May 5, 2024 • 63 mins
Embark on a journey of discovery where the rolling of dice ignites personal transformation and community bonding. Together with my insightful producers, Andrew and Catherine, we unravel the dynamic world of role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons, and how they unlock creativity, provide therapeutic benefits, and foster spiritual growth. Weaving personal tales with expert commentary, our episode serves as a testament to the empowering nature of RPGs in shaping lives and nurturing connections.
Have you ever imagined yourself as someone else, in a world where dragons soar and magic thrives? Our conversation dives into the heart of character creation and game dynamics, where Catherine introduces you to Zanros Bemblebomble, her quirky rock gnome with dreams bigger than her stature. Andrew and Catherine chime in with their rich experiences, highlighting how the limitless narratives of RPGs reflect life's triumphs and tribulations, offering a playground for learning and self-expression within a safe communal space.
We reflect on the profound impact of D&D on Andrew and Catherine's personal and spiritual journeys. It's not just about the game; it's about the lessons learned, the confidence built, and the support of a community that champions each member's growth. Tune in for an episode that's not just a conversation but an invitation to explore the depths of your own imagination and the potential for profound change that comes with it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back.
This is episode five of Willyou Walk With Me, and I'm so
excited today because we aregoing to have guests.
Andrew and Catherine, myproducers, are going to be
guests in our time together.
But before we get started andwelcome them, let me check in.
How are you today?
What do you bring to this timetogether?
(00:34):
I know it's been a while sincewe last got together, so let's
take a moment to think about ourlast walk that we took.
We talked about mindfulness.
Mindfulness, which has to dowith examining who we are and
cultivating appreciation for thefullness of each precious
moment in which we are alive.
Most of all, it has to do withbeing present, recognizing and
(01:00):
being more in touch with thedepths of your mind and your
heart, and being in a place ofpeace and kindness in a
sometimes crazy and painfulworld.
Take a breath in, let it out,take a moment to appreciate
(01:20):
yourself.
You are special.
You are a child of God, made inGod's image and loved, loved,
loved by God, just the way youare.
Take one more breath in and letit out and let it out.
(01:45):
Today's walk is going to focuson purpose and the support of
community that very importantsupport.
A few weeks ago, I found myselflistening to NPR, national
Public Radio.
There was a very interestingstory about children in a middle
school in Massachusetts.
There are many studies out nowon the impact of the pandemic
(02:09):
isolation on children indifferent age cohorts.
These particular children, whoare now in Brown Middle School,
were in the fourth grade in 2020when the country went into
lockdown.
Their ability to carry on withtheir academics through Zoom was
truly a gift from God, in myopinion, but there's no denying
(02:31):
that the lack of learning inperson created deficits in
social learning and interaction.
In this school, they focus oncreative ways to bring purpose
and life skills to theeducational process Each day.
For example, eighth graderstake charge of the school
announcements for students andstaff alike.
(02:52):
They determine the order ofannouncements and how to weave
the school's new motto let goand move on into the culture of
the entire school family.
School principal Kim Lysak saidin an interview that bumps in
life are inevitable and thesemiddle school students are
(03:12):
children who are beginning tolook at the challenges and
opportunities of adulthood.
Principal Lysak sees that somechildren tend to hold on to
things that make them angry orembarrassed and they can't move
forward either academically orsocially.
She tells them tomorrow is anew day with new opportunities.
(03:32):
When situations happen,children are brought together
and they talk things out.
That is part of the purpose,the purpose of building
relationships, becauserelationships aren't easy to
build and they are fluid andthey are confusing at times.
Giving the opportunity tocreate and lead in adult
(03:54):
activities, along with a focuson bringing students together to
talk openly about lifechallenges in a safe environment
, gives them intentionalactivities that help develop
self-confidence and compassionfor themselves and others.
Is this focus on relationshipsand owning the creative process
(04:19):
something only children canparticipate in?
Is this a need that was onlybrought on because of the
pandemic?
For me, of course, the answerto both questions is no.
I think that no matter what ageyou are, we all have the need
to step out of our comfort zonesand reach out to another person
.
Also, I think the pandemicisolation just shined a bright
(04:43):
light on an already existingchallenge.
In our last walk together, welooked at a more solitary
practice mindfulness, eventhough I have practiced
mindfulness in groups before butin this walk, we will focus
more directly on community.
More directly on community.
In Galatians 6, 2 through 3,the Apostle Paul writes live
(05:09):
creatively, friends.
If someone falls into sin,forgivingly restore him, saving
your critical comments foryourself.
You might be needingforgiveness yourself before the
day is out.
Stoop down and reach out tothose who are oppressed, share
their burdens and complete.
(05:29):
That was taken from the messagetranslation.
Brown Middle School isintentionally working at
creating an environment whichhelps take their students to a
higher level in socialactivities and relationship
building.
But what about for adults?
What opportunities are therefor us?
Today, we're going to take alook at something very creative
(05:54):
that focuses on relationships.
Among other things, it is theplaying of role-playing games,
or RPGs.
To be honest, until the lastmonth or so, I never knew too
much about this world.
I knew that Andrew andCatherine, my producers, were
very involved in RPGs, and it isbecause they started a podcast
(06:16):
of their own called Legends,loot and Lure that we have the
opportunity to make the podcastwalks that we offer.
Andrew and Catherine aremembers of my church family and
they came to me with the idea ofoffering a podcast almost a
year ago.
They donate their time andequipment for each episode and
(06:37):
we are very blessed by theirministry.
Probably the most famous RPG isDungeons Dragons.
It was very popular in the 70sand 80s and is making a comeback
, as evidenced and being offeredin schools as part of
after-school club activities.
D&d Dungeons Dragons is not theonly RPG out there.
(07:00):
There are many others, bothsecular and Christian.
One of the most popularChristian ones is called the
Holy Lands.
To be honest, I haven't everparticipated in an RPG.
I want to at some point, justto have the experience.
But what interested me for nowis not so much the
technicalities of playing thegame, but the significant amount
(07:21):
of research surrounding RPGs aspart of therapy in community.
Please remember that as wecontinue our walk today, rpgs or
any other practice that wemight share is not a substitute
for a journey with a licensedtherapist, but can definitely
complement your process.
(07:43):
But can definitely complementyour process.
I'm going to give you a littlebackground and then we will talk
with Andrew and Catherine andinvite them to share their story
.
My research led me to severalarticles and a really cool book
called Tabletop Role-PlayingTherapy a Guide for Clinician
Game Masters by Megan AMcConnell.
(08:03):
For Clinician Game Masters byMegan A McConnell.
The Family Therapy HealthNetwork highlights the fact that
most diagnosed and undiagnosedmental health disorders have in
common a way that they hijack aperson's ability to experience
joy, playing or simply beingwith others.
While focus on children withthis challenge is very high in
(08:24):
these years since the pandemicisolation, we can't forget that
there are many adults sufferingas well.
Through play, people can safelyexplore challenges, challenge
their thoughts and beliefs andwork on creative solutions.
What is a growing field ofstudy is the impact on
negotiators who are preparingfor major negotiation sessions.
(08:48):
They focus on role-playingactivities where they not only
play their own role or characterwe'll talk about that later but
also take turns in playing theparts of the counter negotiator,
so that they have a clearunderstanding of the thoughts,
interests and needs of the otherperson.
This focused opportunity isused in business, critical peace
(09:12):
talks, life or death hostagenegotiations, as well as
planning for military actions.
Role play helps us to definerelationships within ourselves
and others.
It requires imagination,impulse, control, frustration,
tolerance, cognitiveadaptability, and it offers the
(09:35):
individual a place to work onparts of their lives in a
supportive community environment.
The Family Therapy HealthNetwork actually created their
own RPG and called it Legends ofLorem, susan Harriman from the
University of Chicago at Loyola,says that the potential for
(09:56):
dramatic rehearsal and civicoutcomes in tabletop RPGs
describes some of theopportunities that RPGs offer.
She writes that the adjectiveof tabletop comes from the fact
that these games intend for agroup of people to gather
together around a table and playtogether collaboratively and
(10:18):
synchronously while sharing thatspace.
Aaron Hollander definestabletop RPGs primarily as group
storytelling, with each playerresponsible for the actions of a
character of their own design.
Everyone responds to and, withnarrated action, to the effects
of the decisions that are madethrough a flexible system of
(10:41):
rules and probability mechanisms.
Players take responsibility foracting these roles out within a
narrative through eitherliteral acting or through a
process of structureddecision-making regarding
character development.
Actions taken within gamessucceed or fail according to a
(11:01):
formal system of rules andguidelines.
While they take any number ofpermeations.
The game with the largestcultural footprint is D&D.
However, d&d is only one gameamongst a multitude.
Not all have a fantasy settingor focus on combat.
Not all tabletop RPGs require a20-sided die or any die at all,
(11:26):
and there are as many settingsand subject matters as there are
genres of any art form.
Hollander says that tabletopRPGs are rooted in a focus on
unrehearsed and unrepeatablenarratives through a
collaborative, improvisationalstorytelling narrative, and that
they are distinguished by theirparticipatory quality, not only
(11:49):
in the imaginative buy-in ofthe audience, but in their very
existence, being generatedprimarily for the benefit of
those taking part.
So it brings me great joy towelcome to you my friends, my
(12:16):
parishioners and my especiallyin this context producers andrew
and katherine.
Hi there, hello, it's so goodto have you here.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's great to be here .
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yay, and I want to keep digging into this.
So, like I've done the researchon you know, obviously there's
more research to be done, butI've read a lot.
I've looked at different booksand articles.
But now I want to hear fromyour heart, I want to get right
in behind the scenes on how allof this works.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I'll try not to geek out too much, but well, geek out
a little.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
All right.
So I just gave this bigdiscussion here about some of
the research.
Did I do a good job?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
job.
I think you did a great job.
There's so much benefit, Ithink, to role-playing games and
it's really just like how thispodcast is doing it.
(13:20):
They're really just starting toscratch the surface of what the
therapeutic benefits are ofrole-playing in general.
It doesn't have to be D&D, itcould be literally anything, but
the research into it is reallyjust in its infancy.
Still, this is one of the firstbooks out there about the topic
(13:45):
, so, yeah, they're really juststarting to get a handle on what
the actual therapeutic benefitsare to encountering scenarios
in a role-playing environment.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Do you think that there is an age range?
Now, I mentioned in mychildren's high school.
This is part of theafter-school program one of the
opportunities.
How young do you think youcould be to start any type of
role-playing game?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, you're going to say something, Darren.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I was going to say.
I think you only have to be oldenough to understand the rules
to some extent, right?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
have to be old enough to understand the rules to some
extent, right, yeah, I meanthey make D&D for little kids
without all the complex rulesand everything, with just some
of the basic concepts.
I mean kids know how to roleplay.
I mean they play, dress up andpretend to be people all the
time, so it's not a far-fetchedthing, I think, for them.
(14:44):
I think it's harder for adultsto to to get into that, that
kind of environment.
Um, but one of the people weinterviewed on the podcast, ryan
McLaughlin, I mean he does itin middle school, like for for
therapeutic reasons, forpurposes, so um't think there's,
(15:05):
I don't think there's any agelimitation.
