This thread has been very informative. My takeaway is, like so many things in D&D, that this is something best left for the tables to work out and not for official rule books.
Nah, I say official books should represent the whole gamut of people that play this game. I've never been a fan of the whole "I don't care who you are as long as you are it away from me" adjacent attitude.
This thread has been very informative. My takeaway is, like so many things in D&D, that this is something best left for the tables to work out and not for official rule books.
I'm fine with this but I'll also add - the art can be as inclusive / signal as many virtues as they damn well want.
I have no opinion on art, though I know for many it can be very important in this game.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
This thread has been very informative. My takeaway is, like so many things in D&D, that this is something best left for the tables to work out and not for official rule books.
Nah, I say official books should represent the whole gamut of people that play this game. I've never been a fan of the whole "I don't care who you are as long as you are it away from me" adjacent attitude.
This thread proves that is not possible.
ETA: I am responding to the first sentence, as the second one is nothing but conjecture.
Are you disabled yourself? I've just described my own experience of managing wheelchair use.
As the CM clearly stated upthread, nobody is required to disclose or prove that to anyone here, so let's stick with the in-game situations.
Apologies, I hadn't noticed that you'd edited this one when I replied earlier.
When we're talking about disability rights in general it's often interesting to see who is speaking from experience and who isn't. Particularly fascinating here for a disabled person to be told that they're unempathic about the experiences of disabled people, hence wanting to understand if that's come from someone with direct experience of disability discrimination, or not.
Clearly they're own business whether they're disabled or not, I just find it a bit rich to be told that, in response to describing the reality of disability discrimination.
I think the key thing here is everyone is going to approach it differently. I'm inclined to want to hear a rationale for the choice. If someone just wants it as a skin with no impact on play, then that's fine; it just impacts any art they create outwith the game. If they want to play a mobility impaired character, then that needs more work. If that's the case I'll do the work as a DM, as long as they do the work as a player. Going back to the example of a touretter I mentioned earlier, if that's the rationale then what other impact does it have? What other tics does the character have, and how can we use that to make some interesting situations?
It all forms part of the narrative, and there is a lot of scope to play with mobility impairment. As ever, we're limited by our imaginations.
This is a game where players do literally impossible things all the time without even using magic. Things like punching through stone walls or a PC walking on their finger tips through a room of spinning blades while also attacking enemies by spitting a dagger at their enemy. There is no need to have some logical consistency or that the game be rooted in the unforgiving reality of physics or real life human limitations. There is no need to let one's own biases limit the fun of someone else. The problems I am seeing expressed are those of a personal nature (things like 'it makes no sense' in a game where you can hit a Ghost with a non-magical sword), not problems created by the game making room for the people who want to be an adventuring wheelchair user.
You are conflating realism as in "this is similar to how the real world works" with internal consistency (to be fair, many people say "realism" when they are referring to internal consistency). An awful lot of people will genuinely have more fun in an internally consistent world even if it is not realistic, for the same reason people enjoy stories that don't have plot holes. Feel free to have fun your way, but don't yuck others' yums.
It's very possible. If one day they print an official combat wheelchair, or some kind of "official" guidelines on running games for wheelchair-using PCs, and for some reason that bothers people who claim to be unable to stretch their suspension of disbelief that far or don't find those pages useful... those people are free to skip over those pages in their copy of the book.
But even without such guidance, the art IS the starting point. ALL art (not just illustrations) sparks our imaginations and challenges our perceptions of what can be.
To briefly quote AOC: "{Policymaking} is about following the public will - but the people who change what people think are artists." That's as true for game rules as it is for legislation.
This is a game where players do literally impossible things all the time without even using magic. Things like punching through stone walls or a PC walking on their finger tips through a room of spinning blades while also attacking enemies by spitting a dagger at their enemy. There is no need to have some logical consistency or that the game be rooted in the unforgiving reality of physics or real life human limitations. There is no need to let one's own biases limit the fun of someone else. The problems I am seeing expressed are those of a personal nature (things like 'it makes no sense' in a game where you can hit a Ghost with a non-magical sword), not problems created by the game making room for the people who want to be an adventuring wheelchair user.
