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The wheelchairs aren't about setting realism or consistency (which is completely shot anyways, but that's another discussion). They are about giving real people a more engaging way to play. It is about doing something in-game for people who have to deal with physical disability outside of it. Even if it did break the setting (which again, it's a breadcrumb next to a loaf) the real-world connection is more than enough to justify it. Which is why I feel so strongly resentful about people who have a problem with it; they are going out of their way to make doing something nice for fellow humans a problem. If these miniatures really bother you, don't use them! And don't keep gaking on a really good-natured and wholesome project just because of personal taste.

Put simply: this is about people doing a good thing for other people. If you have a problem with that, kindly feth off.

The idea of my character in a chair going "beep boop up the stairs, no issue here" while everyone smiles and feels warm and fuzzy about diversity seems pretty disgusting to me.

Is that even a thing necessitated by these miniatures? Is that something anyone has proposed?



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I swear I don’t even know where some of you Wargamers come from. The stair situation would be an opportunity for the group to work together, be creative, and come up with solutions that fit their characters, like carrying the chair and rider, casting “elevate”, scouting an alternate route, using ropes and pullies, juicing the rider so he or she can climb and leave the chair, or a dozen other things. This is the meat and potatoes of roleplaying.

You don't think people are advocating for some hand waiving away? The miniatures themselves have texture rocks that would be a door slammed in the face if encountered in day to day life in a chair.


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Some people will see these and feel represented. Others see them as minimizing real world issues.

I'm in the latter camp.


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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Put simply: this is about people doing a good thing for other people.

I think it's about people needing to feel good about something that actually promotes ignorance of real struggle. It's hard enough to get people aware and compassionate about accessibility issues without promoting an idea that a wheelchair is no barrier to anything and you can just zip up and over those rocks without a problem.

But at least you get to feel good about yourseelf!

My gods some of you are really stretching to find fault here. It's a selection of 3rd party produced wheelchair based characters for optional use during fantasy roleplay games.


It's not even for Dungeons and Dragons alone; its any fantasy RPG that people want to use models to represent characters for in the game itself. I mean heck I didn't see any of this pure rage in the dog and cat adventurer model threads. No one was arguing that a feral dog can't reach into the pouches on their back; or that they can't hold a wand in their mouth and cast a verbal command spell at the same time.


But for some reason the idea that someone is in a chair with wheels on it sparks a degree of dislike.


I get that its spill over from some other areas, but really this just isn't the place nor thread nor product to focus such spillover onto.

There are always two sides of the representation in popular media coin -- on the one hand, it can help to normalize a disability or health-threatening condition; on the other hand, it can normalize a disability or health-threatening condition. This is why 13 reasons why is such a skub when it comes to public perception -- one group feels it's great bringing their condition to public attention, while the other feels the show romantized a very serious psychological disorder and suicide. And frankly, yes, that show did both. So on that, I can understand where Chamberlain is getting at, and believe their heart is in the right place.

The thing with these sculpt, though, is that they are meant to be a visual representation of the player in a roleplaying game. A handicapped person may very well wish to enact their fantasy by taking on a persona with a corresponding condition, and overcome difficulties in a virtual world. I feel this is an important option physcially-challenged people should have access to, and furthermore, there really is no better person to play such a role than themselves. In a roleplaying game, the narrative is not set by a group of show writer, which are more often than not people with no actual experience of what they are writing about -- after all, it's their jobs to create stories that'd appeal to the public, the other people -- in a roleplaying game, the narrative is forged through collaborative efforts of the GM and the players, and I feel it to be the best way to enhance the understanding of the struggles and sufferings of these people.

While I have concerns over the rules of how these characters should work in a game. After all, they dictate what handicapped characters can and cannot do through categorical, at times arbitrary, decisions, it is not impossible to be improved. If the publisher of said ruleset continue to work with the target audience and improve through user feedback, I believe this experiment will result in a great addition to the roleplaying game industry.

From the rules document:

The Combat Wheelchair may look like it comes with lots of Features and some of you
may feel that because of this it's "unfair" for a character to have this item at first level.
However, this chair only has so many Features because it is designed to enable a
disabled party member to do exactly what the abled members of the party can do.
"But it can float up and down stairs! Isn't that unfair?"
No, unless you plan on making all the able bodied characters at level 1 also remain on
ground floors only and never go up and down stairs and into dungeons. If you were
planning on doing that then that's fair."

