Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 05, 2023, 06:42:07 AM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on April 04, 2023, 07:45:07 PM
https://wyrmworkspublishing.com/product/limitless-heroics/

WTF!? Who wants to rp someone so mentally ill? I get pretending to be evil, but this....it's beyond the pale.

Hey, stop that.
If I want to play a spaz with a service animal that's my choice buddy.

Just don't try to play one that's mixed race... that rayciss and banned by WotC now.

There's one part of me which sees something like this as as useful catalog of disabilities and conditions—like the analogy to GURPS made above.

On the other hand, I also see this as running counter to what D&D has meant to a couple generations of players, in that generations of awkward kids have played this game and become better people, learned social skills, etc. D&D is used in schools and in other settings as a tool to teach autistic kids, for example, how to better relate to other people in real life by practice at the table. Now this book wants to endorse and encourage these kids to roleplaythat very same difficulty?

Why the hell would anyone want this type of thing in their game?

If you want this then houserule it in.

This is going to fail big time.  This just doesnt make sense.  Characters are meant to be heroes that can do almost anything.  If I want to play a person with limited abilities, I do that every day

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 04, 2023, 08:59:03 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on April 04, 2023, 07:45:07 PMWho wants to rp someone so mentally ill?

Being on the autism spectrum isn't mental illness. Some people who actually have neurodivergent conditions might want to gain a game benefit from playing characters who share their qualities.

Better at math (not sure how you make that a game benefit, I suppose it could be an automatic bonus to science related skills), and the ability to stick to something without getting mentally fatigued (you'd need to have mental fatigue mechanics in there). I can't think of any clear benefits of being autistic beyond that.

Quote from: migo on April 05, 2023, 11:09:13 AM

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 04, 2023, 08:59:03 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on April 04, 2023, 07:45:07 PMWho wants to rp someone so mentally ill?

Being on the autism spectrum isn't mental illness. Some people who actually have neurodivergent conditions might want to gain a game benefit from playing characters who share their qualities.

Better at math (not sure how you make that a game benefit, I suppose it could be an automatic bonus to science related skills), and the ability to stick to something without getting mentally fatigued (you'd need to have mental fatigue mechanics in there). I can't think of any clear benefits of being autistic beyond that.

Will their be negatives to social skills, or just pure wish fulfilment?

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 04, 2023, 08:59:03 PM
Some people who actually have neurodivergent conditions might want to gain a game benefit from playing characters who share their qualities.

In one sentence, you have captured the difference (broad caricature of course) between the hobby's core player base until about 2016 and the player base that has joined since 2016.

The newer players have a much higher proportion (majority?) of people for whom "the character is me". I don't even mean the old "I'm playing me if I was this person" but a genuine complete identification.

Thus the need for features that a person centers their identity on to be available in the game and not to be negative. It also drives the "you can't kill my character without my permission" because it would be like amputating something.

It's not that this was never seen back in the day. Hell, it even showed up in "Dark Dungeons". But it has become common enough to start driving game materials.

I will say I can't understand it, but people are welcome to play their way. We'll just probably play at different tables if we can get all the posers trying for ally cookies to leave both groups alone. We'd probably even eventually swap war stories.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 05, 2023, 11:11:02 AM

Quote from: migo on April 05, 2023, 11:09:13 AM

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on April 04, 2023, 08:59:03 PM

Quote from: Jason Coplen on April 04, 2023, 07:45:07 PMWho wants to rp someone so mentally ill?

Being on the autism spectrum isn't mental illness. Some people who actually have neurodivergent conditions might want to gain a game benefit from playing characters who share their qualities.

Better at math (not sure how you make that a game benefit, I suppose it could be an automatic bonus to science related skills), and the ability to stick to something without getting mentally fatigued (you'd need to have mental fatigue mechanics in there). I can't think of any clear benefits of being autistic beyond that.

Will their be negatives to social skills, or just pure wish fulfilment?

There ought to be. I mean really an autist is a Dwarf. So the benefits and disadvantages have already been playtested.

Quote from: PulpHerb on April 05, 2023, 11:28:18 AM
In one sentence, you have captured the difference (broad caricature of course) between the hobby's core player base until about 2016 and the player base that has joined since 2016.

The newer players have a much higher proportion (majority?) of people for whom "the character is me". I don't even mean the old "I'm playing me if I was this person" but a genuine complete identification.

Thus the need for features that a person centers their identity on to be available in the game and not to be negative.

This was Pundit's claim in his character death video, and I'm extremely skeptical. The whole schtick of Knights of the Dinner Table since it started 1990 was that the characters were versions of the players, and those were old stereotypes even then. Greg Porter's Timelords RPG from 1987 was based on the premise that players literally play themselves thrown across time in a strange device, and had rules for players rating their own attributes. Playing a fantasy version of oneself was always common, especially among casual and/or new players.

Even if the PC isn't a fantasy version of the player, core identity like gender tends to strongly correlate. Male players play mostly male PCs, and female players mostly female PCs. There are plenty of exceptions, but they're uncommon and they're usually the harder-core player types.

More generally, I don't think that the release of a fringe product like Limitless Heroics is representative of the mainstream of new D&D players. Someone might be upset that even a tiny fringe would buy such a product, but it doesn't represent the majority of new players since 2016.

Quote from: jhkim on April 05, 2023, 12:33:07 PM

Quote from: PulpHerb on April 05, 2023, 11:28:18 AM
In one sentence, you have captured the difference (broad caricature of course) between the hobby's core player base until about 2016 and the player base that has joined since 2016.

The newer players have a much higher proportion (majority?) of people for whom "the character is me". I don't even mean the old "I'm playing me if I was this person" but a genuine complete identification.

Thus the need for features that a person centers their identity on to be available in the game and not to be negative.

