Hey, AK.

Hi, AK.

Hi, Matt.

How are you doing?

What are you doing today?

What are you up to?

Anything fun?

I think so.

We have a guest today that really doesn't need much of an introduction, but it is the greatest

honor and excitement that we get to have him on this show and talk to him about TTRPGs and

ADHD, which is

the crux of this podcast.

What is this podcast?

Yeah, it tries to find the intersection

between TTRPGs and

ADHD.

That's right.

That's right. Exactly.

So without

further

ado, please

welcome Kelly McLaughlin

of the Dungeon Dudes.

The Dungeon Dudes!

Pleasure to be here.

It's a pleasure to have you.

I just realized that my name at the bottom of the screen says Lord of Baked Goods.

Did I put that in?

Yes.

I hope so.

I must have used this program another time, and that was just in there by default, because I must have put it in last time I used this.

I didn't know I was the Lord of Baked Goods.

Which baked good are you a Lord of, is my question.

I think I put that in.

Okay, I'm just a sucker for baked desserts, all kinds.

be cookies or cinnamon rolls or danishes and muffins anything I just love baked goods um

as we move into the donut category those are dangerous for me I cannot be held back from

donuts I i remember a time bringing a box of krispy kreme donuts 12 of them to a dnd game

and only two other people wanted one and I ate the rest and then I felt awful did you put them

in the oven for the microwave for 10 seconds or five seconds no I put them all in my belly

you know that you were speaking to somebody originally from north carolina matt and someone

who lives in north carolina currently me the birthplace of crispy cream it's like the one

good thing we have to offer when I was yeah when I was a when I was a punk gen x dude that's where

we hung out was crispy cream because as all the punks do you know I lived in a small town we were

and we hung out at Tim Hortons.

I'm assuming Tim Hortons,

not to put you into a very Canadian box.

Oh, no, that was 100%.

That's where the teens went to hang out,

was at the Tim Hortons.

The local coffee shop where the rebels go.

Yeah.

Kelly, seriously,

I don't really honestly want to waste time

telling people who you are,

but if you were to sum up Kelly and the Dungeon Dudes

in one sentence just for the negative five people that don't know who you are and let you do so.

The Dungeon Dudes, which I am one half of, are a YouTube channel that does D&D information. We do

rules explanations, ranking videos, as well as just deep diving into what we believe the spirit

of the game is and trying to foster creativity and collaboration at the table. We also are the

authors of the Drakkenheim series, which you can now find on D&D Beyond and many other places.

So that's also something that we've done.

Yes.

Amazing.

That's exactly right.

We have guests.

We like to start off with a little icebreaker that we call the D100 table.

I got my D100.

So if you wouldn't mind giving us a roll, and I'll let AK read the question.

I got a 75.

A 75.

Nice number.

This one's kind of a fun one.

We have actually asked this once way back in the beginning,

and I think it's a great question to ask you.

So on the ADHD 100 table, some are more ADHD Neurospice,

some are more TTRPG.

This one's pretty TTRPG.

You're going to a con.

Who are you cosplaying as?

Okay.

I actually just started buying a brand new cosplay.

It's a very light cosplay.

I'm not a good cosplayer.

So I'll say that.

I've tried to play her, but the effort that it takes to make something look good, I just don't have that skill set.

So I go for cosplays that are easy.

And I'm actually wearing part of it.

This hat just came in the mail today.

It's part of my cosplay.

There is a matching belt.

And I've just ordered the replica Hawaiian shirt of Abby from K-pop Demon Hunters.

I don't have the body for it.

So I've actually also ordered a t-shirt that has like a chiseled man figure on it.

So I can wear the t-shirt under the Hawaiian shirt.

So if I choose to unbutton the Hawaiian shirt, you get to see the abs.

And yeah, I recently have watched K-pop Demon Hunters more than one time consecutively.

Oh, man.

Who gave it the right to be as good as it is my question.

It's become an instant comfort movie.

It's like a brisk hour and a half.

It's fun.

It's got music.

It's got action.

It's colorful.

It's all the things.

And it's just so adorable.

It's adorable.

Real story, K-pop Demon Hunters has become my new litmus test for whether or not I think you're cool.

Because if I say K-pop Demon Hunters and you've watched it and you obviously love it because I haven't found anybody who's watched it who has it yet, I know you're cool.

If you're open to it, I also know you're cool.

If you immediately dismiss it because of the name K-pop Demon Hunters, I don't think you're cool.

So use that as you will out in the world, boys.

That's a good answer.

That's my answer.

It's Abby, the one whose body I can never have, the one whose body I want.

One of my favorite ever, I don't know that I do cosplay, but I did an all Disney princess

because Bachelorette party, which took place on Halloween.

So I went Ariel on land, which was great for everybody because I couldn't talk.

So I carried around a whiteboard.

And so I just wore one of those bikini t-shirts for the same reason as you just gave us.

I'm not going to walk around in a bathing suit IRL, but I'll just get one of those swimsuit

cover-ups and a big old red wig with a bunch of forks stuck in it if you can't if you there's

always a way there's always a way to make it work I think that cosplay is one of those open places

where like we cosplay as like any character we want there's no like the I don't know I actually

remember asking so i'm really into this book series right now called the lock tomb trilogy

gideon the ninth haro the ninth and I love gideon and I actually remember like messaging a few of my

cosplay are friends because for some reason I felt weird. I'm like, am I allowed to cosplay as

Gideon? Because she's a big, strong lesbian warrior, big sword. And they're like, why not?

And I'm like, I don't know. I guess why not? I love the character, so why not? And I think the

cosplay should be one of those places that we can be open to people just showing their love for a

character that they want to portray yeah I completely I mean I think probably 75 of my

player character player my characters that I play are female and I if I were ever asked to then

cosplay as one of my characters then I would have to i'd have to do that one of the greatest

moments in my career was going to a con and a young girl that came to get her book signed was

cosplayed as my character and like my character's a male but she's obviously allowed to portray

sebastian crowe and she had the greatest cosplay she had like everything she made her own staff

she had the hair the goggles and everything and I was just like yeah that's incredible and like i

i wasn't like you're a girl so you're like no yeah 100 every everybody can cosplay everybody

cosplay my character okay thank you yeah we're on it all right you've now picked out my next cosplay

my next con i'm now ready to go we're set I think like growing up which okay there's a little

segue right there growing up thank you thank you matt good job it's growing up I never thanks to

television and everything I i never thought that there would be a world in the future where

little girls would be able to come and cosplay as sebastian crow without any worry and now I just

love this world the way that it gives me hope because even friends bless friends heart right

like you had chandler like tons of like gay jokes and gay jokes were never funny to me but they

you know it to see it was the thing at the time it was the thing it like ross's son couldn't play

with barbie and that's all I wanted to play with was barbie I mean I remember being a young a young

and hiding the fact that one of my favorite shows was Powerpuff Girls.

Yeah, exactly.

Because Powerpuff Girls was hilarious.

