Roleplaying Games as a whole should strive to be more open to all kinds of players. We’ve had a lot of recent discussions about including minorities, women and LBGT people in RPGs (or at the very least not driving them away screaming). However, people with medical conditions should be looked out for as well. I remember an online friend of mine who played with us over Play-By-Post and Text Chat because she was deaf, and her condition wouldn’t matter in those settings.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget people like her when we think about opening up the hobby for others. That is why I want to get the word out about this kickstarter for Braille Dice. Braille, for those who don’t know, is a writing system for people who are blind. By touching the surfaces of braille-written products, and feeling arrangements of little pips, a blind person can interpret the writing. Most of us are aware of a variety of braille products, like books and braille displays.
These Braille dice use braille pips instead of numbers. You can read all about the design on the kickstarter. There are some great ideas there on making the dice accessible, fair and easy to roll, and easy to read. The different backer tiers contain different sets of dice, so pick out the ones for the games you play most often. There’s a 6-die set with 4d6 and 2d10, and an 8-die set that is basically the “D&D Dice” set. Higher tiers come with bonus dice, and the knowledge that you’re helping fund a cool thing for blind gamers everywhere. Back now if you’d like to see more accessibility in our games!
EDIT: The person running the kickstarter just posted a rather childish update on the project which I cannot condone. While Braille Dice are a great idea, this stunt, plus certain disturbing things that have been brought up to me in private about the past and current conduct of some of the people involved in this kickstarter, means that I can no longer whole-heartedly support this endeavor. I’m afraid I have limited time with which to research the character of the people behind every kickstarter I promote, for which I am rather sorry to the readers. Braille Dice are a great idea – but not in these hands.
I for one think this is a terrific idea; one so obvious it’s amazing it’s never been done before. I pledged and humped it on my own blog. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
No problem, glad you’re spreading the word. Yeah it’s an idea that is really obvious when you first see it, and you wonder why it’s happening right now! It’s good that it is!