I'm interested in hearing about people's experiences and ideas on playing characters with chronic illnesses. This can be real life illnesses and made up ones (though my primary interest is in real life illnesses, so any focus on that would be great!)
Some of the things I keep running into with incorporating chronic illnesses into characters are:
a.) it's really difficult for some illnesses to exist in settings where there's no access to medication - they can result in death or severe debilitation and effectively end a roleplay, if roleplayed accurately.
b.) restricted settings means I usually end up reverting to modern settings that more closely mimic reality, but they can bore me fast because slice-of-life RPs aren't usually my thing unless I'm really in the mood for more mundane experiences.
c.) I can't get comfortable roleplaying illnesses inaccurately for the sake of making them exist in RP, or even modifying them half the time.
d.) it can be really difficult to incorporate chronic conditions because they can express in such minor ways. (Taking medication or dealing with symptom flareups happens to people with chronic illnesses every single day, often multiple times a day, and these things just happen between other mundane things, like chores or work tasks. There is rarely any definite focus on chronic illness management that most other people see, as so much of it can be feeling and needing a bit longer to get certain things done.) How do you portray that chronic illness is an important part of their daily routine, without turning the RP into one giant "look at this chronic illness!" fest?
This has been on my mind for a while now. As someone with multiple chronic conditions, one of which is lethal without access to medication, I've been interested in exploring this part of my day to day life through RP. I just keep getting stuck on how to. Many of the fantastic stories in my head, I struggle to experience through my characters because chronic conditions don't mesh with these adventures. (For example, a character who ends up in a warzone and displaced typically gets to survive and go through grueling conditions if healthy at the start, but a character who's dependent on medication will probably not last long and die before any real progress is made. But if the story ends up focusing on keeping them alive, then it becomes all about the illness and not about the characters' growth.)
I think my train of thought on this just gets stuck in a loop, and I'm super interested in other perspectives I hadn't considered yet to help me break out of that.
I'm looking forward to your input!
Some of the things I keep running into with incorporating chronic illnesses into characters are:
a.) it's really difficult for some illnesses to exist in settings where there's no access to medication - they can result in death or severe debilitation and effectively end a roleplay, if roleplayed accurately.
b.) restricted settings means I usually end up reverting to modern settings that more closely mimic reality, but they can bore me fast because slice-of-life RPs aren't usually my thing unless I'm really in the mood for more mundane experiences.
c.) I can't get comfortable roleplaying illnesses inaccurately for the sake of making them exist in RP, or even modifying them half the time.
d.) it can be really difficult to incorporate chronic conditions because they can express in such minor ways. (Taking medication or dealing with symptom flareups happens to people with chronic illnesses every single day, often multiple times a day, and these things just happen between other mundane things, like chores or work tasks. There is rarely any definite focus on chronic illness management that most other people see, as so much of it can be feeling and needing a bit longer to get certain things done.) How do you portray that chronic illness is an important part of their daily routine, without turning the RP into one giant "look at this chronic illness!" fest?
This has been on my mind for a while now. As someone with multiple chronic conditions, one of which is lethal without access to medication, I've been interested in exploring this part of my day to day life through RP. I just keep getting stuck on how to. Many of the fantastic stories in my head, I struggle to experience through my characters because chronic conditions don't mesh with these adventures. (For example, a character who ends up in a warzone and displaced typically gets to survive and go through grueling conditions if healthy at the start, but a character who's dependent on medication will probably not last long and die before any real progress is made. But if the story ends up focusing on keeping them alive, then it becomes all about the illness and not about the characters' growth.)
I think my train of thought on this just gets stuck in a loop, and I'm super interested in other perspectives I hadn't considered yet to help me break out of that.
I'm looking forward to your input!
The ideas in my head sound pretty cliche, 'cause I'm an amateur writer and cliche is what we do lol, but I'll throw them out there anyway.
Feel free to wince at the clicheness because I am doing so as I write these.
