The language of virtual worlds 175
characterisanon-screenpersona,withitsownnameandassociated
description; several alternative characters (morphs) may belong to
a single player. In graphical systems, where visual representations
are displayed as well as text, characters are often calledavatars.
The player can have a presence on-screen too – a distinction which
becomes important when someone stops role-playing but contin-
ues interacting ‘out-of-character’ (OOC).^6 The off-screen human
controller of a player is usually called, simply, the ‘typist’. Occasion-
ally, even this being can be referred to on-screen (e.g. we might see
a sentence such as ‘Langman’s typist is getting impatient’), but this
behaviour is not much appreciated. Characters can be anything at
all – human, humanoid, robotic, alien, mythological, mechanical,
animal, vegetable, mineral... though MUDs do sometimes have
preferences (e.g. some ban alien characters, some insist on hu-
mans). A minimal set of attributes establishes a character’s name,
gender, and race (human, elf, animal, etc.). MUD-veterans may
maintain their character names across different MUDs (there is no
limit, other than that imposed by time and sanity, to the number
of MUDs one may join).^7
MUDs are usually in the hands of system administrators, simi-
lar in function to the moderators of chapter 5. Their names vary
(wizards,programmers,tinkers,gods,arches,imp[lementer]s)–I
shall usewizardas the generic term in this chapter – but they are
all players with a lot of experience of the site, usually with pro-
gramming ability. These are the ones who design quests, introduce
objects, and generally moderate the way a game is played. Players
who gain experience and skill in a MUD are given more power,
and may in due course graduate to be wizards. They have consid-
erable technical powers, and may adopt a disciplinary role against
players who do not conform to the rules of the MUD, looking out
for instances of spamming, flaming, and spoofing (pp. 52ff.), and
(^6) Conventions are supposed to distinguish in-character and out-of-character remarks (e.g.
7 the latter within double parentheses), but not everyone follows this.
It is difficult to be really fluent in the commands and dialect preferences of several MUDs.
Most of the people in Cherny’s (1999) survey were regulars on just two or three, while
maintaining characters on a few others. Membership of both an adventure MUD and a
social MUD is evidently a popular combination.