General System Accessibility feedback

[humble herald]

As a player/GM with a Motor Function Disability-- one of the things that really disappoints me about the game is how Combat specifically isn't Accessible in an actual tabletop setting. It is doable-- but not easily.

Not without either investing into a grid map or using a dry erase grid for each encounter-- and as someone unable to draw a straight line even assisted, it's rough, yo'.

TTRPGs should really be for everyone, and my community tends to be really overlooked on topics of Accessibility/playability in conversions.

I really hope there's some attention to this in upcoming revisions!

[oblique ruin]

Solidarity ✊ . Though my disability is different to yours I'm fully behind trying to make these games more accessible to everyone, and I totally understand how playing Lancer at a tabletop would present issues for people with specific access needs.

As a quick caveat, as writers for the upcoming adventure modules there are a limited number of things that we can do to address existing issues with the system (and there are limits on what we can do for our own modules, as certain things are decided by Massif), but I for one am extremely open to ways that we can make improvements in the modules themselves. For example there's a larger-print version of the playtest material for SotW now available, and I really want to provide maps in a variety of formats. Do you have any specific suggestions that would help you access the game?

[humble herald]

Having a movement conversion or even alternative combat rules for table play would be amazing.

[limber plank]

I think those would be good but I do not know if the current modules releasing could handle doing something so extensive considering they are adventures first

It’s the type of stuff that would be nice down the line or for an eventual lancer 2e i think

[humble herald]

Even if they can't be edited into current modules, it'd be nice to offer as a free Eratta

Let interested players roll over to the Massif site to grab free tabletop rule conversions.

They can be universally applied to any already existing content.

(I'm a professional QA Tester in the game industry, so my brain fires super fast on triage/fixes!)

[exotic temple]

Could you expand on what you're thinking with regards to the movement conversion? I'm genuinely unsure what this would be/what this means and how it would help.

Also, with regards to alternate combat: maybe that's the point where something like Beam Saber or another alternative system could help? Beam Saber explicitly works off forged in the dark as it's basis and this as far as I know it's entirely theatre of mind

[humble herald]

I don't have brainpower right now. I am unfortunately terminally ill, so I apologize if some of this comes as Stream of Consciousness.

But there are several TTRPG systems that don't put an emphasis on movement distances. I can think of several using a percentile system right off the bat.

Lancer is my favorite TTRPG to date(I am running a fairly infamous Narrative-focused Wallflower for the OC Cantina), but what keeps me from pushing it to my in-person games is how much of a resource sink it becomes.

I can neither afford to buy new maps/accessories, or make my own. Which makes it very difficult to run. Even knocking off the ranges on some mechanics would make it much more parseable.

If I wanted to just play a war game, I have 40k, you know?

It's not a major issue if you're playing in a VTT, but when you consider some folks may want to physically introduce this game to others, you really need to think about Accessibility and the time/capital investment.

Folks will want minis, and functioning maps are a necessity.

[exotic temple]

Hmmmm. I'm pretty sure there's games out there that use a close/near/far/distant or similar descriptors, a zone style system. Again. Also, Beam Saber or other forged in the dark stuff could be a good point to look at, since I'd I'm understanding correctly it's Lancers setting that directly appeals, and the current combat mechanics are getting in the way for table top gaming.

[humble herald]

Yes, those are options. But I really shouldn't have to do that legwork myself. That's what Accessibility in Game Design is about.

It's about thinking about these issues and planning your system around it to maximize the amount of people that can enjoy your work.

Inclusivity in Gaming spaces means lessening the mental and physical load of marginalized groups such as Disabled Folks, and designing or implementing features that allows them to have a comparable experience.

Me having to take four-six hours to convert a whole combat system for Tabletop play is not ideal, or inclusive.

For an example from the video game industry:

When Ghost of Tsushima was released, there were Bamboo Cutting challenges required for several achievements and in-game rewards. These were impossible for many disabled users to complete because of the complexity of controls.

Instead of referring players to another game, or being like "tough cookies": the Devs went in and created an in-depth Accessibility panel that was customizable depending on the Player's needs-- thus allowing ALL players have the ability to get 100% completion on the game's many tasks and achievements.

