Co-GM questions.

I'm playing a moon druid with a newer DM, and we discussed an easier way for him to manage my wild shapes. Currently I have a multi-sided token with all my beast forms on it, and I created an attack on my main character sheet for the beast's attacks. This does mean, however, that the GM has to manage my token size, and that I need to keep extra reference documents up for my saves and checks while in beast-form. In the past, I GM'd for a moon druid and I created a folder of tokens with attached character sheetsfor my player. This allows them to drag the appropriately sized token onto the field that they already have full control over, with vision set up, working stat block, and clickable attacks. With my current GM being newer to Roll20s systems he feels a little overwhelmed by the idea of setting all that up, and I don't want to put the pressure on him. I do know that the GM can promote another player to GM, and we discussed that. Now I'm not going to go snooping around with GM privileges and ruin the campaign for myself, it's a module and I could do that with a Google search, that's not the goal. I have the time and experience to quickly set up all my own tokens in such a way that would take no additional effort for the GM. The concern here is that I need to know if he can then demote me from co-GM the next day, without any quirky side effects.  I tried this in a side game with a dummy account and I didn't see anything immediately go wrong, but I was hoping that someone here has done it before and can speak to if there are any unforeseen consequences. tl;dr If you promote someone to co-gm for help setting up tokens, can you then demote them back to player without Roll20 breaking their privileges, access, or other side effects? Has anyone gone through that and can speak to it? Thank you,  Zamun

Yes, you can absolutely temporarily promote a player (account) to Co-GM to have them set up their own characters and tokens.  The only caveat that comes to mind immediately is that any Collections Macros that are created by a player are only editable by that player.  So if your GM promotes you to Co-GM, you create a Collection Macro and make it Visible to 'All' Players, then you are demoted to non-GM status, you will not be able to adjust the Visibility setting of the Collection Macro (that setting is only available to a GM), and your regular GM will not be able to open the macro at all to adjust the Visibility setting. However, because you have a Roll20 Plus subscription, another option is for you to create all of your Wildshape character sheets in your own game, then import them to your Characters page (formerly called the Character Vault), then export them into the game you are playing.   I'm pretty sure all of the token information should be transferred over (token size, linking to the character, etc.), so y our GM would only need to organize the Characters into folders in the Journal, but otherwise shouldn't need to do anything else with them.  

If I understand the question properly, yes, no problem, you can do that. The only (simple, obvious) catch that you need to do is Assign all the "wildshape" Characters that you set up, with Edit permissions for Zamun.  After that, when the GM de-motes Zamun from Co-GM, you will still have Zamun permissions to control the Characters that you set up. 

Jarren said: Yes, you can absolutely temporarily promote a player (account) to Co-GM to have them set up their own characters and tokens.  The only caveat that comes to mind immediately is that any Collections Macros that are created by a player are only editable by that player.  So if your GM promotes you to Co-GM, you create a Collection Macro and make it Visible to 'All' Players, then you are demoted to non-GM status, you will not be able to adjust the Visibility setting of the Collection Macro (that setting is only available to a GM), and your regular GM will not be able to open the macro at all to adjust the Visibility setting. However, because you have a Roll20 Plus subscription, another option is for you to create all of your Wildshape character sheets in your own game, then import them to your Characters page (formerly called the Character Vault), then export them into the game you are playing.   I'm pretty sure all of the token information should be transferred over (token size, linking to the character, etc.), so y our GM would only need to organize the Characters into folders in the Journal, but otherwise shouldn't need to do anything else with them.   Thank you very much for the reply. I'm not been using any macros, I don't want to toss in any complications for a new GM to need to address, and I'm frankly not even familiar with a collection macro.  I hadn't considered the Vault at all actually, and possibly that'd be an even easier way to do it. The new GM would just need to create a folder and then drop them into it. Thank you for that idea, he might be much more comfortable with that.

Gold said: If I understand the question properly, yes, no problem, you can do that. The only (simple, obvious) catch that you need to do is Assign all the "wildshape" Characters that you set up, with Edit permissions for Zamun.  After that, when the GM de-motes Zamun from Co-GM, you will still have Zamun permissions to control the Characters that you set up.  That is something I considered, but admittedly it could be easy to overlook, and then the poor GM would have to open each and reassign all the privileges. I appreciate you pointing it out, better safe than sorry. 

Hi Zamun,  (Please excuse the retread if I state anything that has been already stated.) In your situation I would do the following:  1) Have GM promote you to Co-GM 2) Set up a folder in the Journal tab for your Wild Shapes 3) Put all wild shapes in that folder.  Make sure you include future wild shapes so you don't need to do this again anytime soon.  4) Rename them so they don't collide with other versions of those animals.  5) Set up the tokens for those animals, make sure they are representing the new version (new name). 6) Assign control over the characters to yourself.  7) Switch to player mode (My Settings tab, under Miscellaneous), and make sure everything works correctly.  8) Assuming everything works correctly have GM demote you back to player.  The only steps the GM (campaign owner) has to do are the first and last steps.  The result will be that, as a player, you can pull your own characters out of the folder to the table, edit them, make changes as needed, etc. 

Zamun said: Jarren said: The only caveat that comes to mind immediately is that any Collections Macros that are created by a player are only editable by that player.  So if your GM promotes you to Co-GM, you create a Collection Macro and make it Visible to 'All' Players, then you are demoted to non-GM status, you will not be able to adjust the Visibility setting of the Collection Macro (that setting is only available to a GM), and your regular GM will not be able to open the macro at all to adjust the Visibility setting. Thank you very much for the reply. I'm not been using any macros, I don't want to toss in any complications for a new GM to need to address, and I'm frankly not even familiar with a collection macro.  Collection macros are macros that are created in the Collections tab, on the right sidebar.  As opposed to Ability macros, which are created on a character sheet. Collection macros. These can only be edited (opened) by the person who created them.  The checkbox to set as 'Visible to Players' will only be available if the creator is a GM. Ability macros on a character sheet. These can be edited (opened) by anyone who has 'Edit and Control' access for the character sheet.

Gauss said: Hi Zamun,  (Please excuse the retread if I state anything that has been already stated.) In your situation I would do the following:  1) Have GM promote you to Co-GM 2) Set up a folder in the Journal tab for your Wild Shapes 3) Put all wild shapes in that folder.  Make sure you include future wild shapes so you don't need to do this again anytime soon.  4) Rename them so they don't collide with other versions of those animals.  5) Set up the tokens for those animals, make sure they are representing the new version (new name). 6) Assign control over the characters to yourself.  7) Switch to player mode (My Settings tab, under Miscellaneous), and make sure everything works correctly.  8) Assuming everything works correctly have GM demote you back to player.  The only steps the GM (campaign owner) has to do are the first and last steps.  The result will be that, as a player, you can pull your own characters out of the folder to the table, edit them, make changes as needed, etc.  Thank you very much for weighing in. I learned (the hard way) about making sure to change the beast's names and give them their own dedicated folder, but your pointing it out here could be a lifesaver for someone who reads this thread in the future with a similar question. Thanks again, 

Jarren said: Collection macros are macros that are created in the Collections tab, on the right sidebar.  As opposed to Ability macros, which are created on a character sheet. Collection macros. These can only be edited (opened) by the person who created them.  The checkbox to set as 'Visible to Players' will only be available if the creator is a GM. Ability macros on a character sheet. These can be edited (opened) by anyone who has 'Edit and Control' access for the character sheet. Thank you for that, I appreciate the breakdown, and the accompanying images because that makes it much more clear. I'm very new to the idea of using any macros, so it will need to remain back-burner information in the meantime until I'm in a situation to better apply it. Thanks again