Dex the Gnome Revolutionary - Representing Neurodiversity with Simon (Shadowrun)

Star : 0:00

Are typical fantasy races hypermasculine? Do you express your neuro type through your characters? And do you have the confidence to go full goth? Hello friends welcome to characters without stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm star. This episode I'm joined by Simon a queer, non binary autistic and ADHD stem educator that builds TTRPG characters to appease their brain spiders. Simon, I'll give you a chance to plug your projects at the end. But right now, do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself?

Simon: 0:41

Yeah, hi, I'm Simon. I am a educator as you said, I teach engineering classes. I am a dad and a spouse. And ever since first finding TT RPGs. solving the puzzle of making characters has calmed my brain down and helped focus all the random directions that wants to go.

Star : 1:07

Well, I'm glad you found TTRPGs then. So my Simon, tell me who are you bringing to the table today?

Simon: 1:15

Today I'm finally bringing Dex the gnome from Shadowrun to the table.

Star : 1:21

And is this Shadowrun second edition or fifth? I can't remember what the edition number is that they're on?

Simon: 1:26

Yes, it's all of them. I started playing in second edition. I kind of came up with the character back when I was playing second edition. And then every time a new edition came out, I looked through the system I rebuilt Dex just in case I got a chance to play them and never got to.

Star : 1:45

That's That's disappointing. A little bit. Tell us a little bit about Shadowrun. It's a game I haven't played but I'm slightly familiar with

Simon: 1:55

Shadowrun is a futuristic near future fantasy game very much like the cyberpunk games. It's full on cyberpunk in genre. The storylines are very "fight big corporations," but it is also mixed in with fantasy. So in the world of Shadowrun, when 2012 happened, magic came back to the world. And elves, dwarves, Orcs, all of the fantasy type creatures, dragons. And all of that came back along with the ability to throw fireballs, and turn invisible, and so on. So you have this fun mix of tactical, cyberpunk TTRPGs and stealth mixed in with people throwing magic and lightning, and all that fun stuff.

Star : 2:41

It's a pretty crunchy system, right?

Simon: 2:43

It is very, very crunchy. If you want to play a character with money, they just give you a flat amount of money and you have to go through all the books and add up dollar by dollar or new yen by new yen, how much money you're spending on your character. There's a lot to it. It's way more crunchy than Dungeon and Dragons or the like,

Star : 3:03

wow, okay, crunchier than d&d, I'm kind of surprised to hear that.

Simon: 3:07

It's probably just as crunchy as like Pathfinder.

Star : 3:11

So how do you build characters in the game?

Simon: 3:14

Depending on your system, your edition, it's going to change slightly, but you build your characters by choosing your priorities, whether you want to prioritize your ability scores, or your skills, or your resources or your ability to do magic. And as you pick those priorities, you then get a pool of basically points to put into each of those. So if you wanted to play a completely mundane character, you can put all of your points in abilities and just be you know, stronger than average and better than average all around. Or you could focus on the magic aspect as you go through. There's books and books and books and stuff to pick if you're a caster you have to go through figure out what spells or traditions are following I'll be hardest most in depth version is spending a lot of money putting all your resources and money and buying cybernetics and upgrades and making your body better through machinery.

Star : 4:08

So, what is Dex's emphasis?

Simon: 4:12

Dex is a Decker little alliteration for his name, but he is a Decker so his focus is using computers logging into the matrix or jacking into the matrix and controlling things from the digital side. So a lot of his priority is in funds and money and then also the mental abilities.

Star : 4:34

And what does it mean to be a Decker?

Simon: 4:38

To be a Decker in Shadowrun means that you are the person to go to if you need to break a lock, an electric lock or close down a security system or get the information inside a target's computer You are the hacker the sometimes the Overwatch and kind of the all seeing eye If you build that way,

Star : 5:02

That sounds like a useful skill in a cyberpunk world.

Simon: 5:05

It is a very useful skill in the cyberpunk world. In later editions, it gets to the point where the Deckers can just login wirelessly to an enemy's weapon and shut it down.

Star : 5:19

Yeah, that sounds pretty useful.

Simon: 5:20

It can be.

Star : 5:22

I can imagine those would be in high demand.

Simon: 5:24

They would be, you can pull quite a bit of money being an effective Decker, which that the game is kind of built on experience. But a lot of it is built on getting funds getting resources surviving to the next run, as they're called. It's a very mercenary style game. So you want to make a lot of money, you want to get the best gear, staying on the cutting edge is expensive,

Star : 5:45

Right. It usually is played as a series of kind of mercenary jobs rather than quests?

Simon: 5:51

Yeah, you get a person who hires you. And they will get a team together, kind of a team style, set you out with a job. Most often, if you have a long running table, there may be some background plot of some big mover and shaker. But it can play out very episodic, with people coming and going, depending on what the job needs. Dex was actually built originally to be one of those people to hire a group of runners. I was building him initially to try and get brave enough to run the game and have him as my fixer or Johnson to hire the crew. Yeah, never worked up the bravery to do that. But

Star : 6:34

Oh, I'm disappointed to hear that. Why is that?

Simon: 6:39

So Dex is loud and brave, in all the ways that I'm not. So while I can think up characters and probably come up with puzzles, I just never build up the confidence in my knowledge to try to do that to entertain my friends. I've done a few I've run maybe two or three games for my friends. And it's just I never felt like I did it justice. So I never got to that point. And then by the time I started to getting confident, like we graduated from college, and everyone went to the nine winds.

Star : 7:11

Do you think that someday you'll run Dex in that way as a GM? Or do you think that you want to play him as a character instead?

Simon: 7:19

I think I'd run him. If if I found a table with people willing to play Shadowrun I'd run him. The tricky part of the game of Shadowrun is as a GM is balancing the digital and meatspace sides of the game. If you have a bunch of people who run around and you know, shoot guns and kick people and throw fireballs, and then one person who wants to get into the internet, and do all of that stuff. It's effectively two different games. So I've always been of the mind that taking that character as an NPC. having them do background support, the group as that way would be a really great use of the Decker hacker build without derailing an entire group.

Star : 8:01

Tell me a little bit about Dex's kind of basics. So you said that he is a gnome in your submission.

Simon: 8:09

He is a gnome, which, in Shadowrun, they have the basic elf dwarf orc. And then there are variants based off of that, and most of that is actually geographical. So you're big giant trolls, the Greek equivalent of that is a minotaur. And so you'll see this kind of cultural difference in the way those things expressed. Because in that world, they're all human. And it's just genetic traits that have been subdued for millennia, coming back out because of magic. Gnomes are a offshoot of the dwarf, you know, short people group and in the first and I think part of the second edition, they were very, very nature inspired. I think in the first edition, they may have like sprouted flowers behind them. So they weren't very fitting with the theme of the game. But as the editions went on, they're like, no, they're just a little different style of dwarves and they allowed them to be more technical savvy. For me. I don't know why, but I've always I have a suspicion as to why, but I've always kind of connected to gnome like characters that were reclusive, and a little tinkering, especially in some of the settings for other games. They have gnomes that build clockwork machines and fix things all the time. And that's always kind of rung a chord with me. So I always wanted to play one in the game. I've played them in other systems. And once I saw that I could in Shadowrun and I could make one who was a little tech nerd. I just had to

Star : 9:48

You can't say things like you suspect you know why without me prying into it. Why what is your suspicion? Why do you think you this resonates with you?

Simon: 10:01

When I was younger, I knew I was weird. I always did. When I got to college, I got with a bunch of other weird friends, physics majors, chemistry majors, philosophy majors, computer science, all of the weirdos got together at college. And we all started playing these games together. And we did a lot of what would you be in this world and that weirdness I've always felt inside myself. I just clung to something almost inhuman. I've always felt a little off. And I realized now that, you know, in my mid 30s, I realized that I'm autistic that that was what I realized about myself that made me feel different. So it was me recognizing that I was different, even though I went undiagnosed for decades, and finding something that was different in a similar way. Something I love about gnomes in almost all media, is they lack and this is the second aspect they lack a sense of hypermasculinity that you see in fantasy. Wow, no one questions the gender of a gnome. That's a gnome, and they may call it the him or her depending on a little bit of presentation. But they're far less extreme in that expression. And no one emasculates a known for being smart, or for talking to a badger, or for those kinds of things that I love doing. I love being in the woods, I talk to every animal I see. I enjoy the fact that I'm clever and smart, but not strong and big. And so very a species of lineage a archetype in fantasy that speaks to the kind of masculinity I'm comfortable with.

Star : 11:46

Yeah, that's an interesting point. I never really thought about how gender and fantasy races or lineages intersect.

