that sounds fun

also something annoying just happened

some just tried to "call me out" on my most recent question.

@Gwideon Don't worry. Rude comments like that tend to get flagged and deleted.

I just flagged it.

But that doesn't make it not have happened, and I'm sorry it did.

BTW, I hear you're looking into safety tools! I'm working on an entry for the Safety Jam, it'll be about how safety tools don't work if the group doesn't have the willingness and capacity to actually use them (ie, just saying "we're using Script Change" isn't enough), and I'll be offering my own experience on how to make groups more welcoming and collaborative so those conversations can happen regardless of the specific tools being used to guide them.

yeah i am.

i'll be sure to check out that post out

If you're comfortable sharing your thoughts/experiences as you work with safety tools, I'd be really interested to hear your perspective and what you're learning.

@MikeQ yeah I know stuff like that happens but it's always a little off-putting when it does happen.

@BESW Sure I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

For me, the big thing is that groups need to be having ongoing conversations about what works and doesn't work. Formal safety mechanics serve as guides/prompts/failsafes for those conversations, but they don't replace the friends-first social attitude that makes the conversation function.

(And safety tools can be counter-productive if they give the impression that they replace those conversations.)

Crucially, the conversations aren't just about what not to do. They're about what we like and what we want, telling each other when things happened that make us happy and we want more of that please, sharing ideas we'd like to add to the game, celebrating our successes. That makes it a lot easier to have difficult conversations about what makes us unhappy because it's in the context of an ongoing positive conversation about supporting each others' feelings.

Yeah I will have to make sure that they don't replace conversation. I just want my players to have an option open to them in case things get abit to real

One of the things I like about Script Change is that it includes a Highlights Reel phase at the end of each session, where we get to mention things we really enjoyed.

I'm also experimenting with a Microscope mechanic for general use, which gives people a space to formally identify an element from the session that they'd like to see come back in future sessions.

that sounds interesting

Yeah, Microscope has some very interesting palette mechanics, including "things that would be expected in this kind of game but we don't want to include" and "things that wouldn't be expected in this kind of game but we do want to include."

And then at the end of each major phase, the person who was facilitating the phase picks a thing from the phase they want the group to re-visit; and at the start of each major phase, the person facilitating the new phase picks a thing from that list for the new phase to focus on.

that is really cool