Written September 2026.
Session zero is where a table sets up a campaign before it starts: character concepts, tone, house rules. It's also supposed to be where a table agrees on what's actually okay to put in front of everyone, and that's the part most groups do worst, if they do it at all. Not because nobody cares. Because "hey, is anyone bothered by X" asked cold, out loud, in front of people you just met, is an awkward thing to say and an even more awkward thing to answer honestly. Safety tools take that conversation out of the moment and put it on paper, or on a private form, instead, so nobody has to perform comfort with something that actually bothers them.
Lines and Veils, the X-card, and stars and wishes are standard practice across the tabletop hobby, used at tables running completely different games. This page explains them in plain language, in our own words, and gives you a printable sheet to run session zero with.
A good default: treat these as three different moments, not interchangeable options, and give a table all three, not a favorite.
These three tools aren't interchangeable options on a menu. They cover three different moments, and a table needs all three, not a favorite.
| Decided once, revisited on a trigger | Done every time, live at the table |
|---|---|
| Lines and Veils: what's off the table, what fades to black | The X-card: the signal that stops or rewinds a scene, on the spot |
| Who's allowed to call the stop signal, and how | Stars and wishes: the two-minute close, run every session |
| Whether the check-in happens aloud or in writing | The private debrief after a signal actually fires |
| The revisit trigger itself: a new arc, a new player, a tone shift | Closing the loop on last session's wish before this one starts |
Lines and Veils is a planning document. The X-card is an interrupt. Stars and wishes is a closing ritual. Treat them that way and the rest of this page is just detail.
What tends to work: a private list first, folded into one shared document nobody has to attribute back to a name.
Lines and Veils sorts content into two buckets, agreed before play starts.
A line is something that doesn't happen in this game, full stop. Not implied, not off-screen, not "just this once." If a topic is a line for anyone at the table, it's off the table for everyone.
A veil is something that can exist in the story, but the camera cuts away. The game can reference that a fight was brutal, a character was tortured, a relationship turned abusive, without playing any of it out at the table. "It happened" is enough; "here's what happened, moment by moment" is not.
The list itself is personal, which is exactly why it works better as a private, individual note than a group conversation. A player who'd never say their line out loud in front of four people they just met will often write it down without hesitating. A good process gives everyone their own private space to add to the list, then the GM folds it into one shared document that nobody has to attribute back to a name.
Numbered, not named. A simple trick keeps that fold honest: collect the private additions by number instead of by name, then read the merged list aloud in that order without ever saying whose number is whose. A table that's still strangers to each other will hand you more honest lines this way than any live discussion gets you.
The list runs both ways. It isn't only for players. If there's content you don't want to run at your table, not because anyone asked, but because it's not a story you want to tell, write it into the same document, in the same pass. A GM's own line belongs on the sheet next to everyone else's, not carried around unstated.
A good default is putting a real condition on the revisit line, not just the hope of coming back to it: a new arc starting, a new player joining, or a fixed number of sessions, whichever comes first. "We should check back sometime" living only in your head almost never turns into actually checking back.
It also helps to agree in advance on the line that ends a veiled moment, so the scene's return is decided ahead of time rather than in it: "we pick up the next morning," or a narrated "the scene ends there." Without it, a table sits in ten seconds of nobody sure whether play has actually stopped.
Running online. None of this changes except the paperwork. The sheet becomes a shared doc or a form, the private additions still go in individually before anyone opens it together, and the merge still happens numbered, not named.
Lines and Veils was developed by Ron Edwards and published in 2003.We're describing how it works at a table, in our own words, not reproducing his original document.
LINES AND VEILS [Campaign Name] LINES (never in this game, for anyone) common categories, if you're stuck: violence and its aftermath, sexual content, real-world trauma, harm to children or animals 1. _______________________________________ 2. _______________________________________ 3. _______________________________________ VEILS (can happen, but off-screen / fade to black) 1. _______________________________________ 2. _______________________________________ 3. _______________________________________ PRIVATE ADDITIONS (numbered, not named: hand this sheet around, or fill in separately, then read the merged list aloud by number, never by who wrote it) Addition 1: ______________________________ Addition 2: ______________________________ Addition 3: ______________________________ REVISIT ON: __________ (a new arc starts, a new player joins, or a set number of sessions passes, whichever comes first) RESUMES WITH: __________ (how the scene picks back up once a veil drops, decided now, not in the moment)
One table's filled-in example, invented for illustration:
LINES: No on-screen animal death. VEILS: Torture happens off-screen; we hear about it after, not during. REVISIT ON: New arc, or session 10, whichever comes first. RESUMES WITH: A line of narration ("the scene ends there") and cut to the next beat.
Print this, hand it out at session zero, or copy it into a shared doc. Revisit it whenever the campaign changes tone, a new player joins, or enough time has passed that people's lines might have shifted.
A good default: keep the signal free of any explanation, ever, so the ask is never bigger than tapping a card.
The X-card works differently from Lines and Veils. Where lines and veils are agreed before play, the X-card works during it. It's a physical object, a card, a token, anything visible, that sits on the table within reach. Any player, at any time, can tap it, tap the table twice, or just say "X" to signal that the current scene needs to stop or rewind, right now, with zero explanation owed.
The point is that it requires no justification in the moment. A player doesn't have to explain what bothered them, argue their case, or manage the table's reaction to their own discomfort while it's happening. The signal alone is the whole ask.
