stop all the teasing and
32:36
anti gaming stuff 100% oh that's good after they went through the class oh that's what gaming is right okay that's
32:42
not that it's not any of these things it's a game we're having a good time maybe there's some benefits to it not
32:47
everyone became a gamer but none of them had the stigma about it anymore and a few did become lifelong gamers
32:53
most of them did not as far as I know right but that's with everything you try as a kid I saw her you try basketball
32:59
you try cleaner you try dance but none of them had the stigma anymore and that and that's again that getting rid of the
33:04
ignorance getting rid of the fear yeah right so fast-forward to 2004 2003 I
33:10
retired as computer scientist as CTO to the Silicon Valley comp thing all that and I was focusing on raising my three boys later single parent and but I was
33:19
looking ahead when my boys are grown what will I do next phase in my life and one of my businesses I kept getting kids
33:26
with ADHD parents coming to me I had computer training schools and like help-help he's failing in computer class
33:31
he's failing typing class can you help me and fYI child psychologist but I'll see what I can do and I used games video
33:37
games to help them do their typing or whatever and then I created a reward system where if your grades got better I
33:43
give you a piece to build this computer in my lab and you know it's a token economy thing and I didn't know the terminology then but so then I fell into
33:50
recreation music therapy neuroscience and research psychology and I've been doing that since oh for what was it
33:56
about so we're just working with kids on that kind of level always I've always been a teacher I've you know play over
34:03
20 instruments I've taught guitar some people want on little tours etc I've always loved teaching at automotive
34:09
photography whole slew and so I always loved that teaching aspect
34:16
and I think gaming has a lot to do with what happened for me becoming chief technology officer and everything I really NAT the boardroom versus being at
34:23
the game table I was da most the time I didn't really want to be but everybody kept pushing me to be right and you
34:31
start learning to tell tale the the tells of people who are lying or bluffing or afraid or whatever all those
34:36
things you learn again because you know in the game what the reality is and you start learning to read everybody's subtle signals well we knew they're in a
34:43
boardroom with Microsoft and Amazon and and all of them and there's a lot of biessing going on and a lot of the
34:50
testing you read the room really well and it really every time I was at meetings are like this is just like being at another gaming session feel
34:57
like that's like a self-help book that you're gonna write like be the dungeon master in the board room so then I
35:06
really started to so that was with the ADHD so I went and focused on recreation music therapy and specifically all the
35:13
textbooks said there's we need more cooperative activities and I was like well role-playing gaming no recreation
35:20
therapist that ever use role-playing anyway I still haven't found any before I train them right since 2004 that have
35:25
you ever considered using any formal role-playing game so yeah so talk a little bit about me because I'm people might not know what music therapy is and
35:31
things like okay so like what yeah what exactly does that mean yes so recreation therapy is taking a recreational
35:36
activity and okay there's therapeutic recreation there's recreational therapy won't get to that taking a recreational
35:42
activity so whether it's let's say basketball and wheelchair basketball that's an adaptive version or using with
35:51
brain injury using uno cards to help them as they're recovering from a brain injury to with numbers and colors and
35:57
sequencing and follow and just picking things up because they might have mechanical damage organic damage using a
36:04
simple game like that but using it to achieve therapeutic measurable goals so you work with physical therapists
36:10
physical therapy is painful yeah as soon as you're discharged most people do not
36:16
continue their physical therapy exercises and will often come back later because they deteriorate because of the
36:21
pain and are back in and they go in and out and create this downward spiral recreation therapist tries to find what
36:27
their trinsic motivation is their interior motivation to do things what's fun for them and then apply that to what they
36:35
need to achieve to get better whether it's a physical goal a cognitive goal and emotional you know control you know
36:41
have controlling your emotions and your outbursts what-have-you but doing it in the context of a recreational activity whether it's a board game whether it's a
36:48
basketball game whatever and tweaking it in some way to meet those needs and adapting if they've lost a limb or
36:55
something teaching them how they can still do the activity we one of our drum circles we have somebody show up is in a
37:00
wheelchair who had no feeling in her hands and from her hips down she'd quit
37:05
drumming because of it but she heard we did adaptive drumming and she found out she can still play the djembe because
37:10
even though her hands or floppy basically she can still play it and as we showed her the hand strokes and such
37:16
and she was so happy that she's able to bring that music back into her life and some music therapy and records that were
37:22
very close together there's separate certifications but they actually if you look at the training books and everything they're like verbatim
37:29
and they both evolved from World War one and World War two around the same time period as veterans from World and World
37:35
shock exactly now exactly they have the same origin stories and everything too
37:41
so there's a natural accommodation so you adapted some of those techniques that were there for for music as well as
37:48
the recreational therapy right yeah and basketball things like that and then you use those with the RBG as the intrinsic
37:57
benefits like oh it's a fun game but it also has specific goals yes so it we use it's called an intervention modality so
38:03
