What if the key to making tabletop games better for everyone isn't changing the rules, but changing who gets to shape the story?
Welcome to Gaining Advantage.
Welcome to Gaining Advantage.
We're using tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons to help you make lives better.
What if the core rulebooks of D&D were free, open source, and designed from the ground up to include everyone at the table?
Now I know Wizards of the Coast just released the 5.2 SRD, and I know some people have used that.
It's not really designed for play, it's more intended for publishers, because it's just the organization, the layout and everything.
It's not the same as cracking open a Player's Handbook or something like that.
But those hardcover books, they're expensive.
They're like 45 bucks apiece, depending where you live.
And so what if we could find a way to make them super, super affordable for everyone, like digitally for free, and for hard copies available for the cost of printing?
That's exactly what we're doing with Free5e.
We are reclaiming the system for everyone at the table.
We're making it financially accessible so that anyone can afford to play and not have to settle for something that feels like a really good sampler.
We want to make it available, open source, open license so that people can take it and translate it and change it for schools or therapeutic purposes, or anything at all, anything you want to do with it.
So the people who speak Spanish can get it in Castilian Spanish or Mexican Spanish, or any other kind of Spanish out there, or any other language in the world.
It is completely compatible with the 2014 5th edition.
And then it includes very simple conversion information for using it with the 2024 revisions, Level Up Advanced 5E, and Tales of the Valiant, so that any game where someone is playing any one of those systems, you can take a Free5e book and walk in there and sit down and play with them, and just start up right away.
Now the Player's book is already funded, and the Game Master's book is the next milestone.
We have full drafts of all three books.
They're free to download now, and as long as you have your DriveThruRPG settings to get notified of updates, then anytime we post a revision up until, and including the final, fully laid out, illustrated, everything, you'll get notified of that, and you can get the updates, all right?
And you can give your feedback along the way, so that instead of having to process through surveys and stuff, when you come across something that you like, you don't like, let us know.
And we will take a look at that and see if we can make some modifications so that this is truly a grassroots "of the people and by the people and for the people," all right, like for real, and open so that even if the final product, if you don't like it, you can change it.
The Kickstarter is still live until the end of April, which is just a few days left.
So what makes Free5e different from other 5e versions?
So I've already talked about the open license, the fact that you can do anything with it, and we're going to have lots of different formats available so that whatever kind of access you need, it will be available.
If it's not, we'll find somebody to make it available.
In fact, we have a whole team just working on the audio, about a dozen people, just working to make sure that we have a high quality audio version of it when it's all done.
And we're going to have digital braille.
First time a 5th edition variant or edition has ever been available in braille publicly.
And it has built-in accessibility and inclusion by design.
We started, anyone that knows us knows that that's where we're coming from.
And so we wanted to make sure that everyone felt included, that we didn't have stuff in there that's going to make people sad just by seeing it, that feels kind of a little too personal in a bad way.
We wanted to have customization without power imbalance.
So you can make modifications.
We have templates that you can apply in different situations so that it drastically expands what you can do, what you already have to modify spells, modify magic items, modify monsters all over the place, all kinds of stuff.
And then representation throughout, disability representation, but not complicated.
I mean, some of you have read and love Limitless Heroics, and yay, thank you.
But it's complicated.
I admit that.
And it was built that way because we wanted to get really detailed.
However, that is hard for a lot of people.
I've had trouble using different aspects of it.
And so we built in three different systems for using disability representation.
From just a basic narrative to more sort of mechanical.
And so that you can figure out, number one, which one is going to work best for you.
If you want to use it, you don't want to, you don't have to.
But also, we wanted to make sure that we have systems there so that no one feels like, "No, that is not how I want to be represented."
So that there are systems so that people can choose how they want their lived experiences represented in the game, how they want other people at the table to represent similar experiences and things like that.
So that people can choose, but they have options that way.
And so then to make this happen, because we're making the books available for free — the hard copies are going to be available at cost — we had to come up with another way to fund this, because it's expensive.
We're producing original artwork for it.
We've got fantastic page layout and editing and things that are going into it.
And so we needed a way to pay to make this happen.
And so we have pledge tiers starting at $1 on Kickstarter.
And on up from there, every backer gets a discount on the at-cost print editions.
It sounds like a contradiction.
It sounds like we're holding back.
So here's how that works.
DriveThruRPG has got about the best prices on print-on-demand books.
And it's also kind of where everybody goes to look for them.
And so we definitely want to make it available there so people can find it.
But the problem is they are about the best, but they are not the best.
And so we did a lot of research and found other places in the world, so we can avoid tariffs, where we can have print-on-demand in different places in the world and make that available to our backers.
Now, we can't keep those as permanent prices because, number one, we would have to have different prices at DriveThruRPG.
And the problem with that is that DriveThru has a fair pricing agreement with their partners.
And that is that they don't want you listing something for, say, $10 on DriveThru, that you can get $8 everywhere else.
They're saying, hey, that's not really fair.
And agreed.
And let's face it, when they set up their systems there, they were not thinking about a project like this.
So that's totally fair.
And I don't fault them at all for that.
And so the final price of the books will be the print costs to get them printed and shipped from DriveThruRPG, which, again, is — and I've done a lot of research to try to keep the prices down as much as possible — they are some of the best prices in the world.
So it's really-- you're not getting ripped off.
However, temporarily, we did find some places where backers can get an additional — for Americans, roughly $3 off per book, and for everyone else in the world, just because of the way things work globally and economically, is about five British pounds — you can convert that to your currency, of a savings per book.
And so if you, you can actually back this for a dollar and then get that bigger discount on the books on as many copies as you want.
You want to get it for your classroom or something like that and get a whole bunch of copies.
You can do that.
And then we have all kinds of other prizes, awards.
We have printable digital stuff for anybody that either just wants digital or is outside of the United States or outside of North America.
Just because, well, you know about tariffs and there's that and there's… and just all kinds of complications when we ship outside or into Europe and the UK.
We can also ship to New Zealand and Australia, but that's about it.
It gets pretty complicated after that.
And so we've got GM screens and pens and just like all kinds of really cool stuff that you can get to enhance your gameplay experience.
But that also, this stuff that we're making in-house, as I'm recording this, there's a huge laser engraver sitting right next to me that we're using for engraving onto faux leather for dice trays and engraving onto GM screens.
They're just fantastic.
We have pictures up on the Kickstarter page.
And we have aluminum bookmarks and wall art and just all kinds of really cool stuff.
So I encourage you to go check that out and see how you can support this project.
You are not just buying a book.
You are shaping the future of tabletop roleplaying games.
All right.
And so please, first of all, go download the drafts right now from DriveThruRPG.
There's a link in the show notes.
And then go follow the Kickstarter link and go back this project while you still can.
And then share with your tables.
Let people take a look at it.
Enjoy it.
You can use it right now.
It'll be a lot better after we clean it up a little bit and get some editing done on it.
But it's pretty good right now.
And help us fund the Game Master's book so that we can make tabletop roleplaying games better for everyone.
Now let's get to our interview.
Today I'm joined by Chris Campbell-Bohen and Elizabeth McClain from Open the Gates Gaming, a group dedicated to making tabletop roleplaying games more accessible and inclusive.
They create flexible tools and adventures that empower all players to tell their stories.
So we'll discuss their approach to accessibility, the impact of inclusive storytelling, and how they're reshaping the way we play.
Welcome, Chris and Elizabeth.
Hi, thanks.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
So what would you like us to know about you, each of you personally, specifically speaking to the tabletop gaming crowd?
You want to go first?
No, do you want to go first?
[Laughter] That works.
I'm sure a player is stepping in.
There you go.
