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ON THE MATTER OF THE INTERNAL CHRONOLOGY
ON THE PROBLEM OF GREETING STRANGERS BY NAME
ON ATTACKING THE PROBLEM OF SITTING IN A BAR ALL DAY
ON CUSTOMIZING YOUR CODE [Guest Speaker]
ON REINVENTING THE WHEEL [Guest Speaker]
ON POSSIBLE ATTRIBUTES TO INCLUDE IN A FINGER COMMAND
ON THE MATTER OF LANGUAGES
| ON THEME | ON CHARACTERS | ON CONSENT |
| ON ADMINISTRATION | ON CODING IDEAS | ON GEOGRAPHY |
| ON COMMUNICATIONS | ON ROLEPLAY | ON MAGIC |
| ON IC ORGANIZATIONS | ON TINYPLOTS | MAIN PAGE |
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Then I started meeting people who were the children of the characters from the books (most of these people had bit parts as cute little babies in the books; that sort of thing). I started trying to figure out exactly how many years after the books we were currently were, based on the ages of the kids. The answers were contradictory. I seem to recall that two characters whose ages should have been within a few months of one another were now separated by five years. I finally posted something on a BB asking how long it had been since the books (there was already a function to tell me what IC Calendar Year it was, but I didn't recall what year the books had supposedly ended in). A Wizard posted a helpful response in which he stated frankly that the current value for the IC year had been pulled out of thin air just to give him something to work with for purposes of coding in the date and time functions, and there was really no general and official consensus as to exactly how much time had passed since the books. His personal opinion was that we all OUGHT to be acting as though it had been 8 or 9 years since the ending scenes of the books the mush was based upon, but there were no systems in place to "force" people to make sure their declared IC Age was consistent with that timeframe. So at least I knew where I stood, now . . . in the midst of chaos.
I no longer recall whether or not characters on that fantasy mush had to declare an age for themselves at the time they went through CharGen, nor do I recall if any steps were taken to see that it went up at regular intervals. But they certainly weren't required to "synchronize" themselves in reference to such details as how old they would have been when certain events of the original books occurred, based on how old they said they were now. It got confusing.
Harking back to Regent of Dune MUX again for a positive example of how to attack this problem, we find that files are readily available stating what IC year various highlights of the books had occurred, and what year it was now, and also in CharGen each new Level 2 character (Level 1s were closer to being versatile "puppets" and were not permitted to hold high rank in any organization) is required to commit himself to a specific IC age. For his edification, there is even an online file listing minimum age expectancies for various professions.
That age becomes a coded attribute which cannot easily be altered by the Player. However, the
server automatically makes a note of his "birthday" (the IC day corresponding to the moment at
which he set his own Age in CharGen) and everytime that IC date rolls around again on the
calendar (every 3 RL months, since Regent runs at a 4:1 IC/RL ratio), the Player will find that his
listed Age has just jumped up another year in a display of vital statistics which anyone can access
by typing +Player [Name]. This has the virtue of being unambiguous - no more waiting for a
Player to decide, in his own good time, that maybe - just maybe - he's a bit older ICly now than
he was when he created his "eighteen-year-old apprentice musician" one RL year ago.
PUBLIC WORKS
It is common practice to advertise on rec.games.mud.announce and elsewhere (on your own
webpage, for example) that you are seeking Builders to assist in getting your Mush ready for its
opening. It is customary to offer those who assist in this the opportunity to earn certain perks in
the future, such as letting them become members of the permanent staff if they have appropriate
talents, or guaranteeing they will get preferential treatment in applying for Feature Characters and
such (assuming their applications are properly done and basically on the same general level as
those of competitors for the same position). In general, however, what you want are people who
just naturally relish the experience of writing descs for dozens of rooms. Good luck finding
them!
GENERAL HOUSING
Lots of mushes, especially medieval fantasy ones (in my experience) have a well-coded "Inn" or
"Hotel" or "Boarding House" or whatever they call it which includes a bot who can automatically
create a room for any character who walks in and asks for one. If you have a need for this on your
MUSH (as opposed, for example, to expecting everybody to reside within the Headquarters
Complex of their respective employers) then find someone who will let you have the source
code. No need to reinvent the wheel for the umpteenth time (always a problem in this kind of
work). [fill in with good source for the code, if you can find one]. Don't forget to arrange for
characters who are erased for inactivity to have a flag on them or something reminding you to
delete their rooms sometime soon - avoid having your database fill up with useless stuff never
used anymore.
