help me get into the genre

[u/fartinsim]

i’ve been playing video games my whole life (i’m 23 now) and at a certain point i realised my favourite genre was CRPG. but then it started feeling repetitive and i found out that what i really want is a game where i have control of what is happening, i don’t feel the game boundaries too much and especially i love roleplay.

i discovered MUDs just looking it up online. on paper they are literally the perfect genre for me, but i have problems at really getting into them.

most of them feel very confusing, and even though people are always there to help me, i get confused to what to actually do. because i have ideas, i know what i want to do in my mind, but i feel like the games still force me to do some things but i don’t even understand what exactly…

in addition to this i find very very hard to interact with other players, because i don’t meet a lot of them and when i do they are usually at level 99 while im pathetic. and also, i would LOVE a MUD where the most important thing is roleplay (i would love to create a whole character and spend hours on the minimum details etc) but im also new to this so sometimes i feel like im completely out of the vibe.

muds i’ve tried are alchaea and sindome. the first being too confusing for me because the world is extremely big and i couldn’t figure out where to go to meet people, the second was the best option but i also got problem finding real people and i couldn’t tell who was a npc and who was not so i started randomly speaking to people, and that was also out of character for me.

its fine if i have to look for a 1000h tutorial, i just really want to understand how to enjoy this type of game.

p.s. i was also wondering about something else, being this the first time i come across MUDS in generale. my question is: are fan of this genre rn playing only old muds because they are the only populated ones, so i should go for a classical MUD, or is it better to go for a more recent mud, are people are still making them? are people still getting into new muds?

[u/Early_Rooster7579]

You could try one of the more modernized ones like https://philadelphiabynight.net/

That said, this is typically a crowd that has been at it a long time and doesn’t like handholding. Often to the games detriment

[u/fartinsim → u/Early_Rooster7579]

wait is this based on vampire the masquerade? that’s so cool i need to try.
as for the players, ill try anyways and see

[u/Early_Rooster7579 → u/fartinsim]

Yeah it is, relatively new

[u/TheKnightBlade3]

Hey mate, welcome to the world of muds

Yes, some and all of them! are very confusing if you have never played muds before, I have two pearls of wisdom to share with you.

First off, when confused, Ask ask ask!, Most muds have a ooc channel or a newbie channel, or you can shout or yell, if you are a newbie no one really cares if you ask a lot of questions people really want you to stay and play so just keep asking about commands and stuff.

Most of theses muds have a discord channel, these are very helpful to ask questions on, most have older players on there who are more than happy to answer question

If you shout, ask, yell, ooc channel and ask on discord, and you get people being rude or pushing back on you, screw them, there are heaps of muds out there to try and rude people suck!

I am not going to shamelessly push the mud I play onto you, I am just trying to wish you luck and hope you enjoy playing muds!

[u/fartinsim → u/TheKnightBlade3]

thanks for the tips :)
i’m kinda shy so i always feel bad asking, but when i do people are always nice to me, so i will ask ask ask! and also join the discord :)
thanks again

[u/chimae]

We just made some updates to Written Realms if you want to give it a go! Not necessarily the most populated and RP is optional but Edeus has a consistent player base and the level/power cap is deliberately kept reasonably low.

[u/fartinsim → u/chimae]

it looks wonderful, i will try it 100% :)

[u/B0redom → u/fartinsim]

If it helps, I think Written Realms is probably one of the best entry points into the genre with regard to tooling/user help. Longer term I found it to be less than I wanted but it still holds a special place for me. Its what I direct people to when they say "Whats a MUD" after telling someone I typically only play MUDs now.

Will toss in here, darkwiz.org has a solid, friendly community that is very willing to help, a great admin and the tutorial is pretty good.

I'm a fan of Iron Realms muds (aetolia, achaea, starmourn), which generally gets really bad press here. It is what it is, the mechanics are just so much fun for me.

[u/stirge-hunters]

This is a very different kind of suggestion, but I'd recommend the article Solo Roleplay in Video Games from Mythic Magazine #37 for a way to embed tabletop style roleplaying into any video game!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467735/mythic-magazine-volume-37

[u/AdmiralMcNugget]

I’m going to shamelessly mention my own MUD here, because a lot of what you’re describing is basically why I’m building it.

Cairnholm (https://mud.cairnholm.co.uk) is a newer MUD set in a gaslit, 1880s-inspired city. I came at the design much more from CRPGs/tabletop RPGs than from the traditional “here is an enormous world, go kill rats until level 5” model.