You are conflating realism as in "this is similar to how the real world works" with internal consistency (to be fair, many people say "realism" when they are referring to internal consistency). An awful lot of people will genuinely have more fun in an internally consistent world even if it is not realistic, for the same reason people enjoy stories that don't have plot holes. Feel free to have fun your way, but don't yuck others' yums.
Don't tell me what I am saying and there is nothing internally consistent about punching a building down but forcing the wheelchair player to struggle with stairs.
(to be fair, many people say "realism" when they are referring to internal consistency). An awful lot of people will genuinely have more fun in an internally consistent world even if it is not realistic, for the same reason people enjoy stories that don't have plot holes. Feel free to have fun your way, but don't yuck others' yums.
That's a fair point, but it's worth thinking about which concepts we passively accept as "internally realistic" and which we reject. We are all subject to social conditioning which, if not acknowledged and examined, will lead us to view other people in certain ways. Dominant social messages tell us that disabled people are "incapable", that they are "broken", that accommodations are an "unfair burden" on able-bodied people. Even if we think we reject these framings, they still influence the way we see disabled people in pernicious ways! If someone says "I just don't think navigating a dungeon in a wheelchair is realistic (meaning internally consistent)," we should ask ourselves why they think that. Do they really know anything about how wheelchairs work or what wheelchair users are capable of? Or have they formed a snap conclusion based on passive social messages which are not, in the true sense of the word, realistic?
(to be fair, many people say "realism" when they are referring to internal consistency). An awful lot of people will genuinely have more fun in an internally consistent world even if it is not realistic, for the same reason people enjoy stories that don't have plot holes. Feel free to have fun your way, but don't yuck others' yums.
That's a fair point, but it's worth thinking about which concepts we passively accept as "internally realistic" and which we reject. We are all subject to social conditioning which, if not acknowledged and examined, will lead us to view other people in certain ways. Dominant social messages tell us that disabled people are "incapable", that they are "broken", that accommodations are an "unfair burden" on able-bodied people. Even if we think we reject these framings, they still influence the way we see disabled people in pernicious ways! If someone says "I just don't think navigating a dungeon in a wheelchair is realistic (meaning internally consistent)," we should ask ourselves why they think that. Do they really know anything about how wheelchairs work or what wheelchair users are capable of? Or have they formed a snap conclusion based on passive social messages which are not, in the true sense of the word, realistic?
There are a host of different reasons why someone might choose to play as mobility impaired, and how they're going to want to do it. Even as simple as whether they're an ambulatory wheelchair user or not; those give us lots of different opportunities around what it means. I can see interactions with NPCs varying depending on that. The classic "you're not really disabled, you stood up" reaction.
Comfort with playing impairment is probably also heavily influenced by our own experiences. Someone who is immersed in disability rights work is going to approach it in a different way to someone who has no direct experience of working with disabled people. I can think of one campaign where nobody is not disabled in some way, a very different appetite to address the topic compared to one where everyone is abled.
This thread has been very informative. My takeaway is, like so many things in D&D, that this is something best left for the tables to work out and not for official rule books.
Nah, I say official books should represent the whole gamut of people that play this game. I've never been a fan of the whole "I don't care who you are as long as you are it away from me" adjacent attitude.
This thread proves that is not possible.
ETA: I am responding to the first sentence, as the second one is nothing but conjecture.
I don't think I necessarily want Wizards of the Coast to lay down one, official, immutable set of rules for how to handle disability broadly or even wheelchairs, specifically. What I would like is an official acknowledgement somewhere in a published product that players will hypothetically read that says something to the effect of "Disabled players deserve to have characters that look like them and DMs should make every effort to represent those characters in a way that is fulfilling to their players. There are many third-party rule sets for various types of representation, and we encourage you to google them." It would cost them nothing and do a lot to open up the game space.
This thread has been very informative. My takeaway is, like so many things in D&D, that this is something best left for the tables to work out and not for official rule books.
Nah, I say official books should represent the whole gamut of people that play this game. I've never been a fan of the whole "I don't care who you are as long as you are it away from me" adjacent attitude.
This thread proves that is not possible.
ETA: I am responding to the first sentence, as the second one is nothing but conjecture.
I don't think I necessarily want Wizards of the Coast to lay down one, official, immutable set of rules for how to handle disability broadly or even wheelchairs, specifically. What I would like is an official acknowledgement somewhere in a published product that players will hypothetically read that says something to the effect of "Disabled players deserve to have characters that look like them and DMs should make every effort to represent those characters in a way that is fulfilling to their players. There are many third-party rule sets for various types of representation, and we encourage you to google them." It would cost them nothing and do a lot to open up the game space.
Honestly, I'm not sure I want to go all the way to "every effort"; with respect to people who want to facilitate their desired characters with disabilities, the collaborative game element of D&D cuts both ways and not everyone will want to run a setting where there's pretty, clean, and accessible magic fixes for such issues. I'd emphasize open discussion and mutual collaboration more than putting the onus solely or primarily on the DM to make accommodations.
Honestly, on the mechanical end of the two common impairments- mobility and vision- I think the best way to implement patches is this: functionally you use the mechanics of a Prosthetic Limb or Ersatz Eye respectively; aesthetics can be negotiated between the player and DM to what fits the setting, but I think these two magic items best address the how of things in a way that's simple and avoids the possibility/appearance that someone is "gaming the system" by getting bonus features that seem to come out ahead of the cost of their disability.
Granted, personally I have trouble grasping why someone would want to play "described as impaired, but effectively not for the purposes of play", but maybe that's because most writing advice I see warns against writing characters like that because it's easy to slip into tokenism or otherwise put a foot wrong when you don't critically apply how having the condition affects the character in the story.
It's very possible. If one day they print an official combat wheelchair, or some kind of "official" guidelines on running games for wheelchair-using PCs, and for some reason that bothers people who claim to be unable to stretch their suspension of disbelief that far or don't find those pages useful... those people are free to skip over those pages in their copy of the book.
But even without such guidance, the art IS the starting point. ALL art (not just illustrations) sparks our imaginations and challenges our perceptions of what can be.
To briefly quote AOC: "{Policymaking} is about following the public will - but the people who change what people think are artists." That's as true for game rules as it is for legislation.
You prove my point, everyone will not be included or represented with your argument, you're are likely ok with that as it seems to line up with your personal views. You obviously have no issue disregarding those that have different views from you which comes across rather hypocritical to me. I am all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you do not agree with otherwise it is by definition exclusive not inclusive. In my opinion rules that force conformation or exclusion do not have a place in a game like D&D, just because there is no rule that specifically includes a person or group does not mean the are not included or that they are excluded, hence my opinion some rules are best left for individual tables, and left out of rule books.
[REDACTED]
"I'm all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you disagree with..."
Naw. That's not what inclusion is. "Inclusion" does not mean bringing people together and finding a middle ground between those who say "I want to be represented" and those who say "your existence is a hindrance to me."
It's very possible. If one day they print an official combat wheelchair, or some kind of "official" guidelines on running games for wheelchair-using PCs, and for some reason that bothers people who claim to be unable to stretch their suspension of disbelief that far or don't find those pages useful... those people are free to skip over those pages in their copy of the book.
But even without such guidance, the art IS the starting point. ALL art (not just illustrations) sparks our imaginations and challenges our perceptions of what can be.
To briefly quote AOC: "{Policymaking} is about following the public will - but the people who change what people think are artists." That's as true for game rules as it is for legislation.
You prove my point, everyone will not be included or represented with your argument, you're are likely ok with that as it seems to line up with your personal views. You obviously have no issue disregarding those that have different views from you which comes across rather hypocritical to me. I am all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you do not agree with otherwise it is by definition exclusive not inclusive. In my opinion rules that force conformation or exclusion do not have a place in a game like D&D, just because there is no rule that specifically includes a person or group does not mean the are not included or that they are excluded, hence my opinion some rules are best left for individual tables, and left out of rule books.
