Melody [0:00]
Welcome back and thank you for joining the Game Master Certification Organization as we continue with our interview excerpt podcast series, featuring ShauntelleB. Hi, I'm your host Melody Rainelle. We do want to give our listeners a sensitive subject matter content warning for this particular podcast episode as the discussion does touch on the topic of suicidality. So, bearing that in mind, let's get started.

So, Shauntelle, what are you most excited to talk about?

ShauntelleB [0:31]
Anything to do with gaming is actually kind of just a fun topic for me. I really like to, and I tune into, communication within gaming quite a bit, and how people stay safe in games and how people communicate more effectively, and whether or not that changes relationships between people as well; I'm quite interested in that. One of the other things I'm interested in is the idea of, or the concept of, character bleed... and how and when and why that happens.

Melody [1:00]
Great! Is character bleed a technical thing?

ShauntelleB [1:04]
I would say, yes, it is a technical term because it is used enough in enough context within gaming for people to kind of go: "Oh, I know what you're talking about." That's kind of, for me, that's the benchmark because gaming and tabletop specifically in fact, doesn't really have formal language to describe those kinds of experiences.

Melody [1:23]
Okay, moving on. You have a really impressive resume, as mentioned in our last podcast episode. Would you talk to us about your achievements and your art?

ShauntelleB [1:33]
My art? My art is chaotic and free and wanders through different mediums, depending on the situation, and sometimes will stop off in all of the mediums because why not. Yeah, I don't restrict myself to one form of art. I make use of them all. I think it's as important to engage in visual art as it is to engage in music as it is to engage in performance as it is to engage in just reading a book or writing a book, or writing poetry.

Melody [2:06]
There are a lot of parallels between the different roles you are taking on - the actor, the writer, the game master. What parallels do you see?

ShauntelleB [2:15]
Everything that I do with my life actually links to everything else that I do with my life. And that is to great degree intentional. I started studying psychology specifically because psychology matched very well with the acting that I was doing. It's simply looking at a character in depth and saying: "Okay, so why are you engaging with other people like this? Why are you doing the things that you're doing? How are you doing the things that you're doing? What are your motivations? What are your drives? What are your fears? What are your goals?" And that's pretty much psychology, if you turn it on its head and say: "Okay, well I'm not inside this person's head; I am looking at this person's head, essentially. And then, that links to, you know, books and novel writing and playwriting because all of those things kind of come together. Especially when seen through an audience because you start to draw together with an audience. The audience is going to perceive things in very different ways. Everyone that sees something or engages with something is actually going to experience it in a different way. And so, it almost doesn't matter which of the things that I've mentioned that I do. They all kind of become the same thing eventually which is communicating with other people.

Melody [3:28]
And kind of continuing that thought on the topic of engaging with other people... could you maybe talk to us about the art of listening a little bit?

ShauntelleB [3:36]
So, when it comes to listening. There are a number of... funnily enough, listening is not as easy as people think it is. It's like it's this one word that we assume is happening but it's a lot deeper. So listening to me is - if I'm paying close enough attention, not only will I hear the words that you're saying and comprehend them. Largely, hopefully, largely in the way that you intended them. But I will also see what your body is doing and whether or not what you're doing is accurate to what you're feeling. If I'm listening, I will know whether or not to continue down that line of discussion or whether to change it. If I'm listening, I'll be able to see whether or not you're close to getting hurt, and back away from that. The process of listening is quite a difficult one because it requires you almost to put aside your own ego. In order to listen, you're putting all of your attention on someone else so that means that you're not paying any attention almost... almost any attention... you might be, probably will pay some attention because we're people, but largely not paying attention to you, what you look like, who you are, what your goals are, what your focus is... you're paying more attention to what's this person opposite me doing, saying, how are they existing, how are they being? Are they leaning slightly to the left in their chair and is that because the chair is broken or is that because they just lean slightly to the left when they're uncomfortable or are they uncomfortable? It is exhausting. It is actually quite tiring to listen. Especially when you first start doing it, it's one of the reasons why, in training, psychologists will only tend to get one or two clients to begin with because if you start out with the full caseload that you end up with, there's no way that you're going to be able to listen for that long without getting fatigue, and we actually call that "compassion fatigue". That's how possible it is. And that's not to say that, you know, therapists don't care. It's more that when you spend a lot of time deeply listening to someone for a protracted amount of time you feel, or you lose a sense of self, you lose the sense of autonomy around you, you lose the sense of control of yourself and so taking the time to re-engage with you is actually quite important. And that to me is one of the things that I don't know that many GMs really consider, but it's what I would expect is largely contributing to GM burnout, more than, pretty much anything else. In good GMs, they will know to take a break, is the first thing, I think. But I think they will also, in between sessions, have that time that is designed just for them to be selfish. Because that selfishness is how you rest; do self care. And I think that is actually quite a crucial thing to know how to do and to engage in as much as possible and as often as necessary. And that level is going to vary for everyone. Like what is self care for me is not going to be what's self care for other people. But at the same time, making sure that that's achieved is going to make your games more warm, more rounded, more long-lived, I imagine... All of those things.