Until the conductor says to shush.
So yes, we're both musicologists, which is a little bit interesting, and that's why I get in the music jokes.
Yeah, but my name's Elizabeth McClain.
I am a professor at Virginia Tech and also director of disability studies.
I think it's helpful to know that I am autistic and I have a number of disabilities, including mobility disabilities and chronic health stuff, and sometimes even fine motor skill issues with my hands.
So as someone who likes to play games, it's been great building a team that's also helping me in the process.
Also might be good to know I'm a cis-het white woman in my mid-30s.
So yeah, my name is Chris Campbell-Bohen.
I am also a professor here at Virginia Tech.
I'm an assistant professor of musicology or music history, whatever you want to call it, in our school of performing arts.
And yeah, I'm a cis gay or queer, depending on the day and the political context. man, and I am also Latino.
I grew up in Miami.
And I think, and we can get into this more later, I think it's been interesting getting more involved in kind of game spaces.
I mean, I've been playing video games for a long time, but especially in kind of tabletop games and board game spaces.
And there's some definite demographics predominances, is that a word?
Yeah, it's been an interesting sort of journey.
So yeah, that's me.
All right.
So tell us about Open the Gates Gaming.
Yeah, Open the Gates Gaming traces back to at least 2022.
It arose from our local disability community.
They wanted to be able to play D&D with everyone else.
And especially during the height of the pandemic and needing to isolate themselves, but also D&D Beyond launching and then Stranger Things having this, folks wanted to, folks wanted to join in the fun.
And although there are a lot of tabletop role playing games that are just inherently a little bit more accessible, they wanted to play D&D, right?
They dominate the market share.
So we wanted to come up with ways to make Dungeons & Dragons more accessible, especially for people who are neurodivergent folks with cognitive disabilities, but even parents, like people that don't have a lot of nights off and a lot of time, and they want to start playing immediately.
But we also didn't want to just have a disabled table, right?
We didn't want this to turn into changing the rules or somehow segregating play.
We wanted integrated play.
People could show up at their local game store, bring our tools with them, and they would be able to play with everyone else.
So we've been fortunate to receive a series of grants, support from various groups here at Virginia Tech, but also were part of the Disability Community Technology Center, which was created with a Mellon Foundation grant.
And that has helped us realize this dream in a way that's decidedly more anti-capitalist than most people have the benefit of doing, because we have day jobs that are paying us, and we've been able to find ways to make this work and fit our research agendas and our positions, and build out our network with people at other universities.
But at the end of the day, Open the Gates Gaming is about community-driven research, where we're responding to what communities need, and we're designing along with them in as many cases as possible, letting them lead.
It's not just about cognitive access tools anymore.
It's also about the types of adventures that we're playing, because we want everyone to be able to picture themselves as a hero.
No offense to Joseph Campbell, but we don't believe that there's just one hero's journey.
We think there's a little bit of bias in how you're interpreting stories around the world through that one lens.
So I'm going to let Chris explain a bit more about the adventures side.
Yeah, well, I guess all I would say is just to continue with that.
We, like obviously access and accessibility are important, but access and accessibility are much broader terms, or can be much broader terms than simply, can you get inside the building?
It's, you know, can you tell a story that reflects you in the way you want to be seen in the world, or brings something into the world that wasn't there previously, because people haven't told that story before.
And so from the storytelling perspective, and kind of some of the stuff that, on my side of the project, it has to do with kind of rethinking traditional narratives, rethinking how we tell stories and which stories we tell.
You know, one thing that I hadn't ever thought of as someone who kind of grew up, you know, reading fantasy novels and playing video games and being really into sci-fi, fantasy, all that kind of stuff.
I, as I've been thinking a lot more about writing D&D adventures and just, you know, thinking about narrative generally in a, in a, in a TTRPG context, it struck me just how, frankly, European, all of the narratives are, and just how deep that goes.
And, and I think, and I, you know, I know people have thought about this kind of thing before, but, but, you know, being regularly confronted with it every time, you know, I'm thinking about, okay, well, like, what are the beats in this story, or like, who, you know, how do we think about religion in a story, or the gods in a, in a, in a role, in a fantasy world?
Like, all of this stuff is refracted through a very specific set of values and histories from a very particular part of the world.
And so I, it's really interesting for me to try and think, okay, like, what else is there?
And, you know, and then also what are the ethics of finding that other stuff and how do we incorporate that?
So, but that's, I'll stop talking here.
Yeah.
Well, no, I mean, like I said, there's, it's one thing to get inside the building.
It's something else of what happens once I get there.
You know, and, and how does that play out?
And, yeah, you know, I've often heard people say, well, you know, any, everyone's welcome at our table and stuff like that.
And, you know, we've never sent anyone away, but, you know, at the same time, they're sort of that question of, okay, but how many people didn't come back after the first or second time?
And, you know, did you follow up to find out why?
And sometimes you can, and sometimes you can't, and sometimes they don't want to talk about it.
But, you know, how welcome did they feel?
Did they feel like they were, you know, part of the group and, and stuff?
And even showing up in the first place, you know, like how you, how you put yourself out in the world or, you know, a person, organization, a game, a story, like that already, if you're not careful, right, can start to restrict who engages.
Yeah, I will not go to a game store and join a random game, even, even just as a, like a, again, a cishet woman.
I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that.
And it's been remarkable to see that when we've had, this semester, we've been running playtests for our cognitive access tools to get one more round of feedback because they are going to be available as open access downloads for everyone.
And the demographics have been really interesting.
We've had a lot more women, a lot more non-binary people or gender queer, gender non-conforming folks than you would expect when the advertisement was, "Come play D&D."
But it turns out there's so many people that want to play, and that safety is not there, but also the cultural accessibility isn't there.
And the minute that you even say we want to build it, people will come and help you build it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's really been amazing.
I've seen that so often.
Yeah, there's a whole lot of people that, yeah, they just want to play and, but they want to feel comfortable doing it.
They want to feel like this is, I mean, you mentioned, you know, religion.
And I think about the, the original first edition Deities and Demigods.
They had, had gods from all different pantheons and stuff like that, but pretty much treated them all like European gods.
And it was, it was interesting because that was, as a, as a teenager, that was kind of my first exposure to a lot of those religions.
And, and, okay, okay.
And then, you know, as I got older and learned a little bit about the real world religions that they borrowed from for that.
Like, oh yeah, this isn't like that at all.
Yeah. Totally.
So tell us about those, the tools that you're developing and using.
Yeah.
So the stuff that we're working on, it's a suite of six cognitive access tools designed for players.
And in a lot of cases, it's about rethinking what you need at the table so that you can jump in and play immediately.
So we have a character sheet that is a bit more stripped down.
I think a lot of character sheets, even ones that are built as dyslexia friendly and things like that, they can do terrific work, but they may be trying to cram all of the spells on there or put things in there for when you level up your character.
So instead, we're designing a character sheet that's what you need when you're playing with the idea that you can download for free a new sheet and start over when you get to level up and when you get new abilities.
The character sheet on the front is in kind of a bluish green color, and it's most of the things that you need when you are exploring.
And then on the back, it's pinkish with some maroon accents, and that's what you need for combat, generally speaking.
And it matches our second tool, which is the decision guide.
This is for when your DM gives you this lovely vivid description of a dungeon or a tavern or this cool environment and then looks at you and says, "What do you want to do?"
And your mind goes blank.
For reference, I'm the forever DM. It's just poor organization.
I like DMing, but I like causing havoc as a player in Chris's games far more.
But the decision guide, we have the colors matched so that blue-green explore side helps you with exploration and with social interactions with icons, questions you can ask your DM.
So it's not mechanics focused, it's storytelling focused.