[REDACTED]
"I'm all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you disagree with..."
Naw. That's not what inclusion is. "Inclusion" does not mean bringing people together and finding a middle ground between those who say "I want to be represented" and those who say "your existence is a hindrance to me."
How can you find middle ground without including opposing views?
You obviously have no issue disregarding those that have different views from you which comes across rather hypocritical to me. I am all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you do not agree with otherwise it is by definition exclusive not inclusive.
That's definitely not what inclusion means, go google "Paradox of Tolerance." But I can't and won't discuss it further here, Maximus summed it up well.
And pretty much every post I see you upvote only illustrates my point further. But that's as far off-topic as I'm going to get.
Honestly, I'm not sure I want to go all the way to "every effort"; with respect to people who want to facilitate their desired characters with disabilities, the collaborative game element of D&D cuts both ways and not everyone will want to run a setting where there's pretty, clean, and accessible magic fixes for such issues. I'd emphasize open discussion and mutual collaboration more than putting the onus solely or primarily on the DM to make accommodations.
We have talked a lot about magic wheelchairs in this thread so I want to be super clear about an additional point: I also think players should be allowed to create characters who use regular, mechanical wheelchairs without a whiff of magic in them. The "magic wheelchair" thing was already a concession to the people who think wheelchairs can't go in dungeons, and perhaps that concession shouldn't have been made. How does a mundane wheelchair navigate a dungeon? I don't know, but I bet my players and I can figure it out between us. What is a wheelchair doing in a generic middle ages fantasy setting? I don't know, but considering the Chinese were using wheelchairs for over a thousand years before the Roman Empire fell, I'm gonna say my generic fantasy peasants could figure it out. (Incidentally if your game has crossbows but not wheelchairs congratulations, you are internally inconsistent)
This just, generally speaking, isn't all that hard. Accommodating a player to their satisfaction in a made-up game playing a made-up character is just. Such a deeply minimal ask. I do not know what else to say about it.
How can you find middle ground without including opposing views?
Why would you want to find a "middle ground" on inclusion? What benefit does taking a "middle ground" approach have to people who are historically excluded from so many aspects of social life?
Also AOC is not a person I value when it comes to opinions about inclusivity.
"I'm all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you disagree with..."
Naw. That's not what inclusion is. "Inclusion" does not mean bringing people together and finding a middle ground between those who say "I want to be represented" and those who say "your existence is a hindrance to me."
Where to even begin?
Inclusivity and inclusion are two different words with two different definitions. In context, I suspect you mean inclusivity, from your grammar.
Arguments from definition are generally speaking among the least productive available on the internet. If there's a viewpoint you want to argue shouldn't be included, say so, and say why. Don't try to argue the finer points of what inclusion or inclusivity mean, because that's not the real topic at hand.
Also AOC is not a person I value when it comes to opinions about inclusivity.
"I'm all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you disagree with..."
Naw. That's not what inclusion is. "Inclusion" does not mean bringing people together and finding a middle ground between those who say "I want to be represented" and those who say "your existence is a hindrance to me."
Where to even begin?
Inclusivity and inclusion are two different words with two different definitions. In context, I suspect you mean inclusivity, from your grammar.
Arguments from definition are generally speaking among the least productive available on the internet. If there's a viewpoint you want to argue shouldn't be included, say so, and say why. Don't try to argue the finer points of what inclusion or inclusivity mean, because that's not the real topic at hand.
I'm sorry, read your first two points, then read the third. Because, I mean, the irony is just hilarious.
Also I wasn't arguing a definition. I'm saying that when the opposing sides are "your disability cannot be realistically (or internally consistently) represented in my game" and "I want to be able to have my disability represented in-game", there's no middle ground. Those aren't two sides with a compromise. There's compromises to be had within including the representation (as we've discussed, various levels of "my character's disability is flavor with no additional mechanical aspects" to "I have a combat wheelchair with various bonuses and drawbacks"), but not between "I don't want it in my game" and "I want it in my game".
