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| My only PVP kill. |
On Saturday, 20 June 2026, about a dozen CRPG Addict readers and I signed into the Multi-User Dungeon on British-Legends.com for a few hours, hoping to replicate the early MUD experience, when players raced around the world, interacted with each other, and frequently killed each other. We were joined by a small number of likely-baffled veteran users who were nonetheless good sports. They gave us hints, allowed us to FOLLOW them on tours around the land, and came to our rescue when we were lost in the dark, stuck in cupboards, in need of particular equipment, or threatened by difficult foes.
We probably did not recreate a 1980s player's experience. We were much more polite, for one thing. Nobody attacked me unless I begged them (thanks to Kalieum for killing me!), and I didn't attack anyone without clearing it with them first (thanks to Coriarcin for allowing me to kill him or her!). I didn't hear any PVP stories from any of the participants.
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| Players shout and talk to each other. |
After the session, I spent another five or six hours with the game on subsequent days, trying to complete my map. It was a futile enterprise. Every unmapped square led to dozens more; every puzzle I solved created two new ones. It's interesting how the incentives for puzzle-solving differ between MUD and its inspiration, Zork. In Zork, you have to get every one of a list of treasures to win. MUD doesn't care whether you ever find its most expensive treasures or visit its farthest reaches. You could spend an entire career logging on and circling the area nearest the starting square for the same set of treasures, dumping them in the swamp, logging off, and waiting for the next reset. And as I discovered, when you're alone on the server in the middle of the night, you get to determine the next reset. Also, as Kalieum pointed out to me, since you can string together commands with periods between them, you could write a script that accomplished this exploration and ensured that you got n points in a single command line. In the game's original days, the primary motivation for unlocking the most difficult and hard-to-reach places is that other players may not get there first, or ever, but that's not as much of a concern with fewer players.
From my limited experience, it appears that after each reset, veteran players can be expected to clear out a couple of locations very quickly. First, the woodsman's axe almost always disappears immediately. It's a good weapon; it has several utility uses; and it's close to the entrance. Second, veteran players race to the mausoleum for the firestone (lets you see in the dark without a torch) and other treasures almost immediately. The door puzzles are quite difficult to solve, but once you have the solutions, they never change. There's no incentive not to rush to the location, type in all the answers, and loot each of the chambers as quickly as possible.
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| If you don't get the axe right away, you can always steal it. |
Since exploration depends heavily on having a light source, characters who miss the firestone will almost always head to the forest to find a stick, then go to the cottage to light it in the fireplace. Mischievous players may run around picking up all the sticks to deny this resource to their fellow players.
Both during MUD Day and in my other experiences online when there were multiple players, I found some oddities. There's an onyx lion found in the forest that, when you take it into the cemetery maze and DROP it, points you in the direction of a particular tomb where several treasures are to be found. The treasures are worth a reasonable number of points, and yet I often found the lion in its original location hours into a new session. The winged horse also has a lot of uses (and can be swamped for a few dozen points), but I still often found it in its starting square.
Because I thought I had already mapped the game reasonably well, I was startled to find even new players running around with objects that I never found. Even including the six hours I played after Saturday's session, I still haven't found the saber, the epee, or any one of the several cats that I frequently saw in other players' inventories.
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| The users playing at one point, minus the invisible wizards. |
I asked the other players to email me their impressions and experiences. The overwhelming theme of the comments was how odd it was to share an adventure game space with other players, constantly finding the monsters already killed, doors already opened, treasures already looted, and puzzles already solved. Players arriving from the CRPG Addict did not generally have my experience of visiting the site when the rest of the world was in slumber, finding the rooms and puzzles in their original states. This makes it hard (as it would have been in the game's heyday) to ever learn what the original states are. How would you know to race for that axe if you've never found an axe in that location? In this regard, though, we have to give MUD the benefit of the doubt for being an early game, and one of the earliest multi-player adventure/RPGs that wasn't hosted exclusively on a closed system. The authors built it on what they knew, which was Zork. If they'd had exposure to the PLATO multiplayer games, perhaps they would have used a different design philosophy.
(MUD may actually be the first multi-player RPG not housed on a closed system. For my final entry, I have to untangle the timeline between it, PLATO's Drygulch, and Island of Kesmai. All of these games started on closed systems and were opened to the wider world at around the same time.)
