Potential Feature: Marking DM post

One issue I'm realizing exists is that as you're playing, noting which posts are made by a DM get lost a bit. As most people don't have/won't have avatars, differentiating posts isn't always easy.

So I have three ideas here, one super short term, one short term, and one long term, and I'd love thoughts on all 3.

1) Super short term - On the Game Details page, next to DMs on the player list is a small DM icon. I could put this same icon next to the player avatar, or at the top of the post.

2) Short term - Give DMs a preselected option on posts that marks a post as a DM post and would give it a slightly different background color. No idea what that color would be, maybe slightly grey?

3) Long term - This I wanted to do for a while: have backgrounds available to add flavor to DM posts, so things like a sheet steel background, a brick background, a stonework background, etc, so DM posts stand out and invoke some emotion. If we went down that line, I'd want to think of a "default" DM background.

I find i can pretty easily find the DM post, moreso if DM posts in all bold or something but here are my thoughts anyway.

1 - If it is easy why the hell not, makes sense to me.

2 - Sounds easy enough to implement and may look a little neater than all bold text. It would have to be a subtle color though.

3 - Not feeling this one, seems too loud and distracting.

Another simple solution would be to get avatars to work properly. Sure most people still might not use them but the gm probably will, plus in my experience on other forums most people use them. I also am still privvy to the idea of having avatars linked to character sheets. That avatar is used on any boards related to games that character is in. A default profile avatar is used in all non game boards. You can evem have a default GM avatar, maybe the GP logo that shows when the GM posts in his or her games.

1- Sounds great, you should do that anyway. People like badges and things, and if it is site wide it may encourage people to run games.

2- Don't use background colour. Black on white is easy to read, black on other things gets messy. Change the *border* of the post if anything.

3- That could be fine. #2 is probably sufficient, but same recommendation (*border* not background).

Avatars for character sheets is on the list, and will probably be one of the sooner features to be implmented.

Candi - Ironically, border is a bit harder to do ONLY because of the little nub that makes it look like a speech bubble. But I'm sure I can do something. And like I said in the OP, if I change the background color, it'll go from pure white to something simple like maybe a cream or a tinted red/orange, just like the input boxes are tinted blue.

As for #3, I have no intention of it being an overwhelming thing, but a simple border wouldn't do quite well either. My thought would be a background white text over it on a 85% white background, eg, you can see what's behind it barely. Add a bit of padding, so you'd see a thick "border" of the background, and the text would be against white.

For #3 that can still be very distracting.

An alternative is to have the gm avatar be on the right side of the screen instead of the left. Then it would also feel like a conversation.

Conversation is a display option in your control panel. It alternates all posts.

Though I have thought about what Candi proposed; making the GM one side, everyone else the other. In addition to that, I considered (for when groups might split), letting the GM pick who shows up on which side.

I liked option 1 a lot. Have the character name possiby under their user name for the game thread if possible, so you immediately know whos who (even if you're not in the game). Kinda like a running stat block maybe. Have name, class and levels of the character in the game.
#2 i also liked as well, tho that should be an option for anyone to have on posts perhaps, or upto the gm.

#3 might bog things down a bit, backgrounds would put more weight on the site if every game is running a GM with one.

#3 wouldn't be heavy from the site side; spriting and other techniques would make it very light. The question is if it'd be heavy from the player side.

I like the idea of GM one side, players the others -- makes the whole thing feel more like a "conversation" between GM and Party.

The party split idea is nice, but it breaks down as soon as the party divides into more than 2 groups. That's easy enough to handle with separate threads (one of the advantages of PbF is handling split parties!)