Wyrmworks Publishing Do you want to play a blind character in D&D with respect and authenticity? Welcome to Gaining Advantage. Wyrmworks Publishing Welcome to Gaining Advantage. We are using tabletop role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons to help you make lives better. Now imagine your D&D idea being canon in a published campaign setting. Wouldn't that be cool? Alright, we've had lots of people that have contributed in different ways to our products before, and it's always just such a fun experience for them and for us, and so we want to open that up and expand it and really make your ideas, your lived experiences, all of that, really the core of the content that we are creating, alright, and so we've developed a new program called the Wyrm's Workshop. Alright, and with this program, you get to work with our team, with our professional game designers and artists. And you can develop, depending on your your budget and and your interests, a new spell, magic item, service animal, a new monster, a subclass, an NPC, an ancestry (what used to be called races, but we're calling them ancestries, because we think that term is just more helpful), a new vehicle using the the unique aspects of our campaign world, a faction in part of that world, a location which could be a city location, like a shop, or it could be, you know, a grove, enchanted grove in a forest or whatever, or an entire city, and we have all kinds of different options. It includes not only working with our designers to to develop that so that it's ready for people to use in their games all over the world. And, but also, you have an illustration to go with it. There's an option if you'd like to include a miniature and have that designed too. And all of that will become part of the core of what we have to present, they will be included in the Dragon's Lair, our online compendium will be canon in the new world that we are creating. That's the accesspunk world of Andovir, and it will be included in a future one or more future Wyrmworks Publishing books or and, and other products. And so this is a way to get your ideas out there in ways that will make people's lives better all over the world. And see by doing this, this also helps to support the work that we're doing. So that not only do we get your ideas and all your creativity coming from all over the place, but it also helps to support to give us the funding that we need to to develop more products to be able to pay our writers and editors and and illustrators better and with just, you know, with, with all the AI stuff out there, it's getting harder and harder for for people that are are doing the real creative work. And so we want to make sure to support them. And we prioritize hiring disabled and neurodiverse and, and mentally & chronically ill creators. And and so we want to support that; we're giving you the opportunity to do that. And and then this also helps you to share your ideas with the world. And so we can have it ready for people. We can have it we have people looking at it before it gets in the book, so it gets playedtested and you can get feedback from from the people that are using it and and just all of that excitement—people just love the stuff that is being produced and so for you to be a part of that, we want to offer you that opportunity in a way that is going to be feasible for us, but also possible for you to get involved in, so we hope you'll take advantage of that. There's a link to Wyrm's Workshop in the show notes. Wyrmworks Publishing Also, the Limitless Champions campaign, we have late pledges available. You can just go to our website, link in the show notes. We have STLs if you have a 3D printer, if you don't you want to buy pre-printed miniatures, you can get those. We have cards and all kinds of stuff. And the miniatures, the STLs and the pre-printed ones are at a heavily discounted price through the month of August, and so I encourage you to go get them now. Now here's a tip if you want to save some money before you purchase anything: if you don't have a 3D printer, check with your local library, because a lot of libraries have 3D printers available for public use for free or for a very reduced cost or else you may also have a company in your town or nearby that offers 3D printing services for that's probably going to be cheaper than having to ship something, especially since our printing is being done in the UK, and if you are in the United States or anywhere else, shipping is going to be higher and so especially our fans in Australia, this is your opportunity—check around and see what you have by you. That way, you just download the STL files, take them wherever someone has a 3D printer, and you save a lot of money on shipping. But whatever works best for you. We have them available for you either way. Wyrmworks Publishing And so speaking of those miniatures, we actually have a great interview for you this week as someone who actually took advantage of a similar to the Wyrm's Workshop, last year we made the the option available to anyone that wanted to create a character to be included in the Limitless Champions campaign. We put that out there, one of the people that took advantage of that is George McDermith, who created this guy right here. This is Orrelius. And so we're gonna hear more about him, the blind paladin, and and so let's get to that interview right now. Wyrmworks Publishing Today we have George McDermith, a talented gamer and the creative mind behind the character, Orrelius, from our recent Limitless Champions campaign. George's perspective as a blind gamer offers us valuable insights into inclusive gaming and the role of blank characters in Dungeons and Dragons. I'm thrilled to have him here to share his experiences and knowledge with us. So let's dive right in. Wyrmworks