Commenters also said that they had expected more classic CRPG enemies to fight. They thought they'd go wandering in the woods and meet orcs or slimes, kill them, and level up. Instead, the game's monsters are mostly fixed and unique: an ogre in a cave, a giant spider in the ruins, a zombie in the aptly-named "zombie room," a bunch of rats at the bottom of the cellar stairs, and so forth. While these enemies do supply experience, at lower levels, combat is barely worth the risk (most players won't have weapons for a while, if ever), and at higher levels, it's barely worth the time. But when combat is too risky and more experienced players have swamped all the treasure, the novice player is left somewhat bewildered about what to do.
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| I haven't yet figured out what this is about. |
Some commenters wrote to me, during the game and afterwards, asking for help with some of the puzzles. I was mostly saved from any ethical conundrum by not knowing the answers. It astonishes me that nearly 50 years into the game's history, there is no comprehensive spoiler site online. Indeed, there are hardly any hints beyond the answers to the easiest puzzles, spoiled on the British Legends FAQ and via the HINTS command in-game. (If someone does find such a source, please do not link it in the comments.) I'm proud to say that I solved all of the mausoleum riddles, but if I Google "Multi-User Dungeon" and any of the answers, I get nothing, not even in the Internet Archive. That's a sign either that MUD has curated a community of players with shared values or that nobody cares. I like to think it's the former. It's almost too bad because I'd really like to be able to discuss the mausoleum puzzles with you. They're a lot of fun. Some of them require impressive knowledge of literature, history, and art as well as basic cryptographic skills. 1980s players, without the Internet, would have had to hit the books in the library. (Current MUD administrator Viktor Toth confirmed with me that the mausoleum puzzles have been updated a few times over the years, but they would have been similar in the original.)
Overall, not being able to discuss puzzle solutions tamps down a bit on my interest in solving them in the first place. Again, by the game's own rules, solving puzzles isn't necessary to succeed in the game. There's no endgame waiting on the far side of the ocean, no "game over" screen when you open that final door.
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| Killed by a girl. |
Some other comments from MUD Day and my follow-up experiences:
- I must have died a dozen times from accidentally bringing my torch into the swamp (it ignites marsh gases and creates an explosion). It was just like riding my horse into the shops in Yendorian Tales. It's why I always tried to get the firestone and almost never got it.
- It turns out that almost every (non-hostile) animal in the game can be picked up and carried with you, including the winged horse, a couple of cats, a seagull, an ox, a rabbit, and a goat. I would give a lot to know what you're supposed to do with the goat. ShaddamIVth somehow managed to get killed by it. Kalieum: "Killing the cat didn't seem to do anything and I felt bad."
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| I get a goat. |
- Several puzzles require multiple players to cooperate in solving them. There are a few doors or grates, for instance, which can only be opened with two people pulling at once. There's apparently a maze in the swamp, leading to one of the most valuable treasures, with the directions randomized every time the game resets. Since anything dropped in the swamp vanishes, you can't leave objects like breadcrumbs. You have to get a bunch of players to act as "breadcrumbs," occupying valid squares in the sequence to the goal. Only one player can obtain the treasure, so this has to be negotiated ahead of time.
- In an email account, ShaddamIVth described the anguish of turning a lever in the mine, which leads to the mine being flooded, and then seeing the numerous screams of drowning characters. (He rushed to undo the action.) I'm sure there are other players who take joy in this.
- I created my map by trying every possible direction from every square before Sleazyd clued me that typing X tells you all the available exits and where they go.
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| This would have been nice 12 hours ago. |
- Everyone seemed to appreciate the game's literary quality and humor.
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| That was a fair hit. |
- A couple of times, we heard the "thunderous roar of a finger of death" in the distance. I still don't know what that's about.
- There are sometimes a lot of zombies running around. I think that the wizards can trigger extra enemies.
- When there are wizards in the game trying to help you, it makes it hard to determine which items are in the environment naturally and which are a product of their intervention. Sometimes, they like to whisper hints to you, too, which are indistinguishable from the game's own descriptive text.
- One of the wizards was online during MUD Day and assisted several players, including me. I asked him for some background information. While telling me a bit about the game, he used his powers to whisk us around the land and show me some different locations. One of them had a large diamond, clearly worth a lot of points. I think he wanted to see if I'd (unethically) snatch it. I didn't, but mostly because I sensed it was a test.
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| Morpheus tests me. |
- Since British-Legends went online, 123 people have "made wiz."
At this point, I want to transition to some of the experiences submitted by other players.
SleazyD
The game is very obviously the first MUD
because much of what a "modern" (post-'95) player expects is missing.
