What's the best color for poison?

[The Eye]

In media and in special video games poison is either purple or green.

What color do you guys think it's the best to represent poison and the poisoned status effect?

[Keltest]

Are we talking like tokens to put under miniatures, or actual poison being used by characters in game?

If the former, green is a classic and generally widely recognized. If the latter, a good poison will have no inherent coloring so as to not be easily detected.

[GAAD]

Yeah, for tokens I'd use green for poison and purple for disease.

[Knaight]

If the latter, a good poison will have no inherent coloring so as to not be easily detected.

It depends. The vast majority are going to be either white powders or clear liquids (because a ludicrous proportion of purified organic compounds fit in these two categories), but as long as it's not too colorful once in something, no big deal. Heavy metals (e.g. Polonium) are often some shade of grey, and Polonium is a nasty poison that has been employed very successfully multiple times in the real world.

[VonMuller]

My bottlecap-ring-thing (which I do not know how to call in english) color code is usually:

Red: bloodied (even without game effects)
Green: poisoned/diseased
Yellow: paralyzed
Blue: magical protection

I don't go beyond that in games. One player uses white for some of his powers.

[Kane0]

My table color codes:

red - injured/bloodied
White - flying
Grey - invisible
Green - poisoned
Yellow - diseased
Purple - magic debuff (charmed, cursed, etc)
blue - magic buff (haste, protection, etc)

Works pretty well most of the time, though we notably lack things like stun, prone, rage, etc

[Pauly]

My table color codes:

red - injured/bloodied
White - flying
Grey - invisible
Green - poisoned
Yellow - diseased
Purple - magic debuff (charmed, cursed, etc)
blue - magic buff (haste, protection, etc)

Works pretty well most of the time, though we notably lack things like stun, prone, rage, etc

This seems standad in most video games/computer rpgs too. Alhough brown is also used for disease too.

[Stealth Marmot]

...a good poison will have no inherent coloring so as to not be easily detected.

It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man.

[Martin Greywolf]

In media and in special video games poison is either purple or green.

What color do you guys think it's the best to represent poison and the poisoned status effect?

Impossible to say. When it comes to game's visuals, they need to be all designed with the final result in mind. Colors, and colors of (de)buffs specifically, have to do several things. First and foremost is to match the theme/tone of the game, neon green posion may be fine for something with the colors of Borderlands, but not so much in Call of Cthulu.

Another consideration is clarity of information - let's say you're making AtLA game, where earth has already a traditional color of green. You can't make poison be green in this case, since it would be hard to see on characters with earth coloring, or would make earth and poison hard to tell apart. Purple is also not a great idea in this case, since it's a color of spirits, but those are kinda rare, so it really depends on what exactly is the plot of your game - you may well pick black as poison color.

And since poison has no colors traditionally associated with it, especially when compared to things like fire and red or water and blue, it sort of gets assigned whichever color is currently available.

[Celestia]

Being raised on Pokémon, I always associate poison with purple. I think it works better, anyways. Green is more appropriate for acid, I think. That seems to be more universal. It could also be plants or radiation. Really, green is too many things already. No need to stick poison in there, too.

[Joe the Rat]

Green (I'd go for something like Kickstarter Green) for tokening. If you're one of those green acid types, Cyan (blue-green) captures the "dying from asphyxiation" thing quite nicely.

It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man.
>Sniff< Iocaine Powder. I'd bet my life on it!

[Segev]

Being raised on Pokémon, I always associate poison with purple. I think it works better, anyways. Green is more appropriate for acid, I think.

In anime, poison is often extremely corrosive.

[Wardog]

And since poison has no colors traditionally associated with it, especially when compared to things like fire and red or water and blue, it sort of gets assigned whichever color is currently available.

Historically, posions were often kept in green bottles, to make it easy to identify as such.
https://www.objectlessons.org/health-and-beauty-victorians/poison-bottle-victorian-original/s71/a996/

[Celestia]

In anime, poison is often extremely corrosive.
That's called acid.

[Stealth Marmot]

That's called acid.

Pretty sure acid strong enough to cause damage to you is considered poisonous.

[Celestia]

Pretty sure acid strong enough to cause damage to you is considered poisonous.
That is true only in colloquial (read: incorrect) usage. By definition, substances that destroy tissue without absorption are termed as corrosives rather than poisons.

[Beleriphon]

That is true only in colloquial (read: incorrect) usage. By definition, substances that destroy tissue without absorption are termed as corrosives rather than poisons.

Most poison doesn't even destroy tissue. It does other stuff, like screw up chemical signals to things like the heart. You're thinking venoms which 100% do destroy tissue, often horribly and very quickly. I'd personally go for black as the default poison, or green if something else doesn't use that. And that's only because any biological process for non-plants that's green tends to be really bad.

[Celestia]

Most poison doesn't even destroy tissue. It does other stuff, like screw up chemical signals to things like the heart. You're thinking venoms which 100% do destroy tissue, often horribly and very quickly. I'd personally go for black as the default poison, or green if something else doesn't use that. And that's only because any biological process for non-plants that's green tends to be really bad.
Lolwut? I don't think you actually read my post. Nowhere did I say that poisons destroy tissue. I said that corrosives destroy tissue. In fact, that difference was the entire point of my post. :|

[Beleriphon]

Lolwut? I don't think you actually read my post. Nowhere did I say that poisons destroy tissue. I said that corrosives destroy tissue. In fact, that difference was the entire point of my post. :|

You are of course correct, and I misread your post completely.

[Segev]

It's worth noting that the anime poison varies over whether it corrodes or acts like poison when encountering biological entities. It just tends to corrode non-biological stuff. It's dramatic, but not very realistic.

[Beleriphon]

It's worth noting that the anime poison varies over whether it corrodes or acts like poison when encountering biological entities. It just tends to corrode non-biological stuff. It's dramatic, but not very realistic.

Yeah, a vial of puffer fish poison should be enough to kill somebody in pretty short order, but it wont do much if you pour is all over a desk . At least not to the desk at any rate. Just like rattle snake venom is dramatically horrible when injected into person, but you can in theory drink it straight and wont do anything since it has to enter the blood.

[Vinyadan]

It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man.

Is it water? I've heard that all water drinkers die!

[Stealth Marmot]

Is it water? I've heard that all water drinkers die!

http://i.imgur.com/4dAVRmC.png

[KillianHawkeye]

Is it water? I've heard that all water drinkers die!

Well it is extremely habit-forming. Once addicted to the substance, withdrawal symptoms are fatal in mere days! :smallwink:



On topic, I always figured that poison was purple in Pokemon (try saying that three times fast) because green was already taken by the Grass Type, and purple is sort of a wild card color.

[overlordseamus]

>Sniff< Iocaine Powder. I'd bet my life on it!

Inconceivable!

[minderp]

Inconceivable!

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...