Did anyone here use the X-card system? How well did it work for you?

[Anymage]

Did anyone here use the X-card system?

All this conversation seems very hypothetical and not grounded in actual experience. Personally, I can think of some times where at least the message that "It is alright to speak up and ask the game to move away from uncomfortable topics," being sent clearly would have helped. And it makes sense that the X-card system could be used to help communicate that message, to say nothing of actually using the tool itself. But that is all hypothetical on my part, and some of these issues dive even deeper into theoretical territory.

Does it count if I've seen plenty of times when someone was made very uncomfortable through what was happening in game but didn't feel comfortable speaking up? Again not specifically about a card with an X on it, but the general idea of safety tools.

I will admit it feels a little bit like cherry picking on my part, with how much of the document talks about the mere existence of the X-card delivering most of its value. But how am I supposed to interpret that line item if not “throw it around frequently so as to disguise when it’s being used on something serious that you have no plans of discussing”?

Because presumably the person is there playing because they enjoy the game itself, not odd head games to mess with their fellow players. They also probably don't like to bring everything to a screeching halt and throwing off the game's momentum. They just dislike playing through a triggering situation even worse.

All of this does assume a good faith table. Things do break down in the face of bad actors. But things break down at a table with bad actors anyways, and they've found many ways to ruin games long before safety tools were being discussed.

[Anymage]

Other players are not robots who ignore the fact that you keep pulling the emergency brake. If you pull it, someone will ask if you're okay sharing what is upsetting you so they can avoid it going forward. If you say that you don't like rolls happening behind screens, you can jump right to the table compatibility issue you should've talked about before. If you keep pulling it and refuse to explain yourself, the rest of the table will reasonably conclude that you're trolling and disinvite you.

[gbaji]

I find the discussion of how the X system could be abused by a very malicious player to be somewhat pointless, as such a player would be destructive under any system, so the solution is simply not to include them in games (although it did give me an idea for a game in which the point would be to use such a system to mess up a plot of a GM/storyteller as much as possible).

The concern is that you are introducing a tool which can allow for abuse where you *can't* actually apply the standard "call them out on it, and then boot them if they continue" solution.

As a GM, the assumption behind an X-card is that I'm supposed to accept it as a legitimate thing every single time it's played. No questions asked, right? But I can't tell if the person playing that card is legitimately playing it due to some strong deep seated emotional trauma that they can't even talk about, or if they're just doing it to mess with and harrass other players (or me). And the entire system is constructed such that I'm not supposed to push or prod or question at all, right? Cause that would just create pain for the legitimate user.

So how am I supposed to ever know if the use is actually legitimate? I can't. By design of the system itself. IMO, that's a huge problem.

And that's before even looking at whether this tool is actually helpful for those for whom it is intended. It "helps" by avoiding the circumstances in which they are uncomfortable in the first place (but may actually introduce another source of anxiety as well). I'm just not sure if that's actually a healthy thing in the first place. My personal experience and observation is that our fears of things are often greater than the things themselves, and that socially interactive environments (like RPGs) are great places for those who experience various fears and anxieties to learn how to interact socially, have fun, and over time become more comfortable in those settings. My concern is that the very availability of a tool like this may step on the value of that interaction in the first place, by giving those people a way to keep others at a distance and maybe never actually learn how to become comfortable.

I think we often use examples of specific trauma/experiences and connect them to various events which may occur in a game environment. And that's certainly something that *could* happen, but more often it's going to be about specific subjects, or situations, or even just basic direct social interaction that is the issue. The former gets better with time and exposure (not the best term, but "getting it out" so to speak). The latter will *never* get better except by simply learning how to manage those subjects and situations (it's not trauma driven, but fear and inexperience). Giving people avoidance tools may help a bit in the former cases while moving through the process, but can be devastatingly harmful in the latter.

And no, I don't approach my games as some kind of therapy session or something. However, I do approach them from the point of view of "everyone should be having fun". To that end, I always try to make the games friendly and encourage my players to interact with eachother and me during play. And to me, something like an X-card is a block to that. It's just too formal of a tool, where I think that softer social methods will likely work better.

Dunno. That's just my take on the whole thing.


And it's not even just about folks knowingly abusing it. The mere presence of a tool may influence how folks play, and what they do. So on the one side, some players may think that since there's this saftey tool in place, they are free to go well beyond what they might normally think is socially acceptable, assuming "if someone is offended, they'll play the card". And on the other side, players may be inclined to use the card instead of the normal social interactive methods they would use to express themselves. Which could result in this odd form of social bumpercars going on.

Now, to be fair, if that's specifically what your going for in the game (pushing boundaries), then yeah, I get it. But for a "normal" game? Not so much.

[icefractal]

On thing that's irking me on this thread is the assumption that the X-card makes obnoxious player behavior possible, like it wouldn't be already. For example, this:

In normal communication, the "can't be abused" state is that if someone does something other's object to, they have the same free speech as the other person and can say something about it. If it "festers" it's because they either did not raise the issue *or* it was raised and ignored. But at no point can one person, all on their own, just make life miserable for others.

Because that's just blatantly false. One player could easily make the rest of the table miserable, just by talking, no X-card required:
* They could start viciously insulting the other players.
* They could describe something disgusting in great detail.
* They could sing an annoying song and refuse to stop.*

Or plenty of other things. Now yes, this is obviously obnoxious behavior and most tables would tell them to GTFO (although likely, the session would still be ruined) - but how's that different with an X-card in play? The X-card has no legal significance - the police aren't going to bust in and arrest everyone if you say "This is the third time you've used the X-card and refused to clarify - either say what the issue is or find a different group".

Now in regards to this:

The implication with the X-card is that I can force a stop condition on what's going on without actually telling anyone else why. It's literally the only reason to have such a tool in the first place.

I get where you're coming from, but "just have a conversation about it" isn't always so simple. During a session, people often get loud and boisterous, and a quiet objection can be missed. Also, people often object in-character to things they don't mind IRL. For example, I'm currently playing a character who's terrified of vampires. If a vampire showed up, I might say "Oh **** no, I can't handle this, I'm outta here!" Which would be purely IC, and in fact I'd OOC welcome another PC saying "If you run away I'll shoot you myself, now get a grip!" So if someone was OOC terrified of something, just saying "nope!" / "**** no" / "I can't handle this!" could easily be mistaken for IC.

What the X-card takes the place of is not just conversation, it's standing up, waving your arms, going "Hey everyone, hold on a minute, hey!" until people are actually listening, and then explaining the situation and clarifying the fact that this is OOC. Which is not so easy for someone who's on the verge of panic to do.

Now as far as not explaining it? IDK, I've always thought that meant "not needing to explain it in detail or justify / debate it" - as in, you can just say "no spiders" rather than having a discussion - at that moment, while you're stressed - about exactly much spider-related detail is too much, whether arachnophobia is a "real" phobia, and so forth. Like, it's probably worthwhile to discuss "exactly how much spider-related stuff is ok?" at some point before the next session, but it should be at a time where everyone is calm, not in the midst of things.

Maybe there are some people using it as "literally no discussion at all, not even a couple words", which does seem confusing to me, but if so I haven't met them.

* To the response of "I'd just be stoic and not let those things bother me" - then be stoic and don't let the X-card bother you, lol.

[OldTrees1]

The concern is that you are introducing a tool which can allow for abuse where you *can't* actually apply the standard "call them out on it, and then boot them if they continue" solution.

As a GM, the assumption behind an X-card is that I'm supposed to accept it as a legitimate thing every single time it's played. No questions asked, right? But I can't tell if the person playing that card is legitimately playing it due to some strong deep seated emotional trauma that they can't even talk about, or if they're just doing it to mess with and harrass other players (or me). And the entire system is constructed such that I'm not supposed to push or prod or question at all, right? Cause that would just create pain for the legitimate user.

As a GM I will always assume a safety tool is being invoked out of necessity. At that moment my priority is safety rather than ego.

