Wheelchair Warriors - Brainwaves Podcast Episode 55

The whole combat wheelchair controversy on twitter has been insane. I just don't understand how people can be such assholes. I saw the minis and they are amazing. If they weren't so expensive, I'd buy all of them and play a wheelchair warrior in my next campaign.

This stuff is so fucked up to me and it makes me insane. Even if you will not personally use it or don't like the idea, if someone else wants to play someone who is like themselves or otherwise experiment with being someone else in their fantasy RPG game you are absolutely showing your whole ass about what a shitty person you are by going to the wall on opposing this.

I fucking hate these kind of bullshit objections.

One good thing that I saw that came out of this:

People who felt that role playing was an opportunity to play an idealized self - whether that was someone who was stronger, faster, smarter, able to speak three languages, see in the dark, etc. - were initially bewildered as to why a disabled person would choose to play a character that needed a wheelchair. They had their minds blown when they came to understand that for many people who are disabled their idealized self isn't someone who doesn't need to use a wheel chair, but someone for whom using a wheel chair is not a disability.

I haven't followed the controversy but obviously people having fun is great. Personally though, I'd go for a permanent Tenser's Floating Disk with a chair bolted to it. Has the added bonus of not setting off pressure plates.

@mustangsart created the combat wheel chair as a unique item for DnD, with stats, rules, etc. Made a pdf available for free download. Madness ensued.

Link to @mustangsart : amustangart

Link to the minis: Strata Minis

Ahhh, so that's what this is about. I thought it was Aabria Iyengar's comments on the dnd podcast about her mermaid character using a magical ball of water to float around on land.

The minis are posed kinda silly to me but then most minis are so who would complain? More relevant would be any in game effects of such a device (does it count as an attuned magic item, is there a penalty for its use, or is it a visual skin only?). I certainly don't see an issue with a handicapped person using it, might sideeye a person who does it to "feel like I have a disability" though.

It does bring up some world building questions. Typical Forgotten Realms type world you'd think it would just be a matter of enough gp to buy a fix for paralysis. Same with blindness and other major impairments IIRC. But hey, player choice trumps all, right? So long as the DM and the group agree with it why not?

The whole controversy is nuts. If you don't like it just don't use it, as we say on the cast. For a game to open up and allow more people to see themselves in the stories we can tell round the table is fantastic.