There is so much talent in this community, I couldn't imagine it would be a huge endeavor to have a meeting of minds on alternative combat rules for Physical Tabletop players.

[sacred plover]

I will also agree as someone with motor skill deficiencies that the idea of taking Lancer to a physical table is pretty spooky. It's a bone I have to pick with a lot of tabletop games.

Lots of fiddly stuff over big spaces that can get knocked over or misplaced because brain doesn't register where arm is

[humble herald]

And just trying to manage a possible large-scale grid map is absolutely a size/space concern too.

I'm a wheelchair user, I need clearance.

[simple nacelle]

Lancer's combat system is based around the use of a map, trying to redesign it to not use one would mean entirely reworking a lot of it making it not much smaller an endeavour than building an entire new game

[sacred plover]

I do agree that there's a bit of an accessibility problem because it shares so much DNA with tabletop games that share those same issues. I've certainly given the idea some thought but I've not had many ideas on how to fix it presently

[humble herald]

The way Tom knocks out Wargames and rule sets, I am certain that there is a middle ground to be found.

Because the narrative end of the game doesn't have to change at all. Neither do many of the combat mechanics. It's just the grid that needs to be tweaked.

[sacred plover]

Pulling back on the fiddlyness of the wargame aspects and making it easier to assemble/parse without invalidating its indended design is a challenge to say the least

[stray basin]

I do suspect that it is not possible to simply remove and replace the grid while keeping other mechanics intact which were all also written assuming that you are playing on a grid, while it's not necessarily the answer you want to hear I think the solution you are proposing essentially is to create a new game and call it an alternate Lancer ruleset
at which point it maybe is reasonably easier just to play an already-written other system but in Lancer's setting

[sacred plover]

You could probably take it gridless but that still requires making a physical map

[stray basin]

(except it is more difficult than creating a new game because it has to conform to a skeleton of mechanics created originally for a game played on a grid)

[sacred plover]

But I don't think that improves the little pieces in a big set issue

[fallen garnet]

Nearly every single system, weapon, etc in the has a Range on it which by extension means they are all fundamentally attached to the grid as it is. I think you're severely underestimating how much work this would be.

[sacred plover]

Thinking about how to improve the accessibility of gameplay has been a thing I've been entertaining thoughts of but I have zero idea how to meaningfully do it.

[sacred plover]

I understand and that's why it's not left the realm of hypotheticals for me. The idea requires more than I can give it right now.

[stray basin]

ICON does actually play in this space, and has a ruleset which does not engage in grid combat
however it does that by dropping all of the tactical character customisation, there aren't alternate rules for "how does my range 4 blast 2 attack which creates a line work with no grid?", it abstracts all of combat down to more simple narrative rolls

if what you want is some kind of conflict resolution system which does not engage with all of Lancer's mech building systems that may be more achievable

[humble herald]

I'm very good at adapting TTRPGs from one system to another; but not something I enjoy or should have to do all the time, you know?

I'm dying. I just wanna share and play good games with my pals. ;_; not agonize for three days how to make something work at a physical table

[exotic temple]

At that point it feels like you'd be better looking at how you can solve the accessibility issues in other ways - tablets and laptops to bring the vtt to the table, or similar. Which has its own challenges, both financially and physically, but also seems infinitely more practical than the scale of work rebuilding Lancers ruleset would require. Dunno - that's how I'd handle my accessibility issues for running it on a tabletopm but my disabilities are not your disabilities.

I love game design, and don't think think it would be an undoable project - I can already see some ideas (abstracting out range to a engaged/near/far/distant, abstracting movement likewise, etc) but it would be an immense amount of work and the end result is not going to be Lancer as people know it at all. For good and ill.

[median pelican]

The way Tom knocks out Wargames and rule sets
I can't speak for the guy, but something doesn't sit well with me about the insinuation that this stuff is trivial for Tom to hash out. Like it's all fun and games to joke about him posting an Icon update sooner than he said he would, or how he managed to crunch to release Maleghast for Halloween, but it's not just something he can do on command.