Defend exclusion however you wish, I still say it is something for tables to deal with not a rule book.
If anyone (not saying you specifically) who holds a viewpoint like "wheelchairs shouldn't exist in D&D" being disregarded by the devs counts as "exclusion" - I obviously can't speak for them, but I'm more than willing to live with that, and happily so.
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Nah, I say official books should represent the whole gamut of people that play this game. I've never been a fan of the whole "I don't care who you are as long as you are it away from me" adjacent attitude.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I have no opinion on art, though I know for many it can be very important in this game.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
This thread proves that is not possible.
ETA: I am responding to the first sentence, as the second one is nothing but conjecture.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Apologies, I hadn't noticed that you'd edited this one when I replied earlier.
When we're talking about disability rights in general it's often interesting to see who is speaking from experience and who isn't. Particularly fascinating here for a disabled person to be told that they're unempathic about the experiences of disabled people, hence wanting to understand if that's come from someone with direct experience of disability discrimination, or not.
Clearly they're own business whether they're disabled or not, I just find it a bit rich to be told that, in response to describing the reality of disability discrimination.
I think the key thing here is everyone is going to approach it differently. I'm inclined to want to hear a rationale for the choice. If someone just wants it as a skin with no impact on play, then that's fine; it just impacts any art they create outwith the game. If they want to play a mobility impaired character, then that needs more work. If that's the case I'll do the work as a DM, as long as they do the work as a player. Going back to the example of a touretter I mentioned earlier, if that's the rationale then what other impact does it have? What other tics does the character have, and how can we use that to make some interesting situations?
It all forms part of the narrative, and there is a lot of scope to play with mobility impairment. As ever, we're limited by our imaginations.
You are conflating realism as in "this is similar to how the real world works" with internal consistency (to be fair, many people say "realism" when they are referring to internal consistency). An awful lot of people will genuinely have more fun in an internally consistent world even if it is not realistic, for the same reason people enjoy stories that don't have plot holes. Feel free to have fun your way, but don't yuck others' yums.
It's very possible. If one day they print an official combat wheelchair, or some kind of "official" guidelines on running games for wheelchair-using PCs, and for some reason that bothers people who claim to be unable to stretch their suspension of disbelief that far or don't find those pages useful... those people are free to skip over those pages in their copy of the book.
But even without such guidance, the art IS the starting point. ALL art (not just illustrations) sparks our imaginations and challenges our perceptions of what can be.
To briefly quote AOC: "{Policymaking} is about following the public will - but the people who change what people think are artists." That's as true for game rules as it is for legislation.
Don't tell me what I am saying and there is nothing internally consistent about punching a building down but forcing the wheelchair player to struggle with stairs.
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That's a fair point, but it's worth thinking about which concepts we passively accept as "internally realistic" and which we reject. We are all subject to social conditioning which, if not acknowledged and examined, will lead us to view other people in certain ways. Dominant social messages tell us that disabled people are "incapable", that they are "broken", that accommodations are an "unfair burden" on able-bodied people. Even if we think we reject these framings, they still influence the way we see disabled people in pernicious ways! If someone says "I just don't think navigating a dungeon in a wheelchair is realistic (meaning internally consistent)," we should ask ourselves why they think that. Do they really know anything about how wheelchairs work or what wheelchair users are capable of? Or have they formed a snap conclusion based on passive social messages which are not, in the true sense of the word, realistic?
There are a host of different reasons why someone might choose to play as mobility impaired, and how they're going to want to do it. Even as simple as whether they're an ambulatory wheelchair user or not; those give us lots of different opportunities around what it means. I can see interactions with NPCs varying depending on that. The classic "you're not really disabled, you stood up" reaction.
Comfort with playing impairment is probably also heavily influenced by our own experiences. Someone who is immersed in disability rights work is going to approach it in a different way to someone who has no direct experience of working with disabled people. I can think of one campaign where nobody is not disabled in some way, a very different appetite to address the topic compared to one where everyone is abled.
