I recently joined this RP forum and when I was trying to come up with a new character for it, I thought that maybe it would be kind of interesting to RP with someone whose going blind. It's a simple Harvest Moon style forum so it would make sense if someone who was losing their sight went to live there but now that I've started writing up her profile, I'm wondering how this is going to work out. I'm not blind, after all and I know I'm not the best RPer out there so I would be really disappointed in myself if I failed miserably at this considering it will probably be a bit of a challenge.

I have done my research, though and found a hereditary disease called retinitis pigmentosa. From what I've found, people who have this disease begin to lose their night vision in their twenties or sooner and then they begin losing their peripheral vision and they'll have what's called tunnel vision. By the time they are in their 40's, most people suffering from the disease become legally blind. I looked everywhere but for the life of me, I couldn't find a first hand account of someone who has retinitis pigmentosa.

So anyway, I'd just like to know what people think about this idea and if I should go through with it or not. If anyone has RPed with a vision impaired or blind person or even knows one personally, I would love to know a bit more about how a lack of vision can affect someone (other than the obvious factors, of course).

I think its an awesome idea if you could find someone who is legally blind and wouldn't mind giving you an idea of how it is to live that way. I wish that I could give you an idea, of how to help but i don't. Maybe if you look around you could find a support forum, or chatroom, I know from personal experience that they have one for everything from parents that have passed and left children to older siblings, and bi-polar disorder. They may have a chatroom for the disease that you are looking for and go in there. I'd reccomend going in and say, hey, I'm doing research for something, does anyone mind if I pick their brain?

I posted your question over on the NaNoWriMo forums; there's tons of informed people, so you might get some replies. You can read any replies here.

Oh wow, thank you! And at Phoenixlily, I have actually considered doing that but haven't gotten around to finding any good places yet. That's a great idea, though!

I had an almost-blind character once, and it's really hard to play. It just makes it hard to interact with people when one of them can't see. I'm even in the same position as my character, with the bad eyesight, and I still couldn't rp it.

That being said, I did that charrie a long time ago, when I was new to roleplaying. Maybe that had a lot more to do with why it was hard for me other than the blindness, so if you're a more experienced rp-er, you could maybe pull it off.