I've read the comment thread you spoke of on Twatter/X whatever the hell it's called nowadays, and rolled my eyes at all of it. Its the same argument over and over again.
All I could see from these people was, as you stated in the article: a "me-me-me" self-centered place of entitlement. In games where you can be anything, go anywhere, do anything, sadly, for some it seems like a lot of people will develop main character syndrome.
My biggest contention with people wanting to "see a bit of themselves" in games, I feel like this demand for representation in games comes from narcissism and entitlement. Its usually the authors of the content that want nothing more than an unrealistic self-insert because they are unable to distinguish between reality and fiction.
I do, however, disagree with a wheel chair not making sense in a fantasy setting. And I've seen examples in the thread, in a case of like, a psionic or a wizard who can move the chair through will or magic, which you also addressed. That being said, I feel like it would only work in the short-term, like a session for a player or an encounter for an NPC or an antagonist.
Would I use it? Probably not.
The option is there, but it certainly isn't for me.
As of yesterday it seemed to have died down but now I have a new one entering the fray thinking he's gonna do something other than make himself look like an unhinged maniac which is fine but there was a point where I just cut him off.
I dont respect this. Its just a hassle to drum up the imagination to make dungeons as up to standard building code. Also we got the ability specifically in your campaign to chuck a fireball call upon the angels and make a posse out of bones but repairing a lower spinal cord it proves it more difficult.
Personally, for me, it's the stretching of my suspension of disbelief. I mean I don't and really never have had much regard for Spelljammer either. I just can't get into big ships built like they're going to sail on water to be flying around in space. It just doesn't gel for me so I don't play it.
Yeah I get it as well. It just way to much of a stretch. The negotiable way is that they would use a golem or treant walker act like legs. Or a spider chair that would make cooler sense. Besides why you want to go to a dungeon that was designed by a beholder; a creature with vast intelligence and H.P. Lovecraft level of racism and xenophobia but he damned craft a wheel chair accessible slope is to me a bridge to far.
Well that's the thing. It's conveniently explained away as touching a beacon stone in order to float up them. I'm like, Okay this is just enchanted leg armor with extra steps. Then you have narrow passageways. If the chair is far too wide, no amount of floating is going to do that.
Its even more difficult for low level fantasy games and also for a bunch of strangers as well. It has to be specific sub genre of fantasy and also a group of friends who legit are okay with. i.e friend groups which is atomized to a tee. Far more difficult to get with.
Yeah and I like high fantasy (not in love with it, I just like it) but I also like to keep it in smaller doses relying heavily on more sword and sorcery than anything.
Well, even in the 5e description of the spell, it does not require the limb to be there to regenerate. It states that if the body part is present, the casting time is reduced.
So, in a Fantasy setting... there need not ever be a limb present or a limb in perfect condition for the spell to magically create/restore the limb to optimum efficiency.
In stories of old regarding miracles... cripples were made to walk and the blind to see.
TA-DA! Magic!
The limitation is not the disability, it is with the imagination of the players.
I'm gonna show my age and nerd cred... I've played/ran everything from D&D [B-2] to GURPS to Shadowrun to Tunnels & Trolls to Star Wars to VIllains & Vigilantes to Vampire to Arduin Grimoire to Marvel & DC to BESM to TMNT and beyond. Anyway, you get the point - I'm a nerd.
In 40+ years, I've gamed on three continents with as varied a group of people as can be imagined. Never once did anyone think differently of anyone gaming at any of those tables for their physical impairments or speech mannerisms or choice of deity or sexual orientation or nationality or any other quasi-label people wish to use.
We all came to game and we all became friends because of our LOVE of the game.
That was the original pure beauty of RPGs. It brought all of us "social outcast misfits" together.
Also... NEVER once did a player want to play a character with the same anything that real life imposed upon them. NOT ONCE. We all created imaginary characters for imaginary worlds to do fantastic imaginary things.
