Quote from: jhkim;1091108If decoration makes people feel good, then is that a bad thing?

I don't generally use the X-card, and I agree it's not necessary - but if people like it, then they should play how they like. In my experience, it's a token symbol that gets put out that then gets mostly ignored.

As long as everyone involved understands that it is merely decoration, then no harm, no foul.

Quote from: Gagarth;1091055Jesus fucking Christ the guy did not play a video of Hostel Part one, have some fucking perspective.

Calm down. You apparently have not been to many cons. Some folk let their teens range far and wide. Hell, some let their teens go off to cons ALONE. Take out a loan and buy a clue. Just because a session isnt in the con site propper in absolutely no way means its off limits or inaccessible. Off site gaming areas are fairly common for some cons. Others try to keep it all contained on site.

And I meant that the subject matter of the intro alone was not something youd have at a so-called family friendly site unless they have areas reserved for that. I glanced at their programme and did not see anything mentioning such a thing. But may have missed it. I'd like to think this joker wasnt running that in a general gaming area. But till more data is had its an unknown quantity.

Quote from: Anselyn;1091040I shall remove the crimson orb of jollity from my face.

LOL! You're our kind of forum scum. :eek: Looking forward to more posts from you.

Quote from: Anselyn;1091040The options are not kid-exclusive Disneyfication OR adult-only anything-goes events.  Also, adults having their fun do need to know the limits of reasonable behaviour within their own group.

To me, a game listed 18+ is exactly the kind of "limit" that should work at a mixed age event.

I imagine that UKGE also segregates 18+ games in their own room? Or late evening time slots?

At the LA Cons, we kept kid-friendly events and mature only events on different floors.

Quote from: sureshot;1091048I have to say seeing that thread about X-card over at the TBP guarantees I probably will never use them.

Everyone at my games has an X-it card. They can use it anytime to leave the game.

X-cards are laughable bullshit. The freaks can take their weak sauce mental illness to another GM's table.

I have no interest GMing a table of overgrown toddlers who can't handle a fantasy game.

Quote from: soltakss;1091078when I had a chaos monster that was a mass of squiggly, squirmy worms in a heaving mass, when one new player said "Oh, I have a phobia of exactly that kind of thing",

My response? "The thing hears you and turns toward your character. Globs of worms fall forward and flow onto your legs."

Three things:

1. This is a hobby for entertainment and relaxation. If you have mental issues that make the other participants, specifically the GM, constantly walk on eggshells around you, you're not a great player. Full stop.
2. The whole "mental issues" thingy lends itself to abuse. Claiming to have this-or-that phobia or this-or-that other issue going on is a first class attention whoring mechanism, guaranteed to work in this day and age. You can even possibly use it as a stick to browbeat other people into submission. The same goes for the "supporters" of someone with mental issues.
3. Handicapped people are not any more noble than other human beings; they're subject to the same flaws as any of us. My mother is blind and she regularly leverages her blindness as excuse for things that are wholly unrelated to her loss of eyesight. You mustn't let people that do have legitimate issues get away with that all the time. This is Supporter 101, something the folks over at rpg.net and twitter probably not get. Being a good supporter means putting up a roadblock to bullsh*t.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091151Handicapped people are not any more noble than other human beings; they're subject to the same flaws as any of us. My mother is blind and she regularly leverages her blindness as excuse for things that are wholly unrelated to her loss of eyesight. You mustn't let people that do have legitimate issues get away with that all the time. This is Supporter 101, something the folks over at rpg.net and twitter probably not get. Being a good supporter means putting up a roadblock to bullsh*t.

I agree. Bad DMs should not be able to get away with using their uselessness as an excuse.

Come out of the basement and interact with other people, and the socially disabled DM will eventually figure out that most grownups don't sit down at the game table to talk about defecating in their pants and being raped and the like.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1091092An X-Card is always either completely unnecessary or completely insufficient.  It's like a false pillar holding up your roof:  It is either merely decorative to make people feel good, or creating a false impression of security.

