Complex format of the BW PDF

Burning Empires General Questions
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Edit: A sighted friend tells me that the missing text is in blue, and is apparently heavily trait-related. I still can’t read it, unfortunately :wink:

Hi all,

I’ve been reading BE again of late, and running into a few issues related to its art-rich, unusual layout.
A little background: I’m totally blind, and thus use a program called a screen reader to navigate PDFs, among other computing tasks. It works very well for 98% of the files I throw at it, including most RPGs.
The BE-specific problems I run into seem to involve missing information. For instance, in the World Burner it isn’t immediately clear which set of three numbers belongs to which side—I assume this is indicated graphically. A little analysis tells me it is human first, then Vaylen.
More seriously, I can’t find empire traits. I know, for instance, that the Carsan League can be Kunmai, technical or formal, but I only know this because I can read the example text. The actual League writeup doesn’t tell me.
these are two issues of note, I’m sure more could be forthcoming as I read further.
I wonder if anything might be done to get the text into a mor accessible format? I know this is probably the province of the BWHQ folks, but I figured I’d ask here in a BE-specific place first and see what might come of it.

Happy to answer any accessibility-related questions anybody might have. Thanks for your consideration.

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Hi Zkline,
Sorry the layout doesn’t work with your screen reader.

The traits for each empire are listed after the one or two paragraph description of each empire.
They’re in a different format from the body copy, which must be why your screen reader is having trouble.
For example, the Casiguran are listed as Deferential, Matriarchal, Patriarchal and Private. Each trait has a point cost and a brief description.

I’m afraid we don’t have the resources to do a new version of the Burning Empires PDF, but if folks here wanted to chip in and help you get it to a better format, I’m happy to endorse the effort.

Best,
-Luke

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Hi Luke,

Thanks for your endorsement. It’s much appreciated. I take it the skill names and roots are also in that different text style, since I can’t seem to see them either.

The (incomplete) Burning Empires character browser is somewhat helpful in some ways, for what that’s worth.

On another note, I love the game system and approach to setting. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to play a burning game of any stripe, but appreciate what you’ve done with them. :slight_smile: