ON KNOWING THE HOUSE RULES
ON THE REBEL IN THE SYSTEM
ON THE ART OF THE DESCRIPTION
ON FURTHER RESEARCH
ON THE MATTER OF ROMANCE
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT TINYSEX [Guest Speaker]
THIS PAGE
ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TABLETOP RPGS AND MUSHES
PLAYERS CAN CARE AND FEED FOR MUSHES TOO! [Guest Speaker]
ON THE TYPES OF POWERPOSING
ON CANNED SPEECHES
| ON THEME | ON CHARACTERS | ON CONSENT |
| ON ADMINISTRATION | ON CODING IDEAS | ON GEOGRAPHY |
| ON COMMUNICATIONS | ON ROLEPLAY | ON MAGIC |
| ON IC ORGANIZATIONS | MAIN PAGE |
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ON THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TABLETOP RPGS AND MUSHES
A goodly number of mushing Newbies are already veterans of tabletop RPGs before they ever started looking into this newfangled Online Roleplaying stuff.
First off, let me establish a few credentials. At different times I have read (either by buying them, or by borrowing them from a friend) at least the "Basic Sets" (often called something else) of all of the RPGs on the list immediately following this paragraph. In several cases I have also examined various sourcebooks, modules, and other supplementary materials. I have even RPed in a couple of them, though not for some years now. More or less in chronological order, over the years I have studied:
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
MARVEL SUPERHEROES ADVANCED SET
DC HEROES 2nd EDITION
HERO SYSTEM
GURPS, 3rd EDITION REVISED
PARANOIA, 3rd EDITION
AMBER DICELESS ROLEPLAYING GAME
VAMPIRE : THE MASQUERADE
So I feel able to speak with some authority on what characteristics many of the more successful RPGs have in common, and what the drastic DIFFERENCES are between the standard RPGs sold in games stores and the typical roleplaying MUSH. Since many's the time I've seen a veteran of one or more of the above systems attempt the transition to regular Mushing, and suffer the inevitable "culture shock" of finding that many of the rules, attitudes, points of etiquette, etc., which he always took for granted are no longer applicable, I've decided to take a stab at explaining what changes he should be braced for. If you have decided to read ON THE PROPER CARE AND FEEDING OF MUSHES then it's quite possible that you are already aware of most of these contrasts (unless you never dabbled in tabletop RPGs at all, and only have a vague idea of how things are done in them), but perhaps you can show this Chapter to some of your RPG-experienced friends who are just considering making the plunge into mush-style roleplay for a change of pace, and my prose may yet serve its purpose :)
Points to ponder:
6) In a regular RPG, you don't really have anonymity from the other players. In a mush, the same player might very well be masquerading behind two or more pseudonyms, as well as concealing certain personal details such as RL gender.
STANDARD RPGS ARE ALMOST ENTIRELY DICE-DETERMINED AND/OR POINT-BASED IN DETERMINING WHAT A CHARACTER CAN DO TO ANOTHER CHARACTER IF HE TRIES. MUSHES ARE OFTEN HEAVILY CONSENT-BASED
In the Dungeons & Dragons approach, if you want to attack somebody (and feel that it is a justifiable decision as an IC matter, i.e. a Lawful Good Fighter isn't likely to stab a helpless little old lady in the back), you can do it at the drop of a hat. You don't need anybody's OOC permission to state that you doing it. Dice are rolled and compared to preexisting statistics. Was THIS blow with THIS weapon strong enough to penetrate THAT armor? Assuming the result is positive, roll more dice to find out how many points of damage were done. If the damage exceeds the target's "total hit points," you killed him. Very simple.
In the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game approach, when two characters have a one-on-one tussle, the Game Master examines the relevant Attributes of each combatant (of course, each character's current attributes are kept a deep dark secret between his Player and the GM, so that nobody can be certain in advance how his contest of Strength against the other guy's Strength will turn out) and the higher number wins. No question about it. No random element introduced by dice. Certainly nobody tries to OOCly STOP them from having the tussle in the first place. Now, if you are used to one of those approaches and want to pick a fight on a mush, you probably have to make some adjustments in your planning. First off, the coded combat system may not include rolling virtual dice. If you're accustomed to the D&D style, this might come as a bit of a shock. If there is a "diceless" coded combat system on that mush, it may work like the Amber DRPG approach, quickly comparing relevant Attributes and saying, "We have a winner! Bartholomew takes the prize!" Of course, if you're accustomed to something like the Amber DRPG, this won't be a shock at all.
