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

[Umbran]

Sure, but the open door policy has the benefit of allowing one to use it without broadcasting that they have a problem to complete strangers.

Yep.

Have you missed that I said that there's nothing wrong with an open door policy, and that we can use them and X Cards at the same table?

Nobody is arguing against the open door policy. Nor is anyone arguing that you must choose only one.

These are tools in a toolbox. Pick what combination works for you - none, all, some. Flex to what works for you and your table.

 

[Umbran]

I feel like there is some discrepancy regarding the Xcard as a conversation starter. I thought it explicitly was NOT a conversation starter, but a trigger stopper, no questions asked.

Well, folks use variations.

The most recent and constructive conversations I've seen about it are that the person who invokes the X Card does not have to explain. But they may, to the extent they want, if they are okay with doing so and feel it would help.

And, yes, it helps the GM if there's some information. If you can tap the X Card and say, "Spiders!" or "Please don't shout at me!" the GM knows what to avoid. In neither case is the player required to go into depth why - maybe shouting hurts their ears, maybe it triggers their PTSD, doesn't matter, just lower your voice already.

If you tap the X Card, and can say nothing more, well, that's more difficult to manage, but most of the time it is going to be something proximate to the invocation. Like, they're probably not tapping the card over something that happened 15 minutes ago. It is unlikely to be a huge mystery.

 

[Reynard]

As an aside, I have only ever had a player say something to me about content that they found inappropriate or uncomfortable. It was at a con and the event was marked as 18+ (mostly because I tend to tread the PG-13/R line in my games, and if I am being honest I just don't like playing with kids much). This person signed up with their 12-ish year old son (because while the con listed the age range, it did not actually check). There was a scene in which a femme fatale style villain was taunting/seducing a PC and the kid's parent pulled me aside after and half asked, half scolded. I was fine toning it down (and it was the only scene like that anyway). The irony, as you might guess, was that the kid (whose character was NOT the subject, just to be clear) was fully engaged and enjoying the scene.

I am sure if I had an X-card on the table and dad flashed it during that scene, I would have pivoted.

 

[Bae'zel]

Not doubting your experience in any way, but that kind of rule is wild to me. It seems like an anti-safety rule. I would not attend or run for any convention where that was the case. In that case I can see the X card being useful.

Exactly, that's why I stopped attending that specific con. It was utterly stupid.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Bottom line is you know your players well enough that you would be considerate not to use something that could possibly upset them. I mean I do not care much for X-cards because I play with mates (currently all guys) and the level of humour that runs at our table is not the humour you would find at cons or other forms of public play etc.
However, I can see how @Old Fezziwig' example with the Atropal/Atropal Scion could be an issue at some tables and I certainly would not use such a monster unless the theme had been established and I knew the players well enough.

Yep. And we tone it down when my kids are present but not the wives.

I have seen some weird stuff at cons. For myself though I would excuse myself and leave the game unless the ticket was more than 5 bucks.

Life is too short for weird crap. Who needs a raps scene in game? For example…if I say the orcs are marauding and you hear screaming do the math. Or don’t!

I am not demonizing it. I just craft my experience to not need it. If someone does not want to play with zombies and giant spiders it’s ok but probably not a match for my interests.

 

[haakon1]

I saw mention of Codes of Conduct. What goes into yours?

 

[The Firebird]

I saw mention of Codes of Conduct. What goes into yours?

Inclusion, Safety, Harassment, Hygiene (public store), Teamwork (e.g., don't rob your party members), Metagaming (don't read the mod at the table pls).

 

[SlyFlourish]

I haven't carved through this whole thread yet but I'll toss in my experiences.

The first time I saw the need for an X-Card was during an Apocalypse World game where a player used a move to sexually assault a prisoner. The DM stopped the game and said not cool and we moved on. That experience showed me the value of having an X card (and lines and veils).

I switched from using an X card to something I call "pause for a second" which is more like Script Change from Beau Jágr Sheldon.

