Cardtable

Convert your rollable table results into nice shiny Scriptcards (Credit: @Kurt Jaegers)

1. What does it do?

What if rolling on this (credits u/OrkishBlade on reddit)-

d6 This cavern is located

1. Within the territory of a subterranean hobgoblin kingdom.
2. Deep beneath an elvish palace.
3. Far below an ancient elvish ruin.
4. Under a range of misty mountains.
5. Far below a thriving city.
6. Deeper than any mortal has been known to go.

d6 You see a/an

1. Dark underground pond.
2. Series of beautiful, natural columns.
3. Pair of large stalactites that resemble fangs.
4. Magically-crafted colonnade.
5. Dense, swirling fog..
6. Set of stone doors in an otherwise natural cavern.

d6 You see a/an

1. Constant drip of water.
   
2. Signpost warning all to turn back.
   
3. Elvish writing scrawled on the cave wall.
   
4. Pile of recently cleaned bones.
   
5. Ring of brightly-colored mushrooms.
   
6. Shimmering mist.

Gave you something like this (example rolls on a different table are also shown in the image)-

That is it. This is the purpose of this script. I wanted some rollable tables which were a bit more fun, whithout having to go through the hassle of creating powercards manually for the tons of random tables I roll for my players.

• Once you have your table in a spreadsheet, all you need to do is save it, and then copy and paste it in the chatbox following the instructions
• This script will automatically parse the chat message and create a macro for you which will have a scriptcard which can do everything you need from the table
• A bunch of edge cases have been tested out and accounted for to allow for some mistakes in the data entry (but it is advisable to follow the instructions as closely as possible)
• Scriptcards and CardTables both need to be active in your game

2. Data format

The data needs to be entered in a specific format for this to work

!cardtable{{ //This is to call the API
  x-table-name //This is the name that your macro will have. More in section 2.1
  dice\tcolumn1\tcolumn2\tcolumn3\t...... //This is the table header. More in section 2.2
  roll\tvalue1\tvalue2\tvalue3\t...... //This is one row of the table. More in section 2.3
  .
  .
  .
  ---------- // This separates tables if there are multiple tables to roll. More in section 2.4
  dice\tcolumn1\tcolumn2\tcolumn3\t......
  roll\tvalue1\tvalue2\tvalue3\t......
  .
  .
  .
}} //This is to close the command block

2.1 Table name

Table name has to be ALWAYS of the format x-table-name. Not following this format will result in wonky cards. No one wants that. Here is what each part of the table name means-

• x - Replace this with s or m depending on your tables. This is an identifier which tells the script whether a single table will be rolled (s) or multiple ones (m). E.g. - The example in the last section is an example of an m type table

• table-name - This is the actual name of the table. It needs to be separated by hyphens with no whitespaces. E.g. - For the Feydark caverns tables in the last section, the table-name might be feydark-caverns

The full table name line for the example would thus be - m-feydark-caverns

2.2 Table Header

This is the line of the table that identifies what dice will be rolled and what the names of each of the columns are. EVERY COLUMN OF THE TABLE NEEDS TO BE SEPARATED BY THE TAB CHARACTER (denoted by \t above). This can be done automatically in whichever spreadsheet software you prefer.

• First column - The dice to be rolled. Of the format (dX or dX+dY+....). THERE SHOULDN'T BE A LEADING 1 IN HERE (❌1d20❌ ✅d20✅)
• Other columns - The next columns. They should contain the Name for whatever values are in that column

E.g. - The table header for the first table in the example above would look like

d6\tThis cavern is located

2.3 Table Rows

All of the table rows follow the same rules. THE COLUMNS NEED TO BE SEPARATED BY A TAB CHARACTER.

• First column The roll - The first column corresponds to the roll required for that row to be selected. Can be a number (like in the example above) or a range of numbers separated by a hyphen (3-7,09-14)

• Next columns The values - These should contain the values to be displayed if that roll comes up.

E.g. - An example row from the first table in the example above -

3.\tFar below an ancient elvish ruin.

2.4 Separating Multiple Tables

Like in the example above, sometimes rolling on multiple tables might be necessary to get the final result. Instead of having to run a different rollable table or call a different macro for each of them, all of the connected tables can be grouped into one input.

