So inspired a bit by the thread Essay: "GURPS and the Fate Accessibility Toolkit" (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?40972-Essay-quot-GURPS-and-the-Fate-Accessibility-Toolkit-quot), I'd be more curious about what cool gaming situations people have had that involved disabilities. This is a thread about what's been positive about gaming, though, rather than complaining about other people's takes.
Thinking back, the first campaign that I GMed back in undergrad was a Hero System superpowered game in a more realistic setting. One of the PCs had electrical powers - and he had been shot in the back and was on the edge of death. I ruled that his spine had been severed - but over the course of his recovery, he found that he could still use his legs by using his powers, but that would require constant concentration. We re-worked his disadvantages and stats to reflect this. That gave his character a really interesting arc over the rest of the campaign, including how his girlfriend and he dealt with the change.
My favorite case, though, was a one-shot game from a few years ago based on the sci-fi TV series Alphas -- where the main characters had low-level neurologically-based powers, each with an associated psychological/neurological downside. When all my players created their own alternate team, it made for a fascinating struggle for them to cover for their weak spots.
Among others, the PCs there included one who had perfect muscular control but couldn't relax and thus was always exhausted - only able to walk with a cane. Another had perfect accuracy paired with OCD. Another was able to recognize patterns but had a fear of crowds. They were investigating a new age woman who could cause hallucinations, who lived in a urban hippy house - where a big crowd of hippy-like young people were living in this old run-down house. Without realizing it as GM, suddenly the players burst back at me that this was a perfect trap for them. As I described it, the old house had steps with no railings, plus it was dirty and cluttered, and crowded with drug-taking people. Having those tightly-linked down sides gave a new perspective on what was challenging for characters.
What are other people's cool experiences of disabilities in games?
Here's the game I want to play.
I gain the magical ability to take Fred Hicks and inflict all of my brother's disabilities upon him, and my brother could then have a functioning body and brain for the first time in his life. Then Fred can experience all that amazing, exciting fun that disabilities bring to your life and my brother could do lame, boring mundane shit like walk and talk.
That would be a VERY fun game.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1122833Here's the game I want to play.
I gain the magical ability to take Fred Hicks and inflict all of my brother's disabilities upon him, and my brother could then have a functioning body and brain for the first time in his life. Then Fred can experience all that amazing, exciting fun that disabilities bring to your life and my brother could do lame, boring mundane shit like walk and talk.
That would be a VERY fun game.
Greetings!
Indeed, my friend. I think all of this "deep effort" to include disabilities and focus on disabled characters is honestly pathetic, pandering, disrespectful, and entirely in poor taste.
I don't find anything funny about it, or particularly "sensitive" to include such rules in a game. It's bullshit.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
As a person with a mental disability I can say this. FUCK ANYONE ONE THAT DRAGS DISABILITIES INTO ANY GAME! Can we just have our fucking escapism where we play as people that are far better and more heroic than us? Can we just do that?
Quote from: Snowman0147;1122837As a person with a mental disability I can say this. FUCK ANYONE ONE THAT DRAGS DISABILITIES INTO ANY GAME! Can we just have our fucking escapism where we play as people that are far better and more heroic than us? Can we just do that?
Yeah but some of us think its interesting to play this stuff in the game. Rather than as some virtue signalling garbage.
Or because we are handicapped ourselves. It is why it is in my own book wayy the hell back. I also proposed adding it to Albedo when was working on a sadly unpublished 3rd ed.
Quote from: Omega;1122838Yeah but some of us think its interesting to play this stuff in the game. Rather than as some virtue signalling garbage.
Or because we are handicapped ourselves. It is why it is in my own book wayy the hell back. I also proposed adding it to Albedo when was working on a sadly unpublished 3rd ed.
Okay I cannot really get pissed off on those who want to play on hard mode. At least they know that actually having disabilities actually sucks ass. Still acting like having disabilities is a good thing irks me.
