Quote from: GeekEclectic;1105286If I ever start a convention, I can imagine the press conference.

"What are you doing to ensure that con goers are both physically and emotionally safe?"
"Open carry is both allowed and encouraged. You can see the safety, or you can be the safety. Preferably both. Next?"

When does early registration for your Con start?

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1105071I'm wondering if all the people saying "it's optional, you don't need to use it" are going to pretend to be surprised when GenCon requires every GM running a game to use something like this.

Even if it's misused, that isn't an argument that it shouldn't have been available as an option. The problem of "One True Way" advocates of RPGs isn't that they're playing wrong and their way should always be opposed -- it's that they're pushing that their way is the only way.

"No one should use an X-card" is just as wrong as "Everyone should use an X-card."

We should be able to have different games with different styles of play.

Quote from: jhkim;1105623Even if it's misused, that isn't an argument that it shouldn't have been available as an option. The problem of "One True Way" advocates of RPGs isn't that they're playing wrong and their way should always be opposed -- it's that they're pushing that their way is the only way.

"No one should use an X-card" is just as wrong as "Everyone should use an X-card."

We should be able to have different games with different styles of play.

By "misused", do you mean "sucks the fun right out of the game"?

Quote from: jeff37923;1105625By "misused", do you mean "sucks the fun right out of the game"?

Must be.

Quote from: jhkim;1105623"No one should use an X-card" is just as wrong as "Everyone should use an X-card."

"No on should practice amateur therapy during a gaming session" is just as wrong as "Everyone should practice amateur therapy during a gaming session"?  No.  The first is debatable, as are almost all absolutes, but the latter is mind-numbingly stupid.  It's not quite as obviously stupid as "No one should shoot their big toe off during a gaming session" is just as wrong as "Everyone should shoot their big toe off during a gaming session," but close enough.

The best that can be said for the X-card is that in the hands of reasonable people, it probably won't cause any real damage.  Sometimes, given the right circumstances, people get away with playing in traffic, too.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1105630"No on should practice amateur therapy during a gaming session" is just as wrong as "Everyone should practice amateur therapy during a gaming session"?  No.  The first is debatable, as are almost all absolutes, but the latter is mind-numbingly stupid.  It's not quite as obviously stupid as "No one should shoot their big toe off during a gaming session" is just as wrong as "Everyone should shoot their big toe off during a gaming session," but close enough.

The best that can be said for the X-card is that in the hands of reasonable people, it probably won't cause any real damage.  Sometimes, given the right circumstances, people get away with playing in traffic, too.

I disagree with both you and the X-card advocates here.

I don't see RPGs as being particularly dangerous, regardless of whether an X-card is used or not. If an X-card is not used, it's still just a game. Maybe it can cause psychological harm, but only in the sense that *any* social situation can cause psychological harm. Potentially, people could be made uncomfortable by what's being said and/or bullied -- but that's true in any social situation, whether it's hanging out in the locker room or going out to dinner.

The same applies if an X-card is used, though. It's still just a game. From my experience of playing with it, I don't see how using it could do anything more than make people awkward.

Quote from: jhkim;1105635I disagree with both you and the X-card advocates here.

I don't see RPGs as being particularly dangerous, regardless of whether an X-card is used or not. If an X-card is not used, it's still just a game. Maybe it can cause psychological harm, but only in the sense that *any* social situation can cause psychological harm. Potentially, people could be made uncomfortable by what's being said and/or bullied -- but that's true in any social situation, whether it's hanging out in the locker room or going out to dinner.

The same applies if an X-card is used, though. It's still just a game. From my experience of playing with it, I don't see how using it could do anything more than make people awkward.

So, if RPGs are not dangerous (unlike BDSM can be) why would anyone need a safe-word to stop play?

What the proponents of the X-Card want to prevent is something that's easily prevented by talking before the game starts and deciding if it's or not for you. And this doesn't put everybody else's fun at risk by placing inordinate amounts of power into the hands of potentially unstable people.

