Couple of Questions from a MapTools user

Hello, I'm quite new to Roll20, but previously ran my Rise of the Runelords campaign on Maptools on a television, played in the same room around a table. Due to players moving, we decided to move to Roll20 and play remotely. The good news is I have most of my digital content created in Maptools, and just need to "migrate" it over. However, I have a few questions based on how I'm used to things working, or what my expectations may be, and not having a deep understanding of Roll20 just yet. So I have a few questions I was hoping could be simple enough to answer. I'm not trying to compare or contrast the tools, I'm just looking to mimic what I am used to. Is there a way to hide the initiative tracker from the players, or only allow them to see PC's? I've read that I can hide the names of NPCs, and move tokens to the GM layer to somewhat accomplish this. In our at the table games with Maptool, they just didn't see the initiative tracker, and I handled letting them know when it was there turn, and allowed them to hold actions, etc. I just adjusted the turn tracker. Is there a way to get tooltips / popups when I select a token in anyway to reveal the notes, without having to edit / double click the object? Examples are the DM notes / objects. In Maptool, I can click on the object, and a frame appears with public notes and DM notes which I can easily read. Other examples are locations the PC's know about. I have tooltips available for them to read whenever they want. I'm thinking handouts have something like this, but I don't know if I can link them to objects on the map to easily pop them up. In this example, when I the DM click the Sandpoint Cathedral Label, I can see all of the text below and the image. When the players click the same label, they only see the image and the top portion of the text. Token Images vs. Portraits. In Maptool, you have the token image, and the Portrait of the character it represents. I think to use a face image on my tokens, by players can hover over an NPC and see the full image of it to get a really good idea of what it looks like. This is almost the same thing as I mentioned above, in that in Maptools it's built into the tooltip in the lower left corner. For NPCs and PCs this can also include quick stats, which I get I can use with the 3 bubbles. In this example, when the players hover over Ameiku's Token, they see her full portrait in the lower left. When I as the DM hover over her, I see her stats as well, which are convenient for quick reference.

Hi Jeremy, Welcome to Roll20. While Roll20 doesn't have an exact replica of a lot of what you are asking about, I'll share the ways in which I accomplish these tasks in my campaign. Jeremy R. said: Is there a way to hide the initiative tracker from the players, or only allow them to see PC's? I've read that I can hide the names of NPCs, and move tokens to the GM layer to somewhat accomplish this. In our at the table games with Maptool, they just didn't see the initiative tracker, and I handled letting them know when it was there turn, and allowed them to hold actions, etc. I just adjusted the turn tracker. The only way is to have the token associated with the initiative on a different page or the gm layer. Is there a way to get tooltips / popups when I select a token in anyway to reveal the notes, without having to edit / double click the object? Examples are the DM notes / objects. In Maptool, I can click on the object, and a frame appears with public notes and DM notes which I can easily read. Other examples are locations the PC's know about. I have tooltips available for them to read whenever they want. I'm thinking handouts have something like this, but I don't know if I can link them to objects on the map to easily pop them up. I make a global macro for my npc's. I'm using the pathfinder sheet, so all NPC's have the same abilities/attributes. I make this global macro a token action and then when I select an NPC I can simply click my details, attacks, defenses, etc macro to output the relevant stats to the chat window. For locations, I use a fully transparent .png image and then give it a 0 radius square aura and change the settings so that the aura is gm only visible, I also make this an image rather than a token so that the bubbles don't pop up when I select it (this will be useful for the next step). Set this generic, aura'd transparent .png as a character so that you can just drag it out whenever you need to create a note. I store the notes in the bars of the token, allowing me to access them via this macro: /desc @{selected|bar1} /w gm @{selected|bar2} This allows me to have hidden note tokens scattered across the map on the object layer so that I don't have to flip back and forth between layers to find my notes on rooms, locations, or scripted events. In addition, the macro handles sending basic room descriptions to the players in chat so that they can scroll back to remind themselves of relevant details after I've told them what the room looked like. What the output of my room description looks like for a set of forcefields I had blocking the party's progress. Token Images vs. Portraits. In Maptool, you have the token image, and the Portrait of the character it represents. I think to use a face image on my tokens, by players can hover over an NPC and see the full image of it to get a really good idea of what it looks like. This is almost the same thing as I mentioned above, in that in Maptools it's built into the tooltip in the lower left corner. For NPCs and PCs this can also include quick stats, which I get I can use with the 3 bubbles. Kind of jumped the gun, and answered this at the start of the last answer. Here's some images showing how I've got it set up: My NPC token action macros and my room description macro. Because they are global macros and set as token actions, they show up on all tokens I select, but I don't have to remake them for every monster/room. Some of the output from the above macros, The red templates are directly from the token actions. The black ones are from the buttons available in the top red one.

This is super helpful, thank you very much. One question, when you said For locations, I use a fully transparent .png image and then give it a 0 radius square aura and change the settings so that the aura is gm only visible, I also make this an image rather than a token so that the bubbles don't pop up when I select it (this will be useful for the next step). How to I change something from being a token vs. an Image? I just assumed that every object I dropped on the play area was a token.

It's in the right click menu of a token. And I apologize, I misworded that, you want to set it as "is drawing". This will make it so the bubbles don't show up and it doesn't snap to the grid. Glad you found it useful. Happy Rolling.

A little along the lines of one of the questions I posted before. When I from an NPC choose Show to Players, what exactly do they see? Can they see the character sheet, or just the Bio information? this would allow me to have things that the characters can click on and see information about. But I don't want them to see the underlying character sheet. Mostly just the image of the NPC (which is different from the token).

You only see the character sheet and attributes/abilities tab if you control the character. If you just have it in your journal (what happens when "showing to players") you only see the bio tab.

Awesome, thanks! I may just use character images as map notes then too.

Okay, I'm jumping back and forth as GM and Player. Is there a way, without giving the players control to allow them to select tokens? So they can, like me, double click on it to see the bio info?

sort of, make a global macro with this as the content: **[@{target|character_name}]( <a href="https://journal.roll20.net/character/@{target|character_id})**" rel="nofollow">https://journal.roll20.net/character/@{target|character_id})**</a> It'll output a link to the character's journal entry to chat.

Scott C. said: sort of, make a global macro with this as the content: **[@{target|character_name}]( <a href="https://journal.roll20.net/character/@{target|character_id})**" rel="nofollow">https://journal.roll20.net/character/@{target|character_id})**</a> It'll output a link to the character's journal entry to chat. You are my hero Scott C. You and Vince have been extremely helpful the last several days I'm migrating from Maptool to Roll20!

Welcome to Roll20 then, feel free to ask any questions you have here or in new threads.

Okay, so I'm getting somewhere interesting now. Player tokens have character sheets associated with them. I have a bunch of handouts I'm using for location information for the players, and DM notes for me. So I got the following macro to work well just like the character sheet macro based on your feedback above. Bar one contains a link to the DM notes for me, or location notes for the players. /me **[@{target|token_name}](@{target|bar1})** Is there a way to put a conditional statement on these two macros (the one you posted above, and the one I just listed) that is based if the token IsDrawing or HasCharacterSheet or something? So can I do something like this? /me if(IsCharacter, **[@{target|character_name}]( <a href="https://journal.roll20.net/character/@{target|character_id})**" rel="nofollow">https://journal.roll20.net/character/@{target|character_id})**</a> ,&nbsp;**[@{target|token_name}](@{target|bar1})**,)

Unfortunately, the macro system doesn't support if/then syntax.