It was awesome.

I want people to know that I loved Powerpuff Girls.

And even that, it took me until I was to admit that purple was my favorite color.

Yeah.

Correct choice.

That sucks.

And it's just wild.

I grew up, I'm a boy.

I have to be a boy.

I'm not allowed to like purple.

I'm not allowed to watch Powerpuff Girls.

I'm not allowed to enjoy...

Sailor Moon was another favorite.

of it like I couldn't I wasn't allowed to um and like that sucks I tried to get into sports and i

was like I actually hate this but i'm gonna watch it I don't I would rather watch powerpuff girls

and sailor moon I have read somewhere that as you said a small town kid that you were actually

that you were playing magic the gathering and warhammer but playing dnd was like too far right

I actually did get beat up, and I had to stop playing for a while, foolishly, I don't know why I did.

So we had a cafeteria in our high school, and it was L-shaped.

And because of the L-shape, there was this corner, which was like, okay, if we have an L, there was like this area right here that was like where the losers hung out.

And that was my corner.

And so we played magic cards in that corner. But the thing was that it was so stupid because, first of all, it was a small town, so there wasn't anybody being like, we should try D&D. I had a few friends that we got into Warhammer in public school. And then when people got to high school, a bunch of my friends were like, I'm not going to play that anymore. I'm too cool. And I was like, but I love it. So I'm going to keep playing it.

And then I found my little crew and we played Warhammer and we played Magic the Gathering.

And it's funny that TTRPGs always really spoke to me, but I was like, I don't want to get beat up even more.

But really, I was already getting beat up as much as I could be.

So, like, I couldn't have been picked on more.

But, like, for some reason, I was just like, I don't want to throw more fuel on how big of a loser I am.

And it's funny because, like, now I'm like...

Look at you now.

Yeah, look at me now.

You know what, guys? I made a career out of it.

I will say, yes, I will say a smattering of fame in whatever way.

If you can truly grab the 15 minutes, it can heal a lot of your little beat up nerdy kid issues, I would say.

I can speak.

I still have those issues, but we're working on it.

Of course. They don't go away, but now we can embrace.

Now we're not afraid, right?

My high school was very, the Magic the Gathering and the Dungeons and Dragons were very separate groups of nerds.

The two shall meet.

So, like, they each judged each other.

It was like the band guys were like the Magic the Gathering, you know, like the math nerds were the Dungeons and Dragons.

And they didn't like it.

They were like, there were two gangs that didn't get along and met and snapped and did choreography.

I wish.

That's so interesting to me because, and don't quote me on this, this is just something I heard. It might be through the grapevine. I might be broken telephoning this information. But my understanding is that Magic the Gathering came out of D&D nerds being like, we're waiting for our other friends to show up. Why don't we make a nerdy game to play while we're waiting for our game nights or when other people can't make it?

And so it was spawned out of TTRPG groups, making Magic the Gathering as the alternative to playing a TTRPG as like a quick fun game to play with like you and one other person if you're waiting for the rest of the party to show up.

Let me go get my megaphone and tell everybody what Kelly from the Dungeon Dudes just taught me.

Yeah, I think another beautiful thing about this field is that what I've heard, the thing that people can contest, feel free to.

But what I've heard is that role-playing games are absolutely the last truly original game created 50 years ago.

And it is the concept and the way that it was packaged and put together.

It is the most recent because you've got card games and you've got board games and you've got types of board games.

And this was truly unique.

And it was just right up the road in Lake Geneva, which is amazing.

And it's actually shocking to think that it was only 50 years ago.

It feels like such an important part.

The thing is that really all the tabletop games, not all the tabletop games are many fast. Obviously, I have a career about talking about them. So there are many things. But really, in essence, all of us grew up as children that played imagination, go in my backyard and just play with my own imagination.

I mean, imagine we were great warriors and we would pick up sticks and fight a tree, and that tree was a dragon.

And you would just do that.

And that was something that we did as kids.

And somewhere, a group of people were like, what if we just put enough rules so that we aren't on the playground arguing about, no, I shot you, no, I shot you.

I made a shooting resistant metal.

So, no, you didn't.

It's okay if we can make enough rules that we aren't in those silly arguments, but we leave the rest for us to continue as kids, as teens, as adults, whatever, to use our imaginations in that way.

And I think it really is.

It's such a beautiful game because it allows us to touch back into that part of us that a lot of people lose when they grow up.

And I actually think it's such a beautiful part of us.

As I teach new people TTRPGs, the transition from the first time they sit at the table and they're like, okay, so I roll the dice and I do that to a year in where they're like, I'm bamboozily the goblin and I'm going to ride my unicorn into battle.

And you're like, you're great.

You are amazing and you are having fun and you are just doing what you do best, which is all of us have an imagination and all of us should feel empowered to use that.

And I think the more comfortable you get at a TTRPG table, the more magical it is because you start to realize that your goofiness, your silliness, and your true authentic imagination is valuable in this game.

Yes. Yep.

You're looking at one. Allison just absolutely was never going to play Dungeons and Dragons.

She was a sports person.

She had a theater person, a sports person.

And the pandemic happened, and she had fewer and fewer excuses.

And my brother and I had wanted to get back into it.

Luckily, coming back into it post-internet, there were people like the Dungeon Dudes to help us learn how to play this game.

But it became our performance output, our writing output, our social connection, of course.

And I've always said, speaking of Netflix, because you come to this game and without fail, it has to be a social contract, right?

No matter what, you're going to a social experience.

But beyond that, in theater, there's this mask work thing where if you put on a mask, you can do far more than you could without the mask on.

And so D&D for us allowed us to meet people, but then not just talk about Netflix, what was on Netflix, but to really get into the heart of what we were fearing and dealing with and living through.

And it saved our lives.

Completely saved our lives.

So then we talk about, you know, we have this podcast called ADHD 20, Life at the Intersection of ADHD and TTRPGs.

And as Matt just described, I played my first ever session in 2020 as kind of escapism, right?

But as someone with ADHD, I have a hard time focusing on things.

Things do not hold my attention for a very long time.

Or they hold it and it's the only thing holding it.

And that's what happened that day in my first session.

We played for something like close to six hours that day, that very first time.

And they had like kick me out of the Zoom room.

They were like, we got to feed our bodies and walk around and move and things.

So my kind of first question to you as our guest, Kelly, like we just like hypothesizing.

I wonder what the connection is for specifically the neurodivergent brains and something about TTRPGs that does seem to just make so many of us come alive, even the first time we touch something like that.

Is that something you've experienced or have any thoughts on?

I could speak to my theories and with my experience, but I don't know if any of these are like the answer to that question.

We make it clear we're not doctors.

We're not here to...

Yeah, we're not doctors.

We have no idea what we're talking about.

But I do think that one of the things...

So it's interesting that you just talked about putting on a mask when it comes to D&D characters.

You put on a mask of a character that you're portraying.

