#Creating Accessible and Inclusive Games

35 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

lone owl
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Hear me out!
I know we know that this game is played in person and it's not always played online the same way for things like:

*vote history
*the way whispers take place
*tangible tokens/grim
*cost of the game
*getting a room that is also accessible

There are people who enjoy the game online over playing in person for the following reasons:

*social anxiety
*body dysmorphia
*affordability
*control of how much stimulation
*proximity
*disabilities (limb difference, low dexterity, vision loss, low motor control, intellectual, psychological)

When we think about providing a community of belonging, shaming people for asking for vote history is NOT inclusive.
It is your choice not to provide it as an ST.

People who prefer to play online may have vision loss, PTSD, attention deficit and/or audio processing disorders, amnesia/concussion, and/or intellectual disabilities. People ask for vote history so they can participate fully. They do not want their disability to provide misinformation or impact their game play.

By shaming people who ask for it, we are saying we do not want them our games, or we want them to disclose why/ still deny them or use it to justify inclusion, which sometimes causes further alienation/isolation/shame/feelings of inadequacy.

Sometimes we go into empty rooms during night phase when night talk is overwhelming. In an in-person game you couldn't just leave the room, at best you could just wear headphones.

We do not force people to go on camera to play and/or force them to use their own names.

I understand there are scripts where flower girl and town crier need to track voting. When organ grinder is on no one has access so this does not apply. Taking pauses so people can count votes before moving on can help but there people whose vision loss may require longer pauses.

People play as text-only when they are situationally impaired and we do not berate them.

I am just asking for some empathy and some effort towards accessibility.

coral crow
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Quick question for those more informed than I, is Fibbin allowed in queue games? I can't find anything about it in live game announcements. Fibbin is what longtexters use to make Snv more balanced, and we could use it in queue games so that we could play Snv with vote history turned on so those with vision loss etc aren't excluded, without making it even more unbalanced.

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Also, shaming people for asking for something normal like vote history is not on. It's easy to not be a dick, but people on this server repeatedly fail.

modern thunder
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#live-game-announcements message

coral crow
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Yeah people can use {} or the pronoun field on the grim for something like "Sight, vote history on" (idk would that fit though). Of course, that does still have issues such as STs not seeing it, or wanting to run without vote history anyways, and there are a lot of reasons an ST might want vote history off. That's why I asked about fibbin, because I would be hesitant to run vote history on Snv without it.

coral crow
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Wait this is now linking to a different post. It says that fableds that aren't related to accessibility have to be labelled when polling. Does that mean I can poll for Snv + fibbin while STing queue games?

lone owl
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@coral crow actually there's Revolutionary fabled which was designed like this in terms of support person but the whole point of accessibility is to have independent games. Requiring a support person vs enabling a feature so someone doesn't have to depend on someone else to take notes for vote history contributes to someone feeling autonomous and not a burden or dependent on someone else for game play.

coral crow
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Revolutionary is another option I didn't think of, but I agree with you on the issues with it

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Personally, I will try Snv + fibbin so I can have vote history on in all my games so people don't have to ask for it, but I understand this isn't a solution for all STs.

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I am curious whether other people have other solutions. Maybe dming the vote history every night to the person with e.g. vision impairment? People could abuse and make jokes out of this, but we would have to treat that like we treat e.g. people using the pronoun space to be a dick

lone owl
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well if they are using a screen reader an image is not helpful because a screen reader can only read and interpret code and text so if someone has an image they have to provide something called alt text which is code that tells the person what the image says and they also have to write the alt text

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it is better to copy pasta the vote history

coral crow
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Good point. I think in a case like that, manually typing out who nominated who, and who voted might be best, as when I ran a test by running a vote and copy and pasting the text into a reader, it was hard to interpret

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(reading that back it reads a bit patronising, I hope you know that was not my intention at all, I think this is a very useful discussion ❤️)

scarlet hound
torn dust
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As opposed to Flower Girl/Town Crier going by memory like for in-person games

scarlet hound
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longtext doesn't use fibbin because they have vote history, they use fibbin because they have infinite time to parse through every world imaginable and rule out all of them one by one

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using fibbin in live games would just cause more issues esp for people who already have a tough time keeping track of everything

coral crow
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I brought up fibbin as a solution to problems with having vote history on in e.g. SNV, but through conversation have realised that the best solution in a game with e.g. a person with vision impairment would be just DMing them the vote history for each day. I will not be bringing up fibbin again because I agree it is no longer relevant to discussion

subtle kelp
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Okay so

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Is the suggestion to leave vote history on for everyone?

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I think this is definitely interesting and I appreciate the thought that went into accessibility

torn dust
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The idea behind not including vote history is because irl doesn’t have vote history.

However, if I’m not mistaken, irl has people raising their hands above their heads, and the ST counts votes out loud as they take them and reiterates at the end. In contrast, you have red color on flat surface with the ST saying the number at the end of the voting round and clicking off.

Feel free to correct me if the comparison isn’t correct.

gilded geyser
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Vote history off STs should ideally pause a few secs after vote is made for people to remember

lone owl
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Usually voting in person is counted out loud but a person with vision impalement wouldn't know unless the st says I have votes from x person , y person, z person

charred fern
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The official app removes the ability to have vote history visible entirely. Bra1n has explained why a few times, and it’s not just because irl doesn’t have it. It’s because you should be able to bluff that you didn’t vote when you did (and vice versa). People can call you out on trying to lie about that because they remember or wrote down the votes, but they shouldn’t be able to prove it with an infallible log that everyone has access to.

polar fjord
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Caring about vote history on or off (as in they hold any opinion on it either way) is whack. Just do what's best for your players. Often that is turning it off, sometimes it's leaving it on. Being rigid on it one way or another largely means it's 'my game' not 'our game'. Ew.

lone owl
# charred fern The official app removes the ability to have vote history visible entirely. Bra1...

The app does have sound change for votes vs non votes if I'm not mistaken which does help someone distinguish but you're right that actually is part of the game. And as an evil player spreading misinformation in your town crier or flower girl bluff in person is much easier unless you have more than one person counting and note taking. I still believe that if someone asks for it online the st should consider some empathy and the why and recognize that if it is a game that has characters that require it vs ones that don't they can make that decision like for example not having it on tb makes sense.

charred fern
# lone owl The app does have sound change for votes vs non votes if I'm not mistaken which ...

Yes, please be kind when storytelling because you don’t know the struggles your players have in life and you aren’t entitled to that information. 100% agreed. When someone says they have trouble with vote tracking, you have options. You can turn vote history on, you can leave the votes up for several seconds after they conclude, or you can verbally say which players voted when the vote concludes. You should make sure your solution is okay for the person who made the request, and there’s ways to have this conversation without being rude or making anyone disclose their specific disability

subtle kelp
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I agree wit that

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I think you should generally be asking the person what they need

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Like I think you should tell them that knowing part of the game is to be able to lie about when you voted, what do you think the best option for you is

lone owl
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Thanks for everyone's thoughtfulness and curiosity and support. I think I just care a lot about the community I joined a year ago and want everyone to feel like they can play in each other's games without having to have barriers to play.