As a GM I will also notice if there is growing evidence that my campaign and a particular player are not compatible. Each time a safety tool is invoked by a player it is evidence that my campaign might not be compatible with that player. I don't want a player to be constantly put in situations where they need to invoke a safety tool. If there is growing evidence my campaign is going to continue to be so risky for that player, I will separate the player from the campaign.


Which is why your concern is not relevant. I can assume every invocation is legitimate and being invoked out of necessity. I can assume every player is honest. Even with those reasonable responsible charitable assumptions, your unreasonable hypotheticals get resolved. Your troll gets removed despite me assuming they are a honest player that is being more risky with themselves than I am willing to enable.

[OldTrees1]

Now as far as not explaining it? IDK, I've always thought that meant "not needing to explain it in detail or justify / debate it" - as in, you can just say "no spiders" rather than having a discussion - at that moment, while you're stressed - about exactly much spider-related detail is too much, whether arachnophobia is a "real" phobia, and so forth. Like, it's probably worthwhile to discuss "exactly how much spider-related stuff is ok?" at some point before the next session, but it should be at a time where everyone is calm, not in the midst of things.

Maybe there are some people using it as "literally no discussion at all, not even a couple words", which does seem confusing to me, but if so I haven't met them.

This varies. You have the core of not "having a discussion - at that moment, while you're stressed - about exactly much spider-related detail is too much, whether arachnophobia is a "real" phobia, and so forth." and "it's probably worthwhile to discuss "exactly how much spider-related stuff is ok?" at some point before the next session, but it should be at a time where everyone is calm, not in the midst of things.".

However some use: You never have to justify it. You don't need to name, much less explain it "at that moment, while you're stressed". It is worthwhile naming, explaining, or elaborating on it "at some point before the next session, but it should be at a time where everyone is calm, not in the midst of things" if, and to the extent that, it is possible to do so safely. The goal is to prioritize both present and future safety. As always there is the option to separate the player from the campaign if needed.

This has 3 differences
A)
With these topics sometimes the fear of judgement during justification can have a strong silencing effect. Since we want the tools to work, sometimes it makes sense to remove judgement from the equation.
B)
Some people are not able to safely discuss some topics. In these cases naming the topic before continuing can be sufficient when prioritizing present and future safety.
C)
Rarely something can happen and the person does not even have the words to identify it or describe it after the fact. This might be due to comprehension issues during the panic. This is unlikely to persist. If it is repeated they become able to describe it. If it is not repeated, it did not persist.

However there are similarities.
A)
Minimize the "in the moment" barriers stopping or slowing getting the player to safety
B)
Communication is good. The later still encourages communication.

With my informal tools I use this latter system. However, in practice, it functions as the former almost all of the time because it does not need the flexibility of the latter. However if I run into one of those rare cases, the latter system continues to prioritize safety.

I don't think there is any usage that discourages communication.

[gbaji]

On thing that's irking me on this thread is the assumption that the X-card makes obnoxious player behavior possible, like it wouldn't be already. For example, this:
Because that's just blatantly false. One player could easily make the rest of the table miserable, just by talking, no X-card required:
* They could start viciously insulting the other players.
* They could describe something disgusting in great detail.
* They could sing an annoying song and refuse to stop.*

And, as I thought I'd already explained, in all of those cases, the obnoxious/abusive behavior is obvious to the GM, and the GM can immediately act to stop it. And if the obnoxious/abusive behavior continues, the GM can boot the player.

It's not that it makes this behavior "possible", but that it makes it "harder to detect" and "easier for the abuser to get away with". Let me throw some examples at you:

* They play an X-card randomly when someone is describing their character's actions, just to disrupt that player
* They play an X-card randomly when the GM is describing something in game, just to disrupt the GM
* They play an X-card whenever something happens in game that they don't like (for their character)

In all cases, they can justify it by vaguely mentioning a word or phrase or action/mention that was used and claiming that this is triggering them, or reminding them of some trauma, or something (they don't need to be specific). And you are supposed to accept this at face value because that's the assumption behind the existence of an X-card in the game.

It's the very fact that it allows for a whole new set of bad behavior and provides a protection for that behavior, that is a problem. Is this going to happen if you have good players? No. But then again, if you have good players you probably don't need an X-card in the first place. That's also predicated on the assumption that players will do or say things that are offensive or painful to a player, are unaware or uncaring that they are offending or upsetting that player, and the player is so intimidated by those other players that they are afraid to speak up and say that they are bothered by this, and need a card to do so instead.

We're talking about pretty rare edge cases either way. I just think that if we're creating a system more or less designed around the assumption of a rare edge case, it's fair to point out that there are other similarly rare edge cases in which it can be abused.

Or plenty of other things. Now yes, this is obviously obnoxious behavior and most tables would tell them to GTFO (although likely, the session would still be ruined) - but how's that different with an X-card in play? The X-card has no legal significance - the police aren't going to bust in and arrest everyone if you say "This is the third time you've used the X-card and refused to clarify - either say what the issue is or find a different group".

Sure. But how vague may the player be? How much are you "allowed" to dig into this? Again, I keep coming back to the innate assumption that this is something so painful that the player simply can't talk about it (or doesn't want to share with the people they're playing a game with). That can only work if the player is allowed to basically just give a vague explanation ("I don't like the use of the phrase <whatever>"). Which is all the cover a potential abuser needs.

And heck, it need not even start out as abusive. Let's imagine a player actually does have some triggers and trauma, and legitimately plays the X-card when those things come up and they feel uncomfortable. They come to associate "play the X-card" with "avoid something I don't like". And perhaps, over time, this player may feel emboldened to play this for things that maybe aren't that triggering or traumatic, but they just don't like or agree with. Don't like the thief stealing? Play the X-card. Don't like the ranger hunting animals for food? Play the X-card. There's a real risk that the sensitivity to "trigger" the play of such a card may increase over time.

And then, one day the player realizes that they're relying on the X-card to avoid anything they don't like in the game. Plot going in a direction that doesn't work with their character plan? Play the X-card. Other players not agreeing with your plan? Play the X-card. GM hits the party with a monster that's resistent to your character build? play the X-card. There's a very real slippery slope risk here. The more comfortable people get with using these sorts of tools (which is presumably also part of the objective here), the more likely that they'll be used for increasingly trivial things.

And again, this all comes back to "GM has to take this seriously, with little or no questions allowed". That's always a bad tool methodology IMO.

Now in regards to this:
I get where you're coming from, but "just have a conversation about it" isn't always so simple. During a session, people often get loud and boisterous, and a quiet objection can be missed. Also, people often object in-character to things they don't mind IRL. For example, I'm currently playing a character who's terrified of vampires. If a vampire showed up, I might say "Oh **** no, I can't handle this, I'm outta here!" Which would be purely IC, and in fact I'd OOC welcome another PC saying "If you run away I'll shoot you myself, now get a grip!" So if someone was OOC terrified of something, just saying "nope!" / "**** no" / "I can't handle this!" could easily be mistaken for IC.

What the X-card takes the place of is not just conversation, it's standing up, waving your arms, going "Hey everyone, hold on a minute, hey!" until people are actually listening, and then explaining the situation and clarifying the fact that this is OOC. Which is not so easy for someone who's on the verge of panic to do.

Ok. But that's more like having some kind of flag for players to throw when they want to speak, but the crowd is too boisterous. I have no issue with that (though I would prefer that the GM maybe maintain a little more control over the table than that, but whatever). But that's a very very different thing than the X-card description. It's one thing to say "Hey guys. I want you to stop speaking, so I can tell you something without shouting over you" (followed by you saying what you want to say), and "Hey guys. I want you to stop speaking, period, because what you are saying offends/upsets me" (followed by maybe a minimal explanation of the offense, but no other communication to replace that which was shut down).

The former promotes good communication. The latter retards it.