But I actually think that one of the things that ends up happening at a D&D table is, for myself, and I'm going to go pretty deep here,

But, you know, in my normal life, I've been on this journey for a few years, but I'm neurodivergent and discovering the truth of that.

But for most of my life, I struggled to pay attention.

I never felt like I was smart enough or like I was told I was lazy.

I was told I wasn't performing to the best of my abilities.

I was told all these things growing up.

And I grew up being like, okay, I'm lazy and dumb.

It's just how I am.

and you end up putting on a mask as a neurodivergent person so that you can be accepted into society.

What's really interesting is I do think that when we sit down and use our imagination,

it is a very true and honest version of ourself that comes out. And so what I think ends up

happening with a lot of neurodivergent people is that you sit down at the table and you're putting

on a mask of a character, but in truth, you're actually removing structures. And you get to,

another thing that I struggle with is I can be overwhelmed pretty easily by a lot of things.

And I get frustrated in the world that we live in that I often can't seem to control the outcome

of some situations. Not that you can in D&D, but we'll get to the nuance of that in a second.

There's a lot of control you don't have in the real world. If the world is in danger, I can't grab a sword and walk out my front door and say I'm going to do something. But in D&D, we get to remove the societal mask, we get to be our authentic selves at the table, channeled through a character that we have chosen to create.

And I also, this is a tangent, believe that every character that we create, despite our best efforts, is a part of us that we're exploring.

I actually, on our actual play, and I'm going to call out a few of my co-hosts for the game that we play, but I've ran two characters. And not to get too into this, people can read into this as much as they want, but both of my characters have had major issues with their families that they need to overcome through the course of the game.

And they also were both people who didn't think they were good enough and have had to prove to themselves that they were. Both of Joe's characters at our table wanted his parents to think he was doing a good job.

And Jill's character, so this is interesting, Jill's first character was more about logic and responsibility and all of that, which I think was a very valuable part of her.

Then she got married and was planning to have a kid, and her second character was a grandmother who had 10 children and her children had children.

And she was going out to fight on behalf of her family and protect them.

Wow.

And you look at these things, and it's so easy to be like, oh, yeah, I know some of the essence of who this person is. I can draw those connections from the characters people play. There's always this little thing that you're like, there's something in your life that you wanted to put out on the table, whether we were even subconsciously thinking about that or not.

But for a neurodivergent person, I think we create a character that allows us to put a part of ourselves out there and then reasonably make an impact and go through a narrative that allows us to explore, understand, and refine these elements in a way that is on our terms that we actually do have some control over.

Yes, the dice might not roll in your favor.

But yes, you can grab a sword and go out and change the world.

Life doesn't roll in our favor all the time.

No.

Yeah.

And I think that's really what it comes down to for a neurodivergent person is we actually, I feel the least masked.

Yeah.

We did an episode about masking.

And yes, we went down the Superman versus Batman route, which is exactly, we came to the same conclusion that you just said, that we're actually removing our personal masks.

Have you played masks RPG?

Oh, yeah.

I have wanted to.

I have not.

So much fun.

It really takes what you just said, and it's even more condensed into gameplay.

It's really amazing.

Because first of all, you're playing as angsty teenagers whose powers are developing, so they don't understand yet.

And so there's so many parallels we can draw.

We're all still learning to control, quote unquote, our powers, even here as adults.

Adults, I'll also put a quotation mark on that.

But the kind of decision we reached with that episode was people assume that Superman is the mask, but it's actually Clark Kent is the mask.

And so, like, turning that on its head and examining it.

And so, it's everything that you just said about this is our time to – first of all, it's about things that we feel like were handed to us or dumped on us or good, bad, or otherwise.

I mean, Superman is such an interesting character for that reason, that, like, he is Superman.

he chooses to portray himself as Clark Kent who is like a bumbling clumsy which is just yeah I mean

not he's doing that so that nobody can guess he's Superman but also I'm like that's how he has

chosen to represent humanity he's like he's like okay I have to be a human so I get clumsy idiot

which is interesting but I love it I love Superman is like one of the there are other heroes that

are just like, I am this person.

But most heroes are a human being who puts a mask on.

Superman is Superman who puts a human being on.

Yep.

Mask.

Exactly.

A human being mask, yeah.

Yeah.

Meat suit.

It's so true.

Meat suit.

He puts a meat suit on.

Aren't we all just meat suits anyway?

Yeah.

We're all just being piloted by some alien inside.

Feels that way sometimes, yeah.

It does.

Now, as we've started to talk through, and you just touched upon this as part of your

journey of discovery and some of the decisions you've made, especially in recent years, you

shared with us as we were preparing for this very episode, a recent diagnosis that may or

may not have changed some things for you.

Why now?

Like, you've already, you and Monty already did an episode about neurodivergent brains

and gaming, which we were, you and Jenny at the same time, basically, we were just, yeah,

but then when I reached out to do this, you were like, I just made it official.

So why now?

and just find a relationship.

So it's been a journey, and it is interesting,

because actually, when we did the video on neurodivergency,

like neurodiverse TTRPG stuff,

I technically was not officially diagnosed,

but Monty and I had both come to terms.

And I think it has to do with the age that we're living in.

Growing up, when I was a kid, I didn't get tested,

which is, this is really interesting,

because I didn't get tested for ADHD or autism.

Instead, I went to summer school three times. I went to special classes for spelling because I was so bad at it. I was in special classes through most of public school for several parts of high school. And they were just like, Kelly needs help. But I never got tested because ADHD meant that you were a hyperactive child.

correct exactly nothing else and autism they didn't look at it as like a spectrum it was one

thing it was and I was not yeah that so a moment when I told my family that I was diagnosed with

adhd and my aunt said well that doesn't make sense all the things you're describing are things i've

done my whole life and i'm like yes and meanwhile my brother was like yeah like I talked to dad

dad just he he's just a weird guy i'm like dad is autistic yeah and it took me until I read about

autism to be like oh that's my dad my dad doesn't understand that and he won't he wouldn't understand

that and like he so family stuff aside um I grew up and it just wasn't a thing so then we come to

recently I started hearing about it I even remember a while ago I was in film school

And one of my teachers said, I have ADHD.

A lot of people in this industry do.

And I was like, haha, I don't.

Well, did I know?

And then I got into this space and I started doing these things.

And the more that I hung out with everybody around me.

And it was funny because I have my group of friends here in Toronto, my adult group of friends.

And I'm like, how did I end up with five autistic friends and the rest have ADHD?

Am I the only one who doesn't?

And I'm like, and then meanwhile, I'm like sitting there, man, I can't like, what is it about me that I do three tasks in a day and I'm burnt out and I have to sit on the couch and like, why are things so hard all the time? I don't get it.

And then a bunch of my friends got official diagnosis and they started talking about it.

And I started talking with them about it.

And their experiences were similar to my experiences.

And the things they were struggling with were similar to the things I was struggling with.

And I started reading a lot.

I started looking at every article I could find on the subject matter.

