Accessible Schlock

[davidgillon]

I was reading the rulebook for 'Planet Mercenary', the RPG for Howard Tayler's 'Schlock Mercenary' universe this afternoon and I was absolutely delighted to see the game master's section has a section on making your games accessible, covering everything from wheelchair access to players with social anxiety. It's even written within the game's metanarrative* that it's a game for actual inhabitants of the Schlock Mercenary universe. There's a couple of slight mis-steps where it's arguably patronizing, and a faux pas in the segue to handling problem players in the next segment, but this is generally really well thought out - for instance, using a differently sized rather than differently coloured die if one of a set needs to be distinct and a player has a visual impairment that would stop them seeing that, and watching player body language for signs players are being triggered or otherwise driven out of the game. And of course the major step forward is that it's there at all.

* Also within the metanarrative, a short story told in the form of editorial comments - wow!

Comments

[alatefeline]

Awesome!

[yhlee]

That's amazing, and I will have to add the game to my to-buy list, because this is the first time I've heard of a game that generally addresses accessibility beyond the occasional remarks on how to make games more comfortable for anxious players/newbies.

I was talking to an old friend about board games over Readercon and he says that a lot of board games are not playable with one of his friends who is very color-blind because the games aren't designed with that in mind. :]

[davidgillon]

It's just a couple of pages in the GM section, but having access stuff there at all is a major step. And yeah, designers do overlook colour blindness all too often. Planet Mercenary has a couple of mechanics that could easily be exclusionary: the dice rolling (3d6 vs target) needs one distinguishable die (the Mayhem die, if it's the highest rolled then you draw a Mayhem card for special effects); while there's a 'speak first, go first' mechanism that could seriously exclude people who aren't fast thinkers or socially adept. The advice specifically addresses both of those.

[yhlee]

Oh, the "speak first, go first" thing would definitely hose me. I'm the world's slowest thinker, so I usually end up not contributing much to RPGs because by the time I've thought of something, people have moved on.

[davidgillon]

It specifically addresses people like you and says that sometimes you need to override the rule and say X goes first this time, or arrange a shorthand so they can,say, tap the table to claim goes first and then take as long as needed to arrange their thoughts. Plus it explicitly states these people are just as smart as everyone else.

Really good.

[jesse_the_k]

That's truly rewarding to read.