- Hey, y'all today Satine Phoenix joins us
and we're gonna talk about D&D
and how it's helped her
through some traumatic points in her life.
I'm James Hudson and
this is Starting Roll.
Satine thanks for joining us.
- Thanks for having me man!
- I'm excited we're gonna talk about,
I've been waiting
this is probably gonna be
one of my favorite episodes
because I love D&D.
I am newly into D&D.
I've only done two little one shots
and I get it.
I get why people are
freaking out about D&D.
- Yeah, 'cause its playing.
Its that part of your brain
that you ignite when you're a little kid
and then you think you're
supposed to put it away
as an adult.
- We were told to.
Stop, stop.
- I don't know who is telling you that.
- Teachers.
Miss Banks
- See, I always had really good teachers.
I had drama club and artist teachers
and all my English
teachers were into theater
so I was always encouraged to play
and yeah I never stopped.
- I was told to get a real job.
Go be an accountant.
Get a real job.
- This is a real job.
I feel like I'm doin' okay.
(laughs)
- I think we're doing alright.
- [Satine] Doing great.
- But whatever.
- I got fun toys.
- So, Satine, can you give
us a little background.
How did you get D&D this level,
master level D&D?
- I have no idea.
I just do the things
and then people see the
things and they're like
"Hey that's cool, you're
good at doing that
"you wanna do this?"
I'm like okay.
Let's see, I've been
playing D&D for 30 years now
and then about 10 years ago,
I started running the community
at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood.
Then I was doing a show called
"I Hit It With My Axe"
A bunch of girls playing D&D
and they were like yeah run this
and then I started a charity called
"Celeberity ChariD20"
with Keith Baker who made Ebberon,
which is amazing,
and yeah we started that then
and it was the passion of doing the thing
compulsively because I have to,
because its a part of who
I am as a human being.
And that just kept moving and going
and then more people would
show up to the meet-up group
and that was twice a week.
- Wow
- Yeah and so it was just very consistent
and I find that people
wanna be a part of things
that are awesome and
prove themselves over time
and are consistent and I
think that's why people
ask me to play and do things?
- Well you're pretty fun to be around too.
- Thanks man.
- It's your good energy right?
And that's a very important
part of a make-believe session.
If you walk away from an
hour or two-hour session
and you didn't have a good time,
you're probably not coming back.
- Yeah, no time is very precious,
and the older I'm getting
the more I'm like we have one hour to play
I'm in, what are we doing?
But yeah, so with play,
with D&D
its all about being completely present.
And that kind of one of my super powers.
Like when I'm here, I'm here.
I'm completely here, nothing else exists.
- Which is great for D&D, right?
because you really have
to immerse yourself
in the character and you have to use
the theater of the mind.
- Yeah, exactly.
So back to your question,
I think it was doing
those things way back then
and then consistently doing more things
and having crazy ideas,
and I did a lot of interviewing people,
I wrote comics,
and I kept doing story teller stuff,
and then I write my own games,
and that evolved into
when I met the dungeons and the dragons.
When I met them it was like 2016,
and yeah it was just like
hey do you wanna write this module
and hey do you wanna be a
part of the guild add ups
and hey do you want to
go to this convention,
and, hey we see that you
keep doing this thing
and you're really fun in the community
you wanna be the community manager?
And it was just kind of
this yep, okay, yes and
yes and.
I basically have yes
and-ed my entire life.
And its been awesome,
and its made me a better game master
and a better player.
- Is that something you're working on?
Are you getting better at saying no?
- What?
(laughs)
What is this word that you are saying
that I do not know about.
Is that K-N-O-W cause I'm in.
- No but that is a big part
of where you're at right?
Like you have to able to kind of,
things have to go into certain categories
and you have to be able to execute them.
- Yes, yes.
So it's not a no.
I don't, I don't like to say no.
But I'm now learning about timing.
So things go into a time.
When I started Gilding
Light I had all these ideas
and all these people wanted
to participate in things
and now I'm like okay,
this can happen with this amount of funds
and then I have to do this in order to,
so instead of doing like
500 things in two months
I'm doing 500 things over three years.
And understanding that
I'm not going anywhere.
