I always think it's a bit of a cop out to give people magic powers. If you want the character to be blind, make that person blind and make them deal with it.

I had wonderful dream once that I had a guide stag. I held onto his neck, and his antlers stuck out around me so that no one walked into me. We were in the airport, which I usually hate, but all the people running to their planes just swerved around us, it was really great.

But anyways, I think either is fine. I love characters like Daredevil and Jordi from Star Trek, but I think sighted people often use these types of vision analogs to just make the character essentially sighted. I don’t mind this at all, but it might be more interesting to have a guide animal, just because it allows for the particular vulnerabilities of blindness to still factor into the story.

That said, that is the same reason why I would personally choose a vision analog like Daredevil or Jordi’s visor over a guide animal, even a really cool one like a dragon haha. It is hard for me to rely on another being so much as a guide animal.

I think either can be awesome depending on the individual's play style. I've known people who played as druid characters in DnD whose characters were blind and depended on their guide dire wolf or other animal companion. Especially since there are spells Rangers and Druids to be able to see through the eyes of their companion animals and/or speak to them.

It is really neat to see how people play those characters, especially when they add aspects of their real life experiences to the mix for added immersion.

Stories that have one or two disabled characters who use some sort of supernatural ability or brand new invention to mitigate their disabilities bother me a lot, personally. They raise the questions "what happens to every other person who has this kind of disability?"

The guide animal would definetly be cooler! I know some blind authors/writers have posted on their blogs about writing blind characters. I would check these out

I guess since it is dungeons and dragons, you don’t have to exactly go for some thing nonfiction. I think that a guide animal would display the bond, and working relationship that the person and their animal has. You also get to interpret a scaling animal to however powerful you want it to be. If you want it to be something that is super powerful, why not give the blind character a huge bad ass animal?

Then what’s the point of making the character blind? I see both as sort of a cop out. And a way out of things.

Can’t the character be blind and portrayed accurately and well. I don’t like the special abilities as a blind person thing. The guide animal is cool if the portrayals is accurate and great. And not like it magically just solves all their problems. I like it like some of the posters said on here characters that show how blind people deal and live with their blindness. Characters who are essentially blind and are accurate. And yes it may entail a lot of research on your part. Otherwise it’s kind of offensive.

I'd like to see more blind characters in scifi/fantasy whose powers don't compensate for the blindness. (I love Daredevil tho.)