It's just how, what, the what,the therapeutic benefits of that
may be, maybe middle school, Imean I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I don't, I don't know , I don't know, I'm not to say
so.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
it's hard for me to say, but he's definitely had
some great experience using D&Din a middle school environment
as kind of a therapeuticresource.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So on the other side, have you had any experience
with playing this game withsomeone who is a senior citizen?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's a good question.
I mean so D&D got its start in1973.
So there probably are seniorcitizens that are playing D&D at
this point.
Would be my guess.
I've never had the honor toplay with someone in that
(16:08):
demographic, but I'm sure thereare.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And the re.
So I ask about kids first,because I'm really captivated by
the work that the Brown middleschool is doing.
But in terms of an older person, they would bring more life,
life experience to the game.
Am I right sure?
Yeah yeah, and that wouldaffect character development and
(16:33):
and all the other aspects ofthe game.
So it actually might be areally interesting experience if
the person is able to let goand become part of the process
to to have them be a part of anyparticular group activity with
this game.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right, yeah, that's it's.
It's that role-playing conceptthat that I don't say a lot of
people but, but some peopledefinitely struggle with.
I mean, cause you're, you'replaying, you have to think like
your character and act like yourcharacter.
So it's sometimes, sometimesthat can be the biggest hurdle
(17:11):
to to come over.
So, while while older, whilepeople even of our generation
have have more experience,sometimes it's we're further
away from those kids who areused to playing, you know so.
So sometimes it's hard to jumpover that that hurdle.
So and there's, with all thatlife experience just becomes
(17:32):
more trauma and and other thingsto deal with.
So so there's a lot more tounpack over time.
Um, as you, as you get olderand yet I think um.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
We attended packs unplugged in december of last
year and I mean, you had areally wide range of age groups
there.
So there certainly are.
Oh so, pax Unplugged.
Reverend Kathy is looking at melike what is Pax Unplugged?
Pax Unplugged is a giant.
It's board games, rpg gamesconvention.
(18:03):
So they had a panel aboutCritical Role, which is a pretty
well-known now um group thatplays D&D online and you can
watch them on YouTube and allsorts of stuff Twitch and
YouTube over the place andshowing you how to play
(18:24):
different games, and I mean itwas a huge event.
There were tables and tablesand tables of people just
playing RPGs and doing what theycall one shots, which are
pretty short RPG games so youcan get them done in one sitting
, and I feel like there was areally wide range of ages there.
(18:45):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
There were yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Probably fewer kids than I'm accustomed to seeing at
a convention, but I would say alot more older people than I
would have anticipated yes, forsure.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Yeah, absolutely right okay, so uh-oh yes how did
you both get started?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
started it was it was may, yeah, so, um.
So I had a friend that was aformer co-worker.
We became friends um after Ithink after I'd left that
company.
We were both doing our ownthing.
One day he said to me he goes,would you have any interest in
(19:25):
playing Dungeons and Dragons?
And so for me, my experiencewith Dungeons and Dragons was
growing up.
I knew people who said theyplayed the game.
I'd never seen the game playedbefore.
I understood kind of theconcept of it.
(19:45):
I knew it was a role-playinggame and that kind of thing.
So it's always something that Iwas kind of aware of and always
curious about, but never hadthe opportunity.
No one ever invited me to playbefore.
So this was in, I want to saylike 2017?
Yeah.
Probably about 2017.
(20:06):
And he was, like you know,would you be interested in
playing?
And I'm like, sure I'd love toplay.
I have no clue what I'm doing,but I'd love to try.
So that's how it started.
And we sat down, went through,he gave me the basic rule book,
so I started reading the rulesto understand how the game was
(20:28):
played, created my firstcharacter and and all that kind
of fun stuff.
But that's how, that's how it,that's how it entered into our,
our lives.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
And then, catherine, you can tell yeah, so the friend
who brought Andrew into it, whohas become a good friend of
both of us, wanted to tryplaying, instead of being the DM
, the dungeon master.
So he wanted to do a characterso that he could role play.
And he asked if I would beinterested in DMing and honestly
(21:02):
I was not, but I love thesepeople so I did it and I really
didn't enjoy that part of it.
Um, but I am now playing in agame that we do for the podcast
and I am playing a characterrather than being the dungeon
master, and I actually love it.
So what's your character's name?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
uh, zanrose, bemble, bumble yes, could you slow that
down?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
please, that's zanrose bemble bumble she is a
rock gnome and her goal in lifeis to open a bed and breakfast.
The bemble bumble b and b Ilove it.
I love it and that that youknow and that that's part of, I
think, the beauty of the game.
Right like um andrew and our,our friend Joe, created the
(21:50):
character for the podcast andthen Joe was going to play
Zanros but stepped away frombeing able to do it because he's
getting married.
So he's very busy right now.
So I took over and all I had wasthis is the character, here are
her general traits, and as wewere going through what they
(22:11):
call a session zero, where yousort of build out like what are
your character's motivations,what are they going to do, how
is this going to play out, Isaid, wouldn't it be funny if
she wanted to open a B&B?
Because her name is BumbleBumble and it has grown into a
whole thing Like her solepurpose in life now is to get
enough gold to open her bed andbreakfast.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Interesting, yes, interesting.
I think I'm going to skip acouple of questions here and go
to this one.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
All right.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Okay, so, if I have it right, game Master, or
Dungeon Master in the D&D case,sets up the big picture of the
story, yep, story of the game,and then participants choose
characters.
What goes into setting up acharacter, and can someone have
(23:02):
more than one character?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
oh, that's, that's, that's a good question.
Yeah, so typically in anadventure one person plays one
character.
That's kind of a.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Unless something happens to their character, and
then they can't be anothercharacter, but at a time.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
They're playing one character at a time.
There is the potential forcharacter death, just as in real
life.
So there are real life stakesthere that your character could
(23:47):
die, things that you create.
They're changing the termwhat's been known as race in D&D
.
You pick a race.
So are you a human?
Are you an elf?
That type of thing?
They're changing it to call itspecies to be more inclusive.
(24:09):
But, basically, who are you?
What type of character are you?
Um, race and then class.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna bringthis up on my screen so I can go
through this.
So there are 12 classes andthis, this, this helps define
kind of who you, who you are aswell.
Are you a barbarian?
Are you a big, like aggressive,fighter?
(24:31):
Are you a druid?
Are you more tapped into nature?
Are you a cleric, someone thatheals?
Are you a healer?
Are you you could be a sorcereror a wizard casting spells?
So there's all sorts ofdifferent classes that you can
(24:51):
choose from.
So those are race, class andthen you can choose your
background from there.
Those are some of the keybuilding blocks to a character,
kind of how you want them to be.
Like I've built a human wizard.
There are, like I said I'm LikeI've built a human wizard.
There are, there are.
Like I said, I'm going to geekout a little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So there's, all sorts .
Speaker 2 (25:12):
There's all sorts of races in D and D.
There are I've, I've played afeline and what what is known as
a tabaxi.
That's the race in D and D.
But you can.
I mean there there are vampires.
I mean, there are vampires,there are.
Well, there's lizard folk,there's dragonborn, there's all
(25:35):
sorts of things you can be.
So you can be almost anythingyou could possibly want to be
who is not yourself, and thereare a lot of inherent traits to
each race.
So a lot of times, again, someare more nature-based.
(25:56):
So again, depending on whatkind of character you want to
create, it could be someone verymuch like you.
You can put a lot of yourselfinto the character.
You can also, if you want tocreate the character similar to
a fictional hero or somethinglike that, you can do that as
well.
So there's all sorts of ways ofbuilding the character, but
(26:20):
race, class and kind ofbackground are some of the basic
building blocks.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
There's way more than that, but that's the basic
basic.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Sorry, no no, no, that's good.
I mean, we'd be here all night.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I know.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Kind of a thing if we went into the whole depth of it
.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
We spent multiple episodes on our podcast about
going into this.
So, yeah, you could really talkwell into the night on that
Legends loot going into this.
So, yeah, you could.
You could really talk, talkwell into the night on on that.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Legends, loot and lure.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
If you want to learn more about the technical stuff
about the game, yes, and thewhole idea of it is that it's
for beginners, so it really is agreat way to start if you're
looking to get involved in thegame we go.
We start with the.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
ABCs of D&D, go through a lot of the basic
terminology and then weliterally walk through building
a character.
We walk through the basic races, the basic classes, et cetera.
So you could literally listenthrough the episodes and build a
character as you go.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Excellent.
How many people are involved inyour particular game?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
There's four of us.
So for the podcast, yeah, gamethere's four of us.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So for the podcast, yeah, there's four of us.
There's me as the, as the, thedm right, the dungeon master,
and we have three, threecharacters that that play and
okay, so there's the four of you.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
If say, I wanted to join your game, sure could I
join it now, or do I have towait till you end?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
No, absolutely you can we have.
It's interesting.
So I, I play in multiple gamesand for, for example, our
Wednesday night game um, noteverybody can make it every
night so.
So it's just a question of whocan show up and then whoever can
play that night kind of playstogether.
So it's just a question of whocan show up and then whoever can
(28:09):
play that night kind of playstogether, and the DM will
sometimes play the character,the people who are absent.
He'll play their characters forthem.
So if there's a battle orsomething and they've got a
fight, he can roll the dice forthem on their behalf.
And people come, people go, somepeople move on and say I can't
play anymore.
Like Joe got engaged and isgetting married, so his time is
(28:35):
focused elsewhere.
So other people can jump in andadd a character to the party,
and that's part of the fun of it.
Then the DM and the new personkind of create the story.
Well, how does this person meetthe rest of the party?
So you tie, you work togetherto tie all that in, so you can,
people can join all the time.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Yeah, when I decided that I didn't want to DM our
campaign anymore, joe said hewould take over, and first he
took the character that he wasplaying and had him ride off to
single-handedly battle thevampire that was the bad guy in
this particular story and, um,when his character rode off, it
freed him to step into the dm uhseat again.
(29:17):
So yeah, I mean it's part ofthe creativity of the game, is
that really?
It's as flexible as you want itto be it's's highly flexible,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Can't if you can give me a short synopsis of a
particular campaign, not notnecessarily Cal, like what's the
, what's the thing that the DMpresents to you to you.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So, before we jump into that, I'll, I'll, I'll,
I'll, I'll preface it by sayingthis so, there, there, there's
really two ways for a DM to tostart a campaign.
Um, the producers, the, thecompany, that which at the
moment is Hasbro that owns the,the company that creates all the
D and D content.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Oh, that was Hasbro.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, they create a lot of books.
They publish a lot of pre-builtadventures so you can pull a
book off the shelf and run anadventure that way.
So you're given kind of thewhole story, the plot line, and
then the characters play withinthat environment.
Um, there's also what is knownas homebrew, which is the dm
(30:32):
makes up their own story, they,they create the entire world
themselves.
So they create anything that'snot a player character.
Yeah, they create all the otherpeople you interact with the
storyline.
Everything is their ownimagination.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Is it all like medieval stuff?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
No, not at all.
Some of it's in.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
you can be in space, you can be A little Star Trek
thing going on here.
Yeah, there is a.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Star Trek version of Really Of like D&D, yeah,
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
NASA released their own campaign.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
NASA released their own NASA.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah, oh my God, a bunch of NASA scientists.
What is it?
The the dragon steals theHubble telescope.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, the dragon.
The dragon steals the Hubbletelescope and you've got to go
rescue it.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, so a bunch of scientists figure out what's
going on, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Wow, I'm just we're just blowing your mind, aren't
we?