It helps to have three moves ready before it's ever needed: cut to a different character's action, skip time forward, or just narrate "the scene moves past that" and keep going. Deciding which one you'll reach for before session one, not while you're standing in front of the table trying to improvise a way out, tends to make the moment smoother for everyone.
The card protects the scene; a short check-in protects the person. Steering away is the whole job at the table. A quiet message after the session, just "you good?", is the part most GMs skip, and it's worth not skipping.
A good default is rehearsing it once before it counts: use the card during session zero itself, on something with zero stakes ("this description's too long, X"). The first time anyone reaches for it for real shouldn't also be the first time they've physically done it.
Running online or over Discord. The signal is an agreed emoji reaction, a typed word, or a raised hand on camera. Type it, react with it, or hold up a hand, the game stops the same way. The object was never the point; the agreed-on signal is.
Optional, if your table wants it: some groups add a second intensity on top of the base signal, one tap means dial it back, a held or repeated tap means stop the scene entirely. That's a table's own addition on top of the tool, not part of how the X-card was originally described, and deciding it now matters more than usual here: extra options worked out live defeat the whole point of a signal that's supposed to need no explanation.
The X-card was designed and published for the tabletop community by John Stavropoulos in 2013.We're describing how it functions at a table, in our own words, not reproducing his original document.
What tends to work: one star, one wish, no debate, run in the last five minutes of every session.
Stars and wishes is a closing ritual, not a boundary tool. Everyone at the table names one star (something from tonight's session they genuinely liked) and one wish (something they'd like more of going forward). No relitigating what went wrong, no debate, just one short statement of each per person.
It works because it gives quiet feedback a channel that isn't a callout and isn't buried in a group chat three days later. A wish surfaces gently ("more combat," "more time talking to NPCs," "more spotlight on my character's backstory") without anyone having to frame it as a complaint. Run it in the last five minutes of a session, going around the table once.
Close the loop or the wishes go quiet. Write each wish down, one line, in your session notes. Open next session's round by naming which one you tried to give the table. A wish that visibly lands is what keeps people naming real ones instead of safe ones.
For a table of six or more, or one still new to itself: run it on index cards passed to the GM instead of said aloud. Same two prompts, star and wish, just answered in writing. A bigger or newer table gives more honest wishes on paper than in a circle.
Keep this separate from an actual boundary. Stars and wishes is for pacing and spotlight, not for genuine discomfort. Give the table a second, always-open channel for that instead, a direct message to the GM or a short private form, so a wish about "more combat" never lands next to something that needed the game to stop.
Stars and wishes is widely used across the TTRPG community, but who first used it isn't documented the way the X-card's origin is.
A good default: handle a signal that's drifted from its purpose privately, and let the tighter boundary win when two players' limits collide.
Two things come up at real tables that a tidy walkthrough skips. If the signal starts getting used for something other than genuine discomfort, pacing complaints or skipping scenes someone's just bored with, that's a private conversation with that player after the session, not a rule change made in front of the table. And when two players' boundaries actually collide, one wants a moment played straight where another wants it faded to black, the tighter boundary wins by default: a veil beats playing it out, a line beats a veil. Deciding that as the standing rule going in, not as a live negotiation the moment it comes up, tends to hold up better under pressure.
A good default: frame it as a normal two-minute habit, not a talk about problems.
Decided once, before the table meets, and run every session after. Clear all checks to start fresh for a new campaign.
Your Lines and Veils live on the campaign record, and once they're set they pin to the Table Rules card in your GM Notebook, open on the Live screen every session after, not just the first one. You're not digging through old notes mid-game to remember what the table agreed on.
If your session zero is recorded and the field is still empty when it ends, an AI pass reads that session's own conversation and drafts the Lines and Veils and house rules text from what the table actually said, never inventing a boundary nobody stated. The pass only fills in what's empty; anything you've already written stays untouched. Players don't see this page. It's a GM-side reference, built from a conversation the whole table had.
Three things, agreed before the first real session: Lines and Veils for content boundaries, a stop signal like the X-card for during play, and an end-of-session check-in like stars and wishes for after. A checklist means having all three in place ahead of time, not improvising when something comes up.
Most tables' lines and veils cluster around a handful of categories: violence and its aftermath, sexual content, real-world trauma like abuse or specific phobias, and anything involving children or animals. Whether a given category is a line or a veil for your table is entirely up to your table; there's no universal list, which is the whole reason to ask instead of assuming.
No separate file to download. This page prints directly from your browser (or saves as a PDF from the print dialog), so you always have the current version.
Before your first session: agree on Lines and Veils privately, put a stop signal like the X-card somewhere visible at the table, and pick a moment, usually the end of a session, to check in on how it's landing. Revisit all three whenever the group or the story changes.
No template required. Go around the table, one star and one wish per person, in the last five minutes. If you want to track wishes over time, jot them in your session notes and see whether the wish landed next time.
Yes. Lines and Veils works as a shared doc and private messages instead of paper; the X-card becomes an agreed word, emoji reaction, or raised hand on camera; stars and wishes works exactly the same said aloud. None of the three needs a room.
Start with stars and wishes; it costs nothing and needs no setup, run it at the end of your next session. Then send the Lines and Veils sheet as a private form before the session after that, rather than trying to have that conversation live at a table that's already running. It's worth doing the moment something at the table isn't working, not only at the start.
More: the D&D session zero checklist · record a session on Discord · what makes a good session recap · What is Threadfall? · all Threadfall guides