Speech Bubbles/Floating Text — For Roleplayers

[Misericordus]

Firstly, I'd like to mention that the fact that the game has a GM mode at all is absolutely fantastic. My friends and I crave this sort of freedom to create and share a good story, and so few games offer it.

That said, I think that adding speech bubbles or floating text above the character's head when someone speaks — including GM-possessed NPCs — would enrich the experience tremendously, especially for roleplay-focused players like myself and my circle of friends.

It would enhance immersion considerably and make it easier to get "in-character" by allowing both players and GMs to speak as the character they're controlling, and it would make chat easier to follow in general.

I've seen this happen (in the form of floating text strings) in-game plenty of times from scripted dialogue, but I haven't found a way to make it happen with chat strings. If there is a way and I'm just missing it, feel free to shoot me down and call me an idiot for missing it.

[Misericordus]

I feel an addendum is needed to address VOIP.

While it's currently 100% possible to play GM mode using Skype or Discord or what-have-you and roleplaying over that medium, some people (like myself) prefer to roleplay via text, by typing emotes and speech in chat. This is often the medium of choice for roleplayers in MMOs and games like Neverwinter Nights.

While I find that VOIP is fine for "roleplay-lite" games, and does tend to up the speed of play considerably, I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I find text-based roleplaying to be far preferable.