Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
Another player who was at the table during the incident sent me this meme after the problem player in question (they had a history) left the group chat.
Felt like sharing it here because I'm sure more people should keep this kind of thing in mind.
I'll echo the words of my friend, who is a permanent wheelchair user:
"Yes, I identify with my disability as part of who I am, but I would still take a cure without hesitation"
Yes, people with disabilities identify with their disability, so even in a fantasy setting I can see how their disability would be part of their character.
But every disabled person I know would figuratively leap at the opportunity to reverse their disability with magic. It is also basically impossible to use a wheelchair while holding something like a wand or a staff or a fireball in one hand, so if there's enough magic around to push a wheelchair, there's probably enough to make your legs work. That's why somebody has a good reason not to expect a wheelchair in a fantasy world. I can see how somebody who doesn't really know any disabled people would panic at the idea of a wheelchair being part of the narrative or something like that, and I can sympathize with it.
It's a bit of a double-edged sword. Representation is great, because it makes us feel less like a shame to be ignored or scorned - but also, being disabled fucking sucks, kind of by definition, and it's hard to take seriously people who peddle the 'handicapable' stuff. I don't need any toxic positivity in my life, thanks.
The only people I have ever seen claim that disabilities aren't so bad and you can live completely normal etc. are people with no disabilities at all. I'm not disabled, my eyesight is just shit and I don't know what I'd be willing to do to get normal eyesight. Just to get rid of a pair of glasses. I can't imagine the lengths someone actually disabled would go to in order to get a cure.
In our world we do have the magic to push a wheelchair around, and it's not even hard to do this. Tinkerers can cast the spell of self-propelling wheelchair in their garages.
But magicing someone's legs to work is still a far way off.
(Remember, when magic is well explained and documented, and people get used to it, they tend to call it technology.)
What I won't accept is that for some reason, all the illustrations that depict this use the hospital wheelchair design. If you are an adventurer who goes into dungeons, you should be getting something that can handle that terrain better than a squeaky shopping cart. Go for the fantasy version of Professor X' flying chair. Or at least get something with all-terrain wheels, and have them angled like the ones in the wheelchairs athletes use.
I mean, you're correct but that meme's vision of what a disabled character should look like in a fantasy setting is probably the most boring I've ever seen.
A manual wheelchair? In worlds where levitation, flight, telekinesis, etc exist?
Fuck, even the X-Men have a hovering chair.
I mean... You live in a world where magic healing exists. Why would anyone be blind when you can find a sorcerer, wizard or cleric (or even a spoony bard like Volo) and restore your sight in at least 20 different ways? 🤔
This was a bit of weird shit in Star Trek with Geordi, too. They can literally grow him new eyes (and do eventually) but the visor is also cool, and the rule of cool wins.
It's not so much that a disabled person being realistic is unfun; it's that it doesn't seem to fit the world itself which kills suspension of disbelief if you understand how the game world works. You'd have to work extra hard at giving a believable reason for this person to be disabled and not have gotten healed through magical means.
Hi. I have a mild physical disability, and this point comes up quite a lot in different settings, including fantasy fiction. "If such and such is a fantasy setting, why does character simply not be disabled?" Is something many able bodied people like to assume.
Without going into how hurtful it is to assume that what all of us want is to be "able bodied", you're basically taking away a person's agency to tell a story about themselves as they are. And there are many stories to be told!
So instead of trying to use logic to negate these kinds of characters from stories and fantasy settings, I challenge you to expand your own definition of what's possible. There's plenty of room for all of us.
I have a disabled character in my world (I'm a writer, not an rpg player. My schedule sucks for it). She has a partially paralyzed lip that gives her a lisp and a scar to match. Healing could have fixed it, if she could have been healed in time. But she wasn't.
I also have a Deaf character who plays a major role in the story. I think we need more representation in fantasy. And as a black guy, I don't really want to read the trials and tribulations of being black, as I'm sure other minority groups don't. I want to read about black folk swinging swords and fighting monsters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sorry for the tangent, but yeah, I hard agree with you (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
People with curable disabilities exist all around us in the real world.
Or just have house rules about how magical healing works. Maybe it can only bring them back to their natural state, so someone who is born blind can't be cured. Or it's some kind of curse, and you house rule that Dispel Curse doesn't work on plot curses. Or you just don't have Lesser Restoration.
Does disease exist in a fantasy world? Why would anyone be sick when you can find a sorcerer, wizard or cleric (or even a spoony bard like Volo) and restore your health in at least 20 different ways?
You need to be able to find someone with the skill to do so.
I need to be able to pay them to do so.
Lesser Restoration is free and usually offered by clerics at any good aligned God's church. Which, in Faerun, are easy to find.
Beyond that, there are magical diseases that can't be cured by normal restorative magics. This is used in the plot for Neverwinter Nights.
There's usually both a time and severity limit to what magic can heal. It works differently depending on the system, but generally the longer it's been since the injury or the worse the injury was, the more advanced magic required to fix it. You can't just dump more magic on it either, it's gonna take more talented spellcasters with specific skills, e.g. the difference between someone with first aid knowledge and a trained neurosurgeon. Bad enough and you're getting into "there is literally one person in the entire world who can do this and they're busy" territory.