It just kind of prompts your memory to help you enter this imaginary world.
Then on the combat side, which is that pink and some kind of maroonish accents, someone is going to come up with a better color description than me, I promise.
It does help you track the action economy in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
So you can actually check off on a box when you do your bonus action and action movement.
That's helping our players approach that more versatility.
They're more comfortable doing things in a different order because they don't have to worry about keeping track of it.
And there's also a spot for whether or not you used your reaction, which I'll admit, I occasionally mess up as a player.
It doesn't matter how long I play, I just get excited and want to do more than one reaction sometimes depending on the build.
But then it also explains what each of those things means in the context of Dungeons & Dragons.
And then under actions, we do have a series of icons to help prompt you with the different sorts of things you can do.
So you don't get stuck in, "Oh, I always have to swing my sword."
Maybe you can help or the disengage action, which I always seem to forget about.
Dodge.
Dodge.
There's so many things that...
Or even free object interactions.
So it kind of helps you with that part.
So those are the first two.
Our third and fourth kind of go together.
They're spell cards and then ability cards.
So a similar logic for all of the features and traits associated with class or species or backgrounds and feats.
We are limited to the SRD, so I should mention that we are behaving.
Hi, Hasbro.
And if we make a mistake, we didn't mean to, please help us fix it.
Don't sue us.
So we are a little bit limited in what we'll be able to offer here, but we will always have templates with some directions on how you can make your own for homebrew stuff or maybe you paid wizards for something and you can legally write it in there.
But our spell cards, the colors around them are based on spell level.
So instead of all wizard spells as one color, all bard spells as another.
Cantrip, level one, level two.
The information is presented in the same place every time.
We're using icons for things where we can like verbal somatic material components, for example.
And even the text we've simplified to what the player typically needs.
So instead of two separate little baseball cards, a tiny, tiny font for Find Familiar, you know, we'll give you what you need to know.
The DM wants to adjudicate, the DM adjudicates because that's the way the game is actually played.
So they're vertical, typical card, and then we turn it on its side for the ability cards.
Five and six, five, our fifth tool, our series of explainer videos.
So they will define a mechanic for you and they're in that nice social media friendly, like vertical setting.
Our lovely team member, Caitlin, who we've nicknamed the face, will define the concept for you.
So what, you know, a saving throw, for example.
And then there is an actual play example where we have players sitting around the table.
We have minis on a map.
We're rolling dice and actually doing the math in every take.
We are socially awkward and weird and not professional actors.
And it really, as an autistic person, I think this is great because it lets me know what it's really going to look like.
And soon we'll be able to release a longer form video in like a horizontal orientation where we strung all of these scenarios together in a coherent adventure, but also frames like what a session is normally like and talk about safety mechanics.
So people will have a chance to actually see more or less, but they're going to experience and feel a little bit more prepared and hopefully a little braver to go in and co-create a story.
I have one thing.
Yeah.
The explainer videos are quite short.
It's like a minute and a half for most of them, which our lovely video editing assistant, Atlas, worked long and hard on getting those things down.
But, you know, one thing we did at one point is we had one of our research assistants scrub YouTube for all the D&D content they could find.
Yes, we paid someone $15 an hour to watch D&D content.
We did.
And but they couldn't find, I mean, I think maybe one or two things, but very, very little that was basic explanations that were short.
And it's, you know, lots of 20 minute videos on how to build the best wizard, but not a lot on like what is advantage and disadvantage.
And very little that involved multiple people with different voices, which is actually very important for accessibility, whether it's cognitive accessibility or somebody has any sort of visual disability where they're relying on the timbre of the voice to help them track these characters because there's some great ones where DMs play out a whole combat scenario, but they're playing every NPC and every PC.
So it's a little different.
And, you know, I think there's there's a ton of great content out there, but I think we are filling a little niche, and we'll keep assuming these are successful, and people use them, and we can keep getting the support that we need to pay to do it, we will keep recording these and adding to that library.
And then the last tool, maybe the most geared towards a beginner player out of all of them.
But it's about the character creation as a whole.
It is really hard to pick what you want to play.
I've played all 12 classes plus Artificer in 2014 5e because I wanted to get a sense of what all of these do.
And I wanted to get people in the mode of telling stories, not reading rules.
So what we've created is basically a choose your own adventure style story.
You start with your party celebrating a win in a tavern on your night off and you can envision a hero in your head and then what would that hero do each step along the way.
As you make choices, you move further in the story.
And eventually you will come to a recommendation for a class you might want to play to make that hero real.
Now the classes are based on the SRD subclass so they are pretty essentialized.
But it will tell you this is what it's like to play this type of character in social and exploration settings that in combat what people love about playing this class and what people don't like about it.
And then you can repeat the story.
So it will be a downloadable, printable storybook but also will have like an HTML version on our website too.
So that's the six tools.
Thanks for hanging in there.
It's a long explanation.
It's just so exciting.
I mean, character sheets, that's something that -- so one of my daughters is not reading yet or very little.
And so handing her a character sheet that is like three, four pages of dense text and stuff, it's just — nope.
And so I designed something for her that has spots where you kind of draw pictures of -- yeah, I'd describe a spell to her that her character wants to -- that her character has.
And so then she'll draw a picture for herself so that she can remember what that is.
That's cool.
So, you know, we found that and used like emojis and stuff like that to help find things.
But I mean, it's definitely not something that she can use just all by herself.
And then, I mean, you mentioned spell cards.
That's another thing that she really benefits from because the other thing is, okay, I want to take an action.
Let's see.
So let's see.
My spells are on the back of this sheet.
My, you know, weapons are on this other sheet and, you know, and stuff.
Yeah, and then you get into all of the other actions that are just sort of the standard actions like disengage and dodge and things like that that aren't on the sheet.
You forget about those things.
And I mean, she's pretty creative and comes up with stuff where like, okay, what would that be, you know?
But yeah, it's still it's, you know, to be able to have those options so so you know what you can do, what makes sense and things.
That's fantastic.
I can say when you talk about the, you know, sort of sticking to the srd.
I mean, it's always a good idea.
But if you're if you're not selling them, if it's just like a free download, then as long as people don't have to log in somewhere to get it, you can actually use other stuff using Wizards' fan policy.
So yeah, so there is…
If you're a braver.
That's an option.
Now, as soon as you say, "Okay, you know, like, we found a printer that this willing to print these out, and then we're just asking you to pay for the cost of production and shipping," well, now you're charging for it, even though you're not actually making money off it, then you can't do it.
Yeah, stick with the SRD.
So, yeah, and we're very committed to like releasing everything we have under creative commons license and, you know, making everything open access.
So but yeah, there are of course these kind of like production side of things.
Well, issues.
We should say our creative commons license will allow people to take what we've designed and make their own versions.
It is a non-commercial one.
But that means if anybody sees this and goes, "Oh, I want to make that for Pathfinder," reach out to us like we will share everything to help you do that.
So Atlas is the best ever.
Atlas is one of our grad students in the project and was sneaking around quietly in the room grabbing us the actual items.
So this is our character sheet here.
I don't know if that'll show pretty well.
So we've got the exploration side a little spot like where your daughter could draw a picture and names pronouns level.
This is for our barbarian.
And then on the back, we have our combat side.
So it's fairly, fairly simplified.
In this particular example, we've listed most of the cards.
So like for rage or reckless attack or frenzy, we use cards, but things like unarmored defense or danger senses are simple.
We write them out, but it's really up to you how how you want to use it.
I really like the short rests, the fact that this is a level three ones, there's three little boxes so I can check my die.
A lot of simplified character sheets forget that part.
