Must have macros for GMs

I'm a new GM and I'm a little slow at getting things moving. I imagine that there are quite a few of you who have a pretty slick setup. Any suggestions that you could make for a new GM? For system specific macros, I'm playing D&D Next.

Most macros are specific for sheets that each GM created so they are not universal. What do you need help with specifically. Combat? what do you need strung together? Spells, again what specifically needs to be pieced together. Or are you just wanting some help or suggestions about macros in general?

Suggestions. I'm not looking for things I can copy and paste. I'm just asking what other GMs do that make their lives easier.

It boils down to how crunchy is your game. There are some games that is mostly combat so they have all their attacks and saves macro ready for quick use. Other people don't need alot of macros but need few to just do the basic rolls or even query rolls. I'm not totally familiar with D&D next but usually if you macro your attacks / damages and your saves, it will speed your characters up in combat.

joshred said: Suggestions. I'm not looking for things I can copy and paste. I'm just asking what other GMs do that make their lives easier. I like having the usual set of dice (d4, d6, d8, d10...) available as macros, along with a few of them keyed as GM rolls. All of the NPCs and monsters keep their base attack bonus as a value in Bar 2, so I've got a macro that lets me click and NPC and then roll to hit with a button press. Likewise, I've got a macro that adds selected NPCs to the turn tracker with an initiative roll. Finally, there's a macro keyed to a wandering monster roll attached to a rollable table. Apart from rolling damage (which I could integrate if I ever get frisky) I hardly ever have to touch the keyboard.

In all my d20 games I have the following as a global macro: /r d20+?{Modifier?|0} When you click it it brings up a window that just says "Modifier?" and rolls 1d20 plus whatever number. Most common rolls are this way. I also make a GM version of this using /gmroll with a line that says "/em makes a mysterious roll..." to simulate that rolling-behind-the-DM-screen feel of face to face games. And just like in my face to face games, sometimes I just roll for no reason to make my players second guess their actions, heh =) That being said I really like Dave's setup. I'm definitely going to have to integrate the "attack bonus in bar" and initiative roll options. Very clever. Good luck.

@ Jacquesne J. , how would I do the gmroll+mysterious roll macro thing? can you post the code?

/gr 1d20+?{modifier|0} will whisper that roll to who ever is the gm.

@metroknight, yes but how to to also notify the group that the gm rattled the dice in secret l;ike Jacquense described in the process? edit: Derp, guess it helps to lookat the macro help page or try to make one instead of assuming it needs special coding lo

I've got 5 macros and 1 extra. I run Savage Worlds so I have one for wildcard trait rolls, 1 for extra's trait rolls, ranged damage, melee damage, and an full assault ranged attack. All of these have roll queries set up in them for die types and modifiers. I also have 1 extra thats set to gm roll on the side quests table I've set up for the setting I'm running.

@ James M. /em mysteriously rolls dice behind a screen /gr [[d20]] If you do that as the GM of a campaign, players will only see an emote from the first line, type in whatever flavor text you want there. You will be shown an inline roll of whatever you choose for after /gr. I use the same trick for d100's on random events happening...or not happening around my players.

Can I get a peek at the macro that adds all of the selected NPCs to the initiative tracker?

@Riley You mention there not being a way to do it en mass. Is there a way that agm could do something like this? /roll 1d20 + @{Steve's|Initiative} &{tracker} /roll 1d20 + @{Joe's|Initiative} &{tracker} /roll 1d20 + @{Sally's|Initiative} &{tracker}

Riley D. said: I assume he's just using the new &{tracker} feature. Yep - so for our old school D&D game it looks like "/roll 1d6 + @{selected|DEX} &{tracker}" where each PC has a defined DEX attribute on their character sheet. That alone shaved probably ten minutes of fiddling each session in our game. NPCs get a generic "/r 4d6 &{tracker}" I'd like there be a way to do it en masse, but as Riley points out above, there isn't a way to do it without the API. And I've found that players like rolling their own initiative anyway, and I like their steadily increasing grumbles as more and more tokens get added to the turn tracker.