I have always been fascinated with the idea of trying to play characters with disabilities or some curse or just something akin to it, and have been curious as to what other peoples stories/characters like that have been like. Has your curse hindered your party or yourself in a role-playing fashion or gameplay, or has your disability added a unique twist to combat or interactions?
I have once tried to play a blind character myself, in the interactions it was fun because I didn't have a reliable way to combat being blind, so I had to have other characters guide me and help me in combat.
As for a curse, well I have DMed games by giving people a curse but nothing too permanent, typically something akin to their backstory or an interesting twist on a trap of sorts.
I once played a Half Elf Hexblade Warlock who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal injury, but me and the dm homebrewed a ritual that could repair his spine for a short amount of time. Which led to some interesting scenarios, especially because it was Icewind Dale
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my name is not Bryce
Actor
Certified Dark Sun enjoyer
usually on forum games and not contributing to conversations ¯\_ (ツ)_/
For every user who writes 5 paragraph essays as each of their posts: Remember to touch grass occasionally
Ooo the frozen lands of Icewind Dale would be escpecially unforgiving to those with a disabilty I like the ritual idea did it last for a few minutes or did you have some sort of tell that let you know you were losing your mobility like your limbs slowing down or not working as well when the spell began to ran out? Could also imagine other characters having to carry you or having some sort of makeshift wheelchair/sled.
I have four that come to mind, although in practice only two still suffer from it.
Pietro Polstar: a half-dragon who inherited a combination of a human mind and the mind of his white dragon father. Y’see, white dragons have something similar to a photographic memory, but are either unable to or are very bad at understanding complex ideas like math, lies, justice and the like. I would say that this mental disability doesn’t directly resemble any mental disorders in the real world (though I may be wrong) but I’m practice I RP him as someone who’s firmly on the Autism spectrum. As you can imagine it’s hard to RP someone who’s brain is fundamentally different from any other humans so I just went with what’s as familiar to me. In practice he’s an inquisitive rogue and armorer artificer, who spent twenty years of his youth serving a jail sentence in a massive fortress-library memorizing tens of thousands of books. Who now uses his photographic memory as a free man to solve mysteries using a specialized armor-like apparatus which has extendable magic magnifying glasses which he uses to cast artificer spells.
the second is Astello De’Atlas: he’s from a sci-fi oneshot my friend planned and he was born missing most of his limbs and organs, spending most of his time in a sheltered lab while scientists worked to create a robotic suit and immune system he could use to live normally. During this time he found solidarity in the night sky and the stars as that was the only form of entertainment he could really enjoy besides his studies into gravity magic and rocket science. He eventually does get equipped with the prosthetic body and makes it his mission to visit the stars as thanks for keeping him company for hundreds of pained and lonely nights.
Felix Knellwood was born a bastard to an elf and human noble with a horrible blood disease which rendered him a frail and unfit heir to his family’s manor, yet still his parents (which quickly married to cover up the circumstances of his birth) still loved him dearly, and sheltered him behind the safe red walls of their manor to protect him from the haunted grim forest their manor surrounded. It was near the arrival of Felix’s brother when a mysterious man claiming to be an experienced doctor came as a desperate attempt from his parents to cure his illness. Which the medicine man did before vanishing into the night. He had transfused all of the young Felix’s blood with a cursed liquid silver which soon spread throughout his body. Curing him of the disease but afflicting him with the need to feed on the spinal fluid of others to maintain his energy. Since then he’s willingly left the position of heir to his little brother to continue living in silence in the private corners of his family manor and the nearby town and haunted forest. Hunting down any undead or other noble who would threaten their home and family. In-game he’s a half elf Dhampir Gloomstalker/clockwork sorcerer. His skin becomes a shiny chrome color when he’s deep in combat.
the last is a currently unnamed Horizon walker ranger who spent his life in a unit of specialized ranger who hunt aberrations in the savage frozen wastelands of the north. One incident during a failed mission he was left as one of a pair who survived, though the battle cost him both his right foot and a permanent injury to his spine which prevented him from ever walking again. The aberration’s damage to his body healed but could never be reverted by magic (this was to avoid the question of “well uh why don’t they fix his spine with greater restoration?”). He crawled out of his depressive state to resume his hunt and prove that he’s still the master hunter he always was. I chose horizons walker and an immobile character in the first place because I though having to use special magic items and class abilities to zip around the battlefield would be very interesting.
if anyone has a suggestion as to what to name this character I’d gladly take it. Also feedback is appreciated!!