And also the death saves that our student worker, Melissa, who is on the job market now is graduating and I'm so sad.
But if you all want to know more, I will put you in touch because Melissa will do like project based work to her if you want an in house designer.
But Melissa designed death save trackers where it's just little heart like three little hearts that you can color in and three little skulls, which is so intuitive and none of us came up with it.
But it matches our decision guide.
So we've got the combat side and then exploration with our little icons.
This is a little bit easier to see in our social media, but yeah.
And then yeah, we've got you are sure.
Yeah, so this is one of the spell cards.
This is detect magic.
So we've simplified the text.
There's, you know, all the requisite information is on there that you need in order to like cast the spell as a player.
And a lot of the kind of, you know, extraneous stuff…is web in here?
Web was the bane of our existence trying to get that.
Moonbeam is a lot.
This was about as, you know, as brief as we could make it.
But these cards are, you know, they're somewhere between a baseball card and a tarot card.
They're pretty big.
So the text is, you know, bigger than it certainly certainly bugger than normal on the regular cards.
And the ability cards are pretty, pretty simple.
Sometimes there's a lot of text and sometimes there's not like wild shape has rather a lot of text ultimately.
But they have little trackers reach the abilities on their respective cards.
So, you know, there's two boxes for wild shape for the druid.
And even just being able to sort your cards and see like this is what I have.
And that by itself, like having the spells feel tangible, especially when you go to prepare spells.
I'm actually telling them out of something.
It's, I love using our tools, frankly.
But the idea is people wouldn't need to use everything.
We can pick and choose what they want.
Yeah.
But no, that's, that is really good to know about the limitations. We're finally getting like out of the research and development phase and starting to advertise.
So folks can come see us at PAX East in Boston.
We're also going to try to make it to PAX Unplugged later this year.
We'll be in the PAX Together Intersection and together with DotsRPG. We love the folks at Dots.
It's like become our sister organization.
We are launching the Access Forward gaming lounge at PAX East.
So if you join any of our games, we're running, I think at least a dozen D&D games over four days.
I think it's 14 total.
Yeah, you can you can come and try out our tools yourself.
We'll be trying.
I if the timing lines up, we'll be printing out a bunch of blank templates so people can take them home and put their favorite character in them.
And yeah, it should be should be a good time.
No, that's fantastic.
I…you mentioned the instructional videos and the actual play and, you know, and you're you're awkward and everything.
And I mean, that's wonderful because I'm sure that you and our listeners have heard about the Matt Mercer effect.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and and, you know, there's that especially for new players to see that.
And, you know, is is there some sort of expectation that you're all going to be professional actors? And they go, "Well, I couldn't do that."
And, you know, but you're like, "Oh, no, this is just like people hanging around goofing off having fun, you know."
And and so to be able to to see that and go, "Oh, they're just having fun."
We have actual play floating around on the Internet where we're trying to, especially because we're thinking about accessibility for people that aren't in this world yet for whatever reason.
We are trying to do some filming where things are edited down and then into episodes that are a bit more easy to watch, even as like we're recording them all at once on very long days.
And we are not pros at all.
We don't know what we're doing.
We're having a good time.
I'm…the one that will be coming out probably, I don't know, the summer or in the fall.
I don't think I ever hit anything.
Nope.
It was like a champion fighter and I didn't hit anything.
Yeah, it was glorious.
And honestly, I kind of didn't like that guy and he didn't deserve to hit anything.
So you can keep an eye out for that.
I will say the one member of the team that we haven't really talked about, we're building an advisory board slowly.
And our first advisory board member is Doug Cockle.
So we have one person who apparently knows how to do nice, clean with the natural six.
He knows how to.
He doesn't always.
And then we did a live stream with him February.
Yes.
Doug Cockle is a VT alum.
So he was got in touch.
I don't know how it first happened, but there was a story in the VT news with him back at the beginning of this academic year.
And Elizabeth, you know, got in touch with him 
and had to admit that I've played hundreds of hours with the Witcher video games.
And one thing led to another.
And so now he's been really, really helpful, you know, with the project in terms of just being a sounding board.
And then, yeah, we were able to live stream a kind of fundraiser thing for Virginia Tech with him, which was a lot of fun.
And so that's that's on our YouTube.
I think it's like the only thing on there at the moment, but we are slowly starting to transfer some stuff to the YouTube.
So there will be more, more content there shortly.
Yeah, you can also see Doug and Nat Six at Axis in Boston, I should mention.
No, he's fantastic.
And he is way too humble.
He's like, I don't, I mean, I'm happy to help.
I don't know how I can help.
And then he's giving detailed critiques for our illustrator at a level that we would have been incapable of doing.
And he's right.
And it's always kind, too.
So that's that's that's been fantastic.
We're hoping to build out the board with more folks.
I mean, we're lucky to have a team that has a lot of diversity and a lot of different dimensions, but we want to make sure that the board represents that too.
So I may be sneaking around some booths and things at Boston and seeing who's there and who we can chat with.
We are swimming in DMs.
We are.
We have a lot of people that DM.
Wow, that's…that is rarely the case.
It's strange.
Tell us about this.
This gaming lounge at PAX.
This is sounds fantastic.
Yeah, so it's in a lot of ways like the brainchild of Jess over at Dots RPG.
We wanted to have a space, and it's not a space for, to be clear, you do not need to be disabled to play games there, and we're not, we're not even thinking necessarily only about disability, but from conversations we've had, there is not a lot of accessible gaming events or things that are like centering accessibility at stuff like PAX at things at that level.
We wanted to take the games that we were hoping to bring anyway and some of the accessibility work and start creating a space where we're centering just the notion of accessibility, and we know that we're going to fail.
I'm a multiply disabled person, and in my disability studies work, what I'm often known for is working on cross-disability access and those access negotiations where it falls apart, because I live them in my own body.
I'm an autistic person who has a lot of very specific sensory needs and then you end up with a chronic health condition where you have to wear clothing that does not line up with them as a really basic example.
So it is just part of my life.
So I know that we're going to get a lot of people in there with a lot of different access needs.
We're not going to 100% meet everyone's needs, but we're going to take a step forward.
And this access forward idea is that we will have experiences specifically focused on folks who are blind and low vision.
We'll be incorporating the DotsRPG's like Braille dice like all of our DMs are trained in how to support players using these.
I'm autistic and I will be DMing a very autistic game where I'm taking the players into the scariest place I could imagine, which is a crowded tavern.
But we're going to have a lot of experiences where we're trying to kind of center that, take a step forward, help train DMs in how to move forward, and we're hoping that it's really the start of a bigger maybe alliance of some sort collaboration with everybody that's been working on accessibility to also develop things like DM trainings for non-disabled DMs who do care and want to work on this.
Or honestly, disabled DMs too, because just because you're disabled or neurodivergent doesn't mean you know anything about access.
I'm still learning every day how to actually listen to what I need and learn what I need and accommodate it.
So yeah, it is an experiment.
We are going to be trying to bring auto captioning to tables and all sorts of fun stuff.
It's not always going to succeed, but it's going to help us keep improving.
So if you're interested in this at all, if you're interested in coming in complaining, please do.
It's Sarah Ahmed who talks a lot about complaint activism and the idea that the act of complaining, of like voicing problems, even if you don't have a solution yet voicing that problem, it's a form of activism and it's important to move things forward.
So like that's the attitude that we're bringing into the space.
But we'll also have games at the Intersection, including a bilingual game.
Yes, so this is kind of in collaboration with Pax Together Intersections, which I don't know all of the details, but I think the general...
Can you jump in by you to the meeting?
Well, that's fine.
It's not like I don't have things going on.
