Vision & Running a Game

A couple more notes and thoughts about playing with low vision. I have adapted a great deal over the years to managing and running a game, and my toolkit is now pared down both for visual accessibility, simplicity, ease of operation, fast play, and group storytelling.

What I Bring to the Table

A rollout dice mat with an incorporated zipped dice pouch. This serves as a physical, tactile space where my dice and active note cards live.

A wooden block with slots to hold note cards upright. These are cards that contain the beats or points that the players might hit in the session, NPC mood levels, and other critical information. Given that it's a note card, there are never more than 4 to 6 items on the card. I make a new card for every session. There is another slot that often holde a wandering monster that is 'on deck'. 

A short stack of cards containing creatures, NPCs, and other encounters that might enter the session. These are sorted and created ahead of time so I don't have to comb through a book or other references in order to find details. They are easily shuffled to randomize draws and very specific to the particulars of the session.

My notebook, with relevant pages clipped or marked for reference.

Copies of the following small volumes: Monsters & and Mazerats. The latter is for its wealth of tables, especially for NPC motivation, and the former is a quick go-to for creatures when the players go in an unanticipated direction.

A single sheet with character and party notes, timeline, significant treasure, usage dice notes, or other things that I am tracking that the players may or may not be aware of.

If the situation warrants, there may be a map, or my new individual room cards, to lay out in the center of the table for reference and orientation.

That's it! Visually there is very little to keep track of, so little to lose. If I had a lot of notes or reminders, I would not see them during the game anyway, so they have been eliminated or condensed to that single card. All hit point or other record-keeping is done directly on the creature cards. Any other notes go on the party record sheet.