Accessibility

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Accessibility is an important concept in the design of Tarnished Tale as an RPG engine. This goes beyond the usual understanding of accessibility as being "features which make something useable by persons with disabilities", and into the deeper core of making the game as broadly playable as possible.

In general we have the following principles as a result:

• No gameplay rule should require a player to have a specific physical or mental ability. Care should be paid when designing rules to make them as accessible as possible. Nobody should have to physically lift a large mass or pick a lock to resolve checks directly related to those, if they do not want to or are not physically able to do so.
• Rules should be as straightforward and consistent as possible.
• Players should be understanding and accommodating toward the various skillsets and comfort levels of other players as is humanly possible. This is partly expressed as an extension of Rule Zero.
  • For example, Facilitators should make the effort to make themselves aware of specific no-go subjects from other players and avoid their use in scenario design; this is the broader TTRPG concept of Lines and Veils (establishing hard and soft limits for content)
  • Players should also be accommodating of new players. Berating each other for "not knowing the rules" or other supposed infractions is expressly forbidden. The rules lawyer has a place at the Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder table, but not at the Tarnished Tale table.
  • Players at tables who are recording and broadcasting their games are encouraged to make those broadcasts as accessible as possible. Closed captioning and descriptive audio in particular are strongly encouraged for use.
    • Regardless of the relevant local legal framework no gameplay session, or the preamble/postgame conversations related to a Tarnished Tale game, shall ever be recorded or broadcast without the express, informed consent of all parties involved.
• No gameplay mechanic should be prohibitively expensive. While profiting from Tarnished Tale is not strictly forbidden, nobody should create a rule (except possibly as a variant rule) that expects players to have access to expensive equipment. There is no need to specify a radiological hardware random number generator to resolve a contest when dice work just as well.
  • This rule does not forbid the publication of supplementary materials on a for-pay model; it is perfectly valid to charge for your custom setting book.