Can safety tools be used for good?
If you're in a game where you feel the need to use them you've already messed up somewhere along the line.Play with people who you can trust to either act decently from the get go or people who will chill out when asked.And if you're playing with a random group at the LGS or worse, online, then you have my pity.
Isn't this what "session 0" is already for coming to an agreement about?
>1. Play with people you know and trust>2. "Hey guys, is there anything you really wouldn't like to see in this campaign? You can tell me in private if it makes you more comfortable, and even as the game is progressing"The autistic gamification of social interaction makes me uneasy.
>>92615644X card all furry races
>>92615644The kind of people who need it (both the squeamish and the edgelords) won't use it properly anyway. There's no difference between holding up and x card and saying "can we not do this?", it's just that at some point people who need a psychologist decided they want a GM instead.
>>92615943>it's just that at some point people who need a psychologist decided they want a GM instead.Role playing as an activity literally descends from therapy. I'm not suggesting you expect your GM to help you get over your feelings about spiders or whatever but it's a therapeutic tool that people turned in to entertainment. It seems unrealistic to expect it to never ever contain those elements.
All I know is x-cards do not work. There was that one major DM YouTuber who got cancelled and made persona non grata by the entire D&D streamer cabal after he shilled for X cards, and then one of his female players got attempted robo raped by an NPC and instead of using the X cards like everyone at the table knew to, she froze in a deer in headlights and then got him cancelled by bitching on twitter afterwards. The type of people who are traumatized by some shitty imagination game are the same type of people who will freeze up and do nothing to stand up for themselves under pressure
>>92615987>Role playing as an activity literally descends from therapyYeah I guess Dave Arneson and Blackmoor just never existed
>>92616039>one of his female players got attempted robo raped by an NPC and instead of using the X cards like everyone at the table knew to, she froze in a deer in headlightsThat’s a pretty chud description of what happened. It was so unexpected and over the top, complete with insane giggling, that the whole player group froze up. It’s on YouTube. Go look at it. The guy was deranged. X cards can’t help much in the face of madness.
>>92615987>therapeutic tool that people turned in to entertainmentWho let the talking asshole in?
>>92616075>That the whole player group froze upYes thanks for acknowledging X cards are useless >X cards can’t help much in the face of madness.They're supposed to literally stop the DM in his tracks and fade everything to black. It should be able to stop anything, and if you're acknowledging that there are situations where it's useless than you're just agreeing with me
>>92616075>that's a chud description>gives basically the exact same description except more people failed to x card
>>92615943>There's no difference between holding up and x card and saying "can we not do this?",Sure there is, saying "lets not do this" invites people to ask why not whereas Xcards, in my understanding, are for not wanting to elaborate on why not.
>>92616119>implying people won't just fill in the blanksMore proof that letting the inmates run the asylum doesn't teach you any actual psychology.
>>92615987>Role playing as an activity literally descends from therapyThere's some absolutely wild stuff on this board today. This opinion presented as fact truly astonishes me. Not military strategy? Not wargaming? Not theatre? Not chess? No, therapy. Ok buddy
>>92616093>Yes thanks for acknowledging X cards are uselessOne spectacular failure doesn’t mean useless. It’s just not perfect, and perfect is the enemy of good.
>>92616147>the Titanic was a fine ship, don't go by anecdotes
>>92616147>perfect is the enemy of goodNormally, I'd assume that you're using the idiom, but because of the beliefs that you have revealed thus far in the thread, at this point you probably mean that in very literal terms.
>>92616147It's one publicly known example. You wouldn't know about all the other times its failed but if an entire table froze up than it's safe to assume that it has or can happen again and that the type of people who need X cards are also the same type of people who'd freeze up and bitch about it after the fact rather than use the tools they were given
>>92616196You also wouldn’t know about the times it worked properly either, because things went smooth with no problems.The Koebel thing was spectacularly insane. You have to see it yourself to appreciate how unhinged he was. Saying x cards are completely useless because they didn’t stop him is ridiculous.
>>92616178>the Titanic was a fine ship, don't go by anecdotesThis antibiotic didn’t wipe out all disease everywhere. Antibiotics are useless.
>>92615644I've once seen construction worker beating off some intrusive junkie with a hard hat, so yeah.
