The Minecraft world is divided into 16x16 block sections called chunks.
Chunks can be unclaimed (Wilderness) or claimed by a town.
Anyone can grief and steal in the Wilderness, so it's a good idea to make or join a town to protect your work.
Creating a town costs money. The cost of making a town can be seen with /towny prices.
To create a town, stand in the location where you want your town to be. Then type /t new <name of your town>.
You are now the mayor (leader) of a town with one claimed chunk!
Your first chunk is called the homeblock.
To see information about your town, type /t.
(!) It's important not to create your town too close to another town. Unless you are in the same nation as them, you will not be allowed to claim near them.
Claiming land costs money. /towny prices
The money is taken from your town's virtual bank.
To deposit money in the town bank, type /t deposit <amount of money>.
To claim, stand inside a Wilderness chunk next to one of your town's claims. Then type /t claim.
To see chunk outlines, press F3 and G.
To see a map of nearby claims, type /towny map.
Claimed chunks are called plots.
Members of towns are called its residents.
To invite a player to be a resident of your town, type /t add <name of player>.
After being invited, they can join using /t invite accept <town name>.
Alternatively, they can use /t invitelist.
You can remove residents from your town using /t kick <resident>.
Chat with your residents through the /tc chat channel. Return to global chat with /g.
Make sure to remind new residents that the server rules forbid stealing and griefing in claimed areas.
Towns have a claim limit. Every resident increases your town's claim limit by 10.
You can spend money to increase your claim limit using /t buy bonus.
Joining a nation will also increase your claim limit.
Towns are charged upkeep every 24 hours. Upkeep is taken from the town bank.
Type /towny time to see the time until upkeep is next charged.
The base upkeep is $20.
Each claimed chunk adds to upkeep.
Type /t to see how much upkeep your town is charged.
If a town cannot afford to pay upkeep, it will become a ruin that can be griefed.
There are many town settings that can be changed. You can control these through commands, or alternatively through /towny menu.
Permissions control how people interact with your town.
In a new town, permissions are disabled for everyone except you.
Permissions can be set for the whole town or just specific chunks (plots).
There are four types of permissions:
Build
Whether players can place blocks.
Destroy
Whether players can break blocks.
Switch
Whether players can interact with machines, doors, chests, furnaces, levers and similar blocks.
Item
Whether players can use buckets, bone meals, flint and steel and similar items.
Permissions apply to groups of people:
Resident
All residents of your town.
Nation
Anyone in your town's nation.
Ally
Anyone in your town's nation and its allied nations.
Outsider
Anyone not in your town.
To change permissions for the whole town, type /t set perm <permission type> <permission group> [on/off].
For example, to let residents build everywhere inside your town, type /t set perm build resident on.
It's not always a good idea to change permissions everywhere inside your town.
Instead, you might want to change permissions for a specific chunk, also called a plot. Plot permissions override town permissions.
You can do this using /plot set perm <permission type> <permission group> [on/off].
For example, to let residents build everywhere inside a plot, type /plot set perm build resident on.
View the permissions of a plot using /plot perm hud.
If you want a resident to have full permissions inside a plot, you can make them its owner.
To put a plot up for sale, stand inside it and type /plot fs <cost>. The cost can be 0 if you want to make it free.
This allows town residents to buy the plot and become its owner. To buy a plot, stand inside it and run command /plot claim.
Remember that a resident is an asset to your town and it can often make sense to give plots away for free. Residents are likely to leave if they don’t find anywhere to build. Make it easy for new residents to find plots for sale.
If you want someone to have full permissions to your town, you can add them to the town trust list. /town trust
Similarly if you want to give someone full permissions to a plot that you own, add them to the plot trust list. /plot trust
Trust is powerful, so be careful who you give it to. Don't give it to people you don't know well.
Trust is one of the largest factors in causing theft and griefs.
Outposts
Outposts can be used to claim secondary areas, separate from your main town claim.
Outpost plots and claims work exactly like normal town claims.
To set your first outpost, similar to towns, you can type /town claim outpost while inside the chunk you want to claim.
Only town mayors can create outposts.
Nations
Nations are an alliance between two or more towns.
Joining a nation increases your claims per player.
Nations must pay a upkeep similar to towns. /n deposit