That's assuming it's a simple injury and not a curse or the like. That's also assuming it's not a disability from birth; regeneration isn't going to do a damn thing if the body's natural state is lacking a sense or an appendage.
I fucking love it when settings have the magic to cure any disability or ailment. I also fucken love it when inequality is so bad most of the population can't afford to cast it. I once had my players blow nearly everything they earned to heal a child with a terminal illness. Why would I make such a cruel world? Because tears taste good and memories are nothing more than a heartstring pulled.
Ok but a wheelchair would be dumb when you could just get some enchanted armor.
This is my issue.
Its a fantasy world. Dont copy paste non magic human solutions to disability. Create fantasy ones.
Enchanted pants that give you mild telekenesis while wearing them, but only on the pants. You can walk with your mind now, but you need the pants to do so.
Youre still disabled, but now your disability is more akin to glasses. An aide that is required, but in most cases completely masks your disability and lets you go about your day to day mostly unhindered, all while maintaining the worlds flavor without the weird clash of having a piece of tech that doesnt match the world around it.
Dont want your disability fully masked? Give them a familiar to ride. Or keep the telekenesis, but make it a chair whose legs can walk.
Its fantasy so we can ignore reality for a lil while. You dont need real solutions to problems, you need fantasy solutions.
I mean that really depends on the world you are set in: if magic is everywhere/can heal anything someone who is blind could break immersion IF there is no good reason (he doesn't want to see for personal reasons, it's a curse and can't be removed etc.)
However if magic treatment is rare/expensive of course there would be lots of disabled people (monster attacks, accidents, diseases, etc.)
Obviously thats not the problem here(the guys just a dick) but it's something i run into a lot when designing worlds/characters: a lot of our real world problems fall apart if introduced into a magical setting.
Odd because blindness is very commonly represented in mythology and fantasy.
A wheelchair is a tough sell in a questing/adventuring party, but in the right context we have seen paraplegics manage, in a popular fantasy setting ( GoT, bran), but it required someone to move them around
And then there's bloodborne.
First guy you meet in bloodborne is in a wheelchair.
The old man who helps you is in a wheelchair.
You get shot at by tricked out wheelchair tanks.
In the United States, millions and millions of people walk around with conditions we can treat with our own kind of magic: modern medicine. So why don't they get that prosthetic arm, treat that chronic pain, get that surgery, or take those pills? They can't afford it. Why don't they get that vaccine? They don't believe in it. If magic exists to eliminate all disabilities, then there should be no smart, rich people with disabilities in your world building, certainly. Plenty to go around otherwise though.
I don't see why anyone would take issue with it, but one of the coolest things about powerful magic is that nobody needs to be disabled. You can heal them with magic! I know I'd love to get a fantasy healer to heal some of my old wounds. But even in D&D magic comes with a price, and more powerful spells consume very expensive reagents. So it's understandable that there would still be injured and crippled people.
Ive played a one armed barbarian before. He touched a cursed item that was slowly Turning him into a demon, so he chopped off his arm.
The DM said I lost Ambidexterity for that, Which I accepted. I later found out that I derailed part of his plan to make my character evil & work as a minion for the Big Bad.
It also means that people may have disabilities but won't be held back by them without removing that aspect of their life. And it could be ruled that the differently-abled aspect is something not even magic can take away because it's so intrinsic to the character
This wheel chair looks out of place for the setting. I love what Psychonauts 2 did: there is a disabled character that uses psychic levitation for his "wheel" chair.
Another reason the chair looks out of place is because it's a transfer chair, not a self propel chair. These chairs are designed to push someone, they aren't designed for independent mobility.
These chairs are commonly represented in media because they are cheap and often the "first chair" a disabled person will get because of their affordability and needing something quick. But they are bog standard and you can't really get around by yourself in one without more pain or fatigue. You'll then start the process of getting a measured for a chair that will fit your needs.
Some people only have a transfer chair because they are semi-ambulant/part time chair user, so that's all they need. But most people who use a wheelchair will not use a transfer chair long term. It's temporary because it's shit.
So it doesn't make sense that someone with an active lifestyle, like a DnD character, would use this style chair as their main aid. Unless there's something in the campaign, like their main chair was damaged, or the disability is recently acquired, the character is poor, etc.
A lot of this has probably been said already, but I want to point out that restrictions breed creativity.
This is a magic fantasty world, how would your character deal with their differences? What coping mechanisms would they develop? Would a blind character develop some alternative to vision? Would a physically disabled character find some other way to navigate the world?
I see people asking "why would disability exist in a world with magical healing" as a way to dismiss the entire concept. I feel that engaging with the question, and trying to answer, it leads to more interesting characters.
Toph from Avatar is an example of following these restrictions. Would her character and abilities even exist if the writers didn't sit down and wonder how a blind character would work in their universe?
Wait wait I know how this one went: “You purchase this media to ESCAPE the real world and they FORCE their WOKE AGENDA down your throat!!!”
