Roll20 Tips and Tricks (Innovative Solutions to Common Problems)

You should work that out in its own thread, where you can get conversation and input. When you have the use of Comparison all tricked out (heh) in a way where you can explain to others how it can be used and modified, go ahead and post it here.

Popout sheets/handouts into tabs (Chrome) This may be too specific or small of a trick, but it's proven super useful for my games. This works in Chrome, but similar techniques may work in other browsers. If you have lots of NPCs (or other handouts) cluttering up your screen, you all know you can double-click on their title to minimize them, or pop them out into their own window. However, you can also right-click the Roll20 Navicon on those popouts, and click "Show as Tab" to give them a tab which you can drag into other chrome windows (on my laptop I need to double-right-click on the navicon to make the menu appear). I use this in large combats, putting all NPC sheets into tabs on a single window, swapping tabs for whatever creature is up. It works best when I have a second monitor for it, but on my laptop it's not too hard to alt-tab to my NPC window to roll something, and alt-tab back in.

That is an excellent trick Mik. I just recently rediscovered that you could tabify the popped out windows and wondered why I had forgotten.

Searching Handouts and the Journal  In the vein of the Popout sheets/handouts trick, this might also be too small or specific, but it is very useful. As described this works in Chrome, but should work in other browsers as well. Because Ctrl-F is assigned to the brush tool by Roll20, it can be easy to miss that you can still use your browser search. If you have a long handout (even multiple handouts) or lots of journal items, you can still use your browser search to find the word you are looking for. Make sure you have any journal folders you want to search twirled open and any handouts you want to search open, then click the menu button for your browser (on Chrome it is three dots). From there select Find in the menu, and you can use the built in browser search. It should search any text open in the tab on your browser.

Mik Holmes said: Popout sheets/handouts into tabs (Chrome) ... I had no idea. Good trick. Wish I had known it forever ago. After searching a while, for Mac users on Chrome, "Show as Tab" is in the Window menu, and displays when you have a popup as the frontmost window. For Firefox, it seems to require an extension.

keithcurtis said: Loren the GM said: Searching Handouts and the Journal  ... Good Trick Loren, but Jeremy beat you to it . :) Actually, it's different, you can search while in the vtt without needing to pop out, which I had no idea about.

Hmm. It is slightly different. I'll index it on the line with the other, so that people who find one, know the other exists.

I even checked first so I wouldn't double up but didn't process "Finding Attributes on Characters" as something that would pertain to searching (more like how to find where attributes are on a character sheet is how I read it when skimming the list). Perhaps include the word "Search" somewhere in the link title in case others are looking for a way to search for things on their characters/handouts/etc.?

I usually transcribe the title as the author wrote it, unless it is unclear out of context, or a follow up of some kind. There are too many possible variations of synonyms for me to anticipate, though. 

Struggling to come up with a fancy flavour filled descriptions when the hero slays the goblin, or misses a shot with their ranged attack? Well I did. So I painstakingly wrote out more than 400 'descriptions' into an excel document, for Melee hits, Melee misses, Ranged hits and Ranged misses which I then copied the text into x6 different 'tables' within roll20. Melee-Miss Melee-Hit Melee-Kill Ranged-Miss Ranged-Hit Ranged-Kill I then added the following macro…. /desc ?{What happened?|Melee Hit, [[1t[Melee-Hit]]]|Melee Miss, [[1t[Melee-Miss]]]|Melee Kill, [[1t[Melee-Kill]]]|Ranged Hit, [[1t[Ranged-Hit]]]|Ranged Miss, [[1t[Ranged-Miss]]]|Ranged Kill, [[1t[Ranged-Kill]]]} Now, whenever I want a nice description, I simply click the macro button and it spits out a nice description. For me, I play text based games, so all players can see it. Job done. – However, for those of you that play using voice, you may prefer to 'whisper' the result of the macro to yourself and 'speak' the outcome instead.   Note 1: I myself used many of the descriptions used from some cards I found online – but added lots more myself. (EDIT - I'd love to send out a link to my giant excel document, but since I'd  copied from the cards I'd purchased myself,  I understandably don't want to break any rules or upset any mods). Note 2: Half way through the painstaking copy and pasting exercise, I realised that Aaron had made a ' Table Export API ' which saved me hours of time!, - note, this would only help pro subscribers with access to API features. Note 3: With so many descriptions, I've tried to stay 'generic' but sometimes, due to the random nature some may come out a bit strange... "E.g. You kill a rock monster, but the description may describe the blood squirting from the wound on their now headless body...."... Or you fight a female Drow, but the text mentions hurting 'his' arm, skull etc...

This could be great too for GMs who want to appear  to be great at improvising such language, by having it whisper the text to you so you can speak it! hehe.

I use the same trick for name generators.