I'm not going anywhere, I'm here,
I'm going to be able to do these things.
Having that dungeon master patience
has really maneuvered how I
look at working in projects.
- Sure, so what's Gilding Light?
- Gilding Light is my production company.
It's the art of story telling.
Like I have a show called
"The StoryTeller's Guide"
and its kind of like GM tips,
and its kind of like
dungeon masters guide.
I get two game masters,
or writers or story tellers or whatever
and then we make an
adventure in 30 minutes.
- Oh nice
- Yeah and I wanna show
people how easy it is.
- It is great that you
have these resources
so that if it isn't easy for someone,
and they do struggle,
cause it can be like,
sometimes you have writers block,
or sometimes you're like,
hey I haven't lived in
this world for 30 years,
I'm brand new
and I wanna go on an
adventure with my kids, right?
And so how do I write
a dynamic story line?
And plot lines?
I've tried that a little bit with my kids.
It's fun, of course
kids are super forgiving
more so than adults,
but what would you say,
'cause you mentioned it
that you've been playing for 30 years.
You've been in this world for 30 years,
how have you seen women
specifically in D&D,
go from 19 late 80s early 90s to now.
- Well here's the thing.
I have been playing,
I am a woman,
and I've been playing since then
I didn't know it was weird
until I did "I Hit It With My Axe"
and I was public about it.
Because I went to college,
I was in theater
and it was always a
mixture of men and women,
and all ethnicities because
I come from California,
well, that's just how it is.
So it didn't occur to
me until there was like
an article on I09 about
"I Hit It With My Axe"
and people were going crazy.
"You're stealing our game.
"This is my game.
"You're making money off of my hobby."
And I'm like, what?
There was one comment thread
where I had to defend my nerddom.
I had to explain that I
had food thrown at me,
people would invite me to parties as a...
I was the school nerd
in elementary school.
They would invite me to parties,
to ridicule me until I ran off crying.
My grandmother dressed
me from the thrift store
it was just real bad,
but I had to defend myself.
And then I realized why
am I defending myself?
But that conversation actually
shifted peoples perspectives,
shifted my perspective of people
because that person that I
was going back and forth with
people might have called him a troll,
but at the end he was like,
"Wow, I had no idea.
"Thank you for talking with me."
And so, that was like this
beautiful positive thing
and then I started seeing
how other women were treated
so I would start to
come in and defend them
and then in MeltDown,
I didn't know women had
problems with playing
because all of a sudden
this woman would show up and go,
"Thank you for providing
a space for me to play."
I'm like what are you talking about,
"Yeah, I wanted to play
"but my brother wouldn't let me play."
Or, "My boyfriend let
me play in high school
"but then he killed my
character so I had to leave."
And I was like, that's really interesting.
And what I'm finding is that people,
the psychology of this game specifically,
many of us are going
through a lot of trouble
and turmoil in high school,
or elementary school, or college
and we attach ourselves to this world.
And especially back then,
It wasn't a game that was public,
that everyone shared.
It was this is my escape,
this is my freedom from the nightmare.
- Right.
- So, people didn't want...
That was their time,
that was their boy time.
They don't want their girlfriends
or sisters interfering with their game.
So I understand that
mentality of how it started.
Now its evolved into something
absolutely gorgeous and beautiful
in the last like four-five years.
It still has some rough edges.
But, a lot of the people
who were complaining
they're noticing that,
yes they can keep complaining,
or, they could just be okay
with the way its evolving
and be a part of the conversation.
- 'Cause board games and
RPG's are for everyone
- They are for everyone.
- And its funny that you bring that up
'cause you're at least
the second or third guest
that's touched on how
board games are an escape
for trauma or bullying.
Specifically, I think even
popular folk in high school,
had some moments of
someone making fun of them,
or some story of bullying
but then there's some of us
that got it a lot more, right?
If you're different,
we're very tribalistic people.
Humans are stupid and broken in that way
that we really gravitate
toward the sameness, right?
And so when people are different,
- Oh man, yeah.
So in northern California
I was in this small town
that I grew up in.
I was the only ethnic family.
We lived on the side of a mountian, right?
Only ethnic family and
they didn't treat us like
"Oh you're evil."
