All about Macros!

So we had a bit of a pre-game the other day where we just set up some macros to make the game go a little smoother, and I think I'm getting the hang of them, but I'm curious to see what you guys have managed to do with them. Here's an example for how I set up my burning hands spell. Name Field: BurningHands Command Field: /em Sets the Night on Fire! /roll 2d4+3 Fire Damage Dexterity Saving Throw for Half-Damage Ignites Unattended Flammable Objects In the Area What do you use to spice up your macros? Also, my monitor is only 1360x768. Is there some way to get macro buttons to stack vertically instead of just shifting them farther to the right? I used the little click and drag, but it only went horizontally.

John, can you stick that macro button suggestion as its own post in the suggestions forum? It makes it much easier for us to keep track of things :)

Oh, whoops. I'm still getting a feel for the forums, and I was more interested in just getting a discussion about macros going. hehe Do you mean "Also, my monitor is only 1360x768. Is there some way to get macro buttons to stack vertically instead of just shifting them farther to the right? I used the little click and drag, but it only went horizontally." ? I don't remember making an actual suggestion.

I'm working on a hack of Dungeon World at the moment, and one of the neat things I discovered with a macro (under the "new regime" of linking/nesting) is that I can use macros to represent attributes/stats, and then have other macros pull those in. This might be obviousness itself to some folks, but I thought it was cool. So, for example, in Dungeon World, the typical dice roll is 2d6 + (Some Stat). For instance, in the terminology of the game, "roll+Dex" means that you roll 2d6 and add your Dex modifier to the result. Well, you can do this pretty easily - suppose you set up a macro called "Dex" which contains just this (these are example numbers, of course): +3 And you don't put it in the Bar; there's no need for this one to be visible. Then, you set up a macro called "Roll+Dex", which contains this: /roll 2d6#Dex and you do put that one in the macro bar. Then, when you need to make a roll+Dex roll, you can just click the appropriate button, and the two macros are concatenated into: /roll 2d6+4 and the result is put out to the chat. It's very handy. It's kind of a way to create a set of stats for your character that can be incorporated into dice rolls automatically. It's better for players than the GM, of course, because the GM handles many more characters/creatures, but it's a neat trick, I think.

Is there a handy cheat sheet with how to use and set up macros? Kind of a noob on it, but I do like the idea.

Is there a handy cheat sheet with how to use and set up macros? Kind of a noob on it, but I do like the idea. As a matter of fact... <a href="http://help.roll20.net/macros/" rel="nofollow">http://help.roll20.net/macros/</a> :D

Nice find Chris. *thumbs up* Helpful link Ken. Although I think I figured most of that out it's a good reference. :)

Thanks. It's going to be a godsend when I get my "Dungeon World, but for Shadowrun" game going.

Also note that this is, in effect (as Riley points out in the initial announcemenet) basically making macros act as variables. If you have set success points (as Dungeon World does) where rolls of 10+ are full success, for example, you can set up macros like this: Macro named "success": >10 Macro named "Dex": +3 Macro named "Roll+Dex": /roll 2d6#Dex #success and it all comes out in the end as /roll 2d6+3 > 10 Just make sure to put the spaces in there (so it's not 2d6#Dex#success). It's not the most efficient setup, but it's workable for some games, I think. It's better for those who type their roll codes.

Thanks Ken, that was very helpful :-)

Using a variable as part of the quick macro bar does not work though. I would think you could just hit your D20+ macro button and it would bring up a window to allow for the modifier input. Is this available, or maybe I'm missing something. Thanks in advance!

No, it doesn't work that way - it's more of a "theoretically useful" thing - you have to preconfigure the macro bar macros. It is likely to be useful to my players since they can alter their "stats" by changing the macros that contain the +N values, but leave the rest alone. For button macros, though, it's not much more useful than just writing them all out. I would love to see a simple dialog that let something like: /roll D20+? pop up a modal window for input, but I don't know that the developers want to go that route.

I'm working on a hack of Dungeon World at the moment, and one of the neat things I discovered with a macro (under the "new regime" of linking/nesting) is that I can use macros to represent attributes/stats, and then have other macros pull those in. This might be obviousness itself to some folks, but I thought it was cool. So, for example, in Dungeon World, the typical dice roll is 2d6 + (Some Stat). For instance, in the terminology of the game, "roll+Dex" means that you roll 2d6 and add your Dex modifier to the result. Well, you can do this pretty easily - suppose you set up a macro called "Dex" which contains just this (these are example numbers, of course): +3 And you don't put it in the Bar; there's no need for this one to be visible. Then, you set up a macro called "Roll+Dex", which contains this: /roll 2d6#Dex and you do put that one in the macro bar. Then, when you need to make a roll+Dex roll, you can just click the appropriate button, and the two macros are concatenated into: /roll 2d6+4 and the result is put out to the chat. It's very handy. It's kind of a way to create a set of stats for your character that can be incorporated into dice rolls automatically. It's better for players than the GM, of course, because the GM handles many more characters/creatures, but it's a neat trick, I think. Thanks Chris, I'm running a game of DW and have just passed your comments on

Would be nice if we could have different "successes". So keeping with DW: 10+ strong hit, 7-9 weak hit, <7 golden opportunity.

It there any way to organize the macros, I've made a few dozen of them for skill checks and damage rolls. I was hoping to alphabetize them but drag and drop isn't working. Anyone know how to reorder them for easy editing?

I'm miffed that macro always assumes a cumulative operation for any single /roll. It would go a long way if the devs would allow something like /roll3 1d20+5 which would roll in-line 3 dice, add 5 *to each* and print 3 resulting sums. While with 3 dice this seems trivial and critics could rightly argue that the macro could be written with 3 /roll scripts, imagine playing the GM and having to do this for a large number of NPC combatants. Having a single roll for 15 attacking goblins is much more efficient, and the printed results all grouped together makes the GM's job of figuring out hits and damage much simpler as well. This /roll15 would invoke 15 instances of the following script, and to take it a step further, /roll#name would invoke a number of rolls corresponding to the summed outcome of the macro "name", and each roll would again print seperately. Example: /roll2 1d5+3 (3)+3 (5)+3 =6, 8 /roll#chance 1d6+2 (elsewhere, #chance is defined as /roll1d6) (4)+2 (6)+2 (2)+2 (1)+2 =6, 8, 4, 3 (the outcome of "chance" was 4).