Yes, it’s important to make that distinction. In fact, I find it very important to talk about what exactly was the thing that made you feel uncomfortable so it can be edited out/modified.
You just don’t need to talk and should definitely not be pressured into talking about the reason why it is disturbing you.
Discussion of X-card issues
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One thing I might have issues with:
Some people I know/play with like to also use the X-Card not only for safety reasons but also as a tool for narrative preference.
So, when some content comes up in roleplaying that doesn’t bother them at all, they just prefer a different narrative, they use the X-card - just for content editing.
While this might be a neat narrative tool for some games, personally I’d like to have a clear distinction between safety tools and narrative tools.
How do you feel about this?
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I think a clear distinction is valuable - because this is a fairly universal tool and one of its strengths is that it is clear and simple to use.
The level of narrative editing for preference rather than safety is something which is more of a ‘same page issue’ - i.e. many games have narrative editing rules as a part of the game and others do not and that is a deliberate design choice. I cannot imagine it going well if someone tried to use the X-card to nix a bad dice roll in a traditional or OSR style game. Because that use would change the game that everyone had sat down to play together. Whereas the original use of the X-card is a) about safety and b) shouldn’t change the nature of the game but merely edit out a small piece of the narrative which is hurtful.
I should add in general I’ve used the X-card and seen it used. Only in a couple of occasions but in all cases it was valuable, interrupted something from getting out of hand and felt like a really great addition.
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A recommendation: periodically go back and re-read John’s X-Card page. It is sometimes updated as he finds additional clarifications necessary. Some of the questions about how it is supposed to work are explained there. These safety tools are not static. (@BrieBeau regularly updates the Script Change site.)
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We generally use a couple of modifications at the table:
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Do NOT tell us why you x-carded. We use this rules variant for a reason: Some folks in our extended group have used the x-card as a springboard to discuss real trauma and, well: We are not Therapists.
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Generally, if it’s a matter of tone or tenor, we’ll say “Try it a different way”. I’ve been on both sides of this, and it’s a great way (for us) to signal that something doesn’t fit the expected tone, but isn’t actively harmful to anything other than the game.
I’ve been asked for clarification on the first point. Without discussing other people’s trauma: I have absolutely seen people use tapping the x-card to sprint in 20 minutes on the abuse they’ve suffered. I want to help my friends, but some of these discussions have been so difficult that I’ve needed to x-card them. They quickly crossed our established lines and veils and as they were regarding the x-card, we’ve felt powerless to stop it.
So, blanket rule change. This is probably further than most groups need.
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I don’t think the X-Card encourages reckless play. I think reckless play is something that arrives externally, and can influence the way people interact with everything at the table, including safety tools.
I once had a game that moved into very uncomfortable territory that I, for one, was not comfortable with. (Monsterhearts, and I was MC’ing.) We stopped / slowed down when it happened, and then followed up with more conversation after the game. At the time, the player whose character had gone places we didn’t want to go, made a reference to, “Well, somebody could have X-Carded.” That said, I don’t believe that they were deliberately playing to the X-Card. I think that the issue would have come up regardless, based on the subject matter of the game, the particular narrative elements that were already in place, and the personalities at our table. I do, however, now include a, “Just because it’s there doesn’t mean we have to play to it,” disclaimer when introducing the X-Card.
Also, to be clear, I think everybody was behaving in good faith at our table, and the player in question really was just following the agenda and principles of their character and the story. We were a D&D group playing our first game of Monsterhearts, and just hadn’t ever needed to think about safety in those ways before.
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I want to talk more about this, but thought it should go in a different thread so I created this topic: Holding Space for Trauma at the Table
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I’ll add in a personal anecdote. It was the only time I played in a game that used an X-Card, and it soured me on it a bit, but I still think the X-card overall has merit.
I was assigned to play a character who was essentially a prostitute in revolutionary France with a young daughter. I wanted to play her as a lesbian who did what she had to do to pay the bills, which was backed up in the fiction. Problem is, someone else was playing a character who was the father of the kid, and kind of kept pushing the angle of “lets get back together, I can save your kid from this horrible situation, etc etc.” I X-carded it a few times but in the end I just had to walk away cuz I didn’t want to play a woman who was beholden to a man to literally save her life.
