Is there a way to give a command, such as /say or /tellraw a time delay?
For example I want my command to say something after ten seconds, but I don't really want a bunch of repeaters everywhere. Is there a way to do this with command blocks or alternative methods?
You can use scoreboard values and dummy variables.
Setup:
/scoreboard objectives add Timer dummy
Run every tick for each individual command:
/scoreboard players remove cmd1 Timer 1
/scoreboard players test cmd1 Timer 0 0
v comparator(before 1.9) or conditional (after 1.9) v
/your_command_here
Run to start delay:
/scoreboard players set cmd1 delay_in_20ths_of_a_second
As you can see, this is scalable for as many commands as you need.
* wildcard where possible. It's an expensive operation that should not be used on a clock, as it has to cycle through every single playerscore stored on the scoreboard (and not only those specified in the objective). As well, using it to modify a score rather than reset will bloat the scoreboard because now every single player tracked has a new score in "Timer". It should only be used for one-time situations, such as at the end of a minigame.
Commented
Feb 15, 2016 at 19:52
/sayand/tellrawto examples. These commands don't have any special delay functionality, so the answers will apply to all commands anyway.