Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes

[ThatGuyThere]

@acceleration said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio

There are plenty of perma-death MUDs. RPIs are all perma-death and several RP-centric MUDs are also perma-death. Non-perma-death MUDs are typically considered RP-light with combat emphasis (like the IRE series and New Worlds) and probably not where OP is coming from given they seem more interested in figuring out if people on MUSHes are conflict-averse.

I think one of the big reasons people tend to be conflict averse on mushes as opposed to muds is that Mud have code that is likely unbiased. I mean you can write code that cheats but that is a lot of work and easy to discover by others with access to the code. On a mush especially one that uses tabletop rules conflicts are adjudicate by people. This is a feature not a bug but also raises the specter of favoritism, especially in OWoD where book rules were written vague on purpose by the designers.
I know on games where I trust staff I am much more open to conflict rp then on games where I am less trusting of staff.

[Lotherio]

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This is something I'd agree with, but it also runs directly counter to the idea you have to ask before joining a scene (asking means you can be denied, which means people can totally have private scenes anywhere they like.)

To me the asking to join is not about getting permission, but about acknowledging there is a scene in process and being polite. I would consider anyone who said out right no to the question to join more then a bit of a dick. that still said i will tend to minimized interaction with those that don't ask. It is one of those polite non questions that helps social situations function. Like the How are you doing? to a stranger in RL you aren't seeking a real answer just giving them polite acknowledgement.

I agree with it as social politeness

However, I also I understand some folks like to go out to meet new potential RP partners by going to public places in the grid, and due to any number of factors (RL, Work heaven forbid, kids, dyslexia** (me)), anything that gets 'large' (over 5 personally) is unmanageable. They may say no, but I don't think it makes them a dick to want to have the potential to meet new people rather than forcing folks that can only do small scenes into private or the TP rooms.

This can correct itself as has been pointed out in other threads. But on smaller places with only 1 scene going, it can force the person who can't handle big scenes out of RP all together.

** Colors help, highlighting my name on all the input I receive, but people often times address another char by some other reference too (he looks to the other boy, when the one guy talks about cars he agrees, the dark haired middle aged man with glasses gets a nod).

[Ganymede]

@mietze

[Kestrel]

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I think one of the big reasons people tend to be conflict averse on mushes as opposed to muds is that Mud have code that is likely unbiased. I mean you can write code that cheats but that is a lot of work and easy to discover by others with access to the code. On a mush especially one that uses tabletop rules conflicts are adjudicate by people. This is a feature not a bug but also raises the specter of favoritism, especially in OWoD where book rules were written vague on purpose by the designers.
I know on games where I trust staff I am much more open to conflict rp then on games where I am less trusting of staff.

Don't think I can get behind this theory.

I'm new to MUSHes, but I've played quite a wide variety of MUDs and RPGs over the years, from IRE to RPIs to play-by-post to tabletop and Skype-group D&D.

By far, Iron Realms Entertainment's balance-MUDs, which are the most code-heavy places I've played on for longer than a month, had the whiniest, worst sports and sour losers. I mean sure, people there are more competitive, but I'm sure anyone who's played there can back me up on the drama caused by issue (report-a-player) storms, accusations of people abusing OP skills, unfair ganking tactics, etc. Cries of foul-play are worse there than anywhere, despite everything being so tightly controlled by code and 'game law' alike.

I've always had a lot more fun on freeform RP sites. Without any kind of coded punishment or measurable e-peen points to accrue, people feel they have less to lose and can just let go in favour of focusing on the story. And since you can only 'win' by emoting a scene so awesome that people happily go along with it, it's in everyone's best interests to strive to win one another over socially, in that way — even if that social aspect is just as anonymous writers with high regard for one another.

You do bring up a great point though, which is trust. I suppose building that is what makes or breaks MUSH conflict, in the end.

On the topic of self-selection that @lordbelh brings up, and with @faraday's (among others') analogy that explaining MUSH culture is more like explaining kilt-wearing in Europe than kilt-wearing in Scotland, I wonder if the setting one chooses is a good way to predict player trends. With Kushiel's Debut being a Lord-and-Ladies style MUSH that focuses on social/political intrigue, for instance (as I'm given to understand — I don't play there), are people more conflict-averse there than on say, the 100 MUSH, which is a criminals vs. tribes war/survival game?

[Ninjakitten]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So far this is probably the biggest source of MUSH-related culture-shock for me, I think. I had my character react a certain way to something they found off-putting, for very IC reasons (though I found it great) — and received an OOC apology for the off-putting behaviour, with a clarification that it wasn't intended to be off-putting. Is this normal?

