MUSH Guide Part Two
Chapter 1: Into the Wilderness - How to connect and log on to Dream Chasers MUSH.
Chapter 2: Crowded Street Corner - Wherein basic mechanics of communication are described. You are here!
Chapter 3: You'll Never Be Alone No Matter Where You Go - How to be a good guest, what to expect for the application process, and how to construct a well-rounded character.
Chapter 4: Wings - Where we discuss the ins and outs of roleplay, obtaining roleplay, and the tricks behind scene-planning.
Chapter 5: Stage of Death - Navigating the Gunslinger system, combat RP advice, and other goodies.
Chapter 2: Crowded Street Corner
Welcome to Chapter 2! If you're looking at /this/, you should be in the following situation:
1: You should have a client running and connected to Dream Chasers MUSH.
2: You should have just typed 'connect guest guest', and a bunch of text should have just scrolled at you.
If this doesn't describe your situation, please go back to Chapter 1: Into the Wilderness now, or nothing after this will make sense. If you already know what you're doing and would like to skip ahead to that character application business, head over to Part Three.
What Just Happened
Alright, what you just saw was a metric boatload of text. Let's run down what we just saw:
- You'll see, at the very top, the message that you can use the command +g to chat on the Guest Channel.
- Next will be "<Guests> Guest01 (or whatever number you are) has connected." That's you automatically being added to the guest channel.
- You'll see an expansive list of messages on the Global Bulletin Board.
- Then, finally, you'll see the welcome screen. It will contain a link to the wiki (which you are on now).
The OOC Lounge
Welcome to the OOC lounge area! Here, it's called 'Inn of the Last Home'. No actual IC (In Character) content will be featured in here- it's just a place for people to hang out and chat.
Let's look at a sample of what the 'OOC Lounge' looks like.
===========================<* Inn of the Last Home *>=========================== The Inn of the Last Home, located in the town of Solace, is a famed inn and tavern ran by Otik Sandath. The ale is always plentiful here and the food is excellent, served by people who have brushed shoulders with heroes local and foreign. This welcoming place is the perfect tavern to kick back one's feet, rest their minds, and enjoy a drink before they return to their adventures! This is the MUSH's OOC lounge! Welcome to the game and feel free to chat with your fellow players! If you need to have a meeting or some quiet space, we have rooms for that. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0ofQRtZwDw ----------------------------------< Players >----------------------------------- Name Jean Marguerite Fatima Maya Schrodinger Sorey -----------------------------------< Things >----------------------------------- Name Owner DBref Tika Waylan's Rules Sheriff Star can't -----------------------------------< Exits >------------------------------------ <M> Meeting Room to Earth Cradle <P> Plot Room to Velvet Room <Q> Quiet Room to Big Bridge ================================================================================
This is a list of the people currently in the room, plus an item. If you type look tika, you'll see what the item's description. Same goes for people! For example, typing look Sorey will give you his description.
The letters next to rooms are shortcuts you can type to go to those rooms. For example, typing q will take you to the Quiet Room, which is a nice place to go to if there's too much spam in the OOC Lounge.
Can I do things now?
Now, let's teach you how to hit buttons and influence people!
First, remember that description of the room earlier? That's the room you're in, as well as the players that are in it. MUSHes and similar formats use rooms to separate spaces, as well as provide a backdrop for scenes. Right now, as a guest, you are in a room that is a OOC (out of character) hangout. No roleplay will occur here, aside from jokes and the like. Think of it as the backstage to a theater.
Next, one of the things you should have seen looks sorta like this, right?
<Guests> Guest has connected.
<Guests> is a 'channel'. Channels are used to communicate over the MUSH, no matter where you are. You, being the guest, have automatically been added to the guest channel. Depending on when you connected, people may be greeting you or keeping quiet. To reply, consider one of the following:
+g Hello!
+g :waves hello!
+g ;'s connection is being a drag!
The difference between a colon (:) and a semicolon (;) is that a colon inserts a space before what you type, while the semicolon doesn't. Without the colon, the top line looks like this:
<Guests> Guest says, "Hello!"
And with the colon, the second line looks like this:
<Guests> Guest waves hello!
With the semicolon, the third line will look like this:
<Guests> Guest's connection is being a drag!
Along the same lines, people in the room you are in (that is, the OOC lounge) will likely be interested in interacting with you as well, and thankfully, doing so is even easier! Consider one of the following:
"Hello!
:waves hello!
;'s connection is being a drag!
This does precisely the same thing as the previous commands, but only displays it to people in the same 'room' as you. That being, in this case, the OOC lounge.
By the way, if you're interested, type 'who' to see who is connected to the MUSH as a whole.
By the way, I typed 'help' for help, and...
You may have typed in an incorrect command somewhere along the line, and received a message that says:
Huh? (Type "help" for help.)
This message means the MUSH did not understand what you just typed in. As a complete MUSH newbie, I would highly recommend you not attempt to navigate the default help menus. They are coded primarily to teach the PennMUSH coding language, so they're not really there to help someone new to MUSHing.