Melody [6:56]
Fantastic. So, at the time of this interview, you're pretty close to having your clinical doctorate, right?

ShauntelleB [7:04]
Mhm. Yep.

Melody [7:06]
So, we are aware that this is a very sensitive topic, and one that could be challenging to address. With kids and people having issues, perhaps even confronted with concerns for suicidality, a GM may not be prepared for issues like that. But, if it's starting to look like: "Wow, this is going that way..." Where is that line and what should somebody do if that line is in danger of being crossed? We'd like to know your opinion too - should the term suicidality be used or not?

ShauntelleB [7:41]
No, I- I prefer to use the word that it is: suicidality. As far as the research that I have seen and read goes, you aren't going to prompt someone toward thinking of suicide who wouldn't otherwise already have been thinking about it by saying it. Hiding from it means that we stigmatize it. So then we don't talk about it more so than it becomes more of a problem - we don't want that. Generally- generally speaking. If something is coming up for one of your players, and you see it, you're most likely to see it first, through the character - through the decisions that the character is making, through the way that they're engaging. There's a reason why there has been a sort of huge surge in people with mental health struggles, and people that sort of discovering their identity. There's a reason why that happens and one of those things is character bleed funnily enough. Character bleed is the idea that we will take an aspect of ourselves and put it into a character, and then we will emotionally connect with that aspect. Less likely to happen in certain games; games that are... are more war-game designed. So it might not happen in say D&D First Edition, Second, Third, maybe in Fourth. Maybe in Fifth. More likely in Fifth because of the way that they're asking you to think of characters and Fourth, same reason. The way that character bleed can turn up, is in fact a back and forth situation. So, if you have a difficult interaction with another character. You're going to feel a type of way, in response to that character, despite the fact that you are not that character. One of the great things about tabletop, specifically, is that when we engage in this game - in these games - we're forming memories, and those memories are pretty much the same as any other visual memory. And one of one of my players did in fact say: "Yeah, I find it really strange that if I go back and watch our game because it was streamed, if I go back and watch it, it's just us sitting around talking. Because I see us moving around, I see us doing things, I see the characters doing things." And there's a reason for that. We're creating these visual memories while we describe what we're doing. Because we're imagining it. Character bleed means that while we're imagining it, we are in that position - we are that character. And that comes out in the concept of method acting very frequently. But thing is method acting can be very dangerous for exactly that reason. The things that you are engaging in, depending on the game, the things that you're engaging in are not necessarily going to be safe to be engaging in, depending on who you are. And depending on the experiences you've had. When you have that kind of bleed going back and forth. One of the things that you will probably notice first, if you notice anything at all, is going to be the player's actions, turning up in the character. So things that the player wants to do, the experiences the player wants to have, will turn up in the character, and we see that in, like, that old trope of like the bard chatting up the bartender - the barmaid. It's a problematic concept as in it's problematic because then it goes to a die roll and the barmaid has no consent over that. But it's because we want to interact or engage with people that we find unattainable, but we do that. We wouldn't do that otherwise, or we wouldn't do it in that way. Maybe. People are different. But that is still going to be, to a degree, character bleed. Some people will design characters who have a different gender presentation or a different sexuality and they will use that as a way to engage and question themselves and question their needs and question, you know, what is it like not to have to fear this thing, or what is it like to have to fear this thing? It becomes identity exploration. And sometimes that can get scary and sometimes that can get dangerous. If you start to see it. And you have a good enough relationship with the person at your table and you probably do because they're at the table - see if you can raise it. And you can be really, like, gentle about it, like, "You know, I notice, I noticed Stan's having having a tough time in game - are you okay?" And that's not in a sense of, like, "I'm judging and I'm questioning." It's more in the sense of: "I notice Stan's having a tough time. Is what's going on for Stan difficult for you? Or is it just difficult to Stan?" Because sometimes it's also not character bleed. Sometimes it's just playing. But sometimes it's also metaphorical, so we don't know. And so we want to check. Check in on your friends. Like, ultimately if you're playing, even if you're running a game professionally, if you're running for long enough, these people are going to become, if not your friends, then they're going to become closer than acquaintances. Maybe on the cusp there, but they will be more than that. Colleagues, if you have to, like if you want use that terminology, but they're going to be more than a random stranger. You're going to start to see behaviors that they would not necessarily show other people. And that's not to scare people. That's not to say, "Hey, you- you know, be careful don't get emotionally attached." It's to say, "That's good." If people are behaving with you in ways that they don't behave with other people, that's fantastic, it means that they feel safe, they feel comfortable, they feel happiness, they feel contentment. They feel like they can be them. There are a lot of people that I know who discovered the gender identity or their gender presentation by doing this, by playing games that challenged those expectations or those beliefs about themselves and made them think differently. All of those things are very valuable. Feel free to- or not feel free, but... Don't be afraid to reach out, don't be afraid to ask if there's anything you can do to help them experience that. Because sometimes it's a case of: "Yeah, I- I'm trying something new with my character and I don't know how it's gonna go." "Oh, okay. Well what do you need to try with the character? What can I put in the world that's going to give you that interaction, to see whether or not you think it's going to work?" I've seen players come out to characters in game before they came out to their parents, because it was a good way for them to practice. And I'm not saying that every game needs to be that. And I'm not saying every game should be that. It needs to be safe, and, overall, and it needs to be consensual for everyone, and that's really important. If you've got a group of people that feel very safe with each other, you don't want one person saying, "Well here's all of my emotional baggage. I'm gonna put it down here" without asking. "Hey, I want to explore something" is very much phrasing you can use. "Hey, these are my stars and wishes. This is what I enjoyed and this is what I wish would happen because this is kind of the sort of thing I wanna go for." That's all perfectly reasonable, and they're all things that you can do as a friend. As a kid, if things start to get scary for you, tell someone older than you. Tell an adult. Tell... tell someone that you trust. That's important. Tell someone you trust.

