ITT we trigger DMs part 3

>Edge (WWE)
>Not literal undead wizard
>not literal Demon/Corporate Kane
>Not that one guy who in-canon has an alter-ego called "The Demon" with a giant eye tattoo on his back and everything

There's been FAR edgier than Edge. The edgiest thing Edge did was spear tackle the worst (best) general manager on Smackdown on accident.

>Maintaining full control over your character while mind controlled
That's dumb.

It's because of the name, user.
This is a joke chart.

It's a great way to revenge OOC grudges and get out scott free, user.

Yeah, I got it after I posted and realised that there were not 2 but 3 "Edge" characters on the list. Still, I recently got back into wrestling and some of the "lore" around the characters is fantastically insane.

You don't go fully the other way, but it's not even really about wasted die rolls - it's the idea that if they _turn a doorknob_ without first going down a laundry list of questions, i'll go 'AHAH! THE RED HOT DOORKNOB BURNS YOUR HAND YOU DIDN'T ASK IF IT WAS HOT ALSO THE OPEN DOOR CAUSES THE FIRE TO EXPLODE ON YOU YOU DIE NEW CHARACTER'. That's the attitude. It really bothers me.

>DanDWiki

FUCK

Turns out poor layouts and mixing horrible homebrew with actual classes with no differentiation is my trigger.

I kinda wish there was a nonconfrontational way to say 'please stop making me live your fanfic' with certain GMs.

It also sounds nice if you're gaming with people who have issues related to shit but don't feel comfortable speaking out, which is a small but significant percentage of people. The strength of the tool is that you're making an explicit system for fade-to-black, rather than it having to be negotiated each time. Some people really will just sit there through something that's triggering PTSD or whatever because they aren't willing to show vulnerability by speaking up. It's not a common thing, and the language used in that x-card whatever 'slightly uncomfortable' is pretty wtf, but the idea has merit.

It is stupid precisely because it is non-confrontational. A reasonable person can usually admit that they have their own uncomfortable or unwanted topics in games and they should conclude that they are thus willing to consider the feelings of other people, but no one is entitled to egg shell walking, forced guesswork, and mid-session retcons or shifts by default. An open environment where you talk about your expectations and desires for a game with the GM, preferably ahead of time, should be fostered over petty, unclear, bullshit bandaids that only raise barriers between players. Players should be empowered to seek out the games they want to play and to leave the games they don't.

I didn't she said "he forces you to attack your closest ally" and then left fluffing it up to me.

The closest person was in front of my character and facing the BBEG, so he shot her in the back of the head.

So your attitude is that people should either speak up, or they are 'unreasonable' and should get out? And that systems for fade to black are 'eggshell walking'? Wow. I suddenly see the need for systems like this, despite having never had problems that would require one in any game i've run.

the first game only happens because he decides to suicide and take as many people as he can with him when his plot to sell an incredibly dangerous bioweapon is discovered and intercepted.

and he kills an entire city in the second one because some cunt dumped him.

and also he's technically fucking dead before the first game begins. You're playing an imitation.

for fucks sake this is the armor he decides to wear

I have no idea how you got that from what I typed but you certainly demonstrated how whimsical trigger claims can be disruptive failures of communication. Thank you.

Alex Mercer is super edgy. The literal disease you play as is actually a pretty nice guy comparitively.

first game yes, second game fuck no

>the first game only happens because he decides to suicide and take as many people as he can with him when his plot to sell an incredibly dangerous bioweapon is discovered and intercepted.
That's because real Alex was a retard. Even Virus agrees on this. In the first game Virus-Alex is actually pretty decent guy in comparison to everyone else in the game.
And in the second game he goes all evil because, well, he is a sentient and barely sane virus that somehow contains memories of hundreds of people, which also doesn't do any good to his rapidly deteriorating sanity. He just stops pretending to be a normal person and goes all IMMA INFECT YOU ALL, like any virus.

>All that shit
>Second game backstory
Holy fuck, who buys these games?

>it's stupid because it is nonconfrontational (reeeee raging arguments at the table or do what I say)
>reasonable people can admit when they are uncomfortable or unwanted topics in games (people with any kind of trauma about whatever are unreasonable and should get out reeeeeeee)
>people nonverbally saying THIS MAKES ME UNABLE TO CONTINUE PLAYING PLEASE FADE TO BLACK = 'egg shell walking', 'forced guesswork', 'mid-session retcons'
>everyone should know what every session will contain ahead of time and discuss everything beforehand in exhaustive detail and not allow for player action to change the story in any way, anything else is a bandaid
>anyone who disagrees with me should be 'empowered to leave games'

Aw baby, did I ignore your barrage of buzzwords and look at the actual content of what you were saying? Do you need a tissue to dry your tears, you sandbagging piece of shit?

