I've gotten very used to the convention of each character picking a color for their speech, continuing to use entirely proper grammar, and italicizing their thoughts.

As a GM is is invaluable.  I can't tell you how many times I go back to a thread with 20+ pages, hit "show all" and quickly skim for a particular moment of dialogue that I am trying to remember.

Following a conversation is much easier if the back and forth is highlighted in color, and allows me to skim through to pick up what is happening.  Playing on RPoL is not at all like reading a finished book.  It is like reading a rough initial draft cobbled together by multiple different authors with no storyboard or architecture to guide them.

So, yes, reading through a published book, I would probably find it distracting to have the colored speech.  On the other hand, it might be completely awesome to read through a book with colored speech.  I don't know, I've never tried it.  Even in published books, if there is a lot of back and forth dialogue, it can sometimes get confusing as to who is saying what.

Purple was exactly correct when she pointed out that colored text is a lot light highlighting text.  After highlighting text you can skim through and pick out the most key elements, reading around the highlights to get the subtleties as needed.

I am also a GM.  I just don't see it.

My players don't use colored text.  I don't see how colored text would help me go back and find a particular conversation.  I can do that more easily just by looking at the player's avatars.  I don't need colors in the post itself because I already know who's making that post.

If I'm at the point where I'm looking at post content, it's just not very hard to identify the things set off by quotation marks.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I'm just scratching my head at some of these responses.  I suppose if it makes things easier for you then knock yourself out.

When I started here,I didn't use colored speech.  I was fine.  Then I got into a game where the GM requested that each character select a color to use for anything they spoke aloud.  I was fine.  I'm now in a game where the default has become that spoken words are done in bold.  I'm fine.

I've used quotation marks in all of them.  Now that I have a phone that I can actually use to post online, sometimes I'll post from the phone and then I have to go back later and edit my posts to color/bold/italicize/whatever, because my phone lacks the '<' and '>' characters and if I try to use any of the formatting tricks at the bottom of the composition screen, it pops something up on my phone that covers my keyboard so I can't type.

It took me a little getting used to, initially.  I've been doing it long enough that the only time it really slows me down at all is if I'm posting in a different color (like, if I'm posting NPC speech), because I have to stop and think about what I'm typing.

And I'll say that, much as I found it awkward at first, I've come to appreciate it.  It makes it easier for me to keep track of what, in someone else's post, my character would actually react to...most of my games involve descriptive players who like to include little editorial comments about their tone, expression, or thought process.  I'm used to reading those in novels, they flow well in the game.  But I'm also used to reading scripts, and I know that what is said is often given far more weight than how it was said.  And in some cases, my character can't see the speaking character.  I don't have to hunt for the quotation marks to know what, from that post, is actually relevant to me in terms of creating a response.  It simplifies my process.

And, being in a game with a couple of players that seem to be disadvantaged when it comes to reading large blocks of type, breaking up spoken segments in color helps them make heads or tails of what's happening, because they don't see a wall of text anymore, they see short, manageable segments in different colors.

If you like it, use it.  If you don't, skip it.  If you don't care, go with whatever's working for everyone else.  If people are enjoying the game, you're doing it right...however that may be.

When you have hundreds of posts to sift through, looking for an address or name or some other tidbit of info even in dialogue a week ago, it makes it easier if that dialogue is a color inside a large paragraph.  If you don't agree, that's fine.  Not like we get paid or something if you do.

Coloured text for speech really is a preference thing. I prefer to see coloured text and quotation marks for speech, just a I prefer good grammar as I want to see a coherent narrative. But I don't get too stressed about it.

However, if you feel so strongly about it then there are simple solutions that don't require lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

As a GM, simply have a house rule about style. If players persistently offend after repeated warnings then eject them from the game. Harsh? Maybe, but it is YOUR game so you make the rules.

As a player if it bugs you then drop out and find another game...

Simple, right? And if you feel that either solution is too much then the speech issue doesn't bother you as much as you thought!!! :)

I am in the I-like-colored-speech camp for many of the reasons already covered by previous posters.

RPOL is not a book. RPOL users are not all experienced writers and editors. RPOL games are not written by one user who knows exactly where to take the reply to a comment.

I like coloured speech. It implies character in the colour choice (soft colours = tone). It draws attention to the speech and therefore to the thing you need to prioritise answering. It acts as a double reminder of which character has posted (you can identify at a glance).

It also helps when players do not use speech marks, do not use line breaks properly, or are liable to metagame where thoughts are tagged 'like this'('oh but I thought he said it aloud').

Seriously. I have met far too many people who WALLOFTEXT you with their speech in the middle of the paragraph. If their speech wasn't coloured I wouldn't be able to force my eyes to read it.

And finally, RPOL is not a book. It's a website. Different mediums use different tools. Books do not have mood music, dramatic lighting, or character portraits accompanying every comment. They don't switch perspective every few lines.

If it bothers you, disallow it in your games and don't do it yourself. But you might as well complain that your beef burger doesn't taste like bacon when you say RPOLers writing like role-players instead of authors bothers you.

These two points were the ones that basically came up when I started my first game as a GM. I asked the players what would help for formatting. My only real beef with Colored text is that if you are going to use it, use the same color for the characters your controlling. If Timmy used blue for 40 posts then all of a sudden starts on Dark Blue, that annoys me.

Using bold, Italic, or Underline for speech is the same gimmick as using color. It is simply a tool that allows people to quickly pick up "important" parts. From experience it is extremely helpful if I'm checking in with my phone during a long work stretch where i have no access to a computer.

I wonder why we pick up on dialogue as being so important.  In games I played around the table, yes, conversation was important, but what we did was just as important, if not more so.

I wonder why most games don't require actions to be in bold.  In fairness, I often use OOC or a private line to describe exactly what I'm attempting.  It's far easier to miss an action in a body of text than dialogue, even when dialogue is written normally.

I've been in games where people talk and talk and talk, and the GM finally asks someone to do something.

Yeah, dialogue isn't everything. I mean, if I wrote the following...

Bob scowls angrily at the roaring horde of orcs, drawing his sword with his right hand and hefting his shield in the other.

"Bring it." he says.

With no further word, he puts his head down and charges.

...I'd somehow think that the speech was pretty inconsequential compared to the actions ;). I only use colour in posts if I need to add an OOC note (such as a roll result or a mechanical clarification of my narrative actions in combat), which will always be at the beginning and/or end of the post.

In reply to Mad Mick (msg # 44):

I come from 35 years in theater as an actor and director. This all seems much more like improvisational theater to me than novels.

I tend to write speech-heavy posts, because that's what seems natural to me to express my character. Of course, when it's an action scene -- combat, chase, etc -- description dominates dialogue. I also use interior monologue to some extent, mostly to emphasize the dialogue or action.

I think some of this is dependent on the game you're playing. Most of the games I play and all that I run are character-heavy and mystery/mood-oriented: Call/Trail of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds, Deadlands. There are long periods of character interaction and investigation with short bursts of action. That makes dialogue more important.

I think free-form in particular, where the norm is long, dense posts, benefits from the colored-speech convention.

More action-centered games may not have the same need.

Machiara, I wonder what systems you run?
This message was last edited by the user at 14:36, Mon 02 Feb 2015.

In reply to Ameena (msg # 45):

I would suggest that it is because speech is used for communicating between characters. It demands attention in a different way. It's to do with the nature of communication itself. It demands you listen and respond.

I don't have to do anything about Bob leaping over the table or MarySue twirling her hair around her fingers for the forty-fifth time. I do have to present a specific response to either of them asking me to pass the salt, even if my response is to ignore them.

Well, not necessarily - you can ignore someone's words but wordlessly draw a sword on them if they dare to reach out and touch your backpack...

In reply to Ameena (msg # 48):

Yes, but if every post in your game involves a dramatic action like drawing a weapon or turning a hose on someone, you have a very strange game.

If you add up all the actions a person might take and all the times someone speaks without resulting in anyone listening, the statistics will agree that speech almost invariably demands our attention where body language and trivial actions don't.

I'm also not saying that I only read coloured speech, it just gives you a starting point for planning and preparing your reply. Like many people have said: it draws the eye in a similar way that hearing someone speak catches your attention.

On that note, I'd like to say something: I don't dislike coloured speech on principle (if a GM requires me to use it in their game and I like the game, I will use it without trouble or complaints), but when I'm GMing, I don't want to see it used, and this kind of mentality is exactly why.

If I make a post, including a sentence and a small paragraph describing my character's body language... then, about half the time, the words matters much much less than how they're spoken - which is what the body language convey.

See, here's an example:

The knight smiled.

"It's nice to finally see you, friend."

***

The knight scowled at the latecomer and spoke, his voice dripping with sarcasm:

"It's nice to finally see you, friend."

***

The knight smirked, emerging from the shadows as his enemy entered the room.

"It's nice to finally see you, friend."

***

Can you see the difference there? The character said the exact same thing every time, but the meaning of what he said is completely different, and each post requires a different reaction.

I find that articulating posts like this allows you to give much more personality to any character, but to get the full effect, you need to read and understand the full message that has been posted. I agree that the colored speech is eye-catching and grabs the reader's focus, but that's exactly why I am not really enthusiastic about it - because it encourages the player to just watch what has been said and answer quickly to that, without paying attention to the subtle meanings.

