There has to be an easier way to get characters on a map

So I'm playing Curse of Strahd (almost done) and I struggle so much getting all the characters, their familiars, and their constructs on to a new map.  This is made worse when they are running all around the castle and going from sheet to sheet.  Here's what I have to do..  Go to the new map and make sure I know where they land.  Go back to the old map and select them all with a select bar and unselect the crap I don't want.  Then copy.  Then go to the new map and paste and make sure they are where they need to be... all 11 tokens.  Then move the players on to the new map.  UGH!  I've heard people say on the forums that you just have to drag the players on to the map using their sheets, but that ends up in these new tokens that are broken!  I.e. HP not mapped, AC not mapped, vision characteristics not set, name not visible, etc, etc.  I feel like screaming sometimes when I play on Roll20.

You need to make sure you have their tokens fully set up before making them the  default token for a sheet. That way you won't lose the mapping of attributes/sight settings etc. You could also have a page set up with just the tokens you need to copy/paste each time, nicely bunched together in a standard formation, for quick selection/copy/pasting?

This is the number one thing that trips people up with roll20, and really should be made less clunky. The UI really is terrible for this element. Just to clarify when you want to set up a default token: Make all the changes you need to a token - set up who it represents, linked bars, sight, etc. Only when you have all settings finished. set the token as default for the character When you drag a token to the map from the character sheet, you are dragging a copy  of the token stored there. Once it's on the map, it is a completely separate from the one stored in the default box on the character sheet. Any changes you make to that token are just to that token , not the original stored in the default box. To update the default token to get it to work with your changes, you need to open the character sheet, delete the default token that is already set. Once that's done, you can set the current token to the default. This is a clunky, horrible process (and terrible if you have to do it for multiple characters), but once it's done once, you can forget about it. Then any time you drag a character to the map, their token will have the proper settings.

Braxwulf is a Pro user. Token-mod could be made to set up all the defaults and save the token as a default with one macro.

Ah yes, good point. I do that in my game, too. Here's the macro I use to set up the characters in my game, with a bunch of commands so you can see how much you can set up.  To use this (or your version of it), create a macro, drop these commands into it, then whenever you need to you, you can just a token to the map, set the represents field to match the right character, and run this macro and its instantly set up and set as the default token. If the represents field is already set up, the macro will override whatever is set for the token, and replace the existing defaulttoken on the character sheet. !token-mod --set bar1_link| bar2_link| bar3_link| bar1| bar2| bar3|  !token-mod {{ --set bar3_link|HPbar_Total --set bar2_link|Armor_Value --set bar1_link|HPbar_Wound --set name|'@{selected|character_name}' --on showname --on showplayers_name --on showplayers_bar3 --on light_hassight --set light_radius|15 light_dimradius|5 --set defaulttoken }}

Thanks for the responses..  I'll have to admit that I'm not sure I understand the value of the macro, but I'll look into it.  What would be nice is a simple "character window" perhaps integrated with the initiative menu where you could drag and drop all the characters onto a sheet in a single step... and possibly removes them in a single step too.

I didnt grasp the usefulness of tokenmod either for a long time, but it has become my most essential tool.

Braxwulf said: Thanks for the responses..  I'll have to admit that I'm not sure I understand the value of the macro, but I'll look into it.  What would be nice is a simple "character window" perhaps integrated with the initiative menu where you could drag and drop all the characters onto a sheet in a single step... and possibly removes them in a single step too. You could look into the Summon script, but I think it needs some polish. I had to abandon it when I discovered it was pulling in older versions of the tokens instead of the tokens as stored in my journal tab. The macro that GG posted would allow you to drop a graphic onto the table, assign it to a character, and then run the macro. Once run, all of the linking for bars, vision, etc. is set up and the token saved in that state to the character sheet entry, so that whenever you pull out a new token in the future, everything is already set and ready to go. It does all of the steps you would normally have to do manually in order to get that functionality. I would strongly suggest reading the link that Ziechael posted above. You can save yourself an awful lot of work by setting up your tokens properly to begin with.

In my games I do the copy-paste technique (from Braxwulf's original post), to me it's the best current way. There are aspects I don't like about the drag-and-drop from Journal/Characters tab, this tends to forget Summons / Familiars / Mounts / Henchies / other tokens that should be with the party but don't have a Character Sheet of their own.  So I prefer to Select-Copy the tokens from whatever Page they were on, and Paste into the new page, and adjust their positions from there. Here is a Modified-CopyPaste method: You can make a Party Roster box at the top-left of every Page, or just your Start Page (splash page). Keep a master copy of the whole party there, with the tokens already lined in marching-order.  Now instead of GM needing to hunt around the current map to copy-everyone (and needing to unselect the furniture), instead the GM can just regularly plan to copy the Marching Order Box where everyone has their Tokens neatly arranged side-by-side with no furniture or background graphics interfering. Saves a moment of time when moving Pages. I also endorse the Token-Mod API script suggestion. I use a slightly different (custom configured) macro to execute Token-Mod, but same idea. It saves a lot of clicks if you want to apply consistent settings to a number of tokens.  I forever-keep a Set:Monster and SetUp:Character macros that call on Token-Mod so I'm always ready to toss a new token and configure it quickly (name, HP, AC, aura, light, name, nameplate, etc).

Those are good ideas, Gold. I also have two tokenMod macros - one for PCs and one for NPCs. It's sooo much quicker to set up tokens for monsters and opponents this way.

So during the last couple sessions I tried using the 'drag from character sheet' model.  Didn't work well.  Though the tokens were easier to get on the map, they were always scaled incorrectly.  There are some 10' square maps (mixed in with the 5' ones) in Strahd but I made absolutely sure that I copied a new 5' token into each character sheet - one by one in a pause in the game - it still didn't work the next time I dragged and dropped.  This forced me to resize the tokens one by one.  A NIGHTMARE.  Also, you cannot easily remove tokens from the map.  I oftend dropped characters on a huge map that already had their characters, thus confusing them.  (They had been on that map before.) Though the last session was better, pretty much all 6 players are convinced just to use pen, paper, and Skype or Fantasy Grounds.  I hate to say it, but I think I'll be cancelling my pro membership today.  Roll20 has the right idea, but it actually makes gaming more difficult, not easier.  And I have stress nightmares about balancing the interface with the game I'm trying to create. A few memorable quotes from last night: "This really should make gaming faster and easier - but it actually does the opposite.. times 2.  My next game will be pen and paper." "You are spending far too much time messing with the tool and not enough time on the story."

I understand your frustrations. If my players weren't paying for Pro for me, I'd go back to maptools. The basic version is too limited IMO. Even as a pro user, the interface is pretty clunky. That said, as a Pro user, there are scripts you can use to eliminate all your issues.  There's a couple of scripts for automating moving tokens between maps (Map Change and Page Navigator). TokenMod solves all token resizing and setting woes instantly. This eliminates the need to manually re-add tokens to character sheets. Why cant you easily remove tokens from a map? i just select them all and delete them (cut them, to paste elsewhere).

This often happens if the party gets split up or I forget to delete a familiar.  Other times it is because we ended the game night on a particular map and I just forget to do it. I understand what you're saying about scripts helping - they probably do - but I've had some bad experience with scripts and fell out of love with them. I tend to think this kind of basic functionality should just be part of the framework of the software and not something bolted on.

I had trouble the other night in a game I was running - I could not even "select" them except one by one. The players decided to move them from page to page themselves and that worked fine. One benefit is once everyone has moved them over, you basically know they're ready to go.

Just pulled the trigger on the downgrade to a free account. I’ll have Pro until the end of the month. I might come back if they make they improve the interface.