Yes, yes, that was not in myreading.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I didn't see that in the book I I feel like um, our
next door neighbor, plays umwith a group in their high
school and I feel like theirplots are very romance driven,
which you wouldn't really thinkabout for dnd, but that is part
of it as well.
Okay, so it really, like I said, can be as flexible as you want
(31:52):
it to be, can be as wide asyour imagination.
Really 100.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
There is.
I.
I dm'd for a little while.
There was a whole um campaignfrom from dungeons and dragons
called strixhaven, which was auniverse, which was all based in
a university of magic.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Like Harry Potter thing.
Yeah, like an adult.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Harry Potter, like Harry Potter goes to college.
Yeah, yeah, okay, back toschool with Rodney Dangerfield.
I love that movie, but magic.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Okay, yeah, I mean, there's really anything that you
part of.
The reason that when I wasDMing that Joe chose the
campaign that he did was becauseit was vampires and I love
vampires, like that's just mything.
And you love Buffy the vampire,I do love Buffy the vampire
slayer, um, and he thought thatwould be great.
(32:48):
What we didn't know at the timeand this is another piece of it
is that some of the books areway more structured than others.
So the book that he had beenusing previously was very
structured.
It said you do this, you dothis, you do this.
Strahd was all over the place,which was Curse of.
Strahd is the vampire one, so itwas really difficult for me, as
somebody who had really neverplayed before, to understand
(33:11):
what I was doing on any givenday.
So I was learning, you know,the mechanics of the game, the
rules of the game, and then alsotrying to have enough completed
for the group to have somethingto do every time we played.
It was.
It was a tough one, so I thinkthat that's a piece of it, too.
Like, how much of it, do youwant to use your creativity and
(33:32):
how much would you like them tolay out?
As much as you can, althoughyou're always going to get
thrown curve balls because yourparty never does what you think
they're going to do.
They don't, and I mean thathappens within the party itself
too, too, which is aninteresting piece of it.
Um, you know we play.
(33:53):
When we play for the podcast,we play with a good friend of
ours and our next door neighborand um, james goes off the rails
sometimes and even I am like,uh, dude, what are we doing?
That's not what we just talkedabout before we got into this,
but he's being creative.
Exactly, but he's frequentlyjust wreaking havoc.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
And that's when we talk about this as a therapeutic
resource.
That's the thing I mean.
You have there's so much thatyou have to think about because
you have a party of people thatare very independently minded.
You need to act together, youneed to work together to solve a
problem, but you've gotpotentially no idea what the
(34:38):
other people are going to do inyour party, so you've got to be
able to.
It's very interesting to seehow people react to situations,
because we have I've hadsituations where, like this one
guy, well, for example, so wewere just in a campaign, in a
(35:01):
game the other night and, like adragon, I play a dwarf.
So I'm a very short character,I'm a soldier, so I've been in
the war, something.
Yeah, catherine told me I'm alittle character, something like
that.
So, anyway, this dragon likecomes up to me and was like you
look delicious because I'm verytall, I'm very tiny and I look
(35:25):
like food.
I'm very tall, I'm very tinyand I look like food.
So I took my weapon and, likehit the dragon on the nose,
which which, like everybody else, was like bad idea, bad idea.
But it's exactly what mycharacter would have done,
because my my character doesn'tlike is very kind of like, if
somebody attacks him, he's goingto, he's going to step up to it
(35:46):
.
So so it's very interestingbecause literally you should
have seen the reaction ofeverybody else.
They were just like wait, whydid you do that?
Like we're all going to die.
And that's not what happened.
The dragon kind of just took astep back and was like, oh okay.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
So you stood up to the dragon?
Yeah, exactly, you stood up tothe dragon and that's a very
interesting point.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
As we look at.
I mean, we could talk all night, as you try to explain to me
all the intricate details of thegame.
Do you at all take into accountthings that you might want to
(36:30):
work on quote unquote, work onin your life, that you could use
this as a testing ground?
You know you just stood up tothe big bad bully, Not asking
you particularly if this issomething you want to work on in
your life, but if someone ishaving issues with standing up
(36:55):
for themselves, could they usethis game as a testing ground to
learn how to do it?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
100%, oh yeah definitely.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Can you talk about that?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I mean I can talk about it from the perspective of
Zanros Bumble Bumble.
I mean it was a character thatwas handed to me but I've
infused a lot of myself into herbecause I saw pieces of that.
But I think the place whereshe's really great for me is
that I am able to be tough andto kind of forge ahead no matter
(37:28):
what.
And those are the things wherepeople talk a lot about imposter
syndrome, right.
And when you go into theworkplace, you know you feel
like, oh, what am I doing here?
Like, am I good enough to dothis?
And Zanros, as a character, hasno doubt in what she wants to do
.
She's of noble birth but shewants to branch out from her
(37:49):
family and open this bed andbreakfast on her own.
And it's that single-mindedtoughness that I think I sort of
take when I go into the officeand try to shake off that
imposter syndrome and go, yeah,I'm good enough to do this, I
can, you know, obviously, likesyndrome, and go, yeah, I'm good
(38:09):
enough to do this, I can, youknow, obviously, like, I know
what I'm doing.
And and Zanros Zanros can be alittle bit of a rage monster
sometimes, but it's great for mebecause it lets me kind of blow
off steam in a way that Icertainly can't in an office
environment.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Fascinating, fascinating.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Especially in office environment, where I've been
described as bubbly and sweet.
So I really can't go in thereand yell at people.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
But you can.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
As Zanros, absolutely she has her own voice and
everything Like I do a voice Ishe sometimes gets really mad
and she is not afraid to standup for herself in ways where
sometimes I'm in the office andyou know you have that moment
where you're like I don't knowthis person, it's awkward to
reach out to them, like it kindof gives me a little bit of that
like well, I have to, so let'sdo it interesting, interesting
(38:57):
yeah, the character, and evenlike my character in my Monday
night game, thoradin the thedwarf, um, he is, I'm trying to
remember he's like like 150years old, he's, he's, he's been
, he's, he's been around theblock and he's he's seen a lot
of stuff in his life and, like Iuse, I use that kind of I think
(39:23):
, of a little bit of likedannyver in.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Lethal.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Weapon.
I'm getting too old for this,oh man, I remember that.
Okay.
But for me, I can say and dothings as Thoradin that I'm not
comfortable maybe doing orwasn't comfortable doing in,
(39:50):
let's say, a work environment.
Standing up to a bully, you know, you know it's I, I might, I
may have even done thatdifferently, yeah, and through
all my therapy and everythingelse, even in the game, I may
not have done that the same waya year or so ago.
(40:10):
So it's a way for me to stand upto a bully and say, hey, I'm
not going to take that and seewhat happens, because if I mean,
maybe if I were a lessercharacter, I would have just
kind of demurred to the dragonand been like, oh no, like I'll
just back away, you know, but Idon't, I don't want to be that,
(40:34):
I want to be able to stand upfor myself and say, no, this is,
you know, if you're going tocome at me, I'm going to stand
my ground.
So so it's.
It's been, it's been a veryinteresting experience kind of
being able to play that out inrole playing, and I think it's
helped me more so in my, in mylife, just being able to be that
(40:55):
kind of person that that standsup for himself and is a little
more assertive than than I mightbe otherwise.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So that's a wonderful , and I'm, and I'm, as I'm
watching them talk.
So you can't see this becauseit's a podcast.
Their eyes light up when theytalk about this.
There is a joy on their face.
It's interesting.
As a person who has no directexperience with this other than
(41:24):
from a research perspective, Isee that there is something in
their lives, through this game,that is transformative for them
and probably for many others,because there are lots and lots
and lots and lots of people whoplay this game, and when I think
of the concept oftransformation, I mean Paul
(41:44):
talks about it and beingtransformed by the word Okay and
yes, we are called to that.
But then from that particulartransformation process, how does
that branch out into otheraspects?
I think the Lord just providesso many opportunities for us to
experience that transformativepower and presence, this being
(42:08):
one of them, and that's always areason, you know, to be
grateful.
The community what happens ifsomebody just isn't playing nice
?
Now, I don't mean that theircharacter.
I mean, if their character isnot supposed to be nice, that's
(42:29):
one thing, but if it doesn't fit, have you ever had that
experience?
Because when you're dealing incommunity, things happen,
experiences happen to peoplethat change them.
You may have welcomed somebodynew into the group and it's like
, oh God, we don't know what wewere thinking of here.
Have you ever had thatexperience?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Maybe he is smiling.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
There is a story here somewhere.
I mean, do you want to tellthat story?
You don't have to name namesBecause, if not, I know of a
story as well.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
No, so it's interesting because there was
another person that I hadinterviewed on Legends, lute and
Lore who does that integratesD&D into the workplace
environment.
And you know, dealing with adifficult employee or a
(43:24):
difficult co-worker similarsituation you have a difficult
party member.
There are all sorts of ways todeal with that.
The DM is kind of the managerof the team, so to speak.
He's the one running the table.
So there's all sorts of things.
So there's all sorts of things.
(43:45):
The table I don't want to soundtoo weird about this, but the
table is a sacred space.
You want to.
It needs to be a safe place foreverybody, because when you
role play you need to becomfortable with the people that
(44:05):
you're around.
You need to feel comfortable tobe able to do that, for
Catherine to be able to do avoice and all that.
You've got to feel comfortableat that table to be able to do
those types of things.
So if you have somebody that'sin that group that's making
others feel uncomfortable or mayjust be taking over, you know,
(44:28):
like maybe you've got a partymember that just likes to kill
everybody that you encounter.
You know there's differentthings like that.
You know the DM needs to makesure that the game is fun for
everybody.
So sometimes it may be talkingto that person, like the DM
talking to the person and beinglike hey, I've gotten this
(44:50):
feedback from other people atthe table, so it's a great
opportunity to deal with kind ofconflict resolution.
But you want to make sure thatas a DM, you're making it a safe
space for for everybody,because everybody again, you've
got people of differentbackgrounds, different genders,
(45:13):
different ethnicities you've gotyou've got all these different
things that come to the tableand everybody needs to feel like
they're contributing and andand being accepted at that table
.
So so if you've got someonethat is making that difficult or
or or or making somebody feeluncomfortable, you definitely
need to address it.
(45:33):
But it's a great, greatopportunity to talk to your DM,
to be like hey, like I'm notfeeling so, so good right now,
you know, because becausesomething else is happening, so
and then the DM can just killoff that character no, I'm just
kidding and he falls off a cliff.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
So the DM could do that?
The DM could say this is what'sgoing to happen to you, nasty
person.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
No, I wouldn't go that far.
But I would say again you dealwith it as usually everybody is
our friends for the most part,but one of the DM's jobs is to
make the table a safe space foreverybody.
So if somebody doesn't feelthat way, then you need to
(46:23):
address it and either talking tothat person and they change
their behavior, or maybe justasking that person to leave the
table.
Maybe this is not the righttable for them.
So you can definitely ask, justlike how you have a group of
friends, sometimes you have todistance yourself from somebody.
(46:44):
If they're a negative influencein your life or something like
that, you know you may want toseparate yourselves from them.
Same thing at a dnd table.
You know.
If somebody is, um causingproblems, you know you need to
address it and and move forwardlikewise.