Part of me thinks the problem was mostly that I was playing a “trauma simulator” game, and it turns out I really don’t enjoy those, especially in Convention settings.
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reading your post, to me, seems like the problem was the other player. They should have respected what you wanted to do.
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It might be that ‘trauma simulator’ games aren’t your thing and that is cool. But frankly the problem looks like
X-carded it a few times
Because once you used the X-card the first time that should have been the end of that plot - that person should not be continuing to push it and the MC of the game (or the rest of the table in a GMless game) should have had your back. I’m sorry they didn’t.
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Not only does it sound like this table did not understand how to adjust the fiction once a particular topic has been X-Carded, but it also sounds like an overall violation of your consent by this other individual. They wanted you (through your character) to participate in a narrative arc with their character that you were not interested in participating in. Not OK, and once it was clear that table wasn’t going to respect your right to consent, walking away was probably the only option left. I’m sorry that happened to you.
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Yeah, I guess it was played more as “Oh, I can’t do this particular thing, what about this other one?” with each avenue being it’s own X-carding. Maybe I should have explained better what I was X-Carding? I’m not sure what I should have said short of “leave my character the fuck alone.” But in a game where like… the whole point of it is interconnections between characters it can be hard to do that.
Thank you all for the support and feedback, though 
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Thought I’d share this as I’m doing more research on safety tools, as they feel relevant to the discussion.
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Quick note, the up-to-date version of that blog post and under P.H. Lee’s name can be found here on @BrieBeau’s site:
(It’s also referenced in @noellarh’s post and thread about Holding Space for Trauma at the Table mentioned above.)
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(redundant entry, have deleted it)
I can’t speak to whether having the X-card on the table itself made people push harder—I can’t get inside anyone’s head—but I’ve had several games, mostly at cons, where the X-card was introduced as a token nod to safety and people seemed to take that as an excuse to play however they liked since the others could always go for the X-card. (Similar things happen with Lines sometimes, where players will keep introducing things just barely shy of the line or not explicitly included in the line phrasing.)
I’ll not list examples because this is a public forum, but basically any game that’s started with a dismissive/discouraging safety tool intro like “this is the x-card, it probably won’t come up” is likely to have content problems and to have pushback when people do try to use the X-card, in my experience.
Sort of an aside: One thing I don’t see nearly enough of—especially but not exclusively at cons—is people checking with the other players before doing something instead of leaning on “well they could X it.” I think more of the problem is in expecting the X-card being present to make play safe instead of expecting players to try to look out for each other.
(I will list an example of that last paragraph. At a con once, a facilitator turned to me and said “I think this character might misgender yours, is that okay with you or would that be too much?” Asking without expectation of agreement can make all the difference there, and it didn’t lean on me to both sit through it and then X it.)
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It might be neat to have a “question” card, or maybe include in the spiel the idea that you can say “hey, I was thinking of doing this, anybody want to X-card it?”
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Yes, I sometimes also have this feeling that people assume “we have the X-card on the table, so everything is cool”.
This may distract from using other useful techniques, like talking boundaries in the beginning (lines + veiles), paying attention to each other and I find especially Debriefing is not used enough outside of larp/freeform.
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Meta-game discussion of this nature is always so good! Though I wouldn’t want to frame it in terms of, “I’m worried this might get X-Carded.” Maybe a “Push” card? Like, “I was interested in pushing / exploring this issue or relationship, how does the table feel?” (It could be potentially dangerous content, but it could also be an arc tied in within another character, or anything else.) Players spend so much time discussing tactics and strategy out of character, so why not discuss story and themes?
I’d just want to make sure it wasn’t something that made people feel like they were put on the spot to justify saying no to an idea, or worse, feel that accepting an idea in theory up front meant a player was waiving the right to object via X-Card later.
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This already exists, it is called the O-Card, written by Kira Magrann and it is also referenced in John Stavropoulos’ X-Card document.
Here is a good compilation of these tools by @rpgnatalie on Twitter:
Just so we don’t re-hash or re-invent the wheel. It’s also with proper attributions and a living document.
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