1. Magic. In a medeival role-play, even if modern medicine doesn't exist, maybe some kind of equally exhausting ritual could be used as a time-period accurate substitute for it. I've often seen magic roleplays where using magic literally saps the magic-users energy and makes them tired, so it seems like there could be some good parallels that, even if they're not factually true, are emotionally true in ways that would make the role-play feel more satisfying...and... realistic...in that way.
2. Maybe using a real chronic illness from that time period which there was a treatment for, but no cure, back then, which had a difficult treatment regiment...like maybe people who had a chronic having to drink silver or gold...and I think it was poisonous to them, but the doctors thought it was helping so they treated them with it. It would upset their stomach and so on but I think silver really did cure infections...while also causing side effects that were worse than the illness itself. I want to say cyphalus is one of those illnesses they used silver for (don't remember how to spell it) but not 100% sure on that. And of course they did the awful bloodletting thing..it was based on a faulty understanding of medicine, but often sick people would have blood-letting done...maybe daily? Not sure, but if daily that could be a parallel to real life experiences with some chronic illnesses.
3. This sounds so cheesy, but, a time traveler from the future supplies the character with what they need at regular intervals?
4. Ancient technology that is equal to modern technology exists in the historical setting, but only in an underground market or among elites or a secret society or something. I'm thinking...like, Atlantis. An ancient civilization that had modern medicine that has been lost to history and has become just a myth, but people in the know in medeival society can get their hands on technology and medicines from there because a few decendants still practice the lost art of science yet secretly, lest it fall into the wrong hands (say, the Catholic Church during the Inquisition period because such medicine might be seen as witchcraft?) Something like that.
Feel free to wince at the clicheness because I am doing so as I write these.
1. Magic. In a medeival role-play, even if modern medicine doesn't exist, maybe some kind of equally exhausting ritual could be used as a time-period accurate substitute for it. I've often seen magic roleplays where using magic literally saps the magic-users energy and makes them tired, so it seems like there could be some good parallels that, even if they're not factually true, are emotionally true in ways that would make the role-play feel more satisfying...and... realistic...in that way.
2. Maybe using a real chronic illness from that time period which there was a treatment for, but no cure, back then, which had a difficult treatment regiment...like maybe people who had a chronic having to drink silver or gold...and I think it was poisonous to them, but the doctors thought it was helping so they treated them with it. It would upset their stomach and so on but I think silver really did cure infections...while also causing side effects that were worse than the illness itself. I want to say cyphalus is one of those illnesses they used silver for (don't remember how to spell it) but not 100% sure on that. And of course they did the awful bloodletting thing..it was based on a faulty understanding of medicine, but often sick people would have blood-letting done...maybe daily? Not sure, but if daily that could be a parallel to real life experiences with some chronic illnesses.
3. This sounds so cheesy, but, a time traveler from the future supplies the character with what they need at regular intervals?
4. Ancient technology that is equal to modern technology exists in the historical setting, but only in an underground market or among elites or a secret society or something. I'm thinking...like, Atlantis. An ancient civilization that had modern medicine that has been lost to history and has become just a myth, but people in the know in medeival society can get their hands on technology and medicines from there because a few decendants still practice the lost art of science yet secretly, lest it fall into the wrong hands (say, the Catholic Church during the Inquisition period because such medicine might be seen as witchcraft?) Something like that.
Ohh, as someone with chronic pain this is interesting. I feel like this could also apply to mental illnesses which are chronic - and to eating disorders which take years and years sometimes someones entire life to come to terms with and to recover from.
a and c.)
1. Personally I don't usually roleplay chronic illness in a historical setting unless magic is possible. While I could have a herbal supplement created to aid in helping minorly with some symptoms in a non-magical settings, it's less likely that the condition would even be helped by those things.
2. In magical settings, let's say... A character has diabetes. In magical historical settings often times the world is more advanced than a world without magic because magic, is like science. It aids in creation, and therefore the things that people are able to make and new.