Was that a lot?
I felt that that was like along answer to that.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Wow, sorry no, but it's a very important topic
because there's the wholeconcept.
I mean, I know just just frombeing in business where you'd be
in a sales meeting and you haveto do role playing and straight
up.
Uh, you know, I have a minor intheater, okay, so acting in and
of itself is part of part of mebut, role-playing is like a
(47:30):
whole other thing.
Yeah, uh, it's not acting.
Yes, you might create acharacter, but there's something
in the concept of role-playingthat, to me, requires safety
absolutely yeah um whether it'sin the boardroom or the dining
room 100%.
We're all sitting in theirdining room by the way, yes.
You know so that.
(47:51):
So safety is a very so I'm gladyou took the time.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
To have that answer.
And I know, as we're coming toa close here, if you can, if you
feel comfortable and safe, ifyou can, if you, if you feel
comfortable and safe, how hasyour role-playing experience in
D and D?
So, by the way, before Icontinue this question, we are
all big proponents of therapyworking working with a licensed
(48:19):
therapist.
So has the D&D experience helpedyou in your therapeutic journey
and spiritual journey, I mean,and we're all parishioners in
the same church together, so isthere a connection, going even
(48:39):
deeper than what we've discussed, to point on how this game
affects you in these otheraspects of your life to the
extent that you're comfortabletalking about it, mm-hmm?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
I mean, one of the things that I've been working on
in therapy for years is beingmy authentic self, you know,
just being able to be myselfwithout feeling uncomfortable.
And I think over the years he'stried to get me to role play on
multiple occasions and I wasnever comfortable doing that,
(49:12):
despite the fact that I trust mytherapist.
I've been seeing him for yearsand years.
Now it's probably 15 years.
I mean, it's been a long time.
And I think D&D has certainlybroken me out of that shell,
because you know we don't havethe most listeners ever, but we
just hit 7,500 downloads.
Yes, that's awesome.
(49:33):
So a lot of people arelistening to me.
Do a stupid voice on a monthlybasis.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
That is awesome.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
And, you know, it's something that I think I would
have shied away from in the past, have shied away from in the
past, and I think that's justanother step of toward becoming
that authentic self, or reallylike being able to embrace that
authentic self that is powerful.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Thanks be to God, amen.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Amen, I think.
I think you've made one reallygood point, which is something I
want to say.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Just the one.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
I knew that was coming.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I love you dear.
I love you dear.
I love you too.
No, the one thing that peoplefind a lot easier about
role-playing in something likean RPG such as D&D is that it
isn't yourself.
So you're playing a character.
So it's not you.
(50:29):
It may be you, you know, theremay be aspects of you.
I mean, you obviously embodyyour character, but it's not you
.
Again, I'm a three and a halffoot dwarf, like.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, I'm three foot.
I'm three foot five.
I'm a rock gnome.
I weigh 29 pounds.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Right, exactly, I'm three foot five.
I'm a rock gnome.
I weigh 29 pounds Right exactlyLike I'm 150 years old, like
it's, and somehow that makessense.
But it's interesting.
I think my journey in therapyand my journey through D&D have
(51:06):
kind of played off of each other.
I went through a lot in 2023and learned a tremendous amount
in therapy and I feel like I'mable to use that in D&D.
But I also feel like D&Daugments what I've learned in
(51:30):
therapy.
I can kind of play it out.
So the concepts that I'mworking on and learning in
therapy, I can kind of play outin a safe environment in D&D
before I try them in real life.
So my character can do somethingthat, that, that that I've been
working on in therapy, and it'smuch safer to do it that way
(51:54):
than than to try to do it infront of an actual person you
know either, either inrelationships and friendships or
work, whatever that may be.
I think it's.
It gives you a really safespace to try those things out
and see how other people reactand see what happens when you do
(52:15):
those things.
So I think there's a lot ofbenefit for me to playing D&D
alongside my therapy andspiritually, you know I I'm, I'm
always fascinated by there.
There are a lot of charactersthat have um classes and things
like that that have veryspiritual aspects to them.
(52:38):
You know whether, whether theylike I'm a monk, you're a monk,
so the one who wants to buildthe bed and breakfast is a monk.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yes, okay, good, okay , got it.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
AKA a martial artist.
Yeah that too.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, you are talented.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah.
Zanros is a cool character,yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
You know, it's really interesting because I think
that there is it's that samehero's journey.
It's that same hero's journey,you know, like I feel like a lot
of the characters that you playand things like that these
stories just tell themselvesover and over again.
So a lot of things that happenin the Bible, like David and
(53:19):
Goliath, which is a very commonstory.
So it's a way to kind of almostdeepen the meaning to those
stories and those experiencesthat have happened in the Bible
that you've read about.
You can almost kind of playthem out in a different
environment so to speak.
Wow, so some of that.
And it's like you know you prayto the moon god, but I mean
(53:44):
there's all sorts of differentdeities and things in in
dungeons and dragons and on allthat but, but you bring a lot of
yourself to that.
So there's, I think, a lot ofit.
Your, your spiritual journeyties into kind of your hero's
journey in in D and D.
You know you you'll learn a lotas as time goes on and and
(54:04):
hopefully can apply that to reallife.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, One of the things that I talk about with my
therapist a lot is the idea ofso I struggle with my weight,
and one of the things we'vetalked about is 12 step programs
like Overeaters, Anonymous, andyou know that that, that idea
of a higher power and the factthat that higher power is
somewhere within you, so it'snot just some amorphous thing,
(54:32):
it's how you relate to whateverthat higher power is.
You know, in my case it wouldbe God, but in another person's
case it might be something else.
It might be a relative who'spassed, who they, you know, feel
very connected to, a relativewho's passed, who they, you know
, feel very connected to it's.
It's that, that thing that youreach outside of yourself to get
(54:53):
, and I think there's somethingabout about role playing that
allows you to connect with thatotherness.
I mean, I'm not a three footfive rock monk, but a rock no
monk monk.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
But you know, Wait you're not.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
Who did I marry?
I know Just finding out now.
But you know, it allows me tobe something I'm not, which
allows me to connect with thingsin a different way, so that
when I struggle to find thathigher power, it kind of helps
me find a different way to lookat things, to say like, oh okay,
(55:29):
this is how I can connect withGod through my creativity,
through my you know, just likefinding that.
You know Zanros is veryfrustrated by all of the
obstacles that she's facing inthis campaign and you know I
think I feel the same way inlife a lot of the time, right
Like everything's an obstacle,nothing is easy, and it helps to
(55:50):
connect to that.
And then you know, where areyou asking for help from when
things get really tough for me?
What am I asking for help?
I'm asking God for help.
So it's funny the way it justkind of like ties right back
into your life every day.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
That's amazing.
And Jesus faced so manyfrustrations.
I think that Christians don'tspend enough time I don't want
to say role-playing, becausethat's not the right word but
really digging into the fact ofhow Jesus was frustrated.
I sometimes think that he wentto the cross and one of one of
(56:27):
the fears was oh my God, wasthis all worth it?
Right, was this?
Do they get the message?
Not enough people get themessage.
Was this worth it?
And that that's a huge burdenthat he took for us because he
loves us, and I think, as as wewell, I got, and I think, as as
(56:47):
we well, I got.
One final question, but as webring this to a close, um, when
we look at the love that God hasfor us, and the and, and God
invites us into creativity, andthat's what captivates me about
all of this at this point, froma research perspective, at this
point, from a researchperspective, creativity is how
(57:10):
we can open ourselves up to adeeper experience of God,
whether it be this, whether itbe painting, whether it be music
, I mean, there's countlessamounts of things that are out
there.
We're focusing on this tonight,but they are all opportunities
to come closer into our ownbeing, to appreciate that we are
the blessed children of God andthen to reach deeper and
(57:32):
further and reach our arms outwider to receive God into our
lives.
So you guys have been awesometonight.
This has been so wonderful forme.
I hope you had a good time too.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
It was fun.
Thank you, it's.
I mean, we do this all the timeon our podcast, but it's
interesting kind of being aguest on someone else's podcast,
so thank you.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Well, this was great.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Here's the final question how do you start or
find a group if you'reinterested.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
I think I'm going to jump onto my computer for a
second.
I will say you touched on oneof the ways, especially if
you're younger.
A lot of schools have groupsnow.
One of the things that we'vetalked about on the podcast is
the prevalence of D&D in popculture, especially recently,
and I think Stranger Things, theTV show, is a lot of why the
resurgence has happened.
It's very it's a focus in thatshow and it's sort of when
(58:36):
people really got back into itand when I think you know our
next door neighbor who's intheir high school club mentioned
that because of Stranger Things, all these people showed up for
the D and D.
Oh, wow.
Um, so I think for school agedkids, school is a good place to
do it.
Andrew, I think, has discoveredwhatever he was looking for, so
I've killed enough time.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
No, there, there there's a.
There's a couple of thingsonline, but there is.
There are numerous ways to toget involved in the game.
So, thanks to COVID, there wasa lot of tools that were created
.
You could play a game onlinewith others, but places to look
(59:18):
are your local game store.
So if you have a local gamestore, a lot of the times they
run games there for beginnersand things like that.
Facebook.
There are tons of groups, localgroups, online.
There's numerous New Jersey,since we're based in New Jersey.
(59:40):
There are numerous New Jerseygroups.
There's Northern New Jersey,southern New Jersey, the
mythical Central New Jersey, uh,d and D groups.
So there there's all sorts of Dand D.
There's Bergen County D and D.
There's.
You can you can find localgroups of people that are always
looking to add somebody to atable.
So there's always people saying, hey, you know, we're looking
(01:00:01):
for another player, we're, we'replaying X night and the one.
The one thing I will highlyrecommend is is try out
different, different DMS with agroup.
(01:00:27):
So don't don't feel like if you, if you tried it once and and
didn't click with the group,don't, don't give up because
it's just different DMS havedifferent styles and obviously
it's like finding a group offriends, so so be be open-minded
to, to giving it some time toto find it out, but you can.
There is dndbeyondcom, which isthe online version of all the
(01:00:47):
rule books.
You can download the free rulebook, the basic rules, so if you
want to start reading about it,you can go there.
But yeah, you can find gamesalmost anywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Cool, very cool.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Hey, I want to close out with something from the
Message Paul's letter to theRomans in the 12th chapter.
He says don't burn out, keepyourselves fueled, and of a
flame Be alert, servants of God,cheerfully expectant.
Don't quit in hard times, helpneedy Christians and be
(01:01:24):
inventive in hospitality.
That sounds like a lot of whatwe've talked about tonight and I
again am so grateful.
Thank you so much for being on.
Will you walk with me and foreveryone else out there?
My prayers go with you until wemeet again.
Invest in yourself, take timeto be with the Lord and see
(01:01:47):
where God leads you.
You are worth it.
I'm inviting you to walk with meon this journey again at our
next meeting, a journey to knowthe life-giving, restoring power
of God, and I am always honoredto walk with you.
I hope that you will join me inour next episode and I want to
(01:02:09):
be sure that you know that ifyou are in need of professional
help which we all treasure inour journey and you don't know
what to do, you can contact theNational Suicide Prevention
Lifeline.
It's accessible by calling1-800-273-TALK, which is 8255.
