The part about the whole differently abled adventurers that really makes no sense - above and beyond the idea that it would be far easier for the character to either have something far cooler than just a chair or be magically, divinely or uber-tech healed is that the hostile environments they adventure in will be wheelchair accessible. “Okay, guys. We’re storming Vecna’s dungeon Going down to the twentieth level, grabbing that phylactery and putting that insane lich-god of madness, evil and secrets out of business! Just one problem… he’s not big on Greyhawk Disability Compliance, so there’s no ramps. Gonna have to wait a few months for the bureaucrats to sort that one out before Tim can come along, and since Tim is the Cleric with all the Remove Curse and Bless spells we’ll need to carry that thing out… hands are tied.” Because, you know, dark gods of evil and madness (or a race of gun-obsessed magical fungi, or ancient mummy cyborgs serving dead stars, or Sumerian blood-gods intent on devouring their descendants or what have you) are so big on inclusivity when designing their lairs to *keep pesky do-gooders out* right?

I've never played Warhammer, but I remember seeing a character in Total Warhammer III named Slann. Slann was like this undead or perhaps meditating frog man sitting on a floating magical chair. I don't know much a bout him, but I never asked why he was sitting on a floating chair because it just seemed to fit the theme of an ancient magical and or spiritual Lizardman leader. Why can't there be floating magical chairs like that in D&D? It would fit in the theme of the world a little better I think and it could get over rubble a lot easier than wheels.

I once played a magician in a "wheelchair," although it didn't have wheels. he had to constantly use spell sloth to move it. The campaign's big bad guy seemed to please stairs everywhere, like something out of a surrealist painting. At one point, the "wheelchair" was destroyed, and he struggled to move on his own. That's when my barbarian decided to carry him as a flamethrower backpack. it was both ridiculous and effective lol I also played a character kinda like Galvarino, a warrior without hands. with knives to their stumps and used them like katars in combat. As someone who is likely autistic and has been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, I find it difficult to understand or express emotions naturally. Because of this, I tend to play characters who share those traits. But other characters in emotional situations, I rely on an emotions guide and roll a d20 to determine expressions, as faking emotions doesn't come easily to me. Despite these challenges, I find it amusing and rewarding to roleplay characters with rich emotional depth. Overall I don't understand the need to force inclusion in this way, it's like trying to force acceptance of your conditions in a FANTASY world where it usually means (almost) automatic death or rejection. Hell I go through that IRL thanks to movies paint people like me as masters of liying and manipulation or serial killers, we cant even lie or manipulate properly due our lack of emotional understanding or empaty, but because of my condition I don't feel the need to be helped, in fact I would hate any kind of inclusion that forces me to interact.

Let me tell you what the gripe with the new EC is. They missed the opportunity to make them even more weird and experimental, in the vain of DG range is. While the new Death Guard range is miles high in terms of weird and experiment compared to the old Death Guard models, the new EC are fuckin tame in comparison. No big mystery there, just a missed opportunity and ultimately a failed outcome of what they should represent. They didn't have the courage!

So miserable in real life, they want to be miserable in a fantasy game.

I’ve always wondered about this. Why can’t people accept a character in a game, movie or book unless is “represents” them? I’m Hispanic and idc what race or gender a character is, it they resonate with me then they resonate with me. I couldn’t care less about what they look like. It’s such a childish mindset to huff and puff about “misrepresentation” You know those peoples world view is so small it doesn’t go farther than the borders of their phone screens.

why don't you go to a cleric and have your physical disability healed? I just don't understand, in a world where you can be die and come back, why can't you heal your legs or anything?

This whole thing bugs me. I have been gaming for almost 44 years and have cerebral palsy. It's a very mild case. In fact,until I hit middle age, you really could tell unless you saw me try using my left hand. But have it I do, and it affects my life enough that it's very frustrating. So the main point of RPGs for me was to escape that reality. I just don't understand these people who need representation. They're missing the whole point of 'fantasy'! In the game.....Your legs work, and you have BOTH of them. You can work with your GM/DM if you want to acknowledge your disability(why you'd want to is beyond me). In a SciFi setting, your effected body part(s) could be cybernetic/bionic. In a fantasy setting they could be magical constructs.

The space marine one is dumb because warhammer is a setting where that just can’t make sense but I do not care about a wizard in a wheelchair in dnd. It could be a magic wheelchair or something, the fun of dnd is making it your own so if in a game you’re playing, that is how you choose to make it your own, more power to you.

