Just letting you all know I'm still alive - as is the project. I'm a bit busy, but expect August and September to most likely get multiple posts to make up for it. :)
When I started putting together Yet We Persist, I had a core concept in mind: Disabled characters at the forefront. Without apology, without compromise, without shrinking away - and without taking away the elements of power fantasy (in its varied forms) that make people so eager to play games like this.
So I made a decision.
Disability - much like in the real world - is not opt-out or opt-in. It's a matter of random chance. That's why I made the Traits deck. It's still an early prototype and I'm intending to consult D/deaf/Hard Of Hearing and Blind/Low Vision communities more about it, but it's a start.
(More under the cut.)
Traits are split into Detriments (with no mechanical benefit), Challenges (with a mechanical benefit and a mechanical drawback), and Boons (with no mechanical drawback). These were built with a balance of realism and idealised societal roles in mind.
When making a character, you are randomly assigned four Traits - and while you can veto two of them, you trade in starting skills and favour with the Keeper spirits in return.
The list of Traits is as follows:
Ambidextrous
Amputee
Apathy
Blind
Callous
Charming
Clear Memory
Cynical
Deaf
Far-Sighted
Fatigued
Fawning
Food Sensitive
Gambling Luck
Hyperfocus
Hyperlexic
Hypermobile
Intuitive
Iron Stomach
Level-Headed
Narcolepsy
Near-Sighted
Nocturnal
Overempathy
Overstimulated
Poor Recall
Precise
Quick Study
Silent
Stimmer
Tremors
Vigilant
Visionary
Vocal Tics
Weather Sensitive
Zealot
Now, obviously, with a list like this, there's going to be a risk of pulling a very difficult-to-play character. A Blind, Deaf, Silent and Amputee combination would make for a very awkward gameplay. But because Yet We Persist has its main focal points as the way different people contribute to a healthy, reciprocal society... you'd still have a character who was playable. Difficult, but not impossible: such is the life of many of us Disabled folks.
You see, Disabled people are the experts in the work-around. We're good at it. We've had practice. And one of the purposes of the game is to show us a world in which that practice pays off, but another is to show abled people how rigorously these things need to be considered. You've got a character who's a Quick Study but has Poor Recall? Welcome to ADHD. Narcolepsy and Nocturnal? Sleep pattern disruptions are often paired.
So.
In a game with such an emphasis on community, and so little of the typical violent or just large-scale power fantasies, the the new power fantasy in play becomes the power to make connections, find compromises, build community. The power here is the collective power of belonging and cooperation - again, the Disabled community is very, very good at this as a general rule, because we have to collaborate to move in an ableist world.
So, yes. For this game, your character will probably be Disabled. And you'll have to think about what that means, and how you move in the world, but the game still works, it still holds space, and it's still got plenty of allowances for meaningful, thorough impact on the shifting landscape of community.
When I started writing Yet We Persist, I had a nebulous, swirling sort of mentality surrounding it. Disability is either ignored or solved, the majority of the time, in the majority of media that isn't centred entirely around The Disability Itself.
What you get is 1: pity-porn; 2: inspiration-porn; or 3: 'floating wheelchair dilemma'. Let's look at the problems before we look at my approach to them. (This is a two-post issue, expect more soon.)
Buckle in, folks.
1: So you have the obvious, shameless Pity Porn angle. Obviously, I hate this. I hate when disability is some massive, miserable thing: when a person's entire life becomes a parade of self-pity. It's not that it's entirely unrealistic when you first acquire - or come to terms with - your life as Disabled. But then life goes on, you find things you can still do, and you immerse yourself. It doesn't make things perfectly the same, but it also doesn't occupy every waking moment. It becomes just part of the tapestry of experience.
2: On the opposite side, you have Inspiration Porn. That's the term for when you're overcoming the odds and living the most incredible, exceptional life in the world, against all odds, proving that Even A Cripple Can Do It. This isn't about people succeeding and living good lives, it's about making people who aren't disabled more comfortable, more content, more sure that the world doesn't have to change to accommodate different needs. It's about proving that we're still human enough to deserve rights.
3: And then there's the third, and the one I see most often these days. The Floating Wheelchair Dilemma. I'm giving this more space, as it's far more nuanced (in my opinion as a certified cripple).
This isn't quite deliberate, but it does have the effect of well-intentioned people considering it representation. So... when I talk about this, I'm talking about floating wheelchairs in fantasy or science fiction settings, but I'm also talking about prostheses that work identically to a natural limb; I'm talking about Daredevil's sonic 'vision' that allows him to navigate perfectly; I'm talking about (sorry, Star Trek fans) Geordie LaForge's visor in Next Gen. None of these things in a vacuum is bad, exactly, but they paint a false picture - one where disability isn't just catered to but is actively redundant... if you're wealthy or lucky enough.