I know that I've run into this fairly often where the person (or once in a while me!) is just making sure the misunderstanding is IC, not OOC. Sometimes it isn't and once it's cleared up the player doesn't want their character to have reacted that way, but I'd say the more frequent response (whether the misunderstanding was purely IC or also OOC originally) is something along the lines of, "it's all good, X just took it the other way." Which is to say that the person may not be trying to avoid the IC conflict, just clarifying and aiming to avoid any potential OOC conflict.

[ThatGuyThere]

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

@ThatGuyThere
You are so delicate!

I can't give my preferred response response since we are in constructive. I am not delicate I am just a firm believer in making the appropriate social gruntings at each other after all that is how pack primates function.

[surreality]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I've always had a lot more fun on freeform RP sites. Without any kind of coded punishment or measurable e-peen points to accrue, people feel they have less to lose and can just let go in favour of focusing on the story. And since you can only 'win' by emoting a scene so awesome that people happily go along with it, it's in everyone's best interests to strive to win one another over socially, in that way — even if that social aspect is just as anonymous writers with high regard for one another.

^ This. This is actually one of the reasons Shangrila works, and it's the reason the first game I put together over a decade ago didn't have much in the way of stats. (We just requested people write up notes about their powers.) Under these conditions, the whole thing becomes collaborative.

It has its own failings -- people refusing to agree to reasonable things or refusing to ever lose (face, a fight, the girl, etc.) -- but it definitely has its perks.

Trying to find the sweet spot between that and 'code everything to deal with consent twinks without throwing everything to the stat twinks' is more or less the core thing every argument eventually comes down to in a lot of ways. I don't know if anyone's managed to do it yet, and I'm not entirely convinced it can be done in any sort of fool-proof fashion.

It can be done amongst groups of players with some measure of consensus about what they're looking for in terms of 'what do I want to get out of my RP time', which is what you touch on a little later. I don't necessarily see it in terms of a scale of conflict-welcome to conflict-averse, though; I see it more as having interest in different types of conflicts. With the examples there, I'd say you'd see a lot more social challenges and conflicts in the former, with more physical challenges conflicts in the latter, with political conflicts and challenges present about equally in both settings.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

On the topic of self-selection that @lordbelh brings up, and with @faraday's (among others') analogy that explaining MUSH culture is more like explaining kilt-wearing in Europe than kilt-wearing in Scotland, I wonder if the setting one chooses is a good way to predict player trends. With Kushiel's Debut being a Lord-and-Ladies style MUSH that focuses on social/political intrigue, for instance (as I'm given to understand — I don't play there), are people more conflict-averse there than on say, the 100 MUSH, which is a criminals vs. tribes war/survival game?

Each genre has a pretty distinct culture, there is player overlap true but there is just a different OOC feel about the games that is hard to define, sometimes this gets broken down more so. For example I have found OWoD to be more conflicty/ competitive then NWoD is. Comic games have a different set of etiquette then WoD games do, as do lords and ladies games.
I cannot speak about the 100 games since i have never been on it, but my guess based on the thread here is that it would lean towards the Lords and Ladies culture since the game runners previously ran a L+L game but that is at best a semi-educated guess on my part.
Sadly little of the cultural mores ever get written down so it is a matter of having to discover the differences by playing and hopefully not screwing up too badly.

[Thenomain]

Hey, I have more time now so I'm going to retreat back along the thread quite a bit.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Do many MUSHers have an aversion to conflict-based RP

In short, yes, and it's for reasons further removed from my "code vs. cooperation" distinction from Mud to Mush, though I and other people have touched on this enough that it's probably been sufficiently answered, but I want to dig further into this. You (Kestrel) have even answered some of it.

Conflict in a lot of RPG Mushes means combat which means death. A lot of people in the World of Darkness games see this as the primary conflict resolution. Killing means no more problem, and only a hit to a stat which is not tied into any other stat and therefore the consequences can easily be ignored so it is and was, systematically, consequence-free.

This created an OOC culture of people who were paranoid that people were killing for, well, OOC reasons. Because a lot of people were. You may think that the concept of an "online troll" is new, but it really isn't; being a dick because you can and it's funny to watch people get upset has been around for a long, long time. Well, in the WoD Mush community, the backlash to this was mighty. Staffers were draconian against people who even thought about doing this, because they were often victims to it themselves, so they started or became staff on games and were going to "fix everything".

Who groaned? Yes, if you've ever been in a company with a new manager who immediately decides to "fix everything" that normally means headaches all around as everything is changed regardless of what works. And because these staffers are trying to be good and righteous, and are also kind of paranoid, they created some of the very worst Staffer-vs-Player schisms.

Incidentally, birthing Wora (the precursor to Soapbox). This history is about a decade old. Maybe more; I can't remember.

The other thing you can do as staffer is get all the cool things that previous games would never get you. So you had some staffers doing bad things for good reasons, and others doing bad things for no reason, and you end up with a bunch of players who are poisoned by distrust, and legitimately so. These players become staffers, and the cycle continues.

This is only half of it.

