cowboy times in space

[rpanonmod]

Rundown: rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

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Comments

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

na

anon, people have been complaining about brackets being harder to read forever. it's about the size of the text.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

DA

brackets =/= small text

small text in brackets IS an abomination, tho. i really don't know why people thought smaller would be better for a writing format chosen specifically for quick reading

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

anon, are you new here or something. i'm not even trying to be insulting or anything, i'm genuinely baffled

brackets do equal small text. this is why ON THIS VERY THREAD people are complaining about html. this is why ON THIS VERY THREAD people are saying that brackets allow them to separate dialogue and descriptions/thoughts better. the different-sized text allows you to find dialogue more quickly.

there's only been a handful of people who used brackets without small text through the years and those people were also the kind not to have 100x100 icons

the html is the entire point of brackets. if you take that out, you just have prose with [] around it. by that point people just write prose.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

nah, there are other choices and people do use them, some use different fonts or some other visual change. it's not common, but it works and they all look much better than small text.

my point is that yes, people do use small text. but that brackets are fine, brackets and small sucks

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

"they all look much better than small text"

no they don't and some people are choosing not to tag them.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

no you're right, ayrt is an alien idk what they're smoking

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

+1

this argument is baffling me too. i like writing prose just fine but from an objective standpoint, brackets are much easier to read and to parse, which is important when rp is all about responding to what the other person has written.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

driveby anon, what if we all just agree to use italics instead of small text within brackets? then the size will be bigger, thus easier to read, and we still have a visual distinction between action/introspection and dialogue

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

honestly i wish we would all use prose because we all read new articles and books every day, so this is stupid. i don't know why people need distinction between dialogue and narration, you have to read it all anyway. for the record i don't mind doing brackets if that's what my partner wants, but yeah.

what is not being said in this thread and is the actual big problem: people think they can't do short/silly tags with prose. they think that asking for prose means asking for long ~literary~ narration. it's all on their heads.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt and honestly, that's fair. I rarely see short prose tags so maybe we should all agree to normalize that more

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

me, me! i do short prose tags all the time! i'm on team "a tag should be as long as context needs it to be". doing ONLY short tags or ONLY long tags is stupid.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

da

i like using prose but 90% of the time when i write a starter in prose i get a tag back in brackets so i don't bother any more. most people in this hobby seem to prefer brackets ime.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

no worries, i feel you. i default to brackets unless i find preferences on the journal because i've had the same experience as you. or worse, seeing prose scares them and i didn't get replies at all

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

you absolutely can do short/silly tags with prose

the problem is that when you start network style tags it does not shift well into prose imo. also brackets/script style imo fits a more rapid/snappy style. see:

”I’m not doing that,” he said, crossing his arms while scowling.

versus

I’m not doing that.

[ Scowls, crosses arms. ]

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

it's exactly the same shit. all this "fitting" stuff is in your head

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

that’s exactly it. it shouldn’t matter if people use brackets or prose to rp if it’s all in your head.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

> i don't know why people need distinction between dialogue and narration

for me, dialogue is often the thing that's driving the thread and therefore the most obvious thing that demands a response. when i'm drafting a tag, i'll start with what my character will say/do to reply and then build the rest of the tag around that.

that's not going to be everyone's approach, but it is mine, so visually isolating conversation is useful for me. among a couple of other reasons.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

that's an awful approach. the dialogue may say "i'm fine!" but the description says the character looks like shit and they're obviously lying. dialogue and actions are equally important

(frozen comment) ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

lol, i considered adding a disclaimer, like, "of course i read the whole tag, and if the dialogue isn't important or contradicts stated description, i'll work off of description instead" and then i thought, "nah, no one would assume i meant that i'd blindly react to the dialogue and ignore everything else. that'd be deliberately obtuse. it's obvious i'm just describing a general writing strategy."

i shouldn't have overestimated you, anon. that one's on me.

anyway,

> dialogue and actions are equally important

kinda yes, kinda no. much of the time the description contains introspection that, while important to the thread itself, isn't something my character can sense or react to. dialogue is a good starting point because it almost always merits a response. "i'm fine!" is still going to be a thing my character responds to, even if it's to say, "no, you're not." then i'd build the rest of the tag around that.

and, because i sense i need to spell this out: yes, sometimes the dialogue is completely irrelevant, like in a tag where a character gets stabbed midway through telling mine about their favourite ice cream. obviously, in that situation, i'd anchor my tag around the stabbing instead of the ice cream.

anyway, it works pretty well for me.

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

This is what I do too!

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

reading 5 - 6 paragraphs of all italics is horrific anon, idk what kind of books you're reading that you think it's better

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

there's someone on bakerstreet who tags with italics in their bracket text and it's headache inducing to read, so no thank you

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think this is a universal problem? It might differ between browsers, but I've never found small bracket text difficult because of its size. For people who do, why not just zoom the browser in slightly?

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

that would require them to actually take action for a easily solvable problem versus making everyone cater to their specific needs

(frozen comment) Re: UNPOPULAR DWRP OPINIONS

[(Anonymous)]

agreed, generally. I know I know that small text is in fact hard to read for a nonzero amount of my fellow rpers, and it's slowly becoming hard for me too as I age. I can still read it, but I have a handful of options I can do to mitigate my own issues - glasses, browser zoom, etc. I'd rather do that on my end than try to effect sea change for everyone to use a different writing style.

agreed with other anons that italics is harder to read, tho. I'd rather switch to prose than italics or fancy fonts.