Matt: Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Calm down everybody.
Calm down.
Okay, Alison Hi.
Alison: Matt, Hello.
Did you know that in our outlines I have titled the very first thing
that always happens "Hello, Alison."
Matt: Really?
That's Hello?
That's adorable.
I did do some homework, because here at ADHD20, a podcast where we try to find
the intersection between ADHD and D&D,
Alison: Mm-hmm.
Matt: We often give each other homework.
Alison: Cause you know what people with ADHD love?
Deadlines and homework.
Matt: Deadlines and homework.
Two bits, but right.
First, we're starting out by rolling on the ADHd100 table that you
lovingly created, and I rolled a 33.
Alison: Let's go.
Let's go.
Here we go.
Um, what, ooh, what book changed your life?
How is that for a dramatic way to ask that.
Matt: Wow.
What book changed my life?
I think there's a number of books that changed my life.
Let me think.
Okay.
I'm gonna go with one that's a little strange.
But it is the first thing that came to my head.
Lake Woebegon Days by Garrison Keillor.
Alison: Interesting.
Matt: Isn't that weird?
I, I, I don't, Let me think if I can even tell you why.
I think,
I read it when I was really small.
It was, uh, my dad bought it cuz Dad was a Garrison Keillor fan, and we used to
listen to Prairie Home Companion together.
And for those of you don't know, Garrison Keillor is a, writer and a
teacher and was a, uh, radio show host for decades, of a program on NPR called
Prairie Home Companion, which was kind of, it was an improv show actually.
I saw it twice live and it, I never knew that, that it was basically improvised.
Comedy and, and music and all these things.
Anyway, and then he had sort of a tragic fall because he was a
casualty of the #MeToo movement.
You know, because I think he was a grumpy old man.
Slightly creepy, grumpy old man.
But anyway, I loved Garrison Keillor and, uh, that book was the first time I
remember as a child reading and laughing.
And reading and crying, but not in a bad way, like in the way
that a book could emotionally.
Alison: Move you.
Matt: Move me.
Alison: Mm-hmm.
Matt: And world building.
Honestly, to be perfectly honest.
It's very interesting because Woebegon is supposedly in, you know, the Minnesota
area, the Midwest, mid Midwest area, but it's, it's also a fictional town.
So, there is some cool world building going on there.
So that's my favorite book.
Uh, one of them, at least the one that I changed my life in some way.
Alison: I learned something new about you.
I knew about the Prairie Home Companion fandom, um, but I did
not know that a little young Mattie once read some Garrison Keillor and
Matt: I read a.
Alison: Kinda shaped the storyteller that you would become,
Matt: I think I read all of his books.
I did, yeah.
He's, he's an incredible writer.
To the point where I actually thought about going to study with him.
He was a teacher there and I was like, I would love that, but I didn't.
Alternate Universe Matt did that.
Uh, Alison what did you roll on?
The D 100 table.
Alison: 76 trombones, let the big parade with 110 coronets close at hand.
I, won't keep singing it though.
I could because we all know that my brain has nothing but, uh, song lyrics.
Matt: Tell us about the last D&D character that you built.
Alison: I guess that would be Cora, my sweet little Storm Sorcerer.
Speaking of Matt and world building.
So back castle birthday, we kicked off a new campaign in the world
of Tataria that Matt is creating.
My first ever character was a Sorcerer and I really, really loved a lot of the
mechanics of that class, but because she was my first character, I played
her not knowing how to do anything.
Um, and so I really wanted to play the class again now with, you know,
two plus more years of experience, uh, but in a completely different way.
I didn't mean to make my character's name rhyme with one
of my other characters names Sora.
But here we are.
Uh, I actually picked Cora cuz Cora is, uh, the name of one
of my great grandmothers and I've always loved that name.
Uh, and so when I was looking up, I knew I wanted to do something
having to do with, you know, kind of controlling the elements in the weather.
I wanted to go that kind of bend as opposed to the pure just
chaos and wild magic that my first character Lavinia had been.
