Your First Script

Build a town guard who greets players, reacts to their alignment, and responds when spoken to — all from scratch.

Table of Contents

What You’ll Build

By the end of this tutorial you will have a Town Guard mob with two scripts:

  1. A greet script that welcomes players when they walk into the room and adjusts its message based on alignment (good, evil, or neutral).
  2. A speech script that responds when a player says “hello.”

Along the way you’ll learn comments, quick codes, ifchecks, and how to attach triggers — everything you need to start writing scripts of your own.

Prerequisites

  • You have completed the Getting Started tutorial and know how to open the script editor.
  • You have builder access to an area where you can create mobs and scripts.
  • You know basic OLC commands (medit, mpedit, done).

Throughout this tutorial we use area 10 with widevnum prefix 10#. Substitute your own area number wherever you see it.

Step 1 — Create the Mob

Before we can script anything, we need a mob to attach scripts to. Open the mobile editor and create a simple town guard:

medit 10#100 create

Give the guard a name and description, then type done to save. The exact appearance doesn’t matter for this tutorial — we only need a mob that exists in a room so we can walk in and see it react.

Place the guard in a room with reset or load so it’s there when you test:

load mob 10#100

Step 2 — Write the Greet Script

Now create the script that will fire when a player enters the guard’s room.

Open the script editor 

mpedit 10#200 create
mpedit 10#200

Set the trigger type and phrase 

trigger greet_prog
phrase 100
  • greet_prog — fires once when a character the mob can see enters the room.
  • 100 — the percentage chance the script fires. 100 means every time. If you set it to 50 the guard would only greet players half the time.

Write the script body

Type (or paste) the following into the editor:

** Town Guard — greet script
** Fires when a player enters the room.
if ispc $n
  mob say Welcome to town, $n. Stay out of trouble.
endif

Save 

done

That’s it — five lines of script. Let’s walk through each one.

Step 3 — Line-by-Line Walkthrough

Here is the complete script again with numbered annotations:

** Town Guard — greet script                         ← 1
** Fires when a player enters the room.              ← 2
if ispc $n                                           ← 3
  mob say Welcome to town, $n. Stay out of trouble.  ← 4
endif                                                ← 5

Line 1 — Comment 

** Town Guard — greet script

Lines that start with ** are comments. The game ignores them completely at runtime. Use comments to label what a script does and who it belongs to. Future-you (and other builders) will thank you.

Line 2 — Another comment 

** Fires when a player enters the room.

A second comment describing when this script fires. Good practice is to note the trigger type and any important context at the top of every script.

Line 3 — Ifcheck 

if ispc $n

This is a conditional. It asks: “Is the entity that triggered this script a player character?”

Part Meaning
if Start a conditional block
ispc An ifcheck that returns true when the target is a player character (not an NPC)
$n A quick code that refers to the actor — the character who triggered the script

Why check ispc? Without it the guard would also greet other mobs that wander into the room. We only want to greet real players.

Line 4 — Command 

  mob say Welcome to town, $n. Stay out of trouble.

This is the action the guard performs when the condition is true.

Part Meaning
mob The entity prefix — required on every script command for mob scripts
say The command — makes the mob speak out loud
$n Replaced at runtime with the player’s name

If a player named Kael enters the room, the guard says:

The Town Guard says 'Welcome to town, Kael. Stay out of trouble.'

Every command in a mob script must start with the mob prefix. Object scripts use obj, room scripts use room, and so on. See Scripting Basics for details.

Line 5 — End of conditional 

endif

Closes the if block opened on line 3. Every if must have a matching endif.

Step 4 — Attach the Script and Test

Attach to the mob

Open the guard in the mobile editor and add the script:

medit 10#100
addmprog 10#200 greet_prog 100
done

This tells the game: “When trigger greet_prog fires (100% chance), run script 10#200.”

Test it

Walk out of the room the guard is in, then walk back in:

south
north

What you should see 

The Town Guard says 'Welcome to town, Kael. Stay out of trouble.'

If you see the message — congratulations, your first script works!

If nothing happens, double-check:

  • The guard is loaded in the room (look to confirm).
  • You typed done after adding the script in medit.
  • The trigger is greet_prog and the phrase is 100.

greet_prog fires once when a player enters and the mob can see them. If you want the script to fire every single time regardless of visibility, use the grall trigger instead.

Step 5 — Quick Codes

Before we extend the script, let’s look at the quick codes you’ll use most often. Quick codes are placeholders that the game replaces with real values at runtime.

The Four You Need Right Now

Code Refers To Expands To Example
$n Actor (the player who triggered the script) Actor’s keyword name Kael
$i Self (the mob running the script) Self’s keyword name guard
$e Actor Subjective pronoun he, she, or it
$s Actor Possessive pronoun his, her, or its

Quick example 

mob say Greetings, $n! I am $i, and I see $e travels light today.

If a female player named Lyra triggers this, the guard says:

The Town Guard says 'Greetings, Lyra! I am guard, and I see she travels light today.'

More quick codes

There are many more quick codes for victims, objects, and self-pronouns. See the full Quick Codes Reference when you’re ready to explore them all.

Step 6 — Conditional Behavior with Alignment

Let’s make the guard react differently depending on the player’s alignment. We’ll use three ifchecks:

Ifcheck True when…
isgood The character has good alignment
isevil The character has evil alignment
isneutral The character has neutral alignment

Update the script

Open the script editor:

mpedit 10#200

Replace the body with:

** Town Guard — greet script (alignment-aware)
** Fires when a player enters the room.
if ispc $n
  if isgood $n
    mob say Hail, $n! The light of virtue shines upon you.
    mob emote salutes $n respectfully.
  elseif isevil $n
    mob say I've got my eye on you, $n. Don't start any trouble.
    mob emote rests $s hand on $s sword hilt.
  else
    mob say Welcome to town, $n. Stay out of trouble.
  endif
endif

Save with done.

