So basically, all that is doing is providing a way to nest a query within another query... trying to do this would break the query as it would attempt to use the problematic characters from the nested query: ?{Query 1|This,?{Query 2}|That,?{Query 3}} But by replacing the problematic stuff with html ( more info here ... not required on attribute calls) we can create a branching tree of conditional queries: ?{Query 1|This,?{Query 2#&125;|That,?{Query 3#&125;} You can also reuse the results of those queries elsewhere which is why in the example I originally gave you'll only find the full thing (including the default value) the first time it is to be called, subsequent queries that want to reuse the result of it can be transformed from ?{Query|0} to ?{Query}... this is useful when you have a lot of queries that need to be asked EVERY time you run a macro as you can prefix the whole thing with a 'hidden' row in your macros to avoid having to replace more than the } in each subsequent instance: ! ?{Query 1|0} ?{Query 2|0} @{selected|character_name} attacks: [[ 1d20 + @{selected|bab} + ?{Situational effect|1,?{Query 1#&125;|2,?{Query 2#&125;} ]]