>2k16
>buying games
Get out.

No there was a comic for the second game, his legit entire motivation was that he travelled the world, had a fucking edgefest of a time, then fell in love with a girl who tried to kill him and take his money.

Thats it. It wasn't some degrading sanity thing, he just went full edgelord.

torrented both

I buy games. Mostly indie games though. Big blockbuster games are typically aimed at your average x-box owning fratboy/teenager. No joke. If you've ever worked in a brick and mortar game shop you know exactly what i'm talking about.

>>reasonable people can admit when they are uncomfortable or unwanted topics in games (people with any kind of trauma about whatever are unreasonable and should get out reeeeeeee)
I can't actually tell what you're trying to say with most of these. I think the triggering would work a lot better if you wrote more clearly.

Well sane man can't be an edgelord, right?

I still liked the game. It is a nice change of pace than the usual Crusadering on Crusader Kings 2.

I'm pretty sure he's saying that there's very little reason someone can't just say "Hey, can we not keep going on this subject? It's really uncomfortable for me." and communicating that point clearly, and directly to the group, rather than a bit a vague "emergency stop" that's one-way communication (which is typically considered rude in most common contexts). The idea is definitely one of those ideas that works well if a group agrees on it prior to the game.

Granted you do specify that people who would feel vulnerable bringing it up, which I'm not sure how much good the card would be since in order to be useful for the DM and players to avoid events like that in the future both sides would need a clear idea of what the offending instance was. (again, not really an issue if a group is sane enough to agree to it beforehand, because I can't think of many times where it's likely for more than one offending situation is likely to be relevant in a tabletop game)

>he doesn't play HOI3
you're not a man

Wasn't it also due to consuming people he has so many memories of humanity being shitty to eachother that he goes "fuck it, I'm making a new humanity"? (also the whole "well, I guess humanity is okay, I even found love... oh fuck you!"

Alex Mercer is basically the best representation of a vampire in recent gaming history. He's a living disease that consumes people and has flesh-morphing powers.

The point is that I have gamed with people I could see were uncomfortable about stuff. And clearly were not enjoying the [rape scene] [their character being helpless and tied up] [execution scene] [war scene with endless grotesque descriptions] not in a 'oh I don't like this as much as winning' way but in a 'i'm holding down my vomit and flashbacks at the same time' way. And when I was the GM, or, I knew the other people well enough, I immediately ended that scene. And generally they appreciated that a fair bit. When I wasn't or didn't, I let it go on. And those people often didn't turn up the next session or ever. Because when something causes a person mental distress, about half of all types of people don't want to speak up about it. A quarter don't care, and a quarter have no issues speaking up about it (abstracting from a lot of studies on the topic). Speaking up about mental distress is weakness, and people having mental distress don't like showing weakness most of the time. A nonverbal, easy, simple system to express that sounds like a great relief valve for those kinds of rare but potentially game-destroying situations.

If someone is lovingly describing or showing images of spiders, I would speak up and say 'can you fucking stop i'm arachnophobic bud, I have uncontrollable panic about spiders for no reason and it ruins my game experience, for sure have them in the game but just keep them vague' because i'm in the 25% that have absolutely no issues expressing issues I might have. Other people will just sit there, bear it, and then decide that this rpg thing is not for them.

It's worth noting also that I assumed that this 'X-card' or whatever would be something you drop, the scene fades to black, the game goes on, then at the END of the session, when the person has calmed down and it's not in the context of ASKING FOR HELP which compounds the weakness, the GM/DM would ask them for an explanation so that it can be avoided in future. Even then, if someone didn't want to talk about, it who cares - if someone was abusing the system to get out of scenes they found boring or whatever, that should be blindingly obvious to anyone who isn't autistic.

is that pic from paris?

>18 months of playing

"What do I roll?"

>friends ask me to run a game for them
>never dm'd before
>make it simple, fetch quest in a random dungeon
>fluff up the story as them being a small task force working for their country's military sent to receive magical items to aid in the war effort
>they ask if they can be evil
>I figure why not, war can be brutal, these aren't holy crusades, as long as they follow their orders everything will be fine
>one of them decides to play as a chaotic evil rogue who doesn't talk
>their starting orders are to go to this captains twenty to get briefed on the mission
>mute rogue says he shows up late on purpose
>he shows up and the tent guards won't let him cause he won't explain anything
>he decides to hide nearby and follow the others once they finish the meeting
>eventually he meets the others and they realize he's the missing party member
>they offer him the map they received so he can have an understanding of what's going on
> he just stares at them, unresponsive
>one of them calls the mute a faggot in character
>later on as they're traveling along, they make camp
>no one goes on watch, but mute rogue asks if he can strap himself up in a tree in a weird hammock. Sure
>they get ambushed in the middle of the night by a small band of gnolls
>the rogue decides this is his chance for revenge and decides to shoot the guy who called him a faggot
>natural 1
>tell him his bow string snapped, but he can fix it with a -1 to hit
>the rest of the party kills all of the gnolls while the rogue keeps >the barbarian who was shot at by the rogue picks up a short spear from a gnoll corpse and hucks it at the rogue
>crit
>I tell the rogue to make a balance check 10+ damage since he's still in the tree
>he fails
>falls out of the tree
>group promptly murders the fuck out of him

I decided just to dm retcon the night ambush and told everyone it was just a dream he had since everyone there was friends.