When I ROLE play a Superhero or Dwarf or Vampire, I don't make the PC a chunky middle-aged dude with screwed up legs & shoulder injuries from jumping out of helicopters in his youth. Where is the fun in that? Point is - imposing YOU onto your game isn't a positive use of your imagination.
Sadly, the "norm" of today seems hellbent on tearing down the fellowship [pun intended] rather than coming together. It is a reflection of this "me-me-me" era where everyone is self-absorbed. I remind you of the wise Vulcan words:
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one."
ROLE playing was created as an escape from reality, not a reflection. The more a fantasy hobby is crushed under the yoke of "me-me-me" the more it is destroyed for the masses. Arguing over whether or not Orcs are evil or wheelchairs or inserting make believe racism atop fictitious fantasy races is utterly pointless and only widens the divide.
Bottom line - if you find something fun in YOUR game at YOUR table with YOUR group - do it. No one can or should tell you otherwise. But the same goes for the reverse - you should not impose YOUR personal choices upon everyone else and expect no objection or contrary opinions.
I digress...
My point is that NONE of this is new. To that matter, nothing in 5e is new. It is rehashed and watered down from what came before. I read the spell description that you posted and it really brought home that the best term for 5e is "nerfed".
Hell, GURPS has had disabilities of every flavor in their system for over 30 years. My personal favorite being the Disembodied Brain. BUT they were meant to fit the genre of the campaign.
While I have no problems with revising a game for a new audience - it is a business after all - what I take issue with is having zero respect for the history, research, and work put in by those early pioneers of the hobby. They actually CREATED since there was nothing to plagerize, revise, or modify in any way back then.
Case in point, here is the ORIGINAL Regenerate spell from the AD&D Player's Handbook:
Duration: permanent Saving Throw: None Area of Effect: Creature touched
Explanation/Description: When a regenerate spell is cast, body members (fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, tails, or even the heads of multi-headed creatures), bones, or organs will grow back. The process of regeneration requires but 1 round if the member(s) severed is (are) present and touching the creature, 2-8 turns otherwise. The reverse, wither, causes the member or organ touched to shrivel and cease functioning in 1 round, dropping off into dust in 2-8 turns. As is usual, creatures must be touched in order to have harmful effect occur. The material components of this spell are a prayer device and holy/unholy water.
What was wrong with that description? Nothing. Now compare the two and see just how much was removed from the original to the new. Nerfed.
D&D gained pop-culture appeal in the last decade thanks to shows like Big Bang Theory & Stranger Things. Mind you, I like both of those shows and I thought initially it would be a good thing to revitalize the hobby that I've loved for over 40 years. But then the Tourists took over the writing and new rabid fans attacked the grognards who invented the very concepts of the game and this hobby that I still love is devolving from within by a fringe audience.
Do I think wheelchairs, etc. belong in a high fantasy setting for PCs? No. Do I care if someone else wants to do it with their campaign? Also, no.
And that is where this "debate" should end. Game what you like & like what you game.
For example, I don't like 5e, so I don't play it. BUT I will never tell someone else NOT to play it. There are many games where I love the story and setting but hate the cumbersome system (Shadowrun, Vampire, HARN, ROLLMaster, to name a few) but thankfully there are tenfold more that I DO like.
Everyone has an opinion and a choice - be happy and remember what the great knight said to Indy "Choose wisely".
Tony you're absolutely spot on with this comment, sir.
Initially, with Thompson's point about people born with disabilities having nothing to regenerate, it wasn't until this morning with a great counterpoint came up and that was, as I was in the shower, this is a world with a spell called "Create Food."
What that spell does is literally create an entire meal out of nothing but it's bland. It will still give you what you need to survive but it's bland. You'll probably not enjoy it much. You'll choke it down and get back in the quest at hand.
If a spell can create an entire meal once a day from nothing then why wouldn't magic heal a disability with which you were born? How is that not a reasonable conclusion, I wonder.
I've read the comment thread you spoke of on Twatter/X whatever the hell it's called nowadays, and rolled my eyes at all of it. Its the same argument over and over again.
