AlataOrange

Context: I was diagnosed as autistic as a child and feel that's important to mention.

For a number of years I and a friend have been working on a fantasy tabletop role playing system on and off in our free time. Think Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Shadow of the Demon Lord, etc ... In the past couple months we have made a very large amount of headway and are getting into the actual play testing stages. We are currently at the point of adding a lot of meaningful content to play test including Player Ancestries (humans elves dwarves goblins etc...). The way ancestries currently work is each ancestry has three things that it gives your character and one thing you can choose to take from a list of ancestry specific abilities.

Now we arrive at the gnome in the room. I don't particularly like gnomes. I don't dislike them either, I just have never really cared about them. The only gnomes in fiction I think are remotely interesting are Paizo's where the entire race is cursed to stay motivated and happy or they become crippling depressed, ostracized by society for risk of getting infected with sad, and die. However, I don't want to rip off someone else's universe so I want to find my own way to take these guys. To that end I'm wondering if using them as an allegory for autism may make them more interesting and also be drawing from something that I can write from experience.

My worry is that I do want to eventually release this game into the world one day and I can see easily where "gnomes are coded with autistic traits" could easily become "game author compares autistic people to gnomes".

There is also the option of just not including gnomes at all, this is the easiest solution by far but comes at the cost of disappointing a few members of my primary game group who really likes gnomes.

Thoughts, opinions, comments, and criticism are all welcome.

Also any other gnome related thoughts are incredibly welcome.

This is my cat Belle, this specific photo is about 3 years old. She is currently 17, but today had been diagnosed with very aggressive lung cancer. She will not make it to Christmas, and we have decided to put her down tomorrow to spare her the pain of what is to come.

I don't know why I'm posting this. She's spent the whole day with me in my bed since coming home from the vet. She hasn't left once, not to drink, not to eat, not at all. Her breath is becoming more labored, and a part of me wonders if she'll make it through the night. I suppose that doesn't really matter anymore.

Thank you to whoever read this, it means a lot.

I have been with you from your creation now to your grave. You were never really the most popular Reddit app, but you were my Reddit app. I will miss you.

What are you currently passionate about it interested in? What are some cool things about that thing, or interesting stuff that you've learned?

To start things off, I've recently gotten back into Legos for the first time since I was a child and dragged my SO in with me. We've been building sets together, posing them, and decorating my apartment with some of them like the autumn center piece and bonsai tree. I'm also starting to show them how you can mix things together or go off script, changing and customizing a set to fit your own needs or tastes. It's been really fun and I'd recommend it if you are looking for something to do with someone else.

I've also gotten into professional wrestling for the first time and been having a blast. My SO used to watch WWE/WWF as a kid and I asked them to watch a pay per view with me and it was like they got ripped back in time, getting super hype and cheering on the people they wanted to win. We've now started watching AEW and it's been really fun when they point out the people that they recognize from when they were a kid and what they think of them.