Also later on the rogue tried to kill the cleric in the group, such ended slightly differently with the barbarian just killing the whole party to end the campaign.

>And those people often didn't turn up the next session
Maybe that's for the best, if they can't cope with something like that they probably need more professional help. Just slapping a card and ending a scene isn't going to do anybody any good at that point, particularly if the tone of the game is conducive to the kind of scenes they don't like.

Additionally, if they use the card, at that point the tone is going to change and the player is going to feel like the rest of the table resents him for it, and so will be unlikely to use the card, so it doesn't really solve the problem of players being reluctant to come out about their problem.

If a game makes me uncomfortable enough to vomit, it's probably best to quit, no big deal. Maybe try again some other time.

Honestly, the card seems like a childish thing. Deal with it like an adult, either talk it out or walk away, those are the only reasonable solutions.

>If I attack him while he's talking, do I get a surprise round?

Honestly that triggers me 0%. I've done that as a player and I've had it done to my NPCs as a DM.

He put this on his show while mocking fears of terrorist attacks two weeks prior to the Paris shit.

What episode? I wanna see.

>google that x-card shit
>there's a google document for it, explaining how it works
>one of the examples of 'common triggers' that can be 'x-carded' is, and, hold onto your fucking socks (otherwise your feet will trigger somebody):
>FAILING
>if you fail in any way, you may make that NOT HAPPEN

I love it, use it all the time against the spotlight hog.

>Speaking up about mental distress is weakness
This is the view we should be working to change rather than pruning communication and damaging games. Assuming we're talking about primary arbiter games, as group-control brings up a lot more system dependent stuff, it is or should ultimately be that arbiter's decision whether something is in the game, not, or in what capacity. I'm not suggesting GMs should be inconsiderate or unwilling to listen, rather that they should make decisions and that these decisions necessarily must be informed to be most effective. The GM must decide whether to include animal abuse, clowns, sexual assault, and themes he didn't previously consider or realize were sensitive topics. Clear communication with the player in question is undoubtably the most effective and sometimes only effective way he can fairly weigh the player's aversions in context and judge what changes if any need be made as a remedy.
I'm glad you brought up arachnophobia. If a new player were to bring that up to me as part of a request to make changes to the game I have planned I'd have some serious deliberating to do.In a setting I run, a spider god and the spider loving, spider clad, and spider spell slinging cults dedicated to him have become major recurring plot points. I cleared this out of game with one of my players who I know from previous experience has problems with spiders in real life, but as it turns out he loves the bugs in games and ended up incorporating the cults into his backstory. At this point of the game a player with problems with the themes would most likely be deemed unsuited for our game in general. And that's fine, we shouldn't treat all group splits as "kicks" and bitter disagreements, rather the player should seek or run a game more suited to himself. But this is an arbitration, a power that is removed from the GM, and an important talking point removed from the table and from private channels by non-cooperative forms of "communication"

Your 'leave every player behind, only the stronkest may game' attitude is incredibly stupid, and I really hope you don't game with people new to the hobby.

If people don't like a thing, they're gonna stop doing it. There's a lot to like with ttrpgs, and it's trivially easy for any good GM to avoid specific things that specific people dislike, like say, sexual assault. Or tensely describing being pinned down in a trench to a guy who's had a bad day and is a war veteran who has actually been pinned down in a trench getting shot at enough to dislike that specific description of it.

Whether or not someone is having issues with something isn't always immediately obvious to people - that's what a formalized 'fade to black' system is for, and what I immediately saw the utility in.

That you don't get that utility or that anyone would like or need it says bad things about your ability to not be a fucking autist and actually recognize these problems occurring at the table - odds are good you are actually the kind of person who needs one.

Communicating with people and coming to a compromise in order to continue a hobby you enjoy seems more adult than giving up socializing and doing something you enjoy because a difficult part of your life has reared it's head.

Also, I feel like you're overthinking it a bit much. While I can relate, I can't help but feel like most people won't jump to "if I use this thing that the rest of the group agreed to use, they will resent me for it".

There's this guy who plays with us, always insists he's having fun and comes to every session and even talks about the game outside of the sessions and the things that happened, but when the session comes he's just staring at his facebook, either on his phone or on the computer.

