How to make players' text visible "above" the darkness?

Hi all, We're running a dungeon with the dynamic lighting and explorer mode switched on (i.e., everything outside of the players' vision bubbles is either black [unexplored] or grey [fog of war].) One of my players is a classic buffer: his "auras" offer bonuses to hit, damage, recover from wounds, etc. The trouble is, he has a lot of auras going at any given time, and they're constantly changing to boot. Last session, I advised him to use r20's text function (the paintbrush tool) to write his current effects directly onto the map where the other players can see and remember them during their turns. He thought it was a good idea, but was then disappointed to see that his text is not visible in any grey or black areas. What should we do? Is there a simple way to keep a visual reminder of his various buff effects? Remember, the players need to be able to see it easily. And I, as the GM, don't want to get involved if I don't have to. Thanks for your suggestions, Dylan

Does the info for the aura need to follow the character around? If so, then a Mod script (Pro subscription required) would be the best option, as you could easily give the player a macro to update his character's Tooltip so that it could be hovered over and display aura information to all players. If you have a Pro subscription you can also use a script to add items to the Turn Tracker so they are visible for players to see. For a free/plus account, an option is to create a character called 'Aura Info', and use a transparent .png for the token.  I would change the token to be a drawing (it will be easier to move them around and stack them), give the player Edit control of the token Nameplate so they can drag out several copies from the Journal and change the name to whatever their current auras are. (Make sure they have Control of the character, and it's visible in the Journal so they can pull it out themselves, and I would turn off vision as well.)  If the tokens need to be moved around that might be a bit of a pain.   If your players are comfortable looking around the VTT for information and don't need it to follow them around, you could create a walled off space on the map and have the player stick the Aura Info tokens in there, then make sure there is a token controlled by all players with vision and a light source inside so that it is always visible to all the players. 

Why not just put the info in the Tool-tip? It will be visible on a mouse over.

Thank you both for the suggestions.

al e. said: Why not just put the info in the Tool-tip? It will be visible on a mouse over. It's a good suggestion, but the player can't change his own tooltip. So that would be me, the GM, having to rewrite it every time he changed his active auras. I was hoping for something the player could manage on his own.

You could try creating a "bonus" character for that player.  They could then use the name of the token for their text, and would be able to move it as needed to keep it visible.  If they are needing a lot of text, then this might not be workable, since the name field is displayed on a single line.  I didn't play around to see if there was a trick to getting it to use multiple lines so that text wouldn't end up being larger than rooms they might be traveling through.

Kraynic said: You could try creating a "bonus" character for that player.  They could then use the name of the token for their text, and would be able to move it as needed to keep it visible.  If they are needing a lot of text, then this might not be workable, since the name field is displayed on a single line.  I didn't play around to see if there was a trick to getting it to use multiple lines so that text wouldn't end up being larger than rooms they might be traveling through. I did try playing with any tricks to getting multiple lines on the nameplate, but couldn't find any way to do it (%NEWLINE%, Shift-Enter, /n, etc. all didn't work).  I think my suggestion for a 'Aura Info' character that gets pulled out multiple times is going to be the simplest free way to have a player control that information themselves. Another option with the Aura Info character is to give the player Edit access for the bars, and let them put in the information for current auras in the bars and call that information with a macro like this: &{template:traits} {{name=Aura Information}} {{source=Character Name}}{{description=@{selected|bar1} @{selected|bar2} @{selected|bar3}}} The downside is it's limited to three aura effects at a time, and it relies on posting the information into chat, but it would provide easy access to update the info. Lastly, the player could use the Aura Info character and create a custom Feature/Trait, and update it as needed, and call that with a simple macro: %{Aura Info|repeating_traits_$0_output} Again, this relies on posting the information into chat, which may not be ideal, but it allows the player to update the information themselves.