Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes

[ThatGuyThere]

@Kestrel
It seems to me from this thread the biggest cultural difference between MUDs and MUSHes is on MUD IC has primacy, things tend to me looked at mainly though the lens of IC.
On MUSHes OOC tends to have primacy, some aspects of this I think are positive some are negative.
The feeling I am picking up from MUD folks is that the game is meant to simulate the life of the characters in a very sim like fashion.
On a MUSH there is more of a focus on creating good fiction, one example is I was in a scene a couple of nights ago. It went well story got moved forward and it reached a natural conclusion. I am sure many like this happen on a MUD on a regular basis. In case we just decided to fade there, not wrap up no how folks got home just fading to the character chatting, much like a fade out of a scene on TV or in a movie. The scene had served it's purpose nothing more need to be said. From what I gather on a MUD those of us in the scene would be expected to actually pose out good byes and navigate the grid to our residences before logging out. Instead of +ooc then logging out.
If this correct? Not judging just trying to make sure I have things straight in my head.

[TNP]

@Kestrel is European btw so is almost certainly asleep now.

[Kestrel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel
It seems to me from this thread the biggest cultural difference between MUDs and MUSHes is on MUD IC has primacy, things tend to me looked at mainly though the lens of IC.
On MUSHes OOC tends to have primacy, some aspects of this I think are positive some are negative.
The feeling I am picking up from MUD folks is that the game is meant to simulate the life of the characters in a very sim like fashion.
On a MUSH there is more of a focus on creating good fiction, one example is I was in a scene a couple of nights ago. It went well story got moved forward and it reached a natural conclusion. I am sure many like this happen on a MUD on a regular basis. In case we just decided to fade there, not wrap up no how folks got home just fading to the character chatting, much like a fade out of a scene on TV or in a movie. The scene had served it's purpose nothing more need to be said. From what I gather on a MUD those of us in the scene would be expected to actually pose out good byes and navigate the grid to our residences before logging out. Instead of +ooc then logging out.
If this correct? Not judging just trying to make sure I have things straight in my head.

All accurate, and I definitely see the benefits as you describe. Often having to wrap up a scene with the minutiae can be frustrating or just dull.

In some ways MUSHes are less spontaneous, in other ways more so. You have to prearrange RP, but once you go +ic, the scene starts immediately and provides you with instant gratification, in terms of the fact that you can dive straight into the action. There is less RP, but the RP you get is better. I have often been very bored IC on MUDs, waiting for more interesting things to happen. I am often bored on a MUSH waiting for RP partners to log on or be available, but at least they usually give me their full attention when the scene begins. I can spend the rest of my time online more wisely, doing other things rather than picking up scraps from inattentive/mediocre/temporary RP partners on MUDs, tavern-sitting etc.

Regarding the simulationism though, I actually don't know whether MUDs or MUSHes are worse. Yes, MUDs are simulationist, but I feel like MUSHers tend to have less IC/OOC separation. The ability to control what kind of RP you're involved in to such a high degree allows for a lot more wish-fulfillment and, IMHO, isn't healthy. It is a lot easier to be a Mary-Sue on a MUSH, because if you don't want to, you never have to expose yourself to anyone who would rain on your parade. See also my bafflement on this thread. It weirds me out that people would strictly arrange for and only play out perfect relationships, even perfect friendships, or expect other players to alter their characters' normal behaviour to minimise conflict. But, I intend to follow the advice others have given on this thread about self-selection (ironically), so hopefully I won't have to deal with this too much.

@TNP: Sleep is for the weak.

[lordbelh]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

You MUSHers are looking at me like I'm wearing a kilt.

Naw. Like @Thenomain said, we hardly agree even among ourselves what the right way to do things are. Believe me when I say you're getting no worse than people give each other on this board all the time over every little detail that can be argued into death. We're all wearing kilts.

Its what I like about the place. People aren't afraid of offering differing opinions and going against the mold. Even if it means having to deal with counter arguments.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:
. But, I intend to follow the advice others have given on this thread about self-selection (ironically), so hopefully I won't have to deal with this too much.

to me the ability to self select RP group is the biggest point in favor of mushes. It allows me to avoid those that drive me crazy on an OOC level and allows those that want to avoid me the same ability.

@TNP: Sleep is for the weak.

I said this so many times before I was thirty five, now I nap every day off I have.

[Ominous]

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Ominous

http://musoapbox.net/topic/1062/better-places-code/

Now You Know.

I saw, but I didn't get a chance to weigh in the past few pages with my broad thoughts on the topic as a whole. Also, I have little to contribute to that thread, as I think places code is just dandy as is.

[TNP]

Also, I like kilts. Have you seen John Barrowman in a kilt?