[rare cedar]

can attest to laptops being a good route, it’s what my group do, but yes as mentioned one can’t necessarily assume everyone has the access to do so

but i also feel like the prominency of available resources on pilotnet and stuff with available modules (OSR in particular) makes it a lot more manageable on a workload side of thinfs

[median pelican]

(also relevant is that Role asked Massif to make a version of Lancer that was able to be played on their then-gridless VTT, and they determined they weren't able to do that and made Battlegroup instead)

[rare cedar]

also, for reference, i run a game in which there are 6 of us, of which only four have laptops - sharing resources can help things a lot but i suppose that goes without saying

^one person will have two characters up on comp/con as well as the battlemap

[exotic temple]

Accessibility is a very good goal, And I agree it's something that gets lost too often, but there's a huge difference in scale between the cited video game example and massif which is... One guy? I genuinely don't know many people massif is directly right now.

Like a first party product that's a ground up reworking of Lancers combat to make it accessible on the table and purely theatre of mind is a cool project, and a worthy one, but it's not a simple undertaking at all.

At a guess you're talking about a year+ employment for a dedicated game designer, + all the other stuff required to convert that work into an actual, publishable product. (Numbers pulled out of my arse)

Which is a big jump over what current first party products are doing.

[surreal vortex]

Massif is currently half a guy in Tom yeah

[humble herald]

It's not that? It's that he has written several micro Wargame/TTRPG systems very rapidly. With that much experience and expertise, it's unfair to say something is "impossible to do". It just takes some thought, time, and experience.

It's not my wheelhouse, and I absolutely recognize the work that goes into it. But people have used the excuse that "Accessibility is impossible" to just avoid having to work features because it takes a more critical path than standard development.

We have our first video games accessible to the Blind, because someone cared enough to go "I bet we can".

[lime kettle]

i dont think anyone here is saying that accessibility is impossible, just that the proposed changes are wider in scope than what massif can handle currently

[snow crow]

I feel like you're arguing past the point there. Yes, he [tom] has written - or hired and collaborated with people to do so - systems reasonably quickly, but that does not in any way make the adjustments you ask for smaller ones.

The painting of "people have used the excuse that..." is not applicable imo, because tom has not, and the comparison is unkind to try.

[stray basin]

What you are asking for would, I believe, be significantly more difficult for Tom than making a new game from scratch
Building an alternate rule set inside an existing one which plays with all of the pieces of the other while recontextualising them into a different format is significantly more complicated than starting from a blank slate where you can make a new thing with no preexisting requirements

[median pelican]

(I wanna point out that Maleghast is the exception, not the rule. Icon and Lancer both have had several years-long development periods, with Icon's still not being finished)

[exotic temple]

Also if you're doing a project for accessibility reasons, then there's the scope to consider - what parts are you trying to make accessible, and how to you ensure it meets these peoples needs? Not a small undertaking in the least. Blind players, deaf players etc. I don't think you can just pick and choose here

I wouldn't know where to start - the accessibility issues my disabilities present aren't really something the game's rule set can fix for me (being mental health and physical fatigue related).

To be clear, I think its a good idea, but the scale of the project is huge, and it's very apple to oranges compared to the cited video game example

[humble herald]

This is the issue that comes up when Accessibility is mentioned at all, and the scope becomes an excuse to do nothing.

It's very easy(and true!) to say it's a large undertaking. But that's been rehashed a million times over when someone asks about this topic.

Instead of the more immediately helpful approach from a technical standpoint:

• what keeps this from being Accessible to our physical players?

• what suggestions do we have to make this more palatable/Accessibility to people that may struggle with this aspect of play?

If that ends up being writing a separate set of rules as an Errata to the current system players can download a PDF addendum for, that's better than just abandoning the concept.

Accessibility options will never be perfect, but we should always try.

[median pelican]

Well the point being argued here is that errata would be insufficient to address the need: "An accessible version of Lancer." If it were just errata, and not a separate version of the game, then either it would be insufficient for the disabled players' needs, or else severely compromise Lancer's fun in a way that wouldn't be fair to those same players who wanted that Lancer experience.

[snow crow]

I feel like the talky sin is happening. Lots of idea. Idea sounds nice in theory, if other people do a lot of ill-defined work.

What specifically are you suggesting here. Specifics.