Quote from: Snowman0147;1122840Okay I cannot really get pissed off on those who want to play on hard mode. At least they know that actually having disabilities actually sucks ass. Still acting like having disabilities is a good thing irks me.
hah. In my book I made it very clear that these were disabilities and they could and would hamper the character that took.
I mean, if your character is blind, that sort of makes you immune to the gaze of a basilisk, medusa, and possibly the charming ability of vampires. But it pretty much also means you're not going dungeon delving, so what's the point? I suppose you could play a blind linkboy or something who has memorized a particular path; wouldn't need to waste torches unless you're walking with someone.
If you're playing in a supers game and can be Daredevil, being blind isn't even an inconvenience, it's just a feature. Blindness is a -50 in GURPS, and even then that seems pretty underpriced, but if you have "Eyes don't work, but I can basically visualize the world in greater detail than any normal human", that's a -1 Quick and probably 20-30 points of Advantages. Makes sense for Daredevil, but if you just have the -50 disadvantage, you better be the best Bard in existence.
RE: "cool uses for disabilities", how would that even work? I know a guy who got his leg blown off in Afghanistan, it was funny as hell when he'd pull off the prosthetic and freak someone out. I don't think that has much of a purpose in the context of an RPG, though.
In D&D 5e (and other D&ds, probably), it would be easy to give a PC blind-sight 60 feet in exchange of blindness. Even if the PC could fight normally, his range and perception would be limited... Seems balanced and interesting, IMO, since some monsters work like this already.
Quote from: Brad;1122912I mean, if your character is blind, that sort of makes you immune to the gaze of a basilisk, medusa, and possibly the charming ability of vampires. But it pretty much also means you're not going dungeon delving, so what's the point? I suppose you could play a blind linkboy or something who has memorized a particular path; wouldn't need to waste torches unless you're walking with someone.
If you're playing in a supers game and can be Daredevil, being blind isn't even an inconvenience, it's just a feature. Blindness is a -50 in GURPS, and even then that seems pretty underpriced, but if you have "Eyes don't work, but I can basically visualize the world in greater detail than any normal human", that's a -1 Quick and probably 20-30 points of Advantages. Makes sense for Daredevil, but if you just have the -50 disadvantage, you better be the best Bard in existence.
RE: "cool uses for disabilities", how would that even work? I know a guy who got his leg blown off in Afghanistan, it was funny as hell when he'd pull off the prosthetic and freak someone out. I don't think that has much of a purpose in the context of an RPG, though.
Yeah, in GURPS you could do it a few different ways. Blindness with a mitigator, or Blindness + Detect or any combination of sense-based advantages. Generally this ends up being a positive point total if you are going for a Daredevil or Zatoichi type. Of course you are right as far as the Quirk-type judgement call; a Disad isn't worth points if it's not actually disadvantageous as you point out. But that would be on the GM to sniff-test for a given campaign. For example I know many GURPS GM's do not award points for being Terminally Ill as in many campaign types it will never come up, similar to Longevity/Unaging which many people change to Perks and so as not to charge elves for the privilege of living thousands of years for example (which almost never shows up in any D&D game IME).
I played a wizard who sacrificed one of his eyes to gain wisdom like Odin did. Was actually quite interesting; I wore an eyepatch over that eye whenever I played him just so I could get into the mindset of not being able to see out of that eye. That way whenever I was imagining a scene being described, the "blind" side wasn't actually being visualized. I also got into the habit of turning so my "good eye" was facing the player/GM when he was talking to someone.
He had a penalty to anything relating to vision and that included projectile based magic, and while it did make my rolls worse, interestingly the rolls were usually already bad enough that the penalty didn't matter. It caused me to have him focus on magic that wasn't projectile based and didn't involve being able to judge distances, perceive depth, or anything that required visual tracking.
Right. This was actually something I touched on in my own book and others have too. If you have a disability that is somehow countered by something else then you effectively do not have a disability and do not get the points. That or it has to be bought off somehow with a counter power that mitigates it.