I started, it's not the best source, but I now follow a lot of meme channels that are like ADHD and autism.

and memes and the fact is that like hard relate to everything that's posted like and after maybe

two years of my friends being diagnosed me realizing that everybody I hung out with was

neurodivergent me reading everything and being like okay like I even started and this is the

journey I started off being like I may not be neurodivergent but at least reading these articles

makes me feel better about myself. And finally, I was like, I'm just going to start saying I'm

neurodivergent. I don't think I can stop this any longer. I don't think I can lie about this to

myself. Stop trying to say you're not and just look at everything around you, accept that you are.

And when I started telling people I was, everybody around me was like, yes. And I was like, okay.

then as an adhd person would I was like how do I get diagnosed and I was and then i'd be like

this is a lot i'm yep yep I don't know what i'm doing and months and months later yeah months and

months later i'm at a con and josiah I don't know if josiah dungeon dad um really nice guy we were

hanging out at a con and he said that he had recently been diagnosed with adhd and autism

and I was like oh wow and he's yeah there's this like Canada wide thing that I went on and I talked

to a doctor through them and he like told me all about it and I was like can you send me the link

for that and he was talking about how positive his experience was with it so he sent me the link

and I got home from Gamescom Canada and I started the process and I talked to a doctor and I filled

out a bunch of forms and we had a bunch of conversations and just last week which is ample

timing for this interview because I had told you that I would be on your show a while ago and then

finally it was like everything's lining up now's the time. No, it really makes sense. Yeah. Just a

week ago I got my diagnosis, ADHD, mild autism. It was interesting. They were like, you tested

positive for autism. In order to test positive you need at least a 25 on the score. I got it,

which they're like is a positive but it might be mild. And I'm like still checks out and then also

PTSD, which I tested positive for. And I'm like, checks out. So all of that was stuff that I

expected, but definitely now being able to label it, there was a journey. There was a lot of positive

feelings, but there was this weird moment that I don't know if everybody goes through this,

but there was this weird moment, and this is going to sound bad. It comes from a social

indoctrination sort of viewpoint where I had this moment where I was like,

now I am confirmed broken.

It had to be like, no, Kelly, that's literally the opposite of the point.

But I had to get over that part of me that was like,

now a doctor has confirmed that your brain is messed up work properly.

And for a long time, I was like, I can do it.

There was part of me that's, you're certified now.

But then there was also part of me that's like,

But that means that all of these things, this you're lazy and stupid, that wasn't my fault.

That was my brain having a hard time producing the chemicals to get me to do things in a timely and orderly fashion.

I also learned that there's two types of ADHD.

There is the hyperactive and there's the inactive.

I scored very low on the hyperactive.

I scored extremely high on the inactive ADHD.

Struggle to get motivated.

My executive function is minimal.

I used to describe it, and I think it still makes sense that I describe it this way.

I have a very small engine.

I have the engine inside of my brain.

It can go, but it runs out of fuel very fast, and I get very tired.

And I just started medication four days ago, and that's also been, honestly, so far, all positive.

The biggest change right now is that I complete those three or four tasks.

I have to be like, oh my God, I'm exhausted.

I'm like, I am done those tasks.

I feel fine.

I can keep doing more tasks.

And then I do more things that I wanted to get around to.

And that has almost shattered my brain.

38 years thinking that people get tired after they do two or three things in a day.

To be like, maybe that's not the truth.

Maybe I can do more.

Yeah.

And so, that's my journey to get here. It took a lot of down the structures that I was born under and a whole lifetime of people being like, you don't have those things.

And to be like, well, things have changed and now we are much broader on what these words mean.

Yeah.

And realizing the fact that I just kept relating to everything, I was like, this has got to mean something. Like, it has to. There's no way it doesn't.

And now I have a doctor proving that I was correct in my self-assessment.

Not to say I have a hard time because I don't think anybody should self-diagnose, but I also think there is a lot of value in reading.

And if everything you're reading relates to you, then I think it's safe to be like, I probably have this and I should pursue this further.

Yeah, we have very similar stories, both later in life diagnosed, which, as we've said many times, we're envious of kids today where it isn't as much of a stigma or they just know so much more about it.

Not that much, but they know a lot more than they did when we were little.

And so the masking that you've done most of your life without even knowing it, we are still in the process of trying to undo some of that and forgive ourselves and not beat ourselves up.

I wish I could say that the feeling of being broken is like something that I got over and then permanently got over.

I still have plenty of times where I'm like, but next step for us was doing this podcast and creating a community where if we ever forgot that we were alone, which we do plenty of times because we have a terrible working memory.

We ever forget that we're all we have to do is find the friend and say, hey, this happened to me today.

I totally understand it.

everything that you're saying, we're just nodding, nodding, because that for me, I did the same

thing as you pre-internet, but I read this book, and the shock, I just dropped the book, like,

fully stunned that it was explaining all of these things that were happening in my brain that I

thought was just me being super duper broken. But now I know I'm broken, and I can, and I have

people around me that can help and talk to you and learn from we're not like okay I actually heard

this really interesting thing that I think is brilliant yeah and it was when I told one of my

friends that i'm like I did feel broken about this and they're like in like prehistoric maybe

not prehistoric like dinosaurs like caveman hunter gap in the hunter-gatherer era oh man

to say this somebody who had adhd or autism and it's like hey jim over here knows every type of

berry in the woods and can categorically tell you which ones are poisonous and which ones are not

so he's in charge of berries and jim's just over there being like love berries they're my favorite

thing I can tell you everything about every single berry and this was actually intrinsic to to like

our survival every like the people who had special interests and whose brains were like

hyper focused on things allowed them to be better at survival in those instances so like

when I when I yes we are broken on a sense of the society level and unfortunately I have a lot of

opinions about the society that the world has built around us that is horribly flawed and designed

And anyway, it's designed in a way to actually separate most of society from itself.

But we still are actually super valuable in society.

And as much as society wants to be like, you don't work on the nine to five schedule that we have dig only way for you.

It's okay, no, but I am very adamant about certain things and I'm very calculated about certain things.

And those things, if you put me to a task that involves the things that I am adamant and dedicated to, you're going to get the best results you could ever imagine.

If you put me in a room and say, do math, sorry, but you're not going to, I'm not, don't ask your accounting.

For eight hours.

Yeah, exactly.

Don't, it won't get done and you'll get the wrong numbers.

But I don't know, ask me to sort things by color and I'll have a blast doing it.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't believe that you specifically mentioned that because the book that I was just talking about, ADHD, A Hunter in a Farmer's World by Tom Hartman, is he's the first person that came up with that theory.

And so this book was so beautiful in that it was describing people with ADHD, but then also gave me that.

Okay.

So, yeah, sure.

Broken in today's full gathering society.

But the reason that it works this way is because I would have been the dude that could run after that wild hair and then flip over to that wild hair if the first one got away.

So much easier than my gathering friends.

That's so funny.

Yeah.

