What's the best way to have an info box that the players can read without the GM's assistance?

I have a question for you GMs out there: What is the best way to place an "info box?"  An info box is a token on the map that reveals TEXT when clicked on. For example, a player is moving his token down a hallway and the GM has placed an "INFO" token. The player, when he discovers it, clicks on it to read the description of the room. The only way I can figure on doing this right now is to place a character sheet and put the TEXT info I want the players to see in the BIO. Is there a better way? ..

You could give the token an attribute (through a character sheet, yes) which contains the desired information. You could then give it an ability, as a token ability, which reads and relays that information to the player. The player can then click on the token, see that it holds information, and click to see that information. Depending on the type of information, you can have Roll20 print it out so all can see, or have it whispered to the individual. -Phnord

You could also do the above by pasting the desired text into one of the bars of a token without a sheet and setting up a macro called 'info' with the text of @{target|bar1} which would prompt the players to select a 'target', in this case the info icon. It would then print the text in bar 1 to the chat for them to read. This can be done without them having to have control of the token but be warned that clever players will unravel the macro in its simplicity and may abuse it to get info on monsters etc unscrupulously (but then again it is only their own fun they are ruining if they do!). Another option is to set up a token that is a picture of the text that the players can click on and press the 'z' key to enlarge, thereby making the text readable.

Put it in a handout, give the players access. 

That's a good start with the BAR.  I set it to Bar3.  I can't do the character sheet option as it is beyond me and Colonial Gothic has no  character sheet. Hopefully at some point in the future there could be some way to show RTF mark up and paragraph breaks on a token like we record GM notes without having to refrenece the character on the sidebar. I'd do a handout, but I'd rather that they don't even know ahead of time until they reach the info marker. I'm really appreciating all the ideas and help :)

I often make screenshots of text or export a word or graphics edited image.  Use that as the token image, reduced to a thumbnail and give it player control so they can use "Z" to zoom in and read the text.  Works well for the GM's encounter keys, slideshow images, and as information for players.

That's a great idea too. I started my VTT era with Maptool/Rptools and I recall they had an "info" button, that could be graphic or text.  I always liked that so I didn't have to deal with inane postings of stuff that slow games down. jh

Jay, This was covered by Vince and Phnord, but to expand on it: You don't need character sheets to do this. Every character in roll20 has an attributes tab on their character listing, and every token can be linked to a character. This is where you would make a macro. If you link a token to a character, you can also link the macros that token has. For a step by step guide: Make a character, call it "Room Info" Open the character on your journals page, go to edit, make sure the character is controllable by "All Players" Now, without closing the character journal entry, go to attributes tab. Under the "Macros" collumn (on the left) make a new macro titled "Room info" In the text block, write the following:    /w gm The room is spooooooky! click the check mark to complete, then make sure the "Show as token action" button under the macro title. Now, drop a token on the token layer of the play table. Double click the token to pull up it's attributes. Under "represents" scroll to "Room Info"  Click "show name" on both the "Edit Token" and "Advanced" tabs of the token to make sure the name is listed (if you want this) And now you are done. You have a token on your table that will have, at the top of roll 20, a button titled "Room Info" that players can click to see "The room is spooooky!" when they click it, or whatever else you want them to see. Because the token is controllable by all players, anyone can click it (and potentially move it), but that also means they can use the ability on their own. Because the macro is whispering the GM, you can know when they are using it, so you know if everyone ignored it or if anyone hasn't seen it yet before advancing your plot. Editing this is just a matter of either editing the macro text "The room is spooooky!" or duplicating it to have another one. All without character sheets or really any complicated stuff beyond using the chatlog. If you want to go wild, you can use things like Powercards to make these look neat, have specific attributes and abilities, and lots of other stuff that doesn't take a lot of time for the benefit you get from it, but for the super basics this should get you started. Once you get into the swing of it those ten steps maybe take a minute at most (aside from figuring out what your decription says). For your images, you can do the same and then include a link to your hosted image. Or, alternatively, make the token the image of the thing you want to find so when they hit control-z it allows them to see it up close. This would allow players to be able to see a page on a table and, if they click the page, be able to expand it to full size and see a bit of info on it. To deal with players not being able to see it, once you have tested them you can always remove player permissions from the token so they don't see them in folder. Then, once you are ready for them to enter the room shift-doubleclick the token to pull up the character sheet and quietly update the permissions to all players.

Thanks. 

