Player Character Token refusing to stay on top of other tokens

Hi I have a strange issue. I had a recent death in my Roll20 D&D game. We made a new character, and I have set up both the 'Character' and the Token - exactly the same as I have previously. However when I - or a player - place new tokens on a map - whether a monster/npc or just an unassigned graphic - the Player Characters token is NOT staying above them. (All my previous Character Tokens that have control assigned to a player do stay on top! Meaning players are never blocked from accessing their tokens when placing large spells, or other things on the map). I cannot for the life of me figure out what I might have set up differently about this new Character/token. It has a character sheet (A proper one, not an NPC one). It has control assigned to the player. The Token represents the Character. ...Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! (Note: I am certain it is not an error in setting up the new spells. I can be sure of this because even the original spell tokens I created layer over the top of this new PC. Whereas the other PCs always stay on top)

Hi Key! Is this view stacking issue also the Player's experience? The stacking order appears different for different viewers. If you have sighted characters, specifically (not generically) controlled by the GM, it might cause something like you are seeing in the GM view. Another thing to check would be to make sure the Player token has vision, and NPCs do not.

Hi Keith, yes, I can confirm that the layering issue is also the Players experience, not just mine. And that their token has vision. I personally make a habit of adding myself into Characters control settings, so that I also see them layer on top of unassigned tokens - just the same as the actual Players do. Just for convenience. I just tried messing around with that on your advice - removing specific GM control from all tokens, and removing vision from NPCs. ...but aside from of course temporarily making the Player Character tokens stop layering on top from my perspective - it did not change my players experience. The old Player Character Tokens continued to layer on top (from their perspective) - and the new Player Character Token did not! I also just tried making a brand new character with a different player (in case of some sort of user error or something), and actually I have found that any new Player Characters Tokens repeat the exact same layering error - both from mine and the different Players experience. New Player Characters will simply not stay on top of unassigned tokens. And the Old Player Characters do! I have gone through all the Token/Character settings with this other player exhaustively - they are quite technically savvy, and an extra pair of eyes never hurts. But we could not find a single difference between new and old Player Characters settings. (I have wondered if it is something in the spell tokens settings, but any unassigned token produces the exact same layering error.) I have attached some pictures below to help demonstrate my struggles! I am completely stumped... The layering problem New character (& token) settings Spell token settings

Have you right clicked on the token you want in front and selected 'To Front' from the dropdown menu? If that fixes it, make sure to resave that token as the default for the character sheet so that its z-order index is saved for any future tokens that are pulled out. <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Token_Z-Ordering" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Token_Z-Ordering</a>

Hi Jarren. I can report that yes, I can manually alter the layering by right clicking and choosing to Front/To Back. I have then resaved the token. However, this has not fixed the issue. The problem is that the 2nd bullet point of the Token Z-ordering link is not actually true for this token: " The&nbsp; player &nbsp; who controls the sighted token will always see it in front of tokens they do not control or which do not have sight. This is true even if the &nbsp; GM &nbsp; has changed their order." Instead, it is functioning like an unsighted, uncontrolled token - as per the 8th bullet point: " Tokens are layered with the most recently-dropped token in front by default." This means that despite manually being able to layer To Front or Back, saving the token does not keep that Z-ordering. Any new token I drop is a more recently-dropped token, and will go in front of it.

Hmm, it appears to be working for me in a test game using a Dummy Account. How are you checking what your players are seeing? Are they just reporting what they're seeing, or have you created a Dummy Account to test things yourself? Have you tried copying the game to see if it happens in a copied game as well? Have you tried clearing the chat archive? (Sometimes it gets corrupted and causes weird effects... unlikely to be the issue here but it's still worth trying.) If you'd like to invite me to your game I'm happy to take a look as well. (Don't post game links publicly.)

