What is a MUSH?

MUSH is believed to stand for 'Multi User Shared Hallucination', and in current times has come to be called 'Multi User Shared Habitat'. Ok... the name doesn't tell you much.

A MUSH is a text-based virtual reality. You can liken it to a series of Chat Rooms, linked by 'exits' (if you type an exit name, you'll go to a different chat-room). Unlike IRC, or AOL's chatrooms, each room can carry a description, as well as objects that can do different things. Characters, the representations of players, can also have descriptions, and can carry objects that do things. This makes a MUSH an incredible place to hold a roleplaying campaign, because you can build the actual spaces in which the party will travel and the monsters and characters they'll meet. Some MUSHes have as many as 100-200 users online at a time, all doing different things and talking, so it's also a great place just to go and meet people without the cost of a long distance phonecall. MUSHes are free!

There's the key of the success of MUSHes...the players can talk together, build, program and describe new rooms while on the MUSH. The rooms can be anything -- hotels, towns, space stations, forests, open sky. You could even make a room that was described as the inside of a person's body and allow people to wander around inside!