FolioTier 1
say
Attribute a dialogue line to a named character.
Parameters
| Parameter | Kind | Required | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| character | string | yes | — | Quoted display name of the speaking character. The colon separator after the character name is required. For lines with no speaker, use `narrate` instead. |
| text | string | yes | — | The dialogue line. Supports text-tag grammar (see Effects → text-tags). Each `say` is one logical line — implicit string continuation across indentation changes inside a label body is not supported. |
Canonical example
say "Emma": "I missed you."
say "Emma": "How long has it been?"e "I missed you."
e "How long has it been?"The Folio shape mirrors Ren'Py's character-attributed dialogue line
verbatim: a Character reference followed by a quoted string. The
importer's deterministic pass handles every variation of the Ren'Py
shape — short-form character aliases (e "..."), interpolation
("Hello, [player_name]"), and the inline what-extension
(e "Hello," (what="…")) — so creators rarely need to think about
the lowering.
Notes
say is the most-used construct across the Ren'Py corpus by an order
of magnitude (the gap matrix shows ~6.3k occurrences across 12 games
at the 2026-05-11 snapshot). It carries the burden of getting style
right — text-tag grammar ({b}, {i}, {color}, {wave},
{vibrate}), voice-line auto-attachment, and per-character text
styling all hang off this verb.
The character name is the display name, quoted. There is no
short-form alias for it — Folio doesn't carry Ren'Py's
define e = Character("Emma") indirection; the display name is the
identifier. The importer translates Ren'Py character aliases into
display names by reading the Character() definition.
A line without a leading character identifier is not a say —
it's a narrate. The two are deliberately separate so the importer,
the runtime, and the node editor can render narrator lines with their
own visual treatment (no namebox, full-width text). When in doubt,
write narrate "…" rather than say "…".
See also
narrate— narrator lines without a character attributioncharacters— defining the characters this verb referencestext-tags— inline formatting grammar