Quote from: Motorskills;1061528We can debate the functionality of the tool itself, but you are blinkeredly refusing to even engage with that, on ideological grounds.

Quote from: jeff37923;1061575And you say this only because you are being disagreed with.

I don't much see eye-to-eye with Motorskills, but he did use the word "blinkeredly", so I give him points there, especially since I don't know what it means and it sounds like something Watson would use to insult Sherlock Holmes. He's also a good sport about being the ideological minority here, which keeps holes in our potential echo chamber.

I don't like X cards because it's further enabling a cultural trend of fragility, and prevents conversations taking place between mature adults. Discuss the game with your players before hand and gauge what they do, or do not want and run accordingly.

A player who feels they need the use of X cards at a table, is a player I would not want at my table in the first place. I don't want psychologically fragile people gaming with me. I've ran dark games before (I had a very successful and long running Sabbat vampire game) where my players were all on board because we discussed it ahead of time. Said games were also in the privacy of mine or someone else's home. For private home games, I expect mature conversation about the type of game we're going to play ahead of time, so X cards are never necessary.

When I run a public game, I keep it PG-13, there will be no detailed graphic descriptions of sex or gratuitous overly indulged violence... so again, an X card will not be necessary. If a player insists they'll need an X card "Just in case", then I have to assume that player is too psychologically fragile to be engaging in pretend games anyway.

The X card is just a continuation of safe space culture, a culture which has been shown to promote further psychological damage, not prevent it.

Anybody notice that the people who've encountered X cards at game tables have been saying the X cards weren't actually used?

Yet X-cards keep showing up at tables run by certain people. How very Chekhov's Gun!

But as it's not used, it's as useless as D30.

So then why is the X-card which will not be used sitting so prominently on those tables?

To signal the virtues of the GM to fellow travelers of the SJW cult.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1061641Anybody notice that the people who've encountered X cards at game tables have been saying the X cards weren't actually used?

Yet X-cards keep showing up at tables run by certain people. How very Chekhov's Gun!

But as it's not used, it's as useless as D30.

So then why is the X-card which will not be used sitting so prominently on those tables?

To signal the virtues of the GM to fellow travelers of the SJW cult.

Anti-harassment rules are prominently displayed at many conventions. I'm glad that they are almost never used either.

Quote from: Motorskills;1061654Anti-harassment rules are prominently displayed at many conventions. I'm glad that they are almost never used either.

You passed up an opportunity to point out that legally carried handguns rarely need to be used.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1061656You passed up an opportunity to point out that legally carried handguns rarely need to be used.

30,000 deaths per year versus whatever the latest thing is making Orphan an "angry videogame nerd" doesn't seem to be a useful direction to take this discussion.

I've already suggested one hybrid approach (N.B. still a thought experiment for me at this stage), why not tackle that instead?

Quote from: Motorskills;1061654Anti-harassment rules are prominently displayed at many conventions. I'm glad that they are almost never used either.

Prior to rules being prominently displayed, were there occasions on which some offender, on being removed from the con, cried out, "But nobody said it was wrong to just go round grabbing people's genitals! How was I supposed to know?!"?

I mean, were they advised by the Nuremberg legal defenders? "Vot iz zis "laws of war"? Is wrong to machinegun unarmed zivilians into zer ditch? Nobody haff told us! Ve did not know! Iz not zer fair!"

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1061661Prior to rules being prominently displayed, were there occasions on which some offender, on being removed from the con, cried out, "But nobody said it was wrong to just go round grabbing people's genitals! How was I supposed to know?!"?

I mean, were they advised by the Nuremberg legal defenders? "Vot iz zis "laws of war"? Is wrong to machinegun unarmed zivilians into zer ditch? Nobody haff told us! Ve did not know! Iz not zer fair!"

I think the rules give a structure to expected behaviour, and it gives organizers (who might not necessarily be wanting to get confrontational) a tool to point at. "You can't say you weren't warned".

Beyond that, I think it is part of the series of changes that has lead to a lot of new blood in the hobby, especially the increase of women at conventions. I think that's great, YMMV.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1061641Anybody notice that the people who've encountered X cards at game tables have been saying the X cards weren't actually used?

Yet X-cards keep showing up at tables run by certain people. How very Chekhov's Gun!

But as it's not used, it's as useless as D30.

So then why is the X-card which will not be used sitting so prominently on those tables?

To signal the virtues of the GM to fellow travelers of the SJW cult.

I have been considering that aspect, but I begin to suspect that an X-card doesn't even rise to the level of a virtue signal.  It is worse than that.  It is a way to pretend to help people without doing anything useful.  I'm back to my main thought:  In any situation in which an X-card is needed, it is grossly insufficient.

To wit, a player who is not suffering from some past trauma that has been blown up by the situation is capable of handling it, if they will.  If nothing else, they can get up and walk away.  A player who is suffering from some past trauma, and inadvertently stumbles into a situation that suddenly blows all out of control, perhaps even despite precautions, is in a much more precarious state than the rules of the X-card can handle.  

A still inadequate but more reasonable X-card policy would go like this:

1. If you are uncomfortable with something that is happening, say something.  If you feel unable to say anything, leave the table.  No questions are asked, but you can volunteer any information if you so choose.  You may want to talk to the GM later.  In a game with multiple sessions, doing so may affect whether you are invited back to the table, but perhaps in that case the table is not a good fit for you?

2. If you sense that the game is out of control, pick up the X-card.  The session immediately ends.  Render aid as appropriate.  In the case of a false alarm, discuss briefly, then resume the session if time permits.