CUSTOM-BUILT RESIDENCES
Some characters will want to build their own residences, or their place of business (a shop, an office, that sort of thing) or set up a room or two for special use for a TinyPlot they want to play in a custom-built setting. You'll have to work out in advance what sort of building quota the typical player gets (a Feature or Group Head or whatever you call the local Elite will generally get - and need - an above-average quota). I won't provide any standard rule on how much you should let them get away with, since that's largely determined by the size of your available db for the mush. It is not unreasonable to insist on examining any new construction before you permit it to be linked into the public rooms of the mush. On the other hand, if someone is building a few rooms which will be used for a particular TinyPlot involving a select group of invited friends and then discarded, he may elect to leave them "floating" instead of linking them into a publicly accessible room. This way he maintains some privacy, since nobody is going to accidentally stumble in at the wrong time. Access will only be gained by getting an invitation from him, in which he provides you with the dbref and invites you to teleport there for a few scenes.
In a case like this you probably don't need to worry about examining the area with a fine-toothed
comb for perfectly thematic contents, spellchecking, and so forth. Unless he intends the TinyPlot
to have vast and sweeping consequences which everybody will be talking about, in which case
you might want to look over exactly what he's planning to do.
OBJECTS
Some Mushes have a Free Code Room in the OOC area where master copies of useful items are kept. Thus, players needing one of these items can simply @parent a copy from the original and put it to good use, instead of having to learn how to code it from scratch. Things you might install in such a room include:
A Multi-Descer (if you didn't already work one into the global coding)
A Puppet
An IC Book (each page can be coded with the desired text, the title can be changed, etc.)
Any special items which you consider likely to be of use in your particular mush.
Instructions for all of the following should be clearly located, somewhere about.
After he exits CharGen, anytime he is in an IC area (FENI does not apply within the rooms reserved for OOC activities) people who have not previously gotten his name ICly will see the following:
A skinny old man with messy white hair enters the room.
A skinny old man with messy white hair says, "Bags! Why do I have to do all the thinking around
here?"
And so forth, every time he poses or speaks or does anything at all, until he gives them his name, at which point they can use a command (+recognize skinny old man=Zeddicus) to "teach" themselves to recognize him.
OTOH I might mention in passing that such globals as WHO would still list "Zeddicus" as being one of the online PCs. People could page him to set up a meeting, or carry on a spirited discussion on channels with him, without necessarily knowing he was the skinny old man they had seen in a the plaza a minute earlier. By process of elimination, it might be possible to figure out OOCly who Zeddicus must be even if he didn't ICly introduce himself to you, but that isn't a major concern.
There are at least two advantages to the use of FENI
1) It keeps people from making silly errors, when they never meant to be twinkish at all, such as seeing somebody enter the room whom they have never spoken to ICly before (but they recognize the name from a lively OOC chat or something), and they instantly cry out, "Zedd, you old son of a gun! How are things going with your grandson, Richard, and his girlfriend, Kahlan?"
2) It gives sought-after Features a bit of privacy as they move through a crowd. On some of the mushes where the Features are based on very popular characters from other media, the Players of the most famous Features have been known to complain, with some justice, that they can't set foot in a public area without being mobbed by admirers who all want to RP with them, at length and immediately and never mind what plans the Feature may have had.
Suppose we're a Superhero Mush such as Project Infinity MUX, and a dozen minor characters (original creations, low-powered superheroes of little renown, etc.) are gathered in a bar in their secret identities. All of a sudden they blink as their screens say,
Bruce Wayne enters the bar.
What happens next? In theory, you could argue that none of them should know who he is just by looking at him (although I admit that ICly Bruce Wayne is more of a celebrity, than, say, Peter Parker). Also, even if you grant that they might recognize him ICly as being a millionaire, they should NOT know that he has any connection with the Caped Crusader, the Darknight Detective, the Gotham Guardian, the crimefighter known as (drum roll, please) the Batman!
But life being what it is, they DO know all this (OOCly) and it's likely that he will shortly find himself surrounded and spammed by PCs wanting to buy him a drink and start a fight with him and make jokes about flying rodents and borrow money, even if he just wandered in looking to meet an old friend for prearranged RP and wasn't wanting to be mobbed by strangers.
In defense against this, the big Features often tend to form small cliques and then stay in private rooms for most of their TinyPlot sessions, and then the Newbies sitting in the bar mutter that nobody ever gives THEM a chance to RP with the Features . . .
