Dungeons And Dragons

D20 Dnd

A small niche in the gaming community are devoted to MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon), it is a multi-player computer game that utilizes the best of hack and slash games, role playing games and chat rooms. Most muds are free to play and are typically text based games meaning they do not have graphics of any kind. However some muds are pay to play and there are some muds who do use graphics as opposed to text. Players of these games must read to understand and build a picture of the world around their character in the game. There are descriptions of the room they are in, objects, events, other people including fellow players and NPCs (Non-Player Characters). MUDs can easily be seen as the backbone of many of todays hottest computer games such as World Of Warcraft, Everquest, and Guild Wars.

Each MUD is unique, it has its own builders who create the rooms, objects, and NPCs that the players can interact with and a code base which varies from mud to mud depending on the owners preference. There are many different code bases to choose from and they are typically on must muds edited by coders to enhance the gameplay.

Typical MUD worlds are based on fantasy either a particular fantasy world from a book series such as Lord Of The Rings or a unique one created by the staff of the mud. In the game one must create a character by choosing a number of different options which usually include picking a race and class. It is typically very similar to the character creation in the d20 system used by the Dungeons and Dragons role playing games among others. Many different genres are seen throughout the mudding community and some muds aren’t used for gaming at all but as a way for people to communicate.

MUDs can be accessed through a mud client such as GMUD or ZMUD however in order to do this you must know the host name and port on which the MUD is being operated. This information can be found on the MUDs website or an advertisement which is located elsewhere. Another means for connecting to the mud of your choice is to use a telnet connection, a link to the telnet connection can usually be found on the MUDs website provided that they have one. MUD clients are considered to be a better application for connecting to a mud as they are designed specifically for that job and have many features of their own to improve and simplify the gameplay. Some of the MUD clients offered are free and others are not, the free ones work just as well as those which cost but are typically less sophisticated and may have less features built in to assist you when you are finally connected to the mud. There are many ways to find MUDs that are available for you to play. You could try Googling the subject or finding a company which hosts these MUDs and view a list of the MUDs which they host. There are some sites such as http://www.mudconnect.com that have a very thorough list of MUDs and this is probably the best option for finding a MUD that fits your style.

Dylan Ward

Live from Gen Con 2009 (Vlog) – Day 2