Or there may not be an official and coded combat system at ALL.
Pick up your jaw from the floor!
Yes, it is actually possible to play an online RPG without ANY hard-and-fast "mechanics" for determining the outcome of a personal combat. In fact, many people PREFER it that way!
It boils down to the question of Consent. As a general rule (with notable exceptions, perhaps most frequently encountered on the World of Darkness Mushes), you are not supposed to do ANYTHING which will directly affect another character's mind or body without getting their prior consent, except in certain situations where Implied Consent may be assumed (these "certain situations" are seldom specified in the local rules. You're supposed to make lucky guesses as to what they are. Or you can examine some ramblings of my own, where I attempt to boil it down to 7 Common Situation Types, right HERE . Remember that my ideas have not been officially accepted as gospel truth on any particular mush at the moment).
Even in situations where coded combat systems exist, Consent still plays a role. For instance, a common rule is that you cannot "force" a fight upon someone, to be resolved by the combat system. You can only OOCly propose it, and IF he wants to play along, then you both type whatever commands activate the combat system and deliver a verdict concerning who won. But if he doesn't want to have a fight at all, then you're stuck. You have to Roleplay something non-violent to resolve the situation, such as one character spitting on the ground in disgust and stalking away. And even when combat occurs, on most mushes it is IMPOSSIBLE to actually KILL the other character, because we generally don't use anything resembling Hit Points to track how "healthy" you are. We just assume that if you lost a fight, you may be laid up recuperating for a little while. But Death has to be carefully negotiated.
As always, there are exceptions - there may be special ways, such as assassination, to kill somebody, but as a general rule of thumb a Character is expected to stay among the living until his own Player DECIDES it's time for him to kick the bucket. Otherwise everybody would insist on creating big, brawny warriors (or spellcasting sorcerers) just to give themselves half a chance of surviving the first month on the mush while interacting with all those OTHER warriors and spellcasters, and most mushes don't want that kind of attitude to become the norm. All sorts of IC people (from children to the elderly, from 98-pound weaklings to powerhouses) are encouraged to settle down for the long term, usually, and they won't do that if they feel the IC Warriors can threaten them with death at any moment.
Aside from formal duels and the occasional killing, there are minor acts of violence which the mush's coded system (if any) won't apply to. A woman slapping a rude suitor on the face, for instance. These matters are not arbitrated by any person or program. Instead, she poses the Attempt ("Audrey draws back her open hand and swings toward Cary's face.") and the other participant describes the Result ("SMACK! Cary's head jerks as her palm cracks against his cheek!") If he had been unwilling to be struck, he might have posed something else, such as, "Cary hastily leans backward, nearly falling over, and her hand passes through empty air just in front of his nose."
For that matter, even where coded combat systems EXIST and could reasonably be used, many players will tend to ignore them. My own preference, whenever I was facing a fistfight, fencing duel, or similar experience, regardless of any coded combat systems that might exist, was to page the other Player and OOCly negotiate the final outcome in advance (Example : "I wound you slightly, but then you slice open my side and I collapse to the ground"). This saved a lot of time that might have otherwise been wasted in self-centered arguments as the scene neared its close. Having decided how we wanted it to end, we then posed striking and blocking for a bit, perhaps exchanging a few witty remarks as we went along, until the time seemed right for one of us to let the other person's latest blow slip past his guard in a clever maneuver, and so forth. Even where coded combat systems existed, I preferred to bypass them in favor of a "friendly" settlement to insure that the scene achieved whatever each of us wanted to achieve (in setting up a particular situation to be dealt with in the NEXT scene, perhaps).