---

The other half is what we've all been talking about. Players like to own their character, because it can take a long time to create it, and longer to get into it, and the emotional investment is both good (they want to see what happens next) and bad (they don't want to feel their effort is meaningless).

So what we ended up with was:

• A game about (not) killing people.
• Distrust of the staff/game arbiters.
• Investment in our work.

We have, I will admit, gotten over a lot of these issues. A lot of that is because we killed OOC Masquerade (things players aren't allowed to know about your character, even if they know them). We killed it dead. We killed it because if we can create an enjoyable game out of trust, then being antagonistic becomes acceptable. e.g., I know you're slighting me because your character can't stand mine, not because you have it out for me, not because your character is going to kill mine. With respect for the player, we can do more with the characters.

That can go too far. Like Political Correctness, if you slide that slippery slope to the ultimate conclusion, this means that if you're not super-nice or super-careful with other characters, then we can easily return to the bad old days.

I think this slippery slope is point-missing, myself, but it's a logical conclusion. The wrong conclusion to have, but logical all the same.

---

In one of the most enjoyable scenes I had on Fallcoast (WoD Mux), my homeless character was shamed by a grandma who was just taking her granddaughter out to get icecream, and dirty stinky hobo ruined it. It was NPCd by someone, and they were worried that they were pushing me out of the scene, and I said no, no, that was awesome, when can we play again. It was engaging, and my part in the scene didn't go on longer than it had to by, e.g., my character scoffing and mocking the woman. I could have played it that way, but I enjoy playing someone who is not Always The Hero Of Their Own Story. Certainly someone with human emotions, who can be mocked and shamed for their faults. We need more of this. We need more world-building imagination, not just "I must win against all against me" which leads to the "kill" mentality.

Incidentally, if you NPC'd that grandma, please PM me and tell me when we can scene again!

---

I feel like I have a kindred spirit in that regard, @Kestrel, which is part of why I wanted to dive into that one point. Also, to wrap up some history, and some conversation in this thread which really directly answered your question.

Ta, again.

[Ominous]

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Ask before joining a scene in progress.

This is the most asinine rule I come across in this hobby, particularly if there are private rooms to use. I am fine with people saying "We're on a dinner date, so, no, you can't sit at our table," but to deny my character being allowed in the room at all? No, I'm going to pose my character striding over to your character's table and pouring the glass on wine on your head. Take it to a private room if you want to control who can join the scene.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Ask before posing logs containing sensitive/private IC information.

What constitutes sensitive/private IC information on a MUSH other than TS? I could be misreading between the lines, but based on various communications and the one instance where I asked someone, 'Can I post this?' I felt like I was met with this weird implication that one should always have nothing to hide, and that if you aren't entirely open about your character's motives/secrets, you're being kinda sketchy.

It depends on the MU*. On the 100, they aren't really any OOC secrets. There are plenty of IC secrets, but the players know most of them. On other MU*s, Firan or Kushiel's Debut for example, IC secrets tend to be OOC secrets too, as the environments are much more antagonistic.

[Thenomain]

@Ominous said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Ask before joining a scene in progress.

This is the most asinine rule I come across in this hobby, particularly if there are private rooms to use. I am fine with people saying "We're on a dinner date, so, no, you can't sit at our table," but to deny my character being allowed in the room at all? No, I'm going to pose my character striding over to your character's table and pouring the glass on wine on your head. Take it to a private room if you want to control who can join the scene.

Dude, chill. We have already established that there is no single answer, and some people have refined this as "wait a round of poses before posing in" or "ask/wait for a sitrep (situation report)". The answer works for @Faraday's part of the hobby. Maybe instead explain why it's not a good idea.

A single room can have multiple scenes in it, and it happens all the time. They are interlinked by proximity, but nobody is throwing you out of a room by saying they're not willing to include you in their interactions. There's no reason to be a jerk because you feel slighted. There's certainly no reason to feel slighted.

[Ominous]

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

A single room can have multiple scenes in it, and it happens all the time. They are interlinked by proximity, but nobody is throwing you out of a room by saying they're not willing to include you in their interactions. There's no reason to be a jerk because you feel slighted. There's certainly no reason to feel slighted.

I am referring to people who have told me before "No, you can't be in here at all," when they are RPing in a public room. It's incredibly rare, but it has happened.

[lordbelh]

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

A single room can have multiple scenes in it, and it happens all the time. They are interlinked by proximity, but nobody is throwing you out of a room by saying they're not willing to include you in their interactions. There's no reason to be a jerk because you feel slighted. There's certainly no reason to feel slighted.

That's exactly what s/he was saying, though? Its fine not to interact, just don't claim OOC ownership over the room?

[Thenomain]

@Ominous said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

A single room can have multiple scenes in it, and it happens all the time. They are interlinked by proximity, but nobody is throwing you out of a room by saying they're not willing to include you in their interactions. There's no reason to be a jerk because you feel slighted. There's certainly no reason to feel slighted.