the the activity that's being used is the intervention modality medication could be your intervention modality
38:09
hypnosis could be your intervention modality role-playing game is the intervention modality and so the doctor
38:15
comes to us and says this person needs to develop you know they've had a brain injury so I've done a lot with brain
38:20
injury as well to autism and such and we want to help them get their speech back and we want to you know we know they can
38:26
comprehend what we're saying and we want to we want to encourage them to keep trying to fight through what our fascia
38:32
and such they're having and they'll work with a speech therapist and such but using games makes it fun and they stop
38:38
thinking about how hard the work is and if we can get them in a flow state which is in sports terminology being in
38:47
the cell zone yeah being in the zone so they are on fire you just get a cola so if you played a
38:53
game where it's going really well you look up three hours of gone by and you had no idea yeah zombie orpheus entertainment is a great example in the
39:00
gamers - darkness rising where they they have a new player and such and they look up it's 2 a.m. yeah I had no idea right
39:06
excellent example of being in flow state and me so that's by me hi
39:12
Csikszentmihalyi this whole flow state thing is an optimal state of being an optimal potential for learning and
39:19
healing so when you're role-playing gaming and you experience that flow state experience you're in a really
39:24
ideal state if you want to talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and getting you know from just survival up to you
39:31
know full enlightenment if you will getting in that flow opportunities getting you closer to those up trees
39:36
were you really can start having the bigger thoughts and concepts there's also a big difference between you know
39:43
if the TVI trying to do the speech traditional therapy is save these words
39:49
keep doing this and it's worked and you know just gets frustrating you don't wanna do it when you're doing a
39:54
role-playing game and you're doing recreational therapy you don't notice that you're working on this they're just
40:00
one sitting there enjoying yourself and getting a benefit despite yourself and when you're discharged you're much more
40:07
likely to keep doing the activity rather than quitting as soon as you're discharged from rehab you were talking about physical therapy and I was like oh
40:12
I gotta make sure I do my exercise yes well we didn't live-action role plays for those who need more physical activities we do computer-based we've
40:20
got a whole TBI program get a presentation on the you can check on the website on YouTube and such that walks you through using starts with
40:26
choose-your-own-adventure being read so what they respond with just a hand squeezer and I blink because they're just coming out of a coma and just at
40:32
that level of interaction Wow yeah we're talking Rancho Los Amigos Stage two you've just come out of coma you you
40:38
verified you have you're oriented to three times so you know who you are where you are you know roughly place but
40:45
you can't talk yet because you're probably intubated etc but somebody will read to you choose your own adventure to
40:50
help you start so with no plasticity you want to light up the brain as much as possible they have to rest a lot too 30 years ago
40:58
40 years ago they'd say leave him alone be quiet don't disturb them don't agitate them worst thing you can do for
41:04
brain injury recovery interesting you need to get things going so your brain will reboot and rewire and if it's
41:10
organic damage start having other parts of the brain compensate talking about music any kind of like exercise there's
41:16
a physical therapy like you're talking about you don't just say oh it'll get better we're better at you got a push yeah music therapy so there's
41:21
organizations have great success where people who've lost the ability to speak that area is organically damaged they will never speak again but they can
41:27
still sing and they teach and so through singing they saw fairies singing and
41:33
then it's less in song II and then they're talking it but it's using the singing part of the brain so multiple
41:39
things so this is all part of your plasticity yeah it's it's an awesome stuff you know tend to hit points of
41:49
damage exactly so so the point is though that
41:56
by making it as a recreational activity and helping them plan we do transition
42:02
and exit plans so that they have a way to continue their lives adapt it to whatever new changes they mean some of
42:08
these things we never go away and that can be a lot of depression and such but now they have a new peer group a new gaming group same thing with drug rehab
42:15
and gang culture we've we've had inpatient people I've worked with like novels mental health wreck their apiece
42:20
and such helping them great success where you teach them role-playing gaming then you find a gaming group in the
42:25
neighborhood that they're going to be living in and transition them to going to that weekly gaming group now instead
42:31
of going home and all they have is either their gang culture or their drug culture to go back to nothing else to do and their kids they gotta do something
42:36
when they're not in school right yeah well they're gonna go back to their friends well now they've got a new group of friends that you know may not promote
42:42
those same behaviors and so successful that also clues into something you were talking about the meaninglessness well
42:48
yeah you know that that here is even though it's it's it's a fantasy world and it's not real it provides meaning
42:55
it's it and beyond you know whatever your accomplishments are in in character
43:00
but like that all the face to face the relationships you're building with your Dungeon Master's with other people the group that is meaningful skills so
43:08
then the challenge is okay let's say I work with the group they developed so we've worked with social phobias with people who are complete introverts won't
43:14
leave their apartment everything is delivered their family brings everything to they are terrified to go outside complete social phobia I've had multiple
43:20