STANDARD RPGS PERMIT ALMOST EVERYONE TO GAIN COOL "POWERS" AND/OR SUPERHUMAN AMOUNTS OF PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND MARTIAL PROWESS, IT BEING ASSUMED THAT THEY ARE FAR TOUGHER THAN THE "TYPICAL" MAN IN THE STREET.
This one causes a LOT of trouble among the Newbies who are trying to create their first mush characters. Except, of course, on the occasional mush where such desires are catered to (as a general rule, the superhero mushes which I have examined are populated almost exclusively by superheroes and supervillains, with the "innocent bystanders" being far and few between). But on many of them, the Newbie often wants to be one of the toughest swordsmen in existence, with all sorts of upper-limit stats, or a magic-user who can cast spells right and left if the peasants annoy him, or a powerful Lord in the feudal hierarchy. He has trouble understanding why he is supposed to either fill out a lengthy application which he is warned may be rejected, or else settle for an "ordinary" person.
This is often caused by inflated expectations based on previous experience with A) Any of a number of standard RPGs, or B) the original source material which this mush has adopted as its basic "theme." In Dungeons & Dragons (and its big brother, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons), for instance, everybody starts out as a better fighter, or spellcaster, or thief, or whatever, than most of the peasants (the assumed NPC population in the background) can ever hope to be, and as they work their way up in the world they become even tougher as they advance to each new "level." This sort of thing is closely reflected in most MUDs, but Mushing takes an entirely different approach.
Other games (Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set, DC Heroes, etc.) encourage everybody to wear colorful spandex outfits and exhibit superhuman powers.
And over in the Amber DRPG, it can get even more extreme - virtually every Player Character is a descendant of the great houses of Amber or Chaos. If that doesn't mean a thing to you, I'll say briefly that this means the "typical" PC would be far ahead of any normal human being in physical strength, stamina, ability to heal from major injuries (at a very quick rate), etc., as well as having the ability (or at least the genetic potential to learn) to travel to any alternate universe (called Shadows, or Shadow Universes) which he could imagine, and probably capable of learning several other magical tricks as well if he wants to take the time. This reflects the fact that in the original novels (by Roger Zelazny) about Amber, virtually every running character of any significance had such abilities. The "mundanes," meaning non-magical people (soldiers, servants, doctors, lawyers) usually were lucky to get a cameo, with RARE exceptions. It wasn't THEM the typical Amber fan thought of when he tried to create a character based on those stories!
These High-Powered approaches have worked pretty well when you've only got, say, 6 or 8 Players sitting around a table running their characters at once, and a single Game Master narrating adventures for them, and judging their interpersonal conflicts as well. But a mush is an attempt to create a thriving community, and we can't ALL be celebrities at once! Suppose a Star Wars - themed Mush has an average of 30 people online every night. If ALL of them are Good Jedi Knights (Ben Kenobi, Luke Skywalker) and Good Rebel Pilots (Han Solo, Chewbacca), or else Evil Jedi Knights (Darth Vader, the Emperor) and Evil TIE Fighter Pilots, things are kind of unbalanced. The Wizards usually want a wider range of people represented, roleplaying different parts in various types of stories (not every problem can be resolved by a lightsaber duel - nor by attacking a Death Star with waves of fighter craft - no matter how much you loved those scenes in the movies). The Wizards probably want politicians, physicians, thugs, professional entertainers, spies, petty criminals, and all the other little things that make a community interesting . . . not twenty carbon copies of Luke Skywalker, and fifty of Han Solo.
I usually avoid such High-Profile roles entirely, letting someone else worry about having the "Glory" of them while I concentrate on good, old-fashioned character development and storytelling (and helping my friends fulfill their own ambitions for their own characters, instead of just worrying about whether or not people are gaping in awe when I walk down the street). But if your previous Roleplaying in Tabletop RPGs has been satisfying precisely because it gave you the chance to fulfill some Power Fantasies, you may have made a mistake if you expect to get the same satisfaction on a Mush.
