So just throwing this out there. How do people feel when colours are used in an IC post? Are you one that uses coloured text or are you one that prefers to use the conventional method of writing?

Personally I find I'm using more coloured text for speech with a focus on what other people (players only) say, as well as what my character is saying or thinking. I find that it helps break up the post a bit, making it easier for others to spot when they have been quoted for a conversation and also an emphasis on when my character is speaking.

So what are your feelings on others, or yourself, when they use he [color] tags in their IC post?

IMHO, it looks tacky and distracting. It's kinda the equivalent of writing your resume in crayon to me.

Stick to default, it looks better. No unnecessary text sizes either, italics/bold/underline only for emphasis, and use h1 only once.

Trust me, I'm a design major.

It tends to be near impossible for me to actually get through a piece with different text colors. It's just too distracting. All you need to say is "Said ___" if you want us to know who's talking.

I use colors, it's a weird habit I developed once I got here. I find it sets out my character's dialogue from the other bland text, so if the GM or other players happen to skim over my post, they'll at least know what the hell my halfling shouted.

I use the colour function for speech, I don't see anything wrong with it when this is out of necessity.

To those that say nay to colours, I say.

THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO MAKE A POST MORE TEDIOUS THAN IT NEEDS TO BE. There is nothing worse in Roleplaying than reading a post in monotone where you can't even tell whose dialogue is which. There are those who say that's just making up for lousy writing, but it is these same people whose posts can't point out who is talking. Colours solve that issue in a tetiary way.

I speak through experience, I'm now in a fantasy noir roleplay and BELIEVE ME when I say when we started it was an eyesore to read through dialogue in first persona narrative without colours. Why? Many typed like the entire post was a speech bubble, this is apparently the noir style, but many of us decided we could not stand it anymore so we each picked a colour that best represented our characters and stuck with it during multicharacter posts.

I don't care if my posts look like crayon to certain people, I didn't come here to torture my eyes. I write to inspire, or at least, convey a message. Making readers have myopia is not conducive to my goals.

Hence I VOTE FOR COLOURED SPEECH.

I use the colour function for speech, I don't see anything wrong with it when this is out of necessity.

To those that say nay to colours, I say.

THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO MAKE A POST MORE TEDIOUS THAN IT NEEDS TO BE. There is nothing worse in Roleplaying than reading a post in monotone where you can't even tell whose dialogue is which. There are those who say that's just making up for lousy writing, but it is these same people whose posts can't point out who is talking. Colours solve that issue in a tetiary way.

I speak through experience, I'm now in a fantasy noir roleplay and BELIEVE ME when I say when we started it was an eyesore to read through dialogue in first persona narrative without colours. Why? Many typed like the entire post was a speech bubble, this is apparently the noir style, but many of us decided we could not stand it anymore so we each picked a colour that best represented our characters and stuck with it during multicharacter posts.

I don't care if my posts look like crayon to certain people, I didn't come here to torture my eyes. I write to inspire, or at least, convey a message. Making readers have myopia is not conducive to my goals.

Hence I VOTE FOR COLOURED SPEECH.

Amen.

I personally use color, if only to let me scan the IC posts for my own. It also helps me keep track of which character is talking, kinda like a typographical face.

If overly used within one post, it's obnoxious. Centered rainbow text splattered everywhere for the sake of it is distracting, contributes virtually nothing except for some self-acclaimed sense of personal charm and individuality that's not really there. Using a different color for dialogue only is acceptable as long as the color stands out from RPG's dark theme.

I use the colour function for speech, I don't see anything wrong with it when this is out of necessity.

To those that say nay to colours, I say.

THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO MAKE A POST MORE TEDIOUS THAN IT NEEDS TO BE. There is nothing worse in Roleplaying than reading a post in monotone where you can't even tell whose dialogue is which. There are those who say that's just making up for lousy writing, but it is these same people whose posts can't point out who is talking. Colours solve that issue in a tetiary way.

I speak through experience, I'm now in a fantasy noir roleplay and BELIEVE ME when I say when we started it was an eyesore to read through dialogue in first persona narrative without colours. Why? Many typed like the entire post was a speech bubble, this is apparently the noir style, but many of us decided we could not stand it anymore so we each picked a colour that best represented our characters and stuck with it during multicharacter posts.

