The Crystal Hall
Forum Search:
Return to the Stories


Members Members   Search Search   Help Help   Register Register   Login Login   Home Home
Home » The Crystal Hall » An Online Role Playing Game? » How About a MUSH? (An idea for a Whateley Game)
How About a MUSH? [message #67281] Thu, 28 January 2010 14:47 Go to next message
Zoey is currently offline Zoey
Messages: 14
Registered: January 2010
Hello everybody Very Happy I'm rather new to the Whateley Academy stories, but I've really enjoyed them thus far. Kudos to the authors. Now, the reason I made a forum account.

I've had a lot of experience creating what are called MUSHes. What is a MUSH, you may ask? Well, it's a game server platform designed to support multiple user online text-based roleplaying games. Now, I saw in another thread that someone said they didn't think that a MUD would be a good way to make a Whateley RPG. I agree with this. From my experience, the driving focus of most MUDs tend to be combat and such. While this can be fun from time to time, I think that Whateley is more about the character development and such. It's not so much the fights that matter as the stories surrounding the characters. MUSHes are great for this. They don't have the included combat system of a MUD and, in general, tend to be more about the roleplay between the players than about the fighting and such.

A MUSH server is a persistant world, unlike programs such as OpenRPG and the like. Everything in a MUSH is text-based, so there are no graphics. However, that shouldn't be a major hold-up considering that we've all been reading a lengthy series of stories that have no graphics either.

Now, with my experience running these games, I would be glad to set up a basic game with some of the basic, necessary systems for it to run. I will even oversee the majority of the in-game maintenance and whatnot. I can create the academy in the game based on what I've read in the stories and the wiki and I can create a character generation system through which people can create characters and flesh them out, including powers. In the beginning, this will most likely simply be a process of writing up a background of the character and a description of the powers so that the game can be brought up quickly so people can begin playing and interacting. If a system, such as to settle skill disputes or fights, is needed, I can create and install one of these as well.

Now, all I want to know is if this is something that the people of this forum and fans of this series would enjoy. Let me know! Very Happy
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67318 is a reply to message #67281 ] Thu, 28 January 2010 17:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Evulsdrakab is currently offline Evulsdrakab
Messages: 92
Registered: November 2009
Location: Location, Location
I'd play!

Perendinum carpe diem
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67322 is a reply to message #67281 ] Thu, 28 January 2010 17:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kristin Darken is currently offline Kristin Darken
Messages: 1189
Registered: January 2005
Location: California
I think a lot of what you get out of a MUSH that you cannot get out of IRC (which is where most of the Whateley based RP is being played so far) is environment. You get a small amount of structure relative to the amount of work that needs to be put into it and unless you have a large number of people playing (more than what typically play in the short running RP sessions), it will have a lot of dead air.

We could, just as easily, establish a Second Life or Project Calypso (or something else similar) version of Whateley.

The question really comes down to... do you want to spend that much time building a MUSH setup for it, or just RP some? We have several people writing different game systems from scratch for the same reason... they want to spend the time writing the game more than they want to spend time playing. If you just want to RP some, ask around; I'm sure you'll get players pretty fast. Especially if you just want to use a common system that people already know. Smile

Kristin Darken

Once upon a time...
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67327 is a reply to message #67281 ] Thu, 28 January 2010 18:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zoey is currently offline Zoey
Messages: 14
Registered: January 2010
I want both, to be honest. However, MUSH allows for more setting type things than IRC does. IRC you're all together when in RP, your characters might be in different rooms or location. Besides, I like the combination of static grid and ability to dynamically generate new locations that MUSH provides. I've been planning on making a new game lately, and I like Whateley so I figured if there was even a modest amount of interest that I would make a Whateley MUSH.
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67330 is a reply to message #67281 ] Thu, 28 January 2010 18:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Caliban is currently offline Caliban
Messages: 688
Registered: January 2010
Location: Scottsdale, Arizona
I'd check it out, but I can't say for sure if I'd play. I spent the last 10 years playing RPG's heavily and kinda got burned out (my inner Rules Lawyer was crushing my inner Roleplayer.)
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67361 is a reply to message #67281 ] Thu, 28 January 2010 22:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XaltatunOfAcheron is currently offline XaltatunOfAcheron
Messages: 2644
Registered: July 2005
Location: Atlantis
I tend to agree, more or less, with Kristen.