This is especially noticeable in combat where it's super-simple with no
strategy and no parties/groups. You type "kill" with a weapon and you
wait for it to resolve--no spells, no special attacks, no choosing
targets, etc. There's just single combat with "kill" and "flee".
Despite
the only combat I saw between players being people testing it out, I
still felt I was competing with them more than some other non-PvP MUDs
because of how the puzzles reset. During the peak time every item was
taken, every door unlocked, every puzzle solved. Some other MUDs have
timed item respawn and puzzle resets which mitigate this (but again
those are from a decade plus later).
Exploration
was fun. The Land definitely had that goofy humor everyone had back
then. But there was definitely a lot of typing "x" at every location to
figure out where to go next. The drawn map you posted on the blog was
surprisingly helpful in maintaining my bearings.
For
these reasons, I think I actually had more fun when most of the people
got off the game after 4 EDT. Then it was just like I was playing Zork
with occasional combat. Items were plentiful, I could find some monsters
to kill, the puzzles weren't all solved, etc.
Overall,
I had fun and I'm glad I played it. I might even play again, but if I
do I will definitely be treating it as a text adventure where I run into
people, and not a multi-user RPG. (If anything, it makes me want to
code my own up!)
ShaddamIVth
My
impression of the world in which I found myself was positive from the
get-go. The developers had utilized the text only interface to its
fullest, and the description of the world felt lively. Venturing forth
was fraught with much anxiety. I felt intimidated at first, the world
seemed very large and very mysterious, but this feeling would diminish
with time. After an hour or so of exploration I felt more comfortable in
my new surroundings. I was by no means as well versed as a true native,
but the world had formed an overall impression and I navigated much by
feel and less by map. As you have ascertained already, a map would be a
brave undertaking.
Others
of course also roamed. And very friendly some were, with many offers of
assistance from seasoned veterans for the newcomers. I had undertaken to
experience the world as the novice I was however, and politely declined
their offers after wrangling the correct commands from the parser.
Initially some advice was touted and shouted to all who would hear but
this soon quietened down, as many of the new explorers found their
feet and used them.
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| Like most games with a text parser, you occasionally fight it. |
My
overall impression was more of a world of adventure than one of
role-playing. And yet the interaction with many of my fellows again
leaned my opinion towards a role-playing experience. Certainly, the
social element was most definitely in the realm of the RPG, but many of
the actions and expectations from the world were decidedly of an
adventuring flavor. If asked if I thought it an Adventure game or an
RPG, my answer would be decidedly vague. I would not hesitate to point
out that it most certainly fulfills enough of the requirements for an
RPG to be considered as one. But as to how the world FELT it was
decidedly in the flavor of an adventure instead. The many items
scattered about that had very specific intended uses reinforced this
feeling excessively. The feeling of wandering like a lost sheep with an
even more limited useful vocabulary did not help shake the adventuring flavor.
And herein lies
the biggest problem for a novice. There is undoubtedly a system and
expectation for combat, but to reach any meaningful stage whereby a
traveler is prepared and equipped to undertake warfare on any scale, several hoops have to be jumped through. To acquire a weapon, and sufficient
skill to be considered more than a novice would require the traveler to
know the answers to many brain teasers strewn about. And finding these
answers is no mean feat for a novice, with the presence of other more
experienced travelers making this an even more arduous task. When
setting out, many of the items required for the solution of many of
these conundrums are very quickly assailed by those more experienced and
knowledgeable in the ways of the world. I say this with no malice or
ill feeling towards the others inhabiting the world, [but] conditions must have been brutal for
new-comers in the years yonder. The assistance offered by the wizard
Morpheus would undoubtedly have removed much of the sting of my initial
faltering deaths, but as I have previously mentioned I wanted to
approach the system anew. I am a man of limited time, unfortunately ,and thus shortly afore the stroke of midnight my patience dwindled into
despair, I declared DROP ALL, returned to the physical world, awoke
the cat, and retired to my bedchamber.
