Posts made by Rook

Personally, I am not sure why anyone would play on a game where you give up all rights to your character, background and story. That, to me, would be the largest single reason why a resounding 'No' would be the answer. Because, you know, you're forced to agree to this to play on BoD:

The MUSH and all thematic works associated with it (including, but not limited to, character backgrounds and logs), whether found on the official MUSH website or elsewhere, should be considered derivative works and as such are also allowed solely through Mr. Martin’s expressed permission and only in conjunction with Blood of Dragons MUSH.

All players and Staff who create anything for public use on the game (e.g., building, code, and texts such as descriptions, tutorials or newsfiles) retain copyright of these creations but give the Admin a non-revocable, non-exclusive and non-transferable license for unlimited use of said creations. In the case of contributions that are intrinsically related to the theme and setting, the Admin are granted a non-revocable, non-transferable and exclusive license to make unlimited use of them.

Found the blog. Wow, you're right.

@surreality this would be great tinder for a How-to maybe? I'm interested in your lessons learned, I am sure others will be too.

I wanna see it, honestly, after hearing about this Legendary Flip Out. Even if just emailed or PMed. Would also love a link to the flip out site.

Explain something to me, please, because I'm one of the slower people around here. You propose the OR to be a site to be:

"dedicated to text-based RPGs, not just MUDs, or MOOs, or MUXs, or any of the various sub-genres that we’ve divided ourselves into over the years."

Yet, your words and discussions here have made it sound like you foresee very few MUSH/MUX games actually qualifying as such.

"Our community is for any text-based game that is focused primarily on role-play, has coded support for player activities, and includes permanent character death."

These are your requirements, as pulled directly from the OR site, not discussions here. You write these words as guidelines for inclusion, then you seem to be tightening the limits on the processing part of the application end of things.

So, really, you say one thing, but end up doing another. That, sir, is pretense, and this is (ironically) the historically WRONG place to out yourself as someone of that nature.

But more importantly, you yourself are excluding a large demographic of games that you purport to wish to include. That is self-defeating. Further, it seems that you are doing this out of sheer ignorance, since you are continuing to learn what MUSHes are, given your other thread and your own comments within.

I recommend that, given the feedback that these MUSHers seem to be giving you in resounding shovelfuls, is that you re-evaluate your criteria for listing if you truly want to service the Roleplay-centric community of text-based games. By and large, and correct me anyone if you feel that this statement is off-base, MUSHes tend to be far more roleplay-centric than roleplay-intensive games. We have described to you why we feel that way. We are so roleplay-centric that we do NOT code automation, and leave arbitration to player interaction. If you feel that coded automation is required for listing on your site, then I recommend you reword your article on the purpose of the OR site to state something along the lines.

Game System != Codebase.

Codebase = [ PennMUSH | MUX* | RhostMUSH | MUCK | MOO | *MUD ]

Game System = [ WoD | nWoD | D20 | FATE | Amber | HERO | .... ]

An example: There are nWoD MUXes, PennMUSHes and RhostMUSHes (I think). To say that they are all the same codebase would be wrong. They are different codebases, but the same Game System.

Maybe it would help to point out that, with MUSH and all of the various flavors of codebase therein, there is a very distinct difference between what we refer to as:

Hardcode - this is the server codebase, the guts of the system, the parser and the database. This is what you get out of the box when you install a new game and start it up. There is one player object (GOD or #1) and one room. That's it. You get the help files and you're set to start building your little reality. This is what we refer to as 'under the hood', and there are generally three MUSH flavors: Penn, Rhost and MUX. All are designed differently, but once you are 'inside' a running game, they are about 90% similar. A person who knows Penn can operate on a MUX and vice versa, and just have to learn a few differences in commands. Coding (see below) is different from the standpoint of parameters and slight differences in behavior/output, but in general, a coder who knows MUX or Penn can code in Rhost, and vice versa.

Softcode- this is the part of building your little reality. If you have an RPG in mind, then you're going to need code to help players set their characters up. This is usually called CharGen (Character Generation). Here is where you build commands and rooms and help files that guide a player through putting together characters according to your game's rules. Next, you usually have code to support checking each other out. +FINGER is a very common example of this. On top of that, you get +WHO (which is slightly different than the stock WHO command), +WHERE and from here, a smattering of different commands that are designed to help players find other players for play.

Throw in here whatever your game needs. Want a command to allow players to summon others to their location? Very common. How about commands to alter your stats when you go from one werewolf form to another? Done. How about draining blood if you are a vampire? We have that in our games, too. Some games allow for invisibility, complete with snooping. Some games have commands for combat automation. Almost all games have health adjustment code that is run by the players themselves, staff or is automated in some fashion. Healing code? It's out there in MUSHes, too. Crafting on various levels? Yep, seen it, built em.

So understand that when you encounter a MUSH, you can almost always consider anything under 'help' as 'hardcoded'. Anything under '+help' is usually a softcoded system that someone has built in-game. It is stored on objects in a global Master Room so that those commands can be executed from anywhere on the game.

In general, the hardcode of MUSHes is rarely altered, hacked or touched, except in very fringe and custom cases. MUSHes differentiate themselves by softcode, by and large.

@All
If Kushiel's Debut ranks as a MUSH that qualifies under Jeshin's rules, then I don't think any other games here have anything to worry about. They should all be listed. KD has nothing special in the ways of automation code on their game that other games do not have.

@Jeshin said:

If MUDs aren't your thing you can at least take solace that new engines are still being created for text-based gaming!

You know... it has been bugging me that you, Jeshin, seem to have something against MUSHes. I can't really put my finger on it, but you seem to hold high your own genre/standard when you don't even seem to have the whole story on "text-based gaming".

PennMUSH and RhostMUSH have, and are, still under active development. They are very stable staples in the MUSH circle of the 'text-based gaming' Venn diagram. So yes, despite your misguided attempt at consolation of those that find that "MUDs aren't [their] thing", it is in fact very true.

Now do I have anything against new MUD engines? No, not at all. But it just seems to me that you are coming to this forum to advertise MUD via your website. And given that, as proven by your words in this very thread, don't seem to be all that willing to include the games WE play in your listings (but are more than willing to allow conversation on your forums), I find my interest in reading your posts waning quite quickly because of your slanted language.

Not trying to be a dick.

Side note: For the new to the genre? MUX is MUSH. It is just a branch of the codebase.

MUXes are played exactly like MUSHes. We don't differentiate TinyMUSH 3 games with one name and PennMUSH games with another... they're all MUSHes.

I only bring this up because there seems to be a trend of saying "MUSHes and MUXes" like they are cousins.

@Sunny I would offer my help as well. But I am in the midst of heavy coding for my own game, by myself, and have also committed to helping @icanbeyourmuse with her game, code-wise.

I would be even further held back (read: liability vs asset) because I haven't played nWoD and own zero of the books anymore. Those all went with the ex during the divorce.

Online retail outlets for common brick and mortar stores that refuse to allow you to sort search results on the site by 'Available in my fucking store', so you can at least shop, find and go pick up within the same hour.

If you are a roleplay focused game.

If you have automated system(s): this can include crafting, exploration, combat, medical code, etc etc. Doesn't have to be all but you have to have one or two.

If you have perma-death defined as the ability for story, characters, or the environment being able to kill off your character permanently without your consent.

Most every MUSH out there fulfills each of these requirements, the tripping point is solely on your use of the word 'automated'. Given your remarks in this thread, after several people have pointed out differences, it seems that Optional Realities will not be listing many MUSHes due to the lack of said automated systems using your definition. It's a shame, because you've drawn a line between "RolePlay Intensive" and "RolePlay Exclusive".

"Intense" indicates that the experience is chock-full of instances of role-playing, but this then implies that there are parts of the experience that is NOT role-playing. IE: Single-player MUD-style play. People cannot single-player a MUSH.

@Jeshin said:

It provides an ultimate and fair arbitration to an extent. So where we remove the risk of god-moding or arguments about results we take on the risk of bad roleplayers trying to abuse the system to win. Whereas on MUSHes I would speculate that you support roleplay and take on the risk that people will ignore or fudge the system to win.

There in those two statements is the fundamental reason I think that there is a clear difference in play styles between MUD and MUSH, and the players that each attracts. It also clearly (for me) outlines what most MU*ers differentiate between 'roll playing' and 'roleplaying'.

