Turn Tracker: Round Count

Something i always think would be useful is if the Turn Tracker could keep a count of how many rounds you've clicked through. Status effects and time-dependent occurrences would be so much easier to keep straight if you knew exactly how many rounds have passed.

One thing I've used with some success is a turn-counter token made from a 20-sided die. Drag one onto the playing field from the chat window, right-click it and set it to the current turn, and right-click to add it to the turn tracker. Then every time it comes up in the turn order, flip it forward one digit. Bit clumsy and time-consuming (entire seconds wasted!!) but it works.

My turn counter is just an image of a d20 that I have one of the players advance every turn. If you would like to automate the process you can use the API (a Mentor level feature).

I keep an token of a map compass on the screen and the following macro in the GM bar: /roll -1 &{tracker:+} Does the trick quite nicely. Should mention the forums were a great help in building this one.

<a href="https://plus.google.com/109659591453191902524/post" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/109659591453191902524/post</a>... Here's a video of the turn tracker in use that I made using the API. Gotta be a mentor though.

Tom said: I keep an token of a map compass on the screen and the following macro in the GM bar: /roll -1 &{tracker:+} Does the trick quite nicely. Should mention the forums were a great help in building this one. I'm sorry you what? I would be very interested in testing your method but I didn't fully understand. What does the compass do and does that macro use it somehow?

Maetco, Sorry for the confusion. First, you'll need a dummy token. I use a compass because it fits the mood, but any token will do – just choose something that you can distinguish from the other tokens. When initiative starts, once everyone has rolled and added their scores to the turn tracker, select the dummy token and execute the "Round Count" macro. You'll see the dummy show up in the tracker with an initiative of -1. After each round has finished, select the dummy token and run the macro again. The dummy's initiative becomes your round clock: –1, –2, –3, –4, etc. Make more sense? It takes a little getting used to. The second game we played, I completely forgot to select the dummy token before executing the macro and got some very odd results. But now that we've had more practice, its running very nicely.

So you have to manually select it for every round or it won't keep track of how many rounds have passed? Wouldn't it just be easier to write it down on paper? Actually, if you have the presence of mind to remember it every round couldn't you just keep a mental count?

Billy, I like having it on the screen where everything else is going on. Otherwise, I'd have to hunt for it when it came up. And I find it takes a lot less presence of mind to remember to click a round counter button than to remember how many rounds have gone on. Again, its not meant to be an ideal solution but it gets the job done without having a Mentor subscription. If you want automation, you'll need to pay for it.

I just thought a little number at the top or bottom of the turn tracker that counted how many times you've clicked through all the turns was a nice idea. Truth be told, i've turned to an android program called "MoFlow" for rolling and tracking initiatives and rounds, as well as some light encounter creation. But i still like the thought of roll20 as its own self-contained world, so i thought i'd suggest something it doesn't have yet.

As far as the suggestion goes; yes it would be very nice to have a little counter on the interface. Especially if it was an object you could call with &{tracker:+} macros. As far as workarounds: I do something similar to the others. I keep a clock token on my maps obscured by GM's Fog of War and have a macro to increment the turn order. /w gm Round: [[ 1 &{tracker:+} ]]. It's not elegant (esp. on large maps where I might have to scroll to get to the token), but it works.

I think it needs to be built in to the turn tracker as none of these work arounds work for card based initiative schemes like Savage Worlds. You deal to initiative and teh round # gets wiped out...