tug of war good or bad play?

I'm not sure about playing tug of war with Thistle because she pulls and rips my clothes, wouldn't I just be encouraging the bad behaviour?

Not if it's done properly. Use a proper tug toy and only play tug with that. If she starts to get a bit over-excited then stop the game & let her calm down a bit.

With darcy whenever she was pulling or tugging something she shouldn't be I'd replace the said thing with a toy so telling her that she can chew the toy not me or my clothes. We play tug with darcy

I play tug with Daisy and it's not a problem, her 'leave' is very good though and we're working on 'enough' too!

I agree with all above - Staffies love a tug of war and in their youth will tug at anything.  Distract Thistle with a rope tug toy or similar and she will get the message about what she can tug at, and what she can't.

We play tug, keep it on the floor though, nothing raised, and only ever with his ruff and tuff tug rope. Cooper loves it and when you throw it he brings it back to start again. It's the only time he ever growls but there's no aggression though. I would say have fun and you'll know when's enough

If done correctly tug of war can be a great game! Have a toy that is specifically for tug of war! Make sure you teach her that it starts and stops when you say so!

We play tug with Rocky with no problems. As soon as he lets go he does a sit, then when he is calm we continue. So long as you are in control of the game and you can end it whenever you want to there shouldn't be any problems.

Rocky also got way too carried away when playing tug, but when he did we just stopped the game until he calmed down, if he didnt stop after that, we would walk away until he realised, they continue with the game. Tug is definitely a great game to play with them, it just takes a little patience and time to get them trained right