September 18, 2023 • 66 mins
Are you aware of the power of words and how they can subtly infiltrate a game? Noordin Ali Kadir unearths this concealed beast in today's episode, throwing light on how bias can have a profound impact on players. You'll discover how sensitivity consulting can prevent unintended consequences, ensuring a balanced and fair game design. We discuss his consulting experience and how he combats racial and cultural stereotypes in all of his projects.
Additionally, we dive into the importance of collaboration in editing and how consulting can save game developers time and prevent errors. Noordin stresses the need to choose the right words to fit the narrative, instead of merely filling up the page. Wouldn't it be fantastic to prevent potential headaches down the line? Noordin insists on the significance of consulting from the start of a project, which not only brings to life a better product but also saves time, money, and heartache. Tune in, as Noordin Ali Kadir takes us on an exciting journey through the world of tabletop gaming, consulting, and career success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Courtney (00:08):
Hello and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for
tabletop entrepreneurs, creatorsand fans.
In this show, we dig intoprocesses, challenges, tips and
really look at how to grow abusiness in the tabletop
role-play gaming space.
Sit back and join in as welearn from the creators behind
your favorite brands about whothey are and how they are
turning their passion for gaminginto a career.
(00:29):
Today's guest is someone whohas worked in so many different
aspects of the TTRPG community,including writing, game design,
editing, sensitivity consultingand performing in several actual
plays Noordin Ali Kadir.
Most of our conversation todaywas centered on Noordin's
consulting work, and he goesinto the importance of bringing
in a sensitivity consultant fromthe beginning of a project and
(00:50):
how much your sources impactyour writing and your games.
It was a very insightfulconversation and definitely gave
me a lot to think about.
I know that y'all are going toenjoy this conversation
immensely, but before we getinto the interview, I have an
update for you all on Burnaway.
Those of you who have beenaround for a while may remember
that I am the project managerfor an upcoming TTRPG called
(01:12):
Burnaway.
Essentially, the players are agroup of mercenaries hired to
confront Embergeists, which arespirits that are so upset about
something that their ectoplasmcombusts.
You have to either exercisethem or placate them, which is
where you find clues in theburning building that you are
exploring, to figure out whothey are, why they are upset,
and convince them to leave.
(01:33):
It's a really fun game, meantfor short campaigns that will be
coming back to Kickstarter onOctober 3rd.
We did try to fund it back inthe spring but due to a lot of
factors, it didn't work out.
The first time we have revampedthe Kickstarter.
We've lowered the funding goaland we are very optimistic about
funding this time in October.
If you are interested in keepingup with the game, you can look
(01:54):
for Burnaway on Kickstarter, andI will also have a link to the
pre-launch page in the shoutoutswe are launching very soon, so
be sure to give the campaign afollow to keep up with updates.
Alright, this is a longerepisode, so we are just going to
go ahead and jump right in.
Enjoy this conversation withNoordin.
Hello friends, I am here withthe super talented Noordin Ali
(02:24):
Kadir.
How's it going today?
Noordin (02:26):
I'm good.
I'm good it's reaching the busyseason for me in my real-life
day job, so a bit tired but verygood I know it sounds like you
have a lot going on right now.
Yeah, surprisingly not much inthe tabletop world, although
that's going to change soonprobably.
But yeah, in my real world Ialso do a lot of admin work and
(02:48):
I work with tour companies whoget very busy in the fall, so I
do a lot of scheduling right now.
Courtney (02:56):
Oh gosh, yeah, my real job is a project manager and I
used to work in theater as astage manager, oh yeah.
Scheduling is like it takes atalent and it's exhausting and
it's one of those things thatyou're like it shouldn't be this
hard, like why is this so hard?
Noordin (03:16):
It's wild how like the sheer amount of just time it
takes of you staring at aspreadsheet or whatever your
system uses, but it looks like aspreadsheet.
It always looks like aspreadsheet.
Just staring directly at aspreadsheet, trying to figure
out how a person can both beavailable and you're completely
unavailable at the same time.
It's a miracle, honestly, thatanything gets done If you rely
(03:39):
upon any person to do yourscheduling for you, whether you
work like a shift job or you'regetting everyone together for a
podcast or something, just thankthe person doing your
scheduling for me.
They're impressive.
Courtney (03:52):
I 100% agree with this .
Awesome Well, Noordin, I wouldlove to just hear a little bit
about yourself and how you gotinto gaming.
Noordin (04:05):
There's such a varied answer to this because, to go
philosophical, what is gamingreally?
When we played hopscotch, wasthat tabletop game when we were
on a blacktop?
Is a blacktop a table?
No, I got into tabletop gamingbecause I just love
improvisation, I lovestorytelling and I love creation
(04:28):
my three favorite things, eventhough I've got tons of little
backgrounds, an actor and stuff.
The real reason why I got intotabletop was just because I
wanted to inhabit a world.
I wanted to create someone whowould inhabit a world.
I wanted to play around withtheir story and play around with
the world and build things.
(04:49):
Build a world creatively withpeople.
It took me a while, though,because, as a guy of my ethnic
background and queer history, itis difficult to find someplace
where you feel safe enough to beyour whole self in tabletop.
I'm still discovering thingswhen I started, but it is
difficult.
I started reading books readingtabletop gaming books well
(05:10):
before I ever started playingthem, which is a very different
process than how most people doit.
I found my very first tabletopgame.
The first role-playing gamemode considered tabletop game,
was a D&D 5e game A couple ofyears before the pandemic.
I think it was 2017, 2016.
Since then, well, as you canprobably tell, I haven't stopped
(05:33):
so clearly.
I've been enjoying it.
Courtney (05:37):
It's funny, you say 2016, 2017, and I'm like oh
that's kind of similar to when Istarted playing tabletop games.
That feels like such a longtime ago and yet it really isn't
that long.
Noordin (05:51):
The more I think about it, the more 2016 makes more
sense.
But yeah, it isn't that long,and I think a lot of people are
in that position where, whenthey started to play, it was
after the big critical role-boom.
Once D&D 5e started gettingplayed at regular tables more
consistently, you could findopen games a lot more easily
because people were inspired bysomething like a critical role.
(06:13):
But a couple of years afterthat, because it's always first
you have that internal boom andthen you have the external boom,
and I come with the externalboom crowd.
The funny thing is, though,when it comes to reading my
World of Darkness books, Istarted reading those more than
a decade before.
(06:33):
That is a gap.
I will say that You're alsoright.
It is a long time.
It's longer than we think it is, and I think the pandemic has
really screwed up with time.
Courtney (06:47):
Yeah, I was thinking back like okay, what was I?
Doing back in 2016?
Like oh, wow, yeah, that waslike the beginning of the end
times, that felt.
But Right.
So I'm curious about how thetransition happened of you.
I mean, you were reading thesebooks, you were reading World of
Darkness a very long time ago,it feels like.
(07:09):
But then how did you convincesome friends to play with you?
Or did you walk into a gamestore and just say I want to
play.
How did that actually happen?
Noordin (07:19):
So I did the thing that a lot of Canadians in my area
do.
I went on meetupcom because Igot desperate and I clicked a
button and I gave it a shot andit was a drop-in-dropout game, a
drop-in-dropout D&D game.
I believe it was based on Talesof the Ony Portal, or at least
(07:41):
it was just about it, justswitched over to that.
So I was in like the last gamebefore then and then we switched
over and I played a half-drownamed Traven and it really was
just.
I made the decision for myselfthat I wanted to do it and I was
going to do it and so I did it.
And I'm not going to say it wasthe best game in my life, and I
(08:02):
don't think most of my firstgames were the best games in my
life.
The second game I ever playedafter that like one session of
that D&D game which I returnedto.
Then I played a game of 10candles, which is wild, and then
I played a different game ofD&D, like a campaign that ended
my relationship with that gamewas awful.
It was real like I had one ofthe worst experiences ever, but
(08:26):
I got through that throughDiscord, so it was really just
like I tossed a bunch of dartsat a wall and I hoped one would
stick, and eventually they did.
I go here.
God, how that didn't happen.
Courtney (08:41):
Well, now I'm going to make you figure out.
How did that even happen?
Noordin (08:44):
I think it's because when I first hung around, there
was the series of one shotsbeing played of different,
different indie games, which gotme more interested in indie
right from the beginning,because I realized I was playing
more with the type of peoplethat I wanted to, rather than,
you know, drop and drop out D&Dgame, which is more like not
(09:05):
really adventurous league, butkind of like adventurous league.
Right, you stick to a certainset of rules, the story is very
structured and you delve into it.
The indie games were more worldbuilding, they were more
intriguing and the more it gotinto that crowd, the more
realized this is what I wanted.
This is what I wanted.
So I started volunteering, youknow, for my local gaming
(09:28):
convention.
I ended up going to gettinglucky enough to volunteer at a
couple other conventions inother cities, including like
GenCon.
You know I volunteered forMagpie, I think in 2017 or 2018,
one of the two and at thatpoint now I was getting really
(09:48):
invested and this was before Ireally made contact.
I had technically contacts inthe games industry, but I didn't
utilize them.
I didn't ever realize that Iwas going to want to create
things, but eventually I created, I homebrewed a playbook for
one of my favorite games, UrbanShadows, back in the day, based
upon the gin which I the storiesI grew up with.
(10:11):
I called it the Concealed, andit was about.
Every single playbook has theircore.
It's not just a creature, it'sa story, right?
And the story of the Concealedplaybook was just about
displacement and being separatedfrom any kind of consistent
(10:33):
community, right.
It was about being in a worldin which you do not belong but
you are forced to pretend you do.
So it was very similar toalready like the other Urban
Shadows playbooks, but it wasdifferent in some way because
there was sort of an activenature in making sure you keep
up that masquerade, because ifyou didn't, you are something
(10:53):
new and unique.
People will use that and takeadvantage of you, and there are
certain moves I gave it thatallowed it to, and then it
realized oh, I can create things, Although I never published it
and don't think I ever will.
That is when the Domino's reallystarted to lead me to where I
am now, someone who does notjust play tabletop games,
performs in them in actual playsand podcasts and writes for
(11:17):
them and consults for them andhelps design them.
It was just like a series ofDomino's leading up to this
moment that all culminated intome being here and I think, most
recently, the things peopleprobably know me the most from
right now are from the podcastsMissing Any Lee and the Atomless
.
The Atomless is a Starfinderpodcast that's still active and,
(11:41):
you know, ready for juncture,blow in the backward hall
writing for into the motherlandsand, I think, most recently,
being this in one of thesensitivity consultants for
where will the apocalypse, fifthedition, which is a weird
circle.
It's one of those things wherethe moment you like really
invest in something is themoment you realize Okay, I can
(12:01):
keep on going and see where thisroad leads.
I can go down the EllabrickRoad or I can stop, and I never
chose to stop at any point.
I just kept going and I guessI'm here now.
Courtney (12:17):
Just looking at all of the projects that you've worked
on, like it's so impressive andI've just been it interesting
like how you've touched on somany different parts of the
process of all these projectswhere it's like you've designed,
you've written your own things,like you Consult with
sensitivity, consult,consultations, editing, you're
out all these podcasts, all ofthese actual plays.
Noordin (12:38):
I.
So I come way back when I camefrom the theater world where, if
you've ever done a theaterclass in a place that is not a
conservatory, you know thatyou're not just the actors,
that's not a thing.
You're also doing theproduction, you're doing the set
design, you're doing the stagemanagement.
You're learning every singlepiece of this big machine and I
(13:02):
have Been in that mindset eversince.
I kind of decided I'm going tocreate in TTRBG's and not just
enjoy them, because I like toknow as much as possible about a
thing.
It you learn a lot fromapproaching the same thing from
different angles, because whatyou do in an actual play or even
(13:22):
a podcast, those are differentfrom what how a person plays at
home.
Even if you're not likeintentionally playing to an
audience, you are aware of anaudience, right, if you are
writing something well now youknow that this is different than
writing for a book.
Or, you know, writing an essay,because you're creating
something that's intended to bebuilt on later.
It has to have enough Openendings that someone can make
(13:45):
something from it and feel likethey are doing something,
because that's important.
But also it's got to have acomplete enough narrative that
someone can drop it in at thedrop of the hat and it'll be
somewhat recognizable.
You know, an editor learns howmuch extraneous information is
out there what is useful, whatis not, and sometimes having
(14:09):
something that's not useful isStill a good thing.
It provides flavor.
Sometimes it isn't right.
Consulting teaches you a lotabout the real-life consequences
of what art is, and you may notlike the concept of tabletop
games being art.
The truth is, anything createdby human hands with the
intention to entertain is a formof art.
(14:30):
It's an art form.
All art has consequencesbecause all art is inherently
political, because all artaffects the minds of the people
who use it, not, like, in a mindcontrol way, but in a it makes
you think and if something makesyou think, it affects your mind
.
The realities of consultinglike teach you a lot about how
(14:51):
things can be misused in waysthat you do not expect and how
things can echo in the you knowfrom the real world in ways that
you did not intend and the waythat goes directly counter to
your game design.
It's actually one of the mostinteresting things about
consulting in general.
A lot of people regarded, as youknow, trying to not cause harm,
and this is true.
(15:11):
This is the thing we obviouslywe don't want to do that, but if
I Create a pathway down theroad and I intend for you to
take each path relativelyequally, but one path has a bias
that corresponds to humanactivity.
Ie, I Depict the goblins and Iwant some good goblins and some
(15:35):
bad goblins, but the goblins inthe real world Right, or the
stories we tell about goblins,often veer towards the evil.
You're more likely to pick theevil.
There's an inherent bias therethat goes directly counter to
what I need for my game design.