So I started looking up names that meant things and then just
kind of like playing however many degrees of separation from there.
So one of the names that I liked in that flavor was Tempest.
And so then I started looking up variations of the name Tempest
and Coratine, Cora for short.
Um, and then I chose sea elf because of all the kind of traditional D&D
races I had yet to build an elf.
So I kind of wanted to lean into that.
Matt: I love that.
Alison: Yay, Cora.
Matt: Hey, Cora.
Probably disclaimer at the top of this show, this might be a D&D heavy, uh,
version of this podcast, though I will say it will, it definitely will touch
on a lot of ADHD at the same time.
I mean, I don't know, this might be the one that sits the most directly in the
Alison: on it.
Matt: Let's get into it.
Alison: This episode is, is your sweet darling brainchild.
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: So take it away.
Matt: So one of the best things about this podcast for me, has been to get to know,
uh, what it's like to be ADHD, even if I've lived with it all my life, just kind
of to be able to put names to symptoms.
And I know that that sounds strange to say.
I don't know if that's sounds sad to people.
I hope not, but I, I mean it in a good way.
There's, there's such a freedom to like, go on the internet and look up time
blindness, or executive dysfunction, you know, to look these things up and just
get this, the encyclopedia of information about this stuff and to go, Oh, right.
So there are some in particular that sound so cool, , that I was like,
what if, what if you created spells in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons
5e named after symptoms of ADHD.
Alison: I love it.
Matt: Because like I said, there is a symptom called Time Blindness.
It's a real thing and it's, uh, I don't, I don't think they know exactly what it is,
but it's, there's something missing in my brain where, especially if Hyperfocus is
involved, and that's another spell name, I just always think that I have enough time.
Like, I look at the clock and it's 2:09 and I'm like, Oh, okay.
I don't have to be there somewhere until 2:30.
So I don't have a concept of, of that amount of time from, from 2:09 to 2:30.
to a lot of people, they can feel the minutes go by, I'm assuming.
I have no idea.
I don't know what it's like, but . They know that from 2:09 to 2:30, they have
this amount of time, whatever this
Alison: Time enough for three emails and, Yeah.
Matt: Whatever it is.
They have a connection to the concept of time enough to stop in time to
do what they need to do at 2:30.
Well, I don't have that.
Uh, and it's amazing because I think I was a good 30 minutes late to the recording
of this because of time blindness.
Thinking that I could do this and this and this, and this in the amount
of time that I needed before we were going to sit down and record.
It's a real thing.
It's very frustrating.
But it does help to know what it is.
So time blindness, and then there's Executive Dysfunction.
Right.
Or ineffective.
Executive functioning, right?
Where, that's basically just, you know, the inability to understand priorities,
to wake up in the morning and look at your day and be able to properly place
all the things that you need to do in that day for the maximum amount of
satisfaction and effect and, um, success.
Alison: Can, and this really truly is a question because I don't think
I understand enough about executive function or dysfunction as it were.
But my understanding is that it can also impact tangible things too.
Like looking at a room or a cluttered desk and not really understanding
the path from where you are to, it's clean, it's done, it's organized.
Matt: I think so, yeah, I think that's a big part of it too.
Alison: That's where I've run into it a lot in my life.
Like my friends, you know, will see my house and be like, just, just clean it.
And I'm like, but like, what do I do first?
Like, could you just, could you just gimme like a little hint?
Cuz I don't know, I look at a messy room and I just kind of wanna sit
down and cry and, and then ignore it.
I don't think, like, Oh, the first thing I should do is go get a basket
and, and put all the loose items in it and then I should take out the trash.
And, you know, I don't, my brain just doesn't those tasks like that.
By the way, I love that you gave a disclaimer that this was going
to be a D&D focused, non ADHD, and what did we immediately do?
Launched into talking about ADHD.
I
Matt: think I think there has to be context because I've chosen three
of these symptoms and I don't think, probably not fair to call them symptoms.
I don't know what you would actually call them.
Uh tenets of ADHD?
Alison: There you go.
Okay.
Matt: I dunno.