It's interesting that I'm responding specifically to the "shut down a topic with minimal explanation given" part of the X-card tool, but keep getting responses that examine cases where this isn't what's going on at all. In your example, the issue wasn't that the player was uncomfortable verbally communicating their fear of vampires (or whatever), but that they literally couldn't speak over the crowd and there was confusion over whether the player was saying something IC versus OOC. Those are very very different issues and not at all what I was talking about.

Anything that allows one to clarify speach (like being able to speak if the table gets too loud, or define whether something is said IC or OOC) is a good tool. And if that were the end point of X-card use, I'd be all for it (heck, I posted to this effect earlier). But, at least from everything I've read about it, that's not at all the intent much less the end point of the use of the X-card concept. What makes it different from having a flag to calm the table down so someone can speak or clarify something, is that the X-card is specifically about communicating a trigger warning to the table while minimizing the explanation required (to make it easier to use the tool in the first place). It's this specific use that I'm talking about and questioning heavily.

As a GM I will always assume a safety tool is being invoked out of necessity. At that moment my priority is safety rather than ego.

As a GM I will also notice if there is growing evidence that my campaign and a particular player are not compatible. Each time a safety tool is invoked by a player it is evidence that my campaign might not be compatible with that player. I don't want a player to be constantly put in situations where they need to invoke a safety tool. If there is growing evidence my campaign is going to continue to be so risky for that player, I will separate the player from the campaign.

So you will accept the play of an X-card without question, but if it's used too often, you'll boot the player?

Wouldn't this result be avoided if you talked to the player about what is bothering them and then considered whether making some minor changes to the campaign might be called for? Just seems like what you're describing is a heck of a whiplash concept: "Ok. I'm providing this tool for you to use if you are triggered by something in my game, and I wont ask any questions if you use it. But if you do use it too much, I'll ask you to leave the game".

That's even worse IMO. If we do assume that the target audience for this tool are players with high anxiety in social settings in the first place, you've just ladled the mother of all anxieties on thier heads. So every time this player experiences something in the game they aren't comfortable with, they have to weigh the value of the X-card at easing their immediate discomfort against the rising fear that this time will be the time it'll result in them being booted from the game. That's... probably not a good thing.


Why can't we just communicate with each other? When did this very simple concept just become too difficult to manage? The moment we start communicating with freaking cards instead of words, we're really moving in the wrong direction IMO.

AWhich is why your concern is not relevant. I can assume every invocation is legitimate and being invoked out of necessity. I can assume every player is honest. Even with those reasonable responsible charitable assumptions, your unreasonable hypotheticals get resolved. Your troll gets removed despite me assuming they are a honest player that is being more risky with themselves than I am willing to enable.

Sure. That solves the problem of the potential abuse, but in a way that leaves the potential legitimate user of an X-card totally out in the cold. You'd be better off not having the X-card in your game at all at that point. Which, again, is kind of my point. The very design of the X-card and its use as a trigger avoidance tool results in conditions such that it cannot be detected if abused. Which, yeah, leaves only somewhat draconian measures as a means to prevent that potential abuse, and in the process eliminates any value that the X-card might have legitimately had.

Which brings me back to: I'm just not seeing a lot of value here. Again, I can see it for games where the intention is to push the boundaries (someone mentioned a specific game that includes this system earlier). And I can *maybe* see cases where I'm at a tourney and it's one or two days of gaming, and it's random players I'll likely never see again. But for any actual gaming group? Not seeing the value.

[icefractal]

Why can't we just communicate with each other? When did this very simple concept just become too difficult to manage? The moment we start communicating with freaking cards instead of words, we're really moving in the wrong direction IMO.

You communicate with words after the session, in a low-stress environment, and maybe with only the GM rather than the entire group. Which incidentally, is the advice most people give for mechanical disputes - talk to the GM between sessions, don't hold up the entire game - so IDK why it'd be that controversial.

I think you might be attributing more power to the X-card than it has, with some of your examples? The X-card isn't a "the invoker gets authorial control of the story and can resolve things however they feel like" situation. The most typical ways of handling it I've seen are reflavoring, "let's jump to another scene and come back to that later", or "resolve it in a neutral way, make the next situation the decisive one instead". None of which are a "win" button.

Also, I contend that in terms of the "you could shut down someone's roleplaying with it" aspect, the vast majority of tables already do that for certain topics, they're just commonly-agreed enough that people don't think about it. But, for example, try playing out a sexual encounter with an NPC in detail - most GMs would "X-card" that by mandating you "fade to black" rather than describe it - and most groups would agree with the GM in doing so. Heck, many tables wouldn't even "fade to black", they'd just straight-up say it's not happening.

[OldTrees1]

Why can't we just communicate with each other? When did this very simple concept just become too difficult to manage?

Communication is happening. In the simple cases (someone has a problem they can talk about in the moment), it happens the simple ways (they talk about it in the moment). In more complex cases (someone has a problem but there are barriers slowing/stopping them from communicating, and there is time pressure since it is an ongoing problem), it happens in more complex ways (lower the barriers and allow deferred elaboration).

So why can't we just communicate with each other? We can and do.
When did this very simple concept just become too difficult to manage? When we decided to tackle cases where people normally can't communicate, but we made a way they could.

The moment we start communicating with freaking cards instead of words, we're really moving in the wrong direction IMO.

{Scrubbed}


As for the rest of your post, it fails to reply to my post. Your misrepresentation is not worth replying to.

[Vahnavoi]

The X-card is physically redundant and pointless. Why? Because if you're going to tap something to tell other people you have an issue and need them to stop, you can just tap the table for the same effect. Or make an X with your hands, or yell "Stop!", or use any of the other standard gestures that fit the purpose. A chairman's hammer, to make the tap audible in a noisy environment, would be a more useful tool. For these reasons, the X-card specifically is supremely uninteresting to me and my only motive to care is that someone might lobby to make it a convention standard where I live.

But let's move past the particular tool and talk about how often do players need to use such a stopping signal. My answer is: not very. And I say this as a convention game master who runs horror scenarios such as Death Love Doom and **** for Satan at minimal notice *) to interested convention goers, some of who might be playing roleplaying games for the first time. Dead babies, mutilated children, naked elderly people and penis monsters consistenly fail to cause any table drama or negative feedback. Don't get me wrong. People are shocked. They do freak out. They will wonder aloud "who sick pervert made this adventure?". But it's very rare for them tap out. Part of the reason is something that is regularly overlooked in discussions such as this: they already have let-outs. As part of normal game play, they can opt for their characters to escape, or commit suicide, or take any of myriad other game actions to get out of a situation. Since participation is voluntary by default, they can also stand up and leave at any point, and nobody in a convention will ask questions if you say you have to catch a bus or go meet some friends who just arrived.

Now, as for the question of whether stopping signals can be abused, the answer is: of course they can. People pretending to be more hurt than they really are to get a game advantage is common behaviour in all kinds of games. It's a really basic deceptive tactic. But the appeal of doing that depends on stakes of a game. Most tabletop roleplaying games have zero real stakes in them, or even if they do, the stopping signal has no relation to them. For a simple example, turning a giant spider into a giant otter might help someone with arachnophobia, but their character is still getting eaten. They can't possibly get anything more out of it than alleviating their own fear response.

*) on that sidenote, people vastly overestimate how much time and effort game set-up (AKA "session zero") for hardcore games takes. Time taken to get buy-in from a random convention-goer for all the dead babies, mutilated children, naked elderly people and penis monsters is five minutes and all the relevant content warnings and disclaimers can be fitted on a single A5, which also has the game pitch and list for participants.

[Cluedrew]

Yes. I have used the X-card system. [...] Since the opening post explicitly asked who has used it, and nobody else spoke up (except Atranen?), I might be the only (other?) here that has? Although some responses are ambiguous.

Yeah, I just can't help but notice that anyone who seems to have actually used it has nothing bad to say about it. Reading this thread has had some better and worse arguments for both using and not using the X-card system, but being rooted in actually experience is a huge bonus.

So is there anyone who has used it and found it didn't help* or made things worse?

