A kangaroo and a koala were pooping near each other. When the kangaroo was done he turned to the koala and asked, “Do you ever have trouble with poop sticking to your fur?” The koala replied, “What? No, of course not!” So the kangaroo picked up the koala and wiped his butt with him.

I’ve been thinking a lot about accessible game design. The way the monsters I create for this newsletter each week are presented isn’t particularly accessible. They’re just images, and alt text can’t capture the complexity of a full stat block. Searching for a solution, I turned to D&D Beyond, the official online presence for Dungeons and Dragons, “the world's greatest roleplaying game”. But reviewing the statistics for an allosaurus on D&D Beyond with a screen reader showed there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Not just for the allosaurus, but for the website in general. Some more searching did find a few resources for accessibility and roleplaying games (linked at the end of this article), but didn’t turn up much in the way of how to create accessible source material for my favorite games. I'm sure some guidance exists somewhere, so I'll keep looking (or make my own).

Digging into how to make monster stat blocks more accessible got me thinking about the overlap between running role-playing games and building accessible software. At their core, both disciplines require you to think from someone else’s perspective.

When you run or design a game, your job is to anticipate how players will interact with the fiction and game systems you’ve created. You’re constantly checking your assumptions. How might players interpret this situation differently than you intend? What happens if they go left when you expected them to go right? Will the game still work if they come up with something you haven't anticipated.

Playing a role playing game is a collaborative activity with a group of people playing characters (like from a book), and one person running the game by taking on the role of everything else (the game master). When you're running a game live, there's quite a bit of mental load to juggle. You’re watching your players’ reactions, considering how their choices shape the shared story, and trying to convincingly portray what happens in the world, all while staying aware of each other player's goals, preferences, and constraints. The experience only works if you’re actively thinking about how others are perceiving and engaging with the world you’re presenting.

Compounding the load, different players enjoy different things in their games and interact with games differently from each other, even when they're all playing together. Some players want to explore rich worlds. Some thrive on tactical combat. Some focus on character-driven storytelling. Others simply enjoy spending time with friends doing something collaborative. A good GM creates space for all of them at the same table. Leave someone's needs out and you'll end up with a disengaged player scrolling on their phone.

Designing accessible software works in a similar way. A product isn’t enjoyable or usable if some people are stuck on the sidelines with no meaningful way to participate. To build something truly inclusive, you must consider the different ways users might interact with it: mouse, keyboard, screen reader, voice input, neuro divergence, and more.

Just as role players need different types of information, software users need content presented in multiple ways. Some players track everything through verbal description; others need maps and tokens to anchor themselves. One of the people I play with regularly gets lost in combat encounters if there isn't a map and some tokens to show where combatants are relative to each other. Similarly, software benefits from alt text for images, transcripts for audio, and captions for video. It’s all about ensuring people can understand and engage in the way that works best for them.

Different users bring different tools and expectations. Screen reader users rely on structured, semantic data so their software can interpret and navigate your content. For sighted users, semantics may matter less, but color contrast or font choice might determine whether they can parse information quickly or not at all.

Graphs are a clear example. They can be wonderful for illustrating trends (unless they're purposely misleading. But when you can’t see a graph, or can’t distinguish the lines, they're not useful at all. Accessible design solves this by differentiating the bars and lines of a graph with shapes or patterns rather than color alone, or by providing downloadable data so users can analyze it with the tools they prefer.

The same principle applies at the game table. Some players need visual aids; others need verbal recaps. Newer players often appreciate a quick reminder of what actions they can take. It helps unstick them and keeps the game flowing for everyone. If you're running a game for new players, you are in the position of being a human tutorial for the game and its mechanics.

At its heart, accessibility is about being able to take multiple perspectives. It’s about recognizing that not everyone wants the same thing or interacts with the world the way you do. You must adjust your design accordingly.

Running a role-playing game requires the same mindset. You imagine what your world looks like from the viewpoint of every player, anticipate their needs, and build systems flexible enough to support a wide range of experiences.

The parallels are strong and the skills reinforce each other. Being a thoughtful game master makes you better at accessibility. Being thoughtful about accessibility makes you a better game master. Both ask you to step outside yourself and design for someone else. That’s a skill worth practicing.

For more reading on accessible gaming, check out the resources below.

This is the next in a series of monster for Dungeons and Dragons that I’m putting together, and is probably why you signed up for this newsletter in the first place. All the monsters also get posted over on my Patreon for free, should you want to learn more or need to find them again.

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