To further elaborate (very long)
it is a very popular trend right now to add, like, features that skip the engagement with an interactive work of art, such as skipping combat or making combat impossible to lose in a combat-focused video game, or in the scene of TTRPGs making your TTRPG completely dumbed down or just hastily and mindlessly making it a D&D5e hack "because people already know how to play D&D5e and I want it to be accessible" instead of expecting people to actually read and learn and engage with a set of specific rules, and call all of that "accessibility" instead of adding "accessibility" features that would actually help disabled people access the "meat" of whatever the interactive art is.
If it's a combat-focused video game, some examples would be helping them engage with the full depth of the combat by allowing the controls to be fully remapped to something easier for their hands(or lack of hands), or the option to disable flashing lights or reduce the intensity muzzle flashes on the guns or something.
I think I have come up with a good example to illustrate this point. Let's say there is an FPS where you shoot aliens. Pretend it's, like, Halo but not specifically Halo.
And letâs say thereâs a group of disabled gamers who are excited for this video game.
Missing Finger Guy, Deaf Guy, Colorblind Guy, and Poor Eyesight Guy.
Missing Finger Guy is missing at least one finger that corresponds to the Dodge button, he canât reliably press it especially on short notice when aliens are coming at his character. So, he canât really play the game because dodging is required to beat the levels. The game devs provide an âacccessibilityâ easy mode that turns off combat or makes the enemies do so little damage that he never needs to use the Dodge button. So, Missing Finger Guy can play the game now, right? Wrong. Dodging enemies *is* the game, and he still never gets to play with the Dodge button, or engage with any of the other elements of the game that are watered down by making enemy attacks not matter. To make the fun gameplay of dodging enemies accessible to this player, the answer is to allow remapping the Dodge action to a button that he can reach.
The game expects the player to rely on audio cues to know when enemies are sneaking up behind them or when a grenade lands at their feet or when an enemy is about to do a specific attack. Obviously the deaf player canât hear these and canât play the game because heâll just die all the time to attacks which are literally impossible for him to predict. Again, this could be âfixedâ by a mode that makes it so it doesnât matter if he doesnât hear a grenade land at his characterâs feet by removing the consequence of death for failing to notice the grenade, or you could add the option to turn on subtitles for both story dialogue and sound effects like â[grenade beep]â and â[screatchure scream].â One of these allows the deaf gamer to play on roughly the same playing field as other players and react to threats the same way that hearing people can do that he can engage with the meat of the game, and the other doesnât.
The video game features enemies that are identifiable by their red and blue armor. Red aliens throw red grenades that you can catch and throw back, and blue aliens throw blue grenades that explode by proximity and you just have to fully avoid. Obviously, a colorblind player cannot reliably tell these apart, and would either have to try to throw back grenades at random and hope for the best, or just avoid all grenades to be safe. You could âfixâ this by removing the consequence of death for getting exploded by a grenade, or you could fix it by adding a togglable colorblindness mode that switches the color distinction to something visible or adds some other distinctive feature besides color to one of those grenade types. One of these allows the colorblind player to engage with the intended gameplay of the game by taking informed risks by trying to throw back certain grenades, and one of them doesnât, making it just not matter what decision he makes.
You get the formula by now. The *actually* accessible feature would be allowing him to adjust the text to be more readable instead of making it not matter if he can read the directions that tell him how to get through the minefield safety by removing the consequences for stepping on a mine.
A mode that simply removes consequences for failing to engage with and react appropriately to the threats the game presents is, at best, appealing only to people who donât actually *like* the gameplay in the first place, while still shutting out the people who *want* to engage with the full depth of the gameplay but canât because of some disability that prevents them from doing so as intended.
Because the gameplay isnt just seeing the cutscenes and getting a âlevel clearedâ achievement, it is dodging the enemies, throwing back the grenades, listening for the screatchure screams, etc..
If there is an enemy who is super tough from the front and will kill you if you canât get around behind him, you donât make the game more âaccessibleâ by making him so weak from the front that it doesnât matter where you shoot him, or making his attacks so weak that you can shrug them off long enough to whittle him down from the front, youve actually removed this enemy from the game by making him just like the common enemies that can be shot from the front. You have actually made the element of the gameplay provided by this enemy inaccessible by doing this, because the quick thinking and tactical usage of the gameâs features required to get behind him *is* the gameplay.
Itâs much easier to explain this via video games but it goes for tabletop games as well. A TTRPG is more truly accessible for having big easy-to-read font and clear explanations so that players that want to engage with that gameâs rules can do so even if they have reading difficulties, than if it just went âeh it doesnât matter if you read the rules or not.â
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