As far as I'm concerned anyone asking for the X-Card be implemented at the table isn't a suitable person to game with. Just as if I were into BDSM anyone refusing to implement a safe-word would be someone I wouldn't want to play with.

In BDSM (contrary to what many would tell you) the power and control is always in the hands of the submissive, for good reason since it's they who would be at risk under any other circumstance. I see no circumstance in RPGs where such power needs to be placed into the hands of the players to stop the game without explanation and to veto something without explanation.

You really have such a case of arachnophobia the mere mention of spiders sends you under the covers? Well then YOU have the obligation to communicate this to the GM and if his scenario can be modified (and he's willing to) then he will modify it and problem solved well before a character was rolled.

Why eliminate this and postpone it until the game has begun? Only reason I can see is to fuck other people's fun.

Thank you but no thank you I'll stick to the M-Card instead.

An RPG is not dangerous (except in the hands of the already mentally deranged, but we can say that about any number of things in the same hands, obviously).  Amateur therapy is dangerous.  Applying it during a game session with multiple people in the room is even worse.  

Again, if it really is just a game, and no one in the room has a serious trauma--then the X-card is completely and utterly unnecessary.  Those people can vocalize objections, as needed, and probably with a lot more finesse than grabbing a card.  I dare say that they can probably make a simple objection and read the social situation just fine.  Heck, body language alone is probably enough to stop most issues.  Given a person in the room with a trauma that is being poked, the card is woefully inadequate.

No, what I suspect is usually the case is that the X-Card gives some of the participants a little thrill--like playing a horror game by candle light, or Russian Roulette with a caps pistol that doesn't even have the caps in it.  It makes them feel a bit naughty, but with no real risk.  If they'd be honest about that, I'd have no objection to the practice, though I still wouldn't think much of it.

Quote from: jhkim;1105623"No one should use an X-card" is just as wrong as "Everyone should use an X-card."

We should be able to have different games with different styles of play.

I agree 100%.

The optimal solution is freedom of choice and freedom of association for everyone to go to their own corners.

That said, its high time for fragmentation and exclusion in the hobby as - just like the larger culture - the two sides are no longer compatible to exist in the same space. It's obvious the safe space cartel want to control conventions and how gameplay occurs there.  Thus it's obvious there needs to be the Open Carry Con for us deplorable scum to dice in peace.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1105653Thus it's obvious there needs to be the Open Carry Con for us deplorable scum to dice in peace.

:eek: This would be the first RPG-related convention I would actually be interested in going to!

Quote from: Antiquation!;1105655:eek: This would be the first RPG-related convention I would actually be interested in going to!

It will be the safest too.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1105656It will be the safest too.

Definitely. It would be the first con I wouldn't feel the need to screen for perverts around my wife, that's for sure. Weird how "random" crowd gropings have never happened at any of our gun shows.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1105658Definitely. It would be the first con I wouldn't feel the need to screen for perverts around my wife, that's for sure. Weird how "random" crowd gropings have never happened at any of our gun shows.

Hmm...  It is as if they know they would get shot if they tried to groop some guy's wife, or daughter.

If having guns prevented people from being assholes we'd be living in a completely different country. Clearly having guns around doesn't prevent people from being assholes. It just gives you armed assholes. Which is no improvement at all.

I see tools as the X-Card and the Consent checklist more as methods of starting a conversation about content in RPG sessions. The conversation is important to have.

Some conventions do record content ratings for their games. I've seen it happen years ago. So it's not new. It just gives players a heads up on what they can expect in convention games. Which is an idea I can support.

I however do not support making either the X-Card or Consent tools mandatory. Because they are highly abusable by people who enter such games with bad faith in the first place. These tools enable some major potential for trolling. That just isn't acceptable in my eyes.

There is also a part of the Consent In Gaming document that I completely disagree with. And that's about taking away the ability to remove bad actors from your game group. Which, to me, is utterly unacceptable.