[lilac flare]

I think one extremely important question to think about when changing something is "How much damage does it do to the original?"
If you have to destroy a game to allow someone to play it, they are just playing a worse version of what everyone else is anyways.
I Certainly wouldn't want to play or force someone to make that.
And i don't believe every single problem has that nice solution that doesn't do this.
It's all contextual, and thus sometimes impossible.

[snow crow]

Not lets have a conversation, what specific and actionable thing can you right now propose that people could have an effect via

[stray basin]

Can I ask what issues it actually is you are asking to be addressed also? There seems to be a bit of vagueness on the topic.
The OP mostly seems to be about the time it takes to create maps, but at least one of (I think both?) of the modules this is posted as feedback for come with maps you can print?

[median pelican]

And this is not to say that what you're asking for is "impossible", but rather that you're misaligning the demand with the exertion required, and exertion is a factor for whether or not something gets made, even if it's not literally impossible

[lilac flare]

It's good to think practically about it though, people are too quick to jump to scope and say no.

even if it is right much of the time

it is still a thought that needs critiquing IMO

[limber plank]

So, I wanna chime in a bit again, but I think the main thing that needs to be understood is that Lancer, as a system, is not even getting errata for sure at this point, which i know sucks to hear but we that's the extent we know of it, and rebuilding the system from the ground up to not use tactical is out of the scope of the modules CURRENTLY being written because they are adventures, first and foremost.
There is absolutely steps that can be taken within those modules to help with accessibility, this could be with cheat sheets, different colors for texts or alternate visibility versions for battle-maps, to cite examples.
And i think that's possible and within the scope of what's being done, i'm ultimately not Tom but I know i've made suggestions for Winter Scar that will not be making it in simply because there is only so much that can be put within those modules.

is it possible to make a version of Lancer that doesn't use a tactical combat grid ? I don't doubt it is, and while I understand that it sucks to hear, there's only so much that can be done with the current batch of stuff that's coming out, and it is not as simple as simply releasing a free pdf for it, that's already something that isn't being done for errata currently (we don't know if it is still in the works at all) so I don't know if it would be happening for this

[sacred plover]

It's a complicated task and the team doesn't seem to have the bandwidth for on account of there not being a lot of them.

(this is not condemnation)

Making resources to try and take the cognitive load off of players (and myself ) is an objective for me introducing people to the game through OSR though so I'll have some things to release on that. The core book does have a couple great quick reference/cheat sheet pages already thankfully

Breaking this problem down though, it seems like the issues may be

1. tracking complexity (there's a lot going on)

2. tactile requirements (fiddly bits that need to be manipulated)

3. physical space management (turns out a >30x30 hex grid is big and can be expensive to make)

1 can be resolved through a kit of resources which I planned on making anyways after getting a few more games under my belt, and can be useful in paper and VTT settings. Also, I think compcon does a great job at handing a lot of this already, but it doesn't keep track of everything

2 is more of a physical tabletop exclusive issue, I think? Can't knock over pieces on a VTT and maps just need assets instead of physical materials. Kinda just an issue inherent to TTGs and I don't know how to solve this easily.

3 is where the rules and mechanics of the game could start to beak down, and that's where the maddening design work begins

[half bridge]

We could convert to a battlegroup style system I guess.

5 range bands and that's it.

You'd need to rework a lot.

[sacred plover]

Exactly.

Trying to bring Lancer to a fully dimensionless and gridless environment is a massive lift that would require a lot of testing and balancing.

[stray basin]

Yes as previously noted Battlegroup first came into being because gridless Lancer was considered to be enough work to simply be a new game

[sacred plover]

Yeah

[cursive rock]

I'm going to weigh in here to provide some context as one of the primary leads on Battlegroup, as I feel it may be valuable

Battlegroup took a year of fairly intensive and taxing work, including a schedule of revisions and playtesting that was not mandated but self-imposed, and which in retrospect was not what a lot of people would probably consider a healthy pace

The ultimate product of which is a game that is fundamentally not anything even remotely compatible with Lancer or how Lancer works, and is about half the pagelength of the Lancer core rulebook alone, not even counting later supplementary material

And I had a leg up by getting to start from a set of sketched outlines and notes that Miguel had been mulling over in his free time

If you had sat me down with a blank page and told me to invent Battlegroup from scratch, at best it would probably have taken even longer, and at worst I'm not sure I would have been able to do so

[sacred plover]

Yeah. We're I to try and make anything like "unitless Lancer" I'd basically be billing it as a whole-ass other game with a red flag of "play at your own risk" and "not official in any capacity"

Playable? Arguably. Balanced? Nonzero chance but good luck.