As I said possibly decent tool for some game tables, hampered by poor implementation. All it takes for a game session to come to a screeching halt is to wave one around as a player. Then waste everyone time not saying what bothers one as a player because the X-card allows the stopping of a session yet the player is not required to reveal what is bothering them. I would change the rules of an X-card that the player is required to say what bothers them. If I ever run a campaign using them an player with few exceptions will be required to tell the players and DM what is bothering them. That will be non-negotiable. Of course if the person was abused in some way then they can tell myself or whomever is running the table in private. None of this perfect world scenarios that the social active members try to present where everyone at the table is finr wasting minutes if not hours of game time, because arachne mcphobia stupidly decided to join a campaign where spider hunting is the main theme.

Even then has our society degenerated to such a degree that instead of facing fears and overcoming them we instead just ruin everyone else fun and waste their time. I find that I hate crowds. Not enough to not function yet when I go say shopping for food and it is crowded it drives me nuts. I find being bothered less and less as I shop at crowded places. Sure a gaming table might cater to one specific phobia or dislike the reality is not everyone else will. If everyone else in a certain family likes going camping they might not go to places where their are no spiders. More often than not the spider fearing person is going to shit out of luck and not invited to the family outings. People can and are willing to sometimes cater to someone phobias eventually many will just get fed up and not want to deal with it. It is not fair yes and hurtful to the person suffering from a phobia or fear. It is reality outside of SJWs mandated safe spaces. I cannot and will not guarantee that my session of D&D will have Spiders. Some yes and sometimes and call me lazy and an asshole I simply do not want to re-skin spiders into something else. Especially on for one or two players at the table.

As for more deeper personal issues such as sexual assault and say murder. At most such things should be spoken with the DM and only if the person is comfortable with other players. Even then such subjects should really be spoken with a mental health care professional. It's not that I do not want to hear them, I am not qualified or trained as such. At most the group needs to know that certain subjects such as sexual assault are banned during play and outside of it no exceptions and non-negotiable. I just do not understand some gamers when  comes to rpgs though. Many involve killing creatures to gain XP and treasure I always mention it new players to the hobby and certainly before I run my games. I also mention that sometimes favored non-player characters sometimes die. I remember reading over a TBP that someone burst into tears over some NPCs random dog being killed off at the start of the rise of the Runelord campaign. So it;s okay to kill of Goblins even though in Golarion they are fucked up in the head murderous psychos yet random dog with no stats being killed off is a cause to cry. All because the PC liked dogs. I do to yet I'm not shedding tears over some fake dog killed off in a rpg scenario. I save my tears for real animals. I wonder if it is because people can no longer separate reality from fiction. Cry for animals being mistreated in puppy mills not random fictional # 20.

TBP Stalinists are handing out threadbans for people cultivating rational arguments against x cards now. Gee, who woulda thought that might happen?

I'm sympathetic to anyone who's got some issues, not matter what their source, that a game might touch on. I get some people aren't comfortable talking about certain things. But fuck, life is like that. Open a newspaper. Turn on the TV. Scan through Facebook. Every minute of every day things that are unpleasant and 'triggering' are put on public display. You have to learn to deal with and cope with the fact that the world around you might occasionally fucking throw stuff right at you out of the blue. GMs need to be responsible and not be fucking assholes, especially in a convention environment where things are heightened. But players need to not be assholes too. Like Mr Kalinowski said upthread, "if you have mental issues that make the other participants, specifically the GM, constantly walk on eggshells around you, you're not a great player." And he's right, you're not. Expecting there to be specific mechanisms to create a little safe space for you at a gaming table is just fucking Entitlement. GMs put a lot of effort into getting a game ready (even if it may not look that way) and a lot of effort running that game at the table. This isn't fucking Monopoly. It's a constant mental juggling act running the plot, the rules, NPCs and listening to what the players are saying and doing. GMs are providing a unique and intense service. They shouldn't be pricks, they should absolutely read the table, and they should absolutely be clear and upfront about what to expect in the game. But players are not fucking Entitled to sabotage all that for individual and purely personal reasons. If your trigger moments are so bad, sorry pal, then don't put yourself in a position where you're gonna get triggered.  That 'tapping politely on the x card' might just be wrecking weeks of prep and hours of mental effort; it can wreck game flow that was perfectly fine before but won't be hence. At the end, the GM might feel fucking shitty, and exhausted, and depressed - but I guess that's okay, because after all, you were safe.