Melody [14:54]
Thank you. You use the term "neurodiverse". Would you like to explain what that is?

ShauntelleB [15:01]
Yeah. Neurodiversity is anyone that has an experience that is not what we would call neurotypical. So, anyone that doesn't experience the world in the same way that society wants us to experience the world, I suppose. I have ADHD. So what that means is I don't experience time passing in the same way that other people do. Sometimes it's very slow, sometimes it's very fast but I don't exp- ... if someone asks me what I was doing last week, I won't know if I don't look something up. If someone asks me what I'm doing next week, I won't know unless I look something up, and not only will I not know, I won't know how far away a week is; I don't have a conceptualization of that. There are a whole range of different neuro diversities and a whole range of different ways that those can be expressed. And all of those things can come out through gameplay and all of those things might not. One of the fun things for me was realizing, or deciding, almost categorically deciding, that the character that I was going to play in a campaign that started, two and a half years ago... I decided that that character would have ADHD, and I decided that that character would have symptoms of autism. Guess where I am now? I have an ADHD diagnosis and I'm questioning autism. Those are exactly what... it's an exact example of what I was talking about just now. They're good ways to express things and good ways to explore things. In terms of neurodiversity, specifically, playing a role play game is a fantastic way to interact with people in a structured environment, because whether you are running the game, or whether you are playing the game, you're all there to play... a game. You're all there for a game. There for a specific thing. And not only that but you're playing in, for the most part, usually, a pretty quiet, calm, controlled environment. Neurodiversity can range from things like autism to ADHD to bipolar disorder to pretty much anything, any kind of perception difficulty in terms of processing or dyslexia or dyspraxia or anything like that. Those are all neurodiversities. The great thing about roleplay is that it is very, very easy to adapt your game so that you can feel comfortable within that realm. You can feel comfortable- you can stay within your comfort zone very easily through game choice, through the people that you choose to interact with. There is no reason at all that someone would not be able to play a role play game. I don't think I've come across any reason why someone wouldn't be able to, because all it is is storytelling. And sometimes we use dice and sometimes we use cards for randomness, but sometimes we don't use either. There are a load of games that don't use anything other than just storytelling, and that's kind of the point.

