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

[Tonguez]

Come on at least give us proper combat wheelchairs with spiked wheels

 

[Charlaquin]

It's a great sentiment, and hard to disagree with in principle. The only difficulty I have with it is that you are essentially condemning everyone who isn't an activist.

Yes, because when the status quo is inequitable, to not actively oppose it is to support that inequity. It’s inconvenient for those of us who are comfortable with the status quo, but we can easily afford to be inconvenienced a bit.

 

[Charlaquin]

Like I said, even with my realism-hat on I have no problem with a magic tricked-out wheelchair that can compensate for a some aspects of disability or even overcompensate to provide better abilities in some areas than non-disabled people. I am reminded of "Dalek", an episode in the first season of the rebooted Doctor Who series, where the eponymous Dalek is chasing some people, and they take to the stairs to escape... futilely as it turns out, as the Dalek starts screaming "ELEVATE!" and flies after them.

The issue, to whatever degree I have one, is with essentially making a wheelchair a cosmetic choice without any effect on your abilities at all – particularly a non-magical one.

As someone who is not himself disabled and as such might not be the best judge, I would look to Avatar: the Last Airbender for a good example of a character who is disabled and yet exceedingly competent: Toph Beifong. Toph is blind. However, she is also a very powerful earthbender, and she can use her earthbending as a very precise version of what D&D would call Tremorsense. This negates a lot of the disadvantages of being blind, but not all of them. She has no sense of color, she can't perceive things in the distance or things that fly (or much of anything if she herself doesn't have contact with the ground), and a light person moving softly can evade her senses. But on the other hand, she can sense things that are normally hidden, and she's just as able to move around in the dark as in light.

“Disability is a superpower” is also a potentially harmful trope. I love Toph, but I’m skeptical that many blind people would consider her good representation.

 

[Li Shenron]

I can't stop thinking that this IS really about not wanting disabilities with equal opportunities in the game.

Had a DM said "you walk into the dwarfen stronghold and see a coffee machine", most people would have considered it comic relief (which obviously is inappropriate on matters of disability), had a laugh and moved on. Many perhaps would have reacted with a simple eye-rolling and asked the DM to be more serious. But then this is because players would immediately picture a modern plastic coffee machine working with electricity, and would not be wrong to ask for a bit more technology consistency. The DM could narrate that dwarves are inventive enough to have built a coffee machine that in fact is a throughly mechanical contraption built on wood and metal, and working on coal. So why fixating on magic to explain a wheelchair in D&D, where there's lots of room for non-magical wonders?

Back to the wheelchair, a player wants a character that moves on one, so what? Why your immediate concern is to "restore realism" by (of course) give penalties to such character? Do you do the same thing if a player ask for ANY OTHER narrative variation of "normality"? I can't help but having a feeling of deja-vu about those who wanted penalties on female characters (while at the same time happily ignore any concern of realism on such characters' chainmail bikinis). I wonder if these people ever objected to someone wanting to play a pirate with a band on one eye, or another character roleplayed at permanently semi-drunk on booze, do you always pick on those players and impose penalties to their roleplaying/cosmetic choices? Because then I expect you pretty much never have a pirate PC with a band on one eye in your game.

On the other hand, you could just file all these requests under narrative fun and freedom of player's imagination. If the request of the player is not giving them any advantage, why do you so much want to impose a disadvantage? You can just keep playing everything as normal, and narrate around that, for example that old cranky pirate in a wheelchair kicks ass in battle because he's learn to maneuver just as well as everybody else can walk and dash and run, and is accustomed enough to sitting on the wheelchair that he can certainly pull herself up on a rope or even a wall by hands. OR you can work with the players to decide together if occasionally something cannot be done and everyone agrees, and maybe find another occasion to instead give them an advantage because of the wheelchair. If you don't even out the opportunities, it is not a fair game anymore, and if you disallow a narrative because you can't handle it, you are by all means a worse DM than you could be.

 

[Bagpuss]

To expound, I'm saying that any objection to the fantasy wheelchair is presumed to be hateful and anti-inclusive.

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

Wheelchairs are introduced to be inclusive, so folks in wheelchairs can have a self insert type character into the fantasy setting, which is clearly a good thing.

The two examples I've seen of wheelchairs introduced have been for D&D (on version 3.0 now) and Cyberpunk Red (a spider chair). In both cases it does raise some issues of verisimilitude and there are some questionable choices they have made rules wise.

Verisimilitude
There are at least two main issues I see mentioned with regards to verisimilitude.

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.

Another issue is how does and adventurer in a wheelchair cope with difficult terrain, be it stairs, rocks, cliffs, whatever?