Therefore there is no reason that an injectable potion (aka insulin) couldn't be created and taken by said character with diabetes. It wouldn't be a "cure all" or representing things inaccurately. The potion would simply be on the same level as synthetic insulin, but created by magic; and if the person does magic themselves they can create the potion themselves with no need to go see anyone else to create it - but they'd need the right ingredients which can be literally anything. But if they do need someone to create it for them, then maybe that's one reason they end up meeting a new friend! Maybe it's a RP starter. Your character needs an insulin potion and seeks out someone, meets them, and they end up becoming friends or love interests. Maybe there's people in a mistreated village that are dying from going into comas and passing out, and you both go on a little journey to deliver them insulin potion and help them and then end up trying to assassinate the cruel ruler. (I personally would love to do an RP like this.)
d.) Honestly? Just like you mentioned. Have them take medication or herbs or potions everyday at a certain time, have them ask other characters if they can slow down while walking, make them need to sit down more often, have them get agitated if it's been too long since they've eaten, make them dizzy headed, or extra tired some days. Make them a cane, gave them be afraid to do certain things like ride a horse, or maybe they don't want to drink a sugar based alcohol.
The right person will not be annoyed by these things in RP. Think about it, if your character wasn't chronically ill or young, and was just old, you wouldn't be all that worried about people annoyed about them needing to rest more often, would you? (Maybe you would idk)
Try not to worry about your character becoming a burden. It's no different than you being a burden. You are not a burden to other people, and neither is your character. If someone is annoyed, then they aren't the right person to write with.
a and c.)
1. Personally I don't usually roleplay chronic illness in a historical setting unless magic is possible. While I could have a herbal supplement created to aid in helping minorly with some symptoms in a non-magical settings, it's less likely that the condition would even be helped by those things.
2. In magical settings, let's say... A character has diabetes. In magical historical settings often times the world is more advanced than a world without magic because magic, is like science. It aids in creation, and therefore the things that people are able to make and new.
Therefore there is no reason that an injectable potion (aka insulin) couldn't be created and taken by said character with diabetes. It wouldn't be a "cure all" or representing things inaccurately. The potion would simply be on the same level as synthetic insulin, but created by magic; and if the person does magic themselves they can create the potion themselves with no need to go see anyone else to create it - but they'd need the right ingredients which can be literally anything. But if they do need someone to create it for them, then maybe that's one reason they end up meeting a new friend! Maybe it's a RP starter. Your character needs an insulin potion and seeks out someone, meets them, and they end up becoming friends or love interests. Maybe there's people in a mistreated village that are dying from going into comas and passing out, and you both go on a little journey to deliver them insulin potion and help them and then end up trying to assassinate the cruel ruler. (I personally would love to do an RP like this.)
d.) Honestly? Just like you mentioned. Have them take medication or herbs or potions everyday at a certain time, have them ask other characters if they can slow down while walking, make them need to sit down more often, have them get agitated if it's been too long since they've eaten, make them dizzy headed, or extra tired some days. Make them a cane, gave them be afraid to do certain things like ride a horse, or maybe they don't want to drink a sugar based alcohol.
The right person will not be annoyed by these things in RP. Think about it, if your character wasn't chronically ill or young, and was just old, you wouldn't be all that worried about people annoyed about them needing to rest more often, would you? (Maybe you would idk)
Try not to worry about your character becoming a burden. It's no different than you being a burden. You are not a burden to other people, and neither is your character. If someone is annoyed, then they aren't the right person to write with.
@Abigail: I've toyed with the magic idea a lot! I always step away from it after some thought because it relies on the character being able to use magic, something that I don't always want, so it really limits the kind of characters I can play.
Do you know of any chronic illnesses that existed in different time periods that didn't totally disable or kill a person? Besides mental health problems, I think a lot of chronic illnesses that are manageable today used to be lethal until modern medicine (e.g. diabetes was almost always lethal - we've had insulin for less than 100 years!). If I'm playing a real illnesses, it should also have real consequences, but if that's death then it limits that roleplay too.
I can definitely see really interesting things with having medicine available, but relying on a middleman with access to said medicine and not being able to get it yourself, like time or dimensional travel! That actually sounds like a fun concept that can tie into some really neat Sci-Fi settings. An Atlantis like city could work well with that too!
