We’re committed to creating a more inclusive gaming experience for everyone. We’re thrilled to announce the release of the first-ever braille conversion of the 5th Edition System Reference Document (SRD), making the core rules of 5th edition accessible to a wider audience of players and creators.
This comprehensive resource is completely free and available in multiple formats:
Players Guide: Explore core character creation options, including races, classes, backgrounds, and equipment.
Game Master Guide: Discover essential rules for running the game, crafting engaging campaigns, and utilizing magic items (with harmful content removed).
Monster Guide: Encounter a vast library of creatures, faithfully adapted for braille readers.
Spellcasting Guide: Master the art of magic with comprehensive spellcasting rules and descriptions.
Step-by-Step Tutorial: Designers, open your games and supplements to more fans and customers!
Designed with accessibility in mind, the SRD braille conversion comes in two formats:
BRF: Optimized for dynamic braille readers and physical embossers.
BBZ: Editable in BrailleBlaster software for further customization.
This resource is released under a CC-BY license, allowing anyone to freely use and adapt it for their projects. We encourage the RPG community to embrace accessibility and make their content inclusive for all players!
This braille conversion marks a significant step towards a more inclusive gaming space. While we continue striving to create RPG materials that are not only accessible but also celebrate diverse representation, this resource provides a valuable starting point for players and creators who are blind or visually impaired.
Join us in breaking down barriers and making gaming a more inclusive hobby for everyone!
We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions! Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Gaining Advantage 36: A Game-Changing Education Revolution
March 8, 2024
In this thought-provoking episode, Dale sits down with Dr. Dave Eng, an expert in using board games for educational purposes. Dr. Eng shares his groundbreaking insights on how tabletop games can revolutionize the learning experience. From cooperative classics like Pandemic to the innovative “Matrix Games” that leverage words over numbers, this episode dives into the benefits of interactive gameplay in classrooms. Discover how board games can foster critical thinking, teamwork, and experiential learning in ways traditional lectures cannot. Learn about Dr. Eng’s inspiring work and his mission to bring gaming literacy to educators worldwide.
Plus, Dale reveals Wyrmworks Publishing’s pioneering effort to introduce the first-ever braille ruleset for tabletop RPGs, making the hobby more accessible than ever before.
0:00 Introducing Braille to the TTRPG hobby
06:49 Interview: Dave Eng, EdD on gamifying education
Manually captioned. Transcript available at our website.
Please leave us a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice!
Braille 5.1 SRD Press Kit
March 8, 2024
Braille 5.1 SRD & Tutorials
We’re committed to creating a more inclusive gaming experience for everyone. We’re proud to announce the release of the first-ever braille conversion of the 5th Edition System Reference Document (SRD), making the rules of 5th edition accessible to a wider audience of players and creators.
Features:
Free and downloadable: Available in BRF and BBZ formats for various braille needs.
Comprehensive: Includes Player’s Guide, Game Master Guide, Monster Manual, and Spellcasting Guide content.
Open access: Released under a CC-BY license for anyone to freely use and adapt.
Tutorial included: Equips publishers and homebrew creators with the tools to convert their own content into braille using free software.
This initiative marks a significant step towards a more inclusive TTRPG space. We’re actively working on further accessibility resources and tools, including upcoming tutorials and future plans for truly inclusive core rulebooks.
Project Promotional ImageAssassin poison stat block in BrailleBlasterAssassin poison stat block in BrailleBlasterTutorial video thumbnail
Gaining Advantage 035: Minimal Minority Meeples: Researcher Reveals Lack of Diversity in Board Gaming
March 8, 2024
We speak with Dr. Tanya Pobuda, an expert on issues of representation and inclusion in tabletop gaming. She shares insights from her groundbreaking research on gender and racial representation in contemporary board gaming.
Throughout the conversation, Dr. Pobuda provides data-driven perspectives on the false narrative that “diversity doesn’t sell” and highlights positive shifts that are possible when inclusive practices are embraced.
0:00 Introduction: Braille in TTRPG 01:50 Interview: Dr. Tanya A. Pobuda 52:49 Patreon Showcase & closing
Manually captioned. Transcript available in the feed and at our website.
Throughout its entire history, what monster has wiped out more parties than any other, through every edition?
Nothing can TPK an adventuring party before it even sets out like the dreaded Schedule! (Mwah-hah-hah…yeah, I know. It’s so deadly, it’s not even funny.) Trying to coordinate 4–6 schedules and find a time that works for everyone consistently is a feat that few with outside responsibilities ever gain.
And even when you can set something up, what do you do when three players have to cancel at the last minute?