Wheelchair users in the real world face all sorts of issues, which is why we have laws to allow for accessibility to buildings and facilities. Those laws are unlikely to appear in a fantasy setting, and certainly not in the caverns and tunnels adventurers often visit. So usually when these fantasy wheelchairs are introduced they have some magical means of getting round stairs, in Cyberpunk Red it is a walking spider chair. The point is in a fantasy setting coming up with a believable reason terrain doesn't prove the problem it would in the real world isn't too difficult, the issue is the solution often causes problems with rules balance and different verisimilitude problems.

Rule Balance
I think a there have been issues with balance on introducing "combat wheelchairs" the fact that the D&D chair is on version 3.0, shows that some attempts at balancing has been done since the initial rules at least. Still they do raise questions and issues of their own.

Here's the text on dealing with Stairs from the D&D 3.0 version

Ascending & Descending Stairs
By tapping your fingers or hand against the beacon stone twice, the chair is alerted to assist in helping you go up or down stairs. The chair begins to hover 2ft off the ground and you guide it forwards or backwards on the stairs, tapping the stone another two times to ascend, or just once to descend. The chair can only be activated at stairs as it sends out a small wave of magic to detect where the hazard is. It will only hover in this manner until it detects that it has reached the end of the stairs where it will lower back down to the ground. You then continue to guide or push your chair as normal.
A chair’s beacon stone is also affected by anti-magic fields, rendering the user unable to navigate stairs whilst within the effect’s range. However, there are upgrades available to assist in these situations that do not require magic to function.
This ability also applies to ascending and descending surfaces such as ladders.

So some questions immediately appear to me, if it is hovering does it set of any pressure plates or traps on the stairs? If it can handle ladders why not cliff faces? Magic detects hazards in front of it, what about larva, or traps, if it can hover up stairs, why doesn't/can't it hover all the time?
The Cyberpunk Red chair shares similar problems.
The Spider has 4 Option Slots for installing Cyberarm, Cyberleg, or Cyberlimb Options. Options installed into the Cyberchair always count as if they were paired. Installing an option into the Cyberchair costs the same as installing it into a Cyberlimb.

The Spider Cyberchair, along with any options installed within it cannot be rendered inoperable by EMP effects, like Microwaver pulses, or Non-Black ICE Program Effects.
So the chair and all components get shielding for free, where as other people have to pay for their cyberware to get shielding, also it says the cost is the same as installing into a Cyberlimb, but the chair user doesn't have to pay the humanity cost for a cyberlimb. Also some have said since the chair is not cyberware they don't have to pay the humanity costs for the options either. Which is clearly an advantage with no drawbacks, then when controlling a chair the character has a Move of 5 which means you can dumb stat Move which means chair users can be significantly better than non-chair users. There is no reason not to use a chair even if you can walk normally, as all it gives are benefits.

So it isn't like there aren't problems with these efforts to be inclusive, which people have shouldn't be assumed to be coming from a hateful place for pointing out.

I've only seen one case online of someone trying to exploit the rules these chairs offer to just be better, not because they wanted representation. So it's not like it is causing a massive balance issue and I think most of these all these issues can be negotiated and resolved between a player and a GM, and is probably much better handled at an individual table level, than by official rules, as each person will have a different view of why they want representation, and what they consider a balanced solution.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Real life:


I mean, wheelchair acrobatics, parkour, extreme sports etc all exists in real life.

Of course, adventuring in a wheelchair is being quite the daredevil, but that's kinda the definition of being an adventurer, right?

 

[Bagpuss]

Real life:

I mean, wheelchair acrobatics, parkour, extreme sports etc all exists in real life.

Of course, adventuring in a wheelchair is being quite the daredevil, but that's kinda the definition of being an adventurer, right?

Yes in real life people do amazing things but they are still on smooth ramps, so ideal conditions for wheels, unlike the typical adventuring locations.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Yes in real life people do amazing things but they are still on smooth ramps, so ideal conditions for wheels, unlike the typical adventuring locations.

Look, forested floors or uneven cavern floors arent ideal for walking, running or making running jumps either, but I dont see anyone suggesting to make any flooring outside of a smooth floor difficult terrain for regular able characters. IMO, for a regular D&D adventurer who faces deadly situation daily, the threshold for being difficult terrain is the same whether physically able or not.

I think my major problem with the ''verisimilitude'' argument is twofold:
1) its not especially realistic.
2) this ''realism'' is enforced by people who have absolutely no idea what the reality of a physically disabled person is!

 

[Bagpuss]

Look, forested floors or uneven cavern floors arent ideal for walking, running or making running jumps either, but I dont see anyone suggesting to make any flooring outside of a smooth floor difficult terrain for regular able characters. IMO, for a regular D&D adventurer who faces deadly situation daily, the threshold for being difficult terrain is the same whether physically able or not.

I think my major problem with the ''verisimilitude'' argument is twofold:
1) its not especially realistic.
2) this ''realism'' is enforced by people who have absolutely no idea what the reality of a physically disabled person is!

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 in the sorts of environments that adventurers normally face, that's the realism, not smooth ramps.

 

[bedir than]

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.

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.