They treated us in an objectifying way.
You're so sweet and pretty
and look at that family.
'Cause Filipino, we're like elves.
That's how people treated us.
- High elves of the world.
- Yeah, and so it was really interesting
and then of course,
the bullying at school,
that was one escape I was running from
but then there was my father,
he was sexually abusing me.
So there was these two heavy,
heavy pieces of trauma.
And that started actually the same year
that I started playing D&D.
So, it was like, I just
grabbed on tight to this game,
and it was like,
even when I started in '88,
I didn't have anyone to play with.
So I played it by myself,
I wrote stories,
and I made characters,
and then in high shool I
found people to play with.
- That helped right?
You found some people.
- Yes exactly.
But it was just really interesting
that even when I wasn't
playing with other people,
I was so attached to this.
I was creating characters that were me,
but stronger, faster, smarter.
And I was defeating
monsters that were cruel
and as a writer it's really strange
because now I have access
to really dark things.
But also the hope that a
little girl needs to have
in order to survive nine
years of that kind of trauma.
And that kind of duality in reality.
So, I'm getting chills.
(laughs)
- What do you think,
this is a scary question to ask
but what do you think
would have happened if you hadn't had D&D?
- I honestly don't know.
I was very lucky.
I was part of the Masonic
fraternity growing up,
so I had some really
beautiful positive people.
I had paladins.
I had paladins in my life,
and now that I think about it
they were my adventuring group.
- [James] Okay.
- So they were the people that,
like before I was playing D&D
they were the people that grabbed me up
and gave me the positivity.
I think that's where my
positivity comes from actually.
(laughs)
Because all we did was charity work, so.
- Awesome.
- Yeah,
but honestly it was the
combination of all of it
because without a path to see myself,
a character,
physically defeating the monster.
Like that was the most important thing.
I was defeating monsters.
And then I realized in high school,
I started doing Taekwondo
for like three or four years.
I could be faster,
I could be stronger,
and I was--
- You could level up in real life
- I leveled up in real life.
I was a straight A student.
I was really, yeah.
So basically I was like,
I wanna be a level five this
and, so it was really beautiful
making the character of myself,
and then crafting that
and then as an adult
for marketing and branding
like personal branding,
like what is the character
sheet of Satine Phoenix?
And obviously the name I was born with,
but it was who I became when I was 21
and just was so me.
Like it was the character of me.
I mean it was Vlanya,
the one that's on Idle Champions (laughs).
But, it gave me the strength
and more importantly gave me the courage,
because it is hard to go through life
where you're getting bullied at school,
you're getting bullied at home
and you're told to be
okay with everything.
And you know life isn't perfect.
I made some choices that
aren't publicly the best,
and even as an adult in the last few years
I've allowed monsters in my life
but like D&D gives me hope.
- Its always that anchor
that you can go back to.
- Yeah, but it also
gives me the perspective
to step back, right?
Where I'm like okay,
these are my stats,
these are my skills,
these ones are...
these ones are going up
but these ones aren't getting nurtured
so, how do I finesse my character sheet of
me at level 39?
It should be like a level 12 maybe.
(laughs)
- I can see where having those
sessions of make-believe,
where you can control outcomes,
you do have some control
to parry those situations
at home and at school,
that you didn't have
any control over, right?
- I don't know if I would agree with that.
I think what it does is
it gives you the...
it gives you the ability to bob and weave.
It gives you the ability
to be spontaneous,
and react to a situation
versus reacting to...
the victim mentality.
So its like, okay these are the variables,
what do I have to overcome this obstacle?
Maybe it makes me a better survivor?
Maybe?
Because you know you can't-
there's no winning in D&D.
There's just making the best choices
you possibly can with what you have.
And I think that kind of leads into life.
You can't win life.
People are like,
"Oh I wanna be successful."
Nobody knows what that means.
(laughs)
- It is different for each person.
- Exactly.
Like you can have all the money,
there was a point where
I had all the money
but I wasn't happy, so,
now I don't have all the money
but I am so happy.
- [James] Right.
- So my success is different.
And I have to work extra hard
but even like it's the journey,
In other words I am
living my hero's journey.