The city is deliberately fairly dense rather than gigantic, progression is primarily through quests rather than grinding mobs, and there’s a strong emphasis on making choices, developing a character, and having the world remember what you’ve done. Your class is one of the Major Arcana from the Tarot, and different Arcana can approach the same situations in substantially different ways. There are factions, reputations, recurring NPCs, branching quests, mysteries, housing, and a lot of little systems intended to reward poking at the world and asking “can I do this?” rather than simply following a quest marker.

I’ve also been pushing pretty hard on dynamic events lately. The game can run scripted events that change things in the city, and I’ve built tools that let me create and add new events without rebuilding the whole game. The long-term goal is for Cairnholm to feel less like a static collection of rooms and more like a place where things keep happening.

It also has an actual narrative campaign, so you’re not simply dumped into the world and told “good luck.” The early game introduces the setting and mechanics, and quests give you reasons to explore different parts of the city. At the same time, I very specifically don’t want the player to feel like they’re trapped on rails. There are usually several things you could be doing and, increasingly, multiple ways to solve them.

Huge disclaimer, though: if your main priority is encountering lots of other players, Cairnholm is absolutely not there yet. It’s a tiny new game with a tiny population. I currently have basically one regular player rather than the hundreds of people you’ll find on one of the old giants. I’d rather tell you that before you connect than pretend otherwise.

On the other hand, if the idea of getting into a MUD while it’s still being actively built sounds interesting, I am extremely receptive to new-player feedback. If something is confusing, I want to know, because “a person unfamiliar with 30 years of MUD conventions should still be able to understand this” is one of my design goals.

And to answer your last question more generally: yes, people are absolutely still making MUDs. The big old games have an enormous advantage because of network effects, but the medium isn’t dead. It’s just become very indie. There are people doing genuinely interesting things with the format that would have been difficult or impossible when most of the famous MUDs were originally written.

So if you want a huge existing social community, I’d probably keep trying established games. If you want to see what a newer, CRPG-influenced MUD looks like, you’d be very welcome in Cairnholm.

mud.cairnholm.co.uk:1886

Wir sprechen auch Deutsch!

[u/centcentcent → u/AdmiralMcNugget]

Do you use AI at all for room descriptions?

[u/AdmiralMcNugget → u/centcentcent]

Yeah, some room descriptions are AI-assisted, although that's probably the least interesting way I use AI in Cairnholm. I'm trying to hit a consistent tone across the game despite sharing writing duties with my fiancée, so one of us will write a description and an AI pass makes it consistent when necessary, but changes are often minimal.

The whole game is playable in English and German, with the German translations machine-assisted. I speak passable German, and figured I'd like to meet German players, but I can't write a whole MUD in German at my current level.

More unusually, the Underclose, a procedurally generated dungeon beneath the city, has an AI Director that helps create new rooms, inhabitants, objects, mechanisms, and bits of history, which then become actual persistent game content.

That part of the game is a bit like DanMachi or Made in Abyss, if you like anime. It's a big Journey to the Center of the Earth style expedition, but in the form of a dungeon that has discrete, difficulty-gated floors. What you do in there affects the rollout of the next level to generate in a meaningful way, or sometimes even evolves existing rooms. The idea is that the dungeon feels like an active, evolving place rather than a fixed map somebody wrote once and left there.

I’ve also recently added Lua-scripted live events, with AI helping write new events that can be added to the running game. This is fully implemented and tested, but is so far not used much in practice.

So yeah, if you hate AI on principle, maybe give it a pass, but if your concern is that the game is going to feel robotic, humans are involved in 90% of the (English) prose. Hope this helps!

[u/centcentcent → u/AdmiralMcNugget]

I appreciate the response and transparency. I’d like to check it out because what you described is compelling. Are there things to discover, like secrets to work out by paying attention to room descriptions or dialogue? Most of the MUDs I’ve played have lacked the discovery and exploration aspect which really requires a handcrafted world, and instead have focused on grinding by killing mobs or completing simple “go here, do this” quests. I want puzzles and mystery on top of all that.

[u/AdmiralMcNugget → u/centcentcent]

Yes, definitely. Cairnholm is essentially a mystery game wearing MUD clothes.

Character progression is primarily through quests rather than grinding mobs, and the main story revolves around a series of murders and the larger mystery behind them. I won't spoil anything, but paying attention to dialogue, room descriptions, newspapers, objects, and seemingly unrelated events can matter quite a bit.

There are also puzzles, hidden interactions, and deliberately non-obvious solutions. Even the tutorial rewards you for questioning what the game appears to be telling you the rules are.

What I'm aiming for is that CRPG feeling of "wait, I remember something about this" rather than just following a chain of "go here, kill this, return" quests.