I don't think I necessarily want Wizards of the Coast to lay down one, official, immutable set of rules for how to handle disability broadly or even wheelchairs, specifically. What I would like is an official acknowledgement somewhere in a published product that players will hypothetically read that says something to the effect of "Disabled players deserve to have characters that look like them and DMs should make every effort to represent those characters in a way that is fulfilling to their players. There are many third-party rule sets for various types of representation, and we encourage you to google them." It would cost them nothing and do a lot to open up the game space.
Honestly, I'm not sure I want to go all the way to "every effort"; with respect to people who want to facilitate their desired characters with disabilities, the collaborative game element of D&D cuts both ways and not everyone will want to run a setting where there's pretty, clean, and accessible magic fixes for such issues. I'd emphasize open discussion and mutual collaboration more than putting the onus solely or primarily on the DM to make accommodations.
Honestly, on the mechanical end of the two common impairments- mobility and vision- I think the best way to implement patches is this: functionally you use the mechanics of a Prosthetic Limb or Ersatz Eye respectively; aesthetics can be negotiated between the player and DM to what fits the setting, but I think these two magic items best address the how of things in a way that's simple and avoids the possibility/appearance that someone is "gaming the system" by getting bonus features that seem to come out ahead of the cost of their disability.
Granted, personally I have trouble grasping why someone would want to play "described as impaired, but effectively not for the purposes of play", but maybe that's because most writing advice I see warns against writing characters like that because it's easy to slip into tokenism or otherwise put a foot wrong when you don't critically apply how having the condition affects the character in the story.
"I'm all for inclusion, and to be inclusive you have to include views you disagree with..."
Naw. That's not what inclusion is. "Inclusion" does not mean bringing people together and finding a middle ground between those who say "I want to be represented" and those who say "your existence is a hindrance to me."
How can you find middle ground without including opposing views?
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
That's definitely not what inclusion means, go google "Paradox of Tolerance." But I can't and won't discuss it further here, Maximus summed it up well.
And pretty much every post I see you upvote only illustrates my point further. But that's as far off-topic as I'm going to get.
We have talked a lot about magic wheelchairs in this thread so I want to be super clear about an additional point: I also think players should be allowed to create characters who use regular, mechanical wheelchairs without a whiff of magic in them. The "magic wheelchair" thing was already a concession to the people who think wheelchairs can't go in dungeons, and perhaps that concession shouldn't have been made. How does a mundane wheelchair navigate a dungeon? I don't know, but I bet my players and I can figure it out between us. What is a wheelchair doing in a generic middle ages fantasy setting? I don't know, but considering the Chinese were using wheelchairs for over a thousand years before the Roman Empire fell, I'm gonna say my generic fantasy peasants could figure it out. (Incidentally if your game has crossbows but not wheelchairs congratulations, you are internally inconsistent)
This just, generally speaking, isn't all that hard. Accommodating a player to their satisfaction in a made-up game playing a made-up character is just. Such a deeply minimal ask. I do not know what else to say about it.
Why would you want to find a "middle ground" on inclusion? What benefit does taking a "middle ground" approach have to people who are historically excluded from so many aspects of social life?
Where to even begin?
Defend exclusion however you wish, I still say it is something for tables to deal with not a rule book.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I'm sorry, read your first two points, then read the third. Because, I mean, the irony is just hilarious.
Also I wasn't arguing a definition. I'm saying that when the opposing sides are "your disability cannot be realistically (or internally consistently) represented in my game" and "I want to be able to have my disability represented in-game", there's no middle ground. Those aren't two sides with a compromise. There's compromises to be had within including the representation (as we've discussed, various levels of "my character's disability is flavor with no additional mechanical aspects" to "I have a combat wheelchair with various bonuses and drawbacks"), but not between "I don't want it in my game" and "I want it in my game".
If anyone (not saying you specifically) who holds a viewpoint like "wheelchairs shouldn't exist in D&D" being disregarded by the devs counts as "exclusion" - I obviously can't speak for them, but I'm more than willing to live with that, and happily so.