D&D General Nolzur creates inclusive miniatures, people can't handle it.

[Tales and Chronicles]

I think if you want a better idea of a wheelchair user "off road" this BBC video about a nature program researcher who uses a wheelchair is better.


Which shows generally he needs an assistant (sometimes two), specialist equipment, and occasionally there are still places where it just isn't practical to get to.

Also the Beyond Boundaries BBC TV series.


Which shows what a struggle it is, that's the realism.

Yes, but that's a researcher, not a trained adventurer who faces deadly perils 6-8 times per day. And sure, the adventurer will have specialist equipment and help from their party members and other neat tricks and workaround. It changes things in-fiction, how challenges are approached and depicted, but it does not need a layer of mechanic and penalties.

 

[Voadam]

There are a couple of ways D&D can handle it.

One is to go anime awesome wheelchairs, and D&D wheelchairists can be skatepark parkourists everywhere, not just skate parks.

A DM could just not sweat it and treat wheelchairists as not impaired anywhere or in any aspect and mostly leave it as a narrative element.

Issues of mobility and maneuverability can be treated with verisimilitude but many could be overcome by customized minor magic, so you could have Tenser's floating disc hover chairs Professor X style that can float over tree roots with no problem and move at normal PC move rates but do not fly or levitate up.

A DM can shape the narrative environment and situations so realistic wheelchairs can work, the dungeon is designed for Daleks with ramps and not stairs, etc. Bran does not have to maneuver up ladders because it does not come up.

Maneuverability could be a big issue wheelchairists have to deal with. As they go into White Plume Mountain and one of the branch challenges is jumping from one swinging platform chain over lava to another to another to get to the vault on the other side the PCs have to come up with their own approach to overcoming this challenge which can be tougher for those in a chair.

 

[Autumnal]

One very important thing for people observing a condition from the outside, and this is true whether it’s a disability, an ethnic or cultural minority, neurodivergence, or whatever:

Outside observer, be 100% confident that you are not the first to think of any possible solution. I mean, really really expect to find that someone else got there first and had been poking at it a long time.

Whoever you are, you’ve probably had the experience of someone coming along and after five minutes’ observation, proceed to glibly tell you how you should do your job (hobby, parenting, whatever). And they probably piss you off because they don’t apparently realize that practices exist for reasons, even if they’re not immediately obvious. Yes?

Well…please don’t be that person when it comes to including new-to-you stuff in gaming. Thank you very much, from all of us gimps and other weirdos.

 

[Umbran]

Which is unfortunate, because when fantasy wheelchairs are introduced there are often real issues with verisimilitude and game balance.

Gaming is a collaborative endeavor. That means there's going to be some give and take on what everyone wants at the table. Maybe, if there's a person in a wheelchair at the table, your sense of verisimilitude about wheelchairs should take a back seat to their representation.

Dealing with representation of a disability should not start with a set of rules for a wheelchair - it should start with a discussion with the person about what form that representation should take, and what kind of limits or quirks the representation will present to the character in game.

It may be that all the person wants is a narrative of being in a wheelchair, but doesn't really want the challenges of mobility in game. Others may want those challenges to varying degrees. The game-statistics for the thing should be adjusted to suit.

I wonder a bit at the complaint about rules issues the chair represents. Spellcasters come up with surprising creative spellcasting that call for rulings, don't they? That's harder than dealing with a wheelchair that you know about before play begins.

Like, if a chair presents to the GM some ruling challenges about lava, or floor-based traps, maybe just don't use those in the campaign. I know I haven't dropped a PC into lava for years, and nobody has noted the lack.

 

[Bagpuss]

If your lesson from this is that a wheelchair user can't adventure then I hope none of your adventures are more than a party of one.

No my lesson from that is one can, with the right support (which may or may not be a magic wheelchair), sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[Autumnal]

A bit of apparently outside-the-box thinking:

You know how many cultures include traditions of offering part of the kill from a hunt, the first harvest of a crop, etc? There are nature spirits who grant a gift of mobility to those who make a small offering. It takes 10 minutes and consumes half a daily ration or some comparably valuable token - work out details to taste. I heh you do that, for that day, you suffer only the movement penalties that a healthy person of your sort would while walking, whatever it is you may actually be doing to move.

What happens is that you, your mobility aids, and the environment all become just a little bit flexible and fluid. It’s the result of a specific spiritual intervention so you can’t readily cheese it for non-mobility purposes, but clever people do try. Sometimes it works, particularly if it’s part of making the immediate environment safer, less soaked in eldritch horror and such - spirits aren’t stupid and like not bein cursed and miserable, don’t like being used like unthinking tools.

So there you go. To me, that’s a low-magic solution, since there’s a specific effect and requirements to make it work.

 

[Bagpuss]

Gaming is a collaborative endeavor. That means there's going to be some give and take on what everyone wants at the table. Maybe, if there's a person in a wheelchair at the table, your sense of verisimilitude about wheelchairs should take a back seat to their representation.

Dealing with representation of a disability should not start with a set of rules for a wheelchair - it should start with a discussion with the person about what form that representation should take, and what kind of limits or quirks the representation will present to the character in game.

Which is kind of my point, I think presenting these rules they aren't going to be suitable for everyone but they can make a useful starting point for a discussion between the GM and player at a table where that sort representation matters to that player.

It may be that all the person wants is a narrative of being in a wheelchair, but doesn't really want the challenges of mobility in game. Others may want those challenges to varying degrees. The game-statistics for the thing should be adjusted to suit.

Exactly a one size fits all response, which is what is often presented with these rules, isn't without problems, pointing out those problems isn't automatically coming from a place of hate.

I wonder a bit at the complaint about rules issues the chair represents. Spellcasters come up with surprising creative spellcasting that call for rulings, don't they? That's harder than dealing with a wheelchair that you know about before play begins.

Like, if a chair presents to the GM some ruling challenges about lava, or floor-based traps, maybe just don't use those in the campaign. I know I haven't dropped a PC into lava for years,

The fun you're missing...

 

[Krachek]

I see no more verisimilitude problem than for Charles Xavier.
As the party level up the cleric will have a levitating wheel chair.
For healing magic the DM could state that for this specific curse it don’t work. that’s it.

 

[AnotherGuy]

In a setting where you have magical/sci-fi healing why would anyone willingly decide to remain in a wheelchair?

Thing is this is about representing people in the real world in a fantasy world, it is pretty easy to come up with some fiction as to why a character can't or won't accept magic or technology that would mean they don't need a chair. Most magical healing doesn't fix a condition someone is born with, and magic that can (like wish) is prohibitively expensive, maybe that's why they are an adventurer. In Cyberpunk maybe they have a rare condition where their body rejects cyberware, the damage is to a location that makes the usual connection methods impossible, etc. Or maybe, they choose to be this way for some personal reason. Whatever the reason coming up with one that makes sense in the setting should be possible between the player and the GM.

Sir Isteval in FR uses a cane to walk as his leg resisted the magical healing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I see no more verisimilitude problem than for Charles Xavier.
As the party level up the cleric will have a levitating wheel chair.
For healing magic the DM could state that for this specific curse it don’t work. that’s it.

Some folks here seem to have issue with people who even go that far.