r/disabled_dungeons has frequent discussions on the inclusion of disabled characters. Could be a good resource to check.

It's cool, and thanks for asking. I wouldn't mind the apprentice/general sighted help angle too much, it's better than a magical cure. Given that he went blind later in life it's possible he isn't as used to the lack of sight as others might be. The other question that comes to mine is what lead to the blindness? Was it just old age, a wound, something more unusual? That will change how the character can be portrayed. Just a few thoughts to consider. :)

I always like to see the Toph standard when it comes to this sort of thing. She is a capable person who doesn't rely completely on others. This isn't despite her blindness, nor is it because of her blindness. It's just how she is. Her bending doesn't work as a cure all by any means. She doesn't know where things are when they're in the air, or on metal (until she figured out metal bending anyway), and while jokes are made about her blindness, it's never framed that she is the joke. More often than not, jokes are centered around people not remembering that she is blind, which from personal experience, does happen a lo

So long as you follow those 3 rules, you'll end up with fairly decent and realistic representation.

Perhaps he has a guide animal, get creative there are a lot of creatures in the D&D lore you could probably use that might fit his character when the apprentice is unavailable for one reason or another. A flying monkey could be fun, the monkey could take his hand and lead him around or if he needs help finding something the monkey could retrieve the item for him. That is honestly just the first thing that comes to mind, but it could be a fun dynamic as perhaps the monkey has a bit of a mischievous streak and will throw poop periodically when it feels it is not getting what it wants

Otherwise I agree with the other user who recommended you think about how long the character has been disabled. If it has only been a year then they likely are still struggling with a lot of aspects and perhaps the teamwork with the monkey is still pretty rough with the monkey still making lots of mistakes or the apprentice might sometimes be frustrated because the character has not figured out how to best teach without their vision. The character might also be less secure in themselves as they are very much still learning to live their life without their vision. If the character has been disabled for closer to a decade I would expect them to have it more figured out, likely inside their own home they function close to as effectively as a sighted person due to the familiarity of the space. Less or unfamiliar environments they might exude more confidence because they are more comfortable using the tools and strategies they have built over the years to function. Basically put some thought into how the character views their disability, more recent loss in ability is likely to have more shame and negative feelings associated with it than somebody who has been disabled for 20 years and for lack of a better term has learned to just deal with it. Otherwise, build the character as you would any non-disabled character and once you have the character built use that as a backbone to frame how they would react to being disabled however long they have been.

I don’t think that is a good idea. If you want to have an accurate portrayal, you’ll do research and how blind people can operate 100% independently just like you and don’t need to be followd by someone to help him all the time.

For me, there are two important factors that will determine how you create this character. You say it’s an older person who is going blind. I’m assuming they’re going blind due to old age? If that’s the case, you need to focus on the persons identity, personality, characteristics, etc. The person doesn’t change from going blind, so those components need to follow through into who he is. Depending on what those are, he might struggle with going blind. Was he super independent and going blind is going to cause him to need more help, in which case he might struggle with that? I used to intern at a hospice organization. They paired me with a patient who seemed very depressed because he had recently lost his eyesight. They didn’t explain this out right, but I got the feeling they were doing it because they thought he’d be able to relate to me and I could give him some hope or insight or some thing? There’s a big difference between him and me, because I went blind in my early 20s; he lived his whole life with site and had to abruptly deal with a complete change in his geriatric years. He asked me a lot of questions about what my life was like being blind, how I did certain hobbies and habits, etc. His reaction seemed very “defeated“. This guy was not OK and going about his day to day despite being blind. It was a very big obstacle for him at that point in life.u

There is certainly a historical Welsh mythical tale that involves a blind man and another character who could potentially be seen as his apprentice who is helping him while they live in the forest.

At some point we are all going to need help with something whether we are blind or not, or have been blind from birth or recently acquired sight loss.

However there are plenty of tasks we can do without Asistance or some adaption, just like every other human, so I think it’s important to definitely have times when this character can act on his own independently.

Bit of a tangent, but when I was involved with live-action role-play I actually found it much easier to play blind characters don’t play characters who didn’t have a sight impairment and try and fudge it with someone else effectively being my eyes for me.



The blindness doesn’t always have to be front and centre, but if he is blind it is going to come up from time to time, you can’t get away from it it’s just part of who you are.

Anyway best of luck with it I hope you have fun with the game.