* Preferably when it should have helped and not when it wouldn't have made a difference either way.

[OldTrees1]

The X-card is physically redundant and pointless. Why? Because if you're going to tap something to tell other people you have an issue and need them to stop, you can just tap the table for the same effect. Or make an X with your hands, or yell "Stop!", or use any of the other standard gestures that fit the purpose. A chairman's hammer, to make the tap audible in a noisy environment, would be a more useful tool. For these reasons, the X-card specifically is supremely uninteresting to me and my only motive to care is that someone might lobby to make it a convention standard where I live.

There are some edge cases where including a non verbal stop signal is beneficial. However your chairman's hammer example is an improvement. If they can't talk but can reach out and swing the hammer, it gives a visual and audio signal. If they can't talk, and can't swing a hammer, but can reach out, then it still gives an visual cue.

But let's move past the particular tool and talk about how often do players need to use such a stopping signal. My answer is: not very. And I say this as a convention game master who runs horror scenarios such as Death Love Doom and **** for Satan at minimal notice *) to interested convention goers, some of who might be playing roleplaying games for the first time.

The use cases I have found are:
1) When playing with someone that can have panic attacks or have severe trauma in their past. Sometimes not all of the triggers are known or understood. So in addition to all the other session 0 prep and ongoing communication, I could see adding a safety tool as an extra safety net. (And despite X-cards adding a nonverbal signal, I would use a slightly different tool).
2) When taking extra risk than normal, use an additional safety net. When we played the horror game The Zone it was a significant shift from our normal games. We were not sure if we would accidentally stumble unto any unknowable triggers, so we had no objections over the X-card that comes build into that RPG. We did not expect it to be invoked, but the riskier context encouraged humility and precaution.

How often would I suggest using a stopping signal? Not very.
I have run & played in many campaigns (although with long running groups). I count only 3* times I would have suggested including them.
* One of those times the stopping signal was explicitly telling them in session 0 that if they tell me "stop" or any words to that effect, I would treat it as a stopping signal. That is a policy I always implicitly implement, but I am counting the one time I explicitly implemented it.

Of the times I would suggest using a stopping signal, how often do I expect it to be invoked? Almost never.
Of those 3 campaigns, the first had a single moment that would have been an invocation. Unfortunately we were not using a stopping signal and the situation made it hard for the player to articulate the problem in the moment. It was a severe, and sloppily handled. The fallout prevented the player from being able to continue with the campaign.

Use a stopping signal when needed. It is rarely needed, although risk assessment can help predict when it is more likely to be needed.

Also choose the stopping signal policy that works best for your context. The next time I include a safety tool, it is unlikely to be the X-card. Pause for a Minute is closer to what I would use for my group.

Most tabletop roleplaying games have zero real stakes in them, or even if they do, the stopping signal has no relation to them.

A good reminder on how to maintain trust in the stopping signal.

[OldTrees1]

Edit: IMO The benefits (when they happen correctly) would be immediately obvious. The likely harms this thread has pointed out are far more subtle and wouldn't be immediately obvious, it would most likely require a comparison to the same game without it to see the difference. Furthermore they would be spread out over the entire session, as opposed to zero or one time specific event.

The real question for someone considering using it shouldn't be based on anecdotal. It should be if those likely harms are worth more than a possible one time beneficial use. And likely zero times. IMO in the standard game, they wouldn't be.

From actual experience, there are subtle benefits that permeate the entire session in additional to the immediately obvious benefit you are thinking of. The ability to invoke a safety tool, if needed, can lower the barriers on communication enough that actually invoking the tool is no longer needed in milder cases.

However I concur with your conclusion.
Use a stopping signal when needed. It is rarely needed, although risk assessment can help predict when it is more likely to be needed.

[Vahnavoi]

You can compare the principle OldTrees mentions to making staff security wear bright colors. Making it visible that there is security around can prevent events that would actually require the security to do something. The difficulty with measuring prevention is that it's hard count things that don't happen.

[gbaji]

You communicate with words after the session, in a low-stress environment, and maybe with only the GM rather than the entire group. Which incidentally, is the advice most people give for mechanical disputes - talk to the GM between sessions, don't hold up the entire game - so IDK why it'd be that controversial.

It's not. It becomes so when you hand a tool to someone that does "hold up the entire game". That's literally what the X-card is for. To stop whatever is happening "right now". Not "finish playing the session, and then talk to the GM about this later". Right?

I think you might be attributing more power to the X-card than it has, with some of your examples? The X-card isn't a "the invoker gets authorial control of the story and can resolve things however they feel like" situation. The most typical ways of handling it I've seen are reflavoring, "let's jump to another scene and come back to that later", or "resolve it in a neutral way, make the next situation the decisive one instead". None of which are a "win" button.

Ok. "let's jump to another scene and come back later" is a huge mechanical "win" for the player who finds their character in a tough spot, losing a fight, need to use a rare consumable, or well, just about anything. Your second case of "resolve it in a neutral way, make the next situation the decisive one instead" is also a mechanical "win" for the player(s) if they find themselves doing poorly in a major conflict/encounter, and want to effectively get a "do-over". Oh... This fight wasn't really the one that determines if the bbeg's plan succeeds, we'll make it the next one instead.

Maybe part of this is my own professional background. I'm trained when creating or implementing any new tool to basically put on a black hat and ask "can I abuse this if I want to?". And yeah, this tool gives almost limitless ability for someone using it in bad faith to abuse the heck out of it (again, if they want to). That makes it a "bad tool".

And what I find interesting is that every time I raise these concerns the responses seem to just ignore this case, and go right back to assuming that everyone who ever plays an X-card (or similar safety tool) will always do so in good faith. Um... That's not how you test things. You assume someone's going to do something they shouldn't be doing and see what happens if that is the case. And then you try to make changes to prevent that from happening, or to reduce the damage done when it does.

Also, I contend that in terms of the "you could shut down someone's roleplaying with it" aspect, the vast majority of tables already do that for certain topics, they're just commonly-agreed enough that people don't think about it. But, for example, try playing out a sexual encounter with an NPC in detail - most GMs would "X-card" that by mandating you "fade to black" rather than describe it - and most groups would agree with the GM in doing so. Heck, many tables wouldn't even "fade to black", they'd just straight-up say it's not happening.

Sure. We do these things normally at gaming tables all the time. No problem. But what was previously a collective decision is now a single person decision when you introduce a safety tool like the X-card. The GM has a direct feedback on their rulings in the form of the players. If the players don't like the game, they stop playing (or, hopefully, come talk to the GM about this ahead of time). This allows for a table to establish their rules/norms/standards/whatever for play based on what the players collectively enjoy. This process is normal, natural, introduces feedback, and is inclusive.


The issue I have with the X-card concept is that it allows for an interrupt of pretty much anything that's happening at the table, by any one player at the table, with no explanation required at the time of interruption. The default pre-existing method is that if you don't like or disagree with something happening right now, you speak up about it, right now, and we make a decision about this, right now (even if the decsion is "ok, we'll skip this and have a conversation about it later"). Alternatively, you let it drop for the time being, let things play out, and then raise it later after the session. Those two options should be sufficient. We assume that if something is really really that important to you in the moment, you should raise that issue, in the moment.

The X-card concept introduces a method that is "stop the action, right now, but I'll only talk about it (maybe) later". And yeah, we might question what the differences is between a player simply saying "Hey guys. I'm not really comfortable with <whatever>. Can we not do this?", versus "play an X-card, say what you aren't happy about", and we move on. Kind of the same, right? But that's if the X-card is only used in the "flag to get people's attention so you can say something" way. Which, as I've stated repeatedly, is not a problem at all. It's the other aspects of this, suggesting that the player need not expreess themselves about the what or why of the X-card play, that I have some serious reservations about.