[cursive rock]

And it's also worth noting that with Battlegroup, I had the advantage of being able to, essentially, invent everything myself without having to compare it to a second game. I got to decide how this or that ship or weapon worked purely within the context of a system I was making to fit that game rather than having to make a game which had to be representative of another, second game

Making hacks and total conversions of games is a thing people do, but doing it beyond a quick and casual throwaway sort of thing is a lot of work that can be on par with essentially designing an entirely new game, it is not something I would put in the same basket as something like errata

[sacred plover]

I just gave a passing thought to how to port proximity based things like berserker and immediately had to take an antacid.

[cursive rock]

And I think it's pretty important to note the difference in context between a tabletop RPG publisher owned by one person as a side-gig and a handful of irregular freelancers and a 26-year veteran video game studio designing and producing a AAA flagship video game for the Sony corporation

I get that the state of accessibility is often pretty bad and that a lot of excuses get used to dismiss these concerns including things like "but it would be too much work," but that doesn't mean the work needed to do this sort of thing doesn't exist

[half bridge]

There is perhaps an infinite revolution style solution? X bands, but enemies are also placed on the gyre.

It's still a lot of work yeah.

[cursive rock]

To my knowledge there are several active Lancer hacks or alternate rules projects out there already, I'm aware of Lancers in the Dark and Mechs in Motion, though I don't know a lot of the specific details about how these play in practice or if they'd address any accessibility concerns in particular

[half bridge]

And besides, even if I did the quick and dirty hack that's not what's being asked for.

Lancers in the dark might bypass everything, I'm not familiar.

[sacred plover]

I hope I didn't come across as dismissive of either side of this btw. I design things people use to get places instead of games so I have a limited understanding (especially wrt accessibility) of the process and the hurdles to giving people what they want, even if you agree with them.

[surreal vortex]

I do also want to shout projects like The Nexus Amendment, which converts the system Eclipse Phase (which is absolutely playable in theater of the mind) into the Lancer setting

[sacred plover]

If I had a dollar for the amount of times someone told me that a design was inaccessible and I was aware but couldn't fix it, I'd have a lot of dollars but still not enough resources to fix it.

[cursive rock]

Yeah this would be a big concern I would have, which is that if this is intended to be an accessibility aid then the last thing you want would be for it to be something tossed off the cuff

But doing it properly is not something that you bang out as casually as a game about goblins with fat asses

[half bridge]

I mean also, as far as I could tell reading earlier. The person making the request is not asking for a fan-made hack but something at least semi-official with the massif stamp.

[humble herald]

Me personally having to convert a whole combat system for Tabletop play is not ideal, or inclusive. And it's hard to get people to understand that.

Accessibility, especially of this variety, is far too often forgotten about until the last moment.

[heady sigil]

Just dropping my two cents in that, I don't think OP is saying the solution has to be now, has to be perfect, and is easy. I think that this is a highlightable way to start the conversation, to get creators thinking about the content they're making with accessibility in mind, and pitching a prospective idea of a community or authorially driven accessibility ruleset.

I don't think these ideas are at all out of reach or out of pocket.

[humble herald]

Exactly. I know this isn't a fast fix, but also isn't an impossible ask.

There is absolutely a way to find some commonality to make this Accessible to most players outside of a VTT scenario.

[normal sand]

As a homebrew creator, GM, and player, Lancer without ranges or otherwise grid-based combat is nigh-impossible to execute. You would have to have, at minimum, categories for Engaged, Point Blank (Range 2, for House Guard and White Witch), Close Range (3, for Monarch's Avenger Silos and similar), Short Range (5), Medium Range (10), Long Range (15), and Extreme Range (20). That's without accounting for Speed, Cone weapons, Blasts above Blast 2 (Blast 1 and 2 can be represented hackily with this measure), any intermediate weapons ranges (such as Range 8, which comes up a surprising amount), et cetera.