It's always
>Dude, its your turn
>Huh? Oh yeah, what should I do?
>How should I know, it's your character.
>Ok, I attack the guy closest to me
>Okay, roll to hit
>What should I roll?

or
>You recieve 5 hp of damage, how much do you have left?
>I dunno, how much HP does my character have?
>Dude, it's right on your character sheet.

I dunno whats up with that and I'm getting pretty frustrated. In social and questing situations he just follows the party around, in combat he just uses straight up attacks against the closes opponent, he doesn't know his characters abilities or attributes, he doesn't know the game rules. We've been playing for 5 months now.

I've tried talking to him and the rest of the table tried talking to him. He insists he's having fun and doesn't see anything wrong. I've tried getting the NPCs to involve his character directly, but he just does the most basic interactions, the minimum required to get it over with.

Don't wanna kick him out or anything, he's a good friend otherwise, but at this point he's basically some extra damage for the party. It's also cutting a bit into my desire to run sessions.

>25%
>50%
>What are statistics I pulled out of ass, Alex?

This is the point I'm trying to make. Full stop. Ignore anything else other Anons have said.

If you are legitimately suffering from actual PTSD or get panic attacks from the mere mention of a topic (and you aren't just some giant baby who self-diagnoses themselves with mental disorders) I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT. We're friends in this hypothetical gaming group right? It stands to reason that we spend time together often and I want to avoid this shit coming up again in the future. If you throw an x-card at me while I'm reading my prepared visual description of an NPC's public execution I'm just left guessing. Was the method the executioner used? Was it the fact that it was public? Did a line of text just happen to sound like something a past abuser said to you? Do depictions of decapitations give you violent Vietnam flashbacks? What?!

I'm not asking for a detailed account, but you've got to open your mouth and say SOMETHING like an adult. If your mental disorder is that crippling that you shrivel up into a ball and can't even bring yourself to say a simple "Hey, can't we move this along?" then you probably should be in assisted living or something right? Like ... how can you drive a car when a story on the news can randomly paralyze you and send you off the road?

The problem with the x-card is that it's childish and there is zero restriction on use. There's nothing stopping one person from holding the rest of the group hostage with their personal hang-ups, and since there's no requirement to actually say out loud what your issue is there's nothing stopping it from coming up again and again and again. It can be something completely innocuous with no associated medical health issue at all (and I'd be willing to put money on that being the case more times than not). It devalues the experiences of people with actual disorders and enables anti-social behavior.

Let me put it this way.

If someone breaks an arm, maybe it's not the best idea to go play tennis. Wait a bit until you heal.

Likewise, if you have some emotional damage, maybe you should wait a bit for it to heal before getting into situations that stress those emotions.

This card helps nobody. It doesn't solve the issue, it doesn't even hide the issue.

I ran a WoD game, and I pulled each player aside privately and spoke to them that the game wasn't going to shy away from the following themes (insert list), and if they had an issue with any of them, to say so and it would be struck from the game.
No one objected to anything, but I always wondered, don't other people do the same? Or do they just throw shit out there and expect the players to deal with something they may not feel is fun or entertaining?

That document is a pile of wank. I'm talking about the concept. Read the thread.

Yes, because having a formalized system of 'let's fade to black' therefore makes it physically impossible to talk about the topic at another point. Your specific example is talking about the thing not when it is occurring in the middle of the game, but beforehand, when it is not occurring, and the stakes are lower and no-one is tense.

Your example, where you know everything the players have a problem with and yet also feel perfectly comfortable kicking these players you know so intimately out of games because 'you want to use spiders a lot' is something that actually happens not at all. Generally you want every player you have at the table with you to be able to play the game you run, because you know all these people, and you don't ask people to leave for fucking disliking a theme, you ask them to leave for being a disruptive asshole. Further, most GMs don't know the innermost depths of players' psyches - and they don't know beforehand every single theme or element that's going to come up in their games.

In your example, you're an all-knowing god who picks from hordes of desperate players and chooses only the stronkest, and I really doubt that is the physical reality in any sense, and it's not one i've seen in many years of gaming playing with hundreds of different groups in cities all over the globe.

>That you don't get that utility or that anyone would like or need it says bad things about your ability to not be a fucking autist
I'd also like to add that I get the utility you're seeing here. I'm just saying that you're wrong. I think, as someone who has gamed with people who are uncomfortable with certain issues, that this card does nobody any good. It's not doing anything to solve the core issues, and it just places even more guesswork on the GM, instead of elimination it like it claims.

It's your responsibility as a GM to know all the issues before hand and talking with your players, if you feel they're uncomfortable in a group, do it one on one or by email, get everybody's expectations and hangups.

If someone on my table wanted to use the X-card, or used the X-card during a scene, I'd pull them aside and try to talk to them before even running the game.