Instead, for a useful list of notes, type +help. This will give you a menu of commands you can look at. If there's not a +help file for it, you can try help <command>, as, sometimes, it can give you something useful. If everything else fails, just ask. Many who have MUSHed for years sometimes have to ask things constantly, like the person writing this specific part.
We'll be explaining enough here as well to get you going, fear not!
Paging
During the course of your guesthood, you may want privately message someone. For this, try the following command with our completely randomly picked person, Maya Schrodinger:
page maya=Hello! or page maya=:waves hello!
Just like say, pose, and the channel commands, this will alternate between:
You page Maya Schrodinger with 'Hello!'''
From afar, Guest waves hello!
This can only be seen by the intended target of the page. If you are solely paging one person at a time, you only need to indicate their name once. For instance:
page Maya=Hey!
page Hey, are you listening to me?
page :prods until you awaken.
This will continue to send to Maya until you specify another person. A word of advice, though: the MUSH recalls who you last paged on a character-basis. This means that if you disconnect, and reconnect, it is highly suggested you specify a target on your first page, or you might accidentally be talking to the wrong person!
Now, when you get incoming pages, for instance:
Maya Schrodinger (Maya) pages: Hey!
You'll notice the word (Maya) in brackets. This is an 'alias', which effectively just means you can type 'page Maya' instead of 'page Maya Schrodinger', which is just a pain in the neck. Most people on the MUSH--including you, incidentally, right now--have aliases set for easier paging.
Global Bulletin Board
---------------- Unread Postings on the Global Bulletin Board ---------------- Public (#1): 1 unread (13) --------------------------- BBS at 13.3% capacity ---------------------------
Now, what the heck did any of that mean?
What you just saw there is an example of what the Global Bulletin Board, or 'bboard' of the MUSH, might look like when you connect. As a guest, the MUSH assumes you haven't read a single post, so will show you every post on the board. Let's read a post now.
Typing +bbread 1 will give you something like...
==============================================================================
**** Public ****
Message Posted By
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/1 T Please Be My Friend Sat Oct 24 Chu-Chu
==============================================================================
Typing +bbread 1/1 will get you the first post of the first forum, which in this case is...
=================================== Public =================================== Message: 1/1 Posted Author Please Be My Friend Sat Oct 24 Chu-Chu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please be my friend. It's lonely here on Bart's ship. I'll even let you pat my head. If anyone is interested, please let me know. :) ==============================================================================
Similarly, you can use +bbread 2/1 to read the first post of the second forum, or +bbread 2/2 to read the second post of the second forum, or any combination of boards.
Now, you may now ask yourself, "Do I need to manually type the board number each time just to go to the next message?!" Fear not, fair visitor. +bbnext is here to save the day. Just keep hitting that in, and it will automatically go to the next unread message in all the boards you have access to.
However, your next question may be "But... will I have to do that when I get a character just to get that wad of text to go away?!" For this, you have +bbcatchup all. This will get rid of all the message notifications.
So, why deal with the message board at all? The message board is an important resource for tip-offs that a future scene will occur, what time it will occur, and so on. It also has IC (In Character) news, IC rumors, OOC observations, and tons of wonderful hijinks. Yes. It's a valuable resource. So, when you get your character, read it. Make use of it. Love it.
Guest Behavior
While we're all pretty easy-going here, we want to make sure guests feel the same way. Many of these suggestions come from past experience. Feel free to add any tips you may have here!
- Again, you can use the guest channel for all guest-related things. Just type +guest or +g to speak on the channel. The OOC lounge gets loaded with spam, so it's easy to lose questions. The guest channel has a handy color to it, making it easier for people who are on it to see your question. Don't worry about bothering people on it since that channel is there for you to use!
- Even if the +guest channel is quiet when you log in, it doesn't mean no one's on it. Feel free to let people know if you need help!
- If the OOC lounge spam is too much, type 'q' to go to the Quiet Room. The room is rigged up so that no one (including you) can speak there, so it's a useful tool if you need to concentrate, but want to be open to pages from other people or chatter on channels.
- No matter how silly or small you think it is, ask questions! This is a good idea no matter who you're applying for, or even if you have your character.
- If you're applying for an FC (Feature Character), staff can see if anyone from your cast, or if anyone was familiar with previous takes on the FC. If you're applying for an OC (Original Character) but need help figuring out certain details, use the guest channel if people can help you get a sense of what's going on.
- If you do something wrong and someone corrects you, it's okay! Some things you won't know about unless you're told and we all make mistakes, no matter how long we've been roleplaying.
- If you have an app sent in, and it hasn't been processed yet, a good rule of thumb is to ask after a week.
- Feel free to hang out in the OOC lounge! Catch up on board posts so you'll be partly caught up on anything available to guests. Just use +bbcatchup <board numbers you've read> when you get your character. Observe the zoo that is the OOC lounge. It's all good.
Anyway, to move on to this weird thing called character application process, proceed to Chapter 3!