Episode 331: Jaclyn Lewis & Jessica Gerth: Supporting Communication and Inclusion with Tabletop Gaming

This week, we share Chris’s interview with Jessica Gerth and Jaclyn Lewis! Jessica (@chaoscommunicationconverse) is a speech pathologist who utilizes TTRPGs to enhance communication and social skills among her students. Jaclyn (@wranglerofchaos) is a writer, youth worker, and game master who wrote "Rolling with the Youth," a book focusing on fostering safe and fun spaces through role-playing games. Together, they emphasize the importance of inclusivity in gaming, aiming to provide all children, regardless of their backgrounds or abilities, a place at the table!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss their shared sense of optimism for the future of AAC, and some of the possible sources for their positive outlook. They connect this optimism with the concept presuming potential, which requires an unwavering belief that students have the potential to grow and make progress!

Key ideas this week:

The Power of Role-Playing Games (RPGs) in Education and Therapy: Jessica and Jaclyn emphasize how tabletop role-playing games, like Dungeons & Dragons, can be used for educational and therapeutic purposes. These games provide opportunities for language development, social skills practice, and creativity. Jessica shares how she incorporates elements of these games into her work with students, particularly those on the autism spectrum, helping them with communication and engagement.

Inclusivity in RPGs: The interview highlights the importance of creating inclusive spaces in role-playing games. Jaclyn discusses her work on making RPGs accessible to everyone, particularly younger players and those from diverse backgrounds. She and Jessica both emphasize the role of representation, where characters like Yumi, who uses an AAC device, offer both visibility and understanding of different abilities within the game.

Safe and Supportive Game Environments: Jessica and Jaclyn explore how to create a safe environment for players through tools like "Session Zero," where expectations are set, and safety tools like the X-card, which allow players to signal discomfort. This ensures that games are not only fun but also emotionally and socially supportive for players of all backgrounds and abilities.

Links from this Episode:

“Rolling with the Youth” by Jaclyn Lewis: https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Rolling-with-the-Youth.html

Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:08 Rachel Madel
Welcome to talking with tech. I'm your host, Rachel Madel, joined, as always, by Chris Bugaj. Hey, Chris.

00:00:13 Chris Bugaj
Hey, Rachel. What's going on?

00:00:14 Rachel Madel
Not much. What do you have for me this week?

00:00:17 Chris Bugaj
So something that I'd love to talk about today is one of the podcasts that I listen to. You know, I've been listening to podcasts since 2005. I been podcasting since 2007. I've listened to many, many podcasts over the years, some just one off episodes, some I've been really into for a long time. But I'd say about maybe a year ago, I had heard about a podcast, heard about a show that I didn't check out, and someday, maybe, I don't know. But I realized about a year ago that every podcast that I was listening to and, in fact, most of the media that I was consuming was super serious. Right? Like, and you know me. Like, I like to joke around. How many times do I do cringey dad jokes, you know, or pranks or something like that when we're goofing around? But I just realized, like, yeah, everything is, like, learning something new or, you know, just. Just something serious, you know? And I also realized that, you know, just reflecting on my own life, I wasn't laughing very much, you know, like, I mean, Melissa and I, we goof around my wife, and we'll laugh there and the kids and I and my friends and stuff. But just on the day to day, you know, it's a typical Tuesday. You go to work, you come home, you talk about your day. You maybe turn on a show or something. In my case. In your case, it's answering emails, and then you go to bed and you do it again. And I just realized, man, I am not laughing. Maybe I'll work a comedic podcast into my routine. Just maybe I will laugh. And one that's been out there in the sphere since the. Since the COVID days, since the pandemic, has been the SmartLess podcast, which I'm sure many listeners right now are gonna be like, oh, my gosh, I love the SmartLess podcast. Have you heard of it? Do you know what I'm talking about?

00:02:11 Rachel Madel
I have heard of it. I haven't listened to it, though.

00:02:14 Chris Bugaj
Okay. For those that don't know, it is Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Shawn Hayes, their three friends. Those are all celebrities, in case you don't know. And, you know, during the pandemic, they got together and said, how do we stay in touch? Why don't we do a podcast together? And it's been on ever since. And every episode similar to ours, maybe they stole our format, is that it starts with them talking for a little bit, and then they do an interview, quite confident they stole our format. And so, you know, I go through the episodes and be like, oh, that's a person that I find interesting. No, that's a person that I find interesting. And let me just listen to what their conversation is like. In the same way that people are listening to the podcast and waiting for the interview that's going to come later in the segment or in this episode. So one of the episodes I was listening to recently was Trevor Noah, who was the host of the Daily Show for a while, and he is from South Africa. Do you have a Trevor Noah story? You're making faces like, no. Trevor Noah.

00:03:11 Jessica Gerth
I do.

00:03:12 Jaclyn Lewis
Yes.

00:03:12 Rachel Madel
Kind of. I kind of have a Trevor Noah story, but. Continue, continue.

00:03:15 Chris Bugaj
No, no, this is a good time because I'm about to make the whole point why I'm telling all this. But interject with your Trevor Noah story.

00:03:21 Rachel Madel
Yes, actually, I was introduced to Trevor Noah through his book before. Like, he had a book before he got, like, super mega famous, I feel like. And I forget what the book's called at this moment in time, but, yes.

00:03:33 Chris Bugaj
Well, this is why I want to bring it up on our podcast. Like, Chris, what's the point? What are you getting at? Well, as I was listening to these, not just Trevor Noah, there's been many other episodes where I've made analogies, or it's something that's happened to some celebrity, and the way they are discussing it has been like, oh, that relates in different ways. Well, something Trevor Noah said on this podcast is that he's not from America. Right. He's from South Africa, and he travels all around, but he's clearly spent some time in America working on the Daily Show and beyond. And he was saying something that he sort of recognizes about the country of America and the people of America. He's like, there's this underlying sense of optimism. He's like, no matter what, we're going to come through it, we're going to figure it out. There's going to be some sort of better path forward. Um, and they go into some different analogies and stories around that. That's, you know, if you're interested, go listen to the Trevor Noah episode on the SmartLess podcast. But as I was, you know, driving to work listening to this, it really resonated with me because as the older I get and I think about my work with people with disabilities and in this space for so long, sometimes you're like, is it ever going to change? Like, are we. Are we going to. Are we going to see brighter days? And we certainly have. Right? Like, if I look back, it's light years different now in many places around AAC in particular than it was 20 years ago, 15 years ago, or ten years ago even. Right? But I think one of the reasons that maybe it is better and will continue to get better is not just my sense of optimism, but maybe Trevor Noah's, right? Like, in America, we generally have this sense of, we can make things better. And yes, things might be bad right now, or there, We might be going through a storm, but the storm will pass, you know, and we're gonna make it pass. You know, we're gonna drive the ship through it or whatever. We. We have some control over that destiny. And it just resonated with me from a. From a personal standpoint. Like, yeah, whatever you're getting through, you will get through it. But then just in general, with. With the work that we do, that things will eventually get better. Where will we be 50 years from now, now that we have AI and so many more people talking about AAC and language, and where will the technology be? There's just this sense of optimism that I have around it.

