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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35254
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35254
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There are a couple of ways that you could utilize, but changing the style often comes with problems. Some of these problems you have already encountered:

- **bold text** is very nice to draw attention to something, but it's the kind of attention that draws the eyes of the reader across the whole page - be careful about using this too often; it's nice to emphasize something or to use it for one or two really powerful (think Endboss) spells, but you probably shouldn't use it every single time
- _italics_ are a nice way to show a difference while not being as invasive as bold text; the problem is that italics are sometimes used for different things like you already outlined, which might confuse a reader
- underlining text is another possibility, but especially in these times of e-books you should be careful to not make your text look like a Hyperlink or explanation; this is rarely used and distracts quite a bit; if you have Hyperlinks in addition to underlining skills things will get complicated and confusing for the reader really fast

Other ways to emphasize stuff could be:

- _use a different font_, such as a [Monospace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monospaced_font) font; Monospace is not as nice to read for most people, but they allow you to have a simple way of showing that something is _different_; by writing your skills in a Monospace font it will be very easy for readers to see that something is different, even if it's the first time they encounter it as a change in font is used very rarely in fictinal writing
- _use a catch phrase_ to show that what follows is a skill; it could be that you just spell the word "Skill" like "Skill: _Stand Behind Me_" or abbreviated to an "S"; this is pretty easy and after using this one or two times nobody will be confused; it does add a bit of extra stuff to read and to remember when writing though and it's not necessarily the nicest thing to read; in an RPG context it might not be such a big problem though
- _use other kinds of [brackets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket)/ quotation marks/..._ such as [Guillemets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillemet) ("« Stand Behind Me »") or simply an additional hyphen ("- Stand Behind Me -"); in these cases you could also remove the normal quotation marks to make it more obvious that this is not something that is spoken if you don't have spoken incantations; just be careful, different countries use different kinds of brackets/quotation marks and it might lead to weird results depending on your target audience
- _CAPSLOCK_ is normally used to indicate someone screaming or for example describing how an advertisement is _written in big letters_; it could be used to indicate that something is different as long as you don't use it in one of those other contexts, but it draws quite a bit of attention - not as much as bold text, but more than italics
- _lowercaps_ looks a bit like typos at first, but if you continually use it your readers will quickly pick up on it (thanks to [Kevin for the suggestion](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/35252/multiple-ways-to-emphasise-words/35254?noredirect=1#comment54886_35254))
- _CamelCaps_ looks probably quite weird for every non-programmer, but would be an effective way to establish your _incantations_ in contrast to normal speech
- _write it in the middle of the line_ to establish a difference from everything else that is being said; this draws a lot of attention and can get boring fast if you are regularly using skills; but if they are something rare and special it could be useful; just be aware of the _draw attention across the whole page_ effect similar to bold text 
- _use a different size_ if you want to make sure that it's different from the surrounding speech; this is similar to capslock, but not quite as invasive if you are only increasing the font size by one or two points (can also be used with smaller/lowercase, but that would make a skill less special, so I'd recommend against it)
- _use a different language_ if all your communication will be in English and the target audience is only in English-speaking countries you could choose for example German spells; just be careful that German fans might find Fan-translations and find you spells a bit weird; you could of course try to create your own language snippets (no need for a complete language) and offer a "translation" the first time and in a glossary at the back; as long as the snippets are sufficiently different your readers will know what your protagonist has just cast after maybe two or three times; it's of course more work, a bit harder on the reader and might potentially limit your reader base

Original score: 7