To make the goblins work inthis supposed game, I need you
to pick both relatively the sameamount, so I cannot just write
them equally.
(15:55):
I've got a favor the good alittle bit more to get that 5050
split consulting teaches youjust how common human biases in
that kind of situation and howthat can have, yes, human side
effects.
You can hurt people, but alsoit can really affect your game
design.
If you're not careful, you willget Circumstances that you did
(16:16):
not intend and I think you know.
Funnily enough, we're gonnatalk world of darkness for a
split second.
Keep in mind I've talked withthe brand team paradox.
I am under an NDA.
However, while some of thewriting from the those 90s books
is Rough and some of it leadsinto racial stereotypes and
(16:37):
cultural stereotypes and queerstereotypes and sexist
stereotypes the whole list thetruth is it was exacerbated by a
community that you know.
Double down on some of thosestereotypes.
That's not to say all of thatcommunity did.
There was, you know, pockets.
The world of darkness is wellknown for having a very diverse
(16:57):
background of enjoyers.
However, the bias does tend tolead to the worst
interpretations of some of thesepeople.
So if they're based upon realpeople, you end up creating a
sort of cyclical thing whereyou're not gonna get what you
want out of this supposedrepresentation.
You're only gonna get the worstversion if you're not careful,
(17:18):
which is led to unintendedconsequences.
Right, and if you will supportyour community.
Usually, like you take what theyhave taken from your material
and you canonize it or you makeit cool.
But if you do that and there'sreal human bias in there, what
you can do is accidentally justmake more racism, and that's
(17:38):
happened not just in the worldof darkness but in, like several
things where the communityfeedback is accidentally pushed
something into a worse placeBecause you know there's bias
there and there was noconsultants there to say hold on
, stop the train for a second.
What does this do to our game?
What does this mean about a kid?
(17:58):
What does this say about thegame itself, because it isn't
always equal.
Yeah, consultants taught me alot.
Basically and I'm going onconsultants taught me a lot
about the unintendedconsequences, and how can that?
That can really affect how yourgames played in the real world
consistently is, which isn'treally cool, really scary, but
(18:20):
really cool.
Courtney (18:23):
I would I talk about like the ideal scenario and then
maybe like the more commonscenario.
So the ideal scenario like atwhat point are you brought into
the project to do this?
Noordin (18:32):
consult like consultation the ideal dream
scenario is, you know when, whenthe flare gun is shot into the
air and the flags fall, at themoment someone presses go,
because, while it's still thatvery Loosely formatted
experience, I can start placingthe the warning flags down.
(18:54):
I can start saying, okay, thisis a cool idea, this is where it
can go off.
So if we push towards this, itwon't right.
So, for example, you come to meand you say I want to make a
game in which we all play reallycool kinds of goblins.
I'm like cool, that's actuallyreally cool.
Absolutely everyone plays agoblin.
However, it's worth noted that,worth noting that goblins can
(19:17):
fall into like anti-semiticarchetypes quite frequently.
So here's how we avoid this.
We avoid this by not makingthem necessarily greed mongers,
nor do we make them theunderpinnings of the society
that you know constantly leadthem straight.
We don't make them the ruinersof a nation.
We avoid those two things.
We're probably gonna end up onthe better side of this right.
(19:40):
Then, as the project goes along, I could help you check, I
could check in, you know, and wecan find out if, as the game
develops and grows, where arethe pain points, because maybe
you're like, okay, cool, maybethe goblins are all being mind
affected on the low-key level,right just underneath their
(20:00):
brains.
There's something affectingthem and that's a core part of
this game very cool.
However, now we're talkingabout player agency and we're
talking about the depiction ofhow mental illness can be
depicted in certain games.
So how do we correspond withthat?
Well, one, we give options inthe book for how this mind
control can cause A goblin toreact and we tell the players
(20:26):
that, when overly affected bythe whatever this is, these are
the options you can take.
So we pass the narrativecontrol back in their hands,
even if we limit their choices.
So they still feel like there'ssome control and they can.
If they really don't want anoutcome, they can find ways to
shift it to a different one.
In addition to that, we make itclear that this is not some
(20:49):
sort of mental illness.
Right, we don't use words likecrazed or Mad, and instead we
focus on what it is.
So if it's a voice, we can callit that, we can say the
whispers of the brain or whathave you, and we push it into
this entity realm instead of aActually, these are all mentally
(21:11):
ill realm, as we continue to do.
So we can say that we're notgoing to be able to do anything
about it.
Actually, these are allmentally ill realm.
As we continue on, eventuallyit's the end and then I do a
final read and at this point, ifI've been involved in the
project, what I'm clearing up islike word choices, some
(21:31):
spelling mistakes.
I'm an editor.
I cannot help it.
If you have me consulting onyour project and people who've
had music consultant they willknow this sometimes I just do a
spell check to I have to.
But you'll like I'll clean upwords like maybe you have an
off-handed reference to Like atype of knife that's used in
(21:54):
actual ritualistic practicestoday.
I'll be like maybe don't dothat, because that references
human culture and these aregoblins and we're only
referencing this once, so weDon't necessarily need it right
now.
You don't need this right.
Like.
You have a curious dagger Cool,but do we really need that?
Or can we call it like a riverwave dagger instead, because a
curious dagger has a specificpurpose.
(22:16):
If all is well, that's easy.
That part of the job even goingthrough a whole book Takes a
couple hours max.
I bang it out.
It's really simple stuff.
I don't have to like say allthis whole thing needs fixed.
It's fixing.
This whole paragraph needsfixing, because by that time
we've already, like, developed aculture of that best case
(22:37):
scenario.
Overall, you're, we're allsaving time here, right?
The worst case scenario is I'mbrought in right at the end
Often and this has happened inone case during the layout
process.
By the way, there's been somedebate about this on the online
once in a while.
Please don't make your writerswrite in layout Right first,
(23:00):
then put it into layout.
That is what layout is for,because I know this seems cruel
or it may seem like a direct,like a sub to.
It's not.
I've seen it happen a couple oftimes across games, cross
companies and I've been broughtin to fix things as they have
been in the layout.
It is a nightmare, because nowI'm very limited in word count.
(23:22):
I cannot get rid of too much,so if there's a whole paragraph
of something wrong, I cannotjust remove it.
I can't take it out wholesaleand say, well, honestly, you've
never needed it in the firstplace, even if you didn't,
because now there's a big oldgap on the page and something's
got to fill it and you're nothiring me as a writer, so either
I'm doing something that is notmy job or I'm trusting you to
(23:46):
fix it without any guidance,because I don't have any
guidance for a paragraph thatwas never needed Right, even the
more macro, like I've got topick word changes.
If there's a word that needschanging or phrase that needs
changing, I've got to picksomething that's roughly the
same in letters.
It can get really, reallyannoying and on the writer side,
(24:07):
how much belongs on a page is athing that has tortured every
writer's brain from the dawn oftime.
Please don't make us do thatthe day of, because then we're
trying to make word choices thatcorrespond to how well it fits
in a page and not necessarilyhow it fits with the narrative
of what we're trying toaccomplish or with the game, and
(24:29):
that means sometimes we'repicking the worst words because
they're the ones with the rightletters.
It's a layout is a differentjob.
It's just a different job toput it later.
But yeah, that's the worst casescenario and at that point, yes
, the layout is alreadystressful.
But also, if no consultant'sbeen involved and I'm not been
involved, I have no idea whatyour references are, because in
(24:52):
the beginning we talked aboutthat goblin game and you listed
some references.
I don't know what they were,but you listed some great
references and some heavyreferences and I'm like I can
double check these and see wherethey went wrong.
I can use that to inform.
By the time we've gotten tothis part.
We're reaching the end.
No consultant's been involvedand maybe you've had several
writers on your project.
Who's to know what all of theirreferences are, what your
(25:14):
references are?
So I'm doing this from scratchand there may be huge parts that
could delve into very dangerousterritory or does not engender
the gameplay you want, because,let's say, we have that sort of
the voices towards ruin right,that concept underneath the
(25:36):
goblin's brain.
There are voices towards ruinIn general, they're cursed with
this, whatever.
Also, curses are dangerous.
Ignore this, I'm doing this onthe fly, but we settle on that.
Let's say that you wrote itwithout my consultation.
It's quite possible you mightcall it the underlying madness.
And now suddenly you haveaccidentally caused your player
(26:02):
base to try and portray madmental illness in a way that you
did not want, did not intendand is now massively much harder
to fix, because I can changethe name and, depending upon
what words you used in theparagraphs, you may need a
wholesale rewrite and that, tobe clear, that has happened.
(26:24):
I've absolutely and I'm notgoing to declare who one of the
biggest things as a consultant,I kind of take my job seriously,
whether there's an NDA or not.
I don't talk about specificthings have changed or not
changed for a reason Because I'mnot in the business of trying
to make people look bad and I'mnot in the business of trying to
make people look good.
I don't really advertise forprojects I consult on either.
(26:46):
I just do the work and then Iwalk away and I get paid for it,
because, ultimately, it is verycondensed to my job.
That protects me and itprotects you.
In any case, though, I haveabsolutely, in a couple of cases
, gone back and said so thiswhole page, this whole section,
(27:08):
is not just deeply problematic,but will cause some inherent
problems in the way this isportrayed in your game.
Is this something you want?
Because if it is, then we needto have a talk about how to do
it safer, and if it's not, thenyou're going to have to do a
wholesale rewrite, and I cangive you guidelines, I can tell
you what words to avoid, but weboth know that now we're racing
(27:30):
towards publication.
We're near in the end,deadline's coming up.
I do this.
The writing is not going to beas good, the rewrite is not
going to be as impactful,whatever it was, because
ultimately I'm telling you torush something because you made
a mistake that you didn't needto make to begin with.
(27:50):
That's, I think, the biggestthing about not getting a
variety of consultants from theget-go, or not getting a
consultant from the get-go Evenat a generic sensitivity
consultant who is at least awareof multiple different issues in
multiple different communities,because ultimately it doesn't
just make more work for me onthe back end, it makes more work
for you too.
To correct things makes morework for you.
(28:14):
To that degree, it also meansthat you may have to get rid of
something, rebrand something.
You may have to rip up thefirst print you made.
I don't want to have to makeyou do that.
I don't want to even have tosuggest that you do that,
especially because I know thechance of some of that happening
is practically nil.
(28:34):
Anyways, I'd prefer it mostlydone by the time I get there or
I'd be there throughout, so thatwe're not in this position
where we are trying to rush fixsomething or we are trying to
dramatically change something atthe 11th hour.
It isn't good for the product,for the company, for me it's
just not good.
I can do it, I've done it.
(28:56):
Most of my projects are likethat, to be honest, not in
layout, thank God, but justbefore.
Most of what I've done is inthat era.
However, no matter how good Iam at finding the word, choice,
replacements, makingrecommendations, doing rewrites,
believe it or not, there aretimes where you've read my
writing in the words of someoneelse, because I try to match
(29:19):
their style as much as possible,because I know it's a sentence,
and at that point I might aswell just push it out there.
No matter what, it's not goingto be as seamless as it would
have been had I been involvedfrom the beginning or had a
sensitivity consultant or anyconsultant been involved from
the beginning.
If this was handled sensitivelyfrom the get-go, it would,
(29:40):
overall, be a better product.
No matter how good I fix it,it's not fun for anyone.
Courtney (29:48):
Yeah, it is a lot of work to do and I feel like a lot
of headaches for a lot ofpeople.
Noordin (29:55):
Yeah, I apologize, by the way, for going on, it's just
a lot.
It's a lot of stuff.
Courtney (30:02):
Oh please.
I have so many follow-upquestions I'm deciding which one
to ask, okay, so I'm actuallyprobably going to be a little
selfish in this question.
So let's say that you're workingon a project, I don't know,
maybe as a project manager in mycase and you need to find a
(30:22):
sensitivity consultant, butyou're not sure of what area to
have that person specializing in, because I know obviously if
you're writing about differentcultures, you want to find
someone that is going to be ableto consult on those specific
cultures, but if it's more of ageneric thing, then it's like
how do you decide what kind ofconsultant you're looking for?
Noordin (30:44):
Well, I mean, the first thing is you can pitch it to
several and you can see whoresponds.
I am a person who, thanks tohaving a very diasporic
background, I'm connected toseveral different cultures, all
of which I know because they aremy own too or they're very
closely related to me or I havea literal family member I can
call up.
(31:05):
People often ask how do youknow so much about, like you
know, hinduism?
I'm like there are people whohave been practicing Hinduism in
my family as they'retechnically family friends, but
they are family to me, as in.
I can go to their housetomorrow and cry and they will
pat me better and feed me forthree weeks.
They're in London so that wouldbe hard, but I could for
(31:28):
literally several generationsand they have taught me things
in their own personal experience.
They have partially raised meright, so you can talk to
someone for all you know.
They might check all your boxes, but the more likely scenario
is you come to someone like meand you're like there's a whole
list of stuff in here.
There's a whole lot ofreferences.
I'm not even sure where I couldbe going wrong.
(31:50):
I just know that I want tocover my bases.
Usually at that point, someonelike me breath or no breath will
look over it and will be ableto pinpoint where they are
lacking, if they are lacking,and so they'll say, okay, I can
cover you generically, I cancover the basic beats and I can
direct you to this, this andthis person, or I.
(32:11):
In some cases, some consultantswork as a group, like if you
ever worked with Leon and MapleConsulting, who also worked on
Werewolf, it's not just Leona,it's a couple other people who
work with Leona in ways thatsupport her and in ways that at
times they're doing fantasticwork on their own to make sure
that all the gaps are covered.