Also, I also feel like probably in the hunter-gatherer, the near-divergent people were the ones who came up with traps and weapons.

Yeah.

And tools. I bet it was somebody being like, why are we hitting this with our fists when we could use a bone? And it was probably some neurodivergent person who was just like, this is logical to me.

Or to find the logic.

Who came up with preservatives because time got away from them and they were tired of the things spoiling. So they were like, what if we came up with ways to dry it out, freeze it, whatever.

Most creative fields are full of neurodivergent people.

I argue that you hear those stories of the greatest minds of our world failed high school and then went geniuses.

I'll tell you what that means.

It means that those people were probably autistic as hell and they were like, school?

We are measuring the wrong things in school.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Yeah, all we do is armchair diagnose every human being that we know and love.

And it is fun, but we always have to say that we don't know what we're talking about.

But yes, 100% agree.

And yeah.

And for you or anybody else listening to this that is either chasing a diagnosis or recently diagnosed,

allow Matt and I just a second to be your NeuroSpicy big brother and sister

and validate almost everybody, ourselves, including that have had an adult diagnosis,

which as Matt mentioned, we both were diagnosed as adults as well.

And I'm actually currently flirting with chasing down an autism diagnosis myself.

Everybody has some kind of crash.

Everybody looks a little bit different.

I had an anger as a woman because I was showing all the telltale signs of a hyperactive little boy.

And I was like, she can't be neurodivergent.

She's a girl.

And things like that.

And there were ways that I could have been helped a lot sooner that just gender norms did not offer them to me.

So there's some kind of crash we've learned for everybody who receives a diagnosis in adulthood.

It is, I don't like to use this word, but it is the most normal part of all of this for any of us we've learned, is that there's going to be some reaction to it that then is going to make you go, wait, am I supposed to be thinking that?

Yeah, if that helps.

And in the end, we are all actually vital and useful and wonderful in our own way.

And there's no way I would be doing what I'm doing if I wasn't neurodivergent.

I wouldn't have written three books about D&D if I wasn't neurodivergent.

That's on our list, too, actually.

We have asked all of our incredibly creative guests that have done things that we look at and we go like, how did you do that?

How did you get that done?

Doing how my brain is, how did you get that done?

How did you like we've asked writers, like, how how did they focus and get that stuff done?

You have a you have a partner.

You have a you have partners, I'm sure.

Like, but Monty, especially, you know, as a as another dude, I'm sure is a big deal.

Allison, is that for me?

But yeah, what you say that is because of your ADHD that you created those things.

But yeah, talk more about that.

Cool.

The first thing I will say is that there is a major element of the partnership. Monty and I both, we pick up slack where the other person isn't, and it usually goes in tangents. When we're writing a book, I'll come in and be like, dude, this week I wrote 10,000 words. I wrote three. And then the next week I'm like, sorry, man, I only wrote 2,000 words. I wrote 12,000. We do this through the whole thing.

And there have actually been within three books. First book, a lot more Monty went into that. Second book, a lot more me went into that because we were in different places. Third book was actually pretty dead in the middle.

But the interesting thing is that I also had to learn to be gentle and understanding with my brain and the way it needs to work. I'm a very person. One of the things that my brain does is, and one of the reasons why I love doing what I do, is I've always said that probably one of the strongest aspects of me, if I have a superpower, it is that I can't stop imagining.

i just keep creating like I will watch a movie that was a good movie but what if it had told

this story instead of what if the characters had done if they were instead of in space what if they

were in like medieval times and now i'm now i've written a new movie that's like a different and

i'm like oops I just made something brand new so yeah i'm always thinking and now because I create

for dnd I watch a lot of superhero movies I watch a lot of movies in general and i'm always like

what if they were a dnd character what would that look like yeah I just made it I just wrote a new

subclass it's available for our patrons it's a monk that teleports a bunch and I won't go into

the nitty-gritty details but it's a monk that teleports a bunch and people were like when i

handed it to the patrons I was like hey guys author's note and I just sent a gif of night

crawler from x-men and everybody was like oh my god it is night crawler and i'm like yeah it is

but i'm like how do you make night crawler in dnd let's make a subclass that is the monk that

teleports anyway um back on track so i'm constantly imagining and the great thing is that I love

dragenheim enough that I have so many stories to tell artist part for me is that up here is probably

like eight books worth of content get onto the page is actually the difficult part because I cannot do

it fast enough the hands do not go as fast as my brain wants them to um I have and like I actually

notorious Monty so when I'm in creative mode and we're starting writing a book Monty constantly

the audience knows this the Monty constantly has to be like Kelly I'm sorry we have to throw half

of this out because we have like here's an example for our world book that we did Sebastian Crowe's

Guide to Drakenheim yeah I wrote a 12 pages on the lore of the dwarfs in our setting

and Monty's we have to fit in the history of the main continent he's the dwarves you need to get

this down to two paragraphs and I'm like that makes sense but yeah the other thing I had to

be forgiving with when it comes to the books is when I don't feel like writing and sometimes

I've realized I don't need a long break I can write and I can run out of fuel very quickly I'll

write, I'll get like 2,000 words in, and I'm like, and I'm done. And now I'm better at knowing and

being like, if I push any further, it's just going to be good. So then I go, go games for an hour.

Then I come back, and I write for two or three more hours. And I actually do this thing now where

me and Monty are actually opposites on this. I'll wake up, and first thing in the morning,

I sit down, and I write until I can't anymore. Then I'll go, and I'll make breakfast. Then I'll

play video games or something. This is if I'm dedicating a day to writing. Then two or three

hours will have gone by breakfast video games i'll relax then i'll sit down right as long as I can

if that's 15 minutes fine then i'll go play video games again if it's an hour great if it's two hours

amazing and then some days I wake up and I sit down and stare at a blank page and i'm like

all right not today and not today and yeah we have deadlines which is the tough part

but that's where monti and I go into like kind of burnout mode and I won't say it's healthy

two months before the deadline it gets a little ugly and it's it it is tough because monty and i

go into pushing ourselves mode and we do alternate where like there'll be a day where i'm just like

i can't man I can't and he's i'm gonna work on it and and you pick it up tomorrow and i'm like cool

but then even tomorrow i'm still a little burnt out but i'm weak to get this book finished and

we're in the home stretch it's always the home stretch that kills it creating the ideas yeah

For the first six months of writing the book, I'm creating ideas and I'm like, I love writing way too much about all of these things that I enjoy. Then there's a few months where I'm like, oh man, another stat block, another rules clarification. And then it gets to the final months and it's, does this all make sense? Does it all flow together? Now I'm looking at the nitty gritty details of rules and I hate that part. It sucks.

writing the lore I love writing the fantasy I love writing new subclasses and their abilities

but then when it gets to does this do too much damage let's compare it to the other things of

this level i'm like oh god yeah I don't want to but yeah they're going to going back over the fine

yeah yeah but eventually we hand it in and then we have a lovely group of editors who do an amazing

job and also no dnd so they will write us back and be like this seems a little high and we're like

All right, cool. Make it a D10 instead of 3D10. Great. Thumbs up. Cool. So, thank God for our

editors. But yeah, I love writing. And I now understand. We also told Ghostfire, our publisher,

that the third book, we launched the Kickstarter before we were finished the manuscript,

and that was a terrible... Like, for our next book, we're going to let you know when the

manuscript is in those final months, and then we can announce when the Kickstarter is going to be.