00:06:08 Rachel Madel
I could not agree more. I feel like part of the.

00:06:12 Jaclyn Lewis
Hold on.

00:06:13 Rachel Madel
Let me say that again. I feel like one thing you need in order to be successful in this work is this kind of unwavering optimism and belief that change is possible not only to do the work that we do individually with students, but also to kind of corral a team of people that are working around a student and really inspire them to do all of the things that we know help our AAC students become successful. And so I definitely feel like I am super optimistic and hopeful. I know you are, Chris. And I just. I think that's kind of par for the course, and we're thinking through what we need in order to be successful in this work.

00:06:56 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, that's the other thing that jumped in my mind while listening to that is that it's really analogous to presuming potential. Right? Like, okay, this person has these abilities right now, but we are working with this person and their family to enhance those abilities, improve those abilities, give them strategies to work towards to get better. And same thing, when we work with communication partners, we sort of approach the other adults or kids that we're working with to say, you know what? You can learn these skills. You know, you can do this. And I still feel you know as well as I do that are that a lot of my presentations and a lot of ours together, we spend a lot of time on that presuming potential piece because we still hear some limiting thoughts or limiting beliefs around it. And it's. I mean, I was just at a presentation, and someone during the. During the break, you know, where you go over and get water, and people run to the bathroom, they're like, yeah, Chris, we'd love what you're saying about inclusion, but. But my kid, they have these, like, the kid that I work with, like, he's got these behaviors. I was like, yeah, but what I'm saying is, if we change the environment, maybe he wouldn't have those. And what if we change what we're doing? Maybe he wouldn't feel like he needs to communicate in that way. We could give him different ways to communicate. And there's this sense of optimism that I feel like we have to infuse, you know? Cause sometimes people don't feel it. And generally in America, I think we do. But on a day to day basis, when you look at the microcosm, sometimes we have to pump it into people.

00:08:27 Rachel Madel
No, I completely agree. And that story really resonated because I feel like it's like, I'll do the same thing during speaking events and things like that, and someone will be like, but you don't know my kid. And I'm like, I actually do know your kid. Like, I totally hear you. Like, I do know the kidde that has a lot of, you know, maladaptive behaviors. I do know the kid that seems to be, quote unquote, not motivated by anything. Like, I do know those kids. And so I get it, but it's like, you know, what is the alternative? Like, what is the alternative in this situation? To not believe and therefore not do all the things that we would need to do in order for our kids to be successful. So it's kind of just like, we can't be like, this kid is the exception to the rule here. Like, we just have to have this, you know, overwhelming, unwavering belief, and that ensures that we're at least doing everything that we can on our end to try to optimize and to try to be successful. And that belief, that mindset is everything. And if you're working on a team and you feel like you're roadblocked for whatever reason, you're not making progress, the device is just staying in the backpack. You're not seeing. Modeling happened all of those things. When you think about why it's not happening. You can almost always, like, trace it back to some type of limiting belief. And I'm not saying that we don't need to take a lot of time and energy to build out actual skills for communication partners and our students, but if there's some type of limiting belief underneath it all, that can be the roadblock. And I don't think we heard it talked about enough in our work. And, you know, of course, you and I talk about it a lot, Chris, but it's like that belief is so big. If we believe we can do something, then we can. And if we believe we can't, then we also will live out that destiny. And so I just feel like it's such a huge part of our work, and you can be the person on your team that believes that's optimistic, that, you know, despite. Despite things feeling like they're not going in the right direction or you're not making progress to still keep that mindset, knowing that if we have that mindset, that's the way we will be successful.

00:10:43 Chris Bugaj
Rachel, let me ask you this question. You clearly, you have that mindset. I have that mindset. Where do you think you learned that? Or where do you think you adopted that mindset?

00:10:53 Rachel Madel
It's such a good question that I've actually pondered quite a bit, because I've realized that I'm like, what makes me different? Because people come to me in my practice, and they've already been to a lot of different speech therapists that, you know, they haven't had success with in the sense that their child's still kind of stuck, not really able to fully communicate. And so it's got me thinking, like, what do I do that's so different? Like, what is the experience with me? You know? I don't. And, yes, like, I'm sure at some level it's the actual skills and experience I have with AAC that maybe other clinicians haven't. But I also feel like it's that mindset piece. Right? It's the fact that I celebrate when children do even the smallest of things. You know, I celebrate those small wins, and I don't know where it came from. Like, I think that probably is just my disposition. I think that I generally am pretty optimistic and hopeful, and I think I just believe in the good in people and believe in people's potential to be the most amazing version of themselves that they could be. And so, yeah, I think it's something that's part of who I am.

00:12:09 Chris Bugaj
I think, for me, some of the ways that I maybe adopted this mindset were from an early age, listening and watching stories. My heroes, I always felt like they were going to win, right? Luke Skywalker was going to win. Indiana Jones was going to win. Captain Kirk was going to win. There's this one episode where he rigs a test because he believes the test is meant to be a no win scenario. And he's like, I don't believe in that. I believe we can win any scenario. And so those are my childhood heroes. And then spinning that as I started to create my own stories with my friends around dungeons and dragons. Well, same thing. Here's a team of people that work together to solve some of problem and have some sort of positive outcome. Which leads me to our interview today. Rachel. So the interview today is with Jaclyn Lewis and Jessica Girth. And I explained it in the episode how the interview came together. So I won't spoil it and say it twice. Just know these are people that are, that work in role playing games and work. Jaclyn works in schools with role playing games. And, you know, this has been a big fascination of mine. And you came, once upon a time, you came to a session that I did on role playing games with Sean Pearson. And so anyway, we get into it how maybe, maybe this is your way, your road into having a more optimistic viewpoint or maybe a track into getting other people to have a more optimistic viewpoint. Or maybe you just want to have fun dorking around, you know, because there's so much language that comes out of role playing games. And the other thing about, about this interview is that it's all around inclusivity. So they talk about some of the strategies they use when working with kids to help create this inclusive role playing experience. So without further ado, let's listen to my interview with Jaclyn Lewis and Jessica Girth.

00:14:17 Lance McLemore
This October. Join impact voices at the AAC community in Arlington, Virginia. Hello. I am Lance McLemore, a board member of Impact Voices. Don't miss our second live AAC hangout and celebration at the Crystal Gateway, Marion on October 17 and 18th. Our theme is building futures together to empower AAC users, connect policymakers, employers, and each other. Hear from AAC users who are shaping the future, explore our challenges and opportunities, and discover how we can all work together for a more inclusive world. Register day@impactvoices.org dot we can't wait to see you. NI relive 2024.

00:15:32 Chris Bugaj
Welcome to talking with Tech. My name is Chris Bouguet, and today I am especially excited to do this interview because we're talking all about things that are very close to my heart. Longtime listeners of this podcast will know that I'm a big, big fan of Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games. And that's what we're going to talk about today, because I have two people that infuse this as part of their life and as part of their work. So I'd like to welcome to the podcast Jessica and Jaclyn. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself, pronounce your last names, and tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, how you met, and all that good stuff. All right, Jessica, you want to go first?

00:16:13 Jessica Gerth
Sure. My name is Jessica Gerth, and I'm a speech pathologist, have been for 17 years. I work primarily in an autism program in a little town of Belleville, which is right outside St. Louis on the Illinois side. And I work for the special ed co op Belleville Area Special Services cooperative.

00:16:30 Chris Bugaj
Awesome. Thanks for being here.

00:16:32 Jessica Gerth
Thanks for having me.

00:16:34 Jaclyn Lewis
And I am Jaclyn Lewis. I'm a writer, youth worker, and game master, and we'll define that term later. I'm from the state of Michigan, and I have been working with youth and tabletop rpg's for the last five ish years or so, like, pandemic era to now.

00:16:56 Chris Bugaj
Awesome. Awesome. All right, so how this interview came to be is that Jessica and I were at the Assistive Technology Industry association conference together, but didn't really know each other. Jessica was in the room while I was presenting with some of my co presenters. The room was pretty packed, was also a kind of a small room. So I won't. My ego will not inflate because of how packed it was because it was such a small room. But Jessica was there, and Jessica was. Jessica, was it fair that you were, like, yelling out things and participating in the discussion? Right.

00:17:28 Jessica Gerth
That's fair. Yeah.

00:17:29 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. You responded to a question and gave some input, and then I looked over and I saw your shirt, and I was, like, in my head, obviously, I couldn't say it because I was standing there like, is that a d and d shirt? Does she have a. Does she have a. Does she have a d 20 on the bottom? Okay. I can't look at her shirt right now because I'm presenting, but it did register in my brain. And then you came up afterwards and said hello because you're a listener to the podcast, and you heard me talk about critical role, which, again, we'll talk about and get everybody caught up on all of that. And so you were like, I wore my d and d shirt. I wear my critical role. Because it was a critical role shirt, right? Yes, because it was Thursday, right. All right, let's start there, Jessica, let's explain your side of that story.

00:18:13 Jessica Gerth
Sure. So I have to give a little shout out to my colleague Emily little, because we both are pretty busy. And she'll listen to the podcast sometimes. I'll get to listen to the podcast sometimes. And she was like, I just got to the cause. You know, we always joke about meeting critters in the wild, and to have someone of your level of awesomeness in the world of tech was like, oh, my gosh, someone knows about critical role. So. And then knowing going to Atia, she was like, you should wear a shirt. And I was like, I'm going to wear a shirt. So that's kind of how that started.

00:18:48 Chris Bugaj
That was awesome because I totally noticed it, and I'm so glad that you came up and said hello, because. So, Jaclyn, that quick story is I went to Disney, and as I was walking around Disney, I was noticing people with critical role shirts. Right, which is this. Well, again, we'll talk a little bit about what that is in a second. I don't need to tell what it is. The point is, I saw people like Jessica wearing shirts. I saw at least two of them. And I went up and said the secret code words, like, hey, I just want to ask you a quick question. Is it Thursday yet? Or, hey, how do you want to do this? Something like that, to let them know that I know. But the larger thing here, Jaclyn, was what I didn't see is the number of people using communication devices. I saw more people wearing critical role shirts than I did using communication devices, which was a flag to me that, okay, we need to keep our foot on the gas, letting more people know about AAC and how it can be used to teach language. So with that said, Jaclyn, let's start. You used the term TTRPG. Tell us a little bit about what that is. And maybe critical role, too, or, Jessica, if you want to jump in there, too. But, Jaclyn, you mentioned that term. Let's describe it a little bit for people that don't know for sure.

00:20:08 Jaclyn Lewis
So TTRPG stands for tabletop role playing game, which is a mouthful, but basically it is a game usually played on a tabletop with maybe maps, maybe minifigures and pencils, some paper, some dice. Sometimes those devices are digital, sometimes physical. And then role playing game, which is a game where the players each take on the role of a character, whether that's like an elven Ranger in the wild, or the pilot of a spaceship who's gone rogue, or whatever they may come up with as the character they'd like to play. And then the person who's running the game in Dungeons and Dragons, that's called the Dungeon Master and other games called a game master, a story guide, a keeper. I'll use game Master because that's, I think, one of the most generally well known terms. They're a person who has an idea of what's in this fictional world, and they know the rules of the game. And the rules of the game are there to facilitate figuring out the story, simulating different aspects of, like, okay, so this elf Ranger wants to try and shoot this goblin from a long way away. How difficult will that be? Will you be able to hit the goblin, roll the dice, and figure it out, or you're about to try and avoid an asteroid as you're piloting the ship? Will you hit the asteroid? Will you barely miss it and knock off part of the wing? Let's roll a dice and figure out what happens. And so it's a combination of sort of off the cuff playing a character, telling a story together, and also using dice and other random resolution mechanics to simulate, like, the game part of what will happen next. Will this plan work? How will this go? And the most well known one, I would say, by far, is dungeons and dragons. But there are so many different types that each have their own advantages and disadvantages for what kind of story you're trying to tell, what kind of gaming experience you have. And the way a lot of people found out about this is through a podcast called critical role. Now, I am a very casual critter, so I will defer to Jessica to describe what critical role is and what they've been doing for the past few years.

00:22:33 Jessica Gerth
Yeah, it's been, I think, almost ten years since they started. I am also a newer critter. I think I got into that during COVID because when we were stuck at home and I had free time, my brother, who had been trying to get me to watch it for ages, was like, hey, you've got time. And it was great because it was a nice escape, which I think a lot of what Dungeons Dragons does for people allow that escapism to be able to relax and step into a role you wouldn't normally be. So a critical role is a group of people who do just that, but ironically, it's also part of what they do for their job. It's a group of voice actors who get together and they play dungeons and dragons. Once a week and they were approached by Geek and Sundry, which was the company back in the day for Twitch, which is an online platform. I think a lot of people do online gaming and you can watch on Twitch. They were approached by geek and sundry to come and play their game live and they thought nobody's going to want to watch this. Sure, we'll give it a go. And now ten years later, they're their own company. They have multiple games that they are doing on their own channel. I think they just started Beacon, which is their new thing. They have a store. They have produced their own rpg at this point. But it's critical, I think is one of the, there are a lot of other ttrpgs out there that you can watch, but I think critical is one of the ones that's the most well known because I think it kind of just busted through the ceiling to make rpg's kind of well known. I think beyond just those of us that would play it with friends kind of like we talk about it makes. It makes geek cool, I think is the best way to put it. So I started watching during COVID So about 2000 and being quarantined and things like that, I was able to get caught up pretty well. And I'm current with the current campaign that's going, which is their third campaign. But yeah, I mean, they also started Candela obscura, which is another tabletop that uses a different mechanic than dungeons and dragons. So kind of like what Jaclyn was saying, there's a lot of other options out there. D and D is the most well known, but there are others. And then, yeah, I started playing because I started watching.

00:24:51 Chris Bugaj
So two comments there, Jessica. First, we should also mention we are not sponsored by critical role, but we're.

00:24:57 Jaclyn Lewis
Just saying I think they're neat, they're really cool.

00:25:00 Chris Bugaj
That's a great way to put it. It also spun because they are voice actors, the Amazon prime show. So if you're an Amazon prime subscriber, they've got two seasons and there's a. You mentioned that they're on campaign three. They're making a campaign two. So cartoon. Cartoon. Yes, exactly. It's all. It's animated. That is sort of, I would say rated r. I was gonna say neither.

