Chat bubbles for "numbered enemies"

[Lo Zeno]

Maybe I'm dumb and I just skipped over some instructions, but I swear I can't find it anywhere...

So, I have selected in my options for "Chat: Display Location" to have the speech appear on "Chat and Token".
I have an encounter with three characters, 1 "Duke Von Kreufer", and 2 "Goblin". When in the combat tracker, obviously, the two goblins appear as "Goblin 1" and "Goblin 2". I am writing a story entry with some speech entries to show on the map to the players. In each Chat Frame, I right click, select Chat Commands, and Assign Speaker, and when the "dot" appears I type the name of the NPC.

Now, if I type Duke Von Kreufer as the name, everything works as expected, when I click the chat bubble icon in the story entry the bubble appears with the correct text on top of the token of the named NPC. For goblins though, it's not as easy:
If I type "Goblin 1" or "Goblin 2" as the assigned speaker, the chat bubble does not appear: the text appears ONLY in the chat frame, not on the map, and it while the assigned identity name is correct (Goblin 1 or Goblin 2) it uses the generic GM icon instead of the NPC icon.
If I type "Goblin", then the chat bubble appears on the head of one of the Goblins, but it's always Goblin 1 who actually speaks. So I can't have Goblin 1 and Goblin 2 bicker to each other, for example, because it looks like it's always the same Goblin having a psychotic break and talking **** to themselves.

The workaround is obviously to turn the numbered monsters into unique monsters with their own unique name - aka copying multiple monster entries of "Goblin" and changing each "Goblin (copy)" to a unique name. That works. That is also a lot of unnecessary work.
Is it intended to be like this, or did I miss something that would make my life easier?

[Oladahn]

I also have this issue.

Oddly changing the name in the combat tracker and assign speaker to 'Goblin two' works, there seems to be a problem with numerals.

[Zacchaeus]

The numbering of the NPCs is done post adding to the CT and isn't part of the name of the NPC. So if you want to have two NPCs bicker then you'll need to have two separate NPCs with different names. I mean you could call them Goblin 1 and Goblin 2 but Morak and Mindy sounds better.

[Lo Zeno]

The numbering of the NPCs is done post adding to the CT and isn't part of the name of the NPC. So if you want to have two NPCs bicker then you'll need to have two separate NPCs with different names. I mean you could call them Goblin 1 and Goblin 2 but Morak and Mindy sounds better.

Yeah it might sound better, but sometimes you don't really want to make unique NPCs just for a bit of flavour background chat. It also means that I can't just set "10 Goblins" in the encounter window, I have to either:
- create 2 unique entries in the encounter with a unique name, by copying the "goblin" NPC into a new NPC that I can rename, or
- change the name of 2 of the 10 goblins in the Combat Tracker once I have clicked "add to combat tracker" in the encounter window

Both options are workarounds that are not immediately intuitive.

[Zacchaeus]

You can change the name in the encounter. You don't need a unique NPC just a unique NPC name.

[Ludd_G]

Yeah it might sound better, but sometimes you don't really want to make unique NPCs just for a bit of flavour background chat. It also means that I can't just set "10 Goblins" in the encounter window, I have to either:
- create 2 unique entries in the encounter with a unique name, by copying the "goblin" NPC into a new NPC that I can rename, or
- change the name of 2 of the 10 goblins in the Combat Tracker once I have clicked "add to combat tracker" in the encounter window

Both options are workarounds that are not immediately intuitive.

Would using either of these NPC naming extensions help:

https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/2386/view

https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/290/view

My players love the little bit of 'flavour' that these renamings add, and it should help liven up the chat bubbles.


Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Simon

[Moon Wizard]

Because the speech in the story text is just a string (i.e. bunch of letters); we have to map to an actual creature, and we map to the CT.
I'll look at adjusting the matching to be exact first; before stripping suffixes and checking again.

Regards,
JPG

[Zacchaeus]

Would using either of these NPC naming extensions help:

https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/2386/view

https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/290/view

My players love the little bit of 'flavour' that these renamings add, and it should help liven up the chat bubbles.


Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Simon

Probably not. The name in the chat bubble and the name on the CT must match for the chat to appear above the correct token. Since there's no way to know what the extensions will throw up for any particular NPC it's unlikely that it'll find a match.

[Lo Zeno]

You can change the name in the encounter. You don't need a unique NPC just a unique NPC name.

Forgive me if I misunderstand your picture, but Bob and Not Bob are two different creatures, right? They seem to have different tokens. So, they are 2 unique entries, not just 2 "goblin"

[Zacchaeus]

Forgive me if I misunderstand your picture, but Bob and Not Bob are two different creatures, right? They seem to have different tokens. So, they are 2 unique entries, not just 2 "goblin"

Sorry I wasn't careful enough when dragging the goblins in. Here's an updated picture with all the same goblins. So what I did was drag in one Goblin, gave him the name Bob and then dragged another one in and gave him the name Not Bob. Then dragged in another one and increased the number to five. So, as long as the NPC has a unique name on the CT the chat will appear above their head.

[Lo Zeno]

Sorry I wasn't careful enough when dragging the goblins in. Here's an updated picture with all the same goblins. So what I did was drag in one Goblin, gave him the name Bob and then dragged another one in and gave him the name Not Bob. Then dragged in another one and increased the number to five. So, as long as the NPC has a unique name on the CT the chat will appear above their head.

Ah, understood now
I wasn't aware it was possible - yes, this workaround is much simpler, thank you!

[Moon Wizard]

I've updated the speech -> actor mapping to check exact name in CT first; and then fall back to "base name" (name without numbers). Run a new Check for Updates to get the latest.

Regards,
JPG

[Lo Zeno]

Works like a charm now!