Post Formatting Tips and Tricks! (article)
This Article, Post Formating Tips and Tricks is written native to the MW play by post boards rather than the wiki for the purpose of providing precise examples of how the formating will look and be coded.
As always, presentation counts as a Player and a GM. Taking the time to write out a beautiful segment of flavor text will fall short of its potential if it doesn't look good as well.
-White Space
Use lots of "white space"- put breaks between every paragraph. This will ease the eyes of your readers and make your large block of text less overwhelming.
-Pictures
Use pictures, but do not substitute them for good writing. Do not to post images larger than about 600x600. GIMP is a good free tool for resizing images. If you need someplace to host images, try TinyPic, also free and easy to use.
-Mood Music
Including a link to mood music in opening scenes can do wonders for your players' state of mind while they read the post. Put such a link at or near the top of the post like this: Mood Music
-Mood/Foreshadowing Text
When opening a scene, ending/beginning with a notable quote in italics (possibly from an in-game NPC) is a great way to foreshadow.
"Deep in the mortal unconsciousness is a pervasive need for a logical world that makes sense, but the real world is always one step beyond reason."
-Lord Arid Von Audrite, Legendary Tormauz Wizard
-Choosing text color
Choosing bright colors for text can prove difficult on the eyes, especially for large blocks of text, and is not recomended.
Consider using a subdued color for text if you need one at all.
Some GMs may mandate certain colors indicate certain spoken languages or may or request each PC use a different color for speech.
-Private Tags
Private tags are a handy way to leave notes for yourself, or to pass information to one or more players without revealing it to all. In contrast to using a separate private thread for such purposes, a private tag keeps the information with the relevant post. It's useful for things like a creature's current damage and conditions, and the results of some types of checks that not everyone succeeded at.
-Inflection:
These are by no means mandatory but are fun and offer another tool to help others understand your character or NPC.
*Size 1 font: Indicates whispering
*Size 5 font: INDICATES PRIMAL SCREAMING (this can be done with any emotion but is typical with anger and hysteria)
*Bold: Indicates a stress in volume. Ex. "What the HECK!?!"
Italicize: indicates unnatural tonal change, used to express additional sophisticated character animations. Ex. "That's what she said."; "It's a Loooooooooong way down." NOTE: Singing is done in all italics, yeah! Italics also double as Telepathic Communications!. The difference should be denoted within the text narratives.
*Underline: Indicates the word is not stressed with tonal inflection or volume, but rather with body language such as hand signals, facial expressions, arm waving, etc. "Every single time, she always does this." Bill's fist pounded on his desk with each invocation.
-Nice and Tidy
*Make use of the various tags you have in your panel.
Note in the example, the fieldset blocks this speaker off from another, which is especially helpful when switching between NPC's talking to each other without confusing who is speaking (which can get confusing for just plain text unless you end every sentence with "X or Y said"). The portrait helps identify the character with a visual, the name links to the character sheet (for easy reference) and the speaking text is offset by a non-offensive color, while effective use of OOC mouseover is used to point to why the acting skill was rolled and italics are used to indicate dramatic pronunciation.
For more information about BBcode, please go HERE.
Back to the GM Guide
As always, presentation counts as a Player and a GM. Taking the time to write out a beautiful segment of flavor text will fall short of its potential if it doesn't look good as well.
-White Space
Use lots of "white space"- put breaks between every paragraph. This will ease the eyes of your readers and make your large block of text less overwhelming.
-Pictures
Use pictures, but do not substitute them for good writing. Do not to post images larger than about 600x600. GIMP is a good free tool for resizing images. If you need someplace to host images, try TinyPic, also free and easy to use.
-Mood Music
Including a link to mood music in opening scenes can do wonders for your players' state of mind while they read the post. Put such a link at or near the top of the post like this: Mood Music
-Mood/Foreshadowing Text
When opening a scene, ending/beginning with a notable quote in italics (possibly from an in-game NPC) is a great way to foreshadow.
"Deep in the mortal unconsciousness is a pervasive need for a logical world that makes sense, but the real world is always one step beyond reason."
-Lord Arid Von Audrite, Legendary Tormauz Wizard
-Choosing text color
Choosing bright colors for text can prove difficult on the eyes, especially for large blocks of text, and is not recomended.
Consider using a subdued color for text if you need one at all.
Some GMs may mandate certain colors indicate certain spoken languages or may or request each PC use a different color for speech.
-Private Tags
Private tags are a handy way to leave notes for yourself, or to pass information to one or more players without revealing it to all. In contrast to using a separate private thread for such purposes, a private tag keeps the information with the relevant post. It's useful for things like a creature's current damage and conditions, and the results of some types of checks that not everyone succeeded at.
-Inflection:
These are by no means mandatory but are fun and offer another tool to help others understand your character or NPC.
*Size 1 font: Indicates whispering
*Size 5 font: INDICATES PRIMAL SCREAMING (this can be done with any emotion but is typical with anger and hysteria)
*Bold: Indicates a stress in volume. Ex. "What the HECK!?!"
Italicize: indicates unnatural tonal change, used to express additional sophisticated character animations. Ex. "That's what she said."; "It's a Loooooooooong way down." NOTE: Singing is done in all italics, yeah! Italics also double as Telepathic Communications!. The difference should be denoted within the text narratives.
*Underline: Indicates the word is not stressed with tonal inflection or volume, but rather with body language such as hand signals, facial expressions, arm waving, etc. "Every single time, she always does this." Bill's fist pounded on his desk with each invocation.
-Nice and Tidy
*Make use of the various tags you have in your panel.
Note in the example, the fieldset blocks this speaker off from another, which is especially helpful when switching between NPC's talking to each other without confusing who is speaking (which can get confusing for just plain text unless you end every sentence with "X or Y said"). The portrait helps identify the character with a visual, the name links to the character sheet (for easy reference) and the speaking text is offset by a non-offensive color, while effective use of OOC mouseover is used to point to why the acting skill was rolled and italics are used to indicate dramatic pronunciation.
For more information about BBcode, please go HERE.
Back to the GM Guide