Reposting from the old thread, didn't see it was in auto-sage.

>"Hey, DM, can I do [Idiotic Retarded thing meant only to test the limits of the DM's patience and TRPGs in general]?"
>"Oh fuck yeah this game is awesome!"
>Proceeds to literally build up entire character identity behind this one, stupid, flawed, idiotic thing

Of ALL of the little flavors of autism that are out there, this is the one that kills me the most on the inside.

I had one guy build a "combat yo-yo" just because I fluffed out that a goblin they looted had a toy one in his possession, and proceeded to hammer a 20 foot chain to two shields and throwing that around at people despite the copious amount of penalties I associated with it.

I had another build up his identity around a duck because of a magic statue that he took a liking to. To a point where he made a dwarf called Duckbeard who shaped his beard into that of a duck, despite having no relation to this magic statue.

Great guys. We get it. We get the joke. Please stop.

>formalized system

We already have that. It's called language. Just say "Hey, can we fade to black on this?"

The x-card solves zero problems and only creates new ones.

And here's the point i'm trying to make

'wild screaming PTSD and panic attacks' is not the sole thing that causes people to have a bad time!

Killing a scene with a fade-out is an incredibly small price to pay for someone who was having a bad enough time to actually indicate that to stop having the bad time!

People don't like having to air their dirty laundry during a request to stop doing a thing! They're more likely to do it if it's a button they can press that does it without discussion, requests, or being forced to appear pitiful!

These are all things that are not particularly disputable. That you keep disputing them in roundabout ways (the only thing people should care about is full blown screaming panic attacks) (it's childish to use a card instead of talking about all your problems at length) (using a card means the GM can't ask about the thing, can't, he just can't I tell you, how could HE ask when it's the PLAYER'S problem that's just not fair omg omg omg omg) (people need restrictions on the use of ending scenes or they'll do it all the time! Willy nilly! It's impossible to tell a real problem from a fake one, or tell if someone is using the card constantly! Only supergods could do something like that!) indicates you have an issue with people having problems at the table, not a problem with a formalized no-fuss fade-to-black button existing.

It's great that you think that mental stress doesn't exist and that No True Rollplayers will never let anything like that keep them from a game and anyone who stops playing in a game due to that is a weak, sick, fucked-up person who shouldn't be gaming to begin with, but you're wrong, that's wrong, and you literally shame my hobby.

That's definitely a good way to go about it. I haven't done it before, but that's because I've only really run "fun/generic fantasy" games. Or a pokemon game where the most inappropriate stuff came from a player who I gave the power to give other people nightmares in exchange for a temporary HP boost (she basically went crazy, but everyone was okay with it. The "highlight" was forcing a kid to kill his childhood pokemon that was kidnapped for plot reasons, and make him feel guilty for letting it happen. It was horrifying in a "you're job is to make a nightmare, and you sure are doing it" kind of way). Thankfully everybodies reaction after the game finishes was laughter and "holy shit I can't believe she went that far".

Suppose, in your scenario and that other guy's, the player uses the X-card during the spider encounter:

There's two things that can happen now:
1) The GM ends that particular scene, skips ahead, and another scene with spiders comes up, the player uses the X-card again. Rinse and repeat. Nobody is actually helped, there are actually spiders and the game is now interrupted constantly.
2) The GM pulls the player aside and asks what the deal is, the player explains that he doesn't like spiders, forcing the GM to change stuff. Now everybody at the table knows that the player doesn't like spiders (something the player probably wanted to avoid being known, because of the X-card), and the GM is forced to redo what can be large parts of his campaign.

Or the more likely outcome: The player doesn't use the X-card.

All of this could have been avoided if this had been discussed before the game even started, between the player and the GM, in private. Then the GM could have avoided the spider-cave altogether, and the rest of the table never has to know that this player has problems with spiders.

Also, stop with this "kicking out" business, the onus is on the player to stay or leave. The only thing that can induce kicking of a player in this whole scenario is abuse of the X-card, and everyone has different definitions of abuse, so that's not a good idea.

You're strawmanning really hard man, almost none of what you said has been used in an argument against you.

'Hey, can we fade to black on this'

'Why'

'It's bothering me'

'Why'

'I don't like it'

'Why'

^ real conversation I have actually witnessed happen about a scene where a large, rich man was making sexually suggestive comments to a female PC sitting in a chair in front of his desk, who he was threatening, at the time, to kill their entire family that he had in custody. Rapey as fuck. Obvious as fuck what the problem was. And yet, someone was being forced to sit there in front of the entire group and tell them that yes, really, they found it a bit rapey and they had problems with that. Something that the majority of people have problems doing, admitting bad shit happened to them and they have issues about it in front of people who don't know/in front of strangers. That's literal nightmare fuel for some people. No shit they don't fucking speak up.

