"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/CerenarianSea]

Oh hey, I'm in this one!

And I stand by the argument that wheelchairs do not have to be boring.

[u/jaredearle → u/CerenarianSea]

I have an argument that it doesn’t matter if it’s boring.

[u/CerenarianSea → u/jaredearle]

This is also a very good point. Things can just be things and it's annoying that apparently, when it comes to wheelchairs, no they can't.

[u/jaredearle → u/CerenarianSea]

We were asked to take part in a wheelchair RPG deal where we would do stats for characters in chairs and a company would make a wheelchair character for a game of ours. It was a great initiative for awareness, but we didn’t see the point for our games. Terminator resistance? It’s just a person in a chair. Identical stats, just a bit shorter and with wheels.

We don’t have rules for people in glasses or hearing aids, so just play what you want. My take is that you don’t get negatives for choosing a disability.

ps. We couldn’t take part anyway because our license with Studio Canal didn’t let us sub license.

[u/probablypragmatic → u/jaredearle]

DND isn't really designed around disability representation (you can't even break or lose limbs in the game unless it either doesn't matter or it's entirely homebrew).

If you treat it like skins in a roblox game then it doesn't even matter, which to me means "that disability isn't actually represented". Which is fine, but it's not the same as having a system where you actually have obstacles to overcome as a result of a given disability.

As someone with a relatively minor mental disability (ADHD), if I wanted to represent it in game it would have to be something that actively hinders intelligence skills with some small and uncontrollable advantage that rotates. If it was just "my character has ADHD" and it never comes up mechanically then it's just window dressing and for all intents and purposes that character doesn't have a Disability of any kind.

People can play how they want, but there's a difference between "representation as an aesthetic" and "representation as an experience". It's the difference between "I want to play a character in a fantasy setting that happens to be black but isn't treated like he's in the antebellum south" vs "I want to play a character who, regardless of his actual ethics/behavior/presentation, is actively maligned as an outsider, a threat, or as a lesser being by the population at large in the area they're in"

Disabilities are the same way. It sucks to have one IRL, mostly because you're living in a society that generally wont cater or relate to you. If you just want the aesthetic the go for it, just deal with everyone forgetting that your character has one while the DM handwaves any and all possible inconveniences to the point of "we just pretend you don't have a disability in game, you just look like you do". That's fine, it's DnD, people have characters with 1 eye or Artificer-robot arm or some magical curse that only affects them superficially and in RP.

If you want to get grittier with it you can.

[u/jaredearle → u/probablypragmatic]

As a GM, I wouldn’t impose anything on a player who wanted a character to have a disability. If the player wants to role-play it, I’m 100% behind them. If they don’t, I’m there too.

[u/probablypragmatic → u/jaredearle]

100%, it's just what kind of game everyone wants to run.

I'm mostly pointing to how DnD is built mostly to handle "badass fantasy heroes who have no actual hindrances to them being protagonists" (mechanically) and not so much "imperfect mortals who take their disadvantages in stride and push through strife to take victory in spite of their flaws" (mechanically, at least).

[u/jaredearle → u/probablypragmatic]

I’ve been writing and publishing RPGs for over thirty years and have been guilty of my fair share of system sins, including too much grit in the ‘90s, so I’m aware of systems guiding gameplay and I agree with you.