Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

It seems pretty obvious. I mean, if you walk into a peanut factory, you consent to being exposed to peanuts. You don't need a sign to warn you "warning - this building contains peanuts."

If you go to a nudist beach, you should expect that you will encounter naked people and further, that if you show up to this nudist beach wearing clothes, then YOU will be the exception and you might be asked to either remove your clothing, or remove yourself. The consent is implied by virtue of the fact that you show up, and the place has a sign telling you that it IS a nudist camp. It doesn't need to tell you that nudist means you consent to nudity.

When you ask for hot coffee at a restaurant, you are consenting to receiving hot coffee, which - is hot. You don't need to be offered, or sign a waiver consenting to receiving hot coffee. How many of you read that "warning: hot coffee is hot" on the coffee cups anymore? It was hillarious when that moron got her settlement, but she was a moron. Mudders, I like to think, are marginally more intelligent.

But really. If you log in to a *roleplaying* game, you shouldn't need a disclaimer warning you that you are about to experience roleplaying and that you are consenting to it. If the theme of the game is "murder, death, betrayal," then you shouldn't need to give consent to being killed, dying of other causes, or betrayed. If the game is based on Sukie Stackhouse and werewolves, then it's a given you're gonna encounter some blood and gore and pretty unpleasant scenes. You shouldn't need to be asked to give consent for it.

The fact that MUSHes require consent for roleplaying, is what should be noted. It is a roleplaying game. By definition, this requires roleplaying. Consent to roleplay in a roleplaying game isn't necessary. By virtue of the fact that you are playing it, you have already given implicit consent.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

That's all well and good Jazuela, but there's roleplaying, and then there's roleplaying ;). It seems that the topic of consent is treated quite differently on many MUSHes to the way it is on many MUDs. I don't think it's very useful to try and establish which approach is correct for such a subjective thing.

You could say there are two very distinct styles of roleplaying. The first is what you might call MUD style, where consent is implied and gameplay is often competitive. A key feature is that one player's roleplay may negatively impact another's and this is often where coded systems come into play. This style of roleplay takes a lot from earlier console RPGs and there's a lot of emphasis on character development, solo play and simulation.

The second style you could call MUSH style roleplaying where consent is a key feature of roleplay and players often arrange plots and scenes ahead of time. There is little emphasis on competition and coded systems are rarely used to resolve disputes, rather players are expected to reach a consensus themselves. This style of roleplay has more in common with tabletop RPGs where roleplaying is seen as a collaborative activity among friends.

Obviously there will be MUDs that favour the second style and vice versa, as well as games which blend elements of both, but I think most people will recognise these two distinct styles.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

'Roleplaying' in itself says nothing about the OOC approach to it. Sure, if I go to a coffee house, I would expect hot coffee, but depending on which house I go to, I might not be expecting it to be plonked on my table if I didn't order it! Violence, betrayal, etc, can all happen with OOC discussion as well.

Your point of view is evidently that of a MUDder... I'm sure someone who's mainly played MUSHes would be quite skeptical about why OOC discussion might be forbidden in certain MUDs as well. That's why Nymeria is asking this question; because he wants to help them acquaint themselves to MUSH-style play. It wouldn't hurt for MUDs to do the same as well if they foresee many MUSHers trying them out.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

That's really ingenious. A few months back I was involved in a violent confrontation in a bar. I totally should have stopped to ask the guys to coordinate it with me rather then jump me. You know because then I would have had a heads-up to what was going to happen and I could have changed the outcome. Makes perfect sense. MUSHers really know how to metagame.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Maybe if the people involved were your friends and you were only infact "roleplaying" a violent confrontation, rather than actually having one, it might well have been appropriate to coordinate things in advance. I think it's obvious that isn't your preferred way to roleplay, but you can't argue that there are plenty of people who enjoy that style of play.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

