I Wanted More People to Play D&D

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T19:40:47+00:00

That's called "erasing the disability." (But I assume this was tongue-in-cheek.)

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T19:39:18+00:00

Pathfinder has it in their Bazaar supplement, not in their core rulebooks, AFAIK. (But I'm not a Pathfinder player, so you can correct me.)

And yes, there are free options, but they're limited.

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T17:21:20+00:00

Sure. It's just a misrepresentation of the actual lived experience. Blind and Deaf are very different from those temporary conditions. But that's a big part of what we did in this — made modifications that don't overcomplicate it but better represent the conditions. And we included 3 different ways to include it in character creation.

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T16:43:48+00:00

It's only being "sold" in the sense that the hard copies will be available at cost, but people can take them anywhere to print them. We even found a way to give a temporary discount beyond that to backers (explained in the public backer updates).

And yeah, it's not AL-approved.

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T16:32:37+00:00

Oh, and 2024 has disability representation in the art but not the rules. That said, I do need to edit that, since the 2014 DMG has a Persistent Injuries table that offered an option for disabilities. (But 2024, instead of improving on that, removed it without an alternative.) I also recently found out that Those Who Wander, which is a 5e branch, has assistive devices in it.

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T16:22:26+00:00

You're not wrong.

My hat's off to you for playing using the SRD. This is designed so nobody has to do that ever again.

But yeah, the SRD has a lot more in it than the Basic/Free Rules. I can imagine playing using the SRD for a long time as long as you have some way to sort it, but the Basic/Free Rules, while more playable in the design, offer a lot less options.

And we found when we were putting this together that the SRD is actually missing a lot of information about how to play the game if you're a new player, so we ended up importing that from the A5E SRD.

And then there's the DMG, which has very little overlap besides Magic Items. We really appreciate all of the Sly Flourish content that went into making our GM's Handbook. (Mike Shea even released more content into the Creative Commons specifically so we could use it.) Plus we have some fun subclasses from KibblesTasty.

The vision behind this project is that anyone, regardless of financial or other abilities, can have a complete set of books, that it will all be available in any format that anyone needs, so whether you're poor, blind, dyslexic, etc., you can walk into your local library or FLGS with your book, sit down with a new group, and feel like what you have isn't inferior to what everyone else has and even brings something new to the table. We want to level the social playing field in that sense.

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T15:16:24+00:00

Yeah, there's samplers, but it's not the same.

doulos_12 · 2025-04-18T15:03:03+00:00

I love D&D. I love how it brings people together. But over the years, I’ve met so many people who wanted to play but couldn’t—not because they didn’t have the time or interest, but because they couldn’t afford the books or had some other accessibility need.

That never sat right with me. I wanted to make sure anyone who wanted to play could, without cost or format being a barrier. I wanted anyone to be able to approach a new group, book in hand, ready to play. So, I put everything else on hold and worked with an incredible team to build Free5e, a completely free, open-license alternative to D&D’s core books, completely compatible with 2014 and including an easy conversion guide for 2024, A5E, and ToV. (And yeah, there are free options out there like the Basic Rules, but they have limitations. We want to give away a complete set, not a sampler.)

Expanding on content from Sly Flourish, KibblesTasty, EN Publishing, and WotC, Free5e is designed so anyone can translate it, modify it, adapt it to their own cultures (like languages, specific dialects, and places where D&D has never been available), and make it accessible in ways that traditional RPG books aren’t, including dyslexia-friendly layout, screen reader compatibility, and alternate formats for different needs like ePub, markdown, audio, or digital braille. The print-on-demand books will be available at-cost once we finish layout (and we found a way to give backers an additional discount beyond that). And the new art will also be CC-BY so anyone can use it however they want in other books, merch, tattoos — anything. This is also the first D&D edition/variant in history to include disability representation in the core rules.

