NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7823519" data-attributes="member: 16814">In an attempt to rerail a bit, here's a positive use case for the X-card idea.There are more games that D&D, and some pointedly involve transgressive or challenging themes.  The point of these games is to explore these themes in the process of play.  These game also tend to be much more interactive, requiring players to expose themselves more in the process of roleplaying, and tend to use narrative techniques to build play.  As such, they don't follow a planned arc, but instead present a challenge and extend play along the lines of what players try to do, using mechanics to determine the outcomes and thus further the story.Since these games can lead to some dark places rather rapidly, the X-card is a good safety valve to pause the play, step back, and assess.  In this regard, it is a physical manifestation of a safe word.  I see a lot of value in using X-cards in this kind of play.As a possible negative in this, though, the presence of the safety valve X-card may actually increase the odds of things going darker than they otherwise would.  The x-card represents an unspoken consent to delve darker because it exists as a safe out, meaning play might actually become more toxic than it would absent such a valve.  This isn't a given, clearly there's lots of confounders, but it's a known part of human psychology that if you have a safety valve you can push the limits harder.  Something to be aware of.</blockquote>

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