I don't care if my posts look like crayon to certain people, I didn't come here to torture my eyes. I write to inspire, or at least, convey a message. Making readers have myopia is not conducive to my goals.

Hence I VOTE FOR COLOURED SPEECH.

I agree that it is bad for the text to be monotonous and dull, but I think that using color as the way to add flair doesn't help. Now it is monotonous, dull, and tacky. I would go as far to say that, as a GM, I wouldn't allow people to use colored speech in any RP I was running.

If you want your text to have life and color, write in a lively and colorful way. The presentation should not draw attention away from the content, and if the content is dull than you need to focus on improving your prose.

If you need to use color for dialog then I think you need to re-evaluate how you're performing said dialog. Primarily, the basic rules of it. In a narrative format you would incorporate some variation of the phrase, "[x] said/said [x]" after the first logical pause in the character's dialog before continuing - or even just finishing, if brief - the dialog. Once more, when a line of dialog has been said a new paragraph for narration or dialog is made.

Here's a sample of properly structured dialog from PoW:

In the storm of traffic sounds there was a sing-song occasion to the grinding of vehicles and marching of boots. From somewhere along the side of a road a truck ladden full of eager young men in simple white robes sang songs of praise as they thumped their fingers against the worn and patched wooden stocks of rifles up to some fifty years old. From somewhere in the distance beyond the constraining obstruction of banners, truck and wagons laden down with produce and supply, and the very presence of people all around the amplified shouts of some soldier gave direction. The traffic slowed, and in the shadow of an acacia and flowering Terminalia tree they were brought to almost a stand-still in the torrid river of traffic and migration.

“I don't get it, I would expect people to be leaving with this area under potential threat of the Spanish.” Wen observed as he gazed on down the road. Off to the side hills rose and fell to great in the distance the veiled haze of distant mountains.

“I suppose commerce still has to flow.” Mulki opined, “Perhaps that's it?”

“Maybe.” the Chinese pilot responded as he gazed out at a group of shaggy men riding thin, small horses along the side of the road. Stained and dirty white robes hung to hug the gray and patchy flesh of the beast as machine guns bounced at their backs. Sunken graven eyes starred out down the road, and beneath their scraggly black beards their expression did not change so much as to flinch or spit. There was a certain American desperado air to them, made more musical by the clicking chimes of bullet-packed bandoleers that wrapped their chests. “But it still doesn't explain the guns.” he added in a low sketchy tone. He eagerly cranked up the window to put a barrier between he and the individuals outside.

“Well, once we get inside the city and through it maybe things will be a lot less... war-y.” Mulki smiled weakly. She was visibly wary, as much as Wen. She stressed her words as she leaned over the driver's wheel. Perhaps she was hoping to not be seen.

It also happens to be what was on hand.

Now the way folk here are describing the way they need text makes me think that a lot of people are not structuring their dialog properly so it all bleeds into a single block of text, or at least there's no proper spacing between lines of dialog with the character's thoughts shifting or the conversation partner stepping in, or a whole new third, fourth, fifth, etc. party partaking in the conversation. Which makes me think ya'll are writing like this (using the same segment):

In the storm of traffic sounds there was a sing-song occasion to the grinding of vehicles and marching of boots. From somewhere along the side of a road a truck ladden full of eager young men in simple white robes sang songs of praise as they thumped their fingers against the worn and patched wooden stocks of rifles up to some fifty years old. From somewhere in the distance beyond the constraining obstruction of banners, truck and wagons laden down with produce and supply, and the very presence of people all around the amplified shouts of some soldier gave direction. The traffic slowed, and in the shadow of an acacia and flowering Terminalia tree they were brought to almost a stand-still in the torrid river of traffic and migration. “I don't get it, I would expect people to be leaving with this area under potential threat of the Spanish.” Wen observed as he gazed on down the road. Off to the side hills rose and fell to great in the distance the veiled haze of distant mountains. “I suppose commerce still has to flow.” Mulki opined, “Perhaps that's it?”