Simon: 11:56

Yeah, I, when I played World of Warcraft, I played blood elves, because I wanted to be a little pretty, I couldn't be the big giant. You know, even the humans were huge. Their shoulders were gargantuan. And there was something that was just too hyper. For me. In most games, I don't play hyper masculine characters. And I realize now again, in my mid 30s, that there's a term called non binary that fits for me that is this different way of expressing one's gender. And I think I was looking for that. Before Tumblr existed before all these communities showed up on the internet, I was looking for something that rang true to what I felt about myself, and how I could express my own traits in some kind of category. That made sense.

Star : 12:48

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Do you think that role playing helped you to discover that about yourself?

Simon: 12:53

Yes. Jeez. I think the thing that helped me the most, with role playing is not even the tables that I've played at, I met my spouse in a Vampire LARP. And when we were dating, and early, married, and still to this day, we will randomly just make up tables, like we'll run a little two person game together with no dice just tell stories to each other. And doing that with someone I trust, so well, allows me to explore aspects of other characters. I think that's a big part of role playing games that people maybe undersell or don't even notice they're doing. But the ability to explore a different perspective, a different approach to things not like stepping into a different culture. But just to try to look at something differently, and explore different parts of yourself and put this part of you into a character I can look at most of the characters I've played for a long time, pick which part of my personality I like, hyped up to 11 to really give that person some some passion. I have vampires that are all of my indignation and rage, and I have characters that are just my compassion, or just my intellect or just my shyness, I can take each of those traits and throw them into a character and kind of ride that trait for what it's worth and explore it to see what it can do.

Star : 14:20

Do you do this consciously or subconsciously?

Simon: 14:23

That's a really good question. I think I started subconscious. And one day I realized what I was doing, and so I think it was my angry vampire character that made me realize that I was doing that on purpose. I was pulling this out of myself and then I started doing it consciously as an exercise as Okay, I did. I did that with him. What am I putting into this character? What can I learned from myself with that and that's where Dex is that Dex is all the ways that I was insecure when I was in college. Dex was confident about that. He He was able to walk in, you know, three, four foot tall and look at these seven foot tall orcs and be like, No, I'm your boss, and do it with his brain and do it with those things that I was made to feel self conscious about when I was younger he was the insecurity in me turned into confidence.

Star : 15:21

Right? So it's kind of letting you flip the script.

Simon: 15:23

Yeah, exactly. He, he flipped the script. And let me explore what it'd be like to be proud of those things.

Star : 15:31

Is that where you start when you're building a character is you start with? What about myself do I want to explore? Or do you start with a character concept and then bring in what you want to explore?

Simon: 15:43

I think the latter. I, depending on the game, if it's a team based game, I'll look for what the group needs. I'm always a support player. But when I decide what role to play, I look at myself and figure out, alright, how would I fill this role? If I could change anything about my, my body or my abilities? What about my core self consciousness? Would I use to fill this role? So if I'm making a tank, how would I protect my friends? So then I look in the system and figure out which style of tank could work with the way I would try to help my friends. And so in that way, it starts with the goal. And then I find out how I could fill that if I could magically become a Goliath or became a gnome with a cyber arm?

Star : 16:35

Why do you think it is that you play support?

Simon: 16:41

That's a great question. I feel like I should be paying you for that one. So I think I play support because I was taught to leave things better than I found them, I was a boy scout growing up, I was taught to be quiet and small, which I probably shouldn't be. That's maybe why I like gnomes so much. But I was also taught to make things better. And I want to see my friends have fun. I want to fill the roles that needs to be made so that we can actually succeed. And I like to solve problems. I think there's a part of my brain that loves solving a problem more than anything. And whether that's with my hands, or with a puzzle or logic or with people, solving problems, gives me so much deep joy that supporting a group supporting the other players is a way that we can assure we solve problems.

Star : 17:37

Yeah, I can see that. What are Dex's basics, I usually ask you know, gender, sexuality,

Simon: 17:47

Dex has gotten queerer as the decades have gone. When I was making these characters as a college, I didn't think about that at all. Like, I didn't think about what was going to happen with the character interpersonally I just had like, some numbers on a sheet and like, let the story go. And so Dex started out as just a little gnome, who was really good at technology. And, and as as he's developed in my head, he is male, he would be I guess pan would be the closest thing to his sexuality.

Star : 18:19

How old is he?

Simon: 18:21

So he's actually surprisingly young for the job because he was so intelligent. And so into technology, I would say the average fixer Johnson would be in their 30s or 40s. The default is a dude in a suit, you know, a nondescript guy and suit. I would say Dex is mid 20s. Been around a little bit, but still would look young in a group of mercenaries.

Star : 18:47

Does Dex have a voice? Are you much of a voice person when you play?