Line-by-line 

** Town Guard — greet script (alignment-aware)         ← comment
** Fires when a player enters the room.                ← comment
if ispc $n                                             ← only greet players
  if isgood $n                                         ← check good alignment
    mob say Hail, $n! The light of virtue shines upon you.
    mob emote salutes $n respectfully.                  ← visual flair
  elseif isevil $n                                     ← check evil alignment
    mob say I've got my eye on you, $n. Don't start any trouble.
    mob emote rests $s hand on $s sword hilt.           ← $s = "his"/"her"/"its"
  else                                                 ← must be neutral
    mob say Welcome to town, $n. Stay out of trouble.
  endif                                                ← closes inner if
endif                                                  ← closes outer if

Key points:

  • Nested ifs — the alignment check is inside the ispc check. The guard first confirms the arrival is a player, then checks alignment.
  • elseif — chains conditions without extra nesting. Only the first matching branch executes.
  • $s on the emote line expands to the actor’s possessive pronoun: “rests his hand” or “rests her hand” depending on the player’s sex.

Test it

If your test character is good-aligned, you should see:

The Town Guard says 'Hail, Kael! The light of virtue shines upon you.'
The Town Guard salutes Kael respectfully.

If evil-aligned:

The Town Guard says 'I've got my eye on you, Kael. Don't start any trouble.'
The Town Guard rests his hand on his sword hilt.

If neutral:

The Town Guard says 'Welcome to town, Kael. Stay out of trouble.'

You can change your test character’s alignment with the immortal set command to try each branch: set char Kael alignment 1000 (good), set char Kael alignment -1000 (evil), set char Kael alignment 0 (neutral).

For the complete list of available ifchecks, see the Ifchecks Reference.

Step 7 — Add a Speech Trigger

Let’s give the guard a second script so it responds when a player says “hello.”

Create the script 

mpedit 10#201 create
mpedit 10#201

Set the trigger 

trigger speech_prog
phrase hello
  • speech_prog — fires when a character in the room says something that matches the phrase.
  • hello — the keyword to match. If a player types say hello or say hello there, this trigger fires.

Write the script body 

** Town Guard — speech script
** Responds when a player says "hello."
if ispc $n
  mob say Hello, $n. Staying safe, I hope?
  mob emote nods at $n.
endif

Save 

done

Attach to the mob 

medit 10#100
addmprog 10#201 speech_prog hello
done

Test it

Stand in the same room as the guard and type:

say hello

What you should see 

You say 'hello'
The Town Guard says 'Hello, Kael. Staying safe, I hope?'
The Town Guard nods at Kael.

Try variations:

say hello there
say why hello good sir

Both should trigger the script because the word “hello” appears in what you said.

Speech triggers match on individual keywords, not exact phrases. If the phrase is hello, the trigger fires whenever the player’s spoken text contains the word “hello” anywhere in it.

The Complete Scripts

Here are both finished scripts together for reference.

Script 10#200 — Greet (alignment-aware)

Trigger: greet_prog 100

** Town Guard — greet script (alignment-aware)
** Fires when a player enters the room.
if ispc $n
  if isgood $n
    mob say Hail, $n! The light of virtue shines upon you.
    mob emote salutes $n respectfully.
  elseif isevil $n
    mob say I've got my eye on you, $n. Don't start any trouble.
    mob emote rests $s hand on $s sword hilt.
  else
    mob say Welcome to town, $n. Stay out of trouble.
  endif
endif

Script 10#201 — Speech (responds to “hello”)

Trigger: speech_prog hello

** Town Guard — speech script
** Responds when a player says "hello."
if ispc $n
  mob say Hello, $n. Staying safe, I hope?
  mob emote nods at $n.
endif

Mob 10#100 — Script attachments 

addmprog 10#200 greet_prog 100
addmprog 10#201 speech_prog hello

Quick Reference

A cheat sheet of everything introduced in this tutorial.

Comments 

** This line is ignored by the game.

Entity prefix

Every command in a mob script starts with mob:

mob say ...
mob emote ...
mob echo ...

Conditionals 

if <ifcheck> <target>
  ** true branch
elseif <ifcheck> <target>
  ** alternate branch
else
  ** fallback branch
endif

Quick codes used

Code Meaning
$n Actor’s keyword name (the player)
$i Self’s keyword name (the mob)
$e Actor’s subjective pronoun (he/she/it)
$s Actor’s possessive pronoun (his/her/its)

Ifchecks used

Ifcheck What it tests
ispc $n Is the actor a player character?
isgood $n Does the actor have good alignment?
isevil $n Does the actor have evil alignment?
isneutral $n Does the actor have neutral alignment?

Trigger types used

Trigger Phrase Fires when…
greet_prog 100 (percent) A player the mob can see enters the room
speech_prog hello (keyword) A player says something containing “hello”

What’s Next?

You’ve written real scripts, used conditionals, and attached two different trigger types. Here are some ideas to practice:

  • Change the percentage — set the greet phrase to 50 so the guard only reacts half the time.
  • Add more speech keywords — create a script on speech_prog with phrase help that gives directions.
  • Try echoat and echoaround — send different messages to the actor and everyone else in the room (see Scripting Basics).
  • Explore more ifchecks — check the player’s level, race, or whether they carry a specific item. The full list is in the Ifchecks Reference.

When you’re ready, continue to the next tutorial to learn about variables, loops, and more advanced trigger types.