So you could find that you'retalking to a conglomerate, you
(32:34):
could find that you're talkingto someone like me and if I'm
lacking there are times in whichI am I will direct you to
people or I will say, if you'dlike, I can get their names and
you can credit them, or they candecide if they want to be
credited and I'll conduct that.
I'll ask the outrageousquestions.
There's a few cases, very nichecases, in which it is very
(32:55):
generic stuff.
It's more like a genericsensitivity, more like am I
hurting anyone here or am Ibeing ableist here Because I'm a
disabled person.
So I tend to see whereaccessibility issues go wrong
and in those cases if there'slike a really niche thing, I
might just ask my phone a friendif I'm like concerned about
something.
(33:15):
So if there's someanti-Semitism that I'm
suspecting, I'm not Jewish, Ihave very little connection to
Judaism, I mean culturally,religiously, islam, complicated
situation but I have friends Ican call up and I will, and I'll
be like okay, I'm suspectingthis, how does this read to you?
And once you know, I'll get ananswer back from them.
(33:36):
I'll have an answer for you.
Honestly, consultants in general, none of us work alone and none
of us don't know someone else.
So shoot your shot, talk to me,talk to you know a consulting
industry, and we'll get back toyou with the best course of
action.
We are not afraid to call andhelp.
(33:57):
That's not something we'reafraid to do.
And if it comes down to it,it's not like you're going to
pay more in money overall.
Because if I'm saying you'relike we're getting 10 hours of
consulting and I say I'm goingto take eight and I'm going to
give two to this one over here,whoever this person is, well, it
works out the same for you.
You're just putting an extraname in the credit sheet or
(34:20):
you're referencing an extra name, you know, on your website.
It's not much work at all.
The basic goal I would say isjust have an idea of where you
think you might go wrong, definewhere your biggest fears are
and have that ready as part ofyour like pitch of what this is,
because that'll help someonelike me pinpoint better, which
(34:44):
is always handy.
Courtney (34:46):
I think that makes a lot of sense and like, okay, can
I be talking to you about it,this recording.
But to get back into just someof the things that I'd love to
know is like how you likeactually got started in this
consultation.
You know like at what point,because I know you were.
I think you said earlier thatyour first dabbling was like
(35:07):
with writing yourself and thenit didn't get published.
And then at some point you gotinto publishing and you know, at
some point all these thingsstarted, all these things like
start.
Noordin (35:17):
Consulting was very much a.
I have multiple backgrounds.
Someone called me in becausethey knew I had the right
backgrounds and I was interested.
Thinking about consult, doingsome consulting work was we were
all low on funds at some pointin our life and I said, okay,
I'll do my best.
And then that one credit was onand that one credit was all I
(35:41):
needed to talk to other peoplein the industry, get their
support and, overall, build fromthere.
That said, technically speaking,it did start earlier and that
was thanks to the Asiansrepresenting over on their
YouTube channel.
They streamed it actually, soyou'll find on Twitch too, but
on their YouTube channel you'llfind, like the Asians read sort
(36:02):
of collection of videos.
There was one called criticalread, al-qadim critical read, of
course, because it's not justAsians in that case, there's
also some North Africanrepresentation, because Al-Qadim
is Swana, it's Southwest Asian,north African in essence and it
gathered a bunch of us togetherto talk about this very old
(36:22):
book D&D made and where it notonly went wrong but where it
could have been much cooler hadthey had the right people to let
them know how it could be cool.
In addition to that, I helped,we did.
It was a bit of a like a joke,but we did Kindred of the East,
which was objectively bad.
No one thinks that was a goodbook for one episode and I've
(36:43):
been on their YouTube channeland their streams a couple of
times here and there.
I used to moderate for them aswell, which is how I have an any
.
Out of all the things to havean any for.
I'm very proud of that.
I helped moderate their Discord, their Twitch.
I was part of the team and thuswhen they were not, they won an
any.
I also received an any.
I have a medal.
(37:04):
It sits beside me.
I've never worn it out, butthat taught me alone how to
critically examine a piece oftext, not only from my cultural
backgrounds, but also from agreater.
How is this fun?
How is this playable?
How is this made interesting?
Narrative that helped me likereally define how my consulting
(37:26):
works.
If it wasn't for that, I don'tknow if I would have gotten to
like truly written wordconsulting at all, and I owe a
lot to the Fox stationsrepresent.
They mean a lot to me.
Courtney (37:37):
I think that's really cool, that I really did get
started with.
Someone approached you to saylike hey, you know, can you take
a look at this?
And that it was just took onecredit.
And then, like you're able tohave that, like standing to say
hey, I've done this before, Likelet me help you.
Noordin (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's always been a learning process.
I'll definitely say that fromthe get go.
One credit is not enough toteach you everything you need to
know, but it is enough to liketo walk yourself in a door and
realize is this something thatyou can stand doing for a long
period of time or not?
Because I'm not going to lie,no matter what that first credit
(38:14):
is, it could be, I've doneeverything from like a game
about hamsters Well, actually Iwas an adventure about hamsters,
but still to you know some somereally tough stuff.
Where Wolf was tough and Ifreely admitted that In fact the
team knows that I had it it wasgoing to be tough.
I said that when they firsthired me.
Like this is going to be tough.
(38:34):
I've done the whole range.
No matter what it is, you'regoing to learn a lot about your
capabilities and if you'recomfortable growing those
capabilities or if you'recomfortable stopping and that's
the most important thing I'drecommend working alongside
another consultant if you everhave the opportunity.
I wish there was more ways forlike consultants to work in
(38:54):
tandem on a project so you couldteach someone as they make
choices right and help supportthem in finding their best voice
, to voice concerns and to voicefeedback and to develop their
own style.
If you have someone like me, myconsulting always comes from a
place of play, so I'm alwaysthinking about okay, how can I
(39:15):
make this playable to the mostamount of people?
Because I think that's a coreconcept of most games,
especially if forgive me, if youwant to sell your game, you
want to have a big player base.
How can we do that withoutnecessarily changing the
narrative of what this is?
What can we do to encouragepeople who maybe wouldn't
necessarily engage with thiscontent before, to feel like
(39:36):
they could be supported by it?
And thus I do a lot of researchin my spare time.
There was a time recently whereI was looking up a bunch of
things that could spin webs forour project, and I learned a lot
.
So many things can spin websbecause spiders are a common
trigger for a lot of people,right?
So, okay, you want somethingthat spins webs and maybe it's a
(39:58):
spider cannon base.
It's a spider.
Can we suggest other things,other things for your table to
take it, so that we don'tnecessarily have to use a spider
?
They could use a mollusk Ifit's using its webs to attach
itself to something like a bigold trap.
It could be a mollusk, it couldbe a muscle, right.
(40:18):
But if it's like trying tococoon itself, protect itself
with its webs, then you're maybelooking like a silkworm.
It's tons of stuff you can do.
It's fun.
That's the weirdest, mostspecific example I've ever given
in my life, but that's thepoint, right.
(40:39):
My style involves a lot oftrying to make things as
playable as possible and reallyrepresenting the kind of
supportive play I want to seemore.
We all have styles asconsultants, all individual,
unique styles.
They're beautiful things, but Ido wish I had more support and
that one credit, though it gotme through the door and this is
like the beginning of theindustry really.
(41:01):
The one credit if I had a bitmore support during that one
credit, if I felt more supportedduring that one credit by
having someone there who I couldbounce off of the entire time I
don't know, maybe it would havebeen a bit easier for me to
completely transition that over.
But I'm not in a hurry to dealwith it, don't get me wrong.
Clearly, the doors have opened,but it was tough going in the
(41:22):
beginning.
I didn't know if I could reallydo this.
Took me a while to accept thatI could Took me more than one
credit to do that.
Courtney (41:29):
I think that totally makes sense.
It's always hard when you'redoing something new and there's
that whole imposter syndrome on,like I think I know what I'm
doing, but do I really?
I know that that is definitelya struggle.
Noordin (41:44):
Yeah, what is actually useful information?
What is not?
How do I say this?
I think I need to say this howdo I say this?
That's a question that I had alot starting up, and your answer
differs, by the way, dependingupon what consultant you work
with.
To be honest, we all phrasethings differently.
But how do I say this Is aquestion that I feel like we
(42:05):
should have more support to newconsultants.
To give that answer to Right,you can't.
Unfortunately, this is it's ajob.
You can't just say you fuckedup, fix it.
That's not enough.
No one can do anything withthat, and it's not.
It doesn't put people in theright position to listen.
So my suggestion is always okay, what is the situation?
(42:30):
Offer a resolution right off theget.
Go and talk about why theresolution would support their
version of play a little bitbetter than what they had
initially.
Because, yes, it's, it could beharmful, and you should say
that it's harmful, butultimately they're making a game
.
So phrase things in a way thata game creator would understand,
(42:52):
that a game master wouldunderstand, because that's
immediately going to get themunderstanding what you're trying
to say a lot quicker than justgoing down a history path.
Don't get me wrong.
I love history.
I'm a history nerd.
I work in history courses inactual university.
I look it up on my spare time.
There's a lot of folks who, ifyou just inundate them with
(43:12):
detail, it's going to overwhelmthem rather than encourage them
to listen.
And part of a consultant's job,as tough as it is, is to
encourage people to listen andto speak to them on their level,
not necessarily on the levelyou want them to be.
Courtney (43:29):
Hey, entrepreneurs, I love introducing you to new
creators every episode, but Icould really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page, where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content.
Add your questions to upcominginterviews and you could even
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
To learn more, go tolightheartadventurescom.
Slash RPG.
(43:49):
And now back to the show.
What advice would you have forsomeone that is newer to
consulting and they are workingwith us game designer and the
designer is just being reallyresistant to what they're saying
.
Noordin (44:08):
Okay so far.
How have you phrased things?
Is it worth trying to do it adifferent way?
This is my secret.
If you've worked with me before, close your ears.
You don't need to hear this.
Tell them about how this isgonna affect their bottom line.
Be blunt about it, legitimately.
I've worked with big companies,so, and I've worked with
smaller companies too, who wantto be bigger Financially.
(44:32):
If you tell them this is bad foryour brand and you explain why,
it may reach the right people alittle bit more, because even
if the game designer themselvesis really conducive to your
feedback, if there's a producerinvolved, that isn't that's how
you convince them, becauseyou're not necessarily talking
to the person who's gonna makethe edits to begin with.
Sometimes you're talking justto a creative, if that's proving
(44:57):
difficult.
If you're going up all thesesteps and they just like I don't
really want that's core, that'score Legitimately.
It seems like a waste, but it'smore worth in the long run.
Seith, I'm happy to return yourcash.
Please take my name off theproject and walk away, because
sometimes it sucks, butsometimes it's genuinely not
(45:20):
worth your sanity, and I saythat very firmly.
It's not worth your sanity fora couple hundred dollars.
Don't get me wrong.
I know what it's like todesperately need that in your
wallet.
I've lived it and some days Istill do.
It's still not worth your peaceof mind, your sanity, and not
(45:42):
worth the effect that has onyour overall ability to continue
down the path, because ifsomeone is not going to listen
to you, sometimes the only thingthat will shake them awake is
the reality that eventually youwill stop supporting them.
You will walk away, and nomoney is worth that that might
get them to listen.
And even if it doesn't, atleast it's no longer your fault,
(46:02):
because ultimately and this isthe thing that I've said to, I'm
saying it to myself too nomatter what a game releases, as
no matter how much hard work youput into it, no matter what you
try to say, ultimately it isnot your responsibility at all.
(46:22):
If they put out a game that isharmful, that's not your
responsibility.
If they put out a game thatdidn't listen to you, not your
responsibility.
If they put out a game thatthey did listen to you sometimes
didn't other times.
Now they're getting called outfor not your responsibility,
it's not.
You did the best you could.
Now you're done.
(46:43):
Walk away, because ultimatelyspeaking, and this is the
suckiest bit.
This is the reason why I don'toften love consulting, even when
I do it.
You're not the creative here,and sometimes people create bad
things.
Truth be told, the vastmajority of art in the world
that has ever been created hasbeen bad to some degree or
(47:04):
another.
It's normal.
The reason why we don't talkabout them much is because a lot
of that bad artwork doesn'tsurvive to this day.
But most art is bad or averageor middling.
It is not your responsibilityto make them better at their art
form, especially if they willnot listen.
It is not your responsibilityto fix everything for them.
You are not their patron northeir parent.
(47:26):
You are just an employeecontractor.
Do your work.
Do your work to the best ofyour ability if you can, and
then set it aside, becauseultimately that's all you can do
.
Courtney (47:40):
That is such good advice but also going to be very
hard to hear for.
Noordin (47:46):
Oh, it's hard to hear from me.
Do you know how many times I'veread something and been like I
could have done that better?
Maybe if I said it like this,maybe if I worded it like this,
maybe if I impressed upon them.
It's so easy to get in yourhead, but you're not the one
making the final marks, you'rejust not.
(48:06):
So ultimately it ain't on youand it sucks, man, I don't know.
Maybe I think a lot ofcreatives in general, they have
some level of desire to control,and I think that's where it
comes from, not in a bad way,but I wish I could control this
so I could make it work right.
(48:27):
But the truth is, if you could,then it'd be your project mate,
not theirs.
You wouldn't be the one beingpaid to consult this.
You'd be hiring a consultant.
Your job's different.
Courtney (48:45):
Honestly, that's so applicable to so many different
parts of being involved in aproject.
Oh yeah, if you're not the mainperson in charge, it doesn't
really matter what part of it isthat you're doing.
I think this is good advicethat we should all be taking to
heart.
Noordin (49:02):
The nature of capitalism and the gig economy
is ultimately yeah, but it isnot just about consulting.
If you're writing downsomething and your writing is
changed, it ain't on you.
