MUSH FAQ Written for Wingless Cafe MUSH

A MUSH is basically a text-based roleplaying/adventure game over the Internet, so those of you who have played similar games (like the old Infocom text-based games) already know most of this.

Connecting:

The Wingless Cafe MUSH can be connected to by telnetting to 193.10.48.17 4201.Other MUSHes are connected to in the same way. A client, such as zMUD, tf or MUSHclient allows you to automate this, and also has some macro and alias functions, plus logging capacity. These can be found on most shareware sites, such as my favorite Tucows.

To move around:

The chief way of moving around on the MUSH is by compass directions. When you look at a room you'll notice that is has exits, usually in some compass directions. Then, if you decide to move north, f.ex, just type n and hit Enter. Up is abbreviated u and down d. Sometimes you'll see exits that aren't in compass directions, f.ex. "Rickenbacker's Hangar". to enter these just type in the name of the exit and hit Enter. Most of these have aliases, so you can abbreviate them, f.ex. you can enter Rick's hangar by typing either Rickenbacker's, Rick's or just rick.

To look around:

One very simple command here, L (ell). That's short for Look, and is the universal command for looking at things, reading signs etc. It takes arguments to look at different things, typing just a single L will look at the room you're in, typing L <player> will look at that player, if he's in the room also. You can also look at objects and exits this way.

To check out what you're carrying and how much money you have, type i (for Inventory).

To see who's logged on at the moment, type WHO and hit enter.

Communicating:

There are a number of commands here, depending on who you wish to speak to. To talk to people in the same room as you, use " (quotation mark) followed by your message (no spaces), then hit enter. The message will be displayed to all the characters in that room, prefixed by <your name> says, "<message>".

To whisper something to an individual in the same room , use "whisper <name>=<message>". Additional whispers to the same person can use only "whisper <message>". Can be abbreviated as w. Paging works the same way, but the person doesn't have to be in the same room, use "page <name>=<message>" to do that.

Emoting or posing lets other people know what your character is doing. The command is "emote <message>", abbreviated : (colon). This will show the message you enter to people in the room prefixed by your name and a space. To emote withouth the space, use ; (semicolon).

Emitting shows a message to other people in the room _without_ your name. This can be useful for showing other what happened to something you tossed on the floor, for having a nonexistent bartender giving you a drink, etc. The command is "@emit <message>", abbreviated // (double backslash). Use this command with care though, making it seem like someone else said or did something they didn't (Known as Spoofing) is very bad form, and might get you kicked off the MUSH in extreme cases.

Chat channels are there for chatting about things that don't concern the MUSH and for sending messages to large groups of people. There's currently only channel 100 available on the Wingless MUSH, and to join it type "@channel 100=on" and hit Enter. The people on the channel will be notified that you just joined it. To send on the channel type "+<channel> <message>", in this case "+100 <message>". Channel names can be abbreviated if you like, as long as the program can recognize the channel. Other MUSHes will usually have a channel named Public, and various faction specific channels.

Most MUSHes also have an internal mail system, called @mail. This allows you to send mail to someone on the same MUSH, as long as you know their character name. They'll have to log on the MUSH in order to read it. The format is "@mail <name>=<message>". To check your own @mail, type "@mail" for a list, or "@mail <message number>" for a specific message.

IC/OOC.

The above abbreviations stand for In Character / Out Of Character. These aren't used on the Wingless Cafe MUSH, but are common on MUSHes with specific themes, f.ex. Star Wars or Battletech. Anything said or done by your character IC (that is, said to others in a room, emoted, etc) counts as "real" on the MUSH, anything said or done OOC (f.ex. on chat channels, pages or @mail, unless specified as IC) is considered apart from the MUSH theme and doesn't count ICly. This means that if someone tells you on Public channel that they're going to kill you, you can't use that knowledge to avoid them ICly, since your character wouldn't really know about it.

A word on attributes:

Attributes are the things that make up your character, such as name, description, sex and the like. Here are some attributes you'll want to set right away.

• description (Anything you like)
• sex (Male, Female or Neuter)
• away (message shown to people paging you when you're not logged on)
• doing (short message after your name in the WHO list)

To set these type "@<attribute name> me=<whatever>", except the doing, for that just type "@doing <whatever>".

If you get stuck...

Try typing "help" for a list of help topics. Some MUSHes have news and/or events files that work the same way as help, accessed by typing "news" or "events". If you want to know how a specific command works, type "help <command name>". If you're really stuck, ask someone, through pages or on an open channel. If they can't help you, they can usually tell you how to get in touch with a Wizard who can give you a hand.