Simon: 18:51

I sadly am not that much of a voice person. It is a shame because I spent most of my childhood mimicking and repeating things I've heard and doing impressions. I'm getting too much into the character. I lose the voice. If I try to start it's gone because I'm just feeling so I can't focus on that it pulls me away in my head though he does have like a snarky almost New York even though he's like most of the game takes place in Seattle. He has that kind of like sass that you would expect of like a cliched New York accent uses a lot of like street speech and doesn't speak very formally. Like really has that nonchalant I don't care about anything kind of attitude.

Star : 19:34

So you said Seattle it sounds like Shadowrun takes place in a post apocalyptic United States.

Simon: 19:41

So yeah, it takes place in a post awakening United States kind of the country was split. When 2012 happened in like the end of the Mayan calendar and all this stuff we freaked out about back then. When that happened in the shadow one shattered one world when magic came back the Native American nation and rose up took most of their land back, the United States split into, like the East Coast has like two sections north and south. Most of the Midwest is Native American. And then there's like a corporate area around Seattle Tacoma, where a lot of corporations have their own territories in like so the Seattle Tacoma area is a non Native American nation run area that most of the game takes place in because that's where they kind of wrote the setting. But you also go around to places like Denver and Chicago and you can go anywhere with the setting. It's mostly done in Seattle.

Star : 20:34

Well, I'm glad the Native Americans got their land back Land back. In this game. Yeah. land back. It also sounds doesn't sound too far off to have like corporate nation states. I mean, you basically have those in, in a lot of global south countries.

Simon: 20:53

Yeah. When we were playing, I started playing in like, 2001. I started college in 2001. And we started playing, and we were looking at the game was started being written in like the 80s or 90s. I'm not exactly sure. But it started significantly before we started playing it. And we watched the election for Quebec, to secede. I guess what it was a secession vote. That vote, they predicted 1% off it went 51-49. In our world, it went 49-51 in their world, it was ridiculous how well they predicted stuff. They predicted a war in the deserts in the early 2000s. Like they were eerily on with their predictions. And I mean, we're getting I don't want to be like crazy paranoia, but we are getting kind of extra territorial, giant mega corps again. And that's a big part of the cyberpunk setting in general, a cautionary tale to hyper capitalism and giving corporations too much leeway politically.

Star : 21:58

Yet another TTRPG, in which capitalism is the BBEG.

Simon: 22:02

I'm surprised that we don't see more Shadowrun in those circles. It is such a crunchy game and the movement today of going to the simpler, more fun games with less rules so that you can tell stories. Shadowrun is the antithesis of that it is so rule heavy,

Star : 22:20

So not necessarily more or less fun. That's a matter of opinion.

Simon: 22:25

Yeah, exactly. As as a person who likes to solve problems it oh, it's like calculus for me. And that's wonderful.

Star : 22:32

You're You're a STEM teacher. So I guess yeah, calculus is good.

Simon: 22:36

Yes, calculus is I, physics major, who became a physics and calc teacher. And then a couple years ago, I started a pre engineering program, teaching engineering, design, digital electronics, civil engineering, a whole bunch of stuff. So yeah, all of that kind of stuff that makes a lot of other people's eyes roll to the back of their head is my wheelhouse.

Star : 22:55

Oh, goodness. Yeah. physics and calculus are probably my least favorite subjects in school.

Simon: 23:01

That's what I normally hear that and it's fine.

Star : 23:06

Physics, especially I don't know, my dad's an engineer, though. So he was like, you have to take calculus. It's so important.

Simon: 23:13

Yeah. And then you never use it unless you're doing engineering. And even then you just look it up in a book.

Star : 23:20

Yeah, I mean, he was trying to tell me that it would be really, really helpful for doing like population studies. And I'm like, Dad, I'm not going to into statistics either.

Simon: 23:31

My kid is doomed.

Star : 23:36

Getting into the details a little bit, but not too far. Sure. What is Dex good at?

Simon: 23:42

Dex is really, really good at computer, counterterrorism, computer, hijacking, hacking, slicing, he's also good at negotiation is sneaky, as all get out. Being that he is his size and his frame, he can disappear into a crowd really, really well. He can pass himself off as a kid. And he's good at sounding like a kid to please sir, let me go and then slip away. He is good at skating. My absolute favorite thing from any Cyberpunk game is having robotic feet that have rollerblades in them and He absolutely has that he can get away in a flash just go go gadget skates, and he's gone.