Each of these tables can be separated by ----- (5 hyphens or more)

E.g. - Given all the information in this section, the example from earlier, in it's entirety will look something like -

!cardtable{{
m-feywild-cavern
d6	This cavern is located
1	 Within the territory of a subterranean hobgoblin kingdom.
2	 Deep beneath an elvish palace.
3	 Far below an ancient elvish ruin.
4	 Under a range of misty mountains.
5	 Far below a thriving city.
6	 Deeper than any mortal has been known to go.
------
d6	You see a/an
1	 Dark underground pond.
2	" Series of beautiful, natural columns."
3	 Pair of large stalactites that resemble fangs.
4	 Magically-crafted colonnade.
5	" Dense, swirling fog.."
6	 Set of stone doors in an otherwise natural cavern.
------
d6	You see a/an
1	 Constant drip of water.
2	 Signpost warning all to turn back.
3	 Elvish writing scrawled on the cave wall.
4	 Pile of recently cleaned bones.
5	 Ring of brightly-colored mushrooms.
6	 Shimmering mist.
}}

Getting to this point might seem like a lot of steps but I will go through a couple of examples and it should seem really simple by the end. Most of the processing is handled by your spreadsheet software automatically, and most or the remaining is handled by CardTable. Only a very minor bit of manual processing is required.

3. Example table 1

Let's say we want to convert the table I showed in the example above into a ✨card table✨. For a much more simpler table to convert go to section 4

Let's begin!

Just copy all the relevant text into a spreadsheet. I am using google docs for this example because it is 🌟free🌟. For a microsoft excel example, go to section 4

Once you have copied everything, it should look like this-

Some tables you copy might have the rolls and the values already separated into different columns. But unfortunately this one doesn't.

Now go to Insert>Columns>Insert 1 column left and click on it.

It should look somewhat like this now -

Now as you can see the dice name and the column name are all lixed up in one cell. Clean that up by manually removing it from that cell and putting it as the header of the first column (section 2.2). Since there are three tables in this example, do this for each of them

Fill out the first column accordingly. SInce here it is just simple ranges of numbers, it is pretty easy to do. First fill out a couple of rows, then drag and select the rows that you just filled. Then drag the bottom right of the selection (that corner should have a tiny square on it) to fill out the remaining rows. A short demonstration -

Fill out all the tables like this and you should be ready to save it.

Now we can easily save it in the format we need. Just go to File>Download>Tab Separated Values (.tsv) and click on it

Now you should have a file basically in the format needed by CardTable except a few minor adjustments.

Open the file you just downloaded (in Notepad or any text editor of your choice). It should look like this -

Now all we need to do is add the formatting required by CardTable and we are all set.

Add this to the beginning of the file in a new line (section 2)-

!cardtable{{

and this to the end of the file in a new line (section 2)-

}}

The file should look like this now-

Now we add the name of the table in a new line after the first line we just added following the format detailed in section 2.1. Since this contains multiple tables, it will have the m prefix -

Now all that is left is to separate these tables so that CardTable can identify them. As detailed in section 2.4, add a ----- between each table.

🎉All done!🎉 Now just copy and paste all this text into your roll20 chatbox and let CardTable do its magic (It is instantaneous!).

Example table 2

Let's say you want to convert the spell critical fumble table you can find here. Let's begin!

Copy all the table into your favourite spreadsheet software. This time I will use Microsoft excel to show the same steps with this ultra popular software. Since this table is already formatted on reddit, it should look like this in excel -

As you can see, no need to make new columns or fill anything in. It is all done already. But still a few fixes are required.

1. As you can see in this table, the author is calling the dice roll a "Roll %" but for cardtable this needs to be written as d100 instead (section 2.2).
2. Excel has this very annoying 🌟feature🌟 where it converts numbers of the form 02-05 into dates automatically. Google sheets thankfully does not do this, and if you are using google sheets you can skip this step. Wherever excel has converted your number into a date, you will see that it has automaticall added a date to the front. Just delete this and put an apostrophe there instead. i.e. Excel will convert 02-05 to 2022-02-05. You need to make it '02-05 and excel will stop being so helpful. This step is very important to do as otherwise CardTable will fail. Repeat this for whichever rows excel has messed up (or just get annoyed and move to google sheets instead).

Once you have done these two things, your spreadsheet should look like this -

AND...that's basically all you needed to do in the spreadsheet. Nose save it File>Save as and in the file format selection dropdown menu, select Text (Tab delimited)(*.txt)

The next steps are basically the same as the ones in the last example -

1. Open this file in a text editor
2. Add !cardtable{{ to the beginning in a new line and }} at the end in a new line
3. Add a new line after the first and write the table name following the format in section 2.1. For this example it will be s-spell-critical-fumble since the rolling just happens on one table
4. Since this is only one table no separation between tables is required. So the file is ready to be used now.

The final file should look like this -

And that's it! All set to be pasted into the chatbox and then rolled whenever your players roll a perfect ✨Nat 1✨