If you're at all saying "Play an X-card and we just stop the current scene and move on to something else, no questions asked", then that's what I'm saying I have a problem with. If it's "play an X-card and we stop what we're doing and have a conversation about things, and then decide what to do about it", then that's more in line what I would consider normal healthy communication and I have no problem with it. But yeah. That puts this back into the "flag to get people to stop, so you can say something" which I spoke about earlier. I have absolutely no issues with that. Back when I ran tourney games, this was a normal thing. When you're seated around a pretty long table, with sometimes up to a dozen people sitting around it, and let's face it the "Loud and I Roleplay by being overly dramatic and therefore sit right next to the GM to hog the spotlight" players present, we always had instructions for GMs like "player raises their hand, you call for everyone to stop and ask the player what they want to say". Very simple tool. Worked just fine for the many years I ran tables at tourneys (and I'll assume is still a method used today).

That's very very different from a signal that, when used, simply causes the GM to assume the "trigger warning" position, stop the entire scene where it is, skip it entirely and move on to something else, with no additional conversation involved. Anything in that realm, I'm going to still put a hard "no" on.

[icefractal]

And what I find interesting is that every time I raise these concerns the responses seem to just ignore this case, and go right back to assuming that everyone who ever plays an X-card (or similar safety tool) will always do so in good faith. Um... That's not how you test things. You assume someone's going to do something they shouldn't be doing and see what happens if that is the case. And then you try to make changes to prevent that from happening, or to reduce the damage done when it does.

Well I can answer that pretty easily. Here are some things I do while running a game (and the other GMs in the group are similar) that are very exploitable by "black hat" players:
* I don't closely monitor die rolls.
* I don't audit character sheets, much less memorize their modifiers so I know if people are giving the right results.
* I don't keep my own separate accounting of PC's resources like HP, spell slots, or money.
* When running a module, I don't verify (IDK how I even would) that the players haven't read it themselves to know what's ahead.
* In games with session-based resources (like Savage Worlds) I don't regulate how often people can use the bathroom, or how long they can RP for.
* If a player says they're not feeling well and has to leave, I don't require a doctor's note. They could exploit this to end the session (or at least any scenes involving their character) early.

And probably lots of other things. If my players are trying to cheat / be jerks? Then my game is already FUBAR. So all I'm assuming is that normal non-jerkass players won't suddenly become terrible by the X-card existing, because my game is already not remotely jerkass-proof.

[Cluedrew]

Edit: IMO The benefits (when they happen correctly) would be immediately obvious. The likely harms this thread has pointed out are far more subtle and wouldn't be immediately obvious, it would most likely require a comparison to the same game without it to see the difference. Furthermore they would be spread out over the entire session, as opposed to zero or one time specific event.

The real question for someone considering using it shouldn't be based on anecdotal. It should be if those likely harms are worth more than a possible one time beneficial use. And likely zero times. IMO in the standard game, they wouldn't be.

For the most part I agree with this, there are only two parts I will address:

A decision on whether to use the X-card system should be based on the best information/understanding available. If the best available is anecdotal evidence, then it should be based off that. And I will say that I think anecdotal evidence is better than pure theory-crafting which is what a lot of the arguments against the X-card system.

Which brings me to the main point. You described them as "likely harms" and while the harms and problem cases described in this thread all seem possible, not many of them seem likely. I was asking if anyone had actually encountered any of these problems in actual play and the answer seems to be no. Admittedly our sample size is one which only technically counts as a sample, more people who have tried it would be great.

So yes, there could be subtle effects of adding the X-card system to the game, for good and for ill. And I don't want to dismiss these completely but I think we should take a step back and ask if they are likely to come up. For instance the chain of "introduce a tool that makes people cut painful topics signals it is OK to ask that we stay away from such topics and so people end up doing so more naturally" is a chain that make sense to me. On the other hand "introduce a tool that makes people cut painful topics signals it is OK to use this to disrupt play whenever anything you don't like in anyway happens" does not; at least not in an otherwise healthy group. I'm not interested in disusing the already toxic group and if its purpose is made clear I don't see how it is used that way in good faith.

[Vahnavoi]

Shy and anxious people failing to express themselves or do much anything because they're afraid to push boundaries, is a far more common and severe issue than players pushing boundaries to the point of someone breaking. If establishing a stop signal makes them live a bit, that's overwhelmingly a positive. For younger players, pushing boundaries until someone stops them is how they learn where the boundaries are in the first place. That is an actual human instinct and a distinct development phase all humans go through. Even a lot of adult player relive that when coming face-to-face with a new authority figure, such as a new game master, because games are play and as such a permission to be a bit childish.

So, worrying about a stopping signal undermining some pre-existing social contract only makes sense if you're thinking of its inclusion as rule change for a pre-existing group of adult players who already know where all their boundaries are.

[truemane]

As I've said in other places, in RL most of my recent tabletop experience has been DM'ing for strangers (and relative strangers), a high percentage of which are new to role-playing. I've been using the X-card consistently for quite some time.

This is a topic that touches me pretty closely, and it's the sort of thing I have a lot of thoughts on. I've written several versions of this post, but I keep creeping away from 'some thoughts' territory and into 'full-blown manifesto.'

So, some thoughts:

• There's a sort of paradox at the heart of discussions about safety tools. There is a kind of person who is mostly immune to the harm facilitated by the lack of safety tools. And so that harm is invisible to them. And so safety tools are far more likely to restrict them than they are to benefit them. And so, because they can easily see the restrictions but not the benefits, they see safety tools purely in terms of misuse. Whereas the fact that they (and many others like them) see it that way is, in fact, why explicit safety tools are needed.
• If you think the X-Card is stupid (silly, redundant, unnecessary) because 'anyone can just speak up anytime something bothers them' then the X-Card is not for you. And that's fine. It doesn't have to be. But just because you find "speaking up when something bothers you" to be a simple, direct, and unproblematic process, doesn't mean everyone does.
• And again (in my experience) the pervasive notion that 'we don't need safety tools because we can all just use our words' is the exact attitude that creates an environment in which safety tools are necessary.
• I can't find it, but I saw a comic once with two fancy foxes eating and one says "I ran into Mr.Rabbit today and he says that something must be done about Mr. Badger." And the other says "Really? That's strange. Mr. Badger never did anything to me." If you talked to the fancy foxes about Badger Safety they'd be very resistant.
• Much like any given RPG, rules guide behaviour. Both explicitly (because they're rules) and also because the things you have rules for tell you what kind of thing you're doing. An RPG system that has a ton of rules for combat and none for social conflict is telling you what that game is about. In the same way, a table that has clear rules for handling harmful or problematic subject matter is telling you what that table is about.
• In my experience, the primary benefit of a safety tool is that its presence resets the social contract at the table. The very fact that it is in place tells everyone at the table what kind of game we're playing and offers strong guidelines as to what kinds of behaviours will and won't be acceptable (both explicitly and implicitly).
• At tables with safety tools in place I have seen a significant reduction in the kinds of casual racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, ableism and all the other kinds of weaponized prejudice that have seeped into polite society. People are more careful with their speech. They're less likely to make jokes about women making them sandwiches, less likely to use certain words as pejoratives ("I got hit again? GAY!"), less likely to default into stereotype, less likely to casually bring up sexual assault. More likely to steer away from problematic topics before they get to them.
• Most importantly, in my experience, tables that have safety tools and women or BIPOC, the drop in casual weaponized prejudice is nearly 100%. Whereas (again, in my experience) the presence of women and BIPOC without explicit safety tools does not have the same effect. With no explicit safety tools in place, people are generally as likely to engage in casual weaponized prejudice roughly as often as they do otherwise (sometimes with a side-glance and a half-hearted 'sorry' - which just makes it worse).
• In my experience, misuse of a safety tool is rare. You know how, in 3.5, you could technically heal someone by drowning them? No one ever did that at a table either, not seriously. Because the social contract says that, generally speaking, misusing a rule system to generate a cynical result is out of bounds.
• (In my experience, and somewhat counter-intuitively, when someone does misuse a safety tool, it's more likely to be the kind of person the tool was designed to protect than the kind of person you suspect. But my thoughts on that delve into manifesto territory so I'll leave it there)

[kyoryu]

I think the idea of X-Card abuse is a bit overblown, and perhaps based on a misunderstanding.