In my own book I just told the players that they could easily make a character who is a quad amputee that gets about via magically manifested limbs, prosthesis limbs, etc. And it effectively gains or costs nothing as its just there for background. It is when the disability does not have a counter in place that changes things. I also pointed out that to get a 'cure' would be quest level endeavors as the setting was low magic overall so finding someone to say craft you some artificial legs or some sort of centaur-like conveyance might take time.
Speaking of. In the old Free LANCERs superhero setting for Top Secret one of the example PCs is an inventor who lost his legs. So he created for himself a robotic centaur lower body he uses as a prosthetic. (he couldnt get a bipedal mode to work.) These sorts of workarounds are perfectly fine as people are working on these in the real world and theres been some surprising advances. We even looked at the possibility of a robotic exoframe for Kat before she passed away as those are getting more and more viable with each passing year.
One other thing that people tend to miss that I like to point out.
Being born with a disability is immensely different from gaining one. A person born blind has had to grow with that as a natural part of their world. A rare few gain what is called "compensation senses" which is a heightening of one or more other sense. A person who is disabled at some point on the other hand has to deal with not only having to adapt to a strange new world essentially. But also the psychological impact of the loss. Some unfortunately suffer the CP2020 equivalent of cyberpsychosis.
Quote from: Brad;1122912I mean, if your character is blind, that sort of makes you immune to the gaze of a basilisk, medusa, and possibly the charming ability of vampires. But it pretty much also means you're not going dungeon delving, so what's the point? I suppose you could play a blind linkboy or something who has memorized a particular path; wouldn't need to waste torches unless you're walking with someone.
If you're playing in a supers game and can be Daredevil, being blind isn't even an inconvenience, it's just a feature. Blindness is a -50 in GURPS, and even then that seems pretty underpriced, but if you have "Eyes don't work, but I can basically visualize the world in greater detail than any normal human", that's a -1 Quick and probably 20-30 points of Advantages. Makes sense for Daredevil, but if you just have the -50 disadvantage, you better be the best Bard in existence.
RE: "cool uses for disabilities", how would that even work? I know a guy who got his leg blown off in Afghanistan, it was funny as hell when he'd pull off the prosthetic and freak someone out. I don't think that has much of a purpose in the context of an RPG, though.
Brad - I included some examples in my OP, and some others have added their examples. I'd hope you could respond to those.
I don't recall having a blind PC in any of my games, but I can easily imagine various middle ground between someone who is useless and Daredevil, particularly given science fiction or fantasy abilities. Someone could be able to navigate nearby spaces -- but be unable to see in the distance, read signs, shoot people, etc. This could be by cinematically enhanced other senses, tech sensors, magic, or whatever.
In one of Elric's books he has a whole army of blind soldiers to fight his cousin, who has a mirror that steal minds (or something).
Right. There are cases where a disability becomes a boon. Thats a no-brainer.
A Blind person is going to be immune to a Medusa or a Mirror of Life Trapping in D&D.
A hearing impaired person is going to be immune to Sirens Harpies, Banshies, etc.
A person that cant walk on their own and is using some sort of hovering conveyance wont trip off pit traps and pressure plates.
and so on.
But these tend to be few and far between. Though like in Star Trek it could become a plot hook for a teamup. For example a blind person working with a medusa. Or only a deaf person can help the banshee find peace. Only a person without legs can pilot the centaur battle suit. And so on.
I made my comments about this in one of my videos.
[video=youtube_share;WgNxua6_bxI]https://youtu.be/WgNxua6_bxI[/youtube]
I recall Tim Kask, TSR's first employee & editor of Dragon magazine, saying that he REALLY disliked working the GenCon booth because he had to listen to players' stories of their characters.
So.
Yeah, (pronoun) was (select disability) and still (amazing party fluff resulting in THE WIN).
Had that cliche for breakfast last night.
Quote from: SHARK;1122836Greetings!
Indeed, my friend. I think all of this "deep effort" to include disabilities and focus on disabled characters is honestly pathetic, pandering, disrespectful, and entirely in poor taste.
