Text Chat

Chatting

Sending a basic chat message is easy: just type your message into the chat input area and press "Enter". Players who are assigned a "Character" from the Journal tab can talk either as their registered login name or as their assigned character. This option can be found in the drop-down menu below the chat text box.

If "Enable chat avatars" is checked off in the Settings Tab on the sidebar, mini avatar icons will display to the left of chat entries. The icon will change depending on whether a user is chatting as themselves or as a player-assigned character.

Multiline Chat Commands

You can hit shift enter while typing in chat commands to get to the next line. Each line will be individually interpreted allowing you to send multiple styles of chat together, preventing them from being split in the chat by other players' messages.

/me strikes a valiant pose.
Evil doer, beware, I am on your trail!
/w gm This is the signal that the thugs I paid are waiting for.

Rolling

Rolling dice in Roll20 is easy. Just type the /roll command into the text chat box, followed by a formula. In most cases, the formula is the same as the one that's printed in your game's instructions. For instance, when rolling an attack, you would typically roll a "D20" and add your attack modifier to the result.. In Roll20, you would just type /roll d20+5. If you hit and you need to roll 3d6+2 damage, you would just type /roll 3d6+2. Moreover you can string multiple rolls together. If you have an attack that does two types of damage, you might do /roll 2d6+5 + 1d8.

The overall format for a dice roll is /roll NdX+m where N is the number of dice to roll, X is the number of sides of the dice, and m is the (optional) modifier. Modifiers can be negative.

After the roll is performed, you'll see the results of the roll in the text chat area. Notice that for each group of dice that were rolled, there will be a group of numbers in parentheses, representing the result of each individual dice that was rolled. You'll also see the total of all the dice values plus modifiers to the right of the equals sign.

Be sure to check out the Dice Reference if you need to use more advanced dice mechanics.

You can also use Macros and Character Abilities in your rolls. Just press # and start typing to see a list of your macros, or % for a list of your Character's abilities.

Advanced Trick and Basic Features 

The Roll20 Chat allows you to send secret messages, speak as a character, roll dice and more. Learn more about our Chat's basic features and some advanced tips and tricks.

Whispers

To whisper, simply type /w followed by the name of the player or character you want to engage in a whisper conversation. There is a tab-auto-complete function for names to speed up this process.

Example: /w Galstaff Then how come you had to cast magic missile?

Example: /w Rob Where are the Cheetos?!

You can quote the name of a character or player if the name contains spaces.

Example: /w "Galstaf, Sorcerer of Light" You didn't say you cast it, so you didn't, ok?!

Example: /w "Rob Schrab" Where's the Mountain Dew?!

To whisper directly to the GM, type /w gm. Moreover you can roll dice that only you and the GM can see, with /gmroll 1d20+5.

Example: /w gm I'm attacking the darkness!

Example: /gmroll 2d6+3

At this time, only GM whispers are retained in the Chat Archive, and they are only shown to the GM.

A player or the GM can whisper to themselves using the /w or /w gm commands where applicable.

Note: Whispering to a Character will send the message to all Players listed in the controlled by field, which may include the GM. This fact is often used to make an "in-character language" Character for Campaign setting languages like Elvish, Dwarven, Orcish, etc. The Language Character can then be whispered to for only Players who have Characters that understand that language.

Chat Commands

Emotes (/em)

To emote, type /em and whatever action you want stated. Please note that your emotes will be based on whether you are currently speaking as a player or as a character. Emotes are formatted as center aligned, bold, italicized and set in a brown font and highlight.

Example:

/em takes out one of his throwing daggers and brandishes it threateningly.

Bradley takes out one of his throwing daggers and brandishes it threateningly.

Out of Character (/ooc)

To state something while Out of Character (OOC) type /ooc or /o and whatever you wish to say out of character. OOC entries always appear as the player (e.g. "Riley D.") rather than the Character you have selected in the "Speaking As" drop-down (e.g. "Orrbain").

Example:

/ooc I could really use another Red Bull right now.

Riley D.: I could really use another Red Bull right now.

Escape Text (`)

`&{template:default} {{attack=[[1d20]]}}

If you put a back-tick ` at the beginning of a command, nothing related to the command (such as inline rolls or variables) will be processed. Instead, the command will be directly displayed as text output. This might be useful for sharing macros with other players.

Talk to Myself (/talktomyself)

To turn off your chat display for all others, including the GM and the chat archive recording, use /talktomyself or /talktomyself on. Use /talktomyself again or use /talktomyself off to disable.

Note: the /talktomyself command and what you want to say must be on different lines and you cannot use it in the same macro as what you want to keep hidden. Recommendation is to have a separate macro to toggle the talktomyself state and then use your other macros that actually do what you want.

Example:

/talktomyself
This is my evil secret plan to steal the gold from my party!
/talktomyself

Note: Mod (API) commands (a Pro subscription feature) will not be executed when /talktomyself is on.

Special Effects (/fx)

/fx <Type>-<Color> <Source ID> [<Target ID>]

• Type can be one of: beam, bomb, breath, bubbling, burn, burst, explode, glow, missile, nova, or splatter.
• Color can be one of: acid, blood, charm, death, fire, frost, holy, magic, slime, smoke, or water.
• Source ID is the id of a token which is the point of origin of an effect.
• Target ID is the id of a token which is the point where the effect is focused. The target is only required for directed effects and will be ignored by area effects.

Information about the default effects' types and colors, as well as instructions on how to build your own custom effects, can be found on the Custom FX page.

Examples

• A beam of acid:

/fx beam-acid @{target|Caster|token_id} @{target|Foe|token_id} 

• Fire from a dragon:

/fx breath-fire @{target|Dragon|token_id} @{target|PC|token_id}

• Explosion of Fire:

/fx explode-fire @{target|token_id}

Custom FX

The /fx command can also be used to invoke Custom FX. For custom effects use the following syntax:

/fx <Custom Effect Name> <Source ID> [<Target ID>]

• Custom Effect Name is whatever you typed in the Name field of the Edit FX dialog.
• Source ID is the id of a token which is the point of origin of an effect.
• Target ID is the id of a token which is the point where the effect is focused. It is only required for directed effects and will be ignored by area effects.

GM Exclusive Chat Commands

GM Hide Message

Hiding messages is a manual intervention by GMs to moderate chat or handle accidental spoilers, rather than a replacement for whispers. There is currently no way to default a message to be sent as a hidden message. You can hide a message by clicking on the three dots to the right of any message in the chat and selecting "Hide“. Furthermore, you can reveal hidden messages by clicking those same three dots and choosing "Un-Hide."

Descriptions (/desc)

Adding text following the /desc command will not be designated to have been spoken by anyone. This is for the use of the GM to describe something in a scene. Descriptions are formatted as center aligned, bold, italicized and set in a black font and light grey highlight.

Example:

/desc The old house begins to creak and moan...

The old house begins to creak and moan...

Speaking and Emoting as a Random NPC (/as) (/emas)

A GM can speak or emote as an NPC that doesn't have a character entry made in the Journal tab. To speak as a non-situated character, a GM should use the command /as, followed by a space, and then provide the character name within quotation marks, followed by the desired message for the character..

Example:

/as "Sir Bearington" I'm going to eat you for breakfast.

Sir Bearington: I'm going to eat you for breakfast.

To emote, follow the same process as above but use the command /emas.

Example:

/emas "Sir Bearington" charges at you!

Sir Bearington charges at you!

Basic Formatting

Markdown

You can use basic Markdown syntax in your text chat messages. We don't support the entire breadth of everything Markdown can do (like headers), but rather just basic formatting. Here's a quick rundown:

Note: Including an image is just putting in a link to an image. If the link ends in ".png", ".jpg", ".jpeg", or ".gif", we will automatically insert an image tag in addition to linking to the source image.

You can use the Markdown formatting in general messages, whispers (/w), descriptions (/desc), and emotes (/em). You can include Markdown formatting in the values you pass to Roll Templates. For example:

 {{attack= [[1d20]] vs **AC**}}

Doing math in the chat

Sometimes you want to do simple math in your chat. For example, posting the damage done by a weapon and subtracting the modifier. To do so you can simply put it into double square brackets like those "[[]]".

For example writing a macro for subtracting a miscellaneous number from your strength, while your strength is 5 would look like this:

/me is flexing her muscles which is very impressive since her strength is [[5-?{Modifier|0}]]

When you input your modifier, a message will appear, subtracting that modifier from your base strength of 5.

Pop-Out Chat

You can pop-out Text Chat to a new window by  double-clicking on the Chat icon at the top of the right of your Virtual Tabletop.

Chat Archives

The chat window will keep a running history of everything entered. This history will persist between sessions, and is always available. You can access a complete archive by scrolling to the top of your chat log, and clicking View all chat entries for this game >> This will load the chat history in a new window.

Clearing the In-Game Chat Log

There's a button on the My Settings tab called "Clear Current Chat Log". When you press the button all the current chat history from your chat window is cleared while in a game. This doesn't affect the archived chat history that you can access from the Game Details page nor does it affect anyone else's view of the chat history. If you reload your browser, the chat history will be once again visible in the game.

Clearing the Chat Archive

The GM can permanently clear the entire chat log. To do this:

1. Go to the splash page for your game.
2. Open the Settings menu.
3. Select Clear Chat Archive.
4. To confirm, type the words DELETE CHAT in the text box that appears.

NOTE: The words typed must be in English of "DELETE CHAT" and not in the translated version of the phrase.