Imagine a magic item so powerful that it can give you advantage against such a powerful foe! Introducing…
This adventure has 1 charge. While carrying it, you can expend the charge as an action to start an adventure with the 1 or 2 players who could still make it. The adventure regains its charge every time you’re with a different player.
That’s right — a one-shot adventure for a DM and 1–2 players that’s designed to require no prep. You can carry it on your phone, as a pamphlet, or as a card deck in your pocket, ready to play for characters of level 1–4! The adventure includes quick reference tools to help the DM keep track of NPCs and other details. And you can get the whole adventure for only $1!
The First in a Series
The first Ready-to-Roll Adventure, Feyweather Friends, launches on Kickstarter this spring. Mix an invasion of new aberrant Far Realm nasties with fey creatures, and you’re sure to have a great time instead of calling it off and going home!
And of course, like all of our work, this adventure is designed for inclusivity.
At Wyrmworks Publishing, our mission is to help you make lives better through tabletop roleplaying games. That mission inherently depends on you — we can’t do this ourselves. We — our team, our patrons, and our subscribers — the Dragon’s Hoard — worked together as a party of thousands of heroes to make lives better last year.
Here’s what we did together in a year (in roughly chronological order):
We released Limitless Heroics – Including Characters with Disabilities, Mental Illness, and Neurodivergence in Fifth Edition, the most comprehensive disability compendium ever created for a tabletop roleplaying game. Thousands of gaming groups, including both home groups and professionals like therapists, schools, specialized education programs, support groups, and a children’s theater have added this and other Wyrmworks Publishing resources to their game spaces to make them more inclusive.
Multiple libraries and game cafes have made Limitless Heroics available thanks to purchasing it themselves or through your donations. I get frequent notes from those who have added it to their game space. We love hearing about the impact it’s having!
Changing the TTRPG Industry
We were the only public voicespeaking to the effect of the OGL debacle on accessibility (that I could find, and I looked). In the short time Hasbro posted its final OGL survey, that page got 27,000 visitors. I hope that some of the readers who subsequently filled out the survey form, including the hundreds who clicked through to the survey from that page, included those accessibility insights in their responses. And I hope that it in some small way added to the influence of so many others who fought for our community. More than that, I hope that it raised representation and accessibility awareness at Hasbro for future designs across their product lines. We’ll never know whether they heard us, but we’ll keep talking about it regardless.
Disability in the Afterlife In 1 Corinthians 15:42-49, Paul briefly ponders what bodies will look like when we awaken in the spiritual realm, saying “there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another.” Basically, no one knows what our bodies will look like in the world to come, but it is reasonable to assume they will be an “idealized version of ourselves,” whatever that means to the individual. For many people, this likely means an end to their physical and mental disabilities. However, our minds and bodies have a way of shaping our identity – our sense of who we are. For example, one person may feel that their reliance on a prosthetic is a hindrance, another person may feel that their prosthetic is an extension of their own body, and an integral part of their physical identity. As a result, the diversity of human bodies in the afterlife is likely to be diverse as it is in the Physical Realm, with some people choosing to be freed from aspects of their physical form that they did not like, and others choosing to embrace their disability as an eternal part of who they are. This is why some people (like Rodney or Rodriguez) may appear in this adventure with a disability, even though they have already entered the afterlife.
– Heroes of the Heavenly Host, p. 41
We crowdfunded Inclusive Artwork: Fantasy Stock Art with Disability Representation for TTRPGs, the first and largest collection of fantasy stock art ever produced. When TTRPG publishers want to include disability representation in their products, the lack of available stock art to accompany it makes that cost-prohibitive, since commissioning quality art is expensive if you’re going to pay the artists fairly.
We wanted to remove that obstacle while supporting disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill artists.
Limitless Champions: Making Disabled Fantasy Heroes a Physical Reality
We crowdfunded Limitless Champions. We created the largest, most diverse collection of disabled fantasy minis ever made. Like stock art, very few miniatures include disability representation, and those available are mostly limited to representation through wheelchairs and canes. We expanded that range significantly, including miniatures and printable STL files, cards, accessible condition markers, and more. If you missed the campaign, you can find the collection in our shop.
We also licensed Limitless Champions characters to Fiona Shade Stories’ Adventure College Student Handbook to help make zir products more inclusive. One of those characters was featured in a recent Actual Play. If you’re interested in using our characters or other content, check out our HAG License or contact us.
In 2024, we will crowdfund Limitless Champions Adventures, a collection of adventures featuring these NPCs. To supplement those adventures, we created Limitless Champions Adventures Bonus Encounters with STLs and animated maps. They were each available free for a week or more, and they’re currently available through our Patreon.
