The background for my slides, generated from Midjourney with the seed phrase a d20 fantasy gaming die is sitting on a wooden table among leather books, photorealistic, depth of field, close-up, 3D render ‐‐ar 16:9.
Assorted links I presented in the talk:
DOTS RPG Project for Braille dice downloads or ordering printed versions.
Hero Forge for 3D printed/printable minis or avatars that allow for greater representation.
Here it is, friends. A massive compilation of resources, documents, tools, and more addressing accessibility in tabletop gaming, streaming, and life. I'm incredibly proud to share my Accessibility in Gaming Resource. docs.google.com/document/d/1ZF… (1/)
THE COMBAT WHEELCHAIR v3.0.1 is here! Errata has been made to clarify and streamline rules both core and for the 14 subclasses (including a whole new class with 4 subclasses & @matthewmercer's blood hunter). Everything else remains & still 100% FREE #dnddrive.google.com/drive/folders/1K… pic.twitter.com/Fm12bI8M7x
Video
Videos used in the talk follow. I made no effort to compress these as I wanted them just for the presentation. I opted to drop them here anyway though.
Slide 24
Sadly, D&D Beyond is useless for keyboard-only users, and nearly useless for screen reader users. Where tables might make sense, only one is used. Headings are used in places I would not expect. Links don’t make sense in their use. Just trying to understand the structure of the page is difficult.
Slide 29
D&D Beyond is not perfect. It has barriers, but also provides useful features to bring others into the game. The integration with your virtual table-top, or VTT, is a feature. You can roll skills from the character sheet, attacks and damage, or anything else where a die roll is required. It will automagically carry over to the VTT.
Slide 34
Unfortunately, VTTs do not work well with keyboard alone. And definitely not with screen readers. This is not an accessibility audit. This video is Foundry Version 10 Build 286, or the latest release. It is full of unlabeled controls, no focus styles, interesting choices for headings, and so on. As soon as I launch the page and try tabbing, at least I end up on the text box that allows me to drop a message into the chat area. It is the same box as used for rolling a die. When I do something there is no announcement. If I try to navigate by element type in order to get some idea of the structure of the page, what the headings are, what the regions are, how the controls are named, I don’t get a lot that is useful. At least I can find my way to the dice buttons and then roll the one I want. But then I need to navigate by headings to get to the outcome of my roll, hoping no others are rolling at the same time. I want to be clear that the Roll 20 VTT has similar problems. They are both nearly impossible to use without a mouse.
Tweets
Yeah, just the one that wasn’t mine.
Next, @aardrian shows how using virtual tabletop tools like D&D Beyond can overcome many accessibility barriers in tabletop roleplaying games, like automating calculations or reminding players of their options, and allowing zooming the interface for legibility. #a11yTOGamingpic.twitter.com/3Va9I1rZMM
Seriously, for REAL. I kept saying I was fine with remote presentations but there is nothing that will ever be close to being able to BREATHE, and flow, and respond with a live audience… especially one that allows you to kick WCAG… and then kick it while it’s down 😋😘
Thanks to Aderyn specifically for being the friendly face in the crowd. I was full-on panicking before I got up there, then tech issues happened.
Aderyn knew and was smiling back at me as I powered through.
Having an audience ally is a FSM-send.
Live D&D
Devon Persing DM’d a brief session with Steve Saylor, Shell Little, Sarah Higley, and I. My assigned character was a tabaxi wizard I named Dandy Copperfur. As far as I know, there are no photos. Except this one where I showed off the DM screen I brought.
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