Jun 5, 2019, 4:02 PM
X-Cards
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Not entirely, no, but lemme spit this.
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These days we're seeing what feels like an increase in social control mechanisms. More defined rules as to who can say what, what can or cannot be said, and who has the right of way when it comes to a disagreement regarding said social rules. Sure, societies have always had these kinds of things, but I'm noticing now more than I ever have that the number of things that I apparently am not allowed to say or have no right to do seems...more in the forefront?
No Social Dice
So, let's look at this. Mushers typically don't want social dice (and telepathy rules) for a few reasons. 1) Because they don't want creepers to use it to justify being allowed to do things that they're not comfortable with and 2) Because they don't want to be told what their character believes, wants, or has to do based on the game system. It creates an uncomfortable series of possibilities that are ultimately based around the player being committed against their will to the whims of an IC or OOC system. The x-card isn't entirely the same as people's aversion to social dice, but I believe it's in the same "spirit family", if you will.The X-Card
I was giving this some thought this morning while I was drinking my quad-shot dirty chai and listening to the radio in the car. (not an important detail).I think it's fair to say that the "X-Card", given the social climate, falls into the category of yet another social control mechanism designed by the eye of the beholder to want the guarantee that when they say "stop" everyone "stops". That seems to be the commonality between many of these social control mechanisms: "When I say stop, you stop, regardless of whether or not you agree with me". Because we can't seem to argue religion, race, or politics, but oh how many try to force the other side into being not-allowed to partake.
Let's be fair. The X-card concept seems to accept the fact that you will never be able to entirely guarantee that something "triggering" will never ever ever happen in an RPG, but it's a system designed to both relinquish and provide control of the conversation; yielding the "right of way" to whomever doth presseth the cross. I think with enough meditation on it, that's what it is, isn't it? It's not truly a system that addresses social communication and how to properly behave in a role-playing game (or even work ahead of time to make sure everyone's comfortable), but it's a system designed to provide a modicum of control to the person who feels (for good reason or selfish) the need to assume control of the conversational/creative behaviors of ACTUAL people.
So... (here's my dismount)
...could it be said that for the same reason people are uncomfortable with the use of social dice there could be some correlation to the reasons why they would be comfortable using the X-Card, but aren't paying enough attention to the fact that on some level the X-Card is in the same category of the very thing they hate about social dice? (i.e. No one wants to be controlled, but it's better to hold the reins than to be strapped to the wagon?)
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
I was giving this some thought this morning while I was drinking my quad-shot dirty chai and listening to the radio in the car. (not an important detail).
I THOUGHT WE AGREED COLD BREW WAS KING.
YOU LIED TO ME.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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I was giving this some thought this morning while I was drinking my quad-shot dirty chai and listening to the radio in the car. (not an important detail).
I THOUGHT WE AGREED COLD BREW WAS KING.
YOU LIED TO ME.
I got a new thing now.
4 shots of espresso. Chai tea. Milk. Little bit of cinnamon.
I call it the "Fourchata"
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
...could it be said that for the same reason people are uncomfortable with the use of social dice there could be some correlation to the reasons why they would be comfortable using the X-Card, but aren't paying enough attention to the fact that on some level the X-Card is in the same category of the very thing they hate about social dice?
One quick thing, I think everyone has moved past the fundamental concept of 'no questions ask free pass' of the X-Card. I think there are a couple things on the table, players flagging likes/dislikes on them (hey, it works on the adult MU's, people know what's fair game and what to avoid by checking them), and putting in the warning X-content for an event to help players signing up understand whats involved.
The thing I like that has been sort of mentioned is some flagging system to help get to the RL communication thing to help players and staff alike.
RL communication is not an RPG that requires an icon on a table and a coordinating Google writeup on how to use the system
Its not an RPG, but knowing MU's do want to attract others, giving them (new players, visitors, anyone) the tool to say I'm not comfortable sounds helpful. To facilitate between players and staff alike whether its an issue of the player needing to know when to bow out to comfort level (Hey, its WoD, darkness is a part of it, we'll not include you in the one part, whatever) or if staff is going beyond perceived them (hey, this is harry potter verse, the house evles did not all wear bondage gear nor was it common place to refer to them as the gimp, can we stop having that show up in every scene even if you think its funny, its just creepy).
Can we stop going back to anyone wanting to ponder how to enable (and engage with) RL communication despite comfort levels is trying to get a free pass nope with an X-card. Its moved on?
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I was giving this some thought this morning while I was drinking my quad-shot dirty chai and listening to the radio in the car. (not an important detail).
I THOUGHT WE AGREED COLD BREW WAS KING.
YOU LIED TO ME.
I got a new thing now.
4 shots of espresso. Chai tea. Milk. Little bit of cinnamon.
I call it the "Fourchata"
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@Lotherio I get ya. I'm not backtracking really. I just had a bit of meditative thought over my FOURCHATA (fuckyaself, @Auspice) and wanted to throw out that stream of consciousness or whatever it was.