>>92616262> beating off some intrusive junkie with a hard hatKinky!
>>92616237What I do know is that an entire table of people failed to use the tool given to them, so it doesn't really matter to me the unknowns of how well it works at another table. And you keep saying he was over the top so that means X cards would've never work or something but it's supposed to be his signal that he was being over the top and had to stop, you have no clue how he would've reacted if someone had used the card. to say X cards wouldn't have worked in that situation is just you guessing.
>>92616064>>92616077>>92616139Take it up with Gygax, nerds. Role playing was a group therapy technique that was combined with wargaming and turned in to a unique game form. If you said "Role Playing" before d&d came out you were talking about therapy or about pretending to be another person. Not playing a dungeon crawl.
>>92616290Youre the one who started the “you wouldn’t know” stuff. Now you say it doesn’t matter.
>>92615987No, it descends from warmaking.
>>92616308>Gygax, the guy who wants Dave Arneson to be completely removed from the history of roleplaying games so he could take all the credit for himselfNo surprise here. Dave Arneson never cites therapy as an influence over how he and his friends started roleplaying. Find a quote of him saying that and I'll take you seriously.
>>92616308That’s a good find, anon. I never knew the connection was that explicit.
>>92616322It doesn't matter, because it's data neither of us would know, so it's not the crux of my argument like it is yours. What I do know is that an entire table of people known for promoting X cards failed to use them
>>92616376Only one person at that table was known for x cards.
>>92616389And everyone at his table knew to use them
>>92616349That's from Gary's book in role playing.It is my personal opinion that 90% of the arguments we have about this stuff stem from the fact that the early RPG designers didn't have the foresight to actually discuss game design in their earliest rulebooks. They just assumed that rules were what people needed and that the game as intended could be inferred. Gygax eventually said a lot of coherent and sensible things about game design and the intentions behind the rules of D&D, the relationship between rules and the narearivebthey are intended to shape, the shared creative responsibility of all the players at the table, but the first few generations of players and editions largely went without it. It took until Metzner's rulebook (the third one I think) for anyone to even describe what role playing actually is supposed to be like in case you don't already know when you pick the book up. Most of us skip the "what is a role playing game?" section at the start of the book but it turns out that we actually needed one of those in the first few role playing game books and didn't get them.
>>92616413>known for promoting is the same as knowing how to use something Come on, man. I like that antibiotic quote.
>>92616436So known of them knew that X cards were an option?
>>92616443Now you’re just embarrassing yourself. I’m out.
>>92616436How do you promote an x card without knowing how to use it? Did they think it was a coaster?
>>92616466Well when you change the subject to quibble about the definition of promotion instead of the subject st hand or course it'll seem like moving the goalposts to you. Regardless, they're on his channel where he promotes X cards, they're supposed to be the perfect use case of their effectiveness because his gamers know his style and philosophy better than anyone, and every single one of them failed and chose to ruin him instead
>>92615644How does the term "safety tool" apply to an activity where multiple people are sitting at a table doing very low-impact things like moving figurines and rolling dice onto a table?Can you tell us?
>>92616346Here's Arneson crediting David Wesley with creating the role playing game and saying that he took the idea and out it in a fantasy setting. It's from an interview he gave in 1981 for the 1st issue of Pegasus magazine. Here's a link to it on archivehttps://archive.org/details/pegasus-magazine-01/page/n4/mode/1upSo the role playing game is, according to Arneson, Wesley's idea.Now here's an interview with Wesley where he discusses the origins of role playing games. It covers a lot of interesting things. One of the things he discusses is that although he considered Brownstein a game where you took on a role and acted it out he deliberately opposed calling it a "role playing game" since that name already belonged to a form of therapy.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9HLua_tfJ7U&pp=ygUNTWF0dCBjaGF0IDM2OQ%3D%3DThen, at around 10 minutes, he discusses the connection between role playing and therapy. He states that he did not deliberately attempt to turn therapy in to a commercial product, but that role playing games have an element of therapeutic role play in them in the way they allow you to act out or indulge in feelings and impulses you can't in the real world. So the guy Arneson credits with creating the RPG says that RPGs ended up having a therapy element unintentionally and that he was aware of theraputic role play and was concerned about the delineation of the two, while Gygax felt it was a deliberate part of their appeal.