(01:02:30):
Or there's a three-digit code,988, the Suicide and Crisis
Lifeline, designed to be amemorable and quick number that
connects people who are in anyother mental health crisis to a
trained professional, any othermental health crisis to a
trained professional.
If you would like to reach outto us, please send us a note.
(01:02:51):
At podcast, at will you walkwith mecom.
And again, thank you, andrewand Catherine, and to all of you
for listening.
I pray for each of you that yousee the hand of Jesus extended,
knowing you are a child of God.
Grab onto that hand, betransformed, be creative and
know that in the process youhave a blessed partner for the
(01:03:13):
journey forward.
We'll see you soon.
Bye.
Welcome back.
This is episode five of Willyou Walk With Me, and I'm so
excited today because we aregoing to have guests.
Andrew and Catherine, myproducers, are going to be
guests in our time together.
But before we get started andwelcome them, let me check in.
How are you today?
What do you bring to this timetogether?
(00:34):
I know it's been a while sincewe last got together, so let's
take a moment to think about ourlast walk that we took.
We talked about mindfulness.
Mindfulness, which has to dowith examining who we are and
cultivating appreciation for thefullness of each precious
moment in which we are alive.
Most of all, it has to do withbeing present, recognizing and
(01:00):
being more in touch with thedepths of your mind and your
heart, and being in a place ofpeace and kindness in a
sometimes crazy and painfulworld.
Take a breath in, let it out,take a moment to appreciate
(01:20):
yourself.
You are special.
You are a child of God, made inGod's image and loved, loved,
loved by God, just the way youare.
Take one more breath in and letit out and let it out.
(01:45):
Today's walk is going to focuson purpose and the support of
community that very importantsupport.
A few weeks ago, I found myselflistening to NPR, national
Public Radio.
There was a very interestingstory about children in a middle
school in Massachusetts.
There are many studies out nowon the impact of the pandemic
(02:09):
isolation on children indifferent age cohorts.
These particular children, whoare now in Brown Middle School,
were in the fourth grade in 2020when the country went into
lockdown.
Their ability to carry on withtheir academics through Zoom was
truly a gift from God, in myopinion, but there's no denying
(02:31):
that the lack of learning inperson created deficits in
social learning and interaction.
In this school, they focus oncreative ways to bring purpose
and life skills to theeducational process Each day.
For example, eighth graderstake charge of the school
announcements for students andstaff alike.
(02:52):
They determine the order ofannouncements and how to weave
the school's new motto let goand move on into the culture of
the entire school family.
School principal Kim Lysak saidin an interview that bumps in
life are inevitable and thesemiddle school students are
(03:12):
children who are beginning tolook at the challenges and
opportunities of adulthood.
Principal Lysak sees that somechildren tend to hold on to
things that make them angry orembarrassed and they can't move
forward either academically orsocially.
She tells them tomorrow is anew day with new opportunities.
(03:32):
When situations happen,children are brought together
and they talk things out.
That is part of the purpose,the purpose of building
relationships, becauserelationships aren't easy to
build and they are fluid andthey are confusing at times.
Giving the opportunity tocreate and lead in adult
(03:54):
activities, along with a focuson bringing students together to
talk openly about lifechallenges in a safe environment
, gives them intentionalactivities that help develop
self-confidence and compassionfor themselves and others.
Is this focus on relationshipsand owning the creative process
(04:19):
something only children canparticipate in?
Is this a need that was onlybrought on because of the
pandemic?
For me, of course, the answerto both questions is no.
I think that no matter what ageyou are, we all have the need
to step out of our comfort zonesand reach out to another person
.
Also, I think the pandemicisolation just shined a bright
(04:43):
light on an already existingchallenge.
In our last walk together, welooked at a more solitary
practice mindfulness, eventhough I have practiced
mindfulness in groups before butin this walk, we will focus
more directly on community.
More directly on community.
In Galatians 6, 2 through 3,the Apostle Paul writes live
(05:09):
creatively, friends.
If someone falls into sin,forgivingly restore him, saving
your critical comments foryourself.
You might be needingforgiveness yourself before the
day is out.
Stoop down and reach out tothose who are oppressed, share
their burdens and complete.
(05:29):
That was taken from the messagetranslation.
Brown Middle School isintentionally working at
creating an environment whichhelps take their students to a
higher level in socialactivities and relationship
building.
But what about for adults?
What opportunities are therefor us?
Today, we're going to take alook at something very creative
(05:54):
that focuses on relationships.
Among other things, it is theplaying of role-playing games,
or RPGs.
To be honest, until the lastmonth or so, I never knew too
much about this world.
I knew that Andrew andCatherine, my producers, were
very involved in RPGs, and it isbecause they started a podcast
(06:16):
of their own called Legends,loot and Lure that we have the
opportunity to make the podcastwalks that we offer.
Andrew and Catherine aremembers of my church family and
they came to me with the idea ofoffering a podcast almost a
year ago.
They donate their time andequipment for each episode and
(06:37):
we are very blessed by theirministry.
Probably the most famous RPG isDungeons Dragons.
It was very popular in the 70sand 80s and is making a comeback
, as evidenced and being offeredin schools as part of
after-school club activities.
D&d Dungeons Dragons is not theonly RPG out there.
(07:00):
There are many others, bothsecular and Christian.
One of the most popularChristian ones is called the
Holy Lands.
To be honest, I haven't everparticipated in an RPG.
I want to at some point, justto have the experience.
But what interested me for nowis not so much the
technicalities of playing thegame, but the significant amount
(07:21):
of research surrounding RPGs aspart of therapy in community.
Please remember that as wecontinue our walk today, rpgs or
any other practice that wemight share is not a substitute
for a journey with a licensedtherapist, but can definitely
complement your process.
(07:43):
But can definitely complementyour process.
I'm going to give you a littlebackground and then we will talk
with Andrew and Catherine andinvite them to share their story
.
My research led me to severalarticles and a really cool book
called Tabletop Role-PlayingTherapy a Guide for Clinician
Game Masters by Megan AMcConnell.
(08:03):
For Clinician Game Masters byMegan A McConnell.
The Family Therapy HealthNetwork highlights the fact that
most diagnosed and undiagnosedmental health disorders have in
common a way that they hijack aperson's ability to experience
joy, playing or simply beingwith others.
While focus on children withthis challenge is very high in
(08:24):
these years since the pandemicisolation, we can't forget that
there are many adults sufferingas well.
Through play, people can safelyexplore challenges, challenge
their thoughts and beliefs andwork on creative solutions.
What is a growing field ofstudy is the impact on
negotiators who are preparingfor major negotiation sessions.
(08:48):
They focus on role-playingactivities where they not only
play their own role or characterwe'll talk about that later but
also take turns in playing theparts of the counter negotiator,
so that they have a clearunderstanding of the thoughts,
interests and needs of the otherperson.
This focused opportunity isused in business, critical peace
(09:12):
talks, life or death hostagenegotiations, as well as
planning for military actions.
Role play helps us to definerelationships within ourselves
and others.
It requires imagination,impulse, control, frustration,
tolerance, cognitiveadaptability, and it offers the
(09:35):
individual a place to work onparts of their lives in a
supportive community environment.
The Family Therapy HealthNetwork actually created their
own RPG and called it Legends ofLorem, susan Harriman from the
University of Chicago at Loyola,says that the potential for
(09:56):
dramatic rehearsal and civicoutcomes in tabletop RPGs
describes some of theopportunities that RPGs offer.
She writes that the adjectiveof tabletop comes from the fact
that these games intend for agroup of people to gather
together around a table and playtogether collaboratively and
(10:18):
synchronously while sharing thatspace.
Aaron Hollander definestabletop RPGs primarily as group
storytelling, with each playerresponsible for the actions of a
character of their own design.
Everyone responds to and, withnarrated action, to the effects
of the decisions that are madethrough a flexible system of
(10:41):
rules and probability mechanisms.
Players take responsibility foracting these roles out within a
narrative through eitherliteral acting or through a
process of structureddecision-making regarding
character development.
Actions taken within gamessucceed or fail according to a
(11:01):
formal system of rules andguidelines.
While they take any number ofpermeations.
The game with the largestcultural footprint is D&D.
However, d&d is only one gameamongst a multitude.
Not all have a fantasy settingor focus on combat.
Not all tabletop RPGs require a20-sided die or any die at all,
(11:26):
and there are as many settingsand subject matters as there are
genres of any art form.
Hollander says that tabletopRPGs are rooted in a focus on
unrehearsed and unrepeatablenarratives through a
collaborative, improvisationalstorytelling narrative, and that
they are distinguished by theirparticipatory quality, not only
(11:49):
in the imaginative buy-in ofthe audience, but in their very
existence, being generatedprimarily for the benefit of
those taking part.
So it brings me great joy towelcome to you my friends, my
(12:16):
parishioners and my especiallyin this context producers andrew
and katherine.
Hi there, hello, it's so goodto have you here.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's great to be here .
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yay, and I want to keep digging into this.
So, like I've done the researchon you know, obviously there's
more research to be done, butI've read a lot.
I've looked at different booksand articles.
But now I want to hear fromyour heart, I want to get right
in behind the scenes on how allof this works.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I'll try not to geek out too much, but well, geek out
a little.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
All right.
So I just gave this bigdiscussion here about some of
the research.
Did I do a good job?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
job.
I think you did a great job.
There's so much benefit, Ithink, to role-playing games and
it's really just like how thispodcast is doing it.
(13:20):
They're really just starting toscratch the surface of what the
therapeutic benefits are ofrole-playing in general.
It doesn't have to be D&D, itcould be literally anything, but
the research into it is reallyjust in its infancy.
Still, this is one of the firstbooks out there about the topic
(13:45):
, so, yeah, they're really juststarting to get a handle on what
the actual therapeutic benefitsare to encountering scenarios
in a role-playing environment.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Do you think that there is an age range?
Now, I mentioned in mychildren's high school.
This is part of theafter-school program one of the
opportunities.
How young do you think youcould be to start any type of
role-playing game?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, you're going to say something, Darren.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
I was going to say.
I think you only have to be oldenough to understand the rules
to some extent, right?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
have to be old enough to understand the rules to some
extent, right, yeah, I meanthey make D&D for little kids
without all the complex rulesand everything, with just some
of the basic concepts.
I mean kids know how to roleplay.
I mean they play, dress up andpretend to be people all the
time, so it's not a far-fetchedthing, I think, for them.
(14:44):
I think it's harder for adultsto to to get into that, that
kind of environment.
Um, but one of the people weinterviewed on the podcast, ryan
McLaughlin, I mean he does itin middle school, like for for
therapeutic reasons, forpurposes, so um't think there's,
(15:05):
I don't think there's any agelimitation.
It's just how, what, the what,the therapeutic benefits of that
may be, maybe middle school, Imean I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I don't, I don't know , I don't know, I'm not to say
so.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
it's hard for me to say, but he's definitely had
some great experience using D&Din a middle school environment
as kind of a therapeuticresource.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So on the other side, have you had any experience
with playing this game withsomeone who is a senior citizen?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's a good question.
I mean so D&D got its start in1973.
So there probably are seniorcitizens that are playing D&D at
this point.
Would be my guess.
I've never had the honor toplay with someone in that
(16:08):
demographic, but I'm sure thereare.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
And the re.
So I ask about kids first,because I'm really captivated by
the work that the Brown middleschool is doing.
