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Dreamwalk MUSH is a game about dreams built on old MUSH ideas. In it, you are a dreamwalker, a lucid dreamer who can travel to other people's dreams from across dimensions (a Space Marine might have a dream where he meets Alice In Wonderland), and even alter those dreams. In Dreamwalk MUSH EVERYBODY is a builder, but they have to spend Lucidity to build anything, and it's way more expensive to manipulate another person's dreamscape than your own... but it still can definitely be done. (Type lucidity once logged in to see costs)

The point of the game is threefold, to:

• build up your own dreamscape as time passes
• meet other dreamwalkers, and interact with them, and
• explore the infinite dreamverse, hopping between dreamscapes to meet new and unexplored places

Character Creation

Considerations Before Starting

Becoming a Dreamwalker requires you consider a few things. Most importantly:

• who they personify in their dreams,
• what their dreamscape is like,
• which universe your character is native to (optional), and
• what their role in that universe is (also optional)

Who They Are In Their Dreams

Enter with a concept of who they are in their dreams. This is important. It is your character's presentation to all other characters. It is who they are on the inside, which becomes the outside here in the dreamverse. Is The Space Marine a poet? Perhaps instead of defying the norm, he's exactly what you would expect him to be in his dreams: a warrior. Whatever the case may be, have an idea of who they think of themselves as while dreaming.

What Their Dreamscape Is Like

Not who they are, but what they dream about. What are the places like? What are the people in them like? How do things work, what is going on there? Duke Nukem's dreamscape might be full of attractive women in skimpy yet high class attire; starlet outfits and the like. A djinni's dreamscape might reflect the wishes of his masters, and the negative consequences wrought upon them for asking for those things. A Sopranos character might dream about that one time their boss insulted them, over and over. Whatever the case may be, have a compelling idea in mind.

Which Universe Your Character Is Native To

Your character isn't always asleep. When you, the player, are logged off, your character is either awake or in some kind of dreamless sleep. He can't enter people's dreams because he isn't dreaming, but his dreamscape persists when he stops dreaming, allowing other dreamwalkers to enter them, observe them, and even alter them.

People from all different universes dream. Space Marines dream. Alice in Wonderland dreams. Sopranos crime family members dream. There is no limit to which universe you can be in. You can use an existing one, create a derivative one, or make an entirely new one. The only key is that you make it somehow interesting to other players. If you fail to do this, you might fail as a player.

What Their Role In That Universe Is

So you've decided where your character resides, but not who they are. If you're playing an Alice In Wonderland character, you need to know which one; after all, the disposition of Alice is very different from the disposition of the Red Queen. Formulate an idea of their role. It does not need to be fabulous to be interesting. A grunt office worker can be a terrifying anti-hero in his dreams; a person's soul often isn't reflected in their situation.

Actually Making Your Character

Simply create the character and log in to the MUSH using the web client or your favorite real client; the host is dreamwa.lk and the port is 1736. That's all you need to do. When you tell us you're ready, we'll have a private conversation with you about your idea and log it. You don't need to write any of the stuff down, but you need to explain to us your idea in a way that covers all those topics. Then, after we've considered the totality of your idea, we'll sign off on it, approving your character, or tell you what needs to change to convince us to sign off on it.

Lucidity

Lucidity is how you get things done. It's how you build new rooms. It's how you describe and name those rooms. It's how you create sympathetic connections to people when you run out of your first three sympathy tokens. It's how you build bridges between people, and tamper with other people's dreamscapes. There are two main ways that are currently implemented to get more Lucidity:

Actually roleplaying

You get Lucidity based on a combination of how many people are in the scene, and how many words you wrote. While quantity doesn't translate directly into quality, more is better ceteris paribus, and it's something that can be calculated objectively.

Idling

We want you to stay logged on! Even if you're just chatting OOC, that's better than disappearing. For every hour you're online, idling or otherwise, you get 150 Lucidity.

Reminder! The actual game is hosted at dreamwa.lk on port 1736. The website is located at http://dreamwa.lk.

