MUSHy Musings

In improv circles there are phrases like “yes, and” and “no, but” that are bandied about as jargon. In brief, the former accepts a proposed entry into an ongoing scene and builds on it, while the latter rejects the proposal and demands an alternative. There's an article here on how these two relate to MUSHing, but there's another way to look at this we can use: the lump, the passenger, the driver, and the co-driver.

The lump

The lump says “no” (not even “no, but” but a flat-out “no”) to everything. The lump kills RP by not wanting to do anything. The “no” can be explicit or it can be implicit as, say, the lump's character reads a book, only looking up as things happen only to look back down.

Lumps are frustrating to deal with and tend not to get invited back into scenes. Don't be a lump. Engage and acknowledge and build!

The passenger

The passenger is the one who says “yes, yes, yes, yes, yes”. Any proposition is accepted and played out. But the passenger is not one to add to a scene with propositions of their own. So while not a straight-up frustration like the lump, a passenger can be very draining on the people who are forced to do all the creativity.

It's OK to just ride sometimes, but please, do try to build up on what others propose, if only to take the creative load off and let others enjoy the act of being surprised.

The driver

The driver is the one who says “and, and, and, and, and”. A lot of popular scene runners are drivers, but there are issues with them, chief among them being that they don't want input to their stories. They want to write a story and have you just be there.

The driver is, in short, an author who is using people like they would use characters in stories. This can seem fun at first, but after a while it chafes as players start to notice that nothing they suggest is accepted (or often even noticed!). Further, drivers tend to burn out and often just drop things mid-stream leaving chaos in their wake as their vehicles crash and burn.

The co-driver

This is where ideally everybody playing wants to be: the one who says “yes” to affirm propositions made by other players, but who also append “and” to build up on and introduce new propositions.

By being a co-driver, we have the best of all worlds. People have the opportunity to create, but also share that burden evenly so nobody gets burned out. Sure sometimes someone might slip into a passenger role, while others someone might step up as a driver for a while, but in the end, over time, everybody is creating and everybody is acknowledging other people's creation.

Be a co-driver. Please!