Hmm…I had an Archfey Pact Warlock who had made a deal with an Archfey they had stumbled upon after wandering too far from a festival in a drunken stupor.
The Archfey was bound to their grove, you see, and could not leave…so in exchange for letting the Warlock leave, the Archfey decreed that they be allowed to experience the world through the Warlock’s eyes.
This would later manifest as purple eyes that would appear periodically whenever the Archfey “tuned-in”…which usually happened whenever something “interesting” happened.
It was like my Warlock was a television program…except the Archfey would sometimes take over to have some “fun”. In that sense, it was a curse…to be compelled to act in a manner that caused enjoyable chaos.
Typically, these moments of possession happened at chaotic moments (reflected in my character’s alignment).
Sadly, THAT character came across a Deck of Many Things…they didn’t stand a chance.
The Archfey made them draw three cards from the Deck.
Long story short, the party got rich; and the Warlock was sent to the Donjon.
Ooo the frozen lands of Icewind Dale would be escpecially unforgiving to those with a disabilty I like the ritual idea did it last for a few minutes or did you have some sort of tell that let you know you were losing your mobility like your limbs slowing down or not working as well when the spell began to ran out? Could also imagine other characters having to carry you or having some sort of makeshift wheelchair/sled.
We would roll to see how long it would last, and the amount of time would be unknown to me, but known to my dm. And when it ran out my character would suddenly lose all feeling or control of his legs and faceplant if he was standing up, this happened twice while we were walking in a snowstorm, in a tavern, during a romance scene, and in the middle of the duergar fortress. He had to be wheelchaired around quite a bit because of the components of the ritual
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my name is not Bryce
Actor
Certified Dark Sun enjoyer
usually on forum games and not contributing to conversations ¯\_ (ツ)_/
For every user who writes 5 paragraph essays as each of their posts: Remember to touch grass occasionally
I have a Light Cleric who is blind. Permanently afflicted with the blinded condition, but with some training, and some faith, she gains the Blindfighting style, which allows her to see the flickering souls or magic that animates everyone within range. ...have to take two feats to do it cause Light Cleric doesn't get martial weapons, and Fighting Initiate needs a martial weapon proficiency though.
But the good news is: Fireball doesn't need you to see the point you're targeting.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I play a rogue warlock character she had lost her arm but she uses a crossbow and she needs some way to reload it since uses Mage hand and unseen to reload her crossbow I legitimately had trouble figuring out how she would reload her crossbow for a minute and was thinking of giving up but I eventually got there
I had a ranger that did his best to pretend to be blind to hide the fact that he was a Tiefling. He was not blind, and someone with enough perception could definitely tell that. As a sighted person, he could not faithfully simulate blindness, and I played him that way.
In the original 5e release, Tieflings had eyes of a solid color with no visible pupil. While he could hide his horns under a hood and his tail in baggy trousers and had fair skin like a Human, he could not disguise his solid white eyes. So, he pretended to be blind. It wasn't due to any local dislike for Tieflings but for the fact that he knew someone tried to kill him but that's all he knew and preferred to hide as a Human among a Human population. The locals knew, but they were tight-knit—originally xenophobic, but the Tiefling changed all that. The community became welcoming but still protective of "their own" of which the Tiefling became a part. The Tiefling eventually left the community out of concern of whoever tried to kill him returning if whoever it was learned of his survival by some means now that travelers were welcomed in the small town.
As for playing an actual accessible issue in a character (whether natural, by injury, or by curse) and not a story-based pretense, I avoid that. Part of my job is working with accessibility features. The most difficult part of that is realigning my perceptions to those with accessibility requirements instead of applying my own biases of perception. It is not something I feel comfortable pretending to honestly and respectfully represent for my own entertainment. The most I'm willing to do is severe environmental allergies of a certain kind (as allergies can manifest in many different ways) only because I know that first-hand, but few people would consider that an accessibility matter. (I can suffer functionality problems if it gets bad enough.)
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
At Lord's Rest Inn, I play an air genasi named Azul who was cursed a few hundred years back. It's an unusual curse, and he doesn't know much about it. Basically, he was turned into a living illusion. He can't physically interact with anything, or be damaged by certain damage types, which can be useful. The only way he can affect the world around him is through spells. Except recently, someone gave him a mysterious powder that lets him temporarily actually interact with objects. He hasn't used it yet, though.
It's sorta interesting.
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⌜╔═════════════The Board══════════════╗⌝
...and started me on my way into my next chapter in life...