I have no idea.
Uh, I don't, I don't know.
And so, yeah, so, and then, and then of course the big, big,
big one is hyperfocus, which a lot of people could go into.
It's not necessarily only ADHD, but it's very different for people who
have ADHD because due to executive dysfunction, there is, there's plenty
of times that you're not focusing on what you need to or should focus
on, and you're all over the place.
However, there's also this, symptom, if you will, where you will start
something and you will get so sucked into it that you can't get out of it,
which isn't also part of time blindness.
Anyway.
They all kind of, do that dance, together, but those are the three that I chose with
their snappy names to turn into spells for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.
Alison: Love it so much.
Matt: I don't know what, how do you wanna do this?
Do you wanna, do you have more to add?
Do you want me to go through what I've got?
What are you, what are you,
Alison: Yeah, let's say I did not get as far into my
homework assignment as you did.
I came up with kind of a scratch list.
So what was interesting to me about this is I started this exercise of if I
were going to create Dungeons & Dragons spells out of the tenets of ADHD, First
I went to all the bad places I went to, you know, distraction and getting
in my own way and impulse, so then I was like, Let me, let just, step out
of, you know, my perspective right now and, and replant myself somewhere else.
What would be some of the, like the buff spells?
What would be some of the good
Matt: I've got,
Alison: So, um, so yeah, so I don't know, do you wanna read your list?
I can read my list and then we can pick a couple that we wanna
Matt: Yeah, sure.
Alison: into?
Matt: Yeah.
Let's, let's, let's do one.
Okay.
So I'll just go through the three that I've already described.
So I've got Time Blindness, range 60 feet duration, one turn.
Uh, and it's a targeted spell, Time Blindness.
And when you cast time blindness onto a target, the target is
given a wisdom saving throw.
So, in other words, for those who don't know what that means, this is a spell
that you can resist if cast on you.
But if they fail, they immediately lose all concept of their placement in time.
Any time based action they're preparing, combat, movement, et cetera, cannot
be completed on their next turn.
So with Time Blindness, I kind of took it into a space where it's like,
basically, you lose your turn, right?
But if a spell is being cast, spell won't go off until their next turn.
They basically lose a turn.
They just get so, confused in time that they have to wait
for the whole turn to go.
So that's what Time Blindness felt like to me.
Alison: love
Matt: Got Hyper Focus, which also has a range 60 feet.
The duration is until the target action is completed.
It's also a targeted spell.
If it cast on a willing target or yourself, I guess, the target
gains advantage on attack or saving throws for one turn, and then
casting time for spells are doubled.
And so Hyper Focus to me has this buff concept.
Right?
Because, uh, but it, but again, because it's more about time than it is ability.
So I was trying to factor in the idea of if I am hyper-focused, it doesn't
necessarily mean I'm doing better.
You don't get like, a, a plus to the attack, but it does mean that
you are more concentrated, right?
So I kind of thought, well, Advantage would take care of that, right?
Advantage would take care of, of an attack in saving throws.
And then another aspect of it is if you cast an unwilling target, the target
has to continue the action that they're performing when they hit the spell.
And this one's a little bit weird, like, we could work this one out, but I was
Alison: uh,
Matt: That they, they'd be able to save, but if they were attacking
someone else, then they would have to attack that same person next turn.
They can't move to a different target no matter what's happening.
if they're taking their move action, they have to keep moving in that direction.
Again, trying to kind of lock into the hyper focus, cuz that's all you can
do, that's all you can think about.
Right?
All right.
Alison: I love that.
Matt: And the last one is Executive Dysfunction.
And this one's very simple.
There's a wisdom saving throw.
And if the target fails, the target cannot perform any action except for
their bonus action if they have one.
And, uh, for those that don't play in one turn of combat, usually
there is, three kinds of actions.
There's the combat action, there's the movement action, and then there's
the bonus action, basically, which can be a bunch of different things.
It can be a, dodge so they can dodge things or it can be, um,
what are some other bonus actions?
Alison: There are certain spells that can be bonus actions.