The general ethos is kind of bringing more and different kinds of people into this TTRPG and us, I think, just gaming generally space that haven't historically been represented in a variety of different ways, whether it's racial, ethnic, gender, class, like pick your identity, right?
Or when you're multiple intersections of those identities, right?
Yeah, not having to choose for a change.
Yeah, how about that?
But in any case, so we're hosting some games in the Pax Together Intersections lounge as well as the Access Forward Gaming Lounge, which are going to be right next door to each other.
And so I'm very excited because I'm running a couple of games bilingually since I speak English and Spanish.
And the game is a one shot based on the legend of La Llorona, who is a figure in Mesoamerican folklore, the Weeping Woman.
And, you know, there's also a song about La Llorona, which is maybe a slightly different figure.
But anyway, point is, it's a story that I really love and it's a song that I really love 
And a mini you really love.
and a mini I really love.
That I made.
But I, yeah, so I wrote this in part because this also relates to kind of, you know, how I think about the project and say, again, this idea of access, whose stories are told, which legends, which folklore, which stuff gets… gets done.
And there's there are a lot of people working in this space and I've backed a lot of their Kickstarters for, you know, various different kinds of settings and ideas and stat blocks and things based on, I mean, I'm a fan of obviously stuff from Latin America.
But there's lots of people doing stuff and I see all sorts of cool stuff floating, you know, around the internet.
But so this is kind of my own little step in that direction, I suppose.
But it's also doing that with our cognitive access.
Yes, that's true.
And we have Gustavo is going to be offering at least one game for teens and younger folks like a little bit more of a family focused version.
And yeah, I'm hoping we can continue to offer a lot of this.
I should also say we will have an exhibit table in the PAX Together Intersection.
And that's where you can come and find out more information about us.
If you want to learn where to download things.
If you want to, I think we're going to have free color changing pencils if I get the order in on time.
We'll have swag of some kind.
Yeah.
All right.
So how do you ensure the flexibility of the systems that you design without sacrificing the essence and experience of the game?
This is this one's on me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The division of labor here is we don't we don't really use corporaty names.
We come up with funny nicknames.
Yes.
Elizabeth is the mastermind in our nickname system.
Yeah.
And you're the storyteller.
Yeah.
I think the most important component is that we're going to try to offer multiple versions of everything.
Right.
Universal design is a great thing to aspire to.
It's also not real.
And I think the fact that I can work in disabled spaces and activism and arts and now disability studies as a research discipline and things like that.
We're still learning about new disabilities and experiences all the time.
So what we're working on are tools that can be used together, apart, separate, even thinking about simple things like as soon as we have all the data process from our playtests and do the next revision.
After that, developing black and white versions that are easier to print, developing low color versions that are easier to print, checking to make sure that the color contrast works and really not trying to do this alone.
I feel like there's a very individualistic approach to access, especially in the United States, that's deeply uncomfortable, and it's really antithetical to disability cultural values, which I will admit that a lot of my sense of disability cultural values is as defined by like the disability justice movement, even as I acknowledge that disability justice is not super compatible with spaces like universities like neoliberal spaces or commerce or things like that.
But trying to live up to those values, even when we know that we're not and letting people call us out and trying to do better.
I think that that's a major component of that.
But there are a lot of times that the conversation, we get really lost in it.
I remember I was fighting like, nope, we got to have the fire damage in Web.
We've got to have the fire damage in the Web card.
Or, and I don't even know that I was right on that one.
Y'all just had to do it because I was the one paying.
But like there's a there are a lot of times we had to take a step back and go, "What is this game?"
Well, yeah, so that was going to add it's like, you know, in a question like, you know, "So how do you ensure the flexibility of the systems that you design without sacrificing the essence and experience of the game?"
What's the essence of the game?
Like how do we…what is what is Dungeons and Dragons or what are TTRPGs for?
Right.
I think, you know, thinking about that question very broadly, making sure that this game can be available to all people, then in some ways automatically predisposes us to greater flexibility.
Because I think, you know, if you think about the game, let's I mean, let's focus on D&D, right?
Like if the game is, you know, we're going to adventure and battle monsters and whatever, like that can sometimes lead to focusing very intently on the combat, which is the most mechanics heavy part of the whole thing.
But, and I think, you know, where the game is has shifted over time, you know, there's been a little, you know, D&D has obviously become incredibly popular very quickly.
I'm not going to talk about the 234 rule.
Yeah, no, we're not going to talk about that.
That's all can of worms.
But the, you know, you can also think about D&D as a collaborative storytelling game, right?
And so if that's the essence of the game and the essence of the game or, you know, the essence of the game is you want to get together with your friends, whether it's online or at a table and just, you know, make dick jokes the whole time.
Sorry, this is probably funny.
Like, you can do that.
And the tools are a way to, you know, let people access this stuff.
And again, we're not changing any mechanics.
We're just simplifying the how things look in a lot of cases.
And I think there's an argument to be made, right, that we've chosen to focus on the collaborative storytelling part rather than the mechanical min-maxing part.
Number one, because if you want to min max, this game is already accessible for you.
We don't bother with that.
But what we discovered along the way is that it's not just storytelling.
It's being able to join a community when you felt like an outsider.
I mean, I, we have had multiple times that people are in tears or on the verge of tears because they don't want to leave when the event is over.
And sometimes they're the type of people like me who are usually the first out the door because they don't want to be around a room full of people.
And it's, it's because there's a space where they're welcome, where their ideas are welcome, where people are going to listen to them and build on it and "yes and" 
or at the very least not judge them.
And there is a, there is a radical revolutionary potential in this game, right?
If there's a sort of, I mean, I think I like to lean into like a prefigurative politic way of playing it sometimes where it's like, we're just going to pretend that the world that we want to exist already exists.
There's other times where we're practicing standing up to villains.
Like we're practicing being brave in a way that can translate to real life.
And I think I don't want to do them now more than ever, but I do.
You know, like there, there is something about who you learn that you are.
Right.
I mean, I grew up being told that I was not a people person that I should be a surgeon because I'd be comfortable cutting into other humans.
I'm very misunderstood, right?
Like they're looking at my autistic flat affect and thinking I'm not a people person.
I'm not empathetic.
And then to learn later in life.
No, I'm actually a community builder and not being like not being a social butterfly doesn't mean you, you can't build communities and learn how to sustain them.
And, and it's hard.
It's, it's not easy work, but I think learning that I was a bard was confusing.
Even when I started playing because the first time I played 5e, I was playing Fantasy Flight TTRPGs, like the Star Wars ones and others like that.
First time I played 5e was for you.
I didn't even know you.
And I, I brought, I brought Corey Goliath barbarian and he managed to finagle some polar bears very fast.
But I mean, that's, I think more of who I thought I was and then later exploring like a Bard character, like Poblin and others where it's like, wait a second.
I don't, you do learn things about yourself playing this game.
Oh yeah.
You do work through your trauma.
I mean, almost proverbially so at this point.
But yeah, we have folks trying on new gender identities, trying out like, I, yeah.
So anyway, needless to say, I think some of this is about what you believe the essence of the game is.
And I think there, maybe we are making a radical statement when we're like, "No, it's not, it's not really about the player having to look at all of the different little caveats for Find Familiar.
I mean, the rule says that whatever the DM says goes anyway, right?
Like that is the actual overarching rule.
Primary directive.
So for us, this is the essence of the game.
This is what we're trying to support.
And it does make it a little bit easier to have flexible systems.
Yeah.
And I mean, if you're, if you're all about the min maxing or, you know, my daughter just wants to kick monsters' butts, and, you know, it's like, if you make the tools available so that you can play the way you want to and, you know, and that the that you don't have those barriers to get in the way of how you want to play, just because of that it's been given to you in a particular way, particular format and things like that.