Melody [17:51]
That's great information. Do you have any recommendations of specific games that you really enjoyed or suggestions for games because of their neurodiverse capabilities?

ShauntelleB [18:02]
I love Monsterhearts, and I love Monsterhearts because as someone with ADHD, one of the common experiences that can come up for ADHD is rejection sensitivity, which is whether or not it is actually happening, you feel as though you have been rejected. You feel as though someone's pushing you away, and that can come from whole range of things from childhood, but at the same time, regardless of that, the thing that I love is when social games are very explicit about what they're socially doing. D&D is an odd one because the social rules around D&D are roll the die charm someone, roll the die to persuade, roll the die to change behavior in some way, shape, or form. To me that is implicitly rolling a die to manipulate. And that's not something that I enjoy doing and it's not something that I feel comfortable with because if I am not manipulatable by someone, then, "Are they going to reject me?" becomes the message that's being given and I don't want to receive that message and I don't want to put it out into the world. Games that are more socially driven, will have things that make just make it more explicit. So for example Monsterhearts says, "Roll to turn someone on." What they do with that information is up to them, but are they turned on while they do it? Cool. Roll to shut someone down. If I'm going to be shut down at least I know, mechanically, that I was shut down, and what consequences follow as a result. And I can choose how I'm going to enact or act out those consequences, but the nice thing is that the consequences are known. I'm a big fan of being explicit, I'm fine with secrets - love a good secret. Love it when something is sprung on me. I love surprises. I love it when things are sprung on me by DMs, GMs, Storytellers. What do I also love? Being given autonomy over what my character does, what it looks like when a character does those things. How my character makes decisions. Those things give a lot of control back to me, the player. And I suppose one of the odd things that kind of comes up, going back again to the Game Master is if someone else is controlling the flow of the game, you don't have to feel as though you need to make a decision. And that's very good for people who struggle to decide what they're going to do and when. Decision paralysis is huge in neurodiversity, and since neurodiversity can stem even to things like anxiety and depression, that is huge! Having someone else taking control of the story, and taking control of that narrative and saying: "Hey, this is where you're going, if that's okay with you." You don't have to think about where you're going, you just have to decide whether or not you want to go there. That's fantastic. And it also lends a sense of care. Or it can be really supportive and it can offer a sense of care. Games that I like are going to have explicit care. So, Good Society - brilliant game. Love it! Absolutely adore it because everything within Good Society is consensually-based, it's consensually derived. Someone might say: "I'm going to spend a monologue token. I would like you to give a monologue." Someone might say: "I don't have a monologue. This character doesn't have a monologue right now, but I can tell you what they look like in this moment." Monologue token spent. You find out something about the character that you wouldn't have seen before. But you chose to do it, you chose to do it how you wanted to do it. I think that's really powerful.

Melody [21:27]
Great. Is there anything else you want to discuss as far as neurodiversity or the previous discussions we've had?

ShauntelleB [21:33]
Uh, not that I can think of.

Melody [21:36] 
Wonderful. We'll go ahead and wrap up this episode here. Thank you so much, Shauntelle!

To our listeners: We know we touched on some sensitive content in this episode. Please know that suicide is preventable. Emotional pain isn't always obvious and warning signs can be subtle, but recognizing the signs, knowing how to start a conversation and where to turn for help is important. Talk to someone you trust. Seek help from a qualified physician as soon as possible, reach out to a local crisis hotline or emergency number. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached by phone by dialing 988 in the United States. It's free, confidential and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We will also post some additional information and resources in the podcast description.

Thank you again to Shauntelle for being with us in this episode. Please check the podcast description for details on how you can connect with Shauntelle and follow us to receive notifications so that you know when new podcasts are released. For more podcasts and information check out our website: https://www.gamemastercertification.org/. If you found this episode helpful, please share it. Thank you for listening!