@damnationfromafar: I definitely count mental illness and eating disorders. I have characters with both, and they've been hugely interesting to play!
If you checked out my response to Abigail, I concur that it's hard to play illnesses from other time periods without magic. Most chronic illnesses are fatal without modern medicine available.
Insulin potions are a very interesting concept! I've been thinking about this but my knowledge on how insulin and diabetes works makes it hard for me to describe/make it work in a way that still makes sense with reality. But it wouldn't be impossible, just require some extra work. If you're interested in this and have the time and energy for an RP, hit me up?
And you're absolutely right - just having them do it when needed is the right time. It doesn't always have to be shared (lots of people don't realize I inject insulin for example because they just don't pay attention and I try to be discreet, so it's something the character can be described quickly doing without making it a Big Thing.
At what point would you consider mentioning it excessive, and when does it seem like 'just this typical thing that happens'? I struggle finding a good balance with that, I think.
Do you know of any chronic illnesses that existed in different time periods that didn't totally disable or kill a person? Besides mental health problems, I think a lot of chronic illnesses that are manageable today used to be lethal until modern medicine (e.g. diabetes was almost always lethal - we've had insulin for less than 100 years!). If I'm playing a real illnesses, it should also have real consequences, but if that's death then it limits that roleplay too.
I can definitely see really interesting things with having medicine available, but relying on a middleman with access to said medicine and not being able to get it yourself, like time or dimensional travel! That actually sounds like a fun concept that can tie into some really neat Sci-Fi settings. An Atlantis like city could work well with that too!
@damnationfromafar: I definitely count mental illness and eating disorders. I have characters with both, and they've been hugely interesting to play!
If you checked out my response to Abigail, I concur that it's hard to play illnesses from other time periods without magic. Most chronic illnesses are fatal without modern medicine available.
Insulin potions are a very interesting concept! I've been thinking about this but my knowledge on how insulin and diabetes works makes it hard for me to describe/make it work in a way that still makes sense with reality. But it wouldn't be impossible, just require some extra work. If you're interested in this and have the time and energy for an RP, hit me up?
And you're absolutely right - just having them do it when needed is the right time. It doesn't always have to be shared (lots of people don't realize I inject insulin for example because they just don't pay attention and I try to be discreet, so it's something the character can be described quickly doing without making it a Big Thing.
At what point would you consider mentioning it excessive, and when does it seem like 'just this typical thing that happens'? I struggle finding a good balance with that, I think.
to be fair, most of the time with a chronic illness even these days, you wouldn't KNOW unless you knew that person intimately well or they told you. I'm reminded of the story in a paper the other day about a guy with IBS who managed to hide it from his date for weeks and weeks before finally coming clean and explaining why he had to RUN out on them during dates and stuff.
She just thought he was having an anxiety attack or something.
I'm trying to think through my own characters, I have a couple with ongoing medical issues but they're either magical in origin (Web has effectively got epilepsy if you consider how it manifests, but it's actually a god ramming visions into his brain and slowly causing massive brain damage with every 'fit') or something fairly minor that just doesn't much come up.
Matt's severely photosensitive for instance, and almost blind without glasses which he keeps refusing to wear because he's a twit. He's very good at just functioning, so people forget till everyone goes out in sunlight and he's struggling or they point something out in the distance or try to get him to read something. He's also colourblind but again, this very very seldom comes up. You'd be amazed how seldom colour perception comes up actually lol.