00:25:23 Jaclyn Lewis
The show audio or Amazon are terribly kid friendly but not safe for work. Yeah, they are delightful, though.

00:25:31 Jessica Gerth
Yes, they are. My daughter has been begging and I was like, when you turn 13, we'll talk about it. And she was happy to remind me that she turns 13 this year. So I was like, okay, here we go.

00:25:42 Chris Bugaj
Do you think that one of the reasons that we've seen such an interest in this topic of tabletop role playing games is because people could watch it on Twitch or catch up on it? They would also twitch, you can watch it live, but you can also, then they would put it over on YouTube and you could catch up on it in that way, not just listening to it, but you could, if you have the ability to see, you could watch it. And people who were like, wanna play? Would be like, I've been hearing about it, people tell me about it, but I just don't get it. And then they can go, oh, that's what it is, right? Or a version of it. Because there's also, like, they're professional actors and friends, do you know what I mean? So there is a little bit of a, I mean, I don't think they rehearse or anything like that, but there is, they understand performing.

00:26:31 Jessica Gerth
They're actors. They're actors. I will say, like, to kind of coin a term that we use in the assistive tech world, in speech pathology world, because by watching critical role, I had some amazing video modeling to learn how to play. So that way I could be like, oh, yeah, that's right. When you do that, you have that rule, because I watched it in like three episodes or whatever.

00:26:51 Chris Bugaj
So, yeah, the other thing I just want to point out about Twitch, because I don't get to talk about Twitch that often on this podcast. Is that something we talk about on this podcast, though, Jaclyn, is the idea. Well, I mean, maybe you listen, but is we talk about AAC, and AAC often has picture symbols. That's usually how many people are engaging with an AAC tool, is that there's words and pictures, and you press a button and it says it out loud. Well, when you go over to twitch and you see you're watching one of these experiences, whether it is critical role or video game or something, there's other people watching and there's a chat that goes on, much like when we're in a zoom or some other sort of webinar, there's a chat. Those, the emojis and gifts and the amount of communication that happens through picture symbols is so far beyond what you see in a professional setting, like Zoom or like we're doing now. Right. So to me, that's an indicator that, yes, this is a form of AAC. More people are embracing it. They don't think of it as AAC, but it's a great, I think to me, it's a great bridge to see. Look, we all use symbolized communication, we all use pictures. We can all communicate that way and we can embrace it. So I don't get to say that very often, so I just wanted to take a moment to say it. Cool.

00:28:16 Jessica Gerth
I mean, that's true. AAC is for everybody. Speeches for a few.

00:28:20 Chris Bugaj
Exactly.

00:28:21 Jaclyn Lewis
That is a really cool insight to look at the twitch chat and see that and how for a lot of those users, it feels very natural to respond to something with an emoji or a gifden or what have you. Yeah, that's a really cool reframe.

00:28:35 Chris Bugaj
All right, so, Jaclyn, let's talk about rolling with the youth. So, because this is something you do, not just as a hobby. Right. There's. You've turned it into helping kids in some way. Right? So tell us about rolling with the youth.

00:28:49 Jaclyn Lewis
Yeah, so I've been running tabletop role playing games for kids in a bunch of different areas, both in my town and online. And I had started to get people reaching out. There was a therapist who was hoping to use it for her group as like a sort of building social skills and that kind of thing. And we had a really good set of email exchanges and she thanked me for, like, what I had to share and the ideas that I had. I thought, well, maybe like, the things that I have learned from doing this that may feel obvious to me, may be helpful to someone else who didn't get the opportunity. And again, I had lots of time during the pandemic, and so I spent a couple hours every week running a game for some kids at the local LGBT community center who had nothing else to do. So I learned over time things that worked, things that helped, especially as far as games where kids could feel, like, safe and comfortable, because that's something that's always been important to me. So I decided to write a book. The book is called a rolling with the youth, and it's about creating safe, inclusive, and fun environments through the world of tabletop role playing games. I did a Kickstarter, which went well, and one of the Kickstarter rewards was to have an NPC, which stands for non player character. It's something that someone, the game master makes up, that the players can meet on their adventure and interact with. And there are a few fun NPC ideas in the book, and one of the rewards was to create one. And Jessica backed it and created a really cool character. We can talk about that character now, or we can also bring it up later.

00:30:54 Chris Bugaj
Let's talk about it now. Since they were right there. Tell us about. So Jessica sent me a copy of the book so I could review it and get an idea. Like, do we want these people on the podcast? Of course we do. And so I reviewed Yumi. So tell us a little bit about Yume, Jessica, or Jaclyn.

00:31:13 Jessica Gerth
Jessica's character, Yuumi, had been kind of bouncing around in my head for a while. So like I said, I just started playing a couple years ago, and there was a character, again, this is kind of born out of a character from critical role as well. Again, not sponsored, but really cool people. And there was a character who was the race that was called kenku, which is a bird type race that speak in mimicry. So I think kind of like mockingbird kind of idea. And so they just repeat whatever they heard of. And then where I work, because I work in the autism world, I have a lot of kiddos who have Gestalt language processing, or equilalalia, or however you want to call it that repeat a lot of what they hear, or hear repeat phrases that they've heard. And I kept thinking about, like, that's really cool that they do that, but, like, my students want their own voice. So I thought, well, wouldn't it be cool to have a kenku that's an artificer, which is a class? You can be one of the classes you can choose in the game. And artificers are characters that can enchant different things to do magical type stuff. And so I created.

00:32:23 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, so just take that one step further. The artificer class, to get people in a frame of what that is is sort of like, to me, like a maker, right? Like this. Yeah, yeah. Makerspace sort of person, but they use magic to do it. Right? Is that. And other stuff, but, yeah. Okay, please continue.

00:32:40 Jessica Gerth
So I was sitting and just chatting with my brother one day, and we were bouncing, like, you know, goofy ideas off from one another and different riffing, different characters. And I said, you know, what about this kenku that, like, is an artificer? And they create, you know, their own form of communication device. And my brother was like, you should do it, and you should put it on, like, the forums and see what happens. And I was like, nah, I'm not gonna do that. But I kept bouncing around in my head, and finally I had to write her down and put her on paper to think, like, maybe some point I'll use her or I'll play this character or use it in one of my games. And then when Jaclyn's Kickstarter, when I got wind of that by just being on other Kickstarter things and viewing stuff. What really, like, grabbed my attention was the proposal of the book and the idea behind it and some of the artwork that was already included, that showed individuals who were. It was very inclusive artwork. There were kiddos that had prosthetics. There was, you know, kiddos in wheelchairs. And I thought, well, doggone, my kids need a place at the table, too. So I was like, okay, then we're going to do this. And so you me as a character, where she artificed a scroll, and it's her arcane archetype, converse scroll, which is basically her AAC scroll, so that she can then enchanted to say things. And it's her voice not necessarily imitating other people's voices.

