Having diverse worlds and representing different types of people is a good thing. For something like skin colour, sexuality or gender it’s very easy to just say that your character posseses those qualities because it doesn’t necessarily change much about them. However, how do people feel about playing NPCs who are neurodivergent?
The main example I’m thinking of is someone with Down syndrome. I don’t have that lived experience to draw from because I don’t have Down syndrome, but I also feel that these people (like all people) can be valuable members of society and I don’t like to see them excluded. Therefore, I would want to see them in my fantasy worlds too. The problem is, I worry I’d mainly be falling back on stereotypes in a potentially harmful and offensive way.
EDIT: I would especially like other neurodivergent people to chime in, of course. Personally I really like to see representation for my neurodivergence in D&D and other literature, but also it can really upset me when it’s done badly and it’s worse than nothing at all
Diversity for diversity’s sake is not particularly effective at representation; do you have enough experience with down syndrome to write that character authentically and not from a place of stereotypes and slapdash research?
As a neurodivergent person and an Improv Teacher - there’s a pretty good rule of: “when playing a [protected class] that you don’t belong to play a specific person (whom you know) or don’t at all” because otherwise that character is based entirely off stereotypes and is a bad choice
Well one don’t worry about offending people that aren’t the table. Its not a performance that the world will see. Second as the gm you just tel the player what the npc does, what they say, etc etc. So displaying a nps that has any conditions comes down to observable behavior quirks.
I think you’ve got some wonderful answers here already so I just want to add something that a few points brought to mind.
In my opinion one can authentically play a trait without playing a diagnosis. A great example of this is Drax in the MCU. He isn’t “the autistic one” he’s the guy with hyper literal interpretation. That autistic (amongst other classes) people relate that and feel seen isn’t because he’s “being autistic” but because he sees things like them; the other characters regard that and it somewhat authentically shows the outcomes one such person might have in these wild tales.
You can represent elements of neurodivergence without going all in on an ND character that might only serve to entrench stigma.
Iirc there was a whole thing when Joker came out where people were trying to diagnose the Joker with some combination of real conditions, and the actor/writers came out and said nah we just gave him a bunch of behaviors generally accepted as dangerous red flags