I don't find anything funny about it, or particularly "sensitive" to include such rules in a game. It's bullshit.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
I agree with this, IMO there are no cool ways to include disabilities in a game. Everyone I have gamed with that has disabilities usually plays a really bad ass character.
Quote from: ElBorak;1123167I agree with this, IMO there are no cool ways to include disabilities in a game. Everyone I have gamed with that has disabilities usually plays a really bad ass character.
Are you saying that a character can't be bad ass if they have a disability? I thought that many of the examples so far - like Thegn's one-eyes wizard - showed very bad ass characters.
Quote from: Thegn Ansgar;1122930I played a wizard who sacrificed one of his eyes to gain wisdom like Odin did. Was actually quite interesting; I wore an eyepatch over that eye whenever I played him just so I could get into the mindset of not being able to see out of that eye. That way whenever I was imagining a scene being described, the "blind" side wasn't actually being visualized. I also got into the habit of turning so my "good eye" was facing the player/GM when he was talking to someone.
He had a penalty to anything relating to vision and that included projectile based magic, and while it did make my rolls worse, interestingly the rolls were usually already bad enough that the penalty didn't matter. It caused me to have him focus on magic that wasn't projectile based and didn't involve being able to judge distances, perceive depth, or anything that required visual tracking.
I like this. Plucking out your own eye like Odin for magical power shows fucking dedication.
Quote from: ElBorak;1123167I agree with this, IMO there are no cool ways to include disabilities in a game. Everyone I have gamed with that has disabilities usually plays a really bad ass character.
A disability should not be cool. It can at some point save the day and be cool at that moment. But they arent called disabilities for nothing.
And having a disability is not a prohibitor of being a bad ass character. You just have to train and find workarounds to get there. And/or team up with others who can cover your weak spots. And hope someone doesnt figure out how to exploit your weak spots.
Of course players can and will exploit monster and NPC disabilities in combat. If someone has only one eye for example you might want to stay at range so their lack of depth perception works to your advantage. Or try to get around to their blind side. My great grandfather stayed in the service even after having an eye shot out. How he coped and adapted I'll never know. But I can imagine criminals trying to take advantage of that.
Quote from: jhkim;1123008Brad - I included some examples in my OP, and some others have added their examples. I'd hope you could respond to those.
I don't recall having a blind PC in any of my games, but I can easily imagine various middle ground between someone who is useless and Daredevil, particularly given science fiction or fantasy abilities. Someone could be able to navigate nearby spaces -- but be unable to see in the distance, read signs, shoot people, etc. This could be by cinematically enhanced other senses, tech sensors, magic, or whatever.
I have maiming tables in my games (and rules for overcoming maiming over time to become characters like Daredevil or the one armed swordsman). The idea being that initially a character who is maimed is going to be challenged a great deal by it. But they can eventually level out and even find an advantage eventually. Mechanically this means you have to take an ability called Adaptation of the Maimed, which just levels you out (and can take a while to get). Then there are abilities like One Armed Strike, which allows a character to use the space afforded by the loss of the limb to generate more force (this obviously follows wuxia/kung fu logic rather than an attempt at being something gritty and real world).
Blindness has come up multiple times, and one thing I would say to GMs is always remember if a characters is blind or maimed in some way. Nothing more embarrassing than describing something visual to a player whose character is blind and wouldn't have that info. It is a very easy detail to let slip.
Quote from: jhkim;1122827Thinking back, the first campaign that I GMed back in undergrad was a Hero System superpowered game in a more realistic setting. One of the PCs had electrical powers - and he had been shot in the back and was on the edge of death. I ruled that his spine had been severed - but over the course of his recovery, he found that he could still use his legs by using his powers, but that would require constant concentration. We re-worked his disadvantages and stats to reflect this. That gave his character a really interesting arc over the rest of the campaign, including how his girlfriend and he dealt with the change.
I really like the Hero System approach. Over the last year, I have been playing in a 5e Revised Hero game, and the revised version of the book describes sensory powers and how to express disabilities related to them in a much more granular way.
Quote from: jhkim;1123008Brad - I included some examples in my OP, and some others have added their examples. I'd hope you could respond to those.
