Roleplaying

Indeed, there they all Behave in a Most Curious Manner, always talking of a Land other than their Own...

    Currently, some of the principal venues for rp include the themed playerkilling clans, which engage in wars and rivalries; the development of interesting historical characters; and rp'ing the idea of time travel itself. Interpersonal relatioonships in character have become a fact of life on the mud, to the point where we've had several weddings and at least four 'mud children.'

    We've got several enhancements to the code in that encourage rp--here's a list of several of them.

The Out Of Character Lounge

A place to go outside the game, to converse and discuss.

   The Wild Boar Tavern is an out-of-character space that can be reached from anywhere in the mud by simply typing OOC. It offers a cash bar, a piano lounge, a gift shop, a small restaurant, and an auditorium. Typing IC returns you to the main mud exactly where you were.

   While you are OOC, ticks do not affect you--nor can fights take place in the Wild Boar Tavern. It's simply a safe place to come to talk to people. Privacy is often available there, and it has become a popular spot for relaxation, as well as for non-game related conversations and debates.

   The Auditorium hosts the Lecture Series as well as mud meetings on issues of game design or mud society. Sometimes players gather there for singalongs, or Halloween stories, or jam sessions.

   The Gift Shop offers a list of items for sale such as stuffed animals, greeting cards, and other gifts. These can be mudmailed to anyone on the mud as a token of affection (well, excepting the 'swift kick in the pants' item).

The Speech System

A state-of-the-art conversation system that reads like real prose.

   Legend has a speech system that permits the use of moods, and presents text in a more legible format. It's designed to be more readable and also to encourage immersion in the fictional world of the mud.

    All players will find that their says and other speeches are automatically formatted with capitalization, and with periods placed at the ends. In addition, they'll see that the common format of

Player says, 'Hi.'

will vary, with the tag (the 'Player says' part) appearing at either the start or end of the speech, or in the case of speeches with multiple sentences, in the middle:

'Hi,' Player says. 'What's your name?'

    In addition, players who learn the eloquence skill gain the ability to use 'moods.' Using moods, players can enter in one of well over 100 different moods to alter their speech tags, which then select from among several possible speech tags, allowing people to speak wistfully, angrily, loooking down their nose at the plebes, or any other of hundreds of possible combinations.

'Hi,' Player says warmly. 'What's your name?'

Player Description System

An optional method for players to appear to others.

    Players on Legend do not have to be just their name. If they so choose, they can request to register long and short descriptions, so that other people in the game see them as 'a short bald woman' or some such. Once these descriptions are registered, the player can turn them on and off as they desire, but may not alter them, unless a roleplaying event of great magnitude takes place, and the change is reported in the Legendary Times. Unlike other muds where one must apply for a character and give descriptions then, Legend encourages you to only bother with established characters, and the entire system is completely optional.

Player Housing

A room of your own...

    Various locations throughout history allow you to build buildings there. For the cost of an ongoing fee, you can have a villa in Viceroyal Peru or a cottage in Sherwood Forest. Each of the available sites is tailored to the setting of that particular period in history, and many of them offer multiple optional rooms that you can choose to add onto the original room in order to customize the space as you see fit. These housing rooms are also used as clan headquarters if a clan operates out of them.

The Clans System

Themed groups that engage in LOTS of RP

    On Legend playerkilling is permitted under the control of the clans system. Only pkenabled players may choose to engage in player vs. player combat, and they may only attack other pkenabled players within a certain level range. However, the free form clan system on Legend allows almost anyone to join a clan.

    There are thirty-two clans currently possible on Legend, and any group of 5 players can get together and request a new one if there is a slot open. An official clan can build their own clan hall, purchase a bulletin board, contribute to a clan bank account to pay for the hall, and converse on a channel that requires the token to operate, and of course gains a sense of identity in the mud community.

    The clans are quite active in roleplaying, often basing their actions upon codes of ethics, religious fervor, or in-character hatreds. See the Clan System page for more details or the Community pages for current clans.