While I am sympathetic to the cause of accessibility, I've played a whole lot of 40k - as you have as well. 40k has a basic accessibility floor as embodied in needing at minimum terrain, miniatures that can accurately represent True Line of Sight, and a table large enough to provide meaningful room to tactically engage (all things Lancer also requires) - but 40k fans over the decades have made immense strides in accessibility on these fronts by simple ingenuity. "Poorhammer" terrain, whether it's prettying up shoeboxes or printing out paper stock; printing out images of or drawing units and tacking them upright to avoid miniatures; playing on the floor when you just don't have a table big enough. I should know, because that's how I had to play for awhile.

In a similar way, there are minimal considerations for Lancer as a system to function that can't be removed - an accessibility floor. One of those, to at least some extent, is gridded combat. I know Tom's been musing on Lancer 2e being far closer to ICON than 1e, and at that point these considerations may change - as others have brought up in reference to how ICON handles its combat.

When it comes to other accessibility changes, similarly to community efforts made by 40k community members and creators, we can absolutely contribute to lowering that accessibility floor. Playing Lancer at an IRL table involves vast amounts of setup work, and cutting down on that provides means to help Disabled or heavily-working members of the Lancer community who want to be able to share this game with their friends around a non-virtual table.
Steps that can be taken for this I've considered over the course of the morning have been:

• Printable versions of the maps that come with official modules, including instructions for how to scale the hexes to various real-life table size equivalents depending on available room.
• Printable versions of the mech art released in official material with instructions for how to use them as stand-up paper tokens.
• Community efforts to create a library of standard terrain and NPC tokens in the same manner, as no Massif art exists for e.g. a Seeder NPC.
• A printable token pack for statuses and conditions on one's mech so they can be seen at a glance, similar to Interpoint's token icon pack for Roll20.

Between these and using Comp/Con for dice rolling and character sheet tracking, these seem like steps that can be done in the current environment to significantly decrease overhead and time/financial investment for people seeking to play Lancer IRL, and it would be good to see something of the sort being done.

In the end: IRL Lancer play is a smaller community than those who play using VTTs, due to a variety of factors. Those that do play it are often deeply into 40k-adjacent hobbies and thus already have wide tables, terrain, access to 3D printers for minis and such, so on.
Helping to narrow that gap seems like a way to create some degree of accessibility within the capabilities of module creators and the Lancer community.

[oblique ruin]

Just to be clear "IRL Lancer play is nearly nonexistent as a play method" is not remotely true and I know of a number of groups (including my own home group) who play regularly in person. There are also regular requests for STL files for printing Lancer minis and I have been asked many times for recommendations on getting hex grids to play on IRL. I don't know what basis you could have to state that playing IRL is "nearly nonexistent" other than pure guesswork.

[cursive rock]

To that I'll add that I've seen, in the years since its release, commentary to the effect that Lancer was clearly made with digital play in mind by people pointing to comp/con and how you "can't run lancer without it," but it was never conceived as a digital-foremost game and comp/con being a thing was a product of happy coincidence and a surplus of kickstarter funding

[normal sand]

Perhaps it would've been better to state "in comparison to virtual play" or as another relative comparison, then. I've edited the original post to reflect a hopefully more accurate sentiment.

But yes, I don't think that Lancer is digital-first, digital tools and VTTs just make it significantly easier.

I'm coming at this, generally, from the perspective of someone who absolutely couldn't GM an IRL game due to the overhead - I don't have the available resources to print minis for my NPC compositions, some of my maps are impossible to easily make unless you're a big fan of Zone Mortalis terrain (or are just playing terrain-less, which is a whole different thing that Lancer does actually allow for so long as the heights of objects are clearly represented on the hex map), so on. There are concerns for accessibility and ability to play Lancer IRL that can be remediated without rewriting the system's rules, and that's what I had hoped to draw attention to.

[rare cedar]

just real quick -- by IRL game, do you mean particularly using as few digital assets as possible?

cause as i've said there's the matter of "you can meet up with your gang if you have laptops and wifi and space to set 'em up" which is what i've done with ttrpgs my whole time playing them

(which, again, begets a much wider digital divide debate that isn't what we're going on here - i just wanted to see if there's something here i'm missing)

[normal sand]

Yeah, I'm talking playing Lancer completely without a VTT.