[Lotherio]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

It is a lot easier to be a Mary-Sue on a MUSH, because if you don't want to, you never have to expose yourself to anyone who would rain on your parade.

True, like those who would claim ownership of a public place, you learn to avoid these.

The wish fulfillment, true. On a mud you get what you find, or someone gives you. You don't get to play something cool out of the gate. On a Mush, if you apped it you got it, a cool sword, car, powers.

You sit around waiting, or you make something happen. No mobs, you make up npcs and monsters. There's a good thread recently discussing staff aproval versus player run/initiated.

You can go fight something without knowing were the special mob is on the grid. You can do murder mystery, plot sleuthing, save the village.

You do lack the pride you get in a mud for beating uber mob, or finding unique item ... More sweat and blood on the mud.

See also my bafflement on this thread. It weirds me out that people would strictly arrange for and only play out perfect relationships, even perfect friendships, or expect other players to alter their characters' normal behaviour to minimise conflict.

That is an extreme, most players prefer spontaneity versus full arranged. I think most agree if its that planned out, why not write the book instead of playing.

[Arkandel]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

You MUSHers are looking at me like I'm wearing a kilt.

It's so weird for me to be considered a MUSHer. I'd been playing and coding on CircleMUD for 6 years before I even logged on a MUSH and I was so lost when I did - I barely knew how to move from room to room. All those damn + commands!

It's like when you realize you're getting old, I guess. What do you mean the Matrix came out seventeen years ago?

[faraday]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

But Bob's IC absence remains an IC fact, which I would react to. His IC absence has already become a part of the RP, whereas in a MUSH, the RP simply does not exist.

First off, let me say that this thread has been very interesting, seeing MUSH customs from an outside perspective and examining them critically.

I was thinking about that statement of yours though, and you may be interested to know that the desire for OOC communication and accommodation is not always based around wish fulfillment or stuff like that. Sometimes it's actually motivated by wanting to put IC first. Here’s an example similar to yours:

A, B and C are on a small ship crew (think Firefly). C’s the ship’s doctor. A and B do a scene where B gets hurt, and they go bang on the doctor’s door. C is online and in her room, but OOCly is AFK cooking dinner.

Now from a MUD perspective, as I understand it, the thing to do would be say: Well, we RPed knocking on the door and C didn’t answer, then we RPed looking around the ship for her and couldn’t find her, so we’ll just continue the scene with A in a ‘OMG we have no doctor’ panic trying to patch up B himself.

Maybe that works ICly, depending on the circumstances. But if it’s a severe injury, and the ship is in deep space, then there’s no logical IC reason why they wouldn’t be able to find the doctor. I mean, what, did she take a really long space walk? Even if she’s asleep, wouldn't they just open the door and wake her up?

So the desire for OOC communication here is because the doctor is not Schrodinger’s Cat. She is somewhere, ICly, regardless of where her player is. And if there’s an OOC way to figure that out - either by paging C or paging one of C’s alts, or firing off a google chat to her (not everyone does this, but among friends it's not unreasonable) - then that is considered preferable for the sake of the IC story.

This may seem like a contrived example, but something very similar actually happened to me. I was C, and was offline for a couple days, and returned to accusatory “OMG where were you, we needed you” RP. It was kind of silly.

[Groth]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Regarding the simulationism though, I actually don't know whether MUDs or MUSHes are worse. Yes, MUDs are simulationist, but I feel like MUSHers tend to have less IC/OOC separation. The ability to control what kind of RP you're involved in to such a high degree allows for a lot more wish-fulfillment and, IMHO, isn't healthy. It is a lot easier to be a Mary-Sue on a MUSH, because if you don't want to, you never have to expose yourself to anyone who would rain on your parade. See also my bafflement on this thread. It weirds me out that people would strictly arrange for and only play out perfect relationships, even perfect friendships, or expect other players to alter their characters' normal behaviour to minimise conflict. But, I intend to follow the advice others have given on this thread about self-selection (ironically), so hopefully I won't have to deal with this too much.

While people arranging perfect relationships/friendships is something you could naively expect people to do with the level of communication present in MUSH, that's actually fairly uncommon.

What most people work hardest to arrange OOCly are abusive relationships and antagonistic relationships. It's been my impression that most MUSH players want IC conflict however they don't want the OOC drama and escalation that often comes hand to hand in it so they end up very shy unless things are OOCly worked out beforehand.

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I was thinking about that statement of yours though, and you may be interested to know that the desire for OOC communication and accommodation is not always based around wish fulfillment or stuff like that. Sometimes it's actually motivated by wanting to put IC first. Here’s an example similar to yours:

The basic principle is that most MUSH players are uncomfortable with the idea of their OOC circumstances having IC consequences for their character. They don't want their character to be considered a bad doctor because they happened to be unavailable when someone got hurt, they don't want their character to be considered anti-social just because events are scheduled when they're asleep etc.