00:34:01 Chris Bugaj
So, Jessica, when you sort of said you created this character, and I didn't know you very well, right. I still, you know, we're getting to know each other better, and you sent it, I was like, all right, I'm a little bit nervous because will it be respectful? Right? Like, you're writing a line here. But then I saw it, and you opened it up. I was like, oh, my gosh, yes. This is exactly what representation looks like. And, Jaclyn, it seems like that was the theme of your book, right? Is that you're trying to make it a safe space for everybody and give people advice and pointers on how to do that, because there's a number of people that want to do that and need to learn more. Is that all fair?

00:34:38 Jaclyn Lewis
I would say that's incredibly accurate, and I think that's one of the things that I think people are thinking about more now, especially thinking about working with young people, is understanding where different people come from and what different sets of needs they might have and how you can be inclusive, both in the stories that you tell and in the environments that you create. So it was so, so cool to receive Yuumi as basically this gift from an area that was outside of my expertise to be able to add to it something that was so. It fit so well, particularly within the world of D and D with the kenku of something that was mimicry related. But I loved the idea that she uses it if it's absolutely necessary, but she's created this other way that is her primary communication form. And so in some of my notes on how to play it, I try to make sure that however this character would be portrayed, because Yuumi would be essentially played by a game master, that it would be done so in a respectful and thoughtful way. And I think that's one of the two major ways that through playing tabletop rpg's, you can be inclusive, is because you are telling a story. And in the stories that you tell, the people who are a part of that story matter. And I think in recent years, we have begun to realize more and more the value of representation. And I think it's even stronger in a tabletop role playing game than it would be in, say, a movie. Because in a movie, you see someone, you watch them do whatever they're pre prescribed to do. But in a tabletop game, you interact with them, you get to know them, they respond to the things your character is doing, and there's a sense of closeness there that's hard to explain if you haven't played the game. And I think it's one of the benefits of tabletop role playing games to me, is that level of interaction. So creating characters who come from different backgrounds, have different ability levels, gender identity, all sorts of differences, and just seeing those things and having it be like, this isn't the trans character. This is the super cool merchant who also happens to be trans and is selling their neat little magical rings in the marketplace. And I think that that is a huge benefit. And then the other side is creating environments at your table, virtual or physical, where anybody could come and be safe, even if you don't know absolutely everything there is to know about accommodating a certain neurodivergence or a certain ethnic background, that you run your table in a way that means that anyone could show up and know that they're respected and know that they have space to redirect or bring up, either the way the table is run or how the game is playing, so that they can feel safe and comfortable and like they can be themselves. Because tabletop role playing games are. Self expression is a huge part of that, especially for younger players. I would say 90% of younger players create a character who's just like how they imagine themselves if they had a sword. And so that is a certain level of vulnerability and a certain level of role play and engagement. So that if you want someone to really, like, bring their whole selves there, you have to make it an environment where they feel that they can do that and they will be respected and acknowledged and not belittled for that.

00:38:49 Chris Bugaj
Well, it sounds like you have some strategies to help create that environment. Like, I know of a handful. Let me just throw two out and then tell me if these. If these mesh with your experience. Like a session zero, right? And then having some sort of. Or setting this up in session zero some sort of way to say, hey, I need to take a break, or I need to be out, or, that's not cool, or indicate that to either the entire table or the game master that it's starting to. We were creeping into something that is uncomfortable for me. Are those fair?

00:39:23 Jaclyn Lewis
Absolutely. I love the use of a session zero. It's sort of a pregame session. If the first session where you, like, are in the grounds of the castle trying to find the vampire is session one, then that session zero is sort of the like, what are we going to play? What is important? And that can be everything from in game stuff for, like, our characters are both from the same city. Do they know each other? Do they not? Do they get along to, like, do we want to do combat in this game? Or do we think that's not very interesting part of the rules? Or what kind of story will we be telling? Will it be something a little bit silly, something more serious? What things are on and off the table? Like, if you already know you're going to be doing a vampire adventure, if someone says, we can acknowledge that there is blood there, but I don't really want to talk about any particular descriptions of it, like, that can be set ahead of time. Other things, like, if someone prefers to take breaks and no one breaks are happening, or to be able to raise their hand and stop the game at any time, just sort of setting the ground rules. I also find that it's really helpful for young people because they're used to being given a set of parameters and explained. Like, you will raise your hand and ask to go to the bathroom. And we start at this time. We end at this time to tell them. Because in most spaces where you're like a librarian or an educator, or like, after school program, you can say when we need to take a break, we can. Or we don't have to reach x, y, and z learning objectives. If spiders aren't your thing, we can go somewhere else, or we can turn them into rats. Something that has recently become used and popularized in the tabletop role playing game community is a variety of tools referred to as safety tools. And so there are a bunch of different ones proposed. There are lines and veils, stars and thorns, the X card script change. And they each have different mechanics for how you communicate what you need to communicate. But it communicates that something feels off. And we need to adjust either within the story itself that you're telling or within, like, the session of the table of, like, we need to take a break because I'm feeling lightheaded and I need water, or we need to take a break because this is a really intense role playing session, and I'm, like, feeling really what my character is feeling right now. And those are actually often, like what you were saying with the twitch chat. Those are often pictures or things that are used, because even for people who use speech most of the time, if they're in a particularly vulnerable situation where they're maybe triggered by something or they're not comfortable with the people around them. An example is the X card. So it's just an index card with an x on it that you, like, tap or lift up in the middle of the table. That means, like, hold on pause. We need to basically retcon or cut out whatever just happened, take a break, reset kind of a thing. And that can be adapted. We've used the X card. When we play on Zoom, people will make an x with their hands or type an x in the chat. When we're on Discord, people will use the, like, x react emoji. And so there's flexibility there, and people have thought about what kind of tools can be used to make a safe environment, and a lot of those things are established in that session Zero, which is basically like, let's communicate and figure out what's going on.

00:43:35 Chris Bugaj
Let's say a teacher is listening to this right now, or an educator is listening to this right now and going, all right, I get it. I start with this session zero. We talk about. I get this book and I read through, so I get some advice. I start with a session zero. What other advice would you give them to kind of get started to be thinking about.