Jarral's got mild to moderate hemophillia, not enough to kill him with a tiny cut but enough that he bleeds "too much" and to his primitive stone age culture, it's still extremely dangerous. In a modern setting of course he'd have coagulants and stuff which would make him able to do more stuff, but in a stone age environment? he's kinda stuffed. It's minor enough that he can move around and you know, not die, but he's sickly and weak and just generally not a very well person for reasons above and beyond the fact his blood can't clot efficiently. If he lived in a modern setting he'd have access to medicine and treatments which would improve his quality of life but yeah.. no such luck for this kid. The fact he's still alive speaks more of his own strength than anything else. Things it has influenced for example is his job (he can't do much physical exertion and is a liability as a miner or a hunter or anything like that), His ceremonial tattoos, which in his culture are essential to be considered "an adult" had to be done in small stages rather than as one long session to reduce bleeding and allow him to heal between and he can't have the number of piercings you'd usually see on a member of his race, it's just too dangerous. (he has a couple but that's more I think because he couldn't stand the thought of standing out, same reason he went through with the tattooing even though it was dangerous. Dying was preferable to standing out to him. Which is quite sad when you think about it)
And Aydin has severe OCD he has to take medication for, though he tends not to because he's stubborn as heck and doing so has unpleasant side effects. He has to weigh up which is worse, the dry, cracked, bleeding hands because he can't stop scrubbing them or the meds. I admit, I find him difficult to portray without fear of being a bit... insensitive you know? So I tend to downplay it for fear of making it feel like a charicature. Which is sort of a shame because it IS supposed to be rather crippling for him.
And I have a load of characters with various mental illnesses and such. Those i'm a bit less anxious about portraying having you know, first hand experience with a few. Ahem.
I admit, I do rather enjoy considering HOW a culture might view certain conditions, disabilities and deformities. For example, in a very primitive culture, a child born with some severe deformity might be seen as a demon, or a god depending. A person who "hears voices" might be seen as covorting with spirits, or a seer hearing the word of god.
On the flipside, I also find it fun to figure out how athiestic very scientific cultures would view magical conditions. For example, in the sci fi world i'm currently rping in it's more like star trek so there's totally "magic" (think like, Q) and shape changers and so on. But not all cultures in this universe are aware of this or accept it, and as a result encountering one of these entities they struggle to apply reason and logic and science to what really can't be explained.
So I guess to answer the questions:
a: If there's no way you can rp it accurately, even a minor form of it without character death or massive issues with the character's ability to interact, this might not be the right setting for said character. I mean, who wants to play a bedridden person who's slowly dying of whatever?
But if there's a cure or a treatment, heck, you could even do a whole "great expedition" to seek out said cure/treatment/miracle healer and the deterioration of the character and their illness would be part of that sense of urgancy. So you know, you can do it, but you have to get clever and it's a lot easier to just have the setting one where a treatment that makes them at least able to function, mostly. (even if they aren't 100%)
b: See above. I love fantasy elements so I don't think I actually have any characters that don't have something fantastical or science fictiony in their build lol. I get to play boring ol' mundane human in a boring ol' mudane human world every day! RP is like.. an escape from that hahah.
c: I agree here, you kinda feel like maybe you're making a mockery of a very real thing right? Which is why I struggled for ages with myHemophilliac character, researching the different forms to be CERTAIN I could do a form of it that existed and wasn't just "oh i want him to be sick but not TOO sick" because what's the point of that? If you're gonna play an illness or disability then you kinda gotta know what it is, what it does and what limitations it brings. But at the same time, you don't want to overplay it because that's offensive to imply that people with said conditions somehow are lesser and unable to do anything. It's a balancing act, not too much, not too little, just enough to feel realistic.
But of course, i'm the person who went and researched what serious liver damage would do to you for an rp where a character got kinda.. shivved in the liver
and what massive blood loss does, and a whole host of other nasty horrible things that probably have me on some sort of government watch list ahahahah. Oops? I like an element of realism even in my fantasy, if someone gets hurt I don't want them to instant heal with no side effects, I don't LIKE insta healing or ressurection that's just... "oh everything is fine". If you're going to insta heal someone, expect side effects and if you're gonna "fix" someone's disability, expect it to be difficult for them to adjust to (like giving a deaf person the ability to hear. Sorry but no, they aren't gonna be immediately happy and perfect as if they always could hear, imagine not having a sense and suddenly being given it. It's be terrifying and disorienting and massively difficult to adjust to.)An example of this is that I like to have characters with regeneration be really prone to cancer because their cells are constantly regenerating and this increases the risk of those mutations happening. The liver damage thing was the result of insta healing too, his body healed instantly but too much, resulting in massive scarrifcation of the liver. Better than bleeding out sure, but not great. Because I see no reason accelerated healing wouldn't leave scars. I kinda prefer it, it means injuries MEAN something.
