Autistic Psychic Savant

[mrloucifer]

I have played one and I've had a player in my game.

My best advice: watch a lotta flicks with autistic like peeps like Rain Man or I am Sam.

One of my tricks when playing was to have the PC sing childrens songs to himself during specific moments and left the players to figure out what the songs meant. For example "Ring around the rosies" was sung when they were near a place where a ritual was taking place or he's sit in his comfy chair and start singing "The Crawdad Song" ("you get a line and I'll get pole honey... Were going fishin in the Crawdad hole") when a new monster was in the area and we need to hunt it down.

I even once sang part of "he's got the whole world in his hands" to represent that we were dealing with an ancient evil threatening the planet.

There are lots of other tricks... find out what works for you and have a logic that the players will need to figure out behind your actions.

[mrloucifer]

Oh, another great thing to do is to NOT do a lot of the things people take for granted. for example, describe your PC as doing something specific that shows his mental limits like;

-will walk around with shoes untied, someone has to lace them for him as he cant
-unable to properly dress himself, aka he will put on his winter coat on the hottest day of the year and will not be able to understand why he's roasting to death outdoors. He's also never match without help and will have a hard time with grooming himself properly (they may find a comb as some interesting to play with and will never undestand that its a grooming tool).
-will throw tanrums and hit himself when he's hungry for a candy bar or a snack
-will want to talk to EVERYONE he meets on the street. I knew a autistic man who was the son of my dads friend and even when he was sitting on the bathroom toilet in a public place, if he heard someone walk into the bathroom or sit in an adjacent stall he would shout "HI!" and start trying to talk to them. Its embarrasing to the strangers but in his mind it was polite and friendly.
-Become frightened by odd things like a chair, table or floorboard that creaks (the creaking sound itself is whats terrifying, not the floor). The guy I mentioned earlier was terrified of fish tanks. I honestly never understood why and he couldnt explain it to me.


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[mrloucifer]

Ok, last bit I swear..

An easy fix to think of their mentality like a small childs. Its not unusual for an autistic person to watch Seseme street daily and love it. the guy I mentioned before was in his 40's and still watched seseme street daily and had been since he was a kid. His room was still decored in the SS wallpaper and he just loved grover.

Most autistic parties are also very responsive to criticism. When they are being corrected they take it very personal and when they are cheered or rewarded they will just BEAM with pride for their recegnized accomplishment. Positive rienforcement from the group would make your Savant PC much more capable of doing his part where negative vibes will crush his spirit to the point of uselessness and a solid burden on the party.

[mrloucifer]

Mr.L - Those seem like outstanding ideas, and those kinds of things are how I would play it... but you need inside the GM's head to know when to do those kinds of things.
The character seems to be taylored to be an NPC to me.
-Every party should have one, but to play them to the best of their potential the GM would be putting alot of words into your mouth.


Did you have fun playing the Savant?

I did, a lot in fact. I come from the old school RPG line of thought that a deficiency or weakness should be considered a challenge, not a liability (and I enjoy a good puzzle and a mystery to solve )

And yes, your going to be working hand in hand with the GM constantly... thats a given.

In fact I would make it a habit to sit next to him/her at each game. The gm will be passing you a lot of notes or whispers in your ear because your savant will ALWAYS know more about whats happening than the rest of the party. The fun part of that knowledge comes from your autistic filtering system. You may know everything (and you should as the Savant) but trying to convey it through the mind of a autistic is where the challenge and fun of the character comes into play.

I will admit its not an easy PC to play, but its probrably the most rewarding to role play, especially when the rest of the group gets involved in figuring out what your trying to convey to them.

[Sir Neil]

-Every party should have one....

I think you mean "every party should have none." It's a ridiculous class, almost as much a hindrance as a nega-psychic except its less insane.

[mrloucifer]

I have to disagree on this one Sir N. I will admit that is NOT a class everyone can play, but for those who really like to dive into their characters and "Role Play" them out, they are rewarded with lots of player participation and a class that offers more than nearly any other in power level.

[runebeo]

Duddits for Dreamcatcher inspired our NPC supporting character. That movie has great horror theme with the toilet scene The savant in our game is a teenage girl who always reading & counting and spelling extremely words out of the blue, ask her for a definition of a word and she spew 10 minutes of dictionary meanings, but ask her if what she wants to eat she'll go into almost catatonic state and then flip out breaking things. We gave an extra power to locate major supernatural events up to 86 hrs before they happen by divining with a map, her crayon drawings, a compass and flashlight to project a image on the map. The drawings usually turnout to resemble the carnage we find there or the creature's hideout.

[Beatmeclever]

Duddits for Dreamcatcher inspired our NPC supporting character. That movie has great horror theme with the toilet scene The savant in our game is a teenage girl who always reading & counting and spelling extremely words out of the blue, ask her for a definition of a word and she spew 10 minutes of dictionary meanings, but ask her if what she wants to eat she'll go into almost catatonic state and then flip out breaking things. We gave an extra power to locate major supernatural events up to 86 hrs before they happen by divining with a map, her crayon drawings, a compass and flashlight to project a image on the map. The drawings usually turnout to resemble the carnage we find there or the creature's hideout.

A friend of mine actually used the toilet scene to convince his kid to flush after using the toilet.

[mrloucifer]

A friend of mine actually used the toilet scene to convince his kid to flush after using the toilet.

Thats funny... I dont care who you are.