Have You Used The X Card Or Seen It Used In Person?

[CellarHeroes]

All I can say is that if I had a X card on the table and a player picked it up to say "This game sucks," I would immediately invite them to leave -- mostly for trivializing the X card, but also for being a bit of a [redacted].

I totally agree. But since this was a D&D AL event organized by the convention and the table agreed with the player who used the card, there was very little I could do to make accommodations for the player.

If it weren't an AL event, I would've just said "Yeah, I thought it was just me who found this cringy. Are you up for running through something else?"

 

[Umbran]

Why not? If you're really not having fun because, say, the module is silly and you explore and the map can't make physical sense without exploration and you find a starving groups of NPC next to the room full of food and water without any trap etc. you can certainly be miffed.

There's no hard and fast line on when and how to invoke it. If your table was okay with it, fine, I guess.

But, to be honest, unless the players were being made psychologically unsafe by the module, that wasn't within the modern intent of the tool. Being "miffed" at a poorly written module isn't the intended use case.

Folks who have never had, say, a full on anxiety or panic attack, or suffered dissociation from PTSD, or debilitating sorrow from the passing of a loved one, or the like may not really understand the point - it can sound like it is all "being upset", as if all "upset" is equivalent. But it isn't.

Analogies have their limits, obviously, but I might note it akin to the difference between, "I don't like the flavor of this dish and don't really want to eat more of it," and, "I am allergic to peanuts and need an EpiPen". The X Card is kind of the EpiPen of gaming.

 

[CellarHeroes]

That still isn't a safety concern, and therefore a bad use of the tool. "I am not enjoying this game because it is badly written" is something you can just say out loud, then stand up and leave.

To add a little more to what surrounded the situation...this was early on when the cards were being introduced on a greater scale, and were still considered a joke.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There's no hard and fast line on when and how to invoke it. If your table was okay with it, fine, I guess.

But, to be honest, unless the players were being made psychologically unsafe by the module, that wasn't within the modern intent of the tool. Being "miffed" at a poorly written module isn't the intended use case.

Sure, but to take your analogy to its end, people might not want to say "I am allergic to peanuts" unless they need to. Well, they might even be less comfortable with saying "I have a phobia" than saying "I am allergic to peanuts" to complete strangers (which I guess is the more common use case of these tools). Making them reserved for extreme use case will probably make people who would benefit from using it early to use it too late, after pondering if they can stand the scene or not. Especially if there is a threat to be booted if you abuse it.

Expanding the use case will certainly reduce the stigma of using it. If you have a tool that is telegraphing "this scene is too emotionally loaded for me" when you excuse yourself from the able, I think it's best for the accessibility of the tools if it's the same tool used for "I'll be back, I need to go to the bathroom".

 

[Reynard]

Analogies have their limits, obviously, but I might note it akin to the difference between, "I don't like the flavor of this dish and don't really want to eat more of it," and, "I am allergic to peanuts and need an EpiPen". The X Card is kind of the EpiPen of gaming.

I like this analogy.

 

[Reynard]

To add a little more to what surrounded the situation...this was early on when the cards were being introduced on a greater scale, and were still considered a joke.

I can understand that. I think a lot of (old) people responded negatively to their initial introduction. I remember being mad when I first found out that some new Army recruits were given "yellow cards" to hold up if things got to difficult or intense in Basic. "I made it through hell, so can they..." kind of attitude -- which I acknowledge now was sort of dumb considering how often my own drill sergeants really pushed the line between training and sadistic glee.

Anyway, I would be curious to know what adventure it was.

 

[Reynard]

Sure, but to take your analogy to its end, people might not want to say "I am allergic to peanuts" unless they need to. Well, they might even be less comfortable with saying "I have a phobia" than saying "I am allergic to peanuts" to complete strangers (which I guess is the more common use case of these tools). Making them reserved for extreme use case will probably make people who would benefit from using it early to use it too late, after pondering if they can stand the scene or not. Especially if there is a threat to be booted if you abuse it.

Expanding the use case will certainly reduce the stigma of using it. If you have a tool that is telegraphing "this scene is too emotionally loaded for me" when you excuse yourself from the able, I think it's best for the accessibility of the tools if it's the same tool used for "I need to go to the bathroom".

But they aren't the same tool.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

But they aren't the same tool.

In the case of open door policy, that's the same tool.

 

[Reynard]

In the case of open door policy, that's the same tool.

I honestly don't understand why you would conflate the two, unless you are explicitly minimizing the important of actual safety at the table.

 

[Ringtail]

I've never used the X-Card, but I've had situations where we basically invoked it, just without the presence of an actual card.

For example, a campaign my brother ran where one of our party was getting flirted with by an NPC. Another of our player's had a new power that allowed him to see through an allies eyes and proposed they should go seduce the girl so he could watch. Both myself and the GM's wife were uncomfortable with this suggestion. GM's wife shouted NO, Absolutely not. No no no. Her tone was very aggressive, which put the other player on the defensive. The magical peeping did not happen. (He was actually joking and felt he didn't deserve to get actually yelled at rather than told it was gross not funny.)

While we managed to resolve this situation without the use of an X-Card, both players involved were tense for the rest of the session and I felt the table get massively awkward for the remainder of the session. I honestly think the X-Card would have benefited us here, allowing us to resolve the situation more diplomatically. But I'm never going to blame another woman for speaking her mind and protesting loudly. This was also a group of family members and long time friends (nearly a decade at that time, well over it now) showing that even well-established groups can have bumps sometimes.