For my games we use lines and veils up front during our session zero (I come up with core lines and veils I'm comfortable with and offer to any players to expand it). We've had some players add things like "death by exposure on the sea" because of a personal experience.

I also include "Pause for a Second". At any point, any player or the GM can say "pause for a second". We stop any ongoing conversation, break character, and give the floor to the pauser. Anyone can use it for anything like just checking in to make sure we, as players, are comfortable with what's going on in the game, catching up on exactly why something is going on, or more of an X-card "let's not do this thing" here. It's really valuable just to help keep the game going in a fun direction. It breaks past all the "that's what my character would do" sort of nonsense.

As a GM, I use it often to check in and to make everyone comfortable with its use. Because we can use it for low-impact things too, it gets more use.
In my games we've used that dozens of times. In a couple of cases for pretty severe things. In one case I really wish I had used it and didn't where an online game got away from us and characters joked about character-driven violence being done to horses of the characters and that was very upsetting for one of the players. Since then, I'm pretty careful about including this stuff because I really wish I had then.

BTW, for publishes, I released my description of safety tools into a CC license.

 

[Seramus]

I've seen it used plenty of times, sometimes in pretty bad ways and sometimes in perfect ways.

Back when I used to run games for money, I was giving a lot of questionable players a trial as part of the vetting process. I had one that would flash the X card when they were on the brink of being defeated in combat. At first it wasn't questioned, but there was certainly a fair amount of confusion. But it happened several more times, until we finally asked. They just... never wanted their character to be defeated. They weren't inherently trying to be stronger than anyone, but they never wanted to actually lose.

I've seen players use an X card against Charm or Dominate abilities - both in my own games and in other games. This was a major agency issue for them, even when it was done by enemy forces (as opposed to PVP). In some cases it was because the Dominate asked them to do something dangerous for their character (nothing sexual). In another case it was just being charmed in general, the idea that they had to act counter to their own wishes.

Arachnophobia has come up and been carded. This was my fault, I was being pretty vivid.

Dead children has come up and been carded. This was also my fault, I was NOT being especially vivid, but I did describe there being dead children amongst the other killed villagers after an orcish raid. They walked by the burning ruin of a house and saw one of the kids they had met earlier.

One of my players used it at a completely unexpected time, when I was talking about a lich consuming the souls of some innocent villagers. It was just a somber moment, and they needed to step away because they felt bad about the idea of a soul being destroyed permanently despite having done nothing wrong.

A similar story, I had a player break down into tears after I described an old grandmotherly woman forget the name of her daughter, simply because of old age. It hit a very personal nerve and the player apologized and X'carded themselves for a bit. We quickly moved past the scene while they had stepped away.

I got X carded once for mentioning that I was going to play a black character. I had no prior history of depicting anybody of the sort, and am strongly against racism in general, but the other player said they didn't even want to "go there."

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Of course, back in the day we never had anything like that, and there were so many problematic players. Countless moments where some kind of safety tools or CATS would have come in handy. From rapes where other people giggled about it (I sadly just sat in shocked silence, so shame on me). To guys playing women characters, but acting in completely inappropriate breasting boobily fashion. To players that just really clearly were enjoying the shock value of describing pretty horrific torture to monsters and their children.

I don't know, I might be the outlier here having seen so much shady crap, but I think many players have come so incredibly far in being respectful to each other compared to how things used to be. Or maybe I just don't spend any time with people like that anymore.

 

[Seramus]

It is totally possible that having been described a methodology that was essentially the X card, that years later upon hearing of it, my brain decided that was it had been called.

Regardless, I think the idea of it has been around before 2013.

I remember sometime back in the 90s during the rise of World of Darkness we were given these little black flags to wave if things were getting too sexual or creepy. Because some players could totally take things too far. Nobody ever called them X cards or anything of the sort, they were literally just these silly little black flags about an inch and a half wide.

I saw them at a few tables, and one LARP event, but they never really caught on.