Should you use .gifs in your RPs?

This has come up a few times on the site where I moderate, Valucre.

More and more users are integrating .gifs and .imgs into their posts. A lot of the time I find these add-ons tasteful or adding to the content, but sometimes I'm annoyed by the excessive use of gifs in an RP.

imo, once or twice an RP is fine but if you're doing it every post and trying to adapt the gifs too much then it sort of waters down the content.

What are your thoughts?

 

I think they're great for OOC discussions but unless they're relevant gifs of the actual characters I feel like they're not really going to add much substance to the RP. I think of RP posts as little scraps of a larger work (e.g. a novel) that we're writing as a group and you wouldn't put random images in a novel or overuse images.

I think a similar issue to talk about would be when users post a Youtube video of a song in their post with the idea that the music fits their post's theme. I wonder how people feel about that?

What we're seeing is that people are much more accustomed to have a multi-media experience these days. Just look at all the young people going around with headphones in all the time (I know this makes me sound old and indeed I'm getting close to 40 now). So they're trying to make RP posts a multi-media experience with sounds and moving images.

I have mixed feelings on it but I will say that things can be good in moderation and they can be overdone so my advice is a little gif action for spice is OK but overdoing it is just distracting so let's try to stay focused on the story.

 

I agree— it's not often at all you find an image, let alone a moving one that's both original to your character and conducive to story. I would say in very rare cases it's okay, but generally not super palatable or attractive.

 

I think it matters on the extent of it; i agree, if it is tasteful, and not all over the place, and conductive to the character line or writing ,then yes - But honestly, it's totally up to the writer

 

I agree with the above, pretty much! ^^

 

I think the whole point of your posts in an RP is crafting a world out of words. I don't like adding images to posts.

 

I guess it all depends with how much you're showing. Part of the creativity of role-playing comes from imagination.

 

Generally thats a hard no from me for story based RP, but I have taken part in some entirely free form RP before where things like gif's were used to spark new ideas.

 

I don’t mind them or post enhancements or links to music, outfits, etc. anything that really ties the scene together. It’s the beauty of roleplay. You can get so creative with it.
But just keep it to a tasteful level. Nobody needs thirty gifs in a single post.

 

If we're talking avatars and other graphics, then absolutely. I'm a huge fan of gifs. Our site is positively covered in them. As a method of storytelling, I'd give that a hard pass.

 

I prefer limited use of images in posts. We have limited the use of animated GIFs in avatars (you can buy the feature), and we do not have post templates (the skin uses an integrated template and uses can purchase the ability to use a header image in their posts). We have done much of this to focus on the writing, not images and coding etc.

 

I tend to like headers, tasteful pictures, a font color and background color. I think animated gifs are sort of a distraction from writing, I like to think of them as like the cover to a book

 

I personally am a fan of gifs in posts. When they fit the actual story, and the action or setting involved in the post they are going with. I enjoy looking for the images that fit too. I love aesthetics. But again as people have said, this is purely down to people's preferences.

When they are just there, with no relevance to the context of the post though, I do find it off-putting and unnecessary. For example, if someone uses a gif of their male character with their shirt off, just because they think their chosen face is "hot". But it has no relevance to the post at all. That tends to make me want to avoid the thread.

 

I don't really have a strong opinion either way. I've heard the argument that they can be distracting to have in the corner of your eye when reading posts, but I personally don't have that issue. That being said BECAUSE I know it's bothersome to certain people, I just don't use them at all.

I did have fun making avatars for a while that were part still image and part gif. Very fun to make and very aesthetically pleasing in my opinion.

 

I think it all depends on the style. Some people really make great use of GIFs in their content! I agree with Silhouette.

 

I do love my pics an' gif...but it can be overwhelming if used too much. I like to use pic and gifs to *enhance* a scene, thought, or emotion, in my writings. In my forum, I use pics alot, especially in the setting and back story information... but in posts, not near as much...

 

As an old-school RPer, my first love is the written word. That's why I enjoy playing by text via forums - the profile can contain a couple of visual references for those who need that kind of visual input, but my word crafting is what paints the picture.

I understand that not everyone has a powerful imagination, but I find falling back on pictures too often a sign of a lack of creativity or original inspiration, which is what I want out of an original character and an original storyline.

 

I think that gifs in a place they can be hidden (e.g. behind a hover or a click in a mini profile) are fine but when they're everywhere over the site they just slow shit down when my computer is already being slow and it's not something that I like to deal with. Pictures have their place and they provide a nice visual, provided they load, but if they're making things difficult then I don't want to deal with them.

 

Personally, I love them.

 

The majority of our players use Gifs for their 100x100 avatar that is displayed on the main page of the site whenever you post. But we do also have an accessibility widget that will stop the animation of Gifs for those who have issues.