MOO - also descended from TinyMUD, but radically different in both nature and intent from its cousins

MUSH Resources at the Open Directory Project

In computer gaming, a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon, Domain or Dimension) is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games and social chat rooms. Typically running on an Internet server or...

Online creation

TinyMUD - the ancestor to MUSH servers

RhostMUSH developed from TinyMUD, then TinyMUSE. Its source is not publicly available, but can obtained on request subject to accepting a non-disclosure agreement.

MUSH has forked over the years and there are now different varieties with different features, although most have strong similarities and one who is fluent in coding one variety can switch to coding for the other with only a little effort. The source code for most widely-used MUSH servers is open source and available from its current maintainers. A primary feature of MUSH codebases that tends to distinguish it from other multi-user environments is the ability, by default, of any player to extend the world by creating new rooms or objects and specifying their behavior in the MUSH's internal scripting language. Another is the default lack of much player or administrative hierarchy imposed by the server itself. Over the years, both of these traits have become less pronounced, as many server administrators choose to eliminate or heavily restrict player-controlled building, and several games have custom coded systems to restore more of a hierarchal system. The programming language for MUSH, usually referred to as "MUSHcode" or "softcode" (to distinguish it from "hardcode" - the language in which the MUSH server itself is written) was developed by Larry Foard. TinyMUSH started life as a set of enhancements to the original TinyMUD code. "MUSHcode" is similar in syntax to Lisp. It is fairly easy to learn. Most custom coding, for the sake of simplicity, security, and stability, is done in softcode rather than by directly modifying the hardcode.

Traditionally, roleplay consists of a series of 'poses'. Each character makes a 'pose' - that is, writes a description of speech actions, etc. which the character performs. Special commands allow players to print OOC messages, distinguished by a prefixed tag from IC action. This medium borrows traits from both improvisational stage acting and writing. Roleplaying is one of the primary activities of MUSHes, along with socializing. There is nothing in the code base that restricts a new MUSH from being a traditional hack-and-slash MUD-style game. However, the earliest uses of MUSH servers were for roleplaying and socializing, and these early trends have largely governed their descendants. In addition, due to this pressure, code updates have tended to emphasize improvements of value to the roleplayer. MUSH servers have one combat command out of the box, aptly called 'kill'. Despite the name, it simply gives a player a chance of killing another player dependent on how much OOC currency that player put into the effort. If successful, the 'killed' player is sent to his home and given some money for his trouble. If unsuccessful, nothing interesting occurs. This command is frequently disabled by server administrators as it is in practice not conducive to roleplay or theme. A large number of roleplaying MUSHes have custom combat systems coded by their administrators. However, these are usually intended to provide a vehicle for roleplayed combat, and not as the main objective of the game. Many MUSHes with combat systems in fact discourage their players from using them.