And that way we have like 95% done by the time the Kickstarter goes up.

So that's something we need.

And we've learned this over three books.

Each book gets, I'd like to say, a little easier, but also every book is different.

An adventure, a world setting, and a monster book.

And each one has been a new set of challenges.

I understand myself as a writer more with each one.

Yeah.

Not knowing anything about you, I could have pegged, especially the monsters,

that there was at least a vague neurodivergent brain

simply because of the extras that you added.

I'm not saying that you were the first people to ever add them,

but the bit of flavor text, the motivations,

where you would normally have to go to Mr. Armand.

Anyway, creatures do what they,

monsters do what they want to do, or whatever it's called.

Or this there and pull them all together.

And you so kindly, in one page of stat boxes, I bet that's an ADHD thing or something.

I will talk a little bit about that.

Monty and I, both neurodivergent people, we have issues with monster books.

We know how to use them.

We're fine with them.

I don't want to say anything bad about the people who created them or wrote them.

Amazing work.

when we sat down to make our monster book,

it was like,

I wish that monster books had more tools for you as a DM to read the monster

and go,

I have everything.

Some people will just grab the stat block.

I have a stat block.

I'm ready to go.

I'm making up my own thing.

But other DMs want to know,

do you read the lore of a monster?

And you're like,

that gives me so many ideas on how to integrate this into my game.

You read its combat tactics.

You're like,

now I know how to run it at the table.

What abilities should I be focusing on?

sometimes it's not always clear and the little bit of the descriptive text it's I don't I always hate

i actually monty's way better at descriptions than me I write descriptions but at the table

monty can just be like you see a hulking blah blah blah blah and me i'm like you see a gwardy

dude he's big and he's a troll and my players are like sick a troll and i'm like yeah um whereas

like just writing that bit of descriptive text even when i'm the one writing it like I can sit

down and write it and then but then at the table I can be like a mound of gross flesh blah blah blah

like um and it's way more evocative and i'm like I just wish all dms had these tools and you know

what one page we do it all we give you the monster we give you all you can take as much or leave as

much as you want but it's there yep yeah and I this I don't want to brag I think I think it's the

best monster book I i'm very proud of our monster book because like that you should be unlocking that

and looking at each page in that book being like the tools the tools here for a dm to run this

monster why why aren't we doing that why isn't this the standard yep so we made it we made it

our thing because we just we were mad at people not doing it we know what this is supposed to look

like we're gonna do it yep yes in turn I don't want to kiss your ass too much but I will say

I love Flea Mortals. I love the Tales of the Valiant monster book. But man, when I got hands on Dragonheim, I really just wanted, oh, now will they go through and create, because of course, we love horrors. But can you do all the monsters in the entire universe in this way? Because it's just, and the epic, and the freaking epic, just the very, instead of legendary actions, the epic actions, the epic bosses.

it's just that also I feel I feel like we nailed something because I was sick of legendary monsters

legendary monsters pissed me off they didn't feel good at the table monday and I look at everything

that's out there and we go what are the things that have bugged us about the status quo of how

what do we wish we had how did we wish this was this looked and the fact that we've gotten feedback

on all three books our adventure book has been praised as being like the easiest for a dm like

the flow of it, the nature of people. We've heard a lot of praise to be like, it is such...

One of the easiest compliment that we got, the most simple way of putting it was,

it is a book clearly written for DMs by a DM. And when it came to Epic Bosses,

we were like, what makes us upset about legendary monsters? What's this and this?

What do we wish that felt like at the table? Here's the issues. How do we resolve those issues?

So we created a system that added us with epic bosses that I'm like, yes, feels way cooler.

Yep.

I feel like there is, for ADHD brains, there is the Kelsey Dion and Evan at Nimble way of doing it, which I think is also gorgeous in that it's like simplicity.

And it's like, you do need to use your imagination.

You do need to fill in some blanks.

But for ADHD, it's like less is more on a page.

That is amazing.

But the flip side is Drakenheim and the way that y'all have written it and giving you the tools instead.

Don't flip through pages, please.

I grew up with Choose Your Own Adventure and the ability to have everything that you need and then now go to this page.

Even the Monty Cook stuff does some of that, which I'm super appreciative of.

Just stuff in the help me get from A to B.

Because my brain's going to have a hard time with that.

I hate opening. This is hard to avoid. I'll even admit that it's hard to avoid in our book. But I just, I can't stand when I'm running out of a physical book at a table and I have four or five earmarked pages that I'm like, all right, you're fighting this monster, but then also I need to switch over here because the rules for this thing that you're dealing with are over here. And then where's the adventure page of the adventure we're actually in? Oh, it's in the middle.

And it's also why digital tools have been so helpful of like, you know, I can have tabs open, which is much easier to flip through than a book.

But it's part of how it's impossible to avoid because no matter what E. Dragunine book, it's okay, the rules for contamination are at the back.

So if you need to look up those rules, yes, you have to flip to the back.

We can't repeat those rules every time we mention contamination.

But for the most part, we tried to put things where you would reference stuff so that it was like, I am looking at this page.

It tells me that I need this.

It is also right here.

and I just find this very helpful for us.

And so we design books that we can read

and we just assume that if it's benefiting us,

then it's probably benefiting a lot of people.

Yep.

That is the rule in our day jobs.

We still have day jobs.

We are web developers.

Everyone's always asking about SEO, SEO, SEO.

And I'm like, well, look,

if you allow us to make your website

completely web accessible,

you're going to get more SEO

because of the ease of use, because of the extra tools on one page

that you're going to get by hiring an SEO specialist, I think.

So I think that your books are along those same lines.

Accessibility is a big thing for us, which is a slight, let's see.

So the segue there is future projects.

Is it true that the Dungeon Dudes are going full cottagecore? Discuss.

We have already began pre-production on our next epic adventure. We don't plan on doing anything

as long as Drakenheim. That was a seven-year campaign. One thing that we've learned, yes,

it's been amazing, and we have a very active and passionate audience about Drakenheim. But people

who are looking to start Drakkenheim

do get scared when they see

three seasons over 250

episodes. They're like,

maybe not.

So our next epic is going to be

four seasons of

12 to 16

episodes.

So it's going to be much tighter

of a campaign. We began

work on it. We already have...

We mostly have our characters

done. I'm going to

try not to give too many spoilers, although I love

talking about it it is called seasons of silence and this is a story about non-heroic characters

living a humble life who are then thrust into heroism through circumstance so this is very much

i I don't want to spoil anything it's probably not sticking to the cottage core the entire run

of the campaign.

