Here's an Idea: Speech Bubbles Coming from Tokens!

I think a good way to add some immersion in a game would be to have speech bubbles pop up on Character tokens you're chatting as. Speech bubbles could help display things like emotes, battle cries, or misc. banter that players and the GM can type in chat to add a little bit of flavor to the tabletop. They would pop-up for a little while and then fade away, very similar to how some videogames (particularly MMOs) display chat text as pop-ups in the world as well as in the chat log. They could also display roll results as well—without the messiness of the formula that comes with it as it does in the chat log, making it easier for people to pick out results. This would work especially well when multiple players are using the dice roller or their macros at the same time, like during initiative. Here's a quick mockup I made of what I imagine a scene of the party's warlord taking a critical hit from a Blade Spider would look like with speech bubbles: The styling would be seamless with the current graphic system of the chat log. Combine it with a cathartic little "ping" sound when a bubble shows up, and it'll give the illusion of a very active scene with an almost "videogamey" quality.

Heh. I love this idea. :)

This is a pretty awesome idea, little speech bubbles coming out of tokens would be so cool! If the token had a tickbox or something to "speak as controlling character" or whatever, in a similar way that health bars and other attributes are linked between the character and the token.

This sounds like an awesome idea/feature. I support this wholeheartedly.

Great idea, could see it even when in other side menus!

That would be a neat idea.  Some may not want the feature - should be optional, but I think it would actually aid in immersion.

This is brilliant, and I would love it

Wow. The elusive obvious.  Nerds rule.  Nice goin' comic guy. Fantastic idea.

This idea is one of those "Why didn't I think of this?!" An awesome idea.

Have the option as All/Some/None - the some setting is triggered by a / command such as /emote  SPOON!!

^ Yes, it definitely would be more convenient to be optional and/or have filters. I'm glad I'm not the only one who would like this. This is something my players and I thought would be nice, even back when we used MapTools. My players would even draw in their own speech bubbles in (usually for comedic effect), and it always made the VTT feel more dynamic.

Much clearer than the sidebar as well. Thought bubbles, speech balloons, and narrative boxes. Color coding / token would help too. "The color and the shape" Yeah. Good times. Wonder if it would have some additional applications re: traps, items, and hiddens too?

Bump, Great idea hope this gets implemented.

+1 for fun

+1 ! Very good idea !

Something to look forward to. Gets my vote

+1 to the idea and specifically Oliver .O's Concept image, it should help keep our eyes on the action not having to browse through the chat. One question Oliver is how long should the text stay visible on the Screen?

I'm with Jay on that one - almost all the GM's I've played with do most of their conversation outside of the UI (Skype, G+, etc) and so aren't necessarily reading everything on the tabletop as it happens. I'd also be worried about the lag potential (since dynamic lighting has already given me a bit of that in testing). Having some filtering for it would be good though; especially in you've got players who macro powers and rolls - you wouldn't want half a screen of flavor text and power description popping up, and then disappearing 3 seconds later!

Jay said: +1 to the idea and specifically Oliver .O's Concept image, it should help keep our eyes on the action not having to browse through the chat. One question Oliver is how long should the text stay visible on the Screen? Good question... I'd leave that stuff to their UE designer! But if that were me, I'd say only for a few seconds and maybe have them be able to close prematurely if you clicked on them. Also, I think having a limit to the maximum amount of bubbles one can have displayed at a time would help prevent massive clutter and abusers.

I like this idea a lot. I don't run games with tokens, but if I did .... I could see where it would be helpful. +1

This a great idea!  +1

I can dig +1 from me to, have you also thought of whispers being like thought bubbles or just how they would work?

+1 this be good stuff!

I  can see some extra added fun times ahead with my group - if we had chat bubbles.  So a BIG +1 from Me

Just throwing in another +1 from me. Sounds like a great idea!

Tate said: I can dig +1 from me to, have you also thought of whispers being like thought bubbles or just how they would work? My players and I have never had an instance where we used whispers, so I hadn't given it a thought...  I think it'd be the least important of all the kinds of bubbles that could potentially displayed. In videogames that inspired this idea, a whisper would usually only be present in the in-game chat log and not produce a bubble. But, I do understand how some people could want it since it makes a message within view in case you were playing around in another section of the right sidebar.

Hi people.  I'm new to the community and thought I'd make my first post.  (Don't be hating ;) )  I agree the this being an option.  I'd have to say I think this actually detracts from the immersion of a RPG.  The more artificial elements you introduce to the system away from human interaction, the closer you get to a computer game/MMO.  Some people want to play like this, so I support the idea, but only as an option. 

+1 Enough goes on at the sidebar. Should leave that section to all the roll results, etc. And if you want to review the speech bubbs convo, another tab could be placed to see the conversation.

+1 I would recommend doing chat bubbles and leaving the sidebar chat there as well so people can go back and re-read stuff.

i do like the idea of chat bubbles, would be nice if you could have them on a set time they are up, have a close button on the bubble, or just leave them turned off. But yeah i think it would be a great addition with the sidebar chat

This Sounds like a fantastic Idea, I hope it gets implemented :)

+1

Awesome idea. +1 to this.

Oh, I have not had the chance to use Roll20 extensively yet, but I would have loved speech bubbles as an aid in previous VTT games. +1! Once the system is in place it'd be cool to have multiple bubble skins (thought bubbles, scream, etc) and maybe even fonts as well. 

Great idea! +1

+1 would LOVE LOVE LOVE this... and a screenshot capture button, because I would probably be hitting it every new map...

+10 :-) Or +1, whatever makes you happy :-)

+1

+1

+1

Yes, this so much, +1

a Simple but very good Idea

awesome idea

+1

Make this happen!

yeah +1 definitely!

Sorry to bring up an older thread but...+1 !!!! There have been 830 views of this thread.  I think everyone thinks this would be a great idea!  Along with having the chat window autohide.

+1

I'll drop another +1 on this thread.

It's a nice to surprise to see so much positive response for this idea. In the meantime, my players have resorted to litter the map drawing ovals and using the text tool. Tacky, but lulz-worthy.

+1