Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs
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Hi, all!
Andruid here - occasional reader, though this is the first time I’ve spun up an account to post something. Thought I was going to get this in quick but ended up losing myself for an hour in some really interesting discussions on PvP and the My Guy Syndrome. …now find myself a bit short on time before work meetings hit.
Long story short: I’m running an anonymous survey on how the MU* niche is doing in 2026 (what people are excited about, what’s worrying them, and where they see themselves in the hobby a year from now). Takes about 1-3 minutes, open until May 25. Results to be shared with the community.
I’d love to get more representation from the folks in this forum. If you’re up for sharing your two cents, here’s the link to the survey:
https://surveys.writing-games.org/state-of-the-niche-2026-8nXcSnBeyond that, I’m also on the lookout for interesting projects to highlight (past examples: https://writing-games.org/interviews/). If you’re running a cool project or know of one that hasn’t been covered yet, please feel free to hit me up! I’m on Discord, too, if that’s easier.
Okay, gotta get back to my desk. Thanks for reading!
"Be excellent to each other." 😎🎸
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@Andruid You may want to peek here: https://brandmu.day/topic/621/intro-to-mu-ing-event/14
@Jihgfed is in the middle of a pretty cool project that’s getting featured at https://torontogamesweek.com/index.html
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@Muse Thank you!
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@Andruid I filled it out, I did my part! Thank you for organizing this, I’m very curious to see the results.
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For those who are interested, the results have just been published here:
https://writing-games.org/2026-state-of-the-niche-report/So many thoughtful responses from the MUSH/RP community - wish I’d had room to highlight more of them in the report.
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Thank you for doing this! It was fascinating.
I’m curious: you highlighted some areas the MUSH / RPI / MUD community varied. How strongly did you feel that difference in the data?
Also noted that you aligned MUSH and RPI results more than I expected. I’ve tend to think of RPI as a type of MUD. Do you find that RPI aligns more with MUSH or is it very much its own thing?
she/they
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Now, questions for us:
The largest sentiment gap is by preferred game style – MUD fans average 3.53 while MUSH fans average 2.85 (49.2% vs 19.5% happy) (Table 10, Figure 10).
Why so unhappy, fam?
she/they
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@Tez said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
Now, questions for us:
The largest sentiment gap is by preferred game style – MUD fans average 3.53 while MUSH fans average 2.85 (49.2% vs 19.5% happy) (Table 10, Figure 10).
Why so unhappy, fam?
We have WoD. MUDders don’t. >_>
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@Pavel said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
We have WoD. MUDders don’t. >_>
Haven of the Embraced is / was a thing.
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@MisterBoring said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
@Pavel said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
We have WoD. MUDders don’t. >_>
Haven of the Embraced is / was a thing.
And yet it was not called Haven: the Embraced? Fake fans.
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@Tez said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
Now, questions for us:
The largest sentiment gap is by preferred game style – MUD fans average 3.53 while MUSH fans average 2.85 (49.2% vs 19.5% happy) (Table 10, Figure 10).
Why so unhappy, fam?
I imagine it’s just easier to make people who want to play an MMO happier than it is to make people who are primarily after narrative/story happen, lol. No hate on either genre or game style one way or the other, but I suspect that’s a big part of it.
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@Tez Great question! I felt a lot of overlap. Some of the people who chose MUSH as their preferred style mentioned RPIs in their responses, and some of the people who chose RPI mentioned MUSHes. I’ve played both, and I know people who play both, so that didn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Individuals in both groups mentioned the culture/community getting healthier/more mature (MUD fans said this too), and individuals in both groups suggested there is still room for improvement in dealing with issues like favoritism and toxic behavior. The idea that MU*s offer a unique collaborative writing experience was shared by people in both groups, too.
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@Tez said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
Now, questions for us:
The largest sentiment gap is by preferred game style – MUD fans average 3.53 while MUSH fans average 2.85 (49.2% vs 19.5% happy) (Table 10, Figure 10).
Why so unhappy, fam?
friendship is bad and people shouldn’t have it
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I’ve been in this hobby 20+ years now and I still don’t know what makes RPI unique. That’s what I learned from taking and reading the results of this survey.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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@MisterBoring said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
I’ve been in this hobby 20+ years now and I still don’t know what makes RPI unique. That’s what I learned from taking and reading the results of this survey.
I don’t remember whether I checked RPI as my favourite in the end. If I could, I would’ve checked all three (MUD, MUSH, RPI) because I like all of them for different reasons, and my ideal pie-in-the-sky type of game would be a mixture of all 3.
I think I might’ve picked MUD, but not because I’m less into storytelling/RP. I just consider RPI to be a very specific category with a very specific codebase and player culture; i.e., typically rules surrounding no OOC, non-consent permadeath, skills rise by grinding them out. And I actually tend to avoid classic RPIs because IME, they compromise RP/storytelling a lot in favour of gamification, grinding, and encourage behaviour that doesn’t make sense for the character.
Like I remember rolling into a post-apocalyptic RPI that was supposed to be a very gritty setting, and on the radio someone was asking who needed rubies/sapphires to train their jewelcrafting up. Took me right out of the setting lol. Why are people communicating “need” for precious jewels on the survivors radio for a supposedly dangerous wasteland?
Oh, and my character was a middle-aged doctor, but I was a newbie. I asked on the newbie channel how to use my stitches skill. People told me “find out IC :)” and then someone offered to show me IC. I later realised the reason they offered is that by doing it for me, they could get the skillup at my expense.
So, based on my experiences, I’m just not sure that RPIs really do deserve the self-proclaimed mantle of “RP intensive”. It’s more just that you have to communicate everything solely in-character, which leads people to communicate blatantly OOC nonsense through a thin veneer of IC, instead of hashing out the technical stuff separately so they can concentrate on only stuff that makes sense for the character in-scene.
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@MisterBoring said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:
I’ve been in this hobby 20+ years now and I still don’t know what makes RPI unique
We don’t really have good categories for any of it. There’s a technology side based on which server you use, but the rest is really just vibes.
