Macro Buttons: Organization

Edit: Edit: Cause a few people have made suggestions since this thread started, I'm going to edit in the quotes for ideas. If you have any yourself, then mention them below MeMeMe said: I'd love to see more maptool functionality in RPTools macros. The macro section tab on the Settings tab really should be a popout tab so we can have it available at the same time as we view chat. Or relocate it to float at the top of the char bar and always remain visible. (Might be impractical if you have a lot of macros). But that would be a great place to put a list of favourite macros. Samuel T. said: +1 a drop down qualifier for queries would make my save macro so much cleaner! Currently I just have one macro but it rolls all 3 of my saves at the same time. ( I believe this was in responce to: ) Idealy, in order to keep macros small , I'd try and create it in such a way so that it could ask for a Query and take a Roll20 Attribute Value but i don't think you can take Attributes into a query. (i.e. i tried making one that did: /r @{Agility}d6+?{type @ plus skill name}d6 ) Original Post below: Okay, I'm not sure if this has come up before, but I'd like to make a suggestion for a future update. Stacked and organized Macro buttons the main reason for this comes from the fact that the Macro Bar is tiny and gets really cluttered if you add more and more buttons. The core of this idea is: Setting out a Macro menu, so when you click a button or as part of the Right Click Menu, you see a List of Macros that you can go through and then hide at will. an ideal expanded feature would be having the menus nested, so that when you mouse over a category, you see all the Macros within. I.E. You mouse over "attack" and all the Macro's you set up under attack pop up next to it Attack Attack1 Attack2 Defense Defense1 Buff Buff1 Buff2 Buff3 etc For context behind this idea, as a GM I am trying to run a game where all rolls are done by taking multiple stats and adding them together for the number of dice rolled. (not shadowrun) but this is a system where having a lot of preset up Macros would be really useful

Token Actions may solve this problem for you. <a href="http://blog.roll20.net/post/65696743157/context-is-key-rugged-reroll-dev-blog-5" rel="nofollow">http://blog.roll20.net/post/65696743157/context-is-key-rugged-reroll-dev-blog-5</a> They are expected to make the move to the Production server December 16th.

yeah, that's what got me thinking about it. but from what it seems like it might just be a secondary bar, which would still run into the space problem. This suggest is taking the idea that you might be using two dozen or more macros and then being able to show/hide them at will.

Question: How many macros do you need per token?

Gauss said: Question: How many macros do you need per token? I know the NPCs I built had 2-3 in addition to attack and damage (which have to be two separate abilities due to circumstance modifiers): stealt. Notice and Resolve. So that's five right there. It adds up quick when you have minions, lieutenants and villains all involved in the same fight. tom

Tom , that is exactly the situation the Token Actions are intended to resolve. Only those Abilities linked to the token will show up when you click the token. Lets assume you have 5 Abilities per character sheet/token. You have 5 tokens on the table. Using the macro bar you would have 25 Ability macros. However, when using the Token Action bar you would only see the 5 linked to a specific token.

Don't forget skill checks. The game I play has 20 skills. Other games have many more. I've got 5 attack types, then things like trip, disarm, feint, bull-rush, grapple, etc. 3 saving throws, initiative... We're talking potentially 30+ macros. This doesn't even cover damage, which are token macros anyway, and spells, etc. Here is a sample of what MapTool looks like with even a simple system like D&D 4E (at least I think that's what this is.)

Lifer4700 said: Snip Wow, that's impressive. At the moment i am a player in a 4E game which is where me and a friend started to experiment with Macros. We discovered that we would be making Macros for both Attack and then Damage (like the picture above) The Game i'm directly looking at is based on the original d6 system, where your dice pool is gained from both stats and then skills using those stats. (e.g. I have 2 points of Agility and then 4 points of long jump, so i roll 6d6 on a long jump) For that game, the average amount of flat out macros, without any inventive work, would be about 30ish, although ranging from 24 to 36 as well. Lifer's example of 4th Ed is a good example of another system though, which also made me think that while the Token Actions are useful for basic actions or for GMs with Enemies that have small ability pools, most games still would run into the same problems as the Macro Bar for space, especially for the players.