The goal of the X-Card is to get out of the uncomfortable situation right now. Period. That's what the emphasis on "no discussion necessary" is for.

Once you're out of the situation, presumably the person triggered could talk about it, at least if the situation is likely to reoccur.

If the person continually uses the X-Card, won't tell you why, and seems to be "controlling" the game with it? Then they're not a good fit for the table anyway. No matter what "power" the X-Card gives, the ultimate answer is you don't have to play with them.

"Well, why risk it?"

Because you have two groups of people - people that might get legitimately triggered by stuff and use the X-Card in the intended way, and jerkfaces. Making sure that people that are legitimately triggered have a way out is much, much more important to me than preventing abuse by jerkfaces, since jerfaces will abuse things no matter what. The solution to jerkfaces is to kick them out of games.

[Beelzebub1111]

I feel like, to some extent, there should be a mutual level of trust and respect for GM and between players. If you can't have an honest discussion about what's bothering you, then it shows a lack of emotional maturity that i don't really want to play with or run for. That doesn't mean we can't stop if things get too intense and you need 5 minutes to cool down or whatever. Or if things are getting to crazy we can't stop. or if a player's actions bother you, you can't stop to hash it out OOC. We are all trying to have fun together.

In the end a safety tool, like the x-card, is no different from saying "Time Out" or having a safeword. But the issue is that when we stop, take time to cool off, or whatever you need, you can't tell me what went wrong then it's just a bad fit. No one's behavior gets corrected and noone learns anything. Even if you just needed time to wind down from a scene that's enough of a reason, but I would like a reason at all.

The sad truth is that tables that generally need X-Cards aren't the type to use them and those that would generally aren't he type to need them.

[Vahnavoi]

I ran games for many college age kids...

College aged people aren't kids, they are young adults. To clarify, when I think of younger players, I mean children from age of 4 up to teenagers at age of 16.

IMO the place this system would be the most beneficial is a Con game. Because that's where you really get the kind of That Guys that stomp all over normal boundaries IMX. Negative RPG geek stereotypes exist for a reason, and at Cons they're usually out in force.

As noted, I am also convention game master, and as far as I'm concerned those stereotypes are full of crap and largely stem from negativity bias. That is, somebody at some point had one bad experience at a convention and then generalized it to all others. Like That Guy, they are memes with only tenuous relation to reality and are given far more weight in discussions than their actual occurrence rate warrants.

---

Because you have two groups of people - people that might get legitimately triggered by stuff and use the X-Card in the intended way, and jerkfaces. Making sure that people that are legitimately triggered have a way out is much, much more important to me than preventing abuse by jerkfaces, since jerfaces will abuse things no matter what. The solution to jerkfaces is to kick them out of games.

I've dug into this before, but since these kind of ideas keep getting repeated, it bears repeating:

This kind of dichotomy, and especially the part in italics, is wrong. Again, it is common in all kinds of games for players to pretend to be more hurt than they are if that can get them a game advantage. Whether they bother to do that depends on stakes of the game. It is not a "no matter what" type of deal at all, the incentive grows stronger or weaker depending on how much skin they have in the game and how big a price is on the table. The punishment of being kicked out does not exactly solve this, it is only weighed against whatever reward would be gained by the deception. The likelihood of getting caught matters more than severity of punishment, so a game master who is good at noticing and quick at intervening can solve the matter with warnings before the situation escalates to the point where a player has to be kicked out.

The important part, again, is that most tabletop roleplaying games have zero real stakes to them, or the stopping signal has no relation to them. If they can't win the match by crying uncle, they have no reason to do so unless they are actually in pain. It's that simple.

[gbaji]

Well I can answer that pretty easily. Here are some things I do while running a game (and the other GMs in the group are similar) that are very exploitable by "black hat" players:
* I don't closely monitor die rolls.
* I don't audit character sheets, much less memorize their modifiers so I know if people are giving the right results.
* I don't keep my own separate accounting of PC's resources like HP, spell slots, or money.
* When running a module, I don't verify (IDK how I even would) that the players haven't read it themselves to know what's ahead.
* In games with session-based resources (like Savage Worlds) I don't regulate how often people can use the bathroom, or how long they can RP for.
* If a player says they're not feeling well and has to leave, I don't require a doctor's note. They could exploit this to end the session (or at least any scenes involving their character) early.

Sure. I get that. But if someone produced a game aid that was in the form of a dice box, which allowed players to roll dice (inside the box) without anyone but them seeing the result, I'm going to assume you would not allow that at your table. And if someone created a character sheet system designed specifically to encode the values so that only the player could possibly see what's on the sheet, you probably woulnd't allow that either. How about a game system in which the player rolls for damage to his character (under a dice box even), and then secretly records this (on his encoded character sheet that only he can see), without telling you what the results were. Probably wouldn't be a fan of that either, right?

The point is that, yes, players can cheat if they want. But the normal game methodologies provide tools for the GM to determine if this is happening. You don't have to stand over the player and watch them roll, but would probably expect that they make rolls out on the table. The later allows you to monitor the rolls if you decide it's needed. Similarly, you may not be looking at the players sheet constantly, but you absolutely can ask to see the sheet if you want/need to, and the player should provide this. Same deal with recorded damage, consumables, spells, etc. You *can* see these things if you want to, and the normal expecation is that the player has to make these things available to the GM.

Some aspects of the X-card concept (and it becomes moreso the farther we get into the "without question/expanation" side of things) are similar to those somewhat tongue in cheek examples above. You're intentionally adopting something that doesn't allow someone to cheat (because as you say, anyone can if they want), but makes it very difficult to impossible to know when/if they are. And the mere existence of such a tool may very well create cheating where it would not exist otherwise. In exactly the way that having some kind of concealed dice rolling methodology might do so.

And probably lots of other things. If my players are trying to cheat / be jerks? Then my game is already FUBAR. So all I'm assuming is that normal non-jerkass players won't suddenly become terrible by the X-card existing, because my game is already not remotely jerkass-proof.

But you'd still not introduce a "hidden dice roll" or "hidden character sheet" system at your table, right? I mean, you trust your players not to cheat, but you still don't make it ridiculously easy for them anyway.


And I guess another issue I have with the X-card idea is the very binary nature of it. There's no nuance here. Do you play it merely when something is heading in a direction you aren't comfortable with? Or when it's arrived? Do others know which is which when it's played? There's a lot of variable use potential going on here. And at the end of the day, RPGs are social games. They are best when everyone is participating and communicating with each other comfortably. Anything that facilitates this is a good thing. I just don't realy see a tool that just acts as a "make people stop when they do or say something I don't like" interrupt as conducive to this. I'd rather encourage players to particpate and communicate. And yeah, some players will be the shy anxious types. But again, I'd rather do things that encourage them to engage with the group, then a tool to enable them to continue to stand off by themselves (socially anyway) and veto other people when they don't like things.

I just don't like the "social bumpercar" aspect to this. Everything's fine... until it's not.

Again. I can see this for a group of strangers, if we're really concerned that there may be really inappropriate stuff going on (though, again, I'd like to think the GM or table as a whole should act to damper this stuff anyway). And I can maybe see this for someone with really high anxiety issues, to get them to even try to particpate in social games. But if this were a friend of mine going through this, I'd be working with them to wean them off the X-card though. At the end of the day, it's a social crutch. And sure, sometimes crutches are needed. But ideally, they should always be temporary measures.

[icefractal]

This kind of dichotomy, and especially the part in italics, is wrong. Again, it is common in all kinds of games for players to pretend to be more hurt than they are if that can get them a game advantage. Whether they bother to do that depends on stakes of the game. It is not a "no matter what" type of deal at all, the incentive grows stronger or weaker depending on how much skin they have in the game and how big a price is on the table.

