Excellent well reasoned thoughts. I always use x-cards, lines and veils. Up until last Monday I've never actively used them in a game, but I've had comments, thanks from players that they feel safe playing in a game knowing the GM and other players consider the mental and emotional impacts of games. That Monday? I didn't touch the x-card, neither did the players. Player A went to torture an NPC, two players immediately said No, that's a line. Player A then changed tack, giving the NPC a threatening gaze and we continued on. At the end I thanked the players for managing this and the other players praised Player A for being understanding and generous. I think it helped the group, together for a year, to feel even more comfortable on where the safe points are across themselves and increased respect for each other. All in the pursuit of fun!
That's interesting to hear about your players intervening with the potential torture there. Did they do that as the players, or as the characters? I take it they did this out of character as they weren't comfortable with it? Was good though that they felt they could speak up and everyone worked together with an alternative yet effective outcome
Thanks, but I'm under no illusion that things like this don't always go so smoothly, and the likelihood is that, given we'd been together a year, it helped.
What would have changed if there was not lines, veils, cards. Characters would just have said : "no you won't". They would have argued and with a player who is not a brick, that would have made more history and game than just discussing out of character.
Good article Paul, very interesting and valid points. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. A bit like a condom in many respects lol....
I've been in a few games with the X card present but never had it actually used, but yes i think it's especially relevant for horror gaming. I've seen some very ignorant comments in the groups saying things like "you should know what to expect, it's a horror game" etc, but everyone's perception and tolerance levels of horror are completely different. I've seen a player really squirm uncomfortably at the thought of their character near spiders for example as they have a real life phobia
I think the end of the article is magnificent: "If you have it on the table and no one uses it, what's the problem? If you have it on the table and someone uses it, well, that's what it was there for." It sounds like Michael Moore 😒 It's a magnificent rhetoric that manipulates reality to gain acceptance for this crappy product. Personally, I'd rather say: "If you have it at your table, that's the problem." 😏
I'm the author of the linked article. I wrote this very long article because I'm an incorrigible chatterbox, but above all because, in fact, I care deeply about gaming; it's been my favorite pastime for 40 years.
That said, I've thought about your criticism, because even if we're old and know each other well, an outside perspective can shed light on things you might not have noticed.
Objectively, the X-Card isn't simply a gaming tool. It's inherently part of a political framework, and we see this clearly in the work of its creator. And it's because it's part of a political framework that, in France, it has sparked an unprecedented conflict in the role-playing community. The X-Card served as a Trojan Horse for regressive left-wing political activists to gain control over a community that until then had been naturally benevolent and, above all, largely apolitical. These are the people who created the "Us vs. those who don't think like us" narrative. The rest was reactive.
Fallacious analogy: belts were made when cars where totally insecure and literal coffin on wheels. RPG never were dangerous to begin with, and you have to be especially stupid, sensitive or traumatised to be at risk of an emotional event, and that would also be because your GM never talked to you, don't know you, and because you never discussed game contents and what you expect from your common time. It's OK to be sensitive. Let's talk it like adults without having to set SM tools into the hobby. If you have it at the table, be it used or not, it's a bad symptom of to things: the first is that you affect to care about all being of people at the table without taking real action for it, so this is just virtue signalling, and the second is that you are failing to be independent minded and falling for stupid fads from people new to rpg and not really interested in the hobby except for changing it and saying it is so much better now they are here (while it's not) who won't care less what you are doing once they destroyed by making it lose its soul, fun side and depth. Basically, anyone bending to this lunacy is selling his soul for riches (but this won't work in the long run)
At a con game, I'm sitting down to GM for people in the situation you describe: "never talked to you, don't know you, and because you never discussed game contents and what you expect from your common time"
I've got limited time to run the game, and for me, the X-card is a way of shortcutting that stuff. It's just a tool. Does it destroy the game's "soul, fun side and depth"—that's not my experience.
First of all, I regret my poor English. I use Google Translate, which does a very average job, but I'm a typical Frenchman, and like any typical Frenchman, I don't speak the language of Perfidious Albion because they ordered Joan of Arc to be burned!
Then, it turns out that I've organized RPG conventions and have also been the GM at these events. The observation that you don't know the players who come to your table is true, absolutely true. However... the X-Card is a recent tool; tens and tens of thousands of games have been played without it. And I suspect that in almost all cases, the games were functional. Why? Because 1) RPGs are a harmless recreational activity that takes place in a generally benevolent environment. This doesn't mean it's always idyllic; people come with who they are, and people... 2) For a very long time, it's clear that people have been able to keep their personal problems to themselves. Everyone has problems; politeness and respect dictate not embarrassing others with them.