Under the FENI system, the problem is at least lessened by the fact that all the adoring public will see at first (unless they've met Batman before and exchanged names ICly) is:
A dark-haired man in an expensive suit enters the bar.
Or, for that matter, if old Pointy-Ears is currently in disguise and working undercover, it might say:
A nervous-looking fellow with a blond beard enters the bar.
But the point is, he won't automatically be mobbed by a rush of admirers who ICly have no particular reason to notice him. If he came into the room to follow out a preconceived plan (such as meeting and discussing a deal with a particular character he knows) he'll probably be able to do so in relative peace and quiet. If he actually WANTS to announce himself as "Bruce Wayne" to the crowd and see what happens, he has the choice of doing so - or NOT doing so - without having people force the issue by saying, "It's Bruce Wayne! Let's GET HIM!"
NOTE: I might add that special provisions are made within FENI for characters who have the ability to Disguise themselves with great expertise. A trained assassin would qualify for this - or an equally trained crimefighter like the Batman, for that matter. In addition, any character is free to change his lengthy desc, one-line FENI desc, and @name at any time (at least temporarily), but anyone who has already "identified" that person previously will be able to penetrate the disguise - if it occurs to him that it might be a disguise - by using a "recognize" command UNLESS the disguised person is an Expert in Disguise, as I stated. This means that it is still possible for common people to disguise and rename themselves as "A Dancing Cavalier" for costume parties, and not be recognized UNLESS some unsporting person insists on using the "recognize" command to get the job done, which generally doesn't happen.
I'm not saying FENI is the complete solution to a Feature's special problems, but I am suggesting you at least think this over carefully and consider whether such a system might serve a useful function on your mush. If you find you want more information about it, you will have to visit REGENT OF DUNE MUX yourself and ask the Crew (local name for what are commonly called Wizards) for details.
Three approaches you can take to the problem of coding in a mutter command.
1) The Randomly Selected Words option.
It can sometimes be tantalizing (often just boring, but them's the breaks) to hear bits and pieces of what two people in a dark corner of the room are muttering to each other. Such as, "Criminals . . . lot . . . will strike . . . into their hearts!"
Almost sounds like a stabbing plot, eh? Of course, upon examination it might turn out that the speaker was saying, "Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot, so I must become something that will strike FEAR into their hearts!"
Granted, the downside is that the mutter might emit to the room, " . . . are a . . . I must . . . something that will . . . into . . ." which isn't half as intriguing, all the key words having been filtered out by mischance. But no system is perfect.
In some mushes where this approach is used, I have noticed a sad thing : the Player only sees
echoed back the complete message he "muttered" to his crony there in the dark corner, and does
NOT see if any of the key words made it to the room at large or not. This is a case where I think
the Players using the command would be happy to see their own words echoed back twice (once
as the complete text, and once as the garbled text that everybody outside of the conversation
heard) so they can figure out what sort of reactions they are likely to get from the audience.
2) The Player-Selected Words Option.
In this version, the player must type in the sentence with certain formatting indications to tell the server exactly which words should be broadcast and which words should only be heard by the character whom he is directly addressing.
Some players feel that this is more trouble than it's worth, they prefer to type "+mutter [text of speech]" and take their chances.
3) The No Coded Muttering Option.
You wash your hands of the whole affair. If someone sitting at a table wants to be partially overheard, he'll just to pose "Criminals . . . lot . . . will strike . . . into their hearts," AND page or tabletalk the complete quote for the person he's actually conversing with. Two separate commands. I don't recommend this one, having occasionally enjoyed the use of a Mutter command myself, but at least it's a possibility.
One of the problems a newcomer on a mush frequently faces is not knowing where to find RP, or who might be available for him to find it with.
There are several ways to approach this problem, to help people "network" and meet each other. In no particular order, they include :
C) A RP_OK Flag on each character, readable by a Global such as a variation of "Who" or "Where."
E) Cries for help across public channels.
In addition to these methods, where each character is pretty much responsible for doing his own research, placing his own ads, etc., there are two methods which involve his approaching someone else and asking them to help him get integrated into the community. They are :
F) Having a fulltime TinyPlot Coordinator who is willing to serve as a sort of middleman in bringing together people who are at loose ends, and giving them ideas for plots to Roleplay.
G) Encouraging, or even requiring, Newbies to join one of a set of preexisting organizations, such as rival Noble Houses, or Professional Guilds or Trade Unions, or working for one of two or more competing governments (interstellar empires and their various bureaucracies, for example), or something else along those lines.