This was Pundit's claim in his character death video, and I'm extremely skeptical. The whole schtick of Knights of the Dinner Table since it started 1990 was that the characters were versions of the players, and those were old stereotypes even then. Greg Porter's Timelords RPG from 1987 was based on the premise that players literally play themselves thrown across time in a strange device, and had rules for players rating their own attributes. Playing a fantasy version of oneself was always common, especially among casual and/or new players.

Even if the PC isn't a fantasy version of the player, core identity like gender tends to strongly correlate. Male players play mostly male PCs, and female players mostly female PCs. There are plenty of exceptions, but they're uncommon and they're usually the harder-core player types.

More generally, I don't think that the release of a fringe product like Limitless Heroics is representative of the mainstream of new D&D players. Someone might be upset that even a tiny fringe would buy such a product, but it doesn't represent the majority of new players since 2016.

"Why are you an angry gamer?"

No Jim, no one is upset someone might buy that book, not even if all the "new players since 2016" bought it would we be upset.

We're criticizing a product, and a mentality (that you might share hence your disingenuous defense of it) that my disabilities ARE my identity and I'm nothing else but those disabilities. Therefore those disabilities MUST be represented in the game as a bonus and don't have ANY negative aspects.

Now back to our pointing and mocking the retards that created the book and the even more retarded idiots who will buy it.

Quote
Book Accessibility
Dyslexia-friendly layout

Motherfucker how you gonna do that? Have each page be a mirror reflection of the previous page? They borrow House of Leaves and said "Let's do an RPG product with a layout just like that!"

I looked this up when I first heard about it and it sounds like most people commenting here are missing the point (from the POV of those who pay for it).

It's not about wanting to play disabled people in D&D adventures. It's about wanting it to be possible for other people to do so. They'd never, ever want to play someone in a wheelchair who goes Dungeon Delving but someone might. The rules of D&D make it so it'd be suicide for someone to try that even in 5e and so that means the hobby is excluding the differently abled.

This is unacceptable and someone should correct this injustice. Fortunately, someone very helpfully created a book that will do so. Fund the Kickstarter and we're one step closer to a world where Social Justice is a reality!

Nobody (or at least the majority) who pays money for this wants the book for themselves, they just want it to exist so that the theoretical masses of Differently Abled currently excluded from playing D&D as people Just Like Them can now play. The book then becomes something they can place in a prominent position behind them when they play online. It's the same mentality that led to Coyote & Crow getting so much on Kickstarter- and then failing to sell after that.


You have to concede that the people who write these things have some sort of marketing savvy. They've worked out that there's enough activists pretending to be gamers to keep funding these things and until that changes, we haven't seen the last of this. Just take comfort in the fact that most of the people who buy these are the same ones who can't understand why it's so hard to find a DM for their group and not the sort who are likely to show up at your table.

It's also at least a smarter model than the current garbage that Disney and Amazon are churning out aimed at sci-fi and fantasy fans. The people who want this stuff don't actually want to watch/read/play it themselves, they just want it to exist so that other people will do so. Kickstarter projects get their money up front by telling the activists that they have to pay for it to exist. Making it exist and then asking if they want to pay for it? Not nearly as successful...

I got through half the advert before I realized it was actually called Limitless Heroics. I thought it said Limited Heroics.

Anyway, I'm all in on this one! It'll finally give me the permission to go full-retard with my characters.
"P-p-p-please d-don't h-h-hurt meeee!"

Quote from: THE_Leopold on April 05, 2023, 03:23:47 PM

Quote
Book Accessibility
Dyslexia-friendly layout

Motherfucker how you gonna do that? Have each page be a mirror reflection of the previous page? They borrow House of Leaves and said "Let's do an RPG product with a layout just like that!"

That's not dyslexia. It's more being able to keep track of lines and not ending up several lines down as you work from left to right. What you need is clear separation between lines. That could be done by having sufficient spacing (at least 1.5 if not 2), by actually having lines between each line of text, or by having each line in a band of alternating colour. 1.5 spacing and lines would be the solution that's most friendly to dyslexics without being a bother to non-dyslexics. If it's a PDF that wouldn't be an issue, if it's print that of course means the text needs to go on more pages so that adds to the printing cost.

Quote from: Effete on April 05, 2023, 03:51:04 PM
I got through half the advert before I realized it was actually called Limitless Heroics. I thought it said Limited Heroics.

I thought the same thing.

And the price they are asking for that book, up to $120 they are on drugs.  How many people are actually going to pay that much?  Couldn't they just house rule their game and save themselves the money?

Quote from: Jason Coplen on April 04, 2023, 07:45:07 PM
https://wyrmworkspublishing.com/product/limitless-heroics/

WTF!? Who wants to rp someone so mentally ill? I get pretending to be evil, but this....it's beyond the pale.

I commonly give my NPCs one of the eight standard personality disorders to make it easier to roleplay them. One player in a game I played in wanted to roleplay a schizophrenic. And my Call of Cthulhu character is both going insane and effectively a "brain on a stick" as a feeble 82-year-old psychiatrist. I don't see why having more roleplay options is ludicrous or morbid in principle.

That said

• the cover art of this product is ugly,
• the notion of a wheelchair-bound man wielding a battle-axe to any effect is absurd (if not the situation itself inconceivable), and
• the general tone insinuating one's moral obligation to be sensitive and work to include disabilities in order to make one's play a moral paragon, rather than primarily an escapist adventure, is repellant to anyone with mythic sensibilities.

Overall the thing appears to be out to "disable" the heroic fantasy aspect of gaming and replace it with sappy consciousness raising moralism. I say this as one who believes gaming can morally raise consciousness without being sappy--that is, without rewriting reality to presume that disabilities aren't things to rue.