A wide range of stellar analogs of solar X-ray flares has been observed. During the maximum of the solar activity cycle, one or two Mclass flares peaking at Lx ~ 1026 erg s−1 in the GOES 1−8 Å passband take place on average every day on the Sun. Such run-of-the-mill events have been measured by ASCA on our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, a dM5.5e flare star (Haisch, Antunes & Schmitt 1995). At the other extreme, RS CVn systems and T Tauri stars have been observed to flare with peak luminosities of Lx ~ ×1032 ergs s−1 (Haisch & Schmitt 1996 and references therein). Current wisdom has it that this wide range of flares spanning at least six order of magnitude (and another factor of 10–100 if one counts even lower level solar flares) on the young T Tauri stars, main sequence G, K and M stars, and in evolved RS CVn subgiants and giants can all be understood as versions of solar flares originating ultimately in a convectively-driven magnetic dynamo. There is evidence pointing to two distinct types of dynamo perhaps even in the Sun (Durney, Young and Roxburgh 1993): the α − ω dynamo generated in a rather thin boundary layer near — in some interpretations just below — the interface between a star’s radiative core and convective envelope; and a turbulent distributed dynamo operative more or less throughout a convection zone. But what is one to make of the evidence for flares on Be stars (Smith, Robinson and Corbet 1998) where there is no subsurface convection to drive a dynamo? (Convective envelopes are thought to begin among the late-A spectral type stars, and steadily deepen for cooler stars.) This paper does not attempt to provide an answer, but it does attempt to outline the characteristics and requirements of magnetically-powered flaring.