All I could see from these people was, as you stated in the article: a "me-me-me" self-centered place of entitlement. In games where you can be anything, go anywhere, do anything, sadly, for some it seems like a lot of people will develop main character syndrome.
My biggest contention with people wanting to "see a bit of themselves" in games, I feel like this demand for representation in games comes from narcissism and entitlement. Its usually the authors of the content that want nothing more than an unrealistic self-insert because they are unable to distinguish between reality and fiction.
I do, however, disagree with a wheel chair not making sense in a fantasy setting. And I've seen examples in the thread, in a case of like, a psionic or a wizard who can move the chair through will or magic, which you also addressed. That being said, I feel like it would only work in the short-term, like a session for a player or an encounter for an NPC or an antagonist.
Would I use it? Probably not.
The option is there, but it certainly isn't for me.
As of yesterday it seemed to have died down but now I have a new one entering the fray thinking he's gonna do something other than make himself look like an unhinged maniac which is fine but there was a point where I just cut him off.
Let him yell into the void, grab some popcorn and laugh, that's all they deserve.
I dont respect this. Its just a hassle to drum up the imagination to make dungeons as up to standard building code. Also we got the ability specifically in your campaign to chuck a fireball call upon the angels and make a posse out of bones but repairing a lower spinal cord it proves it more difficult.
You mean the combat wheelchair in D&D?
Personally, for me, it's the stretching of my suspension of disbelief. I mean I don't and really never have had much regard for Spelljammer either. I just can't get into big ships built like they're going to sail on water to be flying around in space. It just doesn't gel for me so I don't play it.
Yeah I get it as well. It just way to much of a stretch. The negotiable way is that they would use a golem or treant walker act like legs. Or a spider chair that would make cooler sense. Besides why you want to go to a dungeon that was designed by a beholder; a creature with vast intelligence and H.P. Lovecraft level of racism and xenophobia but he damned craft a wheel chair accessible slope is to me a bridge to far.
Well that's the thing. It's conveniently explained away as touching a beacon stone in order to float up them. I'm like, Okay this is just enchanted leg armor with extra steps. Then you have narrow passageways. If the chair is far too wide, no amount of floating is going to do that.
Its even more difficult for low level fantasy games and also for a bunch of strangers as well. It has to be specific sub genre of fantasy and also a group of friends who legit are okay with. i.e friend groups which is atomized to a tee. Far more difficult to get with.
Yeah and I like high fantasy (not in love with it, I just like it) but I also like to keep it in smaller doses relying heavily on more sword and sorcery than anything.
Danke amigo.
Well, even in the 5e description of the spell, it does not require the limb to be there to regenerate. It states that if the body part is present, the casting time is reduced.
So, in a Fantasy setting... there need not ever be a limb present or a limb in perfect condition for the spell to magically create/restore the limb to optimum efficiency.
In stories of old regarding miracles... cripples were made to walk and the blind to see.
TA-DA! Magic!
The limitation is not the disability, it is with the imagination of the players.
I'm gonna show my age and nerd cred... I've played/ran everything from D&D [B-2] to GURPS to Shadowrun to Tunnels & Trolls to Star Wars to VIllains & Vigilantes to Vampire to Arduin Grimoire to Marvel & DC to BESM to TMNT and beyond. Anyway, you get the point - I'm a nerd.
In 40+ years, I've gamed on three continents with as varied a group of people as can be imagined. Never once did anyone think differently of anyone gaming at any of those tables for their physical impairments or speech mannerisms or choice of deity or sexual orientation or nationality or any other quasi-label people wish to use.
We all came to game and we all became friends because of our LOVE of the game.
That was the original pure beauty of RPGs. It brought all of us "social outcast misfits" together.
Also... NEVER once did a player want to play a character with the same anything that real life imposed upon them. NOT ONCE. We all created imaginary characters for imaginary worlds to do fantastic imaginary things.
