[7:39 PM]WyrmworksDale: Hi, I’m Dale Critchley, owner & chief tea drinker at Wyrmworks Publishing. https://wyrmworkspublishing.com/Wyrmworks PublishingDale CritchleyWyrmworks Publishing – Make lives better through TTRPGsHelping you make lives better through Tabletop Roleplaying Games (5e & more) – Home of Limitless Heroics – Disabilities Mental Illness & Neurodivergence in 5e
[7:40 PM]WyrmworksDale: We are dedicated to helping you make lives better through TTRPGs.
[7:40 PM]WyrmworksDale: We’re best known for our Kickstarter last year, Limitless Heroics – Including Characters with Disabilities, Mental Illness, and Neurodivergence in Fifth Edition https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wyrmworkspublishing/limitless-heroics-better-worlds-via-dice-and-disabilities-5eKickstarterDale CritchleyLimitless Heroics: Better worlds via Dice & Disabilities 5eComprehensive game mechanics for including Characters with Disabilities, Mental Illness, and Neurodivergence in Fifth Edition
[7:42 PM]WyrmworksDale: And now we’re running a follow-up KS featuring disabled miniatures with accompanying stat cards & a PDF with more details. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wyrmworkspublishing/limitless-champions-disabled-dandd-5e-npc-cards-and-miniatures?ref=8o8twzKickstarterDale CritchleyLimitless Champions: Disabled D&D 5e NPC Cards & MiniaturesHelp us make history with the largest, most diverse collection of disability-themed fantasy miniatures ever created
[7:42 PM]WyrmworksDale: (Done)
[7:42 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Thanks, @WyrmworksDale! The floor is open to questions!
[7:43 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Where did you come up with this idea?
[7:43 PM]WyrmworksDale: Our current one was a direct response to requests from LH backers, but backing up,
[7:44 PM]WyrmworksDale: In March 2021, since disabilities, mental illness, and neurodiversity are a big part of our family, I decided to create some assistive magic items,
[7:45 PM]WyrmworksDale: but I didn’t want to them to be, “Use this, and the disability disappears,” because that’s not how assistive devices, meds, etc. work. They always have trade-offs.
[7:47 PM]WyrmworksDale: So my first idea, inspired by my daughter’s seizure disorder, was a ring that has X charges/day, and you can either use them to stop an oncoming seizure or protect you from lightning damage, so you have to decide when those situations arise whether you’re going to endure one to save the charge for the other.
[7:48 PM]WyrmworksDale: But then I realized it was a solution without a problem. There’s no seizures in 5e. Or any other disabilities for that matter.
[7:49 PM]WyrmworksDale: So I started researching, and I found like 6 total articles besides the Combat Wheelchair that discussed disabilities at all re: D&D or TTRPGs in general.
[7:50 PM]WyrmworksDale: So I decided to develop a system so people could represent themselves or include a broader range of NPCs in their game worlds.
[7:51 PM]WyrmworksDale: I started talking to people wherever I could, discussing their experiences and how those could be represented in-game.
[7:51 PM]WyrmworksDale: I had no idea what it would become. I was thinking a little DMs Guild project.
[7:52 PM]WyrmworksDale: I told people I talked to that, whatever it became, I’d give them a copy and credit them (with their permission—some remained anonymous) in return for their input.
[7:53 PM]WyrmworksDale: Meanwhile, I asked for artists interested in working on the project. I said I’d pay them if it made money but couldn’t guarantee that it would. Several signed up just to be a part of it.
[7:53 PM]WyrmworksDale: The more I talked to people, the more I heard, “You have to do this. This is so needed.”
[7:55 PM]WyrmworksDale: So I quit my job at the group home where I was working and dove into it full-time to make it happen, praying that a Kickstarter would enable me to do it properly with the quality that the subject deserved. I had no idea. And it was successful.
[7:57 PM]WyrmworksDale: Once the KS finished, and we had the core manuscript, we sent it to the backers and asked them to look at the parts that represented their experiences and let us know how accurately we represented them. 900 people downloaded it, and we got 90 pages of feedback, all of which was incorporated into the final book. (edited)
[7:57 PM]WyrmworksDale: (done)
[7:58 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (No need for a (done) after the introduction. 