[rare cedar]

sweet, m'kay

[oblique ruin]

I do not think any of these suggestions actually solve any of the mechanical accessibility issues being raised here, which are centred around the difficulties of manipulating tokens on a game map with any degree of repetition and precision over the length of a game session. To be clear I am not disputing that they may be nice to have (or indeed that they will solve other accessibility issues) but I want to focus on the specific issue that's been raised. Never mind, I have misread and am focusing on the wrong problem.

[heady sigil]

I don't know if this is a productive idea, but i wonder if something like Battlegroup's combat might work for a Lancer adjustment in the interest of accessibility. Of course the question of how much to preserve in terms of raw statistics vs what to abridge is a design question.

[young helm]

This is a sidestep from that, but for that specific issue I do think there’s something to be said for honestly just asking for assistance from friends for physical manipulation

be that in the map-making or actual running of the game

[normal sand]

Apologies if there were any clarifications on that later in the thread; I was going off of the original post talking about difficulties in map-making.

[stray basin]

Something that has confused me a little with this thread in general is the initial post largely being concerned with the creation of maps and difficulty physically drawing them on a dry-erase board, something which seems like should not be as much of a problem when pre-drawn maps are provided so long as they are in a printer-friendly format?

It is possible that the reason these responses seem disappointing from a perspective of people focusing on what is actionable is because where it has been posted is a forum specific to feedback on two currently-in-testing adventure modules, not about Lancer in general. The people who this feedback are directed to are (as far as I'm aware though feel free to correct me) contractors for Massif Press with no oversight on what future development is, tasked with making adventure modules and not with making Lancer errata, and so have no power to choose where future development resources are placed

This is why a lot of the focus in responses has been about how to use existing resources
I'm not sure if it was clear to you making the topic that I think Tom (as representative of someone who actually decides what Lancer is going forwards) is actually somewhat unlikely to read this, so feedback focused on "how do I make my adventure module more accessible" is being given instead of "how do I make Lancer the game system easier to play physically in general by making sweeping changes to the game rules"

[normal sand]

I did allude briefly to how one might be able to abstract certain ranges into a Battlegroup Gyre-like format at the start of my post, but suffice it to say that things end up rather clunky rather quickly. I'm sure I could hash something out if I had a few months and a playtest group, but then another question that gets raised is "how faithful is this to the core Lancer experience?" and that's something else entirely.

[young helm]

I do think that making a new ruleset to obviate the need for grid maps/tokens/etc while keeping as much of the extant lancer interactions and systems and stuff would be a pretty gargantuan task, and what comes out of the other side could be fun and workable but would be really fundamentally different yeah

there are plenty of neat battle-egg style games or other solutions, but they’re Different, so I guess there’s an open question to at what point you draw a line between a more accessible ruleset for the same game vs just a wholly different game with some of the same paint (which, nothing wrong with that, but it’s a question of what you want out of the project)

[oblique ruin]

Actually I think you are correct and Bree has focused mostly on map-making, but they also mentioned physical accessibility at the table which in my experience is usually a larger barrier in practice (since getting a dry erase mat or some sheets of gridded paper isn't notably difficult or expensive, just requires more of a time investment to set up in advance of a session). So perhaps I am focusing on the wrong problem, coloured by my personal experiences.

The thing that springs to mind as a thing that would be both helpful and within the scope of things I can reasonably achieve is to ensure that there are blocked-out versions of the module maps in addition to ones with artwork, as those are easier to transfer to whatever map solution you're using if you're not just printing them

[void stream]

From what I undrestood, the map making was the biggest problem due to hand tremors making drawing out a grid map incredibly difficult, especially on the large scales Lancer combat ends up requiring due to the ranges on certain mechanics?

[young helm]

I think someone already said it but some print-optimized versions could be useful for that yeah

[normal sand]

Yep, that's why my proposed solutions focused on what they did.

(as well as other commentary I've heard more broadly about spoon allocations for Lancer prepwork, etc.)

[stray basin]

it's likely that you will not fit a lancer map on one sheet of a4 paper so there's certainly going to be some work that can be put in there to ensure that they're easier to prepare that way

[humble herald]

That's also a thing, but less the issue here.

