Hello, community!

I am an able-bodied and privileged person. I am disabled by mental illness which holds me back from most employment, but due to a loving entrepreneurial partner I am able to make a modest living in creative freelancing; my experience is moreover only my own, and experiencing one form of disability does not unlock understanding of every other disabled experience out there! There is no weekly conference call between the global disabled community wherein we all incorporate some universal understanding (sorry to steal your satire, thebootydiaries!). Because I am able-bodied, I need to be constantly unlearning old assumptions and unconscious biases even as I learn of new experiences, ways of understanding, complications, and complexities. 

It is not the job of the disabled community to tackle my shortcomings, or to make sure that I deliver a game that represents them; I am actively researching and informing myself, and am already developing ideas to bring better disabled inclusivity to Traverse. That said, I do want to hear from the community! If you have the spoons to comment or weigh in below, I would value your contributions immensely.

I have formed some of the ideas I'd like to implement around the format of this great article by Shelly Jones. She writes that tabletop roleplaying games (Dungeons & Dragons in particular) have failed in the following ways: "conditions" tables conflate disabilities like blindness with magical states of impairment and poison effects, for example, all of which are viewed as temporary punishments; the "madness" table or similar lasting effects tables conflate mental illness or other disabilities with magical punishments that can be inflicted on characters at the whim of the game master; disabled NPC representation (and lack thereof), which almost always falls, when it actually exists, into potentially harmful stereotypes; and visual representations, which often show disabilities as something to be cured.

These headers follow with their current manifestations in the Traverse handbook.

CONDITIONS
Traverse includes these physical impairments in its conditions table: blinded, exhausted, prone, and slowed. I have even mentioned that a character that is sitting down is prone, explicitly saying that they are consequently not in a prepared position: this is clearly ableist against wheelchair users. As represented by the table and its context, these can be assigned to a character by a game leader, most often temporarily. The conditions table also includes dumbfounded, which is a state of confusion or intellectual unpreparedness.
When these states are imposed upon a character, they can certainly cause the difficulties the conditions table applies to them! But presented in their current context, they are nothing more than negative effects to be doled out by the game leader. I want to include a chapter in the next edition about playing with a permanent disability, to show that these are living experiences, not just temporary harms; ones that can enrich a character's story even as or if they negatively impact some aspects of their in-game life. I must be careful in this chapter not to rely on "supercrip" examples: many blind people do not have superpowered hearing, most amputees do not get outfitted with rocketpowered limbs, but blind people will not be deceived by visual illusions and a snake's venom will not enter the wood-or-metal leg of the amputee.
I want to actively encourage players to explore disabled characters by including more examples in the handbook. I am proud of those that are already included but know that there are not enough, and that those that are included are not perfect (Manu Dei is blind but has magic vision, for example, which is not wrong but shouldn't be the only instance of blindness provided).

MADNESS
There is no "madness" table in Traverse, but I do include various natural impairments in my "failure effects" table for reference during the crafting of magical items. This table includes blindness, forgetfulness, vocal impairment, and hearing voices. As above, these can be temporary effects of even mundane experiences (a flash of bright light, a poor sleep or tiredness, particularly spicy or cold food, being alone in a dark basement), but these instances in the table should not be the only representation of these experiences in the handbook.

NPC REPRESENTATION
This has been touched upon under the conditions header, where I digressed. I want a handbook with multiple references, explicit and between the lines, of disabled folk being part of the world of Traverse so that game leaders and players will be joining a world in which disabled people already exist in multiple capacities. Absolutely none of dozens of innkeepers in the games I have run or played have been wheelchair users. In the games I've run this is very much my own fault, but it is also the fault of media for a lack of representation. We've all made a character based on an awesome illustration on pinterest, we've all read a reddit thread that inspired a certain character build; I want to represent disabled people in the text so that a game leader will casually think of having a troubadour delivering a monologue with sign language accompaniment at the next market square, so that a player might be pumped about making a character with fantasy-bladed mobility aids.

VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS
I have illustrated the manual myself and do not consider myself a prolific or prodigious artist, but if ever I add more illustrations or achieve popularity and financial stability enough to warrant commissioned artwork, this will be a priority! Currently I am very proud to include the representation I do in the few illustrations I've made, but recognize that there is always more that can be done.

Thanks so much for reading this! Even if you have never played or never intend to play Traverse, I would be interested and grateful to hear your opinions on these complex subjects. I am learning; if you have the spoons to be kind, please try to be so, but call me out and critique me and my game if you think it is worth it. I have called Traverse an accessible game in every sense of the word and I want to live up to that, and I cannot achieve that without the community. So thank you. I look forward to engaging with your thoughts.

-Adriel