So it turns out someone actually is advocating for my character in a chair going "beep boop up the stairs I go."

 lcmiracle wrote:

While I have concerns over the rules of how these characters should work in a game. After all, they dictate what handicapped characters can and cannot do through categorical, at times arbitrary, decisions, it is not impossible to be improved. If the publisher of said ruleset continue to work with the target audience and improve through user feedback, I believe this experiment will result in a great addition to the roleplaying game industry.

Besides RPG games are run through a DM with a group. Good DMs will often use the rules as guidelines; adapting to suit the players they have. They'll focus on aspects the group enjoys, adapting the rules and situation and what they do to craft a fun game for all involved.

Heck lets say stairs is a problem; so now the team are adventuring in the lost tombs of the ancient Slugoscians - a race of giant slug beings that went extinct centuries ago and now their ruined temples are laid bare for looters and monsters. Because they were slugs they didn't have stairs just ramps and magical strange levitation machine rooms- some of which might still function. And there you have it; a few moments and you've got a unique setting without stairs being a factor and the team not needing to worry about them.

Or the team only has to solve the problem once and thereafter they can simply hand wave that they navigate the stairs as normal. It's a puzzle the first time and a simple exercise the rest of the times after.

 lcmiracle wrote:
The thing with these sculpt, though, is that they are meant to be a visual representation of the player in a roleplaying game. A handicapped person may very well wish to enact their fantasy by taking on a persona with a corresponding condition, and overcome difficulties in a virtual world.

Living in an area with concrete destroying cold weather, endless ice and snow and mud when it's not cold, I will admit that I have an instantly frustrated reaction to seeing those wheelchairs up on those rocks and then the hand waving rules for the double down on the minimization.

Great post overall though.

While I have concerns over the rules of how these characters should work in a game. After all, they dictate what handicapped characters can and cannot do through categorical, at times arbitrary, decisions, it is not impossible to be improved. If the publisher of said ruleset continue to work with the target audience and improve through user feedback

I don't think there can be real improvement through feedback because the goal/point of the magic item is to erase the struggle. So there's only room for feedback from people who want that as anything else is in direct contradiction of that goal.

 RaptorusRex wrote:

It's a fantasy game. By definition, it is made-up. Go play something like Chivalry and Sorcery if you want realism.

The word you're looking for is 'verisimilitude'. The appearance of being real within the context of the setting.

And in D&D, powerful magic items are expensive and/or hard to find and/or hard to make. Magic powered thought-controlled wheelchairs would be powerful, and therefore expensive and/or hard to make.

A mundane wheelchair, not so much. But it's also a lot less useful; it requires both hands (or a friend) to move in a straight line, and one to move at all. So no two-handed weapons, paired weapons, or sword & board if you intend to retain any DEX bonus to AC. Rogues would find it hard to access many traps for disarming. Clerics and (especially) wizards would be least restricted in general.... and likely also best able to use magic to not need one in a pinch.

On the other hand, a pony - or if you're expecting to deal with stairs, a mule or donkey - just requires the Ride skill...


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Are these only for use in D&D? Are they even primarily for use in D&D?

Again, many people RPG for different reasons. What you specifically find immersion breaking will not trouble many other players.


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Someone earlier mentioned rolling to save against fear. To me, that is far, far more immersion-breaking than a wheelchair. I can’t get into the mindset where you want to *roleplay* and need the dice decide how your character reacts to things, whether or not he fears something.

Fear spells, dragon fear, etc. give a save, but if you fail your character is afraid, period. Even if he IS a described as a big, fearless fighter.

So one great thing to do would be to expand the product line. The chairs are fine for those who want to use them, but how about some that are more in line with less high-magic lore. Frankly even without players wanting to play differently abled persons, I'd love the option to have some NPCs that weren't strapping bold warriors, and an old priest or warrior who has lost a leg and is carried on a litter or has a primitive wheel cart would be a very useful visual story aid.

the_scotsman wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

 ced1106 wrote:
And that's pretty much my point. It's perfectly fine if your internally consistent D&D campaign has a good explanation for wheelchairs and glittering vampires, but neither are genre consistent with generic fantasy. And that may be the product line's point, to change that.

