Macros that replace results with text entries.

There's an unofficial supplement from back when I was playing D&D in high school (3.0? 3.5?) that I really enjoyed, called Wild Magic or something (I wasn't the owner). Unfortunately I can't remember the publisher, but the basic idea was that a character fails a spell, he rolls a percentage die that determines a random event. So if you fail to cast fireball, maybe you conjure up confetti. There were around 100 possible outcomes per table, and about 4 different tables based on spell levels (more powerful spells had more powerful results).

My idea is that a GM can generate these events by creating macros, except that instead of providing just a number (where the number has very little value except for looking up the spell itself) they give the result of the event itself. So for example, I can create an event "Magic Backfire". I set the event to roll 1d10 (I'll keep it simple), and based on a spreadsheet it gives me the following results:

1-3: "[character/player] deals 5 fire damage to him/herself and is pushed 10 feet away from his target."
4-6: "[character/player] conjures confetti, party music plays"
7-9: "[character/player] casts a random spell of the 1st level"
10+: "[character/player] casts the spell as normal without expending it, it does not backfire if it fails again."

Obviously, the idea is to have as many possible outcomes as possible, and include ability scores and so on, based on the character rolling for the event.

In other words, DMs set up a table and characters/players with the given permissions roll towards that table, gaining a text entry based on that table.

There's an unofficial supplement from back when I was playing D&D in high school (3.0? 3.5?) that I really enjoyed, called Wild Magic or something

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that was before in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting and afterwards expanded in the Tome of Magic, for the AD&D 2nd edition game and published by TSR back in the day.

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This said, I'm not against the possibility of arranging macros displaying text instead roll results.

Reminds me of the critical hit and fumble charts from Middle Earth Role Playing. I wonder if they are public domain yet because of the demise of I.C.E.?

rolemaster fumbles/crits kick ass

Creating "tables" shouldn't be too terribly difficult. You're dealing with arrays, really.

Name of the table = name of an array (tableArray).
Each row in the table is an element of the tableArray, as "rowArray."
Each column in the row is an element for rowArray.

Choose a random (or perhaps even specific, if calling the table from within a macro) number by invoking the table. Random numbers chosen could be determined by one of two simple ways: number of rows in the table, or perhaps the values listed in the first column of each row if you want higher chances for a particular result to occur.

As for number of columns, you would only really require 3 array elements at maximum to obtain a system agnostic effect: value, text, image.

"value" would be rowArray[0], which determines which range of randomly (or specifically, if necessary) determined numbers produce the result for rowArray, and return whichever values are present for text and/or image elements. The most ideal place for these to be returned to can be up for debate, of course. Chat would be the easiest location, but it's already very cluttered.

"text" would be rowArray[1], which would just return a block of text (perhaps an embedded macro call with the hash-tag?).

"image" would then be rowArray[2], which.. you guessed it.. returns an image if one is specified.

Fetch the highest value declared in element [0] of the last rowArray, of tableArray, and randomly choose a number between 1 & that value. The result would be your indicator for which data to return.


Side Note: after dealing (pun intended) with the card decks that are already provided, you could (as a work-around) create custom images with text on them and simulate a random table with a deck of cards.

I would love to see this happen, especially with any sort of ability that has a random effect such as an ability that gives a random disease or a spell like Color Spray that has different effects at random.

Being able to make a random effect table to macro would rock.

Like the Card Idea, there Wayne. I have a Critical Fumble deck and a Critical Hit Deck, but a Deck for Say Wild Magic Surges or Random Encounters are both great addons, now we just need a way to copy Decks from One Campaign to another or even offer them to the gaming community.

Of course if it could be done using Macros, that's just text and is easy to share.

Like the Pathfinder Harrow Deck has rules like that - though I actually set up the deck with the card system roll20 has, it wold be nice to be able to easily share such resources...

I think the basic funtion would be like a "vlookup" for the dice roll to the table. Anyone with any spreadsheet experience would be able to pick that up pretty quickly. It would great for any random table.