The Chat Window and die rolls...

[GMSean]

I am a very raw FG user, but I am trying to learn!

I am using the FG 5e set with PHB and DMG purchases, if that matters with the following question at all...

Can I divorce die rolls from the chat window?

In other words, can I roll dice and have the rolls, results, and all show up somewhere other than the chat window...OR...can I post story text, descriptions, NPC conversations and the like away from the die roll results? OR can I just make a second window for dice or chatting only?

[Zacchaeus]

Hi Sean, welcome to FG.

You might be able to do what you want with some kind of extension, but there is no option to not show dice rolls in the chat window (you do have options to not show certain results to the players).

Why is it important to separate these things?

[LordEntrails]

Do be aware, you can roll the dice outside of the chat window just by picking them up and throwing them, but the results won't be reported anywhere.

Without an extension, you can only have one chat window. But there are GM options to not show certain types of rolls (as Mr Z mentioned). Also, you can share story entries without putting them in the chat window.

Again, as Mr Z requests, let us know what you are trying to accomplish (not how you are trying to accomplish it) and we can probably come up with some better suggestions :)

[GMSean]

Gotcha...

Okay, what I am looking for is for dice rolls to not bump story and RP text. I don't really care about the rolls being seen. I don't want the important stuff to get shoved out of the way.

[LordEntrails]

Gotcha...

Okay, what I am looking for is for dice rolls to not bump story and RP text. I don't really care about the rolls being seen. I don't want the important stuff to get shoved out of the way.
Ah, I can see that. Not that I know of :(
Maybe one of the other guys/gals will have some ideas.

[Andraax]

Only way is to roll on desktop. But it does not record these rolls, if you want to save them, you'll have to note them manually.

[Bidmaron]

An extension could record them to a story entry but keeping the context would be hard.

[damned]

Im not aware of you being able to code a second chat window - this is (AFAIK) part of the engine and not the ruleset.
I dont believe you can achieve what GMSean wants...
There is a chatlog scruber which Im sure could be expanded to do more than what it currently does but this is for post game use not in game use.

[Nickademus]

I have looked very little into this, mostly in the 5e ruleset and in a 'blank' ruleset that Dulux and I decided to come up with a while back as an experiment. But, here's what I believe on the subject.

The chat window is part of the ruleset. It is a control called 'chatwindow' which the API looks for and thus must be declared for message processing. It, however, does not need to be displayed. The blank ruleset that I have does not display anything but the radial menu and generates no errors. There are also events that fire whenever a dice are rolled or a message is received (though some messages from code don't trigger this). That means it should be possible, with a lot of work, to intercept most of the input to the chat window and manually recreate it in another control or multiple controls.

Not worth the effort of trying to modify the 5e ruleset to do, but it is in theory possible.

[GMSean]

I do appreciate all of the thoughts on this, however!

Yeah, so to be clear:

I want die rolls and the chat window to be separate. NOT so I can hide rolls or not have them recorded or trigger events. I want them separate so I can leave story information up and visible and available while die rolls scroll their own numbers on by, not the valuable descriptions, reactions, and PC interactions. Does that make sense? I don't like that its a shared space because the details both provide are important, but one should not be making the other difficult to track. I shouldn't have to find what the fuzzy shub'niggurath just said to my gnome artificer amidst a dozen madness saves. I shouldn't have to find my gnome's "Please Don't Eat Me" roll amidst all the PC OOC laughter responses to the joke just made...etc.

Regardless, however, I do want to say: Thank you for all of the thoughts, consideration, and evaluations! I genuinely appreciate it. Good community to belong to. Thank you :)

[Zacchaeus]

If the information you want to provide is super important that you don't want the players missing it then create story entries and share those with the players. They'll pop up on their screen so it will be difficult to miss.
You could also use map pins. Create a story entry and at the right time drag the story to the map which will create a pin. Then share the pin with the players and they'll be able to click on it to get the entry.

[JohnD]

Are you playing in a strictly chat environment (i.e. no voice)?

[LordEntrails]

I get it, and see the value of such in a chat heavy game. Myself I use voice so there is little in the chat except for die rolls. I would suggest you make a suggestion on the Wishlist (https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/) and then post a link back here for those that want to upvote it :)

[Niles]

I think is actually a really good idea, to have the rolls separate from the story elements. Would there be a way to keep the single chat window but have a tab where you could toggle between two chat screens?

[Waldbaer]

I think is actually a really good idea, to have the rolls separate from the story elements. Would there be a way to keep the single chat window but have a tab where you could toggle between two chat screens?

Actually I think this would make it uncomfortable because you would have to switch all the time. I like the idea of having two chat windows very much!

[Octavious]

I like that idea, to me is is a real pain that the dice rolls go on the chat and you loose the shared story lines.. Hey! why not have the dice and combat rolls come up on a side window attached to the side of the combat tracker ? or if no room put it as a scrolled window imbedded into the combat tracker at the bottom.

[LordEntrails]

I will say that any change to two chat windows would almost require such to be optional. Screen real estate is already at a premium for so many users that a second near mandatory window would be troublesome.