I would say it's that last bit, yes, because when we talk about "generic fantasy" we should keep in mind that it's a genre that for a lot of people doesn't include black people or any kind of woman other than rescuable princesses. Also the miniature line is called "Dungeons and Diversity" and clearly doesn't care about historically accurate european clothing and art circa 1200-1400-ish. The impulse that wheelchairs need to be justified is probably precisely the issue.

Back in my day there wasn't any black people in our fantasy world and if you wanted to play a asium ya had to pick the kung fu man class, it's about CONSISTENCY rabble rabble rabble

Back in the late eighties if you wanted to play a non-Caucasian you just noted it on your character sheet and nobody cared because in our games, there were orcs and goblins and giants; no room for animosity toward other humans/elves/etc.

And because in our group, we thought racism was pretty stupid as well.

I hadn’t considered the fear save being taken against a fear-specific spell. Seems like a very narrow set of circumstances that weakens the original comparison to me.

 Chamberlain wrote:
From the rules document:

The Combat Wheelchair may look like it comes with lots of Features and some of you
may feel that because of this it's "unfair" for a character to have this item at first level.
However, this chair only has so many Features because it is designed to enable a
disabled party member to do exactly what the abled members of the party can do.
"But it can float up and down stairs! Isn't that unfair?"
No, unless you plan on making all the able bodied characters at level 1 also remain on
ground floors only and never go up and down stairs and into dungeons. If you were
planning on doing that then that's fair."

So it turns out someone actually is advocating for my character in a chair going "beep boop up the stairs I go."

And if it can just float up stairs, it should logically also be able to just float across rough terrain that would slow normal people down, or possibly even stop them in their tracks....

At which point, it's not a WHEELchair anymore, it's a levitating chair and the wheels are redundant.

Even the God Emperor of Dune realized it was a good idea to have wheels on your hover chair, just in case.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I hadn’t considered the fear save being taken against a fear-specific spell. Seems like a very narrow set of circumstances that weakens the original comparison to me.

When your character sctick is 'big fearless barbarian' who is sent running back out of the room screaming like a little girl after failing that save in the first encounter...

I continue to remain shocked and disappointed at just how vile some people will get over giving characters magical wheelchairs. Like holy gak do they just get off on putting others down? Is other people having fun somehow an assault on theirs? If you don't like the miniatures then just. Don't. Use. Them. If you like the miniatures but not the rules, change the fething rules! This is an RPG; if you try to make it not work it will always fail. That some feel the need to try and shoot down the idea so hard speaks to a seriously disturbing mindset.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I continue to remain shocked and disappointed at just how vile some people will get over giving characters magical wheelchairs. Like holy gak do they just get off on putting others down?

I wouldn't give a first-level character a belt of giant strength just because they rolled an 8 strength either, not would I allow the eight-foot-tall half-ogre to swing his greatsword around in 4' tall tunnels carved by goblins. Don't try to make this into me picking on the disabled character because I'm not going to give them magic that allows them to completely ignore their disability. If a disabled PLAYER wants to play a character that isn't handicapped by their disability, don't play a disabled CHARACTER.

I'm not the jerk who says a character has to match a player's race, gender, or physical capabilities, after all.

Now if the player in question (and they don't have to be disabled to do this) WANTS to accept that challenge, and the rest of the party is down with helping them, then sure. Where there's a will, there's a way and all. And yes, these minis will, indeed, be great for that game and I'd be delighted to see them on the table under those circumstances.

But for one player to demand the rest of the party cater to their desire to play a disabled character that drastically increases the danger to them all? That's getting into being pretty darn selfish.

I don’t get the obsession with character levels. Who says these are meant for starting characters? Or DnD characters? Or that you have to use them at all?

A game is between the GM and the players. A good GM should be working with the players to create an experience they all enjoy. Clearly some people are not cut out to be GMs for some groups of people.

So these minis won’t work for you, in your games with the kind of people who want to game with you? So what? You said that already.