Both F and G are discussed in more detail in their own chapters, at ON THE ROLE OF A TINYPLOT COORDINATORand at ON IC ORGANIZATIONS. This chapter will focus on the first five methods.
We'll discuss each one in turn.
A "WHERE" COMMAND
Just as the WHO command shows the name of each person connected, their connection time, and
any "doing" message they may have set for themselves, a WHERE command shows name of
each person and where they are at the moment. This is particularly important if your mush has
several distinct Areas (an Area being defined as a set of rooms which it supposedly takes a
significant amount of IC travel time to reach from any room in any other Area) and Players are
only supposed to RP with people within their own Area unless they want to take some time to do
an official Travelling trip first. By using a WHERE command, they can at least see who (if
anyone) is actually in the same city or country (or whatever the scope of the local Area is), which
gives them a "short list" of people to approach asking about RP possibilities.
A BB FOR PERSONAL ADS
I consider this to be virtually indispensable as it permits characters to leave messages concerning what they need, or are willing to provide, in RP terms for people who log on later to read and analyze. Such a board, once it got going at full speed, might contain such missives as,
"WIFE WANTED : Duke of Plaza-Toro, Single White Male, Middle-Aged, Wealthy, seeks decorative young wife to participate in social events and political TinyPlots. Page or Mail Horatio."
"HERO WANTED : Beautiful maiden seeks fearless, capable young man to rescue her from certain death, i.e. being fed to a dragon as tribute; a developing romance is negotiable if the dragon doesn't devour one of us first. Page or Mail Andromeda."
"VICTIM WANTED : Totally unscrupulous villain seeks a victim to be Blackmailed because of
some embarrassing secret in his/her past (you can choose the secret yourself). Your eventual
escape from my clutches can be negotiated, but I insist upon collecting at least one blackmail
payment before anything else happens. Page or Mail Milverton."
A RP_OK FLAG ON EACH CHARACTER, READABLE BY A GLOBAL SUCH AS A
VARIATION OF "WHO" OR "WHERE"
The WHERE command, mentioned above, gives Players some idea of who else is in the
immediate vicinity, but it doesn't tell them much about whether or not a particular neighbor
currently online is actually "available." An RP_OK flag can fill in that gap. If the Flag is set YES
then the subject is willing, in principle, to RP with someone else who asks, or maybe even who
just happens to wander into the Bar he's sitting in, without asking first. If the Flag is set NO then
the subject is not available for RPing with newcomers for any of a variety of reasons, such as he
is already in something interesting ICly and it would be disturbed rather than improved by
interruptions from outsiders, or he is busy working on something OOC, or he is simply idling for
the time being due to RL concerns. If the subject is NOT available for RP, but failed to switch
the flag from YES to NO, he's going to be reminded of his error when people start paging him for
RP, and will hopefully do better in the future. If he IS available for RP, but is set NO, again he'll
eventually catch on to his own error (one hopes) and learn from it.
A COMMON MEETING PLACE, SUCH AS A BAR, WHERE NEWBIES (AND VETERANS
NOT CURRENTLY TIED UP IN PRIVATE SCENES SOMEWHERE ELSE) ARE
ENCOURAGED TO CONGREGATE SO THEY CAN MAKE FRIENDS
This one comes extremely close to being mandatory. The advantages are obvious - if all else
fails, you can at least direct a Newbie to the Bar (or the Grand Bazaar, or whatever you call your
Meeting Place) to let him look for friends. This is not, by itself, enough to ensure that he will find
anything to do, but it's a starting point.
CRIES FOR HELP ACROSS PUBLIC CHANNELS
Once upon a time, finding myself at loose ends, I asked on a Public channel on a certain mush, "Anybody want to be blackmailed because of some shameful secret in their past?" I was mildly surprised to soon get a "Yes! Over here!" in response.
After some discussion via page, my villainous character "tracked down" a certain other character in a local Bar and started making insinuations concerning things he knew about her past which (ICly) she would greatly prefer stayed secret, and presto! We had a small TinyPlot up and running.
This is a fairly haphazard way to find RP, but aren't they all? But I mention it because if you don't even permit channels to be coded into your mush (which has been known to happen) then this method won't work at all, and you have assumed the obligation of making sure there are other convenient ways for Newbies to find people willing to RP with them - or else seeing them give up pretty quickly.
