How to hide monster names from players?

Ok, so my idea of story-telling involves the player characters not knowing everything about a creature they encounter, the first time they encounter it, or maybe even the second.  In my concept of story-telling, the characters get a description of the creature, and maybe something about how it behaves, but to find out what it is, and more about it, they have to go to a town, describe it to other people there, and maybe get a name, and more information about it.  If you read any novel, this is generally how the story unfolds - the main hero (or heroes) doesn't know everything there is to know about the creatures they face the first time they encounter it.  They have to turn to some other, more knowledgeable, more experienced character (like Gandalf) to explain it to them. Roll20 doesn't seem to allow this.  It's difficult to hide creatures from the players.  Yes, I can turn off the display of the names on the tokens.  Yes, I can figure out ways to not put the creature name in the turn tracker - it's a work-around at best.  But, when I roll one of their abilities, or a saving throw for the creature, the creature name pops up in the chat!  I can't click on any clickable item on their character sheet (or use a token action) without the creature's name appearing in the chat for all the players to see! I'm currently playing 5e using Roll20's 5e OGL sheet (although player sheet doesn't really matter, does it?)  But, this is an even more important thing in other role-playing systems such as Call of Cthulhu where the players are not supposed to know what they're facing at all because that's part of the mystery!!  Part of the fun, the excitement!  Characters are supposed to go and research dusty old tomes for information that they might not find, or, when they do, they suffer a penalty like sanity loss! So, is there any real way to hide the monster names from the players?  And, if not, why not?  This seems to me like it should be a basic function. Or maybe I'm missing something?  Being new to roll20, I haven't found all the ins and outs yet and maybe there's some mysterious flag somewhere that will handle this.  If so, will some kindly ole Gandalf please tell me where it is? :-) Thanks.

My workaround is naming the creatures with player-friendly names.  'Cranky Halfling' instead of "Isabella", for example.  If they learn her name, I rename the character journal.

Well, that might be fine for "named NPCs", but not monsters.  If I have set up an encounter with (to take a recent example) 3 wights and a wraith but the characters have never encountered a wight or a wraith before, and shouldn't know what they are, the fact that when I do an attack (for example) "wight" or "wraith" appears in the text chat under the attack roll indicating exactly what creature it was.  That's a 5e example.  A similar example from, say, Call of Cthulhu: if the characters are attacked by several Deep Ones and they don't know what a Deep One is, they shouldn't be told that it's a Deep One by the Roll20 system when the Deep One attacks.  Learning what a Deep One is, and that it's what they faced, should be discoverable by researching old tomes...

Something to keep in mind is that this isn't at all a Roll20 feature.  It is going to be sheet specific, and be determined by how the sheet roll buttons (and roll template) were written, so could potentially be different with each sheet.  I expect most sheet authors include the name, because it helps the dm keep straight who is rolling what (or at least that is why I want the names on everything, and set up rolls that way on the sheet I wrote). I don't play 5E, but you might check to see if there is a setting for turning off the display of names in the template (I think I saw something like that there, but I can't remember right off).  This would be in the sheet settings (the tab with the cog).  If there isn't something like that, then you will need to alter the name on the npc character sheet to display whatever generic name you want when it rolls just as Gen Kitty suggested.  Since you have a pro subscription, you could install an api script to help with this sort of thing.  If you don't want to have to open the sheets, I think the Chatsetattr script could be set up to do that.  You would have to install that and probably set up a macro that would allow you to input the new name from a token action.  Then you could just run that macro again when you need to change it back, if they can gain the knowledge during the encounter. As far as the tokens go, you might look at the TokenMod api script.  If you install that, and set up some macros, you can turn on and off the token name plate view permission to players with one click on all tokens you have selected at once.  If players don't have permissions to see the name plate on the token, they won't see it in the tracker either.  As the DM, it should still be visible to you unless you totally turn off the name plate.  Basically, what you are seeing is expected behavior unless a sheet author set up some way to exclude the name from the roll.

Perhaps hide the DM rolls?  They’ll just have to trust you in regards to the outcomes.  We do at the table or used to in the “old school” right?

Once you have pulled the token onto the tabletop, just change the names. There are many sites that will give you monster names from Goblins to Giants. The turn tracker etc. will display "Glzptrp" or whatever you have named them.