I personally don’t want to use My Little Pony minis in a game. I don’t need to post again and again about ponies not being setting appropriate.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I continue to remain shocked and disappointed at just how vile some people will get over giving characters magical wheelchairs. Like holy gak do they just get off on putting others down? Is other people having fun somehow an assault on theirs? If you don't like the miniatures then just. Don't. Use. Them. If you like the miniatures but not the rules, change the fething rules! This is an RPG; if you try to make it not work it will always fail. That some feel the need to try and shoot down the idea so hard speaks to a seriously disturbing mindset.

This is kind of confusing. I haven't noticed any preponderance of vile commentary. What does that mean to you, and can you cite some examples from this thread? What is vile about identifying shortcomings of such a powerful device being available to a character from the get go in classic d&d, and suggesting alternative products that don't require reinventing games, settings, or story/balance. Did anyone say that a person can't make their own game and rules? Or that there are no ways differently abled people can be represented in the game at all? I missed it if someone did. People are offering feedback in the challenges to the game as it is typically found and run for the specific product offered, and this points to new product opportunities to explore meeting the intent of representation in ways the user base find more consistent with their experience. It should be taken positively, acknowledging that the specific product may be for a niche market. Instead you seem to suggest if the entire world doesn't accept and modify everything for this specific product, they are vile and disturbing, or opposed to any representation at all? I urge you to take a step back and look at the bigger picture here, because you are currently missing something.

The best path forward for progress isn't necessarily in insisting people who find shortcomings and suggest alternatives with any particular product or initiative as vile and disturbed, or suggesting they are somehow enemies of progress for not immediately discarding and changing everything to suit a specific product or initiative. People who want to embrace massive change to how they do things and embrace this product are good. People who want to see alternatives for this product that meet the intent but leads to lesser impacts to what they enjoy are also good. Persons suggesting there neither can nor should be inclusion or representation could be considered narrow and missing out, but I didn't spot much of that except by people voicing it as misplaced/misrepresentational mockery and stereotyping of the former.

Hey, you misposted. The thread you are talking about obviously isn't this one!

Hey, now I can always play a fighter in a wheelchair for that extra randomness

 Chamberlain wrote:
You don't think people are advocating for some hand waiving away? The miniatures themselves have texture rocks that would be a door slammed in the face if encountered in day to day life in a chair.

Real humans can't swordfight bears, never mind ghosts or dragons. The failures of D&D in particular and "generic fantasy RPGs" in general to be realistic are innumerable. You strain out a gnat and swallow camels in order to categorically reject wheelchairs from games that lean primarily on dramatic license.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t get the obsession with character levels. Who says these are meant for starting characters?

The Combat Wheelchair may look like it comes with lots of Features and some of you
may feel that because of this it's "unfair" for a character to have this item at first level.


It's in the rules and posted in this very same page.

Or DnD characters?

The very same rules and the fact this is being getting publicity as DUNGEONS AND DIVERSITY. Seriously, how is this even a question or argument?

A game is between the GM and the players. A good GM should be working with the players to create an experience they all enjoy. Clearly some people are not cut out to be GMs for some groups of people.

Like... okay, no, there's too much to unpack there.

Ok, hear me out again. Maybe we should tackle this discussion from another angle -- that of roleplay and gameplay?

Let's go back to the ruleset the miniatures' sculptors had released:

...this chair only has so many Features because it is designed to enable a disabled party member to do exactly what the abled members of the party can do.

First off, I'd like to say that this ruleset can only be a patch work for a system, which the sculptors do not own, that is not designed to accommodate handicapped characters. Therefore, the sculptors' solution to make them essentially the same as a non-chair bound character is simply an easy way to bypass the issue.

However, from the perspective of a player, this makes playing as an impaired character no different from one that's physically intact. I'm sure it's made from good intentions, but it trivializes inclusion of disabled people as "just give it another coat o' paint and call it a day". Again this comes to the representation topic -- you can't say you are representing a group of people without first understanding what the experiences, needs and challenges first, and for the ruleset to be truly representative of the personal experiences of the chair-bound playbase, it needs to incorporate these challenges in the gameplay mechanics.

