Is there a way to invoke a rule when either of these are true instead of having to have a separate rule for each circumstance? I have some things I want to have happen whenever the player enters a room, but this should also be true of “entering” the room at the start of play too.
Put the rules in a rulebook and call the same rulebook in both circumstances.
Write a looking rule, then set the game to verbose mode.
If you want to print something after every room description, it’s better to make it part of the looking action.
Carry out looking (this is the player sees things rule):
say "You also see [one of]Fred[or]Danny[or]Hastur[as decreasingly likely outcomes], your friendly [one of]valet[or]secretary[or]personal chef[or]taskmaster[or]all-consuming god[as decreasingly likely outcomes] here, and also everywhere."Yeah, I guess I’ll do it this way. It’s kind of odd that starting play in a room doesn’t count as entering automatically, but this is the way then. I don’t want it to run on subsequent “look”, just on entering. Thanks!
Why would it? Generally people don’t want “You open the door and step through…” messages when play begins unless they specifically write them there.