Saul J. said: Well, that might be fine for "named NPCs", but not monsters.  If I have set up an encounter with (to take a recent example) 3 wights and a wraith but the characters have never encountered a wight or a wraith before, and shouldn't know what they are, the fact that when I do an attack (for example) "wight" or "wraith" appears in the text chat under the attack roll indicating exactly what creature it was.  That's a 5e example.  A similar example from, say, Call of Cthulhu: if the characters are attacked by several Deep Ones and they don't know what a Deep One is, they shouldn't be told that it's a Deep One by the Roll20 system when the Deep One attacks.  Learning what a Deep One is, and that it's what they faced, should be discoverable by researching old tomes... You can absolutely edit any monster to satisfy your exact idea of what information should be revealed or concealed to players, but yes, out of the box that information display isn't going to meet your personal expectations so it'll require some work on your end. If you want the absolute easiest way to hide information, you'll of course want to turn off the token's nameplate and (with the 5E OGL sheet) set "Whisper Rolls to GM" to "Always Whisper".  If you want players able to see rolls, but still not see the monster's name, you'll want to set "NPC Name in Rolls" to "Hide" and then go into any individual abilities that might have the monster's name in their description and edit them to suit your taste.  For instance change "Each creature that meets the vampire's gaze..." becomes "Each creature that meets the strange old man's gaze..." or even more ambiguous wording "As you look upon the strange old man you feel..." It's worth noting that you can also change the monster's name from "Wight" to "Withered Soul" or something else that players won't just look up in the Monster Manual.

KC,  I'll have to look at some of those settings you mentioned.  I already turn off the nameplates and hide their names in the tracker with a work-around.  Changing all the descriptions might be problematic and a lot more effort than it's probably worth.  However, simply changing "Wight" to "Withered Soul" or similar changes is not what I mean.  For example, if you were walking down the street and saw a creature with 9 eyes, 3 arms, and 4 horns would you know what it was?  Would you be able to give a name to it other than "nightmare" or '"monster"?  That's the point, and the kind of atmosphere that I'm trying to foster.  As I said initially, characters in books, when they are starting out, rarely know what a strange creature outside their previous experience is, what name it has or anything about it other than what's right there in front of it.  Creatures don't walk around with name tags. Kraynic, I realize that this isn't a roll20 feature, per se, but Roll20 provides a lot of flexibility and I'm wondering if it's flexible enough to do this sort of thing and how to go about it.  It surprises me that it's not easy since I would have thought that some systems, like the aforementioned Call of Cthulhu system, thrives on the players not having that kind of knowledge.  I like roll20, don't get me wrong.  I just don't know everything there is to know about it yet and I'm trying to figure out how to make it work with my GMing style and to make it work with the way I want to tell my stories.  

Ok, update: I have a test game.  I changed "NPC name in rolls" to "Hide".  It didn't seem to do anything.  I tried creating another test game, and it looks like it does what I want, although I would have to go through and modify the descriptions of special attacks to remove the creature name.  But, for "basic" attacks like claw, longsword, etc., it works.  So, how do I make this setting take effect in an already created game without destroying everything already done in that game? Thanks.

Saul, under the settings tab for your game you can set those settings as you likely already know.  Then, under the settings tab within the game there is a button at the bottom to set default settings.  It is listed as experimental though, so maybe wait for those more knowledgeable than I, or try it on an backup version of your game first. Correction: “apply default settings”

This is the setting that needs to be changed: Note: I had deleted this after I realized it had been addressed up-thread. But then Chris quoted me, and I didn't want to confuse things, so I restored it.

Keith is right that the way to do this is to make sure the NPC Name in Rolls Field is set to "Hide." If you go into your Default Game Settings and switch that flag, it'll update the character sheets of npcs so that when you drag new tokens out onto the tabletop they'll have that setting. However, to apply those settings to tokens already on the tabletop , you do need to go into your game and click "Apply Default Settings." That should apply the setting to them all. However, since you're a pro subscriber you can also set up a "dang I want to be sure" macro using the API. If you add the ChatSetAttr script to your game using the one click install, you can click the token of your NPC and use this macro to set the character sheet to Hide the NPC Name in Rolls Field: !setattr --sel --npc_name_flag|0

Chris, after changing the setting on the Default Game Settings page for my already existing test game, I tried dragging a new token onto the tabletop and it still had the name displayed when I clicked one of its combat actions.  When I created a new game, it worked correctly in the new game.  That's why I was looking for some way of applying the settings to an already existing game so I could do this on the "real" game.  I do have the ChatSetAttr script installed already so I will give that a try.  Thanks.

The bad news is that both setting "Hide" on the settings page and using the setattr command seem to work only about half the time.  I put three creatures down on a page, one in the gm layer and 2 in the token layer.  The 2 in the token layer I was able to hide, the one in the gm layer was hidden when I put it down (and tested it).  When game time came a few days later, the one in the gm layer was NOT hidden.  Not sure why but hiding names seems inconsistent and flakey.