I'm not advocating to strictly limit what a crippled character can and cannot do in a roleplaying game by design here -- merely that how these activities are done should be differentiated mechanically and narratively from the able-bodied. It does not need to be AD&D level of complexity, nor a flat stat penalty like the old D&D gender stat differentials. I'm only saying the devs could put a little more thoughts into brainstorming and tinkering with the wheelchair as a tool for immersive roleplay. Think of what the characters cannot do while on a wheelchair in each gameplay scenario, and think of ways the players can use alternative means in-game to overcome it. Perhaps the wheelchair has different movement characteristic depending on terrain types; perhaps stats work differently mechanic-wise for wheel-chair bound characters; perhaps they have higher carry capacity. etc.

I am glad we have something different, something I feel the hobby had been missing on for too long; but the first step is nary a step. I understand the sculptors aren't game designers, which is why I believe their work needs community support -- to iron out the issues, to improve, to better reflect the struggles of disabled individuals, while still provide fun and engaging ways for players to overcome these struggles in a play session. Obviously this is a complicated issue, as the mechanics must take care to balance the difficulties, enjoyment, and respect to the target group. But surely we would move further in this path if we all remain cautious but also open-minded to it?

 Vulcan wrote:

But for one player to demand the rest of the party cater to their desire to play a disabled character that drastically increases the danger to them all? That's getting into being pretty darn selfish.

I get what you are saying although as a group wouldn't the selfish player just be nipped in the bud pre game?

Unless you are playing a selfish character? who has issues with their own lack of mobility, a self hate if you will.

Then that character arc just writes itself doesn't it?

 lcmiracle wrote:

First off, I'd like to say that this ruleset can only be a patch work for a system, which the sculptors do not own, that is not designed to accommodate handicapped characters. Therefore, the sculptors' solution to make them essentially the same as a non-chair bound character is simply an easy way to bypass the issue.

Because otherwise people would reject the idea due to the wheelchair user hindering the party.


Obviously anyone is free to come up with a more satisfying rule set or ignore rules altogether, or whatever works for their group and system, but the fundamental problem is people who stand ready to nitpick everything about a character using a wheelchair.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:

First off, I'd like to say that this ruleset can only be a patch work for a system, which the sculptors do not own, that is not designed to accommodate handicapped characters. Therefore, the sculptors' solution to make them essentially the same as a non-chair bound character is simply an easy way to bypass the issue.

Because otherwise people would reject the idea due to the wheelchair user hindering the party.


Obviously anyone is free to come up with a more satisfying rule set or ignore rules altogether, or whatever works for their group and system, but the fundamental problem is people who stand ready to nitpick everything about a character using a wheelchair.

I'd say that's an overly reductive way of looking at it. If you see the wheelchair just as another equipment in the game, one that's just always bond to the user, it is fundamentally no different to any other items in DnD 5E that has detrimental effects. The movement doesn't have to be a constant hindrance, and one can even argue a wheelchair will have superior speed on flat and downward slopes. There's another argument that perhaps wheelchair-bond characters cannot due-wield, which is hardly an issue as not every build is duel wield, is it?

Frankly, a fun RP campaign requires each party member to deal with each other's weaknesses as well as to complement their strengths, to dismiss the value of creating a unique experience centered around the item because some additional constraints is short sighted indeed.

Or just power gaming for the best of the best; which you can certainly do in DnD, but only when the whole party and DM wants you to and its in the spirit of the game you are playing.

 lcmiracle wrote:

Frankly, a fun RP campaign requires each party member to deal with each other's weaknesses as well as to complement their strengths, to dismiss the value of creating a unique experience centered around the item because some additional constraints is short sighted indeed.

Of course, ignoring the suggested rules and coming up with your own in order to make for a play experience that the group thinks is more satisfying to them is great. Yeah, do that. Think about what you want to represent in rules, weigh accuracy against playability and go for it. You want it to be a team effort against an uncaring world? I find that to be a perfectly ideologically correct approach. You have my blessing. The designers of the miniatures making some inelegant rules that just puts the wheelchair user on the same footing as someone who can just walk is understandable, tho, because I do believe that the real issue is those who would nitpick absolutely anything because they don't see people with disabilities as worthy of doing heroic things. If slamming a bunch of feats onto a 1st level character is technically too much for a 1st level character I consider that more amusing than a serious problem. It's very Pratchett, now that I think of it.