^ Ghost: "Social thought stuff pondering WALDEN WAS RIGHT transcendental stuff"Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
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@Lotherio I get ya. I'm not backtracking really. I just had a bit of meditative thought over my FOURCHATA (fuckyaself, @Auspice) and wanted to throw out that stream of consciousness or whatever it was.
^ Ghost: "Social thought stuff pondering WALDEN WAS RIGHT transcendental stuff"I fuck myself because I'm the only one who can do it right.
But that's neither here, there, nor does it resolve the issue of YOU HAD THE WRONG MORNING DRINK.
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@Ghost I'm going to have to give this whole premise a solid no.
It isn't that I don't see what you're getting at. I do.
The problem is that you're conflating things that are not the same. This is not apples to apples, it's more like apples to rabbit stew.
Yes, for the MU community, something designed for tabletop games among strangers at cons is not going to work without some sort of adaptation. This is not news. Why does everyone keep acting like this is news?
People discussing the ways this could reasonably apply to a MU setting are not talking about using whatever this specific system is, as written. People are discussing means of avoiding content that is legitimately problematic for players, not their characters, and tools or processes that may facilitate this, none of which are 'that system, precisely as written' at this point.
So maybe just leave that behind now; it's got a fork in it as originally written, and is done.
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These days we're seeing what feels like an increase in social control mechanisms. More defined rules as to who can say what, what can or cannot be said, and who has the right of way when it comes to a disagreement regarding said social rules. Sure, societies have always had these kinds of things, but I'm noticing now more than I ever have that the number of things that I apparently am not allowed to say or have no right to do seems...more in the forefront?
That's not what the X-Card is meant to address.
The X-Card is a message from a player to a storyteller regarding the content of the story being told. The storyteller has no real interest in "doing anything" on behalf of the NPCs in a campaign, and should not be afforded the same agency as a player. In my opinion, a tabletop game should be about the players' engagement and enjoyment thereof, not the storyteller's enjoyment in subjecting the players to certain situations. And I think it is highly inappropriate for a storyteller to put their enjoyment over that of a player when that player is objecting because the subject matter is making them feel extremely uncomfortable.
As I stated previously, I don't think the X-Card System works well on a MUSH because a MUSH is more like improv than a tabletop game. In improv, the performers must always be aware of others' comfort level. Some performers figure this out through practice and repetition with the same partners, but others ask prior to an act what the boundaries are. Regardless, a performer must give way to the comfort of their partners; that's part of the hobby.
Where a MUSH is different is how they generally have settings and systems to resolve conflict. Both are largely outside of the performers' control. In improv, you can set scenes or scenes are set for the performers that are generally benign; on a MUSH, and conflict is resolved by consent. This is not always so on a game: I believe the players implicitly consent to certain kinds of activities on a World of Darkness Vampire game, for example, like blood-drinking and the use of Conditions to affect your play. Using the X-Card to avoid the consequences of a social roll targeting your character is contrary to that implicit consent. But using that X-Card at the onset of certain kinds of activity could be a good reason to either switch the path of RP, fate to black, or otherwise work out a reasonable alternate result.
That said, a player coming to a game really should do some research regarding what they are getting into. World of Darkness games are not the same as Twilight games.
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Because they don't want to be told what their character believes, wants, or has to do based on the game system...The x-card isn't entirely the same as people's aversion to social dice, but I believe it's in the same "spirit family", if you will.
I've stated my dislike of X-Cards as written, but I don't think the other "nope-out" mechanisms are the same category at all.
If I nope-out of a murder scene, that doesn't prevent everyone else from still doing the murder scene without me. If @surreality nopes-out of being strangled, that doesn't prevent the PC from getting clonked on the head (same end result, non-triggering mechanism). There are some gray areas ("I'm triggered by fire so I don't want you to burn down my PC's business" vs "But you pissed off an arsonist!") which I think need to be resolved by discussion, compromises and perhaps off-camera scenes.
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So, taking both @Thenomain's general 'hey design it better' and this particular problem:
@surreality said in X-Cards:
It's hit or miss if I mention it on a wiki or otherwise.
For the people looking to build a better mousetrap, maybe this is where you should be looking?
IE, maybe someone needs to work on a new version of publicly available +event, +finger, etc code that supports preference tagging so that these things could be included at a level where they can't be casually ignored. IE code it to the degree that if you +event/join a thing that has one of your !prefs in its <subject> field, it flat out gives you a fail message about the scene including content you've marked as undesirable.
We could also make some improvements toward privacy (also re: @surreality's concern) over just 'here is some visible text on my character that says, 'Hey, I really dont like X.' For instance, it wouldn't be hard to make these lists private, and have code warnings merely show that a limit was matched, not which limit it was. Obviously there's always going to be some room for fuckery here, but I imagine the obfuscation could be useful.
The X-Card thing feels too thin to even be called a system; as it's really just 'saying no.' But giving people better tools to communicate about content seems do-able.
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I think that's waaaaay overthinking the whole concept.
It's important to remember - the 'X-Card' nor any of the other affiliated ideas is not a 'rule' by which anyone must abide. At no point are RPG Police coming to your game and saying YOU MUST DO THIS OR ELSE. There's no authority. There's no punishment.