Publishing So George, first of all, welcome. And can you tell us a bit about yourself and your experience with tabletop role? Playing games? How'd you get started with D&D? And what's been your experience? George McDermith Yeah, thank you very much for having me on the show. It's a delight to be here. I currently am training to be an orientation and mobility instructor, so teaching blind people to travel with a cane and a guide dog, that sort of thing. That training is coming to an end here shortly and going to be entering into a full time career. Prior to that, I used to work for the IRS as a collections representative which was good work, but not very good for the soul. And then I've also done inspection and adaptive technology as well. I got connected with Dungeons & Dragons at an early age at around eight or nine. My dad was an early adopter of D&D and played with myself and my siblings. And that got me hooked. At the time, I had some residual vision where I could read with these large eyeglasses, and I would spend a lot of time and they used to have the old pewter figurines and stuff. And so I would read through my dad's three ring binder, D&D stuff for Advanced D&D. I'm going back in the day for sure. And then play with those lead figurines er pewter figurines. And it was just something that brought me a lot of delight. I love getting to use my imagination. And I just filled my world with a lot of interesting things I really enjoyed. And then I kind of had that drop off a bit as I went through middle school and high school. And then during my days at university, I got connected with a group of folks I used to be involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA. And I found in that group, a subset that played D&D and invited to join the group, and so I played with them for a couple of years. We did 3e and 3.53 for D&D, and it was just a ton of fun. I really enjoyed it a lot. Um, at that point, I had lost my remaining vision. And so I ended up having to rely on my fellow players to read the dice results, that sort of thing. But aside from—and update my character sheet—but aside from that, it was pretty easy to play. I tend to be a little bit of a munchkin every now and again. And so people pretty much knew that if I was a wizard, I'd be in an evoker and casting fireball; if I was a fighter, I'd be the one with the great axe or the great sword, you know, that's just the way I was. So and then, after my university days again, there was a bit of a drop off and I just didn't have any good groups to play with. And then about a couple years ago, I got connected with a group in church. And we've been playing for the last couple of years, and it's been an absolute delight. I've been very grateful with how tabletop role playing games have provided me with a method of creative expression that I think otherwise would not have been available to me. Wyrmworks Publishing So you, you mentioned this a little bit, but as a blind gamer, what aspects of playing D&D, do you find particularly both enjoyable and challenging? And how have you overcome obstacles that can arise during gameplay? George McDermith Yeah, so one of the things that I found really helpful are braille dice. They have ways of making braille dice. You can either have them 3D printed or there's a company called 64 Ounce Games that produces for you—they're not inexpensive, unfortunately, but they are just a real…there's something cathartic empowering about being able to roll the dice and read it and you see that 20 under your fingertip and you're like, "Yeah, buddy double damage, you bet your boots!" It's just really exciting to see. So I found that braille dice are useful. I have started running my character sheet through a braille display with a built-in notetaker. And so I'll just write up the character sheet through those means and occasionally run it by the DM to make sure that we're both on the same page. So those are good workarounds that were not available to me at an earlier age due to technology limitations. And I really enjoy the camaraderie around the table. It's always good to get to interact with people and see how one handles different situations. And then also I just enjoy getting to contribute to the to the story. Most challenging, I would say things like Roll20.com, various PDFs would not be accessible on occasion. And so those can be really frustrating, because I think particularly with the PDFs is one where to take the time to make sure that they're accessible, they're just an absolute godsend. And so I've had access to so many more gaming materials, both through Wyrmworks as well as other companies. That just would not have been available to me years ago. And so when I do come across PDFs that aren't accessible or websites that aren't accessible, it's perhaps even more frustrating than it would be otherwise. Because it doesn't have to be that way, in my opinion. So for example, gaming online, I'd love to join up with an online D&D group, but finding an accessible website is the trick. So I'd say that's probably the most challenging element as a blind user Speaking for myself, personally, finding those accessible website, accessible materials that you can subsequently use in game planning. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, and that's so important. It's something that that people don't realize. It's something that really hit me back in January with the whole OGL fiasco, where Wizards of the Coast was saying, "Oh, well, you know, just PDF. PDF and no other formats and stuff." And I said, "Hold on a minute here. PDFs have just, they're terribly inaccessible and and especially this, for any creators out there that are following this, if you use watermarking in your PDFs, that makes them extremely difficult to for screen readers to do anything with them. And and so and it doesn't really help with piracy anyway, if that's the main concern, so pirates know how to get around that stuff. So that's really, just I can't, I'm constantly emphasizing that to to publishers and creators and stuff to just keep that in mind. As far as formats to make them more accessible. George McDermith I really appreciate your advocacy on behalf of blind and visually impaired gamers, because it's so important. One thing I really appreciated with Wyrmworks in particular, is your focus on accessibility. You know, when the Limitless Champions came out and chests, the chest was published on your site, and there wasn't a description for the various backgrounds. I mentioned it to you in passing and like boom, three days later, there's a great audio description for all the backgrounds. And it's unfortunate that we don't see that in more of the mainstream companies, particularly with Wizards of the Coast, because they seem at least hypothetically, to be so keen on equality and representation in their games. And yet, there's this huge gap and seemingly a lack of care for accessibility, at least from my experience with finding visually impaired gamers. So it's both very refreshing to have a company like Wyrmworks where you can really expect that accessibility right off the bat and even if it's not there, it'll be there shortly. And one wishes that would bubble up to Wizards of the Coast and others as well. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah. And, I mean, there's stuff that I know we don't have down perfectly either that we're still working on, but we're hoping to lead by example. So and I've said that if you know, it seems like so much of the stuff that we do is you know, it's the first, it's the biggest it's you know, whatever and the bar is so low for most of that stuff that it's, if you look at it, it's it's not that impressive. It's just sort of, "Okay, nobody else is doing it." But yeah, I've said repeatedly that my dream is that we'd be forced out of business, because what we're doing just becomes mainstream. George McDermith Yes, yes. From your lips to the ears of the gods, I'm with you there Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, so let's talk about Orrelius, the character that you created for Limitless Champions, the the blind paladin, and tell us about the thoughts that went into his design. George McDermith Yeah, so one of the things that I really appreciate about roleplaying games in general and D&D in particular, is the ability to work through real-life things in a safe space with fantasy gaming, that roleplaying tabletop games provide. And so one thing that I like is running blind characters, because I feel like it gives me the opportunity to show blindness in a positive light. Like, historically speaking, blind characters are representative as you know, sidekicks of the protagonist or villains or objects of pity, but rarely in fiction do you find blind characters being the protagonist and being competent and being representative as someone who legitimately adds to what's being done, that the quest, if you will, or the goal. And so I view D&D as an opportunity to run characters that do portray blind individuals in a positive light. And so in college, I ran a blind wizard and that worked out okay. And I was subsequently when I started with this group from church sitting there going "Well, what would you like to run?" Well, I always enjoy a Paladin, you know, they kind of can squash the bad guys, then they got a little bit of healing, and they can tank. So I was like, well, let's do a Paladin and then let's make him blind as a representation of the positive representation of blind character. And so I had a discussion with my Dungeon Master about how to run the character. And he was in agreement with me, and so I've been running him now for a couple of years. And it's worked out very well. I feel like I'm able to make that representation clear to those whom I game with, and one doesn't have to suspend disbelief so much to make it believable. So that's that's always helpful. I find that when workarounds are just so incongruous, you're sitting there going, "Oh, there's just no way that's going to go to work for me." So and then this case, it's not not the case. So it's good. Wyrmworks Publishing Cool. All right. So really, this is not just a character but a representation of a diverse community. So how do you think that players and Dungeon Masters can best approach running and portraying blind characters in their games with respect and authenticity? You have experience, you know, personal experience, but just to see more of their representation from people that for whom that is not their experience, what would you tell them? George McDermith Yeah, so I think in particular, you want to make sure that you're avoiding stereotypes, because so often people are like, "Oh, you're blind, therefore you're hearing's spectacular," or, "Oh, you're blind. Therefore you do X, Y, and Z." And I think that in order to run a character authentically, you absolutely even for a blind or visually impaired player, you'd want to consult them about what they think is reasonable. But then also, you want to avoid tropes. You know, for example, the seeing eye animal. You know, don't get me wrong, but seeing eye Dragon is great. Love it. It does wonderful stuff in battle, but it's it's just it seems to be the go to when I ran that blind wizard back in college. The workaround was I had familiar, that was basically my eyes. And you know, that's what the person wants to do. That's great. But I think that avoiding stereotypes and allowing the character to be developed in the way that the player wants, is going to be far more helpful. For me. braille is such an important part of literacy that it was very important for me that with Orrelius, he has a braille devotional. You know, when I ran the wizard back in the day, he had a braille spellbook. And such things are just just so important to be included because I think otherwise it's just like, "Oh, he can, you know, read the spells off the page with ears." It a makes it very difficult to suspend disbelief and be…it's not authentic to what a blind person can really do. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, yeah, and I want to add something. I was just listening to a podcast yesterday. It was a TED Talk and the name of the speaker escapes me at the moment but you mentioned before about gradually losing your sight and, and this talk mentioned that blindness is a spectrum like most disabilities, and it really got me thinking about how you're totally blind, but not all blind people are. And so that's something to keep in mind when you're thinking about blindness, that there's, it comes in all different forms. And, and in fact, that got me thinking about just the fact that most disabilities are a spectrum. Like we have the character in Limitless Champions, Donna Nason, who is based on a real person named Donna Nason who, who helped us design the character and, and is a quadriplegic, but is still able, has some movement. And and so I got a lot of just really hostile reactions from people when we introduced that character. And they said, "No, this is this doesn't make any sense. How can you…?" And it's, "Okay, but paralysis is also a spectrum." And, and so just as people think about that, it's not always a condition it is not always total. And so it's just something for, for people to keep in mind when I think about representation. George McDermith Absolutely. I think that's a very valid point. And so, in fact, the vast majority of blind people are visually impaired. They have some vision, like be that light perception; the visual impairment might be caused by loss of your visual field, but then within that field, you have you know, 20/40 or 20/20, or whatever. And so I think just being tying back to being mindful of what the character wants to run. I have a friend who is not blind, but during the day, she can look around no problem at all. And so maybe, if she were to play she'd want to have that represented in some way. And so just being mindful and conscious of the fact that there is a spectrum for all disabilities, and approaching that with sensitivity, as opposed to, "Oh, well, this doesn't fit into my mold of what I think this disability should look like. So, you know, therefore we're going to not be supportive. of it," and I just don't think that's the way to be. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, so you just rescued to djinni from the hands of an efreeti, and it offers you three wishes to make the world better. What do you wish for? George McDermith Oh, this is the question I've been trying to prepare for because I always look forward to the answers from your guests. And I guess, you know, Wish 1 would would have to be for, you know, a greatsword +5 obviously. Wyrmworks Publishing Of course! George McDermith Because why not? George McDermith For wish 2, if I could, I would take knowledge of disabilities from my head and put it in the public's brain in general and D&D gamers in particular. Because I think there's just a lack of education out there about disabilities in general, blindness in particular, that can be overcome if you just inform enough people, and it is very difficult I think. I know for myself as a blind person, I'm sure for others with disabilities, to educate the public. And so a great wish, I think, would be to have that knowledge broadly available, both within the general public as well as the D&D community, because I think it would solve so many issues and cut through so many barriers that there are to deal with, whether you're just out in public or whether you're playing a game of D&D, and then for my third wish, I would happily be transported to Maui, and live on two beachfront property. I could do with a cup of coffee every morning, a few apples, bananas, and a good run on the beach. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, that's, I think that's how my wife would answer that one. And I wouldn't mind joining you there. George McDermith No doubt. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright. So what one message would you like to give disabled creators and players who want to introduce disabled characters in their campaigns? George McDermith Don't be afraid to drag down the party with disability. I really think that it adds flavor to the campaign and also gives you the opportunity to work through some of the things that you might not be comfortable doing outside of the game. And so I would just really think about yourself as an individual and how you add to your community and to life in general by being who you are. And part of that is your disability. And then thinking about, "How can I then bring that to the game and to the party?" I think so often, folks with disabilities are feeling like they are less, and we're not. I think we add to our communities in a good way, and that what we do is important, and I think the same can be true in Dungeons & Dragons and other role playing games as well. So don't be afraid to add to the party, add to the flavor by working in the disability. And you know, don't be…don't short sell yourself. Wyrmworks Publishing Awesome. Yeah. All right. And what what message would you like to give non-disabled creators and players who want to introduce disabled characters in their campaigns? George McDermith I would encourage anyone to play a disabled character. Again, avoiding stereotypes is so important because otherwise you're not going to be getting a true sense of what it's like to work with a given