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How to Roll Dice

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Attention: This page is community-maintained. For the official Roll20 version of this article, see the Help Center for assistance: Here .

Main Page: Complete Guide to Macros & Rolls

How to Roll Dice
Rolling dice in Roll20 is easy! On the q Text Chat-tab, just type /roll, followed by a formula like 3d6+5, and press Enter. That's the first way!

The following guide will show the different methods you can use to roll dice on Roll20.

Contents

How to Roll

The 3 main methods to roll dice:

1. Roll Command: Writing a roll command directly in the q Text Chat.

2. Quick Roll: Using the t Dice Rolling GUI to select dice to roll.

3. From Character Sheet: Rolling dice with a Roll Button found on most Character Sheets.

You can also roll dice by:

4. Pressing the roll button on a Macro, found on the l Collections-tab.

5. Pressing the roll button for a Character Ability, found on all character's Attributes & Abilities-tab.

6. Pressing the roll button on your Quickbar. You can drag&drop Macros, Sheet roll buttons, & Character Abilities to you macro quickbar, and then use them from there.

7. The Mobile app: open you character sheet on the app, and then make a roll. The roll will show both on your phone & in the game's q Text Chat.

Roll Command

Simple dice roll made in the q Text Chat (Aug 2021)
Example 1, you might know that to roll an attack roll you need to roll a "D20 plus your attack modifier". In Roll20, you would just type
/roll 1d20+5

Example 2 If you hit and you need to roll 3d6+2 damage, you would just type /r 3d6+2. Finally, you can also string multiple rolls together. If you have an attack that does two types of damage, you might do

/r 2d6+5 + 1d8

So, 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, which can also 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.

Check out the Dice Reference for more advanced rolling mechanics.

Rolling in Secret

To perform a roll that can only be seen by you and the GM, you can use the command /gmroll, instead of the regular /r. Using /w gm works basically the same.

For example, if a player rolls /gmroll 1d20+5, Roll20 will roll 1d20+5 and show the result to the GM and the player who rolled it.

If the GM uses /gmroll, only the GM will see the result.

Quick Roll(Dice GUI)

Making a few quick rolls from the t Dice Rolling GUI



Just want to get going quickly? The easiest way to roll dice in Roll20 is by using the t Dice Rolling GUI found in the Toolbox, as showing in the gif.

From Character Sheet

A dice roll made from a character sheet

Main Page: Character Sheet

Most Character Sheets have roll buttons on them, so you can just click on their buttons, and the roll is automatically shown in the q Text Chat. These rolls automatically counts the relevant stats of the character, as well as displays the result in a nice way using a Roll Template.

More Info

More detailed information on dice rolling and related things.

Dice Icons

Dragging a rolled dice from the chat to the map, and using it as a token.

When rolling a basic die (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, or d100) a small icon appears in the chat window next to your roll, showing the result number. You can drag and drop this image onto the tabletop interface, creating a token in the interface color of the rolling player.

You can also re-roll these tokens or place them on another side. Right-click on the token, and under the “Multi-Sided” option you can choose to either make a “Random Side” appear-- which will result in a new roll-- or select “Choose Side.” The Choose Side option will launch a pop-up, from which you can pick the side of the token to display.

Text Chat & more commands

q Text Chat page shows the other basic commands you can use for dice rolling, such as /em(Emote) and /w(whisper), and how to combine them with dice rolling.


Example:

If you want to have text with your dice roll, the /em is handy.

/em makes a dexterity, with the result:[[1d20+3]].

When making rolls using any other command than /r//gmroll, you need to wrap the dice expression inside double brackets. This is referred to as an inline roll.

Dice Syntax

The Dice Reference has a comprehensive list of how the Roll20 dice-rolling syntax works, such as counting success, exploding dice, keep/drop results, or adding a popup to let you choose.

Complete Guide to Macros & Rolls‎ is the main page for the various pages documenting how the roll20 dice & macros work and how to reference stats, it's another good starting point everything related.

Turn Tracker

Example of a roll made from a character sheet, which also happens to appears on the Turn Tracker

Making rolls that appear on the t Turn Tracker can be handy for tracking initiative and setting the order that characters will take turns.

Before rolling the initiative, select your token so the result appears on the t Turn Tracker.

  • (almost) all character sheets have initiative buttons, which can be used to roll the initiative.
  • Simple way to roll initiative in the q Text Chat:

Mobile

Main Page: Mobile

The Roll20 mobile app have options to make rolls from character sheets, and the result shows up in bot the q Text Chat, as well as being displayed on your phone.


Related Pages