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The X-Card System
The X-Card is a simple
Safety Tool
designed for players to self-moderate among one another. When a comment (either IC or OOC) makes a player uncomfortable without being directly rule breaking, players may react to the post with a 
scamXCard:. This is a signal that the players involve should tone down or move away from the current conversation topic.
The key purpose of this is to allow players to express discomfort towards subjective topics safely. This means topics that are not covered by the rules, or are more of a grey area. This includes:
- Flirting that does not cross into harassment
- Descriptions of violence (such as blood, injuries, disease, etc.)
- Discussion of potentially triggering topics (e.g. insect phobias, death)
X-Card reactions are not sent to the Mods, and who used the reaction is not recorded. Mods do not act on any X-Card reactions, nor will it influence warnings, DP or staff applications.
This system is:
- An anonymous way to state someone is feeling uncomfortable.
- Useful if someone is not comfortable with speaking up at that moment, as it is a non-verbal communication of one's personal boundaries
- Nuanced and aims to reduce hostility in grey areas. E.g. hugging is generally socially acceptable behavior. However, hugging someone who does not like being hugged is not.
- Subtle, as it does not require everyone to stop the scene
- A near-instantaneous way to stop the topic, as reports take time
- Less pressure compared to reporting a message, as there is no need to worry about getting someone in trouble
Example 1
Amy is afraid of spiders. While roleplaying with Bob, his character begins going into extensive detail about how he once killed a Giant Spider. This makes Amy uncomfortable, and she uses the X-Card on Bob's post to indicate she wants to change the topic. In this case, discussions of spiders aren't banned from the server, just something Amy would prefer not to discuss.
Example 2
Carson and Delia are roleplaying together, and the conversation is going well. Delia decides drop hints that her character is interested in him. However, Carson's character is aromantic, or someone who does not experience romance. Rather than have to defend or explain why his character feels that way, he instead opts to use the X-Card. In this case, Delia was not harassing Carson, he simply preferred not to roleplay flirting.
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Steps if you want to use the
- React with on a post which you feel crosses your comfort zone.
- The emoji will be replaced by a bot react to maintain anonymity
- If for any reason you don't want it to be anonymous, sending the emoji as a message will show it as normal
- Wait for the other party to see the reaction
- If you are open to talking about why this made you uncomfortable, you can do so in the channel or in PMs.
- Otherwise, you may change the topic or disengage until the topic has moved on.
- If the other party(s) continue their behavior despite the X-card, openly makes fun of the use of the X-card, or is otherwise demonstrating harassing behavior, please escalate the situation with a ❗ reaction. This will notify the mods.
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Steps if your post has been
- You may either tone down or change the topic entirely, depending on the situation
- If you are open to discussing why this was X-carded, you can put a message in the OOC inviting the person to reach out in PMs or elsewhere.
- Sometimes people might not want to go into the specifics of why something made them uncomfortable, and this is not your fault
- Otherwise, you can just move on. If you want, something like a simple "Ope, I didn't mean to overstep" will do.
- Depending on the circumstances, participants in the scene can discuss and retcon what happened.
We want to emphasize that if your post is reacted on, this does not mean you have done something bad.