Yeah, no, that makes a difference and then you actually can.
And, and when the environment is, is welcoming and lets you be you.
Yeah, that makes a huge difference.
And I'm glad you guys talked long enough that I could compose myself.
So I've just, I've had a lot of experiences with, you know, statements of people saying, "This is this is the only place in the world that I really feel welcome," you know, and man, if we can do more of that for people, this is what we need.
It really is like some of the moments we've had at the playtests of like people saying, like that they, you know, they played D&D once and they had a horrible experience and they never did it again until they showed up and they played and they're like, "Oh wait, I actually love this," you know, to it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's been extremely gratifying.
And I think it once people have a space where they come in, they feel safe, they make connections, it doesn't leave when they leave the door, right?
Like they have learned that they can have this and there's that fire to build it in the real world.
I mean, even this project we can think of that way because sometimes like in the middle of the pandemic, our little home game was what was keeping us through and keeping us in the state of Virginia.
And, you know, and the project grew naturally out of that really.
It is, it is wild to think about.
It's very humbling to think about sometimes like the number of people that we've been able to add to the team and employ and the student workers we found and it's why I keep bragging about Melissa too because I'm so sad that she's leaving but she's also incredible and anyone designing games would be lucky to have her.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's been fantastic.
And, and also, you know, oftentimes I think about this and I look at what you're doing and what we do and stuff and and people you see it and they go, "Oh, this is amazing."
And, and, you know, so often you kind of feel like, well, no, I mean, like this is just how it should have always been.
Yeah.
Yeah, we've always been, I mean, the idea that neurodivergent people are just now playing D&D backs me up because I'm sorry, y'all.
If you don't know, you're going to learn.
But, you know, I was thinking about like Limitless Heroics.
The idea that like, I don't know.
People are like, Okay, now we now we can finally have disabled characters and we can finally imagine it's like, I mean, it's changing how we conceptualize what a hero is and what we can be, right.
So I think there there's just, I'm thinking about Judy Heumann.
I mean, you're not not always thinking about Judy.
You know, yes. OK.
Okay, we'll talk about … later, but for Judy Heumann for now.
I'm, you know, disabled in action, this like group that she formed in New York City before going out West and the 504 sit ins and all that.
They were having trouble getting accessible transit because everybody thought there were so few disabled people impacted by this.
So what did they do?
Well, they tried to protest a building and got the address wrong.
So they're like, you know what, we're at an intersection, we're going to block an intersection.
So you have even little people very low to the ground, you have folks in wheelchairs.
And also, by the way, like non disabled attendants that were there as allies too, and they just blocked the sidewalks.
They blocked one intersection.
They shut down all of New York City.
Like there are moments that we have to just be like, how family friendly is this podcast?
I'm going to say, but you know, I mean, like we, we are here.
We have been here.
We are here.
Like, so whether it's in, you know, mechanics for the characters we play to be disabled, whether it's in just like making sure that we're supporting disabled players at our table.
And I mean, spoiler alert, down the line, I think OTG is going to try to support DMs, like not just so they can support disabled players, but that so disabled people can DM because, hey, we're here, you know, and every one of these pieces is helping make a mark that we belong in a space that we are heroes, that we are heroic, that we can make a difference and that frankly, y'all have been missing out without us.
So I think there's also something here in terms of like, almost like a philosophy of the systems and how they determine how we engage with this stuff.
I mean, if you have the DND Beyond character sheet, it's, it's, it's like, it predisposes you to think in certain ways.
And I think a lot of that, you know, we're predisposed also to think of like, this is the text, this is the canon, this is the thing that you must do.
Yeah, I should only use the skills that I'm really good at.
And I think like one of the beauty of D&D, not overly romanticize it is that like that there is flexibility built into it, right?
Ultimately, whatever the DM says goes, like you can, you can choose to ignore as many rules as you want to, right?
Like you're all playing make believe together at a table or online or whatever.
And so, you know, the idea that, you know, we necessarily need these really crunchy mechanics so we can represent this or that idea.
Well, yeah, like if people are into really crunchy mechanics, yes, go for it.
Do it.
I love it.
And like bring that to the table and a DM should be able to be like, yeah, let's do it.
On the other hand, if you want to be someone that is like, "Yeah, my character uses their mobility aid as a weapon, I'm going to be like, yeah, okay, cool. It does 1d6 + 4 damage now.
Because I think that…
…the mechanics aren't the game; the mechanics should be serving the game.
Yes, exactly.
And the more that we can think about the game as a game and as a way of bringing people together and less about the kind of, you know, mechanics or the kind of inviolability of the text of it, you know, I think the better.
I know it really has this like religious element for some people.
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I think there's a larger conversation there about the way that we treat media.
And undiagnosed neurodivergent people, but yeah.
Yeah, you said it, not me.
Yeah, no, I, you know, that's that's the tension in these games, right?
It's supposed to be completely open and stuff you can do anything you want and that, and yet, you know, my biggest one that I keep running into is when someone wants to do a called shot.
"I want to shoot them right in the eye."
Yeah.
Like, yeah, there's no way to do that in fifth edition.
Lots of people have come up with with stuff.
And all of it is prone to abuse.
And the problem is that because gamers, you know, can focus on those rules and I mean, we do have the expression "rules lawyer,"
Right.
And, and, and while on the one hand, it's fantastic because it really encourages creativity, it's like, "How do we work with this?"
And I often say that like back during the OGL crisis, "Man, you guys took on gamers, you took on rules lawyers, and you thought that you could get something. Really?"
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's yeah, the rules lawyer thing.
Like I, I mean, I can very much be a rules lawyer.
Like I love the rules because I, you know, 
You said it, not me.
Well, yeah, fine.
I like the rules too. I'm not just… I like the rules.
But as you said, right, like they provide a backdrop against which right, you can be creative, you can play around with things.
But ultimately, you don't always need them.
You can choose to selectively break them where you want.
But it is only in the, the fact of having them that, you know, you can then begin to go from there and then and then go and break them, right, in creative ways.
So yeah, No, it's my creativity because again, like part of my autism diagnosis process was them telling me I wasn't creative because they handed me a storybook with no words, just pictures, and they told me tell a story, and my brain just stopped.
So from then on, I was like, there you go, it proves it. I'm not creative.
But and that's the thing is the rules should be helping support the creativity, helping you access the creativity, not being an obstacle to it.
So we're trying to find that balance, knowing that it's going to be different for everyone.
So it's, it's fun because it's like a limitless number of projects as long as people continue to help us make them real.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Right.
Yeah, I'll just use one example.
I was playing, I was DMing and and my daughter said like they're facing this sort of golemy construct thing, and and she goes, Okay, so there's this kind of it was it was in a cave and there's moisture on the ground and stuff and she says, "All right, I want to shoot a ray of frost in front of it so it slips and falls."
Hah! That's great!
And, and, and I like I looked at the the spell and it does not, you know, it's like, yeah, that's the grease spell, you know, but, but, but it was like, but that's awesome. And I love it.
And while, you know, there may be another time where someone wants to do something like that and I go, Nope, sorry, that's not, you know, technically the way it works.
But in this case, it was like, "Yeah, let's do it," you know, and it didn't have like a massive impact on on the sort of mechanical outcome of the encounter.
But it was fun.
And that's I feel like it's also really valuable to be able to reward your players creativity that way like that were me in that situation to be like, Yeah, absolutely, that puddle is frozen now the golem has to make a dexterity saving throw.
And yeah, like it, you know, maybe it falls over maybe it doesn't but you know, What if my character doesn't know that she's an assassin.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so like, there are ways to, I think always, and again, this is like, it's helpful.
