How to customize a room

This guide shows you how to change what a room you own looks like and how it behaves. Each section stands alone; use the ones you need.

You must be standing in the room, and you must own it. rooms lists the rooms you own.

Every command here opens an editor form under the output pane. Press Save to keep your changes or Cancel to drop them. While the form is open, people who look see that you're working on the room. If you leave the room before you save, nothing changes.

Descriptions and multi-line messages hold up to 10 lines of 80 characters.

Write the room's description

describe

Write what a visitor sees when they arrive or type look, and save.

Add things to look at

A detail is something in the room that a visitor can look at more closely, such as a fountain or a painting. Mention it in the description, then:

describe fountain

Write what the visitor sees when they type look fountain, and save.

• The keyword can be up to 12 characters. A room can have 5 details.
• Visitors can type any unique start of the keyword: look fount.
• show details lists the room's details.
• To change a detail, describe it again. To delete it, describe it, delete all the text, and save.

Rename the room or change how its name shows

customize

The room editor opens. Change Name, up to 20 characters. Under How the name is shown, choose:

Show a different description to someone holding a certain object

1. Make the object, or pick one that exists. objects lists yours and the public ones.
2. Type customize.
3. Write the second description in Secondary description.
4. Put the object's name in Magic object.
5. Under Which descriptions are shown, choose:
   • Primary, then secondary if holding the magic object to add the secondary text for the holder.
   • Secondary if holding the magic object, else primary to replace the description for the holder.
6. Save.

Primary, then secondary and Secondary only show the secondary description to everyone, with no object needed.

Customize an exit

customize north

The exit editor opens. You can change an exit if you own the room on either end of it.

• Type sets how the exit behaves. Door lets people through only while they hold the object named in Key. No passage if holding the key keeps them out while they hold it. Exists only while holding the key hides the exit, too, from anyone without the object. No exit blocks it.
• Alias gives the exit a name visitors can type, such as gate. Check Require the alias to make the name the only way through.
• Concealed hides the exit until a visitor finds it with search. What a player sees finding it sets the message.
• The message fields set what the visitor and the people in each room see. Choose Custom to write your own, or leave a field on Default. A custom message left empty shows nothing. A # in a message stands for the visitor's name.

show exits lists the exits you may change, with their type and key.

Show the people in another room

To show who is in a nearby room, as in "Alice is in the courtyard below.":

set group1

Put the other room's name in Room, and the words that follow the names in Words after their names, such as in the courtyard below. Save. set group2 sets a second room the same way. Leave Room empty to turn a group off.

Set the room's strange noises

Now and then, the people in a room hear a strange noise. To replace the noise with your own message, type customize and choose Custom for Mystery message.

Other times they hear a second kind of noise. To replace that one, type set altmsg and write the message. A # in it stands for the name of the person who hears it.

Send dropped objects somewhere else

To make a chute, a well or a river, type customize and put another room's name in Room that dropped objects go to. Objects dropped here land there.

• What players see when someone drops an object here is shown in this room.
• What players in the drop room see when an object arrives is shown in the other room.

In both, a # stands for the object.

Add a trapdoor

A trapdoor drops people through one of the room's exits now and then. Type customize, then:

1. Under Trapdoor, choose the exit they fall through. Choose one that leads somewhere.
2. In Chance the trapdoor drops a player, enter a number from 0 to 100. It's the chance, every 20 seconds, that each person in the room falls.
3. Save.

People holding the room's magic object, or busy with a form, don't fall. To remove the trapdoor, choose No trapdoor.