All it does is provide another method for a player (who I tend to presume is a person who I want to have a good time at my gaming table) to signal that they are uncomfortable with an aspect of the game or not enjoying a thing that is happening at the table. I don't need a card or a 'rule' to respect that: respecting that is what I consider to be part of my duty as a GM. The card and 'rule' is just a way of letting my players know that I'm serious about it, and that I'm trying to accommodate nervousness they might have about speaking up about it in the moment.
That said, I've never played with an X-Card, but before running a horror game, I do outline the level of gore I expect to be a thing that happens, and ask people a) for any up-front no go areas, and b) remind them that if anything happens that makes the game turn from fun-scary to not-enjoyable, to let me know and we'll handle it immediately. Outside of horror, it's mostly the latter as a disclaimer, but I also take into account a few of the no-go areas for my regular players that I already know about (one player does not want to experience bad things happening to their character's father (any character they play), I just know that based on years of friendship, so I make sure that doesn't happen) and just build around it. Not because it's a RULE or someone's going to come in and force me to do so, but because I try to be a decent human being who is running a game for people to enjoy. I want them to have fun. If I were playing with strangers, in addition to my usual 'it's absolutely cool if something isn't working, just let me know' spiel, I could definitely see using an X-card or something like it so that all my players have a more fun time.
And I say that as someone who doesn't actually have a lot of content limits in what I can and will play or run, when I'm ready to do it. I don't squick easily, and the few times when I've been uncomfortable with where a game has gone, it's been because I've been uncomfortable with OOC elements (i.e. this male player is clearly getting his jollies off trying to get his teenaged girl GM (me) to narrate the results of him raping an NPC) at the table/in the game, not because I have problems with the content itself. Which an X-Card aids just as easily, especially when you don't want to explain something like, "Hey, I'm actually kind of uncomfortable with this (let's say) sexual content here because I and That Player Over There just broke up and I just don't want to touch sexy stuff while they're here for a bit, EVEN IF the sexy isn't normally a problem."
More tools for communication and comfort, then the better game people are going to tend to have. And that's, ultimately, what it's about.
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The simple difference is that social dice are about the story, and the x-card is about the people engaged in creating it.
One thing controls what happens to fictional people.
The other controls what happens to real people.
'OMG, control mechanisms!' applies to both, and reasonable people can reasonably embrace or reject either/or/both in part or in full on a personal philosophical level. That is where the similarity begins and ends.
I know I was looking at a general RP-prefs setup on-wiki. It wasn't meant just for 'I hate this, don't go there', but with general categories where people could write whatever was relevant to them on any given subject. (Subjects were fairly broad and would have been customizable for any given setting -- ex: 'law enforcement', 'crime', 'romance', 'horror', etc.)
Not only could people list their 'nope's, they could list what they were looking for on lists that could be sorted and scanned by anyone on the game. As in, if you were inclined to run a horror scene, you could check what active players were interested in re: horror as a general subject, or if anyone on the game was interested in horror at all. I looked at it from the perspective of, 'What would I find useful info as an ST trying to develop a plot that would engage people based on what folks are actually interested in doing with who is here on the game these days?'
It was a casual, no-need-to-interrupt on general subjects per player, too, which can be handy. It's also easy to mark things off as 'talk to me OOC about <subject/content> first' to avoid including any details that might be identifying or potentially embarrassing to the player to list openly.
(Sooner or later, I'll use it. Eventually.)
Oh fucking well.
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Still really appreciating this discussion, folks; I am really interested in the topic, and I love seeing all of the different perspectives on what can/should/shouldn't be done around this.
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@Roz True story. He was a work friend invited by another player, and was obnoxious the whole session, culminating in deciding that his PC had decided that nothing that was happening was real (it was a portal fantasy 'normal world characters end up in fantasy world' - I WAS FOURTEEN OKAY?? scenario) so he'd naturally start raping the women he met.
However, we played in my apartment, and everyone involved was MY group of friends except the one guy he knew from work (who was absolutely fucking mortified at his behavior), so I had no social pressure against telling him he wasn't welcome to stay or to come back, even as a fourteen year old.
I think he thought that, since I was the only girl in the gaming group, the rest of the guys would think it was funny. And did not realize that I was the one who had taught all of them the game and that I didn't generally pick assholes as friends.
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...could it be said that for the same reason people are uncomfortable with the use of social dice there could be some correlation to the reasons why they would be comfortable using the X-Card, but aren't paying enough attention to the fact that on some level the X-Card is in the same category of the very thing they hate about social dice? (i.e. No one wants to be controlled, but it's better to hold the reins than to be strapped to the wagon?)
Short answer: No, I don't think so.
Long answer: Nope, it's really not the same. The X-Card when used properly is a method of defense from storylines that are harmful to the player. Social dice are a system that can be used to shape the story and the reactions of the characters around them. The X-Card is explicitly and escape from the story, while the social dice are a way to interact with it. Many people don't like social dice because they take agency away from a player, the X-Card gives a player agency to avoid something that is harmful to them.
Also, @Ganymede said it very well.