“Maybe.” the Chinese pilot responded as he gazed out at a group of shaggy men riding thin, small horses along the side of the road. Stained and dirty white robes hung to hug the gray and patchy flesh of the beast as machine guns bounced at their backs. Sunken graven eyes starred out down the road, and beneath their scraggly black beards their expression did not change so much as to flinch or spit. There was a certain American desperado air to them, made more musical by the clicking chimes of bullet-packed bandoleers that wrapped their chests. “But it still doesn't explain the guns.” he added in a low sketchy tone. He eagerly cranked up the window to put a barrier between he and the individuals outside. “Well, once we get inside the city and through it maybe things will be a lot less... war-y.” Mulki smiled weakly. She was visibly wary, as much as Wen. She stressed her words as she leaned over the driver's wheel. Perhaps she was hoping to not be seen.

This is probably the most atrocious execution of such a thing.

But the emotion and the impact of a text does not come from the color used. At best, color might be used for emphasis as much as the header functions. But it shouldn't be such regular use as the proper use of paragraph breaks, quotation marks, and/or even indentation.

"decorated" dialog should put more emphasis on emotional variations of "he said/she said" using alternative phrases like, "he cried", "she demanded", "he wailed", "she mourned", "he inquired", "she pressed", and so on and so on. Further elaboration can be done by including narrative description of other things not reflective in tone of voice or way of deliver. Stuff like what the character's doing while he or she speaks.

If the conversation is two-way you also don't need to chant the character's names every line and there's a point in general dialog or even when there's no change in emotion made in the conversation you can avoid the use of "[x] said" all together and just throw down the line in quotations. Someone actually reading the conversation can pick up who's speaking by remembering the x-y pattern. But if it gets to three or more then you might have to.

It's just basic fucking prose and hanging your hat on "color = excitement" is not a proper excuse as it doesn't actually train anyone to be better if their whole presumption of writing is based on some convoluted interpretation of color theory.

EDIT - If more clearer examples were needed. Here's a clip of a post of mine from "Do The Eagles Circle the Mountains":

There was a sudden roar as Sathsvitra's chicken went down. With a wet squall it fell limp against the deck, twitching as blood splashed from its gouged face. An eye had been torn out from the hooked blades on the other bird's foot and now it hung desiccated and destroyed from its socket. The bird lay against the deck, exhausted and dying with heavy breaths. Cheering, the human gambler threw up his hands and cheered among a chorus of applause and excited screams. Even the tablas ceased to play as the drummer rose from his seat to applaud the victorious sailor.

“IMPOSSIBLE!” Sathsvitra roared furious as he shot up. Striding forward through the battlefield he punted the victor's bird to the side and rounded on the winner, “You cheated!” he challenged, getting into his face. His heavy fingers jabbed between his chest. The satyr prince breathed dragon fire. His cherry-hot face in the sailor's.

Balel stood by at a distance as he watched the quarrel unfold.

“Cheated!?” the sailor defended himself, “No m'lord, it is I who had the best bird! Not you! That is simply that!”

“I refuse to believe.” Sathsvitra grunted, continuing his accusations, “I saw something funny about that bird of yours. You pulled a trick! You cheated!”

The other sailors backed off. Some among them were afraid and quacking. Balel watched a burly Bandara step back. The two's eyes met and they exchanged knowing nods. But many, though driven back by sudden shock did not have the same level of anxiety as the others, but quickly came to realize there was another path to making money.

“And fuck your mother's tits!” the sailor declared triumphantly, placing his hands on the prince's shoulders and pushing him back.

On the far side of the deck Balel spotted Gopda. Sathsvitra's more distantly reserved brother looked on. But as he crossed his arms as he leaned against the deck railing he gave no impression of looking to interfere. He – like everyone else – was going to let this play out.

“Fifteen Rupees on Babi.” offered the Bandara as he trudged to Balel's side.

“Likewise on Sathsvitra.” Balel matched in a dry tone. He held out a hand and the two shook.

“You will not taint my honor!” Sathsvitra roared. His voice seemed to shake the very ocean air. And even if by chance, the wind died briefly as his boisterous wrath.

“Then I will!” Babi shouted back, throwing a hand into the air, “And I will taint you when I put you to the floor!” he declared. He rushed forward, but made no more than two steps before Sathsvitra swung, decking the sailor in the face and scattering him to the ground. The sound of crunching bone ground the air with a streamer of fresh, immediate blood.

