Today on approachable theory we’re talking about meta accessibility tools, and we’re going to start by breaking down what I mean by that term.
When I say meta in the context of gaming, what I mean is the layer above the game in its entirety – not the mechanics, not the narrative, but above that, in the space where we as players experiencing the game can interact about the game separately.
When I say accessibility in this context, I’m referring to access to the experience for all individuals regardless of ability or background. Accessibility includes making things more functionable and usable for people with disabilities, mental illness, marginalization, or any other axes of need or challenge. Needs or challenges can include things like a need for enjoyment or clarity, a challenge with certain content or structure, or anything else that the social contract, mechanics/structure, or narrative/play experience (as explained below) do not naturally meet to the standards needed.
When I say tools, I am referring to any useful resource or thing that helps to address a problem or work to fix something, as well as supporting growth, change, and even storytelling or conversation. Tools are not expected to solve the problem, because a tool on its own is not a fix. They are things we use to help solve problems, or to support making changes. A tool used without knowing how to use it can be harmful or cause further problems. Tools themselves are just tools – they have to be used thoughtfully, consistently, and correctly in order to be effective. Safety, consent, and content tools are accessibility tools because they help players with needs and challenges address the issues that are affecting their experience of play.
Included in meta accessibility tools are a variety of things like regular breaks, readable character sheets, well-designed indexes, and safety, content, and consent tools, among other things! All of these tools help to support play for anyone who may have a need or challenge that can be addressed with these tools. In this article, I will be addressing safety, content, and consent tools and how they interact with other layers of the game experience. I also want to emphasize the importance of tools remaining meta, at least in part.
Layers of the Game
For the purposes of this article, I want to establish the concept of a game as layered in multiple parts (this is not exhaustive, but the major items). The layers I want to break games down into are the social contract, meta accessibility tools, mechanics/structure, and narrative/play experience. I define each of these layers in the following paragraphs, and they’re illustrated in the accompanying tree diagram (below).
The social contract is the initial part of the game experience as we know it. This is when players agree to play the game together or as an individual, establish social norms and boundaries, choose a game, choose where and how to play, and establish expectations. Every game should have a social contract – informally at minimum, formally if you want. Some people really benefit from formal social contracts, basically writing down the norms and expectations of the group (will we have breaks? how long do we play for? how do we contact each other? what happens if we have to miss or we’re late? can we physically touch each other in any way? do we talk outside of game? etc.). The social contract is the top layer – it wends its way down through all of the other layers, helping to determine meta accessibility tools and influencing and informing mechanics and play experience. If it is flawed or harmful, it will cause problems for the game and the players. The social contract is part of the meta.
Meta accessibility tools are the aforementioned tools that we layer over the play experience and mechanics to enhance our social contract and enforce norms, boundaries, and expectations, and to facilitate more comfortable, enjoyable play for players with any unique or common needs and challenges. These can include informal things like regularly taking breaks, using more accessible documentation with larger text, communicating verbally when there are issues, or more formal things like structured play times, using safety, content, and consent tools (X-card, Script Change, OK Check In, etc.), or even things like having formal check ins with each other when not playing to ensure that the play experience is fun and not harmful. Meta accessibility tools are informed by and part of the social contract, and affect the mechanics and play experience. Meta accessibility tools exist in the meta.
Mechanics/Structure includes any and all mechanics in the game and structures of play (whether it is a live action game or a tabletop game, whether it is played in a group or solo, etc.). This covers mechanics that have a narrative effect, narrative actions that cause a mechanical affect, and other combinations of those things. Mechanics are informed and governed by the social contract, governed and modified by meta accessibility tools, and inform and modify play experience. This can include how people will use house rules because certain rules are weighty or don’t fit what the players want, or things like X-carding mind control in a game, even if there are mechanics that support it. Mechanics/structure can involve the meta, but are not typically meta and should be considered separate.