It's not your fault.
If you're in a project andaccidentally during the project,
a hose breaks, but you weren'tresponsible for the hose like
(49:25):
we're talking like a physicalmachinery thing and you weren't
responsible for the maintenanceof the project or the surveying
of that hose, it ain't on you.
If you were responsible for thesurveying of that hose and you
told them the hose needsreplacing and they didn't change
it, it ain't on you.
It sucks, god it sucks.
(49:46):
But yeah, it's applicable forpractically anything.
That doesn't mean pass the buck.
Please don't do that.
Please don't be like nothing'smy responsibility, nothing.
I'm free.
If you tried and it stilldidn't work out, then it ain't
on you.
You do got to do the try bit,though that is part of the job.
If you do your job and you didtry to fix it and it couldn't
(50:11):
work for circumstances out ofcontrol, it's out of your
control.
I feel like I'm telling yousomething that you needed to
hear right now.
I don't blame you for that.
Courtney (50:23):
I mean, I think we all need to hear it.
It is what it is.
Yeah, like all right, well, Iknow what my soundbites going to
be.
Okay, well, gosh, I know wehaven't really had a chance to
dig into some of the other stuffthat you've really worked on as
much, which means that, frankly, I'm just going to have to
(50:44):
bring you back later to talkabout all of your actual plays.
Noordin (50:49):
Of course, of course.
Courtney (50:51):
I think we've definitely touched on what some
of the challenges are with beinga consultant, but I do want to
also just take a moment toreflect on what it is that you
love about the work that you do.
What, would you say, is some ofthe more rewarding parts of
this?
Noordin (51:08):
Oh yeah, I'm going to speak in both general terms and
specific terms.
One of the specific terms of itis part of being a consultant
is knowing that you fixsomething.
Only you and the people who sawyour notes will ever know that
it was you.
But there is something reallyproudful when you're like I
looked at the mountain, I saidmove, and it did.
(51:32):
It's a bit sadistic, sure, butit's really satisfying because
you made a mountain move.
Absorb that, Take it in.
I like to do that, Even if I'm,at the end of the day, I'm not
a huge fan of the result or Icould have done that better.
I always try to remember wheredid I make the mountain move,
(51:53):
Especially if it was tough.
Where did I make the mountainmove?
Because it reminds you whatyou're doing this for.
You're doing this because youcan make a mountain move.
In the writer's sense, one ofthe most satisfying things is
honestly, just growing.
Junksha Blund, the banquet hall.
The first thing I wrote was ofCheyenne Sikabab, which was a
(52:15):
scenario for Junksha, which, bythe way, if you're wondering why
it was never on the Kickstarter, that's because I was hired
after the Kickstarter.
There was a debate not a debate, not like internal debate but
there was.
We didn't know if I wasactually going to make it into
the printed book on time.
I did, thank goodness, just hitthe wire, but we didn't know
(52:38):
for certain.
When I look on back on thatproject, there's a lot of things
I like about it.
There are some things where I Iwas like I soften that too much
.
I would have gotten harderright.
Or like I would have fixed thispart, I would have rewritten
this part to evoke something abit more sincere, right, and I
(52:59):
have that with every projectI've worked on now, and that's
one of the.
You see yourself grow in realtime.
Not because your former work isbad.
I don't think of that as bad.
Any work I've done is trulyawful, but I do think of it as
ah, here's a risk I wanted totake that I didn't.
Or here's how I'd phrase thisnow to better evoke what I'm
feeling.
Or here this is where I couldhave cut this sentence and put
(53:21):
the sentence I really wanted toput in instead.
This wasn't as necessary as Ithought it was.
You learn a lot from yourprevious works, which is funny.
I don't like watching my actualplays as much or listening to
my voice as much, but I do lovereading my own writing and
editing it as I grow.
The other thing is you createdsomething and you put it on a
(53:42):
piece of paper and other peopleare going to use it and build
off of it.
It's going to mean something tothem, right?
I was a young kid and I readthese World of Darkness books in
my room alone not really in myroom alone.
Often I read them in libraries.
I did not have the money In afew places where you could find
them in libraries harder now,but also, like you know, online
(54:02):
resources eventually, Legally,of course, I read them in.
Some parts of them meantsomething to me.
I thought this was cool, thiswas applicable.
Mage is one of the coolestthings I've ever seen because it
really is just hey, this is agame in which you were
constantly negotiating with yourGM about how much power you
(54:23):
should be able to wield withjust the spheres you have in
hand.
Really cool stuff.
There's some nifty concepts,and all of that stuff has meant
something to me as both adesigner, a writer, but also
just as someone who likesplaying with their imagination.
It meant something to me.
I've built off of those things.
I've not just played in anactual play in front of you.
(54:44):
I've also had that inspire myactual, real-life work, and not
just actual play stuff ortabletop stuff, but your fiction
books, comic books, non-fictionAll of that has meant something
to me.
It's inspired me.
Some other person, whoever wrotethose various little bits and
pieces, should feel very proudbecause they inspired a me to do
(55:10):
stuff.
Likewise, if you've writtenanything, you should feel very
proud if it's in full publicview because you inspired
someone to do something with it.
I guarantee you there's atleast one out there.
Think about it for a second.
How many times does yourscribbling affect even one
(55:31):
person to their very core?
Can you say that regularly?
No, probably not, but you'vedone that.
Damn, that's impressive.
Also, it's just fun.
It's rewarding because it's fun.
It's fun to play with yourimagination.
I wish more people did it.
We have such great imaginationsas human beings.
Take advantage of it.
Courtney (55:52):
It puts me in mind of the concept of every time
traveling story out there.
It's that whole.
If you go back in time, youhave to be careful that you
don't affect the timeline.
It's like we put so muchemphasis on someone from the
future is impacting the timelinebut we never put any emphasis
(56:12):
on we can affect the future justas we are right now.
Noordin (56:16):
All human beings do that.
This is important to mention.
I practice a religion and Ihave faith.
What that means, maybe not theplace for it, but one of the
core concepts of how I expressmy faith.
This is not necessarily allMuslims, it's just me, not just
me, but it's core to me is thatwe, as human beings, were given
(56:42):
the power to have free will.
There's some debate about that,actually, amongst some Sufis
and some others in the faith.
If it was given to us or if wechose it.
Whatever the case, we have freewill.
We can shape the earth in waysthat very few other creatures
can, and we can do sointelligently and consistently
(57:02):
and in ways against our verynature.
We could shape the world tooill if we wanted to
intentionally, and some do.
That is an immenseresponsibility and that means,
no matter how small you are, youare shaping the world around
you.
I'd say that, knowing thatthere's some person who's
(57:22):
probably listened to this, whomostly works as a burger flipper
and keep in mind I've worked ata Licks home burgers and
flipped burgers.
That has been a thing I've done.
I'm not affecting the world,but you are.
You are.
Something you have said haslikely resonated with somebody
else and that person has usedthat in their daily practice and
(57:43):
, who knows, maybe they'll passit on and eventually goes up the
chain.
We all have an effect.
That's the core truth of thematter.
Some people might have agreater effect because of
privilege, because ofcircumstance, but that doesn't
mean that even the smallest ofus doesn't have an effect.
It does mean that we both haveresponsibility, of course, and
(58:04):
that's important.
We also have a superpower.
We shape the world around us,every single one of us, every
day.
It's funny that you bring up,like the future, some person in
the future, because think aboutit for a second Often the
weirdest result of that is thatthey go back in time, they kill
(58:24):
someone insignificant or savethe life of someone
theoretically insignificant, andthen everything on earth
changes.
You didn't expect it to happenthat way.
Right, it isn't just the bigpeople, the big names, the ones
we remember in scorn or in joyhundreds or thousands of years
(58:45):
later.
It is every single individualthat is behind that person, that
brought them to that point, andthe loss of one of those
individuals, the loss of theability to shape from one of
those individuals, may mean thatthat individual that we talk
about the one that we score, theone that we speak of with joy.
That person may not existanymore.
(59:08):
If that one person way down thechain the one burger flipper
like me, the one writer, the oneproject manager didn't have an
effect, if that person justdidn't come into work today, we
may not have had the big thing.
It's not necessarily I'mtelling you that you as an
individual are responsible forcleaning up climate change,
because that's bullshit.
(59:28):
I am saying that you are moreresponsible for the greater
things that happen in the worldthan you think.
Not in a way that would meansomething necessarily to you,
which sucks, but in a way thatmeans something to other people
around you and that's meaningful, also a bit scary, cool, but
(59:49):
terrifying.
Courtney (59:51):
I feel like you are leaving us with a lot to think
about Noreen.
Noordin (59:55):
I'm so sorry.
I do that all the time oh no, Isay that as like.
Courtney (59:59):
this has been absolutely amazing, and I wish
that I could talk to you forseveral more hours.
Noordin (01:00:07):
The truth is at my core .
I'm a very philosophical person.
I think about this.
I know this seems like I'mcoming up with quotes for a
podcast.
I think about this stuff daily.
I thought about this last night, in the middle of the night, in
the middle of a colonialBritish fort in Canada, which is
, you know, weird.
(01:00:28):
That's weird.
I think about it incessantly.
But that's not to say youshould.
It's just to say that I thinkthat sometimes the big questions
are the fun ones.
Might as well ask them.
Who knows what shows up.
But also, what's the point ofdoing stuff like this?
I'm not here to promoteanything.
What else am I going to do?
(01:00:49):
Tell you some boring stuff.
I was born in Toronto, in MountSinai Hospital Super exciting,
huh.
Ask the big questions, get thebig answers.
Courtney (01:01:03):
Well, if people do want to find you and find all of
the projects that you areworking on right now, where
should they go?
Noordin (01:01:11):
They cannot.
They cannot do that.
I am actually a hidden whisperin the wind.
So you've got to take a leafand you've got to write down
something that's meaningful toyou and place that in the note.
Now you can just find at wherewe'll feels.
I don't know why I did that.
On social media.
Sometimes I do things and it'sjust.
(01:01:32):
I am more whimsical than I'dlike.
At where we'll feels in socialmedia is usually where I update
on projects I'm doing.
Keep in mind I'm sporadicallyon projects.
I'm not on as many things aspeople think it is.
Yes, I have a long list ofcredits.
I've been on for years, sosometimes I may not promote
anything at all and it may justbe like sad in public or maybe
(01:01:55):
philosophical in public, or Imay just talk about how I had a
great Coke Zero.
But if you're not interested infollowing my social day-to-day
nonsense, you can keep an eye onNourdin Ali Kedircarrdco and
that's where I just post thelinks, as I am allowed to post
(01:02:16):
them.
I keep it updated once a month.
That's the most I can manage.
But you'll find things to clickon there and if you're ever
curious about something, you canalways shoot me an email,
nourdin Ali Kedir at gmailcom.
That is how most people contactme and that's how I will reply
to almost anything, so long asit's not ridiculous.
If it takes a while for me toreply to you, it's probably
(01:02:38):
because I am drowning insomething.
I will get there.
I will get back to you.
If it's emergent, let me know,tell me a time frame, but
honestly, the best thing you cando is to check out the various
projects that I'm on that youknow.
I'm on, like the Atomless orMissing Any Lee or Villains a
(01:03:00):
Vampire, the Masquerade campaigncoming out on Carion Comfort in
October.
I don't know when this is goingto be released, but I'm
assuming it's around that time.
It's either already released orit's in the process of being
released or it's about torelease, and that means you can
engage with it.
I'm only in one episode.
It's episode 11.
(01:03:21):
I'm scary.
I will say that I play astraight up villain, as is the
name, but it's also one of themost fun times I've ever had
working with Leslie and Wes,where it was great.
The Atomless will find meplaying in a frit that people
really want, if I'm being honestwith myself, to bang, and
(01:03:43):
obviously I appear in many otherthings.
I know a lot of people stillknow me for Missing Any Lee,
which is a project I enjoygreatly.
If you want to catch up with mywriting, watch out for Into the
Motherlands it's coming in 2024.
And keep an eye out for theVineyard, which will be coming
out, I think, in 2024 as well,which I'm actually in the
process of doing some drafts onright now, and other than that,
(01:04:06):
I think everything has beenreleased already, I think, so it
should be good.
Yeah, that about covers it.
Long list.
Courtney (01:04:15):
Well, you do a lot of things.
Noordin (01:04:18):
Sure.
Courtney (01:04:18):
So, yeah, I will make sure that I've got links to your
card page.
Some of your other projectsthat are current up on the show
notes Aw, thank you.
Well, at this point I am goingto wrap up the interview portion
of this recording.
So, listeners, if you areinterested, after I stop
recording I'm going toimmediately start recording
(01:04:41):
again and go into a fun,patron-only quick question blitz
where I've got 10 questionsthat I will be asking Noordin
and patrons will be able to hearthis exclusively over on
Patreon.
Just look for a roll Play grow.
We've got some silly questions.
Some are gaming related, someare not, and it's always a good
time.
Noordin (01:05:00):
Looking forward to it.
Courtney (01:05:01):
But thank you again so much for coming on the show
today.
This has been a wonderfulconversation.
Noordin (01:05:06):
Hey, I love talking shop incessant.
No one talks to me about shopenough.
Talk to me about shop.
Get in the weeds with me.
It's fun.
Courtney (01:05:19):
You just finished another episode of roll play
grow.
To check out the show notes andtranscript from today's episode
, you can go tolightheartadventures.
com/rpg.
To keep up with every episode.
Please subscribe on yourpodcast player of choice and, if
you're enjoying the show, Iwould absolutely love if you
would leave me a review andshare this episode with your
(01:05:40):
friends.
Your review might even getfeatured on an upcoming episode.