>Yes, because having a formalized system of 'let's fade to black' therefore makes it physically impossible to talk about the topic at another point.
That's the point of the X-Card, it stops the game without any explanation or further discussion. It prevents anyone who is bothering to respect it from bringing it up then or later.

>In your example, you're an all-knowing god who picks from hordes of desperate players and chooses only the stronkest, and I really doubt that is the physical reality in any sense
Not at all, I'm a fallible being who uses the powers of good communication and social rapport to overcome my shortcomings rather than pass the wheel to whoever will grab it. And at no point do I suggest that "only the stronkest" players are suited for my game. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that not every game is for every person. And as I mentioned, a player leaving a game is not and should not always be considered a negative thing. Continually stigmatizing "problematic" players is whats disempowering them from making good decisions in their own interest, like leaving uncomfortable scenarios or at least trying to talk them out.

>Eh, sometimes a DM just wants to have a Dark Knight style bad guy who can stand toe-to-toe with 4 opponents at once. It's precisely this kind of foe that a grappler is most effective against because all that fancy armor, magic weapons, and spell slots means jack-shit with your arm pinned against your back.

A knight who can't grapple can't stand toe-to-toe with 4 opponents at once.

This is like complaining your glass vase on the top shelf can't stand toe-to-toe with a cat.

>X-card
>why?
>It's bothering me
>why?
>I don't like it
>why?

In your example, the X-card would have solved nothing. It's literally a shorthand for "this is bothering me, let's skip it." At this point, the player asking "why" is at fault and no X-card would have prevented that.

This is what everybody keeps telling you: It solves none of the old problems, but it creates new ones.

Actually, yes, the point of the x-card is that there is no impetus to elaborate at all. If the DM even asks the player later in private it defeats the purpose it defeats the purpose. It's supposed to be there as a, as you say no-fuss fade-to-black button.

I do that, a lot of GMs do that. But sometimes things come up as a result of player action that you play in certain ways that go beyond any pre-existing discussion, or someone thought they were cool with it and turned out not to be, or someone didn't realize how intense it was going to get, or you didn't think to clear 'spiders' beforehand or something. You can't cover it all beforehand because there's too many bases, basically. You can cover some common ones, but not all of them, especially with player action involved.

>someone was being forced to sit there in front of the entire group and tell them that yes, really, they found it a bit rapey and they had problems with that.
Oh the horror! Someone was forced to SAY WHY THEY DIDN'T LIKE SOMETHING!
>That's literal nightmare fuel for some people.
These people are called retards.

Then maybe players need stop being such pussies and getting triggered at everything?

I think the main problem is that without the communication it can be difficult to avoid the triggers without knowing what they are. The spider example above would be fairly obvious, but I could see people with trauma being uncomfortable with a person being tied up at all, or even certain words if their issue is tied with OCD
Without communication to the DM at least, you just leave yourself open to those triggers in the future, and ruin any flow or fun the game could have had, if the DM had only known

Look, if the situation is bad enough that the player is considering leaving, then those things can be discussed before the game or in private, because it's serious.

But if somebody is just uncomfortable, well, you can't keep everyone comfortable 100% of the time, and as adults, we learn to deal with that.

Third option: Player uses the panic button, GM takes them aside and asks about it in a now non-confrontational setting, player says descriptions of spiders doing shit in gory detail fucks them over, GM mentally rewrites a few scenes to be 'torture with implements' rather than via spiders, and asks 'hey so if I keep them there but kinda vague about detail is that fine' player goes 'yeah mang' game goes on.

The point is that as a GM your audience is the players. If one of them is having a shit time over something you can fairly trivially change (and if you can't trivially change 'spiders' to 'lizards' or 'flesh burrowing worms' or whatever, you're a shit GM with a very weird fetish), you are fucking up at your role in the group. The panic button is a low-social-cost signaling tool that is better than the high-social-cost signaling tool for that purpose. Some GMs go to pornographic guro-levels of detail about the evil monsters in their games - in that game, i'd get squicked by spider descriptions - but in most games, 'a giant spider appears, ridden by a drow' 'I stab the drow' is perfectly doable - I get a bit squicked if it hits me at the wrong moment, but the vast majority of the time no fucks are given and I don't need it removed from the game or fade to black or whatever in order to keep playing. The situational nature of this shit makes the panic button a useful tool even if you're taking all other reasonable measures - that's the sole point that i'm making.

> The first person shows up at 3

Oh man I'm sorry. At 2:15 I sent an SMS to everybody that there were no players so the game was cancelled. I went bowling instead. You must have missed it. Oh you didn't get it and showed up at 3? Unfortunate. Maybe my phone is on the fritz.