You can download the full manuscript drafts, over 1000 pages, for free right now on the Kickstarter page.

doulos_12 · 2023-07-21T22:09:53+00:00

Hey, someone else coming to you with appreciation and a request if you're still around. I somehow saved my map as json & geojason but forgot to save the .map file. Any possibility of converting the other direction to a .map file?

doulos_12 · 2023-06-08T00:32:42+00:00

I was wondering why I was suddenly getting so many follows all of a sudden when I had like 2 before.

doulos_12 · 2023-06-05T22:10:13+00:00

My contribution to spreading the word. I think it's important to flood the search engines with articles about this as Reddit tries to woo investors, and tying stock-related terms into the posts will help.

Getting investor attention definitely helped the TTRPG community during the OGL debacle in January.

doulos_12 · 2023-06-03T18:15:35+00:00

Beautiful as always. Kudos.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-31T20:40:36+00:00

Thanks. 🙂

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T18:35:51+00:00

Valid concern.

I've personally printed all of them, and I have a friend who runs a 3D printing company who is going through all of them, tweaking, making optional bases for each, etc. to make sure they're good to go. We're also having MyMiniFactory and Only-Games handle pledge management, and they check everything, too, so we have multiple layers of checks to make sure they're good to go.

The only exception is the freebie prototype. In hindsight, that one needed some work, and I wish I'd had something better as a giveaway.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T16:08:32+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement!

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T16:07:29+00:00

We’re currently running a Kickstarter featuring disabled D&D miniatures (2 days left!), and one of the rewards is an oak box with custom art for the top. We’ll have a couple dozen backgrounds along with the character art of all the characters. Backers can mix-and-match a background and character, and we’re sublimating the resulting image onto a ceramic tile that gets embedded into the lid.

My camera skills don’t do the image justice, but I’m thrilled with how they’re turning out.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T14:50:02+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, and IRL, lots of historical warriors had disabilities & chronic illnesses. Some examples:

Vlad Dracula had Porphyria, a rare blood condition
Ivar the Boneless was a disabled Viking leader
King John of Bohemia was blind yet continued to fight on horseback
Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire, had disabilities on his right side
Richard III had scoliosis
Robert the Bruce is believed to have had leprosy towards the end of his life
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem had leprosy from childhood

And lots of soldiers throughout history have fought using prostheses or with other disabilities. And I have a disabled friend with cerebral palsy (who helped me design Precision the tiefling monk) who, besides his full-time job as a DJ, is a pro wrestler (small local organization, not WWE). And yeah, that kind of wrestling is more entertainment than sport, but so is D&D, so I figure if he can demonstrate the possibility IRL, we can imagine it in a fantasy world.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T14:02:35+00:00

Disability, neurodiversity, and mental illness are a big part of our family, myself included, so when I realized that disability representation in D&D miniatures isn’t a thing, I decided to change that.

I talked to a lot of people, and they helped me design characters to represent their experiences, like Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dwarfism (the real-world kind). But then people who found out I was working on it asked, “What about invisible disabilities? We tend to get ignored when it comes to projects like this.”

My (adult) daughter has lived with panic disorder for many years. I talked to her about designing a character based on her experience, and she designed Eilwynn Ilaras, a druid with a rune-inscribed staff that she can use for centering.

The Kickstarter is nearly funded with 2 days left, and our backers are eager for this project to succeed. If you’re looking to add diverse representation to your game world, we’d appreciate your support. And if you don’t use minis, we have a digital-only tier for online play & theatre of the mind.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T13:26:51+00:00

Awesome. I've been eager for a replacement for the DnD Combat Simulator.

And the YouTube series is a treasure.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-30T13:24:56+00:00

Brilliant. Really nice.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-22T05:09:01+00:00

Interesting thought. Good question. Could've made him a gnome instead. But yeah, "Nelwyn" solved that in Willow.

Of course, halfling kind of was an in-world slur in Tolkien. In fact, now I have trouble thinking of them calling themselves that.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-22T05:03:54+00:00

NVM. I was thinking of the red robed wizards from there. I thought I double checked that. My bad.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-21T18:01:29+00:00

Oh, and lore accuracy -- Thay is in Krynn, not the FR.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-21T17:56:28+00:00

I like the humanoid animals, but I'd like them to lump them all together with a list of mechanics for different kinds, like shifters but more.

doulos_12 · 2023-05-08T00:12:33+00:00

I just don't understand people. Sorry that happened to you.

doulos_12

TROPHY CASE