FATE - Wearing the Cape - Variable Macro Name

Greetings, and thank you for your time already! I am currently preparing a Fate Campaign using  Evil Hat FATE Charactersheet.  More precisely, I am preparing a game in the Wearing the Cape FATE System. In that system, some rolls require what is called "Opposition Dice" to be rolled, effectively doubling the normally rolled dice from 4 to 8. I have managed to create a macro that, through the first query, allows the players to pick their respective skills, add a modifier and then choose how many dice are to be rolled with a second query.  However, to really finish the project, I am now trying to make the "Name" of the roll adjust to the chosen Skill and dice number. I want to be able to discern right away if a player might have used the wrong skill. For example, if they would choose the skill "Drive" and choose "yes" on opposition, the name of the roll should reflect that as "Opposition Drive" or something similar. However, I was so far unsuccessful on how I should even approach this, let alone if it is possible? I admit, I kinda went to trial and error through the whole macro until it worked. Anyone got a helping idea here or could explain to me how such a macro would look like (If possible at all)? I would highly appreciate it. I have the current version of the Macro here. Part of it is in German, but I hope it's still discernible what does what. If not I can provide a translated one of course.  Please excuse any spelling errors. Macro: &{template:fateroll} {{theme=evilhat}} {{name=Opposition}} {{roll=[[?{Skills|Akademisches Wissen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Akademisches Wissen}|Athletik, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Athletik}| Charisma, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Charisma}| Fahren, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Fahren}| Heilkunde, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Heilkunde}| Heimlichkeit, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Heimlichkeit}| Kämpfen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Kämpfen}| Kontakte, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Kontakte}| Nachforschung, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Nachforschung}| Präsenz, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Präsenz}| Provozieren, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Provozieren}| Reputation, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Provozieren}| Schießen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Schiessen}| Stärke, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Stärke}| Täuschen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Täuschen}| Technik, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Technik}| Überleben, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Überleben}| Urteilsvermögen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Urteilsvermögen}| Verbrechen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Urteilsvermögen}| Wahrnehmung, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Wahrnehmung}| Willenskraft, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Willenskraft}|}+?{Modifier}+?{Opposition?|No,4|Yes,8}df]]}}

If you want to display the name of the skill and the value rolled, you have two options: switch to a chat menu method (which requires creating an extra macro for each skill), or learn about HTML substitutions (you can create one macro, but it has issues). In your macro, you use the character name: Dein Charakter . Is that the same for each character? How are you taking opponent abilities into account - or do they not apply?

GiGs said: If you want to display the name of the skill and the value rolled, you have two options: switch to a chat menu method (which requires creating an extra macro for each skill), or learn about HTML substitutions (you can create one macro, but it has issues). In your macro, you use the character name: Dein Charakter . Is that the same for each character? How are you taking opponent abilities into account - or do they not apply? Hello and thank you for responding! I will try to answer to the best of my abilities. Can you elaborate on how those options would go down? As I said, I am not even sure how to approach it since I have no idea how to "link" the name to the respective skill ^^'. I am not asking you to write me a macro of course, but a little example would be nice, so I can imagine it a bit better and trial and error my way through it again. If you could point me in a direction, I would be very grateful. As for your questions: 1) Dein Charakter literally translates to Your Character. I created a sheet with that name, so I can test the macro. When it's all done, I can either just search and replace that with the respective character's name or tell my players to do it themselves. I mostly did it because I felt like it was easy to organize. 2) Opponent abilities do apply to a degree. But not enough / in a way that would require them to be specifically mentioned in a macro on the player side that could not be covered by simple taking it into account via the modifier option or just comparing numbers. As I explained before, the game has a mechanic called "Active Resistance" or "Opposition Dice". Normally you roll 4 Fate dice and add the modifiers you get from aspects, stunts and the respective skill you are using. If you get enough "Successes" compared to the set Difficulty, you succeed. This is called "Passive Resistance" If you are performing an Action against targets that are aware of you and trying to counter your Action (such as other characters), or  are naturally reactive, dynamic, or unpredictable (active security systems, large fires, automated countermeasures, etc.) then you  are facing "Active Opposition" and will add the four Opposition Dice to your roll. At that point, you check what could be the difficulty. This could be set by an opposing rating derived from the opponent's skills and aspects, for example. When it comes down to it, almost every time there is only a single roll made. Mostly by the player.  Given that, it makes sense to have a macro for it (at least in my head), that allows to add all the potential things that could work in your favor and lets you set the number of dice once you roll.  It's also why I felt it would be very near to have the Name of the roll change according to what has been picked, since it makes it a bit more clear what is going on in a group of different people. Right now it just says "Active Resistance" from the first few versions of the macro.  I also tried to make the macro more clear and translated it to the best of my abilities. I hope that helps! &{template:fateroll} {{theme=evilhat}} {{name= Active Resistance }} {{roll=[[?{Skills|Academic Knowledge, @{Your Character|Skill-Academic Knowledge}|Athletics, @{Your Character|Skill-Athletics}| Charisma, @{Your Character|Skill-Charisma}| Driving, @{Your Character|Skill-Driving}| Healing, @{Your Character|Skill-Healing}| Stealth, @{Your Character|Skill-Stealth}| Fighting, @{Your Character|Skill-Fighting}| Contacts, @{Your Character|Skill-Contacts}| Investigation, @{Your Character|Skill-Investigation}| Presence, @{Your Character|Skill-Presence}| Provoke, @{Your Character|Skill-Provoke}| Reputation, @{Your Character|Skill-Provoke}| Shooting, @{Your Character|Skill-Shooting}| Strength, @{Your Character|Skill-Strength}| Deception, @{Your Character|Skill-Deception}| Technique, @{Your Character|Skill-Technique}| Survival, @{Your Character|Skill-Survival}| Judgment, @{Your Character|Skill-Judgment}| Crime, @{Your Character|Skill-Crime}| Perception, @{Your Character|Skill-Perception}| Willpower, @{Your Character|Skill-Willpower}|}+?{Modifier}+?{what to roll?|Passive Resistance (Normal),4|Active Resistance,8}df]]}}

