Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

[Mark Rand]

Carol West, IST San Angelo administrator Sir John Royal's long time secretary, is legally blind (her vision is 20/225, which is worse than 20/200, the defined limit) and has a guide dog.

She and her guide dog, Ginger, a golden retreiver, can talk mentally with each other and, by closing her eyes and concentrating, Carol can see through Ginger's eyes and vice versa. The first power is Mind Link in 5E and Mystic Link in 4E. Any idea what the second is?

Carol uses non-perscription reading glasses for close-up work and can see up to three feet. Quoting her, "When I'm standing, I can't see my knees, much less my feet." Is the three foot range reasonable?

When they're walking together, Ginger's on Carol's left side. When Carol's at her eesk or doing other office work, Ginger's close enough to assist, but otherwise stays out of her way because she doesn't want Carol to trip over her. How far away would she stay?

An article on legal blindness can be found at http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20021031.html.

[Cancer]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

Ginger is likely to have a well-defined spot in Carol's office which is out of the way. My guess is a "doggie bed" next to a file cabinet. She will come on voice command, after all. That way Carol can scoot around her office from desk to file cabinet to copier to whatever without Ginger having to move to keep out of the way.

 

A limitation to remember (and possibly use in novel ways) is that dogs don't have human-normal color perception, so even by Mind Link Carol will be helpless with certain color-coded information.

 

Similarly, if Carol reads Braille, then assuming the appropriate texts are available, her ability to do library research is unaffected by darkness, power outage, Darkness effects, etc. Again, a detail that may be useful.

[Lightray]

Most "legally blind" persons I've met and worked with* don't get seeing-eye companions. With 20/225 vision she might even be able to get a driver's liscence (as one of my coworkers did, although she was quite accident-prone and only drove in emergencies).

 

Likewise, most "legally blind" persons don't need to learn Braille -- unless they're expecting further degeneration (e.g., with Usher's syndrome or other macular degeneration cases). Typically, a superlarge computer monitor or bookreader can be used with extreme zoom. If necessary, there are computer programs that read back everything (what you type or what is written). It's amazing listening to someone in the cubical next to you using a reader at a high typing speed...

 

If she has a guide dog, the dogs are trained to stay out of the way but nearby -- in the office or cubicle. Usually, they'll just curl up under the desk and snooze. Occasionally -- as with one collegue's poorly-trained but sweet dog -- they'll wander off. That usually seems to be a problem that only occurs when coworkers can't get it through their heads not to pet and feed the dog when he's working.

 

And seeing through the eyes of another is Clairsentience. There's even a specific limitation listed for that situation.

 

 

* I used to work for a not-for-profit that advised workshops who employed the blind in providing goods and services to the government.

[Brother Jim]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

is that 20/225 with or without corrective lenses ???

 

i'm asking cause i have 20/475 without corrective lenses, but the glasses correct it to (supposedly) 20/20. i think it's closer to 20/40 (or worse) myself.

 

i have a driver's license, i don't have any trouble seeing vehicles, road signs, etc., but don't ask me to read the bumper-sticker !!!

[Nadrakas]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

Why not make her totally blind and use Clairsentience - only thru Ginger's eyes -- Heck...perhaps she can use all of Ginger's senses.

 

 

Nadrakas...

[Mark Rand]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

Here's a bit more information on Carol. Her father was born blind and her mother was legally-blind by age 17 and lost her sight completely at age 21.

Since she grew up with blind parents, Carol learned Braille at an early age and helped care for her parents' guide dogs. Her vision got worse throughout her teens and she was certified legally-blind just after graduating secretarial school and her vision is slowly getting worse. (I'm not sure if it's still 20/225 or worse now.)

Perscription glasses won't help and her non-perscription glasses are only good for close-up work. She does have a large computer monitor, she can zoom the image on the monitor in. Also, her radio, which is tuned to an all-news station and desk clock both have large numbers.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

A quick addition to the above post. She helped care for her parents' guide dogs by pouring dog food into bowls, passing the filled bowls to her parents, and handing them grooming equipment as they asked for it.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

Carol's mind link with Ginger is always on. Most of the time, it's at the default level. Ginger can sense when Carol's in pain and vice verse. When they mentally talk to each other, the like switches to it's higher level. (The link between dragon and rider in Anne McCaffrey's Pern books works the same way.)

[Red Knight]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

I don't know if it would fit into the game world, but I had a player that had a blind female character. The character had lost her eyesight during a vicious assault/rape. It left her battered and mentally destroyed.

Her "dog" was actually a physical manifestation of her latent powers. When in "human guise" the dog appeared to be a large all-black german shepard that had a powerful presense. When the character switched to human form, the dog "melted" into a shadow form and then engulfed the character, creating the costume and granting the character powers and a sort of "Shadow Sense" which provided a greyscale world view. She couldn't read but could see 3-D items.

 

The dog was a manifestation of the hatred and anger of the character after the assault.

We stated out the dog as a seperate character.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

I don't know if it would fit into the game world, but I had a player that had a blind female character. The character had lost her eyesight during a vicious assault/rape. It left her battered and mentally destroyed.

Her "dog" was actually a physical manifestation of her latent powers. When in "human guise" the dog appeared to be a large all-black german shepard that had a powerful presense. When the character switched to human form, the dog "melted" into a shadow form and then engulfed the character, creating the costume and granting the character powers and a sort of "Shadow Sense" which provided a greyscale world view. She couldn't read but could see 3-D items.

 

The dog was a manifestation of the hatred and anger of the character after the assault.

We stated out the dog as a seperate character.

An interesting idea for a female superhero's origin.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

Regarding the visual link, I think Ginger, on occasion, takes quick looks through Carol's eyes to see how she's doing. Carol, on the other hand, looks through Ginger's eyes only when her guide dog asks her to. In these cases, there's something ahead that Ginger wants Carol to know about and get her input on.

Carol's vision might be 20/225 corrected and something like 20/400 uncorrected. Due to what her eye doctor told her about the kinds of glasses avvailable, Carol opted for reading glasses only. Assuming they're 20/400 uncorrected, how far could she see without her glasses?

[tkdguy]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

My vision is at 20/400. Without glasses or contact lenses (which improve my vision to 20/14), I have trouble reading the computer screen from about 2 feet away. Yes, I actually typed this without glasses and used a ruler to measure the distance from my eye to the screen. My vision is pretty blurry, but I can still make out the words. If the font were smaller, though, I wouldn't be able to make it out at all.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Idea for a legally-blind NPC and her guide dog

 

Just a quick note. Carol isn't the only legally blind woman with a guide dog in the campaign. There's Susan, who plays the euphonium, or tenor tuba, in the Ross Brothers Circus band. Her visual field is 12 degrees in diameter. Her guide dog, Sugar, like Carol's Ginger, is a golden retreiver.

Quoting Susan, "Sugar's not my dog. I'm her person."