Out of curiosity, what is the difference between bringing up an entire macro screen (as shown above) in order to hit your desired macro versus Alt+double clicking on the token to bring up your character sheet and then hitting the macro's roll button that way? Lifer, I usually find that in my Pathfinder games I do not need more than 7 macros on the quick-bar. Melee Attack and damage (one macro), Ranged attack and damage (one macro), Initiative, Saves (one macro), Knowledge skills (one macro), Perception, Stealth. If I want to access the more rarely used macros I can use the Alt+double click shortcut to get to my macro list and just click on it there. My previous comment regarding 5 Abilities was as a GM. As a GM I usually need even fewer macros since most NPCs are narrow in focus.

I suppose the main difference is that it would look cleaner and use less space on the page really. But yeah, I'm trying out a way of using as much of the tools that Roll20 gives to make a game run where the players are more into the story and less into the dice, so giving the players a way to just click and be done is useful. aka what the Macro Bar is used for, but on a greater scale

Ivan , perhaps if you could explain what you are using macros for I could suggest ways to simplify them. For example, you mentioned dice pools. Queries are a good way to reduce dice pool macros down to one macro. Instead of a variety of macros for each possible number of dice it prompts you for the number of dice to roll.

Aaactually... Suddenly had a thought for another Suggestion.. This really is thinking Major update feature though. and probably Mentor/Subscriber Feature as well if there was an official sharing place. or maybe have an import thing, and then community votes on the best ones per system that can be used as default.. But it could be a good idea to have users be able to create Character Sheets and Macros as a template where the player just has to fill in blanks.. although would require a new framework to be able to deal with situations of "If player has {ability}" Edit after seeing Gauus: Okay, in d6 the system works as You have a set of Attributes which you allocate a number of dice to. You then have skills, which each rank of them you have, you roll an extra D6. For example, Agility 2 Longjump 4 Stealth 3 Idealy, in order to keep macros small , I'd try and create it in such a way so that it could ask for a Query and take a Roll20 Attribute Value but i don't think you can take Attributes into a query. (i.e. i tried making one that did: /r @{Agility}d6+?{type @ plus skill name}d6 )

In the macro you can write attributes into a query as the default but you cannot put in an attribute in the query window. One thing you could do is if you have a list of commonly combined attributes you can use switches. Example: /r @{Agility}d6 +(@{name1}*?{switch1|0})d6 +(@{name2}*?{switch2|0})d6 The drawback here is that you would get two query popups each time. However, if they are not commonly used it shouldn't slow down things too much. If you would like assistance shrinking the number of macros involved I can take a look at your macros and see if I can figure something out.

I've taken conversation about my specific macros to a PM because it's more about dealing with the fact roll20 doesn't have a lot of support for the d6 system. The main idea for this topic is a suggestion that it would be a good idea to refine how the Macro's a presented in order to deal with large ammounts of Macros

Gauss said: Tom , that is exactly the situation the Token Actions are intended to resolve. Only those Abilities linked to the token will show up when you click the token. Lets assume you have 5 Abilities per character sheet/token. You have 5 tokens on the table. Using the macro bar you would have 25 Ability macros. However, when using the Token Action bar you would only see the 5 linked to a specific token. I know. It's a feature I'm eagerly awaiting!