>>92616308>some of Is not the same thing as >only Or>primarily As well as role play as a psychological tool as described in the article you cut he wargames part out of, is not a catharsis but an exteriority, which is very different from the power fantasy therapy popular with contemporary ttrpgs.
>>92616489>How do you promote an x card without knowing how to use it? Did they think it was a coaster?I think he meant that the other way around. That knowing how to use “safety tools” is not the same thing as promoting “safety tools”.
>>92617448>you cut the part out ofIt's a screenshot anon. The screen on my phone is only so big. >which is very different from the power fantasy therapy popular with contemporary ttrpgs.That has nothing to do with the point that role playing games have been acknowledged as therapeutic by the people who created them and that the therapeutic element of them is important. They aren't wargames, they are part wargame. They aren't therapy, they are part therapy. They aren't improv acting, they are part improv acting. Seething about one of those elements because you prefer one of the others is pointless. That is why there are so many different games that place emphasis on one element over the others. But getting mad that people are doing therapy stuff in rpgs makes as much sense as getting mad that they are doing wargame stuff in rpgs.
>>92615644That's why I give skull helmets to my Kroot.
>>92615644I used safety tools in my Solo rpg campaign. But the GM ignored them all and left me traumatized.
>>92615644an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of intervention, so if it's pre-game establishing of expectations it's so useful for good that the /tg/ recommendation of "do it with friends you can trust to not go overboard" is literally doing the same thing, just subconsciously.in-game safety tools are much less helpful, as seen in the object lesson of The Koebel Incident.>>92615987nigga ttrpgs have a whole mountain of ancestry across all of fiction, from acting and writing to other tabletop gaming at the time.just having therapeutic properties doesn't make a thing "descended from therapy", especially when its ancestry is so obviously The Game of Pretend, which has beyond any doubt existed for longer than therapy has even been a concept.
How much of a fucking absolute dripping wet pussy do you have to be to take muh safety seriously. Holy fuck nigger it's a game of pretend. The type of people shilling for this shit are the same people that need disclaimers before watching lethal weapon, absolute choco trash that just melts under the slightest pressure. And no I don't care about your heckin oh so tragic sob story muh ptsd bullshit you use to gain the centre of attention. Go see a proper fucking therapist and stop holding everyone hostage with an autistic freakout
They act as a good filter. If someone who's about to play in one of your games starts asking about safety tools is session zero, you can replace them before the game starts and they become a problem.No one is in danger sitting around a table rolling dice and playing pretend. If someone thinks that they are, you don't want them anywhere near you when their inve inevitable metal breakdown happens.And if you want to be truly based, don't play with women you're not having sex with.
>>92615644>"safety tools"The fuck are you talking about?This isn't /cin/ - Construction Industry.This isn't /pt/ - Power Tools.This isn't /mcg/ - Multiculturalism General.This isn't /mc/ - Mountain Climbing.This isn't /lgbt/ - Sexual Abuse.This isn't /k/ - WeaponsThis isn't /fit/ - Physical Fitness.This is /tg/ - Traditional Games.It concerns nerds sitting around rolling dice, drinking unhealthy beverages, farting, and making racist jokes with friends while rolling dice; the least intimidating projectile weapon known to man.>Safety tools?Take your fucking meds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QDKLglEP5Y
>>92615644The reason I hate safety tools is because it's something that only comes up if you're playing with people you don't know and don't trust.Yes, maybe they have a place if you're entering a game with absolute randos and you want a bureaucratic, gamified fucking system for managing their behavior. Alright. I can understand that. But that's not the kind of game that is going to be good.If you're playing with your friends, people you actually fucking know, what is and is not kosher to include in the game would just be common sense. I don't have to worry about one of my fellow players turning out to be a creep who wants to describe a graphic sex scene because none of my friends are creeps.TLDR; They're not bad in a vacuum, but their inclusion is a red flag that you're entering a shitty community that has a warranted need to manage the behavior of freaks.
