The table erupts as our collective minds get blown to pieces.

I end the session. Calaval’s eyes, what a night! When dice meet the narrative, peak RPG experience happens. It was so sublime that I dreamt about the session that night.

I wrote a two piece actual play review. To find out what happened that night visit https://d20.rs/2019/03/08/a-breath-of-fresh-air-part-one/

Sharp scenarios, maximum weird, fantastic value. Full Review at: https://d20.rs/explorers-keys-review

It's good, but not great. The concept of delving into the hell dimension/contruct is great, but when you get there the place really is pretty nice compared to most ruins. There's an ominous guardian, that doesn't actually guard anything. And he suggests a terrible fate for those who escape hell, that never is mentioned again and seems to have been forgotten by the writers. same goes for the sounds of screams which emenate from the entrance portal, which don't make any sense considering what you find inside. And there's a big boss, who never actually shows up and there is actually no reason to go anywhere near it. And other than that just some pretty tame corridors and clean and friendly hard light fellas to round it out.

Would have benefitted greatly from a watching of Event Horizon, or at least The Gate. That being said, if you don't mind doing some re-writing and throwing in a lot more flavor, this makes a pretty nice base for an adventure. It's a cool location, and a real fun concept.

Sad...... If you need a giant list of what offends you to play a game that is suppose to be fun, then skip game night and go to a therapist. I say this in all seriousness- IF YOU NEED THIS "PRODUCT" THEN PLEASE SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP.

I like the modernization of the new book, and most of the new layout. I can appreciate the desire to separate the powers list since some of them might be duplicated between types and flavors, however it's a bit of an annoyance to 'compile' them together when making characters. At least the book has hyperlinks for it!

This product provides a useful framework for ensuring everyone at the game table is opting into an experience that will be fun for them. It provides solid advice in an easy to read, direct manner and offers a simple checklist that can be distributed to players before the game or before starting the session so the choices can be made ahead of time and potentially anonymously.

It explains why safety tools at the table may be necessar even if you don't personally feel they would be for yourself.

I think it's useful, expecially if you are playing with people you don't know well, but has a few issues. Two of which are worth mentioning. The first one is the advice before moving to a new scene to stop the action and tell that there could be trigger topics, even if as the DM you know the content of the scene doesn't have any topic that were checked out. This break the pace and immersiviness, think of a movie where every 10 minutes everything stops and the actors ask the public if everything ok. The second, to use the example provided, is the possibility to stop a campaign before it begins. If I propose a post apocalyptic game and I have enough players and somebody comes and tells me "I want to play with you, but you should create a new campaign just for me" my answer isn't a yes, just to put it politely. A good beginning, but could have been way better.

Why are you being so mean and make things look so awful ?

Where is the pdf for people who are not suicidal ?

This is like reading a phone book of depressed people.

I'm into RPG for fun, not for stuff like that.

Is this meant for victims who can't express themselves ?

Is it meant to be used in therapy only ?

Is it meant NOT to be used in normal game groups where people can talk and sort things out ?

For normal people, in normal circumstances, playing a normal game, this should not even be quoted.

This belongs in the psych ward !

I have been using X-Card for years. I set up a modified google form of the consent checklist for use in an upcoming game. I added some of the topics brought up in the reviews here (including one and five star reviews) and from friend suggestions along with a list of topics I used to ask directly. This product provides a solid base that can be expanded many ways or modified to meet the needs of individual groups. No, it is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but it is flexible and designed for each group to tailor to suit their needs.

This is obviously a controversial title that can only be criticized since it doesn't leave any door open to perspectives other than its own.

Only option with a title like this is do things its way or just ignore it and recreate it from scratches, it can definitely leads to frictions.

The book tells you itself that you do not have to talk and you do not have to explain yourself, it's not exactly like it was trying to build an open and constructive dialog between members of the party that will have to cooperate together.

What is it meant for ?

Is it meant for people that will be opposed to each other ?

Is it meant for people that will openly (and this is an operative word) have secrets for each other ?