00:43:54 Jaclyn Lewis
If you haven't been in the world of tabletop games? I would recommend actually not to be a total shill, but critical role. And shows like it are really great for seeing. Like, how does this work? I would also recommend finding what's called a system ahead of time, a game system, seeing you do not need to memorize it. You do not need to know what all the rules are, but seeing how it plays, what it does. You don't have to start with dungeons and dragons. It's probably one of the more complicated ones. If that's what your players want to play, you can but start there and then get a few different resources going of what kind of worlds do I want to play in, what kind of characters do I want to be? And that can feel really intimidating for a lot of people because it's like, well, I don't write novels in my free time unless you do, which is awesome. Please write your own original cool adventure. Where do I start? I usually work from something someone else has made and then adapt it to fit the needs of the players that I have. So places like drive thru rpg DNS Guild itch IO you can find a little adventure that will say, here's the cave, here's the goblins, here's what they need to roll to fight the goblins. Here's a little fortune teller in the corner who can give them this item and it gives you a place to start and it'll tell you what dice need to be rolled or don't need to be rolled. There are whole books filled with characters you can populate your worlds in. You do not have to come up with everything from the start. The most important thing for you to do if you're going to be the game master and the facilitator is just make it happen. Find a time, get everyone there. They often young players will just be so excited to have an opportunity to play. They will not be particular about if you need to take a second to figure out the rules or if you get something wrong or if you start doing something that they find really, really boring. I had a whole royal court intrigued game and they were not interested at all, but they had a great time with a barred in the nearby tavern that I made up in 10 seconds. You can just follow what they're interested in and when you're creating those sessions, just there are a variety of things that I do go into more enrolling with the youth, but I think the guiding principle would be to remember that you are creating an environment that has a particular set of goals. Usually within the games that I play, the goals are primarily like fun and safety. Yours may be like safety and education or some other set, and to kind of have everything work towards that goal, whether it's what time you meet and what snacks are available or what kind of enemies or adversaries they will interact with within the story, or what kind of game you're going to play in the first place, like whether or not it has combat, how complicated it is. And there are a ton of resources online that are available for beginners to use. I would highly recommend a website, ttrpgkids.com, which is geared towards younger players. It has all it has so many resources, but I one that I would recommend you start with is the like directory of games and it gives you all the different sort of information on like what age this is for, what kinds of things they'll be doing how complicated it is and a bunch of other different great info on, like, using them for educational purposes on different tools. Like a. A safety tool that they used was. They had a red Lego block and a green Lego block. And you touch the red Lego block if you need to take a break in the green Lego block when you're like, this is great, let's keep going. But look at the resources that are out there and don't feel intimidated because it can be a very intimidating world, especially if you're not mechanically minded. But kids will just be delighted to play for the most part.

00:48:45 Jessica Gerth
I mean, I think, too, it all lends itself towards kids also, because, I mean, when you're a kid, that's when you're really into the thick of playing and pretend and doing all those sorts of things. And it's adults that play role playing games. Like, sometimes people are like, really? That's what you're doing? Yeah. But honestly, I feel like, as an educator, it's actually helped me get kind of back in touch with that part of myself. Then I can then engage with my students more when they're playing because it's like, oh, I get why, and it's fun. And then the more you get into it, the more they get into it. And it kind of just keeps. It keeps building. It helps build fantastic rapport with your students in that regard as well, too. I also will give some advice as a person who has started running some games for kids, and I'm very new to it and terrified by it. Also, think about, you know, are you. Are you doing a one shot? Which means are you playing a one game and you're one and done. Are you going to do a longer game where they call them campaigns, where you're telling a longer story and it kind of just depends on what your players want to do. I ran a one shot for some kiddos, and it was going to be a one off, and they were like, can we do this more? And it's like, okay, so now I got to go back to the storyboard a little bit and be like, how are we going to take what we've done and build off of it and tell a story? But the beauty of that is that, that it's really them that's telling the story. I'm just. I'm just driving the bus. So there's that. And then I also know there are some other rpg's out there that they call them one page RPG's, where you can. It's just one page, and it tells you the mechanics, really, like, quick and dirty. And here's how you do this. And you can just kind of grab it and go with it and kind of curtail it to whatever kiddo you're doing it with.

00:50:23 Chris Bugaj
Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's take a moment and tell some stories because I'm going to start. And then you go from there. Right. Every year, I get together with my friends who I've grown up with since third grade. We play D and D together. We continue to play now on online tools once a week, but we get together at a lake for our vacation. And now we bring all of our kids and then we play D and D with our kids. Right. And so there's this one particular girl there that is not interested in playing but loves to be nearby while we're playing and will be kind of the sketch artist. Interject something every once in a while. And I, and it hadn't occurred to me that someone could just. I'd never. I had never done it before where I had. I'd only ever run games where people were playing. They were playing in their own way. They weren't a character they were adding on. So they're in the room enjoying the space, felt it was inclusive, would know they were welcome to be there and just enjoyed it in their own way. So I was like, yeah. And it opened up my eyes, like, yeah, who else could I invite to experiences like this? And what else could they do? Could they write notes at the back end? Do you like to write the summary? You know, do you want to take notes as we're doing it and work on typing skills or language skills? There's. So do you want to do, you know, like I said, more drawings and things like that? There's all sorts of ways you can tie in even if you aren't playing the game again, if everyone's cool with it. Right. So that's. That's one of my stories. I have others, but, Jaclyn, you have a good story or an outcome.

00:51:57 Jaclyn Lewis
I. One thing that happened that was really rewarding to me, Washington, when a young player, I think they are eleven or twelve, sort of advocated for themselves within the world of the story. I had explained the use of things like safety tools and the fact that we can do whatever we want here. If there's something you're uncomfortable with, let me know. If there's something you think is a cool idea, let me know that, too. The player characters, who are the people that are being played, had been taken to the feywild, which is this sort of magical fairy place where time doesn't quite make sense and everything's kind of chaos magic wonderland. Yeah, that's a great description. And the adventure that I had in front of me, it was like, a little booklet said to roll a dice, and depending on what the species of the character was, this character was an elf who was a Druid, which means they're very nature y. They cast spells using the power of nature. What number you rolled would determine something weird that happened with the magic. And the weird thing that happened based on the number was that, like, a blood falcon alighted on their shoulder. That was the spirit of someone who was deceased from their life. And I read that out loud, and then I was like, after I said that, I realized that's really dark for a kid. And he was like, well, I don't know how I feel about that. Could it be maybe a cat that died? Can it be a Maine Coon named Larry? And then just, like, went off on this magical Maine coon? And so it was a Maine coon with, like, falcon feathers who accompanied them on the journey. The triad queen gave the Maine coon the power of speech and returned them to the material plane. So it was really cool to know that I had, like. And again, this was not all me, but to know that over the course of the game and over the course of this child's life, they had been equipped with the ability to say, I don't like this. But here's what we could do instead in the context of a game, and to have that work and to know that they felt that they could say that and that it would be respected, which, of course, it was. As soon as it came out of our mouth, I was really glad that it was corrected. That was a cool moment for me.

00:54:45 Chris Bugaj
I have to comment on that because that is something we wrestle with in AAC or working with disabilities, but specifically AAC, because that particular student had the ability to say, I don't like that. Let's do this instead. And then you rolled with it, right? No pun intended. With rolling with the youth, but you rolled with it, not just with the dice, but with the respect. And I'm going to go with what you want. And with AAC so often and what we've been fighting for, change has been, I kind of tell you what to do, and if you don't like it, you might not even have a way to say it in words. So you end up reacting through your motions, you know, your actions, and then that turns into sort of. Sort of a negative cycle. For everybody, and we're like, well, let's. What if you just respected that? They didn't want to do that, the way they're communicating it, and you rolled with it and gave them some words to explain next time and prepared ahead of time, sort of like the. The session zero. Hey, you might feel this. These are some things you can do when you feel this. And let's do that by telling stories, reading books, watching someone else do it, you know, that, that sort of experience. So I just. It just connects so well with the work we're trying to do in, in teaching language with AAC.

