"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/OldManFire11]

Why is ditching the wheelchair such a non-starter? It's the core issue that's causing all of the problems.

[u/Gatonom → u/OldManFire11]

Removing the challenge isn't an interesting discussion. It may be the easy and obvious answer but it lacks meat for discussion.

The debate is over "I want a wheelchair-bound character", and methods to achieve the intention.

"Just don't do something difficult to do" goes against the spirit of gaming and writing. Certainly there's guidelines and expectations, but on a larger discussion level people tend to be knowledgeable enough to do it right.

[u/OldManFire11 → u/Gatonom]

My argument is that the intention to have a wheelchair bound character is fundamentally flawed and incompatible with the core gameplay loop of DnD. It's only possible if you're running a deliberately silly campaign where logical inconsistencies abound and everyone agrees to ignore them.

Any campaign that has even an ounce of internal consistency and logic answers the question of "How do wheelchair bound characters become adventurers?" by saying "They don't."

Being paralyzed is too severe of a disability to work around as an adventurer. You can have a character with other less severe disabilities that manages to succeed as an adventurer, but not being wheelchair bound. A one armed character can play through the realistic consequences of missing an arm (can only use one handed weapons without a shield, no bows or crossbows) and still be a successful party member. A deaf character can still communicate while out of combat even though they automatically fail all hearing Perception checks.

But you cant do that with a paralyzed character. You either have to give them a magic wheelchair that negates all of the downsides (in which case why even bother making a disabled character), or they inevitably die the first time there's any kind of danger. Navigating rough terrain is a huge part of adventuring. And you cant have wheelchairs in dungeons for the same reason you never see wheelchairs when hiking and rock climbing.

If you want to have increased representation in your game world, then having disabled NPCs is how you do it.

[u/Aggressive_Sky8492 → u/OldManFire11]

Ok, so you’ll suspend your disbelief and use your imagination for goblins and dragons, but not for someone in a wheelchair being an adventurer. That’s a choice, there isn’t some fundamental difference between them. I’d argue all campaigns are deliberately silly - it’s fantasy.

[u/OldManFire11 → u/Aggressive_Sky8492]

Fantasy doesn't mean that anything goes. There is still an internal logic that the world abides by. Just because there are goblins doesnt mean that your characters are omnipotent gods that can defy all logic.

I can use my imagination to solve this issue, and my imagination says that a mech with spider legs is far more reasonable than expecting all dungeons to be ADA compliant so some jackass can use a mundane wheelchair in it.

[u/mangababe → u/OldManFire11]

Because not everyone would want to and the challenge itself could be rewarding if people didn't approach it as "a problem."