I would agree were this not D&D. Things there can get anywhere from weird to wacky to cool to just dumb and funny lol. I know a guy that played a futuristic time-traveling mexican android once, so some mage in a wheelchair doesn't seem that outlandish to me. As long as you and the rest of the players are all on the same page and are cool with it, you can do whatever with your setting. I do agree it might be terrible to play with someone who is very imposing of these things and disregards what other players think of it, but that's true about anything anyone tries to impose, so in those cases I think the problem is the player, not the wheelchair. For the Warhammer thing I also have no qualms tbh, since that's just fanart. Kinda for the same reason I don't mind people writing the weirdest fanfiction of stuff, they're not affecting the canon of the thing so why not let them have fun their own way even if I don't personally enjoy it?

I would agree were this not D&D. Things there can get anywhere from weird to wacky to cool to just dumb and funny lol. I know a guy that played a futuristic time-traveling mexican android once, so some mage in a wheelchair doesn't seem that outlandish to me. As long as you and the rest of the players are all on the same page and are cool with it, you can do whatever with your setting. I do agree it might be terrible to play with someone who is very imposing of these things and disregards what other players think of it, but that's true about anything anyone tries to impose, so in those cases I think the problem is the player, not the wheelchair. For the Warhammer thing I also have no qualms tbh, since that's just fanart. Kinda for the same reason I don't mind people writing the weirdest fanfiction of stuff, they're not affecting the canon of the thing so why not let them have fun their own way even if I don't personally enjoy it?

I thought the point of fantasy is to pretend you can do more than you can in real life. Wizards make regular people look disabled by comparison

I get what you’re saying, but if I had a disabled player and they wanted to play a character in a wheelchair too as a form of self empowerment, who would I be to stop them?

geez the pink monkey then is going to say that the only different skin tones should be in games not real life how the pink otans say it oh yes races that backward colonialist thinking geez

There is a Manhwa called "I Became The Tyrant of a Defense Game", where one of the supporting characters is a female wizard in a wheelchair. I happen to think that they really make this work, by showing what a massive pain it is.

As a DM, it does disappoint me on how many people can't feasibility write in a wheelchair bound adventures. Most of the time it a failure of communication. A character with unique traits such as a wheelchair should be looked at by a dm, and the dm should ask more questions on how said wheelchair does or doesn't affect them. Eventually working out an explanation that makes sense for the dm setting. TLDR: the dm and players have a responsibility to communicate over character traits like wheelchairs. In order to work out how it affects the gameplay and lore. This way, it doesn't take away from everyone else experience

Everyone who writes fiction should be made to watch Avatar the last Airbender (the cartoon not the Netflix one). They did inclusion of pretty much every demographic you could think of in a believable and endearing way. Learn something from real writers before you try to make something of your own.

Beautiful

I'm disabled, quite disabled, one of the illnesses is an autoimmune disease that destroys muscles & thus I'm wheelchair bound... But I really don't see disabled heroes or whatever, smile & go "yay! I feel represented! I'm so happy yayyyy!" It's so silly. Like my life is very, very difficult... Why on earth would I want to imagine myself as disabled in FICTION as well? Excuse me while I go bash my head into a wall.

When I was younger and was more media illiterate, I always heard praises of narratives for being "realistic", it was what adults liked, realism. Now I'm slightly less young and still media illiterate, but I learned that what I like about "realistic" narratives is the internal consistency. It doesn't need to abide by *our reality,* which is often the case because it does provide a solid foundation for internal consistency. We inherently know how gravity works, how a projectile trajectory falls, how a heavy object is supposed to move, and a creat example of the latter is the movie Pacific Rim, where the Jeagers look and feel like lumbering giant machines. But as another example, Fullmetal Alchemist has a a completely fantastic system and a world that are very internally consistent. We know how alchemy works, and we see the implications of this power directly into the world and societies that inhabit it. In fact, the consequences of alchemy are directly correlated to the plot. So when people call wheel chairs in DnD "unrealistic", it really means it's not internally consistent to the setting. It's the same classic example of why you don't have a modern laptop in a medieval setting, even if dragons also exist. The dragon is part of this world, IRL modern technology is not. And if you strip the arguments down to their barebones, we reduce to the same argument of "why do you care? It's not important!". Well, the people making an argument for the change clearly care about it, so it seems important.

For some reason I’m just thinking of the Slann from Warhammer Fantasy. Morbidly obese toad people who have to use magic mobility scooters to get around and spend 99% of their time navel gazing due to an inability to think for themselves. But the Slann are also awesomely powerful mages capable of reshaping continents with their thoughts and erasing armies with ease. And they also sacrificed themselves to save the world by fighting the moon.

It makes more sense to see npc characters or villains that are disabled than hero/player characters.

