RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Kage · **09-21-2015, 09:21 AM**

(09-21-2015, 09:07 AM)Coatleque Wrote: I use quotations in say to denote that it's an in-character message. Â If I'm standing around the mist talking to someone in my FC, I'll forego the quotes.

Also, this.

I also have a lot of friends who do not roleplay or there are times I will speak with friends who do roleplay but we want to speak as players, not characters.

Martiallais · **09-21-2015, 09:22 AM**

All quotations, all the time here. Cool

Steel Wolf · **09-21-2015, 10:20 AM**

I've begun adopting the regular use of quotation marks as well, but then I RP with someone who doesn't and I slip on a response with no quotes around it and I sorta feel a bit jarred by it visually when it shouldn't matter and I begun this torturous, downward spiral where grammar has hooked chains snagged in to its flesh and pulled apart like a scene out of Hellraiser.

FreelanceWizard · **09-21-2015, 10:34 AM**

I don't use them unless I'm narrating. In that case, I preface /say with Â¶, as in:

L'yhta Mahre: Â¶ The guard narrowed his eyes, staring daggers at the lalafell in front of him. "Y'sure y'want t'do this, popoto?"

The Â¶ mark indicates that the text that follows is narration of NPCs, the scene, and so on.

In normal RP, I use quotation marks in /em, but not /say. If I need to break some speech up with actions, I'll use /em for it, as in:

L'yhta Mahre runs a hand through her hair. "Ah... that's complicated, you know?" Her ears droop a little along with the tip of her tail. "I don't think I really have an answer for that..."

If I want to talk to someone OOC, I religiously use the double-parentheses unless the discussion is clearly OOC, as it would be in a PUG or over tell without some other context.

Caspar · **09-21-2015, 10:38 AM**

I habitually abuse custom emote, so I need to use "". However, when I use say, I use quotes for consistency's sake. Since the vast majority of my character's dialogue is in /em and has quotes, it just feels weird not to do it in /say as well.

Officially according to my profile on here, /say without quotes is OOC, but since people use brackets to denote that, l rarely deviate unnecessarily from that standard, given that it seems readily understood.

Gegenji · **09-21-2015, 10:40 AM**

(09-21-2015, 10:34 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: I don't use them unless I'm narrating. In that case, I preface /say with Â¶, as in:

L'yhta Mahre: Â¶ The guard narrowed his eyes, staring daggers at the lalafell in front of him. "Y'sure y'want t'do this, popoto?"

The Â¶ mark indicates that the text that follows is narration of NPCs, the scene, and so on.

In that sort of case, if I'm opening with an emote, I tend to do an /em followed immediately by a | to imply that this is separate from what my character himself is doing. You'll see this most often when I'm talking about what Gran's doing.

* Chachanji Gegenji | Gran snuffles at the stranger, his glittering black eyes sizing the fellow up. Who was he and what was he doing here? And, most importantly, did he have something to eat?

If I'm opening an NPC's actions with words, I'll usually have some manner of identifier in /say to show that it's him like your Â¶, but usually involving the character's name or handle.

Chachanji Gegenji: (Zozonji Gegenji) "... Do what you want," the older Lalafell said gruffly, dismissively, before trudging his way back into the smoke of the smithy.

Caspar · **09-21-2015, 10:43 AM**

If I'm running a scene and it's something my character doesn't have anything to do with I uh... I do that thing from certain games where you put > in front of the narration... ^_^"

Corelyn · **09-21-2015, 10:46 AM**

(09-21-2015, 08:25 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 07:54 AM)Aronaux Farendaire Wrote: I used to be a firm believer in not using quotations with /say.Â If it was clear my character was speaking, I saw no reason to leave another indication!Â Yet overtime I found that their use allows me a lot more flexibility when it comes to emoting with /say, whereas before I would awkwardly use asterisks, most of the time.

Basically this. I use quotations just to be consistent with my writing.

Warren Castille: Otherwise you get weird things like this.
Warren Castille demonstrates in text. "Sometimes you have them, sometimes you don't."
Warren Castille: And that just looks sloppy to my eyes.

This. I used to just do without the quotes and do it just as Warren demonstrated, but it started to look unrefined and irritating to me. I also like that it opens up the ability to continue writing some given emote after without having to break it up.

Telluride · **09-21-2015, 10:51 AM**

I much prefer the use of quotes. As others have pointed out, it clarifies which parts are spoken, and allows emoting to precede the quote, follow it, or both. It also helps to break up long exchanges and permit changes of mood and tone to have a visual appearance.