I have always been fascinated with the idea of trying to play characters with disabilities or some curse or just something akin to it, and have been curious as to what other peoples stories/characters like that have been like. Has your curse hindered your party or yourself in a role-playing fashion or gameplay, or has your disability added a unique twist to combat or interactions?
I have once tried to play a blind character myself, in the interactions it was fun because I didn't have a reliable way to combat being blind, so I had to have other characters guide me and help me in combat.
As for a curse, well I have DMed games by giving people a curse but nothing too permanent, typically something akin to their backstory or an interesting twist on a trap of sorts.
Todd Kenreck and Jen Kretchmer had a discussion about disability and D&D that I feel is relevant and informational.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I once played a Half Elf Hexblade Warlock who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal injury, but me and the dm homebrewed a ritual that could repair his spine for a short amount of time. Which led to some interesting scenarios, especially because it was Icewind Dale
my name is not Bryce
Actor
Certified Dark Sun enjoyer
usually on forum games and not contributing to conversations ¯\_ (ツ)_/
For every user who writes 5 paragraph essays as each of their posts: Remember to touch grass occasionally
Ooo the frozen lands of Icewind Dale would be escpecially unforgiving to those with a disabilty I like the ritual idea did it last for a few minutes or did you have some sort of tell that let you know you were losing your mobility like your limbs slowing down or not working as well when the spell began to ran out? Could also imagine other characters having to carry you or having some sort of makeshift wheelchair/sled.
Oh dang this looks like a great watch! thank you for the video.
I have four that come to mind, although in practice only two still suffer from it.
Pietro Polstar: a half-dragon who inherited a combination of a human mind and the mind of his white dragon father. Y’see, white dragons have something similar to a photographic memory, but are either unable to or are very bad at understanding complex ideas like math, lies, justice and the like. I would say that this mental disability doesn’t directly resemble any mental disorders in the real world (though I may be wrong) but I’m practice I RP him as someone who’s firmly on the Autism spectrum. As you can imagine it’s hard to RP someone who’s brain is fundamentally different from any other humans so I just went with what’s as familiar to me. In practice he’s an inquisitive rogue and armorer artificer, who spent twenty years of his youth serving a jail sentence in a massive fortress-library memorizing tens of thousands of books. Who now uses his photographic memory as a free man to solve mysteries using a specialized armor-like apparatus which has extendable magic magnifying glasses which he uses to cast artificer spells.
the second is Astello De’Atlas: he’s from a sci-fi oneshot my friend planned and he was born missing most of his limbs and organs, spending most of his time in a sheltered lab while scientists worked to create a robotic suit and immune system he could use to live normally. During this time he found solidarity in the night sky and the stars as that was the only form of entertainment he could really enjoy besides his studies into gravity magic and rocket science. He eventually does get equipped with the prosthetic body and makes it his mission to visit the stars as thanks for keeping him company for hundreds of pained and lonely nights.
Felix Knellwood was born a bastard to an elf and human noble with a horrible blood disease which rendered him a frail and unfit heir to his family’s manor, yet still his parents (which quickly married to cover up the circumstances of his birth) still loved him dearly, and sheltered him behind the safe red walls of their manor to protect him from the haunted grim forest their manor surrounded. It was near the arrival of Felix’s brother when a mysterious man claiming to be an experienced doctor came as a desperate attempt from his parents to cure his illness. Which the medicine man did before vanishing into the night. He had transfused all of the young Felix’s blood with a cursed liquid silver which soon spread throughout his body. Curing him of the disease but afflicting him with the need to feed on the spinal fluid of others to maintain his energy. Since then he’s willingly left the position of heir to his little brother to continue living in silence in the private corners of his family manor and the nearby town and haunted forest. Hunting down any undead or other noble who would threaten their home and family. In-game he’s a half elf Dhampir Gloomstalker/clockwork sorcerer. His skin becomes a shiny chrome color when he’s deep in combat.
the last is a currently unnamed Horizon walker ranger who spent his life in a unit of specialized ranger who hunt aberrations in the savage frozen wastelands of the north. One incident during a failed mission he was left as one of a pair who survived, though the battle cost him both his right foot and a permanent injury to his spine which prevented him from ever walking again. The aberration’s damage to his body healed but could never be reverted by magic (this was to avoid the question of “well uh why don’t they fix his spine with greater restoration?”). He crawled out of his depressive state to resume his hunt and prove that he’s still the master hunter he always was. I chose horizons walker and an immobile character in the first place because I though having to use special magic items and class abilities to zip around the battlefield would be very interesting.
if anyone has a suggestion as to what to name this character I’d gladly take it. Also feedback is appreciated!!