instances where I start them out with an online video game where it's a safe environment whether it's one of the ones you were talking about neverwinter
43:26
nights in the aurora kit yeah I use that to create custom module that's smart so that they can have a safe social
43:33
environment so we start them kind of computer-based remote then slowly get them come down to the offices where they know it's a safe environment with people
43:39
we know will be safe to play with first they might just watch and then incrementally this is a pretty standard phobia exposure therapy technique have
43:48
them start playing then we take him to a game store and have them watch a pickup game and then we you know with the GMI
43:53
store i've sent him to it i've sent him to him even before I knew him I was sending I'd heard about him and was
43:58
saying it was absurd I was watching you at one point before we were bad and so sent people and then and they joined the
44:03
game and the message is at first I'm going to die I'm going to die and you're changing it to I didn't die I'm okay I'm
44:10
safe and eventually now but then you got generalize it okay so one guy did
44:15
generalize where he's going to the grocery store and everything else integrate another fellow he's running
44:21
games he uses the bus runs two games a week but he hasn't generalized as much
44:26
he still struggles with growing a grocery store and so he's got this kind of bubble but his bubble has gone from this to this I think that's a huge win
44:34
and for the other guy was a complete win so you know you have variants and something happened in your store well he
44:40
was sending people to my store he wasn't actually telling me he was doing it and there people would be watching from you
44:47
know you have confidentiality things so he would have people watching the games for a thing and then noticing that nobody was getting hurt everything was
44:54
being safe and everybody was taking care of it nicely etc but even just getting to the store I imagine it worked up to
45:01
that and they'd have good days and bad days I'd sometimes transport yeah but
45:06
but the this is towards getting their life back it's all part of the problem the group said that they were joining
45:13
does anyone in the group know that this is a person that's we're coming some challenges so Nauticus
45:20
tours they self-identify yeah now in my offices and sets sometimes we have a group of volunteers who are trained and
45:26
we use them as a safe environment as a stepping stone but in the public stores no no no no we don't we don't want to we
45:32
don't want to isolate them that way you don't want the name of the Stig neither good stereotype about gamers is that
45:37
they are an inclusive it's an incredibly you want to play and researchers most
45:42
people just want more people to play with there are more people to play Dungeons and Dragons and here's a thing
45:47
you researchers who want to find in a different population group you research out role-playing gamers like paperwork
45:53
what do they do all day long to play the game they fill out forms I have never
45:58
seen a group more like so I go to conventions I have a study on the Ness is a little more negative side years is
46:04
less positive experiences of gender bias in the gaming industry and community I've been in this since 2003 and phase 2
46:11
now through Washington State University of an IRB waiver and such been doing it at spoke on at Worldcon at gaming events
46:17
etc and getting some really good feedback necessary so I think it's just a review board yeah yeah cuz it's not me
46:25
wanted me like what's here to keep me intelligible here and so and about a
46:32
quarter of them have given qualitative responses out so it's a questionnaire that's quantitative numbers I can give
46:37
you hard numbers of the period people who experience what in which and it includes war games collectible card
46:43
games video games online offline conventions tabletop board games live-action all of that each of these
46:49
have you experienced it on different degrees and so I have charts for that so that's quantitative numbers the
46:55
qualitative is they explain why they gave those numbers and about a quarter of them optionally flip over the page
47:01
filled in their story explaining why they gave the answers which is really great it's hard data but it's great data
47:07
yeah the the good news is tabletop role-playing gaming has much lower
47:13
numbers of it than video gaming and collectible card games video gaming Clark ardennes very high levels of gender bias exclusion being treated
47:20
terribly the artwork all these different things their long list of grievances for
47:26
collectible card games and video games role-playing games much much much lower and generally the numbers are
47:32
higher in public settings so pickup games at game stores and conventions right they've had more negative
47:37
experiences literally started these are people who said they've been women who've been banned from games and such
47:43
because of their gender you know this is according to the because your face to
47:49
fly queue can't if I'm playing a video game I could my exams anything you want but but Ares ruder in the video games
47:55
and everything so they get a lot more experience of that just being a really negative environment live-action is even
48:01
lower than tabletop partly you know small community but it does say have you done this or not done this and then you
48:07
can separate those numbers yeah wargaming doesn't have any because according to at least from our multiple
48:12
research studies there's almost no female role for gamers so that data is kind of moot and it also separates
48:18
between the community and the industry as well so there's some interesting tidbits that is interesting that Stacey started in 2003 with that kind of
48:24
research team out that wonder they started 2004 for the therapeutic stuff have you seen a change I'm just curious
48:30
if this starter team for this was a year I started this before the whole
48:36
gamergate I just I just happened to have started it before it and what iswhat happened was in my later revisions I
48:43
didn't have any trouble approaching gamers to get it random you know I just went to everybody and random pick I