G G said: This could be great tool for GMs who want to appear  to be great at improvising such language, by having it whisper the text to you so you can speak it! hehe. Yes, exactly - I presume, the GM would need to just add.... /w GM at the start of the macro, instead of: /desc ....to hide the announcements to the rest of the group.

godthedj said: Note 1:    I used many of the descriptions used from some cards I found online – but added lots more myself. Note 2: Half way through the painstaking copy and pasting exercise, I realised that Aaron had made a ' Table Export API ' which saved me hours of time!, - note, this would only help pro subscribers with access to API features. Note 3: With so many descriptions, I've tried to stay 'generic' but sometimes, due to the random nature some may come out a bit strange... "E.g. You kill a rock monster, but the description may describe the blood squirting from the wound on their now headless body...."... Or you fight a female Drow, but the text mentions hurting 'his' arm, skull etc... It's too bad there wasn't a quicker/easier method of adding cards to roll20.  No need for creating the tables, just draw a card(s) as needed.

godthedj said: Struggling to come up with a fancy flavour filled descriptions when the hero slays the goblin, or misses a shot with their ranged attack? Well I did. So I painstakingly wrote out more than 400 'descriptions' into an excel document, for Melee hits, Melee misses, Ranged hits and Ranged misses which I then copied the text into x6 different 'tables' within roll20. Melee-Miss Melee-Hit Melee-Kill Ranged-Miss Ranged-Hit Ranged-Kill I then added the following macro…. /desc ?{What happened?|Melee Hit, [[1t[Melee-Hit]]]|Melee Miss, [[1t[Melee-Miss]]]|Melee Kill, [[1t[Melee-Kill]]]|Ranged Hit, [[1t[Ranged-Hit]]]|Ranged Miss, [[1t[Ranged-Miss]]]|Ranged Kill, [[1t[Ranged-Kill]]]} So, do you have plans on sharing your Excel document? ;)

Ben L. said: godthedj said: Struggling to come up with a fancy flavour filled descriptions when the hero slays the goblin, or misses a shot with their ranged attack? Well I did. So I painstakingly wrote out more than 400 'descriptions' into an excel document, for Melee hits, Melee misses, Ranged hits and Ranged misses which I then copied the text into x6 different 'tables' within roll20. Melee-Miss Melee-Hit Melee-Kill Ranged-Miss Ranged-Hit Ranged-Kill I then added the following macro…. /desc ?{What happened?|Melee Hit, [[1t[Melee-Hit]]]|Melee Miss, [[1t[Melee-Miss]]]|Melee Kill, [[1t[Melee-Kill]]]|Ranged Hit, [[1t[Ranged-Hit]]]|Ranged Miss, [[1t[Ranged-Miss]]]|Ranged Kill, [[1t[Ranged-Kill]]]} So, do you have plans on sharing your Excel document? ;) Good catch! I was planning to come back to this later, and hadnt noticed it wasn't linked.

If there is any copyrighted material on it, please don't link it. The macro is enough; people can insert their own content.

keithcurtis said: If there is any copyrighted material on it, please don't link it. The macro is enough; people can insert their own content. Good to know. keithcurtis said: Mik Holmes said: Popout sheets/handouts into tabs (Chrome) ... I had no idea. Good trick. Wish I had known it forever ago. After searching a while, for Mac users on Chrome, "Show as Tab" is in the Window menu, and displays when you have a popup as the frontmost window. For Firefox, it seems to require an extension. do you plan on sharing said extension with us Firefox Users? (like myself, when I'm not on my Phone)

The one I did try, I cannot recommend (i.e. I could not get it to work, and it may have been intended for pre-Quantum). I urge those interested to explore for themselves.

I'm pretty sure the problem that Firefox Experiences with the Tabbed Sheets is that it's linked to the JavaScript void() command, so it's needing to be something that allows Firefox to read the URL after it's been parsed through JavaScript. That's why I was asking about your results, because Searching for such things can lead to some dangerous results.

Tabbed Popups on Firefox That trick to get the pop-outs as tabs is great for Chrome, but it doesn't work for Firefox. However, there is a way to achieve this automatically with Firefox. Step 1 : Type " about:config " into your address bar. Step 2 : Hit the "I accept the risk!" button. Step 3 : Find the preference named " browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction ". Step 4 : Set the value to " 0 ". And that's it! Now whenever you pop-out one of those sheets, it will automatically go to a new tab. I use a 2nd monitor myself, and I keep another window of Firefox open on it, set to fill only half the page (Win+Left/Right Arrow to dock it to one side) with all my monster sheets as tabs in it. The other half of that screen is my OneNote. Edit: Small bug, I found actually. Don't be on the tab when you close it, or it'll refresh your main Roll20 page. If you have your main Roll20 tab as the current active tab and then close one of your pop-out tabs, it works just fine. Same goes for active window.