And while I agree that, if you're posting on the run, limiting yourself to reading and answering to the speech can be handy, I would always prefer for a player to not post, waiting to do it until later on, after having had the time to read it properly, rather than rush things and maybe break the immersion by ignoring important details. I recognize all the points that have been made about people liking coloured speech - except that to me, those are all reasons why I dislike it.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is a very neat function to have, it is useful for those who like the use, and colored text has plenty of others uses anyway that make it a useful function to have access to. I'm just pointing out that, while some people certainly have good reasons to like it, the position of those who dislike its use aren't any less solid.

It is, as always, a matter of taste and what needs your game and players have; I just wanted to make the point that what one might see as a feature, might eb a downside for others. That's all. :)
This message was last edited by the user at 15:33, Mon 02 Feb 2015.

I disagree that it encourages one to only focus on what is said and not the surrounding text. I would not focus solely on your neon orange hat when you walked into a room, but it would catch my attention first and inform my reaction to the other things you do.

For me, and I don't know of others. The color is only a flavoring for me. It shows me where the text is. It doesn't mean I ignore what the actions are, but I guess what I am trying to say is it is put into two different parts of my brain. I read the action, and that is placed in the back of my mind for when I read the words I hear them or imagine them in how they should be said because of the action.

In most instances at least in the games that I am in you are going to be replying back to what is said. That doesn't mean I ignore the actions, the color just helps for me split it up into two different things to look at when I am replying. I am paying attention to the whole thing, but when my eyes have to go back to read it is either looking for the black of the actions or the color of the conversation. If it is all black, it just takes more time to find that part of the conversation.

Like others have said, it is a matter of preference for everyone. Use it or don't, do not join games that require it if you don't like it. Everyone's minds work differently, so some things are easier for some then others in a specific way.

In reply to Egleris (msg # 50):

Every game that I'm in that uses colored text for speech also has players that use plenty of normal text to give inflection.  The color just helps you identify WHAT is said.  Some people have their hands full dealing with that much.

Some of us are much more adept.  We can process a massive wall of text, readily identify quotation marks and even figure out by context alone if someone is speaking, thinking, or typing.  But there's a significant percentage of RPOLers who have problems with that.

I'm more than willing to take the second or two necessary to put color tags on what my character says if it helps my fellow players process the post more readily.  It's not like someone's asking me to translate it into another language or figure out how to turn it into Braille...

But if I got into a game where the GM didn't want it?  Great.  No sweat at all.  I'll be happy to turn it off, because it's the GM's game and he makes the rules.  And if I don't like those rules...well, I'll either not join the game in the first place, or if it's too late and I'm learning about the disagreeable rule after the fact, then I'll ask to be excused from the game.

If colored text bugs you, well...I have friends who are annoyed by the fact that I drink lots of soda and frequently eat meat.  I have a lot of friends who drink as much or more soda than I do, and rarely eat anything EXCEPT meat.  They may occasionally express their frustration with others who don't share their tastes...but they don't let it get in the way of having fun with them.  And if their opinions about it are so strong that they can't have fun with some people...well, they just don't associate with those people.  It's pretty simple, really...

Here's a couple snippets chosen at random from The Fellowship of the Ring:



And



This is what we're given.  Notice how short the actual speeches are?  I play in games, too, where people give long-winded, multiple-paragraph speeches (and I'm guilty of doing so myself (= ).  Sure, in theater, monologues might be lengthy, but in books and movies, it's not common to have these huge bits of dialogue.

I mean, try it out.  Pick one of your games and read each part aloud.  Keep track of the time, and see how long people speak.  We do things in play by post that don't happen anywhere else.

I started out around the table, and our speech was actual dialogue.  No one spoke for thirty seconds, or a minute, or five, unless someone was giving a speech.  Even the GM didn't speak that long.  I moved to play by email, and that, too, isn't given to lengthy responses.

The closest thing I've done to PBEM is collaborative writing, where I write a paragraph, and then someone else writes the next, and then someone else a third.  The difference between PBP and collaborative writing, though, is that the POV continually shifts, so yes, I can see the similarities to improv.  My favorite stuff is typically books and film, so that's what I draw from when I approach games.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:07, Tue 03 Feb 2015.

Ah, but in tabletop (and interpersonal real-time communication, and even in scripts and novels), you as the writer aren't trying to respond to an earlier post and THEN try and add something to advance the story at the same time.  If FOTR had been written in a PBP format, speeches would have been longer.

(Additionally, it's disingenuous to compare a movie script to PBP posts...a movie script ONLY describes the dialogue and the bare minimum of actions, because the director is going to clarify all of those points over the course of shooting.  Same with theater...if a character doesn't specifically say it in the script, it's open for interpretation by the director.