00:56:03 Jessica Gerth
And then I kind of could jump off of that and going back to Yumi a little bit, that's another reason why I really wanted her to be in there, is it's kind of the flip side. We talk about inclusion a lot, right? Want representation, but it's two sides to the same coin. So for Yumi, if there was a kid at the table that was playing, that was also a device user, that they would engage with someone in the world who was just like them. So that way they had that opportunity to be like, there's people like me here, and have that, you know, understanding. And then other side, you have kiddos who are at the table who don't use devices, may not have even come in contact with anybody that uses a device before, but they meet Yumi in the game, and they get the ability to interact with Yumi in a safe place where they're not going to say the wrong thing. Or if they do say the wrong thing, it's not going to make or break, you know, the world. So that way, if out in the real world, they do come in contact with someone who uses a device, they've already had an experience in that regard. So it's going to be a whole lot easier to include that person, because they're just like me.

00:57:04 Chris Bugaj
A thousand percent, 1000% agree. All right, Jaclyn, you were very vulnerable to, say, a mistake. Now it's my turn. So I was working with. Working with. It was my kids and neighborhood kids coming around a table every Thursday, right? Maybe they were second grade ish. We've played right up and through since they've graduated, or I have a daughter that's still in high school. But my point is, we played for many, many years, but one of the people that came to the table, I was going around, and I'm like, oh. So part of the story, they get to, they get something, you know, like a scroll or some sort of puzzle or note, and I was like, hey, you know, so you pick it up, and here it is. Now, just read it and, you know, read it out loud for the table. And one kid had it. He was looking at it and looking at the table and looking at it, and I'm like, why isn't he reading it? No, go ahead. It's all right. Read it. It's okay. Just looking at it, looking at it. And I was like, in fact, I didn't realize it in the moment it took me. Here I am working so hard to be as inclusive as possible and help kids that clearly he was not feeling comfortable reading the text after the fact. Right? I've even shown other people how they could use digital tools and hit a play button, have read it out loud, but I didn't see it in the moment, and I was kicking myself afterwards and then realizing, okay, next time, hey, if you want to use technology, make sure you all know we can use technology, right? You don't have to on the paper. Next time, I'm going to provide that thing in it in a digital form that's accessible. So that's an option. You want to read it off the screen with your eyes. Great. You want to hit play out loud so that everyone can hear it or. Read along with it. So we're all looking at it, try and use the technology to help make a more inclusive environment and realize I made a mistake. I'm going to do better next time.

00:58:59 Jessica Gerth
That's all we can do is do better next time.

00:59:02 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Any other stories?

00:59:07 Jessica Gerth
Oh, man. I'm, like I said, I'm still pretty new to the table. I don't. I mean, we've got some. We've got some funny ones, you know, where my kids have. Have decided certain things. We. My daughter was the one that got us started in the campaign of Humblewood. I don't know if you've heard of that. So basically, you're playing as woodland creatures think like the books, like Redwood, where you are different animals. So we play in Humblewood quite a bit, and my son, who is very much the boy that wants to constantly be in battle, and then I have the daughter who likes to get stuck in character creation all the time for other games. So trying to bring those two to the table at the same time was kind of interesting. But, you know, the joy that you see when those moments happen where, like, you know, my son's character rolls the Nat 20, which is the highest you can roll on the 20 sided dice to make an attack. And they call those critical roles where you get double the damage, you know? And so for him to get that was kind of like the cool moment. To see him, like, really, like, this is great. You know, and then watching my daughter kind of really get into character and use a voice and do all those things, she's like, this is amazing. Like, yeah, yeah, it is. This is great. And look, we get to spend time together as a family. This is great.

01:00:25 Chris Bugaj
Can I ask you a question? Because this is something that kind of plagues me, especially if we're talking about, you know, like, I'm playing with my own kids and neighborhood kids. I have not done. I've seen it, but I've not been in a classroom. Right. Or an after school club or something. How do you mitigate the violence? So, for instance, when I first introduced my kids to it, it was, oh, you come across a cart that spilled and the person sad. What do you want to do? And they go, what's happened? All my animals escaped, and can you help me find them? And so there is no violence. That's sort of tracking it down. But then eventually, the game, like you said, it's your son, kind of likes the part of interacting in that way. Right. So how have you mitigated that?

01:01:15 Jessica Gerth
I would say, like, giving them scenarios where they don't need to use violence in that regard. But then when we do want do combat, making sure it's some sort of large creature or monster that we're fighting at this point where it's not like, it's not like a group of elves fighting another group of elves or anything like that. It's more so the giant, you know, dragon or pterodactyl or whatever that's attacking. Like, we're working together to fight this common enemy kind of situation. But mostly it's the last couple games I've done, we had one where they're trying to get presents back from a creature who had stole the presents at Christmas time and that sort of thing, and trying to incorporate ways you can outwit them or outsmart them in a way to try and do it that way, more so than just like, I'm gonna stab it, you know?

01:02:06 Jaclyn Lewis
My recommendation comes from a few different perspectives. For starters, think about what system you're using to facilitate the story. That is one of the elements of dungeons and dragons that I would say is the least fitting for young players because it's sort of the, like, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So much of the abilities that you have are like, this is the cool mace that I wield. And this is the spell that blasts all the people. It is very combat oriented. And there are other games. For example, I was for the book talking with Greg Leatherman of Leatherman Games, who created a game that's sort of like magical girl inspired, think like Sailor Moon, of like transforming into a superhero, essentially, where there are maybe four or five different roles that you can roll to. One role is like, touch their heart, one role is help out, and another role is fight. And it's just one of several options, and that really reorients it. I would also say that there are, like, you gave the example of the cart, a lot of interesting conflicts and challenges and encounters that don't involve hitting something that other people have come up with. A mystery is a really great one. Young people, especially love solving a mystery that has something they can figure out, particularly if it has tropes that they can try and predict based on their media knowledge, because they're just getting to the point where they are making those kinds of connections and find those really fun to see in stories. And also something that I have talked about a bit more, because one of the places that I brought tabletop role playing games was youth creative arts and creative justice. And a lot of the work that they do is centered around restorative justice, which is, there have been books written on this, and so my summary will be very limited, but it's basically the concept that there are scenarios where someone who has done a wrong and the group or person they have done a wrong against can reconcile and the wrong can be made right in a way that's not, doesn't involve punishment or revenge, essentially. And so kind of looking into those concepts and thinking, why did this character do this thing that we think of as bad? What can be done to maybe prevent them from doing that? And especially motivating the players to find that way through in game things. Like, maybe this bad guy is a super smart inventor that could create something for them if they can find out why the inventor is stealing all the gold and maybe, and maybe get them what they want without hurting anybody in the end. Although there will always be someone, especially players, who come knowing dungeons and dragons, who want to hit things very badly. And in that case, the. Yeah. Creating something that's not a person is highly recommended. Like, this is a chaos fire elemental, and you can hit that as much as you want. Yeah.

01:05:42 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Or this is a mechanical robot or something like that. Right?

01:05:46 Jaclyn Lewis
Robots are great.

01:05:48 Chris Bugaj
Yeah.

01:05:49 Jessica Gerth
This is a mimic.

01:05:50 Chris Bugaj
Yes. Yes. This is a statue that comes. Comes to life. Right? That kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. Let's tie it to AAC. If you still have a few more minutes, let's talk about language. Like, just today in this podcast, we use so many new words to a lot of people, right. So I feel like this is a great way to introduce new words and teach words. Jessica, have you seen that in your work? And what other ways have you tied it to language development?

