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For remote play at our table, we use a camera stuck on a microphone-boom-arm that we can rotate by 360°. We found out that we prefer it to have our rest position at about 45°, instead of top-down because the top-down angle creates nausea for some of our players, and it simulates sitting at a table. We use a 19 by 19 go-board with numbered and lettered tiles to make calls based on a grid for combat encounters and other visualisation when appropriate. For indicating features, we use a mix of miniatures that were part of the 2002 D&D boardgame by Hasbro and cardboard printouts that create terrain objects by sliding them together at a 90° angle with little plastic sockets, so they don't topple over.

I designed our base set-up for remote play to feign an in-person feeling by visualisation.

I will have a remote guest player for three sessions who is blind, and I'm looking for preparations and ways to accommodate them and make our set-up as accessible as reasonable. What can I do to optimise the experience for them in particular, and so in turn for all of us?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Related, though focusing on in-person: GMing for [dis]abled players, specifically blind players? \$\endgroup\$
    – Red Orca
    Commented Mar 26, 2021 at 16:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ Related from the player-perspective: playing visually impaired. I don't believe it's called out, but the OP (and self-answerer) on that one played exclusively remotely as of the time of writing, IIRC. (I was one of their GMs, and our sessions were all-players-remote, I know.) \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60
    Commented Mar 26, 2021 at 23:33

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It's good that you're helping someone who is sight impaired, and here are some tips from my experience with helping blind players at my table.

  1. Have someone there to assist them if needed. They will say something like: "I want to attack the demon king with a fireball." And you'll need someone to translate that into letters and numbers for your board, e. g. "They move to A6 and cast a fireball at J7." They may or may not need assistance, but it's good to be ready.

  2. Have them, or you, convert their character sheet to a text file, so they can easily read it. Talk to them about this. They may have a computer-generated character sheet that works well with their screen reader. I've had some who prepared text files and some who had their own ways to adapt.

  3. Make sure to be extremely specific when you describe their turn rather than simply asking what they do. Say something like: "Bob and Bill are caught in a fight 15 feet north of you with the orcish courtesans, and Bella is being shoved off a cliff southeast 35 feet away by the spider matriarch. What do you do?"

  4. Work with them to see if they can set up their own map. They can get their own Go map, and you can communicate ahead of time the setup. Use something like Discord to record the placement and movement of pieces so they can use a text reader to work out what has happened.

  5. Use something like Discord to record dice rolls, so they know what is happening and who is killing or seducing who.

I have accommodated several blind players with these accommodations over Roll20 and Discord, and it can work well.

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    \$\begingroup\$ The third point is, in my experience, generally a good one to follow when dealing with a remote game independent of whether the player can see or not, especially when refocusing the narrative from random side discussions. It’s very easy, even for a player who can see, to forget exactly what is going on in an encounter and this is a much more common occurrence in my experience when not playing in person. \$\endgroup\$
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Commented Mar 27, 2021 at 1:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ "Make sure to be extremely specific when you describe their turn" - you can also add some context to what others do and be more specific when describing what's generally happening to help them visualise what's going on. One would probably need to find some middle ground here between saying too much and saying too little, to present it in a way that's both clear and useful without talking down to them and without boring the other players. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotThatGuy
    Commented Mar 27, 2021 at 3:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ I would also lean on the third point here, and would argue that moving away from a grid entirely may be ideal. I'm very mechanistic and grid-oriented myself, but it has a distinct visual bias. Remembering relative grid coordinates and playing mental chess with them may not be the most convenient or fun way to play. A more 'theater of mind' style of play may be the most accessible option when physical aids such as tactile maps or braille dice are not available. I'd also support Discord bots for die rolls - not sure how JAWS etc. picks up Roll20 chat, but I know Discord has decent compatibility. \$\endgroup\$
    – Pottermost
    Commented Apr 1, 2021 at 14:42

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