Since the closest thing PBP has to a director is the GM...who has better things to do than go through and provide descriptive details to everyone else's dialogue...it falls to the players to 'color' (not literally, in this case) their posts with information about how they say something, what they do as they speak, etc etc.  Different medium, requiring specific conventions in order to operate smoothly.)

This does, however, highlight how those who come to PBP gaming from a theater/screenwriting background have different priorities, generally speaking, in the process of composing a post than those who come from a background as a novelist (as some of the earlier examples have included three words of dialogue and easily triple that many words describing action or tone).  I started out writing novels and short stories...then spent over 5 years working with a playwriting professor as his TA (when I wasn't one of his students). I'm still working on getting to the point where my writing isn't all about the dialogue...because that makes for a pretty dry read, after a while.

People have different approaches to it, based on what they're used to--either in terms of what they've written, or what they're used to reading.  But PBP has unique requirements...largely due to the fact that you're trying to move a story along at an accelerated pace and you aren't the only one writing it (other factors may come into play, but those largely vary according to the specific game in question).  I logged on tonight and in one game, my first post had to address details from four other posts between my last post and the one I wrote tonight--and it couldn't just answer questions, it needed to answer those posts AND add some momentum to the narrative.  I got it posted and had to write another post, less than half an hour later, that had another three posts to respond to.  In that particular game, I can't accomplish that with a short snippet of dialogue and nothing else...at least, not at this juncture in the game (there have been points where I've had totally relevant posts that consisted of little more than (Note: character name has been changed to maintain some vague semblance of anonymity.)

But when my character is responding to an operative in the same room that he's in, acknowledging a subordinate who's also in the same room, and maintaining radio communication with an associate who's currently engaged in combat, a lot has to be said, or else I have to spam with a bunch of brief posts.

This also happens to be one of the games I'm in where there are players who have a hard time processing a lot of text (one guy gets lost if he's asked to read paragraphs that are more than four lines long).  Coloring the dialogue, along with making sure anything that involves me addressing his character is done in short, easily-processed paragraphs, makes his game-play far more enjoyable (and, coincidentally, less frustrating for the rest of us because we aren't having to reinterpret every third post for him in the OOC thread.)

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 55):



As a board president for the last 8 years in a theater company and a reader of scripts, producer of short films etc. And lover/ active member of the arts, your comment is not 100% correct and slightly reaching. It is not UNTRUE - that does happen in some cases but it’s not a standard (I would say less than 50% from my experience). Most scripts have notes with the vision of the writer, stag appearance, event queue etc. It's different for each writer and their style of the writting, and the director then adds or maybe even chages it based on his views. Exactly why the more the better the understand.

I have a whole list of comments about directors but that could be a thread of its known :)

Color Text can be used in a smart way, it’s like texting - I once use all caps when I replied and was asked why was I yelling. I had no idea what they were talking about until I started reading text etiquette. Still far from knowing it all, but I now only use caps to show emotion of being upset.

In reply to Mad Mick (msg # 54):

Also, Mick, those excerpts were probably said in mere minutes and were scripted in advance.

When I am writing a post, it may be my only chance to 'speak' for a day or more. In games where the posting rate is one a day (or even two a day) -- and I mean the reality, not the 'expected posting rate' which is rather like 'estimated miles per gallon' -- if players try to carry on that sort of sentence by sentence dialogue it would be tedious and stretch out the snippets you quote over a couple of days or a week, if Bilbo has a RL interruption.

And I'll quibble with the idea that "No one speaks for thirty seconds, or a minute, or five." My dear wife can hold forth for long minutes at a time (and frequently does).

In reply to Gaffer (msg # 57):

This is an excellent point. As a GM, I try to end every post at a place where it gives the players something to do. It's fine in a movie for two characters to go back and forth in quick succession, asking a short question, getting a short answer, but in PbP it would be excruciatingly long and boring.

NPC's have to give info is reasonable-sized dumps. And when they ask questions, I almost always have them ask a series of them, sometimes to multiple people, so that the responses can move the story forward.

Same goes for books, to a lesser extent. People make larger, more complex speeches in print than they do on screen or on RL. It's one of the places where the medium of expression influences the mode of expression.

I agree with the base point, though. in RL, almost no one (except wives) gets to make an actual, for real speech in casual conversation without being interrupted.

I'm surprised that nobody's suggest that people who don't like the colours turn them off through the creation of a custom RPoL theme.  It can be done in a flash too - select "Load colours from" at the bottom (after choosing your favourite theme), click "Grab them", then tick "Disable colouring in messages" and finally "Create!".

Presto, no more colours in messages.

...and jase wins the thread.