Safety Tools: The Tools (X-card, lines & Veils, RPG Consent Form etc)

Part 1 discusses how to create this environment in depth: https://youtu.be/YNvS5YPJ3UQ

I also want to share some specific examples and personal stories so that you can see that they aren't nebulous and vague, and when I say 'communication', you can see what that means specifically.

Resources: TTRPG Safety Toolkit - A Quick Reference Guide: https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1583202183294.pdf

RPG Consent checklist: https://mcpl.info/sites/default/files/images/consent-in-gaming-form-fillable-checklist-2019-09-13.pdf

Another version of the RPG Consent Form (Line/Veil/Ask First/Interested): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EoM0EFqZUQNM-1JpCV5HvXTllTK_oRfjHTRfYMVeRXs/edit#gid=1883057617

TTRPG Safety Tool Resources: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S-6ScLR_XaZRfgX502QsYL3pfmyJGL0C

Let’s first talk about why providing this support even matters. If you watched/read part 1 in the series, I spent the time going over the importance of making your players feel validated and how you can do that by empowering them to say no. 

So we’re just going to cliff’s notes it here for context: Basically, it’s very natural to think  “well, I don’t think we need to worry about this stuff, we’ve had fun in the past.” But this kind of thing does so much more than adding a layer of complexity. Broadly, it can enhance your game experiences while at the same time, preventing or mitigating hurt. Using these tools will make sure that people know you have their back when you’re navigating difficult, emotional topics. And these are skills that you can and should be using in your life outside of tabletops too. 

Support tools take the onus of caring for the group out of just your hands and makes it a communal effort. Everyone is being a part of a support network for everyone else. But if only one person is trying to build the support network, let alone actively participate in it, then it can fail when you need it most.

The biggest thing these tools enable is to identify boundaries for specific topics, and have this be communicated to the whole group. There are two great ways to figure out your groups boundaries - one is lines and veils and one is the RPG Consent checklist, which i’ll link below.

Lines and veils refers to the level that some topic should be allowed in the game.A line is something the player does not want to see at all. Some very common ones are animal abuse, child abuse and sexual assault. Most players, myself included, have these as items we dont want to engage with in any capacity. It is not a fun storybeat to explore. It is difficult without having any room for redemption, so it just makes people super uncomfortable. And think about it - do you, as the GM, really want to describe that shit? No, you probably don’t. That’s how this is a support network. You’re all committing to keeping each other whole. In addition to this, folks may have other lines as well, and thats why its important to ask. 

I do have a line that sometimes comes up in action games, so I make sure to mention it ahead of the game. This was not something I had thought of before - it just randomly came up in a Shadowun game and all of a sudden, I had this like tightness in my chest out of nowhere and this weird slight sense of panic. And like, I think of myself as a pretty resilient person .. it took me a few days after that event and some serious self-reflection and I figured it out. This weird specific thing that another PC had dure purely for flavour was bringing up some past trauma and it fucking sucked. Honestly, I hope that never happens to you or anyone you play with because it’s awful in the moment and later, as well as hugely embarrassing to realize you aren’t as over something as you thought. Anyway - it’s to prevent shit like that that you want to give people a chance to identify known boundaries ahead of time.

So anyway, moving on. We talked about lines. Now let’s talk about veils. A veil is something you are ok being referenced or happening offscreen but you don’t want to RP it or watch someone RP it. A really common veil is romance and sexual RP. You’re okay with someone kissing another PC or NPC in RP but we’ll fade to black or just say they spent the night together and then move on. So it’s a part of the story but it’s not a part of any scenes. Another common veil is torture. You can narrate the big bad torturing someone, or even one of your PCs torturing someone to get information but you don’t go into more detail than that. 

The third piece I want to talk about is the RPG consent checklist. This is a very straightforward document that allows you to understand the different levels of comfort your players have with different things that they may not even think about when you ask an open-ended question about boundaries like genocide or cancer. The consent checklist lets you identify whether you want a line, veil or neither for specific topics. Best practice here is to go with the highest sensitivity on a topic. 

The fourth tool I want to talk about is the X-Card. This was developed as a gamified, non-verbal way to say the topic at the table is crossing a line. There’s meant to be a card on the table that you can tap and then the GM should take that as a signal to stop what they are narrating and pivot the scene to a different direction. Since moving online, people use the X-card to say to DM them or do an X with your arms but people probably won’t remember that while something is actively fucking with them so just listen for your players being like “Nope. Nope..” And if it’s a particularly intense scene, watch their faces. 

And here’s where I’m going to strongly recommend checking out Part 1 if you haven’t because the propensity of x-cards being used at the table will go down significantly if the player mentally feels in control during difficult scenes. 

I’ll give you a personal example. I was playing Night Witches, a game about Russian Airwomen in World War 1. The character I was playing had caught the eye of a very predatory NKVD officer. The NKVD is like the military KGB basically. We were coming up to a scene where I had done something that this person was pulling me up for insubordination.. The GM who was obviously playing this NPC DM’d me like a week before the game and explained that the scene was going to be very sexually predatory. They told me what the goal of  the scene was and if I didn’t want to RP it, we could just narrate it offscreen and resolve it with some dice rolls. I asked that we play through the scene because honestly it had been a very emotional and intense game and it felt like the right choice for me as a player, and for the game. He reiterated that I should be very aware of the x-card during this scene and use it as soon as I needed to. We ended up playing through the scene and even though it got pretty fucking intense, I did not use the x-card. I’m not  bragging or anything, but the reason I didn’t have to was because a space had been created where the emotional bleed of the scene from the character to me as a player was restricted. I was made to feel totally in control even though for all intents and purposes, my character was a victim. And all it took was a little bit of conversation.

Another anecdote I want to share - I really like running horror and I was running a particular bad guy who I described a certain way. One of my players was just like ‘Nope. nope. Don’t wanna do that’ - so I stopped the vivid description, and we just moved on. It didn’t impact my game negatively in the slightest.

Really want to stress this point - Don't try to argue with someone to give in on their limits. Don't try to assign blame to anyone. The person who's feeling uncomfortable may want to talk about it, or they might not; either way is okay. What your role in this interaction is is to identify the problem and fix it in a way that addresses their specific needs, make a mental note of it for next time, and continue play. 

And lastly - In doing research for this video, I came across something called the Luxton technique. I haven’t been able to find a lot about it yet so I’m not comfortable speaking about it, but it appears to be a gentle, collaborative approach to offering support to someone with deep trauma or PTSD if they still want to engage with your content. I will definitely be doing more research about it but if anyone knows of articles or anything you could point me to, that’d be great. 

To summarize, lines, veils, x-cards, consent checklists - they are all just tools to help with communication and attitude among players and the GM. It’s not meant to substitute for general awareness. Just because someone isn’t explicitly telling you they have an issue doesn’t mean that everything’s fine. It’s pretty fucking difficult to acknowledge that you aren’t as resilient as you’d like to be. It’s embarrassing to admit to triggers out loud. Unless you create a space where it isn’t. And it’s not hard to. Just keep an eye on your players and adjust and communicate accordingly. You’re probably already doing that anyway.