Anniversary: The Geekiest Thing Grimbil Has Ever Done

Back in the summer 1991, a chance visit to the Mississippi State University Library introduced me to the amazing Internet. While looking up a book on the library computer system, I met a guy who was playing a MUD, or Multi User Dungeon. Think of it as the precursor to World of Warcraft. Hundreds of people online, running around killing stuff and collecting gold to advance their characters and gain new powers. Except it was all text based.

For about 6 months I played MUDs every second I could. However, something was missing, something didn’t sit right….at the time I didn’t really have a word for it, but now I do. The grind. It got to be all about finding the best monsters to fight to level your character as quickly as possible. BORING!

Luckily, I soon discovered the MUDs nerdier step-cousin, the MUSH. Now the difference may seem small, but it completely changes everything. With a MUD, you have a built in combat/experience system to level your character. Kill this, earn that, level up when you reach so many xp, etc etc. But in a MUSH, it was more like a tabletop role playing game such as Dungeon & Dragons, or in the case of most MUSHs at the time, Vampire: the Masquerade. There were no built in combat rules, no special programming beyond a basic die rolling function. Instead you had “judges”, and “admins”, and “wizards” who were like dungeon masters that were called in act as arbitrators when there was a dispute between players. Most of the time, you didn’t need them. Players actually roleplayed their characters, and it was surprising how infrequently you entered combat or needed an admin to judge a conflict. All the rules were the same as those in the real life roleplaying game.

Needless to say, this was incredibly geeky, and I got sucked in big time. I bought all the Vampire RPG books and spent hours every night and weekend playing, for years. We’re talking 5 years of nonstop MUSHing, mostly on Vampire games. At one point, one of my human characters was appointed Chief of Police and I was made an admin. I then learned the MUSH programming language in order to create interactive objects within the game for my police officers to use. Bulletin Board systems to log in game police cases, cars, badges, guns, jails…..it was epic. It actually came in quite handy when I went to college and almost minored in Computer Science.

If you want to check it out, here’s the OG Vampire MUSH, Masquerade.

Don’t fool yourself….the MMORPGs of today are merely prettier versions of MUDs. Hack n’ slash adventures. MUSHing was about roleplaying, straight up table top roleplaying, online. Nothing since has come even close, and to this day I sometimes think about telneting in to play again.

Then I realize I have a life and go get a pint down at the pub with my friends.