I
do confess these words paint a picture of confusion and frustration,
and while this is not untrue there were many positive experiences to
report. I absolutely marveled at the depth of the experience with the
limited technology. The prose was of high quality, and the way the world
could be affected by others with the technology of old astounded me. A
moment that shines bright in my memory was finding a valve in the mine. I
was surprised to discover I could simply turn it with no additional
warfare being waged upon the parser. Following the code of adventurers
(take all not nailed down, converse with whatsoever has a mouth or ears,
press all that can be pressed) I proceeded to turn the valve. I moved
on, but moments later anguished cries arose. "We are drowning," they
pleaded, and, realizing myself to be the culprit, I quickly retraced my
steps to undo my actions. The few conundrums that I did manage to solve
swelled my breast with pride. Brutal the world may be, hard the path of
progress, but oh so sweeter than the taste of success. It is an art oft
overlooked in modern offerings. The fact that hard labor and deep
thought bring their own rewards. But the level on which this was
implemented is perhaps better left to the times of its origins, when
entertainment was scarce, evenings long and rewarding experiences hard
to come by. Had I no other distractions I would have certainly invested
more time in such a pastime, meandering a weekend away bashing my head
against the "cliffs to the east." Alas for us and our overcrowded
schedules.
You have my
gratitude for organizing the expedition. I am a lover of history, and
gaming history in particular. That is of course what attracted me to
your writings initially. To have been part of such an extraordinary endeavor was an honor and a privilege, to glimpse into the past,
recreated so faithfully a rare treat. I give my thanks to you and all
the others who participated, and will gladly do so again should the occasion
arise.
Kalieum
Pre-MUD Day
On starting, I'm in the tearoom, which I understand to be the game's one truly safe space that you can't return to after leaving. Initial exploration leaves me confused. With time I'm getting better at finding my way around, though some of it is still "if I muddle around in this direction enough I'll get close enough to somewhere I recognize?"
So the goal of the game is to score a large amount of points, which are achieved by killing enemies, killing other players (or forcing them to flee), and "swamping" items—going to the swamp and dropping them. Different items have different values, some positive, some negative, some zero. I'm not yet sure about the significance of negative value items other than "really don't swamp this," but zero-value items appear to typically be tools, or sometimes valuable items that haven't yet been made valuable.
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| Killing me from Kalieum's perspective. And, apparently, the cat's. |
My initial session ends with me being attacked by a "blind, deaf, dumb, and lame beggar." How he even detects me to attack is one question, and a better one is how he manages to kill me in a fight, but regardless, I am slain which marks the end of that character.
I try again. I find a few treasures and swamp them, but it feels like I've run out of places I can go to with the tools I have available. There are some enemies blocking some places, but I can't seem to beat them. At the end, I find a stick, which becomes a "brand" [when I light it on fire]. This promptly explodes swamp gas when I go there to swamp items, killing me, but as it wasn't a stamina-point related death I'm able to re-enter without having lost any progress beyond dropping all my items. I end with around a hundred points scored; the second rank comes at 400 points and my goal for MUD day—the third rank—at 800.
I keep at it a couple more times and start to flesh out my mental map of the game world. There's the swamp to the south, with a forest to the southwest with a few interesting locations in it. To the west is a cliff that I could jump off if I had a parachute of some sort. East-ish is a cave you need a light to enter, with a few chambers I can't do much in yet; one contains an ogre that I'm sure I can't beat yet while the others are probably item-based puzzles. For a while I thought this was everything before I stumbled through the forest to the north, revealing a winding mine with tin deposits and an entrance to a dwarven kingdom, a mausoleum containing several puzzles, and a beach.
I also encounter a problem: while I can initiate fights with my lit brand as a fairly effective weapon—killing rats and a zombie with no problem—if they attack me first, the RETALIATE command that's supposed to let me specify a weapon to retaliate with just tells me "you must retaliate with a weapon," and I'm stuck fighting bare-handed, which I nearly always can't win. This leads to the situation where if I get the drop on a rat I destroy it handily (for 40 points), while if it attacks me first—which it can do the same instant it moves to my location—I have to flee, which as it turns out costs me 100 points. A couple of counters like this —trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong with the retaliate command, and getting jumped when I go back to recover my items (you drop everything when you flee), a nanny goat that attacked me when I tried to milk it, and I've lost all the points I've accrued from my multiple sessions so far.
Finding the mine helps with earning points, but I still hit the issue where once I've got everything I know how to get safely and can't go elsewhere without risking losing it all—at least until I understand why RET W BRAND doesn't work—I seem to run out of options. Apparently the game automatically resets when most of the treasure in the world is gone, but it would be arrogant of me to assume I'm even close to that point. Still, I've got a few places of interest that I'll leave well enough alone until MUD day itself, I've got enough scoped out I can hit my 800-point target assuming the game passively resets every so often, as it seems to. Summing them up for my own benefit as much as anything else:
- Dwarven kingdom past the mine.