I find it really helpful to know the rules because like, Okay, I know there's other things that I can use to to you know, in this situation to bring about kind of at least the opportunity for the outcome right that this person wants and to to reward the creativity be like, "Yeah, sure, we're going to I mean, there's still a chance it won't work or whatever but we're going to try it."
But because I, you know, have all those other rules or they're in a book or whatever like then you've got, it's like, it's like improvising, right, like, you know, whether it's classical music jazz, whatever right you have a repertoire of things, you know, rules of music, snippets of melody harmonies that are all in your head.
And it's the act of putting them together that's the creative part right and bringing out, you know, a, a, you know, 
And sometimes you don't repeat the exposition.
Very niche music joke.
But yeah, like having you know you create a you create a beautiful melody, right out of all these little bits that maybe don't, you know, on their own they might feel a little dry but together they make something beautiful.
Well, and it's it is funny though, because in music analysis, like, especially if you're looking at like 19th Century stuff, it's always okay, where's the composer following the rules, where do they break it, and where they break it is where they create musical meaning.
I don't know that I believe this but that is like a traditional way that we often teach it.
And it is really funny because I think that does give me that instinct to want to intentionally break rules in a system like D&D, or at least like push them and play with them not in a way that like ruins the story anybody else is telling.
And I think that's the other piece right is, if you come to D&D with a very individualistic mindset of, "I want the coolest character I want my character to get the crits. I want whatever," you're totally missing the point.
I'm sorry, some of the best roles of my life have been Nat 1s.
Like it just they're so funny, like failing to do something can often be the best opportunity for a great story in D&D.
And there's also part of you that's like, well, is that cheesy that it might be true in the real world too?
I don't know.
But I do know disabled folks are really, really good at rolling those Nat ones and on rolling.
So there is something great about having us at the table.
All right.
So what one message would you like to give to those who want to make their TTRPGs more accessible, but don't know where to start?
I've got this one.
You can have a thing in a minute.
But I, 
Yeah, go for it.
Okay.
I made a joke about it, but I'm going to do it.
So….
Right.
Like in care work, they say that, and I'm going to ruin this a little bit. It's more elegant in their words, but that, "A seat at the table without power or leadership is tokenism."
And I think that if you are trying to make something more accessible, you should be bringing in the people that are most impacted by it being inaccessible.
There's really no way to do this unless you are working with a lot of different communities.
And that doesn't just go for disability, right?
I mean, I'm not really going to understand the full implication of anything I'm doing to like, I don't know, the queer community without you.
You've talked about how every marketing team needs.
Every marketing team absolutely needs a queer person on it.
But that's great.
The things that I see in the grocery store, let alone, but anyway, 
But there is something, you know, however much we're joking, there is something to that.
Like you need to work with disabled folks, budget ahead of time for hiring disabled consultants.
There's an aspect of the Disability Community Technology Center that's called Disability Forward Research Consulting, where my colleague Ashley Xu has a whole roster of various people with different disabilities, different access needs, but also other identities too.
So that when companies or researchers or developers come to her, she's like, "Here's the consultants," as long as our Mellon Grant lasts, she's paying them $100 an hour for their time.
And it's been worth every single penny.
But sometimes it's a consultant.
Sometimes it's a partner.
I think the more we can do things as teams and diverse teams, the better the result is going to be, because we're going to catch more along the way.
We're going to have more brilliant ideas and perspectives like the whole way through development.
Yeah, I think for, "want to make their TTRPGs more accessible, but don't know where to start," I think there's a lot of things.
I think, you know, the old improv advice of "yes and," I think, you know, rewarding players creativity and treating the rules as opportunities and not, you know, barriers.
Do you regret rewarding some of Doug's creativity?
I regret a lot of things.
But that, no, that, no, he was just being so silly.
We're like, okay, this is for Virginia Tech.
But I think, you know, they're to me, this goes back to the larger idea of, you know, whose stories do we tell?
How do we tell those stories?
How, you know, are in being faithful to a text or an adventure outline or, you know, a set of beliefs, are we unintentionally, you know, limiting ourselves or limiting who can be at our tables and who can play and, you know, how they can play?
So I think, you know, just being flexible, being accessible, you know, and, you know, feeling like, especially for DMs, like, you know, obviously this is, you know, don't be in opposition to your players, right?
Like you're playing, you're all playing the game together.
That is a common mistake.
Well, yeah.
Sometimes I make it.
No, I mean, the monsters want to kill you.
I don't.
But anyway, yeah, I try.
But yeah, really, I think, you know, maybe the most basic one is, yeah, don't use the rules as a cudgel, you know, use them as a starting point.
That's fantastic.
It reminds me of one time I was teaching a class to this very small group and it was like, fifth and sixth graders, something like that.
And one of the kids asked a question on, it was on, you know, just kind of the periphery of the topic, but it was a great question.
And so, so we started talking about it and kind of going on and just having a fantastic, really deep conversation and stuff.
And, you know, and one of the kids goes, "Don't we need to get through this worksheet or whatever?"
And I said, "You see this? See this? This is crap."
And I threw it.
Yeah.
And I said, "The only point of that worksheet is to get us started on this conversation and to offer, if we don't know, you know, how to navigate this, that it provides a way to do that."
Right.
But the point is to be able to grow and learn and, you know, and stuff like that.
And, and so like, don't let…that is not our limitation.
Now, I know, you know, when it comes to like, I'm also a substitute teacher in a local school district.
And, yeah, there, there's, there's restrictions on sort of, you know, you've got to cover this material and, you know, and all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, and when I'm teaching about light wavelengths and then having a discussion about why, if you're invisible, you'd be blind.
You know, it's like, it's like, oh yeah, but I got three more pages of the chapter to get through.
So yeah.
Yep.
That is the classic dilemma.
All right.
So what one message would you like to give to those who think accessibility in gaming is unnecessary or over complicates the experience?
This is all you.
I mean, the profanity free version.
I mean, the thing is, it's the access obstacles that are unnecessary or over complicating the experience.
It's just, it's just that you're finally being made aware of somebody else's experience, right.
And I mean, there is, there is a little bit of a corollary to this that kind of relates to our last question, which is if disabled people are not complaining to you about something that doesn't mean it's accessible.
That means that you're not a safe person for them to talk to.
Right.
Like, we have to get used to hearing criticism and adapting it, that, you know, this, this constant growth mindset.
I mean, I'm thinking a lot with this question about video gaming, actually, the way that it's phrased, which might not be the intent that you had, but you know, games where they've only got the highest difficulty setting, right.
Like there is no easier setting.
I don't know why you care that much.
Right.
I mean, I'm even how, how there was one point I had to turn down the difficulty to get through the Witcher to and then I found out later it was because my computer couldn't handle spawning that many enemies.
So I was doing the right thing.
So as soon as I started playing it on a new computer, I was like, "Oh, I am good at this game."
Like the humbling experience of turning it down, even if it was for the frame rate or anything else, it really, it didn't change my enjoyment of the game.
I wasn't cheating.
I wasn't playing a worse game.
I mean, I was still apparently enjoying Doug's dialogue that's recorded very well.
That's still weird to me.
Still processing.
But I think, yeah, I really, it does come down to that notion of it's not the accessibility is that like you that that's unnecessary or over complicated.
It's that you have created unnecessary barriers.
There's really no reason to not try to improve your game because all you're going to do is be able to sell it to more people.
This is why like when Domino's Pizza was fighting needing to make their app accessible and fighting it all the way to the Supreme Court to try to end the ADA (Yeah, that's why I don't eat Domino's Pizza still.), because a blind man couldn't order pizza on their app, and they didn't want to have to make it accessible.