But in terms of an older person, they would bring more life,
life experience to the game.
Am I right sure?
Yeah yeah, and that wouldaffect character development and
(16:33):
and all the other aspects ofthe game.
So it actually might be areally interesting experience if
the person is able to let goand become part of the process
to to have them be a part of anyparticular group activity with
this game.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right, yeah, that's it's.
It's that role-playing conceptthat that I don't say a lot of
people but, but some peopledefinitely struggle with.
I mean, cause you're, you'replaying, you have to think like
your character and act like yourcharacter.
So it's sometimes, sometimesthat can be the biggest hurdle
(17:11):
to to come over.
So, while while older, whilepeople even of our generation
have have more experience,sometimes it's we're further
away from those kids who areused to playing, you know so.
So sometimes it's hard to jumpover that that hurdle.
So and there's, with all thatlife experience just becomes
(17:32):
more trauma and and other thingsto deal with.
So so there's a lot more tounpack over time.
Um, as you, as you get olderand yet I think um.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
We attended packs unplugged in december of last
year and I mean, you had areally wide range of age groups
there.
So there certainly are.
Oh so, pax Unplugged.
Reverend Kathy is looking at melike what is Pax Unplugged?
Pax Unplugged is a giant.
It's board games, rpg gamesconvention.
(18:03):
So they had a panel aboutCritical Role, which is a pretty
well-known now um group thatplays D&D online and you can
watch them on YouTube and allsorts of stuff Twitch and
YouTube over the place andshowing you how to play
(18:24):
different games, and I mean itwas a huge event.
There were tables and tablesand tables of people just
playing RPGs and doing what theycall one shots, which are
pretty short RPG games so youcan get them done in one sitting
, and I feel like there was areally wide range of ages there.
(18:45):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
There were yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Probably fewer kids than I'm accustomed to seeing at
a convention, but I would say alot more older people than I
would have anticipated yes, forsure.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Yeah, absolutely right okay, so uh-oh yes how did
you both get started?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
started it was it was may, yeah, so, um.
So I had a friend that was aformer co-worker.
We became friends um after Ithink after I'd left that
company.
We were both doing our ownthing.
One day he said to me he goes,would you have any interest in
(19:25):
playing Dungeons and Dragons?
And so for me, my experiencewith Dungeons and Dragons was
growing up.
I knew people who said theyplayed the game.
I'd never seen the game playedbefore.
I understood kind of theconcept of it.
(19:45):
I knew it was a role-playinggame and that kind of thing.
So it's always something that Iwas kind of aware of and always
curious about, but never hadthe opportunity.
No one ever invited me to playbefore.
So this was in, I want to saylike 2017?
Yeah.
Probably about 2017.
(20:06):
And he was, like you know,would you be interested in
playing?
And I'm like, sure I'd love toplay.
I have no clue what I'm doing,but I'd love to try.
So that's how it started.
And we sat down, went through,he gave me the basic rule book,
so I started reading the rulesto understand how the game was
(20:28):
played, created my firstcharacter and and all that kind
of fun stuff.
But that's how, that's how it,that's how it entered into our,
our lives.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
And then, catherine, you can tell yeah, so the friend
who brought Andrew into it, whohas become a good friend of
both of us, wanted to tryplaying, instead of being the DM
, the dungeon master.
So he wanted to do a characterso that he could role play.
And he asked if I would beinterested in DMing and honestly
(21:02):
I was not, but I love thesepeople so I did it and I really
didn't enjoy that part of it.
Um, but I am now playing in agame that we do for the podcast
and I am playing a characterrather than being the dungeon
master, and I actually love it.
So what's your character's name?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
uh, zanrose, bemble, bumble yes, could you slow that
down?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
please, that's zanrose bemble bumble she is a
rock gnome and her goal in lifeis to open a bed and breakfast.
The bemble bumble b and b Ilove it.
I love it and that that youknow and that that's part of, I
think, the beauty of the game.
Right like um andrew and our,our friend Joe, created the
(21:50):
character for the podcast andthen Joe was going to play
Zanros but stepped away frombeing able to do it because he's
getting married.
So he's very busy right now.
So I took over and all I had wasthis is the character, here are
her general traits, and as wewere going through what they
(22:11):
call a session zero, where yousort of build out like what are
your character's motivations,what are they going to do, how
is this going to play out, Isaid, wouldn't it be funny if
she wanted to open a B&B?
Because her name is BumbleBumble and it has grown into a
whole thing Like her solepurpose in life now is to get
enough gold to open her bed andbreakfast.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Interesting, yes, interesting.
I think I'm going to skip acouple of questions here and go
to this one.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
All right.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Okay, so, if I have it right, game Master, or
Dungeon Master in the D&D case,sets up the big picture of the
story, yep, story of the game,and then participants choose
characters.
What goes into setting up acharacter, and can someone have
(23:02):
more than one character?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
oh, that's, that's, that's a good question.
Yeah, so typically in anadventure one person plays one
character.
That's kind of a.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Unless something happens to their character, and
then they can't be anothercharacter, but at a time.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
They're playing one character at a time.
There is the potential forcharacter death, just as in real
life.
So there are real life stakesthere that your character could
(23:47):
die, things that you create.
They're changing the termwhat's been known as race in D&D
.
You pick a race.
So are you a human?
Are you an elf?
That type of thing?
They're changing it to call itspecies to be more inclusive.
(24:09):
But, basically, who are you?
What type of character are you?
Um, race and then class.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna bringthis up on my screen so I can go
through this.
So there are 12 classes andthis, this, this helps define
kind of who you, who you are aswell.
Are you a barbarian?
Are you a big, like aggressive,fighter?
(24:31):
Are you a druid?
Are you more tapped into nature?
Are you a cleric, someone thatheals?
Are you a healer?
Are you you could be a sorcereror a wizard casting spells?
So there's all sorts ofdifferent classes that you can
(24:51):
choose from.
So those are race, class andthen you can choose your
background from there.
Those are some of the keybuilding blocks to a character,
kind of how you want them to be.
Like I've built a human wizard.
There are, like I said I'm LikeI've built a human wizard.
There are, there are.
Like I said, I'm going to geekout a little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So there's, all sorts .
Speaker 2 (25:12):
There's all sorts of races in D and D.
There are I've, I've played afeline and what what is known as
a tabaxi.
That's the race in D and D.
But you can.
I mean there there are vampires.
I mean, there are vampires,there are.
Well, there's lizard folk,there's dragonborn, there's all
(25:35):
sorts of things you can be.
So you can be almost anythingyou could possibly want to be
who is not yourself, and thereare a lot of inherent traits to
each race.
So a lot of times, again, someare more nature-based.
(25:56):
So again, depending on whatkind of character you want to
create, it could be someone verymuch like you.
You can put a lot of yourselfinto the character.
You can also, if you want tocreate the character similar to
a fictional hero or somethinglike that, you can do that as
well.
So there's all sorts of ways ofbuilding the character, but
(26:20):
race, class and kind ofbackground are some of the basic
building blocks.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
There's way more than that, but that's the basic
basic.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Sorry, no no, no, that's good.
I mean, we'd be here all night.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I know.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Kind of a thing if we went into the whole depth of it
.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
We spent multiple episodes on our podcast about
going into this.
So, yeah, you could really talkwell into the night on that
Legends loot going into this.
So, yeah, you could.
You could really talk, talkwell into the night on on that.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Legends, loot and lure.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
If you want to learn more about the technical stuff
about the game, yes, and thewhole idea of it is that it's
for beginners, so it really is agreat way to start if you're
looking to get involved in thegame we go.
We start with the.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
ABCs of D&D, go through a lot of the basic
terminology and then weliterally walk through building
a character.
We walk through the basic races, the basic classes, et cetera.
So you could literally listenthrough the episodes and build a
character as you go.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Excellent.
How many people are involved inyour particular game?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
There's four of us.
So for the podcast, yeah, gamethere's four of us.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
So for the podcast, yeah, there's four of us.
There's me as the, as the, thedm right, the dungeon master,
and we have three, threecharacters that that play and
okay, so there's the four of you.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
If say, I wanted to join your game, sure could I
join it now, or do I have towait till you end?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
No, absolutely you can we have.
It's interesting.
So I, I play in multiple gamesand for, for example, our
Wednesday night game um, noteverybody can make it every
night so.
So it's just a question of whocan show up and then whoever can
play that night kind of playstogether.
So it's just a question of whocan show up and then whoever can
(28:09):
play that night kind of playstogether, and the DM will
sometimes play the character,the people who are absent.
He'll play their characters forthem.
So if there's a battle orsomething and they've got a
fight, he can roll the dice forthem on their behalf.
And people come, people go, somepeople move on and say I can't
play anymore.
Like Joe got engaged and isgetting married, so his time is
(28:35):
focused elsewhere.
So other people can jump in andadd a character to the party,
and that's part of the fun of it.
Then the DM and the new personkind of create the story.
Well, how does this person meetthe rest of the party?
So you tie, you work togetherto tie all that in, so you can,
people can join all the time.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Yeah, when I decided that I didn't want to DM our
campaign anymore, joe said hewould take over, and first he
took the character that he wasplaying and had him ride off to
single-handedly battle thevampire that was the bad guy in
this particular story and, um,when his character rode off, it
freed him to step into the dm uhseat again.
(29:17):
So yeah, I mean it's part ofthe creativity of the game, is
that really?
It's as flexible as you want itto be it's's highly flexible,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Can't if you can give me a short synopsis of a
particular campaign, not notnecessarily Cal, like what's the
, what's the thing that the DMpresents to you to you.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So, before we jump into that, I'll, I'll, I'll,
I'll, I'll preface it by sayingthis so, there, there, there's
really two ways for a DM to tostart a campaign.
Um, the producers, the, thecompany, that which at the
moment is Hasbro that owns the,the company that creates all the
D and D content.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Oh, that was Hasbro.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, they create a lot of books.
They publish a lot of pre-builtadventures so you can pull a
book off the shelf and run anadventure that way.
So you're given kind of thewhole story, the plot line, and
then the characters play withinthat environment.
Um, there's also what is knownas homebrew, which is the dm
(30:32):
makes up their own story, they,they create the entire world
themselves.
So they create anything that'snot a player character.
Yeah, they create all the otherpeople you interact with the
storyline.
Everything is their ownimagination.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Is it all like medieval stuff?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
No, not at all.
Some of it's in.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
you can be in space, you can be A little Star Trek
thing going on here.
Yeah, there is a.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Star Trek version of Really Of like D&D, yeah,
absolutely.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
NASA released their own campaign.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
NASA released their own NASA.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah, oh my God, a bunch of NASA scientists.
What is it?
The the dragon steals theHubble telescope.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, the dragon.
The dragon steals the Hubbletelescope and you've got to go
rescue it.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, so a bunch of scientists figure out what's
going on, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Wow, I'm just we're just blowing your mind, aren't
we?
Yes, yes, that was not in myreading.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I didn't see that in the book I I feel like um, our
next door neighbor, plays umwith a group in their high
school and I feel like theirplots are very romance driven,
which you wouldn't really thinkabout for dnd, but that is part
of it as well.
Okay, so it really, like I said, can be as flexible as you want
(31:52):
it to be, can be as wide asyour imagination.
Really 100.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
There is.
I.
I dm'd for a little while.
