So this is a bit of an odd topic, hopefully not too melancholy for most people.

Mushing, as we all know, is an artifact of a particular time and place. It had its heyday when people were largely paid better, had more freetime and less stress, and were more accustomed to an internet without sound and graphics and video.

This is not a ‘mushing is on the decline’ post.

We’ve - some of us - been doing this hobby for decades, literally decades. Some of our writings we may log, others vanish when the mush goes down, or simply with time. Most of my ‘very well known’ characters are 100% forgotten today. Entire mushes/mux have been forgotten. The internet isn’t really a fixed, permanent thing.

So what will remain of mushing when we are gone? Will historians even know this hobby existed in a hundred years? How will these stories persist - or not - for time? Will anyone care?

I’ve spent a lot of time lately looking into ‘little ordinary bits of history’ from past centuries, and its struck me how much of ordinary life is just…lost, to time. I’ve probably spent, of my 43 years…34, 35 of them doing this?

Is there anything that CAN be done so mushing is remembered as ‘having been a thing’ in a century? Should we even care? Should games take better means to preserve all of the stories that have been created, or is their only utility/virtue in the creation of them?

And lastly, for those of us looking back on our lives and all the time we spent in this hobby, do you think that was time well spent?

@Ominous Someone did something like this once with uh, UFOs? it lasted something like LITERALLY TWO DAYS AFTER OPENING BEFORE THEY ANNOUNCED IT WAS CLOSING

it was crazy

I do feel though that like, a big major city works better than a remote military base, for the same reason everyone always leaves the base on Stargate: SG1, because you need other things going on? Like I think i’ve seen the ‘remote town’ thing before.

It does help with an excuse to always run into each other. It does. It’s a solid base.

I do think its been done a LOT though, and would miss out on 'I’m not with you, but since this is set in 1940s Chicago / Pittsburgh in the 80s / modern NYC / whatever, my character is a mobster/ordinary person who keeps stumbling into this stuff, and plots where things get ‘into the wild’.

@Jennkryst

I have never seen multitheme on an oWOD mush really enhance the game. It can work on say…nWOD, but not on oWOD.

Mages in particular just don’t work well with other themes. The problem is usually mage players. And there’s no…reason? to have vampires and garou together.

These games almost always work better as single-sphere games focused on that sphere. Again, for oWOD.

nWOD works well multi-sphere, works GREAT multi sphere, tbh. Its a much better game for a MUSH, imo, though I personally prefer the theme of oWOD.

That’s just my opinion.

You are correct about ‘what ruleset’ regarding dnd, and also why people (including myself) hate 4e. I don’t know what the answer to that would be.

Regarding Star Wars:

I’ve played SW games for 20 years and I’m a bit burnt out on it

So I doubt anyone will know who I am but I figured I’d introduce myself.

I used to be Thionoxial on MCM (I left like 18 years ago or something like that, maybe 15? LONG TIME AGO) - I was the fachead for their evil faction and plotstaff.

I used to be Einara (Zelosian idealist working for the CIS who secretly helped the Jedi alot) on Star Wars: Generations

I used to play Ioanna on a VTM Dark Ages game set in Iberia.

I played (until I had a nervous breakdown over my gender) a daeva lawyer based on Elle from Legally Blonde on some VTM Revised game, but only for a few months, about 5-6 years ago during COVID.

pronouns are she/her if your cis and straight, she/they if your cis and queer, or they/she if your trans. (yes its complicated so am I).

I have a B.S. in Physics with minors in astrophysics and mathematics.

I’m 43 and I’ve been mushing since I was ~9. I’ve been trying to be on computers less the past year so I can live life instead of writing about it, life is too short.

Other facts about me: My mom died 3 weeks ago and the last thing she ever said to me was (she was transphobic) that she spent her whole life fighting her urge to be a boy and never realized other girls didn’t feel that way.

I used to be a buddhist but I’ve been an atheist for ~3 weeks now.

There is nothing else interesting about me. I just wanted to introduce myself.

Musical tastes: punk/post-punk
Reading: scifi/fantasy
Favorite Authors: Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, Elizabeth Moon, Ursula K. LeGuin

I play a LOT of online tabletop. I’m currently in a VTM Dark Ages campaign and an Exalted vs WOD campaign.

or, for that matter, an actual X-Com mush. But VINTAGE.

Like you X-com call of cthulhu bullshit while pretending to be ordinary people in 1940s noir chicago or whatever.

My wishlist:

1. A VTM game set somewhere interesting. I’ve been working on a setting/ruleset called ‘Olympus Mons by Night’ for >12 years now. I’m too old to run a mush, no freetime, but I’d love to see something interesting. And not multisphere. That NEVER works.

2. Scifi space opera where I can be a blue/green/purple skinned alien girl and do mad science or psychic bullshit.

3. I’d like to see a REGULAR FUCKING TABLETOP FANTASY GAME IN A REGULAR CITY, based not around tabletop stuff but like - game of thrones style. Not low magic. More like…what if BG3 was a mush? Or Spelljammer? None of you will know what Spelljammer is, I’m old.

4. A technocracy game where players are ONLY technocrats, and the real life world is so messed up because the Traditions took over behind the scenes and are spreading anti-vaxx stuff/anti-science stuff/chaos to try and wear down the Consensus, so your kinda like scrappy x-com agents fighting against the anti-science crusaders of the Hemetic Order.