When working in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, almost anything is possible. In a magical world, stairs might not exist at all, having been replaced by convenient teleportation rings. Depending on their character class, a character might not need to see in order to fight off that dragon. A blind sorcerer might need only to know what her target is and its general direction to be able to hit it with a spell, or might be at an advantage in melee combat in the dark. Heck, in Star Wars, there is an entire species that is sightless, and its still one of the most common races for a character to choose. The species’ eyes have become vestigial because they perceive the physical world through the Force, resulting in a much higher level of Jedi abilities, and the ability to see through walls…though the walls themselves are quite a challenge.

Many disability activists regard social discrimination as the most significant problem experienced by persons with disabilities and as the cause of many of the problems that are regarded as intrinsic to disability by most people. Put simply, disability isn’t being unable to use part of the body, its coping with an environment built on the assumption that everyone can do so. As much as I hate the term “differently-abled,” in games it is possible to remove those environmental barriers, resulting in disabilities really being more about a difference in how you do things, rather than being about how you can’t do things.

When I ST games, I usually require players to choose at least one Flaw, and I do use those flaws against them at least once an arc. It forces them to think about things, and I’ve found it makes them more aware of various issues in day-to-day life. I do, however, have unusually bright and progressive players, all of whom are women, people of color, people with disabilities, or some combination of the above.

I agree that using disability as a lesson, and especially having someone “wear” disability is problematic, and on the surface, role-playing a character with a disability looks a lot like the fail-tastic Disability Simulation Experience. As most of us know, these neither examine the reality of disability nor show how to resolve disadvantages experienced in society. Additionally, there is no opportunity for a participant to learn strategies to succeed. Wearing earplugs for a day doesn’t allow time for acquiring lip-reading or sign language skills. Sitting in a wheelchair for twenty minutes does not allow time to develop the upper arm strength necessary to operate a wheelchair efficiently. Because of the long-term and introspective nature of the games I’ve seen the players who choose to take physically-based Flaws come away with a more complete and complex understanding than just “wow, being disabled sucks.” The characters are heroes, and have ample opportunity to succeed in many areas, some of which are affected by their disabilities, and most of which are not.

Additionally, we as players enjoy the ability to portray ourselves in a realistic manner. I’m currently in a game of Innocents – World of Darkness with children as the heroes – in which the entire party is playing as themselves. IRL, all of us have learning disabilities, and the “tavern” where the characters first met and do most of our planning is a HF-SPED classroom. None of us have really talked about our LD’s before this game, and the Classroom has provided us a safely-distanced venue to talk about our shared experiences with the public school system, people’s perceptions of us, and how we cope with (and sometimes even enjoy having!) Dyslexia/Autism/ADHD. And, well, it’s really really nice to get more than just a pat on the head for managing to find ways to do the things that challenge us but “everyone else” has no trouble with.

I suppose my first comment came across as a sideswipe. Sorry about that – not trying to derail. Also, the quote you’ve taken from my comment wasn’t intended to directly reflect on your own thinking.

What I was saying is that, for me, the boundaries of appropriate communication in RPGs are much vaguer than they are in, say, public space, or children’s TV. I think that’s partly because in my experience RPG scenarios often involve fictional representations of transgressive behaviour, and I’m not comfortable with the idea that transgression should be moderated in every space.

“This isn’t to say that such a thing can’t ever be done, but that the potential for appropriation and caricature are great, almost too great in that kind of setting. The reason is that unlike a novel where you can take a break and do some research, your answers are improvised and are based off of you, in that moment and that’s often when your privilege is going to show up.”

In response to this, you’re right about the reduced opportunities for self-editing in improvised fiction.

But – I suppose I don’t think the same standards should be applied to both novels and RPGs, or even to all novels, or to all RPGs.

I think this diverts us from the worthy topic of your OP, though, so I won’t drive discussion further along these lines unless you’re interested.

That doesn’t deny the fact that it’s a avenue for telling stories. If those are the stories that the people around you are telling then perhaps that says something about them rather than roleplaying as a whole. Yes, there are people who like to do morally reprehensible things while playing an RPG. Yes, there are games that do encourage that kind of thing. For instance D&D does encourage you to kill things wholesale because that’s the way the game was designed. The World of Darkness books are meant to be that bleak and horrible setting where people have to do horrible things to survive. However, this doesn’t decry the whole gamut as something horrible. We tell those stories all the time in other medium as well, but in the end they are ‘just’ a method for telling stories.

I mean, I got to play a game called Tales of the Fisherman’s Wife by Julia Bond Ellingboe, and the whole point was that you had a married couple who get split up by the fact that one goes fishing and then you have two other characters who end up playing demons whose goal is to tempt the people while they are alone. That’s morally reprehensible, but it makes for a great story playing the antagonists.

I would hesitate to say that because roleplaying as a hobby tends to encourage the imagined performance of some types of questionable acts, everything should be given free rein. Maybe it means everything should, rather, be reined in.

Just out of curiosity, did you read the whole of the post? At the end when the question comes up about playing disabled characters in an RPG I was hesitant saying that because the medium here relies heavily on improvisation which is usually informed by our biases we should refrain from portraying characters from within an oppressive framework because we will be wildly showing our privilege.

I do not say that it can’t be done, and done well. The problem exists that on the whole it won’t be done well and maybe as such we should at least take a long hard look and consider what we’re doing before we either play characters or allow people to play characters with disabilities unless we/they are able to give the playing of that role all the respect and consideration that it deserves.

What I would like to see is more ST/DM types pushing their players to only get the benefits attached to the flaws if they portray the flaws in a realistic and understanding way. I’m not saying that they need to go out and poke out an eye to represent bad sight, but that I want to see people with these kinds of flaws on their character sheets actually having to deal with the disability (and consequently maybe learn something about their own X privilege).

Movement speed is important, and it is limiting a character in gameplay if the movement speed is reduced. It can only be a disadvantage in numbers.

People who can hear would be more likely to notice things, because I could never hear them, being deaf. Again, deafness gives me nothing IRL that makes up for this. In a game, this can only be done as a malus compared to those that can hear.

The flaw is inherent in systems that value characters in numbers. One thing will always be worse than another as long as you focus on numbers, and gameplay wise, doing it the other way round (having to buy senses, arms, legs, et cetera) would be incredibly bureaucratic and cumbersome in actual play, because it would mean a long checklist of things you need to buy first. Few would see the point in such a system, if any.

Another reason for these point costs is that some of them make what a normal adventuring group does almost impossible. Take person without sight. A blind person can life a normal life. We know that.
A blind person would have a very hard time fighting a dragon, much more so than an able-bodied person. Simply because he can’t see where the dragon is flying, and would have a hard time moving aside when the dragon attacks. Not to mention avoiding the cliffside.

Everyone who has ever sat in a wheelchair knows how hard it is to navigate these things, how inaccessible society is (see museums where you can’t even access a gallery because there are no ramps, just steep stairs). How would you move around in a castle without help?

As long as you allow disabilities in RPGs that work based on statistics for each character, they are going to be disadvantages for characters. And in these systems, disadvantages always give points.

The problem is inherent. It is summing characters up with numbers. The only solution is abandoning numbers altogether.