There was a whole um campaignfrom from dungeons and dragons
called strixhaven, which was auniverse, which was all based in
a university of magic.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Like Harry Potter thing.
Yeah, like an adult.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Harry Potter, like Harry Potter goes to college.
Yeah, yeah, okay, back toschool with Rodney Dangerfield.
I love that movie, but magic.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Okay, yeah, I mean, there's really anything that you
part of.
The reason that when I wasDMing that Joe chose the
campaign that he did was becauseit was vampires and I love
vampires, like that's just mything.
And you love Buffy the vampire,I do love Buffy the vampire
slayer, um, and he thought thatwould be great.
(32:48):
What we didn't know at the timeand this is another piece of it
is that some of the books areway more structured than others.
So the book that he had beenusing previously was very
structured.
It said you do this, you dothis, you do this.
Strahd was all over the place,which was Curse of.
Strahd is the vampire one, so itwas really difficult for me, as
somebody who had really neverplayed before, to understand
(33:11):
what I was doing on any givenday.
So I was learning, you know,the mechanics of the game, the
rules of the game, and then alsotrying to have enough completed
for the group to have somethingto do every time we played.
It was.
It was a tough one, so I thinkthat that's a piece of it, too.
Like, how much of it, do youwant to use your creativity and
(33:32):
how much would you like them tolay out?
As much as you can, althoughyou're always going to get
thrown curve balls because yourparty never does what you think
they're going to do.
They don't, and I mean thathappens within the party itself
too, too, which is aninteresting piece of it.
Um, you know we play.
(33:53):
When we play for the podcast,we play with a good friend of
ours and our next door neighborand um, james goes off the rails
sometimes and even I am like,uh, dude, what are we doing?
That's not what we just talkedabout before we got into this,
but he's being creative.
Exactly, but he's frequentlyjust wreaking havoc.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
And that's when we talk about this as a therapeutic
resource.
That's the thing I mean.
You have there's so much thatyou have to think about because
you have a party of people thatare very independently minded.
You need to act together, youneed to work together to solve a
problem, but you've gotpotentially no idea what the
(34:38):
other people are going to do inyour party, so you've got to be
able to.
It's very interesting to seehow people react to situations,
because we have I've hadsituations where, like this one
guy, well, for example, so wewere just in a campaign, in a
(35:01):
game the other night and, like adragon, I play a dwarf.
So I'm a very short character,I'm a soldier, so I've been in
the war, something.
Yeah, catherine told me I'm alittle character, something like
that.
So, anyway, this dragon likecomes up to me and was like you
look delicious because I'm verytall, I'm very tiny and I look
(35:25):
like food.
I'm very tall, I'm very tinyand I look like food.
So I took my weapon and, likehit the dragon on the nose,
which which, like everybody else, was like bad idea, bad idea.
But it's exactly what mycharacter would have done,
because my my character doesn'tlike is very kind of like, if
somebody attacks him, he's goingto, he's going to step up to it
(35:46):
.
So so it's very interestingbecause literally you should
have seen the reaction ofeverybody else.
They were just like wait, whydid you do that?
Like we're all going to die.
And that's not what happened.
The dragon kind of just took astep back and was like, oh okay.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
So you stood up to the dragon?
Yeah, exactly, you stood up tothe dragon and that's a very
interesting point.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
As we look at.
I mean, we could talk all night, as you try to explain to me
all the intricate details of thegame.
Do you at all take into accountthings that you might want to
(36:30):
work on quote unquote, work onin your life, that you could use
this as a testing ground?
You know you just stood up tothe big bad bully, Not asking
you particularly if this issomething you want to work on in
your life, but if someone ishaving issues with standing up
(36:55):
for themselves, could they usethis game as a testing ground to
learn how to do it?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
100%, oh yeah definitely.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Can you talk about that?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I mean I can talk about it from the perspective of
Zanros Bumble Bumble.
I mean it was a character thatwas handed to me but I've
infused a lot of myself into herbecause I saw pieces of that.
But I think the place whereshe's really great for me is
that I am able to be tough andto kind of forge ahead no matter
(37:28):
what.
And those are the things wherepeople talk a lot about imposter
syndrome, right.
And when you go into theworkplace, you know you feel
like, oh, what am I doing here?
Like, am I good enough to dothis?
And Zanros, as a character, hasno doubt in what she wants to do
.
She's of noble birth but shewants to branch out from her
(37:49):
family and open this bed andbreakfast on her own.
And it's that single-mindedtoughness that I think I sort of
take when I go into the officeand try to shake off that
imposter syndrome and go, yeah,I'm good enough to do this, I
can, you know, obviously, likesyndrome, and go, yeah, I'm good
(38:09):
enough to do this, I can, youknow, obviously, like, I know
what I'm doing.
And and Zanros Zanros can be alittle bit of a rage monster
sometimes, but it's great for mebecause it lets me kind of blow
off steam in a way that Icertainly can't in an office
environment.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Fascinating, fascinating.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Especially in office environment, where I've been
described as bubbly and sweet.
So I really can't go in thereand yell at people.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
But you can.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
As Zanros, absolutely she has her own voice and
everything Like I do a voice Ishe sometimes gets really mad
and she is not afraid to standup for herself in ways where
sometimes I'm in the office andyou know you have that moment
where you're like I don't knowthis person, it's awkward to
reach out to them, like it kindof gives me a little bit of that
like well, I have to, so let'sdo it interesting, interesting
(38:57):
yeah, the character, and evenlike my character in my Monday
night game, thoradin the thedwarf, um, he is, I'm trying to
remember he's like like 150years old, he's, he's, he's been
, he's, he's been around theblock and he's he's seen a lot
of stuff in his life and, like Iuse, I use that kind of I think
(39:23):
, of a little bit of likedannyver in.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Lethal.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Weapon.
I'm getting too old for this,oh man, I remember that.
Okay.
But for me, I can say and dothings as Thoradin that I'm not
comfortable maybe doing orwasn't comfortable doing in,
(39:50):
let's say, a work environment.
Standing up to a bully, you know, you know it's I, I might, I
may have even done thatdifferently, yeah, and through
all my therapy and everythingelse, even in the game, I may
not have done that the same waya year or so ago.
(40:10):
So it's a way for me to stand upto a bully and say, hey, I'm
not going to take that and seewhat happens, because if I mean,
maybe if I were a lessercharacter, I would have just
kind of demurred to the dragonand been like, oh no, like I'll
just back away, you know, but Idon't, I don't want to be that,
(40:34):
I want to be able to stand upfor myself and say, no, this is,
you know, if you're going tocome at me, I'm going to stand
my ground.
So so it's.
It's been, it's been a veryinteresting experience kind of
being able to play that out inrole playing, and I think it's
helped me more so in my, in mylife, just being able to be that
(40:55):
kind of person that that standsup for himself and is a little
more assertive than than I mightbe otherwise.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So that's a wonderful , and I'm, and I'm, as I'm
watching them talk.
So you can't see this becauseit's a podcast.
Their eyes light up when theytalk about this.
There is a joy on their face.
It's interesting.
As a person who has no directexperience with this other than
(41:24):
from a research perspective, Isee that there is something in
their lives, through this game,that is transformative for them
and probably for many others,because there are lots and lots
and lots and lots of people whoplay this game, and when I think
of the concept oftransformation, I mean Paul
(41:44):
talks about it and beingtransformed by the word Okay and
yes, we are called to that.
But then from that particulartransformation process, how does
that branch out into otheraspects?
I think the Lord just providesso many opportunities for us to
experience that transformativepower and presence, this being
(42:08):
one of them, and that's always areason, you know, to be
grateful.
The community what happens ifsomebody just isn't playing nice
?
Now, I don't mean that theircharacter.
I mean, if their character isnot supposed to be nice, that's
(42:29):
one thing, but if it doesn't fit, have you ever had that
experience?
Because when you're dealing incommunity, things happen,
experiences happen to peoplethat change them.
You may have welcomed somebodynew into the group and it's like
, oh God, we don't know what wewere thinking of here.
Have you ever had thatexperience?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Maybe he is smiling.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
There is a story here somewhere.
I mean, do you want to tellthat story?
You don't have to name namesBecause, if not, I know of a
story as well.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
No, so it's interesting because there was
another person that I hadinterviewed on Legends, lute and
Lore who does that integratesD&D into the workplace
environment.
And you know, dealing with adifficult employee or a
(43:24):
difficult co-worker similarsituation you have a difficult
party member.
There are all sorts of ways todeal with that.
The DM is kind of the managerof the team, so to speak.
He's the one running the table.
So there's all sorts of things.
So there's all sorts of things.
(43:45):
The table I don't want to soundtoo weird about this, but the
table is a sacred space.
You want to.
It needs to be a safe place foreverybody, because when you
role play you need to becomfortable with the people that
(44:05):
you're around.
You need to feel comfortable tobe able to do that, for
Catherine to be able to do avoice and all that.
You've got to feel comfortableat that table to be able to do
those types of things.
So if you have somebody that'sin that group that's making
others feel uncomfortable or mayjust be taking over, you know,
(44:28):
like maybe you've got a partymember that just likes to kill
everybody that you encounter.
You know there's differentthings like that.
You know the DM needs to makesure that the game is fun for
everybody.
So sometimes it may be talkingto that person, like the DM
talking to the person and beinglike hey, I've gotten this
(44:50):
feedback from other people atthe table, so it's a great
opportunity to deal with kind ofconflict resolution.
But you want to make sure thatas a DM, you're making it a safe
space for for everybody,because everybody again, you've
got people of differentbackgrounds, different genders,
(45:13):
different ethnicities you've gotyou've got all these different
things that come to the tableand everybody needs to feel like
they're contributing and andand being accepted at that table
.
So so if you've got someonethat is making that difficult or
or or or making somebody feeluncomfortable, you definitely
need to address it.
(45:33):
But it's a great, greatopportunity to talk to your DM,
to be like hey, like I'm notfeeling so, so good right now,
you know, because becausesomething else is happening, so
and then the DM can just killoff that character no, I'm just
kidding and he falls off a cliff.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
So the DM could do that?
The DM could say this is what'sgoing to happen to you, nasty
person.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
No, I wouldn't go that far.
But I would say again you dealwith it as usually everybody is
our friends for the most part,but one of the DM's jobs is to
make the table a safe space foreverybody.
So if somebody doesn't feelthat way, then you need to
(46:23):
address it and either talking tothat person and they change
their behavior, or maybe justasking that person to leave the
table.
Maybe this is not the righttable for them.
So you can definitely ask, justlike how you have a group of
friends, sometimes you have todistance yourself from somebody.
(46:44):
If they're a negative influencein your life or something like
that, you know you may want toseparate yourselves from them.
Same thing at a dnd table.
You know.
If somebody is, um causingproblems, you know you need to
address it and and move forwardlikewise.
Was that a lot?
I felt that that was like along answer to that.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Wow, sorry no, but it's a very important topic
because there's the wholeconcept.
I mean, I know just just frombeing in business where you'd be
in a sales meeting and you haveto do role playing and straight
up.
Uh, you know, I have a minor intheater, okay, so acting in and
of itself is part of part of mebut, role-playing is like a
(47:30):
whole other thing.
Yeah, uh, it's not acting.
Yes, you might create acharacter, but there's something
in the concept of role-playingthat, to me, requires safety
absolutely yeah um whether it'sin the boardroom or the dining
room 100%.