A little further testing has shown something interesting. I created a duplicate of an old Player Character, to see what would happen. The duplicate&nbsp; did &nbsp;function properly. It stayed on top of unassigned/unsighted/uncontrolled tokens. So then I started messing around with that duplicate and its token. &nbsp;If I choose "Represents Character" on the duplicate characters token, and set it to&nbsp; any&nbsp; controlled Player Character (including the new PC 'Girtha') the token&nbsp; does&nbsp; properly always go in front! (and vice versa - selecting it to represent an NPC immediately stops it appearing in front) This makes me think that the problem cannot be in the Character settings. This made me think, perhaps I could try and sneakily alter this duplicate of the original character... Somehow refashion it into the new character. ...But the problem seems to come when removing or replacing the Default Token (which is pretty necessary, because the old character is a big spiky Tortle, and the new one is a Dwarven woman!) As soon as I remove the Default Token, no replacement token properly stays on top. I then tried messing around with the&nbsp; other &nbsp;old characters tokens. Just like the duplicate, their tokens&nbsp; do &nbsp;actually accept that representing a controlled Character is a valid reason to stay on top of unassigned tokens. ....However, I cannot recreate this willingness to stay on top in any other tokens.&nbsp; Only &nbsp;the&nbsp;tokens that come from the old Player controlled characters (or duplicates of them) are actually appearing in front when representing Controlled Characters! Other things I've tried: Changing old NPC tokens to have Sight &amp; represent Controlled characters - still refuse to appear on top properly. Using the old characters original art upload in a new token&nbsp;- still refuse to appear on top properly. ....there is something about the tokens that belong to the old characters that is different. Something that actually makes the intended Z-Ordering of sighted controlled tokens work properly. But I'm damned if I know what. Sorry for the peculiarly formatted info dump. This is driving me a bit nuts!&nbsp;&nbsp;I swear, these tokens are Sighted. They are Controlled. I am testing them against unsighted tokens. They should appear on top!!

Quick check: is UDL active for the page on which you are testing? I just did a test and it looks like when I turned off dynamic lighting the "always on top for a controlled sighted token" feature stopped working. When I re-enabled UDL on the page it went back to respecting the sighted-on-top feature.&nbsp;

Jarren said: Hmm, it appears to be working for me in a test game using a Dummy Account. How are you checking what your players are seeing? Are they just reporting what they're seeing, or have you created a Dummy Account to test things yourself? Have you tried copying the game to see if it happens in a copied game as well? Have you tried clearing the chat archive? (Sometimes it gets corrupted and causes weird effects... unlikely to be the issue here but it's still worth trying.) If you'd like to invite me to your game I'm happy to take a look as well. (Don't post game links publicly.) At first I was checking by asking a Player to go through what they saw with me. But when they confirmed they were experiencing the exact same as me I continued testing alone. You see, I can tell when their tokens are on top or not because I have included myself in Control of the player Characters. Way back when I first made them, I discovered that doing so made it easier for me to track things mid-combat, seeing their tokens above ongoing spell effects. (I did try removing my Control to see if that helped the issue - after Keiths advice on the matter - but unfortunately it did not. This was one of things I verified exhaustively with a Player, before I started messing with a duplicate of an old PC. Just to narrow down what was happening) I will try copying the game and clearing the chat archive thank you! But it is rather late so I may do so tomorrow. Thanks for the offer to take a look too, I'll think on it.

David M. said: Quick check: is UDL active for the page on which you are testing? I just did a test and it looks like when I turned off dynamic lighting the "always on top for a controlled sighted token" feature stopped working. When I re-enabled UDL on the page it went back to respecting the sighted-on-top feature.&nbsp; Huh! I think I may need to test with a Player, but yes. Turning on Updated Dynamic Lighting does seem to have an effect. ...Though, seemingly not actually the full desired effect? I have posted 2 pictures below. The only thing changed between them is UDL Off/On. Layering has not been touched. Updated Dynamic Lighting Off Updated Dynamic Lighting On When turning on UDL, the Sighted Controlled token does suddenly jump up above unsighted tokens! .....But only visually . When I actually try to click or move the Sighted, Controlled Player Character, the unsighted token is actually still on top, blocking access until I manually send it to the back as the GM. Could it be that in one of the UDL updates Roll20 broke how Token Z-Ordering priority works? (And if so, how strange that my old PC tokens still function according to the old rules!)

David M. said: Quick check: is UDL active for the page on which you are testing? I just did a test and it looks like when I turned off dynamic lighting the "always on top for a controlled sighted token" feature stopped working. When I re-enabled UDL on the page it went back to respecting the sighted-on-top feature.&nbsp; No updates for a while, so David (or anyone really), do you mind if I ask whether you are getting the same issue as me? When UDL is turned on, Roll20&nbsp; visually&nbsp;appears to correctly keep sighted controlled tokens on the top Z-Layer above unsighted controlled tokens. However if the unsighted token was dropped in more recently it is actually functionally on the top Z-Layer and prevents clicking/control of the sighted token. I can confirm that I tested with my Players and they also experienced this issue. And that in a copy of the game - with the chat archive cleared - this issue was still present. This is beginning to seem to me like a bug to be reported more than anything else. I do want to confirm it isn't just me and my group experiencing this first though!