To contact us, you can emailrollplaygrow@ gmail.
com.
There are a lot of social mediasites out there right now, so
look for roll play grow for theshow account and look for either
Ketra or Ketra RPG for myaccounts and Dungeon Glitch for
(01:06:00):
Matt's accounts.
Lastly, I want to give aspecial shout out to our editor,
sam Atkinson.
Your help is always appreciated, sam.
Thank you all so much forlistening and I'll see you next
time on roll play grow.
Hello and welcome to Roll Play Grow, the podcast for
tabletop entrepreneurs, creatorsand fans.
In this show, we dig intoprocesses, challenges, tips and
really look at how to grow abusiness in the tabletop
role-play gaming space.
Sit back and join in as welearn from the creators behind
your favorite brands about whothey are and how they are
turning their passion for gaminginto a career.
(00:29):
Today's guest is someone whohas worked in so many different
aspects of the TTRPG community,including writing, game design,
editing, sensitivity consultingand performing in several actual
plays Noordin Ali Kadir.
Most of our conversation todaywas centered on Noordin's
consulting work, and he goesinto the importance of bringing
in a sensitivity consultant fromthe beginning of a project and
(00:50):
how much your sources impactyour writing and your games.
It was a very insightfulconversation and definitely gave
me a lot to think about.
I know that y'all are going toenjoy this conversation
immensely, but before we getinto the interview, I have an
update for you all on Burnaway.
Those of you who have beenaround for a while may remember
that I am the project managerfor an upcoming TTRPG called
(01:12):
Burnaway.
Essentially, the players are agroup of mercenaries hired to
confront Embergeists, which arespirits that are so upset about
something that their ectoplasmcombusts.
You have to either exercisethem or placate them, which is
where you find clues in theburning building that you are
exploring, to figure out whothey are, why they are upset,
and convince them to leave.
(01:33):
It's a really fun game, meantfor short campaigns that will be
coming back to Kickstarter onOctober 3rd.
We did try to fund it back inthe spring but due to a lot of
factors, it didn't work out.
The first time we have revampedthe Kickstarter.
We've lowered the funding goaland we are very optimistic about
funding this time in October.
If you are interested in keepingup with the game, you can look
(01:54):
for Burnaway on Kickstarter, andI will also have a link to the
pre-launch page in the shoutoutswe are launching very soon, so
be sure to give the campaign afollow to keep up with updates.
Alright, this is a longerepisode, so we are just going to
go ahead and jump right in.
Enjoy this conversation withNoordin.
Hello friends, I am here withthe super talented Noordin Ali
(02:24):
Kadir.
How's it going today?
Noordin (02:26):
I'm good.
I'm good it's reaching the busyseason for me in my real-life
day job, so a bit tired but verygood I know it sounds like you
have a lot going on right now.
Yeah, surprisingly not much inthe tabletop world, although
that's going to change soonprobably.
But yeah, in my real world Ialso do a lot of admin work and
(02:48):
I work with tour companies whoget very busy in the fall, so I
do a lot of scheduling right now.
Courtney (02:56):
Oh gosh, yeah, my real job is a project manager and I
used to work in theater as astage manager, oh yeah.
Scheduling is like it takes atalent and it's exhausting and
it's one of those things thatyou're like it shouldn't be this
hard, like why is this so hard?
Noordin (03:16):
It's wild how like the sheer amount of just time it
takes of you staring at aspreadsheet or whatever your
system uses, but it looks like aspreadsheet.
It always looks like aspreadsheet.
Just staring directly at aspreadsheet, trying to figure
out how a person can both beavailable and you're completely
unavailable at the same time.
It's a miracle, honestly, thatanything gets done If you rely
(03:39):
upon any person to do yourscheduling for you, whether you
work like a shift job or you'regetting everyone together for a
podcast or something, just thankthe person doing your
scheduling for me.
They're impressive.
Courtney (03:52):
I 100% agree with this .
Awesome Well, Noordin, I wouldlove to just hear a little bit
about yourself and how you gotinto gaming.
Noordin (04:05):
There's such a varied answer to this because, to go
philosophical, what is gamingreally?
When we played hopscotch, wasthat tabletop game when we were
on a blacktop?
Is a blacktop a table?
No, I got into tabletop gamingbecause I just love
improvisation, I lovestorytelling and I love creation
(04:28):
my three favorite things, eventhough I've got tons of little
backgrounds, an actor and stuff.
The real reason why I got intotabletop was just because I
wanted to inhabit a world.
I wanted to create someone whowould inhabit a world.
I wanted to play around withtheir story and play around with
the world and build things.
(04:49):
Build a world creatively withpeople.
It took me a while, though,because, as a guy of my ethnic
background and queer history, itis difficult to find someplace
where you feel safe enough to beyour whole self in tabletop.
I'm still discovering thingswhen I started, but it is
difficult.
I started reading books readingtabletop gaming books well
(05:10):
before I ever started playingthem, which is a very different
process than how most people doit.
I found my very first tabletopgame.
The first role-playing gamemode considered tabletop game,
was a D&D 5e game A couple ofyears before the pandemic.
I think it was 2017, 2016.
Since then, well, as you canprobably tell, I haven't stopped
(05:33):
so clearly.
I've been enjoying it.
Courtney (05:37):
It's funny, you say 2016, 2017, and I'm like oh
that's kind of similar to when Istarted playing tabletop games.
That feels like such a longtime ago and yet it really isn't
that long.
Noordin (05:51):
The more I think about it, the more 2016 makes more
sense.
But yeah, it isn't that long,and I think a lot of people are
in that position where, whenthey started to play, it was
after the big critical role-boom.
Once D&D 5e started gettingplayed at regular tables more
consistently, you could findopen games a lot more easily
because people were inspired bysomething like a critical role.
(06:13):
But a couple of years afterthat, because it's always first
you have that internal boom andthen you have the external boom,
and I come with the externalboom crowd.
The funny thing is, though,when it comes to reading my
World of Darkness books, Istarted reading those more than
a decade before.
(06:33):
That is a gap.
I will say that You're alsoright.
It is a long time.
It's longer than we think it is, and I think the pandemic has
really screwed up with time.
Courtney (06:47):
Yeah, I was thinking back like okay, what was I?
Doing back in 2016?
Like oh, wow, yeah, that waslike the beginning of the end
times, that felt.
But Right.
So I'm curious about how thetransition happened of you.
I mean, you were reading thesebooks, you were reading World of
Darkness a very long time ago,it feels like.
(07:09):
But then how did you convincesome friends to play with you?
Or did you walk into a gamestore and just say I want to
play.
How did that actually happen?
Noordin (07:19):
So I did the thing that a lot of Canadians in my area
do.
I went on meetupcom because Igot desperate and I clicked a
button and I gave it a shot andit was a drop-in-dropout game, a
drop-in-dropout D&D game.
I believe it was based on Talesof the Ony Portal, or at least
(07:41):
it was just about it, justswitched over to that.
So I was in like the last gamebefore then and then we switched
over and I played a half-drownamed Traven and it really was
just.
I made the decision for myselfthat I wanted to do it and I was
going to do it and so I did it.
And I'm not going to say it wasthe best game in my life, and I
(08:02):
don't think most of my firstgames were the best games in my
life.
The second game I ever playedafter that like one session of
that D&D game which I returnedto.
Then I played a game of 10candles, which is wild, and then
I played a different game ofD&D, like a campaign that ended
my relationship with that gamewas awful.
It was real like I had one ofthe worst experiences ever, but
(08:26):
I got through that throughDiscord, so it was really just
like I tossed a bunch of dartsat a wall and I hoped one would
stick, and eventually they did.
I go here.
God, how that didn't happen.
Courtney (08:41):
Well, now I'm going to make you figure out.
How did that even happen?
Noordin (08:44):
I think it's because when I first hung around, there
was the series of one shotsbeing played of different,
different indie games, which gotme more interested in indie
right from the beginning,because I realized I was playing
more with the type of peoplethat I wanted to, rather than,
you know, drop and drop out D&Dgame, which is more like not
(09:05):
really adventurous league, butkind of like adventurous league.
Right, you stick to a certainset of rules, the story is very
structured and you delve into it.
The indie games were more worldbuilding, they were more
intriguing and the more it gotinto that crowd, the more
realized this is what I wanted.
This is what I wanted.
So I started volunteering, youknow, for my local gaming
(09:28):
convention.
I ended up going to gettinglucky enough to volunteer at a
couple other conventions inother cities, including like
GenCon.
You know I volunteered forMagpie, I think in 2017 or 2018,
one of the two and at thatpoint now I was getting really
(09:48):
invested and this was before Ireally made contact.
I had technically contacts inthe games industry, but I didn't
utilize them.
I didn't ever realize that Iwas going to want to create
things, but eventually I created, I homebrewed a playbook for
one of my favorite games, UrbanShadows, back in the day, based
upon the gin which I the storiesI grew up with.
(10:11):
I called it the Concealed, andit was about.
Every single playbook has theircore.
It's not just a creature, it'sa story, right?
And the story of the Concealedplaybook was just about
displacement and being separatedfrom any kind of consistent
(10:33):
community, right.
It was about being in a worldin which you do not belong but
you are forced to pretend you do.
So it was very similar toalready like the other Urban
Shadows playbooks, but it wasdifferent in some way because
there was sort of an activenature in making sure you keep
up that masquerade, because ifyou didn't, you are something
(10:53):
new and unique.
People will use that and takeadvantage of you, and there are
certain moves I gave it thatallowed it to, and then it
realized oh, I can create things, Although I never published it
and don't think I ever will.
That is when the Domino's reallystarted to lead me to where I
am now, someone who does notjust play tabletop games,
performs in them in actual playsand podcasts and writes for
(11:17):
them and consults for them andhelps design them.
It was just like a series ofDomino's leading up to this
moment that all culminated intome being here and I think, most
recently, the things peopleprobably know me the most from
right now are from the podcastsMissing Any Lee and the Atomless
.
The Atomless is a Starfinderpodcast that's still active and,
(11:41):
you know, ready for juncture,blow in the backward hall
writing for into the motherlandsand, I think, most recently,
being this in one of thesensitivity consultants for
where will the apocalypse, fifthedition, which is a weird
circle.
It's one of those things wherethe moment you like really
invest in something is themoment you realize Okay, I can
(12:01):
keep on going and see where thisroad leads.
I can go down the EllabrickRoad or I can stop, and I never
chose to stop at any point.
I just kept going and I guessI'm here now.
Courtney (12:17):
Just looking at all of the projects that you've worked
on, like it's so impressive andI've just been it interesting
like how you've touched on somany different parts of the
process of all these projectswhere it's like you've designed,
you've written your own things,like you Consult with
sensitivity, consult,consultations, editing, you're
out all these podcasts, all ofthese actual plays.
Noordin (12:38):
I.
So I come way back when I camefrom the theater world where, if
you've ever done a theaterclass in a place that is not a
conservatory, you know thatyou're not just the actors,
that's not a thing.
You're also doing theproduction, you're doing the set
design, you're doing the stagemanagement.
You're learning every singlepiece of this big machine and I
(13:02):
have Been in that mindset eversince.
I kind of decided I'm going tocreate in TTRBG's and not just
enjoy them, because I like toknow as much as possible about a
thing.
It you learn a lot fromapproaching the same thing from
different angles, because whatyou do in an actual play or even
(13:22):
a podcast, those are differentfrom what how a person plays at
home.
Even if you're not likeintentionally playing to an
audience, you are aware of anaudience, right, if you are
writing something well now youknow that this is different than
writing for a book.
Or, you know, writing an essay,because you're creating
something that's intended to bebuilt on later.
It has to have enough Openendings that someone can make
(13:45):
something from it and feel likethey are doing something,
because that's important.
But also it's got to have acomplete enough narrative that
someone can drop it in at thedrop of the hat and it'll be
somewhat recognizable.
You know, an editor learns howmuch extraneous information is
out there what is useful, whatis not, and sometimes having
(14:09):
something that's not useful isStill a good thing.
It provides flavor.
Sometimes it isn't right.
Consulting teaches you a lotabout the real-life consequences
of what art is, and you may notlike the concept of tabletop
games being art.
The truth is, anything createdby human hands with the
intention to entertain is a formof art.
(14:30):
It's an art form.
All art has consequencesbecause all art is inherently
political, because all artaffects the minds of the people
who use it, not, like, in a mindcontrol way, but in a it makes
you think and if something makesyou think, it affects your mind
.
The realities of consultinglike teach you a lot about how
(14:51):
things can be misused in waysthat you do not expect and how
things can echo in the you knowfrom the real world in ways that
you did not intend and the waythat goes directly counter to
your game design.
It's actually one of the mostinteresting things about
consulting in general.
A lot of people regarded, as youknow, trying to not cause harm,
and this is true.
(15:11):
This is the thing we obviouslywe don't want to do that, but if
I Create a pathway down theroad and I intend for you to
take each path relativelyequally, but one path has a bias
that corresponds to humanactivity.
Ie, I Depict the goblins and Iwant some good goblins and some
(15:35):
bad goblins, but the goblins inthe real world Right, or the
stories we tell about goblins,often veer towards the evil.
You're more likely to pick theevil.
There's an inherent bias therethat goes directly counter to
what I need for my game design.
To make the goblins work inthis supposed game, I need you
to pick both relatively the sameamount, so I cannot just write
them equally.
(15:55):
I've got a favor the good alittle bit more to get that 5050
split consulting teaches youjust how common human biases in
that kind of situation and howthat can have, yes, human side
effects.
You can hurt people, but alsoit can really affect your game
design.
If you're not careful, you willget Circumstances that you did
(16:16):
not intend and I think you know.
Funnily enough, we're gonnatalk world of darkness for a
split second.
