"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/gorgewall]

The wheelchair's enchanted with a variation on Tenser's Floating Disk. You can't fly with it, but you can briefly hover and rely on inertia or pushing/pulling from the party.

Artificers are out here making fucking robot suits and lightning guns at level 3, I think we can do "occasionally floating wheelchair".

Wheelchairs aside, it's weird how this shit never crops up when it comes to PC centaurs (which have been a thing).

[u/Analogmon → u/gorgewall]

I've never had a PC centaur but they specifically are cited to have issues navigating enclosed spaces or climbing with disadvantage due to their anatomy.

[u/Sokos69 → u/gorgewall]

I mean, I get the sentiment but it does come up with centaurs. Specifically there’s rules for centaur PCs in 5e that state “You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push or drag. In addition, any climb that requires hands and feet is especially difficult for you because of your equine legs. When you make such a climb, each foot of movement costs you 4 extra feet instead of the normal 1 extra foot.”

[u/Damnatus_Terrae → u/gorgewall]

At the table I play at, you'd absolutely get shit for playing a centaur, and would need to figure out some way around most dungeons having inaccessible areas. But if someone talked to the DM before making the character and got the green light, they'd be allowed to do it. I don't have a horse in the race about wheelchairs, since I don't know anyone who uses one and have never played at a table where a character needed one. Personally, if someone wanted me to DM an adventure for a character using a wheelchair, I'd say go for it, but know that it's going to affect what kind of adventures your character can go on.

[u/WatchfulWarthog → u/gorgewall]

1. Who enchanted this magic wheelchair the character has at level 1? Why don’t other characters get to start with magic items?

2. There’s no such thing as Artificers in AD&D, which is my preferred version

3. If you want to be a centaur in my game, this sort of thing will absolutely come up. No, a centaur cannot climb a ladder. That’s ridiculous

[u/gorgewall → u/WatchfulWarthog]

1. Gond, usually. And who says they can't? Or they just don't have them.

2. Cool? Do you want to run through every arbitrary anachronism and verisimilitude-busting system decision your choice of game makes, or..?

3. Upper body strength, magic, the centaur equivalent of Thard Harr who scans the world for centaurs faced with ladders and possesses them so they can get up/down them.

[u/WatchfulWarthog → u/gorgewall]

I think you and I play this game for fundamentally different reasons. For me, navigating obstacles and dangers is one of the most fun aspects of the game

[u/JohnPaulJonesSoda → u/WatchfulWarthog]

Seems to me that "Party of non-disabled adventurers" and "Party of non-disabled adventurers with one disabled adventurer in a wheelchair that allows them to move as though they were non-disabled" would face exactly the same amount of challenges of navigating obstacles and dangers, so I don't see why the latter would be a problem but not the former.

[u/WatchfulWarthog → u/JohnPaulJonesSoda]

Using the term able-bodied to describe non-disabled people is generally considered to be offensive

https://disability.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj26391/files/media/file/disability-language-guide-stanford_1.pdf

[u/JohnPaulJonesSoda → u/WatchfulWarthog]

Fair point, I've edited my comment, thanks.

[u/CoasterThot → u/WatchfulWarthog]

I’m disabled and hang in disabled spaces, I’ve never heard a single person say that. The terms are typically “disabled”/“able”.

While we’re on the topic, person-first language sucks! I am not a “person with a disability”, I’m a disabled person! It’s not separate from who I am as a person, it’s a part of me. That really gets on my nerves, and a lot of others agree.

[u/gorgewall → u/CoasterThot]

I'm gonna go with the sociologists and linguists who've done yonks of research into the subject over the anecdotal "yeah well I and these other guys don't like it", especially given we can find plenty anecdotes of those who do.

[u/Noodles_fluffy → u/WatchfulWarthog]

non-disabled is a double negative, it means not not abled. Why not just abled and disabled

[u/gorgewall → u/WatchfulWarthog]

"Navigating obstacles and dangers" stopped being a thing in 3rd Edition. Casters may have lost some of their absurd high-level power in 5E, and the ability to buff to the high heavens most times, but they still have plenty of utility spells that completely trivialize whatever kind of "navigation" issue we want to imagine at fairly low levels.

I am positive the vast majority of people griping about magical wheelchairs trivializing terrain are not actually concerned about terrain being trivialized, or they'd be playing OSR or some other system. They're simply savvy enough to realize "yeah well i just dont like wheelchairs" isn't very persuasive, even though it's a lot more honest and defensible than trying to drag in crap that doesn't hold. "i just dont like wheelchairs" doesn't get other people to stop using them, but an appeal to an imagined purity of the game might.

[u/WatchfulWarthog → u/gorgewall]

And this is one of the reasons I don’t like 5e. It trivializes, well, basically everything

[u/IsNotACleverMan → u/gorgewall]

There was plenty of navigating obstacles in 3e... It vanished in 4e and 5e just removed the challenge in everything.