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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5903485" data-attributes="member: 8835">a topic after my own heart.you're basically needing a table definition language and a macro language to engage it.An old DOS tool I used call Campaign Manager had this.So you could easily define basic tables, and use the macro language to make some of the line items in the table cascade to another table, etc.the foundation should actually be a macro language that you can embed in other text (like an adventure document).  I'm not quite sure where the final usage would be, maybe a big text box users can paste their adventure in?Anyway, the macro language is basically interruptions in normal text/html that your engine can detect and replace with the correct content after processing.Much like your example:[FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME] is a [GENDER] [RACE] of [AGE] age. There are [1d6] [CR1MONSTER]  in the room.The table entries are in effect interpreted text, so you can have a row in the table call up another macro that might be another table.Because you want to consider a variety of uses for your macro language, you'll want to define the syntax to be robust enough to handle future uses, but not so complicated nobody can use it.what you've demonstrated so far is:macros are enclosed in brackets (perhaps to differentiate from html)[table:TABLENAME] will output the result from a table[1d6] will cause it to output the result from a dice roll specification[1d6 table:TABLENAME] will cause it to output 1d6 results from the table[result=table:TABLENAME] will create a variable called result and put the outcome of TABLENAME and output it[result] will output the value of result[?result=table:TABLENAME] will create a variable called result and put the outcome of TABLENAME but and not output it  (you might not want it yet in your text)[table:TABLENAME:result] will output the result from a table by looking up result in the table.This syntax is a bit more complicated, but it opens up more correct possibilities like:[table:FIRSTNAME] [table:LASTNAME] is a [table:GENDER] [result=table:RACE] of [table:AGE:result] age. Compared to Morrus's example, this is more correct because Age is affected by Race (elves live longer, so the valid ages should be different).I don't like prefixing table names with table:, but it's good to have a clear syntax that makes it easier to parse.  You could rule that all variables are prefixed with $ like the old Basic used to be.  That would actually simplify things.[FIRSTNAME] [LASTNAME] is a [GENDER] [$race=RACE] of [AGE$race] age. this makes it like Morrus's example, but allows for easy detection of variables.  Starting with a $ means it's a variable.  An equal sign indicates an assignment to a variable, and a $ in the middle of the table name indicates to use that variable.From there comes the table definition syntax.  the old CM program I mentioned chose numbers randomly from a range.  To do a multi-die effect (like 2d10), you'd have to calculate where to put the numbers:RACE:2d102: Elf5:Human10:Gnome15<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />warf17:Half-Elf18:Halfling20: Half-OrcAnything equal or less than but greater than the previous was a match.Note, the conundrum of the concept of using a variable to get from Race to Age.  There's index (or key) for the table is numbers only.Let's modify our syntax one more time to allow for passing a number into the table instead of rolling, versus generating the name of a table.[TABLENAME$VARNAME] concatenates the two to use a different table named by the combination thereof.  [AGE$race] where $race=Elf means to use the AGEElf table.[TABLENAME:$VARNAME] means to return the result as if the value of $VARNAME had been rolled.  thus [AGE:20] or [AGE:$val] where $val=20 would return the result where a 20 had been rolled on the table.PS.  Make this macro language be case-insensitive.  It's too easy for humans to goof that up and not worth the hassle.  When in doubt, force macro strings to uppercase when interpeting them.</blockquote>

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