Open the Gates Gaming

Our initiative, Open the Gates Gaming (OtG), is a cross-disciplinary collaboration that began as research on cognitive access tools for the popular tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in response to the needs of our local disability community. Our project started with a collaborative grant with the library and was expanded with the help of an ICAT Mini SEAD grant to design and prototype cognitive access tools for D&D, as well as to begin drafting a book of adventures based on operas. Along the way we discovered that our cognitive access tools are helpful not only for those with cognitive disabilities, but also for those with limited time and other demands on their attention. Now we’re excited to bring the tools back to the community so they can tell their own stories. This will involve large-scale playtesting of our cognitive access tools, the creation of websites to publicize our initiative and disseminate the tools, and the completion and submission of the opera adventures book manuscript. Moving forward, we will form an advisory board of leading figures in the TTRPG community with a commitment to our values. Through events locally and with our partners across the country, we will learn what those who run the game—often referred to as dungeon masters (DMs)—need to be better supported and to better support their players, especially those who have historically faced obstacles to being included in the larger TTRPG community.