It was, it was just, it's not a good business decision.
It's a horrible business decision to make it harder for people to order your pizza.
Yep.
And I think a similar logic applies, you know, to these games.
You don't think we're there.
You're thinking, when you're saying it's unnecessary over complicated, you're thinking there aren't many of us.
Right.
Something what 12% of people in the United States are going to use wheelchairs and and yet 1% of housing is accessible.
I mean, the we're invisible because you're not paying attention to us, because we can't enter settings that you're in, but we're not actually invisible.
So I guess come to the Access Forward Gaming Lounge and see how many people would buy your stuff if you would make it so we could play it.
I would maybe add to that.
Well, and just to the invisibility point, like, you know, I have a rare genetic disorder where I grow benign tumors on my nerves that get really painful.
And so I get progressively more disabled until I have surgery and then it's all better, which is, you know, but like, no one's going to know that looking at me.
But it turns out like nerve pains, not fun, but it is a shared experience.
Who knew?
But anyway, that's that's kind of aside from the point I wanted to make, which is that, you know, "…accessibility in gaming is unnecessary or over complicates the experience…?" First of all, for all the reasons that Elizabeth is just articulated, I think that's BS.
But then also, like, if you have games that are accessible and you have games that allow more people to show up, you're going to have better games, right?
Because there's more people, there's more ideas, there's more creativity, there's more people wanting to come together to do something that is fun and that allows them to imagine new things, right?
Like, and that that is all, I think, pretty undeniably positive.
So, you know, even if for the only reason of, like, this game is going to be better, right?
There should be more access.
And again, that that is the bare minimum, right, for like, why we should do this.
Obviously, there are a lot of other reasons that are more important than that and that are like way more immediate.
But, you know, again, like, I guess I'm just doing the DM perspective thing today.
But like, you know, you want people at your table, you want you want people to do cool things.
You also want more DMs because nobody, if your game is too complex to DM, see, I think about that a lot when when companies like Wizards talk about the DM shortage and people talk about trying to get like, AI DM tools.
It's like, maybe your game should be more accessible for more people to DM.
Indeed.
Hmm! What an idea!
AI DM.
Nope, I'm not.
Hang on, that's a whole other conversation.
Alright, so I mean, you've talked about the stuff that you're working on and that is there anything else that you're working on that you want to talk about?
Um, I mean, so I'll mention briefly, kind of, so my side of the project has been about kind of storytelling and then I don't know, thinking about the narrative and you know, all the stuff we do.
And granted, I help with the mechanical stuff too, but a big chunk of what I have been trying to work on and, you know, my job gets in the way, is I am working on a book of D&D adventures that are all based on operas, which is, opera is something I study.
I think about it, research, and operas are insane and wacky and campy and also it turns out incredibly misogynist most of the time.
And so the book is kind of taking some of the things that are, I think, inviting and beautiful and absurd about opera, things that are, you know, valuable.
And then, you know, how do we retell those stories?
How do we, you know, bring in musical ideas?
How do we, you know, give back agency to the characters who in the original versions of these stories have none, right?
So I have written a couple of adventures and if you are really diligent about digging online, you can find one of them.
But yes, one is based on the first opera in historical record by a woman called The Liberation of Ruggero from the island of Alcina, which is in 1625.
And so I, you know, and granted, that one is also like, you know, the good sorceress rides a dolphin to the island and then the evil sorceress has turned all her lovers into plants.
And then the evil sorceress rides a ship made of whale bones into battle at the end.
Like I just had to put rules on top of that and it's D&D.
Like, I didn't change it.
It was weird because there were a lot of moments I was like, oh, this is a cool idea Chris had.
And then I put on my musicologist hat and I'm like, Wait. No. That…that's in the text."
And I'm like, "You actually should make it slightly more normal."
Yeah, in some ways.
So that's one I wrote another one based on a very different opera one from 1901? 1900? Tosca by Giacomo Puccini, which is a very famous and very frequently played opera, but one in which the main character, who's the title character, an opera singer named Floria Tosca, has absolutely zero agency.
She is just at the mercy of these men that are around her despite being the title character.
And her two moments of agency are when she gets to murder the villain and when she throws herself off the roof at the end of the opera.
Because if you have that much agency, you don't survive opera as a woman.
And so I rewrote it to make it very different.
And you can play it at PAX.
And you can play it at PAX.
I'm DMing a couple of instances of it and some of the other team members are also DMing it because we've been using it as the framework for the playtests.
We have people play through a kind of shortened version.
And I've got a few more ideas that eventually I will hopefully publish as a book.
I've actually been talking to University Press about it because, you know, I'm at a university and it's there.
I'm also hoping to have a kind of like little essays that go along with them that are, you know, accessible for your average reader.
But they kind of give you some background.
Like, here's what this opera is about.
Here's some of the basic historical background.
And then here's where the intervention happens.
Here's how the story is changed to make it different and to hopefully allow for players and DMs to like tell a story that, you know, imagines a world they want to be in or that they want to see.
So, so yeah, so that's one project.
There's another project about a whole campaign setting based on based on Mesoamerican folklore.
But that's like, that's that's years from now.
So yeah, that's what I got.
Yeah, I mean, we've got these cognitive access tools, which very soon you'll be able to…
We'll start by letting you just download the exact ones we playtested as we're revising stuff because we found that people kind of want it now.
Yeah.
And we want to honor that.
But we're going to keep developing those out having more and more offerings.
Even right now we're working on like a level seven version.
So expanding the spells, you know, more more options there.
I think in the future we will probably end up building some DM tools, but in the meantime, we're going to try to go to, you know, PAX East, PAX Unplugged.
May if I can find somebody out on the West Coast, maybe we'll have a little bit of a presence of PAX West, we'll see.
But also visiting other universities because those are helpful hubs for us to reach the community, disseminating what we already have, and then starting to actively listen to DMs about what they need so we can we can build that that bit of it up, and then we will have more actual play things coming out soon.
The one that we're holding is Tosca because we don't want everybody playtesting the one that they can go watch on that that was not.
Yeah, so I think those are the big things on the cognitive access tool front, but really continuing to build out the team and add more collaborations.
And then I'm really hoping… I really believe in in Jess over at DotsRPG that she can pretty much accomplish anything she puts her mind to.
So we're hoping to have some more training and support so that everybody can make progress when it comes to making their games more accessible.
Awesome.
All right, so we'll have all your contact information in our show notes, but where is the one best place that you'd like people to start to learn more about you or to contact you?
One best place.
One best place.
Maybe your favorite social media?
Yeah.
We're not…there are rules because we're at a university.
We're not on Tiktok.
But if you're on BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, you can follow us there.
Our website is going to be more of a hub as we're updating it with the downloads.
Our email is on there, and email, like we definitely get email.
So that's not one place.
This is the problem is we've been trying like trying to do multiples so we catch different communities that are more active in spots.
If you are really interested in what we're doing, we're starting our Discord.
We're just getting it going now.
So there's not a lot of people on there.
But if you reach out to us, we'd be happy to add you and have you be an early
Early Adopter.
Early adopter, and you can let us know as we're because we've got an adventure that we're going to give everybody on the Discord.
So it's already that link.
Oh, here we go.
I put it up there.
Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Everyone check out the links in the show notes.
Thanks so much for having us.
Yeah, thank you.
That was so fantastic.
I'm such a big fan of the work that they're doing.
I really hope that that we can work together on some projects in the future.
I'm just so excited about it.
And I really wish I could get to PAX.
If you happen to get to PAX and get to meet those folks, tell them you heard about them from Gaining Advantage, that you saw this interview, and tell them I say, "Hi."
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