See my response to gbaji a few posts above. You're saying that the emergency door people want to install isn't very secure and could be pried open from the outside. I'm saying that's true, but since I'm installing this door on a house with no locks at all, it's not really any less secure than how it already was.

But you'd still not introduce a "hidden dice roll" or "hidden character sheet" system at your table, right? I mean, you trust your players not to cheat, but you still don't make it ridiculously easy for them anyway.

Eh, I might? If there was some benefit to it.

The dice, it's true that "the GM is probably not looking" is a different case than "nobody is looking" - it's possible that there are some players who would cheat but are currently afraid of being noticed by the other players even if I'm not looking myself.

The character sheet? What would it really change? If a player says they have Bluff +15, looking at their sheet won't prove anything unless they're really incompetent at cheating - they'll have written "+15" on there. If they're saying a value that's implausible then I'd ask "How?" which doesn't require seeing their sheet to answer. I guess having the sheet to audit would make subtle fudges more noticeable (if you audit it semi-carefully), but if they're that subtle it's unlikely to be noticed anyway.

And I guess another issue I have with the X-card idea is the very binary nature of it. There's no nuance here.

This is true, and IDK if I'd call it the best safety tool for that reason. Something like Line and Veils gives a lot more information. But that information requires the player to know up front what they have issues with, and/or for the GM to know up front what kind of content they'll be including in future. The X-card is more like a fire extinguisher - it's an emergency tool that hopefully doesn't need to be invoked ever, but it's good to have available when needed.

For this reason, I don't really agree with "use it on a regular basis so that it's no big deal". Like yes, that does lower the stakes of using it, but it also lowers the perceived need to respond to it. I'd treat it more like an emergency brake on a train - you pull it when you need to stop immediately. And like an emergency break of a fire extinguisher, the corrective action needs to happen first and the discussion second.


And I guess that's why I'm against "don't unilaterally stop things" / "this should be a discussion to reach a mutual conclusion" as counterpoints. If someone is standing on my toes, until they move I don't care that it was by mistake, that they didn't intend any harm, that they're not a bad person, that the issue is where I was standing, or the lights being too dim, etc, etc. That's all fine, and we can talk about it after they get the **** off my foot. But not before.

And that's how I think the X-card is intended. It's not "I don't particularly like this theme, can we move the campaign in a different direction?" It's "this conversation right here is viscerally uncomfortable for me, it needs to stop until I can GTFO" - which can either mean the group switches tracks, or the player in question leaves early - but not "just stay there being viscerally uncomfortable until a good moment to discuss things arrives".

Or to put it another way:
"This game is very spider-heavy, if that bothers you then you should step out, I'll let you know when the next campaign starts." - Perfectly fine.
"This game is very spider-heavy, and if that bothers you, you should keep playing it anyway and not make a fuss." - No.

[Vahnavoi]

See my response to gbaji a few posts above. You're saying that the emergency door people want to install isn't very secure and could be pried open from the outside. I'm saying that's true, but since I'm installing this door on a house with no locks at all, it's not really any less secure than how it already was.

I find this an odd criticism of me, given I effectively explained no-body will use the emergency door if there's no benefit to it.

The other reason it's an odd criticism, and odd analogy, is because my chief criticism of the X-card is not that it makes a game worse, it's that it's physically redundant and pointless. Just like an additional emergency door would be in a building that already has enough unlocked doors to cover capacity. For your specific argument, that analogy also means that if players can already lie and cheat to their heart's content in other ways to get the outcome they want, they are also less likely to abuse a stopping signal for that specific purpose.

[OldTrees1]

Edit: as Vahnavoi points out below, I misread them here.

I find this an odd criticism of me, given I effectively explained no-body will use the emergency door if there's no benefit to it.

The other reason it's an odd criticism, and odd analogy, is because my chief criticism of the X-card is not that it makes a game worse, it's that it's physically redundant and pointless. Just like an additional emergency door would be in a building that already has enough unlocked doors to cover capacity. For your specific argument, that analogy also means that if players can already lie and cheat to their heart's content in other ways to get the outcome they want, they are also less likely to abuse a stopping signal for that specific purpose.

The part of your post they quoted and were talking about, was a part where you mentioned a hypothetical theoretical exploit which is not observed in practice. Their argument was the building is unlocked (there are other areas of their game that are more exploitable, like cheating at dice since the GM is not checking) that it does not make sense to critique the emergency exit (the safety tool) for being able to be pried open from outside (hypothetical exploit). If their argument is correct, then we would expect these hypothetical exploits to not be observed in practice (or at least vanishingly infrequently). We have a low sample size of actual experience by these exploits show up 0% of the time in that sample.

Now the other parts of your post did raise an argument that you don't see why anyone would ever use the emergency door since you don't see a benefit to it. Let me quote Truemane here:

As I've said in other places, in RL most of my recent tabletop experience has been DM'ing for strangers (and relative strangers), a high percentage of which are new to role-playing. I've been using the X-card consistently for quite some time.

This is a topic that touches me pretty closely, and it's the sort of thing I have a lot of thoughts on. I've written several versions of this post, but I keep creeping away from 'some thoughts' territory and into 'full-blown manifesto.'

So, some thoughts:

• There's a sort of paradox at the heart of discussions about safety tools. There is a kind of person who is mostly immune to the harm facilitated by the lack of safety tools. And so that harm is invisible to them. And so safety tools are far more likely to restrict them than they are to benefit them. And so, because they can easily see the restrictions but not the benefits, they see safety tools purely in terms of misuse. Whereas the fact that they (and many others like them) see it that way is, in fact, why explicit safety tools are needed.
• If you think the X-Card is stupid (silly, redundant, unnecessary) because 'anyone can just speak up anytime something bothers them' then the X-Card is not for you. And that's fine. It doesn't have to be. But just because you find "speaking up when something bothers you" to be a simple, direct, and unproblematic process, doesn't mean everyone does.
• And again (in my experience) the pervasive notion that 'we don't need safety tools because we can all just use our words' is the exact attitude that creates an environment in which safety tools are necessary.
• I can't find it, but I saw a comic once with two fancy foxes eating and one says "I ran into Mr.Rabbit today and he says that something must be done about Mr. Badger." And the other says "Really? That's strange. Mr. Badger never did anything to me." If you talked to the fancy foxes about Badger Safety they'd be very resistant.

Truemane is correct that to some the safety tools might appear to have no benefit. Those people believe that "anyone can just speak up anytime something bothers them". Without assistance, those people are not going to see the benefit the safety tools have to others.

Some of them (like myself) have the fortune or misfortune of having some context or encounter that reveals that others DO benefit from these safety tools even if they(I) won't themselves.

You might never benefit from a safety tool. I won't ever need a safety tool in an RPG. However I have seen what happens when someone did need one and none was provided. So, keep that in mind when I give the conclusion "Include a safety tool when needed. It is rarely needed, although risk assessment can help predict when it is more likely to be needed" because we can benefit from my mistake.

[kyoryu]

And probably lots of other things. If my players are trying to cheat / be jerks? Then my game is already FUBAR. So all I'm assuming is that normal non-jerkass players won't suddenly become terrible by the X-card existing, because my game is already not remotely jerkass-proof.

Correct, and I explicitly play games that don't put guardrails in for exploitative players.

I think one of the arguments is often "but if there's a benefit players will use it." That presumes that said players are unmotivated by social norms and niceties. IOW, that the social damage done by abuse of tools/etc. is of no consequence to them.

I reject that argument whole cloth. That's only true if:

1. You're playing with people that don't care if they upset others at the table
2. You're unwilling to enact consequences to perceived antisocial behavior

In other words, people will use something like that to their benefit only if there are no negative consequences to doing so that they care about - either internal (feeling bad about damaging relationships) or external (getting removed).

