A cone of silence - keeping one player isolated from group chat.

I enjoy the whisper function in chat. It works great. But what about when I want to isolate one player from the conversation instead? I can already put them on a different page, which is good. But I don't think it excludes them from the chat screen, which is common to everyone. I'd like to see something like a "cone of silence" that keeps one player from being able to see the conversation of the rest of the group. If there is a way to do this, I am not aware of it. But I think it could prove very useful for GMs. This could be especially useful if "splitting the party" happens during a game.

I agree. I also wonder if that should be extended to voice. I remember, before we got multiple sheets, I had my party split between multiple psudo campaigns when I split them in a maze. However, we were all using the same skype group chat, so they could all still talk to each other, despite having separate text chats. Having unique effects (like being able to select who can hear/talk to who) for the built in voip would definitely give a good reason to use it over skype, but I'm not actually sure how good an idea that level of segregation actually is.

Everybody knows splitting the party is a bad idea. Doesn't mean it won't happen though :D

There are times in a campaign that this happens. A DM needs to speak with one player or exclude one player - for a variety of reasons. However, in real-life gaming, I've always seen this handled and handled it by saying, "Joe - your character isn't here". There are times when I pass secret notes. But honestly, if a player tries using knowledge his character isn't supposed to know - because he wasn't there (metagaming) it will be obvious and you can just say, "Joe - don't be a .... You didn't know about the group's plot to offer you as sacrifice to the dragon because you were at the bar drinking. And you take 15d6 damage from the breath weapon - roll a reflex save."

True, but isolation and information asymitry can help create tension in a way that "pretend you don't here any of this" can't. Similarly, there are lots of grey actions where both options might be valid in character but OOC knowlege might subconsiously influence the player.

Paul, in real-life, my group takes players to another room and the GM sometimes addresses them there. It is usually done when giving away certain details can really change player's reactions in a vital way. Notes don't allow for extensive details the way a 5 min conversation can. This way, it is also up to the player to decide how much of a secret to share with the group. Epsilon, you're right on. And I would love to do it with voice as well. My only short-term solution I could see for that would be to produce a 2nd campaign, or use a voice software that allowed different "rooms." Both solutions were out of reach at the time I needed it though. If tokbox could do 2 rooms, I'd be very happy with it, but they seem to have other more pressing issues, like staying connected. Kristin, thanks. I'm still new to d20 and these little GM'ing hurdles all seem to have an answer that lie just under the surface. This is exactly the sort of stuff I do not see in the Roll20, or Pathfinder wiki, that I wish I could see more of. [the other issue I had very early was low-light vision v. normal vision which was also answered by the mod team]

Kristin C. said: What you can do is create a character that represents the cone of silence. Then give everyone who is able to hear one another control of the character sheet. Then everyone can whisper to the cone of silence and everyone who has control will be able to see the whisper. This is also how PCs are able to speak in other fantasy languages to exclude some of the party from the conversation. Well that certainly is a smart, neat workaround approach to it. Thanks for the idea. Never tried that. So let me make sure I understand how this works. I'm accustomed to Roll20 games having 1 Player = 1 Character = 1 Token. You're reminding me that Players can have multiple characters, and a character can have multiple players, and a character does not require a Token on the map in order to be talked-at in the chat. So the GM can make a fake/invisible/representative "character" (who is actually representing a group of players who have access to it, perhaps all players who speak Language X, or all players whose characters are Non-Silenced) and give several Players access to Chat as that "character". And this representation "character" does not need any token on the board whatsoever. That sounds like a really handy method, with several different uses. /w Elvish Speakers /w Common Tongue /w Characters Who Are Not Silenced /w Characters who are on the Town map not in the Jail map /w Characters who have infravision notice this, those who are in the dark don't /w Thief characters hear this sound in the distance etc