Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 23, 2024, 01:54:32 PM

Quote from: Brad on March 23, 2024, 11:26:46 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 21, 2024, 08:58:19 PM
I always saw Chip Chase not as forced diversity (because that wasn't such a big thing in the 80s outside of Affirmative Action), but someone who was limited physically, so he developed his mind to the point that he was a super-computer whiz.  Maybe his character was even Stephen Hawking-inspired.

I just watched that episode the other day with my kids, actually. 80s cartoons ALWAYS had some kid in a wheelchair with glasses who was some sort of super nerd, usually worked with computers. There was no "forced diversity," it was just shorthand for "hyper-capable teenager who is an inexplicable expert." It's like Daredevil being fucking blind yet one of the most skilled HtH combatants in the Marvel universe...he's blind so he HAS TO BE better at something he probably should suck at.

Also, if Chip was somehow transported to the D&D world and became a magic-user, he'd just get some levitation spell or a magic carpet to fly around on. He's not a fucking dunce so wouldn't have a ludicrously retarded "combat wheelchair".

I thought that the Autobots should have made Chip some kind of mecha-suit he could drive around in. Too bad he dissappeared after season 2...

If they didn't send Chip one of these by 2005 then they're dicks.

Quote from: Brad on March 23, 2024, 11:26:46 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 21, 2024, 08:58:19 PM
I always saw Chip Chase not as forced diversity (because that wasn't such a big thing in the 80s outside of Affirmative Action), but someone who was limited physically, so he developed his mind to the point that he was a super-computer whiz.  Maybe his character was even Stephen Hawking-inspired.

I just watched that episode the other day with my kids, actually. 80s cartoons ALWAYS had some kid in a wheelchair with glasses who was some sort of super nerd, usually worked with computers. There was no "forced diversity," it was just shorthand for "hyper-capable teenager who is an inexplicable expert."

Chip first appears in "Roll For It" (s01e05), but you'll get to see mrore f him, as he appears again in several episodes in season 1 ,and a few s2 eps.

Quote from: Grognard GM on March 23, 2024, 01:59:35 PM

I thought that the Autobots should have made Chip some kind of mecha-suit he could drive around in. Too bad he dissappeared after season 2...

If they didn't send Chip one of these by 2005 then they're dicks.


[/quote]

Chip probably invented the exo-suit that Spike and Daniel use in the Movie (and some s3 episodes, like "Dark Awakening")

Quote from: Brad on March 23, 2024, 11:26:46 AM80s cartoons ALWAYS had some kid in a wheelchair with glasses who was some sort of super nerd, usually worked with computers.

Eh, just to quibble a moment, but not anime that was imported: Starblazers, Voltron, Thundersub and Robotech come to mind. About the only characters that were disabled in those were missing an eye and had some sort of prosthetic, or in the case of someone like Dusty Ayres who had half his body replaced by full cybernetic prosthesis.

I'm not saying there weren't characters that ended up in wheelchairs (or whatever was analogous to them), but they were almost always old people.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 23, 2024, 02:03:51 PMChip first appears in "Roll For It"

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on March 22, 2024, 04:15:43 PM
It's partly because their shared language is fundamental in keeping their community together. And while other disabled folks share common experience, they don't necessarily share a common language.

Quote from: jhkim on March 22, 2024, 07:06:14 PM
This was dramatized in "Children of a Lesser God" (1986) - so it's been around for a while as an issue, though I don't know how real the portrayal is. (The book is supposedly based on a true story, but I don't know the real life basis.) A particular controversial issue is deaf parents who want their children to be deaf so that they can talk to their kids natively, rather than having their children learn to speak from strangers.

Quote from: Grognard GM on March 22, 2024, 08:20:06 PM
Almost every person on Earth can hear, and speaks with their mouth. Parents that want to hold their children back by giving them hurdles to success in life are assholes. Worse, some of that community act like the Amish, not wanting them to join the English.

Don't understand the attitude. Even if it is a tiny minority; they are acting like it is and either / or choice.

There's an old saying for this kind of behavior: Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

FWIW: The implant is a technical solution; not an actual "cure".