Like healing word is one.
Um, Everybody has the two weapon fighting bonus action.
So anybody can wield two simple light weapons.
Matt: right?
Alison: Um,
Matt: But I kind of took it to the idea of like, that is the
only thing that you can do.
So you can't actually have a main action.
So if you're hit by the spell, and you were planning on attacking
or maybe someone's attacking you and you can't even really defend
yourself, cuz that would be an action.
And you can't move, you can't do anything except take this bonus action.
So it would be just randomly casting a spell or, something, you know?
And that felt like executive dysfunction for me, because it would
be, you know, maybe the thing that's not the priority in your life.
And those are my three.
I kind of imagine most of them as cantrips to be
Alison: Mm-hmm.
Matt: And a cantrip is your school level spells, right?
Like they don't do much damage and they, um, though cantrips kill.
Alison: Matthew, cantrips Kill.
I accidentally learned in a game not too long ago that you actually
can kill a foe with a cantrip.
Cuz
Matt: Oh yeah.
Alison: It was just a cantrip.
I was trying to kind of knock them, you know, flat for a second, but instead
they were dead in the first round.
Oopsy.
Matt: Whoops.
Uh, so yeah, tell me about impulse?
Alison: Cast on impulse.
So one of the things that makes Sorcerers special is they have, this
font of sorcery points that they get to choose at various levels
what their sorcerery points do.
So Cast on Impulse, I thought maybe could like quicken the casting time somehow.
Um, especially if it's like casting time of, you know, ritual spells or
ones that have a one minute casting time as opposed to a single action just
to kind of get that spell out quicker.
And then I called one Spontaneous Performance because I do think
that sometimes we can just kind of blurt things out.
And D&D you know, sometimes you have to give what's called a performance check,
uh, to see were you able to deceive them or were you able to pull off.
So I, I wonder if Spontaneous Performance could give you some kind
of special something to, make that check happen a little easier for you.
Maybe just an advantage on performance checks.
And then the final one, um, Matt's gonna get excited now.
I love
Um, my final one is actually the one I gave the most thought to though
still not Matt level of thought.
I called it multitask, um, there are certain spells that are, that are
concentration spells, so you can only have one concentration spell up at a time.
So I can't cast two concentration spells.
I would have to drop the first one in order to cast the second one.
And that's frustrating as a caster.
Or when you take damage in combat, you have to go through what's
called a concentration check.
So I thought multitask would allow you to have, you know, two
concentration spells up at a time.
Or typically speaking, if I have a concentration spell up, and the, you
know, the DM knows this and, and causes damage to me, he'll have me roll a
Constitution saving throw, and it's either half of the damage that I just
took, or 10, whichever number is higher.
So if my Constitution score is not very high as a caster, my charisma is I could
like swap out my performance ability score for my Constitution modifier.
Just trying to find some ways to like lean into the abilities over like the
natural born tendencies, if you will.
Matt: Wow.
Alison: So that's my list..
Matt: There's some really great ones in there with some amazing mechanic concepts.
I think my favorites are definitely multitask and spontaneous performance.
I mean, spontaneous performance is super simple.
It's just Yeah.
advantage to performance check.
You call upon your, you know, your ADHD power and uh, and it just
gets just a little edge because
Alison: You get to maybe either advantage or, you know, some of them are fun
when you get to like roll an extra d4…
Matt: Or a d4.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Alison: So, but I always love an Advantage situation.
Any others now that we've started talking through this, like come to mind of just
like kind of kindling for the bigger fire.
Matt: Yeah, I think, I think you kind of touched on it, a little bit
somewhere in there, but, along with Time Blindness, there is also, object
Alison: Object Permanence.
Matt: Right?
And, and, and in and in the spell form, I would imagine that it could be something
like, if you cast it when, when a target is close by another object, like a chair,
a table of this or that, the target.
Alison: I was gonna say, if it had some kind of like spacial awareness implication
to whoever you're fighting they perceive space and time differently than reality.
Uh, the other thing I could think of for, for Object Permanence is
almost as a shield for yourself.