01:06:17 Jessica Gerth
So, character development is a big one that we use a lot because we talk about body autonomy and things of that nature with our kiddos. So I've been trying to do that with some of my other kiddos in one on one sessions. Trying to do a group session when you're in a school and you only have so many hours in the day, it's hard to say, okay, we're gonna run a game for 30 minutes, and then we gotta go. Like, that's. That's not what storytelling really is. So it's kind of picking apart the pieces of it and doing it one on one in therapy in that regard. So I utilize a lot of character development, a lot of creativity, expanding language in that regard, you know, helping them develop what kind of world, what world are we going to be in? What do you know? Where do we want to go today? That sort of thing.

01:07:05 Chris Bugaj
Jaclyn, anything else to add? You can think from.

01:07:07 Jaclyn Lewis
From a language perspective, I come at this much from a much less professional point of view. So take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but I will say that because of the way that they are played, basically the whole game is done and facilitated through language of game Master. Describe something, the players describe what they do, and it gives a lot of opportunities for language through that. If there are players who are comfortable role playing where they, like, step into the role and they do a voice for the character to really give them opportunities to do that. Because so many games are played online now, there's a lot more flexibility there. I really like the use of the tool discord, which kind of has that twitch element of, I'll have players who post gifs or type out what their character is saying or just post a picture or an emoji, and that can be the entire way they play the game some days. And that is, like, not only acceptable, but good, because you can facilitate that experience through whatever kinds of language and expression your players are bringing to the table.

01:08:24 Chris Bugaj
Love it. Love it. We could talk for a whole nother hour all about just focusing. We do a whole podcast on creativity and then critical thinking, and then collaboration, because part of my favorite is like, as a game master, just sitting back and watching them try and solve it together. And that's like what we so need in the world is different people working together to solve problems, right? And so just sitting back and smiling so we could do all these little segments. So with that said, let me turn it over to what I like to ask is a final question in the podcast, which is maybe a g talking about tabletop role playing games or anything, what is kind of peaking your interest in the world today? What are you excited about? What do you want to learn more about? I feel like people who listen to this podcast are very curious and want to learn more, and learning what other people are learning about can help in that regard. So what's on your mind?

01:09:19 Jessica Gerth
Oh, man. Well, I think for me right now, kind of just to bring it all back full circle, I went to Gen Con, which is a convention for gaming in Indianapolis last year, and that was the first time I'd ever gone. And so I plan to go again this year. So they've already put out, like the online things to look through. So I've been trying to build my wish list of seminars or games or people to talk to or connections to make in that regard. So I'm excited for that. And I am excited to start planning for next school year because we are kind of getting the tail end of our school year. I really want to get a game club going. We tried a little bit this year, but like I said, trying to run a game in a half an hour session. We did a lot of board games, which were great. I mean, that was great to still see, like, you know, some, some board game kind of aspects, but to do more of like, to help bring in that language aspect, help bring in that, that communication and kind of just kind of piece it all together and see what we can come up with. What I would love to someday, which would be down the road, would figure out a way to utilize what my students have created and help them make their own book from the story that they tell. But that'll, that'll come in the future.

01:10:42 Chris Bugaj
Love it. Jaclyn.

01:10:44 Jaclyn Lewis
All of that sounds so, so cool. Jessica. I really want to hear about how all of that goes on so many levels. The things that have been piquing my interest, particularly within tabletop role playing games lately, are the ways that it can be used for, like writing and practicing and developing writing. I had a really good conversation with Michael Lowe, who created luck of Legends story rpg and is working on a new game called Luna Uni, where basically the way that you level up your character, you get them cool new abilities is by. By writing about them. And Michael has used that for, like, writing classes specifically, which I just think is so cool. And it was fascinating to talk with him about it. But there's also a sort of subgenre of tabletop role playing games that are called journaling games, where there's still that element of, like, rolling dice for randomness and things happening in a story, but there is no game master. It's sort of more of a like a choose your own adventure, but it's so open ended that you journal about what your character does. A lot of them you play by yourself. Some of them you can play with other people or your two characters writing letters to each other in the world. And so seeing the ways that games can be used for, like, writing, particularly me as a writer, I've been starting a game called the thousand year old vampire, where you play as a vampire who's just been around and have to figure out, okay, so what was their life like? What happened to them? And it's been a really cool process. So I'm very intrigued by this part of the world of tabletop games that I have only barely begun to explore.

01:12:39 Chris Bugaj
There are so many options. Oh, Jessica, please go.

01:12:42 Jessica Gerth
I was just saying, the other thing that has kind of piqued my interest since getting into kind of all this is looking at, I don't know if it's a degree or certificate or what it exactly is, but being a therapeutic game from that perspective, I think that would be really cool to kind of delve into a little bit more and learn more about that.

01:13:00 Chris Bugaj
Absolutely, Jessica. Believe me, there have been times where I'm like, hmm, could that be a new profession? And certainly it is. There's organizations like game two grow. And again, I don't really know anything about them other than that they do therapy through role playing games or any type of game. I'm going to answer it, too. I'm really interested in esports, the video gaming side of things as also another inclusive opportunity and all the things adjacent to that as well, like commentating around the esports. There's so many facets to all of this that, again, we could go on and on forever. Is there any final thing, one last final thought that you want to communicate to people who are really interested in getting started?

01:13:53 Jaclyn Lewis
Yeah, that was mine also.

01:13:55 Jessica Gerth
Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

01:13:57 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. What? Great, good. Great advice. Let's end with your contact information. How do we find the book? If you want people to find to reach you, how we can put that in the show notes. Let's share all that stuff. What do you want to share?

01:14:15 Jaclyn Lewis
You can find me on social media things at Wrangler of chaos, which is what I feel like I'm doing. Doing. In most of my games, you can look for rolling with the youth through indie press revolution, and drive through rpg. There are physical copies, there are digital copies. There are ePub versions which are good for use with screen readers and things like that. You can find Yumi in there and a cool little adventure involving her, a group of bandits who are trying to steal her inventions. What was. There was another thing that I wanted to share, but I don't remember what it was. Well, yeah, I'm sure you can find all the things awesome, Jessica.

01:15:09 Jessica Gerth
I mean, you can find me at my email, which is Jessica Girthask, dash sped.org dot. I am on Instagram, but I'm still learning it because it's the newfangled technology these days, and I'm an Instagram. Instagram at Chaos communication, converse. So you can find me there.

01:15:26 Chris Bugaj
Chaos is in both of your handles. I love that because I feel like that's the future of education, is that it's sort of planned chaos, right. So it's not like everyone's sitting in rows and doing exactly what the teacher says. It's more the teacher being a game master and then letting it go. So let it be chaotic. Right. Not in an alignment sort of way. I'll end with that sort of inside joke. All right, thanks, everybody. Thank you for being here. Please don't be a stranger. Reach out, share more stories. It's such an awesome experience. We just want more people to do it.

01:16:07 Jessica Gerth
True.

01:16:09 Chris Bugaj
All right, thank you.