Gauss said: Out of curiosity, what is the difference between bringing up an entire macro screen (as shown above) in order to hit your desired macro versus Alt+double clicking on the token to bring up your character sheet and then hitting the macro's roll button that way? Lifer, I usually find that in my Pathfinder games I do not need more than 7 macros on the quick-bar. Melee Attack and damage (one macro), Ranged attack and damage (one macro), Initiative, Saves (one macro), Knowledge skills (one macro), Perception, Stealth. If I want to access the more rarely used macros I can use the Alt+double click shortcut to get to my macro list and just click on it there. My previous comment regarding 5 Abilities was as a GM. As a GM I usually need even fewer macros since most NPCs are narrow in focus. Well, in MapTool you don't bring up the macro window separately. It's normally always up, although you could open and close it. If you would imagine say 1/3 to 1/2 the chat window taken up, that's very common. Although since it is completely flexible, players can size and position that window anywhere, even on a 2nd monitor. And that's not a single window, that's three, and they can be arranged to be visible simultaneously, or pushed into the same window as tabs. (swing Java) I think the biggest thing is the "one stop shop" for buttons. Right now, I have my players trained to go to the bottom of the screen for attacks, saves, and initiative (since that can be easily pulled from character sheets), then to the top for damage and other abilities (since that's individual), but they also have to go to the right for attacks or abilities they don't use often, or for skill checks. Granted not every skill is going to be used all the time, but in the system I play, not every viable combat option is based on BAB+Str/Dex. For example, Trip is Acrobatics, Grapple is Athletics, Threaten is Intimidate, Feint is Prestidigitation, Tire is Resolve, etc. As for attacks, 2 buttons would work for pathfinder - one ranged and one melee. However, with the system I play, weapons are grouped by main catagory (edge, blunt, hurled, etc), and also by type (sword, mace, dagger, axe, etc). Each individual weapon can have an advantage. For example, a fencing weapon is one player's main weapon, since his feats are focused on that fighting style, But he also carries a bow for longer range. There's your two. However, he also carries a hatchet in the other hand when he's fencing, since it gives a bonus to trip, has the armor piercing and hurled quality. It's all about versatility I suppose, now that I think about it, I could simply add in a Query to account for such differences. Ok, that's one down. But what about saves? How did you do saves with only a single macro? Pathfinder uses the same 3 I use, Fort, Ref, Will. As far as I know, we don't get a drop-down selection to be able to choose which save to roll. Or do you simply roll all three? Oh, and I must mention that I personally don't play 4E, I just found that as a good example that I've seen before. Here's another that shows a Pathfinder setup, I believe. Ignore the stuff on the lower left, that's just the pop-up character reference.

Hey! I just discovered that there is a scroll bar for the macros if they overflow! Was that there the whole time, or was this just added recently? That goes a long way toward helping. 8)

It has been there the whole time. :) Here is my save macro (in it's simple form, it can be more complex): Fort: [[1d20+@{fort}]] Reflex: [[1d20+@{reflex}]] Will: [[1d20+@{will}]] I do skills like knowledges in a similar way. If you would like me to come take a look at your macros and suggest ways to reduce them let me know.

I don't have them all yet. I'm still adding as I go. I'm trying to avoid extraneous rolls and also trying to avoid having the players use the /roll command or the die-o-log because of the overly spammy output. I have my "all-player" macros for attack (5) (to which I will add in a query for misc additions or subtractions), initiative (1), and saves (3), and action die buttons (2) (which I will reduce to 1 button with a query). So 10 total so far. Of the 5 attack macros, most players will only have 1-3 of them active on the bottom, so overall, we're at no more than 6-8 right now. Then I have my "token-based" damage macros for each weapon that a player carries. The most bristly player has 4 different weapons, so that's 4 buttons up top for them. I hadn't added in skills and non-weapon attacks yet, since I was still planning them out, but the plan is to make them "all-player" as well. I'd really like a drop-down qualifier. For instance, if the user clicks "Save", then a dialog with a drop-down appears, and they select Fort, Ref, or Will. (or a set of radio buttons, whatever). Then it just rolls the proper save. This will be the perfect fit for skills and non-weapon attack actions.

+1 a drop down qualifier for queries would make my save macro so much cleaner! Currently I just have one macro but it rolls all 3 of my saves at the same time.

I'd love to see more maptool functionality in RPTools macros. The macro section tab on the Settings tab really should be a popout tab so we can have it available at the same time as we view chat. Or relocate it to float at the top of the char bar and always remain visible. (Might be impractical if you have a lot of macros). But that would be a great place to put a list of favourite macros.

Those are good ideas, I'm going to edit my original post to include them