You and I disagree on your usage of the word 'fair' in the first sentence, ultimately. You see an automated system to grab numbers, crunch them and output an outcome as a defining quality to a game you would sponsor. I propose that automated systems cannot be wholly 'fair' in the context of a roleplayed scene due to the sheer number of variables involved that (to this day) only a human arbitrator can factor in. Again, my opinion.

Finally, on almost every MUSH in existence, there is an unstated expectation that arbitration of scene outcomes is done by those judged fit to do so, and that every involved player implicitly accepts the rulings of that arbitrator. There are appeal and review processes, but in general, what is ruled on the scene tends to go unless there is a complexity or outright error. Thus, players "ignoring or fudging" the system is something that is very handily stomped on in most MUSHes. Even free-form system-less games where lots of hand-waving is done "for the sake of the story over systems" have a line that players can cross into "powerplaying" or "twinking".

Would it work for you to take screenshots of Google Maps, using the Terrain display mode, then use a paint program to draw boundaries, city dots and names, etc?

@Jeshin said:

So instead of putting in a +job to have a vase made. I could make a vase and its quality/value would be determined by some algorithm which is derived from my characters attributed abilities or +roll results.

As I said, systems that do this exact sort of thing are very possible on MUSHes. I've built them.

If you discount games that do not have this level of code, then you will be discounting a huge amount of roleplaying games out there that have large playerbases, are very popular, and are very well done.

@Jeshin said:

A system which applies the results of actions to the players without allowing them to ignore it or requiring a judge to tell them what happened.

In almost all RPGs out there, there is an arbitrator that fills in for the myriad thousands of modifiers, lookup tables and variables that would/could factor into such a contested roll. Let's take a simple gunfire exchange and tear into it as an example.

Scene: Bob and Mary are firing guns at each other in a local bar.

• Who has initiative, or first shot? Mary posed seeing Bob enter the bar, she knows that there is a hit order on her, and she knows Bob is a hitman. She posed getting out of her barstool and heading through the table to the bathroom. Maybe this comes down to a roll, but Bob hasn't posed seeing Mary yet, so... Who makes the call? How is it decided?
• Who has cover, and if so, to what degree? Mary can dive to the floor, behind a few tables, patrons and chairs, the moment that she senses Bob drawing his gun. Bob is standing up, but there are people between he and Mary, so he is covered from the waist down, maybe?

On most MUDs, someone has to run a 'hit Mary' command. Usually, the first one to do it, gets first strike. If Mary isn't paying attention, or if she is slow, she could be dead in that first strike despite hiding in the 'Saloon' room waiting for Bob to enter.

The difference between MUDs and MUSHes is exactly this arbitration, for the sake of the story being told, and most every MUSHer out there would be horrified if a game allowed Bob to 'shoot Mary' and 'win' the scene because he acted first. Where are the other considerations? they would scream, having just lost their character with zero input from themselves.

Now, back to your points: Almost all arbitrated/STed games out there have commands for staff/Storytellers/DMs to apply damage, per se, to characters. It's not automated, but with the above discussion, hopefully you see why.

I may not be following your intended meaning here, but I cannot think of any MUSH that "lacks coded support".

After all roleplay focused games are traditionally more MUX/MOO/MUSH oriented and requiring automated or coded support excludes the lions share of them.

The lack of punctuation makes that sentence hard to parse, for me. With that said, I am quite sure that most every MUSH out there, minus the very rare 'table top sandboxes', are rather heavily code-supported. From CharGens to Dice commands to whatever, MUSHes run a gamut of heavily coded (Firan) to lightly coded (standard systemless social mush).

The difference between MUD and MUSH is that MUD's systems are hard-coded. MUSH are almost entirely done in 'softcode' or within the game itself using the functionality of objects that the entire game can access and run commands from. I have built D&D games that incorporated object-creating Crafting systems, Vendors selling those objects for cash, and the player could +equip those objects to actually automatically incorporate stat changes on their +sheet. Much in the same way that MUDs work. On that same game, I built a grid-based 'tabletop' functionality that allowed people to 'use miniature' combat in scenes, complete with DM ability to draw on the grid, move figures, etc.

I have been undergoing electro-stim, adjustments and accupuncture. My chiro does it all. I also have narcotics for when the pain is too much to ignore. The bitch of this? This happened while doing P90X, an exercise program.

Sciatic pain can die in a fire.