With a hard meaty 'umph' Babi hit the ship's deck. Hands held tight to his face to fight off a river of blood that was flowing from between his fingers. He screamed incomprehensibly into his hands as Sathsvitra stood over him.

Transcript from Stephen King's The Stand:

At quarter past two the next afternoon, Glen Bateman burst straight into the apartment without knocking. Fran was at Lucy Swann's house, where two women were trying to get a sourdough sponge started. Stu was reading a Max Brand Western. He looked up and saw Glen, his face pale and shocked, his eyes wide, and tossed the book to the floor.

"Stu," Glen said, "On, man, Stu. I'm glad you're here."

"What's wrong?" he asked Glen sharply. "Is it... did someone find her?"

"No," Glen said. He sat down abruptly as if his legs had just given out. "It's not bad news, it's good news. But it's very strange."

"What? What is it?"

"It's Kojak. I took a nap after lunch and when I got up, Kojak was on the porch, fast asleep. He's beat to shit, Stu, he looks like he's been through a Mixmaster with a set of blunt blades, but it's him."

"You mean the dog? That Kojak?"

"That's who I mean."

And although a movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' moments where Hunter S. Thompson's inner monologue pops up as narration is pulled directly from his own novel of the same name. This also being an example of colorful dialog, as per Hunter's character.

@Vilageidiotx I don't get your point, colours help differentiate dialogue and allow me to locate them at a glance without affecting anything else. You speak as though they inherently lower the quality of the post when used, which is the most ridiculous notion I've ever heard from anyone who dares call themselves a roleplayer. It's a visual thing, it's like saying road signs make the road less effective. I would not understand how anyone would go as far as to leave / reject roleplays or roleplayers just because there's a hint of colour like you say you do, but hey, honestly - I wouldn't even want to be in any roleplay you start having heard that. Who knows how many other weird things you obssess over.

@Dinh AaronMk I tried to read your quotes, I really did - but halfway, my eyes got too strained trying to find the dialogue through that unecessary amount of words, that I simply stopped reading. I'm sure their content is something you feel proud of but none of it was good enough to keep me reading ...maybe some other day. When I really have nothing else to do. Maybe not.

I've got a feeling certain people are just unsatisfied there is disagreement towards their thinking and thus are so irritated by the existence of colour, but let me tell you something you two kiddos - COLOURS ARE HERE TO STAY. Deal with it.

I mean that you can gripe about how colours make posts look too vivid or how irritated you feel by their existence, but unless you tell me you're prone to seizures from visual overstimulation, I will never understand your hatred towards coloured dialogue. Or try to understand it.

I just know that colours can help the reader and as a writer I don't mind taking that extra step to make my posts easier to read, in conclusion: - - - anyone who thinks colours will help their post, go ahead to employ them. Those that dislike colours so much that they will barr their own characters from interacting with you because of it, are the minority and are not even worth considering. Keep in mind that there will always be sensible individuals like myself who aren't palette-phobic, who see the proper use of colours as a sign that you've gone the extra mile to make things easier to read. That, is never unappreciated.

When I was a kid, there was a year or so where everyone made fun of my father because he made a woman he worked with cry. We were like "Aww, you're such a mean guy!" and he took it in stride because giving each other shit was just how we were raised, but I was reminded of the reason he made this girl cry when I started reading this thread. Basically, he is a machinist for a living, and he was in charge of supervising the floor. She was younger than him, but I don't remember how much younger because I never actually met her. Anyway, she was supposed to write reports for either him or one of the higher-up managers, but she had this habit of drawing flowers and bunnies and shit like that all over the reports. Just really into doodling I suppose. Anyway, my father told her that it was incredibly unprofessional to doodle all over reports because it made them all look bad to management, and so she cried.

Presentation isn't something to gawk at. Certain lapses of presentation signify something broader about the presenter. In the same way a resume written in crayon suggests the applicant isn't taking their application seriously, or a traditional novel written in comic-sans might suggest an author who doesn't not respect his readers, or inventory reports with flowers and bunnies drawn in the margins looks unprofessional, an RP written with colors suggests immaturity in the RPer. I'm going to be blunt here, the attitude that it is difficult to read without runescapeing out all your text is an example of what I mean. If you actually actively hate the words themselves, if you have contempt for the writing and feel like the text needs to be gawdy and colorfied, then I don't want you in an RP with me. The idea that you use colors to symbolize who is talking suggests to me you want to skip the text and just read bits of dialogue, which is fine if we are preteens twittering twilight fanfic, but if we are going to write something with substance then all the shit in between the colored dialogue matters just as much as the dialogue itself.