Same goes for magical conditions. If i'm gonna have a seer, it's not gonna be fun for them.
d: As I said earlier, many conditions ARE subtle in how they manifest. Just keep them in mind when writing the character, maybe if there's a scene where they're getting ready in the morning or going to bed, just add in that they take their pills or if they're out, mention that their joints are hurting and have them sit down and be frustrated they can't do more or whatever. Tiny little things, it applies for disabilities as well. For example, I have a deaf character as I said, which means you CANNOT realistically react to stuff happening behind said character or out of his field of vision. If you're in a big room and someone screams, he WILL not react because he can't hear it. His reaction will be more "why is everyone looking over there? what happened?" rather than "omg someone screamed!". And because he lip reads so well and can actually talk (albeit he has a strange syntax but that's more because he's a wierdo lol) people forget in the rp that he can't hear them, so they'll knock on his door and stuff like that, which of course, it completely useless to do.
It also means he cannot understand another character in the rp who has to wear a breathing mask at all times. Why? his mouth is covered. Can't lipread if you can't see the person's lips.
I also have an amputee character, who yes, gets an aching hip/leg if he has to walk very far.
This doesn't come up that often because he doesn't do long walks much, but I know his limitations there so can bring it up if it becomes an issue.
Also because he only has one leg and people don't sleep wearing their prosthetics, if there's a morning scene then yep, he's gonna have to strap that thing back on.
So things do come up, albeit irregularly and only in certain circumstances, but I think so long as you know they're there, you can subtly weave them in.
Now with chronic illnesses, you can have minor symptoms or triggers like, they can't eat certain foods or they're having a bad day today but are soldiering through.
As I mentioned at the start, sometimes it's a bit daunting to have a character with a condition because you don't want to overplay it and offend someone. Research I think is key if it's not something you have first hand experience with yourself. Not just research from the medical perspective, but reading people's stories in their own words about life with said condition I think is invaluable.
But for the most part? At least in a modern setting, disability and chronic illness are so so easy to mask and many of us DO subconciously mask it. You just sorta.. get on with things, and because you can function and appear "normal", people forget or just flat out don't notice.
I think though, that in an rp you could actually play into that. When another character finally DOES notice or have the ill oc all "uh yeah? remember?" lol. (Matt does this all "uh.. colourblind? remember?" when people ask colour specific questions like "do you like the red dress or the green dress?" and "can you hand me the green pen?"
Him doing arts and crafts is very amusing. His bff just hands him colours because she knows he has no clue what they are. )
It's interesting you mention supply routes and meds actually. There's an old DC Legion Of superheros comic where that happens. Something happens that means Earth can't get the medical supplies they need from offworld and this means a lot of problems for people reliant on certain drugs. In this case it's actually a trans character who can't get her hormone drugs and ... it's not handled great... but the idea and thought was there.
She just thought he was having an anxiety attack or something.
I'm trying to think through my own characters, I have a couple with ongoing medical issues but they're either magical in origin (Web has effectively got epilepsy if you consider how it manifests, but it's actually a god ramming visions into his brain and slowly causing massive brain damage with every 'fit') or something fairly minor that just doesn't much come up.
Matt's severely photosensitive for instance, and almost blind without glasses which he keeps refusing to wear because he's a twit. He's very good at just functioning, so people forget till everyone goes out in sunlight and he's struggling or they point something out in the distance or try to get him to read something. He's also colourblind but again, this very very seldom comes up. You'd be amazed how seldom colour perception comes up actually lol.