I'm 51 years old. I have a lot of things on my plate, so maximizing the pool of people I can play RPGs with is not a priority. Maximizing my enjoyment from my limited free time is. So I will 100% be selective on who I game with, and people that fit criteria #1 don't clear the bar, and therefore I'm 100% willing to bypass #2 and enact consequences towards people doing that. I'm also 100% in favor of prioritizing the experience of people that are acting in good faith and trying to stay within social norms, and handling exploitation of those things as social issues to be resolved via normal social mechanisms - explaining standards, setting boundaries, and ultimately enforcing them.

[Ionathus]

Shy and anxious people failing to express themselves or do much anything because they're afraid to push boundaries, is a far more common and severe issue than players pushing boundaries to the point of someone breaking. If establishing a stop signal makes them live a bit, that's overwhelmingly a positive.

I get where you're coming from, but "just have a conversation about it" isn't always so simple. During a session, people often get loud and boisterous, and a quiet objection can be missed. Also, people often object in-character to things they don't mind IRL.
...
What the X-card takes the place of is not just conversation, it's standing up, waving your arms, going "Hey everyone, hold on a minute, hey!" until people are actually listening, and then explaining the situation and clarifying the fact that this is OOC. Which is not so easy for someone who's on the verge of panic to do.

This part right here is why I believe so fervently in the value of some sort of explicit "pause" mechanic. What I'm seeing consistently from one corner of this debate is the idea that you can "just talk it out" so a pause mechanic is redundant. Well, hey, guess what, not everybody is like that. Not everybody has the social confidence to speak up and start a conversation about the fact that they're the only one having a bad time.

My players are awesome and they're excellent at communicating their needs. But we very recently hit a snag on something I never would have expected: a roll on the Wild Magic Surge table caught one player by surprise, and that was the moment the rest of us learned she had a pretty niche but intense phobia. You know what she did when the phobia came up? She got quiet. We only caught it because we know her playstyle very well, and even then it took a little bit. At a different table where we hadn't all gamed together for 3+ years, I can easily see a scenario where the rest of the party laughs it off and keeps playing while she sits there panicking silently, unable to form a coherent request to dial it back or take a break.

Some people freeze up in a crisis. Having a "button" they can metaphorically push, without having to have a whole discussion about it and potentially get into a well-intentioned "debate" about the topic, simplifies their escape from that crisis.

Well I can answer that pretty easily. Here are some things I do while running a game (and the other GMs in the group are similar) that are very exploitable by "black hat" players:
* I don't closely monitor die rolls.
* I don't audit character sheets, much less memorize their modifiers so I know if people are giving the right results.
* I don't keep my own separate accounting of PC's resources like HP, spell slots, or money.
* When running a module, I don't verify (IDK how I even would) that the players haven't read it themselves to know what's ahead.
* In games with session-based resources (like Savage Worlds) I don't regulate how often people can use the bathroom, or how long they can RP for.
* If a player says they're not feeling well and has to leave, I don't require a doctor's note. They could exploit this to end the session (or at least any scenes involving their character) early.

And probably lots of other things. If my players are trying to cheat / be jerks? Then my game is already FUBAR. So all I'm assuming is that normal non-jerkass players won't suddenly become terrible by the X-card existing, because my game is already not remotely jerkass-proof.

This is where I land, too. I don't find "it could be misused by a bad-faith actor" compelling at all. All of the hypothetical scenarios in this thread, where some jerk strongarms the game with an X-card or equivalent, just...don't track for me. The mechanic is extremely unsubtle by design. If you abuse it, people are going to notice.

As I've said in other places, in RL most of my recent tabletop experience has been DM'ing for strangers (and relative strangers), a high percentage of which are new to role-playing. I've been using the X-card consistently for quite some time.

This is a topic that touches me pretty closely, and it's the sort of thing I have a lot of thoughts on. I've written several versions of this post, but I keep creeping away from 'some thoughts' territory and into 'full-blown manifesto.'
<snip>

Excellent post, thank you for sharing. This encapsulates my feelings on the matter almost entirely. In particular, I really appreciate the point you made about experienced players seeing the "cons" but not the "pros":

There's a sort of paradox at the heart of discussions about safety tools. There is a kind of person who is mostly immune to the harm facilitated by the lack of safety tools. And so that harm is invisible to them. And so safety tools are far more likely to restrict them than they are to benefit them. And so, because they can easily see the restrictions but not the benefits, they see safety tools purely in terms of misuse. Whereas the fact that they (and many others like them) see it that way is, in fact, why explicit safety tools are needed.

This aspect of the discussion ("I don't see a good reason to use them, but I do see how they could impact my experience") feels like unintentional "old guard" mentality for me. Mechanics like this are designed to make the hobby safer and more accessible to a wider audience, some of whom might see RP as outside their comfort zone, but they're being dismissed by longtime TTRPG people who say some variation of "well, I don't see what's so hard about just talking it out." Of course you don't. You've been doing this for years or even decades. We're debating this on an honest-to-god TTRPG message board with a 2003-style interface - I think it's safe to say we're here because we're experienced and passionate about the hobby, and thus represent a pretty diehard subset of the community.

We are not (usually) the intended audience for entry-level safety tools. But that doesn't mean those tools are useless or damaging. And if we don't have them where they're needed, we stand a chance of driving people away from the hobby if they don't fit the hobby's core demographic of "experienced RPer, always outspoken about personal comfort, fully aware of all triggers & phobias". I don't know about you, but I have people at my table who fall outside those criteria. It's not unreasonable to make accommodations for them, and it's not fair to assume straightaway that those accommodations will be abused.

[Vahnavoi]

@OldTrees:

Pay close attention. I was not making the argument you think I was making. The thing I was critiquing, and the part which IceFractal quoted, was about a bad dichotomy of players into honest people and cheaters and the false idea that cheaters gonna cheat no matter what. In actuality, whether people cheat depends on the advantage gained. If no extra benefit is gained by it, they won't cheat in that specific way even if it is possible, that is literally the explanation for why you don't observe everyone abusing stop signals even if they technically could.

As for the redundancy of the X-card specifically, do remember that I made a distinction between it and stop signals in general. The X-card is not redundant and pointless because stop signals in general are pointless, the X-card is pointless and redundant because there are and were other existing stop signals before the X-card even became a discussion topic. Related, the practice of players feigning offense or injury to gain advantage is so well known that specific games have their own terminology (such as "flopping" for basket ball or "diving" for association football) and scientific research for why it happens, how often it happens, how good referees are in spotting it, and what you can do about it. Most of it is really basic psychology, to the point it's unreasonable to think it would not be applicable to tabletop roleplaying games.

[OldTrees1]

@OldTrees:

Pay close attention. I was not making the argument you think I was making.

You are right. Thanks for pointing it out so I could see that I misread.

As for the redundancy of the X-card specifically, do remember that I made a distinction between it and stop signals in general. The X-card is not redundant and pointless because stop signals in general are pointless, the X-card is pointless and redundant because there are and were other existing stop signals before the X-card even became a discussion topic.

Ah, right. The chairman's hammer nonverbal signal you mentioned earlier. Sorry, I had gotten confused. Your critique was about this specific nonverbal stopping signal, rather than the concept of a nonverbal signal for when the verbal signals are inaccessible.

My players are awesome and they're excellent at communicating their needs. But we very recently hit a snag on something I never would have expected: a roll on the Wild Magic Surge table caught one player by surprise, and that was the moment the rest of us learned she had a pretty niche but intense phobia. You know what she did when the phobia came up? She got quiet. We only caught it because we know her playstyle very well, and even then it took a little bit. At a different table where we hadn't all gamed together for 3+ years, I can easily see a scenario where the rest of the party laughs it off and keeps playing while she sits there panicking silently, unable to form a coherent request to dial it back or take a break.

Some people freeze up in a crisis. Having a "button" they can metaphorically push, without having to have a whole discussion about it and potentially get into a well-intentioned "debate" about the topic, simplifies their escape from that crisis.

Yup. I sympathize that you (plural) went through that. I am glad you (plural) caught on sooner rather than later.