Like, if you are coming out and telling me now, in this thread, that you don't have the attention span to actually read a thing straight, then you've proved every point I have made.

@potatochipgolem

Then let me try again, with something else...

"Wake up! Wake up, sai! Wake up! Wake up!"

At first the words seemed to be coming from far away, drifting down by some magical means to the dark place where she lay. Even when the voice was joined by a rudely shaking hand and Susan knew she must wake up, it was a long, hard struggle.

It had been weeks since she'd gotten a decent night's sleep, and she had expected more of the same last night... Especially last night. She had lain awake in her luxurious bedchamber at Seafront, tossing from side to side, possibilities - none good - crowding her mind. The nightgown she wore crept up to her hips and bunched at the small of her back. When she got up to use the commode, she took the hateful thing off, hurled it into a corner, and crawled back into bed naked.

Being out of the heavy silk nightgown had done the trick. She dropped off almost at once... And in this case, dropped off was exactly right: it was less like falling asleep than falling into some thoughtless, dreamless crack in the eath.

Now this intruding voice, this intruding arm, shaking her so hard that her head rolled from side to side on the pillow. Susan tried to slide away from it, pulling her knees up to her chest and mouthing fuzzy protests, but the arm followed. The shaking recommenced; the nagging, calling voice never stopped. "Wake up, sai! wake up! In the name of the Turtle and the Bear, wake up!"

Maria's voice. Susan hadn't recognized it at first because Maria was so upset. Susan never heard her so, or expected to. Yet it was so; the maid sounded on the verge of hysteria.

Susan sat up. For a moment so much input - all of it wrong - crashed in on her that she was incapable of moving. The duvet beneath which she had slept tumbled into her lap, exposing her breasts, and she could do no more than pluch weakly at it with the tips of her fingers.

The first wrong thing was the light. It flooded through the windows more strongly than it ever had before... Because, she realized, she had never been in this room so late before. Gods, it had to be ten o' the clock, perhaps later.

The second wrong thing was the sounds from below. Mayor's House was ordinarily a peaceful place in the morning; until noon one heard little but casa vaqueros leading the horses out for their morning excercise, the whicher-whicker-whick of Miquel sweeping the courtyard, and the constant boom and shush of the waves. This morning there were shouts, curses, galloping horses, the occasional burst of strange, jagged laughter. Somewhere outside her room - perhaps not in this wing, but close - Susan heard the running thud of booted feet.

The wrongest thing of all was Maria herself, cheeks ashy beneath her olive skin-tone, and her usually neat hair tangled and unbound. Susan would have guessed only an earthquake could make her look so, is that.

"Maria, what is it?"

"You have to go, sai. Seafront maybe not safe for you just not. Your own house maybe better. When I don't see you earlier, I think you gone there already. You chose a bad day to sleep late."

Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a couple of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open the grave. The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came and sat down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so close the boys could have touched him.

“Hurry, men!” he said, in a low voice; “the moon might come out at any moment.”

They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid with their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered with a blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took out a large spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then said:

“Now the cussed thing’s ready, Sawbones, and you’ll just out with another five, or here she stays.”

“That’s the talk!” said Injun Joe.

“Look here, what does this mean?” said the doctor. “You required your pay in advance, and I’ve paid you.”
“Yes, and you done more than that,” said Injun Joe, approaching the doctor, who was now standing. “Five years ago you drove me away from your father’s kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you said I warn’t there for any good; and when I swore I’d get even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for a vagrant. Did you think I’d forget? The Injun blood ain’t in me for nothing. And now I’ve GOT you, and you got to SETTLE, you know!”

He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time. The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground. Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed: “Here, now, don’t you hit my pard!” and the next moment he had grappled with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter’s knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams’ grave and felled Potter to the earth with it — and in the same instant the half-breed saw his chance and drove the knife to the hilt in the young man’s breast. He reeled and fell partly upon Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in the same moment the clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the two frightened boys went speeding away in the dark.

Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to their heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily down, the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap. The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight. It was Muff Potter. The boys’ hearts had stood still, and their hopes too, when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tiptoed out, through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little distance to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on the night air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few feet of where Potter was lying, and FACING Potter, with his nose pointing heavenward.
“Oh, geeminy, it’s HIM!” exclaimed both boys, in a breath.

“Say, Tom — they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller’s house, ’bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there ain’t anybody dead there yet.”

“Well, I know that. And suppose there ain’t. Didn’t Gracie Miller fall in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?”

“Yes, but she ain’t DEAD. And what’s more, she’s getting better, too.”

“All right, you wait and see. She’s a goner, just as dead sure as Muff Potter’s a goner. That’s what the niggers say, and they know all about these kind of things, Huck.”

Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom window the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution, and fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his escapade. He was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and had been so for an hour.

When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not been called — persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled him with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs, feeling sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had finished breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were averted eyes; there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a chill to the culprit’s heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into silence and let his heart sink down to the depths.

After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so; and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any more. This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom’s heart was sorer now than his body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform over and over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble confidence.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked — and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts. “Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it — indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise — she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression — then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again — the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

@Vilageidiotx LOL. I'm reading this straight, "...colours represent immaturity in the writer..." by your logic, right?

Well, to be honest, I think anyone who agrees with that saying wholeheartedly are way, WAY more immature than the writer using colours. It's just very shallow to think that way especially when said shallow individual bases professionalism entirely on something as unrelated as not having colours, while still refusing to be seeing the arbitary value colours have in structuring a post.

No amount of colourless text will make you sound more professional when we find out this is the mindset you write and read through. I find it a very small minded way of seeing things.

We're neutral on this. In some circumstances, colors can be beneficial. In others, it is not. Thats the plain truth of it.

Saying someone is better/worse for (not) using colors is just sad. Its what they say that matters, not how much, or how little, color there is on it. When we're composing collabs with people, we almost consistently use different colors for each person, though when the collab is posted, the colors are typically discarded in transit.

What we consider far more relevant than the question of "to use colors or not" is this: "If colors are to be used, which colors?"

a bright red might sear the eyes of people more than a a medium gray would, but they both differ greatly from the guild's default white.

Some of the discussion above feels a lot like various people are shouting "You're wrong because you don't agree with me!" at each other from different hilltops.

Traditional novels have never felt the need to literally colour their dialogue and I kinda buy the argument that, if you have faith in the quality of your writing (certainly writing that is comparable to traditional novel conventions), you shouldn't need to visually differentiate between one section of dialogue and another; the words should do that for you, and colouring your words so that they don't have to seems like it's asking to get into bad habits if one ever turns their hand to a more 'serious' all-text project. If one considers plain text to be 'tedious' or 'monotone' to the point they're distracted then they're either not reading it or it's bad writing. Either way, using colours to fix the problem is only addressing the symptom of (in)comprehensibility and not the root problem of the writer or the reader not being fit for task.

Then again, one of the things I love about the internet is how it facilitates the challenging of and experimentation with the form. Who says, now that we have options, all writing should be in the plain text format? Including music and pictures and maps and even videos is completely viable on forum pbp, and, if it's thought-through, any and all of these can be useful tools. Does colour have a role in this? Probably. I see people using hiders and indentations and horizontal lines and colours to divide up whole sections of text with different tones; perhaps a brief glance into another POV or a flashback. Somebody used colours extremely well in the game I'm GMing to simulate a text message:

_{everything okay J?}
^{Yeah I'm fine. Thanks for breakfast. <3}

I'm reminded of one of my favourite features of the BBC series Sherlock; having text messages and electronic content appearing on-screen for the viewer. Playing with the form can yield new ways of audience interaction, and, whether it's superficially slick or integral to the themes/content of the work, experimentation with art is, you know, generally a good thing in my book.

That said, being thought-through is key. Writing dialogue in colours, and, particularly, when each character has a consistent and unique colour in a game, if Mr Pink and Mrs Orange ever get in a long back-and-forth exchange, it's going to be utterly revolting to even look at on the page - which is not going to help distinguish dialogue for everybody, because it may simply become distracting for some. And, obviously, the level of experimentation players should feel free to indulge in should be for the GM to decide.