Keep in mind I've talked withthe brand team paradox.
I am under an NDA.
However, while some of thewriting from the those 90s books
is Rough and some of it leadsinto racial stereotypes and
(16:37):
cultural stereotypes and queerstereotypes and sexist
stereotypes the whole list thetruth is it was exacerbated by a
community that you know.
Double down on some of thosestereotypes.
That's not to say all of thatcommunity did.
There was, you know, pockets.
The world of darkness is wellknown for having a very diverse
(16:57):
background of enjoyers.
However, the bias does tend tolead to the worst
interpretations of some of thesepeople.
So if they're based upon realpeople, you end up creating a
sort of cyclical thing whereyou're not gonna get what you
want out of this supposedrepresentation.
You're only gonna get the worstversion if you're not careful,
(17:18):
which is led to unintendedconsequences.
Right, and if you will supportyour community.
Usually, like you take what theyhave taken from your material
and you canonize it or you makeit cool.
But if you do that and there'sreal human bias in there, what
you can do is accidentally justmake more racism, and that's
(17:38):
happened not just in the worldof darkness but in, like several
things where the communityfeedback is accidentally pushed
something into a worse placeBecause you know there's bias
there and there was noconsultants there to say hold on
, stop the train for a second.
What does this do to our game?
What does this mean about a kid?
(17:58):
What does this say about thegame itself, because it isn't
always equal.
Yeah, consultants taught me alot.
Basically and I'm going onconsultants taught me a lot
about the unintendedconsequences, and how can that?
That can really affect how yourgames played in the real world
consistently is, which isn'treally cool, really scary, but
(18:20):
really cool.
Courtney (18:23):
I would I talk about like the ideal scenario and then
maybe like the more commonscenario.
So the ideal scenario like atwhat point are you brought into
the project to do this?
Noordin (18:32):
consult like consultation the ideal dream
scenario is, you know when, whenthe flare gun is shot into the
air and the flags fall, at themoment someone presses go,
because, while it's still thatvery Loosely formatted
experience, I can start placingthe the warning flags down.
(18:54):
I can start saying, okay, thisis a cool idea, this is where it
can go off.
So if we push towards this, itwon't right.
So, for example, you come to meand you say I want to make a
game in which we all play reallycool kinds of goblins.
I'm like cool, that's actuallyreally cool.
Absolutely everyone plays agoblin.
However, it's worth noted that,worth noting that goblins can
(19:17):
fall into like anti-semiticarchetypes quite frequently.
So here's how we avoid this.
We avoid this by not makingthem necessarily greed mongers,
nor do we make them theunderpinnings of the society
that you know constantly leadthem straight.
We don't make them the ruinersof a nation.
We avoid those two things.
We're probably gonna end up onthe better side of this right.
(19:40):
Then, as the project goes along, I could help you check, I
could check in, you know, and wecan find out if, as the game
develops and grows, where arethe pain points, because maybe
you're like, okay, cool, maybethe goblins are all being mind
affected on the low-key level,right just underneath their
(20:00):
brains.
There's something affectingthem and that's a core part of
this game very cool.
However, now we're talkingabout player agency and we're
talking about the depiction ofhow mental illness can be
depicted in certain games.
So how do we correspond withthat?
Well, one, we give options inthe book for how this mind
control can cause A goblin toreact and we tell the players
(20:26):
that, when overly affected bythe whatever this is, these are
the options you can take.
So we pass the narrativecontrol back in their hands,
even if we limit their choices.
So they still feel like there'ssome control and they can.
If they really don't want anoutcome, they can find ways to
shift it to a different one.
In addition to that, we make itclear that this is not some
(20:49):
sort of mental illness.
Right, we don't use words likecrazed or Mad, and instead we
focus on what it is.
So if it's a voice, we can callit that, we can say the
whispers of the brain or whathave you, and we push it into
this entity realm instead of aActually, these are all mentally
(21:11):
ill realm, as we continue to do.
So we can say that we're notgoing to be able to do anything
about it.
Actually, these are allmentally ill realm.
As we continue on, eventuallyit's the end and then I do a
final read and at this point, ifI've been involved in the
project, what I'm clearing up islike word choices, some
(21:31):
spelling mistakes.
I'm an editor.
I cannot help it.
If you have me consulting onyour project and people who've
had music consultant they willknow this sometimes I just do a
spell check to I have to.
But you'll like I'll clean upwords like maybe you have an
off-handed reference to Like atype of knife that's used in
(21:54):
actual ritualistic practicestoday.
I'll be like maybe don't dothat, because that references
human culture and these aregoblins and we're only
referencing this once, so weDon't necessarily need it right
now.
You don't need this right.
Like.
You have a curious dagger Cool,but do we really need that?
Or can we call it like a riverwave dagger instead, because a
curious dagger has a specificpurpose.
(22:16):
If all is well, that's easy.
That part of the job even goingthrough a whole book Takes a
couple hours max.
I bang it out.
It's really simple stuff.
I don't have to like say allthis whole thing needs fixed.
It's fixing.
This whole paragraph needsfixing, because by that time
we've already, like, developed aculture of that best case
(22:37):
scenario.
Overall, you're, we're allsaving time here, right?
The worst case scenario is I'mbrought in right at the end
Often and this has happened inone case during the layout
process.
By the way, there's been somedebate about this on the online
once in a while.
Please don't make your writerswrite in layout Right first,
(23:00):
then put it into layout.
That is what layout is for,because I know this seems cruel
or it may seem like a direct,like a sub to.
It's not.
I've seen it happen a couple oftimes across games, cross
companies and I've been broughtin to fix things as they have
been in the layout.
It is a nightmare, because nowI'm very limited in word count.
(23:22):
I cannot get rid of too much,so if there's a whole paragraph
of something wrong, I cannotjust remove it.
I can't take it out wholesaleand say, well, honestly, you've
never needed it in the firstplace, even if you didn't,
because now there's a big oldgap on the page and something's
got to fill it and you're nothiring me as a writer, so either
I'm doing something that is notmy job or I'm trusting you to
(23:46):
fix it without any guidance,because I don't have any
guidance for a paragraph thatwas never needed Right, even the
more macro, like I've got topick word changes.
If there's a word that needschanging or phrase that needs
changing, I've got to picksomething that's roughly the
same in letters.
It can get really, reallyannoying and on the writer side,
(24:07):
how much belongs on a page is athing that has tortured every
writer's brain from the dawn oftime.
Please don't make us do thatthe day of, because then we're
trying to make word choices thatcorrespond to how well it fits
in a page and not necessarilyhow it fits with the narrative
of what we're trying toaccomplish or with the game, and
(24:29):
that means sometimes we'repicking the worst words because
they're the ones with the rightletters.
It's a layout is a differentjob.
It's just a different job toput it later.
But yeah, that's the worst casescenario and at that point, yes
, the layout is alreadystressful.
But also, if no consultant'sbeen involved and I'm not been
involved, I have no idea whatyour references are, because in
(24:52):
the beginning we talked aboutthat goblin game and you listed
some references.
I don't know what they were,but you listed some great
references and some heavyreferences and I'm like I can
double check these and see wherethey went wrong.
I can use that to inform.
By the time we've gotten tothis part.
We're reaching the end.
No consultant's been involvedand maybe you've had several
writers on your project.
Who's to know what all of theirreferences are, what your
(25:14):
references are?
So I'm doing this from scratchand there may be huge parts that
could delve into very dangerousterritory or does not engender
the gameplay you want, because,let's say, we have that sort of
the voices towards ruin right,that concept underneath the
(25:36):
goblin's brain.
There are voices towards ruinIn general, they're cursed with
this, whatever.
Also, curses are dangerous.
Ignore this, I'm doing this onthe fly, but we settle on that.
Let's say that you wrote itwithout my consultation.
It's quite possible you mightcall it the underlying madness.
And now suddenly you haveaccidentally caused your player
(26:02):
base to try and portray madmental illness in a way that you
did not want, did not intendand is now massively much harder
to fix, because I can changethe name and, depending upon
what words you used in theparagraphs, you may need a
wholesale rewrite and that, tobe clear, that has happened.
(26:24):
I've absolutely and I'm notgoing to declare who one of the
biggest things as a consultant,I kind of take my job seriously,
whether there's an NDA or not.
I don't talk about specificthings have changed or not
changed for a reason Because I'mnot in the business of trying
to make people look bad and I'mnot in the business of trying to
make people look good.
I don't really advertise forprojects I consult on either.
(26:46):
I just do the work and then Iwalk away and I get paid for it,
because, ultimately, it is verycondensed to my job.
That protects me and itprotects you.
In any case, though, I haveabsolutely, in a couple of cases
, gone back and said so thiswhole page, this whole section,
(27:08):
is not just deeply problematic,but will cause some inherent
problems in the way this isportrayed in your game.
Is this something you want?
Because if it is, then we needto have a talk about how to do
it safer, and if it's not, thenyou're going to have to do a
wholesale rewrite, and I cangive you guidelines, I can tell
you what words to avoid, but weboth know that now we're racing
(27:30):
towards publication.
We're near in the end,deadline's coming up.
I do this.
The writing is not going to beas good, the rewrite is not
going to be as impactful,whatever it was, because
ultimately I'm telling you torush something because you made
a mistake that you didn't needto make to begin with.
(27:50):
That's, I think, the biggestthing about not getting a
variety of consultants from theget-go, or not getting a
consultant from the get-go Evenat a generic sensitivity
consultant who is at least awareof multiple different issues in
multiple different communities,because ultimately it doesn't
just make more work for me onthe back end, it makes more work
for you too.
To correct things makes morework for you.
(28:14):
To that degree, it also meansthat you may have to get rid of
something, rebrand something.
You may have to rip up thefirst print you made.
I don't want to have to makeyou do that.
I don't want to even have tosuggest that you do that,
especially because I know thechance of some of that happening
is practically nil.
(28:34):
Anyways, I'd prefer it mostlydone by the time I get there or
I'd be there throughout, so thatwe're not in this position
where we are trying to rush fixsomething or we are trying to
dramatically change something atthe 11th hour.
It isn't good for the product,for the company, for me it's
just not good.
I can do it, I've done it.
(28:56):
Most of my projects are likethat, to be honest, not in
layout, thank God, but justbefore.
Most of what I've done is inthat era.
However, no matter how good Iam at finding the word, choice,
replacements, makingrecommendations, doing rewrites,
believe it or not, there aretimes where you've read my
writing in the words of someoneelse, because I try to match
(29:19):
their style as much as possible,because I know it's a sentence,
and at that point I might aswell just push it out there.
No matter what, it's not goingto be as seamless as it would
have been had I been involvedfrom the beginning or had a
sensitivity consultant or anyconsultant been involved from
the beginning.
If this was handled sensitivelyfrom the get-go, it would,
(29:40):
overall, be a better product.
No matter how good I fix it,it's not fun for anyone.
Courtney (29:48):
Yeah, it is a lot of work to do and I feel like a lot
of headaches for a lot ofpeople.
Noordin (29:55):
Yeah, I apologize, by the way, for going on, it's just
a lot.
It's a lot of stuff.
Courtney (30:02):
Oh please.
I have so many follow-upquestions I'm deciding which one
to ask, okay, so I'm actuallyprobably going to be a little
selfish in this question.
So let's say that you're workingon a project, I don't know,
maybe as a project manager in mycase and you need to find a
(30:22):
sensitivity consultant, butyou're not sure of what area to
have that person specializing in, because I know obviously if
you're writing about differentcultures, you want to find
someone that is going to be ableto consult on those specific
cultures, but if it's more of ageneric thing, then it's like
how do you decide what kind ofconsultant you're looking for?
Noordin (30:44):
Well, I mean, the first thing is you can pitch it to
several and you can see whoresponds.
I am a person who, thanks tohaving a very diasporic
background, I'm connected toseveral different cultures, all
of which I know because they aremy own too or they're very
closely related to me or I havea literal family member I can
call up.
(31:05):
People often ask how do youknow so much about, like you
know, hinduism?
I'm like there are people whohave been practicing Hinduism in
my family as they'retechnically family friends, but
they are family to me, as in.
I can go to their housetomorrow and cry and they will
pat me better and feed me forthree weeks.
They're in London so that wouldbe hard, but I could for
(31:28):
literally several generationsand they have taught me things
in their own personal experience.
They have partially raised meright, so you can talk to
someone for all you know.
They might check all your boxes, but the more likely scenario
is you come to someone like meand you're like there's a whole
list of stuff in here.
There's a whole lot ofreferences.
I'm not even sure where I couldbe going wrong.
(31:50):
I just know that I want tocover my bases.
Usually at that point, someonelike me breath or no breath will
look over it and will be ableto pinpoint where they are
lacking, if they are lacking,and so they'll say, okay, I can
cover you generically, I cancover the basic beats and I can
direct you to this, this andthis person, or I.
(32:11):
In some cases, some consultantswork as a group, like if you
ever worked with Leon and MapleConsulting, who also worked on
Werewolf, it's not just Leona,it's a couple other people who
work with Leona in ways thatsupport her and in ways that at
times they're doing fantasticwork on their own to make sure
that all the gaps are covered.
So you could find that you'retalking to a conglomerate, you
(32:34):
could find that you're talkingto someone like me and if I'm
lacking there are times in whichI am I will direct you to
people or I will say, if you'dlike, I can get their names and
you can credit them, or they candecide if they want to be
credited and I'll conduct that.
I'll ask the outrageousquestions.
There's a few cases, very nichecases, in which it is very
(32:55):
generic stuff.
It's more like a genericsensitivity, more like am I
hurting anyone here or am Ibeing ableist here Because I'm a
disabled person.