I wanted to do something similar, but also be able to add a description to any token. So if there is an inn I can add a little flavor to some of the NPCs and items in the room without going into a full description of every object. That way players can poke around and inspect stuff if they want, while other things are going on. I also wanted to make sure it was pretty easy to setup. Here's a link to a script I put together:&nbsp; <a href="https://gist.github.com/mattkauffman23/23eba36fb310da259a20" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/mattkauffman23/23eba36fb310da259a20</a> . This does need a pro sub though because it uses the API.&nbsp; Players end up needing a macro like this: inspect !inspect @{target|token_id} And GMs need a couple more: inspect-add !inspect @{selected|token_id} add "?{Description}" inspect-remove !inspect @{selected|token_id} remove What's cool is that you don't need to add character sheets or give players control of the tokens. It also should only take a few seconds to enter each token's description once the scripts and macros are setup (as long as you have the text ready :) What's not cool is that it just sends messages to chat, so for some important stuff creating a zoomable graphic is probably a better option. Let me know if anyone else finds this useful or has any ideas for improvement.

I like the idea, but I did the pro for several months, and realized it's really just for computer programmers.&nbsp; [sorry, bit of a rant here] &nbsp; &nbsp; They really need to put in a lot more standard stuff like this that doesn't require a person to be a computer programmer. I just want to run games, not recreate the wheel. Hopefully they will be updating stuff like this to standard "buttons" instead of requiring a computer science degree.

I think that's a bit hyperbolic. Roll20 is an engine that you can do an awful lot with. Most of that is quickly automated, but if you are looking for something prepackaged you either need to work through the pre-fab campaigns available on the store or use one of the dozens of amazing character sheet (which are extremely simple to toggle on). In this thread you are asking about how to customize something that is available if you want to use it, but is a very complicated thing when you actually think about the logistics of how it works. Lots of folk on here are willing to help you with that, and you don't really need a computer science degree to figure out macros, but even if you don't understand them the community is here to help you figure things out. It's sorta disheartening to see after all the great support you got here complaining that a custom element that doesn't exist in most game systems isn't prepackaged as if that were expected and natural. I go pro to support the system. I use API for powercards (which are amazing and also extremely easy to set up and ignore), and I love the extended space given the size of my maps and other art assets. Roll20 is amazing, and having used a lot of the aguably "simpler" software out there like this for tabletop none of them work nearly as well as Roll20. They either crash all the time, are so limited as to be useless for anything that deviates from standard and limited rules, or cost so much that it's pretty bonkers to maintain membership (and usually all three at once).

Matt K. said: I wanted to do something similar, but also be able to add a description to any token. So if there is an inn I can add a little flavor to some of the NPCs and items in the room without going into a full description of every object. That way players can poke around and inspect stuff if they want, while other things are going on. I also wanted to make sure it was pretty easy to setup. Here's a link to a script I put together:&nbsp; <a href="https://gist.github.com/mattkauffman23/23eba36fb310da259a20" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/mattkauffman23/23eba36fb310da259a20</a> . This does need a pro sub though because it uses the API.&nbsp; Players end up needing a macro like this: inspect !inspect @{target|token_id} And GMs need a couple more: inspect-add !inspect @{selected|token_id} add "?{Description}" inspect-remove !inspect @{selected|token_id} remove What's cool is that you don't need to add character sheets or give players control of the tokens. It also should only take a few seconds to enter each token's description once the scripts and macros are setup (as long as you have the text ready :) What's not cool is that it just sends messages to chat, so for some important stuff creating a zoomable graphic is probably a better option. Let me know if anyone else finds this useful or has any ideas for improvement. Thanks a lot Matt. :) It will come in handy.

I appreciate your optimism about programming and non-programmers, just as you might appreciate my optimism about you understanding human physiology and diagnosis of cancer or complex neurological diseases &nbsp;:) &nbsp;There is a huge disconnect between the reality of what programmers think the rest of us can (and are willing to learn) to do and what we actually can do. &nbsp;I appreciate all the help that everyone gives to each other around here and from the staff (and when I was a paying member), but it's still just a programmers playground. I've spend years screwing around with macros with Maptool and now Rptools and I realized I just don't like recreating the wheel every single time I just want basic functionality, and after a couple months off, I come back to programming realizing that I've forgotten everything and have to start all over again learning. &nbsp; The rest of us simply don't use even rudimentary programming on a daily basis and I think the programmers think that it is somehow elementary and once you learn it you'll never forget it, and if you do, that it's just a couple keystrokes away to re-learn it. &nbsp;Reality check: &nbsp;we non-programmers start over at step one every time we come here and it takes hours and hours to reacquaint ourselves. &nbsp;It just gets old recreating the wheel is all I'm saying :) Thanks for the help and optimism and listening to my non-programmer's rant &nbsp;:)

I'm actually an English major with no math or programming skills beyond poking about for a few hours with this system. Macros are no more complicated than following a recipe or copying and pasting. If you have basic pattern recognition skills and a few minutes to think about what you are doing it is actually super easy to figure out. I'm sorry that's how you feel though!