Had this conversation with someone who chose to no longer be at my table after meeting a blind NPC
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.
How did they even come to such a perspective? There are all kinds of physical handicaps in fiction.
Raistlin had a mysterious uncurable ailment imposed by Par-Salian.
Albrech has to forsake love to attain the Rheingold.
Several gods and heroes are missing various limbs.
And blindness? Daredevil. Tiresias. Any number of blind kung-fu masters.
Sometimes they're afflictions that are paid as a price for powers, sometimes their curses, sometimes their obstacles that heroes overcome. But disabled people have been all over fantasy literature for millenia.
Fucking hephaestus! A literal god, either born lame, or made so (depending on where and when the version is), says "fuck alla y'all, imma go make shit" and begins turning out items so fucking good they make gods more powerful. Stuff so good that other gods couldn't do their job without them.
Motherfucker created robots (automatons), mechanical animals.
And, when he was exiled, fucking Ares, the ultimate fighter, got scared off by him. It took Dionysus getting him shit faced to make him come back home, but he wouldn't budge for threat or bribe.
Now that's a god among gods. And motherfucker is even more crippled up than I am.