I don't have access to a printer, and Duval had the neat idea of Legos-- but it still runs into the financial sink and hand palsy issues.

[normal sand]

Vis-a-vis the financial sink aspect, that's why I also suggested paper tokens for Massif mech art, statuses, etc that could be included - and a community resource guide on doing the same for community tokens, such as (wf spoilers, since you mentioned wf) ||the HUC and the Machine|| tokens that already exist.

I'm afraid that I've no solutions I can think of for how to address the difficulties engendered by hand palsy, especially as someone without that lived experience.

[normal sand]

(actually, edit to this: I thought you meant a 3D printer - if you don't have access to a printer whatsoever, that's certainly problematic for these approaches.)

[oblique ruin]

On consideration I think I want to reiterate what Jacquerel mentions above, which is that what this feedback forum is intended for right now is feedback to Kai and myself about the modules that we're developing. I say this not to shut down the extremely valuable accessibility discussion, but to contextualise why some of the responses in this thread are what they are.

In particular, after thinking about this for a while, it seems to me that Bree is completely correct to point to an overhaul of the combat system as the most effective way to make the game accessible to them, specifically given the issues with other potential approaches that have been suggested. Ash's ideas are also extremely helpful, and would be excellent for improving broader accessibility for Lancer as a whole. Unfortunately it's unclear whether these are things Kai and I can meaningfully achieve with the resources at our disposal.

For clarity, right now I am contracted to write a single adventure module - and with the exception of the person making the maps and some very generous GMs/players who are volunteering their time to run playtests of the module, I am working by myself. I don't have a team, and there aren't other folks at Massif helping me beyond Tom providing feedback on drafts. Preparing playtest material, writing LCPs, monitoring and responding to feedback, etc. are all things I have to do alongside what amounts to writing a book - that itself has to conform to certain guidelines and expectations that are outside of my control. It's important in terms of managing expectations to clarify that I entirely lack the resources and the authority to make some of these suggested changes, even though I agree that they could help improve the game and make it more accessible for everyone.

If I come across as frustrated in this I apologise; I want to emphasise that I care about accessibility a lot, both personally and professionally, and clarify the circumstances we're working with.

[normal sand]

I appreciate that perspective, and wish to emphasize that my own post (though I cannot speak for any others) was intended to discuss the issue of accessibility for non-VTT Lancer more broadly and clarify why an overhauled combat system would be difficult, rather than to suggest a specific course of action for you and Kai specifically as module creators.

[humble herald]

It is very much easier to design a system with Accessibility brewed into it, than adding it later. Which is a problem not unique to this game--but a lot of tabletops. But many of them have a ruleset or tool that can be utilized to compensate.

I don't expect you, or any single person to do this, or find a magical solution. That's why one of my first comments was: we have a lot of awesome people here together, surely there is some way to workshop something.
I'm a professional game tester with a special focus IN Accessibility. I am down to test whatever. I just don't have the spoons to write rules/make massive conversions.

But I will say: some of the responses here hurt me as a person, and other Disabled Folks that came in here to get peek. We are constantly told the smallest adjustments are too much, that if we want Accessibility to find another game. Which is very jarring, given the nature of the community.

Because it IS valid feedback.

[limber plank]

In the interest of avoiding further circling around this topic (I think the feedback you wanted to convey was conveyed) and causing more hurt then i'm gonna take the decision to lock this thread, this just makes it so people can't reply, it is still visible and this is not getting erased, i'd also encourage you to send a mail to Tom with this feedback as well.

[oblique ruin]

I guess maybe I am taking this too personally; I agree with you one hundred percent. I'm a disabled woman who even back when I was able-bodied actively advocated for accessibility improvements. I've seen first hand how accessibility requests get sidelined, underresourced, or even straight up mocked. I know the hidden costs of disability, and how frustrating it is to run up against a world that won't make reasonable accommodations and adjustments. Everything you are saying is perfectly valid and I don't consider it unreasonable for you to make these requests.

I guess I just really want to communicate this alongside an assurance that the folks here who are talking about how practical it is to make some of these changes, aren't just being discriminatory assholes when they point out that those adjustments are extremely difficult to make and are nearly impossible to achieve within the scope of the modules we're working on right now.

Sorry Eld, poor timing there