If you're coordinating it, you're acting not roleplaying. The point of roleplaying is not to coordinate anything out-of-character. That's simply metagaming. If I'm memorizing lines for a play it's not roleplaying, it's stage acting. If I'm assuming a role given to me at Improv or while we're out at a restaurant eating, then it's roleplaying. I can do anything on the fly, I don't plan any of it.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Like Orrin points out, many MUSHes are less competitive than many MUDs, and focus far more on co-operation between players. That co-operation rarely (if ever) gets to the level of scripting every stage of a scene. But yes, there's often some OOC co-operation, to make sure everyone's enjoying the scene and things are flowing smoothly. But there are degrees of consent on MUSHes, from full consent to no consent, and degrees of IC and OOC separation. Though none, I would say, go as far as an RPI apparently does.

Bovine Manure.

You don't get to define what roleplaying is. There are different styles. You stick to yours, I will stick to mine. And if you call my style "acting", well, I can think of a good word for you style too. "Rollplaying".

Ignored.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Eh, I hate ignoring people, but really, after reading all the unprovoked attacks that he seems to so greatly favour, I think the advice someone gave me to ignore Delerak was pretty sound. I have done the same.

Back to the topic, I've noticed that MUDs tend to use 'emote' more (and sometimes :, ;, or any variant of the above), whereas for MUSHes it's always : ('emote' doesn't work)? I'm not sure if this is just due to the limited codebases I've encountered, though.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Everybody has their opinion on what roleplaying is. Fine. But it's fairly safe to say that there is no debate on what metagaming is inside a roleplaying game.



Either way, MUSHes obviously metagame if they are planning scenes ahead of time. Saying you have the discipline and elite awesomeness ability not to use the information gained by speaking OOCly about a scene is pointless. Anybody can say that. If that were true you also wouldn't need to have your little OOC meetings about the scene in advance. The very fact that you're having the coordinated meeting for roleplay defeats your entire argument of stating that you won't use the information gained. If you aren't going to use it you wouldn't have had the meeting in the first place.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

MUSH has:

say <message>
"<message>

Says <message> out loud. The message will be enclosed in double-quotes.

pose <action pose>
:<action pose>

Displays your name followed by the statement you posed.

semipose <action pose>
;<action pose>

Displays your name followed by the statement you posed without any space between.

@emit <text>
\ <text>

Displays exactly what you type in <text>. On some MUSHes, this is more or less the standard roleplay command, with say and pose used very infrequently. It does not insert your name anywhere, but good MUSH etiquette is to always indicate who is the source of an emit unless you are doing scene-setting emits.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

That was my suggestion, though I think at least one other person offered the same advice.

I think you will both find that these forums are significantly more pleasant, interesting, and intellectually worthwhile with Delerak ignored.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Most Diku muds are much the same, except enclosed in single quotes (and with ' as an alias for say).

Some muds also take punctuation and smileys from the say text and use it to replace 'say' with things like 'ask', 'state', 'smile', etc.

Yell and shout are commonly available commands that work much like say, except with longer range.

Diku has 'emote' (with , as a shortcut) that works the same way.

Some Diku muds have a separate command for this, some support it as part of the regular emote command (by omitting the space if the first character of the argument is non-alphabetic), others don't support it.

Diku muds have 'recho' (room echo) that does the same, and 'echo' which broadcasts to the whole mud, but these commands are only available to admin.

Some muds have variations of emote that allow you to freely display a message as long as it contains your name - or else they append your name in brackets at the end. Some emote commands can also be targeted, so that the grammar is rearranged to display appropriate messages to the user, their target, and others in the room.

Some RPIs have fairly complex emote commands that allow you to reference multiple things at once.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

One big differences then would be the general lack of targetting poses. You can use "page <name>=<message>" for long-distance communication, but it is almost always an OOC command. There is also a "whisper <name>=<message>" command which works in the same room and may or may not be seen as OOC.

Players can set a "nospoof" flag on themselves which will append the name of the originating player or object to any message, for those who are concerned about unattributed emits.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

I'd say that the majority of Diku muds don't support targeting with the 'emote' command, but it does seem to be quite common among the heavily RP-oriented games.