When I ROLE play a Superhero or Dwarf or Vampire, I don't make the PC a chunky middle-aged dude with screwed up legs & shoulder injuries from jumping out of helicopters in his youth. Where is the fun in that? Point is - imposing YOU onto your game isn't a positive use of your imagination.
Sadly, the "norm" of today seems hellbent on tearing down the fellowship [pun intended] rather than coming together. It is a reflection of this "me-me-me" era where everyone is self-absorbed. I remind you of the wise Vulcan words:
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one."
ROLE playing was created as an escape from reality, not a reflection. The more a fantasy hobby is crushed under the yoke of "me-me-me" the more it is destroyed for the masses. Arguing over whether or not Orcs are evil or wheelchairs or inserting make believe racism atop fictitious fantasy races is utterly pointless and only widens the divide.
Bottom line - if you find something fun in YOUR game at YOUR table with YOUR group - do it. No one can or should tell you otherwise. But the same goes for the reverse - you should not impose YOUR personal choices upon everyone else and expect no objection or contrary opinions.
I digress...
My point is that NONE of this is new. To that matter, nothing in 5e is new. It is rehashed and watered down from what came before. I read the spell description that you posted and it really brought home that the best term for 5e is "nerfed".
Hell, GURPS has had disabilities of every flavor in their system for over 30 years. My personal favorite being the Disembodied Brain. BUT they were meant to fit the genre of the campaign.
While I have no problems with revising a game for a new audience - it is a business after all - what I take issue with is having zero respect for the history, research, and work put in by those early pioneers of the hobby. They actually CREATED since there was nothing to plagerize, revise, or modify in any way back then.
Case in point, here is the ORIGINAL Regenerate spell from the AD&D Player's Handbook:
Regenerate (Necromantic) Reversible
Level: 7 Components: V, S, M Range: Touch Casting Time: 3 rounds
Duration: permanent Saving Throw: None Area of Effect: Creature touched
Explanation/Description: When a regenerate spell is cast, body members (fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, tails, or even the heads of multi-headed creatures), bones, or organs will grow back. The process of regeneration requires but 1 round if the member(s) severed is (are) present and touching the creature, 2-8 turns otherwise. The reverse, wither, causes the member or organ touched to shrivel and cease functioning in 1 round, dropping off into dust in 2-8 turns. As is usual, creatures must be touched in order to have harmful effect occur. The material components of this spell are a prayer device and holy/unholy water.
What was wrong with that description? Nothing. Now compare the two and see just how much was removed from the original to the new. Nerfed.
D&D gained pop-culture appeal in the last decade thanks to shows like Big Bang Theory & Stranger Things. Mind you, I like both of those shows and I thought initially it would be a good thing to revitalize the hobby that I've loved for over 40 years. But then the Tourists took over the writing and new rabid fans attacked the grognards who invented the very concepts of the game and this hobby that I still love is devolving from within by a fringe audience.
Do I think wheelchairs, etc. belong in a high fantasy setting for PCs? No. Do I care if someone else wants to do it with their campaign? Also, no.
And that is where this "debate" should end. Game what you like & like what you game.
For example, I don't like 5e, so I don't play it. BUT I will never tell someone else NOT to play it. There are many games where I love the story and setting but hate the cumbersome system (Shadowrun, Vampire, HARN, ROLLMaster, to name a few) but thankfully there are tenfold more that I DO like.
Everyone has an opinion and a choice - be happy and remember what the great knight said to Indy "Choose wisely".
Tony you're absolutely spot on with this comment, sir.
Initially, with Thompson's point about people born with disabilities having nothing to regenerate, it wasn't until this morning with a great counterpoint came up and that was, as I was in the shower, this is a world with a spell called "Create Food."
What that spell does is literally create an entire meal out of nothing but it's bland. It will still give you what you need to survive but it's bland. You'll probably not enjoy it much. You'll choke it down and get back in the quest at hand.
If a spell can create an entire meal once a day from nothing then why wouldn't magic heal a disability with which you were born? How is that not a reasonable conclusion, I wonder.