)
[7:58 PM]WyrmworksDale: ok, it was long-winded, so….
1
[7:59 PM]Dan the GMshoe: So it sounds like you had to create systems for the disabilities before you could create systems for dealing with the disabilities.
[7:59 PM]WyrmworksDale: Yeah, and I wanted to include everyone
[8:00 PM]WyrmworksDale: My kids have extremely rare neurological disorders, so they don’t get acknowledged on yogurt lids & bumper stickers. I wanted them to get representation. So many people are just forgotten, and I didn’t want anyone to feel left out of one more thing.
[8:02 PM]WyrmworksDale: I started compiling a list of different diagnoses, and I realized how impossible that is, but I realized that there’s a lot of overlap. Lots of people have chronic pain for all kinds of reasons. So I decided to create a list of symptoms, which we later renamed to Traits to avoid the negative connotation.
[8:04 PM]WyrmworksDale: We ended up with ~490 traits that covered nearly everything, and then we added “Impact Extent” to cover the range of each trait’s experience and options for duration for those that come and go.
[8:05 PM]WyrmworksDale: Backers loved the Magic Item idea, and we had a “Name an Item” tier. By the end, we added a whole bunch of extra items and got ideas from a lot of backers and ended up with over 200 items.
[8:07 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Don’t some of the disabilities require the PCs to start out with certain magic items in order to adventure?
[8:07 PM]WyrmworksDale: It depends on the party.
[8:08 PM]WyrmworksDale: We often think of this through our modern Western individualistic framework.
[8:08 PM]WyrmworksDale: But until fairly recently, people were much more community focused. Many cultures still are.
[8:10 PM]WyrmworksDale: So thinking in terms of a balanced party, a given condition may just require someone in the party to help out the same way a lone fighter is probably going to be in rough shape without some kind of caster in the party.
[8:11 PM]WyrmworksDale: It raises awareness of how we all need each other.
[8:11 PM]WyrmworksDale: But it also makes a difference when we realize the range of disabilities.
[8:12 PM]WyrmworksDale: In Limitless Champions, we have a dwarf barbarian, Donna Nason, who’s quadriplegic. Donna Nason is a real person who designed this character based on herself.
[8:13 PM]WyrmworksDale: While she does have a spring-loaded wheelchair ram, it only has 3 charges.
[8:14 PM]WyrmworksDale: But her quadriplegia isn’t total — she can still move her arms, but they’re stiff. And she uses jousting gloves to hold her ax since her hands have little or no ability to grip.
[8:16 PM]WyrmworksDale: So as long as someone can help her get those gloves fastened to her ax, and give her a boost in the right direction when she’s out of ramming charges, her rage is not to be trifled with.
[8:16 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Interesting.
[8:17 PM]Dan the GMshoe: How do you deal with the decidedly wheelchair-unfriendly terrain that D&D adventurers regularly encounter?
[8:19 PM]WyrmworksDale: Think about a mountain bike. Put the right wheels on something, and it can handle a lot of terrain. And a cliff wall could even be easier for someone whose primary mobility is via their hands, so they might be able to climb a rope easier, and then just pull the wheelchair up afterward with the rope.
[8:20 PM]WyrmworksDale: But I’ve designed dungeons with slippery ramps where, if you’re in a wheelchair, you won’t slip and fall, so you have a better chance of maintaining control on the way down.
[8:24 PM]WyrmworksDale: And we have a druid who, when she wild shapes, since her wheelchair is part of her identity, her wild shape form has some kind of wheelchair, so in one adventure, she becomes a monkey to climb a wall, which is no problem with arms and tail, but her legs are strapped to a wheelchair made of woven twigs and leaves that go along with her like the wheels they have for injured dogs.
[8:25 PM]WyrmworksDale: (Although she prefers her shop most of the time, where she makes salves.)
[8:26 PM]WyrmworksDale: But we didn’t want to stop there with the minis, so we worked with people of all different experiences beyond wheelchairs.