If I had a deaf kid, I would absolutely teach him (And my wife and I) how to sign as soon as possible! That way if something happens to the tech, he can still communicate.

I'd want my deaf kid to have ALL the options to live a better life. I wouldn't limit him to just one of two...


Getting people to "accept" the combat wheelchair in D&D is done for the same reasons a minority of deaf people reject the implants:

The "You must accept that I am 100% fine no matter how unrealistic it is" humiliation ritual.

No. You're not fine. You're fucking deaf. It's a life changing disability.


And no, your PC with his combat wheelchair is not fine either, he literally cannot walk.

He's a retarded idiot, and his fellow PC's are deranged psychopaths' for taking him straight to his death.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on March 21, 2024, 11:12:56 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on March 21, 2024, 10:14:08 PM
I did have this one player in a GURPS campaign.  He took his Strength and Health down to sevem and learned levitation to the point where he could maintain it indefinantly so the party dragged him around on a string like a balloon.  He's the guy that got up to the hijinks where he and his familiar shape shifted into elephants to power a bug proofing spell on a swamp based settlement because a guy with a seven health does not want to get exposed to malaria.

That sounds awesome.

GURPS is the game where the guy in the wheel chair is the one to be afraid of.  What did he do with those points?

Still, it wouldn't work in fourth edition because fatigue (used to cast spells) is based on Health instead of Strength now.

Quote from: Grognard GM on March 21, 2024, 10:35:17 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on March 21, 2024, 10:14:08 PMHe's the guy that got up to the hijinks where he and his familiar shape shifted into elephants to power a bug proofing spell on a swamp based settlement because a guy with a seven health does not want to get exposed to malaria.

I bet he's never forgotten that game.

I know I haven't.  Still, he was one of those players.  In Spacemaster he played an Oort, a race of supergenius Cousin It's about the size of a halfling.  So he built a carapace armour hamster ball and put a track through the bulkheads of his ship.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on March 21, 2024, 01:51:50 AM

Quote from: Omega on March 21, 2024, 12:56:43 AM

Quote from: Thor's Nads on March 20, 2024, 02:29:49 AM
The dumbest "controversy" yet. If people want to have magic wheelchairs in their game let them. So what?

That isnt the problem.

Its how the woke push it to the point they are trolling handicapped people.

I wasn't aware that actual handicapped people were also ticked off by this. The Woke can never be Woke enough to satisfy all their little diverse micro-communities they pander to.

Enough are pissed off. Though the woke try to turn more and more to their hateful little screeds and then you get publishers backing them and it never ends.

Quote from: Shalashashka on March 22, 2024, 11:25:23 AM
You'd think that, but there is a sizable chunk of the deaf community (I hate using the word community but it is what it is) that don't want deafness cured. They actively fight against any advances in curing their condition and ostracize and bully those deaf people who get hearing implants.

I just don't believe them.  It's easy to virtue signal or use this as an excuse for their own bad behavior.  It's easy to talk about not wanting a cure when you have a kind of hearing loss that can't be reversed anyway.  I don't believe for a second that they would actually turn down a cure if one were available.

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 21, 2024, 03:06:18 AM
For me, the oddest argument in all of this is that the combat wheelchairs would be relevant because there would be people who would not want to be cured even if there was magical available to cure them easily.  Their rationale for this usually amounts to vague gassing on identity and calling people ableist.  I don't believe this for a single fucking second.  Even if they could walk again or regain their eyesight by having someone wave a holy symbol at them and chant for a few seconds, they would choose to remain as they are?  Bullshit.  No one believes that.

Yep. The woke need handicapped people to feed off of and so they try to infect us with this brainwashing that we dont need a cure.

Other problem is unfortunately any of us that were born handicapped have a tendency to not see a need for a cure because we are adapted to our various problems. But I can tell you some of us would flat out KILL for a cure.

And in a fantasy setting where death is around every corner, if you can afford getting fixed up you'd be insane not to. But getting the appropriate cure could be more costly than commoners and at least low level adventurers can get ahold of and still afford gear. YMMV but accessibility of funds could be a problem for a few. But I think it would alsi prevent someone adventuring without alot of support.

