What's a MUSH, anyway?
The term M.U.S.H. is an acronym, standing for "Multi-User Shared Hallucination." Basically, a MUSH is a program that sits on a host machine (in our case, once it was the UNIX computer called "box1" at a company that provides net service, namely "Microgate"). Since the host machine is permanently connected to the internet, the MUSH program can be accessed by anyone with the internet address. We'll get to that in a minute....
Because anyone can connect to the MUSH at the same time, this provides an easy environment for communication. It is similar to having a "chat room." However, the MUSH actually has a number of different locations, each called a "room," and you can communicate with people in the same room as you using the commands say and pose. You can also move about the various rooms of the MUSH by using "exits." All of this lends itself quite nicely to the manufacture of a game similar to the Infocom games in the 1980s. Therefore, the MUSH is run something like a text-based adventure, where everything you see is done in text (there are no pictures, I warn you graphics-lovers now).
Because everyone connected to the same machine ends up online together, you can interact with/talk to/role-play with anyone else who is logged in when you are (subject to certain restrictions on how MUSH communications work). Because you can communicate with multiple people simultaneously, the MUSH is a "Multi-User" system... hence the first two letters of the acronym.
Champions MUSH is an interactive role-playing environment where you can roleplay with people from all over the world by all connecting to the same machine. Because the rooms around you and the people "in a room with you" aren't there physically, the idea that you can talk to them, shake their hand, etc., is really an illusion, or a hallucination. Since more than one person is experiencing this "hallucination" at a time, it is a "Shared Hallucination." Hence the rest of the acronym.
Return to the CM Home Page.
File last updated: 23-Oct-2002