Accepting a neurodivergent label can be a terrifying thing. We have one school of thought that says "your life is over", and we have another that says "this is a superpower" - neither develop healthy neurodivergent people. In this game, we use neurotypes as a substitue for class types, letting people pilot a character not too disimilar from themselves to understand what the challeneges and strengths are for each neurotype.

"Autism as a superpower" teaches us that we have to always be operating at our highest level and that any time we dip a little, we're letting everyone down. Thomas the Tank Engine Syndrome; the desire to be a very useful engine. With Your Diagnosis Comes With A Free Sword, we look at neruodivergence not as a deficit or superpower but as a different point spread, allowing newly-realised neurodiverse people (kids and adults alike) to understand their identity, free from shame or burden. 

With Your Diagnosis Comes With A Free Sword is irreverant but never mean.

We've tried to create the most simple and accessible system we could, that allows for a quick start and dynamic gameplay. It's a 1D6 system, meaning you only need an old-fashioned, regular dice to play! 

We've dubbed the system LIMBO as a way of helping people understand what success looks like. If you have a 3 in a stat, the bar is set at 3, meaning a 1, a 2 or a 3 all pass under the bar (although that 3 is cutting fine, the Game Master might have something to add there.) If you have a 5, you can roll anything 5 or under to succeed. 

For £5000 we can not only print a book but:
 

We want this to be simple, flexible and fun. Something that people can pick up and play almost instantly, so we have to get this right. We'll be spending a few days in the office running through scenarios and making sure we've got the system both quick to pick up and representative of the neurodivergent experience. 
£300

I can only speak to my experience of being neurodivergent, and I think I've channeled that properly in this game, but I don't know what I don't know. Before we let the game loose on you, we'll get everything looked over by a psychologist (and TTRPG fan) to offer expert input into the system, lore and play environment.
£500 
 

We'll get the book physically printed so you can hold it in your hands!
£300 

We want this to be a gorgeous little book, which means paying an expert. In this case, Nathalie Kranich.
£2000

What's a system without a story? We'll get Marcus Holmes to put his pen to our game to write a cracking introductory campaign for you and your friends to dive into.
£1200

We want the book to actually make it into your hands, and that means we need to ship it!
£400

Your Diagnosis Comes With A Free Sword isn't intended to be a levelling up system where you get stronger the more you play. It's a self-contained story. But the neurodivergent experience is broad and diverse. We want to commission a first anthology of additional stories from other neurodivergent writers to share their experience, with an eye to make more and more. 

An extra book means more printing.
£300

We'll get eight new stories written for the game, giving you 8 more sessions of play. This means paying eight more writers, from across the neurodivergent spectrum, to create adventures that speak to as many neurodivergent identities as possible.
£2000

Our end goal is to get this game into schools, but in order to do that we need to make a big fuss and get enough attention. To do this, we'll take the game on a play tour of the UK, working with community groups around the country. This means marketing, travel costs, those banners with big art on them so people can see where we are. 

A tour sounds like fun, but it's also a lot of admin up-front and a lot of time marketing
£3600

Let's get some pazazz involved. Fortunately, we happen to know a Game Master who has worked on one of London's hottest gaming attractions (that we're not mentioning for legal reasons)
£1600

As much as we'd like to think our game is so cool that people will begging us to set up in their space, the reality is businesses need some kind of hire fee. And we want to support them.
£800

Petrol is expensive, and trains are too, but we have to BE there.
£1200

Good sized banners not only help people find us, particularly when we go to conventions, but they'll also help us create a more private playing area.
£340

Hi, I'm Connor. I started off as a writer 12 years ago, first as a non-fiction writer, then fiction, then poetry and now games. I've also written a lot of content and copy for websites, as well as an astounding number of grant applications for neurodivergent people. 

I'm also dyspraxic and autistic. Back in 1996, we didn't have quite the same neurodivergent culture as we do now, and part of my journey has been to unlearn the expectations put on me by a support sytem that was more about keeping me away from the other kids than helping me understand who I am.

As a writer, I've performed poetry on stages nationally, won a prize for poetry, curated exhibitons on the history of banned books in the UK and been shortlisted for the DYSPLA Storymakers Residency for a short film treatment about Godzilla. I've also spent a year as an Associate Artist at Open School East, and ran my own publishing house for a decade.

Marcus Holmes
Marcus is an autistic writer, poet, performer,  photographer/videographer and a graduate in Film, Radio and Television. He has previously collaborated with The Margate Bookie, The Thanet Poetry Journal, Whisky and Beards Publishing and Hosted/Produced The Writer's Bloc on CSRFM.

With a love of media across many genres,  Marcus has written his own D&D Homebrew campaigns and has many years experience with TTRPG's and collaborative storytelling.  Professionally, he has worked alongside Burke & Best in collaboration with Adult Swim Games on projects such as the Amateur Surgeon franchise.

Nathalie Krannich