#xcard — Public Fediverse posts

@lumpley

A safeword means stop, something’s wrong, whereas the #Xcard is meant to let you keep going with just the subtlest and politest of edits. It’s like an airbag that lets you keep driving after it has blown up. I can’t even…

It’s like… yes, the “try a different way”-card in Archipelago is a genius ludeme. For Archipelago, and its wikilike “co-edit the aesthetics” gameplay. It is part of what makes Archipelago a good game and can definitely be ported over to some other games that have a similar approach to stances and storywriting. But relying on it as if it were a safety tool is…

And if you do have real safety in place, the X-card is complementary at best and confusing at worst.

Uh, this is a never-ending rant from me. It’s like a 24/7 “rant vs X-card and #veils” station that I try to not tune into too often.

Some peeps have tried to push the idea of the X-card as primarily an aesthetics editor a la Archipelago. Use it early and often, use it because you just don’t feel like a particular element that day, use it very freely etc. And I think that might be a good tool for some games. If that did become the primary perception of the X-card that would be a welcome evolution. It could also mean that it could have some safety use, with a lessened “I am revealing a kryptonite” factor, as a complement to real, proper safety use. It would be instantly recognizeable

• as not appropriate for all games, and
• not a robust safety tool that’s enough on it’s own

I think the name “X-card” is burnt, though, for that, but who knows.

Maybe a better response to “this game uses X-card” than “In that case, I need to excuse myself” is “Cool, but how do we signal that we need to discuss OOC or take a break?” i.e. see the X-card as a game mechanic, not a meta-game safety tool. I dunno.