Interviews
I love meeting the amazing people using TTRPGs to make lives better on our Gaining Advantage show. (We posted 11 episodes last year.) I also had the honor of being interviewed last year (including here a few from late 2022):
We want to make our resources available to everyone, but poverty prevents a lot of people from accessing many TTRPG resources. So to allow us to both pay our team and make our content as available as possible, we include full previews of our content on the product pages in our store. But that preview isn’t accessible or convenient for many people, so we also partner with you to make Community Copies of some of our products available. Thanks to individual Community Copy purchases, crowdfunding add-ons, and Patreon rewards, you helped us make the following free copies available:
We launched the Dragon’s Lair, a modular database of all of our publications, maps, and lots of exclusive content. It is the most affordable, accessible way to use our content. As of this writing, it has 1,704 entries.
We also launched the Wyrm’s Workshop, an opportunity for you to get your ideas published in our books! This also gave us the opportunity to hire more disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill freelancers. And because it costs money to pay those freelancers fairly, we developed a credits system via our Patreon to enable those without the financial means to contribute their ideas to the Wyrm’s Workshop.
And we emailed 49 notes of encouragement to the Dragon’s Hoard. (A big thanks to those of you who expressed your appreciation for the encouragement. That becomes ammunition to fight my inner critic.)
I’ve also had conversations with other publishers and content creators almost every day about accessibility and representation in their products.
What’s coming in 2024?
Here’s a sampling of what we’re already working on
We have at least two, hopefully three Kickstarters coming in 2024. The first two are currently in the playtesting and editing stages:
Leave a comment below or on any of our products or posts.
Send us a note to share how our work has made a difference to you or people you care about.
Finally, a heartfelt thank-you. When we started this, we wondered whether anyone would agree with our intentions and resonate with our work. We wondered whether this ridiculous idea of changing the world by rolling dice and pretending together could change lives and make the world better. Hundreds of people told me it wouldn’t work, and that I should quit before I started.
And the truth is, it couldn’t. Not without you. But here you are. And here’s how far we’ve come. And we’re just getting started. And we’re not going to stop.
Gaining Advantage 034: Learn about Other Cultures through D&D with Rob Martin
March 8, 2024
Discover new worlds and perspectives through TTRPGs! In this episode, we explore how D&D and other TTRPGs can teach us about different cultures. Dale talks with Rob Martin of Secret Garden Games about his Filipino mythology-inspired Bukana setting and Kickstarter campaign.
00:00 Holiday bundles and gift ideas 04:13 Interview with Rob Martin of Secret Garden Games about his Bukana setting inspired by Filipino and Indonesian mythology 41:06 Patreon updates and appreciation
Please leave us a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice!
Manually captioned. Transcript available at our website.
DriveThruRPG CCP Partners Prohibit TTRPG Ableism
March 8, 2024
Here at Wyrmworks Publishing, we don’t want the corner on inclusion and accessibility. We want these concepts to become so ubiquitous in the TTRPG industry that our work becomes redundant, at which point, we’ll turn our focus to one of the other countless struggles in our society that keep people from knowing how loved and valued they are.
We have a long way to go, but we’re making steps in the right direction.
In May 2023, I emailed DriveThruRPG to add “ableism” to the nondiscrimination template for their Content Guidelines for Community Content Programs.
What are Community Content Programs?
A Community Content Program (CCP) allows third-party creators (like us) to create supplemental content for existing TTRPGs, like adventures, character expansions, and more, making more resources available for that game without breaking copyright and trademark laws. They often include artwork, style guides, and other resources to help creators make their publications capture the feel of the core game. DMs Guild, which allows the use of Dungeons & Dragons IP, is the most popular, but DriveThruRPG partners with about three dozen other companies to offer similar programs for other games.
So what’s up with the Content Guidelines?
When a publisher sets up a CCP with DriveThruRPG, they include Content Guidelines that tell creators what they can and can’t do with the game content. DriveThruRPG provides new CCP partners with a sample Content Guidelines template, which the partner can use as much or little as they want. Those guidelines usually include a nondiscrimination clause, and many use DriveThruRPG’s template for this as well:
Neither your products nor any promotional material, including blog/social media posts or press releases, may contain racist, homophobic, discriminatory, or other repugnant views; overt political agendas or views; depictions or descriptions of criminal violence against children; rape or other acts of criminal perversion; or other obscene material. We reserve the right to remove any materials that we determine do not conform to our guidelines for this program.
Nobody wants their game to be used to promote nazis. (OK, nobody that DriveThruRPG would be willing to partner with.)
In May 2023, I looked through the guidelines for all of the CCPs, and I noticed that only one company, Onyx Path Publishing, included a reference to specific ableism in their guidelines.