48:50
started to get after gamergate people going was just some gamergate thing right then just refused to fill out the
48:56
form because the soon as they saw what the topic was so that's the only major change I saw there as far as the experiences I've
49:04
seen more awareness and more people talking about it than they did before but I haven't seen a significant change
49:11
of numbers but it would you know I'm still crunching the numbers here it's interesting interesting yeah yeah no I
49:16
mean I think it's the thing that has you know impacted a lot of what's happening in the world I think things changed and
49:22
shift and I'm still confident it's changing for the better but it's a slow change and I think the data will help us
49:28
as soon as you're able to figure out like where things you know should be changed more from more another kid but
49:34
it's not a piece in the puzzle to get out to be but again it's data that we didn't have be weren't spending time us doing this so
49:41
it's very typical of like you know those are just stereotypes and they exist in there and I'll just let it girls don't
49:46
play games yeah well we know that's not true exactly oh my goodness and the community
49:53
programs are also part of the research so what we observe we document so a with
49:58
permission we record almost all our game sessions so I have 13 years of gaming
50:03
sessions recorded from like one point is running 12 groups servers so that's my
50:10
computer background I'm Tyson so I was running like a dozen different groups with all these rim experiments we have a whole section on the website and
50:15
optimizing the gaming experience to make it the most fun to experience immersion and flow state and what can you do
50:21
room temperature lighting ambient noise position sitting all of us whether if you're deaf I work with the deaf
50:27
community a lot how do you arrange the table more in a circular setting rather than a long gated table yeah working
50:32
with the you know vision impaired and providing needs for that rail dice so
50:37
all these different things what's the optimal gaming experience therapeutic or not just how can you have the most fun
50:43
and whether this is long long page of that data as well yeah that'll be its
50:48
own yeah I know a little ASL how do you
50:54
say you well I guess if you kill or
51:01
they die I don't know sign for fumble I mean you just be you know it just be a well this is your
51:10
my girlfriend and I run a weekly sign language group ASL group for yet another
51:16
thing yet another thing well and so if I
51:24
may yes absolutely so I was presenting now Civic Northwest American therapy
51:30
Recreation Association a couple of two years ago in Portland and professor to
51:35
tillow of Penn State is in charge of the recreation program there and he's asked me today oh cool yeah Manny Lyons
51:42
alright well professor John to tell a really nice guy he saw me present and then I actually saw him present first
51:49
and I rapidly added some of his stuff into my presentation because he does a thing he has a whole piece on
51:55
exploration as the foundation of learning when we're babies and were born we explore the world and learn from that
52:00
yeah we talked in our certification courses about that mindedness of things with hydrogen and all that but and well
52:07
what do we do in role-playing gaming we're exploring a whole other worlds a whole of learning so in an educational
52:13
any kind of language therapeutic learning or just learning history we learn through that interaction and even
52:20
if it's imagination our brains don't a hundred percent know the difference we do we know that it's going fast in
52:25
reality but the learning benefits of imagining it kind of neuroscience if you
52:31
add elaboration and distinctiveness and detail to the information you're trying to learn the better it will stick in
52:36
long-term memory and the easier it'll be to recall later because you'll have those memory cues so if I describe a
52:42
door that's not going to stick in your memory device or with a crack in it right I say oak and wooden door with
52:48
bands of iron through it and you can smell a musty smell and you can hear the sounds drips of water and I start adding
52:55
more or less I try to use all the different senses as we encourage all of them to do that because not everybody
53:00
can visualize there's there's a disorder and it's a good percentage of population they can't actually visualize through
53:05
visual imagining but they can do it through other senses so the smells were what the sounds were and a narrative and
53:11
such that's really take all that into account but anyway my wife isn't that thing because that's one thing that she was she always remarks you about it's
53:18
like I don't she's like I don't understand how you can take what they're saying and translate it right some people just
53:25
don't have that ability I'm starting the spatial awareness thing that's been playing uh where the work a person like
53:30
that was always like I don't understand where I am and what things got going so there I always thought that was related but maybe it's not it could be it could
53:36
be the a Fantasia as the term current version of that term tangent Asia that's the ability to imagine something all
53:48
these are debated topics so those of you who know these are debated topics I'm not saying any of these are set in stone
53:53
but these are interesting to think about and finally so here's asked ya he has asked me to write in the next edition of
53:59
facilitation techniques therapeutic recreation there's only two versions of this book and every recreation therapist
54:05
has to take one of the two books nice depending on which one the semesters teaching that's the third edition this is the so the fourth edition hopefully I
54:12
can say I'm holding up to 3.5 the but
54:20
the next edition he's asked me to write an entire 30 page chapter on role playing game therapy and role-playing games so that every recreation therapist
54:27
who has to take this book now we'll have role-playing gaming as part of their curriculum for the certification Wow
54:32
there's 15,000 30,000 recreation therapists in the country 15,000 were certified how do you train your
54:38
