What Is A MUSH And How Do I Play One?

A MUSH is a multi-user text interface for communicating real time with other human beings, or dogs who can type and that sort of thing. It is designed to host role-playing games.

Connecting

You will want to install a MU* client. You could connect over raw telnet, but this is awkward and un-fun. Mac users generally seem to prefer Atlantis. Potato works for Mac and PC. MUSHclient, or SimpleMU are popular PC clients. For Ubuntu (or other Debian-flavored Linux) there's TinTin. If you can't download programs, use MudConnector to connect in your browser.

Once you’ve installed the client, you’ll have to figure out how your particular one works, and connect to the game using its address and port number. In the case of Game of Bones, that's granitefallsMUSH.com 4222.

Once you connect, you can type connect guest to connect as a guest.

When you have a character concept in mind, you can create that character on the Login screen using the 'create' command: create name password. If you were connecting through telnet you'd type: connect name password to log in, but your client will take care of it for you — it’ll probably have you save address-port-name-password sets and name them.

Moving, Looking

When you log on, you’ll be in the Welcome Room, in the OOC (out of character) area. On Game of Bones, text about the room you’re in (the room description) is bordered in red «». At the top it tells you the name of the room, the area that it is in, the current date, and the in-world weather. Then there’s a border of == separating the room’s description. At the bottom there will be an exit list.

Exits on Game of Bones look like this:

Exits: [CG] Character Generation [IL] Idle Lounge
[SL] Staff Lounge [TP] Plot Room Hub

If you want to go to the Plot Room Hub, you would type TP. Often exits have several aliases. When you move, the MUSH will automatically show you the text of the room you’ve just entered.

If you want the text about the room to be refreshed on your screen, type l. This is short for look and you could put the whole word in if you wanted.

Just above the exit list there might be another list, the contents. This lists objects in the room. They will most often be character objects; that is, player characters. You can type l Bob (or whatever the name on the list is) and see a description of the character or object.

Communicating

Use say or " to speak.

You type:

say I love you.


or

"I love you.


Everyone in the room sees:

Skull says "I love you."

You can use pose or : to 'pose' an action.

You type:

pose gnashes its teeth.


or

:gnashes its teeth.

Everyone in the room sees:

Skull gnashes its teeth.

To say something without your name attached at the beginning, use @emit or \.

You type:

@emit Under the bed, the skull rolls back and forth.


or

\Under the bed, the skull rolls back and forth.



Everyone in the room sees:

Under the bed, the skull rolls back and forth.


These three commands are the basis of roleplay.

OOC Communication

In the OOC area, one can use the regular commands to chat. For In Character locations, it’s important to keep it clear if you mean something Out of Character, and to keep OOC chatter from interfering with roleplay.

You can use ooc to speak out of character if you're in an in-character area.

ooc Haha, that's awesome.



Everyone in the room sees:


[OOC] Skull says "Haha, that's awesome."

You can use g to speak on the Guest channel, pub to speak on the public channel, etc. There are a number of channels for different purposes. When you speak on a channel, everyone who has that channel turned on will receive that text.

g Hey, I'm new.


<Guest> Skull says "Hey, I'm new."

To send a private message to another player, use page or p.

page Skull=What did you do to that goat?


p Skull=What did you do to that goat?

Skull will see: 


Your Name Here pages: What did you do to that goat?

You can also page-pose with

p Skull=:shames you.


You can page more than one person at once:

p skull bone=Don't touch my goat, you guys!

and if you just use

p I love goats.

then you’ll page the last person (or set of people) you paged.

Other Commands

WHO, +who, and +where give you lists of who is logged in, with additional information depending on which command you use.


+mail — allows you to check your mail. For more information, type +help +mail. Check your +mail regularly.


+bbscan — scans the bulletin boards for any unread messages. Type +help bb for more information. Read the bbs regularly.


+finger — Allows you to check another character's information. +finger insert-player-name-here.

+glance — Displays a short list of characters in the room with you.

+weather

+hangouts

+hodor

+help roll


+help combat

help @channel

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