- Several narrow passages in the mine.
- Locked door in basement behind bookcase (didn't respond to regular keys).
- Hole in wall in rat basement.
- Cave beyond gate.
- Mausoleum.
- Hole in the ground in foothills near gate between lands.
- Empty lobster pot on jetty.
- Spider web.
- Nanny goat.
- Badger sett.
- Bandstand.
- Shrine.
- Golden bolt on railway track.
It’s at this point that MUD Day is postponed for a month, so I guess I’ll just keep playing and see what I can achieve by then. I find something pretty quickly—a grate that I need a second player with me to open. And then I get a magic egg glued to my hand that prevents me from doing any inventory interaction, and I am trapped in my little part of the land. I quit out, then reconnect maybe 30 minutes later with something in mind to check, and discover the world has already reset—maybe this happens the instant there are no players? In which case I expect you could "make wiz" (get 102400 points and "win") just by swamping the junk in and around the house plus the ore in the mine over and over and over. It’s roughly 400 points for doing this, so that’s only 256 times. The game allows you to queue commands, so I’d wager you could figure out one long string of [something like] . . .
IN. W. GET COAT. E. U. U. N. GET PARASOL. UNFURL PARASOL. S. D. D. OUT. etc. etc.
. . . and just paste that into the terminal to autopilot these ~400 points. Not the spirit of it though, and I do actually want to figure out the secrets the game is teasing.
At some point while messing around with the mausoleum puzzles, the text "you start to think it's harder than you think" appeared on my screen. Initially I thought it was something that appeared automatically when you spent long enough in the location, but with later messages I realized it was most likely a wiz sending them. I didn’t expect to encounter anyone else online at all outside of the scheduled MUD Day. Alas, this happened right as I was running out of time that day, so I didn’t get to see this interaction through further (or make any progress with the mausoleum).
I logged on during the originally scheduled time for MUD day just in case, and happened upon another actual player. I was apprehensive (are they just going to kill me on sight?), but they turned out to be very friendly and helpful. It was genuinely a pleasant experience. I’ve played a couple more times since then, encountered other players though none who spoke to me. I also run into what I guess could be considered a silly trap of sorts; the sorcerer’s room was locked and the keys that normally unlock it weren’t on the way, so I wound up stuck in there with no way out. Judging from the other items present that aren’t usually in there, I don’t think I was the first person to fall victim to this.
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| Some of Kalieum's notes to himself. |
MUD Day Itself
I’m on early, trying to get back to superhero(ine) before the appointed hour, Chester and some Legend are already on. I’m not really sure what the etiquette is; on the one hand I could run around grabbing everything ASAP and ensure I get to resume my now slow explorations (I have a lot of questions, but not much in the way of coalescing answers), or I could not do that so the even newer players get to experience a bit more, but then what am I going to achieve during the session? Well, so long as I get the longsword and a firestone I’m probably good to explore the dwarven realm, which I haven’t yet, so I can leave everything else.
MUD Day begins properly. There’s a lot more activity than usual, and a bunch of items I’ve not seen before. I want to get the longsword, but both the umbrella and parasol are taken. I ask the parasol player if I can borrow it, but they don’t respond and soon WHERE tells me "wouldn’t you like to know," so I assume it’s swamped. The random legend seems to be holding the umbrella.
At one point, I use the bow [which teleports the user to the location of the baton] and find myself in a caved-in section of the root tunnel, with several valuables there. Later I decide to get them so they can be swamped for the treasure total, and in that time someone else picked up the bow and went sailing around, leaving me completely trapped underground. Fortunately, they have a boating incident and I am able to escape when their stuff washes ashore.
“In the distance, you hear the thunderous roar of a finger of death!” rattled off three times in quick succession. Then a wizard told everyone to quit and restart; I’m going to listen to them. Post reset, we’re told to: “Complete Dwarves, woe, ship, isles, druids, goblins and main for the next reset.” I know what about half of those are. While playing, I realize I can push for Enchantress rank with a bit of effort. I’m curious if anything is tacitly different at the spellcaster-y ranks. I try to feed the apple to the winged stallion, only to be told the context is "feed CREATURE with FOOD." I correct my input, only to be told the same. I guess it’s the wrong food, but I’d appreciate clearer feedback on that.