When I was a kid, there was a year or so where everyone made fun of my father because he made a woman he worked with cry. We were like "Aww, you're such a mean guy!" and he took it in stride because giving each other shit was just how we were raised, but I was reminded of the reason he made this girl cry when I started reading this thread. Basically, he is a machinist for a living, and he was in charge of supervising the floor. She was younger than him, but I don't remember how much younger because I never actually met her. Anyway, she was supposed to write reports for either him or one of the higher-up managers, but she had this habit of drawing flowers and bunnies and shit like that all over the reports. Just really into doodling I suppose. Anyway, my father told her that it was incredibly unprofessional to doodle all over reports because it made them all look bad to management, and so she cried.

Presentation isn't something to gawk at. Certain lapses of presentation signify something broader about the presenter. In the same way a resume written in crayon suggests the applicant isn't taking their application seriously, or a traditional novel written in comic-sans might suggest an author who doesn't not respect his readers, or inventory reports with flowers and bunnies drawn in the margins looks unprofessional, an RP written with colors suggests immaturity in the RPer. I'm going to be blunt here, the attitude that it is difficult to read without runescapeing out all your text is an example of what I mean. If you actually actively hate the words themselves, if you have contempt for the writing and feel like the text needs to be gawdy and colorfied, then I don't want you in an RP with me. The idea that you use colors to symbolize who is talking suggests to me you want to skip the text and just read bits of dialogue, which is fine if we are preteens twittering twilight fanfic, but if we are going to write something with substance then all the shit in between the colored dialogue matters just as much as the dialogue itself.

Like, if you are coming out and telling me now, in this thread, that you don't have the attention span to actually read a thing straight, then you've proved every point I have made.

I agree with this sentiment 100%

I'm a big user of colored text in Headers and in OOC opening posts which tend to be massive info dumps but in character, just no. Sparkling your writing makes it seem like the presentation value means more to you than the actual quality of the writing.

Unless you're trying to highlight or incorporate something new or in a new fashion, I think colouring just detracts from the post unless used cleverly.

I can see that there's a lot of different views, both for and against, and I do believe both is valid. What I think should be remembered that unlike a novel, we on the internet have the ability to add colour where some of those other mediums simply can't. By the same logic, adding music and images can be seen as a benefit to help improve on what could already be a great post.

@Ellri actually pointed out an important part, with @Jig making a similar statement. It comes down to the colours and way that they are used. Bright vibrant colours as opposed to dull tones can make or break the feel of the post (notice I said feel, not contents), and sometimes when having elements like electronic code can look interesting if there is a tone of colour added.

I can understand the view of the purist, someone that strives to create a medium that is authentic as possible (and we shouldn't loose that tradition), but I don't believe that this view should be used to essentially push a potentially great writer out of a Roleplay. For me, that can come across as a tad elitist where you are not judging someone on their writing skills, but rather their post's visuals.

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EDIT : And please, there's no need for people to start abusing each other over this topic. I only created it to ask for some opinions but several people are starting to take it almost too personally. If I knew that people were going to start abusing each other over "What colour is that dress?" like scenarios, than maybe I shouldn't have created the thread. We are individual humans with individual views. Two people with two different views can be both 100% right or 100% wrong.

A wise man would place themselves in the other person's shoes and see why that difference in opinion may also be correct.

In a lot of other forums I belong to, fancy templates for posts are the norm. DOHTML allows for some really slick templates: hover enabled information, embedded music, and sections for important information (word count, tags, outfits, ooc chatter, etc). Implementing pretty code can be a lot of fun. I frequently colour code their character's dialogue, thoughts, and other character's dialogue because it's the norm there. I never colour code dialogue or thoughts here, mostly because none of my partners do it.

Colour and decor are fun, and add a lot of visual interest to a post. And that's important! It's a huge reason why we use paragraph breaks; the brain pays more attention to the first and last lines in a paragraph. Colour does the same thing.

Writing traditionally is not a bad thing, but I think @Jig has a really good point; we don't have the restrictions of traditional authors. I think loads of authors would have utilised colour had they the opportunity. Novelists and poets alike play with structure all the time.

There are rules to the presentation, and they are useful, but part of being creative is knowing how to break the rules effectively.