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **09-21-2015, 11:35 AM**

I'll always use quotes when speaking IC diaglogue. Always.

It was how the people I first RPed with did it, and it made sense to me.

I don't really distinguish between /say and /emote because I'll mix and match them depending on how I want my sentence to start. I find it against my writing style to Do any type of Narration first sentence unless it's starting with Franz. For exceptions to that, I'll use /em and a bar ( | ) to denote that this isn't an action Franz is doing, and he isn't saying it.

Code: (Select All)

"This would be something Franz said". And then maybe he would walk away.

Code: (Select All)

/em would way away, perhaps mumbling "this is something I said".

I do break a "rule" of English grammar in all of this though. Putting the punctuation inside the quotes. Hate it. Perhaps that's the computer science influence, but it just seems so silly to do it within RP because I'm effectively just using the quote marks to denote spoken text. They're self-contained.

Aya · **09-21-2015, 11:39 AM**

My choice of /say and /em comes down to two factors: do I want the *Character Name* first in the resulting sentence, or is there any particular clutter reason to use one or the other.Â Otherwise I treat them identically when IN CHARACTER and will freely use prose in /say.Â Because of that, the quotation marks really are a necessity ^^

What a fun morning of "RP-Style" posts!Â It actually is an intriguing topic!

Unnamed Mercenary Wrote:I do break a "rule" of English grammar in all of this though. Putting the punctuation inside the quotes. Hate it. Perhaps that's the computer science influence, but it just seems so silly to do it within RP because I'm effectively just using the quote marks to denote spoken text. They're self-contained.

The punctuation helps describe the tone and hence the sound of the dialogue, therefore it belongs within.Â The sentence containing the quotation may be a simple declarative: He asked a question.

Adding in the actual question does not change the tone of the original sentence, but the question itself should be indicated to mark its intent and spoken tone: He asked, "How was your weekend?" is a statement about what "he" asked.Â Whereas: He asked, "How was your weekend"? is a question about what "he" asked.

With regards to full stops, this is also another Europe vs US matter I think too isn't in? ^^

(I keep having to fix this, someone remind me not to discuss grammar before I have had my coffee please!)

Roen · **09-21-2015, 11:52 AM**

(09-21-2015, 09:07 AM)Coatleque Wrote: I use quotations in say to denote that it's an in-character message. If I'm standing around the mist talking to someone in my FC, I'll forego the quotes.

I do this as well.

Although there are plenty of RPers I regularly play with who do not use quotes in /say when they are speaking and I can adapt to them just fine.

Aya · **09-21-2015, 12:15 PM**

(09-21-2015, 11:52 AM)Roen Wrote:
(09-21-2015, 09:07 AM)Coatleque Wrote: I use quotations in say to denote that it's an in-character message. Â If I'm standing around the mist talking to someone in my FC, I'll forego the quotes.

I do this as well.

Although there are plenty of RPers I regularly play with who do not use quotes in /say when they are speaking and I can adapt to them just fine.

Absolutely!Â There was a time I didn't use them either, and when I strictly limited /say to dialogue and /em to action and description.Â At some point I just found that writing prose for RP allowed me to be far more expressive and descriptive and my style adapted around that.Â

But, I can also understand how others wouldn't like to either read or write that as much.Â It just comes down to taste, and adapting to other people's preferences shouldn't be too challenging!

Kou · **09-21-2015, 12:26 PM**

I think it all comes down to personal preference, really. Some people like to use it, others don't. Myself, I found myself surrounded by people that use quotations in /say, so it ended up becoming a habit. Add on to the emotes I'll sometimes put in /say, and it's just stuck.

Honestly, as long as no one's breaking any RP etiquette or being a massive douchenozzle or a troll, I could care less about another person's format.

Melkire · **09-21-2015, 12:29 PM**

I use quotation marks for speech in /say, if only because you can then emote in the same post rather than needing two separate posts, one for speech and one for emoting.

..plus, in my opinion it's good practice, since quotation marks are standard just about everywhere other than screenplays and scripts.

Poll: Do you use " " around your spoken text in /say? You do not have permission to vote in this poll.
Yes	66.90%	97	66.90%
No	16.55%	24	16.55%
A mix of both	15.86%	23	15.86%
Other	0.69%	1	0.69%
Total		145 vote(s)	100%

« Next Oldest \| Next Newest »
Pages (7): « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 7 Next » Jump to page:

Quotation marks in /Say

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes