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One of the more tedious parts of GMing is remembering to impersonate the right guy while I'm running a game, so that I can speak "as" that character and preserve as much immersion as I can. The reason its tedious is that impersonation is still a matter of finding the token, right-clicking, selecting impersonate, and going to the chat window to type.

BUT! That is no longer the case!

The attached Library token, "Lib:SpeakForMe", contains a set of macros that will provide you a frame where you can select the token to do the speaking, choose a text color, and enter text - which will then be sent to the chat window as if the token was being impersonated (in other words, it will show the token's icon and name, and the message will appear to be from that token).

It's not an actual automated impersonation - you won't stay as that token, and it doesn't support /me commands (although you could just write the text in that format), but it's a way to speak as your various diabolical NPCs a little easier.

Now - if someone else already made something like this, I'll just be like, "Oh."

The library token was made in b63, but will probably work back to b56. Not positive.

For the codies, here are the macros:

rspk.speakForDialog generates the dialog contents; it's separated out because otherwise I run afoul of nesting limits.
rspk.speakForDialog

rspk.speakForDialog presents the frame, and handles the output part to chat. It's a "self-executing" frame; it passes arguments to itself.
rspk.speakForDialog

rspk.displaySpeech is a trivial macro that displays the actual text.
rspk.displaySpeech

onCampaignLoad just defines the various function
onCampaignLoad

Looks awesome Rumble, thanks for sharing it

Nice !

I'm bookmarking this thread and I'll come back and check it out in more detail. Thanks a bunch!

Update: fixed a rather serious "it won't freakin' work" error due to using an incorrect function name. Download the new rptok, because the old one be broken.

Thanks Rumble. This is definitely going in my toolbox.

Hey Rumble, this would be a neat feature that'd help text games a lot.

Very often you have conversations going between several NPCs and the characters (as GM). Switching impersonation over and over is a pain. It's much nicer in your new box, but you still have to keep using the pull-down.

Any way you could have three pull-downs labeled A, B, and C side by side and then buttons at the bottom Speak As A, Speak As B, and Speak As C?

Well, probably - if you can have three submit buttons on a form. I don't know, but I'll try it. If not, probably some way to do it with links instead.

Links using images instead of text, maybe?
That'd require image tokens to be included, though. Bleah.

Nah, it was easier than I thought. Speak For Me version 2:



Features (many, many new things!):

* Multi-speak: offers three drop down boxes populated with token names from the map. Buttons let you speak the entered text as the token selected in the corresponding drop-down box. The drop-downs will remember the selection you made until you manually re-launch the SpeakForMe macros.

* GM Only or Everybody Plays: two Campaign macros (or macros for wherever) are offered. One is if you want to keep SpeakForMe a GM-only tool, in which case, copy that one to the Campaign panel. If you want to let players use it, copy the other macro to the Campaign panel.

Note: if you choose to let players use it too, the list of tokens they can speak as is restricted to the tokens owned by that player - so they won't be speaking as your NPCs. Handy for players who run more than one character, or who are responsible for some NPCs, etc.

* State Configuration: one of the features of the "getTokens*" set of functions is the ability to exclude certain states from the list of tokens (such as excluding Dead tokens from any lists). On its first launch, SpeakForMe will present a dialog containing all of the configured states in the campaign (sorted alphabetically, broken across several tabs), with checkboxes. If you check off a state, then any token with that state will not be included in the SpeakForMe drop-down boxes.

Note: if you exclude a state that may change midgame (such as "Dead"), remember to ask players (and yourself) to re-launch the dialog so that the lists of viable sources updates. You can also build in such a refresh yourself, based on your own macro frameworks. All you need to do is trigger the macro "Launch SpeakForMe" on the Lib:SpeakForMe token, and it will refresh the frame.

* Several color options

* Checkboxes for bold, italic, and underline. Note that it formats the entire text entry in that fashion; this ain't a word processor. If you need finer control, ignore those and use HTML in the text area, and it will come through.



DISCLAIMER: this is not true impersonation. /me and /mes commands do not work, and the token you are speaking as does not remain impersonated after you hit the button.

This is fabulous. I can't wait to incorporate it. Thanks!!

I used this in my game Saturday and just remembered to report back here that it was great. Some suggestions:

1) Going from 1 map to the next requires the campaign macro to be reloaded as the drop down menus have no clue what tokens are on the current map. Create ability to refresh from the frame.
2) Would be nice if it only displays tokens that are "Visible" and on the token layer. Meaning have the visible flag on.
3) Ability to use pre-cann'd messages from the tokens speech table or normal table. Would allow the DM to build the campaign before hand and then post game put on the net for others to use.

Thanks for the feedback - responses to each item:

1. That's a good idea, but a "refresh frame" thing would be identical to re-running "Launch SpeakForMe".

2. Easily done. I did leave that out on purpose - GMs may want invisible tokens to speak as well.

3. That's difficult from an interface standpoint. How should that be displayed to the user? Where would you like to see that in the interface? I would probably create a whole new library token to handle scripted interactions, focused entirely around the pre-built speech bits (which, after looking at the drop-in forum, it appears biodude already did).

No problem for the feedback. I learn alot from everyones code here and letting them know is a small bit to give back.

1) OK
2) Never really thought of that, but now that I do, I can see the reasoning and extra cool factor on it. NPC is talking behind a curtain and PCs perception is high enough to hear it.
3) You know, I D/L'd this for the game on Saturday, but never got the chance to add to campaign and test.