So I tend to see whereaccessibility issues go wrong
and in those cases if there'slike a really niche thing, I
might just ask my phone a friendif I'm like concerned about
something.
(33:15):
So if there's someanti-Semitism that I'm
suspecting, I'm not Jewish, Ihave very little connection to
Judaism, I mean culturally,religiously, islam, complicated
situation but I have friends Ican call up and I will, and I'll
be like okay, I'm suspectingthis, how does this read to you?
And once you know, I'll get ananswer back from them.
(33:36):
I'll have an answer for you.
Honestly, consultants in general, none of us work alone and none
of us don't know someone else.
So shoot your shot, talk to me,talk to you know a consulting
industry, and we'll get back toyou with the best course of
action.
We are not afraid to call andhelp.
(33:57):
That's not something we'reafraid to do.
And if it comes down to it,it's not like you're going to
pay more in money overall.
Because if I'm saying you'relike we're getting 10 hours of
consulting and I say I'm goingto take eight and I'm going to
give two to this one over here,whoever this person is, well, it
works out the same for you.
You're just putting an extraname in the credit sheet or
(34:20):
you're referencing an extra name, you know, on your website.
It's not much work at all.
The basic goal I would say isjust have an idea of where you
think you might go wrong, definewhere your biggest fears are
and have that ready as part ofyour like pitch of what this is,
because that'll help someonelike me pinpoint better, which
(34:44):
is always handy.
Courtney (34:46):
I think that makes a lot of sense and like, okay, can
I be talking to you about it,this recording.
But to get back into just someof the things that I'd love to
know is like how you likeactually got started in this
consultation.
You know like at what point,because I know you were.
I think you said earlier thatyour first dabbling was like
(35:07):
with writing yourself and thenit didn't get published.
And then at some point you gotinto publishing and you know, at
some point all these thingsstarted, all these things like
start.
Noordin (35:17):
Consulting was very much a.
I have multiple backgrounds.
Someone called me in becausethey knew I had the right
backgrounds and I was interested.
Thinking about consult, doingsome consulting work was we were
all low on funds at some pointin our life and I said, okay,
I'll do my best.
And then that one credit was onand that one credit was all I
(35:41):
needed to talk to other peoplein the industry, get their
support and, overall, build fromthere.
That said, technically speaking,it did start earlier and that
was thanks to the Asiansrepresenting over on their
YouTube channel.
They streamed it actually, soyou'll find on Twitch too, but
on their YouTube channel you'llfind, like the Asians read sort
(36:02):
of collection of videos.
There was one called criticalread, al-qadim critical read, of
course, because it's not justAsians in that case, there's
also some North Africanrepresentation, because Al-Qadim
is Swana, it's Southwest Asian,north African in essence and it
gathered a bunch of us togetherto talk about this very old
(36:22):
book D&D made and where it notonly went wrong but where it
could have been much cooler hadthey had the right people to let
them know how it could be cool.
In addition to that, I helped,we did.
It was a bit of a like a joke,but we did Kindred of the East,
which was objectively bad.
No one thinks that was a goodbook for one episode and I've
(36:43):
been on their YouTube channeland their streams a couple of
times here and there.
I used to moderate for them aswell, which is how I have an any
.
Out of all the things to havean any for.
I'm very proud of that.
I helped moderate their Discord, their Twitch.
I was part of the team and thuswhen they were not, they won an
any.
I also received an any.
I have a medal.
(37:04):
It sits beside me.
I've never worn it out, butthat taught me alone how to
critically examine a piece oftext, not only from my cultural
backgrounds, but also from agreater.
How is this fun?
How is this playable?
How is this made interesting?
Narrative that helped me likereally define how my consulting
(37:26):
works.
If it wasn't for that, I don'tknow if I would have gotten to
like truly written wordconsulting at all, and I owe a
lot to the Fox stationsrepresent.
They mean a lot to me.
Courtney (37:37):
I think that's really cool, that I really did get
started with.
Someone approached you to saylike hey, you know, can you take
a look at this?
And that it was just took onecredit.
And then, like you're able tohave that, like standing to say
hey, I've done this before, Likelet me help you.
Noordin (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's always been a learning process.
I'll definitely say that fromthe get go.
One credit is not enough toteach you everything you need to
know, but it is enough to liketo walk yourself in a door and
realize is this something thatyou can stand doing for a long
period of time or not?
Because I'm not going to lie,no matter what that first credit
(38:14):
is, it could be, I've doneeverything from like a game
about hamsters Well, actually Iwas an adventure about hamsters,
but still to you know some somereally tough stuff.
Where Wolf was tough and Ifreely admitted that In fact the
team knows that I had it it wasgoing to be tough.
I said that when they firsthired me.
Like this is going to be tough.
(38:34):
I've done the whole range.
No matter what it is, you'regoing to learn a lot about your
capabilities and if you'recomfortable growing those
capabilities or if you'recomfortable stopping and that's
the most important thing I'drecommend working alongside
another consultant if you everhave the opportunity.
I wish there was more ways forlike consultants to work in
(38:54):
tandem on a project so you couldteach someone as they make
choices right and help supportthem in finding their best voice
, to voice concerns and to voicefeedback and to develop their
own style.
If you have someone like me, myconsulting always comes from a
place of play, so I'm alwaysthinking about okay, how can I
(39:15):
make this playable to the mostamount of people?
Because I think that's a coreconcept of most games,
especially if forgive me, if youwant to sell your game, you
want to have a big player base.
How can we do that withoutnecessarily changing the
narrative of what this is?
What can we do to encouragepeople who maybe wouldn't
necessarily engage with thiscontent before, to feel like
(39:36):
they could be supported by it?
And thus I do a lot of researchin my spare time.
There was a time recently whereI was looking up a bunch of
things that could spin webs forour project, and I learned a lot
.
So many things can spin websbecause spiders are a common
trigger for a lot of people,right?
So, okay, you want somethingthat spins webs and maybe it's a
(39:58):
spider cannon base.
It's a spider.
Can we suggest other things,other things for your table to
take it, so that we don'tnecessarily have to use a spider
?
They could use a mollusk Ifit's using its webs to attach
itself to something like a bigold trap.
It could be a mollusk, it couldbe a muscle, right.
(40:18):
But if it's like trying tococoon itself, protect itself
with its webs, then you're maybelooking like a silkworm.
It's tons of stuff you can do.
It's fun.
That's the weirdest, mostspecific example I've ever given
in my life, but that's thepoint, right.
(40:39):
My style involves a lot oftrying to make things as
playable as possible and reallyrepresenting the kind of
supportive play I want to seemore.
We all have styles asconsultants, all individual,
unique styles.
They're beautiful things, but Ido wish I had more support and
that one credit, though it gotme through the door and this is
like the beginning of theindustry really.
(41:01):
The one credit if I had a bitmore support during that one
credit, if I felt more supportedduring that one credit by
having someone there who I couldbounce off of the entire time I
don't know, maybe it would havebeen a bit easier for me to
completely transition that over.
But I'm not in a hurry to dealwith it, don't get me wrong.
Clearly, the doors have opened,but it was tough going in the
(41:22):
beginning.
I didn't know if I could reallydo this.
Took me a while to accept thatI could Took me more than one
credit to do that.
Courtney (41:29):
I think that totally makes sense.
It's always hard when you'redoing something new and there's
that whole imposter syndrome on,like I think I know what I'm
doing, but do I really?
I know that that is definitelya struggle.
Noordin (41:44):
Yeah, what is actually useful information?
What is not?
How do I say this?
I think I need to say this howdo I say this?
That's a question that I had alot starting up, and your answer
differs, by the way, dependingupon what consultant you work
with.
To be honest, we all phrasethings differently.
But how do I say this Is aquestion that I feel like we
(42:05):
should have more support to newconsultants.
To give that answer to Right,you can't.
Unfortunately, this is it's ajob.
You can't just say you fuckedup, fix it.
That's not enough.
No one can do anything withthat, and it's not.
It doesn't put people in theright position to listen.
So my suggestion is always okay, what is the situation?
(42:30):
Offer a resolution right off theget.
Go and talk about why theresolution would support their
version of play a little bitbetter than what they had
initially.
Because, yes, it's, it could beharmful, and you should say
that it's harmful, butultimately they're making a game
.
So phrase things in a way thata game creator would understand,
(42:52):
that a game master wouldunderstand, because that's
immediately going to get themunderstanding what you're trying
to say a lot quicker than justgoing down a history path.
Don't get me wrong.
I love history.
I'm a history nerd.
I work in history courses inactual university.
I look it up on my spare time.
There's a lot of folks who, ifyou just inundate them with
(43:12):
detail, it's going to overwhelmthem rather than encourage them
to listen.
And part of a consultant's job,as tough as it is, is to
encourage people to listen andto speak to them on their level,
not necessarily on the levelyou want them to be.
Courtney (43:29):
Hey, entrepreneurs, I love introducing you to new
creators every episode, but Icould really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page, where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content.
Add your questions to upcominginterviews and you could even
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
To learn more, go tolightheartadventurescom.
Slash RPG.
(43:49):
And now back to the show.
What advice would you have forsomeone that is newer to
consulting and they are workingwith us game designer and the
designer is just being reallyresistant to what they're saying
.
Noordin (44:08):
Okay so far.
How have you phrased things?
Is it worth trying to do it adifferent way?
This is my secret.
If you've worked with me before, close your ears.
You don't need to hear this.
Tell them about how this isgonna affect their bottom line.
Be blunt about it, legitimately.
I've worked with big companies,so, and I've worked with
smaller companies too, who wantto be bigger Financially.
(44:32):
If you tell them this is bad foryour brand and you explain why,
it may reach the right people alittle bit more, because even
if the game designer themselvesis really conducive to your
feedback, if there's a producerinvolved, that isn't that's how
you convince them, becauseyou're not necessarily talking
to the person who's gonna makethe edits to begin with.
Sometimes you're talking justto a creative, if that's proving
(44:57):
difficult.
If you're going up all thesesteps and they just like I don't
really want that's core, that'score Legitimately.
It seems like a waste, but it'smore worth in the long run.
Seith, I'm happy to return yourcash.
Please take my name off theproject and walk away, because
sometimes it sucks, butsometimes it's genuinely not
(45:20):
worth your sanity, and I saythat very firmly.
It's not worth your sanity fora couple hundred dollars.
Don't get me wrong.
I know what it's like todesperately need that in your
wallet.
I've lived it and some days Istill do.
It's still not worth your peaceof mind, your sanity, and not
(45:42):
worth the effect that has onyour overall ability to continue
down the path, because ifsomeone is not going to listen
to you, sometimes the only thingthat will shake them awake is
the reality that eventually youwill stop supporting them.
You will walk away, and nomoney is worth that that might
get them to listen.
And even if it doesn't, atleast it's no longer your fault,
(46:02):
because ultimately and this isthe thing that I've said to, I'm
saying it to myself too nomatter what a game releases, as
no matter how much hard work youput into it, no matter what you
try to say, ultimately it isnot your responsibility at all.
(46:22):
If they put out a game that isharmful, that's not your
responsibility.
If they put out a game thatdidn't listen to you, not your
responsibility.
If they put out a game thatthey did listen to you sometimes
didn't other times.
Now they're getting called outfor not your responsibility,
it's not.
You did the best you could.
Now you're done.
(46:43):
Walk away, because ultimatelyspeaking, and this is the
suckiest bit.
This is the reason why I don'toften love consulting, even when
I do it.
You're not the creative here,and sometimes people create bad
things.
Truth be told, the vastmajority of art in the world
that has ever been created hasbeen bad to some degree or
(47:04):
another.
It's normal.
The reason why we don't talkabout them much is because a lot
of that bad artwork doesn'tsurvive to this day.
But most art is bad or averageor middling.
It is not your responsibilityto make them better at their art
form, especially if they willnot listen.
It is not your responsibilityto fix everything for them.
You are not their patron northeir parent.
(47:26):
You are just an employeecontractor.
Do your work.
Do your work to the best ofyour ability if you can, and
then set it aside, becauseultimately that's all you can do
.
Courtney (47:40):
That is such good advice but also going to be very
hard to hear for.
Noordin (47:46):
Oh, it's hard to hear from me.
Do you know how many times I'veread something and been like I
could have done that better?
Maybe if I said it like this,maybe if I worded it like this,
maybe if I impressed upon them.
It's so easy to get in yourhead, but you're not the one
making the final marks, you'rejust not.
(48:06):
So ultimately it ain't on youand it sucks, man, I don't know.
Maybe I think a lot ofcreatives in general, they have
some level of desire to control,and I think that's where it
comes from, not in a bad way,but I wish I could control this
so I could make it work right.
(48:27):
But the truth is, if you could,then it'd be your project mate,
not theirs.
You wouldn't be the one beingpaid to consult this.
You'd be hiring a consultant.
Your job's different.
Courtney (48:45):
Honestly, that's so applicable to so many different
parts of being involved in aproject.
Oh yeah, if you're not the mainperson in charge, it doesn't
really matter what part of it isthat you're doing.
I think this is good advicethat we should all be taking to
heart.
Noordin (49:02):
The nature of capitalism and the gig economy
is ultimately yeah, but it isnot just about consulting.
If you're writing downsomething and your writing is
changed, it ain't on you.
It's not your fault.
If you're in a project andaccidentally during the project,
a hose breaks, but you weren'tresponsible for the hose like
(49:25):
we're talking like a physicalmachinery thing and you weren't
responsible for the maintenanceof the project or the surveying
of that hose, it ain't on you.
If you were responsible for thesurveying of that hose and you
told them the hose needsreplacing and they didn't change
it, it ain't on you.
It sucks, god it sucks.
