Lacking Natural Simplicity

Random musings on books, code, and tabletop games.

Typographical Conventions

Here I'd like to list the typographical conventions I'm currently using for this blog. (Earlier posts and pages may not use these conventions.)

  • Filenames are a green monospaced font: /usr/local/bin.

  • Application names are a black bold italic: Emacs.

  • Command names (Unix, VMS, Microsoft Windows/DOS, whatever) are a black bold monospaced font: ls or emacs when talking about the actual command.

  • The names and section numbers of man pages are in a monospaced italic font groff_ms(7).

  • Inline literal or code text is a red monospaced font with a gray background with a hint of red (#f9f2f4 to be precise): rm -rfv *.

  • Key strokes are in an orange monospaced font with a gray background with a hint of red (#f9f2f4 again): C-x C-s. They are notated with the Emacs conventions: M- indicates the Meta key (usually "Alt" or "Option" on common keyboards, sometimes indicated with ⌥ by Apple, although the Unicode character is ⎇), C- indicates the "Control" key. S- indicates the "Super" key, ⌘ (“Command”) on Macs, and something else weird on other keyboards.

Now for the fun stuff:

  • Encounter area identifiers (usually letters or numbers or a combination thereof) are enclosed in a box with rounded corners: K1.

  • Dice, when notated, are in black bold: 3d6+1.

  • Items (magic or named), when notated, are in black bold: +1 flaming sword.

  • Skills, when notated, are in brown italic: Investigation.

  • Spells or powers, when notated, are in purple italic: Fireball, Intangibility.

  • A named bit of gaming mechanic, when notated, is in green italic bold: Mighty Blow.

  • A house rule, when notated, is in red italic bold: Critical Hit.

  • Loot, when notated, is in bold: 30 gp.

  • A player character name, when notated, is in bold: Alexa.

  • A non-player character name, when notated, is in bold italics: Neven Wesved.

  • When a dead player character is notated, their name is in bold and strikethrough: Bytor.

  • When a dead non-player character is notated, their name is in bold italics and strikethrough: Polam Wesved.

  • A creature name, when notated, is in red and bold: Carrion Crawler.

  • A scene name, when notated, is in italics: Across the Chasm.

  • A GM's name, when notated, is in underlined, overlined dark green: T.T..

  • A hireling's name, notated, is in underline: Symna and Karl.

  • Experience points (or character points, whatever they are named), when notated, are in bold: 250 xp.