I am referring to people who have told me before "No, you can't be in here at all," when they are RPing in a public room. It's incredibly rare, but it has happened.

Oh, then yes. I don't read "ask before joining a scene" to be the same as "the room belongs to those in it", but I'd agree that those people who want ownership of a room should be smacked. Anyone who enters an existing scene and ignores the situation also need smacked. While there's no call for telling someone to scram from a room, I'd say that first come first scene-set too.

I think we're agreeing.

[Ominous]

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Oh, then yes. I don't read "ask before joining a scene" to be the same as "the room belongs to those in it", but I'd agree that those people who want ownership of a room should be smacked. Anyone who enters an existing scene and ignores the situation also need smacked. While there's no call for telling someone to scram from a room, I'd say that first come first scene-set too.

I think we're agreeing.

We are, indeed, on both.

[ixokai]

@Ominous said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Ask before joining a scene in progress.

This is the most asinine rule I come across in this hobby, particularly if there are private rooms to use. I am fine with people saying "We're on a dinner date, so, no, you can't sit at our table," but to deny my character being allowed in the room at all? No, I'm going to pose my character striding over to your character's table and pouring the glass on wine on your head. Take it to a private room if you want to control who can join the scene.

To me? This makes you an asshole.

Its just completely disrespectful of other people in a collaborative environment. Asking to join a scene (of which I've heard a no maybe twice-- ever. In 2+ decades) isn't about being a jerk, its respecting that the ongoing scene might have reasons you can't just join in. Some are OOC. Its got 4 people, one of the players there just can't handle a bigger scene. This isn't unreasonable.

And if you are really going to pose your character striding over and reacting, you're like, that kinda asshole that doesn't get cleaned. But I think you're just showing off there and aren't really going to react ICly to OOC responses.

Why is being polite and showing respect asinine? Especially since the denial is so incredibly rare as to being extremely exceptional?

[Olsson]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Is this normal? Do many MUSHers have an aversion to conflict-based RP, and/or take the stance that character behaviours should be altered to cater to harmony with other characters?

In my experiance, yes, very much so. I do not think it is a good thing.

[Kestrel]

@ixokai said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Ominous said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Ask before joining a scene in progress.

This is the most asinine rule I come across in this hobby, particularly if there are private rooms to use. I am fine with people saying "We're on a dinner date, so, no, you can't sit at our table," but to deny my character being allowed in the room at all? No, I'm going to pose my character striding over to your character's table and pouring the glass on wine on your head. Take it to a private room if you want to control who can join the scene.

To me? This makes you an asshole.

Its just completely disrespectful of other people in a collaborative environment. Asking to join a scene (of which I've heard a no maybe twice-- ever. In 2+ decades) isn't about being a jerk, its respecting that the ongoing scene might have reasons you can't just join in. Some are OOC. Its got 4 people, one of the players there just can't handle a bigger scene. This isn't unreasonable.

And if you are really going to pose your character striding over and reacting, you're like, that kinda asshole that doesn't get cleaned. But I think you're just showing off there and aren't really going to react ICly to OOC responses.

Why is being polite and showing respect asinine? Especially since the denial is so incredibly rare as to being extremely exceptional?

It's pretty asinine, from an outsider's perspective, because it's totally unnecessary by the admission of everyone on this thread who's explained why it's necessary.

I think the idea that you would ask someone if you can join a scene just to be able to determine that they're an arsehole on the off chance they say 'no' is pretty weird. That seems like a person is begging to get offended. It's a social construct that makes no sense. It's inefficient. It's a waste of time.

Maybe there's a better way of doing things. Just a thought.

[Groth]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

It's pretty asinine, from an outsider's perspective, because it's totally unnecessary by the admission of everyone on this thread who's explained why it's necessary.

I think the idea that you would ask someone if you can join a scene just to be able to determine that they're an arsehole on the off chance they say 'no' is pretty weird. That seems like a person is begging to get offended. It's a social construct that makes no sense. It's inefficient. It's a waste of time.

Maybe there's a better way of doing things. Just a thought.

By that logic all politeness is a waste of time. It's a way to demonstrate that you care and sometimes it gives you valuable information such as the fact that the scene is about to end or move somewhere else or is actually bubbled (Means the scene isn't taking place at the current time but rather a time to be determined when resolved).

Most people that play on MUSH train themselves to avoid people who are impolite since they've learned by experience that saves them a lot of drama and headache in the long run.

[Olsson]

My only real issue with public scenes is I am not generally a fan of scenes after a certain size. But that's an issue with me, not other people. If suddently it grows from 3 to 9 I'll just quietly take my leave at a pace that makes sense. I've never personally felt the need to ask or be asked about people joining them.