organization is volunteer RPG research is 100% nonprofit volunteers about nine
54:44
core volunteers and dozens of other peripheral through the Muscular Dystrophy Association SPARC central and
54:49
others that we work with so are they gamers and then you or are you actually it's an acute therapist how to DM
54:54
there's a mixture they come to us from all works of life so learning yeah so
55:02
one of the volunteers yeah Danielle she is going through the recreation therapy program Eastern Washington University she is a board gamer and card gamer and
55:09
video gamers she never did role-playing gaming before her boyfriend hit but she never did she was jamming this summer at
55:15
so first we went on retreat with the trailer the wheelchair friendly RPG trailer was real so we went to retreat
55:24
and did an overall she and she had to GM for four hours for the first time and she played she ran floss caves offend
55:30
elder yeah and it was in it in gpk she killed it
55:35
all and but her first two hours she was very nervous we had to keep coaching her but it was a safe environment we're all
55:41
there to help her yeah and after the first two hours she was flowing the roles were happening everybody was getting into it and yeah okay she had
55:47
some lucky roles they had some bad ones they died no big deal nobody here was hurt by it because we're there to help her learn exactly yeah it's part of the
55:53
yeah to learn how to do that too now she's been jamming at the cons when we've been at spoke on and and fan Nexus
55:59
and others she's there out of the back of the trailer running groups and and she's running to doing
56:04
games now and over and the lost eaves of Mirkwood for adventures in the earth and just working her way up and then at
56:10
sparks Central now she's also running No thank you evil so here we were five years old and uh and she's been with us
56:16
about nine months and she's already at that level sweet we have others who have
56:22
been gaming for X number of years and are coming in or learning more of the therapeutic side through RPG education
56:28
comm so okay our vision research is a non-profit then RPG therapeutics is the
56:34
for-profit business this is the professional training you get training through volunteering and everything and
56:39
we help you but it's a slower process you got to come to a meeting or two every week help us with our projects do
56:44
a lot of grunt or if you want to come in and get certified make it all thing you guys that RPG therapeutics has formal
56:50
training and certification you can either pay for the classes either in person and I'm not cheap or you can take
56:57
the online courses that I've been slowly moving over 70/7 classes I have online and so the first ones launched this
57:04
month we have PhDs psychiatrist and nursing person so we have somebody in
57:09
Montreal Canada somebody in the UK UK guy wants to become our representative in the UK it's just blowing it's awesome
57:16
it's all just it's just tip of the iceberg for all that yeah yes though well you guys we're also talking about
57:22
and this is I just loved this idea of you know autism and and I feel a lot of
57:28
people are talking about and how D&D I mean you're just going against the stereotype it's helpful for for for
57:34
people on the spectrum to do things like that so yeah I talked a little bit about that number one a lot of people in a
57:39
spectrum naturally gravitate towards role-playing gaming for whatever the reason the the rules the structure whether it's
57:45
because of comic books or fantasy or fiction because of their existing interests they're fascinated with it to
57:51
begin with so it's actually kind of low-hanging fruit as far as a population how are they discovering they stumble
57:58
across it they go to a hobby store to go buy a card game or something and they see a game happening at the store a
58:04
friend tells them about it we tell them about it what have you my case I don't
58:09
like it's out of place Patrick they saw Pat they saw this podcast and they
58:15
wanted to yeah there are all sorts of different people come to it all many different ways so so there's a lot who
58:20
just gravitate to it naturally and as long as they're functional enough that
58:26
they don't get ostracized which does happen some groups will be very welcoming and patient and tolerant and
58:32
help them build up the skills and be direct with them and and help them get better at it other groups are like
58:37
what's wrong with him he's weird whatever and they'll just kind of push him away so and of course our groups are
58:42
welcoming and inviting we have entire program times all the way from two and a half years old as I mentioned earlier
58:48
both autism spectrum and neurologically normal peers the terminology keeps changing and they were partnered up
58:54
through a program there so we did a live-action role-playing adaptation from two and a five-year-old some of them
59:00
were nonverbal communicators so like hand flapping stereotyped behavior no verbal communication they understand but
59:06
they don't communicate verbally and there were four of three or four other recreational therapy activities set up
59:13
for them to try and our goal was to keep them engaged for the full 15 to 20 minutes at art station as they rotated
59:19
through stations ours was the only program that they can all of them completed except one we had a dozen of
59:24
them at the time and one of them she made it 3/4 the way and then she stopped at stacking these foam dice we've made
59:30
with animals and the goal was he had to throw the the dice and then act out the animal to overcome them that's how you
59:36
controlled and subdued the creatures that was whatever die rolled up with the and well there's a dragon or a bird or a
59:41
dog and they act it out and then they control it and then they go save the queen in the king and all this stuff
59:47
all of them stuck out the full time and then only won the most profoundly impaired gets fixated at that last stage
59:53
but had a wonderful time anyway all the others only lasted about five
59:58
minutes at each of their stations and such so they've really stood out at that young and age fast
1:00:04
yeah this is - to find really have - five years old both non autism spectrum and autism spectrum the not onto the