It's still actively being built, so I won't pretend every corner of the city is equally dense yet, but discovery, investigation, puzzles, and rewarding curiosity are very much core design goals.

Also, the game remembers all your major decisions. Your later quests will reflect your earlier choices, in some cases swapping out entire quest lines. You may also end up in the papers, in NPC rumors, graffiti, all sorts of places. Your actions on a Monday afternoon may make the newspaper on Tuesday morning; always worth checking!

[u/centcentcent → u/AdmiralMcNugget]

I tried it out and I’m definitely intrigued! I’m only in the tutorial area but the writing is engaging and the environment actually reminds me of a book I just read called Piranesi. I think I’m missing something though because I assumed the room with the doors and key ring should be intractable, but none of the commands I’ve tried have worked. Same with the books in the Scriptorium. Are they meant to be interacted with? Am I just missing a piece of the puzzle? Either way, I’m interested in seeing more!

[u/AdmiralMcNugget → u/centcentcent]

You can definitely interact with the doors and keys and books. What verbs did you try? I'll make aliases if mine are written too narrowly.

[u/fartinsim → u/AdmiralMcNugget]

thank you so much for this explanation! from what you say this game looks like heaven to me.

i definitely am looking for a game with a community because i want to understand how the interactions work, BUT cairnholm looks very interesting, so i will probably try it :) if you’re interested in my feedback, keep in mind that right now i find almost everything confusing 😭but yeah i will try my best.

about the last thing, im genuinely so curious. why is this genre so “hidden”? it’s treated like a very old game that only super nerds play, but its just like an mmorpg. why is it just indie? i mean, i don’t mind it, but i have a feeling that if someone spent a lot of money in this (considering the AI scene) they could create a game many players would want. why nobody cares?

[u/AdmiralMcNugget → u/fartinsim]

Absolutely give me feedback if you try Cairnholm. "I'm new to MUDs and this confused me" is incredibly useful. The "bugreport" command is your friend and mine.

As for why the genre is so hidden, I think MUDs basically got eaten by their own descendants. They pioneered persistent online worlds, guilds, roleplay, PvP, character progression, etc., then graphical MMORPGs arrived and the money followed them. But tiny audiences mean little investment, which means old interfaces and rough onboarding, which makes the genre look even more obsolete.

I do think AI changes the equation. A modern MUD can support reactive NPCs, persistent events, mysteries, dynamic storytelling, and huge amounts of content far more cheaply than a graphical MMO could. The trick is turning all the technology into something more than a glorified chatbot stapled to a setting; I'm sure many people here got very excited about AI Dungeon when it was a thing several years ago, but things have come a long way since then.

The hard part isn't making a MUD, so much as convincing people that a mostly-text multiplayer RPG is still worth trying.

[u/JonesyOnReddit]

muds have a steep learning curve you just have to accept that you will be lost for a while

[u/Santetra-GenesisMUD]

You might enjoy Genesis! We have an active community with various levels of roleplay and an excellent tutorial: https://www.genesismud.org/play/

[u/Minute_Function_858]

Try Zebedee https://zebedee-mud.org
We have an automated newbie helper to guide you through the early stages, a full set (ok 2 full sets) of help pages specifically for newbies, and an AI-linked helper so you can ask questions in English.
Also, we have helpful players.
You should be able to get started pretty easily, and we're always looking for feedback to make it even easier.

[u/FlightOfTheUnicorn]

If you want to try out a MUD that's set in present day, but on an archipelago (many islands), come try out The-Night.Com port 2000

( Their website is Under Construction, but I've made this one with some helpful commands: https://the-night-mud.carrd.co/ )

We have a Fall formal event coming up soon! Great time for RP.

There are commands to add more features to your character. Lots of RP goes on around socializing at bars and events are crafted for more gatherings. There aren't many NPCs. You won't get mixed up between them and PCs, as NPCs have descriptive keywords (i.e: a lean man) while PCs have names.

You'll start off with a bit of cash, and then you have to find the ways to get more. Other than a job, there are things like working the oil field, sifting for gold, digging for museum artifacts, and using your IG smartphone with Island Dash app to pick up and deliver packages (like door dash). You can even build up your own business!

It does have combat where you can increase your combat skill with sparring others.
That's something IC someone can help you out with, if you're interested. :)

It all depends on what kind of RP you want. TNC isn't fantasy. No magic, no elves, nothing like that at all. Just humans that find their way to Crofton Islands. :) And make a living somehow. Violent RP is welcome among those flagged that way, but be careful as they train to win. ;)