I contacted DriveThruRPG:
Given that the template words it, “racist, homophobic, discriminatory, or other repugnant views,” after checking every agreement, I found that only Onyx Path’s specifically mentions “ableist.” I note it especially since ableism is so widely accepted in our culture, unlike most other forms of discrimination, and while it’s certainly covered under, “discriminatory” and “repugnant” in my view, not everyone would agree, especially in the TTRPG space, but I’d like to suggest that you consider clarifying and adding “ableist” to that clause in the template for future CCPs and possibly suggest it for current ones.
A mere ninety minutes later, they replied to let me know that they were changing the template and contacting all CCP partners with the suggestion and would update any change requests immediately. (Again, each CCP decides on their own guidelines wording, so this change is 100% optional.) Considering that this is a change to legal documentation, these are weighty decisions, so I was astonished at the speed of the response!
So like Teos Abadía’s recent article about changes in D&D Beyond’s content, this is old news that you didn’t know about. I waited to write this to allow time for companies to make changes so we could celebrate as many as possible.
What changed?
As of this writing six months later, the following CCPs now specifically forbid ableist content (Remember that Onyx Path Publishing included it already):
I have every expectation that the rest consider their existing “other repugnant views” umbrella clause sufficient. If someone reported CCP content to them that discriminated against people based on ability, they would respond accordingly. Some CCP partners not listed here have personally assured me of this.
If you are a CCP owner and change your agreement, let me know, and I’ll be thrilled to add you to the list!
Why is this important?
While our culture has taken great strides to reduce discrimination against marginalized demographics over the past several decades, it’s a slow process. In every case, we still have a long way to go. However, ableism remains the most widely accepted form of discrimination.
To use a mainstream example, we recently watched the Peacock TV show, Baking It, and in the Season 1 Finale, the hosts, Andy Samberg and Maya Rudolph, did a bit called, “Nut Roast,” a parody of celebrity roasts. Here’s an excerpt:
Hey, look who it is, it’s walnut. Hey, walnut, you lumpy son of a nut, you’re the Elephant Man of the nuts. “I am not a good snack!”…
Uh-oh, it’s peanut…Look at him, he’s just sitting there. Somebody get him an epi-pen, I think he’s in shock!
In December 2021, they mocked people with facial differences and with life-threatening allergies in rapid succession. My family cringed, and I searched online for an apology by NBC or anyone from the cast or crew. Nothing. I searched for blog posts or news articles about the obvious ableist jokes. Nothing. Not even a Reddit post or tweet. In two years, nobody on earth with Internet access even noticed and cared enough to mention it until this post. And this is just one example.
We have a long way to go. We’re counting on the gaming community to roll initiative with us. And we deeply appreciate DriveThruRPG and the eight TTRPG producers who quietly but publicly entered this particular fray. They deserve recognition for leading the industry along with many others who have helped raise awareness through other efforts.
Has this changed the TTRPG industry?
Has this changed the content made available via these CCPs? I hope not. I hope that all of those who create CCP content already consciously avoided ableist content. I have friends who create CCP content, and I know that they don’t need a clause in a legal agreement to make sure their products are welcoming and inclusive to all people. I expect that those who changed their agreements did so because they already found ableism repugnant and would not want their brand associated with it.
But I also hope that the inclusion of one extra word causes everyone who sees it to experience a subtle influence. Maybe they subconsciously tweak the language in their projects to avoid microaggressions. Maybe they consider adding a disabled character and discussing it with someone whose lived experience is represented by that character. I regularly encounter compassionate people who don’t realize ableism exists. Sometimes simply learning the word makes them more sensitive to it when they encounter it.
Finally, thank you to our Patrons and everyone who supports our work and raises a sword with us or other TTRPG parties to welcome everyone to the table. Rule systems don’t make this hobby great — you do.
Gaining Advantage 033: Using TTRPGs for Healing, Community Building, and Mental Health Support
March 8, 2024
Join Dale as he interviews Jonathan Connor Self, a top-rated pro DM and founder of the D8 Summit, a charitable organization using TTRPGs for good. They discuss using games therapeutically, fostering community, and supporting mental health. Connor also discusses Koboa, an upcoming RPG based on South American mythology.
This episode covers using tabletop RPGs to heal trauma, build connections, and create positive spaces. It’s about leading with compassion at the gaming table and using the hobby to give back. From small local charities to suicide prevention, learn how you can make a difference through something you love. See how gaming can transform lives.
Ever wished you could bring your character to life in exciting new ways? Wyrmworks Publishing is unlocking new possibilities to make your tabletop RPG experience more immersive and inclusive than ever before.