Remember! You can always use the lucidity command for important information

@pyrephox said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

Particularly where sexual harassment is concerned, forcing sexual interactions on a character is often done for the purposes of getting off to the idea of forcing those sexual interactions on the, usually presumed female, player. I guarantee that if you do have someone posting about how they want to commit sexual assault on Character X, they're not doing it because they're a deep and thoughtful roleplayer who wants to explore how their character's subconscious reality includes a highly sexualized id that has been shaped by the violence of their childhood.
There is a reason that games like Shangrila have MORE restrictions and abilities to nope out any content, in some ways, than other games - because they know that people are going to be playing with some damned disturbing content, and thus that players need more control over their interactions with the inevitable creeps who want to force people (usually women) to put up with their creepy bullshit because "it's IC". Not that places like Shang do a great job, mind you, and have plenty of creeps nonetheless, but this sounds like a 4-chan disaster in the making.
Which is a shame, because the idea of the game itself is really cool, and I had been thinking about making a character there. I hope it works out.

This is fairly persuasive. I think I'll ban rape/sexual assault shit in-game. If you see anything to that effect, report it to me, and I'll remove that player.

@tnp said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

Sounds interesting. One thing though leapt out at me...

and how many words you wrote.

I don't like the idea of encouraging nonsensical purple prose that takes a half hour to write and even longer to interpret.

Yes, I've definitely considered that. But honestly, I think I'd prefer to tolerate purple prose people over one-liners. The calculation of Lucidity per post can be modified and tweaked over time. I'm definitely open to ideas.

https://www.twitch.tv/thestranjer

Live stream of me working on Dreamwalk MUSH. Tell me what needs to be coded.

Techie Stuff

Repository (and relevant branch): https://github.com/TheStranjer/aresmush/tree/dreamwalk/master

Development Cycle: A minimum viable product has been reached, and now it will all be incremental. However, if players actually use this, it will evolve to make it more fun for them, and their input will be greatly appreciated

Shoutout to @faraday for writing the engine this operates on.

@emda said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

This does seem like a neat idea. I hope some people come up with universes that play well together.

I'm pretty leery of encouragements for people to just stay connected, but I get the purpose. You mention the 150 lucidity per hour thing. How much does that amount to in relation to lucidity costs for expanding your dreamworld and how much you might make in a scene? How large of a starting dreamscape can a character make off the bat?

Is there any interaction between the universes characters come from, given the emphasis on it being interesting, or would other players mainly come to know about your waking world through whatever elements are pulled into your dreamscape?

I'm glad I wrote a lucidity command that's designed specifically to list this! It automatically updates as I add new features, too, so if you do choose to log on, you can rely on that for accurate information.

Here's what the output of it current looks like on my character:

 ==> Your Lucidity is 339

 ==> Lucidity

 Lucidity is how you get things done. It's how you build new rooms. It's how you describe and name those 
    rooms. It's how you create sympathetic connections to people when you run out of your first three 
    sympathy tokens. It's how you build bridges between people, and tamper with other people's 
    dreamscapes. There are two main ways that are currently implemented to get more Lucidity:

 ==> What Things Cost

  *. Describe Own Room: 500
  *. Describe Other Room: 1500xthe barrier of the room being described
  *. Rename Own Room: 500
  *. Build Room Base: 1500xnumber of rooms you have
  *. Sympathetic Connection: 5000xnumber of sympathetic connections you already have
  *. Barrier Increase: 1000xnumber of barriers room already has
  *. Erect Bridge: 2500xthe total barriers of both rooms
  *. Bridge Toll: 25xthe barrier of the room being entered
  *. Details Home: 500
  *. Details Other: 1000xthe barrier of the room being detailed

 ==> How To Get More

*. Idle. We want you to stay logged on! Even if you're just chatting OOC, that's better than 
    disappearing. For every hour you're online, idling or otherwise, you get 150 Lucidity.


*. Actually Roleplaying. You get Lucidity based on a combination of how many people are in the scene, 
    and how many words you wrote. While quantity doesn't translate directly into quality, more is better 
    ceteris paribus, and it's something that can be calculated objectively.

How much starting Lucidity, if any, is kind of up for debate right now. I'm not sure if you should get any (leery of this), or if you should get like 10,000 (wooo, seems a bit much!), but you should probably get something so you can start scening early.

I might write in a lucidity/gift <player>=<quantity> command soon, so that older players can help newer ones out.

EDIT: The larger the scene, the more you make. It's calculated by: 10 x players x word count, per post you make.

@secretfire said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands

Good recommendation. I should revisit this and see if anything inspiring comes up in terms of how to further program the game mechanics.