Sorry for the wall of text btw
Hmm…I had an Archfey Pact Warlock who had made a deal with an Archfey they had stumbled upon after wandering too far from a festival in a drunken stupor.
The Archfey was bound to their grove, you see, and could not leave…so in exchange for letting the Warlock leave, the Archfey decreed that they be allowed to experience the world through the Warlock’s eyes.
This would later manifest as purple eyes that would appear periodically whenever the Archfey “tuned-in”…which usually happened whenever something “interesting” happened.
It was like my Warlock was a television program…except the Archfey would sometimes take over to have some “fun”. In that sense, it was a curse…to be compelled to act in a manner that caused enjoyable chaos.
Typically, these moments of possession happened at chaotic moments (reflected in my character’s alignment).
Sadly, THAT character came across a Deck of Many Things…they didn’t stand a chance.
The Archfey made them draw three cards from the Deck.
Long story short, the party got rich; and the Warlock was sent to the Donjon.
Don’t bargain with the Fey, people.
No this is great details are always fun cause it shows your put effort into these characters and how you portrayed their disabilties.
We would roll to see how long it would last, and the amount of time would be unknown to me, but known to my dm. And when it ran out my character would suddenly lose all feeling or control of his legs and faceplant if he was standing up, this happened twice while we were walking in a snowstorm, in a tavern, during a romance scene, and in the middle of the duergar fortress. He had to be wheelchaired around quite a bit because of the components of the ritual
my name is not Bryce
Actor
Certified Dark Sun enjoyer
usually on forum games and not contributing to conversations ¯\_ (ツ)_/
For every user who writes 5 paragraph essays as each of their posts: Remember to touch grass occasionally
I have a Light Cleric who is blind. Permanently afflicted with the blinded condition, but with some training, and some faith, she gains the Blindfighting style, which allows her to see the flickering souls or magic that animates everyone within range. ...have to take two feats to do it cause Light Cleric doesn't get martial weapons, and Fighting Initiate needs a martial weapon proficiency though.
But the good news is: Fireball doesn't need you to see the point you're targeting.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I play a rogue warlock character she had lost her arm but she uses a crossbow and she needs some way to reload it since uses Mage hand and unseen to reload her crossbow I legitimately had trouble figuring out how she would reload her crossbow for a minute and was thinking of giving up but I eventually got there
I played a dwarf that couldn't grow a beard, even with magic. He started adventuring to find a magic item strong enough to make him grow one.
I had a ranger that did his best to pretend to be blind to hide the fact that he was a Tiefling. He was not blind, and someone with enough perception could definitely tell that. As a sighted person, he could not faithfully simulate blindness, and I played him that way.
In the original 5e release, Tieflings had eyes of a solid color with no visible pupil. While he could hide his horns under a hood and his tail in baggy trousers and had fair skin like a Human, he could not disguise his solid white eyes. So, he pretended to be blind. It wasn't due to any local dislike for Tieflings but for the fact that he knew someone tried to kill him but that's all he knew and preferred to hide as a Human among a Human population. The locals knew, but they were tight-knit—originally xenophobic, but the Tiefling changed all that. The community became welcoming but still protective of "their own" of which the Tiefling became a part. The Tiefling eventually left the community out of concern of whoever tried to kill him returning if whoever it was learned of his survival by some means now that travelers were welcomed in the small town.
As for playing an actual accessible issue in a character (whether natural, by injury, or by curse) and not a story-based pretense, I avoid that. Part of my job is working with accessibility features. The most difficult part of that is realigning my perceptions to those with accessibility requirements instead of applying my own biases of perception. It is not something I feel comfortable pretending to honestly and respectfully represent for my own entertainment. The most I'm willing to do is severe environmental allergies of a certain kind (as allergies can manifest in many different ways) only because I know that first-hand, but few people would consider that an accessibility matter. (I can suffer functionality problems if it gets bad enough.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
At Lord's Rest Inn, I play an air genasi named Azul who was cursed a few hundred years back. It's an unusual curse, and he doesn't know much about it. Basically, he was turned into a living illusion. He can't physically interact with anything, or be damaged by certain damage types, which can be useful. The only way he can affect the world around him is through spells. Except recently, someone gave him a mysterious powder that lets him temporarily actually interact with objects. He hasn't used it yet, though.
It's sorta interesting.
⌜╔═════════════ The Board ══════════════╗⌝
...and started me on my way into my next chapter in life...
⌞╚════════════ Extended Signature ════════════╝⌟