Jarral's got mild to moderate hemophillia, not enough to kill him with a tiny cut but enough that he bleeds "too much" and to his primitive stone age culture, it's still extremely dangerous. In a modern setting of course he'd have coagulants and stuff which would make him able to do more stuff, but in a stone age environment? he's kinda stuffed. It's minor enough that he can move around and you know, not die, but he's sickly and weak and just generally not a very well person for reasons above and beyond the fact his blood can't clot efficiently. If he lived in a modern setting he'd have access to medicine and treatments which would improve his quality of life but yeah.. no such luck for this kid. The fact he's still alive speaks more of his own strength than anything else. Things it has influenced for example is his job (he can't do much physical exertion and is a liability as a miner or a hunter or anything like that), His ceremonial tattoos, which in his culture are essential to be considered "an adult" had to be done in small stages rather than as one long session to reduce bleeding and allow him to heal between and he can't have the number of piercings you'd usually see on a member of his race, it's just too dangerous. (he has a couple but that's more I think because he couldn't stand the thought of standing out, same reason he went through with the tattooing even though it was dangerous. Dying was preferable to standing out to him. Which is quite sad when you think about it)
And Aydin has severe OCD he has to take medication for, though he tends not to because he's stubborn as heck and doing so has unpleasant side effects. He has to weigh up which is worse, the dry, cracked, bleeding hands because he can't stop scrubbing them or the meds. I admit, I find him difficult to portray without fear of being a bit... insensitive you know? So I tend to downplay it for fear of making it feel like a charicature. Which is sort of a shame because it IS supposed to be rather crippling for him.
And I have a load of characters with various mental illnesses and such. Those i'm a bit less anxious about portraying having you know, first hand experience with a few. Ahem.
I admit, I do rather enjoy considering HOW a culture might view certain conditions, disabilities and deformities. For example, in a very primitive culture, a child born with some severe deformity might be seen as a demon, or a god depending. A person who "hears voices" might be seen as covorting with spirits, or a seer hearing the word of god.
On the flipside, I also find it fun to figure out how athiestic very scientific cultures would view magical conditions. For example, in the sci fi world i'm currently rping in it's more like star trek so there's totally "magic" (think like, Q) and shape changers and so on. But not all cultures in this universe are aware of this or accept it, and as a result encountering one of these entities they struggle to apply reason and logic and science to what really can't be explained.
So I guess to answer the questions:
a: If there's no way you can rp it accurately, even a minor form of it without character death or massive issues with the character's ability to interact, this might not be the right setting for said character. I mean, who wants to play a bedridden person who's slowly dying of whatever?
But if there's a cure or a treatment, heck, you could even do a whole "great expedition" to seek out said cure/treatment/miracle healer and the deterioration of the character and their illness would be part of that sense of urgancy. So you know, you can do it, but you have to get clever and it's a lot easier to just have the setting one where a treatment that makes them at least able to function, mostly. (even if they aren't 100%)
b: See above. I love fantasy elements so I don't think I actually have any characters that don't have something fantastical or science fictiony in their build lol. I get to play boring ol' mundane human in a boring ol' mudane human world every day! RP is like.. an escape from that hahah.
c: I agree here, you kinda feel like maybe you're making a mockery of a very real thing right? Which is why I struggled for ages with myHemophilliac character, researching the different forms to be CERTAIN I could do a form of it that existed and wasn't just "oh i want him to be sick but not TOO sick" because what's the point of that? If you're gonna play an illness or disability then you kinda gotta know what it is, what it does and what limitations it brings. But at the same time, you don't want to overplay it because that's offensive to imply that people with said conditions somehow are lesser and unable to do anything. It's a balancing act, not too much, not too little, just enough to feel realistic.