Like if you're not in some direct line of sight of theirs, they forget you exist.
Right?
Matt: Ooh.
Alison: That's right.
Yeah.
It's a shield for yourself, so then that way it's like, well, you have to be
within this space and within this angle.
Otherwise you, they can't think to turn around behind them and fire a spell.
They're only focused on what's directly in front of them or something like
Matt: Or, or, or even it kind of like a subset of, uh, what's that spell?
Uh, Duplicate, or Shadow Self, or something where it's like,
Object Permanence, ghost, whatever it is, doesn't move.
It's simply that you get perfect evasion without any kind of attack of opportunity,
you are still standing there, because a person just doesn't pay attention to
Alison: It doesn't register.
Matt: That you're still right there.
Ooh, yeah.
Alison: Are you, are you writing this down or do I need to write
Matt: Okay, I'm writing Writing down
Alison: Um, what else?
Matt: What else?
Um,
I bet there could be something, to do with like, extreme loquaciousness.
Is that, is that a word?
Loquaciousness.
Like talking too
Alison: ness.
I would, Yes.
I was about to say, something about interrupting
Matt: Yes.
Okay.
Right.
Oh, that's good.
That's good cuz that would also kind of probably tie into a
counter spell -esque thing, right?
Like if you cast Interrupt it doesn't stop the spell.
But again, like it has some sort of mechanic where it, Yeah.
Okay.
I like that one.
Alison: How fun would it be?
Like, I know we make fun of me for getting really frustrated really easily
with tasks that seem new, feel foreign.
Like what if there was some kind of like frustration tolerance, where
you just like kind of implode or, or there's some kind of dire consequence to
you getting overly frustrated in game.
Matt: I like
Alison: like explosive frustration tolerance,
Matt: If you suffer from explosive frustration tolerance,
See your doctor immediately.
Um, those are really good.
Yes.
Alison: One more.
Matt: Okay.
No, don't stop.
Alison: Fidget.
I think that there has to, like, we have to be harder to hit
because of like the, the, the fidgeting and the what, what is it?
Matt: Stemming.
Alison: Stemming.
Okay.
So we need to have some kind of like fidget and stemming something or other,
but like, yeah, I have to be harder to hit because I'm constantly in motion.
Matt: This is really, this is really great.
I really, I really love this.
Alison: I do too.
This is, why when you, like when you told me about this topic, this is why I got so
excited cuz this is such a good idea Matt.
Like, ah, it's so good.
Putting it out into the universe.
If there is somebody out there that just wants to pay us to come up with
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: Flavored D&D spells, we happily accept the contract
Matt: We accept.
um,
Alison: And if you, dear listener, can think of anything that we left out or
that you'd like to add to or manipulate in any way, my goodness, please chime on in.
Matt: Please.
Okay.
Here, let, let me just say this.
Yes, I did start this podcast today off by saying this is gonna be very D&D heavy.
However, obviously we're speaking from, personal experience.
I don't care whether you know any mechanic of Dungeons & Dragons.
I don't care if you don't play any role playing game that's
not really the point of this.
If anyone's listening to this because they too have ADHD or, or a
loved one that does and, and thinks about this stuff all the time.
Uh, and just think it might be fun, we have a Patreon, you know, we
have a Patreon, and we would love for you to, uh, be a part of it.
We have a, we have a fun Discord channel, and, um, you actually are
helping us do this more and, and better and spend time during our days doing
it, which is truly making us happy.
And we appreciate everybody that is a part of that.
So, yeah.
What do you think, man?
Just come on, hang out and, and what, what have we missed?
Which, which of these little tenants have we missed?
Because there are plenty of them.
Alison: I can't wait to play test these spells.
Matt: I know, I know.
Seriously.
Alison: I love it.
It's so good.
Matt: Um, okay.
Well, geez, until next time.
Alison: Over and out.
Matt: Oh, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for joining us ADHD20.
And uh, we'll see you guys next time.
Oh, we, Okay, bye.
Around near,
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