A GM is not there to hold every player's hand and be their personal therapist. That's asking way too much of any GM. And most psychiatric professionals would strongly suggest against practicing psychotherapy without a license.

The X-Card is open to abuse by a player determined to abuse it. It's just another rule for disruptive players to play lawyer with. It doesn't at all prevent anything.

I will echo what I said over on TBP. That to truly enforce compliance with a convention's rules. There would have to be a member of the convention staff assigned to observe each and every game run at said convention at all times. And most conventions just don't have the kind of manpower necessary for that task.

That threadban came literally two hours after I went to bed. And I would not have known about it at all if I had not been woken up by a 6:30 am phone call. i had gone to bed at 2 am. After spending hours of dealing with the preschoolers over on TBP. Who don't seem to have the basic gaming skill of inserting themselves into another person's differing point of view.

Agreed with Darrin.

Obviously the DM and the rest of the table shoulx mpt ne jerks or assholes to players with mental health issues. Neither is the rest of tje table to be held hostage or walk pn eggshells because the same player refuses treatment and insists on using the game sessions as therapy.

Many including myself are not mental health care professionals nor should we be assumed to be such professionals. At most the game sessions are for chilling and venting after working for a week. Sure sone senditive topics can be handled ws a group. Anythin g onvolving any form of abuse should be handled ny the appropriate mental health care professionals.

Surprise suprise TBP banned Darrin for two days and a tbreadban.

Quote from: sureshot;1091172Surprise suprise TBP banned Darrin for two days and a tbreadban.

I got two days based on an infraction history created by mods abusing their authority. One created by mods who had a personal axe to grind with me. Instead of any actual real violation of their rules.

I'm guilty of 'wrong-think". And that seems enough of a pretext for their actions.

i'm not going to write an appeal to the admins of TBP. Done that in the past. And it resulted in a whole lot of nothing.

I don't trust TBP to treat me fairly. By any stretch of the imagination.

You know who I trust to treat me fairly? Pundit. That's why I am here. Because i trust in The RPGPundit.

May that never change.

QuoteI'm guilty of 'wrong-think". And that seems enough of a pretext for their actions.

Sadly you are. The Big Purple Stalinist Hivemind has no use for differing positions or opinions. Challenging the Hivemind is 'sealioning' or outright fascism. Pass the sickbag.

Ever notice these easily "triggered" fucks are the same asshats binging TV shows which feature everything they claim is so triggering?

It's almost like they are completely full of shit!! :eek:

If someone is being deliberately disruptive at a con game. I expect intervention by con security to give them the toss. I don't care what their political affiliation is. They are out of there!

I see the X-Card as giving disruptive players license to stop the game dead cold. Which is absolutely unacceptable. As they will use it to derail things for absolutely everybody else.

Wouldn't an 18+ game roughly correspond to a Rated X movie? I know you had this kind of rating, and NC-17, stuff like that in the US. If the director said that the movie was a horror story about teens and a "messy" one at that, would you start watching the movie expecting to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Ferris Bueller's Face Clean Off?

18+ could mean anything.

Looking at the description given of the game in advance - I wouldn't have been too surprised by the content.

But who knows what other people make of that.  We're talking about Geeks here - would the players even really know the genre in question?  

Or perhaps they didn't read it and just went by the title of the rpg.

And of course - reading the description would have prompted me to most defintiely find a different game.