Shoutout to my therapist she tries so hard to keep up with me. I explained the concept of spell slots vs cantrips as a disability metaphor to her and she took notes. On a pad of paper. About the spellcasting mechanics of dungeons and dragons.
She was like “this is gonna come up again I’m guessing?” And I was like yeah probably and she said “okay hang on” and started writing. Bless
What was the metaphor OP?
I mean it wasn’t mine i got it off tumbler dot org, but there are things that you can do seemingly an unlimited number of times per day, that don’t drain on your internal resources, and that make abled people think you don’t have chronic pain or fatigue or brain fog whatever because look, she’s writing her journal or whatever, surely she must be able to also do her homework, but maybe for you journal-writing is a cantrip, whereas homework takes a spell slot. And you only get a certain number of spell slots per long rest because they drain you in a more profound way, and you need to save one for cooking dinner and you already used one to walk to the store for milk. It’s a variant on Spoon Theory for nerds.
oh wow fuck that’s a good metaphor
Additional 5e mechanic that is helpful: spell slots exist in multiple power levels. You can use a more powerful spell slot to cast a lower level spell (lvl 2 in a lvl 3 slot) but you cannot cast a high level spell (like lvl 5) in that same slot. Similarly, you can use up a Big Task spoon to do something that qualifies as a Small Task for you, but you usually can't use a Small Task spoon for a Big Task.
...I have a feeling this metaphor may work for some of my followers.