Thanks doc

Anyone remember the "Sligs" from Oddword? Slug like creatures that have arms but no legs. To move around, their bosses give them robotic legs, flying machines and in some cases fill them with steroids and give them heavy-duty weapons-platforms as legs. In exchange, they offer their services as enforcers and security. *That's* creative use of disabilities.

It would be so easy to just give a real reason why someone would even BE in a wheelchair. For example, I play a kobold artificer in my dnd campaign who lost her arm during her backstory. She made herself a new arm, as she can’t use magic and didn’t come across anyone while traveling towards the nearest civilization. She could get her arm back at any time through magic, but she doesn’t because she thinks the metal arm is COOL AS FUCK! Also she can tinker with it and add on attachments, making it BETTER than having her regular arm! Give the wheelchair SOMETHING that makes the character WANT to stay in the wheelchair over getting their legs back.

Maybe not for you, but with the parrot and all... Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii? have you tried the Yakuza series? This series in general is very good and almost inexpensive in Steam. Yakuza 0 on sale is usually pretty cheap and it's a great game.

i haven't seen the video yet but the wild wild west pulled off a disabled villian so could dnd, but giving them a normal wheelchair is just dumb and and uncreative, u could have a disabled person be a mage and have and have them carried around by a big teammate, you could have some kind of animal who helps a disabled druid but why a wheelchair that looks like it was just taken from our world and put into dnd? it makes 0 sence for that to exist when there are so many other possible and creative solutions

Yeah, you have to actually know a thing or two about the real world to try to make a believable fictional one. You want to do something different in your world? Sure, but make it make sense. Accepting magic in a fantasy world is absolutely easier than accepting that people in wheelchairs would ever be suitable in the dangerous environments that able-bodied people would. If there is magic that can enable that then I can pretty much guarantee there is magic that makes everyone even more physically capable, too. So unless you come up with some 'believable' reason that physically disabled people have some special advantage that puts them on an *even* playing field as everyone else, then, no, it's not a good idea. And the same goes for every other nonsensical demographic they try to pander to in these fictional universes. Sure, inclusion is a good idea- but not if it breaks the cohesion of your world. Every single detail of your world is supposed to make sense, even in the most absurd fantasy setting. Yes it is subjective, but *good* writers can convince the majority of their audience into believing and comprehending the logic they lay forth in their own world. Subjectivivity in this case is really just a matter of skill, and if you can't make magic believable then you have no place writing a fictional fantasy world. Everyone above the age of twelve can literally all tell very easily when writers are forced to include things that don't make sense just to tick political boxes. That's not art- that's propaganda. And it's not entertaining. Sorry.

It's as if they didn't know that any person in a wheelchair would give anything to "recover" and walk.

The whole concept is kinda offensive to disabled people, like you are putting them in a fantasy realm where they can be anyone and do whatever, and do you think they will want to be the same disable poeple they are in real life? fuck no, it makes no sense, if they can walk or do whatever their current disability dont allowed then, they will do it, just tone deaf.

I also belive the way in which these characters are represented is extremely lazy. Like why not have a necromancer who can't walk, because his/her skeletons bring them through the dungeon. Or a wizard/artificer who lost their arm in battle but has a build prostetic or has reanimated the skeletal remains of their arm

Dude the easiest fix is to just… make combat mounts to substitute the modern wheelchair, add some mechanics to make it work as something that WORKS with the setting, add extra rolls to accommodate the extra item, maybe give it a sub-turn and it’s own initiative that factors into the players… That took like a minute to figure out. It’s not hard. Just think “how would this work in this situation given the setting?” 8:10 also: this kinda person would be like… kept on desk duty. Let’s be real.

or just give 'em clock-work or golem legs. Doubtful all disabled people would really want to be a disabled character in a fantasy setting anyway.

More happy with these than the world eaters release, frankly. Nice to have noise Marines in plastic, and they look at least like the art. Might use some 3d prints to spice them up though.

I have back problems, and have had surgery, that have put very strict limits in stuff like my flexibility, strength, and sports that I can do. I somewhat tend to gravitate towards extremely agile monks, very proficient in martial arts, or like, the strongest, meanest dwarves, carrying insanely huge hammers; y'know, characters that can do what my limitations don't allow me to

I completely agree, when I see nonsense like this, vanity is the correct word for it. If I were to play as a "disabled" person, I'd come up with an explanation like, maybe their magic flows through their body and is the only things that allows their legs to work. Like the man from Dr. Strange. Or something else along those lines.