We all have secrets but when you give a sheet stating "I don't want to talk about (whatever)" you begin a new relationship by putting just that in writing, that's an extremely treacherous ground.

This is starting a new relationship based on avoidance, based on openly lying to the people in front of you and telling him or her just that : "I have secrets related to (whatever) and I won't talk about it"

This may be true, this may be false or this may just be convenient... or well, you may just want not to talk about transport because you want to catch the 7PM bus tonight.

With such a document, everything is possible.

This is open to tons of abuse and because of that I do believe it has NOT been screened correctly.

What kind of nightmarish piece of garbage is that ?

If I really need to ruin a game it's more entertaining to have players watch some chick flick or just talk about politics, at least everybody will have fun in some way.

This is how to place just one chap at the center of everything and allow him or her to ruin days or weeks of preparations and spoil the fun for everybody any time several time during a game and on a whim since this doesn't need to be explained.

As a player, I hope somebody who does that has a medical reason, and even more if I'm the GM.

You do NOT do that "just because".

Did it occur to you that people actually organize their work schedules specifically for their games ? Some of us only play like once per three month.

Saying anyone can disappear without reason is plain irresponsible !!

This is very useful and made me feel good. & FREE!

I had originally considered to give this a pass, as I deemed it unnecessary for my own games. The controversy prompted me to take a look, however.

Normally, I would give it three or four stars, as I feel it's a good product, but lacks some nuance and could use more detail in some of its categories. In the end, I decided to bump the rating it to five stars since its very existence prompts such strong reactions that demonstrate why checklists like this are needed in the first place.

If I had to point a flaw, though, is that it's missing categories for triggers such as "consent", "differing opinions" or "basic fucking human empathy". It's obvious that these are triggery topics, as evidenced by the amount of people who will flip their shit in the internet at something so inoffensive like the notion that others might find these sort of tools useful to deal with sensitive topics in elfgames (because they care about their fellow players and want to treat them like, you know, actual human beings).

All in all, it's an interesting tool which may help some gamers to avoid triggery issues and communicate better the topics they want to see or avoid in their games. Thumbs up.

I also would like to thank all the one-star reviewers for bringing this product to my attention, since otherwise I would have ignored it, and now I'm considering to use it for all my games. Keep up with the good work.

They should have called it

THE ANNOYING WHINER'S HANDBOOK

Consent is very important in real life, but not inside a game with your friends, a Dungeon Master should be able to express himself as he wishes whitout annoying players calling "consent" for every bull****. Bad things happen, especially in horror or dark fantasy settings, it's a game and not the reality, I like to believe that at table full of grown ups people can handle grown up thematics and can discern between fiction and reality.

This consent module is not only garbage, is dangerous. Concepts like:

It doesn’t matter why consent wasn’t given

Nobody has to explain why they’re not consenting.

There may not be a reason why they’re not consenting.

They can always change their mind about what they are or aren’t consenting to.

Kill the communication between players and DM, whoever blocks the game must take the responsibility to explain to their fellow players and DM why they're blocking the game, also the change your mind is very stupid, it's impossible to read these people's mind to understand if they will consent that time or not. If these rules want to mimic consent in BDSM are even more stupid and more dangerous because, like written above, they block the communication between Dominant and submissive during a BDSM session, something that can leave more bruises, on body and mind, than a role playing game.

The final list is increbibly stupid as well, let's see some example:

Between PCs

Please note, it's not written between your PC but between PCs, so even other players PCs, sorry but you can't dictate what other players can or can't do with their PCs.

Homophobia

Racism

Sexism

While these are horrible things we must fight against in real life these issues are historically part of the human culture and totally belong in realistic fantasy settings, like Game of Thrones for example, or role playing games settled in our past like Call of Cthulu 1920 or Vampire Dark Age and Victorian Age. Ignoring these issuses playing those games is not only stupid and historically inaccurate but also offensive while it tries to erase the faults and the oppression that the white man brought to others.

In the end, the best advice is: discern fiction from reality, like all adults do.