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Frustrating UI - Change Game settings?? How? WHERE?!

Hey guys,

We use Roll20 for our games because it's nice to have some map visualisation. We use D&D Beyond for our character sheets and the Beyond20 extension to link the two. 

This works absolutely great, but there's one small problem:

Roll20's UI is just a confusing mess, and changing settings is frustrating and unnecessarily complicated.

I'm trying to turn off whisper rolls. There is no general setting for this, as I understand, and has to be done for each individual game. However, no "Settings" option even exists on the game page, where every tutorial says it should be. There's "Launch Game", and then there's "Content" with a drop down that has the option "Chat Archive" and nothing else. Then there's "Leave Game". There are no further options. 

All I'm trying to do here is turn off whisper rolls to the DM. Why is this so difficult?

Confusingly, for a game in which I am the GM, there IS a "Settings" option, but the only thing it has in the drop down is "API Scripts" and "Leave Game"

I have checked under "My Account" and "My Profile" for some sort of general settings or preferences, but nothing exists there. I've checked the ingame settings tab and there's nothing there either.

I don't wanna bash Roll20 here because it's a useful tool for my games, and some of the features are really good. But honestly it has one of the worst UI experiences of anything I have ever used. It's like they took every feature and option, wrote each on a different card, shuffled the deck and just kinda left stuff wherever. Not just for this specific issue, but in general. 

How do I fix this?  

August 10 (5 years ago)

Edited August 10 (5 years ago)
Kraynic
Pro
Sheet Author

Whisper GM isn't a game setting.  It depends on how your macros are built, and is an option on certain character sheets.  If you aren't using character sheets in Roll20, then your whisper isn't something you can easily switch, but something built into the macros you are using or the script you are using to roll from D&D Beyond.

Why should it be the default for me, but nobody else, when we're using the exact same system?

August 10 (5 years ago)
Kraynic
Pro
Sheet Author

When a roll is whispered to the GM, it is because it has "/w gm " on the front of it.  That isn't something that can be turned on and off as a game setting.  Are you using rolls from a character sheet in game?  If you are, then your sheet might have whisper turned on in the sheet configuration, because it can be built into a character sheet to add/remove the "/w gm " from the beginning of all rolls made from roll buttons on that sheet (or in macros that are built to check the whisper toggle of your character sheet).  If you aren't, then it is written in the macros you are using, and those had to be written by someone.  Ask that person. 

I don't know the setup in your game.  I'm just telling you how macros work.

August 10 (5 years ago)
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter

The problem seems to be that you are the GM of a game that someone else created. That specifically limits a couple of your options regarding game settings. I.e. you as a "hoisted player" do not have access to the game setting page, a feature restricted to the game creator. There are a lot of items on that page that are account-specific, rather than player specific, such as compendium control.

As an assigned GM, you only have access to control whisper settings in game, either individually if doing so manually, or more with a properly worded API script and Macro. It would be much simpler to get the creator of the game to follow these steps (they can do so without looking at any content). I am including my boilerplate instructions for all whisper settings:



Note that the whisper settings are attached to each individual sheet, there is no actual game setting. These instructions are for changing the defaults for all the character sheets in the game, then applying the settings to all existing sheets. Note that this will also change your PC sheets - you will have to manually change them to a different setting if one is preferred.


Here are the ways to toggle this behavior:


Always Whisper

  1. Go to the Campaign Settings Page
  2. Choose "Always Whisper Rolls" under "WHISPER ROLLS TO GM" in the Default Sheet Settings
  3. Save
  4. Load your game
  5. Go to the settings tab on the right and scroll to the bottom where you will find a button that says Apply Default Settings. Press it.
  6. Choose to update the Whisper settings. Wait a minute or two for it to resolve. There is a thin easy-to-miss progress bar.

Never Whisper

There's a bug in the game settings that doesn't recognize "Never Whisper Rolls", possibly because it is trying to write a blank value. The solution is to use Whisper Toggle. The default is public, so once this is set, all rolls should show.

  1. Go to the Campaign Settings Page
  2. Choose "Whisper Toggle" under "WHISPER ROLLS TO GM" in the Default Sheet Settings
  3. Save
  4. Load your game
  5. Go to the settings tab on the right and scroll to the bottom where you will find a button that says Apply Default Settings. Press it.
  6. Choose to update the Whisper settings. Wait a minute or two for it to resolve. There is a thin easy-to-miss progress bar.

Query Whisper

The default is public, so once this is set, all rolls should show by default unless you choose otherwise.

  1. Go to the Campaign Settings Page
  2. Choose "Query Whisper" under "WHISPER ROLLS TO GM" in the Default Sheet Settings
  3. Save
  4. Load your game
  5. Go to the settings tab on the right and scroll to the bottom where you will find a button that says Apply Default Settings. Press it.
  6. Choose to update the Whisper settings. Wait a minute or two for it to resolve. There is a thin easy-to-miss progress bar.


   7. Have fun!