Another player who was at the table during the incident sent me this meme after the problem player in question (they had a history) left the group chat.
Felt like sharing it here because I’m sure more people should keep this kind of thing in mind.
But… That depends on the magic, doesn’t it? I’d argue you could easily use magic to fix disabilities. Or do healers not exist in your world?
The exist, they’re not everywhere though. And are typically very cagey about teaching others.
And often times their prices for using their services is pretty bad for the typical person.
One of the PCs though (who joined after the other guy left) is an artificer who was born without legs (currently has prosthetics they made) and the reason he’s out adventuring is to bring legs to those who lack them. Like his mentor did for him.
The next town they’re getting too will have an NPC without a leg and the artificer should have the components to make a magical prosthetic for them if they want to.
I really got to thinking about this just the other day when I found that a Prosthetic Limb is a common magic item in D&D 5e. (Of course how common a common item is exactly is at DM’s discretion, but nevertheless.)
Why would that even be a problem? Plenty of blind people in ancient stories, myths and legends. Probably better off without this person.
I mean on one side you’d have the magic to heal many if not all disabilities.
On the other hand in reality we have wheel chairs and stuff to heal and prevent many diseases, too, but still not everyone can get those…
We have the ability to make Tuberculosis not exist and have for half a century. At least 1.6 million unnecessary deaths occurred because of it in 2022. Anyone who can’t think further than the first point has the thought capabilities of a gnat.
I just found John Green‘s account.
On a serious note, it is really sickening to hear stuff like this. It’s not even that those drugs are crazy expensive or extremely difficult to distribute. It’s just greed and very bad distributed wealth
As a fun saying goes “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed”
The same could easily apply to magics of many kinds
5e isn’t that bad. Even poor people make two silver a day, and if hiring someone to cast a second level spell to cure a family member of blindness was more than they could afford, you could get so rich casting for money. But those rules are just a suggestion, and I’d probably make it so at least some cases of blindness are a little harder to cure. And you could also make it so economic disparity is much worse.
I’ll echo the words of my friend, who is a permanent wheelchair user:
“Yes, I identify with my disability as part of who I am, but I would still take a cure without hesitation”
Yes, people with disabilities identify with their disability, so even in a fantasy setting I can see how their disability would be part of their character.
But every disabled person I know would figuratively leap at the opportunity to reverse their disability with magic. It is also basically impossible to use a wheelchair while holding something like a wand or a staff or a fireball in one hand, so if there’s enough magic around to push a wheelchair, there’s probably enough to make your legs work. That’s why somebody has a good reason not to expect a wheelchair in a fantasy world. I can see how somebody who doesn’t really know any disabled people would panic at the idea of a wheelchair being part of the narrative or something like that, and I can sympathize with it.