1:00:11
spectrum that's even easier but you still got to keep them entertained a good time I mean I'm thinking there's like I don't think I mean that was some
1:00:18
of the reason why I didn't want to bring in D&D too early was because I don't want to make sure my kids I started I started about four years old yeah and no
1:00:26
problem I've three boys and yeah not a problem you just have to read a lot for them let them roll the dice do the
1:00:32
reading for them tell them what's on there they're happy they're scribbling they don't know what's on but you can honestly tell them and they'll remember
1:00:39
it because it's part of their story they know it's a narrative it's there you can tell them their stats and if they're stronger or weaker no thank you evil is
1:00:45
a great introduction at just five years old yeah we just cracked that one open yeah oh it's a great game for that so
1:00:52
then we fast-forward through all the way from 11 to 30 something year old learning to use the bus system because a
1:00:57
lot of them are a hundred percent dependent on their caretakers so we have a game called z-day insert city name so
1:01:04
z-day Tacoma so you are an agent of shield which means you don't have a dress up in a costume because you're
1:01:09
undercover we start as a tabletop role-playing game and it's whatever system you want to use I use just a
1:01:14
generic one I've made and you use the actual bus system for the area you've
1:01:20
been told that there's a bad guy going to try to spread a virus through the town using the public transit system you
1:01:25
know and then they need to find out more we're not gonna shut down the public transit system on a rumor go investigate so they go investigate using the actual
1:01:32
schedule and map of the actual town they're in on the tabletop learning the
1:01:37
schedule as they talk to different people on the bus and in the alleyways and at bars and what-have-you unraveling
1:01:43
these clues in a modern setting and eventually find out yeah there really is a plot but we can't we still can't just
1:01:50
shut down the city because it'll alert it but we know where he's going to be and so the second to last day we have
1:01:56
them figure out where the actual bus stuff is to their actual house in the real world and then they take the bus
1:02:01
and they all meet it like the the main bus Central Station and then follow some
1:02:07
post-its or some people dressed up as NPCs however you want to do it and then here's the fun twist and this is this is this part I have nailed to
1:02:12
get to do the time he hasn't worked out but I dream of the day it will it doesn't matter if they succeed in
1:02:18
stopping the bad guy that's not the point the point is they learn to use the bus system yeah and I have a good time doing it and then as sticks it but the
1:02:26
way we wanted to time it one of these days is a lot of towns do zombie walks yeah and the virus is to turn everybody
1:02:32
into zombies and so the thing is if they don't unravel the clues in time they
1:02:38
turn left and they look and here's a thousand but it's kind of better if they
1:02:53
if they lose we have others about how do
1:02:59
you how to interface with doctors offices hospitals unravel the mystery clue and you have to go the department
1:03:05
all these things all using role-playing games tabletop and or live action so that's autism spectrum it's it's
1:03:10
teaching a lot of life skills the social skills happen automatically in order to get their fix of the game because they
1:03:16
love the game they gravitate to the game very rapidly and as long as you have the patience and the directness a lot of
1:03:23
them really appreciate if you do it in a kind way spelling it out so I will do things like he looks at you with an
1:03:29
angry face mmm-hmm right and I give him an angry face and he sounds angry and he's really angry with you and you know
1:03:36
for those who have have the the facial relation struggles for that if there's
1:03:41
some conflict put pauses in the game because for those who are therapeutic groups everybody knows they're there for
1:03:48
therapeutic reason so some of them may be volunteers or professionals or certified who we have what we call yet
1:03:56
player archetypes and GM archetypes and so the play archetypes will play one of
1:04:02
our people will play a troublesome player who's a rules lawyer or troublesome player who's a munchkin or
1:04:08
what-have-you and they actually play that role to like train a GM how to deal with that or flip it you have a GM
1:04:15
archetype who is you know the killer GM etc and that's to Train rock star dies yeah
1:04:22
that's our catchphrase speaker which we do have to get to the rocks falling and ever really dying pretty students yes uh
1:04:28
so yeah I know I feel like we could talk for it you know a very long time and yes
1:04:33
that's real real quick talk about the trailer so we one of the things that kept burning into is all these different locations a lot of times the facilities
1:04:40
were less than ideal when I was in st. Luke's in the brain injury Department and such we had a lot of trouble getting more than an hour of space and a lot of
1:04:46
times for a tabletop game the sweet spots about three hours that's really the sweet spot if you will yeah that
1:04:54
state you can do it in 90 minutes you can do it in 45 minutes if it's daily there's lots of flexibility there but
1:04:59
three hours once a week is kind of the sweet spot and almost impossible to get that lolis facilities because they're
1:05:05
booked for other things all those but and I said well what if I brought a trailer that I could wheel ammo in and
1:05:10
we could do the drumming and the music and there and are like great and that was like four years ago five years ago I started researching that until I could
1:05:16
find what work you can't use a regular trailer it's too small you can't use a regular RV a there's mostly don't have
1:05:22
wheelchair access be the electrical chairs will fall through the floor because they make them so light you know
1:05:28
light weight you have to get a toy hauler with the ramp and everything so eventually about this prototype one it's
1:05:33