Fair enough.
Quote from: jhkim;1122827Thinking back, the first campaign that I GMed back in undergrad was a Hero System superpowered game in a more realistic setting. One of the PCs had electrical powers - and he had been shot in the back and was on the edge of death. I ruled that his spine had been severed - but over the course of his recovery, he found that he could still use his legs by using his powers, but that would require constant concentration. We re-worked his disadvantages and stats to reflect this. That gave his character a really interesting arc over the rest of the campaign, including how his girlfriend and he dealt with the change.
This is just a typical comic book conceit; seems perfectly normal to me in that context. So essentially, his nervous system was "destroyed", which in turn led to electrical powers, and he could control his body with those powers. Again, plain old comic book stuff.
QuoteMy favorite case, though, was a one-shot game from a few years ago based on the sci-fi TV series Alphas -- where the main characters had low-level neurologically-based powers, each with an associated psychological/neurological downside. When all my players created their own alternate team, it made for a fascinating struggle for them to cover for their weak spots.
Among others, the PCs there included one who had perfect muscular control but couldn't relax and thus was always exhausted - only able to walk with a cane. Another had perfect accuracy paired with OCD. Another was able to recognize patterns but had a fear of crowds. They were investigating a new age woman who could cause hallucinations, who lived in a urban hippy house - where a big crowd of hippy-like young people were living in this old run-down house. Without realizing it as GM, suddenly the players burst back at me that this was a perfect trap for them. As I described it, the old house had steps with no railings, plus it was dirty and cluttered, and crowded with drug-taking people. Having those tightly-linked down sides gave a new perspective on what was challenging for characters.
This sounds sort of like the basis for a Mystery Men-style game. It definitely can be fun playing heroes with all sorts of fucked up stuff going on, dealing with normal-ish situations that become hard to deal with due to their disabilities. Overcoming their issues and actually being heroic is sort of what makes it worth playing.
QuoteI don't recall having a blind PC in any of my games, but I can easily imagine various middle ground between someone who is useless and Daredevil, particularly given science fiction or fantasy abilities. Someone could be able to navigate nearby spaces -- but be unable to see in the distance, read signs, shoot people, etc. This could be by cinematically enhanced other senses, tech sensors, magic, or whatever.
Sure, I mean realistically, a blind person in a modern day sort of game with zero super powers could actually be extremely viable because our society is setup to accommodate them for the most part. You could run an espionage game with a blind spy that has a form of eidetic memory and a seeing-eyed dog. No one will question the dog (who might also be an ex-Marine K9 attack dog or something), and the dude can just sit on a bench and do surveillance, reporting back explicit conversations.
Quote from: Brad;1123199No one will question the dog (who might also be an ex-Marine K9 attack dog or something), and the dude can just sit on a bench and do surveillance, reporting back explicit conversations.
Ah, nice to see the Casey Rybek "I'm just a cook" meme spread to characters' pets too.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1123200Ah, nice to see the Casey Rybek "I'm just a cook" meme spread to characters' pets too.
Master Chief Rybek to you, son.
Makes me think of Jay J. Armes. A private investigator who lost both hands when young and grew up to become an investigator and had an array of special prosthetics. Even a gun hand. Marketed himself well too. Had an action figure!
(https://dorkforty.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/jj-armes.jpg)
Well, in some RPGs, mainly sci-fi but also sci-fantasy, losing a body part can be a good excuse to get cybernetics...
Unless the cybernetics is a potentially bad thing.
On the other hand it allways struck me as a bit odd in Star Trek TNG that there were any handicapped people at all considering how advanced the science by then was getting to the point it bordered on magic a few times. Of course over the span of the series they show all of maybee three. So it could be that handicapped people are vanishingly rare. Id like to hope so.
Quote from: Omega;1123714Unless the cybernetics is a potentially bad thing.
