Trick originally mentioned^(Forum) by Keith, & later expanded to a full guide^(Forum) by gui8312

A Macro Character Sheet(Macro Character /Macro Mule), is a great trick to use for moving macros between your games, if you aren't

Pro

^{^info}-subscriber and able to use the Transmogrifier to transfer macros. Often when you create a new game as a GM, you need to move/copy a ton of macros you have already created. For Free/Plus users this is a rather than do a laborious copy and paste, a good practice to get into is building your campaign macros as character abilities, which can den be moved to other game with Character Vault.

Transfer macros with Transmogrifier became possible in 2023, and up to that point the Macro Mule was the main workaround.

Macro Creation

Advanced

Misc.

Macro Character

This is just an otherwise blank character, with the Attributes & Abilities-tab filled with your campaign macros. Then, when you create a new campaign, you can use the Transmogrifier(

Pro

^{^info} feature) or the Characters tool to move the Macro Character of your macros in one fell swoop.

While the Transmogrifier can move macros between your games, a Macro Mule can be imported to games owned by other users, so can help share macros with others.

If any of the macros calls Mods, the mods needs to still be installed in the campaign for the macros to work. The Aaron has a script for that, too (technically a bookmarklet), although it doesn't work for One-Click installs.

Why it's useful

Starting a new campaign on Roll20 does have its quirks: a big one is that transferring all macros can be downright infuriating. But with some prep over time you can transfer all your macros in a couple of clicks! This trick is equally amazing at keeping GM notes organized, as well as making/updating any macro a breeze.

Roll20 has a Characters tool and a Transmogrifier, for the sake of easily sharing content between campaigns, but it does not work with macros. You're stuck with copying and pasting—a task which is extremely tedious and prone to errors. All that work creating maybe hundreds of macros, and now they are are spread over so many windows that are slow to access in bulk... Let's fix this.

How it works

You probably know that characters on Roll20 have an Attributes & Abilities-tab. We will focus on these character sheet abilities, and use them to store pretty much all of our macros.

A character's Attributes & Abilities-tab, showing some of the stored abilities/macros it has.

This character sheet is normal in every way except for one: the abilities it has are actually many of the macros you use in your game for utility purposes. It is not intended to be used during live sessions in the same way as an enemy character for example. The idea is that you store your macros here, instead of in the l Collections-tab.

You can still access all of these macros during gameplay, but now the Transmogrifier or Characters tool can easily copy this character and with it all the macros it holds as abilities.

The Result

You can now save all types of macros and information in a portable way. You can create a single character and save all of your macros to it. It can also be a good idea to split them up across multiple characters, such as:

one for GM utility macros
another for monster attack macros
one for Player-used macros
one for all your GM notes / shop info

Using a GM Notes Character Sheet allows you to have a lot of information in one place. This helps avoid duplicates and review info very quickly, as well as make it much easier to transfer to another game.

This requires that we create each macro character sheet only once. We can keep updating the single master copy, then transfer copies of the updated character sheet to your other games.

If you play multiple game systems, it might be practical to keep separate macro character sheets for each sheet/system type, and have your universal/API-related macros on a separate macro character sheet.

Access an ability stored this way

Just use the format,

%{MacroCharacterName|AbilityName}

You can access these abilities from the chat through API buttons, but also from any token/character. Just add this piece of code as an Ability entry on your monster, NPC, or and player character sheet. The token still has quick access, but it uses the reference ability to work. Updating the macro in the Macro Character Sheet changes how any character uses the Ability referenced from that sheet.

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Macro Character Sheet

From Roll20 Wiki

Contents

Macro Character

Why it's useful

How it works

The Result

Access an ability stored this way

See Also