Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
Another player who was at the table during the incident sent me this meme after the problem player in question (they had a history) left the group chat.
Felt like sharing it here because I'm sure more people should keep this kind of thing in mind.
I'm dreaming of a VR game with a disabled wizard who is confined to a chair and uses telekinesis or teleportation to move around. That would give the game a lore reason for VR locomotion.
I really don't understand what's wrong with people not "curing all illness and disability with magic™" in a world where magic exists and is a thing.
See, in most such fantasy settings, magic not only exists but it has an attitude. Sometimes, a conscience, and not a very ethically nice one (if it allows for eg.: necromancy!). Sometimes, magic even is a god (or gods). Even if they aren't, the people who use magic are still ultimately humans (with leafy ears etc but still ultimately humans with costumes, at worst) driven by greed, envy or a weird righteous idea of how should a woman dress and behave when in public.
Would you trust some rando nutjob, who claims to speak for Evelok the Eternal Coffee Mug of Satisfaction, to up and magically conjure you new eyes, new arms, whatever? To alter your body to such a fundamental level? Normal people in such settings are already afraid to death of werewolves and those are quite normal things. Compare: even in our magicless, relatively normal world, we have the power and the money to cure most illness and to treat disabled people adequately yet Obamacare is not universal and we can not trust that the people who give people implants and prosthetics haven't backdoored them to force those disabled people into corporate servitude.
Your player party may be the goodest bois, but they're only one. The various guilds and churches around quite likely aren't such goodies on aggregate either, or else there would simply be no plot.
Reminds me of all the discourse about the chair
Im kind of ambivalent on this.
On one hand, ~medieval times, which are usually the general era and technology level the average fantasy setting plays in, have no concept of disability and people who have one are usually ostracized and/or begging in the streets. Blindness may be on the more tolerated side of things, but deformities or developmental abnormalities are definitely not accepted. Also, if there is magic why wouldn’t they use it to cure it?
On the other hand, it’s a fantasy roleplay setting and the primary function is to be fun. So if everyone agrees it shouldn’t be a problem to have a scenario with it, more power to you
Well yes, but if there is powerful magic in a world, aren't all disabilities healable?
Why are people in the comments arguing about what is or isn't possible in D&S or Star Trek or whatever? As far as I can see it, there is no description about what kind of universe this plays in.
It doesn't make sense to argue whether or not a wheelchair like that "makes sense" in a D&D universe?!
This would be cool to see! Lots of ways to represent historically unrepresented people in alternative settings.
Crippled mage load out
Fantasy and sci-fi are designed as alternate realities to this world and usually disabilities are expressed through metaphor rather than literal real world disability. A person can’t use magic so they become the worlds greatest artificer and the like.
I’m all for representation, but what is fantasy without being able to fantasize about not having a disability?
Conversely, why would a person want to fantasize about having a disability? I’m not saying there aren’t valid reasons, but I would imagine most people would be doing it in a performative manner.
Could magic overcome, resolve or undo a disability?
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someone who chose to no longer be at my table after meeting a blind NPC
Sounds ridiculous to me.
Anything in roleplaying is possible, why not this stuff then?
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I have a metal mini-titan in my chat text roleplay with friends. It got born 2 weeks ago (game lore time). It doesn't speak and understands pretty much nothing when other party members try to communicate.
Still they have been happy with my character and they have played normally.
(I have agreed that if it becomes too boring we can find machinery that helps communicating.)
I told about our game to an acquaintance and she seemed happy/intrigued of my character choice!