Tools of the Table: How the X-Card Has Made Me Better

A few years ago the epic and amazing Avery Alder appeared at Fan Expo after I convinced her it was a good idea and the game organizer at Fan Expo agreed. It was one of those giddy moments where something you helped make happened was happening. She was standing on the stage, giving a talk about inclusivity in gaming. J'adore. My mentor and great friend, Sara, was sitting beside me with her little dude in arms. And Avery talked. Eventually the X-card came up as a tool at the table to help with problematic players and content. Sara and I looked at each other. Our world had changed.

We, meaning the organizers of Toronto Area Gamers, were having issues, repeatedly, of gross misconduct at the table. This came in the form of dudes just being subtly sexist and kinda inappropriate without it bordering on actual harassment. Combine that with one dude who followed women home and had me doxxed because I told him he couldn't live out his personal sexual fantasies at the table, and we knew we had to do something.

The X-Card was part of that something. We added a policy of including one at every game run at TAG. This has expanded to include our public meetups, our personal games, and our conventions. The X-Card as a tool the convention itself provides has slowly been spreading into our local Adventurers League groups, to Games on Demand at GenCon, and a mention of such at Phantasm just North of us.

Yet despite the wide spread growth and obvious use in both main stream and indie gaming culture, there are people who still cry "But story integrity!" and bemoan the very idea of being censored. These people, in my experience, have never been anything other than white men. Nor have they bothered to understand the X-Card or why it isn't censoring. They are always the ones I've seen decrying the card and claiming that they should be able to hurt people however they want. When I challenged this, asking if they believe their story was more important than someone feeling safe and included, I was given a firm "Yes. The story is more important."

I've heard a wide range of reasons for not using a safety net. Mostly that it's a safety net. Again, all of this has been from white dudes. Whenever it's come up in conversation, be it online or no, there are multiple minorities who speak up and go "Man, I wish I knew about this" or "I've used it for this." But who cares about making others feel included when there's a good story on the line, right dude?

Because of the backlash against the tool, I've routinely felt nervous introducing it to the table. That's changed in the four or five years since I've been giving the talk, but there's always a concern when I'm the GM and the only woman at the table that I'm about to be snarked at for the sake of inclusivity. Fortunately, I'm one of the main organizers of the game community here, and people generally don't snark at me much anymore.

But all that being said, I love what the X-Card has done for me and my games. It's made me a better gamer, across the board. It does interesting things at the table that make me feel comfortable and eager to try new things. Not having one, I'm much more self conscious about what I'm doing, and fairly uncomfortable with its absence.

The X-Card has been used at my table several times. For multiple different reasons. But all of them to just keep everyone comfortable but still keep the story awesome. I've been told to stop being so descriptive with my injuries (the curse of a health care worker), I've asked to fade to black on an abuse scene, I've asked someone to use a different name because I hated the use of my aunt's name (she's a bad person). I've had someone X-Card an idea that made them uncomfortable and not wanting to play anymore.

I didn't take any of it personally. Nor did it ruin the "integrity of the story." I feel there's an ethics in journalism joke that goes with "integrity of the story" in terms of catchphrases, but I'll just let it slide.

What has the X-Card done for me? Why do I insist it be present? Why do I feel uncomfortable without it? These are important questions to ask and to answer. There's a lot of debate up about the X-Card and whether or not it should be at all the games all the time. At TAG, we have it at all the games we can control, all of the times. At all our public meetings. All our private games organizers are in. And all our conventions.

But why?

The first and easiest answer is safety. I feel safer when I have a card where I can tap out and say "nope" to some content. Not because I don't want to fight the rust monster, but because sometimes, depending on whom I'm gaming with, but especially with strangers, I want the ability to say "no rape" or "no spousal abuse" depending on what's going on. This is pretty straight forward to me. Sometimes people are gross, and this is a way to curb that behaviour without immediately yelling or calling someone directly out for it. It's just addressing the table, not the person.

I've used the card when I wrote a character, Aislinn, who had an abusive father. We were running a scene between Aislinn and her father, and it got to the point he was obviously going to hit her. The GM started the sentence and I interrupted with "I don't feel comfortable role playing this out. Can we fade to black? Like it happens, but not on screen." I didn't have an x-card. I wish I had.

I've used the card when we were writing up histories for Monsterhearts and one player wanted to have an abusive Aunt Linda. I have an abusive Aunt Linda. Linda beat the crap out of my grandmother, a small, mentally unwell woman. I asked not to use the name. She became Aunt Leanne. Nothing fundamental changed in the story. Just my comfort.

There are so many times I wished I had an X-card. So many times I've been caught wide eyed staring at other characters going "what the actual fuck is happening?" as my character was stripped of agency and other things. The x-card is necessary for me when playing with strangers, mostly cis male strangers. I need it to feel like I can say "Nope" to content that will be bad. Like someone wanting to play a Neo-Nazi with a bunch of strangers at a Dread game at a public convention. The GM was extremely uncomfortable but felt she didn't have space to say no.

