Safety Tools

Excellent overview of why to have Safety Tools in RPGs, from GnomeStew: Why safety tools are important to me.

Tools Commonly Used By Our Groups

Roses and Thorns; Wishes and Stars

At the end of a session everyone lists something they liked about the session and something they wished would've happened.

X-card

The x-card is the simplest safety tool and also the easiest to implement. A card with a large X is placed on the table where everyone can reach it. If anyone feels uncomfortable, they simply touch the x-card. The GM and other players will change the scene immediately by skipping it or changing what is happening. The person who activated the x-card is not expected to explain their reasons. You can read more about the x-card at http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg. John Stavropoulos developed the x-card.

Lines/Veils

Lines and veils are established boundaries for the story and are defined by each player individually. Generally they are shared with the GM, either as a group or in private, before the start of a game or campaign.

Lines are hard boundaries that exclude specified content from the game, no questions asked. This could include anything, but common lines are children being harmed, rape or sexual violence, or racial discrimination. Veils are softer limits where the player is ok with it being included in the game but it isn’t explicitly described. Things that are specified as veils will be hand-waved without going into detail or happen off-screen, like the fade-to-black sex scenes in a PG movie. You can learn more about them at: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30906/what-do-the-terms-lines-and-veils-mean