>>92615644Honestly, there are some positives, especially if you're in a, let's say, 'non-ideal' group to begin with. They help tremendously in preventing certain types of otherwise non-confrontational autistic freaks from just bottling up all their grievances and objections until they explode in a group-destroying fit of aspie rage. I've found that an X-Card when my character is being 'too aggressive towards women' works out a lot better than them waiting until the end of the game to shit-talk me to their twitter followers and our mutual acquaintances.
Geezeranon here. As in started with a first edition of B/X old.>Can safety tools be used for good?The very phrasing of this seems absolutely fucking bizarre to me. I've never been in a situation where X cards were used.They might make sense in pickup games, as a standardized way of indicating out of character shit, or if you want players to have more input into the flow of a game, but I'm not seeing a point for players who are capable of communicating normally.Anyone have an example of that shit being used, and where just calling a timeout or talking it out wouldn't have worked?>>92615987>>92616119>>92616429>>92617439Ah, but that by NO fucking means that the gaming table needs to abide by the structures and practices of a goddam group therapy session. And the older games tended to be much more mechanically based, as wargames. Look at Chainmail. Tunnels and Trolls. The Temple of Elemental Evil. It wasn't until Rein Hagen decades later that games generally would even come remotely close to to that direction. >>92616329TSR stands for THE STRATEGIC REVIEW.
>>92618731Nah man TSR stand for TalSoRian, like Robert
>>92618743Don't make me drop a mekaton bomb on your ass.
>>92616119No one needs to elaborate on anything. Just say "hey DM, I'm uncomfortable with X" and that's that. Tapping on the table like a retard is just going to et you funny looks and most likely myself or someone else sarcastically tapping the table back at you.
>>92616119If you’re not willing to elaborate on what’s making you uncomfortable then you have no business objecting to other people’s roleplay. There are acceptable reasons to stop a scene and bullshit reasons, and some fag being a coward about every mild sort of “problematic” content is a bullshit reason. You don’t have to say “don’t do a rape scene because my dad raped me all through my childhood”, but you do have to offer more than “I don’t like this kind of thing”.
'Tools' like X-cards or such should only be needed/have a purpose in pick-up games (such at those at conventions) or for very new groups where people may only have started to become acquainted with one another but aren't fully comfortable with one another (and as such may prefer not to spill the beans about why they find certain things troubling or traumatic).Once a group is established and people get to know one another, I'd expect people to be more open to discussing things with the GM (either in advance or when it comes up), but the GM by then should have a better read of what sort of game the party wants (and thus they shouldn't be encountering out-of-context surprises which might prompt the use of an X-card or similar).I don't see why this causes so much disagreement. If I'm running a game, I want the players to have fun. If someone is having a bad time (for reasons beyond the dice being bastards ofc) it very quickly shows and impacts upon everyone. With my current group I've been playing & running games with them for years so I know where the accepted boundaries are, but if I was starting anew I wouldn't expect the same level of dialogue and feedback about issues.
>>92616178As they say in Belfast, "Well she was perfectly fine when she left us!"All I need to know about safety, I learned from Skippy's List:#202: Despite the confusing similarity in the names, the “Safety Dance” and the “Safety Briefing” are never to be combined.
>>92617787>>92617809>>92618022>>92618349While we don't use any kind of safety tools at a gaming table, these faggot incel spergs all provide rational reasons why they may be needed in some cases.
"Safety tools" aren't needed by people who can separate fiction from reality.Full stop.
>>92620641You will never be a woman, fat balding tranny
>>92615677>I only play in my safe space
>>92620680>"Safety tools" aren't needed by people who can separate fiction from reality.So they're rapidly becoming more and more relevant
>>92620641Take your meds, kill yourself, and then to back to plebbit. If you need "safety tools" to operate the heavy social machinery that constitute traditional games, you're pathologically retarded or irreversibly delusional.Instead of calling for "safety tools", we should perhaps start introducing disclaimers in the books, along the lines of "should not be operated by the mentally infirm or cognitively handicapped".
>>92621619Sadly, yes.
>>92621619>>92620680Also, people who aren't capable of communicating like normal humans in a functional society..Given uses like this:>>92618576>>92621932Expect more of those too. Notice what's missing from these rules for "safety tools"? In game methods of resolving conflicts that aren't TPK or adjacent.
>>92615812Yeah, if only there were situations where people play with someone else than they year-long friends...