On the other hand it allways struck me as a bit odd in Star Trek TNG that there were any handicapped people at all considering how advanced the science by then was getting to the point it bordered on magic a few times. Of course over the span of the series they show all of maybee three. So it could be that handicapped people are vanishingly rare. Id like to hope so.
transporter pattern buffer immortality. that episode where picard possessed by alien beams out as energy only into the nebula but wait we have his pattern so zip zang zoom we got him back. got cancer? pattern buffer! too old to live? we have a much younger you in the pattern buffer! act now and we'll throw in a slap chop with some of vinces nuts, and for a limited time, activate one instance of pattern buffer and get a free genital size enhancement courtesy of our pattern mixing specialists who operate the pattern buffer!
pattern buffer, the first last and middle word in buffering patterns! pattern buffer!
pattern buffer!
Quote from: Omega;1123714Unless the cybernetics is a potentially bad thing. On the other hand it allways struck me as a bit odd in Star Trek TNG that there were any handicapped people at all considering how advanced the science by then was getting to the point it bordered on magic a few times. Of course over the span of the series they show all of maybee three. So it could be that handicapped people are vanishingly rare. Id like to hope so.
It is surprising how lacking in vision TNG was in so many ways, but then, they'd have to come up with practical effects to mimic what they could envision. But had they thought about it, you'd have no handicapped people at all, and everyone would be their ideal height and weight, and likely no baldies. Also, they would likely have much improved life spans.
They should have made Picard in the new Picard show 180.
Quote from: Lynn;1123819It is surprising how lacking in vision TNG was in so many ways, but then, they'd have to come up with practical effects to mimic what they could envision. But had they thought about it, you'd have no handicapped people at all, and everyone would be their ideal height and weight, and likely no baldies. Also, they would likely have much improved life spans.
They should have made Picard in the new Picard show 180.
Star Trek addressed this partly in the original series. Humanity had a particular aversion to genetic engineering ever since the apocalyptic wars by genetic supermen like Khan Noonian Singh. So congenital traits like baldness or even congenital blindness are not corrected by genetic engineering, but rather mitigated by technology later. It seems like aging also would require genetic engineering to fully address, so you can have 137 year old humans like Leonard McCoy, but not much older than that.
Quote from: Lynn;1123819It is surprising how lacking in vision TNG was in so many ways, but then, they'd have to come up with practical effects to mimic what they could envision. But had they thought about it, you'd have no handicapped people at all, and everyone would be their ideal height and weight, and likely no baldies. Also, they would likely have much improved life spans.
They should have made Picard in the new Picard show 180.
I allways assumed they did have longer life spans. And overall you do see that most people in ST look pretty good so corrective surgery is probably pretty common. The exceptions are likely people who either have a phobia or aversion to such. But note that the further you get from earth the more mundane folk start to look. Which suggests that such luxuries get harder to come by the further out you get. Which makes a certain sense with colony worlds.
Quote from: jhkim;1123852Star Trek addressed this partly in the original series. Humanity had a particular aversion to genetic engineering ever since the apocalyptic wars by genetic supermen like Khan Noonian Singh. So congenital traits like baldness or even congenital blindness are not corrected by genetic engineering, but rather mitigated by technology later. It seems like aging also would require genetic engineering to fully address, so you can have 137 year old humans like Leonard McCoy, but not much older than that.
Exactly. But then you have the problem of the superscience of TNG where genetic engineering isnt even needed. You just apply whatever corrective medical treatments to brute force fix the problems. Need hair? Use a micro scattering proton beam in the SK range to stimulate the regrowth of hair follicles. Nerve blindness? Use micro neuro surgery and nerve cell replacement with pizo-electric bonding fibers to get the job done. etc. Lost an arm? Vat grow a replacement or assemble one in a replicator and then use a basic neuro stimulator.
ST had grown past the need for genetic engineering really.
Quote from: Omega;1123876Exactly. But then you have the problem of the superscience of TNG where genetic engineering isnt even needed. You just apply whatever corrective medical treatments to brute force fix the problems. Need hair? Use a micro scattering proton beam in the SK range to stimulate the regrowth of hair follicles. Nerve blindness? Use micro neuro surgery and nerve cell replacement with pizo-electric bonding fibers to get the job done. etc. Lost an arm? Vat grow a replacement or assemble one in a replicator and then use a basic neuro stimulator.