But I can assure you

that we are building a world.

Like, Monty and I had a blast.

We sat down.

We do this a lot on our drive home from a con.

It was a nine-hour drive.

We just started listing names of places

that were in this world.

You start in the village of Quiet

and the Humble River.

There's River Sweet.

Bustle is the bigger city's name.

We have all these, like,

We were just writing down every quaint and cute and cottagecore vibe.

It's so hot right now.

It's so hot right now.

And Monty's rule for us for this campaign.

Yeah.

And he wanted us, everybody's got to play a halfling or a human.

Those are your two options.

And you're starting in the village of quiet.

And you are humble beginnings.

And we've spent a lot of time.

We've had four session zeros already where we discussed who are our characters' family?

What is our relationships with our family?

How do we contribute to the community?

Who else do we know in the community?

What does the community feel like?

And so we're actually, as a group, building out what this all feels like.

And I know Monty's going to throw some awful stuff.

Something is going to happen that is going to thrust us into adventure.

But the idea is that none of our characters are adventurers.

As opposed to Drak, we all showed up to the gates of Drak and I'm being like, we're here for adventure.

My character, without spoiling what I'm playing class-wise, what I can tell you is he is a young local farmhand.

He helps out at the local farm.

That's his thing.

He herds sheep.

He lifts bales of hay.

He's a big, strong halfling.

And he's just, like, protective of his community.

His sister, which will be portrayed by Jill, is a young, whimsical, off-doing-our-own-things sort of person, but I'm very protective of her.

And together, us and our best friend, who is Joe's character, we go on little adventures that involve going mushroom-picking in the forest nearby.

Or we found a neat cave, and so we went to look at it, and nothing really happened.

But we like going into the woods and seeing what's out there, and finding secret places and groves.

And then going back to our community and our parents, Jill and my character's parents own a bakery and we help out there when we can.

And my character just is known around the community for helping out when he'll see somebody walking down the street carrying too many baskets and he's like, let me grab those for you.

I love them already.

Yeah.

So we're trying to bring that element to life.

And this is the harsh reality is we want the time to fall in love with the characters and the locations.

So that when a threat does occur, everybody's bought in. We all care a whole lot. And we think that that's actually a magical story to tell, is the longer you spend, sometimes instead of jumping right into the action, if you can spend enough time in the Shire, then the idea of losing the Shire is terrifying.

So that's, I think, the story that we're – so, yes, it is going to be cottagecore. There's still going to be our classic elements of horror and maybe some – we tend to make bold statements that a lot of people don't even realize we're making.

It took people a long time to realize when they're like, wait a second, is Draconheim an allegory for global warming?

It was really funny. People would argue with us during Drakkenheim. They're like, why don't the factions get along in the face of a global threat? Why don't all the political figures agree and just work together to solve the problem?

And we're just like, I don't know. Why wouldn't they? That seems crazy.

It's funny that we were definitely making a statement with Drakkenheim, and there's a statement we want to make with Seasons of Silence as well about some of the current states of the world.

But another thing that we do also want to paint is the idea of hope.

Even Drakkenheim has an element of hope.

You can actually go out and shit.

And this is going to be the same thing as a group of young – we're all playing pretty young characters.

And the idea is the young, humble community folk who end up having to pick up a sword and being like, I have to do something about this.

And they will.

yeah it goes back to what you were saying earlier about this is why we play these games is we want

to deal with our feelings about global warming I could recycle it till i'm blue in the face

but I know that personally i'm not going to stop that part of the world ending but in game i've

all the turtles by flipping from plastic straws okay you did save all the turtles I forgot about

that but generally yeah it's at the table we can deal with it and then sharing those stories is

yeah and it's all the rich corporate the rich corporation the one percent the one percent

isn't fixing everything they're instead they're being greedy about the resources

capitalism and oligarchy don't work for them yeah this is interesting I wonder if the factions are

also supposed to represent certain elements of society but every day I wake up very aware of the

fact that I could be on a beach naked eating mangoes and instead capitalism okay there's actually a

great book that I highly recommend to everybody that will uh that will haunt you have you guys

ever heard of the book ishmael uh-huh no no so ishmael is a it's a it's a fictional story it's

barely fictional the only fictional element is how the story is being told to you but it's a

It's about society.

And all that happens, very simple book.

A man wakes up in the morning.

He needs a job.

He's looking in the paper and he sees an ad that says, there's like a job that is, you

have to go and listen to my story.

You'll get paid.

Must have an interest in saving the world.

And he's like, well, I have to go.

And so he goes into a room and he sits in a chair and a curtain raises and sitting across

from him is an 800 pound gorilla who speaks.

And the gorilla proceeds to tell, the gorilla's name is Ishmael, and proceeds to tell this human his story.

And through that story, you get a very intense lens from an animal perspective into what humanity has done.

And how they are behaving in terms of to the rest of the animal kingdom, what it looks like.

And I read that book, and about halfway through, I actually had to set it down and just be like,

am I ready am I prepared to accept the message that I'm about to receive from this book which

is that we're all screwed and we have done this ourselves and I was like I had to set it down for

a month before I was like time to finish it and then I kept reading to the end and I was just like

yeah it sucks to hear but it was a beautiful book and it's brilliant it really makes things

It makes you realize that, I don't know, we could have done things a lot differently.

I think a lot of us play these fantasy games because the idea of changing the world is beautiful.

Yeah, it would be amazing.

Of course, we in the United States, half of us in the United States, feel like we absolutely fell into the darkest timeline.

And that feels awful.

That feels really dumb.

But yeah, this is how we get through days.

This is how we get through the days.

I know that we're in a better situation than you being in Canada, but I still, sorry for this metaphor.

But I'm like, we're the apartment above a roach.

Above the meth lab.

Yeah, meth lab.

And no matter what you do, the roaches are now creeping into, the roaches are not the people.

This is not a metaphor about the people.

This is a metaphor about the problems.

Yeah.

The problems are the roaches.

And they're like, because we are your upstairs neighbor, those problems are surfacing here as well.

Not as highly, but it's just like...

If you wanted to adopt us so we could move to Canada.

So if you're telling us, then we'll just, we'll come up there and then we'll all go together.

It'll be fine.

Yeah.

So that, so hence Cottagecore, at least to begin with.

That's amazing.

And then I need to hear a little bit about Tales from the Wood Creek and how that came about.

And Debra Ann Wohl.

And I don't know whether she herself is an advocate for accessibility and things in the same way that y'all are, but I like just how all of that happened.

And I'm going to see it.

We were lucky enough, we have a very vibrant Patreon community.

One of our patrons, Ed Gastonaly, is a producer.

He's just a normal, everyday Dungeon Dude diehard fan.

And also a producer who's friends with Debra Ann Woll.

So he messaged us one day and he's like, would you like to come to dinner with me and Debra Ann Wool?

This was like two years ago.

And we were like, yes.

And so we went for dinner.

