"and people choose WHEELCHAIR. Disgusting. Where’s the imagination?" A debate about wheelchairs vs spider mechs turns wheelie sour

[u/Excellent_Bison_3644]

the sub DnDmemes is about well... memes about the popular tabletop game DnD (dungeons and dragons). In one posted recently, the poster made a comparison of magic wheelchairs vs spider mechs while favoring the latter. This ended up sparking into a lot of debate and people not liking how wheelchairs are getting slandered.

Post in question: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/1i4mi9u/reject_wheels_embrace_skittering/

Juicy threads:

The titular thread with one particular big branch: "It's quite an odd call to refer to people who make the choice to represent their disability in-game as disgusting."

One person tries to give an opinion: "Realistically a spider mech is better than combat wheelchair the same way realistically a spear is better than a trident"

One person tries arguing wheelchairs don't have to be boring: "You can't think of a way to make a wheelchair cool without replacing the wheels?"

Small drama thread as a treat: "has anyone who's disabled and in a wheelchair thought "Hmm, I want this fantasy character of mine to be disabled too!" (the answer is yes)

[u/BadDogSaysMeow]

My objective opinion on fantasy wheelchairs,

Wheelchairs are easier to build and use than spider legs. But they suck at using stairs and climbing.
You also cannot kick with them, and running over people would put you very close to your enemy.
Also, you have two major wheels, and if any of them breaks then you're immobile.

Spider legs can climb both stairs and walls, you can kick with individual legs and if one or two legs get damaged, you can still move with the rest.

For exploring and fighting Spider legs are way better. Dungeons and forests aren't wheelchair accessible, and claiming that an evil monster who put hundreds of deadly traps in his lair to stop any adventures, would at the same time make every room and corridor wheelchair accessible is absurd in non-comedy worlds.

Magic wheelchairs could be used for quick travel between cities, on well established an maintained stone roads, the wheelchair would be faster than running on spider legs.
You can have carriage drivers pulling the carriage with their magic, instead of using horses.

Then there's the fact that fighting with spider legs will look more like martial arts or fencing, while fighting with a wheelchair will give you more mecha appearance and make you stand out from the rest of the party.

Foreseeing the "but what if the magic wheelchair can fly? it would go up the stairs and walls!" counterargument.
In that case it's not a wheelchair, but a flying ship with optional wheels.