Star : 24:30

So going into kind of his story growing up, how did he get good at these things

Simon: 24:35

He had to. In the Seattle Tacoma area, there's a place called the Barrens, that is basically where all the corporations just gave up. There's no infrastructure, there's no police. The society writ large gave up on it. So it is run by gangs. It is controlled by mafia, Yakuza, triad, elf bike gangers. All of these people are vying for power and basically a wild west area just outside of the hyper rich super Corporation areas. And he grew up there where you had to find a way to excel, you had to find a way to survive being small he get into places, being smart, he could figure out how to rewire hotwire break into systems. And he just kind of picked up on it a few bad interactions, a few injuries, a lot of debt, and he ends up getting the tech he needs to get even better. His cyber arm is his cyber deck. It is his antenna. It's his wireless connection to the world. So it's nice and hidden. It's not as obvious as you may see other people running around with an actual kind of big keyboard thing on their back. And so he just kind of lived on the streets, worked his way up, got good at what he could be good at, and made it work for himself.

Star : 25:59

So you said he has a cybernetic arm?

Simon: 26:02

Yeah, he has two cyber feet and a cybernetic arm. And then over time, random bits of metal and wiring and you know, his nervous system and brain as as happens with runners.

Star : 26:14

And how did he procure these enhancements?

Simon: 26:17

The first one was the arm. And that was from an injury and a lot of debt. He was on a run that went bad and lost his arm as is to happen, and was able to convince the person he was working for to kind of bankroll his first upgrade. And then once he got once he started paying that back with lots of interest, he use his decking abilities to kind of make sure he got more money and sort of making himself better, you know, he willfully got the cyber feet enhancement, he willfully went and got the wiring put up into his eyes and along his neural pathways to give himself data jacks and whatnot. But the arm was the first one that kind of like, tipped them over the edge of accepting losing that part of his body.

Star : 27:09

So it sounds like he's a striver.

Simon: 27:12

Yeah, he's a survivor. He's, he's someone who just keep pushing through whatever he has to face, he doesn't just sit back and let things happen.

Star : 27:22

Is he primarily motivated by money?

Simon: 27:24

Not anymore. At first, he thought that's what it would take, to get security to get comfort to get out of, you know, where he grew up. But then he realized that that's not what it is, the only way that he can lift himself up is to lift up those around him and to fight the system and shatter and can go two ways. It can just be full mercenary, or it can be people who realize that they may have the ability to take down the system. And that's what he wants to do. He wants to get a group or many groups, and just jab at the system long enough to make change. And given the system, doing it from inside doing it the quote unquote, legit way isn't going to work. So he's gonna have to use the shadows to do it.

Star : 28:14

What precipitated that shift? Why did he become more of a I don't know, what's the right word? Revolutionary.

Simon: 28:24

I think it was a slow change. It was getting the money he thought he needed and then looking around and seeing it didn't make a difference, looking at the rich people who retired the runners who got out, those of you that do, looking at the futility of the gangs amassing their weapons and their funds. And just slowly kind of I don't think it was like a single moment, it was just slow. He probably wouldn't even admit that he really was a revolutionary that he was trying to make a change. I don't know if he's realized that yet. It's a slow process, that still kind of churning inside but it's already acting outside.

Star : 29:05

So when he would first be entering the story, he would already have begun on this journey, or are you hoping to play that out?

Simon: 29:12

That would be fun to play out. But I think, especially if I was able to play him as the fixer as the GM player character, he would be along that journey. He'd be growing along with the group and realizing that of himself realizing what he's actually asking the groups to do. But he wouldn't be starting. He would be past the point of just a cold mercenary.

Star : 29:35

Is there anybody in his life that's really important to him?

Simon: 29:38

No, I think that's another reason is the life of a shadow runner is not comfortable. It's not not emotionally comfortable. There's not a lot of room for that kind of softness and that kind of connection. So I think he's looking for that too. He's looking for a family. He has parents, but If he didn't have a strong community that would really become family, for him, especially being a rare Metatype would be the word they use. He didn't have a group of similar people with him that he could really feel connected to. I think that also speaks to how I felt growing up. But I have a great family. But I never had a very large clutch of friends that felt like me in the same way. I always felt like the outsider. And that's where he is he he doesn't feel like he has a place to belong. So he has to make it.

Star : 30:33

Do you think finding that in-game is a way for you to find that as well?