Diku muds (and most other muds) also have socials, which are predefined emotes (grin, laugh, clap, dance, etc) that can optionally be targeted. The use of socials instead of emotes tends to be frowned upon in some of the more RP-oriented muds.

Some muds also allow socials and speech to be combined in some way or another, so that you can (for example) grin and talk in a single message.

The Diku equivalents would be "tell <name> <message>" and "whisper <name> <message>" respectively.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Yes.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Have you ever played D&D or some other pen and paper RPG? If so, did you just sit at a table at home with your rulebooks hoping some friends would drop by for some roleplaying, or did you arrange when and where to meet them in advance? How is this different from players on a MUSH using OOC communication to arrange where and when to roleplay a scene?

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

It's exactly the opposite. When you're meeting for D&D you have to meet up to play at all. The internet changes that. With the internet you can login to a virtual world and be right inside the game. Also, you do meet up to roleplay but the good players never swapped too much information out-of-character. I never talked to my friend in the hall about killing off another character. We would need to do that in-character with the dungeonmaster there so they can roll for listen and see if they overhear us talking about.

I never called my buddy and told him the entire life history of my characters I was currently playing or anything like that. When we got together they could glean what they wanted from the character that I was playing.

D&D is also more of a social event. It's not exactly a game with mechanics that can police itself. You have a dungeonmaster that polices roleplay on the spot.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Delerak may be blunt, and sometime downright obnoxious, but he does give the impression (sometimes) he knows what he is talking about and can often keep a thread going with some interesting points. I agree totally with his points made in this thread for example.

Deciding ahead of time what you want to do in a roleplaying session (and I dont mean what time are you meetings etc), and then doing it is stage-acting. Throwing yourself into a character, and responding to events as they happen in-character is roleplaying.

To ignore someone as they have a contrasting viewpoint is ridiculous, to ignore someone as everyone advises you to is just being a sheep.

Forums are about open discussion, it appears topmudsites no longer supports this. If you ignore someone who contributes (frequently I might add) to a discussion... then that discussion becomes useless and will soon die in a collective patting on the back and how great it is we all agree.. and threads will soon become nothing more than statements with loads of invisible replies / counter arguments / discussion you will never see.

Top Mud Sites has always been about interesting and mature discussion with some SERIOUS heat and opposing standpoints, which is why I still follow it after not being a mudder for quite some time.. now I see it has degenerated into something different.

Delerak may have left me fuming and eager to post in defense / attack to something he has said, but people who ignore someone and then tell everyone about it like its a good thing leave a bad taste in my mouth, especially when they have just disagreed (albeit bluntly) with something you have said.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

In a MUSH there may well be no game beyond interacting with other characters, so yes you DO have to meet up to play at all.

If it's your view that all OOC communication is bad then you have to support that by addressing the real examples that people in this thread have given of MUSH players using OOC communication effectively, such as arranging when and where to roleplay or to provide consent for actions, for example. I'm pretty sure nobody here has advocated that players collude like that to the detriment of others.

So a lot like many MUSHes then.

It's very difficult to have open discussion with Delerak when he refuses to accept as valid any other view than his own. It's obvious he enjoys the style of roleplay found on RPI games, and that's great. Unfortunately he seems completely unable to accept that some people enjoy different forms of roleplaying or that people can roleplay happily in games without all the features of an RPI.

Re: From MUDs to MUSHes: FAQs, etc for the players
 

Neither you, nor Delerak, nor anyone else, get to decide exactly what roleplaying is. There's a huge variety of approaches. What about published campaigns for table-top games that lay out a lot of details of what will happen? What of MUSHes that work with canon material and play out some known scenes? Neither of these scenarios impy that everything each player does is fixed and pre-determined, even if some of the elements will be.

I would not ignore someone with a contrasting viewpoint who was expressing it a bit more politely. Someone who constantly puts off my viewpoint as worthless or wrong I don't see a need to have a discussion with when it is turning an otherwise interesting and enjoyable discussing into something less pleasant.