An approach now appearing in game materials involves using bold print to highlight important info. Adventure products have it to highlight initial aspects PCs notice. Rulebooks emphasize basic rule statements. Colored type has been used similarly here and there over the years. Recently, I’ve seen game text using red letter print ala Biblical publishing practice–I’m intrigued.

So, I’m going to experiment with red letter editions of rules, at least into playtesting. I want to get feedback from users as to whether the use of color, in addition to bold type, helps make it easier to parse the rules in any fashion. I expect to experiment with the practice a bit, too, with using bold, colored type for one purpose and simple bold type for another.

Accessibility may be an issue for color blind readers. Using bold, colored type may overcome that with the bold type still standing out despite lack of color. And the colored type may appear a different shade than standard black type. As long as the colored type appears a different shade than the standard bold type, I expect using both would be workable.

The actual red tint to use is also an open question. I don’t think the standard red letter print used in Bibles provides the best flavor for a game, so I’ll be experimenting. Perhaps a darker red. I’ve seen blue in some game texts and found the shade used too light for my tastes, so all of the shades I experiment with will be dark, to start.

My hope is for the use of red letter print to make important information even easier to find and scan. As the texts will be used for reference, anything that helps with scanning words during a lookup will be useful.