Wizards of the Coast revealing their first canonically autistic character for D&D (Asteria) has got me thinking about which of my past D&D characters are Autistic. And I think my conclusion is... All of them. Because I don't really know how to play them any other way.
I was only diagnosed last year. So have only made and played one character since then -Evelyn, who I have some art of on my page if you want to look (check the tags below). I only got to play her in a handful of sessions before that campaign and group came to an abrupt end (and I'm not ready to talk about that yet) but when I created Evelyn she was consciously and explicitly Autistic coded.
She was an investigator with a strong eye for detail, high perception and insight, worked best alone, an insomniac, bad habits and coping mechanisms... Lots of classic noir detective traits, but which were conscious reflections of personal traits of mine. And there's a long history of autisic and autistic coded detectives and sleuths in popular culture. I didn't play her long enough to flesh her out, but I was leaning into those tropes.
But even going back to my first character that I played years ago, Pruella (Proo) my fighter, there were definitely choices about the way I played her which were kind of autistic.
She was my first character, in my first D&D group, and I was very nervous about playing with new people, and role playing was something I was new to. So I played a socially awkward character. Over time I got more comfortable, so played her social awkwardness differently, but the characteristics fit
Proo was slow to pick up on social cues and expectations. She didn't recognise compliments that were given to her, or pick up on when she was flirted with. Once we were payed a reward by a prince, and I asked the DM how much I was given, and he asked me "are you going to stand and count it in front of the prince?" And yeah, of course I was! That's the most gold she'd held in her life, she wanted to know how much it was! Sometimes she may have come across as rude. I rationalised these things as being due to her living on the streets or under a bridge for half her life, and so not necessarily understanding social conventions, but I recognise those are also traits I chose because they are part of who I am. I feel out of place most places I go. I feel like a bit of a goblin trying to pass myself off as human (Proo is a half elf, but lived with 2 goblins, who were also social outcasts, under a bridge for a while)
Eleanor, my wizard, was definitely autistic, even if I didn't create her with that intention. Socially awkward, difficulty with crowds, special interests... From the start I described her as a dragon girl - the type of girl who would draw dragons in her note books, who might have had dragons on the front of her lunch box and her t-shirts at school, who loved any stories about dragons... I mean her best friend was a Kobold. Obsessed with dragons. Half way through the campaign I took the telepathic feat, and I rationalised that by saying she'd been able to read thoughts and talk to people with her mind the entire time, but didn't like doing it very often because it was too intimate and uncomfortable, a bit like prolonged eye contact. She also had the prodigy feat from the start, so had an extremely high arcana skill, and proficiency with alchemy. She dropped out of the Neverwinter Academy because she was bored and not allowed to study what interested her (and because fuck your wizard school). She was a nerd, as wizards tend to be, but in a very specific shambolic, clumsy, girl failure, disaster gay way.
Vanta is possibly my least Autistic coded character, because I tried to play her with a personality type different to mine. She's a sorcerer, so a high charisma character, and I am not a high charisma person. In practice this meant that I played her as quite aloof a lot of the time, and who spoke in quite a deadpan Aubrey Plaza-esque way, but could turn the charisma up if required. Vanta was a very focused character. She knew what she wanted, and had little interest in things that didn't further her goals. I think she was probably outwardly seen as un-empathetic, but she wasn't really, she just expressed it differently than most.
There was a time we were on a ship, and to protect ourselves during a storm we decided to tie ourselves to the ship so we weren't thrown overboard. Everyone got out their hempen rope and then I took out my silk rope - cue jokes about me being fancy. I said hemp rope was too rough on the skin. Cue some more jokes about it being a kink thing, etc... but you know, sensory issues, they're a thing! Vanta wore silk for the same reason!
Even when trying to play someone different to myself, the autistic traits are unavoidable, because it's all still coming from me. Obviously I'm using pretty broad strokes here, and limiting myself with the examples so as not to go on and on. But my conclusion is that it might not be possible for me to play characters who aren't at least a bit autistic. Also, getting diagnosed has allowed me to look back at these people I've created and still spend a lot of time thinking about, and notice new things about them. And I think that's pretty cool.
(This post has been sat in my drafts for a while now and I forgot about it, so I'm just going to post it)