I played in a not!darksun game last year, and there was a player who was extremely uncomfortable with slavery. The setting has a majority of people as slaves in one way or another to the kings, so this caused issues.
He was both upset with being referred to as a slave by any magistrate or lord, even if the whole point was to hate the dude so we could fight and kill them, and also was upset that the setting required slavery as a norm.
The solution ended up being as stupid as just changing all references of slaves, to serfs.
I'm not even joking.

>That's...actually kind of impressive, I've never met someone who can actually purr in real life.

I can. It's not hard though I find it difficult to describe how I'm moving things.

>Player uses the panic button, GM takes them aside and asks about it in a now non-confrontational setting
You've already violated the point of the X-Card. This is now just regular communication. This is what should be done, though in your example the fix is easier because the GM need only change a few scenes to fix a minor case of aversion. If the problem were more acute or the use of spiders more prolific and definite, more drastic actions may have been necessary, but the point is the X-Card removes the ability to make the informed decisions that lead to these fixes.

So you missed the entire point of the panic button, which is that it explicitly fades to black without asking questions, isn't a special favour request of the GM or anything like that but something the GM agreed to (and put into place) at the start of the game, and it's my fault you're a dumb cunt who can't read? Nice.

Right, so anyone who has anxiety about revealing their deepest fears to random strangers is a 'retard'. Truly, you are right in this argument. I'm not surprised that I share this hobby with autistic fucktards like yourself, but every time it comes up it does indeed make me sad.

It's like rolling your Rs, except you roll your throat

>postapo setting
>female PC played by a redpilled dude gets captured by raiders
>as revenge for killing a few of them, one of the raiders shoves her revolver up the snatch of PC and says she is going to shoot
>"this makes my character horny" says PC

The GM had the good sense of treating this as horrendous in-universe (the raider got beaten within an inch of her life) but damn.

Okay, first: nothing in your scenario is aided by the existence of the X-card, the play can just as well use his mouth and say "I'm uncomfortable with this, lets skip ahead a bit." And then the GM can take them aside.

Second, what if its not some trivial change, but the GM fluffed and entire area around spiders and spider themed quests, and it just wouldn't make sense if you quickly changed it. He now has to either scrap it all, leading to a suboptimal experience, or stop the sessions and rework it. All of this could have been avoided if the player told the GM before the game began that he's uncomfortable with spiders.

Also, the X-card stipulates that the GM is not supposed to ask questions, thus he will be unable to do anything about fixing the actual problem, so in effect the X-card would make the situation worse.

That's a Casual Gamer. He doesn't want to be prompted to do something he doesn't want to do. If he didn't had fun, why would he still be at the table? Just let him be, but teach him that he should manage his stuff and rules for himself. Just let him be otherwise.

I never implied that.
What it does do is give me, the GM, a clear idea of particular themes a player doesn't find fun, and excise them.
That doesn't mean everything is covered, but it does mean I have a heads up when I'm running my game. After that, it's up to me, as a decently responsible human being, to own up to my responsibility of presenting a fun game to my players and being aware of when a line is crossed.
That said, I have few issues using genuine fear as a tool for drama.
I put one player through what irl would be a rape scare to ratchet up the tension and pressure on her.
I used a player's legitimate fear of feet against them in a necromancer's crypt to pronounce the body horror.
I had a player use my fear of drowning against me, twice.
I believe that using the player's fear is a legit tool in a good GM's kit, but you MUST be sparing and display wisdom when doing so. Shit, I'm a survivor of sexual abuse, I know intimately what the feel is, and such things should be treated with genuine concern for what they are.
You realize the X-Card is for situations where you are not in a position to talk about things like that, right?
Places like conventions, game shows, open houses, where you are playing with strangers you are not comfortable giving details of your life's unpleasantries to?
Do any of you blathering mooks realize that? You speak of "The X-Card" as tho it's a thing for most tables.

I understand talking about certain issues can actually bring about the very anxiety you're looking to avoid, but it /could/ be an issue itself, especially if the trigger is something innocuous, like certain word use, or things fantasy settings take for granted, like death
There is a very fuzzy line between what is 'generally accepted as fucked up' and what is personally fucked up to you. I know you don't want to tell this to every DM you play with, especially if they're on the computer. But if you find yourself sticking with a group for long enough that the DM is willing to do the X-Card, I would hope you could also confide in them what not to include.

>anyone who has anxiety about revealing their deepest fears to random strangers is a 'retard'
No, anyone who has problems so serious that they warrant stopping the gucking game mid-session and who doesn't think that he should tell th GM about this in advance. You don't like rape? Fine, tell the GM BEFORE the game so he can change his story a bit and stop players, should they try this shit. Is it really this hard not to be entitled little shit and actually take some measures so that you will not encounter things you dont' like in the game?