about forty thousand dollars a bottle bio pocket as a prototype because to build it is gonna take a lot longer and
1:05:40
we've got to go fund me is that okay - sure yeah go fund me.com forward slash RPG trailer we're trying to get the down
1:05:46
payment for the ideal version but the prototype we have right now for a year and a half now can handle about three
1:05:51
will people three people in wheelchairs ramp them in do the activities it's a safe comfortable temperature controlled
1:05:57
environment you've seen it I was cold but it was
1:06:09
but no that's very cool so you can get to go to these places and they don't have to you don't have to Booker a space
1:06:14
for anything and come out to rural locations because there's a lot of people who have no services in rural
1:06:19
locations so we've been all over the North West so far with this and we just got a bus as well with a wheelchair lift
1:06:25
so we're gonna have to gaming rooms on wheels once that's all finished being messed up and then hopefully as we get
1:06:30
this GoFundMe just the down payment to build the ideal version the ideal version will seat six to eight people in
1:06:36
wheelchairs the walls will open up the the layouts better to lower ride height so we can deploy a lot faster and then
1:06:42
we'll have three game rooms on wheels Nicole touring around the country home are you gonna be doing a lot of this I will be
1:06:49
mostly riding the bus for the local area so my responsibility he is going to be
1:06:56
doing the long distance halls and occasionally duo together things like if we if we get our chance to go to Gen Con
1:07:02
we want to would like to present a Chan Khong get in on that yeah bring it all the way
1:07:07
over there or go to packs and things like that yeah I would love to that's awesome yeah that's a good idea to try
1:07:12
taking it to the local continent go to for road trips in the summertime it's great and we've been the accessibility
1:07:17
advocate for spoke on and and the people at the end said it was the most accessible con they'd ever been to yeah
1:07:24
and they're like now go to the other cons and tell them like well that's not our primary thing but we'll spread the
1:07:29
word and we just found no access for all Spokane is an organization in Spokane County that does that so we're that's
1:07:36
great all right well I mean I feel like you've peppered it through above where people can find out more information but
1:07:41
where where can people go to find out more about you personally so John let's start with you and then more about the
1:07:46
organization well to find out more about me personally you send me on Facebook go
1:07:52
to Spokane area gaming Alliance I'm the founder of that we organize role-playing
1:07:58
and tabletop gaming for conventions charities and stores libraries and
1:08:03
things like that also I have these D&D adventures League Spokane
1:08:10
that's my Facebook page that's where you'll find out about me and be able to talk to me about things like that RPG research comm is where of course all
1:08:18
the RPG research information is we're also on YouTube Ford slash RPG
1:08:24
research twitch we're going to be doing a our game heroes of the mist will be on
1:08:30
twitch coming up in March with a live interactive audience who can affect the gameplay in real time by spending that's
1:08:36
you out in the world you'll be able to buy and spend XP and actually real time eyes the GM will modify the game I've
1:08:42
done this before with other shows and a real time artist doing artist rendering of the story as it's happening
1:08:47
we don't know it's it's all it you know it's it's role-playing its little improv professionals from Jet City and so
1:08:55
that's coming in March that's that's gonna be heroes video so mister arrows calm for that can't wait to hear more about that alright and then Hawk where
1:09:02
people can play RPG research calm for the research and the community programs and if you wanna sign up as a volunteer you do have to pass a background check
1:09:08
if you want to work with any of our populations just so you know RPG
1:09:15
therapeutics calm for the professional services if you need me to come in and
1:09:20
train people and speak etc RPG education calm for the online courses that one by
1:09:26
one we're going up there is about seventy seven classes one is up there right now and the RPG RPG failure calm
1:09:32
if you want to see more about the trailer and as tours RPG bus calm is we're fixing it it's a fixer-upper easily everything RPG blank RPG Network
1:09:41
dotnet because somebody got the dot-com so this is a network that it's the gig economy basically think uber and fiver
1:09:50
for renting yourself as a GM and and putting yourself out there to get those
1:09:55
professionally so like this very such
1:10:05
legal is coming down right now to talk to me so that's something that's been in the works and I still not launched but
1:10:11
it's still in the works been making progress on that I love it I love it so oh and go fund me.com for slash RPG
1:10:17
trailer so we're trying to raise sixty five hundred we've got a little over a thousand right now towards the down payment for the ideal trailer I'll take
1:10:24
on the payments after that I just it's that big up front that they need and then they'll build and it's the only
1:10:29
company in the country that big specializes in building wheelchair accessible RVs a town an era so we hit 6500 on that boom we'll start
1:10:36
getting that trailer built and then our patreon to support research community
1:10:41
programs refugee research is patreon.com forward slash RPG research you'll be
1:10:47
able to see some podcasts that we do is we have some that are more in depth the
1:10:53
science stuff right if you want more of the science e deeper stuff so we do monthly broadcasts that are just for the
1:10:59
patreon supporters now I'm a big open source advocate I believe in making all of this available to the public
1:11:04
eventually like you know will delay it a few weeks or something like that so all of this you can learn all of this
1:11:11
on the websites everything that's in the classes is on the website somewhere but we put it in a format that's more
1:11:16
digestible but if you support us on patreon you'll get early access to the shows
1:11:21
