Accessibility

As Emporium is a game that sets out to push the limits of how multimedia we can make an online game, it has been a key concern among the GM team to ensure that this game remains as accessible as possible. Rather than limiting the scope of our game for the sake of a more basic blanket approach to accessibility, we intend to consider accessibility throughout and listen to the concerns of individual players. This allows us to mould the development of Emporium to their needs as far as is feasible for the GM team. We have done our best to stay ahead of any issues by considering accessibility with every multimedia element introduced. Still, as the format is experimental and everyone's accessibility needs are different, we will endeavour to keep learning and adapting responsively throughout the game.

To ensure that we do not present players with any media in a format they do not wish to receive, the Multimedia playstyle Quirk is entirely optional. Like any other playstyle Quirk, it can be taken up or dropped by any player throughout the game by letting a GM know. Multimedia content can take a wide range of, well, media - let us know what works for you!

Similarly, we will aim to gate any horror elements behind the Horror playstyle Quirk and do our best to ensure that players do not accidentally see content that may be upsetting to them.

Additionally, there will be a field within character creation to let us know any specific accessibility requirements of which you would like us to be considerate. This is particularly helpful to us when creating your turnsheets, as we can avoid any problematic formats entirely when creating content specifically for you.

Although it might sometimes not be possible for us to accommodate everyone's accessibility needs, we encourage anyone with accessibility concerns to contact us at gm@emporium.oxfordrpg.com. We will always do our best to help! We don't want to put too much of the onus on you as players, but we will try to strike a balance that works for you.

When dealing with potentially distressing themes, it is our policy as GMs to include content warnings at the top of any turnsheets where we deem it necessary.

When dealing with horror elements, it is our policy as GMs to avoid such content where other players may accidentally come across it. We ask players to use content warnings attached to spoiler text in Discord channels when discussing content that may upset other players.

You can find our Conduct and Themes Policy here.

The theme of the wiki can be changed by clicking on the palette in the top right-hand corner of the page. The pages might look a little strange in other styles, but they should be a lot easier to read if you're having any difficulty with the current colour scheme!

Transcripts for audio will always be provided. If we have omitted a transcript link, this is likely an oversight on our part, and we encourage you to let a GM know if you would like one!

We may add filters and distortion over audio but aim to keep anything we want players to understand from being too difficult to listen to. We will endeavour to provide 'clean' source audio on request (although this may take time to be edited together).

Any video elements included on this wiki will have an accompanying transcript and feature very minimal visual elements. These may consist of static/distortion effects but no flashing images, and we have aimed to keep eyestrain to a minimum.

Any videos created during the game may include more detailed visuals. Still, these will likely be tailored to whoever's turnsheet they are a part of. Any flashing images will be preceded by a still frame with a content warning.

We may use zalgo text to add distortion to some texts for dramatic effect, but we appreciate that this can be difficult to read and are happy to provide transcripts. If this is something you are particularly concerned about, it's a good thing to mention in your character creation form so we can make sure to provide plain text versions or exclude zalgo text from your turnsheets entirely.

We will not be aiming to include large amounts of zalgo text or stylised fonts made available through Unicode characters during Uptime and ask players not to do so either. However, in cases where such text may be used for stylistic effect, players can react to the relevant message with a question mark emoji to receive a plaintext transcript from our accessibility bot. This bot automatically scans incoming messages on the Discord server for zalgo or unicode characters it recognises, and will react to any messages containing them with a question mark emoji. If you press this question mark, the Accessibility Assistant will send you a direct message with an auto-generated plaintext version of the message's contents, and remove your reaction for purposes of anonymity. As this is handled by a bot, transcripts may be imperfect and the bot may not catch every relevant message, but we hope that it will make the player experience a bit more accessible, encourage players to get in touch with the head GM regarding any issues with the bot.

Although audio content may be involved in some aspects of the game, interacting with audio provided by GMs should never be necessary to take part meaningfully. We will not be using audio channels during the game, although we may do so during debrief.

Discord roles can be used to determine whether or not a user can read old messages in a channel they have just joined. While we suggest editing these permissions for a heightened sense of mystery, we do not wish for this to become an accessibility issue for anyone, and will make channel histories readable by default for any channels that a given player has access to. More details on how to edit these permissions can be found here.

When lots of people are sending messages in the same text channel, text can flow across the screen very quickly, and this can be overwhelming. We have put measures in place to try and make it easier for players to avoid this in both physical and psychic communication channels. In the former case, players are able to use the !map command to check how many player characters are present in a location before choosing where to move, and in the latter, we will be using several channels on 'slowmode' - this means that players can only post messages at limited intervals and not only slows down message flow but hinders intentional spamming of channels. More details on the both can be found on our Uptime on Discord page. If you find you are struggling with message flow on Discord regardless, please let a GM know so we can work with you to try to alleviate this.

We know that people may have internet connections of varying quality and consistency and ask players to keep this in mind if player or GM response times are slow or a GM-run Discord bot goes temporarily off-line.

Although players may be required to be present for the duration of an Excursion, we generally do not need players to have continuous access to Discord during the three hours of Uptime. We will try to accommodate players who cannot consistently access the server on a case-by-case basis. If you have to drop out temporarily, this is fine - we can work around this! Similarly, we will try to ensure that images, audio, documents or other bandwidth-intensive resources are either not required for meaningful participation in the game, or are accompanied by a text-based format.