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| Chet here. *I* found the goblins. This is the highest rank I've achieved so far. |
I do wonder how many of the items I regularly swamp without a second thought are actually puzzle items for something. I know an item having a positive value doesn’t preclude some other use. The multiplayer aspect means I can’t leave things alone to experiment with [lest] someone else get them. I find someone’s stash of items in the cupboard in the house. Could just take everything; No idea if they are still online.
Post-Session
It was a fun experience, even though it was mostly the same as the solo experience plus passing other players from time to time. Sometimes this clued me into parts of the game I hadn’t picked up on and things to try (e.g., seeing players with goats, horses in their inventory), as well as the existence of several items I’d never seen before (sabre, pin, bouquet, epee, worthless jade statue of an ox, horse, shiny keys, bow, libram were all new to me). Some of it I wonder may have been wizard intervention. At one point when I was stranded on the beach by the waterfall due to the rain, a cutlass seemed to suddenly appear. Given the pirate-y association, I wondered if this allowed me to sail in the rain without randomly dying, and that the wizard had spawned it for me as such. I was still carrying the umbrella though, so if I tried it and drowned and my stuff washed up on that same beach I’d have no way to get the boat back, so I waited it out anyway.
I tried to balance out not being greedy with getting treasures anyway, aiming for the things a little farther afield. Having specific requirements for a reset from the wizard felt weird. Of “Dwarves, woe, ship, isles, druids, goblins and main,” I know where the Dwarven realm is but have never actually explored it yet. "Woe" I think is one single treasure. "Ship" I know; "Isles" and "Druids" I thought would both refer to the NW island—either way I’m not sure I want to go back there even though I now know the syntax of the hinted command. I’ve never even seen a hint of the existence of goblins, and "main" is probably everything mainland/surface. With most players being new, I think that it's pretty unlikely that we’d ever meet those reset conditions.
I’m curious what was going on past the wolf room. I successfully removed the wolf (for the first time), the text hinted whatever was behind the (locked) door was very hot, so I left to get some keys and the stupid egg, and come back to both Chester and the wizard just hanging out there, who both immediately left. Felt like I’d stumbled onto a clandestine meeting. [Ed. It was, kind of. A wizard was giving me some information, and he brought us to a place with (then) no other players, so he could tell me in privacy.] I then promptly jumped into the pit of burning and destroyed a bunch of useful items. Pretty sure the sea is completely inaccessible until a reset unless the wizard intervenes.
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| Kalieum's attempts at a hand-drawn map. |
I had a good experience in the end; trying to help someone lost in the dark led to me finally managing to recruit someone to help me with the portcullis above the idol. We found some treasure in there and chatted for a bit, and it was just a pleasant experience. I was struggling to come up with more things to do (I don’t want to explore the dwarf realm without a decent weapon), so decided to call it there. Around this time someone shouted “woohooooo, prey” and someone else shouted “NO”, so I’m a bit concerned for the players still playing, but presumably they can send their own viewpoints in if anything happened from that. [Ed. Nobody did, and I'm curious what this was all about. I was off by then.]
I figure I’ll try imitating [Chet's] rating system, but as there’s no way I’ll rate things similarly enough for this to be directly comparable to a GIMLET rating, I’ve used a thesaurus to twist the acronym into something new: Kalieum’s (appropriated) Test of Innovation in the Game, Engagement, Revelry and Sunniness, or TIGERS. Let’s see how grrrrrreat the game holds up. [Ed. Kalieum ran through the entire GIMLET at this point and came up with a score of 22.] I’m tempted to add a point simply due to the fact that there’s a decent amount of the game I’m still oblivious to, not to mention whatever the wizard experience is. So that makes 23 points. It’s meeeediocrrrre! Well, that’s a pretty good score for its time, actually.
I figure I’ll try imitating [Chet's] rating system, but as there’s no way I’ll rate things similarly enough for this to be directly comparable to a GIMLET rating, I’ve used a thesaurus to twist the acronym into something new: Kalieum’s (appropriated) Test of Innovation in the Game, Engagement, Revelry and Sunniness, or TIGERS. Let’s see how grrrrrreat the game holds up. [Ed. Kalieum ran through the entire GIMLET at this point and came up with a score of 22.] I’m tempted to add a point simply due to the fact that there’s a decent amount of the game I’m still oblivious to, not to mention whatever the wizard experience is. So that makes 23 points. It’s meeeediocrrrre! Well, that’s a pretty good score for its time, actually.
Thanks to everyone who offered their recollections. We'll wrap this up next time!
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Next entry in this series
06/23/2026