And that is where my happiness lives,
So it's like success and happiness
people have this idea what that looks like
but you don't know as a human being
you can't understand what that means
until you've played Dungeons and Dragons.
And you realize that,
if you could just keep going
then that's technically winning.
- So someone at home is watching
and, maybe they have their own traumas,
but they've never tried D&D,
what would be your siren call to them?
What would you tell them,
why they should maybe try D&D
to see if that facilitates-
- Wow, so a lot of people play
D&D for different reasons.
And the cool thing about D&D
is you can explore yourself.
I know a lot of people who are considering
changing their gender.
Well, they know what gender they are
but physically and openly doing that.
They've been able to explore themselves
through playing D&D.
So what I would say is,
try playing D&D as a version of yourself.
Try playing D&D completely
opposite of yourself.
- Sure.
- Try wearing other classes
and races and explore
and just see where it fits into your life,
in your reality.
Because, there is no one way to heal
and there is no one way to play D&D.
And the way I explored D&D
and was able to heal,
might not work for another person.
- [James] Sure.
- I'm writing a book about it.
Its a work book that kind of shows people,
different avenues of doing
this specific thing actually.
- But, you would say
that it feels like D&D
gives you all the tools and the landscape
to do that exploration
and whatever's gonna work
for you individually.
It'll let you swim in the waters.
- Yeah, exactly.
And I think, if someone's new to D&D
I would say play Dungeons and Dragons
and don't feel like
there's a right answer.
Play it to find your inner confidence.
Because a lot of people that play
they have this idea like,
there's one right way and
if I make the wrong decision
I let everyone down,
and that's a big problem
with people that have trauma I think,
when you're like me
and you just wanna be a good girl,
you don't wanna hurt
other people around you.
So, I think that was one of
the hardest things for me.
And I really can only
speak for my experience.
So, realizing that the skills
that I learned by playing D&D,
by being a player,
and also being a Dungeon Master,
give me the skills in
life to get the courage,
to ask questions,
to...
to listen,
and be more aware of how
other people are feeling.
- Sure, and I think that was definitely
when you're Dungeon Mastering, right?
You have that awareness that you can see
a player who's having an epiphany
or they're having a moment
and you can help them facilitate,
maybe a moment of healing
or whatever they're going through, right?
- Yeah, exactly.
- [James] Awakening.
- Oh man, so that's like
the second part of it all.
There's the playing to explore yourself,
and then when you have that confidence
and you realize I am able to level up
and then leveling yourself up,
then you're like okay, I'm ready.
I'm ready to facilitate the
healing of other people.
And then you take those
skills that you learned,
then you're hyper aware
of everyone at your table.
And I know that I don't Dungeon
Master like other people.
I'm emotional, I feel peoples energies,
I move the story from one,
or I attempt to move the story
from one person to another,
and kind of lift people up
and give other people moments
when I feel like it's right,
based on my study of story telling.
And, one of the greatest things
that I have been able to do,
is learn how to listen.
And learn how when I'm looking
at this person engaged,
how to see everybody else at the same time
and how to hear what they're saying,
but also hearing what they're not saying.
- Okay.
- Which is super important
because there are some people who,
don't have the courage yet.
So you have a table of people,
they're all in different places of healing
but also maybe this person
isn't healing at all,
and they're just kind
of playing it to play it
'cause they just...
so being able to navigate,
it's almost like an orchestra.
I'm conducting this beautiful
story with other people.
And I say orchestra because
the conductor can't do it on his own.
- So, to wrap all that beautiful up,
why is it important for adults
to still play games?
- It's important for adults to play games
because it keeps you
young and mentally limber,
and it gets you back to why
you exist in the first place.
- So as a final thought, Satine,
what does Dungeon Mastering mean to you?
- Dungeon Mastering has allowed me
to facilitate healing for other people.
Its like the big circle of life.
- That's good.
- Thanks
- I kinda wanna come
play some D&D with you.
- Let's do it
- I feel like I need your experience
of running me through a campaign.
- Okay, here roll this dice,
and add a 19.
(dice clattering)
(laughs)
- Thank you!
- You dirty crit!
- Its a one.
(laughs)
- Well done.
- [James] Looking for a way to get started
with Dungeons and Dragons?
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