There is no 'prolific or definite' use of spiders that can't be vagued out or changed around for some other evil bug or 'scary thing'. If you think your plot 'hinges' on endless portrayals of spiders and can't be changed, you're a shit writer and a bad GM. 'I dislike the main enemy NPC' is something it's actually hard to change. It's also something i've never seen anyone actually have a problem with in many years of gaming with many different people, whereas things like spiders, rape, children being attacked, self-mutilation, snakes, drowning, descriptions of being tied up, torture, certain kinds of detailed descriptions of tense situations especially in warlike settings, all this i've seen cause people enough dislike that they didn't want to keep being there at the table (although sometimes did).

As i've said, I liked the concept of a pre-determined fade-to-black with no questions asked. Not specifically the 'x-card system' or whatever the fuck. That document was cringey as hell.

Of course you'd ask questions afterwards, AFTER the scene is killed. The idea is the thing the person has a problem with is instantly gone, the situation is de-escalated, then you talk to them (probably privately) about what the problem actually /was/. Either right away if you don't get it, or if it's obvious in hindsight, you maybe discuss it a bit further after the session.

>it's my fault you're a dumb cunt who can't read
Nah, its your own fault for being a dumb cunt who can't read and can't even get his arguments straight.

Either the GM is supposed to not ask questions after the X-card, or he's supposed to take the player aside and ask. Pick one. And how are you going to stop the other players from asking why the X-card was used? Can't stop assholes.

Anyway, I'm tired of arguing with you. Go ahead and use the X-card. I'll deal with these problems like adults are supposed to.

user, you seriously need to stop going on about this X-Card like it's something of note or import.
It exists, you don't seem to like it, no one actually cares.
As was mentioned before, the GM often isn't the one that brings situations like that up, and in most games, rape is not something imagined to come up.
The majority of games either skirt sexuality or don't promote it in it's tone, so why bring something up if you have no reason to believe it will come up?

>you are not comfortable giving details of your life's unpleasantries to
>Ugh, let's skip the rape scene, please?
>Why?
>It's really fucking disgusting for me, mate
So much details about 'your life's unpleasantries'.

>If you think your plot 'hinges' on endless portrayals of spiders and can't be changed, you're a shit writer and a bad GM
If you can't come up with a plot that hinges on spiders and has ingrained spider themes, you're a shit writer and GM.

A gm worth a shit can read cues from their players, or just people.
The "Why?" shouldn't even be fucking happening, user. Someone being clearly uncomfortable with the subject matter means full stop, move on.
I am coming to believe that this entire nonsense conversation is simply you being contrarian for (you)s, or you just have no idea what goes into being a good GM.
Regardless, my part in this ends, I said my piece.

>so why bring something up if you have no reason to believe it will come up?
Because it triggers you so hard that you are unable to continue playing, that's why. Also, good GM will stop other players when they start asking you questions like HUH YOU DON LIEK SPIDERS WOT R U, A PUSSY? THat is, if GM konw that this subject is really not comwhting you want to discuss.

>Fairly low combat game
>Everyone else is playing social characters, thieves, or mages
>Playing ex-soldier/combat character
>Has almost no will, fluffed with flashbacks/PTSD from the war
>Gets mind controlled
>Nearly TPK
>Last two mages manage to break the mind control
>7 people down, heavily damaged
>My character is only scratched

>Next session DM nerfs my character badly, forcing me to restat everything

>A gm worth a shit can read cues from their players, or just people.
Exactly, no need for a formal system.

Glad we agree.

I know people who's greatest triggers are specific words. Not anything that can stand out, and not even things that make sense. They even admit to them being irrational, but that's what makes them irrational triggers.

>you're a shit writer and a bad GM
Mate you're not chained to my table. If a player believes I am a bad GM he's free to leave.
It's impossible to track anyone in this conversation but I've been specifically talking about the X-Card and responding to responses. Perhaps you've confused me.
In any case I completely agree with using sound communication channels and I always give Skype or another communication method to players to privately message me even during a game. I never insinuated that sensitive details need be brought up in front of the group. A pause button however is functionally and most likely also in form no different than a vague verbal communication.

>Having an argument about x-cards because that's literally the post an user made in the thread about things that trigger DMs
>"WHY DO YOU KEEP GOING ON ABOUT X-CARDS!? YOU GUYS ARE IDIOTS!"

It's literally the topic of discussion.

>I know I'm level 4, but can my character start out having been a legendary hero?

That can work out fine though, operative words: "Having been."

Yeah sure you helped solve the but with his dying breath, cursed you all so hard you were knocked back to level 1.

what the hell is this obsession with making everything about gory details or torture?
i get it, you're reaching for excuses to make this x-card thing sound justified, but this kind of shit basically never actually comes up in play with any sane group.
i guess that's why they had to pad out the trigger list with shit like 'falling', 'failure' and 'feet'