But what happens to the Waterdeep resident with a spinal cord injury and no money? Does the government provide a mechanical spider wheelchair for them, to get over those cobbles? What happens when you have to visit the powerful wizard and he's up 300 steps in the top of a tower? What happens, mercy forbid, when you have to get food from the market by yourself?
The answer is simple: it doesn't matter because you're not a main character.
Some media addresses it in passing: all disabilities that require wheelchairs are curable (or possibly abort-able, though that's between the lines) in the Star Trek universe, but on a singular episode, they have to get the schematics for a specific person's specific wheelchair. Because the replicators don't have a schematic for this, and nobody is equipped to deal with it. Nobody knows how to take care of an ailing, aging, or Disabled body, because none of those issues are relevant to any characters in this story.
In these stories, we've grown past Disability. It's not that it's not disabling, it's not that it's catered to, it just... doesn't exist, except on the very, VERY rare margins, and that's where the 'magic' happens, the sudden leaps in necessity that find a way to look past the real world and imagine a world where nobody is truly disabled by their accessibility needs, even though we have elderly and ailing characters. Even when medicine is admitted to be flawed, no illness ever leaves its mark, except cosmetically.
There are examples, though, of it done with more thought, more care. Coyote & Crow, the Indigipunk setting by Kenna Alexander, explicitly talks about concepts of disability - not in huge detail, but it does mention that governments fund prostheses, magnetic-risen mobility aids. It does explicitly mention that within this culture, people do not hide their disabilities. It explicitly mentions cultural biases, e.g. the idea that hiding a prosthesis to look more 'realistic' is seen as distasteful and somewhat disrespectful. I don't consider Coyote & Crow to be a perfect example of disability representation by any means, but it tries to be earnestly open to the discussion, and it tries to express that attitudes towards disability aren't about curing, or hiding, or inspiration porn, or pity porn - they're accommodated. And it fits within the communal care of Coyote & Crow's setting: people's basic needs are met, wherever there is enough to meet them; money is a mechanic but not for food or shelter, nor for prostheses and mobility aids and medicine.
Yet We Persist is different again.
Disability, and its existence in so many people, is central to this game - baked into the character creation engine; baked into the society; baked into a living, breathing world. It is not only accommodated, it is accepted, worked within.
You don't have to be exceptional, or pitied, or just-as-abled-with-your-aids, as the people around you. You just have to be part of community, and you will be cared for, and you will contribute, and you have the same inherent worth as all other people.
In Yet We Persist, the likelihood is that you will have some form of disability, detriment, or challenge.
Because, for all we deny it, disability is the most common state of human people. Not always major, not always visible, but... almost always there. Maybe from birth, or from injury, or from age, it is there.
More on Yet We Persist's approach in part 2.
Good luck, and may you be welcome where you tread.
Hey lovely folks, I'm bringing a snippet of Yet We Persist to the Australian Roleplay Community's TTRPG festival, PortPlay!
This is a festival for local tabletop gaming, with creativity and community at its forefront: the perfect place for Yet We Persist.
Come see the local games, the market, and maybe play a game or two yourself!
Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th of April, 10.30am-5pm at St Kilda Town Hall and St Kilda Library (and, if you're so inclined, there's a D&D Epic on the Saturday night 😃 )
Website with tickets and further info: over here at https://portplay.org
We'd absolutely love to see you there! 💗
Welcome to the first clumsy little post on what is bound to be a clumsy little developer's log. Glad to have you here.
So I'm AdderTwist, and I've been developing the first parts of Yet We Persist for a year: refining ideas, building mechanics, playtesting the skeleton of it.
It's time to start chatting about it!
I first pitched the idea March 2025, and was given a mentorship through the Australian Roleplay Community. That gave me 6 months to work on getting the scaffolding up before PAX Australia. (I got married in the middle and lost about a month to that, whoops.)
Once PAX Australia rolled around, I rolled out a very barebones version of the prologue, and it was received with a lot of enthusiasm from the people who tried it out. Bolstered by the warm reception, I've been plugging away at refinements and fleshing things out.
As I work on this game more, I've realised that I need to record my thoughts - what is and isn't working, the things people might be interested in... so here's a little pitch:
Yet We Persist is a pen and paper RPG, set in a nebulous, uncertain future, where strange weather patterns and inexplicable powers change the way people interact with the outside world. Characters start in communities reliant on their neighbouring areas and people for resource trade, and survival is dictated by fair barter, trade, goodwill and favours rather than by material or capital means.
Your job is to solve problems and conflicts. There's a heavy emphasis on decisions, compromises, puzzles and harm mitigation.
The world is much changed, but people are still people.
May your path be easy, and may you be welcome where you tread.
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