We're all sitting in theirdining room by the way, yes.
You know so that.
(47:51):
So safety is a very so I'm gladyou took the time.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
To have that answer.
And I know, as we're coming toa close here, if you can, if you
feel comfortable and safe, ifyou can, if you, if you feel
comfortable and safe, how hasyour role-playing experience in
D and D?
So, by the way, before Icontinue this question, we are
all big proponents of therapyworking working with a licensed
(48:19):
therapist.
So has the D&D experience helpedyou in your therapeutic journey
and spiritual journey, I mean,and we're all parishioners in
the same church together, so isthere a connection, going even
(48:39):
deeper than what we've discussed, to point on how this game
affects you in these otheraspects of your life to the
extent that you're comfortabletalking about it, mm-hmm?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
I mean, one of the things that I've been working on
in therapy for years is beingmy authentic self, you know,
just being able to be myselfwithout feeling uncomfortable.
And I think over the years he'stried to get me to role play on
multiple occasions and I wasnever comfortable doing that,
(49:12):
despite the fact that I trust mytherapist.
I've been seeing him for yearsand years.
Now it's probably 15 years.
I mean, it's been a long time.
And I think D&D has certainlybroken me out of that shell,
because you know we don't havethe most listeners ever, but we
just hit 7,500 downloads.
Yes, that's awesome.
(49:33):
So a lot of people arelistening to me.
Do a stupid voice on a monthlybasis.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
That is awesome.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
And, you know, it's something that I think I would
have shied away from in the past, have shied away from in the
past, and I think that's justanother step of toward becoming
that authentic self, or reallylike being able to embrace that
authentic self that is powerful.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Thanks be to God, amen.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Amen, I think.
I think you've made one reallygood point, which is something I
want to say.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Just the one.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
I knew that was coming.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I love you dear.
I love you dear.
I love you too.
No, the one thing that peoplefind a lot easier about
role-playing in something likean RPG such as D&D is that it
isn't yourself.
So you're playing a character.
So it's not you.
(50:29):
It may be you, you know, theremay be aspects of you.
I mean, you obviously embodyyour character, but it's not you
.
Again, I'm a three and a halffoot dwarf, like.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, I'm three foot.
I'm three foot five.
I'm a rock gnome.
I weigh 29 pounds.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Right, exactly, I'm three foot five.
I'm a rock gnome.
I weigh 29 pounds Right exactlyLike I'm 150 years old, like
it's, and somehow that makessense.
But it's interesting.
I think my journey in therapyand my journey through D&D have
(51:06):
kind of played off of each other.
I went through a lot in 2023and learned a tremendous amount
in therapy and I feel like I'mable to use that in D&D.
But I also feel like D&Daugments what I've learned in
(51:30):
therapy.
I can kind of play it out.
So the concepts that I'mworking on and learning in
therapy, I can kind of play outin a safe environment in D&D
before I try them in real life.
So my character can do somethingthat, that, that that I've been
working on in therapy, and it'smuch safer to do it that way
(51:54):
than than to try to do it infront of an actual person you
know either, either inrelationships and friendships or
work, whatever that may be.
I think it's.
It gives you a really safespace to try those things out
and see how other people reactand see what happens when you do
(52:15):
those things.
So I think there's a lot ofbenefit for me to playing D&D
alongside my therapy andspiritually, you know I I'm, I'm
always fascinated by there.
There are a lot of charactersthat have um classes and things
like that that have veryspiritual aspects to them.
(52:38):
You know whether, whether theylike I'm a monk, you're a monk,
so the one who wants to buildthe bed and breakfast is a monk.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yes, okay, good, okay , got it.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
AKA a martial artist.
Yeah that too.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, you are talented.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah.
Zanros is a cool character,yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
You know, it's really interesting because I think
that there is it's that samehero's journey.
It's that same hero's journey,you know, like I feel like a lot
of the characters that you playand things like that these
stories just tell themselvesover and over again.
So a lot of things that happenin the Bible, like David and
(53:19):
Goliath, which is a very commonstory.
So it's a way to kind of almostdeepen the meaning to those
stories and those experiencesthat have happened in the Bible
that you've read about.
You can almost kind of playthem out in a different
environment so to speak.
Wow, so some of that.
And it's like you know you prayto the moon god, but I mean
(53:44):
there's all sorts of differentdeities and things in in
dungeons and dragons and on allthat but, but you bring a lot of
yourself to that.
So there's, I think, a lot ofit.
Your, your spiritual journeyties into kind of your hero's
journey in in D and D.
You know you you'll learn a lotas as time goes on and and
(54:04):
hopefully can apply that to reallife.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, One of the things that I talk about with my
therapist a lot is the idea ofso I struggle with my weight,
and one of the things we'vetalked about is 12 step programs
like Overeaters, Anonymous, andyou know that that, that idea
of a higher power and the factthat that higher power is
somewhere within you, so it'snot just some amorphous thing,
(54:32):
it's how you relate to whateverthat higher power is.
You know, in my case it wouldbe God, but in another person's
case it might be something else.
It might be a relative who'spassed, who they, you know, feel
very connected to, a relativewho's passed, who they, you know
, feel very connected to it's.
It's that, that thing that youreach outside of yourself to get
(54:53):
, and I think there's somethingabout about role playing that
allows you to connect with thatotherness.
I mean, I'm not a three footfive rock monk, but a rock no
monk monk.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
But you know, Wait you're not.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
Who did I marry?
I know Just finding out now.
But you know, it allows me tobe something I'm not, which
allows me to connect with thingsin a different way, so that
when I struggle to find thathigher power, it kind of helps
me find a different way to lookat things, to say like, oh okay,
(55:29):
this is how I can connect withGod through my creativity,
through my you know, just likefinding that.
You know Zanros is veryfrustrated by all of the
obstacles that she's facing inthis campaign and you know I
think I feel the same way inlife a lot of the time, right
Like everything's an obstacle,nothing is easy, and it helps to
(55:50):
connect to that.
And then you know, where areyou asking for help from when
things get really tough for me?
What am I asking for help?
I'm asking God for help.
So it's funny the way it justkind of like ties right back
into your life every day.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
That's amazing.
And Jesus faced so manyfrustrations.
I think that Christians don'tspend enough time I don't want
to say role-playing, becausethat's not the right word but
really digging into the fact ofhow Jesus was frustrated.
I sometimes think that he wentto the cross and one of one of
(56:27):
the fears was oh my God, wasthis all worth it?
Right, was this?
Do they get the message?
Not enough people get themessage.
Was this worth it?
And that that's a huge burdenthat he took for us because he
loves us, and I think, as as wewell, I got, and I think, as as
(56:47):
we well, I got.
One final question, but as webring this to a close, um, when
we look at the love that God hasfor us, and the and, and God
invites us into creativity, andthat's what captivates me about
all of this at this point, froma research perspective, at this
point, from a researchperspective, creativity is how
(57:10):
we can open ourselves up to adeeper experience of God,
whether it be this, whether itbe painting, whether it be music
, I mean, there's countlessamounts of things that are out
there.
We're focusing on this tonight,but they are all opportunities
to come closer into our ownbeing, to appreciate that we are
the blessed children of God andthen to reach deeper and
(57:32):
further and reach our arms outwider to receive God into our
lives.
So you guys have been awesometonight.
This has been so wonderful forme.
I hope you had a good time too.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
It was fun.
Thank you, it's.
I mean, we do this all the timeon our podcast, but it's
interesting kind of being aguest on someone else's podcast,
so thank you.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Well, this was great.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
Here's the final question how do you start or
find a group if you'reinterested.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
I think I'm going to jump onto my computer for a
second.
I will say you touched on oneof the ways, especially if
you're younger.
A lot of schools have groupsnow.
One of the things that we'vetalked about on the podcast is
the prevalence of D&D in popculture, especially recently,
and I think Stranger Things, theTV show, is a lot of why the
resurgence has happened.
It's very it's a focus in thatshow and it's sort of when
(58:36):
people really got back into itand when I think you know our
next door neighbor who's intheir high school club mentioned
that because of Stranger Things, all these people showed up for
the D and D.
Oh, wow.
Um, so I think for school agedkids, school is a good place to
do it.
Andrew, I think, has discoveredwhatever he was looking for, so
I've killed enough time.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
No, there, there there's a.
There's a couple of thingsonline, but there is.
There are numerous ways to toget involved in the game.
So, thanks to COVID, there wasa lot of tools that were created
.
You could play a game onlinewith others, but places to look
(59:18):
are your local game store.
So if you have a local gamestore, a lot of the times they
run games there for beginnersand things like that.
Facebook.
There are tons of groups, localgroups, online.
There's numerous New Jersey,since we're based in New Jersey.
(59:40):
There are numerous New Jerseygroups.
There's Northern New Jersey,southern New Jersey, the
mythical Central New Jersey, uh,d and D groups.
So there there's all sorts of Dand D.
There's Bergen County D and D.
There's.
You can you can find localgroups of people that are always
looking to add somebody to atable.
So there's always people saying, hey, you know, we're looking
(01:00:01):
for another player, we're, we'replaying X night and the one.
The one thing I will highlyrecommend is is try out
different, different DMS with agroup.
(01:00:27):
So don't don't feel like if you, if you tried it once and and
didn't click with the group,don't, don't give up because
it's just different DMS havedifferent styles and obviously
it's like finding a group offriends, so so be be open-minded
to, to giving it some time toto find it out, but you can.
There is dndbeyondcom, which isthe online version of all the
(01:00:47):
rule books.
You can download the free rulebook, the basic rules, so if you
want to start reading about it,you can go there.
But yeah, you can find gamesalmost anywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Cool, very cool.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Hey, I want to close out with something from the
Message Paul's letter to theRomans in the 12th chapter.
He says don't burn out, keepyourselves fueled, and of a
flame Be alert, servants of God,cheerfully expectant.
Don't quit in hard times, helpneedy Christians and be
(01:01:24):
inventive in hospitality.
That sounds like a lot of whatwe've talked about tonight and I
again am so grateful.
Thank you so much for being on.
Will you walk with me and foreveryone else out there?
My prayers go with you until wemeet again.
Invest in yourself, take timeto be with the Lord and see
(01:01:47):
where God leads you.
You are worth it.
I'm inviting you to walk with meon this journey again at our
next meeting, a journey to knowthe life-giving, restoring power
of God, and I am always honoredto walk with you.
I hope that you will join me inour next episode and I want to
(01:02:09):
be sure that you know that ifyou are in need of professional
help which we all treasure inour journey and you don't know
what to do, you can contact theNational Suicide Prevention
Lifeline.
It's accessible by calling1-800-273-TALK, which is 8255.
(01:02:30):
Or there's a three-digit code,988, the Suicide and Crisis
Lifeline, designed to be amemorable and quick number that
connects people who are in anyother mental health crisis to a
trained professional, any othermental health crisis to a
trained professional.
If you would like to reach outto us, please send us a note.
(01:02:51):
At podcast, at will you walkwith mecom.
And again, thank you, andrewand Catherine, and to all of you
for listening.
I pray for each of you that yousee the hand of Jesus extended,
knowing you are a child of God.
Grab onto that hand, betransformed, be creative and
know that in the process youhave a blessed partner for the
(01:03:13):
journey forward.
We'll see you soon.
Bye.
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