you'll you'll get more ability to interact with the show all kinds of goodies and you help support the
1:11:27
research and the community programs I love it I love it it's a lot it's a mouthful but there's a lot to go to
1:11:32
amazing I know really I'm super fascinated by all the data and
1:11:38
everything that's come out so dig around in that research rabbit hole and if you need any help
1:11:43
always feel free can email our PG research er at gmail.com and then always guide you and give you links because I
1:11:49
for some reason I'm able to keep track of it even though it's in the board room
1:11:56
add that to your list of things to do is to create that self-help book I love it thank you guys so much for driving all
1:12:02
the way here to talk to you and the work you're doing is fantastic so pleasure and honor beer thank you so much I can't
1:12:08
wait I can't wait so I guess that's it we're done is that yeah it's that's the
1:12:15
show that's the show you mentioned the Aurora toolset and I want to make sure I
1:12:22
let everybody know the listeners we mention there's a couple times in the a couple other episodes but neverwinter nights enhanced edition is coming out
1:12:28
soon from our friends at bean dog all the tool sets everything that you've made should be compatible that's what
1:12:35
Trent said be compatible with the new enhanced edition so you'll have basically everything be able to play it in a that are so powerful in it I know
1:12:41
right and there's still P I mean you guys are still using it to this day so that's that's pretty fascinating for you no
1:12:46
more than 15 year old game yeah insane so that's cool find out more about that on beam dogs website as well as they've
1:12:54
been doing some lives some great lab things in fact I think Phillip Diggle from from beam dog did a pretty good
1:12:59
send up of Nathan doing his fireside chats which I thought was really funny he did that's exactly I love their
1:13:05
little nemesis relationship going on it's that's how you keep going to the
1:13:12
morning and then of course Idol champ to the Forgotten Realms from code name has got some amazing stuff happening it's in
1:13:18
early access on Steam now it's a way to send out your adventurers on adventures and they can kill monsters and collect
1:13:25
loot and get XP well you just sit there and all in real time it just happens yeah and they're just collecting big
1:13:31
Gillian's of loot over and over again where the been Petrus or say he had like I think it's a good good Julian yes yeah
1:13:39
real technical words but they're very high numbers and it continues to go up notes they also have twitch plays Idol
1:13:45
champions which is pretty cool you can find that on twitch.tv slash twitch plays Idol champions and you can play
1:13:51
together everybody can input commands into the chat and basically play that game as a community which i think is super
1:13:57
fascinating sooo cool alright well I think that's it from the Dungeons & Dragons side of stuff where can people
1:14:03
find out about you Shelley you can find me on Twitter at Shelley Moo I am at Greg Tito yep I'm also an Instagram at
1:14:10
Greg underscore Tito I took some pictures with these guys which will be up on Instagram as well so go check
1:14:16
those out and I'll take you drawings from Edna lots of cute drawings she did a dragon the other day you see that one I think yeah she did like a green dragon
1:14:23
I was like you know green dragons oh yeah breathe poison and she's like Danny no yeah hers did something different it
1:14:29
was like big fire cloud yeah this is not a dnt dragon this is a green dragon like oh okay cool yeah it's good stuff but
1:14:38
we'll be playing more and you know incorporating green dragons that breathe fire into that thing too it's fantasy it's fantasy you can make it up whatever
1:14:45
you want it's good stuff alright find out more about this whole game that we've been talking about at Dungeons &
1:14:51
Dragons comm download the app at drag plus it's bimonthly issues of that it's
1:14:56
pretty awesome it's got all the stuff about what's coming up all the step in the future really cool covers a really
1:15:01
cool cover yeah I love those too we've had an idea of putting all the covers on a t-shirt and being like oh you know for
1:15:07
like the year and be like here's twelve twelve covers you're here six covers because they're amazing yeah good stuff
1:15:12
the poster just a poster just my poster I finally make you a poster thank you we're already making Avalon Hill stickers oh no you can say that I
1:15:20
remember I didn't I haven't said oh yeah right what should I do for Evelyn Hill stickers community what do you want yeah
1:15:27
you want to Magdalena yeah that you can put on your water bottle yeah yeah I think you do
1:15:34
do people know what Magdalena she's the the cover of widow's walk you know her name is magdalena Robo rally's Robo
1:15:41
really yes all those cute little robot would you put like that would people in the store like a little put little stickers of the Robo Ally about robots
1:15:48
yeah I think so yeah it's in development now all right
1:15:54
well thank you guys so much we can still talk forever and ever but we do need to say the thing that you well I'll let you
1:16:00
say the catchphrase cuz you said it already yeah rocks Falls everybody dies
1:16:15
everybody thank you so much for paying attention and being in the chat you guys are awesome I was scanning
1:16:21
through and a lot of people were saying some great stuff about how they have used RPGs to get through some hard times
1:16:26
so that was pretty awesome and you you are really good peeps we will be taking a break right now I think
1:16:33
everyone who has subscribed you will not be watching the ads that we were gonna run very soon but those of you who have
1:16:40
not subscribed you will get to see those ads because that's awesome they're really great ads that we have created we
1:16:46
even shot no we didn't shoot any of these ads we didn't do it at all but we'll be back after some bio breaks with
1:16:51
some lore you should know recordings with mr. Chris Perkins coming up right
1:16:57
after this all right love it thanks you guys we're back in about five to ten minutes bye bye hi
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