Nice job, looks good man.

need to get some of that yellow glaze

… this comments section is concerning. “I wouldn’t want that and think it’s stupid” shouldn’t mean ignoring or shitting on people who actively want to play with a character who reflects their personal experiences, considering they’re the ones playing them. To hell with gatekeeping how other people play the damn game. homebrew, custom worlds, low magic settings, etc can all be a thing. Let people do their own thing, for the love of whatever god or lack thereof you have, people need to stop being piss babies about what other people find joy in. Istg I’m sick of it.

Wow I can’t believe someone would want a character that represents them in a game where you play as a representative character

The warhammer wheelchair is made worse k owing that in lore, they would instead put them inside a dreadnought. Why wheelchair when the flesh is weak? Make robo legs from mechanics.

For as much as there is to nitpick about Disney Star Wars, I think they wrote a really good moment related to this topic in Skeleton Crew. One of the kid characters is a cyborg, she has implants in her head after an accident. Her friend wants to climb up a mountainside to get back to their ship, but she says no to this idea. Later, she explains that her parts are starting to break down, which causes her to freeze up. She knows that climbing that mountain in her current state would be impossible, not to mention the cold would damage her even more than she already is. The cyborg girl is frustrated that her friend keeps trying to act like there isn't a difference between them and that the cyborg girl can do all the same things she can. She's still a helpful team member, but there are different challenges she has to face that the others don't.

Even if you have wheelchairs in a fictional setting, it needs to properly fit in with the esthetics of the world it takes place in, like if it takes place in a Fantasy setting that resembles Midevil Europe, it needs to look more like something Midevil Europeans would have built in that time period, like it's just a regular wooden chair with wooden wheels, or if it takes place in the Stone Age it should look like something from the Flintstones where the chair is made of stone with stone wheels, or if it takes place in a futuristic Sci-Fi setting, it should be able to convert into a hover-chair with flight capabilities & maybe even have robotic arms(like Felix from 'Kim Possible', or even that one kid from the 2003 'Astro Boy' Anime), or if your character is more of an Animal than a Human, then try to make the Wheels more befitting to how an Animal would use them(like that one Pony from 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'), if you're going to add Wheelchairs into you're Fictional world then at least do so in a more creative way than simply inserting a Modern Everyday Real World wheelchair into it.

Right. I was an adventurer, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

What are you talking about? I’m sure both dungeon-crawling and war are made to pass ADA Standards for Accessible Design. For example, to quote 303.4 Ramps: “Ramps and curb ramps are required along accessible routes to span changes in level greater than half an inch.” Certainly, the staircase literally shown in the first image has a ramp alongside it just out-of-frame made by the considerate monsters and demons they’re fighting. :)

Funny, because the people they're catering too, the "modern" audience aren't going to buy this, since they hate fascists'/capitalism.

Dude, it's a fantasy RPG game where you fight monsters. We all admit it doesn't have to be 1 to 1 with reality. If you don't want a wheelchair in your game don't have it in your game. It's not a problem that WotC depicted a person in a wheelchair. And there are a lot of people who like the challenge. It adds narrative challenge too. And escort mission is an example. Maybe someone wants to quest to find a way to fix their legs. If someone wants something bad enough they'll figure a way out. You mentioned this and then backtracked to say people aren't doing it in good faith. Again, it's a game you play with people at your own home. Don't put wheelchairs in your game if it hurts you to think about it. Weird baby man. Also, not all DnD games exist in dungeons. And if it does, you make it work.

The whole point of ttrpgs is to explore a world as a different person, you have to be insanely narcissistic to want to just play as yourself... Also, I believe that disabled people can exist in fantasy, but if you're going to play a disabled character. Then, you need to find a way to overcome those disabilities. Because the bbeg should already aim to target those weaknesses. Toph from last Airbender is the best example of this.

I played a campaign where one of the player characters was missing an arm due to a birth defect. This was fine, even great characterization, because she was a martial artist whose form was based entirely on kicks. In the same campaign, I chose to play my characters with a deep-seated suicidal bent, both in their own way; one literally gave his own life force to heal other people and found the paradigm fitting, for he thought of himself as unworthy of life due to his mother dying during his birth. The other was suicidal in that he was a goblin who hated himself and always overcompensated with undue racial pride, but the moment an opportunity came to permanently change his form, he leapt at it. He chose to be a dragon, but in an ironic twist, he actually just became a green kobold, and thus he was forever a green monster who hated his own life.

Ton of modern people/designers always make disable fiction characters, by slapping a wheelchair to call a day. Imagine, you are disable, sitting on a wheelchair and some space marines or D&D members ends up taking you in adventures, knowing, you will 100% gonna die there. Instead of OP strong healthy fighter, who can one shot enemies?