Before looking at the rest, you might find it worthwhile to change {Dein Character| to {selected| . This requires each character to have a token assigned to them (in the Represents drop down, select that character), but automatically uses the ratings of that character. You don't need to manually change the name. You can then use selected in any macro, and it will draw from that character.

So, in your macro, you have this section: {{roll=[[?{Skills|Akademisches Wissen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Akademisches Wissen}|Athletik, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Athletik}| Charisma, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Charisma}| Fahren, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Fahren}| Heilkunde, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Heilkunde}| Heimlichkeit, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Heimlichkeit}| Kämpfen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Kämpfen}| Kontakte, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Kontakte}| Nachforschung, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Nachforschung}| Präsenz, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Präsenz}| Provozieren, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Provozieren}| Reputation, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Provozieren}| Schießen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Schiessen}| Stärke, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Stärke}| Täuschen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Täuschen}| Technik, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Technik}| Überleben, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Überleben}| Urteilsvermögen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Urteilsvermögen}| Verbrechen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Urteilsvermögen}| Wahrnehmung, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Wahrnehmung}| Willenskraft, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Willenskraft}|}+?{Modifier}+?{what to roll?|Passive Resistance (Normal),4|Active Resistance,8}df]]}} You dont need and should remove that last pipe (the | symbol). For ease of explanation, let's imagine that's {{roll=[[?{Skills| Akademisches Wissen, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Akademisches Wissen}| Athletik, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Athletik}| Charisma, @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Charisma}}+?{Modifier}+?{what to roll?|Passive Resistance (Normal),4|Active Resistance,8}df]]}} With the single macro method, you'd need to start with something like this: {{skill=[[?{Skills| Akademisches Wissen,Akademisches Wissen}} {{roll=@{Dein Charakter|Skill-Akademisches Wissen}| Athletik,Athletik }} {{roll=@{Dein Charakter|Skill-Athletik}| Charisma,Charisma }} {{roll=@{Dein Charakter|Skill-Charisma}}+?{Modifier}+?{what to roll?|Passive Resistance (Normal),4|Active Resistance,8}df]]}} This is because a query isn't just for numbers - it reproduces the full text inside each query item, and that can include numbers. However this doesn't work as is, because certain symbols inside a query are used by the query , like comma, pipes, and }. Attribute references are ignored here, so @{Dein Charakter|Skill-Athletik} is fine. But the }} in a roll template is not. The way around this is to include html entities, these are different ways of representing a character. They are changed into the character they represent, but crucially, this occcurs after the text is queries to see if } characters exist. So this would be changed to something like {{skill=[[?{Skills| Akademisches Wissen,Akademisches Wissen }} {{roll=@{Dein Charakter|Skill-Akademisches Wissen}| Athletik,Athletik }} {{roll=@{Dein Charakter|Skill-Athletik}| Charisma,Charisma }} {{roll=@{Dein Charakter|Skill-Charisma}}+?{Modifier}+?{what to roll?|Passive Resistance (Normal),4|Active Resistance,8}df]]}} This is because }} will be processed and then become }} The big problem with html entities is they are processed every time a macro containing them is opened. So if you store this in your macro collection, you cannot open the macro ever again. If you store this as an ability on a character sheet, this processing doesn't happen,  so they are safe there. The alternative would be to create a chat menu, which doesn't include HTML sibstitions, but need a lot more macros (1 per skill, plus one extra). You'd have a calling macro, that look like this: /w "@{selected|character_name}" &{template:fateroll} {{theme=evilhat}} {{name= Active Resistance }} {{roll=[Academic Knowledge](~Skill-AcademicKnowledge) [Athletics](~Skill-Athletics) [Charisma] (~Skill-Charisma) }} That is the entirety of the macro. Each skill macro would have the name shown after the ~ symbol, and the following macro text: &{template:fateroll} {{theme=evilhat}} {{name= Academic Knowledge}} {{roll=[[@{selected|Skill-Academic Knowledge}+?{Modifier}+?{what to roll?|Passive Resistance (Normal),4|Active Resistance,8}df]]}} They'd all be stored in your Macros collection. I prefer the chat manu method. Once setup, it's more versatile (you can roll specific skills easily), and you avoid the macro being broken by use of entity substitutions. But they can be  a bit more work to set up initially. Chat menus take up more chat space, but crucually with the /w command, they only take up extra space for the person calling that macro. Other people don't see the chat menu.

Thank you! Those were exactly the pointers I was hoping for! Also, a big thank you from my future players, I might have to do both to give them some choices... We will see. I will do my best over the next few weeks to figure it out :) Thank you!