*he smiles* VERSUS *smiles*

[N-Aldwitch]

This is a relatively large RP difference that is widely untalked about so far (i believe)..
It's the difference between *he says this* and *says this* ...
Might not sound like much, but I've always used *he says* or *she says* , and when I started doing this, I noticed it was relatively uncommon.
Recently, however, I've noticed it to be more prevalent and this is what I wanted to discuss...

SO WHICH DO YOU DO?

[DylPickle]

I use them both, depending on the situation. Usually I'll use the "he smiles", "she laughs" form though.
Must have been a little bored to have started this topic

[sammigurl61190]

I started out with *smiles* emotes, but have progressed to the *she smiles*, because it gives a lot more room for descriptions and ways to play what she's doing.

[Leo Luncid]

My decision might actually depend on how I use it.

If I were to have a character perform an action himself, I would do so with out using "he/she" as I think it's pretty unecessary to have your character to refer to him/herself. It also seems strange to me when I read such an action aloud straight from the Events page, as if the word "he/she" is disrupting my flow of speech.

Jevarn says: (he approaches) Don't worry, that's nothing to worry about. Heh. (he rubs his neck)

Especially if you're to express an action first, eliminating the said words may sound better.

Jevarn says: (approaches) Don't worry, that's nothing to worry about. Heh. (rubs his neck)

Now I wouldn't say the same when you're making a novel, for example, but it's simply a way to keep yourself in view of the character, I guess; though it wouldn't make any significant difference to me if I do otherwise.

Edit: Wow, I give too much thought over such a small topic.

[N-Aldwitch]

Wow, three replies within three minutes..

Yeah I was a little bored to make this thread.

See, I just prefer 'he says' because it refers to the character better than 'says' and is also a great reminder of the gender of the character... which sometimes I forget with those names people make.. like 'Vinladia'.. the World of Warcraft names, lol.

[DylPickle]

>Leo

So YOU'RE the bracket emoter!

[N-Aldwitch]

Hehe, does this call for another thread?

(bracket emoters) VERSUS *non-bracket emoters*

[Debsy]

Haha I'm a he says/she says person. And a ** emoter.

[Phalynx]

I would normally use he/she but it's not a conscious choice. If I'm in a hurry or annoyed cos I've waited 10 mins to input anything then I will be briefer. I've seen
*smiles*
[smiles]
<smiles>
#smiles#
but I generally assumed plain brackets were reserved for OOC comments..

[SekoETC]

::Armulus puts it like this::

I use the asterisks. In another place stylish people used to write emotes without any markings and put spoken lines with quote marks but since Cantr adds You say in the beginning of everything and puts quotations around the text, so using quote marks inside that block would look confusing. I tend to use single quotes if I need to quote something inside the line.

On the original subject, I often write just *smiles* but sometimes it feels more appropriate to put *he smiles* - just usually if I write that, I feel a need to add an adverb as well.

[psymann]

Generally, I find that it's nicer to read without the he/she, but sometimes you need the he/she in there for clarity. It's pretty obvious most of the time that it's the person themselves doing the action, so the he/she is usually redundant and therefore rather pointless and gets in the way.

Just saying *pauses* ...erm... *scratches head* something or other with little emotes in between looks best to me without the he/she since it's easier to read through *grins, and waits for someone to respond to him, while farming potatoes*


As for the emote options - I use *s since I was told when I joined that that's what you had to use. I've also seen colons and various sorts of brackets. Personally, I always use square brackets for OOC, the same way when I moderate forum posts, I use square brackets to write what I've done to them after removing the offensive language from some mother-[Edit(psy): nice language please] who can't express himself without swearing. I suppose the reason for that is that you never normally use square brackets in normal language.

psymann

[BarbaricAvatar]

I use both dependant on the situation, if i'm mid-sentence when i decide to emote then i'll drop the he/she. If i'm emoting at the start of the sentence or adding further expression to the emote then i'll use *he/she smiles*

As for emoting symbols i've seen:
*smiles*
**smiles**
{smiles}
-smiles-
~smiles~

[Chris]

At first, I used to say, "*Fred smiles*" to get the added benefit of getting the character's name out there again, for those who missed it. But no one else seems to do that, so I stopped. Now I just use *smiles*. It actually reads:

Code: Select all

Fred says: "*smiles*"

Ideally, you would be able to output

Code: Select all

Fred smiles.

instead of having everything assumed to be speech, and with "Fred" being the dynamic name (i.e., could be "a man in his twenties" or whatever the other person makes it). But that's nitpicking.

[SekoETC]

The problem with mentioning the name in rp is that there might be people present who haven't made your acquiantances and they will have a hard time remembering that they don't actually know this person's name.

[Joshuamonkey]

Yes, honestly I find it annoying to not know someone's name, yet know it as a player because of role play.