Random Rolls and Counters

Two tags, both written straight into a chat command, both set up without leaving Twitch.

!ol cmd add steven your Steven Level is [[[rand:0-69]]]%! Kappa.
!ol cmd add wins So far, Jasper has won [[[counter:wins]]] times

That's the whole feature. The rest of this page is the detail.

Rolling a random number

[[[rand:0-69]]] picks a random whole number between 0 and 69, fresh every time someone runs the command.

!ol cmd add steven your Steven Level is [[[rand:0-69]]]%! Kappa.

stevenwastaken: !steven overlabels: your Steven Level is 42%! Kappa.

Write both bounds, low number first. They're included, so [[[rand:1-6]]] can roll a 1 and can roll a 6.

Each tag rolls on its own. Two dice in one message really are two dice:

!ol cmd add roll [[[bot:from_user]]] rolls [[[rand:1-6]]] and [[[rand:1-6]]]

Negative numbers aren't supported. [[[rand:-5-5]]] gets refused when you save it, with a reason, rather than silently going blank in the middle of your stream. If you want a spread around zero, roll a positive range and say what it means in the text.

You can format the number. Anything on the Formatting page works here, because rand: is just a normal tag:

[[[rand:0-1000000|number]]]   ->   847,215

Counting things

[[[counter:wins]]] adds one, then shows the new total.

!ol cmd add wins So far, Jasper has won [[[counter:wins]]] times

jasperfrontend: !wins overlabels: added !wins - started counter wins at 0

someone_else: !wins overlabels: So far, Jasper has won 1 times

someone_else: !wins overlabels: So far, Jasper has won 2 times

You don't create the counter first. Saving the command creates it for you, starting at 0, and the bot tells you it did. This works from the dashboard too, but the point is that you can add a counter mid-stream, in chat, in one line, without alt-tabbing anywhere.

Your counter is a real Control

This is the part worth knowing. wins isn't a private thing the bot keeps to itself. It's an ordinary Counter Control, sitting on your Controls page next to everything else you've made.

Which means all of this already works on it, with nothing further to set up:

And because it's a Control, it broadcasts. The moment chat says "3 wins", the number on your overlay says 3 too. You aren't keeping a chat counter and an on-screen counter in sync, because there is only one counter.

counter: counts, c: only looks

Same number, two tags, one difference: counter: adds one, c: just reads it.

So when you want a command that reports the total without moving it, use c::

!ol cmd add wincount Jasper is on [[[c:wins]]] wins this season

Now !wins scores a win and !wincount reports the score. Chatters can ask as often as they like.

Counting once, twice, and several things

Using the same counter tag twice in one message still counts once. The tag means this command counts, not add one right here, so you can mention the total more than once safely:

!ol cmd add wins Win number [[[counter:wins]]]! That's [[[counter:wins]]] this season.

That's one win, reported twice.

Previewing never counts. Typing a command into the dashboard's preview box, or editing one, doesn't touch the number. Only actually running the command in chat does.

One command can move several counters:

!ol cmd add score [[[counter:wins]]] wins, [[[counter:losses]]] losses

Each of those goes up by one per run, and each is its own Control.

Naming a counter

Same rules as any other Control: lowercase letters, numbers and underscores, starting with a letter. wins, deaths, bad_puns are all fine. Wins, 1st_place and bad-puns are not, and get refused when you save with an explanation.

If you already have a Control by that name that can't hold a number (a text Control called motto, say), [[[counter:motto]]] is refused rather than quietly overwriting it. Pick another name.

Where these work

Both tags are for the bot. They work in Bot Commands - commands you write with !ol cmd add or on the Bot Commands page - and nowhere else.

Random doesn't belong in an overlay, because an overlay redraws whenever anything changes, so a random number in one would reroll at moments you didn't pick. If you want a number that shuffles on screen, make a Number Control, turn on its random mode and set how often it rerolls. That way the timing is your decision.

Counting doesn't belong in an overlay either, because a counter counts when something happens, and an overlay redrawing isn't something happening. Use [[[c:wins]]] to display the total, and let the chat command do the counting.

If you typo it

Overlabels checks these tags when you save, not when they run, so a mistake costs you one retype in chat instead of showing up live in front of everyone. If something's off, the bot says so and doesn't save the command.

The same checks run on the dashboard, where the message appears under the field.

One thing that isn't checked: an ordinary tag name with a typo in it, like [[[chanel_title]]]. Those are left alone on purpose, because a tag that's simply empty right now (nobody has followed yet, say) looks identical, and refusing to save it would block plenty of commands that are perfectly fine. If a command runs and part of the sentence is missing, a misspelled tag name is the first thing to check. Alt+R opens the tag reference from any page in Overlabels, with the real names to copy.

Quick reference

See also

• Bot Commands - everything else the bot understands
• Controls - what a Control is and what else it can do
• Formatting - the | formatters you can put on any tag