Dungeons & Dragons Book Explores Disability Representation

An upcoming Dungeons & Dragons book seeks to provide more comprehensive representation in disability within the game. Earlier this week, Wyrmworks Publishing launched the Kickstarter for Limitless Heroics, a new compendium that details how to approach various symptoms and how to approach them in Fifth Edition play. The creative team for Limitless Heroics have details for 450 different symptoms covering both major real-life symptoms and several fantasy-themed symptoms, as well as different severity degrees and frequencies. The book also includes over 90 magic items representing various assistive devices, new spells, and also tutorials to explain how to implement the various symptoms in a realistic way and how to avoid harmful stereotypes. 

Limitless Heroics comes as many Dungeons & Dragons players and fans reexamine the storytelling tropes and how various types of disabilities, illnesses, and other traits are represented in the game. Mechanically, Dungeons & Dragons has traditionally punished players who have characters with different ailments, usually by assigning them penalties to rolls for performing certain kinds of actions. However, when playing a game set in a world where players can fly on the back of a dragon or transform into a being made of fire, many DMs, players, and designers have become both more creative in how the game treats disability and more understanding in how the game and its stories treats those with disabilities. Recently, Wizards of the Coast revised several tables in its core rulebooks that recommended villains be given a stutter or a physical disfigurement as a defining characteristic. A combat wheelchair designed by a third-party designer that provided a fantasy-themed mobility and combat tool also was well-received when released for free last year.

The entire creative team for Limitless Heroics is either disabled, neurodivergent, and/or have mental or chronic illness. Additional sensitivity consultants were also brought on for the project. 

The Kickstarter for Limitless Heroics will run through February 3rd. As of press time, the Kickstarter campaign has already exceeded its initial $10,000 funding goal. You can check out the full Kickstarter project here.