[8:28 PM]Dan the GMshoe: How did you deal with mental issues?
[8:30 PM]WyrmworksDale: We had a kobold from LH that I love, Rork, who has anxiety and hates crowds. He carries a wicker ball as a fidget that helps him.
[8:31 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Great art!
[8:32 PM]WyrmworksDale: That one is by Kalman Andraszovsky, who did a lot of X-men covers and D&D 3.5 art for WotC.
[8:34 PM]WyrmworksDale: A month or so before the Limitless Heroics KS launched, he was diagnosed with ADHD. He was wondering on Twitter whether there’s ADHD mechanics in D&D. I showed him what I developed, and he said, “That’s my life right there!” He wanted in on the project, so he did a dozen of the NPCs, and we used some of those for Limitless Champions.
[8:35 PM]Dan the GMshoe: In most of the TTRPGs with which I’m familiar that incorporate these issues, they’re treated as disadvantages that provide more character creation points to spend elsewhere. How do you handle them?
[8:37 PM]WyrmworksDale: With each, we looked at the positives and negatives. Yeah, you might get some penalties, but what bonuses do you get? If you have chronic pain, you’re used to managing pain more than most people, so you get bonuses to saves against psychic damage. You still feel pain, but you cope with it better than most.
[8:38 PM]WyrmworksDale: We looked at every trait with that in mind to get a more rounded understanding of the experience and how it affects a person’s life.
[8:41 PM]WyrmworksDale: We also thought a lot about how people adapt. If a monk’s arms are constricted due to cerebral palsy, why not use feet instead? And a tail if you’re a tiefling!
[8:46 PM]WyrmworksDale: Disabled people can be among the most creative in the world, since they daily have to figure out how to navigate a world that wasn’t designed for them. So they make great party members. Need to figure out how to get into that dragon’s lair? They probably had to figure out a solution to that just to get into certain buildings. Of the creature with a sonic attack? Yeah, when you have sound sensitivities, you’ve already devised a solution a long time ago.
[8:46 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Did you get into the ways in which different issues would affect different breeds of nonhumans, and did you create any nonhuman-specific issues?
[8:52 PM]WyrmworksDale: Yeah, we added a lot of fantasy disabilities to answer, “What would disabilities be like in a fantasy world?” So there’s tail differences off the top of my head. And with body size and proportion issues, we use percentages, so you can have a goliath with dwafism that’s not just short, but reflects the proportions and associated experiences. (Like Rivaan, our Dragonborn with dwarfism, including, with her specific expression, mobility issues and a different thumb shape.)
[8:53 PM]WyrmworksDale: And if you have darkvision, our vision rules take that into consideration.
[8:56 PM]WyrmworksDale: With Lanark, the minotaur barbarian, we figured out that his labyrinthine recall, which keeps minotaurs from getting lost, is based on being able to feel air pressure changes and the echoes of his hooves, so he’s uncomfortable in open spaces where he can’t get a sense of his surroundings, like a bat in a noisy environment (or me, with my hearing loss, at a party where I can’t filter background noise).
[8:57 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Very nice!
[8:57 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (I didn’t realize that minotaurs could be PCs these days.)
[8:58 PM]WyrmworksDale: We mainly used the MM stat block to start with. The Theros (IIRC) book has them as PCs, but they’re Medium there, which I don’t like.
[8:59 PM]WyrmworksDale: He’s an NPC in an upcoming adventure, an engineer who complains about shoddy dungeon construction.
[9:00 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Heh.
[9:01 PM]WyrmworksDale: He was designed by an engineer friend of mine, so like his creator, he’s also a master of puns.
[9:01 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Awesome.
[9:02 PM]WyrmworksDale: Like some people might take offense at his depiction.
[9:02 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Why’s that?
[9:03 PM]WyrmworksDale: This doesn’t work as well in text. “Take a fence”
[9:03 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Ah! 
[9:05 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What has the response been to these products?