Malachi said: Tabbed Popups on Firefox That trick to get the pop-outs as tabs is great for Chrome, but it doesn't work for Firefox. However, there is a way to achieve this automatically with Firefox. Step 1 : Type " about:config " into your address bar. Step 2 : Hit the "I accept the risk!" button. Step 3 : Find the preference named " browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction ". Step 4 : Set the value to " 0 ". And that's it! Now whenever you pop-out one of those sheets, it will automatically go to a new tab. I use a 2nd monitor myself, and I keep another window of Firefox open on it, set to fill only half the page (Win+Left/Right Arrow to dock it to one side) with all my monster sheets as tabs in it. The other half of that screen is my OneNote. Edit: Small bug, I found actually. Don't be on the tab when you close it, or it'll refresh your main Roll20 page. If you have your main Roll20 tab as the current active tab and then close one of your pop-out tabs, it works just fine. Same goes for active window. it should also be noted that you don't get the normally available "Auto-Switch to this Tab" option (even if it is force enabled) that you have with the Windowed version of the Pop-outs

As Keith said earlier in the thread, you should only post confirmed tricks in this thread. If there's something you think might be a trick and don't know why, it's a good idea to start another thread for discussing it. Then when we know it is a useful trick, post it here.

Scott C. and GG have the right of it here. This thread is most useful as a resource than a laboratory. People come here to find tips, not potential tips or suggestions. Just a heads up with my Mod Hat on. The last page or so has gotten a little jumbled. I'm worn out from Gen Con Travel tonight, but tomorrow I'll be doing some pruning and condensation of some posts into something a little more coherent for future trick-finders. I might also revisit the first post with some clearer guidelines for posting tricks. I'll do my best to keep folks' original wording and attribute properly where possible.

Loren the GM said: Searching Handouts and the Journal  In the vein of the Popout sheets/handouts trick, this might also be too small or specific, but it is very useful. As described this works in Chrome, but should work in other browsers as well. Because Ctrl-F is assigned to the brush tool by Roll20, it can be easy to miss that you can still use your browser search. If you have a long handout (even multiple handouts) or lots of journal items, you can still use your browser search to find the word you are looking for. Make sure you have any journal folders you want to search twirled open and any handouts you want to search open, then click the menu button for your browser (on Chrome it is three dots). From there select Find in the menu, and you can use the built in browser search. It should search any text open in the tab on your browser. There is an even faster way of doing this.  1. Click in the URL field of your browser 2. Press CTRL+F. I use this all the time to search for unique playlists I arranged for each monster.

Invisible Tokens - Hidden Light Source El Gato of de Churros has come up with a clever use for an invisible token. Sometimes you wish to have a light source for dynamic lighting, but do not wish to have it come from a visible map item. Perhaps it comes from an overhead chandelier, or a glowing bed of lava that is part of your map, or perhaps sun or moonlight streaming in through a window. An invisible token can emit light like any other token. Jeremy reminds us that this can be given a GM-only aura as described here. If you feel that the aura is distracting, or you do not wish to accidentally move it, it can be placed upon the Dynamic Lighting Layer. The aura will not show here, so remember where you have put it! godthedj and Kyle G. further suggest that you can use the map layer for identical behavior. Tokens placed upon the GM layer will not emit light. After reading these, I would suggest placing it upon the DL Layer, since tokens on the DL Layer are invisible to both GM and player naturally. In this way, you can use any token you like invisible or not, and with or without aura. It will only be visible while you are on the DL Layer, and will still shed visible light.

I have gone through the last page and done some pruning of digressions and consolidation of tricks that were spread out across many posts. Normally I would let things stand as they are, but this last page has gotten a bit difficult to read. If you feel I have deleted something of yours that should be restored, let me know. I'm open to suggestions. I've edited the first post to make the usage of the thread a little clearer, but not everyone goes back and reads the first post other than to check the index. I'll repeat it here: Please only post a complete "stupid trick" here. If you want help working out what might become a trick, start it it in its own thread and  please  post here when complete. If you just wish to express thanks to someone who just solved a great mystery for you, that's fine—people need recognition for contributing Cool Stuff. Also, feel free to point out refinements or warnings about existing tricks. Every little bit helps. If your post is strong enough, I'll link it on the same line as the referenced post in the index. Just don't clutter the thread with too many thanks and especially long strings of quoted text and images. Help keep this thread clean, organized, and easy to read. Thanks!

Heya, I got a request for a scaling dice roller for Flurry of Blows, and thought it might be useful for others because I couldn't find anything when I did an initial search for macros. I'm not totally sure if this is the thread it goes in, so please let me know if it goes somewhere else! I don't post on the forums much. Anyway. In the "Damage:" section of the sheet, where you put in the dice, enter this: 1d[[[[round((@{level} + 1) / 6 + 1.5)]]*2]] This will scale it so that at level 5 it's a d6, at 11 it's d8, etc. I based it on the Cantrip Dice Progression formula. This is optimised for the OGL sheet, because I don't know what attributes other sheets use for level. If you want to roll it in chat (with the /roll command), change the "@{level}" to "@{NAME|level}". Be sure to swap out "NAME" with your character sheet's title, or it'll break! I hope this helps some people! And sorry if this has already been done ;w; As said, I could not find anything, so I assumed not.