Talktomyself Macro

I'm setting up a Gaslands game, and would like to have quick-reference macros set up for each car that will display to the controlling player (and only that player) an explanation of each of the car's perks/special abilities (e.g. they click "Powder Keg" and it prints them the rules for the "Powder Keg" perk).  However, I don't want to spam the chat for all players or for the GM. The complication is that *all players* need control privileges for *all cars* (as some game effects may result in a player briefly controlling or repositioning someone else's car), so I can't just /w to the car itself. /talktomyself sounds like it would be ideal, but there doesn't to be any way to turn it on, print some text, and turn it off with a single click/macro call, which is the goal. Is there a good solution I'm overlooking?  Thanks for the help!

talktomysehlf only applies to the person who turned it on. You're best bet would be to whisper to the player (not the character/car). You could set up a macro that whispers to each player with a query to type your message to them. Something like: /w player1 ?{Message|}

Sorry -- to clarify, I'm not looking for a way to send a private message to a player.  What I mean is more that each car (character token) would have a set of abilities already containing the description/rules of a given perk or ability, but set so that when the token action is clicked it prints only to the player who clicked the button, e.g.: (player John wants to know what the "Powerslide" perk does, so he clicks on the ["Powerslide"] token action.  This token action would contain the following macro: /talktomyself on **Powerslide can be used in X situation and has game effects Y and Z.** /talktomyself off Unfortunately, this doesn't work, as it seems one can't both engage talktomyself and print something to chat within the same macro.  Any good workaround?

For what I think you are looking for, you would need the API, but we can do a bit of a workaround.  We can use a macro with a dropdown menu so that any player that clicks on the button can have the information whispered to them by selecting the appropriate name. That way you don't have to write a separate macro for each player. /w ?{Player|name1|name2|name3|name4} **Powerslide can be used in X situation and has game effects Y and Z.**

Jeff H. said: Sorry -- to clarify, I'm not looking for a way to send a private message to a player.  What I mean is more that each car (character token) would have a set of abilities already containing the description/rules of a given perk or ability, but set so that when the token action is clicked it prints only to the player who clicked the button, e.g.: (player John wants to know what the "Powerslide" perk does, so he clicks on the ["Powerslide"] token action.  This token action would contain the following macro: /talktomyself on **Powerslide can be used in X situation and has game effects Y and Z.** /talktomyself off Unfortunately, this doesn't work, as it seems one can't both engage talktomyself and print something to chat within the same macro.  Any good workaround? Got it... Have you tried: /talktomyself **Powerslide can be used in X situation and has game effects Y and Z.** /talktomyself My experience is you don't need to use the on/off indicators, it's toggle able...

@Erik - Thanks -- that's a good solve for the moment!  The downside is that my game will have a fairly fluid playerbase, so having to manually update each perk's explanatory macro when I get a new player would be a challenge...  Sounds like the solution I'm looking for, though, may not be possible without the API. @Finderski - I did try that, yeah.  I like to include the on/off just to make sure, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in the actual parsing of the macro.  Thanks, though!

Jeff H. said: @Erik - Thanks -- that's a good solve for the moment!  The downside is that my game will have a fairly fluid playerbase, so having to manually update each perk's explanatory macro when I get a new player would be a challenge...  Sounds like the solution I'm looking for, though, may not be possible without the API. Hmm, then if you think you can trust your players to spell their own names, you can just make that into an input query.  /w ?{Player} **Powerslide can be used in X situation and has game effects Y and Z.** Then they just have to type their name in the query without you ever having to update it. 

...or  /w @{target|token_name} **Powerslide can be used in X situation and has game effects Y and Z.** is a little simpler, but of course, they have to click the correct token.

@Erik -- that could be an easier fix for sure.  Would be so nice if there was a "self" that I could drop into the macro and save everyone a step! @Dick -- if all players have control/edit permissions for all cars, it would still spam the chat, though, no? ...unless I maybe gave each player some random non-car token that would have more specific permissions, and they would then just need to click that token as the whisper target...  That could work.  Still a bit clunkier than my ideal, but maybe easier than typing in a name. Thanks all for the help!  I'll probably go with that for now, until a /whisper self function is implemented! :)

You could also set them up as handouts and just give them all permission to see the handouts...then they could open whichever one they wanted...

You could see if you could adapt ideas from this Stupid Trick: Player Dashboard - Spell/Resource/Sheet management direct from the map page  - Ziechael

Thanks for the additional help and ideas! As I try to implement my workaround, I've stumbled onto something else strange.  I'm testing with a token called Black Sunshine.  So I do: /w @{selected|name} Test What comes back in the chat window is the below: (To Black Sunshine):  Sunshine Test Whenever the token name is 2+ words, the second and subsequent words in the name show up as part of the message.  Is there any way to get around this?

Just wrap the name in "" quotes. What you can do, is get each player to just create a macro in the Collections tab called WhisperSelf. The contents of the macro is simply: /w "playername" where playername is that player's name. Now just put #WhisperSelf at the start of every macro, and it will whisper the player running it.

@Oosh is that a stupid trick already?

That's--... that's a pretty slick fix!  I'll have to give that a whirl...