Fucking pissy crybabies, let em cope
The unspoken part of that argument being they deep down desire a world that has no non-white, disabled, queer people in it at all and don't understand others don't think that way.
I can easily accept a blind npc or pc, and also a wheelchair npc, but a wheelchair pc is a bit convoluted in a fantasy setting. Like this was literally a subplot in doctor strange. There is just too much power in player parties to not knock this out in the first few adventures.
Whether through healing or artifacts or levitation. Just makes no sense unless you want the tactical “guy in a chair” trope, or want to have navigation be a major part of each story.
For the sake of roleplay and being friends, the idea of disabled people in fantasy settings should not be difficult to accept, but that doesn't mean that all fantasy IPs should have all sorts of modern disabilities. Like in a ttrpg you are creating a collaborative story using the ttrpg systems and in that sense heck yeah you can have magic chairs to transport otherwise disabled people. BG3 straight up cures blindness by use of a magical prosthetic eye, so there is even precedent for it in the popular dnd video game.
But what I totally want is some more creative and magical ways to handle disabilities, or maybe just whimsical. What about a druid that wildshapes into a snake to move around, and just slithers on the ground. straight up never uses a wheelchair cuz snek. Or magical leg armor. Prosthetic eyes? why not just have a large crystal ball that balances on your head that does the seeing for you.
I couldn't care less if there is a disabled character in a fantasy game. But it does beg the question: why would there be a magic character who relies on a real-world wheelchair when they presumably have magical abilities that would eliminate their disability, and why would that be someone's fantasy?
That being said, it's fantasy. You're allowed to do virtually anything you want. It's up to the DM to accommodate their players.
There's a webcomic I read where the cleric became a cleric and started adventuring so he could be powerful enough to help regrow his mother's lost arm. When she had the option to regrow her arm, she refused. She didn't need it. With her extended family, she had all the hands she could ever want.
I've seen them somewhat often in RPGs and related material. There's those who are blind, frail, deaf, weak or lacking a skill to do something necessary. Even Basic D&D had notable penalties for rolling INT 3-5, being illiterate to start with.
NPCs in fantasy settings still have hinderances, and they're expected. Maybe they can be neutralized by healing magic in D&D, or there may be equipment that works around them. The wrong part is shutting down the concept, as that's contempt for the weak (technically a symptom of fascism.)
I don't have a problem with having disabled people in a TTRPG setting, but I hate the "it's fantasy, stop whining about realism" argument.
The amount of people in this thread who assume everyone with any type of disability or difference in ability would even want to have their condition corrected is shocking. Why is it impossible to imagine a blind person who doesn't want their vision fixed for no other reason than they believe they're fine as is? Why is that such a difficult thing to grasp? Just because free magical heal exists doesn't mean everyone automatically wants it. You don't need to turn to other explanations about why it might not be trusted or affordable when you can just say "this person is blind and doesn't particularly care to be able to see."
How did they even come to such a perspective? There are all kinds of physical handicaps in fiction.
Raistlin had a mysterious uncurable ailment imposed by Par-Salian.
Albrech has to forsake love to attain the Rheingold.
Several gods and heroes are missing various limbs.
And blindness? Daredevil. Tiresias. Any number of blind kung-fu masters.
Sometimes they're afflictions that are paid as a price for powers, sometimes their curses, sometimes their obstacles that heroes overcome. But disabled people have been all over fantasy literature for millenia.
That reminds me of a conversation at a DnD table where somebody's OC's mom was a noble died during labor due to bleeding and the DM started asking questions "Do they not believe in healing there? No potions no resurrection, nothing?" and eventually it became canon that she was a badass who killed an orc monk while 9 months in and took the last bit of damage as bleed damage.
If they can't tolerate the idea of a blind NPC existing, good riddance to them. Yeah, sounds like you dodged a bullet.
Why can't magic cure them though? In star trek, people don't cure Picards baldness because people don't care about it, they realise its nothing to mock. But that's just a "cosmetic" ailment.
Things like blindness, or being unable to walk should be curable by magic, right?
To continue with startrek: Geordie la forge.
He was added because they wanted to represent a blind person, and show how technology can help offset disabilities.
Picard was bald because they didn't care, and Geordie was blind because they couldn't cure him.
The inclusion of a blind person lets them tell the story of how this future society deals with a disability like blindness.
So you can use magic to tell the story of a disabled person. Why are they disabled? Why can't magic help them? How has their society reacted to this?
Maybe it's as simple as simple healing magic can't cure an injury you were born with, so they only have use of their legs through an advanced transformation spell. They live with the worry that a passing dogooder will cast a healing spell that will "restore" their condition and leave them stranded far from the magic that can actually help them. This makes them come across as brusque to people who are "only trying to help".
It's a story, so the magic only does what you want. The point is that we often choose to tell the stories that leave people out because it's more convenient.
It's fine, provided it's not a plot hole - i.e. your fantasy setting needs to not have abolished blindness as a realistic malady, which some settings do. E.g. LOTR 100% has blind people, while the Harry Potter universe only has very poor blind people, since solving blindness is as trivial as a polyjuice potion, even if nothing else works (and something more effective is bound to work).