Creative Chat with Nychelle Schneider

“When it comes to play, you are crafting and creating something with a chosen community.”

It's time for another Creative Chat, this time with one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I've ever met: writer, DM, and game developer Nychelle Schneider. Nychelle and I sat down for a wonderful conversation about her creative backstory (which includes Remote Operated Vehicle builds!), and also:

• how she fell in love with writing (and is now getting an MFA in it);

• how her Pacific Northwest indigeneity informs her own science fiction (I love her thoughts on the interplay of cultural erasure and world-building); and

• how deep research underpins the rich and robust worlds she builds in roleplaying games (she's got nudibranch lore on lock). Here’s a teaser:

This chat was one for the books; I'm sure you'll love Nychelle just as much as I do by the end. <3 You can grab the episode transcript here. Enjoy!

xx, aa

[ Teaser video transcript; dialogue playing over music bed ]

nychelle schneider: That’s what I absolutely love about creation, is you give it life; you give it breath.

allison arth: Now on the Little Oracles podcast, a Creative Chat with writer and game developer, Nychelle Schneider.

aa: You DM — Dungeon Master, or Game Master as some people call it.

ns: Mm-hmm.

aa: How do you see that as a creative outlet?

ns: The best way I ever heard it said was, somebody told me, “Nychelle, you don’t just play in the world; you create it with, like, a bucket of paint and a paintbrush, and you just paint a picture around you.

aa: Oh wow; I love that. Have you always been a writer?

ns: No! I hated writing as a kid.

aa: Really?!

ns: I only’ve been writing for about six years now, when I first started doing those RP scenes, trying to deal with certain emotions and trauma.

aa: Wow.

ns: Having that safe space to have that self-expression, and to explore different facets of that, has been absolutely freeing.

aa: What is it about play that makes you so willing and excited to do this as a— as a profession?

ns: When it comes to play, you are crafting and creating something with a chosen community, and what comes out of that is not 100% your own; you feel part of something bigger than yourself. I think it’s also a way for us to express empathy—

aa: Yeah.

ns: —and connection with, whether that be a person; a concept; a perspective that is different than our own, it is what makes us human. We— we see that, you know, we’re just human.

aa: Find Little Oracles wherever you get podcasts.