Can We Agree on a Tense?

[azermas]

Just be grateful that the world speaks your puny language and be done with it.

[AgentOrange]

I started emoting in past tense the other day. *throws a wrench in the gears!*

[Tekill]

I dont use quotes when I speak in game because I am speaking in first person in present tense. I do not need to quote myself when I say something the first time that something is being said.

"I dont use quotes when I speak in game because I am speaking in first person in present tense. I do not need to quote myself when I say something the first time that something is being said", I said.

The white text used for speaking, in game already indicates that I am speaking. Quotations are not necessary to indicate to people that I am speaking.

-I usually only try to emote things, that the game itself cant show us doing.

-I do not use past tense because actions are usually happening in that momment not in the past.
Tekill: *Begins scratching his butt.*
If I had already scratched my butt, I guess I could use past tense...no issue with that. But the game itself plays in present tense so I stick with that in my emotes.
Tekill: *Scratched his butt* -It tells us what I did- thats the important part. When, is generally not important because its understood it is happening in roughly the imediate timeframe.

Unless you are a DM, you usually can only account for yourself and maybe a pet so generally -pronouns are unecessary. The game usually indicates who is doing the action.
Tekill: *He begins scratching his butt* - is redundant.

But that is just my way of doing it. I have a less is more approach. People have reasons for doing it differently.
The other ways have thier own flavour. Some people see RPing as a tool of creative writing. So its practice for some people. Or trying different techniques.
Besides, I like to see variety.
It reminds me of when some players, say "This one..." before what it is they are thinking. Meaning, we need to account for the style of the character as well as that of the player.

And most importantly- other peoples styles also helps cover up my horrible horrible spelling and grammar!

[gedweyignasia]

Grammar:
- Present tense

Jack sits on the chair.

After sitting on the chair, Jack gets up.

- No conditional

Jack tries to eat Jane's lunch.

not

Jack would try to eat Jane's lunch.

Dialogue:
- Regular text is assumed to be dialogue, quotes are unnecessary
- Quotes can be used for emphasis within a statement

Third Person:
- Never emote using "I" or "you". Roleplay is between characters, not players.

Emotes:
- Use asterisks to denote actions

*sits on chair* I think I'll steal Jane's lunch.

- Enable colored flavortext to make your chat easier to read
- Do not enable auto-emotes


These aren't official policy, but if I ever seize control of the server, anyone caught disobeying this style guide will be put to death!

[Mythic Revenant]

"Over my dead gnome body!" *Would be frowning at you.*

This physically harms me...

Thanks, Chamb. <3

[bono_bob]

My main bias against quotation style talking (nothing wrong with it) as I can't emphasize using qoutes (don't ask me to figure out hot to italicize) and because once upon a time I confronted a person about the novel style that seemed to be rising, saying how I still have not gotten use to it; and well I had a surprising reply about how they don't understand how everyone doesn't use it in this place of sad roleplay qaulity. That kind of set the tone forever for me where I perceived myself as being viewed less every time i came across a quotation style talking person.

It's like a bunch of internet forumroleplayers/novelists/fanfictionwriters got won over to digital form of DnD and started to take over the roleplay etiquette. Mind you, this was a different server. I really appreciated how this server has the coloured text option when you use traditional *emotes*. because the thing that always weirded/aliented me was not that people were using Qoutations for their speech, but how they would have their emotes in plain text. Sometimes there would be a full paragraph of plain text and I would have to reread it because I was reading it all as first person speech above their head, not as a novel in my chatbox.

The coloured text option allows a healthy compromise for both worlds where white text stays speech text with or without quotations. It also allows me to write as I normally would with **.

I still philosophically disagree with with with novel style writing, but I do appreciate how this server attempted to reconcile the two with colour text while writing ** for emotes. It has not only made me feel less alienated in my 'classic style RPing', but it also has made it easier for me to read other's emotes.