NOTE: I am not saying that you should never even consider RPing a Sorcerer (or Jedi Knight, or Vampire, or other Very Important Person). After all, if they are part of the theme in the first place then SOMEONE has to do such things in order to add color to the ongoing events of the mush. If you have some really cool ideas for using such a character, ideas which hopefully would OOCly amuse other people as you RPed with them, then by all means exercise your freedom of speech and fill out the relevant Application Form and hope for the best! But study your motives : what do you want to get out of the experience of playing such a Character? Do you intend to help other people OOCly enjoy RPing with you (even when you're ICly trying to threaten them with your high rank, powers, etc., in order to build some suspense) or do you just want to prove you're "better" than they are by fulfilling some personal fantasies and bullying everybody else nonstop? If the latter is the case, then you are missing the point of the mushing experience and might be happier somewhere else, such as a MUD where you can kill things (often including other people) all day and gain much power and prestige thereby - and utter death threats against weaker characters which you are actually prepared to deliver on if they don't cooperate.
IN STANDARD RPGS, THERE IS A SINGLE GUIDING FORCE, THE DUNGEON MASTER (OR GAME MASTER, OR STORYTELLER, OR SOME OTHER TITLE) WHO CREATES AN ADVENTURE FOR THE PARTY TO PURSUE, AND LEADS THEM THROUGH IT, STEP BY STEP, TO A STIRRING CONCLUSION.
This one also causes a fair amount of confusion. Many newbies arrive and hang out in the bars, pretty much hoping somebody will invite them to participate in some group RP. Part of this may be due to shyness based on their awareness that there's still a lot they don't know about mushing in general, and the local mush's way of doing things in particular, but sometimes it's mainly due to conditioning acquired in regular RPGs, where basically a Dungeon Master takes a group by the hand and leads them through an adventure, step by step, describing to them their surroundings (which the mush handles by putting a desc on each room), the people they meet (which the mush covers by having everybody write his/her own desc for others to look at), and asking them what they want to do about it (in the mush, you're supposed to decide for yourself, usually, and just pose doing or saying it).
Now, some of this happens on mushes - sometimes, when a Wizard has a special TinyPlot she has designed and wants to see people carry out in practice - but as a general rule of thumb, don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen to you. If another Player invites you to help her carry out a planned TinyPlot she has her heart set on completing, you can certainly take advantage of the opportunity. If nobody does, after you know the ropes (that means READ ALL THE ONLINE RULES OF WHATEVER MUSH YOU ARE EXPLORING!) you can come up with your own ideas, preferably ones that only require one or two other people to help with, and start soliciting assistance. Occasionally there will be a member of the local management called a TinyPlot Coordinator (or maybe an Area Admin, or some other title) who will take an active interest (if you ask) in helping you find things to do and people to do them with, but you are well-advised to become as self-sufficient as possible. A sample list of ways to get a bit of interesting RP started with someone else is online HERE. <
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/1815/TinyPlot.html
THE PURPOSE OF A MUSH (IN MY NOT-SO-HUMBLE OPINION) IS TO HAVE ENJOYABLE ROLEPLAY. THAT'S ALL. EVERYTHING ELSE IS SECONDARY.
In a typical RPG, there are all sorts of things you might be interested in doing. Acquiring Experience Points, for example, which permit you to move on to higher Levels and gain more powers, and become deadlier with the ones you already have. Acquiring thousands of gold pieces (or whatever the local currency is). Acquiring marvelous "magical" items (+3 Plate Armor, Cloak of Invisibility, Heat-Seeking Arrows, etc.). Sure, all these things are technically imaginary, but it still gives you a warm glow of satisfaction to know you worked hard and acquired them by sweat and ingenuity, right? Much of this is reflected in what we call MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) and it's quite possible that you would enjoy yourself on one of them.
It all depends on just what you're looking to get out of a "Roleplay" experience. (Granted, it's not mandatory that you make an Either/Or decision. I have known people who are capable mushers, but who admit they keep one or two characters active on MUDs as well, for variety. And some MUDs are alleged to have quite a bit of straight RP going on among those who care for such things, aside from all the hack'n'slash stuff occurring around the edges). Mushes sometimes reflect that "gain Experience and raise your statistics and so forth" activity, but many of them don't have "Experience Points" at all, and even if they do, you usually don't get them simply by engaging in a great deal of combat with coded monsters and/or other Players (that's what MUDs are for). So gaining Experience, and/or improving a character's Stats, usually isn't a strong, driving motivation in the activities of people who stick around for the long haul (me, I've been known to set Stats on a new character while passing through CharGen - Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, etc. - and then realize a few months later that I've only used them once or twice since setting them, or maybe not at all).