disability. What you're going to be doing is simply playing into your stereotypes of what that disability is, and so, absolutely introduce those characters. But make sure you do your homework first in order to make sure that you're getting an authentic representation, as opposed to what you think a given disability would be. I think of, you know, Daredevil, okay, cool, great. But if that's your only idea of a blind hero, then it's going to hamper your ability to experience someone whose main way of dealing with disability or blindness is not hearing, but maybe they're a really good cane user, or they use braille really effectively, and suddenly they can cast spells faster, that sort of thing. And so you just want to be cognizant of avoiding stereotypes in order to make sure that you're really getting that feel for that disabled character. And the more the merrier. Make sure they are able to really contribute to the party if possible, as opposed to simply being a sidekick. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, so do you have any projects that you're working on right now you can talk about? George McDermith Well, aside from trying to get other blind and visually impaired people out and traveling via my orientation and mobility work. I am not working on anything else in particular at the moment. I'm doing a little bit of short story writing with some disabled individuals. And of course, I'm continuing to work with my local Dungeons & Dragons group, and hopefully I'll be able to affect change in my local community through those needs. Wyrmworks Publishing Cool. Alright, so we'll have all your contact information in our show notes, but where's the one best place you'd like people to start to learn more about you or to contact you? George McDermith A best place is probably going to be on Facebook. If you go to triple w.facebook.com/BlindPaladin, that'll get you to my personal page and just shoot me a friend request. I'd be happy to add you and be happy to have additional conversations about this topic or others. Wyrmworks Publishing Awesome. Well, George, thanks so much for coming on the show everyone, check out those links in the show notes. George McDermith Thank you again for having me and thank you for the great work you do with Wyrmworks. Really appreciate it. Wyrmworks Publishing That was great. George, I just want to thank you again for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed getting the chance to meet you and and have the chance to talk to you and hear more of your insights, and I just I really appreciate the support that you have been giving to us. And so also speaking of support that we've been receiving, I've got a shout out to all of our patrons. We have new patrons this month and so I appreciate you so much big thanks to Jared Eaton and Dax Quinn. Thank you for dreaming with us. And to all of our patrons, I am just so appreciative of your support. It's not just the financial support. It's that encouragement when when I find myself going, what am I doing? This is This is just This is weird. This is not the way you do a game company. We're just doing things so differently than most people. And your support says, "Yeah, keep going. Let's keep doing this." And so that really means a lot to me and to our whole team, really. And so, just a huge thanks to our patrons and our Kickstarter backers. Because of you, every month, we get to add Community Copies to our store for those who can't afford our projects. And so if that's you, you can sign up for our weekly emails to get notified when they come available. This month, thanks to our patrons, we added 38 copies of the Limitless Heroics Coloring Book, and 11 copies of Limitless Heroics. Alright, that's, this month alone, $630 worth of products that you made possible, alright, and that's awesome. So like you that stuff right now, as I'm recording this, we have copies available at our store, if you can't afford our products, you can go, and you can get those. They're there and and we want you to take advantage of that and and be able to use them enjoy them. Use them to make your tabletop group more inclusive and, and also just want to point out that the coloring book, teachers, therapists, anyone who's working in institutional settings or if you are a PCA or something like that the coloring book includes a license so that you can make copies for students or clients or, you know, for other people that you're working for or working with so that they can take advantage of that so you can use that in those settings without having to buy multiple copies. And so, you know, if you're working in one of those settings, we appreciate you so much. Go grab a copy of that coloring book. Wyrmworks Publishing And patrons get access to all of our content in this modular format that I mentioned at the beginning of the show, called the Dragon's Lair, plus there's exclusive extras. And it's only $3 a month. At higher tiers, we have all kinds of added benefits. And so I encourage you to check out the link in our show notes to get more details. Wyrmworks Publishing Now do you see the show being helpful? If you do, if you're watching this on YouTube, hit that like button. If you'd like to see more however you're consuming this please subscribe. If you know people that need to hear this, please pass it on to them. And if you, like me, think everyone needs to hear this—this is just such great stuff—please pass it on to your social media friends. And don't forget those podcast ratings. They're really important to to work those algorithms so that more people can stumble across our work. So thank you so much for joining us to make lives better with tabletop role playing games. Wyrmworks Publishing And we want to hear from you. What character have you wanted to include in your game that you haven't…yet?