As with the fabled committee meeting, the arguments over the current X-card policy are so strong because the stakes are so low.

Quote from: Motorskills;106165830,000 deaths per year versus whatever the latest thing is making Orphan an "angry videogame nerd" doesn't seem to be a useful direction to take this discussion.

Loot Boxes, Microtransactions, and saying the game only costs 60$ when to get the "real" version with all the true content you need to pay 100+$

As a side note, excluding suicides, last year around 15,549 people were killed by Firearms in 2017.
Heart Disease killed 800,000+ people in 2017.
Auto Accidents caused 40,000+ deaths in 2017.

This is all for the United States whose current population sits at 325.7 Million people.
.004% of the population was killed by someone else using firearms
It raises to about .01% when you include the suicides.

Edit
Further Statistics! NPR, i.e. National Public Radio, i.e. on of the most Leftist Institutions in the United States (I'm an NPR listener myself) conducted their own thorough study on the number of school shootings that took place across the United States. They investigated the claim made that 239 school shootings took place last year, and discovered many many faults with that particular studied...followed up with the schools in question, put forward their own study and investigations and discovered....

The actual number of school shootings in the U.S. last year, when a shooting took place, at the school, with students in the building.... was 12.

12 total. The United States has an estimated total of 98,817 public schools.
.012% of schools suffered an actual school shooting.

Of course we always hope for no school shootings and no deaths from murder or violence period...but the actual numbers that take place across the U.S. are very, very small....falling in lines with the general trend of violent crime beginning to fall steadily downward since the early 90s/late 80s.

Quote from: Orphan81;1061698Of course we always hope for no school shootings and no deaths from murder or violence period...but the actual numbers that take place across the U.S. are very, very small....falling in lines with the general trend of violent crime beginning to fall steadily downward since the early 90s/late 80s.

People often forget just how massive the US is, both in land mass and population, compared to most other countries. If you go by raw numbers, the US is going to come out ahead of most other countries for most things. If you do what a good statistician would do and correct for population differences in order to get the "per capita" numbers, . . . not so much.

Quote from: Orphan81;1061698Loot Boxes, Microtransactions, and saying the game only costs 60$ when to get the "real" version with all the true content you need to pay 100+$

As a side note, excluding suicides, last year around 15,549 people were killed by Firearms in 2017.
Heart Disease killed 800,000+ people in 2017.
Auto Accidents caused 40,000+ deaths in 2017.

This is all for the United States whose current population sits at 325.7 Million people.
.004% of the population was killed by someone else using firearms
It raises to about .01% when you include the suicides.

Edit
Further Statistics! NPR, i.e. National Public Radio, i.e. on of the most Leftist Institutions in the United States (I'm an NPR listener myself) conducted their own thorough study on the number of school shootings that took place across the United States. They investigated the claim made that 239 school shootings took place last year, and discovered many many faults with that particular studied...followed up with the schools in question, put forward their own study and investigations and discovered....

The actual number of school shootings in the U.S. last year, when a shooting took place, at the school, with students in the building.... was 12.

12 total. The United States has an estimated total of 98,817 public schools.
.012% of schools suffered an actual school shooting.

Of course we always hope for no school shootings and no deaths from murder or violence period...but the actual numbers that take place across the U.S. are very, very small....falling in lines with the general trend of violent crime beginning to fall steadily downward since the early 90s/late 80s.

Please stop using logic and facts. It makes it remarkably hard to counter with emotions.

Just remember to be positive the mothership is here before drinking the koolaid.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1061641Anybody notice that the people who've encountered X cards at game tables have been saying the X cards weren't actually used?

Yet X-cards keep showing up at tables run by certain people. How very Chekhov's Gun!

But as it's not used, it's as useless as D30.

To people who like it, the X-card is reassuring as knowing they have it as an option. Conversely, I'm pretty sure that some people here would be philosophically bothered by the X-card, which would negatively affect their gaming even if it wasn't used. Both of these suggest that it has a real effect even if it is not used. Likewise, I think the naive interpretation of Chekhov's gun is false. If a character is walking around holding a gun and talking - that gun matters and changes how we interpret the speech, even if the gun is never fired.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1061683I'm back to my main thought:  In any situation in which an X-card is needed, it is grossly insufficient.

To wit, a player who is not suffering from some past trauma that has been blown up by the situation is capable of handling it, if they will.  If nothing else, they can get up and walk away.  A player who is suffering from some past trauma, and inadvertently stumbles into a situation that suddenly blows all out of control, perhaps even despite precautions, is in a much more precarious state than the rules of the X-card can handle.

Personally, I really have no idea what is best for someone who is suffering from some past trauma. I am skeptical of a lot of psychology, and haven't made any particular study of it. If some people feel better for having the X-card there, then I think that's a good enough reason to use it. If they don't like it, then don't use it. Groups shouldn't be forced to use the X-card if they don't want to, and conversely, groups that want to use the X-card should feel free to do so.

Quote from: Orphan81;1061698As a side note, excluding suicides, last year around 15,549 people were killed by Firearms in 2017.
Heart Disease killed 800,000+ people in 2017.
Auto Accidents caused 40,000+ deaths in 2017.

This is all for the United States whose current population sits at 325.7 Million people.
.004% of the population was killed by someone else using firearms
It raises to about .01% when you include the suicides.

I agree about that - but would you also agree that terrorist attacks and antifa violence are even more rare and insignificant within the U.S.?

Quote from: jhkim;1061708I agree about that - but would you also agree that terrorist attacks and antifa violence are even more rare and insignificant within the U.S.?

Those are both political acts intended to affect behaviour.