Quote from: Zenoguy3 on March 21, 2024, 06:08:43 PM
Honestly, I think the argument that people that are disabled such that they require a wheelchair would be easily healed is a weak one.

This is my argument to. Not everyone can even afford the steep prices listed in AD&D or 5e. Though I am guessing its been retconned in 5e that priests now heal for free... because of course!

But starter adventurers are not going to have the cash for both possibly. Choose one. Then start accumulating funds all over again. And anyone who cant walk is a severe problem in a dungeon delve or even cross country.

A flying carpet or the rideable variant of Tensers Floating Disc makes 1000% more sense than an idiotic wheelchair that is more a liability than a boon..

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 24, 2024, 01:01:35 AM

Quote from: Shalashashka on March 22, 2024, 11:25:23 AM
You'd think that, but there is a sizable chunk of the deaf community (I hate using the word community but it is what it is) that don't want deafness cured. They actively fight against any advances in curing their condition and ostracize and bully those deaf people who get hearing implants.

I just don't believe them.  It's easy to virtue signal or use this as an excuse for their own bad behavior.  It's easy to talk about not wanting a cure when you have a kind of hearing loss that can't be reversed anyway.  I don't believe for a second that they would actually turn down a cure if one were available.

I'd lay good odds they are people like me who were born deaf and have never known any difference. Its way too easy to get into this mindset that just because you are used to not having this thing everyone else has, that having your lack of hearing "taken away" is wrong.

And I'd lay good odds some have been brainwashed by the moral outrage brigade. Because of course. They will just be outraged for us if we refuse to be.

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 24, 2024, 01:01:35 AM

Quote from: Shalashashka on March 22, 2024, 11:25:23 AM
You'd think that, but there is a sizable chunk of the deaf community (I hate using the word community but it is what it is) that don't want deafness cured. They actively fight against any advances in curing their condition and ostracize and bully those deaf people who get hearing implants.

I just don't believe them.  It's easy to virtue signal or use this as an excuse for their own bad behavior.  It's easy to talk about not wanting a cure when you have a kind of hearing loss that can't be reversed anyway.  I don't believe for a second that they would actually turn down a cure if one were available.

I'm with omega on this one. I'd wager that most of those against curing deafness are those that have always been deaf, and have internalized it as a part of their identity to point they would reject a cure if offered. I can sympathize, honestly.

I'm sure it's a ton of hard work, taking almost a lifetime getting to the point you can make it without the secondary way humans interact with the whole world, and the primary one we use to interact with each other, and then to be offered a cure would make all that effort what? Wasted? It's a difficult position, even if the answer seems obvious from an outside perspective. It's hard to see from here what they'd be seeing as what they're giving up.

That applies way less to the children though. People advocating against the curing of deafness in children is a lot darker. Kids haven't spent a lifetime building those skills or that identity because they haven't spent a lifetime doing anything yet. So for someone to decide they should have to is a lot less understandable to me.

Quote from: Omega on March 24, 2024, 01:17:25 AMThis is my argument to. Not everyone can even afford the steep prices listed in AD&D

Lets be honest: the economics of AD&D were terrible. They in no way represented what we see. Heck, even the poorest villagers in Hommlet usually had dozens of Silver Pieces and Copper Pieces squirreled away. Many who were more afluent had hundreds (if not several thousands) worth of gold pieces. There is a clear disconnect between what the economy should look like and what it ended up being because Gygax thought a 'boomtown economy' made sense, forgetting that the kinds of hoards you see in D&D/AD&D should really have been the exception instead of the rule. And instead of building in credible money sinks (or simply fixing the economy) the absurd Experience Training Cost system was implemented that the vast majority of people hated, never used and simply house ruled out of the game.

I would find it weird that a Cleric of Pelor, for example, should be charging such an exorbitant fee for healing the sick. Sure, he may not give away such a blessing for free, but charging so much that all but the richest of peasants (on paper, not in practice) could afford it if they (or their loved ones) were maimed seems odd. Add into the mix a group of heavily armed 'vagabond mercenaries' (ie - murderhobos) and the likelihood of such cut-throat dealings may end with the Cleric seeing his entire convent sacked and himself put to the sword.