Narrative/Play Experience is the actual product of play, where you tell a story, have a conversation, create a scene, or any other type of experience that happens when you use mechanics to guide your time together as players. It is important to remember that even if a game is designed a specific way, everyone interprets their experience differently, so while one play experience could be exhilarating or exciting for one player, it might be stressful or too intense for another, and yet another player could feel like it’s boring because it’s not pursuing the interest they have in the game. This is why it’s important to have the other layers of the game where you can set norms, boundaries, and expectations, establish what tools you’ll use to support those norms, boundaries, and expectations as well as addressing any needs or challenges with the mechanics or play experience, and use mechanics to guide play and help support the things you want to experience. Narrative/play experience influences and engages mechanics/structure, and is governed and modified by meta accessibility tools and the social contract. Narrative/play experience can interact with the meta, but it it is technically the opposite of the meta.
Now that I have detailed the different layers of games and how they interact, keeping in mind that anything can be broken down more detailed if you want, I would like to return to meta accessibility tools, especially safety, consent, and content tools, and their value in the meta.
Keeping It Meta
When we design tools that support accessibility, there can be a lot of temptation to make them part of the mechanics or narrative. In some cases, this is truly useful, and helps to integrate those tools into play and use. It can help some people use them more often, or help them understand it. However, it’s also very important to ensure that there accessibility tools in the meta (contained within the social contract or in the area where meta accessibility tools go above mechanics & narrative). The reason why is multifacted, so let me try to break it down.
First, having your accessibility tools in the meta means that they govern mechanics/structure and narrative/play experience, so that everything that happens within those layers can be modified to support the experience of players with needs or challenges. While your social contract may say that you can’t use a tool to modify a mechanic or narrative element, the existence of the tool within the meta means that if players are challenged by a mechanic or narrative element or it doesn’t meet their needs, they can try to negotiate within the social contract to use the tool to modify it. It opens up the space for that discussion, and if the group agrees to it, they then have a greater amount of agency to address any given issue. This is especially helpful in groups that may not have perfect trust in the group – which is most of them, unfortunately.
Second, agency is very important. Not all players have the ability to intuit or understand integrated/diagetic accessibility tools, or may feel as though they are not meant to be fully engaged with because they’re not high level or part of the social contract. By placing the accessibility tools in the meta, we allow players who may not be able to intuit their purpose or who may not see or understand them (especially players who may not be reading the entire game book, which is very common!), as well as help to establish them as important and part of the social contract’s functional process of norms, boundaries, and expectations. This can be particularly important for neurodivergent players!
Third and finally, making accessibility tools part of the meta makes them able to be adjusted and changed without having fear of altering the narrative/play experience or mechanics/structure as established in the game text without active control of that change. Houseruling in a game can have unintended consequences, and changing a diagetic safety or consent tool can have unintented consequences as well, potentially rippling through the game experience for all players. While meta tools changing mechanics or narrative elements also has consequences for play, it can be done while having a conversation and having additional tools to deal with any potential fallout. For example, if a player decides not to use a diagetic safety tool, that game may have no other support for safety or it may influence how end of play pans out. But if they have a meta tool to use and decide to remove an integrated mechanic, they still have the meta tool to fall back on. In this case, there should also be dialogue in the top layer of the social contract, where the tools are chosen, encouraged, and negotiated.
Including accessibility tools, including safety, content, and consent tools in the meta should be the baseline for design. It is great to also include those tools in the mechanics/structure and narrative/play experience as well, and encouraged! It is helpful, however, to also make it clear that they are accessibility tools and should be highlighted to players so that they have the agency to use them. The combined approach is the most accessible option, and the beauty is that including meta accessibility tools as part of your design doesn’t harm your core design ethos.
A final note is that there is no such thing as a perfectly safe space for everyone. While an environment may be safer for some players, or even safe for some, that does not make it a “safe space.” All we can do is striver to have a safer environment that grants greater agency to players to address their needs and challenges while being respectful to one another. If a player does not want to respect other players, or denies their right to address needs and challenges that affect their experience, including rejecting safety tools, the door is always open – and you can always ask them to leave.
I hope you found this article useful and that you’ll enjoy other parts of the approachable theory series!