Roughly Thinking of Stuff to Accommodate Some Inclusivity

This last week has pretty much sucked balls for me because my cold had lasted for more than a week and a half and then phased into a bad sinus infection. Yeah, yeah boo-hoo, sucks to be me.

I'm mentioning this because part of having a bad sinus infection is that my hearing had been degraded and my tinnitus has gone from a background ringing of the ears to a "who installed this infernal/internal dial-tone in my forehead"? 

I know, I know......wtf cares? Give me a hot second here......

....so I had game last night and I did inform my GM that I was having issues. The GM was accommodating but I realized that my (I hope) temporary disability impacted my ability to participate. There were times I missed my name being called, I know I missed some of the banter and at least one attempt at humor. Not that I'm big on trying to take a front-seat role at the virtual table (not the caller or trying to be the alpha player type), but I definitely felt like I more along-for-the-ride and a somewhere between a party member and a henchman. Now this latter bit is clearly just my internalization based on my physicality/emotions (medications a factor) and not how my fellow player were treating me.

I hadn't gamed since January and I enjoyed myself as best as I could even though I was clearly just "off". Now that it's the next day I'm really thinking about my average game, as a GM, probably isn't that inclusive to those with some hearing or vision problems. Now in my home game hasn't been an issue, that I'm aware of, but convention games.......I realize now there are some things that could be done a bit better since you don't know who might be showing up to play.

First off, I think making it easy to rearrange players...GM and/or other player willingness to relocate so someone who needs to be closer to see or hear, not too big of an ask, and I've seen this happen before. What I haven't seen, and this is probably beyond the individual GM's control, is a convention who reserves some smaller rooms for play where players/GM need a quieter room with little-to-no background noise, or where they can alter lighting as needed.

Having the ability to provide large-print format PC sheets, maybe printed as needed at the con, would be useful as well. Honestly it's seeming to me that what really is needed would be gaming conventions having some possible accommodations ready at the convention level. Having it known that players/GMs could put in requests easily.....as in no big deal to ask (I'm willing to bet that not everyone needing accommodations are quick to ask for them), and then being set up to do X, Y, and or Z as needed.

Clearly I'm NOT the person to come up with ideas on what could be done since I'm limited to my, well limited, experiences, but I do think going forward I'll be prepping a little extra to make things easier for certain types of players who want to play in my games.....just in case.

State of the Tavern - Update - Closed Captioning for the YouTube Channel for the Hearing Impaired and Audio Conversion of the Blog for the Visually Impaired

 

The above was asked in reference to last night's update, and I had been under the impression that YouTube videos required manual Closed Captioning, and I had neither the time nor the money to do so. I was wrong.

YouTube CAN automatically do CC, and it's pretty damn accurate. I do need to turn it on for each video manually, so it will take some time before it's available across the board, but it's begun with some of the more recent videos and livestreams.

This got me thinking. There used to be a plugin that allowed me to convert each blogpost to an audio file with a simple link, but that app went away years ago. After a little research, I found Woord, and for $60 bucks a year I can convert the blog into an audio format.

My current plan is to upload a week of the blog at a time as a podcast episode - not sure if it will be a new podcast feed or simply extra podcast episodes. Most likely a new feed / podcast.

Let me know what you think. I do care :)

Here's a sample of today's blogpost in an audio format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8xbn1c11to4st37/16793195831615688173604d71ed159847.16965527.mp3?dl=0

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Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Core Books Available for the Blind and Print Disabled

I've been involved in many discussions regarding making gaming material available for those that are blind or visually impaired. It just so happens that Rach is legally blind and as such accessible gaming material for the visually impaired has been of interest to me.

Most RPGs are available in PDF format, and thus can be read by computers or tablets and the print can be enlarged, or used by "readers" that many blind or visually impaired members of our community use, but WotC does not release any of its 5e material in PDF format, thus severely limiting the access to the world's most popular RPG.

Or so I thought. I stand corrected, as it was pointed out in the Thursday Night Hangout on The Tavern's Discord Server that there WAS a version of the 5e Player's Handbook for the visually impaired. I did a bit more research and found all three core books are available (as well as a 1980 version of D&D Basic ;)

NLS produces Dungeons & Dragons core books in navigable audio

core books in navigable audioIf you’ve ever attacked a cave full of Orcs with your Vorpol Sword, right after losing 12 Hit Points that lowered your Strength score (which you mitigated with a Cure Wounds spell), you might already know the fun of playing Dungeons & Dragons—D&D to its fans.

Because it’s a role-playing game, a shared experience between a Dungeon Master who describes events and players who describe how they want their characters to respond, D&D is an ideal game for players with visual impairments.

“At its heart, it’s about using your imagination,” said Megan McArdle, an NLS senior selection librarian. So it makes sense for NLS to make D&D books accessible for its patrons.

“I checked our holdings,” McArdle said, “and saw that even though we had not updated it since we did it back in the 1980s, the D&D Basic Rule Book by Gary Gygax still got a respectable number of downloads on BARD,” the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download website.

Clearly, the demand was there for NLS to take on a bigger D&D project to address requests from the large community of visually impaired players. So a team formed to update the D&D collection at NLS.

McArdle and Vincent Castellucci, a production control specialist, agreed that NLS should produce all three core Dungeons & Dragons books, starting with the Player’s Handbook (DB 91838).

When NLS released the fifth edition of the format this summer, D&D players were delighted.

“Fantastic to be part of a mainstream gaming community that is making their visually impaired players feel so welcome,” one wrote on the NLS Facebook page.

Another wrote, “I’m not sure I can describe how happy this makes me!”

Two other core D&D books—the Dungeon Master’s Guide (DB 91839) and the Monster Manual (DB 91840)—are also now on BARD.

The project was a complex one for producers and narrators, especially because of the difficulty of accurately replicating a print-book experience for visually impaired readers. One challenge was including descriptions of charts and graphics that are essential to game play. Another was figuring out how to correctly pronounce the name of monsters and magical items, such as the magical mini-submarine in the world of D&D, otherwise known as an Apparatus of Kwalish. For the latter, NLS went to Wizards of the Coast, D&D’s publisher. “They offered to help with pronunciations and provide other primary sources we might need during the recording process,” Castellucci said. “Wizards was very responsive, and even their franchise creative director, Mike Mearls, helped with our producers’ pronunciation questions.”

“As a player, watching these books go through the selection process and being able to add them to NLS’s collection has been very exciting,” Castellucci said.

For McArdle, there was an added bonus. “As I researched what books to get for D&D players,” she said, “it was fascinating to read about the work folks are doing in the arena of making board games accessible.”

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