Second Life would be a more interesting environment, and since it would be open in a reasonably heavily used universe, it could well bring more people into the community.

On the other hand, I'm not at all sure how good Second Life would be for gaming. I have no experience either with Second Life or with multi-player games in general.

Xaltatun

Cutthroat Competition is the Answer. Now what was the question?
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67362 is a reply to message #67361 ] Thu, 28 January 2010 22:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zoey is currently offline Zoey
Messages: 14
Registered: January 2010
Second Life is also a LOT more complicated to design things in. Plus, if you want to actually have a plot of land to build Whateley on, you'll most likely be shelling out money to buy it. With a MUSH, I can get everything set up for free. There's also a somewhat healthy MUSHing community out there. Just check out www.mudconnect.com.
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67383 is a reply to message #67281 ] Fri, 29 January 2010 01:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kristin Darken is currently offline Kristin Darken
Messages: 1189
Registered: January 2005
Location: California
Well... the fact that there's a MUSH community doesn't exactly ensure players. After all, Whateley is (at its core, at least) a parallel genre to TG fiction despite the fact that it's drawn in readers who wouldn't necessarily find themselves surfing through TG story sites (like BigCloset, Fictionmania, Sapphires, Storysite or Stardust). I imagine that limits the target audience a bit, even if there's plenty of opportunity to tap other areas... even if you don't point out that side of it, people are bound to want to read the 'source' material.

Still, you're welcome to do what you want... just be sure to give credit where its due and note to people that RP is considered on par with fan fics in the sense that its not considered canon and any characters and settings that are intellectual property of another author are... etc etc... legal mumblety bleh bleh. Smile

Kristin Darken

Once upon a time...
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67396 is a reply to message #67383 ] Fri, 29 January 2010 04:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Zoey is currently offline Zoey
Messages: 14
Registered: January 2010
To this I rebut Shangrila MUSH. (http://www.shangrilamush.com) Note: NSFW. Certainly TG is not the only subject of it, but it is a major contingent. Shangrila is also probably one of the largest MUSHes you'll find out there, aside from the FurryMUCK.
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67446 is a reply to message #67281 ] Fri, 29 January 2010 12:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
tensai is currently offline tensai
Messages: 1357
Registered: July 2008
It's also an adults-only community with a heavy BDSM slant, at least based on how they present themselves.

While Whateley does feature mature concepts involving gender and sexuality, it's also a universe based around the exploits of a bunch of teenagers. That means there's going to be limitations on the kind of behavior that's acceptable, and THAT means that you're going to find a much more limited population of users.

"It took her some time to accept that with such wings, her soul would never soar--but the fact that she could kick a man's lungs out through his spine was ultimately some small consolation." -ursulav
Report message to a moderator
Re: How About a MUSH? [message #67455 is a reply to message #67446 ] Fri, 29 January 2010 15:09 Go to previous message
Zoey is currently offline Zoey
Messages: 14
Registered: January 2010
I understand completely. I don't play on Shangrila myself, I've just heard tales from people on other games. However, it still stands as an example that there are a fair number of people out there that do enjoy TG related themes.
Report message to a moderator
Previous Topic:RPoL
Next Topic:COH/COV
Goto Forum:
  

[ Generate printable PDF ] [ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ]

Current Time: Mon Sep 6 04:42:05 EDT 2010

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.04621 seconds
.:: Contact :: Home ::.

Powered by: FUDforum 2.8.0.
Copyright ©2001-2009 FUDforum Bulletin Board Software