D&D (2024) Comeliness and Representation in Recent DnD Art

[LesserThan]

That being said, plenty of people disagree with me on that point, and they should have their fantasy too.

The biggest question in modern gaming these days is who gets to choose the presented default.

Do we even need a default?

 

[Charlaquin]

I think most of us have a somewhat narrow view when it comes to the demographics of players. Not because we're myopic, but because our social experiences are necssarily narrow because we're just individuals. I don't know if young queer people are the biggest influx of new players, but I've certainly seen their presence. In 2018, I ran Curse of Strahd and another campaign for a group I started gaming with and half the players were gay. They were in their late 20s which is young to me. I'm glad I had that experience because they were fun to game with.

A big part of this I think is just the fact that younger people are more comfortable with identifying outside the hetero-normative bounds. Gender and sexuality are spectra, and while a plurality of people may lean towards one end or the other, it turns out a lot of people will fall somewhere in-between, if their society gives them the space to do so.

 

[Charlaquin]

I've not once seen someone play a teifling with the intention to be discriminated against in-game.

I have been that person

 

[Charlaquin]

When the D&D wheelchair came out, there was some adventure book that required wheelchair ramps in dungeons, publushed by WotC.

No, there wasn’t. There was a lot of reactionary griping about “so are dungeons all going to be wheelchair accessible in WotC adventures now?” but no wheelchair accessible dungeons ever actually happened. Indeed, if those reactionaries had actually read the adventure-wheelchair document (which was 3rd party, by the way) they’d have seen that it was designed to be able to traverse terrain that would not normally be wheelchair accessible, via fantasy tech.

 

[Charlaquin]

Or because it's inhabited by people without legs, like yuan-ti.

Candlekeep. I seem to recall there was an NPC in a wheelchair, and some people on reddit were throwing fits. A lot more were saying that, with magic, it would have been cooler and more logical if the chair floated or had spider legs instead of wheels (I agree, but I understand why using an actual wheelchair is important). And other people were saying it was stupid because of magical prosthetics and even just magical regeneration.

Then someone came up with the combat wheelchair, and that sparked a whole 'nother debate because there were people who were saying it was OP and thus totally unfair, even though it's really not.

Note, it has an NPC in a wheelchair, not a dictate that all dungeons must be wheelchair accessible. (I’m not sure if any of thee dungeons in that book happen to be wheelchair accessible or not, but there have certainly been inaccessible dungeons printed in WotC adventures since.)

 

[Hussar]

What’s absolutely hilarious is that the adventure in question - The Canopic Being- takes place in a dungeon where it makes perfect sense for ramps but actually at no point mentions the notion of being wheelchair accessible and if you didn’t know beforehand you actually would never even think about it.

 

[LesserThan]

No, there wasn’t. There was a lot of reactionary griping about “so are dungeons all going to be wheelchair accessible in WotC adventures now?” but no wheelchair accessible dungeons ever actually happened. Indeed, if those reactionaries had actually read the adventure-wheelchair document (which was 3rd party, by the way) they’d have seen that it was designed to be able to traverse terrain that would not normally be wheelchair accessible, via fantasy tech.

This was the video. Complain to him if he spread the wrong information.

 

[LesserThan]

Note, it has an NPC in a wheelchair, not a dictate that all dungeons must be wheelchair accessible. (I’m not sure if any of thee dungeons in that book happen to be wheelchair accessible or not, but there have certainly been inaccessible dungeons printed in WotC adventures since.)

What’s absolutely hilarious is that the adventure in question - The Canopic Being- takes place in a dungeon where it makes perfect sense for ramps but actually at no point mentions the notion of being wheelchair accessible and if you didn’t know beforehand you actually would never even think about it.

It seems it did have ramps, in the fashion of the pyramids I mentioned earlier.

The author implied them to be for wheelchairs, it seems, according to the guy in that video, as per the description of the video.

"I could not believe the comments I saw criticizing the wheelchair accessible dungeon by Jennifer Kretchmer."

 

[Charlaquin]

This was the video. Complain to him if he spread the wrong information.

Spreading misinformation is reactionaries’ entire MO. Always, always fact check before repeating something you heard on the internet.

 

[LesserThan]

breaking their escapism.

I have never heard this before, only breaking immersion, never breaking escapism.