Drums in the Dark is a roleplaying game set in a unique fantasy environment developed by the staff specifically for the game.
What is a MUX?
To quote Wikipedia:
A MUSH (sometimes said to be an abbreviation for Multi-User Shared Hack, Habitat, Holodeck, or Hallucination, though these are backronyms) is a text-based online social medium to which multiple users are connected at the same time.
What is roleplaying?
In a roleplaying game such as drums in the dark there isn't any strict win or lose criteria. The point of the game isn't as simple as making the most money or achieving the highest skill even if such goals are possible. Instead it is about the interactions between characters in much the same way as you would find in a good novel.
There are many different scenarios and situations which your character will encounter during gameplay and it is up to you to react to them in a way that your character would. We often use the term IC to represent this concept. IC means In Character and it is used when we want to say that actions should be done as your character would chose to do them were he/she real. So we may say that a week has passed ic'ly. This would let you know that a week has passed for your character even if only an hour has passed for you the player. OOC is the opposite and it means Out of Character.
Roleplaying is something that you will learn over time and there are many sites dealing with what makes a good roleplayer available on the internet. It even has its own etiquette codes that have developed to ensure that roleplaying sessions can proceed smoothly. I have linked some sites that I have found to have helpful information at the bottom of this page.
How Do I Play?
Ditd is located at ditd.isunlimited.net port 5050 (Currently seeking alpha testers)
To connect to the game it is recommended that you use one of the readily available shareware clients that are presently available. Using a client will make it much easier to connect to and interact with the world. The client will have instructions on how to connect - Simplemu has a New Connection Wizard. When using this tool you would use ditd.isunlimited.net for the address, 5050 for the port, MUSH for the game type and Drums in the Dark (or whatever you prefer) for the name.
Once you are at the opening window you should feel free to connect to the game with a guest character. To achieve this you would type Connect Guest Guest.
When you are in the game world there will be players and staff happy to help. You can talk on our help channel by typing nb message.
We have also been working on a new player quick-guide. It is still a work in progress but you should already find it helpful.
Clients
You will get a much better gaming experience if you use a client to connect to the game. The list below is by no means exhaustive but they are should provide a range of options for you to experiment with.
MUDconnector also homes an extensive list:
Other Links
The A2A programme is a very useful tool for those who wish to produce complicated object descriptions. It was written by Zeus, Head Coder of the Loki's Hammer MUX, and is linked on the Lokis Hammer Forums and FiranMUX's wiki [http://firan.legendary.org/download/A2A_ver3-0-0.zip]
JavE is another ascii editor - [http://www.jave.de/]
The Capturing Fantasy Site has lots of useful hints and tips about roleplaying. It is aimed at forum roleplaying rather than mux roleplaying but many of the guidelines and suggestions are exactly the same.