But a change like this (tabs and/or separate windows) is probably not something that would be looked at until FGU. Though Moon does surprise me often with the improvements he keeps making to FG 3.x.

[Talyn]

(I completely TL;DR this thread so if this has been directly stated already... eh! :) )

What about if the Chat frame had tabs? A lot of MMOs (and a few other online games) have a Combat Log (actual name depends on the game, whatever) so there could be a GM Option to enable that and all die rolls / script automation spew would go to that tab and the normal chat tab would have chat, <frame> output, etc.? A tab wouldn't use up much more screen real estate. I'm one of those for whom FG's screen real estate is a real issue, but a few pixels onto the chat frame isn't going to kill me.

That's probably doable in v3.x if Moonsie felt like tackling that sort of thing.

[Moon Wizard]

I've actually thought about looking at something like this quite a few times, but I decided not to tackle it. Specifically, it's a UI, workflow and story problem, not an implementation issue. As discussed in the thread, here are a few relevant points:

* Tabletop real estate is at a premium, and many people run FG on laptops and lower resolution monitors. So, adding another window does not work for everyone, since it takes up space better used for maps, trackers, creatures, etc.

* Tabbed chat windows solve the real estate issue, but at the cost of hiding information. If I'm looking at the chat window for story and talking, how do I know when a roll is made, and whether it warrants additional story/chat? And vice versa, when looking at rolls, how do I know when someone is chatting? Sure, you can flash a tab or something like that, but that's an annoying and not very satisfying solution either. (Just look at various MMOs and multiplayer games, people ignore anything that is not up front. It's a matter of changing context for users.) Finally, how do I know when a roll occurred relative to the narrative of the session in order to build a story that includes rolls?

I've batted some ideas around a few times, but never came up with anything I'm really happy with. I'm hoping that as we evolve FG over time, the chat window will grow smarter, and allow rolls and non-chat messages to be able to be summarized easier.

Cheers,
JPG

[Waldbaer]

* Tabbed chat windows solve the real estate issue, but at the cost of hiding information. If I'm looking at the chat window for story and talking, how do I know when a roll is made, and whether it warrants additional story/chat? And vice versa, when looking at rolls, how do I know when someone is chatting? Sure, you can flash a tab or something like that, but that's an annoying and not very satisfying solution either. (Just look at various MMOs and multiplayer games, people ignore anything that is not up front. It's a matter of changing context for users.) Finally, how do I know when a roll occurred relative to the narrative of the session in order to build a story that includes rolls?


As I still don't like the idea that you have to switch to another tab to see the die rolls, I nevertheless think separating chat and rolls would be a good idea. What about a functional tab which would give the GM the possibility to select if the rolls are displayed in chat or separately? This would do the trick I think. Something like click what you want to see in the window...etc. :)

I believe we are now only wishing for things that may be very complex to bring into whatever version ... but why not brainstorming it a bit around and maybe this is not so hard to do?!

[Waldbaer]

Maybe this needs a bit more explaining and I do not really know if this is doable. But if you kind of allow people to stack the tabs that might work. Like: select the roll and chat tab; then all is displayed on the chat. Select only the chat tab, then rolls go to the roll tab...or whatever.. :)

[Talyn]

If I'm looking at the chat window for story and talking, how do I know when a roll is made, and whether it warrants additional story/chat? And vice versa, when looking at rolls, how do I know when someone is chatting? Sure, you can flash a tab or something like that, but that's an annoying and not very satisfying solution either. (Just look at various MMOs and multiplayer games, people ignore anything that is not up front. It's a matter of changing context for users.) Finally, how do I know when a roll occurred relative to the narrative of the session in order to build a story that includes rolls?


Still something to be ignored or not noticed, but changing the text color of the tab title is the solution most of them tend to use.

[Andraax]

I've batted some ideas around a few times, but never came up with anything I'm really happy with. I'm hoping that as we evolve FG over time, the chat window will grow smarter, and allow rolls and non-chat messages to be able to be summarized easier.

Actually, I think that VASL (the Advanced Squad Leader VTT) solves this in the best way. You can turn off showing rolls in the chat log and have them show up in the lower right. The rolls show up, and if there are multiples, they kind of bump up the screen, but they also then disappear after like 30 seconds or so. You can open a die roll window to see the history of rolls. They are also slightly transparent, so you can still what's underneath the rolls. I realize that this would be a major change, however. :-)

[Bidmaron]

Why not just have a toggle button to where the dice results show up in line or not based upon whether button is pressed?
Then if a roll occurs, it shows up and either fades after a few seconds if the button is not depressed or stays if button depressed. This way you can always restore the context of the rolls by pushing the button and the rolls just show up in context
Think if it like show/hide changes in Microsoft Word sort of

[Waldbaer]

Why not just have a toggle button to where the dice results show up in line or not based upon whether button is pressed?
Then if a roll occurs, it shows up and either fades after a few seconds if the button is not depressed or stays if button depressed. This way you can always restore the context of the rolls by pushing the button and the rolls just show up in context
Think if it like show/hide changes in Microsoft Word sort of

That sounds good if you ask me. And if you press it then all past rolls show up also as long as it is pressed and vanish again when you depress it or something like that :)

[Bidmaron]

Exactly