(49:46):
But yeah, it's applicable forpractically anything.
That doesn't mean pass the buck.
Please don't do that.
Please don't be like nothing'smy responsibility, nothing.
I'm free.
If you tried and it stilldidn't work out, then it ain't
on you.
You do got to do the try bit,though that is part of the job.
If you do your job and you didtry to fix it and it couldn't
(50:11):
work for circumstances out ofcontrol, it's out of your
control.
I feel like I'm telling yousomething that you needed to
hear right now.
I don't blame you for that.
Courtney (50:23):
I mean, I think we all need to hear it.
It is what it is.
Yeah, like all right, well, Iknow what my soundbites going to
be.
Okay, well, gosh, I know wehaven't really had a chance to
dig into some of the other stuffthat you've really worked on as
much, which means that, frankly, I'm just going to have to
(50:44):
bring you back later to talkabout all of your actual plays.
Noordin (50:49):
Of course, of course.
Courtney (50:51):
I think we've definitely touched on what some
of the challenges are with beinga consultant, but I do want to
also just take a moment toreflect on what it is that you
love about the work that you do.
What, would you say, is some ofthe more rewarding parts of
this?
Noordin (51:08):
Oh yeah, I'm going to speak in both general terms and
specific terms.
One of the specific terms of itis part of being a consultant
is knowing that you fixsomething.
Only you and the people who sawyour notes will ever know that
it was you.
But there is something reallyproudful when you're like I
looked at the mountain, I saidmove, and it did.
(51:32):
It's a bit sadistic, sure, butit's really satisfying because
you made a mountain move.
Absorb that, Take it in.
I like to do that, Even if I'm,at the end of the day, I'm not
a huge fan of the result or Icould have done that better.
I always try to remember wheredid I make the mountain move,
(51:53):
Especially if it was tough.
Where did I make the mountainmove?
Because it reminds you whatyou're doing this for.
You're doing this because youcan make a mountain move.
In the writer's sense, one ofthe most satisfying things is
honestly, just growing.
Junksha Blund, the banquet hall.
The first thing I wrote was ofCheyenne Sikabab, which was a
(52:15):
scenario for Junksha, which, bythe way, if you're wondering why
it was never on the Kickstarter, that's because I was hired
after the Kickstarter.
There was a debate not a debate, not like internal debate but
there was.
We didn't know if I wasactually going to make it into
the printed book on time.
I did, thank goodness, just hitthe wire, but we didn't know
(52:38):
for certain.
When I look on back on thatproject, there's a lot of things
I like about it.
There are some things where I Iwas like I soften that too much
.
I would have gotten harderright.
Or like I would have fixed thispart, I would have rewritten
this part to evoke something abit more sincere, right, and I
(52:59):
have that with every projectI've worked on now, and that's
one of the.
You see yourself grow in realtime.
Not because your former work isbad.
I don't think of that as bad.
Any work I've done is trulyawful, but I do think of it as
ah, here's a risk I wanted totake that I didn't.
Or here's how I'd phrase thisnow to better evoke what I'm
feeling.
Or here this is where I couldhave cut this sentence and put
(53:21):
the sentence I really wanted toput in instead.
This wasn't as necessary as Ithought it was.
You learn a lot from yourprevious works, which is funny.
I don't like watching my actualplays as much or listening to
my voice as much, but I do lovereading my own writing and
editing it as I grow.
The other thing is you createdsomething and you put it on a
(53:42):
piece of paper and other peopleare going to use it and build
off of it.
It's going to mean something tothem, right?
I was a young kid and I readthese World of Darkness books in
my room alone not really in myroom alone.
Often I read them in libraries.
I did not have the money In afew places where you could find
them in libraries harder now,but also, like you know, online
(54:02):
resources eventually, Legally,of course, I read them in.
Some parts of them meantsomething to me.
I thought this was cool, thiswas applicable.
Mage is one of the coolestthings I've ever seen because it
really is just hey, this is agame in which you were
constantly negotiating with yourGM about how much power you
(54:23):
should be able to wield withjust the spheres you have in
hand.
Really cool stuff.
There's some nifty concepts,and all of that stuff has meant
something to me as both adesigner, a writer, but also
just as someone who likesplaying with their imagination.
It meant something to me.
I've built off of those things.
I've not just played in anactual play in front of you.
(54:44):
I've also had that inspire myactual, real-life work, and not
just actual play stuff ortabletop stuff, but your fiction
books, comic books, non-fictionAll of that has meant something
to me.
It's inspired me.
Some other person, whoever wrotethose various little bits and
pieces, should feel very proudbecause they inspired a me to do
(55:10):
stuff.
Likewise, if you've writtenanything, you should feel very
proud if it's in full publicview because you inspired
someone to do something with it.
I guarantee you there's atleast one out there.
Think about it for a second.
How many times does yourscribbling affect even one
(55:31):
person to their very core?
Can you say that regularly?
No, probably not, but you'vedone that.
Damn, that's impressive.
Also, it's just fun.
It's rewarding because it's fun.
It's fun to play with yourimagination.
I wish more people did it.
We have such great imaginationsas human beings.
Take advantage of it.
Courtney (55:52):
It puts me in mind of the concept of every time
traveling story out there.
It's that whole.
If you go back in time, youhave to be careful that you
don't affect the timeline.
It's like we put so muchemphasis on someone from the
future is impacting the timelinebut we never put any emphasis
(56:12):
on we can affect the future justas we are right now.
Noordin (56:16):
All human beings do that.
This is important to mention.
I practice a religion and Ihave faith.
What that means, maybe not theplace for it, but one of the
core concepts of how I expressmy faith.
This is not necessarily allMuslims, it's just me, not just
me, but it's core to me is thatwe, as human beings, were given
(56:42):
the power to have free will.
There's some debate about that,actually, amongst some Sufis
and some others in the faith.
If it was given to us or if wechose it.
Whatever the case, we have freewill.
We can shape the earth in waysthat very few other creatures
can, and we can do sointelligently and consistently
(57:02):
and in ways against our verynature.
We could shape the world tooill if we wanted to
intentionally, and some do.
That is an immenseresponsibility and that means,
no matter how small you are, youare shaping the world around
you.
I'd say that, knowing thatthere's some person who's
(57:22):
probably listened to this, whomostly works as a burger flipper
and keep in mind I've worked ata Licks home burgers and
flipped burgers.
That has been a thing I've done.
I'm not affecting the world,but you are.
You are.
Something you have said haslikely resonated with somebody
else and that person has usedthat in their daily practice and
(57:43):
, who knows, maybe they'll passit on and eventually goes up the
chain.
We all have an effect.
That's the core truth of thematter.
Some people might have agreater effect because of
privilege, because ofcircumstance, but that doesn't
mean that even the smallest ofus doesn't have an effect.
It does mean that we both haveresponsibility, of course, and
(58:04):
that's important.
We also have a superpower.
We shape the world around us,every single one of us, every
day.
It's funny that you bring up,like the future, some person in
the future, because think aboutit for a second Often the
weirdest result of that is thatthey go back in time, they kill
(58:24):
someone insignificant or savethe life of someone
theoretically insignificant, andthen everything on earth
changes.
You didn't expect it to happenthat way.
Right, it isn't just the bigpeople, the big names, the ones
we remember in scorn or in joyhundreds or thousands of years
(58:45):
later.
It is every single individualthat is behind that person, that
brought them to that point, andthe loss of one of those
individuals, the loss of theability to shape from one of
those individuals, may mean thatthat individual that we talk
about the one that we score, theone that we speak of with joy.
That person may not existanymore.
(59:08):
If that one person way down thechain the one burger flipper
like me, the one writer, the oneproject manager didn't have an
effect, if that person justdidn't come into work today, we
may not have had the big thing.
It's not necessarily I'mtelling you that you as an
individual are responsible forcleaning up climate change,
because that's bullshit.
(59:28):
I am saying that you are moreresponsible for the greater
things that happen in the worldthan you think.
Not in a way that would meansomething necessarily to you,
which sucks, but in a way thatmeans something to other people
around you and that's meaningful, also a bit scary, cool, but
(59:49):
terrifying.
Courtney (59:51):
I feel like you are leaving us with a lot to think
about Noreen.
Noordin (59:55):
I'm so sorry.
I do that all the time oh no, Isay that as like.
Courtney (59:59):
this has been absolutely amazing, and I wish
that I could talk to you forseveral more hours.
Noordin (01:00:07):
The truth is at my core .
I'm a very philosophical person.
I think about this.
I know this seems like I'mcoming up with quotes for a
podcast.
I think about this stuff daily.
I thought about this last night, in the middle of the night, in
the middle of a colonialBritish fort in Canada, which is
, you know, weird.
(01:00:28):
That's weird.
I think about it incessantly.
But that's not to say youshould.
It's just to say that I thinkthat sometimes the big questions
are the fun ones.
Might as well ask them.
Who knows what shows up.
But also, what's the point ofdoing stuff like this?
I'm not here to promoteanything.
What else am I going to do?
(01:00:49):
Tell you some boring stuff.
I was born in Toronto, in MountSinai Hospital Super exciting,
huh.
Ask the big questions, get thebig answers.
Courtney (01:01:03):
Well, if people do want to find you and find all of
the projects that you areworking on right now, where
should they go?
Noordin (01:01:11):
They cannot.
They cannot do that.
I am actually a hidden whisperin the wind.
So you've got to take a leafand you've got to write down
something that's meaningful toyou and place that in the note.
Now you can just find at wherewe'll feels.
I don't know why I did that.
On social media.
Sometimes I do things and it'sjust.
(01:01:32):
I am more whimsical than I'dlike.
At where we'll feels in socialmedia is usually where I update
on projects I'm doing.
Keep in mind I'm sporadicallyon projects.
I'm not on as many things aspeople think it is.
Yes, I have a long list ofcredits.
I've been on for years, sosometimes I may not promote
anything at all and it may justbe like sad in public or maybe
(01:01:55):
philosophical in public, or Imay just talk about how I had a
great Coke Zero.
But if you're not interested infollowing my social day-to-day
nonsense, you can keep an eye onNourdin Ali Kedircarrdco and
that's where I just post thelinks, as I am allowed to post
(01:02:16):
them.
I keep it updated once a month.
That's the most I can manage.
But you'll find things to clickon there and if you're ever
curious about something, you canalways shoot me an email,
nourdin Ali Kedir at gmailcom.
That is how most people contactme and that's how I will reply
to almost anything, so long asit's not ridiculous.
If it takes a while for me toreply to you, it's probably
(01:02:38):
because I am drowning insomething.
I will get there.
I will get back to you.
If it's emergent, let me know,tell me a time frame, but
honestly, the best thing you cando is to check out the various
projects that I'm on that youknow.
I'm on, like the Atomless orMissing Any Lee or Villains a
(01:03:00):
Vampire, the Masquerade campaigncoming out on Carion Comfort in
October.
I don't know when this is goingto be released, but I'm
assuming it's around that time.
It's either already released orit's in the process of being
released or it's about torelease, and that means you can
engage with it.
I'm only in one episode.
It's episode 11.
(01:03:21):
I'm scary.
I will say that I play astraight up villain, as is the
name, but it's also one of themost fun times I've ever had
working with Leslie and Wes,where it was great.
The Atomless will find meplaying in a frit that people
really want, if I'm being honestwith myself, to bang, and
(01:03:43):
obviously I appear in many otherthings.
I know a lot of people stillknow me for Missing Any Lee,
which is a project I enjoygreatly.
If you want to catch up with mywriting, watch out for Into the
Motherlands it's coming in 2024.
And keep an eye out for theVineyard, which will be coming
out, I think, in 2024 as well,which I'm actually in the
process of doing some drafts onright now, and other than that,
(01:04:06):
I think everything has beenreleased already, I think, so it
should be good.
Yeah, that about covers it.
Long list.
Courtney (01:04:15):
Well, you do a lot of things.
Noordin (01:04:18):
Sure.
Courtney (01:04:18):
So, yeah, I will make sure that I've got links to your
card page.
Some of your other projectsthat are current up on the show
notes Aw, thank you.
Well, at this point I am goingto wrap up the interview portion
of this recording.
So, listeners, if you areinterested, after I stop
recording I'm going toimmediately start recording
(01:04:41):
again and go into a fun,patron-only quick question blitz
where I've got 10 questionsthat I will be asking Noordin
and patrons will be able to hearthis exclusively over on
Patreon.
Just look for a roll Play grow.
We've got some silly questions.
Some are gaming related, someare not, and it's always a good
time.
Noordin (01:05:00):
Looking forward to it.
Courtney (01:05:01):
But thank you again so much for coming on the show
today.
This has been a wonderfulconversation.
Noordin (01:05:06):
Hey, I love talking shop incessant.
No one talks to me about shopenough.
Talk to me about shop.
Get in the weeds with me.
It's fun.
Courtney (01:05:19):
You just finished another episode of roll play
grow.
To check out the show notes andtranscript from today's episode
, you can go tolightheartadventures.
com/rpg.
To keep up with every episode.
Please subscribe on yourpodcast player of choice and, if
you're enjoying the show, Iwould absolutely love if you
would leave me a review andshare this episode with your
(01:05:40):
friends.
Your review might even getfeatured on an upcoming episode.
To contact us, you can emailrollplaygrow@ gmail.
com.
There are a lot of social mediasites out there right now, so
look for roll play grow for theshow account and look for either
Ketra or Ketra RPG for myaccounts and Dungeon Glitch for
(01:06:00):
Matt's accounts.
Lastly, I want to give aspecial shout out to our editor,
sam Atkinson.
Your help is always appreciated, sam.
Thank you all so much forlistening and I'll see you next
time on roll play grow.
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