These discussions aren’t helping. I think there are a group of people who would like to have safe gaming tables but are afraid of people coming in to an Apocalypse World game and x-carding every instance of violence. It gives a lot of control to the player. This frightens GM’s who are genuinely afraid of having their game x-carded away from what they had envisioned. That being said I always start my con games with this little speech. “We will be playing __, you are welcome here. If you are triggered by __ this will probably not be the game for you. However, I realize that things can go to far and we are using the X card in case things get out of hand and it turns inappropriate for you.” This assuages the initial discomfort I had with using safety tools. It lets people know what I intend at the start. I don’t think it’s fair to say, “anyone who doesn’t use an x-card is a piece of garbage.” GM’s are by their very nature control freaks. Giving a player the power to say “stop what you’re doing,” is really intimidating. We need to write more language helping GM’s like that understand how to incorporate safety tools without feeling like they are giving up their own identity as GM’s. Almost everything I’ve read about safety tools doesn’t do that. It’s all preaching to the choir. So yeah, I’ve become an adopter of the tools, but it took me a lot longer to get there. Paul Beakley is right. That non-trivial number of gamers need different language than we’re using. Because I was in that group once and it took me a long time for ME to feel safe using safety tools.