Here are the ways Dreamwalk MUSH improved today:

• Bridge tolls are now 50 per barrier level, not 25
• Toll recipients now get message for why they are paid
• Gifting now sends a message
• Poses now yield a message
• Starting out lists a reason for being awarded Lucidity
• Idling for an hour is now listed as well
• You can now have messages for getting awarded lucidity
• Bridge tolls go to owner of room being entered
• Starting Lucidity: 5000

Livestream of me updating Dreamwalk MUSH: https://www.twitch.tv/thestranjer

@auspice said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

(We can, just won't happen for a few hours prob. Unless @Ganymede or @Arkandel have a chunk of free time before I do. Picking out posts is tedious and I am kind of buried under work for the next 3 hours+)

I sent Arkandel a message but if it's a humongous pain in your ass, don't bother. Since this game is in active development, my intention is to use this thread for the following purposes:

• changelog updates, and
• discussion on how the game ought to be run (I realize I turned a lot of people off by having speech codes which are too lax)

EDIT: So if reaming me out for going against the grain is commonplace here, I'll cop that on the nose.

@faraday said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@demiurge No, I was just saying that I don’t think that policy conveys your intent and you may want to reword it to be more explicit. Or don’t. It’s your game and I was never going to play on it either way because it’s not my jam. I’m just trying to save you some headaches down the road. If you don’t like the suggestion, ignore it.

That's fair. I'm a little disappointed that the whole point of this thread effectively got captured by a conversation about IC/OOC speech codes. Feels bad, man.

@faraday said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@demiurge said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

And I fully appreciate your concern. But I'm reluctant to impose ideological restrictions, in particular on IC content. As said before, I'm sorry if that amounts to your disinterest or anybody else's disinterest.

Did you see the part where I wasn’t telling you to change your policy, but merely to add a note making that policy clear in your policy file?

Yes, but that is in the TOS as well:

By going farther, you agree that anything you are exposed to here is
your own responsibility. We are not here to babysit you, so that
aforementioned laissez faire culture might mean you read something that
offends you. It might even offend us. We generally don't regard this
as a very good reason to ban or consequence people.

So I figured, since this has been addressed, that you were stressing this for some other reason. Like wanting me to change the policy.

@faraday said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

I'm not telling you to forbid anything, nor am I judging you for allowing IC bigotry.

@faraday

bigoted attitudes ICly

To reiterate: OOC harassment will not, under any circumstances, be tolerated.

@faraday said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

Because seriously - there are a lot of MUSHers who don't want to deal with that kind of crap in their pretendy-fun-times.
You can yell all you want about how "it's just IC" but that's fooling yourself.
When you're a woman or African American or LGBTQ (or any other marginalized group) in real life and get subjected to hatred and discrimination all day long, the very last thing that a lot of those people want to do is have their avatars (who, quite often, fall into the same demographic as themselves) subjected to the same crap in their interactive fiction. So if you're going to require them to do so or else excuse themselves from the game, then that is the sort of policy that needs to be spelled out up front.
Otherwise I absolutely guarantee you're going to end up with serious drama sooner rather than later.

And I fully appreciate your concern. But I'm reluctant to impose ideological restrictions, in particular on IC content. As said before, I'm sorry if that amounts to your disinterest or anybody else's disinterest.

@thenomain said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@kanye-qwest said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@thenomain said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@demiurge said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

If it's too offensive for Trump to say, then I'm likely going to ban it on obnoxiousness grounds.

Troll will always out itself.

Yeah, that kind of cements it.

I would like to bounce off this a bit: I know we have a few conservatives on this board who feel overwhelmed by the angry socially liberal view of many of the posters here. We know that this is not you. It doesn't take a sociology degree to see where "I disagree" becomes poisonous, and I honestly find hate from either side to be antisocial and part of the problem.

And that's it. The hate. Framing anyone else's "I disagree" into hate is just as much of a problem, and anyone being afraid to say what's on our mind because that framing (mostly) respectful disagreement as hate-speech is our new normal is the problem.

This is an apolitical statement, unless trying to find cohesion within a community is political.

--

@demiurge said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@thenomain said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@demiurge said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

If it's too offensive for Trump to say, then I'm likely going to ban it on obnoxiousness grounds.

Troll will always out itself.

Please don't call me a troll. And please don't call me "it."

After your recent posts, I find it difficult to believe that this is a sincere request.

Calling people trolls and "it" is decidedly dehumanizing, and I sincerely do not appreciate it.

@thenomain said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@demiurge said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

If it's too offensive for Trump to say, then I'm likely going to ban it on obnoxiousness grounds.

Troll will always out itself.

Please don't call me a troll. And please don't call me "it."

@foxstevenson said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@demiurge said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@faraday said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

That is really not conveying the same stance you're putting forth in this thread. In virtually every other MU game out there, pushing unwanted romantic fantasies or bigoted attitudes ICly - the types of things you've expressly said you're OK with - would in fact be considered "obnoxious". So players are going to expect you to deal with that unless you clearly state otherwise up front.
A lot of folks don't want to come onto a game and be assailed with hatred and harassment - even ICly. If you want an unfiltered environment, that's your prerogative. But what you've posted vs. what you're saying you'd tolerate is virtually guaranteed to result in dramatic meltdowns.
Create the type of environment you want to see. We're all just trying to help you stave off drama based on A TON of experience with this sort of issue.

That's fair, but expecting a broad ban on "bigoted attitudes" does, as a matter of fact, amount to expecting literally everybody to be a PC progressive not just OOC, but IC. I know this upsets some of the users here, but classifying the attitudes of about half of the U.S. population, or the attitudes of a duly-elected U.S. President, as "obnoxious" enough to be unacceptable in a roleplaying environment is... a bit much. To put it politely.

So, I've arrived at a decision for a litmus test on what qualifies as "too obnoxious": you can't realistically imagine the President (that's Trump) saying it. If it's too offensive for Trump to say, then I'm likely going to ban it on obnoxiousness grounds.

I get the need for some control on content, but too much control can ruin a game even worse than no control at all. So this is a fairly balanced conclusion.

bangs gavel so ordered :^)

Have you, ya know, actually listened to the things that man has said?

Yes. And a lot of them are very upsetting to a lot of people. But I've decided I'm not going to forbid the views of large segments of the U.S. population from having an IC presence in my game. I'm sorry.

@faraday said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

That is really not conveying the same stance you're putting forth in this thread. In virtually every other MU game out there, pushing unwanted romantic fantasies or bigoted attitudes ICly - the types of things you've expressly said you're OK with - would in fact be considered "obnoxious". So players are going to expect you to deal with that unless you clearly state otherwise up front.
A lot of folks don't want to come onto a game and be assailed with hatred and harassment - even ICly. If you want an unfiltered environment, that's your prerogative. But what you've posted vs. what you're saying you'd tolerate is virtually guaranteed to result in dramatic meltdowns.
Create the type of environment you want to see. We're all just trying to help you stave off drama based on A TON of experience with this sort of issue.

That's fair, but expecting a broad ban on "bigoted attitudes" does, as a matter of fact, amount to expecting literally everybody to be a PC progressive not just OOC, but IC. I know this upsets some of the users here, but classifying the attitudes of about half of the U.S. population, or the attitudes of a duly-elected U.S. President, as "obnoxious" enough to be unacceptable in a roleplaying environment is... a bit much. To put it politely.

So, I've arrived at a decision for a litmus test on what qualifies as "too obnoxious": you can't realistically imagine the President (that's Trump) saying it. If it's too offensive for Trump to say, then I'm likely going to ban it on obnoxiousness grounds.

I get the need for some control on content, but too much control can ruin a game even worse than no control at all. So this is a fairly balanced conclusion.

bangs gavel so ordered :^)

@surreality said in Dreamwalk MUSH:

@coin This.

I know some games have coded things that replace the name with something like 'a quiet male voice' or 'an androgynous melodic voice' or whatever else, too. These can and should not duplicate (however you want to figure that out), but keeping people's contributions separate from one another isn't trivial. You could even set something up that when you actually meet the person face to face in the dream world, you 'learn' their voice, and thus see their name instead of the descriptor.

The 'spoof others' thing is definitely interesting as a concept, but I am unsure if it's one I would be comfortable running with personally.

If you're going to allow that, I'd suggest that coming with a cost of points that, when applied, records who used it and the statement made with it for staff records.

Most people in this hobby are awesome. Some are not, and that smaller group would be very likely to use this for many ugly things, plenty of them OOC grudgewank, trying to provoke OOC jealousy, ruining OOC friendships, or trying to drive players they dislike from the game, etc.

I didn't notice this response at first. But if I get OOC "grudgewank" or whatever else to that effect, or someone is harping on a particular user constantly and it dominates the channel, that will get nixed. I'm just not going to ban offhand remarks to the effect of "man I really want to fuck so-in-so" or "so-in-so is a stupid bitch" on the basis of 'harassment'.

Also, 'spoof others' is not literal. You just write like them. If you do so convincingly, well, people are convinced. Otherwise, they aren't. Also you could kind of just emulate characters to convey your perceptions of them, and if a bunch of players do it together, over time they could become a de facto Jungian archetype of their own on the game, taking on its own life of sorts.