The second answer is because it makes better stories. This reason is why I don't buy the line of integrity of the story. The X-card. Makes. Better. Stories. I'm the kind of person who's constantly worried about upsetting other people. I don't want to hurt people. I care about people feeling included, safe, and engaged at the table. Maybe it's because I'm a GM, but mostly I think it's because I'm a decent human being who cares about other human beings.

What I've really noticed about X-Cards is that it opens up that conversation at the table. It lets me check in with people and hell, it invites me to. So when I'm about to do something really awful as a character, I can pause and check in. I do this usually by touching the X-Card or just looking at everyone and saying "I want to do x, everyone okay?" This makes people involved and also gives me a heads up before I push too far and scare people or make them uncomfortable.

That being said, with people whom I've been playing with for a long time, the presence of an X-Card gives them an out. I know they're comfortable using the X-Card around me, and thus I dig deeper sometimes because I know they'll tap the card if they feel uncomfortable. I jump into topics I normally wouldn't because I know they'll say "Hey no" if things get too broken for them.

On top of that, I feel safe knowing that if I engage in material that makes me a little uncomfortable, I can tap out if I really need to and go "Hey guys, I thought I was okay, but can we take a break/dial it back?" It's been such a relief to know that I can take a moment if I need to and the X-Card has made that possible. It's made my stories more emotional, more intense, more dark, and more willing to go beyond where I would normally ever go in a game.

There's been quite a few times this has come up. But often it comes up in Monsterhearts or Urban Shadows when I say "I'm gonna do this, and it's gonna be statutory rape" or "I wanna do this, but it means abusing your character, are you okay with that?" It will make for good story, thus bringing us back to integrity in story, but even more so, it's done in a respectful and inclusive way.

Of course it isn't without issues. I mean, some people won't feel comfortable speaking up or using the card, especially given the prevalence of people who shame people for it or make fun of it. But I'm talking about my regular circles when I'm bringing in the dark dark pain. With games like The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, where one of you is a killer, the presence of that X-Card ensures that you can go dark and awful while your partner has the right to tap out.

All of that being said, I've hit a new struggle with the X-Card. I'm writing a game called The Arena. It's going to be playtesting at Metatopia and in a Toronto near you. It's a game about being a gladiator and a slave. It's a game about body autonomy. It's a game where consent isn't a thing.

I, of course, talk about safety and the X-Card in the game. This game -requires- an X-Card. But how do I deal with the fact that the game explicitly deals with a topic I've avoided in public gaming forever: rape. Slaves were property. The Romans, at times, had regard for their slaves, but they were, after all, property, and treated as such. Body autonomy is a large theme in the game, and part of that comes from showing the gladiators they have none. They are playthings. They are not people.

Agency is removed from them. They perform and do as ordered or they're whipped or put to death or sent to the mines. The idea of rebelling without gathering everyone behind you is a one way ticket to quick and painful death. So how do I show this, in this game, if someone X-Cards these subjects? How can I work within the parameters of "what if someone is playing and says no rape when almost all the sex in this world is rape because it's ordered and nonconsensual?"

I haven't figured out that answer. It puts me at the crossroads between integrity of the game and safety of the players. My best answer is to veil things. Things happen, but they are veiled and you move on. If the player has an emotional response to even that, ask for ideas. How can you show they lost body autonomy without it being explicitly sexual? Find their point of comfort and dig in there a little as opposed to something strictly sexual.

That being said, it's a big part of the game. So I've started to put a warning on the game when people want to play. I let them know it deals with themes of body autonomy, abuse, rape, and ownership. They will not have a lot of agency but will have the ability to find ways within the world to survive and eventually break free. I try to be clear on it. Of course, we can say we're fine with something only to discover that we weren't. When that happens? Safety comes first. Safety always comes first.

In games where we want to invoke powerful, intense themes, that go places many people aren't comfortable, we need a way to provide conversation around that. The X-Card is the best mechanic I have found to do that with. It's still the same card that was written by John Stavropoulos but it's evolved to become it's own thing in our community. It's a symbol of a conversation that could happen. It's an open door.

Integrity of the story. The story is what you make it, and how you find the path between everyone to make the best story you can. It's up to everyone to make that fucking mind blowing. An X-Card won't destroy your story. It will make it better. But you need to trust in it, your players, and yourself to use it. Maybe it won't ever get used. Maybe it'll get used casually for a name. Or maybe one day you'll be playing and want to do something dark, awful, and beyond the scope of normal play. On that day, you'll look at everyone, say what you wanna do, and add "You can always say no."

That's your X-Card