But of course, i'm the person who went and researched what serious liver damage would do to you for an rp where a character got kinda.. shivved in the liver
and what massive blood loss does, and a whole host of other nasty horrible things that probably have me on some sort of government watch list ahahahah. Oops? I like an element of realism even in my fantasy, if someone gets hurt I don't want them to instant heal with no side effects, I don't LIKE insta healing or ressurection that's just... "oh everything is fine". If you're going to insta heal someone, expect side effects and if you're gonna "fix" someone's disability, expect it to be difficult for them to adjust to (like giving a deaf person the ability to hear. Sorry but no, they aren't gonna be immediately happy and perfect as if they always could hear, imagine not having a sense and suddenly being given it. It's be terrifying and disorienting and massively difficult to adjust to.)An example of this is that I like to have characters with regeneration be really prone to cancer because their cells are constantly regenerating and this increases the risk of those mutations happening. The liver damage thing was the result of insta healing too, his body healed instantly but too much, resulting in massive scarrifcation of the liver. Better than bleeding out sure, but not great. Because I see no reason accelerated healing wouldn't leave scars. I kinda prefer it, it means injuries MEAN something.Same goes for magical conditions. If i'm gonna have a seer, it's not gonna be fun for them.
d: As I said earlier, many conditions ARE subtle in how they manifest. Just keep them in mind when writing the character, maybe if there's a scene where they're getting ready in the morning or going to bed, just add in that they take their pills or if they're out, mention that their joints are hurting and have them sit down and be frustrated they can't do more or whatever. Tiny little things, it applies for disabilities as well. For example, I have a deaf character as I said, which means you CANNOT realistically react to stuff happening behind said character or out of his field of vision. If you're in a big room and someone screams, he WILL not react because he can't hear it. His reaction will be more "why is everyone looking over there? what happened?" rather than "omg someone screamed!". And because he lip reads so well and can actually talk (albeit he has a strange syntax but that's more because he's a wierdo lol) people forget in the rp that he can't hear them, so they'll knock on his door and stuff like that, which of course, it completely useless to do.
It also means he cannot understand another character in the rp who has to wear a breathing mask at all times. Why? his mouth is covered. Can't lipread if you can't see the person's lips.
I also have an amputee character, who yes, gets an aching hip/leg if he has to walk very far.
This doesn't come up that often because he doesn't do long walks much, but I know his limitations there so can bring it up if it becomes an issue.
Also because he only has one leg and people don't sleep wearing their prosthetics, if there's a morning scene then yep, he's gonna have to strap that thing back on.
So things do come up, albeit irregularly and only in certain circumstances, but I think so long as you know they're there, you can subtly weave them in.
Now with chronic illnesses, you can have minor symptoms or triggers like, they can't eat certain foods or they're having a bad day today but are soldiering through.
As I mentioned at the start, sometimes it's a bit daunting to have a character with a condition because you don't want to overplay it and offend someone. Research I think is key if it's not something you have first hand experience with yourself. Not just research from the medical perspective, but reading people's stories in their own words about life with said condition I think is invaluable.
But for the most part? At least in a modern setting, disability and chronic illness are so so easy to mask and many of us DO subconciously mask it. You just sorta.. get on with things, and because you can function and appear "normal", people forget or just flat out don't notice.
I think though, that in an rp you could actually play into that. When another character finally DOES notice or have the ill oc all "uh yeah? remember?" lol. (Matt does this all "uh.. colourblind? remember?" when people ask colour specific questions like "do you like the red dress or the green dress?" and "can you hand me the green pen?"
Him doing arts and crafts is very amusing. His bff just hands him colours because she knows he has no clue what they are. )
It's interesting you mention supply routes and meds actually. There's an old DC Legion Of superheros comic where that happens. Something happens that means Earth can't get the medical supplies they need from offworld and this means a lot of problems for people reliant on certain drugs. In this case it's actually a trans character who can't get her hormone drugs and ... it's not handled great... but the idea and thought was there.
There are plenty of non lethal illnesses/conditions you can use even in more historical time periods.
1. Chronic insomnia, I unfortunately know this one far too well. X.X
2. Arthritis
3. Skin conditions.
4. Overactive bladder: a bit on the crude side, but would make for some interesting situations.
5. Bad, but non lethal allergies.
6. STDS, the non fatal ones anyway.
1. Chronic insomnia, I unfortunately know this one far too well. X.X
2. Arthritis
3. Skin conditions.
4. Overactive bladder: a bit on the crude side, but would make for some interesting situations.
5. Bad, but non lethal allergies.
6. STDS, the non fatal ones anyway.
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