Safety Tool Question · Game Master's Laboratory

21h • Advice

Safety Tool Question

(N.B.: I'm not asking for a debate on the utility or necessity of Safety Tools in RPGs)

A question for RPG players and GMs:

I'm building a new Safety Tool similar to the X-Card but with a wider range of message. (The X card is a clean, direct, non-verbal way of communicating a single, important piece of information. In the case of the X Card, it's "Stop everything right now")

There are some other similar safety tools out ther. The X-Card was expanded to include "N" ('please fade to black'), and "O" ('everyone OK?').

What sort of things might you want to communicate to a GM (or have communicated to you) in a way which doesn't necessarily interrupt a scene? And -- I can't believe I have to say this -- but they don't necessarily need to be bad things.

Here are some examples:

"Can we take a break after this?"

"Proceed with Caution"

"I enthusiastically consent to this, even though my character seems to be hating this"

"I have a rules question"-

"More of this, please!"

Think of it like a semaphore or an ideaogram. It's a way to communicate a potentially complex idea in a single moment. What sorts of things do you want to be able to communicate to your GMs?

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