No, as I see it, the principal reason people create mushes (instead of sticking to MUDs) is to create an environment where people with similar interests (in a particular imaginary setting, for example) can Roleplay with like-minded and congenial people (OOCly congenial. ICly, a little interpersonal friction can liven things up). It follows that the principal motive for joining a mush is to do so.
IN A REGULAR RPG, THE GROUP OF FELLOW PLAYERS IS A KNOWN FACTOR, YOU EXPECT TO MEET THEM ALL AT CERTAIN TIMES ON CERTAIN DAYS OF THE WEEK, WITH LOW TURNOVER.
On the plus side, you can log onto a mush any time of day or night, and if anyone else is available then you can try to RP with them. This is in sharp contrast to tabletop RPG groups that meet for a few hours every Friday evening. On the downside, people come and go with depressing frequency on a mush (usually Newbies who create a character, but then decide they don't like it here, for one reason or another, and don't come back) and the person you RPed something with last night may not keep his promise to be online at the same time tomorrow night, which can leave you stuck in the middle of a TinyPlot you were really looking forward to resolving. It's even possible that you will never hear from that person again, and you probably don't have an e-mail addy to contact him at, the way you could call up a fellow Tabletop RPer on the phone (knowing his real name, you could find him in the book) and ask him, directly, if he'll be at the next gaming session. So you have to keep your plans flexible - always preparing for the worst if someone doesn't come back, always looking for a chance to make friends with new arrivals to increase the odds that you'll always have at least one friend online whenever you connect to the mush.
IN A REGULAR RPG, YOU DON'T REALLY HAVE ANONYMITY FROM THE OTHER PLAYERS. IN A MUSH, THE SAME PLAYER MIGHT VERY WELL BE MASQUERADING BEHIND THREE (OR FOUR, OR EVEN MORE) PSEUDONYMS, AS WELL AS CONCEALING CERTAIN PERSONAL DETAILS SUCH AS RL GENDER
Despite our best intentions, in tabletop RPGs people often don't ICly react to a male friend playing a female role (or vice versa) the same way they would if the gender of Player and Character were the same. On a mush, that's not really a problem. If you are male and want to explore the possibilities of creating and running a female character, and maybe study how the male characters react to your female in order to get a better idea of what life is like for the other half of the human race, you can go right ahead. Nobody is going to know your RL gender, or age, or other personal information, unless you feel like telling them. If somebody really wants to know OOCly, you can even lie. I don't really recommend that, but you can probably get away with it. Or you can just say, politely but firmly, "Sorry, I don't discuss that :) It's part of my mystique" and let them live with it, cause what can they do about it? (Granted, they can page you with an endless series of rude requests (or demands) that you tell them anyway, but those can be ignored . . . or you can even pagelock such a person, so that you no longer see any nasty messages he is throwing your way).
By the same token, others have the same options. The attractive female witch you are discussing things with ICly might be controlled by a male player, for all you know. And that player might also run a couple of other characters you encounter now and then (a young male thief and an elderly male aristocrat, for instance) without telling you that it was all the same person. The Wizards would presumably know, but they aren't likely to spill the beans to you. I never spent much time worrying about how little I really "knew" about the RL lives of other Players I was meeting, but if something about these possible situations troubles you, you had better think it over carefully before you start mushing.
On the other hand, if you appreciate the freedom it gives a RPer to have each character you create ONLY be judged on his own merits, based on what he says and does ICly or OOCly, without being stereotyped based on what people know about YOU or about your other characters (unless you CHOOSE to tell everybody you're the mastermind behind two or three different identities), then you may have real fun with it! I'm just pointing out some of the ramifications so that you have "fair warning" of what might happen.