Usually to accommodate this most MUSHes have a flexible concept of time, they'll often pause the scene and wait for the doctor to come online and proceed to pretend the doctor was there all along or if that is logistically inconvenient, they might fade the entire doctor scene and assume the doctor was around to fix B up, picking up afterwards.

[faraday]

@Groth said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

The basic principle is that most MUSH players are uncomfortable with the idea of their OOC circumstances having IC consequences for their character. They don't want their character to be considered a bad doctor because they happened to be unavailable when someone got hurt...

That's not the "basic principle" for me though. It's not about consequences, it's about continuity. I have no problem RPing that my character was ICly unavailable at that particular moment as long as it makes sense ICly. If you're on a small, isolated ship in deep space it doesn't make sense. Even if it's not isolated, it would be kinda weird if the doctor didn't return to the ship for three days without being in contact with anyone, yeah? (Unless they're in the IC habit of doing such a thing, or they went on vacation or whatnot...) MUSHes run 24/7 but nobody can be online 24/7. OOC comunication helps bridge that gap to maintain IC continuity.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Groth said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

What most people work hardest to arrange OOCly are abusive relationships and antagonistic relationships. It's been my impression that most MUSH players want IC conflict however they don't want the OOC drama and escalation that often comes hand to hand in it so they end up very shy unless things are OOCly worked out beforehand.

This completely most of the time the OOC talk is to find an IC relationship that is mutually Enjoyable on an OOC level not to avoid IC conflict. There is lettle better then a fun IC antagonism that both people get to enjoy on an OOC level.
Honestly for me when there is no OOC communication that is when it runs into either we get along IC, completely avoid each other, or we conflict by +job not rp since if we aren't talking OOC then we are reaching any sort of agreement on rules interpretations either so staff is having to deal with it as well.
Also I hate predetermining an outcome for a scene, hate it to the point that I will not do it unless the other party is a long time OOC friend.
But what I will do for everyone is sent boundaries before hand, example I won't agree to "Let's have our chars meet and become friends." But I will gladly agree to, "I am not feeling up to a lot of IC conflict, so lets have our chars meet, and if they don't get along we wrap things up quickly." the difference to me is that the first one is scripted, where the second my char is free to hate this other char and then I can come up with a reason why he just leaves instead of presses the issue. Maybe the other player feels more like building on the possible conflict later maybe we don't either way we had what i hope would be an enjoyable scene that night, and well to me that is the point of the enterprise.

[Kanye Qwest]

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Groth said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

What most people work hardest to arrange OOCly are abusive relationships and antagonistic relationships. It's been my impression that most MUSH players want IC conflict however they don't want the OOC drama and escalation that often comes hand to hand in it so they end up very shy unless things are OOCly worked out beforehand.

I won't agree to "Let's have our chars meet and become friends." But I will gladly agree to, "I am not feeling up to a lot of IC conflict, so lets have our chars meet, and if they don't get along we wrap things up quickly." the difference to me is that the first one is scripted, where the second my char is free to hate this other char and then I can come up with a reason why he just leaves instead of presses the issue.

Your character is free to dislike someone and make up an IC reason to get away from them without any sort of pre-gaming OOC, though. I can understand it in a game with a sandboxy feel, where a lot of temp rp rooms get used and there's natural in-game segregation.

I just understand (and wholly endorse) going about things IC as much as possible in a game with a more immersive grid / population.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I just understand (and wholly endorse) going about things IC as much as possible in a game with a more immersive grid / population.

This might be another cultural difference, immersion is impossible for me on a computer. In tabletop yes immersion is a great and wonderful thing and fairly easy to achieve only breaking out of it for the die rolling.
On a computer, even if you discount other windows, web browsing and turn off every channel there is still other people in the house talking, tv being on, etc.
Now yes I could come up with a reason to avoid combat without the OOC talk before hand, but in this example I would not know that i needed to, so lets say we don't talk IC combat happens cause they chars really don't get along, then the person who in the example was not me, didn't get the scene they wanted and likely ended up not enjoying things. Regardless of which way is more IC that is a less good scene then the one where we talk and leaving things possibly undone ICly but both OOCly enjoyed.
OOC enjoyment is really the main point of the RP to me, that not not mean IC enjoyment. I have loved scenes my characters have hated being in, in fact sometimes the fun is enjoying the torment you inflict on the other character. And while weather or not I do something to improve the IC life of another PC depends on IC circumstances, I will do whatever I can to improve someones OOC enjoyment of the game even if that is best done by avoiding them.