Simon: 30:39

Absolutely. Games have helped me find that getting on to online communities and talking about the games that I love has helped me find that I have friends that I've never met in real life, but they are absolutely my friends through the internet, my college friends, because we all grew up and got kids and move to different places and followed our jobs. We don't get to play like we used to. And so for a while, I felt that same loss, and lostness that Dex feels, but I'm finding it again with these amazing online TTRPG communities and nerd spaces and neurodivergence communities. All of that has helped me not to feel so lonely and so unique. I grew up in a small area with not a lot of diversity, and not a lot of talk about anything like neurodiversity, or queerness, or gender or anything. So it's good to find that through the internet through technology.

Star : 31:37

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm with you. There. I found a lot of friends through discord and TikTok and being able to play games with people I've never met in real life. Yeah. In real life even doesn't seem like an appropriate phrase anymore. Because it's still real life.

Simon: 31:53

This is this is real right here. What we're doing is absolutely real. Sometimes I think it's more real than what I have to do to go to the store and go through my hometown. This is the town I grew up in. And I feel more at home in these internet spaces than I do. I feel more myself able to be myself in these internet spaces than I do, walking down the streets that I've walked for 39 years.

Star : 32:20

Yeah. So you talked about Dex's journey from being just kind of a mercenary for hire and striving to earn enough money and always, always looking for more and then realizing that they have more of a moral code than they thought. Do you think there's something that would challenge that new morality? Do you think that, for example, you take a job for the wrong people, if he got paid enough?

Simon: 32:51

I think he's hit that point of privilege where he doesn't have to. I think he deeply regrets doing that in the past, realizing he's taken the wrong jobs for the wrong people. I think he's gotten past that level. But I think for him, still, a lot of it's going to be the ends justify the means. So there may be a time where he has to work with shady people to get the big job done. To do the big thing he may have to align himself with people who don't agree with that he feels would be usually inappropriate to work with. But if it's going to help take down Renraku or some other big Corp, or at least put a big dent in them. He may have to let go of some of that morality.

Star : 33:34

A little shadowy, you could say.

Simon: 33:37

Yeah, you gotta be a little gray. There's no upright paladin, there's no room for survival with paladins. And in this kind of a game.

Star : 33:46

What does Dex look like?

Simon: 33:48

This also has changed over the years as I become more and more comfortable with my own identity. So when Dex started running, he was a short mid three foot range, brown haired, pointy eared, scrawny little gnome kind of elfish it's hard to pick which other settings they work in. There's not a whole lot of art for Shadowrun but yeah, you got a little skinny dwarf guy and as he is evolved through the iterations as I've made him again and again in different editions, he has gotten louder and and queer. He is now proudly sporting purple hair with black and silver eyes that are like full chromed out obnoxiously bright clothes that are like a mix of black. The 90s level of bright colors mixed with black like that's coming back. So he's got shiny synthetic cloth purple accents all over like synth leather clothes, shiny metal arm nail polish, lipstick, ear piercings, basically all the things I wish I could do if I wasn't so tired, getting up and getting ready for work yeah, Yeah. I don't know that the local schools would like me going like full goth to work anymore.

Star : 35:07

Yeah, unfortunately, yeah. I'm not sure if I'd be able to get away with having colored hair. For example. Dex, if you decided to stop adventuring and settle down, what kind of job would you take?

Simon: 35:21

I know you're posing this as a hypothetical, so I'll entertain it, because there's no way I'm stopping. But if I had to stop if I had to pick a different gig, I'd work in the mailroom.

Star : 35:35

Why a mailroom?

Simon: 35:36

I put on some headphones, I turn off the world. And I do my job. That's it. Just go back to being a cog in the machine. Let it run and do my part.

Star : 35:47

Simon, thank you so much for talking to me today. How can people find you?

Simon: 35:52

Thanks for having me. This was actually a lot of fun to revisit, so people can find me on Tik Tok as Simon The tinkerer and that's probably pretty much it. You may find me on the St. Pete by night Twitch streams. It is a huge vampire game of like 100 players roughly playing through discord. We do Twitch streams for our events. It's a lot of fun. I'm occasionally on there. Usually NP seeing somebody so you might find me having fun there.

Star : 36:21

You can find me on Tik Tok at Starmamac, that's S T A R M A M A C. You can also listen on YouTube. Just search for characters without stories or follow the link in the description. Please like subscribe and share with your friends. Reviews on Apple podcasts and elsewhere show potential listeners that the podcast is worth a listen. If you're enjoying the podcast, please take a moment to write a review. I'll give you a shout out on the show. I'm currently accepting submissions, particularly for non d&d characters. So if you'd like to share your character, you can go to the submission form at characters without stories.com. Thanks for listening and may all your characters find their stories