ST had grown past the need for genetic engineering really.
Certainly there has been a lot of bad writing in the TNG era - along with some truly excellent writing. It's par for the course in a big series, and it's impossible to stay consistent with all of the premises that were invented.
But I think that the same cultural forces against genetic engineering would also be opposed to other transhuman trends. Yes, cybernetics and surgical enhancement existed, but they were strongly frowned on except as a last resort. The humans of the Federation basically didn't create supersoldiers or cyborgs, or even powered armor suits. Such things were known of and presumably considered, but they weren't seen as desirable.
When I ran an original-series Star Trek campaign, I made this official as a principle that if any tasks *could* be done by a natural person, it was preferred that they do so - rather than turning to automata, cybernetics, or genetic engineering. The justification for this was that transhumanism reduced personal and social drive to expand and explore. Why exercise when you can just replicate new muscles, and why go to the stars if you can send robots instead? As I ran it, the Federation preferred putting some people in harm's way in order to avoid a cultural future where humanity became unrecognizable brains in jars. The limitations of the human body were seen as hurdles to be accepted.
Considering the borderline magic levels of ST:TNG medical science Id have to say that there doesnt seem to be that aversion to non-genetic corrective surgery. Even in TNG they were working on trying to cure Geordie's blindness. There were a few episodes where they were taking someone to a medical station for some manner of ailment.
But yeah they seem really adverse to cybernetics and gene-modding. Probably for good reason too. Both seem to go badly 9 times out of 10.
Interesting how this thread went from "modeling the DSM-V because diversity" to "handling permanent injuries gained doing cool, heroic, and difficult stuff". Quite refreshing.
Probably helps that some of us are disabled. And are pretty much fed up with all this woke nonesense under the guise of "helping" us.
Quote from: Omega;1123936Probably helps that some of us are disabled. And are pretty much fed up with all this woke nonesense under the guise of "helping" us.
The disabled are not even the target audience of this segment of Wokeness, at that. The target is the same as always, in this case described as "the able", who "need to be forced to experience" whatever the Woke see fit to inflict.
Hence my amusement at the thread turning away from all that. No better form of rejection of a bad idea than turning it into its healthy opposite.
Quote from: Omega;1123876Exactly. But then you have the problem of the superscience of TNG where genetic engineering isnt even needed. You just apply whatever corrective medical treatments to brute force fix the problems. Need hair? Use a micro scattering proton beam in the SK range to stimulate the regrowth of hair follicles. Nerve blindness? Use micro neuro surgery and nerve cell replacement with pizo-electric bonding fibers to get the job done. etc. Lost an arm? Vat grow a replacement or assemble one in a replicator and then use a basic neuro stimulator.
ST had grown past the need for genetic engineering really.
Yes, exactly, and they did have cyber improvements such as Picard's artificial heart. It was also established in Star Trek IV that you can regrow a kidney with a pill back in TOS movie days.
Quote from: jhkim;1123852Star Trek addressed this partly in the original series. Humanity had a particular aversion to genetic engineering ever since the apocalyptic wars by genetic supermen like Khan Noonian Singh. So congenital traits like baldness or even congenital blindness are not corrected by genetic engineering, but rather mitigated by technology later. It seems like aging also would require genetic engineering to fully address, so you can have 137 year old humans like Leonard McCoy, but not much older than that.
Yes, I thought of that, and they certainly expanded on that in DS9 when it was shown that the Doctor was genetically enhanced. But even so, it seems clear to me that all the technologies are there without deep gene manipulation.
Quote from: Lynn;1123943Yes, I thought of that, and they certainly expanded on that in DS9 when it was shown that the Doctor was genetically enhanced. But even so, it seems clear to me that all the technologies are there without deep gene manipulation.
Notr that from how they treated it in DS9 the gene modding of dr Bashir was considered potentially unethical.