[Pandora]

The situation with A, B, and C (A regretful-murderer, would-be-victim, and absentee-doctor if I skimmed that example correctly) being resolved with OOC communication works on a MUSH because there is nothing stopping that from working. On a game where someone has taken the time to code critical wounds - and that's not limited to MUDs, there are MUXes and MOOs with injury code as well, you might only have X amount of time to find a doctor before Something Bad happens to the character, whether it be taking a permanent stat-reduction of some sort, or even death. In those games, the thinking is different, and I'll make the comparison thusly:

MUSH considerations:
"The doctor would be around and available to help this person, so we'll find the doctor though IC/OOC means or pause the scene until the doctor is around, and go from there, because the doctor's player can't always be around, but we also don't want Player B to bleed out on the nice new aluminum plate flooring tiles."

Code-heavier game considerations:
"Let's not fuck around with anything that could legit kill us until we have a medic on-hand." or
"The doctor isn't around (it is up to the doctor to explain why they weren't around. Maybe they fell and hit their head and were in a coma last night. Maybe they were somewhere on the ship that the people in a bloody screaming panic didn't think to check. Maybe they had on noise-cancelling headphones last night because A & B are notoriously loud when they're off killing each other at off-peak times) so let's do stabilizing techniques and CPR and elevate B's torso and deeply apologize for stabbing B in the chest and cry together and deal with the fact that B is now facing the rest of their character's life maimed/crippled in some way, or perhaps they'll die, but this is how the story turned out."

I can certainly see the appeal of having things turn out A-OK or at least more to your liking, every time something goes wrong. I just don't know that I find it altogether compels people to tell the best story they possibly could, but simply the most pleasant/convenient.

[Lotherio]

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I can certainly see the appeal of having things turn out A-OK or at least more to your liking, every time something goes wrong. I just don't know that I find it altogether compels people to tell the best story they possibly could, but simply the most pleasant/convenient.

I think this is a misconception relating to Mushes in particular. Few people want to always win. Most people want the chance to roll for their character. The doctor probably would like to still roll some sort of results and most are inclined to believe that failure is just as fun as success, and may lead to even greater story.

Edit: They want to roll for their character, and with limited time, they don't want to waste on-line time having to fathom some IC excuse for why they were absent. And this is why ... the doctor wasn't at her post on a ship, if this is just assumed to have happened and we believe the rest of the ship and its NPCs run in the background, the doc would be court martialed and worse. All because they just couldn't be online.

[surreality]

@Kanye-Qwest I see it less as pre-determining an outcome as I do noting one's personal limits.

For instance, if I'm cranky or aggro that day because life's been crappy, for instance, I will mention something along the lines of what @ThatGuyThere describes: "Sure, we can do a thing, but I'd like to avoid anything openly hostile." This is three-fold:

• if the other player is looking for a fight that day, I'm giving them the chance to find someone else who is going to find that just as much fun as they will;
• I've probably had enough grief for the day and that's not what I'm looking for in my happy fun times;
• I would rather not risk my RL angst bleeding over into RP in ways that would harsh someone else's fun. (While I think I'm usually good at avoiding this, I know I like everyone else am not the best judge of how good at this I actually am.)

Letting someone know what kind of thing I'm looking for -- which isn't usually avoiding conflict, for instance I may be actually seeking one in the form of a rival or adversary or enemy or threat -- gives the other player a chance to nope that right in the bud, too.

It's more a factor of, "I'm looking for this kind of fun today, that sound good to you?" -- and if it does, everybody's more likely to be happy with it. Fun is generally the goal, so this step can be important in that respect.

99% of the time, I don't really have a preference. A scene is a scene and a scene is something that's going to be fun no matter what it contains.

It's that 1% that can sometimes trip shit up.

[faraday]

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

they don't want to waste on-line time having to fathom some IC excuse for why they were absent.

Yeah, I really don't understand where this became about wanting a favorable outcome or not wanting to fail. I don't care about that. What I care about is being forced to come up with a preposterous explanation (I fell asleep in the crawlspace with noise-canceling headphones on!) for something that is an extremely routine MUSH event (someone not being online at the exact moment you want them).

I was just trying to illustrate that sometimes OOC communication is done in the interests of IC continuity.

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

they don't want to waste on-line time having to fathom some IC excuse for why they were absent.

Yeah, I really don't understand where this became about wanting a favorable outcome or not wanting to fail. I don't care about that. What I care about is being forced to come up with a preposterous explanation (I fell asleep in the crawlspace with noise-canceling headphones on!) for something that is an extremely routine MUSH event (someone not being online at the exact moment you want them).

This was actually a thing on HM from time to time. Did the big scenes where a Covenant's domain was attacked happen at 3 am in the morning for one of the political aspirants in it? "Where were you when we were fighting for our lives, you COWARD?".

Yeah, it's a douche move.