[9:07 PM]WyrmworksDale: It’s been mixed. A lot of people have made comments like, “I have spina bifida. I’m never represented in any media. And now, I’m in D&D!” I probably average a comment a week like that from somewhere.
[9:09 PM]WyrmworksDale: But then there’s those who say, “I feel like my experience is more complex than can be expressed as a number modifier.” (Note that we have a lot of other ways of expressing traits, depending on what’s being represented.) That feeling is valid, and we hope people who prefer a different kind of representation will create that system so others can use it. The more different options for representation, the better.
[9:10 PM]WyrmworksDale: (And I’d be happy to spread the word about their work to our fans!)
[9:12 PM]Dan the GMshoe: If you haven’t already, I think you’ll want to get in touch with this fellow: https://www.rpgtrailer.com/Role-Playing Game TrailerWelcome to The Wheelchair Friendly RPG Trailer WebsiteAbout the Wheelchair accessible RPG Trailer
[9:13 PM]WyrmworksDale: And then there’s those who say, “This is ruining D&D. You’re too woke. Disabled people could never survive in an adventuring party!” When we began the foster care that led to adopting one of our daughters, we were told she’d never walk. And she did have mobility issues, and she climbed before she walked. But now she just runs everywhere.
@Dan the GMshoeIf you haven’t already, I think you’ll want to get in touch with this fellow: https://www.rpgtrailer.com/[9:14 PM]WyrmworksDale: I remember seeing something about that! I definitely need to look into that. Thanks for the link!
[9:15 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Certainly! He’s a great guy.
[9:16 PM]WyrmworksDale: I have a podcast, Gaining Advantage, where I interview people who are making a difference via TTRPGs. https://wyrmworkspublishing.com/gaining-advantage-show/ I’ll have to see whether he’s available for that.Wyrmworks PublishingDale CritchleyGaining Advantage Show – Wyrmworks PublishingTabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons have inherent benefits, but what happens when people decide to level up their play by using the game to improve the lives of others? And how can YOU do the same with your game? Subscribe in your favorite podcast player And leave a review!
[9:17 PM]Dan the GMshoe: That’s a great idea!
[9:17 PM]Dan the GMshoe: In the time remaining, is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to bring up?
[9:20 PM]WyrmworksDale: With so many people doing online gaming, a lot of people have said, “I appreciate this, but I don’t have use for minis.” So we created a digital-only tier. For $10, you get digital versions of the cards, the PDF (and other formats, including audio) for more character details, and wallpapers in multiple sizes for different devices.
[9:23 PM]WyrmworksDale: And once this finishes and we get it fulfilled, which should be quick, since everything’s pretty much done, we’re going to launch a follow-up Kickstarter with adventures featuring these characters as NPCs to demonstrate ways to incorporate them. I’ve alluded to some of those adventures above. Those who like physical books, we’ll have that along with all these characters and more, plus a bunch of new monster stat blocks, etc.
[9:27 PM]WyrmworksDale: I also send out a weekly email every Tuesday that starts with a story or other message of encouragement in addition to coupons, updates, and other cool stuff. It’s different from most RPG publisher emails, but a lot of people appreciate a little extra hope in a frustrating and often hopeless world. And you get some free stuff just for signing up. https://wyrmworkspublishing.com/hoard
[9:27 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Nice!
[9:28 PM]WyrmworksDale: We’ve also used that to do good together like raising money for causes, connecting people with other publishers to check the accessibility of their documents, etc.
[9:30 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Cool.
[9:30 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Your passion for this subject really shines through!
[9:32 PM]WyrmworksDale: Thanks.
[9:33 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Thanks very much for joining us, @WyrmworksDale!
[9:33 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Usual reminder: If you’ve enjoyed this Q&A and would like to treat me to a coffee or two, you can do so at https://www.ko-fi.com/gmshoe. Anything’s appreciated! Ko-fiBuy Dan Davenport a Coffee. ko-fi.com/gmshoeBecome a supporter of Dan Davenport today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
[9:33 PM]Dan the GMshoe: If you’ll give me a minute, I’ll get the log posted and link you!
Message #q-and-a
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