Roll reason support

[gitsang]

Summary

Closes #20

Screenshots

Checklist

• updated/completed the unit tests
• tested on a Mattermost server: indicate tested version(s) here (you can use the mattermost-preview Docker image for a quick and painless install)
• updated the docs
• cleaned the branch git history
• rebased branch on the target branch (must be up-to-date at the time of merge)

[gitsang]

@moussetc Is there any plan to merge?

[moussetc]

Hi @gitsang ,
Thank you for opening the Pull Request and sorry for the considerable delay. Updating those MM plugins has taken a lower priority in my life those last years, for diverse reasons. I will dedicate some time in the coming week to them, including handling this PR.
I'm aware you might not be interested in talking about this feature 2y later, or not have time in the coming week and that's OK. If I have no answer in a while, I'll handle it myself.

I'd be interested in knowing more about your use case for the roll reason: are you playing a RPG or some other context?

Personally I thought about the dice in term of rolling skill checks and damages rolls in RPGs such as Pathfinder, and I had in mind to add the possibility to add info about each kind of roll because complex attacks can have different types of damages (2D12(bludgeoning)+1d6(fire), etc.), and you could see those notes in the roll details to help the GM knowing which applies:

XYZ rolls d25(bludgeoning) 3d8(fire) = 20

• d25(bludgeoning): 10
• 3d8(fire): 4 3 3

However, that might not be your own use case, which is why I'm interested in knowing what you had in mind specifically :)

[gitsang]

We play COC or DNS, using voice chat and mm to share info and roll dice.

For example, in COC, which I play more often, I might ask players through voice to do an inspiration check or a sancheck, or have some players do inspiration checks and others do sanchecks., players will directly enter commands to roll dice, like: /roll 5d3. The final result might look like this. When we look back, we'll find the roll info is super messy, and we don't know why the rolls were made.

So, I might want players to add some info when rolling dice to help us understand more details during review.

[moussetc]

Hi @gitsang , thanks a LOT for the feedback. In the end I didn't get to use my own plugin for role playing so having a real life example is very precious. Especially as you've put a finger on something obviously missing!

I have some additional questions which I will leave as PR comments, but if you don't mind answering a question unrelated to the change you propose: would you find it better if the roll messages were posted with the avatar and username of the poster instead of the dice bot?

[moussetc]

I'm wondering, is it be better to show the roll reason before or after the roll? Eg.

VS

Instinctively, I think I would prefer have it before but may be missing something!

[gitsang]

I don't seem to care about this; it makes no difference to me. :)

[moussetc]

Another look and feel question: why the codeblock with empty lines around?
Codeblock means we lose any formatting that might be added to the roll, and it takes a lot more height. I see you use a compact mode of chat display, so maybe that is on purpose to better read the rolls, in which case, I'd like to mention that as a plugin, we can do nifty attachments such as:

You'll find more examples on this documentation page. Do tell if that looks interesting for your use case.

[gitsang]

Why the codeblock with empty lines around?

This might just be my habit—my Markdown auto-formatting and linting tools (based on MD031 rule) require me to add blank lines around code blocks.

I'd like to mention that as a plugin, we can do nifty attachments

This looks really cool—I wasn’t aware of this plugin before. It appears much better-looking than Codeblock. Maybe I’ll switch from Codeblock to Message Attachments later, though it’s probably not a priority for me right now (for various reasons, In fact, it's been a long time since I last played an RPG.).

[moussetc]

Thanks for all your answers.
I can take over the PR to switch to Message Attachments, if that's ok with you.

[gitsang]

This is certainly ok, thank you for the effort. If you have submitted the code, feel free to close this PR.

[gitsang]

If the roll messages were posted with the avatar and username of the poster instead of the dice bot?

I think this would be better. This was also one of the issues that troubled me.