All that being said, I think the X-Card is a tool that can potentially be useful in the context of a convention. Yes, because in reality, I'm not a primary X-Card opponent. But there was a major problem with this tool in France, Belgium and Switzerland that led to a visceral rejection among me and many other players, it was that it was accompanied by a political framework and moral blackmail: "If you don't want the X-Card, it's because you're a bastard and maybe even a Nazi", and this banner was carried by political activists of the regressive left who fell on the French-speaking RPG scene like misery on the poor world. And behind this led to the presence of X-Card being imposed on gaming tables when it should be an optional tool at the discretion of the GM and at Octogone, the biggest provincial RPG convention in France, to a militia patrolling to "discourage Nazis from coming to play and rape in the toilets". As a result, it was impossible to separate this tool from its political dimension. And all this has brought a significant schism to a universe that until then had been quite friendly and naturally welcoming, where bickering used to take place over which edition of D&D was the best...
Picking up both your replies here—I regret to say have only the most basic schoolboy French—but I assure you, I'm not the one who set a match to Joan! As such, I also have to rely on Google Translate, which has no doubt presented me with a somewhat butchered version of your article.
I don't think it's desirable for any political extreme to dominate our hobby. And I can see how something such as the X-card might be viewed as representative of the 'opposition'. However, when one starts down this road, I can't help but think of that quote about Captain Ahab, "He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."
I'm for talking and finding common ground. I note that you acknowledge, "I think the X-Card is a tool that can potentially be useful in the context of a convention" and in that we can agree. Passe une bonne journée!
Well, Ahab dies after a relentless campaign against divine power, and that's not the genre that excites me: I'm a dear old thing, I need 10 hours of sleep, and my "white whale" is finding a decent Earl Grey. But at its core, it's not just opposition, it's repression.
Threatening to beat people because they don't think according to the movement's orthodoxy and trying to exclude them from RPG conventions is a recent phenomenon in the microcosm of French RPGs. There were even roleplayers and game designers who tried to destroy one of the few RPG magazines still existing in France because there had been a short piece denouncing their practices. We're in the realm of the unheard of here, and it's to "benevolence" what the Jerusalem artichoke is to the potato.
But perhaps it's common among you. I can't say, I don't know the United Kingdom, except that the deceitful English stole the wonderful French language from us before shamefully transforming it into rumbling.
Great article. You should check out the Deck of Player Safety. If a safety tool isn’t 100% anonymous, it can’t really be effective, especially when playing with strangers at a con or game store.
I suspect that the mere existence of the X card is helpful to players. Knowing that the option exists to have some agency over how the game goes may well make players more inclined to see how things go with less anxiety. They know they can trust the table, and that goes a long way.
Complete aside but a real bugger about Jef.
Excellent well reasoned thoughts. I always use x-cards, lines and veils. Up until last Monday I've never actively used them in a game, but I've had comments, thanks from players that they feel safe playing in a game knowing the GM and other players consider the mental and emotional impacts of games. That Monday? I didn't touch the x-card, neither did the players. Player A went to torture an NPC, two players immediately said No, that's a line. Player A then changed tack, giving the NPC a threatening gaze and we continued on. At the end I thanked the players for managing this and the other players praised Player A for being understanding and generous. I think it helped the group, together for a year, to feel even more comfortable on where the safe points are across themselves and increased respect for each other. All in the pursuit of fun!
That's interesting to hear about your players intervening with the potential torture there. Did they do that as the players, or as the characters? I take it they did this out of character as they weren't comfortable with it? Was good though that they felt they could speak up and everyone worked together with an alternative yet effective outcome
As players. It was all very amicable. There were a few, "could I do x or y" from Player A, things were clarified and then the scene continued.
That was well handled by you and your players, and seems to have build a stronger party connection between them going forward
Thanks, but I'm under no illusion that things like this don't always go so smoothly, and the likelihood is that, given we'd been together a year, it helped.
What would have changed if there was not lines, veils, cards. Characters would just have said : "no you won't". They would have argued and with a player who is not a brick, that would have made more history and game than just discussing out of character.
Good point there
Good article Paul, very interesting and valid points. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. A bit like a condom in many respects lol....
I've been in a few games with the X card present but never had it actually used, but yes i think it's especially relevant for horror gaming. I've seen some very ignorant comments in the groups saying things like "you should know what to expect, it's a horror game" etc, but everyone's perception and tolerance levels of horror are completely different. I've seen a player really squirm uncomfortably at the thought of their character near spiders for example as they have a real life phobia
I think the end of the article is magnificent: "If you have it on the table and no one uses it, what's the problem? If you have it on the table and someone uses it, well, that's what it was there for." It sounds like Michael Moore 😒 It's a magnificent rhetoric that manipulates reality to gain acceptance for this crappy product. Personally, I'd rather say: "If you have it at your table, that's the problem." 😏
Another point of view on the X-Card:
https://umac2.blogspot.com/2018/06/la-x-card-quand-le-politiquement.html
I feel like the author of the linked article is more concerned with political outrage than gaming, viewing everything through the lens of Them vs Us.
I'm the author of the linked article. I wrote this very long article because I'm an incorrigible chatterbox, but above all because, in fact, I care deeply about gaming; it's been my favorite pastime for 40 years.
That said, I've thought about your criticism, because even if we're old and know each other well, an outside perspective can shed light on things you might not have noticed.