While we were at dinner, we hung out, we chatted, we got to know Deb.

Wonderful, incredible human being, like the nicest person in the whole world.

I do not know how to stress that enough.

I've never met somebody nicer.

It's baffling.

She's so friendly.

I love her so much.

But we met her and it was so lovely.

And then towards the end of that dinner, Ed was like, so Deb and I have this cool idea.

We want to do this D&D show, but we want you guys to be part of it.

And we're already like, yeah, okay, sure.

And he's, we're going to mix D&D with escape room and reality TV.

And we're like, we don't understand what that means, but sure.

And we literally, we were hesitant, not hesitant.

We said yes.

But on the back end, Monty and I were like, what are we signing up for?

I don't understand.

Yeah, yeah.

Until the day we were going to set and Monty and I were like, I still don't understand what we're doing.

He talked to us like we had a bunch of meetings, but every time it was like, yeah, we're going to have props and you guys are going to play some D&D, but you're going to be up from the table.

You're going to be interacting with things.

And we're like, I don't understand what that looks like.

I'm used to playing at a table.

How do we do this?

And then we started hearing that they were getting these cool guests and we were like, all right.

And there was a lot of talk about names that didn't make it in.

Apparently, Jack Black was almost a yes, but then couldn't.

They're cool names, but we ended up getting some really amazing people.

Yeah.

And we eventually did show up on set.

So this was filmed only maybe a month ago.

It was filmed here in Toronto at a local Pioneer Village, which we rented out for four nights.

And we filmed from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. for four nights.

And we just moved from house to house.

And it was a haunted village.

And so the campaign of Tales from Wood Creek is that we are a group of cursed individuals who are drawn back to our ancestors' village to end the curse.

And the way that it works is that each night, it's two-episode arcs.

So each two-episode arc, we were in a different building.

And we would be rolling dice and role-playing.

And then at some point, Deb would be like, so the room that you're in is this room.

And the puzzle you have to solve is in this room.

And suddenly we're in like an escape room scenario.

We're like, we have to find the four keys to the magic box to open it up, to find the clue, to get the spell, to undo part of the curse.

So we're like looking all around the room.

We're opening up things.

There's a part where we get, you can see it in the trailer.

Not to give too many spoilers.

There's an episode, my favorite bit in the show, because I was so scared in real life.

We go through a time fracture in a haunted house.

We were in a haunted house, and time fractures, and all of us get split into different timelines.

And each of us has to go find a clue from a ghost in our timeline.

What they did is they just brought us all out of the room, and then one by one brought us into the table we were sitting at,

turned on the cameras and went go and handed us a lantern and then just followed us as we went

around the room the house in the dark with a lantern and they had jump scares and like I was

like where is this clue and it was so fun it was so fun and so it really is like we were hesitant

and we're like we don't understand how this is going to work but honestly it still was a dnd game

If you just imagine the DM being obsessed with puzzles, a budget for props.

That's what with a very high prop budget and a DM who's like puzzles all day, every day.

The dream for me.

That's amazing.

And that would just be walking around with a dice tray.

So while we were solving the puzzle, I'd be like, can I check to see if the symbols on the wall mean anything to my character?

And she'd come over with a dice tray and be like, make a history check.

So as my character, I'd make a history check and he'd be like, well, that these symbols relate to this family ancestor.

And we would roll investigation and get a clue.

So we were still playing D&D.

We were still playing our characters.

We just got to interact a lot more with things.

We had a friend have a very traumatizing experience with LARPing at Gen Con this year.

This sounds like LARPing done correctly.

With professionals.

It was done extremely well.

And the right tools.

Very fun, very safe.

Deb, again, was like, she took such, I just, I'll never forget.

And I know like every person, like you see directors on set being like, all right, gang, we got this today.

Good work.

But like Deb, every time that we were like a minute away from cameras rolling, she would huddle us all together and be like, thank you for being here.

You guys are all amazing.

I love you so much.

And that was her like little speech.

And every time I was like, I feel great.

Great.

Let's go.

I'm so glad.

And I love that the weight of the role-playing game also falls on...

Because you've done acting, of course.

I've seen Dave is Possessed.

And of course, Amani is...

Oh, yeah.

Oh, hell yes.

And of course, Amani is a full-on doctor.

But this is not something you would necessarily do.

You wouldn't jump at the chance to be in a reality.

Maybe you would.

A reality TV show.

Depends on the show.

I would be in Traitors in a heartbeat.

I love Traitors.

Thank you.

My newest obsession.

Yes.

Yeah.

I would just see what Alan Cumming's going to wear day to day.

I mean, sign me up.

Oh, man.

Scotland, Alan Cumming lying to my friends.

Let's go.

Yeah.

There is a Canadian trader, so I might end up in that one.

I have to audition.

Again, I have to say, that's the dream.

Yeah.

You've got to.

Maybe I should.

Maybe I should.

Magnificent.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well.

Oh, man.

Thank you for your time.

for spending even more time than we expected.

But I truly could.

Just my brain, similar to yours,

is just, oh, I need to ask him about video games.

I need to ask.

But there'll be time for that in the future.

Yeah.

I'd be happy to come on the show again in the future

if you want to dedicate time to video games and horror movies.

Okay, one quick question.

Do I need to buy Expedition 33?

Yes, it's the greatest video game that's been made in years.

The story is phenomenal.

The gameplay is phenomenal.

If you're okay with turn-based combat,

which in my opinion,

Final Fantasy moving away from turn-based was a mistake.

And Expedition 33 is the Final Fantasy game

I've wanted for the last 10 years.

Damn.

And it's better.

It's so good.

The story is just,

it's the best story I've seen told in a video game

since maybe The Last of Us.

I might even like it more than The Last of Us.

I don't know.

What?

Brilliant. It's brilliant.

My favorite experience is crying because of a video game.

That is my very favorite emotion.

And you will cry in the first hour of Expedition 33, and then you will cry a hundred more times through the narrative.

Oh, boy.

Hell yes.

I'm even flirting with this one.

Yeah.

I've heard it's so good.

It's so good.

I'll do it.

I've yet to hear a bad thing about it.

All right, we'll do video games.

So one of my personal goals is I want to do a – like those creatives that we have been lucky enough to have on this show, I want us to all play a one-shot together, probably in Dagger Heart.

Cool.

Do what I can do.

Now that I'm on my medication, I might be able to make more time.

One more task.

It's fun finding time sometimes.

It is fun.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Well, this was so great.

Yeah, we loved having you here.

Thank you for saying yes.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah.

Our little therapy sessions.

Thank you so much, Kelly.

You're the best.

Thank you guys.

Yeah.

All right.

We'll see you all next time on ADHD 20.

Okay.

And we'll giggle our way out.

We really do.

That's all we do.

It's just music fade.

ADHD 20 is brought to you by the Pocket Dimension, created by Matthew Bivens, Alison Kendrick, Evan Bivens, and Anna Fitzgerald.

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