Objectively, the X-Card isn't simply a gaming tool. It's inherently part of a political framework, and we see this clearly in the work of its creator. And it's because it's part of a political framework that, in France, it has sparked an unprecedented conflict in the role-playing community. The X-Card served as a Trojan Horse for regressive left-wing political activists to gain control over a community that until then had been naturally benevolent and, above all, largely apolitical. These are the people who created the "Us vs. those who don't think like us" narrative. The rest was reactive.
Fallacious analogy: belts were made when cars where totally insecure and literal coffin on wheels. RPG never were dangerous to begin with, and you have to be especially stupid, sensitive or traumatised to be at risk of an emotional event, and that would also be because your GM never talked to you, don't know you, and because you never discussed game contents and what you expect from your common time. It's OK to be sensitive. Let's talk it like adults without having to set SM tools into the hobby. If you have it at the table, be it used or not, it's a bad symptom of to things: the first is that you affect to care about all being of people at the table without taking real action for it, so this is just virtue signalling, and the second is that you are failing to be independent minded and falling for stupid fads from people new to rpg and not really interested in the hobby except for changing it and saying it is so much better now they are here (while it's not) who won't care less what you are doing once they destroyed by making it lose its soul, fun side and depth. Basically, anyone bending to this lunacy is selling his soul for riches (but this won't work in the long run)
At a con game, I'm sitting down to GM for people in the situation you describe: "never talked to you, don't know you, and because you never discussed game contents and what you expect from your common time"
I've got limited time to run the game, and for me, the X-card is a way of shortcutting that stuff. It's just a tool. Does it destroy the game's "soul, fun side and depth"—that's not my experience.
First of all, I regret my poor English. I use Google Translate, which does a very average job, but I'm a typical Frenchman, and like any typical Frenchman, I don't speak the language of Perfidious Albion because they ordered Joan of Arc to be burned!
Then, it turns out that I've organized RPG conventions and have also been the GM at these events. The observation that you don't know the players who come to your table is true, absolutely true. However... the X-Card is a recent tool; tens and tens of thousands of games have been played without it. And I suspect that in almost all cases, the games were functional. Why? Because 1) RPGs are a harmless recreational activity that takes place in a generally benevolent environment. This doesn't mean it's always idyllic; people come with who they are, and people... 2) For a very long time, it's clear that people have been able to keep their personal problems to themselves. Everyone has problems; politeness and respect dictate not embarrassing others with them.
All that being said, I think the X-Card is a tool that can potentially be useful in the context of a convention. Yes, because in reality, I'm not a primary X-Card opponent. But there was a major problem with this tool in France, Belgium and Switzerland that led to a visceral rejection among me and many other players, it was that it was accompanied by a political framework and moral blackmail: "If you don't want the X-Card, it's because you're a bastard and maybe even a Nazi", and this banner was carried by political activists of the regressive left who fell on the French-speaking RPG scene like misery on the poor world. And behind this led to the presence of X-Card being imposed on gaming tables when it should be an optional tool at the discretion of the GM and at Octogone, the biggest provincial RPG convention in France, to a militia patrolling to "discourage Nazis from coming to play and rape in the toilets". As a result, it was impossible to separate this tool from its political dimension. And all this has brought a significant schism to a universe that until then had been quite friendly and naturally welcoming, where bickering used to take place over which edition of D&D was the best...
Picking up both your replies here—I regret to say have only the most basic schoolboy French—but I assure you, I'm not the one who set a match to Joan! As such, I also have to rely on Google Translate, which has no doubt presented me with a somewhat butchered version of your article.
I don't think it's desirable for any political extreme to dominate our hobby. And I can see how something such as the X-card might be viewed as representative of the 'opposition'. However, when one starts down this road, I can't help but think of that quote about Captain Ahab, "He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."
I'm for talking and finding common ground. I note that you acknowledge, "I think the X-Card is a tool that can potentially be useful in the context of a convention" and in that we can agree. Passe une bonne journée!
Well, Ahab dies after a relentless campaign against divine power, and that's not the genre that excites me: I'm a dear old thing, I need 10 hours of sleep, and my "white whale" is finding a decent Earl Grey. But at its core, it's not just opposition, it's repression.
Threatening to beat people because they don't think according to the movement's orthodoxy and trying to exclude them from RPG conventions is a recent phenomenon in the microcosm of French RPGs. There were even roleplayers and game designers who tried to destroy one of the few RPG magazines still existing in France because there had been a short piece denouncing their practices. We're in the realm of the unheard of here, and it's to "benevolence" what the Jerusalem artichoke is to the potato.
But perhaps it's common among you. I can't say, I don't know the United Kingdom, except that the deceitful English stole the wonderful French language from us before shamefully transforming it into rumbling.
May you survive a few more years on English food.
I never expect to crash my car, but I always wear my seatbelt
Great article. You should check out the Deck of Player Safety. If a safety tool isn’t 100% anonymous, it can’t really be effective, especially when playing with strangers at a con or game store.
I suspect that the mere existence of the X card is helpful to players. Knowing that the option exists to have some agency over how the game goes may well make players more inclined to see how things go with less anxiety. They know they can trust the table, and that goes a long way.